The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it - Henry David Thoreau

Saturday, October 23, 2010

The UK, France, Germany, Australia, Canada—all these countries are getting their budgets under control while our explodes and Republican exempt 83% of the budget from cuts.  But perhaps we can take solace in a fiscal revolution beginning in ... holy fucking shit ... San Francisco?

77,000 San Franciscans signed a petition to place a measure on the Nov. 2 ballot that would do what generations of politicians haven’t: bring a modicum of sanity to the pension and benefit programs of San Francisco government employees. If passed, Proposition B would require all city employees to contribute up to 10% of their income to their pension plans, and to pay half of the health-care premiums of their dependents. This will save San Francisco at least $120 million a year, at a time when its pension tab is $400 million per year, up from $175 million in 2005.

...

A typical San Francisco resident with one dependent pays $953 a month for health care, while the typical city employee pays less than $10. In 2009, San Francisco’s deputy police chief earned $516,000 in cash compensation and retired with a $230,000-a-year pension—a package that could cost the city $8 million over the balance of his life.

I’ve worked, on and off, with state-funded universities.  I have always had to contribute 10% toward a 403b (I’ve opted out of state pensions) and pay at least something (usually a few hundred a month) for my insurance, the rest being funded out of grants.  To find out that those contributions are 0% and $10 is remarkable.

I’ve always thought that the real fiscal revolution would begin when liberals realize how fucked we are.  Liberal people, that is, not liberal politicians, who are now taking more money from government employee unions than any other special interest. But it’s gotten so bad in California that even Nancy Pelosi is having to defend her seat from a drug-legalizing, capital-gains-tax eliminating Republican.

I still don’t think the Democrats understand what’s going on—either in the fiscal situation or the electoral one. They still think they can hold onto office by throwing money at unions and running jaw-droppingly repugnant ads against the GOP.

God, I can’t wait to see these guys crying in their lattes two weeks from now.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Radley Balko, William Salatan and Matt Welch are arguing that NPR’s firing of Juan Williams over his Muslim comments bears some resemblance to the Shirley Sherrod debacle.  Here’s what Williams said:

I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous. Now, I remember also that when the Times Square bomber was at court, I think this was just last week. He said the war with Muslims, America’s war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts.

That’s not very defensible—it’s pretty much he definition of prejudice.  The 9/11 terrorists, after all, weren’t wearing Muslim garb.  And there’s no question that if he’d said the same about seeing people waring crucifixes, no one would be defending him at all.  But here is the elided part:

The damning video clip of Williams, like the damning clip of Sherrod, cuts off the speaker just as he’s about to reverse course. According to the full transcript, immediately after saying, “I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts,” Williams continues: “But I think there are people who want to somehow remind us all as President Bush did after 9/11, it’s not a war against Islam.” That continuation has been conveniently snipped from the excerpt.

A few seconds later, Williams challenges O’Reilly’s suggestion that “the Muslims attacked us on 9/11.” Williams points out how wrong it would be to generalize similarly about Christians:

Hold on, because if you said Timothy McVeigh, the Atlanta bomber, these people who are protesting against homosexuality at military funerals—very obnoxious—you don’t say first and foremost, “We got a problem with Christians.” That’s crazy.

Williams reminds O’Reilly that “there are good Muslims.” A short while later, O’Reilly asks: “Juan, who is posing a problem in Germany? Is it the Muslims who have come there, or the Germans?” Williams refuses to play the group blame game. “See, you did it again,” he tells O’Reilly. “It’s extremists.”
Williams warns O’Reilly that televised statements about Muslims as a group can foment bigotry and violence. “The other day in New York, some guy cuts a Muslim cabby’s neck,” Williams reminds him. “Or you think about the protest at the mosque near Ground Zero … We don’t want, in America, people to have their rights violated, to be attacked on the street because they heard rhetoric from Bill O’Reilly.”

I’m not quite convinced that Williams got Sherroded.  He never really walks back his comments, but more covers them with statements about extremists—the equivalent of “I have many friends who are Muslim”.  But I am convinced that the full context of his remarks has been conveniently snipped to make him seem like a racist monster—possibly because he has committed the unpardonable sin of being a black man who works with Fox News.

