That’s according to a recent report from a British think tank. A complex welfare system coupled with a moribund education system has created a subclass of citizens who have no motivation or even capability to work. As Van Helsing comments,
Basically, liberalism has reduced humans to farm animals. Just like chickens are raised by farmers for their eggs, welfare dependents are raised by the State for their votes.
What is the future of a democracy that operates on that principle?
Categories: Culture · Economics · Education · Government · Politics
So says Robert Samuelson in describing why America’s energy policy is such a mess.
We’re almost powerless to influence today’s prices. We are because we didn’t take sensible actions 10 or 20 years ago. If we persist, we will be even worse off in a decade or two. The first thing to do: Start drilling. . . .
What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity. Americans favor both “energy independence” and cheap fuel. They deplore imports — who wants to pay foreigners? — but oppose more production in the United States. Got it? The result is a “no-pain energy agenda that sounds appealing but has no basis in reality” . . .
Categories: Energy · Government · Oil · Politics
Here are a couple of interesting factoids on those incredible oil company profits that I’ll bet you haven’t heard. First:
While crude oil has gone up from about $66 a barrel to almost $119 — an 80 percent increase during the last year — gas has gone from $2.71 a gallon to $3.60, an increase of only 33 percent.
In other words, the oil industry’s profits have not been keeping pace with the rising cost of their primary raw material.
Second:
Mutual fund giant Vanguard . . . has more than $18 billion in ExxonMobil stock. Most of that is owned by investors in the company’s S&P 500 index fund and its total stock market index fund. And it’s not just Vanguard. Almost every major mutual fund company owns oil stocks. Two of Fidelity’s mutual funds, for example, rank in the top 10 holders of ExxonMobil stock.
The oil companies are “broadly owned by tens of millions of middle-class Americans, anyone with a pension plan or 401(k) or IRA account, a mutual fund,” Dougher said. “They’re really the owners. So, when their stock portfolios go up, that’s really who benefits.”
In other words, if Congressional critics act on their threat to rein in those evil corporate profits of the oil companies, guess who’s gonna feel the pain? That’s right — the millions of small investors who are depending on those profits to finance their retirement.
It’s called “free enterprise,” people. Why aren’t they teaching this in high school anymore?
Categories: Business · Economics · Energy · Government
Mark Steyn takes the eco-nut feel-gooders to task for pushing biofuels, no matter the cost to the world’s poor.
Big government accomplished at a stroke what the free market could never have done: They turned the food supply into a subsidiary of the energy industry. When you divert 28 percent of U.S. grain into fuel production, and when you artificially make its value as fuel higher than its value as food, why be surprised that you’ve suddenly got less to eat? Or, to be more precise, it’s not “you” who’s got less to eat but those starving peasants in distant lands you claim to care so much about. . . .
The biofuels debacle is global warm-mongering in a nutshell: The first victims of poseur environmentalism will always be developing countries. In order for you to put biofuel in your Prius and feel good about yourself for no reason, real actual people in faraway places have to starve to death. On April 15, the Independent, the impeccably progressive British newspaper, editorialized: “The production of biofuel is devastating huge swathes of the world’s environment. So why on earth is the Government forcing us to use more of it?”
Categories: Global Warming · Politics
Glenn Reynolds calls attention to the transcript of an amazing broadcast on BBC radio recently. The speaker, Justin Webb, gave a remarkably balanced commentary on the correlation between gun ownership among Americans and the sense of civility and serenity that pervades our land — in sharp contrast to the lawlessness (and lack of guns) that dominates Britain.
Brits arriving in New York, hoping to avoid being slaughtered on day one of their shopping mission to Manhattan are, by day two, beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about. By day three they have had had the scales lifted from their eyes.
I have met incredulous British tourists who have been shocked to the core by the peacefulness of the place, the lack of the violent undercurrent so ubiquitous in British cities, even British market towns.
“It seems so nice here,” they quaver.
Well, it is!
Ten or 20 years ago, it was a different story, but things have changed.
And this is Manhattan.
Wait till you get to London Texas, or Glasgow Montana, or Oxford Mississippi or Virgin Utah, for that matter, where every household is required by local ordinance to possess a gun.
Folks will have guns in all of these places and if you break into their homes they will probably kill you.
They will occasionally kill each other in anger or by mistake, but you never feel as unsafe as you can feel in south London.
