Friday, February 27, 2009

Keynes Likes Totalitarians

Keynes Politely Explains How to Destroy Civilization
02/27/09 - Blog.Mises.org by Jeffrey Tucker

The late economist Lord John Maynard Keynes regarded his own theories as a best fit for totalitarian societies. It is so much easier to achieve full employment when you can tell everyone what to do and decide what they will be paid. Every member of an ant colony is employed, and seemingly happy.

Keynes impresses me with the long, jumpy, tedious construction of his sentences, to express the simplest and fuzziest thoughts. I find that saying something directly is easy. Saying nothing, or everything, with detailed qualifications and exceptions, in one sentence, is quite difficult. Why bother with paragraphs when long sentences are so much more impressive?

[edited] I'm sorry, but reading Keynes gives me the chills. I can easily imagine his dispassionate narrative about events in a Gulag, justifying every horror with a pseudo-scientific rationale made up on the spot.

Oh wait: he did do that. From the 1936 foreword to the German edition of The General Theory:

Nevertheless the theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than is the theory of production and distribution of a given output produced under conditions of free competition and a lance measure of laissez-faire.

----------
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Chap. 24
Dig into the thought of Lord Keynes at Marxists.org.

The Political Dictionary: "Keynesian Economics"
A satirical definition, unfortunately true.

Why Should I Believe You?

Brain Rinse
02/27/09 - ChcagoBoyz by John Jay

First impressions are usually the strongest ones. The acclaim or possible danger associated with a product or idea leads to thinking it is the best or worst, even when better ones appear or studies show safety.

Shannon Love comments that this is Social Reasoning, a result of our brains being specialized for cooperation and competition within groups. Groups started 2 million years ago. Individuality is only a thin thread starting 2 thousand years ago.

John Jay:

[edited] What I call “mental aftertaste” is that on many topics, there is no way for the layman to perform a test, such as directly comparing the washing efficacy of Dreft and Tide. No test is available that would once and for all change their perceptions. In most arenas, once the tone has been set by the first mover, it is extremely difficult to shake a perception.

Con-men, tricksters, marketers, and intelligence agents realize that once an idea gets into someone’s head, even if it is disproven to the rational brain, there is an emotional residue akin to an aftertaste that colors perceptions. Unless the new idea totally dominates the old one, the old one tends to stick. This is at the core of the marketing adage that "perception is reality".

Shannon Love:
[edited] People fall for all of these hoaxes because they use social reasoning instead of the evidence of each phenomena. Consider astrology, vaccine fears, suspect technology, alternative medicine, and suppressed miracles. The common factor is deep suspicion of other people or the need to believe one’s self to have unique knowledge.

People trained in the sciences are taught to ignore social reasoning. For the majority of people outside the sciences, even well educated people, social reasoning is their primary modality of thought. This is especially true in political and economic thought. The dominant idea in post-modernist thought holds that who advances an idea is the most powerful predictor of validity.

Thus, who a scientist is determines whether their ideas about global warming have any validity. Ditto for economists, politicians, and academics. Those in the tribe are trusted, those outside are automatically wrong.

The Hamas - Israel War

Mubarak is the Only One Who Got it Right
02/27/09 - AmericanThinker by Dan Gordon

President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak:

[edited] Why did Hamas object to prolonging the cease fire? And why did they not heed our warnings that their positions constitute an open invitation for an Israeli assault? Was this planned and deliberate? For whose benefit?

The recent crisis is an attempt to exploit the Israeli aggression in order to impose a new reality on the Palestinian and Arab arena that will favor the agenda of Iran.

Dan Gordon:
[edited] The villages of the Gaza strip were crisscrossed with kidnapping and communication tunnels dug underneath the houses. Hamas militants could go unseen from house to house and carry out combat in a civilian environment, disappearing from one house, as it came under fire, to pop up in another.

They prepared this battlefield to launch rockets from civilian areas in order to draw in Israeli troops. They turned whole villages into booby trapped battlefields while the villagers were still in them. They hoped to kill two to three hundred Israeli soldiers and take prisoner as many as fifty.

They planned to maximize civilian casualties amongst their own people. Any action Israel took against Hamas fighters would become a war crime. Photos of innocent Palestinians killed in an Israeli onslaught would arouse public sympathy, to be translated into political pressure to effectuate a cease fire advantageous to Hamas. In that way, they could wear both the mantle of victimhood and victor.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

You Will Pay, With the Rich

The 2% Illusion
02/26/09 - Online.WSJ.com OpinionJournal

Take everything they earn, and it still won't be enough.

[edited] If taxes took 100% of the taxable income of everyone earning over $500,000 in 2006, this would have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion, and only one-third of the $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010.

Taking every taxable "dime" of those earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion.

The bottom line is that Mr. Obama is selling the country on a 2% illusion. Unwinding the U.S. commitment in Iraq and allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire can't possibly pay for his agenda. Taxes on the not-so-rich will need to rise as well.

Mr. Obama's climate-change plans will hit all Americans with higher expenses. Selling cap-and-trade permits to emit greenhouse gases amounts to a steep new tax on most types of energy and so on all Americans.

Mr. Obama portrays his agenda as center-left pragmatism. But pragmatists don't ignore the data. The only way to pay for Mr. Obama's ambitions is to reach deeper into the pockets of the American middle class.

I Won't Do the Paying

Comment of the Week
02/25/09 - CafeHayek by Russel Roberts
Comment by Methinks

The problem with high income people is that they can make plans and act on them. They are better than most people at finding loopholes in government. In my opinion, if they have to, they will buy the government. That is what things were like in the 1960's.

[edited] I'm in the target group, the top 2% of taxpayers to do the paying for the trillion dollar spending. I won't do it.

I own my business and have the option to work as much or as little as I like. At some tax rate, the marginal dollar won't be worth earning. I'll fire some employees, scale down the business or retire altogether and stick my money in tax advantaged municipal bonds, and do all the traveling and relaxing I can't do now. The tax advantage of muni bonds will NEVER go away because municipalities will scream bloody murder.

If I'm not ready to retire and the tax rate gets too high, I may just immigrate to another country because it's very easy for me to get almost instant citizenship. I respond to incentives and I'm not incentivized by enslavement and neither is anyone I know.

The specialness of this country is the lack of totalitarian regime and individual liberty. Once that's gone, this country is no longer special. You can call me evil or "not doing my part" because I'm not willing to work myself into the grave for your family instead of mine, but the reality is that unless you plan to start a Gulag, you can't make me.

Why should I be expected to work and risk more than you to provide you with the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed?

