| Representative Illogic |
[May. 25th, 2009|12:31 pm] |
A self professed Climate Scientist, Dr Ben McNeil, comes up with a ludicrous challenge to climate realists:
The discovery of sunscreen has similar parallels to that of climate change...The same scientists who know the properties of sunscreen protect our skin from UV know that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide trap heat. Wearing sunscreen reduces the risk of skin cancer, reducing greenhouse gas emissions will reduce the risk of catastrophic climate change. Very simple.
So I want to ask climate deniers like Andrew Bolt “Do you wear sunscreen?” If you answered ‘no’ to this question then you have every right to be skeptical of climate science, along with other shaky principles like gravity and photosynthesis. However if you answered ‘yes’ to wearing sunscreen then you better make it a secret, as the basic science of climate change is just as solid as your sunscreen use.
Dr McNeil should have taken Mark Twain's advice, and kept quiet so as not to confirm how much of a fool he is. |
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| Representative Stupidity |
[May. 21st, 2009|04:10 am] |
The credit card bill has had at least one unintended effect so far, even before it's become law. It's done an excellent job of drawing out the people who not only don't understand economics, but can't think their way out of a paper bag. Ezra Klein, from the Washington Post outs himself:
The credit card industry, in recent years, has developed something of a tiered model....The result is that low income credit card holders effectively subsidize high income credit card holders. The financially illiterate are gamed so the financially literate can pay very low fees.
The theory here is that credit card companies have been good class warriors, charging the bejesus out of the downtrodden proletariat in order to enrich their bourgeois betters. It clearly hasn't occurred to Klein that people who are bad at paying cost the companies a lot of money. Therefore, if you have a history of such behavior, they're going to charge more, because the risk to the company is greater. In other words, the high risk borrowers are 'subsidizing' each other.
The financially literate people don't get charged high fees because the companies can make money off of them without the fees. |
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| Only words...until they're not |
[May. 18th, 2009|06:46 am] |
The irresponsibility of Barack Obama's speeches in front of many audiences continues to amaze. I was frankly horrified when he apologized for pre-Obama America, and after Danny Ortega gave a blistering anti-America speech, the President's response was that he was glad he wasn't personally blamed for anything the JFK did. Mr. President, you're not representing yourself any more. You're representing all of us.
He gave the commencement address at Arizona State University recently, and apparently doesn't understand that the words of a President are not like the words of a regular citizen (of the world, or just this country) or even a Senator. He made a joke about the IRS auditing ASU officials due to his college basketball bracket picks.
As Glen Reynolds notes, if this quip were from Jay Leno, or even Wanda Sykes, it would be an amusing joke. But when the President says it, we start to enter Nixonian territory.
The thing that amazes me most about this administration is how every new week brings more things at which I am amazed. |
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| We had to eat the tiger to save the tigers |
[May. 15th, 2009|06:18 am] |
John Stossel recently did a TV special, and wrote an article about how to save tigers from extinction. The content of each is pretty identical (well, there was more to the show than the segment on tigers, but you get the point). This seems an example of when well meaning, but not particularly rational, people set out to do some good.
The basic problem is that there are very few tigers left in the wild. Even though there are international bans on stuff made from tigers, there's a lot of demand from places like China, and other places where people from China have moved, like, say, the US. The people behind the bans are convinced that this is the right way to save tigers, even though it obviously isn't working.
"If people would just stop buying the tiger stuff, the tigers would be safe!" Well, duh. But like with other illegal things, the illegality doesn't stop the demand, especially when the demand is founded thousands of years of culture. In fact, the artificial scarcity just makes activities like poaching even more lucrative, and guarantee that it will continue, no matter how many public service announcements are made.
On the other hand, the solution that Stossel comes up with may strike some as counter-intuitive, which says more about your intuition than the solution. The idea is to make it all legal, and allow people to set up tiger farms, so that people can eat tigers and use parts of their bodies to make folk remedies. After all, as Stossel reminds us, no one is worried that chickens will go extinct.