As far as NPR goes, I think was simply the last straw with them.  They’ve had contentious relationships with Williams, who has a tendency to say controversial things.  They even demanded that Fox News refrain from referring to his employment with NPR.  They can fire him if they wish --- the Right to Free Speech does not protect you from the repercussions of exercising it, as Doctor Laura found out.  I don’t recall anyone complaining when Helen Thomas got her ass fired.

I’m sure Juan is crying all the way to the bank with the $2 million contract Fox News signed him to almost immediately.  The conservative calls to cut NPR’s funding over this are a bit overblown, in my opinion.  NPR has always has a left wing bias.  Why get worked up about it now?

Anyway, discuss.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

What else would you call it?  I caught this ad last night and had to sleep on it to calm down.

Ozimek:

The ad includes all the classic racist Orientalism touches, from gong sounds to fortune cookies.  The goal of the ad to slander Toomey with a quote of his where he says “It’s great that China is modernizing and growing”. Gasp! Oh the horror!

The economic growth and modernization in China over the last 30 years has lifted literally hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, and if you don’t think that’s an unmitigated great thing then fuck you, I hope a Chinese person does “steal your job”.

China is currently our fourth largest export market and the most rapidly growing. By the end of the next decade, they may even pass Mexico for the #2 export market. China’s economy is one of the reason the global downturn was muted and the reason they can afford to finance so much of the debt that Joe Sestak has been delighted to rack up with such things as his healthcare bill sellout.

I’m not going to defend China’s civil rights record, which is indefensible.  I was delighted when the Nobel Peace Prize was given to Liu Xiaobo, highlighting China’s terrible record on freedom. However, I strongly believe that economic prosperity is a necessary precursor to political liberty (see a wonderful letter about this on Sully’s site here).  The biggest hope for China turning aside from its oppressive ways is the rising prosperity of her people.  People can not fight for political liberty when every day is a fight for existence.  Wealth doesn’t necessarily lead to freedom, but freedom can’t happen without wealth.  If China’s economy were still stuck in the 17th century, Liu Xiaobo might be working in a rice field, not shaking the globe.

But the Democrats need someone to blame for the utter failure of their economic policies.  And China is a convenient target.

China is accused by its protectionist foes of deliberately undervaluing its currency, the yuan (or renminbi), relative to the US dollar. That makes Chinese goods less expensive in the international market than they otherwise would be. No doubt that puts some US exporters at a competitive disadvantage. But it also means far greater purchasing power for innumerable US consumers and businesses. Experts can debate whether there is something unwarranted about China’s currency manipulation (which, as The New York Times points out, the World Trade Organization does not define as illegal). But there is no doubt whatever that its beneficiaries are legion, as a visit to any Wal-Mart or Target will confirm. Because it makes so many goods so affordable to so many people, China’s currency policy has been called “the greatest anti-poverty program in America.’’ And Congress wants to go to war to shut it down?

The protectionists claim that forcing China to revalue the yuan would boost US manufacturers, adding as many as a million new jobs to American payrolls. That too is debatable. Economist Mark Perry argues that it is the breathtaking increase in US manufacturing productivity, not the value of Chinese currency, that is largely responsible for the disappearance of so many manufacturing jobs in recent years.

It is insane how desperate the Democrats are getting.  We had the ugly “Aqua Buddha” bullshit in Kentucky.  We had the horrific “Taliban Dan” ad in Florida. Howard Kurtz runs down some of the nasty attacks. They include accusing Linda McMahon of being culpable in the deaths of employees, digging up old statements about Scott Desjarlais’ divorce, and, of course, bashing Christine O’Donnell for her financial troubles. They’ve even called Marco Rubio—the son of Cuban immigrants—anti-Latino.

This is the Party of Tolerance?  This is the Party of Issues?

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

This its just too beautiful.  Sarah Palin, in a Nevada rally, told her audience to “Party Like It’s 1773!”.  Cue the Left Wing.  “She’s so smart” sneered Kos. Mona Isler gave it a “WTF”. Gwin Ifel mocked her.

I mean, hell, it must be extremely embarrassing to have your obvious ignorance of 5th grade American history revealed by the likes of the Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas and PBS anchor & presidential debate moderator Gwen Ifill. HAHAHAHAHA, what a freakin’ dumb ass! What happened in 1773, indeed!

oh, wait:

Yes, 1773 was the date of Boston Tea Party, which was my immediate thought when I heard the quote.  And the video makes it pretty clear this was what she was referring to.

