Saturday, December 22, 2007
A Good Year for Bush?
Something like 80% of the people were totally for the War in Iraq when we went in. I suspect that something close to that number were against the Surge and thought it was "hopeless". It didn't take all that much courage for Bush to go to war with 80% on his side. It took a tad more leadership and courage for him to do the Surge with a very high percentage of the people against him. To date, it has worked. The Democrats will do all they can to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and they may still make it happen-and of course the MSM will be a willing accomplice through it all. They may well still succeed in making Iraq a disaster, but it looks much less of a sure thing than it did last year at this time.
Pretty much the same for the economy. The Democrats and the MSM have a lot to say about it being bad, but econimics is pretty much about numbers in the real world, and the best real analysis is that the economy is "good to excellent". Inflating fuel prices caused by worldwide demand for fuel hasn't killed it, and the sub-prime real estate bubble has failed to scuttle the economic ship as well.
Seem like there are a lot of prospects for a Happy New Year, but I'm sure that this will be the darkest election year in my lifetime.
Tony Blair Converts to Catholicism
The former prime minister told the BBC this year that he had avoided talking about his religious views while in office for about 10 years for fear of being labeled "a nutter."
In England's last census, 72 percent of people identified themselves as Christian.
Many are Anglicans affiliated with the Church of England, which was created by royal proclamation during the 16th century after King Henry VIII -- who married six times -- broke ties with the Roman Catholic Church in a dispute over divorce.
The Church of England has said that less than 10 percent of its members are regular churchgoers. Britons often are surprised by people who openly and fervently discuss their religious views, and the degree to which faiths such as evangelicalism can influence U.S. politics
Friday, December 21, 2007
Everything Is Miscellaneous
The third order of order is in some degree "disorder" in the human sense, but it is what the Net is all about. Freed from the physical limits of things like cards and paper maps we can link endlessly and order in any way we see fit. Playlists on iTunes, Google, Blogs, etc. Lots of focus on the commonly used tree structure of many of our classifications, with the example of the Linnaean classification of the world of living things, and how we are finding that it really isn't that tidy.
I wouldn't really recommend the book for anyone very serious about understanding the phenomenon of digitization and the Web. It might be a good intro, but it seemed too "Pop" to me.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
The Official Democrat Platform for Election
Resolved, That in the future, as in the past, we will adhere with unswerving fidelity to the Union under the Constitution as the only solid foundation of our strength, security, and happiness as a people, and as a framework of government equally conducive to the welfare and prosperity of all the States, both Northern and Southern.Resolved, That this convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretense of a military necessity of war-power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view of an ultimate convention of the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that, at the earliest practicable moment, peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States.
Resolved, That the direct interference of the military authorities of the United States in the recent elections held in Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware was a shameful violation of the Constitution, and a repetition of such acts in the approaching election will be held as revolutionary, and resisted with all the means and power under our control.
Resolved, That the aim and object of the Democratic party is to preserve the Federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired, and they hereby declare that they consider that the administrative usurpation of extraordinary and dangerous powers not granted by the Constitution — the subversion of the civil by military law in States not in insurrection; the arbitrary military arrest, imprisonment, trial, and sentence of American citizens in States where civil law exists in full force; the suppression of freedom of speech and of the press; the denial of the right of asylum; the open and avowed disregard of State rights; the employment of unusual test-oaths; and the interference with and denial of the right of the people to bear arms in their defense is calculated to prevent a restoration of the Union and the perpetuation of a Government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.
Resolved, That the shameful disregard of the Administration to its duty in respect to our fellow citizens who now are and long have been prisoners of war and in a suffering condition, deserves the severest reprobation on the score alike of public policy and common humanity.
Resolved, That the sympathy of the Democratic party is heartily and earnestly extended to the soldiery of our army and sailors of our navy, who are and have been in the field and on the sea under the flag of our country, and, in the events of its attaining power, they will receive all the care, protection, and regard that the brave soldiers and sailors of the republic have so nobly earned.
Tis the Season for Vote Buying
Gee, I wonder whose money she figures to use for all those "presents"?
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Laws of Nature
The ending is super. This article is closely related to this:
Maybe both alternatives — Plato’s eternal stone tablet and Dr. Wheeler’s higgledy-piggledy process — will somehow turn out to be true. The dichotomy between forever and emergent might turn out to be as false eventually as the dichotomy between waves and particles as a description of light. Who knows?
The law of no law, of course, is still a law.
When I was young and still had all my brain cells I was a bridge fan, and one hand I once read about in the newspaper bridge column has stuck with me as a good metaphor for the plight of the scientist, or of the citizen cosmologist. The winning bidder had overbid his hand. When the dummy cards were laid, he realized that his only chance of making his contract was if his opponents’ cards were distributed just so.
