Friday, April 3. 2009
Friday art, from friend Theo who appreciates the finer things in life:
It's almost cruel to show the Prez so utterly flummoxed by a question in England (h/t, Am Thinker).
Daily rule #1 in life is to answer this question: What have you done today to make your spouse happy?
At Financial Times. Drag the slider at the bottom of the graph.
There is no evidence for health risks with second-hand smoke. It's about control.
Congress approves $3.5 trillion budget plan.
If you need a laugh, read to the end:
The House bill streamlines President Obama's $3.6 trillion proposal and seeks to trim the deficit to $1.2 trillion in 2010, compared to the president's figure of $1.4 trillion.
"Streamlines." I see everyone went to Creative Non-Fiction class at Community College, and emerged with only an Unintentional Humor merit badge. Whatever. I'm simultaneously amused by Republicans talking about creeping socialism. You're creeping socialists, too; you just want to spend other people's money on the things you prefer.
But this Senate/Congress/TOTUS tripartite turd isn't anything like creeping socialism. Everyone in the chattering classes is so far wrong about this thing they can't even understand that creeping socialism isn't the bad end result we should expect, it's the infomercial come-on for the plunder economy someone's really after. Socialism is the carrot, not the slippery-slope outcome stick. Forget socialism; this is feudalism redux. It's the Chicago way.
Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of property.
But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of plunder.
Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain — and since labor is pain in itself — it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it.
When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.
It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of to work. All the measures of the law should protect property and punish plunder.
But, generally, the law is made by one man or one class of men. And since law cannot operate without the sanction and support of a dominating force, this force must be entrusted to those who make the laws.
This fact, combined with the fatal tendency that exists in the heart of man to satisfy his wants with the least possible effort, explains the almost universal perversion of the law. Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds.
Frederic Bastiat
A music-loving buddy is a WXPN fan. OK, I know they are an NPR affiliate. You can enter their See Dylan in London contest without donating something, but that doesn't seem right.
Obama is "keeping score". So am I.
Why these guys do not work in a real business
Is it time for the Atlas Shrugged movie?
Do we now have The Soros Doctrine?
Is this legal?
FIRE's Speech Code of the Month
How money messes with your mind. h/t, Marginal Rev
Via WSJ Best of Web:
To be sure, America has made some racial progress. But the dream of equality will not be truly and fully realized until President Obama’s political detractors treat him with the same respect George W. Bush’s detractors showed him.
The night I met Bob Dylan, via Grow a Brain
The Coon Man of Detroit
They used to call this cowardice
Obama bows to King. WTH? These people don't know how to behave. Isn't there a Protocol Office? And what about that iPod? Is that "It's all about me," or what? These stories make me cringe.
Dem Senator: Obama budget unacceptable. Also, a Nashville Tea Party April 15
Time magazine, looking deep into the news
On shredding the Constitution. Where's the outrage?
Cap and trade is tax farming:
The cap-and-trade mechanism is primarily a method of constricting electricity production. The United States only gets 3% of its electricity from oil. Thus taxing electricity will do nothing to free us from dependence on foreign petroleum. Quite the contrary. To the extent that electrified transport offers an alternative to oil, such as subways, trolleys, and trains actually do today and electric cars might hypothetically do tomorrow, taxing their motive power can only make the situation worse.
The defenders of the cap-and-trade proposal, however, have advanced the proposition that strictly speaking, cap-and-trade is not just a tax, as its mechanism contains features not included in a conventional taxation system. In this they are correct. Cap-and-trade is not just a tax. It is worse than a tax. It is a modern version of tax farming.
Of course, the electric comes from coal. So what's so "green" about electric? We need to persuade the little people to give up electricity, so let's tax the heck out of it. Let them eat cake.
This tidbit via Willisms:
Thursday, April 2. 2009
 "We have to face facts."
Do we?
There is a common and normal human capacity to both know and not know something at the same time. Maybe it's politics or maybe some recent patients that got me thinking about the avoidance of reality - a maneuver which falls far short of the defence we call "denial" (which itself can also be entirely healthy at times, but often not).
I notice this in myself. For example, I noticed that I have not opened my last 2 quarterly 401-k statements. I know it's ugly inside those envelopes, but I see that I have avoided facing the facts squarely. It's avoiding the sharp pain, while tolerating the dull, nagging pain in the back of my mind. Besides the sharp pain, it's also avoiding whatever difficult or impossible decisions might or should be made.
I consider it to be a character flaw in myself - a weakness - but not a fatal one. Many of us dodge facing painful, pride-injuring, disappointing, or bias-challenging truths about ourselves or about reality and how reality works. I am in good company, but I do not approve of it.
I am not referring to an unconscious defense mechanism like repression: I am referring to a conscious and deliberate maneuver, like the suspicious wife who refuses to check to see if her husband is really at another very late business dinner. A reality-ducking means of coping.
