$35,000 a year for making the Royal w/ Cheese

For anyone that’s read this blog it should not be a surprise that among the developed world I consider France to be the Pinnacle of leftist economic stupidity. It really seems as if they’re really on some suicidal mission to single handedly prove the superiority of the free market system.

The newest twist comes as the country considers Chirac’s replacement. Naturally the French consider the antidote to economic malaise resulting from crippling entitlements and regulation is even more entitlements and regulation. This idiocy is embodied in Ségolène Royal who among other things wishes to raise the French minimum wage to the equivalent of $2000 a month (that’s $24k a year if you’re a journalist). Considering that French per-capita GDP is $30,000 while the US is $43,500 that would translate into a US minimum annual income of nearly $35000 a year.

God I hope she gets elected.

Kyoto Cost Benefit

This is the only cost benefit analysis I've seen to date on Kyoto. If anyone else has different numbers I'd love to see them. I seriously doubt we'll get anything other than agitprop from the Boxer committee.

The sloppy logic of the Kyoto advocates is surprising. The protocol would demand the biggest international financial commitment in history, yet it rests on an elementary fallacy: it compares the total costs of potential damage with the marginal costs of slightly ameliorating the problem. Even if every industrial country met the Kyoto goals of reducing carbon emissions 30 percent by 2010, the impact would be tiny. By 2100 that would have postponed global warming by a mere six years. The guy in Bangladesh driven from his home by rising sea levels would have to move in 2106, instead of 2100.

This makes little sense. The best estimates of the cost of implementing Kyoto run between $150 billion and $350 billion a year. The best estimates of the damage from global warming reach about $500 billion annually in 2100. Proponents argue that paying $150 billion to avoid $500 billion in damages is a good deal. But that's not what's on offer. We still have to pay the $500 billion, only six years later. So the real offer is: we pay $150 billion each year for 100 years to postpone payment of $500 billion annually, starting in 2100. All economic models show this to be, as the Copenhagen Consensus put it, a "bad" deal.

Journalists are Retarded cont.

In reporting how those noble French are teaching us about sacrifice by turning off the lights on the Eiffel Tower for 5 whole minutes Reuters reports the following:

The Eiffel Tower's illuminations are one of the most notable features of the French capital's skyline and account for 9 percent of the 7,000 megawatts consumed hourly by the structure.

7,000 Megawatt hours! Holy crap! That’s more power than is generated by all of Iraq and more than has ever been consumed by customers of Duke Energy – the largest energy provider in Indiana.

Most likely the sum total of the editors education on all things electric came from Back to the Future.

To make matters worse over 75% of electric generation in France comes from nuclear generation which has zero net effect on greenhouse gas emissions. So this entire action/story is meaningless.

UPDATE:According to this site, the lighting system at the tower is 120KW. Assuming the AP/Reuters article is correct in stating that lighting is 9% of total power usage then we can surmise that total consumption is 120KW(100 *.09) = 1.08MW. A bit lower than 7000.

UPDATE: CNN’s corrected the obvious mistake. Apparently assuming it was a simple order of magnitude issue (KW vs. MW – I’m not so sure. These dummies still have the original version.)

Starving Baby Polar Bears Drowning Makes Democrats Angry

“The arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact.”
– Barack Obama


Boxer said she wanted to hold the hearing so she could take the temperature of Congress before she launches into crafting climate legislation.

So in other words the process from which democrats begin crafting policy that could result in trillions of dollars of impact to the US economy is not one of fact finding or even the debate of “facts” but a forum to express feelings about climate change.

I realize that in order to pass policy that requires taking things away from Americans that they like requires adding a little sizzle to the steak but reducing what is inarguably a very complex engineering and economic problem into inflammatory vignettes is not how good policy gets made. Similar tactics of simplistic rhetorical bludgeoning were used to pass Johnson’s War on Poverty. How did that work out?

Heh.

Somehow, this e-mail to Andrew Sullivan was diverted to me, so I'm publishing it. Because Andrew would.

Thank you so much, Andrew Sullivan. You are the light that illuminates the path
to reason. You are, in fact, the reason that the light shineth at all. Because
of you, I have come out of the closet. Because of you, I oppose outing. Because
of you, I voted for Bush. Because of you, I voted for Kerry. Because of you, I
supported the war in Iraq. Because of you, I oppose the war in Iraq. Because of
you, I have sleep apnea. Because of you, I have cured my sleep apnea. Because of
you, I believe in a conservatism of doubt — although because of you, I must of
necessity doubt the conservatism of doubt that represents the doubtful
provenance of my conservatism. Because of you, I have entirely jettisoned my
sense of humor, as it gets in the way of my self-regard. I owe it all to you.
Or, should I say, You.

Heh again: Here's a perfect example of Sullivan not letting facts interfere with his pre-existing perspective of a situation.

This is good to see

(AP) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of President Bush, focused Friday on a new American target: newly named U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Chavez took issue with comments Reid made just hours earlier to the National Press Club in Washington, citing the Venezuelan leader as among the threats facing the United States in 2007 because "Chavez and (Cuba's Fidel) Castro want to put their leftist marks on young democracies."

This surprised me, but it shouldn't have. Democrats have long and recently been sympathetic to leftist dictators. If they ever are to again become the dominant political force in this country they need to go back to Truman.

Commie hating + ditching the cynical populism could get me to vote democratic.

Uranium's Peaceful Cousin

This is a pretty interesting article about Thorium being almost the ideal fissile material for nuclear power generation. (Yes I read Treehugger. It's the reason our house is down to 6 incandescents. A renaissance man am I...)

Basically the only reason nuclear energy is based on Uranium (and byproducts of Uranium) is because controllable nuclear fission technology was just a byproduct of the Manhattan Project. It's very possible in some parallel universe where WWII or the Cold War never happened some university developed a Thorium based fission process and they're fossil fuel free -- or very much reduced. The reason the Hippies would desist in the banner making is that the Thorium atom breaks apart much more gracefully than ol' #92:

In today's "once-through" uranium-fueled reactors, we mine uranium, enrich it a
little in uranium-235, burn-up some of that U-235, and then throw it away,
supposedly in Yucca Mountain. (very much in the model of a ‘throw away society’)
When we start out with pure uranium oxide, (roughly 97% U-238 and 3% U-235) and
run it though current methods we end up with three broad categories of "stuff"
in the fuel.
First, there’s the unburned uranium-238 and uranium-235. This
uranium is no more dangerous after being in the reactor than it was before
(except that now it’s mixed with other products). It has billion-year
half-lives, which means it practically never decays (which is why it's still
around to dig up five billion years after it formed in a supernova). So the
uranium’s not a risk.
Then second group of leftovers are the fission products
(the actual waste of fission). These fission products are very radioactive, and
give off dangerous radiation. We have to keep these fission products away from
people and the environment. But because the fission products are so radioactive,
they decay quickly. Most decay to stable elements in a few hours, some take
days. And a very few take years or decades. But, if we leave the fission
products alone for a few hundred years, they will decay to normal background
levels of radiation (Safe enough we don’t need to worry about them as
much).
Finally, there are the transuranic isotopes. These are formed when
uranium absorbs a neutron and doesn’t fission, and include some nasty elements
like neptunium, plutonium, americium, curium. The transuranics are radioactive
for hundreds to tens of thousands of years, and as they decay they give off
different kinds of radiation. It's the transuranic waste that is the reason why
you have to build a place like Yucca Mountain that must remain geologically
isolated for tens of thousands of years.

