It's odd the people are showing shock and surprise at Rush Limbaugh for his goal line stand on the Sherrod fiasco. Limbaugh is a very rich man, who has built his fortune on his ability to present the world to a significant segment of the population in a manner that they support.
He's a successful businessman and his expressed opinions are his product. Whether they are genuine opinions, or whether they make sense, is as irrelevant as whether Lindsay Lohan thinks she should go to jail. He says what his rabble wants to hear and gets well paid for doing so. End of story.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Paul Krugman versus reality
Krugman believes that without government opening the spigots of borrowed cash to solve our current economic problem, we're doomed to sink further. The Europeans, he assures us, have it all wrong. Gonna tank over across the Atlantic.
Despite his advice, the Europeans are showing signs of discipline in government spending. They are taking deficits seriously. Nevertheless, or in consequence depending on what you believe, the euro zone is showing signs of life, while the American economy, having "benefited" from trillions of deficit spending, remains in the doldrums.
How inconvenient!
Despite his advice, the Europeans are showing signs of discipline in government spending. They are taking deficits seriously. Nevertheless, or in consequence depending on what you believe, the euro zone is showing signs of life, while the American economy, having "benefited" from trillions of deficit spending, remains in the doldrums.
How inconvenient!
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Why the Washington Post is still needed
If we saw anything from the Shirley Sherrod incident, it's the danger of allowing people who don't understand fact checking to lead national opinion. Bloggers have their role, which is to stir things up, but when the NAACP and the USDA take as gospel their "investigation" of something, and act immediately, we get what we have just got. Those people who were genuinely snookered will now be backing up, and claiming that it wasn't their fault. People like Fox News will be making excuses like they had nothing to do with it.
The truth is that the blogosphere has scared everybody in power to the degree that they feel obligated to respond quickly. This is what the social media people tell companies. When criticized in the evening, have a response on Facebook by midnight. Don't wait until the morning.
Responsible journalism, as practiced still by the Washington Post and some others, checks facts and gets as full a story as possible, or at least indicates that all the facts are not yet in. If they go down and we're left with the raving lunatics of the Internet, God help us.
The truth is that the blogosphere has scared everybody in power to the degree that they feel obligated to respond quickly. This is what the social media people tell companies. When criticized in the evening, have a response on Facebook by midnight. Don't wait until the morning.
Responsible journalism, as practiced still by the Washington Post and some others, checks facts and gets as full a story as possible, or at least indicates that all the facts are not yet in. If they go down and we're left with the raving lunatics of the Internet, God help us.
Reality sets in
In an AP article about how the well is soon to be capped, appeared the following telling items:
News that a solution is near cheered Jeff Hunt who scans the waves daily for telltale tar balls in Pensacola Beach, Fla.
If three months on, people are "scanning" for signs of the oil spill in Pensacola, we can assume that Pensacola isn't going to be much impacted. Things always wash up on beaches. Dead fish, dead birds, dead whales. A few tar balls aren't going to matter much.
The spill hasn't reached the big money beaches of Florida so we can assume that they either won't at all or won't in any material way. The surface of the water around the well is already starting to look better. There are many other seeping wells in the gulf that nobody bothers with because the gulf simply processes the oil.
In six months, except for a few locations, you'll have a hard time finding evidence that this spill ever took place.
News that a solution is near cheered Jeff Hunt who scans the waves daily for telltale tar balls in Pensacola Beach, Fla.
If three months on, people are "scanning" for signs of the oil spill in Pensacola, we can assume that Pensacola isn't going to be much impacted. Things always wash up on beaches. Dead fish, dead birds, dead whales. A few tar balls aren't going to matter much.
The spill hasn't reached the big money beaches of Florida so we can assume that they either won't at all or won't in any material way. The surface of the water around the well is already starting to look better. There are many other seeping wells in the gulf that nobody bothers with because the gulf simply processes the oil.
In six months, except for a few locations, you'll have a hard time finding evidence that this spill ever took place.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Global Warming vs AGW
Eugene Robinson, appearing in today's Register-Guard, considers the debate on global warming to be over. We should now proceed to the debate on how to deal with it. I'd be perfectly happy, except that warmists shut down any discussion of alternatives to their apocalyptic vision.