We do not have a good term for this sort of thing in Psychiatry, although "suppression" comes close.
There is a spectrum from psychotic denial and distortion (anorectics believing they look fat), to ordinary denial (I don't have a drinking problem, or I am not doing anything wrong), to repression (my brain won't permit me to think this unpleasant thought), to seeing but not believing (It just can't be!), to the sort of avoidance I am talking about (I know what is there, but refuse to look or listen because it will upset me), to the gold standard of bravely facing and dealing with facts, problems, and the limits of reality. As I say daily, Reality is the best but harshest teacher of all.
She - or he - is one tough and ruthless SOB.
America was never perfect, but it was never conceived to be some abstract utopia showcasing human perfection. The 56 men who came together to usher it forth understood that in order to form a more perfect union they had to pledge their lifes, their fortunes and most of all, their sacred honor. They understood clearly that human freedom only guarantees that mistakes will be made; but that the human soul is only able to thrive when human nature is allowed to be free. Further, they understood that society too, will inevitably progress when the individual human soul is unchained.
Dr. Sanity. Yes, freedom is messy and complicated, but it beats the state of serfdom to the power-hungry and arrogant elites. Furthermore, the Overlords have no more wisdom - probably less - than the average Joe. Count me as an average Joe, and happy and proud to be one.
Dylan's first live performance of 1972's "Billy," in Stockholm last week (March 22, 2009). It's Billy the Kid. Lyrics here. Audio only. He goes into that stacatto singing he's been doing this year: it's like a tic.
NYT reports that the ABA has a Leftist bias! Gee, who would have thought so?
Perhaps that is what the NYT views as news. It has been a well-known fact for 20 years. Just one more non-profit org that was hijacked by the Lefties who didn't want to be tested by real jobs, years ago.
Will the Cuba travel ban be ended this year? I hope so. It's about time.
What if my idea of the "common good" is different from yours? What if my idea of "the common good" is the freedom and sanctity of the individual? What if I believe that pursuit of individual freedom, self interest, opportunity, and happiness is the highest "common good"?
A paraphrase of Rush Limbaugh, on Monday. He is on a roll, and very funny these days.
 Why does the most volunteering and most donating nation in the world need this Americorps? Some might be amazed by the good deeds my church does, asking nothing in return.
Success is now an evil for the FDIC
10 terms not to use around Moslems. At first I thought this was an April Fool. I am too insensitive for this.
Groupthink Conference at Duke. I think these folks inhabit an alternate reality.
Good war story at Jules
Is it just possible that the Taliban doesn't want peace? Their pitiful, hateful lives would lose all meaning and purpose.
Homeland Security becoming an employment agency for illegals
The press forgot to ask how much more money the taxpayer is donating to the car companies.
Fighting for free political speech:
BCRA... makes it a federal felony to fund any TV or radio broadcast that names a candidate for federal office in the thirty days prior to a primary election or sixty days prior to a general election, called the "blackout" periods.
The Obama Justice Department defended the FEC's action with a team from the department's elite Solicitor General's Office. But that team was outmatched by the lawyer representing Citizens United, renowned former Solicitor General Ted Olson.
Who is Harold Koh? We should care.
Sen. Gregg on national debt
Jacoby:
For years the political class has taken care of its own at taxpayers' expense. That is why so many former public employees enjoy retirement perks far more lucrative than anything typically found in the private sector. "The nation is dividing into two classes of workers: those who have government benefits and those who don't," USA Today noted in 2007. "The gap is accelerating in every way - pensions, medical benefits, retirement ages."
Dick Morris on Obama's plan to reduce the charity deduction:
In 2006, the most recent year for which data is available, four million taxpayers had adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 or more. They comprised 3% of the tax returns, made 31% of the income, but donated 44% of all charitable contributions. Together, they provided charity with $81 billion in that year.
Obama’s plan will cost them $10 billion in extra taxes on the income they allocated to charitable donations. How can the president be so glibly certain that they will not curtail their charitable contributions by a like amount or even more?
Imagine all the harm Obama’s program will cause. Churches will be hit most hard. They account for the largest share of charitable donations, but universities, disease research, hospitals, soup kitchens, and cultural institutions will also be hard hit. So will international relief efforts that funnel aid abroad through churches or directly.
It is totally dishonest for Obama to pretend that his curtailment of these deductions won’t hurt the poor. It will most directly impact them since most of the charities Obama is hurting focus on helping the impoverished.
This proposal is not about saving money. It is about controlling it. By, in effect, transferring at least $11 billion a year from private philanthropy to government spending, Obama empowers the public sector at the expense of the voluntary one.
That is exactly the point. The Left wants people beholden to The State, not to their neighbor. So they have to take the money from you to give to your neighbor - after taking their cut, of course.
