Maggie's Farm

Salt wars? What next?

Maybe broccoli. I read that it is carcinogenic - especially if it is "organic". Everything causes cancer.

"There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime."  

Sign over Squadron Ops Desk at Davis-Montham AFB, AZ. Lots more here.

America's great export: Rocket science finance, layers of abstractions and computer modeling, and shadow banking. One quote:

What is shadow banking? It is one of a handful of terms — structured finance is a more technical one, ghostly economics a more evocative one — used to describe the infrastructure of debt finance that provided the conduits for capital from around the world to flow into the American housing sector. It is best understood as a technological innovation amalgamating computing power and probabilistic modeling to vastly expand the various world markets in debt securities. The late journalist Mark Pittman, in an authoritative 2008 report for Bloomberg, called it “the biggest U.S. export business of the twenty-first century”...

Related, how our government does rocket science finance - minus the rocket science.

Vladimir Lenin: “Socialized Medicine is the Keystone to the Arch of the Socialist State.”

Of course it is. With it, they control your very life. For your own good. I mean, for the "Greater Good," or for "Society." Whoever they are. Never met them. 

Joseph Schumpeter ominously speculated that as capitalism succeeded, democracies in time would come to expect its end (wealth) but reject its means (free-market competition). He worried that because of the inequality and creative destruction it brings, capitalism would provoke a kind of adverse reaction. A popular call would arise for government to plan market outcomes according to some utopian view of society's good, and this democratically guided central planning would inevitably slow economic growth. Schumpeter predicted, in turn, that if economic expansion faltered, individual liberty would be directly imperiled or quietly ceded by citizens resigned to having their diminished economic position protected by the state.

We hear more voices these days yearning for a benevolent autocracy, including the creepy Thomas Friedman. The whole terrific essay, Can Democracy Survive Capitalism?, at Claremont Review.

Photo: Kim Jong-il, beloved, benevolent, altruistic autocrat who understands everything and who only cares about what is best for his people

The Dems and the O are always about talking and negotiating endlessly with other countries, and never drawing a line. But with their fellow Americans,  'The time for talk is over.' 

Thus an accommodating attitude towards enemies, and a warlike attitude towards Americans.

It suppose that is change.

Two posts about Marxism on Maggie's in two days! That's a record. And now for a third:

The Left in the Western World, such as it is, remains Marxist at core. I have read and studied Marx, as has Mead. They have some worthwhile and interesting insights into psychology, sociology, and human nature.

The problem is their reductionism. The rare people in the modern world with fresh new insights - eg Freud, Marx and Engels, Adam Smith, Burke, etc. often find their notions reduced to simplistic, reductionistic equations which they might not have anticipated.

Re Marx and Engels, every human is, in part, Homo economicus. But only in part. Humans are also Homo spirito, Homo ludens, Homo conflictus, Homo everything. That's why freedom is so important, if we accept our Western idea of the uniqueness and, almost, sanctity (not almost, if one has religion) of the individual.

At Chicago Boyz, Seizing the Opportunity to Destroy Western Civilization. A quote:

Narrative reduces personal experience to a linear progression where cause and effect seem to have a purposeful order. These narratives can then be shared with others, leading to the best definition of history ever: history is a fable agreed upon. Most personal narratives will never be the equivalent of the histories of Herodotus, Thucydides, or Gibbon; or even the fables of Aesop, La Fontaine, or Orwell. Most are simply humble habitual ways of thinking. As habits of thought, such narratives largely control how you react to unfolding events, whether it’s pricking your finger or waging a world war. 

Photo: Killer Whales killing Sea Lions just for the fun of it.

Euphemisms are about creating an illusion of a nursery school pretty pony and rainbow view of the world in which evil does not exist, in which we can all get along if only we wanted to, and in which we can all be anything we want, if only we would label things properly.

Rabid Jihadists and criminals become "the oppressed," kids who cannot read well become "learning disabled," klutzes become "hand-eye coordination impaired," the socially-awkward become "Asperger's," global warming becomes "climate change," housing developments in swamps become "Riverview Estates" - and Killer Whales become cuddly "Orcas" (so as not to offend their delicate sensibilities, no doubt).