Yes, it's sustainable to raise taxes on the most productive. However, it's not sustainable at a high standard of living. It's sustainable only at ever decreasing standards of living. France and Germany are good examples.

There's a difference between the natural altruism that occurs between family members and confiscation by the state. I feel great when I donate to charity. I feel really crappy when I write the check to the IRS. Maybe I should figure out how to receive one instead. Seems a lot less time consuming.

Politicians Like Thoreau

Thoreau Smacks Down Clinton
02/26/09 - Corner.NationalReview by Fred Schwarz
Via AdviceGoddess

Liberal politicans love the image of Thoreau, living by a quiet pond, loving nature. They forget that he was sitting there as a tax protest. Thoreau:

[edited] Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate.

The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.

Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India-rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Obama Challenges Us

Obama, Say Again?
02/25/09 - TheLipstickRepublican by Jamie

[edited] Then, Pres. Obama reached the part where he "challenged" every American to commit to at least one year of higher education, and I was brought up short. Who the bleeping bleep does he think he is, telling me I should seek more education?

It so happens that I want more education. But I want it for me, not to fulfill some "duty to my country." A politician from an earlier generation might have told me it was my duty to produce more children.

If this nation was founded on anything at all, it was founded on the right of individuals to chart the course of their lives.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Iran Might Stop Killing Brits

Iran Offered to Halt Attacks on UK Troops
02/21/09 - Telegraph.co.uk by Damien McElroy
Via Grand Bargain at NeptunusLex.

[edited] Sir John Sawers is the British ambassador to the United Nations.
The Iranians wanted to strike a deal. They would stop killing our forces in Iraq and stop undermining the political process there, in return for being allowed to continue their nuclear programme without hindrance and without economic sanctions.
Iran supplied arms, training, and strategic direction to Shia Muslim militias that were battling British forces for control of Basra. Iran supplied a deadly shaped-charge bomb that required precision engineering at Iranian military factories.

Monday, February 23, 2009

The Solution Is Simple

Proving Reagan wrong
02/23/09 - BobKrumm.com by Bob Krumm

"Why are they doing all this when they have to know that it isn’t going to work?” was the question my wife asked about the stimulus package.

I answered: “It’s not about fixing the economy; it’s about proving Reagan wrong.” It’s about proving that an enlightened government is superior to a country led by tens of millions of individual sovereign decision makers.

A comment by Joe Y
An insight into the simple view that many people have of the world. An explanation why hope and change is so attractive. An evaluation of President Obama's abilities.

[edited] The oddest thing about this election, was the continual leitmotif of Obama’s genius, from people that should have known better. People like Obama, of which I know and am related to far too many, are unable to seriously consider that there is any job (oil company CEO, football coach, running the local post office) that they cannot do as well or better than the person currently in the role, should they ever exert the effort to do so. It’s not a matter of faith, as faith requires a conscious effort; rather, it is a prejudice in the true sense of the word.

They believe that the government is better at running the country, because the solution to the problem, whatever the problem, is just so obvious. From their point of view, for example, the comprehensive national medical database in the Stimulus Package is obviously a good idea.

The person I was talking to said “Only idiots, paranoids, and Republicans - to repeat myself - want to stop this.” She then gave the several well-known and excellent reasons for the database, concluding with “Who could be against that?”

I replied that no one could, but what about the hundreds of thousands of medical personnel who have potential access to the database? What about the innumerable terrifying stunts that hackers, and not just American hackers, have been able to pull off in attacks on supposedly invulnerable networks? What about people not reporting medical conditions because they don’t want a record of them? What about erroneous data being mistakenly entered? What about erroneous data being deliberately entered? Of course, that was just a start.

To her credit, she got what I was saying, particularly when I applied it to our respective teenage children. A few minutes consideration revealed many problems to answer the question “It’s so obvious! What could go wrong?”.

These considerations were foreign to her, not because she was stupid (quite the opposite), but out of a prejudice that she and people like her can see the solution to any problem. That is why they attack people who disagree with them as stupid, morons, and idiots.

There is one major exception to this attitude, which is in the person's area of knowledge. Then, they are as smart and good as advertised, but rarely anywhere else.

This brings us to the President. Obama is clearly a very bright man, as anyone who becomes president has to be. But, there are a lot of smart guys around. He gives a marvelous television performance of an intellectual, but I would be grateful for a link to any genuine evidence of such.

Like most Ivy leaguers, he’s a smart operator and a dedicated hustler obsessed with accomplishment. Like almost all Harvard men and women, he lacks an aptitude for self-doubt and humility, which people usually, and a bit unfairly, mistake for Harvard arrogance. He is superb at his chosen field; but that field is not being President, it is becoming President.

-----
Dunning-Kruger effect: The hubris of the incompetent
10/31/09 - Neo-Neocon

Quip: I could do that better than you, if I wanted to.

Wikipedia [edited]: The Dunning–Kruger effect is a bias in thinking. People may make bad choices, and be incompetent to realize it.

The unskilled overrate their own ability as above average. The highly-skilled underrate their abilities, often below the self-rating of the unskilled.

Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, because competent individuals wrongly assume that others are also competent. The incompetent misjudges himself, whereas the highly competent misjudges others.

Incompetent individuals:

  • Tend to overestimate their own level of skill, and do not recognize their true inadequacy.
  • Fail to recognize genuine skill in others.
  • Can come to recognize and acknowledge their previous lack of skill, if they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level.

Where Did Barbers Go?

Of Plumbers And Barbers
02/23/09 - RiehlWorldView by Dan Riehl

Barbers were regulated out of existence.

[edited] In the 70's and 80's many states merged their Barber and Cosmetology Boards into one. A young man who could make a decent living as a Barber couldn't do a partly paid apprenticeship, taking just months to learn a career that could serve him for life. He had to pay to attend a Community College or private tech education program that could last two years, while making him learn a variety of skills he'd never employ. And he, or she was also taught to charge much more for the service.

Costs of a haircut more than doubled, and businesses saw their overhead costs rise dramatically. All because the government was just looking out for you, or perhaps they were paid off by the tech education and cosmetic industries. Maybe they found a clever way to extract more dollars from a male public that never actually needed them in the first place

Friday, February 20, 2009

Nurse Practitioners

Bilateral Queckenstedt's sign
02/20/09 - Throckmorton's Other Signs by Throckmorton

It seems that nurse practioners (NP's) are not a good replacement for doctors in an emergency room. But, they are "cost effective".

[edited] Nurse practicioners are nurses with 17 months of extra training. They replace an MD or DO who has 4 years of medical education plus 3-4 years of speciality emergency medical training.

