Che Guevara's Message

Tune in, Turn on, Get Shot
02/04/09 - AmericanThinker by Humberto Fontova

[edited]  Woe to those youths "who stayed up late at night and thus reported late to work at government forced-labor." Guevara wrote "Youth should learn to think and act as a mass. Those who chose their own path" (as in growing long hair and listening to Yankee-Imperialist Rock & Roll) were denounced as worthless "lumpen" and "delinquents." In his famous speech he vowed "to make individualism disappear from Cuba! It is criminal to think of individuals!"

Normally it's one .45 slug that shatters the skull. Eyewitnesses say Tony required POW! POW! POW! -- three. The executioner's hands were shaking pretty badly. They finally managed. Che Guevara, the man Time magazine placed among the "heroes and icons of the Century", had another notch in his gun. Another enemy dispatched, bound and gagged as usual.

Castro and Che were in their mid-30s when they murdered Tony. According to the authoritative "Black Book of Communism" their firing squads riddled another 14,000 bound and gagged freedom-fighters. Many (perhaps most) of their murder victims were boys in their late-teens and early 20s. Some were younger.

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A Glorious Anniversary of Che Guevara's Execution
08/29/10 - American Thinker by Humberto Fontova
Via Big Hollywood by Humberto Fontova

[edited]  A former Cuban political prisoner told me: "Che's face beamed as the victims were tied to the stake and blasted apart by the firing squad. There was something seriously, seriously wrong with Che Guevara." Che often shattered the skull of the condemned man or boy by firing the coup de grace himself.

The young Ernesto Guevara wrote "My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. Crazy with fury, I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any vencido that fall in my hands!" Vencido is "surrendered" or "defeated". Indeed, the acrid odor of gunpowder rarely reached Guevara's nostrils from combat. It came from the close-range murders of unarmed and defenseless men and boys.

Rigoberto Hernandez was 17 when Che's soldiers dragged him from his cell in La Cabana and dragged him to the stake. He was a mentally retarded janitor in a Havana high school. His mother had begged and finally proven to his prosecutors that he couldn't possibly have been "a CIA agent planting bombs."

FUEGO! The firing squad volley shattered Rigo's little bent body as he moaned and struggled against his bounds, blindfolded and gagged. Che Guevara instructed his revolutionary courts: "judicial evidence is an archaic bourgeois detail." Harvard Law School invited Che to speak, and gave a rollicking ovation to Fidel Castro during the very midst of this appalling bloodbath.

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The Real Che Guevara
02/17/09 - Samizdata by Sol Terra

[edited]  The real Guevara was a reckless bourgeois adrenaline-junkie seeking a place in history as a liberator of the oppressed. But this fanatic's vehicle of 'liberation' was Stalinism, named for Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, murderer of well over 20 million of his own people.

As one of Castro's top lieutenants, Che helped steer Cuba's revolutionary regime in a radically repressive direction. Soon after overthrowing Batista, Guevara choreographed the executions of hundreds of Batista officials without any fair trials. He thought nothing of summarily executing even fellow guerrillas suspected of disloyalty and shot one himself with no due process.

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Killer Chic
Hollywood's Sick Love Affair With Che Guevara
03/2009 - Reason.TV

A video (8:30) about Che Guevara's influence in Hollywood. There are comments by people who have lived in Cuba under Castro, and in China under Mao.

[edited]  Gisele Bundchen wears him on the runway, Johnny Depp wears him around his neck, and Benicio Del Toro becomes him in "Che", the new, highly acclaimed, two-part epic film from Steven Soderbergh. Ernesto "Che" Guevara is the revolutionary who helped found communist Cuba. He is the celebrity that celebrities adore. Be it Madonna, Rage Against the Machine, or Jay-Z, musicians really dig Che.

This baffles Cuban jazz legend Paquito D'Rivera. "Che hated artists, so how is it possible that artists still today support the image of Che Guevara?" It turns out the rebellious icon that emblazons countless T-shirts actually enforced aesthetic and political conformity. D'Rivera explains that Che and other Cuban authorities sought to ban rock n roll and jazz.

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AIG Exec Digs Che Guevara?
03/18/09 - American Thinker by Humberto Fontova

The article shows an executive from the bailed-out insurance company AIG, wearing a Che t-shirt at a social event. It talks about how the Cuban people have become poor under Castro despite massive aid from the Soviet Union.

The following quote is from Fontova's new book Exposing the Real Che Guevara.

[edited]  After a hard day at the office signing execution warrants, Che Guevara repaired to his new domicile in Tarara, 15 miles outside Havana and on a pristine beachfront. Today, that beach is reserved exclusively for tourists and Communist party members.

The "austere idealist" Che hadn't done too badly for himself in this real estate transaction, known in non-revolutionary societies as theft.

Cuban journalist Antonio Llano Montes writes:

[edited]  The house was among the most luxurious in Cuba. Until a few weeks prior, it belonged to Cuba's most successful building contractor. The mansion had a boat dock, a huge swimming pool, seven bathrooms, a sauna, a massage salon and several television sets.

One TV had been specially designed in the U.S., had a screen ten feet wide, and was operated by remote control (in 1959). This was thought to be the only TV of its kind in Latin America.

The garden had a veritable jungle of imported plants, a pool with waterfall, ponds filled with exotic tropical fish, and several bird houses filled with parrots and other exotic birds. The habitation was something out of "A Thousand and One Nights".

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The Killing Machine: Che Guevara, from Communist Firebrand to Capitalist Brand
07/11/05 - Alvaro Vargas Llosa in The New Republic
  Via Big Government.

A long article about Che's life and deeds. How Che became a capitalist brand, worn on T-shirts around the world by people who know nothing real about their hero.