I hate to say this, but score one for Palin.  She just made the Left Wing Echosphere look as dumb as they are.

The possibility that California will legalize pot is driving people not just to ill-informed op-eds but now to outright threat of arbitrary law:

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said on Friday that the voters don’t matter. His deputies’ enforcement of marijuana laws would not change even if voters approved Proposition 19, which would legalize cannabis in California, on November 2, according to the Sheriff.

“Proposition 19 is not going to pass, even if it passes,” Baca said in a news conference Friday at sheriff’s headquarters in Monterey Park, reports Robert Faturechi in The Los Angeles Times.

The department run by Sheriff Baca polices 75 percent of Los Angeles County. His staunch opposition to marijuana—even if it is legalized—was echoed Friday by an announcement from Attorney General Eric Holder that federal officials would continue to “vigorously enforce” cannabis laws in California, even if state voters pass the measure.

As Balko points out, Holder has no issue enforcing and supporting state laws that restrict freedom—such as the gay marriage bans, greenhouse gas restrictions, etc.  But let a state legalize the wacky weed and—despite Obama’s campaign pledge—all bets are off.

(The one outlier here is Arizona’s immigration law.  I suspect Holder would let that stand if he weren’t so terrified of losing Latino votes.)

However, Holder’s statement doesn’t really bother me, despite the furor it has created in libertarian circles.  He has federal law and the Raich SCOTUS decision to back him up.  What he’s doing is wrong, in my opinion, since AG’s have discretion in what crimes their offices emphasize.  But his position is neither illegal nor unconstitutional.  The only thing that can stop him is if Congress passes a law protecting state marijuana legalization—medical or otherwise.  That won’t happen no matter who is in office, of course.  But at least Holder isn’t completely out to lunch.  In fact, I would almost argue that he’s right, given the Raich precedent.

But what Sheriff Baca said is beyond the pale. He’s essentially saying that he will be judge and jury on the constitutionality of Prop 19.  In his opinion, it’s not constitutional, so he’s going to keep busting potheads.  I’m curious what he will do if a Court issues a stay on pot enforcement until the constitutional issues are resolved.  That has to be the pot busters’ biggest fear—that if Prop 19 passes (by no means a certain thing), an intractable legal marijuana infrastructure will be in place by the time SCOTUS rules on it.  Essentially, he’s promising pre-emptive strikes to make sure that doesn’t happen.

It’s one thing for a law enforcement officer to refuse to enforce a law because he thinks it violates Constitutional rights such as freedom of speech or religion.  Federal officials, at least, are sworn to uphold the Constitution—hence the Oath Keepers.  But it’s quite different for a Sheriff to keep enforcing a law that no longer exists, to essentially start outlawing things on his own and enforcing his own brand of law.

Here’s the thing: everyone who knows what’s best for us is against Prop 19.  Almost all the politicians, all the newspapers, all the drug czars and all the law enforcement officials.  I have never see such a unanimity of opinion on an issue.  Only amongst the general public—the stupid general public—is the idea popular.

Why is that?  Are our cops, politicos and newsmen so much wiser than the rest of us?  No.  Our cops, politicos and newsmen have an interest in continuing the War on Drugs.  The War on Drugs lets politicians look tough on crime and gives them an issue with which to beat guys like Rand Paul.  The War on Drugs has expanded police departments and prisons, given them the power to seize money and property without trial to pad their budgets, given them high arrest and conviction rates.  And the newspapers?  Well, the newspapers are just full of shit.  But they also want to cozy up to the powerful.

Me?  I’m dubious that Prop 19 will pass.  And I’m even more dubious that it will be allowed to stand.  Of the Supreme Court justices who dissented in Raich, O’Conner and Rhenquist are gone, replaced by Alito and Roberts, both of whom have a clear history of deferring to government power.  Kagan and Sotomayor are two more Nanny State liberals who will almost certainly vote the same way Stevens and Souter did.  It’s very likely Prop 19 will get an 8-1 shellacking in the Supreme Court, assuming they even bother to hear it.