ER cases that a doctor could treat and release can not be handled by NP's who either can't or don't know how. Worse, I am often called in for one problem and find that there is something totally different wrong with the patient. I wonder how many of the patients have been sent home with something badly wrong!

I asked a hospital administrator why the NPs are not discussing patients with their supervising MD's. He informed me that the supervising MD only reviews patient's charts. Further, the NPs can act independently.

Why don't they hire MD's? MD's cost too much because of their liability insurance. Nurse Practicioners are cheaper, with minimal insurance, because they are not held to the same standards! With EMTALA in the mix, I get called in for everything.

Elevator Lawsuit Safety

Elevator Logic
02/18/09 - Throckmorton's Other Signs by Throckmorton

I suppose the legal theory of "attractive nuisance" is used here. Escape doors are so attractive and dangerous that people must be protected against themselves. There could be a sign "Warning: Only professionals should attempt to escape from this elevator." I have wondered, if I am supposed to escape, where is the ladder?

[edited] The hospital has fancy ceilings in their elevators, and I wondered what I would do if I got stuck. The maintenance man explained that the escape door was behind the lighted panel in the ceiling. It was almost impossible to get to, and the escape doors are locked from the outside. Someone has to let you out.

There have been lawsuits when people stuck in elevators have hurt themselves climbing out or when the elevator starts moving. So, the escape hatches are locked from the outside. If you are trapped in the elevator in a fire? He said, "Hope someone can get you out before you burn!"

It is even code to have the escape hatches locked! I wonder if the glass in the fire alarm box that states "break glass in case of fire" is unbreakable to prevent lawsuits because of people cutting themselves!

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Medicare Witch Hunt

Dear Mr President, Medicare Stinks
02/03/09 - Distractible.org by Dr. Rob

Medicare is controlling waste, fraud, and abuse by driving doctors out of Medicare. We can wonder who will be left to treat Medicare patients "for free".

[edited] I am a primary care physician. About 20% of my patients are covered by Medicare. I consider it an honor to be a doctor to the elderly. The complexity of a person’s medical problems goes up exponentially as they near the end of their life. I spend more time per patient for my Medicare population - which is OK if I can be paid for my extra time and effort.

If Medicare auditors find “problems” with our charting we will be told to send money back to CMS for our whole Medicare population. We are obligated to prove that we did not defraud Medicare to reclaim the money for the work we did. We will be presumed guilty unless we can prove that we are innocent.

They are looking for inconsistencies in the charting and the billing. These can be little things like:

  • Failure to mention in the note the EKG we ordered, even if it is in the chart.
  • The appearance of a “cookie-cutter template” in our notes. If all of our physical exams, review of systems, or impressions look similar, then it will be assumed we are trying to defraud Medicare.
  • Forgetting to document a discussion about a diabetic eye exam.
  • Certain ICD-9 codes will be accepted, but will “flag” that we are possibly trying to cheat Medicare. We need to be specific in our coding to avoid immediate suspicion.

We practice very good medicine and probably save money for the system, as a higher percentage of primary care in a community means lower cost. We use an EMR and are NCQA recognized for our diabetes care, and I think that our quality of care and documentation is in the top 10%. Yet we fear that your government employees are going to use us as scapegoats for the out-of-control costs of Medicare and put us out of business in the process.

We see what is being done to the hospitals by not accepting “No Pay” diagnoses (Never Events). That debacle is irrational and unfair, but the hospitals have no recourse.

That makes us extremely pessimistic about our odds when facing the hit-men from CMS. If a hospital with its lawyers and other resources can be hung out to dry, what chance does a primary care physician have?

We have never considered our acceptance of Medicare as something that actually makes business sense - we just like to care for the patients. But the increasing hostility we are seeing from the witch-hunters with their torches and angry mobs is making us really consider whether we can afford to stay on board.

Delayed Medical Tests

Emergency Primary Care (Not)
02/18/09 - DocsOnTheWeb by 911Doc

The Stark law (below) "stops" waste, fraud, and abuse by eliminating effective services. The government favors one-stop, no-other-choice shopping when the government provides medical services, but they require private doctors to fragment and delay their services.

[edited] Doctor's clinics are no longer allowed to provide on-site lab and Xray. The "Stark" law comes to mind. I witnessed a combination of poor primary care skills and the heavy hand of government.

An old man went in to his physician's office yesterday for a checkup. He 'wasn't feeling well' and the doc took him off one of his anti-hypertensive meds. Today he feels worse and WOW! the labs drawn at his checkup were resulted today and showed kidney failure and high potassium.

When the patient got to us in the emergency department, he was 'almost dead' with a pulse of 30. We brought him back from the precipice. I asked his primary doctor why the labs took so long to be resulted. He said, "We have to send out all labs".

This adds another pressure point to ER medicine. People know that their primary physician will not get answers that day. In this case it was almost a day late and a dollar short. Thanks Uncle Sam, you have prevented primary care physicians from committing fraud by over-ordering tests. Good job. Bunch of freaking putzes.

---------
Physician self-referral

The Stark law governs physician self-referral for Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Self Referral is a physician referring a patient to a medical facility in which he has a financial interest, be it ownership, investment, or a structured compensation arrangement.

Critics of self-referral allege an inherent conflict of interest, because the physician can benefit from the referral. They suggest that such arrangements may encourage over-utilization of services, in turn driving up health care costs. They believe that it would create a captive referral system, limiting competition by other providers.

Others say that some problems may exist, but are not widespread. Physicians are responding to a need which would otherwise not be met, particularly in a medically underserved area.

Most laws are not written with a delicate hand. Instead of auditing abuse, our government eliminates efficient services, including standard lab tests, for all of the patients and doctors who are not defrauding the system. Broad-brush laws have real consequences.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

AGW Scientists Can't Predict

The Caine Mutiny Teaches Us about Global Warming Scientists
02/17/09 - PajamasMedia by Frank J. Tipler

Academic degrees mean nothing if you can't say what is going to happen. Watch out for global warming scientists who can't predict the details. And watch out for "economists" who fiddle some equation as a reason to take your money to improve your life.

[edited] Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is justified via argument from authority: a consensus of “experts” holds that humans are responsible for the increase in the Earth’s average temperature.

I was once a leader in forming a scientific consensus based on expert opinion. In the late 1970s, most cosmologists believed the universe could not accelerate, based on very weak experimental evidence. In the late 1990's, we discovered that dark energy is accelerating the universe. I now regard “scientific consensus” as a synonym for “wrong.”