Obama likes to talk about "false choices." It's a lawyer's trick. The false choices he discusses are about fundamental values:
Obama claimed in the Chicago Tribune that Americans “need not choose between a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism and an oppressive government-run economy.” That choice, he said, is a “false choice.” It is a false choice as he phrases it -- capitalism isn’t chaotic and unforgiving. But the simple choice between capitalism and a government-managed economy is a real choice -- and it’s the most important choice Americans have faced in half a century. Obscuring the need to make that choice by glossing over it with happy talk does a profound disservice to the American people.
According to Obama, “false choices” aren’t restricted to the economy...
Jean-Honore Fragonard's Psyche showing her sisters her gifts from Cupid (1753). This is what I call "French." The remarkable Jean-Honore died broke and forgotten, of course. Artists are supposed to do that.
Wednesday, April 1. 2009
 Simon pointed out that a lot of our (legal) economy depends on heroin, and explains how they do it in Switzerland. (It's the way it used to be done here.)
Related: We are locking up too many people who do not belong in jail. I agree. I want non-violent crims off the public payroll, and paying for their crimes with $ fines. Last I heard it costs us taxpayers around $70,000/year per jailbird.
I would prefer that they pay us for their crimes - with money.
I am back from Atlanta with this rather obvious thought: those of us who think about policies rationally, practically, and with a modicum of economic knowlege are hopelessly naive. Policies are foremost about politics, and achieving political advantage. It's a street game with no rules. I have always known that, but I keep forgetting it. Politics is where the action is, and people get termed "statesmen" when they don't seem to get the political games, or who find them distasteful. Especially true since the 16th and 17th Amendments (which I think were disasters).
I think this is why so many talented people either stay away from, or get discouraged by, politics.
This time, I am fully resolved to stop expecting reason or principle from public policy. I am sure this resolution will last about as long as most of my resolutions.
The Democrats have long had one-party control in California, aided by their radical environmentalist cohorts, and give us a good look at our national future.
They defeated an oil company's attempt to drill for oil off of Santa Barbara using slant drilling from shore, not an offshore platform. Their rationale was that it would 'only slow the switch to renewables.' Nobody had the nerve or knowledge to question “what renewables?”
They refuse to allow any more nuclear power here, so at the present time Los Angeles gets 50% of its electrical power from coal.
An earlier attempt to reduce vehicle emissions with MTBE in gasoline resulted in a lot of contamination of water supplies.
Now they are even considering banning the sale of black vehicles in California because they more energy to cool their interiors: Click here: California’s Plan to Reduce Emissions...
“The California Air Resources Board has withdrawn an unpopular set of plans that would have effectively banned black vehicles as a way to reduce emissions. . . . Never mind that black is the second most popular car color.
“Instead of black, paint makers fiddling with compliance were finding a color described as “mud-puddle brown. The air resources board’s rule follows the accepted fact that the darker the color of car, the more it takes to cool the car, thus the increased emissions.
“Now, after facing global ridicule, the air resources board says it has no plans ‘at this time’ to regulate the color of car paint, according to a Los Angeles Times blog.”
Meanwhile, funniest of all, Sen. Feinstein is pushing legislation to prevent the development of both solar arrays and wind turbines in the Mojave Desert. Click here: Watchdog Politics Examiner: Sen. Feinstein says no wind turbines in nearby desert
“Senator Diane Feinstein of California has made it known that she does not want to see new energy projects, including that creating solar and wind power, in the pristine desert. “The area she is concerned about is between the Mojave National Reserve and Joshua Tree National Park, off the old Route 66 between the towns of Ludlow and Needles. About 800,000 acres make up this area. The Bureau of Land Management is reviewing 130 applications for solar and wind energy development in the California desert, covering 1 million acres of public lands. “While Feinstein is being backed by the Route 66 Alliance, Myron Ebell, an energy expert with the pro-market Competitive Enterprise Institute said that this is ‘the first example of how hard it is going to be to realize President Obama's dream of a green-energy economy.’” However, Feinstein says that she is not engaged in a not-in-my-back-yard campaign. “I’m a strong supporter of renewable energy and clean technology--but it is critical that these projects are built on suitable lands. “The area she is concerned about includes desert tortoise habitat, wildlife corridors, cactus gardens and the Amboy Crater--an inactive volcanic crater.”