And what then? Open revolt? De facto disobedience of the law? Secession?  What I’m hoping is that the “what then” is that the American people wake up and tell the Federal government to stop bullying the states around.  I’m hoping the “what then” is that other states join the rebellion.  I’m hoping the “what then” is that Congress has no choice but to do what they should have fucking done ten years ago—pass a law letting the states decide their own God-damned drug laws. Help them enforce the ones they have, but keep the Feds the hell out of the decision-making process.

That may seem like a fat chance with the Tea Party’s current leaning toward social cons (although Rand Paul is a drug dissenter).  But if the movement cresting now is really a return to constitutional restraint, one can hope.

That is why I support Prop 19.  The scaling back of the Drug War can not and will not start at the top, with the politicians.  The War on Drugs is too vital to them, gives them too much power and too strong an issue to pound the table on.  The only way we are going to scale this monstrosity back is from the ground up, from the American people saying they’ve enough of this.  They’ve had enough of the SWAT raids and the dead dogs and the gang empowerment and the ruined lives that the Drug War entails.  We’ve spent four awful decades of breaking eggs for this War and do not have a single omelet to show for it.  All we have is smashed crockery, a kitchen in flames and egg white all over the ceiling.

Enough.  It’s time to end this nonsense.  And it seems like the voters of California—fucking crazed-out whack-job blue state California—might be the ones to begin the end of the War on Drugs.

PS: It’s really worth linking up Lee’s reaction to the Raich decision ("Federalism Has Gone To Pot").  It’s pure Angry Lee and it’s beautiful:

Hey, Stevens, you dick.  I agree with you in principle, that the best solution to issues is usually through the democratic process.  But the court system exists for a reason, and it’s to restrain government power over the rights of the individual.  In this case, ten states have, through the democratic process you think is so neato, chosen to permit sick people to use marijuana to alleviate their pain, yet you decided to crap all over that by ruling that a guy who grows a plant in his house for his own personal use is somehow covered by Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce.

Basically this is a huge green light for Congress to basically do whatever the fuck it likes if it can somehow, in some way, sorta, kinda tie it in to interstate commerce.  Our highest court just sold us out.  And Scalia, fucking Scalia, the one true federalist on the court, actually sided with the majority in this idiocy.  I’m just disgusted by the whole thing.

All you social conservatives, remember this the next time you piss and moan about some liberal activist court.  This decision is the LITERAL DEFINITION of judicial activism.

Update: In Federalist No. 45, James Madison wrote, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” Unless, of course, it’s for something that’s politically expedient for the president and his administration.  They argued for the right to prosecute offenders, and they got it, Constitution be damned.

Man, I miss his voice.  He would be cleaning up on Prop 19.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

This is why I was unhappy when Christine O’Donnell won the nomination in Delaware:

For those of you who don’t want to watch, O’Donnell didn’t know about the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment. The audience broke out into laughter.

O’Donnell and her defenders are trying to spin, saying she was questioning the phrasing, not the concept.  They may have a point—it’s possible O’Donnell simply got lost in a memorized and bogus talking point about the expression “separation of church and state” not being written in the Constitution.  Of course, the concept is clearly there and was later expounded upon by the actual framers. People who jump on the phraseology to claim that Separation of Church and State is a myth are the Right Wing’s answer to the Left Wingers who claim there is no Right to Bear Arms because the Second Amendment only protects “militias.”

(Incidentally, this flub-and-defend dance is a repeating pattern with Christine and her defenders.  A few weeks ago, a video surfaced of O’Donnell claiming that evolution is a myth because monkeys aren’t evolving into people.  Of course, monkeys don’t evolve into people; monkeys and people share common ancestry but have both evolved and are evolving away from that now extinct creature. But her defenders—Limbaugh notably—defended this ignorance, claiming it was a legitimate point.  It’s not.  It’s never valid to criticize a scientific theory by disputing claims it doesn’t make.)

The thing is that the religious stuff is most interesting thing she’s saying.  Here is a transcript of her earlier debate.  She claims she’ll stop the Bush tax cuts from expiring—an event which happens before she would take office. Her proposed spending cuts are the usual Republican bullshit about canceling what little remains of the stimulus and eliminating “waste” while massively cutting taxes.  She attacks Obamacare for one of its few virtues—controlling Medicare spending.  This should all sound familiar.  Beyond her religious nuttery, she’s just another one of these Republicans who could be easily replaced with a machine that teletypes the same endlessly repeating talking points that are making my eyes glaze over: repeal Obamacare, no Miranda rights for terrorists, seal the border, cut wasteful spending, cut taxes, eliminate the debt, outlaw abortion, global warming is a myth, blah blah blah.