He could have played defensively, to minimize his losses. Instead he played as if the cards were where they had to be. And he won.
We don’t know, and might never know, if science has overbid its hand. When in doubt, confronted with the complexities of the world, scientists have no choice but to play their cards as if they can win, as if the universe is indeed comprehensible. That is what they have been doing for more than 2,000 years, and they are still winning
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
HW "Nixes" Clinton Trip Idea
How out of touch is it for the supposedly "feel your pain sensitive" Slick Willie to suggest that a Father would be willing to sign on to such a horribly cheap shot at his Son? Yes, Yes, we know that Slick and Hillary would certainly throw poor Chelsea under the bus if that would gain them votes, but one would have thought that they were more aware of the "weakness" of their opposition. They like to exploit the fact that Republican's love their children and have principles, but I thought they had more understanding of the "other side" than this displays.
People that have values and care about things like family are going to support those that they love when they are doing right, no matter how unpopular that right may be. I know that is something that is completely foreign to the Clinton's and their ilk, but they were alive during Reagan, they ought to at least realize that decency actually does exist! We won't even go into the facts of the Surge working and many world leaders working closer with Bush as a result. Even most of the spineless generally react well to success, "The Stain" is just an exception.
If Hillary sinks any lower in the polls, Chelsea better watch her back. I suspect Hillary could fake another half-human looking tear over something untoward happening to poor Chelsea. Gore, Edwards, the Kennedy's-they all seem to have a closet full of maudlin stories that are are supposed to "make folks love them" when they drag them out. The fact that they are so willing to USE those stories and apparently have so little understanding of the concept of loyalty shows that their "heart" makes the unrepentant Grinch look like a Saint!
We know Bush Sr lacked the kind of character and character judgment that Reagan had, or he would have never broken his taxes pledge appointed Souter to the Supreme Court, or allowed The Great Fornicator to use him as "a buddy". I'd like to see HW stand up with a little more force on this one,but at least he exhibited basic decency, which is WAY more than one can ever expect from Hill-Billy.
The Forgotten Man
I must admit that the combination of this book by Amity Shales with "The Myth of the Rational Voter" gives me some pause for future prospects. The ability of the left to ignore known information, especially in the areas of economics and business, while catering to natural class biases and fears of "the common man" is significant. Both are however excellent books which very much deserve to be read rather than just just the cliff note version.
The short version of "The Forgotten Man" (TFM) is that Hoover and others started the policies that would cause the depression in the late '20s by trying to reduce the money supply, raise taxes pass tariffs (Smoot Hawley), and increase Government control and projects (eg. Hoover Dam). Hoover and the Republicans started the descent, but FDR and the Democrats weakened and prolonged it by pushing the failed policies harder, and most damaging, actually attacking business and criminalizing individual business practices. In some cases, the rules were completely irrational, as in the NRA insistence on "straight killing" of chickens disallowing customer selection and differential pricing that went all the way to the Supreme Court in Schechter. When FDR and the New Dealers lost, he was furious and embarked on his "packing the court" attempt to circumvent the Constitution.
The degree to which the Democrats, the schools, and the MSM have propagandized the "New Deal", The Depression" and especially FDR himself is incredible. The spectacle of a very rich man "going after the rich" while sailing on his yacht may be the poster child case for "consistency is not an issue". By raising taxes, criminalizing business behavior after the fact and moving the Government into new areas (utilities, unions, pricing, etc), he managed to simultaneously reduce the prospective return for risk taken (by tax rate increases) while drastically INCREASING the risk on both the business front (regulation, government takeover, unions), but also add in the prospects of CRIMINAL PROSECUTION, even if the act was not "illegal" at the time it was done. An amazing combination of horrible policy, no wonder he managed to prolong the Depression until WWII forced him to change his policies so business could get busy and win the war.
A core of the book is this quote:
"As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering. A talks it over with B and A and B propose to get a law passed to to remedy the evil and help X. There law always proposes what A, B, AND C will do to help X. But what about C? There was nothing wrong with A and B helping X. What was wrong was the law and the indenturing of C to the cause. C is the forgotten man, the man who paid, the man who is never thought of."
FDR took if farther than that and tried to claim that X was the "forgotten man", and established the idea of buying the votes of X with the money of C. The producers that make the sacrifices and take the risks were expected to keep producing and to even increase production for less and less benefit as FDR and company tinkered with the economy at will and constantly demonized the very "rich" whom they depended on to power their redistribution schemes.