I am struck by the lack of accomplishments by the leaders of the AGW consensus. In fact, it is the leading opponents of AGW who have genuine scientific achievements in climatology. Reid Bryson was the “father of climatology,” a leading AGW skeptic, and had the achievements of a genuine scientist.

A true scientist demonstrates his knowledge by making predictions which can be confirmed or refuted. What counter-intuitive predictions have the Global Warmers ever made? I invite you to look.

I could not find a single counter-intuitive prediction made by any major Global Warmer. But, I have found cases of them trying to cover up failed predictions.

No Sports Economic Multiplier

Evidence against the multiplier
02/17/09 - CafeHayek by Russell Roberts

[edited] Almost all academic economists agree about the impact of subsidies and spending on sports stadiums. Building a stadium "creates" jobs, but the best estimates of NET job creation are ZERO.

From the survey paper "Do Economists Reach a Conclusion on Subsidies for Sports Franchises, Stadiums, and Mega-Events?" (PDF), 09/2008 :

Sports subsidies are unwarranted, based on economic intuition, a survey of economists, and a review of the literature on the economic impact of professional sports. There may be some local economic benefits, but the empirical findings strongly reject sports subsidies due to a lack of economic benefits.

There is a large and growing peer-reviewed economics literature done by economists, as opposed to that of scholars in public policy, urban development, and planning departments. This research is almost unanimous that stadiums, arenas, sports franchises, and sport mega-events have no consistent, positive impact on jobs, income, or tax revenues for the associated communities.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Teleprompter President

In All Fairness
02/16/09 - American Spectator by The Prowler
Via RiehlWorldView.

It seems that Obama gets real-time advice on what to say, along with scripted settings to say it.

[edited] A former Obama communications advisor has been giving notes and suggestions to the White House team, and worked with them on the inauguration.
The press conference speech looked scripted beyond the scripted part. Every president uses some pre-arranged questions or journalists to be called on, but this press conference was pretty ham-handed.

The White House wants to install a small computer screen into the podium for press conferences and events in the White House. The screen would indicate whom to call on, seat placement for journalists, notes, and points to hit. It would make it easier for the communication guys to pass along information without being obvious.

Using a screen is nothing new for Obama. Almost everything he said in supposedly unscripted townhall campaign events was scripted, down to many of the questions and their answers. Teleprompter screens showed his opening remarks, and also statistics and information he could use to answer questions.

Stimulus and Terpentine

The Stimulus Bill Smells of Turpentine
02/16/09 - AmericanThinker by Paul Shlichta

[edited] A farmer had a sick horse and wanted to call in a veterinarian. His neighbor said "You don't need no vet. Just feed him turpentine: two spoonfuls a day."

The farmer tried it, and the horse got sicker. The neighbor said, "You're not giving him enough; double the dose." The farmer followed the advice, increasing the dose several times, until the horse finally died. The neighbor drove by while the farmer was burying it. The neighbor hissed, "You didn't give him enough," and drove away.

The turpentine ploy provides politicians with a win-win situation. If their project succeeds, it's because of their brilliant leadership. If it fails, it was inadequately funded and needs more money.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

No Effect On Unemployment

The Obama-Geithner Bear Market
02/13/09 - Forbes.com by Robert Lenzner

[edited] The spectacle of nasty political infighting between Democrats and Republicans must be disturbing to investors everywhere. They question whether the $787 billion stimulus plan is sufficiently robust or properly focused.

Robert Albertson is a principal at Sandler O'Neill and a former Goldman Sachs banker:

[edited] After 18 years of record spending, much of it on credit, consumers must and will save the next $1 to $2 trillion of income to reduce their debt. Only private businesses create job multiplication and true future spending power. That requires a savings and investment program, not a doomed spending program.

Spending programs ate up resources for six years during the 1930s Depression, with little or no effect on unemployment.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Obama Praises Lincoln

Obama's Lincoln
02/14/09 - PowerlineBlog by Scott Johnson

[edited] Obama gave remarks on Lincoln's bicentennial in the Capitol rotunda. Obama struck a humble note at the opening, confessing that he "cannot claim to know as much about his life and works as many of those who are also speaking today." This humility quickly transformed into a personal tribute expressing a "special gratitude to this singular figure who in so many ways made my own story possible."

The medieval scholastics characterized themselves as dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants; they could see more and farther, not through any virtue of their own, but rather "because they were carried high and raised up." Obama omits any such self-assessment in his tribute to Lincoln. One wonders, does Obama think Lincoln is great because he made Obama possible?

A joke about some men on first dates.

Bruce had talked for ten minutes about his life, hobbies, and plans to move up at work.
Then, he paused and said: "Well, enough about me."
Sheila's eyes lit up in the hope that they could start a nice conversation.
He continued, "So, what you think about my plans?"

++++++++
Seduction and Politics
A politician on a first date.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Charming the Barbarians

President Obama Believes He Can Charm the Barbarians
02/11/09 - PajamasMedia by Phyllis Chesler

[edited] But what word other than “barbaric” describes the systematic incitement to violence that takes place in mosques and on television and which has led to mob rampages and episodes of “wilding”. Muslim girls and women are group-groped, gang raped, kidnapped into sexual slavery, set on fire, buried alive, and blinded by acid. This, for daring to go to school, work as a newscaster, a hairdresser, or for a foreign company, refuse to wear a shroud, or choose to marry someone of their own choice.

Beginning with President Obama, and including the American and western media, we had better start connecting the dots. We are not only facing “barbarians,” but we are facing barbarians who brilliantly and viciously employ non-conventional, asymmetrical, non-proportionate, and terrorist means of warfare–which unbelievably, our own media finds thrilling and romantic.

The western liberal media is terrified to further offend the rampaging Muslims whose religion is, presumably, one of peace. But not telling the truth and keeping one’s head deep in the sand does not abolish the barbarism. It only makes it more difficult for us to name it and to defend ourselves against it. For example, despite all the liberal media cautiousness, in 2009, a Polish engineer Piotr Stanczak was kidnapped, then beheaded on video in Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan.

The “barbarism” is hardly confined to Muslim countries. In Scotland there is an alarming pattern of Muslim or “Asian” murderous attacks upon young white boys.

Trusted Public Bicycles

The Great Parisian Bike Experiment
02/13/09 - CafeHayek by Russell Roberts

From the BBC two summers ago

[edited] The local authority in Paris has deposited 20,000 heavy-duty bicycles in 750 racks around the city. Users swipe an ordinary travel card and pedal off wherever they want to go.
There was no deposit involved with the bikes, just an inexpensive user fee. The outcome isn't pretty (via Jeff Bliss).
[edited] Over half the original 15,000 specially made bicycles are presumed stolen. They have been used 42 million times since their introduction but vandalism and theft are taking their toll.