Parts of that might be acceptable if I believed the Republicans meant what they said, but I don’t.  After the last decade, I assume that all Republicans are big-government conservatives until proven otherwise.  I have yet to hear or read anything to convince me that O’Donnell has either the interest or the ability to get our debt under control.  If she doesn’t, what does bring to the table other than religious fundamentalism?  What value is there in trading a fiscally-clueless Democrat for a fiscally-clueless Republican?  If O’Donnell were to follow through on her promises, she would eliminate the coverage mandate while leaving the pre-existing condition law in place, eliminate almost no spending, restore $500 billion in Medicare spending and cut taxes by $3.7+ trillion.  That’s the only situation I can imagine worse than the one we face now.

The crisis our nation is facing is far too important for me to automatically support Republicans over Democrats.  And it’s too important for me to automatically vote for someone because they can spew the usual rhetoric about the debt while promising to make it worse.  There are some people out there who get it.  Paul Ryan gets it.  Mitch Daniels has drawn fire from conservatives for acknowledging that we may need to raise the retirement age and raise taxes (or at least massively overhaul them) to get out of debt. He gets it.  But I have to see that O’Donnell gets it.  About anything.

Update: Bainbridge defends O’Donnell for the reasons above—that the phrase “separation of church and state” is not in the Bill of Rights.  I hate to dispute a fellow Wahoo, especially one smarter than me, but I think Bainbridge is wrong.  In the context of the debate, she was, in my opinion, defending the ability of the state to force religious views—in this case, intelligent design—onto the public.

Find here a prediction of one of the things that the demcorats will try to get done in a hurry after November 2nd to make sure they can pay off their biggest donor block.

When it comes to accounting, the devil is in the details. A new Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rule taking effect in December requires greater transparency for union pension plans and threatens to bankrupt organized labor. In order to survive, unions need a bailout and fast. This presents a political problem—if unions go bankrupt, so do Democrats. Eleven of the top 20 largest political contributors are labor unions, and nearly all of that money is spent campaigning against Republicans. By bailing out unions, Democrats are bailing out themselves.

The problem is that these unions are run by mobsters that underfunded their pension plans, likely so they could funnel big cash to demcorats and their own pockets, and this new legal requirement is going to squash them. If that happens the demcorats will lose millions in campaign funding. The fact that so many union employees wil end up suffering from is just a convenient shield to hide behind. Demcorats care about their own hide first & foremost. They are masters at pretending to do things for others, but that’s all smoke & mirrors. These donkeys already have a plan:

The other piece of legislation is, not surprisingly, a bailout bill offered by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and co-sponsored by Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill. (A similar piece of legislation is being offered in the House by Rep. Earl Pomery, D-N.D.) The bill would make failing union pension plans fully backed by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., a government-sponsored entity.

That’s a guaranteed tax payer bailout of underfunded union pensions. As soon as FASB goes live, these unions that have had the luxury of hiding their finances will all be in the tank. And while these donkeys are going to try very hard to sell their bailout as an attempt to come to the aid of the small guy, something ludicrous considering that the proposed bill doesn’t do anything to address the fact that these unions have underfunded their pensions on purpose, have no doubt that the objective here is to keep their biggest donor block relevant. Party of the small guy, indeed. Heh!

Monday, October 18, 2010

Raise your hand if you are surprised.

Democratic leaders in the House and Senate alleging GOP groups have funneled foreign money into campaign ads have seen their party raise more than $1 million from political action committees affiliated with foreign companies.

House and Senate Democrats have received about $1.02 million this cycle from such PACs, according to an analysis compiled for The Hill by the Center for Responsive Politics. House and Senate GOP leaders have taken almost $510,000 from PACs on the same list.

The PACS are funded entirely by contributions from U.S. employees of subsidiaries of foreign companies. All of the contributions are made public under Federal Elections Commission rules, and the PACs affiliated with the subsidiaries of foreign corporations are governed by the same rules that American firms’ PACs or other PACs would face.