In contrast Thorium byproducts are highly energetic with half-lives measured in human timescales:

Thorium is better because it has to absorb five neutrons before it will turn
into a transuranic isotope, whereas common uranium only has to absorb one- a
built in buffer. So by operating a reactor on pure thorium and uranium-233, you
can avoid producing the kind of long-lived waste that needs a place like Yucca
Mountain.
Thorium is a great possibility- it could be a high density source
of clean energy. The fluoride salt thorium reactor can produce nuclear wastes
that consist only of fission products, which quickly decay to stable elements -
in fact some elements like xenon or rhodium represent valuable commercial
products after a few months 'cooling down'.

The best part is that Thorium is three times more common than than Uranium. Easily exploitable reserves could last for tens of thousands of years.
Maybe instead of attempting to transform anthropogenic climate change from an engineering problem into a moral/religious issue the Pelosi posse could annouce reasearch into this.

Holy Carp!

When I was home in Indiana for the holidays my Dad talked a about an invasive species that he had read about called the Asian Carp which has been making its way up the Mississippi River and its tributaries, threatening to invade the Great Lakes. The only thing keeping the carp from making its way into Lake Michigan is an underwater electronic barrier that has to be re-funded every year. The bummer is that there is the ever-present threat that some short-sighted committee with revoke the funding which would be a disaster. Check out the following videos to get an idea of just how big of a disaster I'm talking about.

(The second part is much more entertaining/ridiculous.)

Part 1


Part 2


On the good side though, an emerging market for the fish has evolved that may take some of the urgency out of the problem. From Andrew's fav, NPR:

The fish weigh at least 15-to-25 pounds each, and some are much larger. They fetch about 14 cents a pound. That's not a lot, but Briney says the huge volume of carp he catches more than makes up for the low price-per-pound. Since he started fishing for carp, Briney says he's doubled his income.

Briney used to think carp were ugly. "But now, I think they look pretty good," he says, laughing, noting that they bring "about $4 a fish."

A Growing Market

On a recent day, Briney and his stepson, Jeremy Fisher, took in about 10,000 to 12,000 pounds of Asian carp from the Illinois River. Their catch ended up at Schafer Fisheries, a processing plant in Thomson, Ill.

Plant owner Mike Schafer has spent the last seven years developing a market for Asian carp. He says his company sells more than 2 million pounds each year -- mostly in Asian-American communities in California, New York and Chicago.

The carp now account for 20-30 percent of Schafer's business. He hopes that a new flash freezer he invested in will help him start selling to China and other Asian markets.

Illinois State Senator Mike Jacobs also wants to expand the market for Asian carp. For one thing, he'd like to see it on the menu in state prisons.

"Some people say that smoked, it's better than salmon," Jacobs says of Asian carp's taste. But the name "carp" is likely putting non-ethnic Americans off trying the fish, he says.

"Chilean Sea Bass wasn't always known as Chilean Sea Bass," Jacobs notes. "There was a time it was known as a Patagonian Toothfish, and people wouldn't eat it."

His suggested name-change? "I'm from Rock Island, so I'm thinking of 'Rock Island Sole,'" Jacobs muses. "Schafer Fisheries is near Savanna, [Ill.,] so Savanna Sole might work, too."

Update: If you have to see anything, scroll to minute 2:45 of the second video. It's worth it.

insight-less 2.0

OK, let's try this again.

You may have noticed something different about insight-less. If so, great! At least you're looking at the thing. Something I haven't managed to do in quite some time. Anyway, this version is powered by Blogger instead of Blogger (beta). And I was just in the process of bragging about it when I tried to publish the post and got an error, hence I'm trying this again. It still seems pretty snappy and easy to make editorial changes 'n such, despite my misgiving but time will tell whether this will improve my posting regularity.

So if there's anything that seems stale and tired on this site, or if more regular posters have requests, comments etc., please let me know.

Why I’m Glad Journalists Don’t Run the economy….

While perusing Newsweek’s International edition I ran across this sentence in a story about social and economic challenges in the EU.

“[The EU’s] economy is outperforming the United States.”

Holy tap-dancing Christ! What on earth is this based on?

So I looked and looked and looked and came across this article reporting on a business confidence survey that for the first time in five years showed Europeans more optimistic about their region’s future economic prospects than Americans over the same period. Oh if only believing made it so!

Here’s a reality check for ol’ Denis:

EU economic growth was only 2.8% in 2006. It was 3.3% in the US – the slowest since 2003.

EU unemployment was 7.7 percent. US unemployment remains steady at 4.5%

So I’m not sure how Denis can conclude that things are better on his side of the pond. The only thing I can think of to account for the inexplicable difference in optimism is the 2006 election media which spiked positive economic news and amplified the bad. Economically things in the US remain far ahead of the rest of the G-7.

Oh yeah this genius is the author of “Chavez is a populist, not a socialist”. Boy was he right.

NPR Loves Donkeys with Boobs from San Francisco

After 6 years of having to stomach GOP leadership I really shouldn’t be surprised at the lack of restraint NPR has had in displaying their glee at finally having a Democrat controlled congress. But after burning so much airtime on the previous “do nothing congress” and “Halliburton cronyism” I’m a little amused at the NPR coverage the new speaker has been getting.

After first cheerleading “tough minded” Nancy Pelosi’s “100 hour” agenda for passing 7 bills with broad bi-partisan support they failed to mention that nothing had actually been accomplished in the first 100 hours and that the 100 hour plan wasn’t really that at all with Democrats arbitrarily deciding what activities count against the clock (current projections show the “100 hour” plan expiring by end of day Jan 18 or 336 hours). However while not passing the recommendations of the 9/11 commission Pelosi did find time to make the Speaker’s Lobby non-smoking –foiling those nasty smoking Republicans- for which she was awarded a profile in courage by NPR.

The most important piece of legislation passed by the democratic house for “people not the powerful” populist democratic base might be the increase in the minimum wage. NPR had ample victory lap coverage replete with Democratic congressmen magnifying the significance of the measure on Americans lives in preacher’s cadence, but to date, has completely failed to mention the most interesting part of the bill. It seems that while every company will be required to pay their minimum wage workers more, one small territory – American Samoa – will not. Star-Kist Tuna is the largest employer of American Samoans and Star-Kist is owned by Del Monte Foods. Of course Del Monte is headquartered in Madame Speaker’s district.

Do you think just maybe NPR would have devoted 5 minutes of their precious news time to report/analyze if the previous congress raised corporate income taxes on everyone except Halliburton?

Pretty good Jimmah takedown

Not surprisingly, Alan Dershowitz isn’t a big fan of Jimmah’s last book. What is surprising is that after writing a book that’s purported purpose was to “stimulate debate”, Jimmah wants no part of it.