Euphemisms are a form of propaganda (see The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook: Updated! New Entries!) designed to kill reality.

"Imagine," indeed.

Please post your favorite euphemistic reality-killers in the comments.

If you are like me, you are getting sick and tired of the endless push for government control of medical care.

These folks aren't listening to America, but they are wearing us down and the Libs are doing a full-court press now.

One more chance to send your Senators and your Rep a brief note with your opinion. A FAX is more useful than an email, but anything is better than nothing. I advise doing so regardless of their position on the topic.

I faxed my folks in DC. I told them I would support the Republican proposals for health care reform, but that the 2000 page Dem mess is an obnoxious and unwanted piece of garbage.

FAX and emails of Congress here.

Tar and Chip is a good way to do, or re-do, a driveway. It's more attractive than asphalt, cheaper, and affords better traction.

It can also be applied on top of an asphalt driveway to improve the appearance. It's basically stone chips or small gravel, of whatever color you chose, rolled into hot tar. Over time, careless snow-plowing will wear away the gravel. Not quickly, though. It lasts for years.

This guy loves his tar and chip.

Do we have any readers who are tar and chip fans?

Prof. Lindzen, in his talk at Fermilab which we posted yesterday, refers to the Prosecutor's Fallacy (aka Defender's Fallacy), which refers to a strategy of counting on a jury's inability to understand statistics, and specifically conditional probability.

Conditional probability is about the amount of linkage in events.

The simpest case: Given a red, green and blue marble in a bag, what are the odds of drawing a blue one after drawing a red one?

See the sad case of Sally Clark, who fell victim to the fallacy.

From Steyn's Our Own Greek Tragedy:

Think of Greece as California: Every year an irresponsible and corrupt bureaucracy awards itself higher pay and better benefits paid for by an ever-shrinking wealth-generating class. And think of Germany as one of the less profligate, still just about functioning corners of America such as my own state of New Hampshire: Responsibility doesn't pay. You'll wind up bailing out anyway. The problem is there are never enough of "the rich" to fund the entitlement state, because in the end, it disincentivizes everything from wealth creation to self-reliance to the basic survival instinct, as represented by the fertility rate. In Greece, they've run out Greeks, so they'll stick it to the Germans, like French farmers do. In Germany, the Germans have only been able to afford to subsidize French farming because they stick their defense tab to the Americans. And in America President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are saying we need to paddle faster to catch up with the Greeks and Germans. What could go wrong?

At American Thinker, a brief word on the topic. 

America don't need no steenkin' noblesse. But, re the elites, Liberals are smarter. I knew that! They are smart and I am dumb. But not too dumb to be able to support my family and my wife's dumb animals in some degree of comfort and pleasure. 

Thank goodness for the equality of one dummie, one vote. I have two Ivy degrees but always doubted my brains. Guess I was right about something.

Re medical care, from Andy McCarthy's post at NRO:

I'm glad Republicans have held firm, but let's not be under any illusions about what that means. In the Democrat leadership, we are not dealing with conventional politicians for whom the goal of being reelected is paramount and will rein in their radicalism. They want socialized medicine and all it entails about government control even more than they want to win elections. After all, if the party of government transforms the relationship between the citizen and the state, its power over our lives will be vast even in those cycles when it is not in the majority. This is about power, and there is more to power than winning elections, especially if you've calculated that your opposition does not have the gumption to dismantle your ballooning welfare state.

Man, do I agree with Ramesh in Time. One quote from his piece of the above title:

We could probably increase the number of high school seniors who are ready to go to college — and likely to make it to graduation — if we made the K-12 system more academically rigorous. But let's face it: college isn't for everyone, especially if it takes the form of four years of going to classes on a campus.

To talk about college this way may sound élitist. It may even sound philistine, since the purpose of a liberal-arts education is to produce well-rounded citizens rather than productive workers. But perhaps it is more foolishly élitist to think that going to school until age 22 is necessary to being well-rounded, or to tell millions of kids that their future depends on performing a task that only a minority of them can actually accomplish.

The good news is that there have never been more alternatives to the traditional college.

I do not know the history of how government unions came to be, but I deplore them. Who are they defending those employees from? Their evil neighbors who pay their salaries and their benefits?