[edited excerpt]  In April 1967, Che summed up his homicidal idea of justice in his “Message to the Tricontinental”: “hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine.” Che spoke from experience.

In January 1957, his diary indicates that Guevara shot Eutimio Guerra because he suspected him of passing on information: “I ended the problem with a .32 caliber pistol, in the right side of his brain. His belongings were now mine.”

Later, he shot Aristidio, a peasant who expressed the desire to leave whenever the rebels moved on. He wondered whether this particular victim “was really guilty enough to deserve death”.

Echevarría was a brother of one of his comrades. Che had no qualms about ordering his death for unspecified crimes: “He had to pay the price.” At other times he would simulate executions without carrying them out, as a method of psychological torture.

On the eve of victory, Che ordered the execution of a couple of dozen people in Santa Clara, where his column had gone as part of a final assault. Some of them were peasants who had joined the army simply to escape unemployment.

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Che For Sale
07/16/10 - Samizdata by Brian Micklethwait (London)

Micklethwait collects many links about the despicable Che Guevara.

[edited]  It was not an especially startling sight. A fizzy drink named after a murderous Bolshevik who is remembered as beautiful, cool, wise, and virtuous. A lot of stupid and dishonest people worshipped him while concealing exactly why, and he died young just after being very well photographed.

By the way, it was most gratifying how quickly Google yielded up all those links. One of the authors wrote "It is not at all hard to learn the ghastly truth about this ghastly man". I Googled "truth about Che Guevara", and most of what I found was very good and anti-delusional.

One lady writer reports that Che killed dogs for fun as a child, which she saw as a sure sign of a psychopath.

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Revolutionary Jerk
Fort Liberty by Will Spencer  Via Amy Alkon - 05/03/11

Ernesto “Che” Guevara was a racist who ranted against Africans. He hated homosexuals and had them imprisoned. He disdained both rock music and jazz and persecuted musicians. He burned thousands of books and murdered Cuban authors. His special pleasure in life was murdering young boys in front of their mothers. This is Che, the leftist hero.

Spencer also provides more links.

Selling Burned-Out Lightbulbs

A Market For Burned Out Lightbulbs
02/02/09 - MarginalRevolution by Tyler Cowen

The movie "Jurassic Park" (1993) and its sequels were about the modern re-creation of dinosaurs, under the watchful control of careful scientists. The theme is announced by the mathematician who is an expert in Chaos Theory. He thinks correctly that the dinosaurs are very dangerous, because "Life finds a way". Living things are going to find a way to achieve their desires, if it is remotely possible.

The "free market" is the name we use for thousands or millions of people thinking, experimenting, exploring, and linking their actions through exchanges of goods and information. They have more information and problem solving power than a supercomputer. The patterns and solutions that they discover are intricate and amazing. Life finds a way.

We should want to encourage and use this ability whenever possible, instead of imposing uniform plans and control from high above.

The following quote about the operation of the Soviet economy shows the power and humor of the market.

[edited] It is hard to imagine any market for burned-out light bulbs. But this market was entirely reasonable in the mismanaged Soviet economy. Light bulbs were rarely available to individual consumers for a new lamp at home. But, they were distributed for use in state-run offices and factories.

If someone needed a new bulb, he would buy a burned-out bulb for a small fee, use it to replace a functioning bulb at work, and take the good bulb home. The maintenance person at the office would replace the burned-out bulb and sell it.

A friend of mine who lived in Russia told me that there was another factor. Some lightbulbs were available in stores. But, a dislike of state-run business supported the bad bulb market. Many people so disliked their employers that they stole what they could, going out of their way to do it.

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Nobody knows how to make a pencil
The lowly pencil is the result of 100 years of discovery and development. The knowledge about its manufacture and ingredients is dispersed around the world.

The Benefits of Health Savings Accounts

Knockin' Wood: The Benefits of Health Savings Accounts - HSA's
02/03/09 - InsureBlog by Henry Stern

The Urban Institute doesn't like free market solutions to health care and insurance issues, so they decided to pick on the one product that is the most useful in reducing costs and insuring more people: consumer driven health care plans and HSA's. In reality:

• HSA's are attractive to people of all incomes.
• Those who need usual health care services benefit from these plans, which avoid costly "extras".
• High deductible HSA plans have lower premiums than expensive plans with lower initial co-pays. Since the plans have higher deductibles, it seems more likely that those with more health problems (up to a point, of course) will be more likely to make it through underwriting.
• 6+ million Americans are enrolled in HSA-eligible health plans. Their popularity is growing. Patients determine how much of their money to spend today, or save for tomorrow, for health-care expenses. HSAs allow patients to make prudent decisions for themselves.

Macroeconomics is Astrology, Not Science

Macroeconomics 'Experts' Apply Astrology, Not Science
01/30/09 - RealClearMarkets by Frank J. Tipler, Professor of Mathematical Physics at Tulane University.

[edited] The inability of macroeconomic theories (about an entire economy) to make accurate predictions means that those economists do not know what they are talking about. Our leaders are being advised by macroeconomists, and they haven’t got a clue where they are leading us. Their actions may lead us out of the current recession, or they may lead us into a depression as bad as the Great Depression.

Franklin Roosevelt is often given credit for experimenting with the economy in a scientific manner. He did nothing of the sort.

Any experiment involving human beings has to be a controlled experiment, as in medicine. Half the patients are given the new medicines and the other half, the controls, either the old medicine, or a placebo. Then, and only then, can one tell if the medicine actually improves the condition over doing nothing (the placebo), or is making matters worse.