In a campaign speech at Madison Square Garden for his 2nd term FDR said:
"I should like to have it said of my first administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my 2nd administration that in it these forces met their master."Not a lot of hubris in that is there? One gets a little glimpse of why God decided that man needed to be made mortal, no matter how impishly they might like to hold their cigarette. If FDR was such a "master", how come he's dead? One NEVER heard Ronald Reagan make such claims, yet his policies actually worked!
After FDR went too far for even his lefty supporters, and some of them started to criticize him, one of his cronies, Harold Ickes wrote the following in his diary that is a pretty good (though unintended) peek into the soul of the modern liberal:
"I often think that the definition of a liberal is a man who wants what is unattainable or who wants to reach his objective by methods that are so impracticable as to be self-defeating. So many liberals want merely to be in opposition. They do not want to advance from objective to objective."So true, and one might add "Thank God"! If they went that extra little step of FDR and Ickes and completely ignored the Constitution, packed the court and took even more power, we would have no democracy left at all by now, only Government.
"Roosevelt also set out to prove that the intention of taxpayers who failed to complete complex returns correctly was malign: Where there was ambiguity, taxpayers ought to be presumed guilty. This was especially disingenuous of the president, for Roosevelt himself would submit an ambiguous tax return for the year 1937 ... with the note attached: "as this is a problem of higher mathematics, may I ask that they Bureau let me know the balance due?..."How consistent. A liberal never expects his rules to apply to him, only to others.
The book is excellent, but scary. There are so many parallels to what we likely face going into '09. Bush mistakenly attempted to tack back to the middle like Slick Willie had done before him with the predictable result of derision from the middle to left and abandonment by the right. Now we will likely ride into a full Democrat controlled administration with everyone primed so that any disaster created can be "blamed on Bush" for a least the first two, and likely full four years of the first term.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Not Dirty Tricks
"The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight ... and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use," Shaheen said. "It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?' There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."Oh yes, "Republican dirty tricks", there are no other kind, right? They even have multiple names; "Willie Horton", "Swift Boating".
Of course the CLINTON's are completely above such things, and the Democrats nor their buddies in the MSM would ever engage in anything even remotely "dirty". If pointing out that a guy released by a Presidential candidate on a furlough program that he was in favor of murdered, or that others that had served with equal and greater honor didn't have the right to question a candidates flaunting 3 purple hearts for which he never spent a night in the hospital was actually "dirty".
From the reverse side, the "bad guys" in the case of pointing out that Dan Rather was using fake documents to smear Bush over 40 year old potential issues are "the pajama media", the evil bloggers that brought the facts to light. In the "good old days" when the ONLY media was the Democrat controlled MSM, they never had to worry about such things.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Bi-Partisan Wishes
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.
I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere.
Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.
To My Republican Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Gore Attempts to Reduce House Energy Use
He was also in the news this week from Bali, where he traveled for a global conference on the environment. NPR had a nice segment on him apologizing for the USA, it sounded like he was embarrassed for the country that he once had the honor of being Vice President for. I wonder if they selected Bali as the place fly to in their private jets to out of "minimal carbon impact"?
I suppose the life of zero personal responsibility while receiving accolades for being such an "environmentalist" is fun for those that have no need for any consistency. From the article, it is pretty clear that even AFTER all the high priced changes he makes his massive mansion will STILL be hugely more of an energy hog than George Bush's modest home which the media seems quite capable of completely ignoring.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Ray of Hope for '08?
read more | digg story
Golden Compass
What if a movie was trying to soft-pedal racism or was anti-Muslim? Do you suspect that the MSM would be as quiet about that undertone?
Snopes on Golden Compass
Monday, December 10, 2007
Four Types of People
A practical observation on the risks of stupidity was made by the German General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord in Truppenführung, 1933: "I divide my officers into four classes; the clever, the lazy, the industrious, and the stupid. Each officer possesses at least two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy however is for the very highest command; he has the temperament and nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious is a menace and must be removed immediately!"
Sunday, December 09, 2007
The Myth of the Rational Voter
The thesis is that the real cost to a voter of a single vote is zero so voters "rationally decide to vote irrationally". Since the cost of a vote for a policy that we may suspect to be irrational (eg. protectionism), but makes us "feel like we did something good" (eg. protected American jobs) is zero, we are incented to vote irrationally.
The book opens with "In a Dictatorship; government policy is often appalling, but rarely baffling. The building of the Berlin Wall sparked worldwide outcry, but few wondered, "What are the leaders of East Germany thinking?" That part was pretty clear; their people were fleeing and they wanted to keep them.
On the other hand, protectionism is universally known and proven to be harmful to economies, it was one of the cornerstone causes of the great depression, and the unanimity of professional economists on the subject makes Global Warming look positively outlandish. However; "Even when countries negotiate free trade agreements, the subtext is not, "Trade is mutually beneficial", but, "We'll do you the favor of buying your imports if you do us the favor of buying ours". Admittedly, this is less appalling than the Berlin Wall, yet is is more BAFFLING." The book is about "why does this happen, and what does it mean".