High desert photo by Gwynnie last week:
Meanwhile, one hundred miles northwest, is the great Tehachapi wind farm, about which a blog in – of all places – Germany has the following notation:
Wind Plants of California's Tehachapi Pass
The Tehachapi Pass is one of the world's largest producer of wind-generated electricity. The more than 5,000 wind turbines in the Tehachapi-Mojave wind resource area of Kern County generate approximately 1.3 Terawatt-hours (1,300,000,000 kWh) per year. This is enough electricity to meet the residential needs of more than 500,000 Southern Californians or nearly one million Europeans. The Tehachapi Pass is two hours north of Los Angeles and is frequently used by Hollywood producers for its dramatic scenery as in the movie Terminal Velocity. Every May the Kern Wind Energy Association and the Kern-Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club lead a hike on the Pacific Crest Trail to view the spring wildflowers and the wind turbines. The hikers shown here have stopped for lunch atop Cameron Ridge, which affords spectacular views of the area's wind power plants, the Tehachapi Mountains, and the Mojave Desert.” http://www.ilr.tu-berlin.de/WKA/windfarm/tehcal.html
There you have it folks – even the Sierra Club appreciates hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (the West’s equivalent to the Appalachian Trail) and looking at this vast wind farm. (However, the skeptic will note that the foregoing appreciation may not be the opinion of Diane’s desert tortoises or cactus gardens).
Nevertheless, visitors to the premier desert recreation area of Palm Springs, whether of human, animal or Hollywood origin, pass directly through California’s second largest wind farm area, the perpetually windy San Gorgonio Pass, and do so with no objection. Indeed, as we passed through the Pass last week, we experienced a sense of awe and respect for the pioneers of wind power. This area’s 3,500 wind turbines produce enough power for 350,000 people.
Now, folks, remember we said that 50% of the electricity in Los Angeles is produced by burning COAL! 800,000 acres of wind power would provide power for 3,500,000 homes.
However, unless someone who uses reason rather than pure emotion can communicate this concept to Senator Diane, wind power is a dead issue in the United States.
Oh, did I mention that she also wants the desert to be a no-go zone for solar power?
San Gorgonio Pass Windmills:
 Here's a cruise I would enjoy
The pythons of the Everglades. Sheesh.
Sounds like a fine new Chaplin bio
What is it about American self-hatred? (I don't know - I don't have any of it.)
NY State once again attempts to drive people and business out of state. Why? Do they want to end up like Michigan?
They say "This is just the beginning"
We have Government Cheese, and now we have a Government Emotional Rescue Kit. Where would we be without those geniuses?
First-person accounts of the Revolutionary War, from common soldiers
NYT spiked ACORN story for political reasons. Duh. They were afraid the facts might affect the election.
Polygamy becoming legal in Canada? That should attract all of the Hollywood stars who used to threaten to leave America - but, sadly, never did.
Did socialized medicine kill Natasha Richardson? Probably
Keith Hennessey has a new economic policy blog
US spending is at the tipping point. Guess who gets to bail out the Feds when they make the nation bankrupt?
Bankruptcy probable for GM? It's only stating the obvious, but is it politically possible? Related re Detroit and the government's role in creating their problems:
...as one federal agency unloads tens of billions of our hard-earned dollars on the seemingly fruitless rescue of the auto industry, another happy group of bureaucrats works day and night to add a quick $1.5 billion to its burden. Is this the clinical definition of insanity or what?
Yes, the fuel standards are part of what is killing Detroit. Nobody is buying those little cars and little hybrids, but they are forced to build them anyway.
Kudlow: A truly breathtaking departure. Related: Cafe Hayek notes every detail that Obama was wrong about
Related, from Wilkinson: Are we flirting with Fascism?
Related: Dino is stunned by it all, and reminds us of Michelle Obama's creepy 2008 speech
But here's the real story behind the auto news, via the WSJ. One quote:
It's a bluff. The same administration that inserted itself into GM's corporate governance to order the resignation of a CEO is hardly likely to defer to the prescribed legal order for a failing company, namely bankruptcy. Even a "prepackaged" filing runs too much risk of a judge imposing more "sacrifice" on the UAW than the administration is prepared to tolerate.
GM bondholders understand this: They've been intransigent precisely because they calculate the UAW is too important to Democratic electoral politics for Mr. Obama to risk losing control of the reorganization process to a bankruptcy judge.
The GM bailout has become a political operation run out of the White House. It will stay that way.
The Guardian seems to have missed the point that the life-preservers for Polar Bears was a hoax. These bears routinely swim vast distances.
Dem cabinet nominee tax cheat du jour. Taxes are for the little people.
Rush to NYC: Drop Dead. I would not have imagined that he has a per diem tax when working from NY.
Via Insty, some affordable fly-fishing gear
In praise of Capitalist exploitation. Front Page
Grandiose and power-hungry: The UN
It seems the UN has got it in its head that it can run the economies of the entire planet. The same folks who ran the Oil For Food program for Saddam and ended up stealing more money than in any other caper in human history are proposing to “reorder” the economies of the world and save us all from rising temperatures.
Grandiose and power-hungry: It's all about me. Also, the hubris is remarkable
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