One ban proponent tells Stossel that there's no need to farm tigers. She is clearly not paying attention. While she cites a poll showing that 90% of Chinese support the ban, 50% of them are in favor of using tiger based products. And the illicit market demonstrates that there is a demand, such that farmers could definitely make money selling tiger meat or other parts for profit. It would probably also have the effect of ruining the demand for poached tigers. Modern agriculture beats hunter-gatherers hands down.
This is a great example of the sort of fuzzy thinking that permeates most of the 'environmental' movement. I'm not talking about cleaning up rivers, or using unleaded gas. I'm talking about banning DDT (and, by the way, killing millions of people). I'm talking about ruining our economy over the fantasy effects that some believe a crucial for life, trace gas might have on the climate due to some unrealistic computer simulations.
Though some of these sorts of issues may have begun with a rational search for answers, at some point they were hijacked and no longer make sense, given what we know. |
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| Won't someone please think of the Canadians? |
[May. 13th, 2009|04:48 am] |
It's a great time to be alive. We are the ones we've been waiting for! Thankfully, the beings we have taking command of the economy are finally the folks that are smarter than all the other people who have attempted to direct an economy, which hopefully means they won't fail this time.
Consider, for instance, our domestic auto industry. Finally, we'll have someone running the show who cares more about worker well being and corporate average fuel efficiency than selling cars at a profit.
Although, now that I mention it, the same sort of people who had their rightful, lawful first claims at the company taken away...those people are just the sort of people who we were going to rely upon for the whole private public investment thingy. Maybe this wasn't such a great plan. Consider this quote out of the WSJ:
"You don't need banks and bondholders to make cars," said one administration official.
I suppose that, technically, you don't need them to tighten any lug nuts. Either this sad person forgot the root of the word capitalism, or maybe he just knows that we, the taxpayers are powerless to resist the checkbook of the teleprompter. Could we end up like this?
Now that's a scary, even if sorta funny, thought. But now I'm having second thoughts on this health-care take over that's in the works. If we do the same thing to our health care industry that we're doing to cars, who will treat all the Canadians that can't get access to care in Canada?
Won't someone please think of the Canadians!? |
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| Straight A's for 100 Days |
[Apr. 29th, 2009|05:08 am] |
- Amature. There's no better way to describe Air Force One buzzing Manhattan, or the instant flip flops on executive bonuses or prosecution for 'torture memos.' Being hard on our allies and soft on our enemies. Giving the Prime Minister of Britain DVDs that won't even play in his country. A State Department that can't speak Russian. A cabinet that doesn't pay taxes.
- Arrogant. Sure, he says he wants America to be less arrogant, but then he's glad that Danny Ortega didn't blame him for something that happened when he was a baby (of course, it actually happened before he was born, but hey, who's counting?). Then there was the, "I won," comment when talking to Republicans about the 'stimulus' bill. Of course, he was correct, and within his rights to do so, but it seemed a little out of bounds for a guy supposed to be post-partisan.
- Apologetic. Apparently, Barack was in agreement with Michelle about just now starting to be proud of America. It's one thing to try to be honest with others, but the President seems more concerned about what others think about us than he is about us.
- Automated. The most powerful man in the world isn't the guy with his finger on the button. It's the guy with his finger on the teleprompter. Though listening to him off the cuff, it's not surprising why he uses it so much.
- Adult supervision. Where is it when we need it?
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| Outrageous! |
[Mar. 19th, 2009|04:28 am] |
The most outrageous thing about the AIG bonuses is the outrage that's being directed at them. Sure, they probably shouldn't have been paid. At the very least, it looks really, really, bad. But some of the very people who are foaming at the mouth (I'm looking at you, Dodd) over this went along with removing language from bailout bills that would have disallowed such payments.
Ok, so hypocrisy is nothing new in Washington. And certainly not from the likes of Sen Dodd. And people from all parts of the political spectrum are piling on. But in the end, the amount of the bonuses were less than 0.1% of the bailout money that went to AIG. And it's a tiny, tiny fraction of the massive pile of cash that we're throwing hither and yon.
- How about being outraged at the politicians who shoveled them all this money, and refused to restrict the use of the money?