It is a paradox. Along with the guns there is a tranquillity and civility about American life of which most British people can only dream.
Glenn didn’t mention it, but the speaker also pinpointed another factor contributing to the relative peacefulness of American society:
One reason – perhaps the overriding reason – is that there is no public drunkenness in polite America, simply none.
I have never seen a group of drunk young people in the entire six years I have lived here. I travel a lot and not always to the better parts of town.
It is an odd fact that a nation we associate – quite properly – with violence is also so serene, so unscarred by petty crime, so innocent of brawling.
Christina Hoff Summers warns of a coming federal crackdown on gender discrimination in math and sciences in higher education. If Title IX is applied to these departments the same way it has been applied to college athletics, “equality” will be achieved by decimating the ranks of men who can apply for those positions. The long-term effect will be devastating to our national interest.
The continued excellence of American science and technology is vital to our security and prosperity — and depends on an exacting meritocracy and, at the top, an intensity of vocational devotion that few men or women can achieve.
Of course, as Glenn Reynolds notes, why should the feds stop there? Have you noticed the glaring gender discrimination that exists among elementary school teachers?
Categories: Education · Feminism · Gender · Law · Politics · Science
John Stossel puts the kabosh on all the screaming headlines about the looming financial meltdown due to the subprime mortgage mess. Words like “disaster” and “crisis” are not justified by the facts.
The Mortgage Bankers Association’s 2007 fourth-quarter survey reports that foreclosures came to 2.04 percent of all mortgages. Many of those were speculators seeking flip profits rather than homeowners losing a dream house. During the quarter, only 0.83 percent of homes entered the foreclosure process. It may get worse — in March, “foreclosure filings, default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions rose 5 percent,” Reuters reports. But let’s keep things in perspective: Ninety-eight percent of borrowers are not in foreclosure. Only a small percentage of them are even late in payments.
So why all the wringing of hands in the media and among politicians? Simple — it gins up support for the government to “do something.” Which means another grab for your wallet.
Sigh. When will Americans learn that the government is the problem, not the solution?
Categories: Economics · Government · Media · Politics
Phil Chapman (geophysicist, astronautical engineer, former NASA astronaut) has been looking at sun spots (or lack thereof), and presents a compelling case for climate change — but not Al Gore’s version.
There is a close correlation between variations in the sunspot cycle and Earth’s climate. The previous time a cycle was delayed like this was in the Dalton Minimum, an especially cold period that lasted several decades from 1790.
Northern winters became ferocious: in particular, the rout of Napoleon’s Grand Army during the retreat from Moscow in 1812 was at least partly due to the lack of sunspots.
That the rapid temperature decline in 2007 coincided with the failure of cycle No.24 to begin on schedule is not proof of a causal connection but it is cause for concern.
It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin contingency planning about what to do if we are moving into another little ice age, similar to the one that lasted from 1100 to 1850.
Borrowing a page from the global warming alarmists’ playbook, Chapman paints a pretty bleak picture of what conditions would be like if we really are heading for another ice age. Global warming would be a godsend. He acknowledges an element of uncertainty here, but cautions people to at least consider the possibility, even if it’s not politically expedient.
All those urging action to curb global warming need to take off the blinkers and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling instead.
It will be difficult for people to face the truth when their reputations, careers, government grants or hopes for social change depend on global warming, but the fate of civilisation may be at stake.
(via InstaPundit)
Categories: Global Warming
Steve Milloy argues that the recent push to develop biofuels from food stocks is a lose-lose-lose proposition. The fuel-from-food has not reduced our dependence on foreign oil, it has not reduced carbon emissions (and according to some research, may even make it worse), and is driving up the cost of basic foods, which severely impacts the poorest inhabitants of the planet.
In the meantime, of course, the greenies are doing everything they can to restrict our access to cheaper, more dependable sources of energy, such as coal, natural gas, nuclear power, and wind.
Millions in the developing world have died and continue to do so from the greens’ campaign against pesticides such as DDT. Nothing less should be expected from their new campaign that threatens global food and energy production.
UPDATE: One U. N. official calls the hunger crisis “a silent tsunami,” and specifically calls out the biofuel craze for blame. Furthermore,
The World Health Organization views hunger as the No. 1 threat to public health around the world, responsible for a third of child deaths and 10 percent of all disease.
Hmmm. And all this time, I thought global warming was our greatest challenge.