The company JCDecaux says it can not afford to operate the city-wide network. Nearly all of the original bicycles have been replaced at a cost of 400 euros ($519, £351) each.

-----
Trusted Bicycles 2
10/31/09 - Don Surber

New York Times [edited]: 80% of the initial 20,600 bicycles are stolen or damaged. The program has hired several hundred people to fix them. This has dented the Paris budget and the self image of its residents.

Many of the specially designed $3,500 bikes are showing up on black markets in Eastern Europe and northern Africa. Many are being spirited away for urban joy rides, then ditched by roadsides with bent wheels and stripped tires. Many are vandalized without reason.

The company JCDecaux invested about $140 million to set up the system and pays a yearly fee of about $5.5 million to Paris, which also gets rental fees for the bikes. In return, JCDecaux may put up 1,628 billboards that it can rent.

Don Surber: There is a possibility that the company is making enough money from the billboards to offset the losses on the bikes.

That would make the city of Paris idealistic, and the JCDecaux company realistic.

How many utopian government programs have the same outline? Companies propose plans to achieve part of a glorious future. A "trusting" government grants money and privileges to those companies. The plan falls apart, but somehow the company and the politicians make money. Only the taxpaying public loses.

Audacity to Do Nothing

The Audacity of Doing Nothing
02/11/09 - Blogs.Law.Harvard.edu by Philip Greenspun
(via Peter G. Klein)

Our prosperous society is built on predictible law and consequences. This is already a shining accomplishment in an uncertain world. It does no good to, in effect, suspend the law and take extraordinary actions because some people made bad bets, lost money, and have political influence. Changing the rules and using naked government power makes things much worse. It removes predictability and rewards the people who took outrageous risks.

See also Rewarding Bank Management for Failure

[edited] The "real money" investors didn't want to invest alongside the government. If the bank loses money, they fear the government will take 100% of the value left in the bank and leave private investors with nothing, including recent ones. This happened to recent investors in Fannie Mae.

The "real money" investors didn't want judges to modify contracts, as when bankruptcy judges reset mortgage payments at a lower level and reduce the principal owed. A central tenet of the U.S. Constitution is that people are free to make contracts.

A foreclosure is greatly preferable to these folks than a modification. In a foreclosure, the most senior investors get what they expected, their money back. The holders of the most junior tranches [last to be paid], which carried a higher return and were known to be high risk, would get nothing. This is also what they expected. If mortgages are modified by government action, it is unclear how the obligations among the various private parties should be adjusted.

One money manager scoffed at the idea that the markets had failed. "The markets are working fine, but they're giving people answers that they don't like, so people cry market failure." Stocks and bonds low? That's because investors are afraid of a prolonged depression and continued government interference.

A house in a jobless region of Michigan is worth almost nothing. A place with 50% of its former jobs only needs 50% of its houses.

The government is a lot bigger and more powerful now than in prior recessions. Rich companies and people can put some of their wealth into lobbying. They demand that the government prevent them from getting wiped out or at least slow the process.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Non-Union Businesses Grow Faster

What Happened to American Unions?
02/12/09 - Econlog.Econlib.org by Bryan Caplan From Brink Lindsey's "Nostalgianomics":
[edited] Henry Farber of Princeton and sociologist Bruce Western of Harvard report that the main cause of declining union membership as a fraction of all workers, has been the slower growth of unionized workplaces compared to nonunionized.

Between 1973 and 1998, employment at
- nonunion companies grew at 2.8% a year
- unionized companies declined at 2.9% a year

Keeping up unions membership would have required organizing new workers at the rates of the early-1950s. But, organizing rates have declined steadily since then. Percent union membership has declined steadily since the 1970's.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Survive "Obama Care"

How to Survive "Obama Care"
02/11/09 - MDOD by 911DOC
A doctor in emergency medicine gives some advice about healthcare as specified by Obama and the "stimulus" bill.
[edited] Buried in the "stimulus" package is a bit on health care. It's not making the news in the way it should. It is the equivalent of a bomb threat to American Medicine.

Rationed care is on the way, and the folks who do the rationing will be government 'lifers' who can not be fired and just don't care. So here you go, get to work on these things quickly before the powers that be start watching you closely.

1. Obtain a second social security number and identification card that makes you ten years younger. Keep it well hidden and once you crack 70 years old, or whatever the new cut-off for 'extraordinary care' will be, you will not be kicked to the curb to die quietly at home.

The $500 you spend for this now may save your life later. And if you doubt that this will happen, I have a family member who left the UK twenty years ago because they would not do bypass surgery on her based on her age. She got it here.

(Read 2-5 at the link)

I can not conceive of the rationale for pushing this type of plan. It has been tried and has failed in the UK and, as we have detailed on this site, Canada has good primary care, but for those who do not get their brain cancer or breast cancer at a convenient time Canadians may wait until they die for their free care. They come here. That will stop.

Failure of the New Deal

Imitating Failure
02/08/09 - AmericanThinker by Nicholas J. Kaster
[edited]
Burton Folsom Jr. writes that the New Deal didn't work. He is a professor of history at Hillsdale College, and has published New Deal or Raw Deal? (Threshold Editions, 2008).

Folsom says the New Deal combined bad economic policy and a more corrupt central government.

Obama's so-called stimulus bill, a "new" New Deal full of massive spending, is based upon the conventional wisdom of the New Deal.It will ensure that today's bad economy stays with us for many years.

Henry Morgenthau was Secretary of the Treasury and a confidante of Roosevelt. He testified May 1939:

We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot!

Unemployment was 20+ percent in April 1939. This was nearly a decade after the 1929 crash and more than 6 years after FDR's inauguration.

During that time, FDR tried everything to end the crisis: cartelizing industry (the NRA), subsizing farmers (the AAA), creating make-work projects (the WPA), promoting organized labor (the Wagner Act), and finally, launching the modern welfare state (social security, minimum wage laws, the AFDC). It was all funded by a combination of increased debt, excise taxes, and high progressive income taxation.

Most historians tend to overwhelmingly support the New Deal. Folsom says:

Historians sympathize with FDR's "progressivism" and judge him on his good intentions rather than on the results. In the progressive view, intentions and sincerity are among the noblest virtues a president can possess.

If we probe deeply into Roosevelt's popularity, we almost always discover the presence of patronage -- creating and manipulating federal jobs to strengthen his political support.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Friedman On Greed

Milton Friedman On Greed
02/0/09 - PowerLineBlog by John Hinderaker

The late economist Milton Friedman in a video snippet. He responds to a talk show question: how can you support Capitalism, which is based on personal greed, when there is so much poverty in the world?