- How about being outraged at the potential billions that vote fraud champions ACORN might get from the government?
- How about being outraged at the trade war we just started with our second biggest trading partner, all because the Democrats need to please their union bosses?
- How about being outraged at the other trade wars they'd like to start, with allies like Canada, Columbia, South Korea or the entire European Union?
- How about being outraged at an administration that wants the government to take over all health care, except for that which it is rightfully responsible for (i.e., the war wounds of veterans)?
- How about being outraged at the idea that our government wants to make everything more expensive by taxing our energy use through an opaque (at least as far as responsibility for increased prices is concerned) 'Cap and Trade' policy for no benefit other than increased government power and pandering to something that's more religion than science?
- How about being outraged at an administration that promised 'smart' diplomacy, and then insults our allies?
- How about being outraged at an administration that makes the Bush administration's massive expansion of government spending look spendthrift?
It's OK to think that the AIG bonuses were wrong. But we should keep them in perspective. Whatever those executives do with that money will probably help the economy more than giving it back to the government so the government can spend it. But in comparison with the list above, who cares? |
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| Obama to Expand Executive Power Over Legislature |
[Mar. 12th, 2009|05:18 am] |
Well, that's more or less how the headline would have read if the following had been about Bush:
Aides said the administration would move to introduce new "rules of the road" that could allow Obama greater sway over lawmakers, particularly on politically embarrassing spending that generated mockery from pundits and rival politicians.
I guess I'll believe it when I see it. So far, he hasn't shown any indication that he's willing to put pressure on Congress. Of course, legislators who say that making laws that direct spending aren't completely incorrect when they defend the practice as a legitimate function of the legislature. In any case, earmarks are a side show. The real budget problems are entitlements, followed by simply ever growing discretionary spending.
Earmarks don't directly raise the level of spending, they simply direct the executive branch on how they must spend part of their budget. Of course, a bigger budget means more room for earmarks, giving Congress more reason to spend more money in general. I can't see a way to get rid of these things, short of a Constitutional amendment, because while I think that a lot of the things the government does goes way outside of the bounds described in the Constitution, that ship has sailed. Anyone who thinks we can shame lawmakers into abandoning earmarks has never watched politicians in action. They're immune to that sort of pressure.
I think a key bellwether on the President's relations with Congress will be education. In the budget bill, he's signing away the DC school voucher system, effectively throwing some kids out of the school where his daughters attend. Everyone except the teachers union and Democrats in Congress support this program, and the President hasn't said a word in support of this program. Even his Education Secretary has publicly supported it!
For a guy who claims that he wants to fix education, this seems like a lousy way to start. On the plus side, he's said that he supports some kind of merit pay system for public school teachers. Of course, this proposal will face the same opposition from Congressional Democrats, unions, etc. So it will be interesting to see if the President can follow through, or if he'll continue his trend of voting present. |
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| Presidential theme songs |
[Mar. 10th, 2009|04:31 am] |
Of course, Bill Clinton had Don't Stop by Fleetwood Mac. As the Obama administration unfolds, a song suggests itself to me:
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| Note to my Democratic Friends |
[Mar. 2nd, 2009|05:35 pm] |
You know who you are.
Since there seems to be a problem with your co-partisans and tax bills (latest taxically-challenged: Ron Kirk, nominee for trade representative), a problem visible all the way across the Pacific.
Please, pay your taxes. Otherwise, how will you be able to pay for my mortgage? Also, make pigs stink less. |
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| Two Words |
[Feb. 27th, 2009|06:54 am] |
Hope and Change aren't the two words that best describe the Obama presidency (at least, not in the way they were used during the campaign). Quickly, the two words that best describe our historic president and his policies are, "Cognitive Dissonance." And that's the charitable interpretation, if we assume that he believes what he is saying.
Consider the phrase, "I don't believe in big government." I trust that he believes this the same way I trust the president of a college fraternity when he says that he doesn't believe in binge drinking. It's clear he doesn't believe this, based on all of his actions, but it's what he has to say to try to remain respectable.