In contrast, today’s economic advisors to the President, like Roosevelt, propose to apply their economic medicine to the entire economy. This is astrology, not science. The professors of economics have no true, experimentally confirmed knowledge of macroeconomics.

The widely touted macroeconomic “experts” are no experts at all.

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Is Macroeconomics a Science?
02/26/10 - WSJ.com by Russ Roberts, professor of economics at George Mason University

Fred:  Why did the Great Depression last so long?
Economist:  I just don't know, but I'm willing to guess.

[edited]  Which theory is the "right" way to think about the boom and the bust? Or are they all wrong?

I once thought applying statistics to economic questions would settle these disputes, and the truth would out. Econometrics is used to measure the impact of one variable while holding other factors constant. I now believe that we don't have data on too many factors. There are too many connections between the variables which we don't understand and can't model or identify.

We should expect less of economists. Economics organizes thinking about the complexity of the world around us. That should be enough. We should admit publicly what we know, what we don't know, and what we may never know. That is the first step toward respectability.

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The Economic Test
01/04/11 - Cafe Hayek by Russ Roberts

[edited]:  Suppose the economy does well this year. Say growth is robust and unemployment falls. What would be the reason for the improvement? Can any model of the economy identify the cause? It could be:

• The natural rebound of an economy after a longer than expected downturn.
• The stimulus finally kicking in.
• The psychological or real impact of extending the Bush tax cuts.
• The psychological or real impact of the November election results.
• The steady hand of Obama at the tiller.
• All of the above.

Macroeconomics is not a science and is not even scientific, because the question I pose above is not answerable.

If the economy improves, there will be much talk about the reason. Data and evidence will be trotted out in support of the speaker’s viewpoint. But that is not science. We don’t have a way of distinguishing between those different theories or of measuring their independent contributions.

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Why Spending Stimulus Plans Fail

Articles about Stimulus

Interrogation, Torture, and Rendition

The Necessity of Torture
02/02/09 - ChicagoBoyz by Shannon Love
About the use of threats in interrogation from WWII to the present.

[edited] Obama has decided to keep rendition and the torture it implies as part of U.S. covert operations. Threatening to torture spies and illegal combatants is a necessary tool.

The US Army in WWII interrogated uniformed German soldiers i.e. legal combatants completely covered by the Geneva convention. The History Channel reported about the most successful technique. Many of the interrogators were Jews who escaped Germany and Eastern Europe in the 30’s and who spoke many languages in genuine accents. The Russian speaking members dressed in Soviet uniforms and told the German captives that they would be turned over to the Russians unless they talked. The Germans knew full well that death by torture awaited them at the hands of the Russians, and talked.

The American interrogators were bluffing. If a German didn’t talk they just transferred him so he couldn’t give the game away. Without the horror of Stalin’s Soviet Union hanging over their heads, the Germans had no reason to speak. The information that the Americans extracted form the German soldiers saved Allied lives.

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The “Extraordinary Rendition” Program
02/02/09 - ChicagoBoyz by Lexington Green

An interview with Michael Scheuer of the CIA. He helped to develop the system of renditions the CIA used for terrorists, first developed in 1995 under President Clinton.

A rendition is capturing a terrorist, then sending him to his home country or a third country for imprisonment. The legal rules followed are surprising.

[edited] Scheuer:First, we wanted to identify the members and contacts of al-Qaida and put them in jail. Those in fact who had either taken part in an attack on the United States or who were possibly planning an attack. Second, papers and electronics were to be confiscated.

It is being claimed in the media that we had apprehended and hauled off people on the basis of some suspicions, in order to interrogate them. But that isn't right.

If it was possible to interrogate, we considered that icing on the cake. We just wanted the man and his documents. We knew from experience that aggressive interrogations bordering on torture don't work

President Clinton, his security advisor Sandy Berger, and his terrorism advisor Richard Clarke tasked the CIA in Fall 1995 with destroying al-Qaida. We asked the President: What should we do with the people we’ve apprehended? Clinton: That’s your concern. The CIA objected: We aren’t prison guards. We were again told that we should solve the problem somehow. So we developed a procedure, and I was a member of this task force. We concentrated on al-Qaida members who were wanted in their home countries or who had been convicted there in absentia.

We had to present a huge amount of incriminating evidence to a group of lawyers before arresting anyone. There were lawyers everywhere. In the CIA, in the Justice Department, in the National Security Council.

We developed our list of targets under their supervision. Then we had to catch the person in a country that was prepared to cooperate with us. Finally, the person had to come from a country that was prepared to take him back. A terribly cumbersome process for a very limited group of targets.

ZEIT: Why did countries want to cooperate with you on their own territory? Couldn’t they have dealt with it themselves?

Scheuer: They believed that only America was threatened, and that they would themselves only become targets of terror if they arrested suspects publicly.

Let's Counterfeit Our Way to Wealth

There are many reports that the Obama economics team is using a multiplier of 1.5 to estimate the effects of government spending. The theory of the multiplier is that $100 of government spending is supposed to "stimulate" the production of $150 in increased wealth as an increase in GDP. GDP is Gross Domestic Product, the total value of all goods and services produced in the US economy.