[edited excerpt]
Donahue: When you see around the globe the mal-distribution of wealth, the desperate plight of millions of people in undeveloped countries ... when you see the greed and the concentration of power, do you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism and whether greed is a good idea?

Friedman: The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the auto industry that way.

The only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade.

If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. The record of history is absolutely crystal clear: that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Obama's Feet of Clay

The Fierce Urgency of Pork
02/06/09 - WashingtonPost by Charles Krauthammer (via JustOneMinute)
An excerpt, not a summary.
[edited] Yet more damaging to Obama's image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama's name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.

The Age of Obama began with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits for tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change "planted" to "ready to market" for a new "bonus depreciation" incentive.

After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The promised great ethical transformations would be seen as the usual fairy tale that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Spending Did Not Help Japan

What can we learn from Japan?
02/06/09 - CafeHayek by Russell Roberts
[edited] Most Japanese economists take a bleaker view of their nation’s track record, saying that Japan spent more than enough money, but wasted too much of it on roads to nowhere and other unneeded projects.

Dr. Ihori surveyed public works in the 1990s. The spending created almost no additional economic growth. Instead of spreading beneficial ripple effects across the economy, the spending led to declines in business investment by driving out private investors.

Critics said decisions on how to spend the money were made behind closed doors by bureaucrats, politicians and the construction industry, and often reflected political rather than economic considerations.


The Japanese Didn't Try Hard Enough?
02/07/09 - Blog.Mises.Org by Tim Swanson

[edited] This NY Times story discusses the Japanese government spending packages during the 1990's.

The story notes that most Japanese consider all of the plans to be resolute failures. Yet, a number of Western economists believe that Japanese taxpayers simply did not spend enough!

How much was not enough? Japan spent $6.3 trillion on construction-related public investment between 1991 and September 2008. [That is $6,300 billion.]

Read the "Stimulus Package Unveiled" from the WSJ and "Japan" by Benjamin Powell.

Will You Bet On Your Opinion?

Will $100 Shut People Up?
02/06/09 - Crime & Federalism by Mike
[edited] When people state a stupid opinion or false fact, I no longer argue. I say, "OK - I'll bet you $100 that you are wrong."

People never take the bet. What's up with that? It's amazing how something as small as $100 can test a person's convictions. Amazingly, if you will not put $100 on the line, why should I believe you? People want me to change my mind based on their assertions; yet their assertions aren't even worth $100 to them!

How about people who demand that the government provide a stimulus to the economy. Perhaps Paul Krugman will say, "I'll wager $10,000 with any of my critics that if x-stimulus occurs, y-economic effect will follow."

Why aren't these economists making huge bets? They are rather confident in their opinions. They should go win that money! If they are embarrassed by greed, they can set up a charity as the beneficiary of the wager.

If someone wants to spend billions or trillions of taxpayer dollars, but won't offer up a few thousand of their own, then what should we think of him?

Thursday, February 5, 2009

We Don't Have Free Markets

Regulation of Financial Markets
02/05/09 - Cafehayek.com by Russell Roberts

If we had an “unregulated free market”:

  • The banks that made stupid investment decisions would have gone bankrupt and be under new management.
  • The investment rating agencies that rated subprime loans as “AAA” would be disgraced, bankrupt and out of business -- no one on earth would deal with them any longer
  • No one could force bankers to make risky loans, as is currently done by the Community Reinvestment Act, lawsuits from ACORN, and the Justice Department.
  • No central bank would be in charge of the entire money supply.
  • - to make credit available at too-low interest rates.
  • - to create a permanent inflation that made housing jump in "value".
  • - to encourage risk by being a lender of last resort.
  • - to condone and support an over-leveraged banking system, where reserves are only 4% of loans outstanding, inviting constant instability.
  • No Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or FHA could direct trillions of dollars into unaffordable housing construction.
  • The government could not borrow $1 trillion for handouts to political interest groups.
  • The few elements of remaining capitalism would not struggle under thousands of pages of rules and regulations, and dozens of government agencies.
  • The little guy would not have to contribute his funds to a government that saves the incompetent and the dishonest from the consequences of their own actions.
We don’t have an unregulated free market; we have an out-of-control government intent on looting us blind.

Leftist Arguments: A or B

Leftist Dual Models
02/05/09 - ChicagoBoyz by Shannon Love [edited, restated]

The Left has different arguments for different purposes.

Tobacco Taxes:

A: It is right to tax tobacco companies.

Tobacco use is the fault of evil tobacco companies, and smokers are their hapless victims. (1) Tobacco is highly physically addictive. People are largely powerless to stop smoking. (2) Marketing makes smoking so desirable that it subverts the choice not to smoke.

So, the companies are rightly paying billions (to state governments, not smokers) in compensation and are forced to stop brainwashing people with advertisements.

B: It is right to tax smokers.

Individuals freely choose to do something destructive to themselves and others. They can stop anytime they wish. Taxing them helps the smoker by inducing him to quit, and it compensates society for the harm that smokers choose to inflict on the community.

Social Security (SS) and Payroll Taxes:

A: Government payments to the retired are proper repayment of what was contributed.

SS represents a solid “investment” for workers. The compulsory payments are “contributions”, the same term used for private pension payments. Workers will reliably receive a higher rate of return than they can with private plans, because the government guarantees payouts. A worker will get back every dime he puts into Social Security plus interest. SS payouts are fair because they depend on how much a person contributes over his working life. SS is simply a compulsory government pension system whose benefits go to contributors.

B: Workers should get tax refunds based on their SS taxes.

SS is a regressive "tax" system that forces workers to carry the burden of supporting the elderly and disabled while getting nothing in return. The worker’s contribution to SS should be considered part of the general taxes he pays. These are not “contributions”, they are regressive taxes.

The analysis:
The only constant in these dual-model arguments is in who benefits. For tobacco, leftists get money to pay for votes and to increase the public’s dependency on government.

The SS arguments demand lower contributions and greater payouts, using contradictory statements.

Leftists choose which model to advance at any given time depending on how it benefits them, the politicians, and the particular political groups they identify with.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Democratic Trickle-Down Economics

Democrats Try Trickle-Down Economics
Growing government won't stimulate the real economy.
02/05/09 - Online.WSJ.com by Carl Rove
[edited] As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama attacked "trickle down economics" as "bankrupt" and an "old, discredited" philosophy that "didn't work." He was wrong. Even worse, he and congressional Democrats are embracing a Democratic version of trickle-down economics that won't work.

