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This headline caught my eye:
Shame he was not grilled a bit more about the Fed’s free-money policy that fuelled much of the credit crisis back in the days leading up to the housing bubble. Goodness knows what his old mentor would have made of this charade. April 7th, 2010 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
 “Congratulations, Democrats. Beginning now, you own the health-care system in America. Every hiccup. Every complaint. Every long line. All yours.” I wish that were true. Here in Britain, where filthy wards in NHS hospitals, for example, have been a regular staple of the UK newspapers, the standard response is usually to demand even more money, more rules, and so forth. If you challenge the model of tax-funded healthcare free at the point of delivery, then you are political dogfood. And Mr Obama and his allies know that. As Mark Steyn has been putting since before Mr Obama’s election, Mr O. is counting on what the UK politician Sir Keith Joseph once dubbed the “ratchet effect”: ratchet socialism a little more, and make it harder and harder for anyone to push back. Of course, sometimes this argument will be proven wrong. I do get the impression that a lot of Americans, including those middle-of-the-road voters who gave Obama a chance in 2008, are now very alarmed at the huge debt that his administration seems to be encouraging. So it may be that Mr Obama is a one-term POTUS. But his legacy might take a lot longer to reverse. On a more philosophical line, here is what I wrote a while back about the bogus nature of healthcare “rights”. March 22nd, 2010 | 64 comments - (Comments are closed)
Answer here. March 21st, 2010 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
This is not exactly a John Brown incident but it is certainly a serious shot over the bow of the Federal government:
The warning in Resolution HJ0002 is pretty clear:
Freudenthal himself states:
If Wyoming were the only State to do this it would be interesting as it is the site of the libertarian Western ‘Free State’ project. As the article further reports, it is far more than that :
Let us pray that the second Revolution (or Civil War as the case may be) remains one fought out in legislatures and courts. Let us also pray that our side wins, because if it does not, the US is finished as a free and prosperous country. March 19th, 2010 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
Just a quick link on an interesting story about how the growing, affluent middle class in China is taking the view that it likes taxes as about as little as the Tea Party campaigners in the US. March 15th, 2010 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
March 9th, 2010 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
“In the 19th century, the British would have answered Mr Riley-Smith’s question “What has trade to do with human understanding” very readily. It has a great deal to do with it, we would have said. Commerce is the main means of peaceful intercourse with other people. It is the circulatory system of the world. It is part of the constitution of liberty which, as the author rightly says, we exported to America. If we have forgotten this, it is we, not the United States who are – both metaphorically and literally – the poorer.” Charles Moore, writing about what he regards as an interesting but in some ways wrong-headed book about America by Tristram Riley-Smith. March 9th, 2010 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
Eric Raymond has a thoughtful and compassionate article at his blog about two people he knows who are down on their luck in the US economy. They are not uneducated bums, or lacking in motivation. But they are examples, he says, of how the rising costs of hiring and firing people has, when coupled to other factors, meant that many people will not enjoy the benefits of any subsequent economic recovery. Money quote:
I tend to associate labour market rigidities with Western Europe – where high levels of unemployment have persisted alongside relatively high GDP growth (that’s assuming you believe government GDP figures, Ed). It is tragic that the same process is at work in the US, at least if Mr Raymond’s article is indicative of a broader trend. February 24th, 2010 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
I always knew that something like this would happen, sooner or later, justified by sentiments like this, which are not that different my own. Basically the guy drove his airplane into a tax office, causing his own death in a fireball, and much other damage besides. This event may mean angst for libertarians like me. So, Mr Libertarian, Do you believe that such acts of violence are justified? Question mark, question mark. And we will prevaricate, like moderate Muslims being challenged to explain Muslim-inspired terrorism. I will, anyway, if asked. No, but. Or perhaps in some cases: yes, but. Personally, I don’t see how you can have tax gathering on the scale that prevails nowadays, and for purposes that prevail nowadays, without violent responses of this sort. Frivolous and somewhat incongruous thought, of the sort that pops into the head at such times: will gadgets like this hexakopter make such attacks easier? I remember how President Clinton’s political fortunes took a turn for the better following that bomb attack by Timothy McVeigh. He went from looking like a probable one-termer to a two-termer, pretty much from that moment on, because it perfectly illustrated what loons his supporters thought his opponents were. Will something similar now happen for Obama? His supporters will surely have no problem explaining what they think about this, which is all part of the case against such attacks. How will the Tea Party movement be affected? Further thought, the body count, including the man himself, seems to be low. Maybe, logically, that ought to make little difference, but low body counts are much sooner forgotten. Another thought: the pictures of this are dramatic. Not so soon fogotten, perhaps. Obsessed as I now am with Climategate, I first learned about this drama here. February 19th, 2010 | 37 comments - (Comments are closed)
