The Cliffs of Insanity

Peter Robinson says of this graph:

Note, incidentally, the tiny little wiggle at the year 2000.  That represents the Y2K monetary expansion, judged huge at the time.  There are plenty of people who would argue that the Fed’s efforts to shrink the money supply afterwards—that is, Greenspan’s mopping up operation—burst the high-tech bubble, causing the last downturn.  How will the Fed mop up after this expansion?

Update:

Robinson has a followup.

Below, as Mark Steyn has noted, I provide a link to a chart demonstrating the utterly unprecedented expansion in the monetary base in which Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has engaged over the last few months. Now economist Bruce Bartlett (who is, I should note, an old friend) has written to take me to task.  It’s no good showing what Bernanke has done, Bruce suggests, without showing the problem to which he was responding.

And Bartlett attempts to channel Friedman.

And Teachers Unions Count

California may have hit the tipping point. Here’s a brilliant idea:

No one should be able to vote their own paycheck. Government-employee unions should be legally restricted from engaging in any kind of political activity. If not, it is only a matter of time before civil servants become civil masters.

As long as their members work at public schools, teachers unions are government-employee unions. Of course, now that we’re past the tipping point, it’ll be impossible to pass such a law here. Keep an eye on California. We’re going to crash and burn in the next four years. Leading the country as usual.

The Thin-Skinned Messiah

He hasn’t even had to change bedsheets and towels at the White House yet and He’s already called the tiger by name.

Beyond the absurdity of a Democrat barking orders at his political opposition, he’s especially foolish to air his fear of Limbaugh and talk radio in a public setting. Now, what was long suspected by conservatives has been verified by the man himself.

I like Ann Althouse’s take:

I’m picturing Rush delirious with glee, pacing the cavernous rooms of his mansion, booming out monologues to his kitty cat Pumpkin, as he waits for Monday noon to finally roll around. This will be good.

These next four years are going to be disastrous for our country, but man are they going to be funny.

Update:

Rush didn’t wait for Monday to respond.

One more thing, Byron. Your publication and website have documented Obama’s ties to the teachings of Saul Alinksy while he was community organizing in Chicago. Here is Rule 13 of Alinksy’s Rules for Radicals:

“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

LEPERS: OBAMA DRAGGING HIS HEELS – AND OURS

This just in:

Washington (BWN) — Walking on water and changing water into wine just “isn’t enough”, the U.S.’s largest leper organization claimed. “Look, it’s been, like, days since He descended into Washington and we want our miracle,” NAALP spokesman Tzaraath Hansen said at a recent press conference called to raise consciousness about a large constituency waiting for a cure.

“Our Obama worship is just as worthy as anybody from Hollywood or MSNBC. Nobody is more prostrate than we are. But we can’t even get a foot in the door of the Oval Office.”

President Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, called on lepers to be patient. “Changing the levels of the oceans, raising America’s reputation from the dead, and keeping Biden’s foot out of his mouth are time-consuming miracles. President Obama will get to the lepers in their turn. Now is no time to go to pieces.”

All of this fell on deaf ears at the protest outside the White House gates where lepers carried signs such as “I Voted for Change and Got the Finger”, “I’m Not Shuffling Off Without A Cure” and “Barry: You Want a Piece of Me?”

Well, I thought that walking across the reflection pool to the inauguration stand was a nice touch.

The Obama Presidency Comedy Watch

continues.

President Obama made a surprise visit to the White House press corps Thursday night, but got agitated when he was faced with a substantive question.

I mean, just who do these reporters think they are?

Update:

As much as I admire Ma and Perlman, this is funny. Why? Because of the Marines!

Inaugural musical performances are routinely recorded ahead of time for just such an eventuality, Ms. Florman said. The Marine Band and choruses, which performed throughout the ceremony, did not use a recording, she said.

Another Update:

JOTD via Bernard Goldberg:

Did you hear the one about how after Barack Obama became president this week he found out the economy was worse than he thought—so he had to lay off 17 journalists.

Still Piling On:

Hope, Change and Transparency!

Nihilism Means Nothing to the Dancing Peasants

Heather MacDonald articulates well something I’ve tried to say before.

