economics

Rush Limbaugh – smarter than ten thousand ecology PhDs

Back when BP’s oil was spouting into the gulf of Mexico, Rush told us: “The beach will fix itself” “More oil spilled every year in Africa, in Nigeria, than so far in the Gulf, so it’s not unique. It’s not exceptional. It’s not the largest. Mexico had a spill that larger than this, nobody talks about except apparently me” And behold:  The beach has fixed itself. The reason that BP …

culture

A solution to the gay marriage and the covenant marriage problem

The Other McCain agrees.  Get the government out of the marriage business. Let each church decide for itself what marriage is, which views the government should ignore, and let people draw up what contracts they choose for living together. You have the right to contract.  Let us have gay nuptial contracts, not gay marriages. And the same for heterosexual relationships:  If a seventeen year old girl can contract for gigantic …

economics

Palin Power

According to polls, Palin’s Support for a Candidate Doesn’t Matter or Is Mostly Negative, yet we observe that  in practice that when Palin endorses a candidate that is way behind, that candidate shoots up in the polls, and quite often wins. There are several possible explanations of this People tend to give politically correct replies to polls, rather than what they genuinely believe. Republican party activists do what Palin tells …

global warming

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

Pajamas media has found an excellent quote from Richard Feynman, which skewers every global warmer: “The Pleasure of Finding things out” by Richard Feynman, page 187 We have many studies in teaching, for example, in which people make observations and they make lists and they do statistics, but they do not thereby become established science, established knowledge. They are merely an imitative form of science-like the South Sea Islanders making …

liberty

No democratic solution

Doctor Zero has a carefully thought out proposal to get 50% of the voters plus one behind the measures necessary to save America, behind measures that are carefully pruned to be the minimum possible measures that could save the country, measures that are as “moderate” as possible, which is not very moderate at all.

No way Jose. Democracy is doomed, or the country is doomed, or, quite likely, both.

economics

If you are not at the government’s table, you are on the government’s menu

Vox Populi: While the economic value of anything depends on sellers and buyers agreeing on that value as civil equals in the absence of force, modern government is about nothing if not tampering with civil equality. By endowing some in society with power to force others to sell cheaper than they would, and forcing others yet to buy at higher prices — even to buy in the first place — …

culture

The ruling class

Today’s ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters – speaking the “in” language– serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector. Some, e.g., Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, never held a non-government job. Hence whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America’s ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats.

science

The death of science

“Scientists” complain that the government is interfering in “science” by denying them regulatory authority over other people’s economic activity. Nasa’s primary goal is to make Muslims feel good about Muslim science.

culture

The politics of Hit-Girl

The politics of Hit-Girl For a long time the left has controlled the gates for movies, books, and comics, in part because of the government control of television. Lately, however, I have been seeing more and more politically incorrect stuff. As you probably figured out if you watched the movie Kick Ass, Hit-Girl is a conservative, what with being home schooled and all It is a great movie. In the …