At the start of my previous Climategate posting, I suggested that James Delingpole might be slacking off on the subject. Maybe he is. There is still nothing up at his blog beyond his afore-linked Beano bit. Maybe he feels he needs a breather. But maybe he is working very hard on another Climategate story, of which there are now dozens to chase up. Talk about a target rich environment for journalists. Not that you would know it in the USA, if blog complaints like this are anything to go by. The way that the USA’s old media are mostly ignoring the biggest scientific fraud in history, and one of the biggest global stories of the century so far, is itself an amazing story. Delingpole has written an entire book on recent US politics, and surely has many acquaintances in the US old media. Maybe he is now grilling these people, and will soon be doing a piece on why these persons are covering themselves in such unglory, Climategate-wise. Someone should. Although, maybe I’m out of date and the US old media are getting their Climategate act together at last. Or maybe the Americans I’ve been reading are wrong, and the US old media have always been noticing Climategate, just not in the way those Americans would like. Comments from US readers about those possibilities would be most welcome. The Washington Post seems to be noticing. Weren’t they the guys who lead the way on that original gate thing? ADDENDUM: In the course of shortening this post, cutting out some digressions, I omitted one crucial non-digression which I now take the liberty of adding. If it’s true that right wing bloggers and right wing Brit newspapers are now savaging the Warmists completely wrongly, well, isn’t that a story in its own right, given the huge scale of this phenomenon? Aren’t these bad bloggers and cynical Brit journos threatening the very future of the planet? And you guys are ignoring that? Why aren’t you grilling these bad, bad people? Why no big exposures of the wrongness and wickedness of Steve McIntyre? Why no stuff saying “What’s up with Watt’s Up With That??” One way or another, this is a huge story. Trouble is, I guess they want the story to go one way, but that if they investigate it properly they fear that they’ll find it going the other way. ANOTHER ADDENDUM: Bishop Hill:
Which would at least further suggest that they have ignored it. February 17th, 2010 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
Glenn just emailed me a question: “When will we see a Tea Party campaign in Britain?” to which I have no answer. If I must hazard a guess, I would say it will be after the Tories take power again… and people realize Cameron is nothing but NuLabour in Tory clothing. In any case, you may want to read Glenn’s WSJ report on the Tea Party Convention. February 13th, 2010 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
Now that the East Coast has mostly dug itself out of a snowbank and I am not busy on the job attempting to keep (or restore as the case was for several days) minimal capability at a customer site, the pictorial tale of the Blizzard of ’10 can be told. I have been working for one of my usual customers in the DC area who has a large house that doubles as office and ISP. In normal circumstances this is a comfortable arrangement. Last week, however, was not so comfortable. We lost power by 22:00 on Friday; the emergency generator had a carburetor problem and we could not get it to run very long. When it did run, we got the ‘Doom lighting effect” as power to the lights and the UPS’s faded in and out. It was still snowing the next morning.  This shows the depth of the snow on the rear deck before the first blizzard was even finished. We got another ten inches or more in the second storm. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved An entire line of trees came down due to the heavy snow load. One could almost hear these poor enbarked-southerners crying out “But we’re not evolved for this!”  The railing and snow softened the blow so the car was luckily undamaged. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved  The entire row but one beside the next house.came down. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved After a lot of shoveling, I went walking through the snowdrifts down by the canal with the owner’s wife. This turned out to be a bit more of an adventure than either of us had expected and I heartily concur with those who tell you to stay with your car if you are caught in a blizzard outside of town. Our one mile hike felt like ten.  It really was beautiful though! Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved I heard a crackling sound behind us and got my camera up just fast enough to catch the cloud of ice particles, snow and water as a tree fell into the canal.  This tree fall had someone to hear it and it definitely made a sound! Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved The sun came out the next day and with blue sky it was a magical sight, despite the fact we were still without heat and still had the problem of the failed emergency generator to deal with.  The woods around the house were almost magical looking. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved  No, we were not attacked by Ent’s, but it was a damn near thing when the row of trees fell the other night! Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved  This is just a random house we passed while looking for a new generator. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved  This is the ‘tent’ we built to protect the new emergency generator. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved  This is the 200 foot driveway two of us shoveled after the second storm. The snowblower made it through the first one and then croaked. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved I had a bit of fun with camera angles and the 7-8 foot high mounds of snow in a shopping centre parking lot. Perhaps it shows the area’s future. The glaciers will come again after all…  Is this the future of the DC area in a world of Global Cooling? Is it George Bush’s fault? Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved February 12th, 2010 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
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