These links report on this government thinking, and offer interesting analyses:  MasonWhat Will Be the Impact of Obama's Stimulus Plan?
01/26/09 - Seeking Alpha by John Mason
  [edited] The Keynesian model says spending $825 billion will generate something more, as new investment and spending is created from the initial stimulus. The word going around is that the Obama economists are using a multiplier of 1.5. Thus, $825 billion in new spending and tax cuts are supposed to result in another $412.5 billion in spending, raising the total effect to $1.2375 trillion.,  BeaudoinObama’s Bogus Economics
04/2009 - Reflections by Joseph Beaudoin
  [edited] The prediction of 3.5 million new jobs comes from a Keynesian economic model built by Christina Romer, chair of the White House Economic Advisory Board, and Jared Bernstein, economic advisor to the vice president elect.
  This model assumes a wealth multiplier averaging 1.5 for government spending. Mr. Obama would rather talk about these jobs than about how these jobs are supposed to come into existence.,  RugyThe Myth of the Multiplier
November 2009 - Reason by Veronique de Rugy
  [edited] Two studies stand out: by Robert J. Barro and by Valerie Ramey on how military spending influences GDP. Both studies found that government spending crowds out the private sector, at least a little. Both found multipliers close to one: Barro’s estimates 0.8, Ramey estimates 1.2.
  This means that every dollar of government spending produces either less than a dollar of economic growth or just a little over a dollar. That’s quite different from the administration’s favored multiplier of four.
  Ramey also found evidence that consumer and business spending actually decline after an increase in government purchases., and BarroGovernment Spending Is No Free Lunch
01/22/09 - WSJ by Robert J. Barro
  Back in the 1980s, many commentators ridiculed as voodoo economics the extreme supply-side view that across-the-board cuts in income-tax rates might raise overall tax revenues.
  Now we have the extreme demand-side view that the multiplier effect of government spending is greater than one. Team Obama is reportedly using a number around 1.5..

Obama also believes that the multiplier for tax cuts is only about 1, so much more wealth is created when the government spends money collected from taxpayers than when the taxpayers spend that money. The idea is that the taxpayers might save some of that money, so it won't flow around and create wealth.

Obama believes that the government can spend so that its dollars go to people who won't save any of it. They will help the rest of us by spending it all. They will be doing their patriotic duty while they watch big-screen TV's and eat at expensive restaurants.

Obama's team is making this stuff up as they go along. It can't possibly be true. But, being in a good mood, let's assume that it is true. Then the following is also true.

We should immediately license counterfeiters.

Read more ...

Anyone who can produce good looking paper money should be licensed to print up as much as possible, after agreeing to give it to people who are likely to respend it immediately. That would be anyone working for minimum wage, the obviously unemployed, or even friends who would take the oath to spend, spend, spend.

This meets all of the conditions that the government likes for its own programs. There is no trickle-down; the money goes straight into the hands of the people who can save us. This avoids giving any money to the fat-cat businessmen who have let us down so far.

This money should have the same 1.5 multiplier associated with government spending. The money won't be saved, it won't go to the taxpayers (who have their own money), and it will get into circulation immediately where it can stimulate the economy and even create more tax collections.

Even better, there is no need to raise taxes to get back the money in the future, because this would create it at very low cost. The investment and job creation plans of the taxpayers would not be interrupted.

There is one catch. The multiplier is "only" 1.5, so it seems unfair to give the counterfeiters too much wealth. So, here is the deal. The counterfeiter would keep $15 out of each $100, using $5 for supplies. He would agree to give $40 to approved charities, and $45 to the chronically unemployed and underemployed. There is no need to be picky, because there is plenty more where that came from.

Here is how the wealth totals up per $100 counterfeit:

New Spending
  Counterfeiter   $   10
  Supplies             5
  Charities           40
  Unemployed          45
Multiplier effect     50  (on $100)
It's Fake Money     -100
Counterfeiter       - 10
                  ------
      New Wealth  $   40 

Every $100 that the counterfeiter prints up creates $40 in new wealth in the economy for the rest of us, after subtracting the counterfeit money (it is fake) and the counterfeiter's share. There is no increase in taxes, and tremendous support for charity and the un/underemployed. This is a win-win situation for everyone. Let's get printing!

Does this seem too good to be true? Yes, it isn't true. But, given the 1.5 multiplier, where have I gone wrong? Or, much more importantly, where has Obama and his economic team gone wrong? Maybe they don't care, as long as they are the ones spending the money. Real money taken first out of investment and jobs.

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Why Spending Stimulus Plans Fail
The money isn't free. It is taken from the people who plan and invest in productive organizations. This destroys jobs and lowers everyone's income. The money is then given to government agencies who increase budgets. This is a form of government consumption. Investment is turned into consumption, and job expansion is killed.

Keynes, Digger of Holes
No one should trust a theory that predicts greater prosperity from digging holes. Yet, this is the theory by Keynes that Obama is following, and many past presidents have followed, to forcibly change our society. We will supposedly create even more wealth in the future by wasting our current wealth today.

Econ 201: The Myth of the Economic Multiplier
Government spending doesn't multiply anything. It takes resources from taxpayers and applies them to government projects. You get a bridge or some paperwork, that is it.
  The "multiplier" from government taxes is actually less than 1. The government wastes resources collecting more tax, and the citizen wastes resources trying to minimize his tax. Then, the government spends the tax revenue wastefully, achieving less economic activity than the citizen would have created with his resources.

Posts on Stimulus

Hansen's Claims About Global Warming Embarrassed NASA

Hansen Embarrassed NASA
02/01/09 - PowerLineBlog by John Hinderaker

James Hansen of NASA is a leader in espousing the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). He has public credibility because of his NASA affiliation. His boss at NASA was John Theon, who has recently retired, and has announced his view that AGW is not supported by evidence.

Theon writes:

[edited] As Chief of several NASA Hq. Programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research.

James Hansen was never muzzled, even though he violated NASA's official position, that NASA did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it. He embarrassed NASA by his claims of global warming in his 1988 testimony before Congress.

I believe that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system, because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit.

Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. They don't explain what they have modified in the observations or how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done.

Thus, there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.