The House-passed "stimulus" bill, H.R. 1, is deeply flawed, assuming that spending $1 trillion to grow government will trickle down to help people who lost jobs. The Democrats' spending is horribly mismatched with industries that have suffered job loss.

Democrats want to spend $88 billion to increase the federal share of Medicaid. What American will be hired by a small business, factory, retail shop, hotel, restaurant or service company because of this spending? The answer is very few.

In H.R. 1, there's $41 billion set aside for school districts, $1.5 billion for university research grants, $2 billion for Energy Department labs, and $3 billion for the National Science Foundation. Yet education is one of the few sectors that added jobs last year.

There's also $4 billion for health programs like obesity control and smoking cessation, $2 billion for the National Institutes of Health, $462 million for the Centers for Disease Control, and $900 million for pandemic flu preparations. Health care also added jobs last year.

White House adviser Larry Summers argued that any stimulus must be "targeted, timely and temporary." This bill does the opposite. Mr. Obama pledged to "scour our federal budget, line by line, and make meaningful cuts." His cuts are unspecific and fanciful, while Congress's spending will be real and record-setting.

Discretionary domestic spending will have nearly doubled by the time Mr. Obama stops dithering and starts scouring.

-----
Worst Talking Point Ever
11/06/09 - The Atlantic by Megan McArdle

McArdle: If this is the best the Democrats can come up with, they are in deep, deep trouble.

From Politico: Members fear their jobs are next.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio): Speaker Pelosi is trying to force her members to vote for a bill that the American people have soundly rejected.

Democrats counter that their agenda has kick-started a recovery on Wall Street, even if it hasn't trickled down to the job market yet, and that Republicans are putting at risk what Democrats have begun.

Che Guevara's Message

Tune in, Turn on, Get Shot
02/04/09 - AmericanThinker by Humberto Fontova
[edited] Woe to those youths "who stayed up late at night and thus reported late to work at government forced-labor." Guevara wrote "Youth should learn to think and act as a mass. Those who chose their own path" (as in growing long hair and listening to Yankee-Imperialist Rock & Roll) were denounced as worthless "lumpen" and "delinquents." In his famous speech he vowed "to make individualism disappear from Cuba! It is criminal to think of individuals!"

Normally it's one .45 slug that shatters the skull. Eyewitnesses say Tony required POW! POW! POW! -- three. The executioner's hands were shaking pretty badly. They finally managed. Che Guevara, the man Time magazine placed among the "heroes and icons of the Century", had another notch in his gun. Another enemy dispatched, bound and gagged as usual.

Castro and Che were in their mid-30s when they murdered Tony. According to the authoritative "Black Book of Communism" their firing squads riddled another 14,000 bound and gagged freedom-fighters. Many (perhaps most) of their murder victims were boys in their late-teens and early 20s. Some were younger.

-----
The Real Che Guevara
02/17/09 - Samizdata by Sol Terra

The real Guevara was a reckless bourgeois adrenaline-junkie seeking a place in history as a liberator of the oppressed. But this fanatic's vehicle of 'liberation' was Stalinism, named for Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, murderer of well over 20 million of his own people.

As one of Castro's top lieutenants, Che helped steer Cuba's revolutionary regime in a radically repressive direction. Soon after overthrowing Batista, Guevara choreographed the executions of hundreds of Batista officials without any fair trials. He thought nothing of summarily executing even fellow guerrillas suspected of disloyalty and shot one himself with no due process.

-----
Killer Chic
Hollywood's Sick Love Affair With Che Guevara
03/2009 - Reason.TV

A video (8:30) about Che Guevara's influence in Hollywood. There are comments by people who have lived in Cuba under Castro, and in China under Mao.

[edited] Gisele Bundchen wears him on the runway, Johnny Depp wears him around his neck, and Benicio Del Toro becomes him in "Che", the new, highly acclaimed, two-part epic film from Steven Soderbergh. Ernesto "Che" Guevara is the revolutionary who helped found communist Cuba. He is the celebrity that celebrities adore. Be it Madonna, Rage Against the Machine, or Jay-Z, musicians really dig Che.

This baffles Cuban jazz legend Paquito D’Rivera. “Che hated artists, so how is it possible that artists still today support the image of Che Guevara?” It turns out the rebellious icon that emblazons countless T-shirts actually enforced aesthetic and political conformity. D’Rivera explains that Che and other Cuban authorities sought to ban rock n roll and jazz.

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AIG Exec Digs Che Guevara?
03/18/09 - American Thinker by Humberto Fontova

The article shows an executive from the bailed-out insurance company AIG, wearing a Che t-shirt at a social event. It talks about how the Cuban people have become poor under Castro despite massive aid from the Soviet Union.

The following quote is from Fontova's new book "Exposing the Real Che Guevara".

[edited] After a hard day at the office signing execution warrants, Che Guevara repaired to his new domicile in Tarara, 15 miles outside Havana and on a pristine beachfront. Today, that beach is reserved exclusively for tourists and Communist party members.

The "austere idealist" Che hadn't done too badly for himself in this real estate transaction, known in non-revolutionary societies as theft.

Cuban journalist Antonio Llano Montes writes:

[edited] The house was among the most luxurious in Cuba. Until a few weeks prior, it belonged to Cuba's most successful building contractor. The mansion had a boat dock, a huge swimming pool, seven bathrooms, a sauna, a massage salon and several television sets.

One TV had been specially designed in the U.S., had a screen ten feet wide, and was operated by remote control (in 1959). This was thought to be the only TV of its kind in Latin America.

The garden had a veritable jungle of imported plants, a pool with waterfall, ponds filled with exotic tropical fish, and several bird houses filled with parrots and other exotic birds. The habitation was something out of "A Thousand and One Nights".

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The Benefits of Health Savings Accounts

Knockin' Wood: The Benefits of Health Savings Accounts - HSA's
02/03/09 - InsureBlog by Henry Stern

The Urban Institute doesn't like free market solutions to health care and insurance issues, so they decided to pick on the one product that is the most useful in reducing costs and insuring more people: consumer driven health care plans and HSA's. In reality:

  • HSA's are attractive to people of all incomes.
  • Those who need usual health care services benefit from these plans, which avoid costly "extras".
  • High deductible HSA plans have lower premiums than expensive plans with lower initial co-pays. Since the plans have higher deductibles, it seems more likely that those with more health problems (up to a point, of course) will be more likely to make it through underwriting.
  • 6+ million Americans are enrolled in HSA-eligible health plans. Their popularity is growing. Patients determine how much of their money to spend today, or save for tomorrow, for health-care expenses. HSAs allow patients to make prudent decisions for themselves.

