Obama and JFK Debate the Laffer Curve

At Dan Mitchell, via Glenn Reynolds.

Newsweek is Worthlesss

The only time I read Time or Newsweek is when I have to go to a doctor's waiting room. Every time I do, it makes me want to cause myself severe physical damage as punishment. (Remember when I wrote this? I read that TIME piece back in December at Lia's Obgyn appointment right before we had Reia.)

At Lia's doctor appointment today, I had the pleasure of reading this stinker about how Japan's socialized medicine is Oh-So-Awesome. They actually say that it's a universal system, but not "socialized medicine" (the "scare quotes" are theirs).

The description of how the system works vaguely resembles reality, but many of the facts are wrong or are left out. What's extra funny is they seem to have read this article in the WaPo and that was pretty much the entirety of their research, yet they contradict the source article several times, probably because the Washington Post doesn't paint as rosy a picture.

Much like in Canada, the Japanese spend a lot of time waiting in line for care. Hospitals are legally constrained to be not for profit, as are insurance companies. Doctors are paid far less there, hence there shortages of them.

Newsweek denies the system is socialist, just as the left denies Obamacare is socialist, but the truth is that 70% of expenses are paid by the goverment. How is this not a socialist system if the vast majority of cost is distributed amongst the taxpayers?. Okay, so I guess it's 30% non-crappy. My bad.

Score One For the Good Guys

Congratulations everybody! You won't ever have to listen to me bitch about this anymore!

Arizona speed cameras going away

That's right. I consider it a very personal victory since I have pissed and moaned and made my discontent known to everyone who would listen. I've yelled and screamed and convinced others to not mail in their tickets and told everyone I could not to ever pay them. I've even gotten several photoradar tickets mailed to me myself (and to Lia when I drove her car). Guess how many I have paid? If you guessed ZERO, you win.

Whatever forms of tyranny may be present in this world, at least I know I fought against one form of it and won, suckers!

One caveat to this, of course is that if by some small chance I get caught in another city like Tucson or in other states that have these Pint-size Oppress-o-cams, the bitching will start all over again. But I'll probably just do what I did before and throw the ticket in the trash.

The banner pic, by the way is of rapper DMX's photo-radar candid on the Scottsdale 101 at Shea Blvd. Heh!

World Oil Spill Facts

I dug up some numbers on other oil spills to put the BP oil spill into perspective. Mind you, I'm not trying to find a way to make it okay to spill millions of gallons of crude into the ocean, I'm just collecting data!

Of course, everyone remembers the Exxon Valdez, which was amounted to 11.4 Million gallons. But there were four other spills since then that were bigger:

(Source)

Man, that late 80's to early 90's changeover was rough!

In addition, oil finds its way into the water from sources other than industrial accidents:

(Source)

Also, for the Gulf of Mexico in particular, 43 Million gallons naturally seep into the water annually (Source).

The estimates of what volume of oil is spilling from the BP hole vary wildly, but based on what I've read, it's probably around 1 Million gallons per day. It could be double that, but no one really knows at this point.

So at 60 days and counting, the BP spill is probably larger than the Gulf of Mexico's natural seepage, worldwide natural seepage, and most other recent spills. But it probably won't touch Saddam Hussein's little hissy fit it threw when we invaded in the '90's, and it wont touch the amount of oil that each year finds itself into the ocean from the hillbilly down the street who changes the oil on his 86 Camero and flushes it down the toilet. It definitely won't surpass what gets into the ocean from every other source possible.

As for the Exxon Valdez, I think it's revealing that everyone remembers this spill when there have been many others bigger, and even since that spill in '89. Captain Hazelwood was also drunk, and that makes a good news story, but I think it has more to do with the fact that if a US company does it, or it happens in US territory, it's a bigger deal.

Oh yeah, one more fact: Roark bought stock in BP after the spill at $37. I guess I'm an optimist. We'll see how it plays out. It's fallen and holding at $31 so far. If it goes to 20 or 25 I'll probably double down. There's no way even the harshest penalties, worst case clean-up cost, and loss public image will account for their loss of $75M of market value.

UPDATED on 6/16: Some spelling, phrasing, clarification on the Valdez, and additional comments about BP stock.