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Global Warming Caused by Humans is a Scam

The Fraud of Anthropogenic Global Warming

The Greatest Fraud in History?
01/30/09 - PajamasMedia by James Lewis

[edited] The credibility of science may never recover from the Global Warming scare. Credibility has to be earned, and once it’s squandered may never be recovered. Far too many scientists have knowingly colluded in an historic fraud, one that would put Bernie Madoff to shame. We are seeing political larceny here on a planetary scale. Why should scientists who have gambled their own reputations on this fakery ever be trusted again?

I’m not a climatologist. Like most scientists I rarely judge what others do in their fields. And yet it’s been flamingly obvious for years now, that the hypothesis of human-caused global warming violates all the basic rules and safeguards that protect the integrity of normal, healthy science. That’s why AGW (anthropogenic global warming) looks like a massive fraud, the biggest fraud ever in the history of science.

Mr. Lewis discusses a number of things that real scientists NEVER do. These are all things that promotors of global warming are doing loudly and repeatedly. It is politics or religion, but not science. Here is one point (it is worth reading the rest):

Bad data has been very widespread in global warming theories. Judging by past performance, it may still be endemic. Thermometers are placed in hot areas in the cities, and the data is shamelessly generalized to the whole world. The infamous “hockey stick” temperature diagram has been exposed. James Hansen has brought NASA to its lowest point ever by repeatedly endorsing false data.

In any healthy field of science, that disastrous empirical record would have discredited the hypothesis. But while the data seems to crash periodically, the models don’t change in their catastrophism.

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Global Warming Caused by Humans is a Scam

Healthcare: They will pretend to pay - We will pretend to treat

Blogo-HealthCare
01/31/09 - ChicagoBoyz by Carl from Chicago

The people of the Soviet Union had a slogan about their government jobs. "They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work". That is what is coming in health care. There is no free lunch. When the lunch is truly free, then there is no lunch.

[edited] In speech after speech Gov. Blagojevich hammered home the “fact” that he had granted insurance coverage to so many in Illinois, through various means. How has this actually been implemented? State payments to medical providers has been dramatically slowed.

I have personal experience with the State of Illinois delaying payments, but the situation is worse than ever for health care providers. Many legislators say that they intervened to expedite payments to some of their local hospitals on the verge of major financial distress.

Delaying payments has the same effect as reducing payments, since the state doesn’t catch up for a long time. The payment delays ensure that providers need to hold a big “rainy day” fund, since their employees want to be paid cash rather than IOU’s.

Medical providers can do little except complain to their local legislators. They can’t sue the State to speed up payments, and if they did, the state wouldn't care. Unlike insurance, which may be popularly perceived as unfair, there are no avenues of appeal if you feel the state is killing your business.

The US will likely move to a backwards program of medical socialism by increasing coverage and then squeezing providers with reduced and slowed payments. Federal transfers to states will not make up the cost for unfunded mandates.

A version of this will unfold in Illinois and other states that increase insurance coverage at state expense. Medical providers will begin to crumble financially and move away from treating state and federally insured patients, or do it in the most bare-bones and cheap manner possible.

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Political Contributions for Medicare Reimbursement
Blogojevich withheld Medicaid reimbursement to Children's Memorial Hospital to get a campaign contribution from its CEO.

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Crisis Is Building in Illinois Finances
10/06/09 - CBS2 Chicago - by Mike Flannery

What are the priorities in Illiniois? Clearly the poor and sick are not at the top of the list. It is not compassionate to promise more than you can deliver.

The state is not a good social insurance company. It makes no investments to pay off its future promises. Instead, it tends to spend whatever is available on whatever serves politicians at the moment.

[edited] Tax receipts are down, and Illinois is not paying its social wellfare bills. The typical creditor must now wait three months to be paid, compared to two months at this time last year.

A Chicago Meals on Wheels nutrition center can't purchase food and is facing eviction. A large Lake County disabled program can't make insurance or mortgage payments.

2,600 creditors call the state each week, desperate to be paid.

The General Assembly will reconvene next week in Springfield. No one is even pretending to offer a comprehensive solution to the unprecedented budget disaster. The governor and legislative leaders all insist that must wait until next year.

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Never Events
Medicaid is already squeezing doctors by finding ways to avoid paying them.

Stop the Death from Quilts and Food

Flowery Fall Baby Rag Quilt
01/17/09 - Overlawyered by Walter Olson

The price of a quilted baby comforter will go from $58 to $3,530 to cover the required testing under the new Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA).

Scrap The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act
01/16/09 - Forbes.com by Walter Olson

[edited] CPSIA is a calamity for businesses and an epic failure of regulation. It threatens to wipe out tens of thousands of small makers of children's items from coast to coast. It particularly eliminates items which are handcrafted and creative, and the sideline, home business, and struggling retailers which make and sell them.

Read more ...

In Order To Save The Children, We Must Destroy Industries
01/28/09 - LiveJournal by Evan Dorkin

[edited] The impact of CPSIA will be nothing short of devastating for many small businesses, home-crafters, DIY-ers, toy manufacturers, clothing manufacturers, re-sellers, used clothing shops, thrift shops, and so on and so forth. And also, libraries, book stores and yeah, comic shops.

Because a ton of stuff is being lumped together under this act, which will require expensive product testing for anything deemed "for children". Children's clothes, books, comics, school supplies, toys, costumes, need I go on? And second-hand items, clothes, toys, books, back issues, etc. It doesn't end once you start thinking about it. And, in fact, it gets worse, because it affects inventory.

Petition to reconsider the CPSIA
If you want to support craft industries and small producers, you can add your voice to the petition at the above link. It is a very short form. When you click "Sign the Petition", you are directed to a page where iPetitions asks for a donation. You are added to the petition regardless of any contribution you might make.