There are no doubt a longer list of biases than are covered here, but this book is written by an economist so that is where the focus is, here is the list of the main ones:
Antimarket Bias - "The public has severe doubts about how much it can count on profit seeking business to produce socially beneficial outcomes. They focus on the motives of business, and neglect the discipline imposed by competition." Unlike a commonly accepted idea like say "global warming", even though we have many solid comparisons of how well markets work next to non-markets (USSR/USA, W Germany/E Germany, Hong Kong and Taiwan vs Communist China, Communist China after adopting markets vs Communist China prior to markets).
The cases where markets have been "shown not to work", as in the Great Depression have turned out to actually be other cases where Government messed things up (inadequate money supply, protectionist trade regulation, raising taxes into the face of a faltering economy, a myriad of switches in direction that caused business to have no idea of what direction to go, attacks on business by government as scapegoating that added to the desire to avoid risk when the only way to move forward is always to take risks).
Anti foreign Bias - "The Law of Comparitive Advantage, one of the most facinating theorems in economics, shows that mutually beneficial international trade is possible even when one nation is less productive in every way. Suppose an American can make 10 cars or 5 bushels of wheat, and a Mexican can make one car or two bushels of wheat. Though the Americans are better at both tasks, specialization and trade increase production. If one American switches from wheat to cars, and three Mexicans switch from cars to wheat, world output goes up by two cars plus one bushel of wheat.
People are biased against foreigners, and even then only SPECIFIC foreigners. In the 1980s it was against Japan, now it is against China. During anti-Japan hysteria of the 1980's, British direct investment in the US always exceeded that of the Japanese by at least 50%, BUT, it was "the Japanese that were buying America".
If you factor out anti-foreign bias, there is no difference in your "balance of trade" with Wal-Mart and the US balance of trade with China. If you believe that to be false and the law of comparative advantage to be false, then simply grow/produce all your own food and see how much "cheaper" it is.
Make-Work Bias - "The public often literally believes that labor is better use than conserve. Saving labor, producing more goods with with fewer man hours, is widely perceived not as progress, but as a danger." ... "No solitary man would ever conclude that, in order to make sure that is own labor had something to occupy it, he should break the tools that save him labor, neutralize the fertility of the soil, or return to the sea the goods that it may have brought him. He would understand, in short, that saving in labor is nothing else than progress."
Pessimistic Bias - "Two more generations should saturate the world with population, and should exhaust the mines. When that moment comes, economical decay, or the decay of economical civilization, should set in" (Henry Adams, 1898) It is never very hard to find people to explain to you how the past was better, the present is going downhill and the future is going to be awful. Humans tend to confuse their own life cycle with that of the world.
David Hume said; "The humour of blaming the present and admiring the past, is strongly rooted in human nature, and has an influence on even on persons endued with the profoundest judgment and most extensive learning". It isn't hard to imagine what many of the average voters with below average judgment and learning think.
In order to show what the public thinks, the book leans heavily on the Harvard "Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy" or SAEE. This part of the book gets a little dry, but the bottom line is that people that have earned money money to improve their economic position (not those born rich, not those that win the lottery) and people with college degrees are much closer to understanding economics.
So after a lot of statistics and other analysis, he concludes that since the cost of each vote is effectively zero, people would much rather vote their biases because those make them feel better, so Democracy is irrational at least for economics. Worse, we seem to keep wanting to move to a more popular vote posture and adding in regular polls to make the "public view" more widely felt, and thus encourage more irrational behavior.
For me the scariest thing was that a lot of what appears to be malevolent behaviour on the part of politicians and the MSM can be explained by simple stupidity. Once again, Heinlein's axiom is proven; "NEVER attribute that to malice that can be explained by simple stupidity".
The book is very entertaining on balance, but a bit frightening. "Should my book push you toward democratic pessimism? Yes. Above all I emphasize that voters are irrational. But I also accept two views common among democratic enthusiasts: That voters are largely unselfish and politicians usually comply with public opinion. Counter-intuitively; this threefold combination - irrational cognition, selfless motivation, and modest slack is "as bad as it gets".
"What economists currently see as the optimal balance between markets and government rests upon an overestimate of the virtues of democracy. In many cases, economists should embrace the free market in spite of it's defects, because it still outshines the democratic alternative."
The book is WELL worth reading in it's entirety, although not much is lost if one wants to skim the supporting statistical and survey information. There is MUCH more covered than I comment on here, and I'm not really sure that I covered all the high points.