Everybody Draw Mohammad Day

A collection of links to today's celebration!

http://everyonedrawmohammed.blogspot.com/
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/04/22/everybody-draw-mohammed-day
http://reason.com/blog/2010/04/23/first-annual-everybody-draw-mo
The Objective Standard
Free Colorado

Here I present my entry:

Flagstaff Tea Party Video

It's official. I'm a crazy person. I led a clean life up until now, but I showed up at a protest rally for the first time in my life, and what dubious group do I choose to associate myself with on my first time out? Those damn redneck-idiot-racist-know-nuthin-Teabagger-Nazi-pieces of trash!

So here is my video from the Flagstaff Tax Day Tea Party Protest. It's nothing fancy, just an eight-minute video of some people out on the lawn in front of Flag city hall. You won't be riveted by this, despite my effort to make it exciting. It's pretty boring actually.

And that's really the point.

There wasn't anything out of the ordinary. If there were nutcases there, they didn't advertise it.

My mission was simple. My intent clear, but easy to accomplish. I decided to go, witness, and record the event with one purpose: to find any nutjobs that I could. I wanted to see if there were any fringe elements to this movement, at least in this town, and figure out, at the very least, if one town in America had a Tea Party group that was worth taking seriously.

Could my eyewitness account or my video prove without a doubt that there are no crazies at all worth considering in the Tea Party movement nationwide? Of course not. But I can at least get a flavor of it in my own town and see for myself and offer my own first-hand account for the record.

Here are some examples of who I would consider a fringe nutjob:

• Nazi's: either Swastika's or Iron Crosses must be present.
• Racists: any signs or slogans that make reference to Barack Obama's race, any disrespectful or shady language or imagry that may indicate the sloganeer may have problems with BHO that dont have anthing to do with his politics.
• Truthers: any claim to the idea that 9/11 was an inside job, or any other conspiracy theorists on display in any way.
• Fundamentalists: rabid anti-abortionists, rabid creationists, religious zealots, or anything that would make a regular guy like me squirm just by being nearby.

In addition to nutjobs, I was on the lookout for:

• Run-of-the-Mill Idiots - because everyone critical of the Tea Party is going to tell you they're all morons. Is it true? Well I planned on talking to a few to see.

A little background: Flagstaff, AZ is a town of 60,000 people. It is a college town with a local University. At the risk of painting with a broad brush, I'll say that the population tends to be somewhat liberal and the "hippie contingent" is quite strong, but there are plenty of Conservative Cowboys here too.

Flagstaff has its share of crazies, left AND right of center. The Planned Parenthood here has protesters outside regularly with pictures of mangled fetuses. The younger left wing anarchist radicals are usually willing to protest at the drop of a hat. If there are crazies to be had in the Tea Party movement, they will show up in Flagstaff.

Not only were there no Truthers or Nazi's. I didn't even see any people with the types of socially conservative messages that I expected to see at a predominantly Republican gathering. This, minus any fringe element above would have been the only thing that could have turned me off, even if there weren't any crazies there. That's because to me, the Tea Party movement is not about social issues. Sure, there are people in it who would call themselves died-in-the-wool conservatives, but that's not the focus here, and that's not what people are worried about.

The other surprizing thing is the amount of approval from the passers by on Route 66, and the minimal amount of disapproval. As you can hear in the video, there is a lot of honking going on, and that was the case for two hours while people were there. Those weren't honks of anger, either. I counted 4 people in the space of 30 minutes (while I was really paying attention and not talking to people) who passed by and flipped the bird, yelled something in disagreement, or gave some other negative reaction. Pretty impresisve, especially for such a fringe radical movement like the Tea Party which is so full of nutjobs that normal people would never agree with in any way...*cough*.

I went and talked to people in the crowd- total strangers I had never met before - just to get a feel for the attitude. I met Warren, James, Theresa, Peggy, and others. All of them had a story to tell. Towards the end you can see that I even ran into an old friend that I didn't know was going to be there. If he's a nutcase, it's news to me.

It was the first time I did anyting like this but it was very interesting.

Wackos, indeed. - Not!

Arizona Doctor Goes Galt

“If you voted for Obamacare, be aware these doors will close before it goes into effect.”