CPSIA and compliance: “This can’t be happening”
07/11/09 - OverLawyered by Walter Olson

An article in the Arizona Republic reports the difficulties compling with the CPSIA:

• a Scottsdale diaper maker,
• a Chandler toy maker has spent $400,000 on compliance with no end in sight,
• a baby carrier maker that expects to go under, and
• a maker of fabric products who can’t keep up with changing requirements.

See also related posts at the link about the destruction from this regulation.

CPSIA - Current Reading
08/24/09 - OverLawyered by Walter Olson

Commentaries on this dreadful child-safety law. In particular:

• Lead-footed safety issues
• The risk of avoiding all risk
• More toys from our youth that would be illegal today
• Eat My Dust. The actual risk that your child would suffer lead poisoning from his dirtbike or other playthings is essentially zero. Ordinary dirt contains higher concentrations of naturally occurring lead than many of the products hard hit by the law.
• Infinitesimal residues of lead in children's vitamins have been deemed safe. An odd bit of sanity in a zero-tolerance government.

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Favors From the CPSC
04/24/10 - Hot Air by Ed Morrissey
Via Instapundit

[edited]  Mattel imported toys from China two years ago contaminated with lead paint. This prompted Congress to pass the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), requiring extensive independent testing of all products sold or resold for children. The new regulations put small manufacturers and thrift shops out of business, due to the onerous costs of testing. But, Mattel has received waivers to reduce their costs of testing.

This is a perfect example of crony capitalism, where the government picks winners and losers through legislation sympathetic to big business. Then, the enforcement mechanism extends that favor. Mattel can push its smaller competitors out of business, or force them into buyouts. This is a result of Mattel breaking the law in the first place.

Big business often shapes regulation to its advantage when it cannot stop it from being imposed, and continues this shaping through persistent lobbying in following years.

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Goodbye to Locally Processed Meats
05/27/10 - Cato@Liberty by Walter Olson

Joe Cloud is a small meat processor in Virginia [edited]:

Changes in national food regulation make it difficult for small plants to stay in business. In 2000, small USDA-inspected slaughter and processing plants were required to adopt the costly Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) food safety plan. There are estimates that more than 20% of those plants went out of business.

Now, proposed changes to HACCP threaten to take down many of the ones that remain, making healthy, local meats a rare commodity.

Walter Olson [edited]:

Recently, major food and agribusiness firms are supporting a major new round of federal food safety regulation, despite warnings that it could pose big compliance challenges for many local bakers, fruit-baggers, and other small providers, whether or not their products pose any notable risks.

There is a typical and depressing pattern here.

Major producers may not at first want more regulation, but they find the end result hurts their competitors, so they shape the regulations to their needs rather than simply oppose them. The regulators want to make policy in the simplest way, rather than deal with the complexities of the smaller producers. There is no requirement that the regulations meet any cost-benefit standards. Ironically, the regulations may be appropriate to safety in a large processing line, but overkill for a smaller producer.

Smaller producers creating a wide variety of products in smaller batches are driven out of business. This process creates industries dominated by a few large corporations, exactly what Liberals say they do not want in society. Food becomes less interesting, less regional, and the industry employs fewer people.

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Water Quality - Too Much Safety
12/08/09 - DailyMail blog by Don Surber - A comment by Old School Conservative

[edited] I ran a drinking water treatment plant for 20 years, and am responsible for one as a village administrator. I have had EPA knuckleheads look me right in the eye and say "I don’t care how much it costs I want ZERO risk".

Zero risk is one of the dumbest goals ever set. EPA spends billions and forces municipalities to spend billons on the zero risk fad of the moment.

In the 1970’s, grad students started studying trihalomethanes, a group of organic chemicals that result from chlorine disinfection. They found that rats developed mutations and tumors at dosages thousands of times greater than any human would get if he/she drank 100 gallons of water a day for 80 years. On this research, EPA regulated THM’s to 150 ppm, 100 ppm, 80 ppm, then 80 ppm as measured at the very worst case in the system, a dead end main.

Milwaukee had an outbreak of water borne disease a few years ago. The news media crucified the city, but didn’t tell the underlying story. The city experimented with new treatment chemicals and low chlorine levels aimed at meeting stringent limits for THM's. There is NO definitive research that proves 80 ppm of THM’s has saved one life or that it is one bit safer than 100 ppm. The whole fiasco has been a lot like AGW.

I don't trust the government. The federal regulatory community is filled with power hungry, incompetent enviro-lunatics. Many of them would starve if they had to make a living in the private sector. They will destroy us as an economic power.

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I want to do my part for promoting safety by breaking the news about the ongoing dangers of preparing and eating food:

Food Related Illness and Death in the US
Sept 1999 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by Paul S. Mead and others

[edited] We analyzed information from surveillance systems and other sources. We estimate that food borne disease causes about 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year (1999).

Known pathogens account for 14 million illnesses, 60,000 hospitalizations, and 1,800 deaths. Salmonella, Listeria, and Toxoplasma are responsible for 1,500 deaths each year, more than 75% of those caused by known pathogens.

Unknown agents account for the remaining 62 million illnesses, 265,000 hospitalizations, and 3,200 deaths. Overall, food borne diseases appear to cause more illnesses but fewer deaths than previously estimated.