The Christian world-view holds that all human virtues are a loan from God.  The secularist responds: “Quite the opposite.”  Compassion, love, and mercy are human predicates; we confer them on God. Human beings are the sole source of meaning in the world; history is our story, not God’s story, as Rick Warren has it.

Many believers assume that this human-centric sense of life must lead to nihilism.  “Secular humanism  . . . founders on its own perception of the meaninglessness of human life,” writes Michael Novak in No One Sees God.  I’m puzzled by this stance.  The world is awash in meaning, more than anyone can possibly take in.  I don’t need God to be slain by the exquisiteness of Don Giovanni or a Chopin nocturne.  If life’s beauties, conflict, and cooperation leave believers looking elsewhere for significance, it is they, not skeptics, who live in an empty world.

(Emphasis mine.)

PS: The title of this post is something I saw printed on a yardstick which was on the wall at the old KSAN studios in San Francisco back in the ’70s. I always rather liked it.

How To Sell Cars

Update:

Or, there’s this way.

It’s Official: Obama Opposes Second Amendment Rights

Here it is on The Messiah’s official White House web site.

Address Gun Violence in Cities: Obama and Biden would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.

Same, tired old anti-freedom Orwellian crap about “common sense” (which they think is one word). Any time you hear those words, or that word, from a gun grabber it means it’s time to buy ammo.

So much for Hope and Change.

I don’t even want to think what a “childproof” gun is.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to find the part of the Constitution that authorizes the Executive Branch to even have an “Urban Policy”. Or is that Urbanpolicy?

Mississippi Science Under Attack

If it weren’t for the damage it could do to students, this proposed “disclaimer” that a moron named Gary Chism wants to put into biology text books would be purely risible.

The State Board of Education shall require every textbook that includes the teaching of evolution in its contents to include the following language on the inside front cover of the textbook:
“The word ‘theory’ has many meanings, including: systematically organized knowledge; abstract reasoning; a speculative idea or plan; or a systematic statement of principles. Scientific theories are based on both observations of the natural world and assumptions about the natural world. They are always subject to change in view of new and confirmed observations.

This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things. No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life’s origins should be considered a theory.

Evolution refers to the unproven belief that random, undirected forces produced living things. There are many topics with unanswered questions about the origin of life which are not mentioned in your textbook, including: the sudden appearance of the major groups of animals in the fossil record (known as the Cambrian Explosion); the lack of new major groups of other living things appearing in the fossil record; the lack of transitional forms of major groups of plants and animals in the fossil record; and the complete and complex set of instructions for building a living body possessed by all living things.

Study hard and keep an open mind.”

But not so far open that your brains fall out, Mr. Chism.

So that’s what “Change” means

It means blowing off the Medal of Honor recipients for the first time since Eisenhower.

Update:

The American Legion does not feel offended or snubbed. That could be because they have something Obama only pretends to have:

Class.

Life in the Socialist Lane

I call carpool, or HOV lanes the “socialist lane” since it’s real estate I’m paying for, taken from me at gunpoint, and given to those the government favors. For that reason i find them immoral, and hate them.

Some interesting research claims that they may have a beneficial smoothing effect on traffic.

The authors observed what they called a “smoothing effect.” Drivers were less tempted to change lanes, because there were fewer options available, and the “discharge flows” actually increased. When the carpool lane wasn’t activated, lanes saw anywhere from 9% to 13% worse performance in VPH (vehicles per hour). When considered in terms of “people hours traveled,” the activation of the carpool lane provided a benefit on the order of 30%. The authors note that if this “smoothing effect” is not observed and quantified, long highway delays might be incorrectly attributed to the carpool lane.

This is not a vindication of socialist lanes but, rather, yet another indictment of the bad driving I observe all the time. I have always believed, and data keeps bearing this out, that traffic jams are caused, or at least exacerbated, by incompetent driving more than by road capacity. Let’s hope that this isn’t used as further justification for stealing lanes. In fact:

As the authors note, it’s worth investigating how signage and striping might reduce “disruptive” lane changing. “Disruptive lane changing,” they add, “might also be reduced in some cases by sorting drivers (and vehicle classes) across lanes according to their preferred travel speeds; or in other cases by inducing a more even distribution of flows across lanes.”) We already have seen “variable speed limits” to help smooth out flow in a linear sense; maybe someday we’ll have “variable lane assignment” to smooth it out across the highway.