Consider the recent "Fiscal Responsibility Summit," juxtaposed with this week's submission of the president's budget. It's very fashionable to blame the current problems on the Republicans, but it's not fashionable to remember that one of the things that made Republicans go out of style was their spending. I suppose their professed desire for fiscal restraint was too credible, leading to deserved charges of hypocrisy.
Since no sane person can possibly believe Obama when he professes the same wish, it can't really be hypocrisy. And maybe that's how he's able to get away with it. |
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| When Winers Attack |
[Jan. 29th, 2009|12:58 pm] |
The best thing about having Democrats in power is the entertainment they provide and provoke. For example, I got an email from the eponymous Noah T. Winer of MoveOn.org, talking about the recent House vote on the "Stimulus" bill. Here's my favorite part:
...President Obama bent over backwards to get House Republicans to craft a bipartisan bill, to no avail.
I wonder how Mr Winer supposes the Republicans would "craft a bipartisan bill," when even powerful Democratic committee chairmen were feeling left out of the process? It's pretty obvious that Obama's visit to the Republicans on the Hill wasn't about trying to craft a bipartisan bill. It was about spreading the responsibility for this monster package around. If everyone is responsible for its success or failure, then no one is responsible.
Finally, the Republicans were smart enough to not fall for faux bipartisanship. |
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| A bailout too far |
[Nov. 24th, 2008|07:59 pm] |
Of course, with all the cash flowing towards the financial industry, the Big 3 have decided that they need to get their hands into the pot. And after the $700B+ that's being thrown around, $25B sounds like a drop in the bucket. So why not? After all, it's going to be used to make "greener" cars. I'm glad you asked.
There's a serious difference between the auto industry in Detroit and the financial industry. The financial industry doesn't have the albatross of the UAW dragging it down into bankruptcy. They'd like us to think that it's impossible to make money building cars in the US, but there are plenty of foreign owned operations doing just that. Most of these make smaller, fuel efficient cars that sell for pretty cheap (the others are BMW). The Big 3 can't compete in this area because of their labor and other structural costs, such as leasing/owning lots of empty buildings, just in case.
So they build cars that make money. Cars that are SUVs and trucks. In other words, cars that people want to buy, not cars that they have to buy. And this deal worked out OK, mostly. As long as gas stayed sorta affordable, enough people would buy SUVs and trucks so that they made enough money to cover the bleeding from the cars they were forced to make, but couldn't sell.
Wait, did I say "forced?" Yes, yes I did. We can thank Congress for CAFE or Corporate Average Fuel Economy. And more importantly, the two fleet rule:
Under the nonsensical "two fleet" rule that now applies, manufacturers meet the standards separately with their "domestically" and "nondomestically" produced fleets. What does this have to do with making sure U.S. consumers get good mileage? Nothing. It's a naked handout to the UAW at the expense of the companies and their customers.
How dumb is the two-fleet rule? Nissan, in a petition for its removal, points out foreign brands may actually minimize the domestic content in their U.S. cars so they can continue to count as "nondomestic."
How dumb is the rule? Chrysler might not be unraveling today if not for the two-fleet rule, the real genesis of the Hail Marys it's been throwing in all directions to find an electric car or a small-car partner or to merge with GM. Chrysler has a perfectly salvageable business making trucks, minivans, muscle cars and Jeeps -- doomed only by the lack of enough small, fuel-efficient cars to roll out of a UAW factory with a Chrysler emblem slapped on.
So, how are we going to save the UAW? The answer is apparently to build greener cars. More cars that we don't want to buy. Seriously, do you really want to drive a car that you have to plug in for 6 hours (and then go less than 40 miles?) Oh, yeah, it can use gas to extend that radius. Of course, if you don't use it, you'll have to change out the gas every few months. Let's be real, if we wanted to buy these cars, we wouldn't need government subsidies. Just like Escalades and Tahoes do just fine on their own.