Macroeconomics is Astrology, Not Science

Macroeconomics 'Experts' Apply Astrology, Not Science
01/30/09 - RealClearMarkets by Frank J. Tipler, Professor of Mathematical Physics at Tulane University.
[edited] The inability of macroeconomic theories (about an entire economy) to make accurate predictions means that those economists do not know what they are talking about. Our leaders are being advised by macroeconomists, and they haven’t got a clue where they are leading us. Their actions may lead us out of the current recession, or they may lead us into a depression as bad as the Great Depression.

Franklin Roosevelt is often given credit for experimenting with the economy in a scientific manner. He did nothing of the sort.

Any experiment involving human beings has to be a controlled experiment, as in medicine. Half the patients are given the new medicines and the other half, the controls, either the old medicine, or a placebo. Then, and only then, can one tell if the medicine actually improves the condition over doing nothing (the placebo), or is making matters worse.

In contrast, today’s economic advisors to the President, like Roosevelt, propose to apply their economic medicine to the entire economy. This is astrology, not science. The professors of economics have no true, experimentally confirmed knowledge of macroeconomics.

The widely touted macroeconomic “experts” are no experts at all.

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Why Spending Stimulus Plans Fail
Articles about Stimulus

Interrogation, Torture, and Rendition

The Necessity of Torture
02/02/09 - ChicagoBoyz by Shannon Love
About the use of threats in interrogation from WWII to the present.
[edited] Obama has decided to keep rendition and the torture it implies as part of U.S. covert operations. Threatening to torture spies and illegal combatants is a necessary tool.

The US Army in WWII interrogated uniformed German soldiers i.e. legal combatants completely covered by the Geneva convention. The History Channel reported about the most successful technique. Many of the interrogators were Jews who escaped Germany and Eastern Europe in the 30’s and who spoke many languages in genuine accents. The Russian speaking members dressed in Soviet uniforms and told the German captives that they would be turned over to the Russians unless they talked. The Germans knew full well that death by torture awaited them at the hands of the Russians, and talked.

The American interrogators were bluffing. If a German didn’t talk they just transferred him so he couldn’t give the game away. Without the horror of Stalin’s Soviet Union hanging over their heads, the Germans had no reason to speak. The information that the Americans extracted form the German soldiers saved Allied lives.

---------
The “Extraordinary Rendition” Program
02/02/09 - ChicagoBoyz by Lexington Green

An interview with Michael Scheuer of the CIA. He helped to develop the system of renditions the CIA used for terrorists, first developed in 1995 under President Clinton.

A rendition is capturing a terrorist, then sending him to his home country or a third country for imprisonment. The legal rules followed are surprising.

[edited] Scheuer:First, we wanted to identify the members and contacts of al-Qaida and put them in jail. Those in fact who had either taken part in an attack on the United States or who were possibly planning an attack. Second, papers and electronics were to be confiscated.

It is being claimed in the media that we had apprehended and hauled off people on the basis of some suspicions, in order to interrogate them. But that isn't right.

If it was possible to interrogate, we considered that icing on the cake. We just wanted the man and his documents. We knew from experience that aggressive interrogations bordering on torture don't work

President Clinton, his security advisor Sandy Berger, and his terrorism advisor Richard Clarke tasked the CIA in Fall 1995 with destroying al-Qaida. We asked the President: What should we do with the people we’ve apprehended? Clinton: That’s your concern. The CIA objected: We aren’t prison guards. We were again told that we should solve the problem somehow. So we developed a procedure, and I was a member of this task force. We concentrated on al-Qaida members who were wanted in their home countries or who had been convicted there in absentia.

We had to present a huge amount of incriminating evidence to a group of lawyers before arresting anyone. There were lawyers everywhere. In the CIA, in the Justice Department, in the National Security Council.

We developed our list of targets under their supervision. Then we had to catch the person in a country that was prepared to cooperate with us. Finally, the person had to come from a country that was prepared to take him back. A terribly cumbersome process for a very limited group of targets.

ZEIT: Why did countries want to cooperate with you on their own territory? Couldn’t they have dealt with it themselves?

Scheuer: They believed that only America was threatened, and that they would themselves only become targets of terror if they arrested suspects publicly.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Hansen's Claims About Global Warming Embarrassed NASA

Hansen Embarrassed NASA
02/01/09 - PowerLineBlog by John Hinderaker

James Hansen of NASA is a leader in espousing the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). He has public credibility because of his NASA affiliation. His boss at NASA was John Theon, who has recently retired, and has announced his view that AGW is not supported by evidence.

Theon writes:

[edited] As Chief of several NASA Hq. Programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research.

James Hansen was never muzzled, even though he violated NASA's official position, that NASA did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it. He embarrassed NASA by his claims of global warming in his 1988 testimony before Congress.

I believe that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system, because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit.

Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. They don't explain what they have modified in the observations or how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done.

Thus, there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.

++++++++
Global Warming Caused by Humans is a Scam

The Fraud of Anthropogenic Global Warming

The Greatest Fraud in History?
01/30/09 - PajamasMedia by James Lewis
[edited] The credibility of science may never recover from the Global Warming scare. Credibility has to be earned, and once it’s squandered may never be recovered. Far too many scientists have knowingly colluded in an historic fraud, one that would put Bernie Madoff to shame. We are seeing political larceny here on a planetary scale. Why should scientists who have gambled their own reputations on this fakery ever be trusted again?

I’m not a climatologist. Like most scientists I rarely judge what others do in their fields. And yet it’s been flamingly obvious for years now, that the hypothesis of human-caused global warming violates all the basic rules and safeguards that protect the integrity of normal, healthy science. That’s why AGW (anthropogenic global warming) looks like a massive fraud, the biggest fraud ever in the history of science.

Mr. Lewis discusses a number of things that real scientists NEVER do. These are all things that promotors of global warming are doing loudly and repeatedly. It is politics or religion, but not science. Here is one point (it is worth reading the rest):

Bad data has been very widespread in global warming theories. Judging by past performance, it may still be endemic. Thermometers are placed in hot areas in the cities, and the data is shamelessly generalized to the whole world. The infamous “hockey stick” temperature diagram has been exposed. James Hansen has brought NASA to its lowest point ever by repeatedly endorsing false data.

In any healthy field of science, that disastrous empirical record would have discredited the hypothesis. But while the data seems to crash periodically, the models don’t change in their catastrophism.

+++++++++++++
Global Warming Caused by Humans is a Scam