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As head of the US Food Protection Agency (UFPA) (satire), I have issued the following regulations to be implemented within one month. Space limits us to listing only a small selection here:

• All persons and especially children (APEC) should limit their intake of fresh food. If they must eat fresh food, frozen samples must be retained for later analysis in case of illness. A written food diary (FD) is required under penalties of SS 23, Para 12(b).
• Fresh food shall be boiled for 20 minutes before consuming, including all fruits, vegetables, legumes, meats, and "other". This includes lettuce, tomatoes, and bread.
• Food that has been deep fried, canned, or pickled is generally considered safe, but the labels must be recorded in the FD (under the usual penalties).
• No restaurant, food pantry, warehouse, snack bar, food cart, church social, or home kitchen shall prepare food unless and until it receives an UFPA Inspection of Safety (UFPAIS), repeated at intervals of 3 months. Inspections will include a review of washing and sanitizing regimens, per SS 25, Para 3(c-f). The cost of inspections will be billed to the inspected site.
• MikeDonalds, Burger Prince, and Wanders's have been pre-approved as Generally Recognized as Safe Food Providers (GRSFPs). Other large and regulate'able business will be added to this list as their applications and fees are processed. [remove in final draft - what about lobbyist contacts? -remove].
• Establishments known as "Chinese Restaurants" are hereby prohibited, without reconsideration or appeal.
• Food shall not be exchanged, traded, or shared, to limit the effect of any contamination.
• There is no "three second rule" regarding dropped food.

The illness and death must stop. Food is too vital and dangerous a material to remain any longer in the hands of amateurs, without detailed government review and inspection.

Watch out when you eat.
If possible, don't.

Musical Chairs - Stimulus Style

A new version of the birthday party game Musical Chairs seems more appropriate to our times.

In the old version, there would be 12 chairs for 12 children. The music would start, and one chair would be removed while the children walked around. When the music stopped, they would all try to find an empty chair. One child would be left out. Then they would repeat this, round by round, until there was one winner sitting in the last remaining chair. Competing for the chairs was fun.

In the new version, there are no immediate losers. Instead of removing a chair, it is marked "borrowed" with a red sticker. All of the children get a chair in each round, whether they try hard or not. There are no losers. But, in the last round, all of the "borrowed" chairs are removed, all of them, and everyone loses at the same time.

This is a surprise for the children, but at least they all lose together.

Global Warming in 1000 Years

Global Warming in 1000 Years
01/28/09 - WSJ Best of the Web by James Taranto
From The Los Angeles Times:

[edited] Susan Solomon is a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and lead author of an analysis published Monday.

Even if, by some miracle, carbon dioxide dropped to pre-industrial levels, it would take more than 1,000 years to reverse the climate changes already triggered. The gas already emitted and the heat absorbed by the ocean will show effects for centuries.

Long term, the warming will melt the polar ice caps more than previously estimated, raising ocean levels substantially. Changes in rainfall patterns will bring droughts similar to the 1930s Dust Bowl, to the American Southwest, southern Europe, northern Africa, and western Australia.

People thought that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide, the climate would go back to normal in 100 - 200 years, but that is not true. Absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans acts to cool the Earth. Release of heat from the oceans warms the Earth. These processes will work against each other to keep temperatures almost constant for more than 1,000 years.

Taranto asks:

So, is it crucial that we lower greenhouse gases this instant, or would it not make any difference? If no difference, what sense does it make to be alarmed? That last statement by Solomon is a head-scratcher. Are we supposed to worry that temperatures will be "almost constant for more than 1,000 years"? Is that what they mean by global warming?

I am reminded of a joke.

A scientist was talking about the evolution of stars and the universe. He presented that the Sun would burn its nuclear fuel and explode as a nova in about 5 billion years. A student in the back began urgently waving his hand to ask a question.
"Professor, did you say 5 million years?"
"No, I said 5 billion," replied the professor."
"I'm so relieved."

Child Care Loopholes Give Easy Money

Child care loopholes lead to easy money
01/28/09 - Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel by Raquel Rutledge (via Freakonomics)

In essence, "Rules are rules, and it isn't my money. I'm just the administrator around here." Will the Federal Government do a lot better spending $850 billion?

[edited] Four young women have recieved about $540,000 in taxpayer dollars since 2006 for their home-based money-making operation, with the blessing of the state. They have 17 children. For years, the government has paid them to stay home and care for each other's children as in-home child-care providers.

There is nothing illegal about it under the rules of Wisconsin Shares, the decade-old child-care assistance program designed alongside Wisconsin's welfare-to-work program.

Laurice Lincoln is administrative coordinator for child care with the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services. "It's a loophole, and we have concerns about it. It can be a problem. But if it's allowed, it's allowed. We really can't dispute it."

The Journal Sentinel revealed a system rife with lax regulations allowing abuse by parents and providers.

• Sisters or other relatives can stay home, swap kids and receive taxpayer dollars. The four Racine sisters took in as much as $540,000 in taxpayer dollars in less than three years, mostly to watch each other's kids.

(There is more ...)

Modern Law Makes Us Powerless

How Modern Law Makes Us Powerless
01/26/09 - Online.WSJ.com by Philip K. Howard
We are only free if we can act in reasonable ways in life without the risk of being caught by this or that technicality.

[edited] Americans don't feel free to reach inside themselves and make a difference. The growth of litigation and regulation has injected a paralyzing uncertainty into everyday choices. There are warnings and legal risks all around us. The modern credo is not "Yes We Can" but "No You Can't."

Those who deal with the public are the most discouraged. Most doctors advise their children not to go into medicine. Government service is seen as a bureaucratic morass, not a noble calling. Make a difference? You can't even show basic human kindness for fear of legal action. Teachers across America are instructed never to put an arm around a crying child.

The idea of freedom as personal power is pushed aside by the rights of whoever might disagree. Daily life in America has been transformed. Ordinary choices are paralyzed by legal self-consciousness. Did you check the rules? Who will be responsible if there's an accident? A pediatrician noted "I don't deal with patients the same way any more. I wouldn't want to say something off the cuff that might be used against me."