So the genius plan is to throw money at a dysfunctional set of companies so that they can make cars that we don't want to buy. |
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| The Five Stages of Stupid |
[Nov. 15th, 2008|08:14 am] |
I was recently pointed to an article by a former resident of the Soviet Union predicting the collapse of the US. Fortunately for us, he doesn't appear to know what he's talking about. The article (adapted from a talk he gave) paints a real doom and gloom picture. It's somewhat rambling, but the end stage that he claims we're heading towards ultimately boils down to the final stage of Marx's communism:
Since neither government largesse nor charity is likely to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves, we should look for other options. One promising direction is a revival of mutual help societies, which take membership contributions and then use them to help those in need. At least in theory, such organizations are vastly better than either government aid or charities. Those who are helped by them do not have to surrender their dignity, and can survive difficult times without being stigmatized.
To make it intact through times of great need, the only reasonable approach, it seems to me, is to form communities that are strong and cohesive enough to provide for the well-being of all of their members, that are large enough to be resourceful, yet small enough so that people can relate to each other directly, and to take direct responsibility for each other's well-being.
Basically, the financial system is collapsing, private enterprise has failed, charities don't really do any good and the government can't either, so we'd all better just figure out how to get along and be nice to each other. I guess this shouldn't be surprising for someone who apparently paid too much attention in his "economics" classes.
So, what does he think about the economic collapse? For starters, he's declared that the auto companies should go away, because no one (even now) can make money building cars. Anyways, he doesn't have one, and he really enjoys riding his bike to work. I suppose we should ignore all of the profitable car making operations going on in the US. You know, the ones not located in Detroit, and that haven't allowed unions to destroy their business.
He's convinced that the current financial crisis has already started putting the nails into the coffins of our economy. As far as he's concerned, the deleveraging that's going on is based on the fact that all the assets of the banks are now worthless. Real estate is also worthless. Of course, we know this to be true, since the supply of land is increasing, and no one really wants to own any land, anyway. Meanwhile, back in the real world, real estate is still a valuable commodity, most banking assets are not worthless, though a significant portion (thank you Community Reinvestment Act, Fannie, Freddie, Barney Frank, Federal Reserve, et. al.) have a very uncertain amount of risk, which has caused the market for them to temporarily dry up.
He's convinced that the government will lose control based upon the sort of Mafia nonsense that has gone on in Russia. Things like a provincial governor developing an independent foreign policy with China. Or Chechnya.
Basically, this is like something you see in a movie, where a character has something bad happen to them, and is convinced that the same thing will always happen in any similar situation. |
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| I, for one, welcome our new liberal overlords |
[Nov. 5th, 2008|07:17 pm] |
I'm told that the election yesterday was a repudiation of conservatism, and a great turn toward the Left for America. As a former CDS sufferer, and someone who'd like to take a miss on the ODS train ride, I've decided, in the grand tradition of Daffy Duck, I've decided that if I can't beat 'em, I'll join 'em. So, in the tradition of liberal voters everywhere, here are my demands:
- I work hard, 5 days a week, 49+ weeks of the year. Meanwhile, there are others who do not work year round, such as actors, teachers and welfare mothers. The government needs to come up with a plan to spread the time off.
- As a member of a newly proclaimed minority, specifically, white, conservative males, I believe that it's only a matter of time before I'll face discrimination that defies the very spirit of America.
- The Democrats have registered lots of new voters. Apparently a few of them were actually real people! Since much of this effort was subsidized by the government, I think it only fair that the government open up drilling off the coast (all of them), ANWR and in the shale deposits of Colorado, and devote a percentage of the revenues to a new organization called CASHEW (Conservatives Against Silly Environmentalist Weenies), which will be devoted to voter registration and gated community organizing.
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| Redistributing wealth |
[Oct. 30th, 2008|05:05 pm] |
Letter in the Chicago Tribune (last letter on the page):
On my way to lunch recently, I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read "Vote Obama; I need the money." I laughed. In a restaurant my server had on an "Obama 08" tie. Again I laughed. Just imagine the coincidence. When the bill came, I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Barack-Obama-redistribution-of-wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need—the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight. I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful. At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment, I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more. I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.
—A. Hart, Forest Park
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