YOU CAN ALWAYS tell when a public figure has written an indefensible book: when
he refuses to debate it in the court of public opinion. And you can always tell
when he's a hypocrite to boot: when he says he wrote a book in order to
stimulate a debate, and then he refuses to participate in any such debate. I'm
talking about former president Jimmy Carter and his new book "Palestine Peace
Not Apartheid."

Carter's book has been condemned as "moronic"
(Slate), "anti-historical" (The Washington Post), "laughable" (San Francisco
Chronicle), and riddled with errors and bias in reviews across the country. Many
of the reviews have been written by non-Jewish as well as Jewish critics, and
not by "representatives of Jewish organizations" as Carter has claimed. Carter
has gone even beyond the errors of his book in interviews, in which he has said
that the situation in Israel is worse than the crimes committed in Apartheid
South Africa. When asked whether he believed that Israel's "persecution" of
Palestinians was "[e]ven worse . . . than a place like Rwanda," Carter answered,
"Yes. I think -- yes."

[…]

Carter's refusal to
debate wouldn't be so strange if it weren't for the fact that he claims that he
wrote the book precisely so as to start debate over the issue of the
Israel-Palestine peace process. If that were really true, Carter would be
thrilled to have the opportunity to debate. Authors should be accountable for
their ideas and their facts. Books shouldn't be like chapel, delivered from on
high and believed on faith.

Since Ford and Bush Sr. have some concept of how to conduct themselves after leaving office, Clinton is actually intelligent and there’s just no way that Bush is writing anything after 2008 it’s safe to say that Carter has the “Worst Ex President” prize all wrapped up.

Or maybe Amy, his moral compass, just isn't talking to him anymore….

Update: Here's another good question/observation regarding Jimmah:

But what of men like Carter, a man who's worked in government, knows
how jacked-up (Marine word, btw) it is, how far away from the
conventional liberal-left understanding of participatory politics it
really is, a man who's seen the world, worked with the tyrants
face-to-face, spoken with the dissidents, set up meetings with
virtually all competing sides of all major conflicts, monitored their
elections on the ground? How does a man like that keep on sympathizing
with the bad guys at the end of the day? Is it really just pragmatic
politics on his part, another realism? Or is there a real, active
sympathy there (with Castro, Chavez, Arafat, Assad, you name it)? I
think the latter gets more at the truth, which is to say Carter really
isn't the kind of liberal he makes himself out to be. And all the
intelligent, informed self-avowed liberals like him aren't really the
liberals they say they are either.

The Miraculously Evolving Sullivan

Alright, Andrew Sullivan’s principles have fundamentally changed post 2004. I eagerly await to hear how the Christianist agenda led him to this:

Andrew Sullivan today savagely attacks Mitt Romney for ceasing to support employment discrimination protection for homosexuals.

Everything he said in the 1990s is now to be dismissed. He was once for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act; now he's against it. He was once for domestic partnerships for gays; now he's against them. He was once for ending the ban on gays in the military; now he's for keeping it. In the same interview with theocon Kathryn-Jean Lopez, he says that he opposes "unjust discrimination against anyone, for racial or religious reasons, or for sexual preference," while he favors allowing gay people to be fired from their jobs for being gay without any sanction.

Pretty harsh. But doesn't Romney have any arguments on his side? Well as one writer generally regarded as sympathetic to gay rights has put it:

Are gay people generally victims in employment? Have we historically been systematically barred from jobs in the same way that, say, women, blacks, and the disabled have? And is a remedy therefore necessary? My own view is that, while there are some particular cases of discrimination against homosexuals, for the most part getting and keeping jobs is hardly the most pressing issue we face. ...

Even in those states where job-protection laws have been enacted, sexual orientation cases have made up a minuscule proportion of the whole caseload.

Most people—gay and straight—know this to be true; and so they sense that the push for gay employment rights is unconvincing and whiny. I think they're right. ...

Instead of continually whining that we need job protection, we should be touting our economic achievements [and] defending the free market that makes them possible ....

Of course, we're told that until we're protected from discrimination in employment, we'll never be able to come out of the closet and effect the deeper changes we all want. But this is more victim-mongering. ...

Who said these things? You've probably already anticipated the punchline: One Andrew Sullivan, in the April 14, 1998, issue of The Advocate.

Of course it is perfectly fine to have a change of heart but one should always acknowledge having done so. Sullivan should cease the charade that he’s been steady as a rock while the world has moved around him. He’s degraded into little more than an excitable hack which is very disappointing given the moral clarity he once articulated so well.

Bonus Sullivan Hypocrisy: Why is it that Sullivan finds it perfectly acceptable to concern himself with Romney’s religious beliefs (comical as they may be) but finds it deplorable that others have made Minnesota Congressman Ellison's (a Muslim) an issue?

Craziest thing I’ve ever seen….

This is the orientation video for Scientology. I was friends with some Jehovah’s Witnesses in high school (technically not allowed) and thought that their religion was the high water mark for comically messed up cults (at least originating from the US) but this left my jaw hanging the entire time.

Not really a joke exactly...

...but still funny. This is an actual animal. The scientists who caught it nicknamed it Mr. Blobby. I like his nose thing.

A Fathead (genus Psychrolutes) trawled during the NORFANZ expedition at a depth between 1013 m and 1340 m, on the Norfolk Ridge, north-west of New Zealand, June 2003 (AMS I.42771-001). Photo: K. Parkinson © Australian Museum. The scientists and crew on board the RV Tangaroa affectionately called this fish 'Mr Blobby'. Note the parasitic copepod on Mr Blobby's mouth.

(Hat tip:Boing-Boing)

On Jokes

Now that my readership has dwindled to zero in response to my sudden and long-term departure from the blogosphere, it seems appropriate to rekindle the raging fire of joe-mania with some simple observations about making jokes.

Organized religion has more or less failed to provide me with enough emotional energy to sustain my lust for life in the face of all the crap that life entails. Other things, thankfully, have done better, but I'm sure many other things will let me down too before I die. Throughout my life, and in my life still, though, laughter has provided me with light in dark times. It, more than anything else, is my religion now. I like to make jokes. I like to make people laugh, I like to make myself laugh, and I like for other people to make me laugh. As other sources of sustenance fade, laughter loses more and more of its constraints for me. There is almost nothing in my personal life that I would not subject to the gentle renderings of comedic analysis.

Now, much has been said lately about the ethical desirability of certain types of humor, thanks in large part to the popularity of Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat movie. When it comes to understanding the rationale behind tasteless, offensive, iconoclastic, politically incorrect, and infantile humor, I hazard to assume that I am able to speak with some authority. For this is precisely that type of thing that has most appealed to my funny bone over the better part of my life. I will now attempt to explain why this type of humor appeals to me and why I think it's ok.
I am not a particularly dumb person. I am relatively well-read, informed, and engaged with wider world. Nor am I particularly callous. I consider myself pretty sensitive to the plights of other human beings. Nevertheless, from the time I first laughed at the sound and smell of flatulence, I was hooked on low-brow humor. Here's why, I think.

Humor is about truth. Things are funny because they cut through all the layers of bullshit and express what everybody knows, or thinks, deep down. Humor is the opposite of political correctness.