A commenter on the linked site makes a good point.

Is a “variable lane assignment” similar to the “no passing on the right” mandated on the German Autobahn?

If so, after having experienced the famous Germanic driving discipline first-hand, I would like to say, “yes, please”.

If drivers were trained to standards on following distance, speed and lane choice, most of our traffic jams would evaporate. Tailgating is probably the number one culprit. Pilots are required to demonstrate competence to an instructor every 24 calendar months. The same should be required of people who want to exercise the privileges of their drivers licenses.

Unclear on the Concept

Ahh, Europe, that shining example of sophistication. In Holland, the courts are going to try Geert Wilders for the non-crime of “hate speech“.

A Dutch court has ordered prosecutors to put a right-wing politician on trial for making anti-Islamic statements.
Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders made a controversial film last year equating Islam with violence and has likened the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
“In a democratic system, hate speech is considered so serious that it is in the general interest to… draw a clear line,” the court in Amsterdam said.
Mr Wilders said the judgement was an “attack on the freedom of expression”.

So far so good, right? “Hate speech” laws are clearly wrong. Anybody should be able to make “anti-Islamic” statements. Except get a load of what else Geert wants.

A year earlier, Mr Wilders described the Koran as a “fascist book” and called for it to be banned in “the same way we ban Mein Kampf”, in a letter published in the De Volkskrant newspaper.

So the trial should never happen in the first place but, if it does, I hope both sides lose.

I hope I’m still patriotic

in Obama’s America.

Is there anyone who still believes the Constitution was created to ensure each citizen liberty and the ability to pursue happiness rather than a guarantee of happiness — and a retirement fund, health care, a job, an education, a house … ?

Yes, two important historical events transpired Tuesday: The first was the peaceful transfer of power from one freely elected politician to another (an uninterrupted streak we often take for granted). Then there was the first presidency of an African-American, which proves we can transcend our unsightly past.

After that, what we had was just another election. We conduct one every four years. For those of you not shouting hosannas, it might have occurred to you that we are suffering from a rampant sickness in American life that casts government as the author of your dreams and an Illinois politician the linchpin of your hopes.

Saaaaaa-

–LUTE!

Democrats Occupy White House Again

Classy as ever.

Bush was infuriating, but we’re going to miss having grownups in charge.

Good Question

A proper response to “Let’s Renew America Together”.

How about creating jobs? Isn’t that a great way to serve our country? How about the government letting me keep my profits so I can reinvest them in my company and hire more people? Why is it that job creation is only good when the government does it? And why is it when the private sector creates jobs it is a capitalist evil? So, sir, we are giving. Now, please tell Mr. Obama to get out of our way and let us create some jobs.

Just so. Yesterday I heard from my wife that we were all to go out and do “volunteer work” to “help the country move forward”. Criminy. If that’s what Obama thinks moves the country forward we’re doomed.

Don’t go off half-cocked

or half educated.

What would you guess is the most recurring criticism I receive from subscribers and website visitors?

Contrary to what you might think, it’s not from people who take polar opposite positions from the Cause of Liberty content. It’s from freedom-loving patriots who believe that my recommended action steps are “benign.” For example, they tell me that reading classics will do little to solve our looming problems.

I have nothing but respect and admiration for these devoted people. We need many more just like them. But I do have a different perspective on what needs to happen for our Republic to be restored.

America is primed for a French Revolution scenario. To take it even further, we exhibit many of the qualities of German civilization prior to World War II.

We’re a highly-trained, yet poorly-educated populace. We’ve lost our sense of true education. Furthermore, we have staggering discrepancies in wealth distribution. We’re primed for a lot of chaos and pain.

Plainly put, we don’t have enough widespread education to sustain an anger-driven revolution. The People trying to fight Washington and other power interests right now is like replacing a strip club with a flea market.

Makes me feel better about the time I spend reading blogs. Hey, I read mostly good ones.