Of all the memes to be uncorked by the Party of Desperation this year, the “foreign money” one has to be the most bizarre.  It started with a baseless accusation, moved into the McCarthy Era with the “prove you are innocent” response and now has crossed the line into flat out hypocrisy.  I’m beginning to wonder who’s calling the shots over there in Camp Crumply.  Do they, like, know that there’s this whole internet thing where facts can be checked and your stupid lies exposed?

Update: Speaking of Desperate Democrats.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

The blogosphere is a little excited about this study, which claims that the US has lost ground on 15-year survival rates over the last 35 years.  In 1975, our per capita healthcare spending was similar to our peer nations and we had the lowest survival rate, but only by a little.  Now we’re spending much more and our rate has improved, but not as rapidly as peer nations.  The difference has grown.

Ignore, for the moment, their rather cavalier treatment of issues like obesity, substance abuse, violence, etc. Let’s assume they’ve done their homework and gotten everything right.  Here are my questions:

Over the last 35 years, has the American healthcare system become more socialized or less?

Over the last 35 years, has medical malpractice litigation increase or decreased?

Over the last 35 years, has the health insurance market become more regulated or less?

Don’t think too hard, guys. You might not be able to get an appointment with the neurologist.

The forces favoring keeping drugs, including pot, illegal, are pushing back in a big way this ear. Rand Paul’s increasingly desperate opponent is accusing him of being soft on drugs.  The California Prop-19 battle is heating up and all right-thinking (but not Right-Thinking) people are against it.  But it might be useful to, you know, apply some data to the subject. Glenn Greenwald and the Cato Institute—now that’s an interesting marriage—have some facts on Portugal, which recently legalized drugs:

By any metric, Portugal’s drug-decriminalization scheme has been a resounding success. Drug usage in many categories has decreased in absolute terms, including for key demographic groups, like 15-to-19-year-olds. Where usage rates have increased, the increases have been modest — far less than in most other European Union nations, which continue to use a criminalization approach.

Portugal, whose drug problems were among the worst in Europe, now has the lowest usage rate for marijuana and one of the lowest for cocaine. Drug-related pathologies, including HIV transmission, hepatitis transmission and drug-related deaths, have declined significantly.

Beyond the data, Portugal’s success with decriminalization is illustrated by the absence of political agitation for a return to criminalization. As one might expect for a socially conservative and predominantly Roman Catholic country, the decriminalization proposal sparked intense controversy a decade ago.

Many politicians insisted that a vast parade of horribles would be unleashed, including massive increases in drug use among youth and the conversion of Lisbon into a “drug haven for tourists.”

But none of those scary scenarios occurred. Portuguese citizens, able to compare the out-of-control drug problems of the 1990s with the vastly improved situation now, have little desire to return to the days of criminalization. No influential politician advocates doing so

Usual caveat: the results of a small European nation can not necessarily be projected onto a big complex one. Our drugs and crime problems are a little more complex that just criminalization.  Entrenched poverty, terrible public school and a growing prison-industrial complex are major factors.  But I have yet to see convincing evidence that decriminalizing pot will make things worse.

And in his resignation letter, he makes it very clear why too, and this is one heck of a read.

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence---it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

Of course the left will now want this bastard’s head for again pointing out the obvious fact that the people that stand to make the most money are not the evil energy companies and the people that get discredited by cultists with merely a mention that they are the one’s doing it for cash, but the very cultists themselves. Governments and these green companies, initiatives, and efforts are going to rake in massive power, and trillions of dollars. People like Lewis that are disgusted at this, are finally speaking up.

Friday, October 15, 2010

I’ve simply been too swamped to write something coherent about the most amazing story of the week, the successful rescue of the Chilean miners after over two months of waiting.

I am impressed by the feat of technical prowess that literally pulled these men from the grave. But I’m even more impressed by the feat of human decency that kept them sane, functional and alive, especially for the 17 days they awaited contact with the outside world.  The careful rationing of food, organization of duties and quiet cooperation is what the inhabitants of civilized nations do.  We see it all the time during hours of crisis—just rarely over 1500 straight hours of crisis.

Having been to Chile many times, I’m not terribly surprised by this.  Chileans are an industrious and good people (as long as they have a good supply of coffee and conversation).  This week, they can feel very proud.