First, farts are funny because they smell bad, sound funny, and come out of people's butts...everybody's butt. They are the great equalizer. Plato farted. Angelina Jolie farts. George Bush farts. The body and its functions are funny because they point out a simple, overwhelming truth that we try our damndest to obfuscate...that we are mortal beings doomed to die (yes, that's a line from lord of the rings). Sex is funny for the same reason. We are stupid little creatures trying to eat, sleep, shit, and fuck. Next time you watch the Oscars, or a french art movie, or a poltical speech, or go to a museum, or engage in a long and emotional kiss with your lover...remember and laugh.

Second, shock humor is funny because it can let us explore the dark aspects of life without having to endure them or see other people endure them. Shock humor is a lot like horror movies in that way (no wonder that I like horror movies). In this way, we can acclamate ourselves to the darkness that we will inevitably have to face in this life. We can be ready for it, having stripped it of some of its power.

This is probably the most delicate and controversial of the opinions I'll express here. Third, shock humor often occurs in the context of the comedian adopting a persona. If I say something offensive as a joke, particularly something that deals with race or sex or sexual orientation, then I'm trying to point out the ridiculousness, the laughability, of having those opinions. Borat is funny because the stereotypes of jews as mystical monsters who love money, and the stereotypes of eastern europeans/central asians as anti-semitic and backwards, etc, etc, ....these notions are ridiculous! A racist joke is not funny...the stereotypes that underlie the joke ARE funny, because they are so irrational and ridiculous.

Fourth, shock humor is way to channel creativity. Why? Because it's hard to shock people these days. It really becomes an art form. Poets are constrained by their forms. Offensive comedians are constrained by the number of dirty words they can think of. Coming up with a really visceral, innovative, emotionally potent insult, or sexual act, or something like that, is really a form of art...the one that appeals most to me, for better or worse.

The real questions is this: do ethics and comedy have any business being discussed together? Is there anything that we "shouldn't" laugh at, or is comedy simply a factual phenomenon...either it's funny or it's not. There certainly seem to be things that just aren't funny to me...mostly anything that involves real people getting really hurt (by real people I mean concrete individuals who actually lived here on earth). But that isn't really normative. It's factual. I don't find that funny. Borat, on the other hand, is fucking hilarious TO ME.

I would like to close by saying that I understand that not everyone gets the joke, and not everyone knows that I'm not an idiot, and not everyone automatically sees my secretly sensitive heart. Not everyone will make the distinction between persona and racist. Not all who get the joke will find it funny. I also realize that these kinds of jokes certainly could be offensive, depending on a person's background, because people have a variety of experiences. Therefore, it's good to be careful about these things and to cultivate more "genteel" types of humor for the general public....because the worst thing of all if for people not to laugh. That's just awkward and embarassing.
(also on my personal blog)

Welcome Madame Speaker

There comes a time for every sports fan of a once great team inescapably trending towards mediocrity to begin looking towards rebuilding rather than suffering season after season of not-too-bad/not-too-good seasons. The hope is that you will be eventually rewarded for accepting one or two crappy seasons by a new resurgent team with the potential to do things that are fun to watch and that your opposition isn’t in a position to capitalize at your expense. After watching the GOP pretty much piss away complete control of govt. (Honestly, when will this happen again?) on basically nothing of merit it clear the Republican party needs to cut loose the underperforming veterans and rebuild(Hastert, the Oswego Bob Evans misses you). If there was some smart, charismatic southern, yellow dog democrat representative in line for speaker I’d seriously be concerned about the GOP being in the minority for a long, long time. Buuuuttttt….the democrats are actually going to select someone who represents San Francisco and who's intense but simultaniously vacant stare seems to confirm the myth that blinking equals thinking.

So I say welcome Madame Speaker and thanks in advance for your help rebuilding.

more election media frustration...

If got forbid Republicans somehow manage to hold onto congress (I now believe the GOP needs a re-org and what better time than now?) you can count on there being weeks, even months, of MSM amplified outrage over Republicans seemingly magical powers to suppress the vote and steal elections undetectably – now aided with their new sinister ally….the com-pute-err.

Likewise when Democrats likely take at least the house you can count on there continuing to be next to zero reporting on actual democratic voter fraud despite recent convictions in two states and indictments and ongoing investigations that exist in at least 3 more.

I truly do believe that the democrats should come out ahead in this election simply based on merit – or the GOP’s lack there of. However, as with the last 3 elections I find myself extremely frustrated with the brazenness of the national media to not call things with the dispassionate eye they so frequently represent themselves as having.

UPDATE: Thank goodness. Based on current election reporting it appears everyone’s fears of unprecedented voter fraud were unfounded. How do we know this? Well it’s clear the once corrupted natural order of things has been restored by a Democratic sweep of the house and senate silly. No prolonged, result delegitimizing investigations into phantom GOP bullying are needed like in the previous three elections because it’s clear they didn’t. Democrats were finally allowed to fairly win. Everyone should just be satisfied with this result and enjoy all the news reports of people being happy with their new democratic leadership rather than the spiked stories of widespread election fraud we’d surely see if things had worked out differently.

the gaffe

Michael Kinsley once observed that in US politics "a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth".

So when I heard of Kerry’s gaffe...I mean botched joke, I really didn’t find it that surprising. No one should be shocked that, like most on the left, he views those in the armed forces as largely unjust victims of our unjust society's unjust degree of socioeconomic injustices.

What I did find surprising was how under whelmed the MSM was by Kerry's statement. It's obvious that the US military is no sacred cow to the MSM, and I don't think it should be, however when viewed in the context of constituencies that very clearly are sacred cows to the MSM the controversial nature the botched joke becomes apparent.

Lets try a thought experiment that may reveal just how lacking in self-awareness the media is of their own biases.

Kerry said:

You know, education, if you make the most of it,
if you study hard and you
do your homework, and
you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can
do well. If you dont, you get stuck in Iraq.

Now imagine the MSM reaction if a Republican said:

You know, education, if you make the most of it,
if you study hard and you
do your homework, and
you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can
do well. If you dont, you _________________.

will be a journalist.
will be a public school teacher.
will be a social worker.
will be a union worker.
will be like a (insert minority name) person.

If a Republican said any of these things the hoodoo would be so deep the RNC would be digging out until next summer but apparently calling the military dummies? Well that’s just some strait shootin. Give him another silver star.....

Sappy Human Interest Story

Usually, when confronted with the "Human Interest" story I tune out. But on Friday I was supremely bored at work and scoured the internet for anything that might be considered entertaining. So, in poking around I came across Boing-Boing, a site I've checked out a handful of times and have always been led in interesting directions. Anyway, there I found a link to a post on Scott (creator of Dilbert) Adams's blog that was human-interest-y but of a cool sort.

Apparently he has a very unusual medical problem, and about 18 months ago he lost his voice after a bout of allergies and with the odd exception of public speaking can't get it back. It's something called Spasmodic Dysphonia and basically has no cure. All treatments seem to be extremely unpleasant and not terribly effective...

Just because no one has ever gotten better from Spasmodic Dysphonia before doesn’t mean I can’t be the first. So every day for months and months I tried new tricks to regain my voice. I visualized speaking correctly and repeatedly told myself I could (affirmations). I used self hypnosis. I used voice therapy exercises. I spoke in higher pitches, or changing pitches. I observed when my voice worked best and when it was worst and looked for patterns. I tried speaking in foreign accents. I tried “singing” some words that were especially hard.