But leaving that aside, the debate is not really over warming, it's over manmade warming and specifically over the impact of CO2 in the atmosphere. NASA has a Key Climate Indicators site where they should a number of interesting graphs. One of these is temperature. It does in fact show a much steeper rise over the past 30 years than during the 30 that preceded. CO2 is also much higher. This could be taken as an indication of causation.
However, looking somewhat left on the same graph, we find the period 1910 to 1940. Also 30 years, also showing a rise of about .5 C, however without the corresponding CO2 concentrations.
It's probably getting a bit warmer. It has been getting warmer for the past two and a half centuries, since the end of the Little Ice Age. Still farther back in time, it used to be warmer than then and maybe warmer than now. At the point that science can explain why it's now CO2 and not the same factors that have played out before, then maybe the science will be settled. Not before.
But leaving that aside, the debate is not really over warming, it's over manmade warming and specifically over the impact of CO2 in the atmosphere. NASA has a Key Climate Indicators site where they should a number of interesting graphs. One of these is temperature. It does in fact show a much steeper rise over the past 30 years than during the 30 that preceded. CO2 is also much higher. This could be taken as an indication of causation.
However, looking somewhat left on the same graph, we find the period 1910 to 1940. Also 30 years, also showing a rise of about .5 C, however without the corresponding CO2 concentrations.
It's probably getting a bit warmer. It has been getting warmer for the past two and a half centuries, since the end of the Little Ice Age. Still farther back in time, it used to be warmer than then and maybe warmer than now. At the point that science can explain why it's now CO2 and not the same factors that have played out before, then maybe the science will be settled. Not before.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Why liberals should support the Second Amendment
Daily Kos has an article entitled, "Why Liberals Should Love the Second Amendment." Personally, I think this goes a little too far, but a more moderate position would be expect liberals, and most particularly ACLU liberals, to support the Second Amendment, whatever they feel about the NRA.
Back in the 1960's, Lyndon Johnson remarked, with reference to those attacking him from the left of his own party, "I'm the only president you've got." Those were different times and many of us probably would not have eased up, even knowing that it might lead to Richard Nixon.
What the ACLU and its supporters should now recognize is that the first ten amendments are the only Bill of Rights we've got. The horse trading ended two centuries ago. Actually, at that time the First and Second amendments were probably not appealing to separate constuencies as they do now, but no matter. They are both in the Bill of Rights.
For two hundred years, courts have been extending the interpretation of the Constitution from its literal form to adapt to modern realities and modern sensibilities. It's certainly true that the framers of the Constitution did not envision powerful and accurate handguns, or assault rifles beyond what anyone would use to hunt game for the family. But they also did not regard burning a flag as speech.
The problem is that by criticizing an expansive view of the Second Amendment, you call into question the expansive view of the First. Frankly, the Second isn't much of a problem. Gun laws haven't stopped gun violence, or even dented it in places like Chicago.
But actually reining it in would be a problem. I worry much more about my government than about my armed neighbors, and a possibly overwrought interpretation of the Second Amendment isn't going to change my priorities.
Back in the 1960's, Lyndon Johnson remarked, with reference to those attacking him from the left of his own party, "I'm the only president you've got." Those were different times and many of us probably would not have eased up, even knowing that it might lead to Richard Nixon.
What the ACLU and its supporters should now recognize is that the first ten amendments are the only Bill of Rights we've got. The horse trading ended two centuries ago. Actually, at that time the First and Second amendments were probably not appealing to separate constuencies as they do now, but no matter. They are both in the Bill of Rights.
For two hundred years, courts have been extending the interpretation of the Constitution from its literal form to adapt to modern realities and modern sensibilities. It's certainly true that the framers of the Constitution did not envision powerful and accurate handguns, or assault rifles beyond what anyone would use to hunt game for the family. But they also did not regard burning a flag as speech.
The problem is that by criticizing an expansive view of the Second Amendment, you call into question the expansive view of the First. Frankly, the Second isn't much of a problem. Gun laws haven't stopped gun violence, or even dented it in places like Chicago.