And as I predicted we will pay more, and get less. Heck, my employer has already told me my premiums will go up and my plans will change. I even heard rumors that they are crunching the numbers to figure out if they should just stop giving healhtcare as a benefit. The fines are cheaper by a mile. I am sure the usual blue state media in CT will downplay these things, but the stories are all over the place. The more we dig, the more it smells. Here is some nice PC speak for Obamacare will cost more, deliver less, and in short own your arse.

“I find myself in an unprecedented place and time, as do my counterparts throughout the country, in overseeing one of the most far-reaching policy initiatives enacted by the federal government in recent history,” Sullivan said in the letter. “It is unfortunate that this reform, while addressing insurer behavior, has provided little to no reform of the escalating costs of the health care delivery system.”

If the demcorats stay in power, soon news like this will be thought of as the good old days. The more you confront them with the fact that their policies & beliefs suck, the more they feel like doubling down on stupid.

You can’t make this shit up. It reminded me of Blumenthal’s explanation of how jobs get created during his debate with McMahon for the Connecticut senate seat vacated by crime boss Dodd, and the blatantly obvious conclusion that the moron had no clue.

Yeah, I know. I am a racist for pointing out that this Waters is a collectivist economic illiterate, and one of the main reasons we are where we are today. Spare me the attacks.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Heh, that’s what is gripping the left as November comes. Just a measly 2 years after they swept the elections and declared the end of the conservative movement and the new age of progressive big government “Hope & Change” bullshit, we are staring at an election where they are going to be slaughtered. The American people are in a foul mood now that they have figured out what the progressives promised them when they spoke of “Hope & Change” was that they would make all of us equally destitute and beholden to the big state for anything & everything. People are losing their jobs and their homes at record rates. The dollar is tanking, and inflation and a massive trade deficit are surging. This is what the new most ethical and promising congress/administration ever has begotten us. Blame Bush, doesn’t work anymore. Some might still believe the problems are Bush’s fault, but 2 years of “Demcorats gone wild” should dissuade all but the most illogical and insane libs of that idiotic notion. these kinds of gimmicks. Even the threat of repercussions from big government no longer can contain the fact that what we have gotten from the donkeys is is unaffordable.

So now comes David Brooks whom in this NYT article decries the fact big government is breaking everything. Brooke’s decries the fact that:

Both sides are right. But what nobody seems to be asking is: Why are important projects now unaffordable? Decades ago, when the federal and state governments were much smaller, they had the means to undertake gigantic new projects, like the Interstate Highway System and the space program. But now, when governments are bigger, they don’t.

Here is the simple answer: governments in the past did not try to do the kind of moronic things the progressives now have straddled them with. We can predict the cost of a road, a dam, or a space program, and clearly measure the success or failure of these. Yeah, even when you factor in all the roadblocks by government and organized labor. But government can not solve poverty, especially when the goal posts move constantly, make healthcare available to everyone while making it cheaper at the same time, provide for retirement with a Ponzi scheme it denies others the ability to use and even sends them to jail for trying, or have inefficient government be the enforcer of social justice, just to name a few. Not only has progressive government become an obstruction to economic freedom and growth, it has taken on impossible “feel good” bullshit tasks that can’t be done. Not even with all the money in the world.

All progressives and their schemes can give us is equality of misery. Well, for the shlobs. The elite will, as always, manage, and thrive, and the big problem is that the progressives’ voting base, the same one that is so stupid to ask why people that should obviously vote for demcorats vote against their interests when demcocrats are against their interest, still all believe they can be part of that lucky elite. History be damned.

So now we are back at the crossroads. The American people have been shown what the progressives are really about. Incompetence, lies, outright theft, and all the class, race, and gender warfare in the world isn’t enough to create enough smoke & mirrors to confuse the majority of voters. People are wising up. Even Brooks isn’t smart enough to see the problem is progressive ideology and government. Those blinders sure suck, and pretending that the fix is for big government to do what’s anathema to it, is laughable. Good luck come November fools!

Update: More Panic!!!1!!

WASHINGTON—A late effort by Democrats to match record fund raising by conservative organizations has come up short, leaving the party more reliant than usual on the campaign efforts of labor unions.

The only people still giving to demcorats are unions and the usual beholden corporations that have not been totally abused by these crooks & liars.