Categories: Energy · Global Warming
A new museum has just opened in Washington, D. C., dedicated to honoring the role of newspapers in preserving free speech in America.
Somehow this seems appropriate. As traditional newspapers are fast going the way of the dodo bird with the rise of the New Media, a museum will soon be the only place you can find a newspaper.
With Hillary’s win today in Pennsylvania, Jeff Greenfield examines the possibility of a brokered convention in Denver in August. The biggest problem, of course, is that there are no brokers to be found. Trying to bring order to all the disparate influences tugging at the super delegates is, in Greenfield’s words, like “herding cats.”
And besides, “even if you could somehow find the brokers, where would they gather? With all the ordinances and clean-air talk today, there’s not a single smoke-filled room to be found.”
While doing a Google search on Thomas Kuhn and global warming, I stumbled across a lengthy review of a book by warming alarmist Mark Lynas, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet. The review, written by Josie Appleton in Spiked, contained this nugget of wisdom:
The less self-reflective the science, and the more it is founded on political and moral campaigns, the less reliable it is likely to be. And in Lynas, we see how global warming science has become a foil for a whole series of political and moral agendas, a way of discussing everything from the sins of consumerism to human arrogance. Outlining the effects of a four degrees rise in temperature, Lynas writes: ‘Poseidon [God of the sea] is angered by arrogant affronts from mere mortals like us. We have woken him from a thousand-year slumber, and this time his wrath will know no bounds.’ Not only Poseidon and Gaia but also terms such as ‘Mother Nature’ and ‘nature’s revenge’ have slipped into everyday discussion about climate change. Darwin did not, so far as we know, give names of Gods to his finches. When scientific concepts start to be discussed in such emotional terms, it suggests that they say more about wish than reality.
I thought this quote was appropriate to share on this Earth Day, when we are being treated to so much blather about how we must change our ways for the sake of the planet. Perhaps some changes are necessary, but let’s be very careful here: Science that gets hijacked by political and moral agendas can cause a lot of unintended but serious harm.
Categories: Global Warming · Science
An article by Heather Whipps on the impact of the Magna Carta on English law prompts reflection on the current political scene.
For those who may not be familiar with this document, Whipps provides a brief history:
Feudalism was the framework by which all landowning was governed in England during medieval times. It essentially granted the king control of all the land in his kingdom, which was worked by peasants and overseen by feudal barons. Everyone in the hierarchy had financial and social responsibilities to the rank above them, including the barons, who reported directly to the king.
Most of England’s kings didn’t exercise all of their feudal rights, such as the power to control who their tenants married. That wasn’t the case, however, with King John, the ruler fictionalized as the bad guy in “Robin Hood.” John’s abuses of the feudal system were frequent and angered the barons, who were regularly extorted of their lands and profits.
Fed up, in 1215 the barons rebelled and pressured the king into signing the Magna Carta, a list of 63 clauses drawn up to limit John’s power. It was the first time royal authority officially became subject to the law, instead of reigning above it.
Whipps goes on to describe the influence of this groundbreaking document on later English law, and eventually the U. S. Constitution.
The key point to notice here is the principle that, as described in the American Declaration of Independence, men are created with “certain inalienable rights,” rights that derive from their free moral nature as human beings, not from the arbitrary whims of kings. We have these rights, not because a benevolent government grants them to us, but because of what we are. The recognition of these transcendent rights has been enshrined in English and American law for centuries, and has played a key role in our history as a free and prosperous people.
Today, however, Americans — largely ignorant of this history — are slowly surrendering their rights back to their rulers. More and more we are turning to the government to fix our problems and right our wrongs. We are quite happy to let the government punish others, if it gives us some sense of “justice,” not realizing that some day that same power will be used against us, for much the same reason. We are returning to the medieval order of things, where human rights are gifts of the king, to be dispensed as his royal highness deems fit.
At some point, we may, like the barons of 1215, get fed up and confront our government with another Magna Carta, demanding that it respect the human rights it has so willingly taken over.
Categories: Government · History · Law · Politics
. . . Is very small, as in tiny.
Two new cars are redefining the meaning of “compact.” The Smart Fortwo is already selling like hotcakes here in the U.S. And Volkswagon is developing its new Up! vehicle, which it hopes will match the sales phenomenon of the early Beetle. Both of these vehicles are reported to get gas mileage in excess of 70 mph.