My theory was that the part of my brain responsible for normal speech was still intact, but for some reason had become disconnected from the neural pathways to my vocal cords. (That’s consistent with any expert’s best guess of what’s happening with Spasmodic Dysphonia. It’s somewhat mysterious.) And so I reasoned that there was some way to remap that connection. All I needed to do was find the type of speaking or context most similar – but still different enough – from normal speech that still worked. Once I could speak in that slightly different context, I would continue to close the gap between the different-context speech and normal speech until my neural pathways remapped. Well, that was my theory. But I’m no brain surgeon.

The day before yesterday, while helping on a homework assignment, I noticed I could speak perfectly in rhyme. Rhyme was a context I hadnÂ’t considered. A poem isn’t singing and it isn’t regular talking. But for some reason the context is just different enough from normal speech that my brain handled it fine.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Jack jumped over the candlestick.

I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could. It was effortless, even though it was similar to regular speech. I enjoyed repeating it, hearing the sound of my own voice working almost flawlessly. I longed for that sound, and the memory of normal speech. Perhaps the rhyme took me back to my own childhood too. Or maybe itÂ’s just plain catchy. I enjoyed repeating it more than I should have. Then something happened.

My brain remapped.

My speech returned.

Pretty cool... Go Dilbert guy.

Oh, and if you check out his post, browse some of the 1300-odd responces this post of his garnered, they're also rather interesting/uplifting.

Say it ain’t so!

BBC discovers it's biased:

It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

A leaked account of an 'impartiality summit' called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC's 'diversity tsar', wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.

At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

One veteran BBC executive said: 'There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness.

Quoting a George Orwell observation, Randall said that the BBC was full of intellectuals who 'would rather steal from a poor box than stand to attention during God Save The King'.

Thank goodness PBS is waaay different.

Baron Hill vs. EFF

I just came across this article on FactCheck.org regarding some rather dubious methods used by a group called the Economic Freedom Fund in the campaign against former Rep. Baron Hill as he seeks to regain Indiana's 9th district.

Here's the summary that appears on the site:

An automated attack call claims Indiana House candidate Baron Hill "voted to allow the sale of a broad range of violent and sexually explicit materials to minors." That's an apparent reference to a vote Hill cast in 1999 against a Republican-sponsored measure to bar the sale of certain items to kids. It's also misleading. Hill, along with a majority of Democrats and a significant number of House Republicans, voted to stick with existing law. Almost twice as many lawmakers opposed the bill as voted for it, with many making the argument that it was overly broad and a possible violation of the First Amendment.

The calls were sponsored by the conservative Economic Freedom Fund – an outside group wholly funded by Texas millionaire homebuilder Bob Perry. Perry was the main backer of the 2004 campaign by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth against John Kerry and he has already funded EFF, which was formed last month, at an even higher level - $5 million so far - than he funded the Swiftboaters. This indicates that the group could become a big player this fall. But it may have to alter its strategy in Indiana; the attorney general there has sued EFF, alleging the calls violate state law.

Check it out here.

Big Shocker

Oil companies see the world rationally; NPR does not.

In my first post on this subject on May 1 I contrasted the competing perspectives of NPR’s self-rightious chicken littleing everyone’s gotta conserve right now or we’re gonna die! regurgitation of Matthew Simmons to oil company analyst’s somewhat less exiting forecasts on oil prices.

Today the Seattle Times reveals that the Oil companies read on the situation was exactly right. Nearly the entire recent rise in oil prices was due to temporary factors that had little to do with available oil in the ground. The floor has fallen out of the oil market and it could be quite sometime before it stabilizes.

I know I-told-you-so’s are always annoying but someone needs to identify the endless streams of BS that media organizations with editorial proclivities like NPR pump out with what seems like impunity. Grasping at any novel idea that reinforces a desired policy (environmen…I mean sustainability in this case) like a fat kid plowing through a happy-meal isn’t anything close to responsible journalism.

L-A-M-E

My 3G ipod and cell phone are getting a little long in the tooth so I eagerly awaited today’s announcement from Steve Jobs to hear about what new revolutionary consumer electronics his flip-flop wearing elves would build next. I read numerous articles on digg and Slashdot that speculated that a widescreen IPOD with touchscreen interface and/or an apple cellphone would be announced. Instead he revealed that they shiney’d up the nano with some metallic appliqué, converted the stupid chewing gum form factor of the shuffle into a stupid matchbook form factor and somehow managed to figure out a way to make downloads of Disney movies available in sub VHS quality for $15. Where ever do they find the time?

Unfortunately Apple doesn’t seem to learn from its past mistakes. Until at least 1993 Apple had a superior product that dominated the market. For years they justifiably ridiculed the competition for even attempting to equal them. The problem is that eventually the competition succeeded and they never recovered. Now in the portable media player market they are similarly vulnerable. Already Toshiba has produced a media player that’s widely considered to be superior to anything apple has and Microsoft is on the verge of releasing a wide format media player and an increasing number of cellphones contain impressive media playback capabilities.

Steve, your serve has again been broken. Can we look forward to you flaking out, getting fired by the board and trying to start a company that makes ridiculously expensive and underperforming cube shaped cell phones that virtually no one but Earlham will purchase* only to come back in 2020 to save the day? That would be insanely great.

*Yeah, for some inexplicable reason someone at Earlham decided to buy NeXT workstations in the 90’s instead of the cheaper and much more powerful Suns like everyone else.

Pants Stuffer and Pals Grumpy

I think the uproar over the last week involving aspects of the upcoming ABC historical dramatization “Path to 9/11”, like the previous hullabaloo regarding CBS’ “The Reagans”, is completely absurd. In both cases critics latched onto less than flattering portrayals of events that transpired behind closed doors offering instead versions of events that reek of the best possible spin while remaining silent about all the potentially embarrassing situations that still are known only to those involved. Did Reagan sound like a bigoted codger in the Oval office when Nancy pleaded with him to fund AIDS research? Maybe not, but we do know that he dragged his feet in signing a bill authorizing funding to a degree that could be fairly interpreted as animus. It shouldn’t be a reasonable expectation that public officials, particularly those whose actions have the far reaching implications of say a president can have things both ways. While I’m certain the portrayals of Clinton officials are far from accurate their decisions, policies and their ultimate outcomes are very much a matter of public record. To claim that the Clinton administration took the threat of Muslim extremism with the seriousness it warranted just isn’t borne out by the clear increase in frequency and severity of attacks and the comparable inaction by the administration. If bad things happened during and because of a president’s term unflattering dramatizations should be the least of their concerns.