Here is your change

Fascinating Glimpse into Evolution

At Texas A&M they’ve been able to watch evolution in action and, as usual, nature had some surprises for them.

It’s the first direct experimental evidence of this phenomenon in eukaryotic cells, or cells with nuclei, and it contrasts the widely accepted classical model of evolution, which doesn’t account for simultaneously developing beneficial adaptations, she said. Instead, that model adopts a linear approach, theorizing that a population acquires such adaptations successively, one after another. Rather than a competition occurring, the model posits a complete replacement of one generation by another better-adapted generation.

That wasn’t the case in Kao’s sample.

Observing the color-coded yeast populations as they evolved to respond to their environment, Kao saw some colors expand while others contracted – a sign that adaptations were occurring. But rather than one segment of the population continuing to shrink until it was completely replaced, some segments were able to compete long enough to acquire further adaptations. When this happened, Kao explained, these populations of cells – once apparently less-fit – began to swell while once-dominant populations started to shrink. This constant reduction and burgeoning of populations signaled the development of multiple beneficial adaptations and a subsequent competition by the cells that acquired them, Kao said.

“Essentially, we were watching evolution in action,” Kao said. “We’re watching evolution in real time. We’re actually seeing a mutation that shows these things have adapted and seeing their population thrive and expand from this adaptation. This is how evolution works.

Pity Texas

Now the Flat Young Earthers are after not just biology courses, but Earth and Space Science.

The new Earth and Space Science (ESS) course standards (and all other science course standards) will be up for approval before the State Board of Education (SBOE) during January 21-23. Some SBOE members–the seven who are Young Earth Creationists (YECs)–will attempt to make changes to the ESS standards in ways that will damage the scientific integrity and accuracy of the course. In particular, these SBOE members will try to negatively modify or delete the standards that require students to understand the following topics that deal with scientific topics they consider controversial: age of the Earth and universe, radiometric dating, evolution of fossil life, and the origin of life by abiotic chemical processes. These topics are the ones that YECs consider to be controversial; indeed, they are obsessed with them to the exclusion of everything else.

The real problem is still that government is in charge of education. But I have the sinking feeling that a too-large number of parents, if left on their own, would feed their kids utter creationist nonsense. Kids deserve not to be crippled by their parents. But for now the battleground is in the public schools, and we’d better hope the loons don’t gain any more ground there.

Fiskies Announced

And the winner is…

Obvious.

“So Help Me George”

I doubt that Obama will be the first modern president to return to the actual text of his oath from the Constitution and, if he does, it’ll likely be for the wrong reason. I also don’t expect him to honor it in the slightest.

But if you think George Washington was the first to add the “so help me God” language, you’re likely mistaken.

Taken together, the complete lack of contemporary evidence, George Washington’s political philosophy of strictly following the Constitution and the concurrent debate over the proper wording of oaths under the new Constitution make it virtually certain that George Washington did not add the words “So help me God” to his inaugural oath.

No, I’m not a Newdow Atheist (ie: litigious busybody) but I do believe the Constitution says what it means, and that it is the most important single document in the country. This is the only sentence in the whole document which is in quotes:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

That’s what the Founding Fathers meant the president to say, and that’s what he should say. No more, no less.

It’s going to be a parody-proof four years

I thought the Stalinist-style posters of Obama were anti-Obama parody. I thought that about that commercial with the little kids singing a hymn to Him. Now it seems I’m to be surrounded by people so treacly smitten with The One that I’ll never know when they’re joking.

On the morning after the election, Kristin Rothballer, 36, who lives in San Francisco, kissed her female partner goodbye on the train while commuting to work. A black woman who sat down next to her turned and said she was sorry that Proposition 8, the amendment to ban gay marriage in the state, looked like it was going to pass.

“We grabbed hands,” Ms. Rothballer recalled. “And I said, ‘Well, I really want to congratulate you because we have a black president and that’s amazing.’ ”

“Our conversation then almost became about the fact that we were having the conversation,” she said.

Something moved her to apologize to the black woman for slavery.

“For two strangers riding a train to Oakland to have that conversation about race, it wouldn’t have been possible if Obama hadn’t been elected,” she said. “I always felt open with my colleagues, but to say to a stranger on the train, ‘Hey, I’m sorry about slavery,’ that just doesn’t happen.”