Earthquakes, Avatar, and Environmentalism

If only nature behaved according to James Cameron's fantasy world in Avatar. If only we could get whatever we needed from nature when we needed it, and there would be no need for us to live anything other than a simple existence in touch with nature, and no need of matarialism or wealth.

Alas, the world we live in is not so benevolent. The reality around us is full of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, viruses, disease, all manner of poisonous plants and venomous animals.

Even worse, we aren't born with fangs or claws, or even a pelt of fur to keep us warm. The only tool we have to survive is our ability to reason: to build and improve and create wealth; to build shelter, to make tools, to create all the necessary things for basic survival and much more: music, art, entertainment, and athletics.

It's not politically correct to make the statement above, nor is it politically correct to say this: that the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile could not demonstrate more clearly the need for wealth and technology, and a society that values them.

How can I be so callous to make this comparison? Surely the people of Haiti didn't bring this earthquake on themselves. But do they bear any responsibility for their own fate? The 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile was 500 times more powerful, yet it was 200 times less deadly, than the one in Haiti, which measured a 7.0. How could this possibly be?

Many people say the building codes in Haiti are just not good enough. But what if the government of Haiti had enacted building codes a year before this earthquake? What about five years ago? Would it have made any difference? If that happened, I wonder if the people in the slums of Port-au-Prince would have picked themselves up, gone to the local Home Depot, and built a better roof for the tin shed they live in.

Of course not.

Building codes have nothing to do with it. It's the wealth necessary to follow the building codes that matters. Wealth is something Haiti, one of the most impoverished countries in the world, has very little of.

Environmentalism as a creed tells us that we need to live closer to nature; to be less materialistic; to live with less wealth, not more. This is why I believe hardcore environmentalism to be cruel. It is an a completely unfeeling, uncaring belief system that wishes us to live in squalor in the name of protecting mother earth from the unchecked success of humankind, instead of it's proper opposite: to protect humanity from the rages of an unchecked mother earth.

It isn't me who is cruel for identifying an oppressed, corrupt nation as the masters of it's own fate, even in the aftermath of a deadly natural disaster. It actually pains me to see a country live like this for so long, and have years to correct the problem, and watch as a natural disaster turns into a man-made disaster.

Environmentalism and any other similar belief that tends to eschew wealth and free markets are all cruel and unkind since they refuse to identify the true source of mass death and tragedy: dictatorship, corruption, and managed economies.

A strong economy with a free market at its root will foster success and happiness on a daily basis, but it also reduces human suffering in the event of natural disasters. That's right. Capitalism saves lives.

Jenny McCarthy Body Count

When will Jenn-ay kill her 500th person? Will your family be affected by a nearly eradicated disease because your neighbor watched Jenny on Oprah? Watch it all unfold at Jenny McCarthy Body Count!

In college I would have agreed to have Jenny McCarthy's babys. That's only because she was in Playboy, and I was in college. And single. And she hosted Singled Out on Mtv. It seemed like a good plan at the time.

But in reality, she's just an idiot. To the point of being criminally so. She used to get paid to be an idiot on TV part time. Now she's a full time idiot, trying to convince the world that her son has autism because she vaccinated him, therefore no-one else should vaccinate their kids either.

Time's not completely horrible article on the subject quotes her as saying,

"What number does it have to be ... for people just to start listening to what the mothers of children who have autism have been saying for years ... I told my pediatrician something happened ... after [he was vaccinated] ?... Boom — the soul was gone from his eyes." Later, when Oprah read a comment from the CDC stating that the vast majority of the science to date did not support her assertion, McCarthy replied, "My science is Evan. He's at home. That's my science."

Uhhhm. That's actually not science at all. That's just a coincidence. One of the funniest stories I ever heard was when a friend of mine told me his dog crapped a sock. Because he ate a sock. The it came out of him later. If Jenny McCarthy heard this story she would say socks must come from when dogs poop them out. And when you tell her that that assertion is not supported by science, she'll say, "My science is Mugsy. He's at home. That's my science."

Jenny blames the MMR (Measles Mumps and Rubella) most of all. Reia has indeed had this vaccine. No soul lost yet. I'd be willing to keep posting updates on this but I'd rather spend all my time looking around my backyard for some new socks. Sorry.

Alien Lifeform