* January 25, 1993: Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani, fired an AK-47 into cars waiting at a stoplight in front of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Virginia, killing two CIA employees.
* February 26, 1993: Islamic terrorists try to bring down the World Trade Center with car bombs. They failed to destroy the buildings, but killed 6 and injured over 1000 people.
* March 12, 1993: Car bombings in Mumbai, India leave 257 dead and 1,400 others injured.
* July 18, 1994: Bombing of Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, kills 86 and wounds 300. The bombing is generally attributed to Hezbollah acting on behalf of Iran.
* July 19, 1994: Alas Chiricanas Flight 00901 is bombed, killing 21. Generally attributed to Hezbollah.
* July 26, 1994: The Israeli Embassy is attacked in London, and a Jewish charity is also car-bombed, wounding 20. The attacks are attributed to Hezbollah.
* December 11, 1994: A bomb explodes on board Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing a Japanese businessman. It develops that Ramzi Yousef planted the bomb to test it for the larger terrorist attack he is planning.
* December 24, 1994: In a preview of September 11, Air France Flight 8969 is hijacked by Islamic terrorists who planned to crash the plane in Paris.
* January 6, 1995: Operation Bojinka, an Islamist plot to bomb 11 U.S. airliners over the Pacific Ocean, is discovered on a laptop computer in a Manila, Philippines apartment by authorities after a fire occurred in the apartment. Noted terrorists including Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed are involved in the plot.
* June 14—June 19, 1995: The Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis, in which 105 civilians and 25 Russian troops were killed following an attack by Chechan Islamists.
* July—October, 1995: Bombings in France by Islamic terrorists led by Khaled Kelkal kill eight and injure more than 100.
* November 13, 1995: Bombing of OPM-SANG building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia kills 7
* November 19, 1995: Bombing of Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan kills 19.
* January 1996: In Kizlyar, 350 Chechen Islamists took 3,000 hostages in a hospital. The attempt to free them killed 65 civilians and soldiers.
* February 25 - March 4, 1996: A series of four suicide bombings in Israel leave 60 dead and 284 wounded within 10 days.
* June 11, 1996: A bomb explodes on a train traveling on the Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya Line of the Moscow Metro, killing four and unjuring at least 12.
* June 25, 1996: The Khobar Towers bombing, carried out by Hezbollah with Iranian support. Nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed and 372 wounded.
* February 24, 1997: An armed man opens fire on tourists at an observation deck atop the Empire State Building in New York City, United States, killing a Danish national and wounding visitors from several countries. A handwritten note carried by the gunman claims this was a punishment attack against the "enemies of Palestine".
* November 17, 1997: Massacre in Luxor, Egypt, in which Islamist gunmen attack tourists, killing 62 people.
* January 1998: Wandhama Massacre - 24 Kashmiri Pandits are massacred by Pakistan-backed Islamists in the city of Wandhama in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
* February 14, 1998: Bombings by Islamic Jihadi groups at an election rally in the Indian city of Coimbatore kill about 60 people.
* August 7, 1998: Al Qaeda bombs U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 225 people and injuring more than 4,000.
* August 31 – September 22, 1998: Russian apartment bombings kill about 300 people, leading Russia into Second Chechen War.
* December 1998: Jordanian authorities foil a plot to bomb American and Israeli tourists in Jordan, and arrest 28 suspects as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots.
* December 14, 1998: Ahmed Ressam is arrested on the United States–Canada border in Port Angeles, Washington; he confessed to planning to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots.
* December 24, 1998: Indian Airlines Flight 814 from Kathmandu, Nepal to Delhi, India is hijacked by Islamic terrorists. One passenger is killed and some hostages are released. After negotiations between the Taliban and the Indian government, the last of the remaining hostages on board Flight 814 are released in exchange for release of 4 terrorists.
* January 2000: The last of the 2000 millennium attack plots fails, as the boat meant to bomb USS The Sullivans sinks.
* August 8, 2000: A bomb exploded at an underpass in Pushkin Square in Moscow, killing 11 people and wounding more than 90.
* August 17, 2000: Two bombs exploded in a shopping center in Riga, Latvia, injuring 35 people.
* October 12, 2000: AL Qaeda bombs USS Cole with explosive-laden speedboat, killing 17 USAden, Yemen. sailors and wounding 40, off the port coast of

government authority

I'm starting school again, this semester just going half time, and I'm taking two law classes. One is a general administrative law class (law and public affairs) and one is about election law.

The general law class has been fascinating so far, because I've already learned more about how government operates than I did in my entire public management class. Part of the reason for that, I think, is that government is essentially about authority...who has it, and where does it come from, which means that government is essentially about law. In other words, there isn't really a strict line between law and policy, or between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.

I find this question of authority fascinating for some reason. I'm not sure why. I guess because I always find myself asking, "do they really have the power to do that?" This is particularly relevant these days in light of the push for greater executive branch authority by W and other Presidents. So, I always find myself asking, what exactly does the President do? And what can he (or she) do? It turns out to be a pretty complex set of questions.

Higher Prices = More Supply

The first of what I expect will be many similar announcements:

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the region where the well is
located could become the nation's biggest new domestic source of oil since the
discovery of Alaska's North Slope more than a generation ago.
The Journal
said Chevron and Devon officials estimate that recent discoveries in the Gulf of
Mexico's lower-tertiary formations hold up to 15 billion barrels' worth of oil
and gas reserves, a total that would boost the nation's current reserves by 50
percent.

But by all means, windfall taxes must be what’s best for consumers since peak oil is surely upon us.

Goodbye Joe Wilson

This Editorial from the Washington Post sufficiently brings to an end any curiosity I may have had about the whole "outing" of Valerie Plame. Actually, I've not been able to care for some time now, but obviously some people do, so to that end read on:

WE'RE RELUCTANT to return to the subject of former CIA employee Valerie Plame because of our oft-stated belief that far too much attention and debate in Washington has been devoted to her story and that of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, over the past three years. But all those who have opined on this affair ought to take note of the not-so-surprising disclosure that the primary source of the newspaper column in which Ms. Plame's cover as an agent was purportedly blown in 2003 was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.
...
Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

If you're still interested, Christopher Hitchens has a similarly themed roundup of the absurdity that is/was the Wilson/Plame business.

Broken Promises

Alright I know I promised that I would stop complaining about news coverage in the NYTimes but I stumbled onto this piece in slate that so devastatingly exposes the editorial biases of the paper I couldn’t help myself. I particularly liked how the author mentioned the intital “cultivation of a meretricious appearance of balance” to start off stories only to then stack the deck in favor of their ideological agenda. This also happens to be my primary gripe about the largely editorially identical NPR. Don’t agree? Look at the front page of the NYTimes sometime right as Morning Edition comes on (particularly after the Bush administration does something it finds particularly egregious) and marvel at their synchronicity – both in emphasis and tone.

YAY!!!

Hopefully Fidel will soon be paying Arafat a visit in the tyrant wing of Hades. I wonder if Che will be his poolboy…

I used to Blog

My boss has banned me from blogging, at least about my job. And I don't really want to blog about my love-life. Can't do too much politics till the campaign's over. What does that leave me? Oh, here's something to say!

I read Red Harvest by Daschel Hammet, the old noir detective writer. It was incredibly violent, but snappy. I reccomend it.

Good to see y'all back on the blogging. Andrew, thanks for not turning any of my posts over to the the republicans down here...if that just gave you an idea, please ignore it.

UNION LABOR

IT'S FAAAANTASTIC!!!!!

UPDATE: OH GOD GIVE ME THE CONCRETE SLAB INSTEAD!!!

UPDATE: Nappy Time!