Update:

See what I mean?

Taking the fight to the enemy

A good idea over on Science Based Medicine: try to get NCCAM defunded.

As you may or may not know, Change.gov is being used by Obama’s team to solicit policy ideas. Americans submit ideas, along with supporting rationale, and people “vote up” or vote down” the proposals. “Up” votes increase the score of the proposals, and “down” votes decrease the score.

This is one of PZ Meyers’ good projects.

It’s a huge boondoggle, a fat earmark for low-quality pseudoscience, and it’s money that would be better spent on real science and medicine. Sign up at change.gov and vote it up!

Here’s where you can vote it up. Don’t let Deepak Chopra and his minions outvote science! There’s always the nonzero chance that someone at the risibly-named “Office of the President Elect” will actually listen.

More background on the NCCAM here and here.

A funny aside: The “prove you’re a human” text I had to enter at Obama’s site was “riding tied”. Kinda kinky over there, I guess.

Anyway, please note that it’ll make you create an account when you try to vote, but you’ll have to go back and vote again after creating your account. Also, as pointed out in the comments, writing letters is also a good idea.

Top 10 Incredible Early Firsts in Photography

Ever wondered who took the first photograph, and when?

Hey, if they can print paper

why can’t we?

InstaPundit says

Why wait until the government gets around to issuing them in 2011, when they’ll buy a single measly gallon of gas? They’re also amusing at parties.

I’m back to not being able to discern between an Obama Salute and an Obama Parody. I know to which use I’d put it.

Why do professors deplore enterprise?

TigerHawk has some ideas.

Before I read the article I was going to say it’s because they know they’re being paid without the expectation of actual productivity. It’s an unnatural, infantilized state.

The name “Michael” is all they have in common

The smart, talented, honest one may have to sue the idiotic, dishonest hack. Here’s an update.

The Natural Order of Things

I commend to you an excellent article in The Spectator showing how Charles Darwin was influenced and inspired by – wait for it – economists. It’s worth reading the whole thing to see how evolution is far from being a merely biological process. The bottom line:

The dark side of bottom-up Darwinism is that cumulative complexity can come about only through selective death or selective celibacy. Wonderful life may result, but it is born red in tooth and claw. The social Darwinists of the 19th century and the eugenicists of the 20th were of the view that the strong should therefore be encouraged to succeed, the better to keep natural selection going. But this is to misread human society. The human body may have come about through three billion years of natural selection among genes, but civilisation and prosperity came from 50,000 years of much more rapid natural selection among ideas. It is easily possible to blunt genetic selection in the name of kindness, while allowing cultural selection to continue: the death of an idea need not be cruel.

There is, however, one more disturbing and topical parallel between biological and cultural evolution. Just as natural selection’s constructive capacity did not prevent mass extinctions, one of which, 251 million years ago, eradicated over 96 per cent of marine species, so the market’s ability to build order cannot prevent crashes. Even sophisticated, entropy-defying complex systems are subject to the weather-like vagaries of mathematical chaos — and there Darwin cannot help.

Presidential Wisdom

As reported by Robert Ferrigno.

Vice President–elect Joe Biden noisily cleared his throat from just inside the door.

“Joltin’ Joe! What are you doing here, boy?” said W. “You’re supposed to be getting prepped from the Dickster.”

“Cheney has been putting me off all week,” said Biden. “Today he had to cancel because” — he made air quotes with his fingers — “he had to have the oil changed in his pacemaker.”

W. laughed and so did Obama.

“I don’t think it’s funny,” Biden complained.

“Of course you don’t,” said W., “That’s why you’re second banana. Now scoot.”

Biden looked at Obama. “I thought I was going to be allowed to sit in — ”

“Sorry Joe-Joe, this sit-down is for POTUSes only,” said W. “Or is it POTI?”

“Go on, Joe,” soothed Obama. “I’ll e-mail you later.”

W. waited for Biden to leave. The veep-in-training tried to slam the door, but it had weighted gimbals so that it closed gently. Clinton had the gimbals installed during his first term when Hillary had cracked the door-frame twice in one week.