Can you envision yourself tooling around town in one of these?
UPDATE (4/22/08): But not every Smart car is a little toy. My son just returned from a business trip to Germany, where he snapped this pic of a Smart car that is much more manly.
Categories: Technology
Microsoft’s release last year of its new Vista operating system has been a disappointment for many users. Early adopters encountered annoying problems with their upgrades. Consequently, many current users of XP (including me) are quite happy with the status quo and have no desire to upgrade.
Now comes a report from industry analyst Gartner Group that Microsoft could be facing deeper problems if it doesn’t get its flagship product straightened out.
A new analysis from Gartner warns . . . that Windows is on the verge of collapse under its own weight and that if it doesn’t do something quickly it is a matter of inevitability that a more able competitor will eventually dethrone it.
Fortunately for Microsoft, Linux and Apple are not ready to go head-to-head against Windows — yet. But that could change.
Categories: Technology
As the baby boomer generation approaches retirement age, demographers ponder what impact their exit from the workplace will have on the nation’s economy.
The conventional wisdom is that millions of new retirees will put a strain on the system that cannot be sustained.
But some are not convinced that the boomers are all that eager to retire. There is evidence that many are “re-careering” at the age when their parents were settling into their rocking chairs. This trend is aided by longer life spans that make the traditional retirement age seem younger than it used to be.
Megan McArdle conducts a careful examination of both sides of this equation, and comes to this conclusion:
If we will be worse off than we could be in an ideal world, we will still be better off than we are now, workers and retirees alike. We’ll not only be at least somewhat richer; we’ll also have years and years more to enjoy our health and wealth.
As a boomer myself who is sees retirement age creeping up on me, I can honestly say I really have no desire to retire. I enjoy what I do for a living, and look forward to many more productive years ahead.
Of course, it’s probably genetic. My 81-year-old mother — long retired from her “real” career, but still healthy and sharp — is still working at a part time job. Not because she has to, but because she’s bored sitting around the house.
Peggy Noonan offers an intriguing prediction about Hillary:
At some future point Mrs. Clinton will leave, and at a more distant one she will try to come back. But more than one cycle will have to pass before she does. She’ll need more than four years to shake off the impression she made in 2008. And this is how you’ll know she’s making another bid for the presidency. She will wear skirts. Gone will be the pantsuits that made her look like a small blond man with breasts. It’s the new me, I wear skirts! Her first impulse is to think cosmetically. A long and weary life in politics has left her thinking this is the way to think.
So file this away for a few years and look for the sign: When Hillary starts wearing skirts, she’ll be gearing up for another run at the White House.
That’s the official name of the new X-Files movie, due in theaters July 25. Chris Carter, the director, describes the extraordinary lengths to which he went to keep the plot secret from the public. He did reveal, however, that the usual aliens conspiracy does not play a role in this movie.
Categories: Movie reviews
I often use Wikipedia to get quick facts on a wide range of topics. I have usually found its user-generated information to be thorough and helpful.
But on the subject of global warming, there appears to be a global warming zealot in the editor’s chair, who is working tirelessly to ensure that only the “consensus” viewpoint is given credence. Lawrence Solomon relates his own experience at trying to post information on the history of the global warming debate. He no sooner posts his information, than the esteemed editor deletes or changes his entry.
By patrolling Wikipedia pages and ensuring that her spin reigns supreme over all climate change pages, she has made of Wikipedia a propaganda vehicle for global warming alarmists.
Solomon’s experience demonstrates once again that the current global warming alarmism is not based on science, but on a political agenda.
Solomon, by the way, has just published a compilation of articles he has written over the last couple of years profiling a number of distinguished scientists who challenge the prevailing wisdom on global warming.
Categories: Global Warming · Internet
The mad push to convert a large segment of the North American grain market into biofuels is encountering the law of unintended consequences: Poor people elsewhere are starving.
Convinced that global warming due to the burning of fossil fuels is the Number One problem of our age, governments have adopted policies that reward growing crops for ethanol production, rather than for food. The markets have responded accordingly, and now the poorer nations of the world are struggling to find food for their people.
Whatever the arguments, politics is intruding. Food export controls have been imposed by Russia, China, India, Vietnam, Argentina, and Serbia. We are disturbingly close to a chain reaction that could shatter our assumptions about food security. . . .