Oh those irresponsible Bush tax cuts…

The NYTimes of all places:

An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is
driving down the projected budget deficit this year, even though spending has
climbed sharply because of the war in Iraq and the cost of hurricane
relief.
On Tuesday, White House officials are expected to announce that the
tax receipts will be about $250 billion above last year's levels and that the
deficit will be about $100 billion less than what they projected six months ago.
The rising tide in tax payments has been building for months, but the increased
scale is surprising even seasoned budget analysts and making it easier for both
the administration and Congress to finesse the big run-up in spending over the
past year.
Tax revenues are climbing twice as fast as the administration
predicted in February, so fast that the budget deficit could actually decline
this year.
The main reason is a big spike in corporate tax receipts, which
have nearly tripled since 2003, as well as what appears to be a big rise in
individual taxes on stock market profits and executive bonuses.

Despite this revelation, I’m quite certain we’ll be hearing flawed analysis from Krugman wannabes like this in the NYTimes and NPR all through the 2006 election.

If we cut taxes for the rich, either A) we raise other taxes or B) we increase
debt or C) we cut spending. A), B) and C) have incentive effects too; we must
consider net incentives.
A tax cut for the rich has minimal incentive effect.
That's because much income at the top is "passive." Corporate shareowners can't
increase their capital gains if tax rates fall--though they may change their tax
accounting.

More Hasselhoff

All I have to say is that KITT is not a right hand driver.

U-Haul Hell

I wrote the following last night and saved it as a draft. It's a little messy but se la vie.

I'm drinking a beer and contemplating my infuriating day on hold. I was only calling to confirm my reservation because Mark and Kelley got surprized once by the bastards, and after hearing that kind of thing I wanna be prepared. I wasn't prepared enough apparently.

I wrote this to Mark somewhere in there...

-----Original Message-----
From: Benjamin Hartman [mailto:hartmbe@earlham.edu] Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 12:15 PM
To: Whitaker, Mark
Subject: ohmygod

Hey Dude,
I'm currently on hold with fuckin uhaul. I called to confirm what I thought was my reservation and lo and behold, what I thought was my reservation time was not what they had. I bitched at the guy for 10 minutes and then I tried calling his superior. I was nicer to his super. This guy calmly said that I should call the "Traffic" dept of uhaul, noting that they will be rather busy today. I tried calling for 10 minutes and then got connected. I told the nice lady, "Sure" when she asked if I could go on hold, and there I rot. Going on 20 minutes now.

Fuck.

When I called the Brookline U-Haul place, they said my reservation was for 7:30 am to 3 pm. Definitely not enough time, nor the right time to wrangle helpers.

Sooo, here are what I think are our options, ranked in order of preferance.

1. I can get the same truck for a more amenable time tomorrow.
2. I can get a slightly smaller truck for a more amenable time tomorrow.
3. I can get either the same or smaller truck for Sunday, all day.
4. I cancel my reservation, and try to find something for tomorrow.
5. I run away and join the army, learn how to kill then track down evil with the barrel of a gun. Saving my last bullet for the chump who denied me my truck.
6. Take a bath in some toxic substance, obtain super strength/speed and move everything in an instant.

Actually, I like 6 more than 5, so I'd like to switch those.

There you have it.

And I'm still on hold.

Fuck.

I'll be giving you a call later on to see how you're doing.

Later,
B

Mark wrote back...

Whitaker, Mark wrote:

> That fucking sucks. Do you have any emails or other proof of the
> original time that you scheduled?

and I sent this at 2:25

-----Original Message-----
From: Benjamin Hartman [mailto:hartmbe@earlham.edu] Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 2:25 PM
To: Whitaker, Mark
Subject: Re:ohmygodfckuhaul

I'm on hold again.

I just got done being on hold for 1/2 an hour, talked to someone for 2 minutes, made another call, and am on hold again. This shit is driving me crazy.

Long and short. The person I talked to before cancelled my reservation for the 26 foot truck, unbeknownst to me, and put in a request for a 17 footer at another location for Sunday. I thought I had to do this work and was not expecting her to do it for me. Since we had effectively changed our minds, we're again stuck with something we weren't expecting and now don't want. Did I say I hate uhaul recently? I hate uhaul.

I'm still on hold. I know they're busy, but so am I. I've spent the past 4 hours with a phone attached to my head when I was supposed to be productive.

grrrrrrrrrrr.
B

There you have it.

The Real Officer Barbrady

New post please

Dear Blog,
I'm sorry that I have neglected you. My attention span has degenerated to that of a coked up hummingbird, and you have suffered. I flutter to myriad excuses but none will do. All I can offer is penance. I, ... I can't finish this sentence. Not for grief, but for my affliction. And so I will leave you with something different.

I'm sorry Andrew, but if I see that "Is 'Peak Oil' Bunk?" headline one more time my eyes will explode from my head, and steam will shoot from my ears. I don't doubt that on some level, peak oil is indeed bunk (as hype equals bulshit, more often than not), but I can't bring myself to care after this long month. Its presence at the top of the page mocks me and my idleness and so it must be banished.

So blog, I will try to give you something, anything, to fill the space and let you know you are wanted, if still somewhat unloved.

This is a shout out to Mark, whose fame has spread through the wildfire that is YouTube. His banjo magnificence has been recognized by some 3,000 eyes, give or take the odd cyclops or three-eyed mutant. Come, watch him again. And when you're done, register to YouTube so that you may vote upon his greatness with the coveted 5-Star rating. His banjo-ing should be noted for what it is, as the greatest that site has to offer.



and when you're done you should watch these cats.

Is “Peak Oil” Bunk?

NPR continues beating one of their favorite chicken-little memes to death this week: Peak Oil is upon us. Like other things they expect their audience to just accept, such as being in the midst of a global warming crisis and more diversity is always better, they breathlessly report that the world may soon “grind to a halt” due to rapidly declining oil reserves with little pretense that there is a possibility that things…might…just…actually…be…okay.

Now all the breathless talk about crisis is good for book sales and affirming the egos of hybrid driving NPR contributors but I think one will find that actually following the money gives the most accurate picture of the situation. Big shocker: Public Radio’s perspective has little bearing on actual market behavior.

"My guess is virtually 90% of the oil industry is assuming that $70 oil is not going to last more than a few years," according to Adam Sieminski, the chief energy economist at Deutsche Bank (nyse: DB - news - people ). He guesses that most oil companies are projecting crude will fetch $40 a barrel plus inflation over the long-term.

On that score, the oil companies appear to be virtually alone. Wall Street continues churning out predictions of $100 oil. Hedge fund managers are pouring millions into oil futures. And peak oil theorists, who argue that humans have produced nearly half the oil that there is to produce, and that therefore prices will shoot up enough to bring economic growth to a halt, are enjoying their heyday.

"The people most alarmed about future supply are not the people running oil companies," says John Felmy, the chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group in Washington.

In the past, only 10% of oil discovered worldwide ever made it to market, says Jerry Taylor, the director of natural resource studies at the Cato Institute in Washington. But thanks to the march of technology, that portion has climbed to 35%; a move to 40% would create a big increase in new supply. Peak oil theorists have ignored the impact of these technological advances when they have predicted for years that world oil production was nearing its peak. And that is the reason they keep getting it wrong.