But actually reining it in would be a problem. I worry much more about my government than about my armed neighbors, and a possibly overwrought interpretation of the Second Amendment isn't going to change my priorities.
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Dog Bites Man Again
It seems to be news that the Afghan government won't allow prosecutions of corrupt government officials. It also seems to be news that the powerful people behind the "government" of Haiti are more concerned with further enrichment than rebuilding Port-au-Prince.
This isn't news. These are not governments in the sense we know them, organizations of people working generally for the betterment of the population. The "governments" of Afghanistan and Haiti, and many others throughout the world, are essentially criminal in nature and exist for the exploitation of the citizenry.
There isn't anyone who can fix Haiti. And nobody can fix Afghanistan except the Taliban. Oops, we're fighting the Taliban while insisting that Afghanistan be fixed. Just a small logical dilemma.
This isn't news. These are not governments in the sense we know them, organizations of people working generally for the betterment of the population. The "governments" of Afghanistan and Haiti, and many others throughout the world, are essentially criminal in nature and exist for the exploitation of the citizenry.
There isn't anyone who can fix Haiti. And nobody can fix Afghanistan except the Taliban. Oops, we're fighting the Taliban while insisting that Afghanistan be fixed. Just a small logical dilemma.
Monday, July 05, 2010
The third world is looking robust
In two articles I've just read, Southeast Asia and Turkey seem to be booming while the United States and Europe are in the doldrums. To quote part of the article on Turkey:
So complete has this evolution been that Turkey is now closer to fulfilling the criteria for adopting the euro — if it ever does get into the European Union — than most of the troubled economies already in the euro zone.
The comfortable feeling that we know how to do things and everybody else needs to learn from us may have been true. Fortunately or unfortunately, they appear to have learned what they need.
So complete has this evolution been that Turkey is now closer to fulfilling the criteria for adopting the euro — if it ever does get into the European Union — than most of the troubled economies already in the euro zone.
The comfortable feeling that we know how to do things and everybody else needs to learn from us may have been true. Fortunately or unfortunately, they appear to have learned what they need.
Sunday, July 04, 2010
Maybe this time, word will get around
An Associated Press writer reports from the congo:
At the time, Jackson Ndengwa, 15, was inside one of the makeshift halls to watch one of his favorite teams, Ghana, play Uruguay.
"The hall was full of people," he said from his hospital bed in the lakeside town of Uvira, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) to the south. "We never expected that there could be a fire like this."
At first, I assumed it was a sudden event that nobody could escape. Now it turns out that the tanker was leaking for an hour and the UN folks were trying to get everyone out of the area because of the danger.
Instead, they wanted to watch the World Cup.
At the time, Jackson Ndengwa, 15, was inside one of the makeshift halls to watch one of his favorite teams, Ghana, play Uruguay.
"The hall was full of people," he said from his hospital bed in the lakeside town of Uvira, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) to the south. "We never expected that there could be a fire like this."
At first, I assumed it was a sudden event that nobody could escape. Now it turns out that the tanker was leaking for an hour and the UN folks were trying to get everyone out of the area because of the danger.
Instead, they wanted to watch the World Cup.
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Bye, Bye, Karzai
According to the LA Times, during the huge festivities to welcome General Petraeus to Kabul,
Karzai, whose relationship with the Obama administration has been strained amid fresh allegations of corruption in his government, was not present for Saturday's festivities, although the presidential palace said he was in the capital. He sent his foreign minister, Zalmay Rasul, to represent him.
We're spending untold billions of dollars propping up his sorry ass, and he snubs the ceremony. Let's get the hell out. Now. Today. Pack our gear, come home, and let the rump government sort things out. If they start any more trouble, nuke 'em.
Karzai, whose relationship with the Obama administration has been strained amid fresh allegations of corruption in his government, was not present for Saturday's festivities, although the presidential palace said he was in the capital. He sent his foreign minister, Zalmay Rasul, to represent him.
We're spending untold billions of dollars propping up his sorry ass, and he snubs the ceremony. Let's get the hell out. Now. Today. Pack our gear, come home, and let the rump government sort things out. If they start any more trouble, nuke 'em.
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