The world intelligentsia has been asleep at the wheel. While we rage over global warming, global hunger has swept in under the radar screen.
Bjorn Lomborg is right: Whatever the science surrounding climate change, this planet has a lot bigger problems to worry about than global warming. The politicization of the climate debate is now costing lives.
UPDATE: Simon Jenkins in The Guardian notes, “Until recently, most greenery has seemed no more than a feelgood parlour game. Now it is getting serious.”
The marketplace is never perfect, but in this matter it could not be worse than government action. Playing these games has so far made a few people very rich at the cost of the taxpayer. Now the cost is in famine and starvation. This is no longer a game.
Categories: Economics · Global Warming · Politics
While I was in Miami last week, I watched a show on the Discovery Channel called “Before the Dinosaurs,” a documentary on the reptilian creatures that supposedly inhabited the earth before the dinosaurs evolved. It was a very slick production, using state-of-the-art CGI graphics to create scenes so realistic that you’d think it was filmed. In fact, it was designed to mimic a real documentary, the sort of thing you’d see on “Animal Planet.” For example, as large creatures lumbered by, the “camera” would shake, or when a predator ripped into his prey, “blood” would splatter on the “camera” lens. The narrator even described insignificant little behaviors to give the scenes added realism, like the two male reptiles fighting each other who would do some sort of push-ups to display their aggressiveness. How could scientists possibly know that little detail?
The whole thrust of this documentary, of course, was to further solidify in the minds of viewers the unassailable fact of evolution. Evolution is so thoroughly established, we might as well make the documentary as real as possible.
But like every other scientific theory involving processes we cannot directly observe, evolution is still subject to debate — and its adherents have cause to stack the evidence and silence their opposition. A new documentary is coming out soon that addresses the difficulties in evolution, and the intellectual chicanery that props it up. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is the brainchild of Ben Stein. Matt Barber has reviewed the film, and it promises to be a good one. I’m looking forward to seeing it.
Categories: Education · Movie reviews · Science
In case you’ve missed me, I’ve been out of town for a few days, and it’s taking me awhile to get caught up. I was in Miami, attending a couple of pre-conference workshops at the Information Architecture Summit 2008, sponsored by the American Society for Information Science and Technology. Very geeky stuff, but well worth the trip.
Here is a shot I took during an early morning walk, just a couple of blocks from the hotel.
One evening I also walked to the popular Bayside Marketplace, where I gawked at all the tourists gawking at other tourists.
Categories: Personal
Our son Jonathan lives near Texas Motor Speedway, and drew attention to this recent crash during a qualifying run. The driver, Michael McDowell, walked away from the wreck.
This goes to show what cars could be like, if we really wanted to ensure the safety of passengers. Of course, who would want to drive such a machine to work every day?
Categories: Something Different · Sports · Technology
Even the BBC is now reporting that the planet has not warmed since 1998, and with the current La Nina underway, 2008 promises to be cooler still.
Of course, the article is quick to quote experts who argue that this is merely a blip in a long-term warming trend. For example,
Adam Scaife, lead scientist for Modelling Climate Variability at the Hadley Centre in Exeter, UK, said their best estimate for 2008 was about 0.4C above the 1961-1990 average, and higher than this if you compared it with further back in the 20th Century.
But remember, it was right in the middle of that 1961-1990 timeframe that Newsweek magazine published that screamer headline about a new ice age approaching. In other words, Scaife is comparing current temps to those during a “valley” of a cyclical climate variation. You can prove anything by cherry-picking data like that.
The fact remains that the planet is not heating up, at least not in the catastrophic fashion that some would have us to believe.
UPDATE: An editorial in Investor’s Business Daily comments on this report: “The global warming debate is not over. Indeed, the debate is beginning to favor the skeptics.”
Categories: Global Warming
Hillary’s campaign has developed a reputation for not paying its bills. The word is getting around in the events-organizing business: Get your money up front. Sadly, many of those getting stiffed are small businesses who don’t wield enough power to force the issue. According to one victim of Clinton’s creative financing strategy,
Sen. Clinton talks about helping working families, people in unions and small businesses. But when it comes down to actually doing something that shows that she can back up her words with action, she fails.
Anybody want to venture a guess how she will finance all her extravagant new government programs once she’s elected?
For the record, the Clinton campaign says that everyone will get paid — eventually.
Categories: Hillary