The days of fat-cat evil Capitalists oppressing workers are long gone. Private sector unionization is in the dusk of its history, but government unionization is growing by leaps and bounds. Can anyone imagine a unionized military?

In my view, public employee unionization should be illegal because their opponent, in effect, is the public. But there is the basic right to free assembly. At the very least, public employee unions should be prohibited from politics and political contributions: that seems corrupt by definition but, again, there are logical consistency and freedom issues here.

People have been thinking about the topic lately:

From Declining unions, increasing stranglehold:

As the latest BLS statistics reveal, more union members – 7.9 million – now work for the government than the 7.4 million union members working for companies in the private economy, which has five times more workers. This imbalance has profound consequences for all workers, and for democracy itself.

From Rick Moran's WHAT DO WE OWE PUBLIC EMPLOYEES?

We have allowed public employees to ascend to a privileged place - a pedestal that they were never intended to occupy by the Founders - to the point where their influence over politicians, especially at the state and local level, have made them a force unto themselves in growing the size of government. More public employees means more union members, which means more dues money, which translates into more political contributions to friendly politicians who will gladly repeat the cycle.

This vicious circle must be ended. The biggest reason is that it is bankrupting us.

At Reason, Class War: How public servants became our masters:

People who are supposed to serve the public have become a privileged elite that exploits political power for financial gain and special perks. Because of its political power, this interest group has rigged the game so there are few meaningful checks on its demands. Government employees now receive far higher pay, benefits, and pensions than the vast majority of Americans working in the private sector. Even when they are incompetent or abusive, they can be fired only after a long process and only for the most grievous offenses.

It’s a two-tier system in which the rulers are making steady gains at the expense of the ruled. The predictable results: Higher taxes, eroded public services, unsustainable levels of debt, and massive roadblocks to reforming even the poorest performing agencies and school systems. If this system is left to grow unchecked, we will end up with a pale imitation of the free society envisioned by the Founders. 

Nearly 25% of all mortgages are underwater. What's the big deal? Is a home an investment, or a home? What is truly remarkable in life is to buy something - and to have it appreciate in value. That rarely happens.

100% of auto loans are underwater, and so is the vacation you took last year and put on the credit card. That new leather sofa too, the TV and the boat. And probably your life savings, compared to a few years ago.

For those headed for trouble because of job or income loss, however, I have nothing but sympathy... while I blame Washington: We need tax cuts instead of ever-higher taxes.

We linked Mead's Sunday Jeremiad: Petty Prophets of the Blue Beast earlier today, but I feel it needs highlighting. He begins:

There’s nothing like Lent for reflecting on the sins of other people; I thought I’d start at the top — with the bishops of my own church.  As the Episcopal church along with the other mainline Protestant denominations diminishes, we don’t have to look far to see bishops and leaders who are largely failing in their core assignments: to tend to the health and promote the growth of the congregations in their area.  Yet even as we have fewer and fewer effective and successful leaders, we have no shortage of political, ‘prophetic’ bishops.  When they can, they meet with world leaders and jet off to exotic locales to bring peace and fight for justice.  When they can’t do that, they sign statements of concern, issue reports and otherwise tug on the skirts of an indifferent public seeking attention for their political views.

In the mainline churches, which is what I know best, the political views leaders express are generally those of what could be called the ‘foundation left’ — emotionally grounded in concern for the poor and development, historically linked to the ‘new left’ mix of economic and social concerns as developed in the 1960’s, shaped by an atmosphere of privilege and entitlement that reflects the upper middle class background of the educated professionals who run these institutions.  The social sins they deplore are those of the right: excessive focus on capitalism, too robust and unheeding a promotion of the American national and security interest abroad, insufficient care for the environment, failure to help the poor through government welfare programs, failure to support affirmative action, failure to celebrate and protect the unrestricted right of women to abort.  I am of course speaking very generally here and there are lots of individual exceptions, but many of these folks are generally tolerant of theological differences and rigidly intolerant when it comes to political differences: they care nothing at all about doctrines like predestination but get very angry with people who disagree with them about issues like global warming or immigration reform.  Theological heresy is a matter for courtesy and silence, but political heretics fill them with bile.

Read the whole thing.