Now I think it’s entirely possible that a couple of oil companies could just be behaving stupidly by not investing in greater supply but since the potential reward is so huge if oil prices stay fixed at current levels or greater it seems unlikely to me that all of them would just sit pat unless they had solid reasons for doing so. Either way a lot of people are going to look very stupid in the next few years.

Colbert Roundup

I had forgotten that Steven Colbert was going to do the White House correspondents Dinner, so was pleasantly awaiting it's appearance on You Tube. But, in case you'd rather read about it, Editor and Publisher has a pretty good review of the performance. Oh, and here are some responses to the review, in the forms of letters to the editor (of Editor and Publisher). Funny shit all.

Update: I missed this one (below) which is actually the begining of Colbert's roast-y type talk. This clip gets a little uncomfortable toward the end when the C-Span folks hold a shot on the President for what seems like a minute, and you see nothing remotely like a smile on his digitized face. Watch out Steve.

Excelsior!!!

THIS IS THE DUMBEST, MOST ECONOMICALY UNSOUND POLICY I THINK I’VE EVER SEEN SINCE CARTER.

What happens when you reduce the cost of a commodity? Demand goes up. What happens when demand goes up? Prices rise. This $100 will achieve absolutely nothing for consumers and will achieve nothing other than cause a brief blip in oil company's revenues. For once can these idiots just stop meddling and let the market do it's job?

Lateness

I fucking hate lateness. More specifically, I hate the mindset that causes lateness (as opposed to lateness caused by unforeseen external forces, which I excuse). I hate it when concerts start an hour and a half later than advertised. I hate that everyone knows that concerts don’t start on time and act accordingly. I hate it when people decide not to go to a party at the time it’s supposed to begin specifically because they don’t want to be there before everyone else arrives. I hate it when people ask me to meet them somewhere, I show up at the agreed upon time and they are consistently never there, but always “about to leave” or “on their way”. I hate that honoring time commitments has often made people consider me to be obsessive, as if merely trying to keep one’s word is somehow an extreme overachievement. Arrgggh!

global warming stuff

Hey, I just finished my global warming debate. Andrew, I used some of your old arguments about bias in academia to show how a consensus among scientists doesn't neccesarily mean they're right, so thanks for the help!

My conclusion after the whole thing...human-induced global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions is probably part of the reason that temperatures are increasing, but not all or even most of it. The consequences are really hard to predict, but will probably be some degree of rise in sea levels, obviously increased temperatures, and generally increased rainfall. If people can continue to develop better technologies, we very well may be able to adapt to the worst of it. Some species of plants and animals will suffer a lot, and some will migrate to better climates, and some we might be able to help with the aforementioned technologies.

Because the system is so complex and hard to predict, though, it may be much, much worse. So, the question is, which scenario should we use for policy decisions. The worst case, the best case, or something in-between? I think it may be wiser to make policy based on the worst case scenario, especially if this involves investments in alternative energy, which would have lots of other benefits too.

Good Movie. Bad Movie?

So last night we saw Thank you for Smoking. It made fun of cigarette companies and nanny state liberals at the same time. Yes, cigarettes are bad and by extension so are the companies that make them, but if you are an adult with a fully functioning brain, by now you should know that. It was great and I strongly recommend it.




But before the movie the trailer for an Inconvenient Truth was shown. Its ninety-four minutes of supercilious, Al Gore hyperbole about Ga-lobe-al Wharm-ang. Oh lord does it look bad. But of course I must not love the earth or children and enjoy betraying it with my 21mpg car. I agree that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions aren’t helpful to the environment but this is really as far as the scientific consensus goes. Anything else is just reckless, and arguably agenda driven speculation. Is Mount Kilimanjaro losing it’s snowcap a sign of the apocalypse we deserve? Nope and Nope. This was discredited over 2 years ago as caused by regional deforestation causing the air to be more dry, but it does make a pretty picture. Is Antarctic melting a new phenomenon? Nope it’s been melting at roughly the same rate for over 7,500 years, but I’m sure Al enjoyed the imagery of drowning all the Floridians who didn’t vote for him in 2000. Was global warming responsible for what happened in New Orleans? Hardly. Don’t get me wrong, I think the fewer carbon emissions the better, but I’m not willing go chicken-little over what appears to be an admittedly undesirable but highly manageable trend. The real tragedy is the exaggerated claims that are made in this movie do nothing to move the debate any more to the mainstream where it belongs. Joe six-pack isn’t going to trade in his Yukon for a Prius because of some sad, sad polar bears or the rantings of some self-righteous activist scientists who were never too good at math. Climatologists should stick to their day jobs and focus on getting the actual science right and leave assessing the true consequences of what they find to people with some actual perspective; economists.

UPDATE: The Beeb of all places questions the "overselling" of climate change.

FLASHBACK: This puts the movie into context: "Arlie Schardt, who was Mr. Gore's communications director during the 1988 presidential campaign, to warn the candidate in a memo, 'your main pitfall is exaggeration.'"

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg sums up my previous points better than I.

Sigh.

My feelings toward our President have tempered over the years to the point where I don't actively dislike the man (however much I disagree with his decisions), and sometimes when I'm feeling charitable, I empathize with him. But every now and again I come across something (usually video) that makes me irate for no real identifiable reason. I found this video via Sullivan who got it from Wonkette who found it on YouTube, and there's plenty wrong with what I see here. He dodges the question, while remarking about dodging the question. He gives that pat "I delegate" remark, which is itself a dodge. He can't take a serious question seriously. He sounds like a moron when he giggles like that, and I'm sure, much more.

Mark said it reminded him of Rickey Gervais's David Brent from "The Office". I agree with that, but there's something else here that bothers me... I'm just at a loss to describe/pinpoint it. What do you think?

worst commercial ever

Okay, maybe it’s not the worst ever, but since we’re in the process of buying a house it seems like it. If I was getting ganged up on like that guy in the commercial I would rip that phone off the wall and shout “peddle your wares somewhere else real estate harpy!” whether the phone was still plugged in or not. As it stands now I still want to scream “what are you doing you pussy? All the specialness in the world doesn’t pay your property taxes!” to that poor simpering bastard of a husband.

guilty funny

So apparently the kid in the video had his life ruined when he decided to film himself pretending to be Darth Maul with his school’s camcorder and just left the tape on a bookshelf for anyone to discover. Shockingly some of his classmates put the video on the internet and he spent the remainder of his time in high school being ridiculed as the “star wars kid”. Stories like these tend to put me into a moral quandary. What this kid has gone through is clearly horrible and you gotta feel for him. Shut up conscience! He made sound effects and is chubby.

UPDATE: Holy crap. I had no idea this was such a pop culture phenomenon.

Gift from above

So I was pooped on by a bird this morning--a first for me. It must have happened while I was walking into work and slipped by unnoticed. It wasn't until I took my coat off, put my backpack away and finally sat down that I noticed a nickel-sized blob of that unmistakeable white/brown/green colored goo on my thigh. Thankfully, it didn't smell and came out pretty easily. In fact, the more I think about it, we're pretty lucky that bird shit doesn't stink. Imagine if dogs could fly.