The flaw and the cure lie in our conception of freedom as only political freedom. We're certainly free to live and work where we want, and to pull the lever in the ballot box. But freedom should also include the power of personal conviction and the authority to use your common sense. Alexis de Tocqueville: "Freedom is less necessary in great things than in little ones. Subjection in minor affairs does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, until they are led to sacrifice their own will. Their spirit is gradually broken and their character is drained of strength."

Law must affirmatively define an area free from legal interference. Philosopher Isaiah Berlin noted that law must provide frontiers that are not arbitrary limits, within which men should be inviolable.

Global Warming Caused by Humans is a Scam

The Global Warming Hockey Stick Hoax
01/24/09 - PowerLineBlog by John Hinderaker

Predictions of global warming from human activity are based on bad science, filled-in data, and convenient results that fit the cause of limiting human activity, just because we are bad.

Hinderaker gives a summary (and there is more):

[edited] The key evidence relied on by Al Gore, the United Nations, and global warming alarmists is the "hockey stick" graph developed by Mann, Bradley and Hughes. It purports to show that 20th-century warming is unprecedented and that the 20th century was the warmest ever.

More recent scientific work has thoroughly debunked the "hockey stick" analysis. It rests on "collation errors, unjustified truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, incorrect principal component calculations, geographical mislocations, incorrect mathematics, and other serious defects."

There are indications that some of the errors were deliberate, a corruption of science by politics and perverse financial incentives that underlies the entire global warming movement.

Read more ...

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Hansen Embarrassed NASA
02/01/09 - PowerLineBlog by John Hinderaker

James Hansen of NASA is a leader in espousing the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). He has public credibility because of his NASA affiliation. His boss at NASA was John Theon, who has recently retired, and has announced his view that AGW is not supported by evidence.

Theon writes:

[edited] As Chief of several NASA Hq. Programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research.

James Hansen was never muzzled, even though he violated NASA's official position, that NASA did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it. He embarrassed NASA by his claims of global warming in his 1988 testimony before Congress.

I believe that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system, because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit.

Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. They don't explain what they have modified in the observations or how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done.

Thus, there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.

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The Greatest Fraud in History?
01/30/09 - PajamasMedia by James Lewis

[edited] The credibility of science may never recover from the Global Warming scare. Credibility has to be earned, and once it’s squandered may never be recovered. Far too many scientists have knowingly colluded in an historic fraud, one that would put Bernie Madoff to shame. We are seeing political larceny here on a planetary scale. Why should scientists who have gambled their own reputations on this fakery ever be trusted again?

I’m not a climatologist. Like most scientists I rarely judge what others do in their fields. And yet it’s been flamingly obvious for years now, that the hypothesis of human-caused global warming violates all the basic rules and safeguards that protect the integrity of normal, healthy science. That’s why AGW (anthropogenic global warming) looks like a massive fraud, the biggest fraud ever in the history of science.

Mr. Lewis discusses a number of things that real scientists NEVER do. These are all things that promotors of global warming are doing loudly and repeatedly. It is politics or religion, but not science. Here is one point (it is worth reading the rest):

Bad data has been very widespread in global warming theories. Judging by past performance, it may still be endemic. Thermometers are placed in hot areas in the cities, and the data is shamelessly generalized to the whole world. The infamous “hockey stick” temperature diagram has been exposed. James Hansen has brought NASA to its lowest point ever by repeatedly endorsing false data.

In any healthy field of science, that disastrous empirical record would have discredited the hypothesis. But while the data seems to crash periodically, the models don’t change in their catastrophism.

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Climate Scientology: Getting rid of the Medieval Warming Period
12/25/08 - AndrewBostom.org by Andrew Bostom

Andrew Bostom cites much detail. It is a meaty article, and worth the reading. The government is going to demand your money and resources to bury carbon, at great expense. You should know that they are politically motivated (wanting your money) rather than altruistic (saving your great, great grandchildren). Maybe you would rather see a movie, eat steak, or buy a better TV.

[edited] Professor Ross McKitrick:
The late 20th century appears to be nothing special compared to the The Medieval Warm Period. The historic temperature graph was a problem for those pushing the global warming alarm.

If the world could warm so much, on such a short time scale, as a result of natural causes, surely the 20th century climate change could simply be a natural effect as well. The present climate change could hardly be unusually hazardous if even larger climate changes happened in the recent past, and we are now fluctuating in the middle of what nature regularly dishes out.

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A Scam, With No Basis In Science
12/28/08 - John Hinderaker at PowerLineBlog
Distorted, politicized, and failed "science" supports Anthropogenic Global Warming (warming caused by human actions).

Read the whole thing there, or go to the original letter by mathematical physicist Frank Tipler Warming or Hot Air?

[edited] Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is a scam, with no basis in science. A scientific theory makes predictions which are then compared with future observations.

AGW predicted steadily increasing global temperatures, now refuted by experience [and data]. AGW theorists now "predict" cooling, after the fact. A perfect example of a pseudo-science like astrology.

Bjorn Lomborg wrote a book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" critical of the "consensus" view on AGW and other environmental questions. He was charged and convicted (later reversed) of scientific fraud [by his Danish university?] for being critical of that consensus. He would have been fired if the conviction had held. This is very similar to what happened to Galileo during the Inquisition.

John Holdren is Obama's new science advisor. It is disturbing that Holdren wrote part of the Danish case against Lomborg. Holdren thinks skeptics like Lomborg are dangerous. Really, it is Holdren who is dangerous, because he is willing to use state power to silence his critics. [And, don't forget Al Gore saying that the debate is over.]

The AGW nonsense is generated by government funding of science. If a guy agrees with AGW, then he can get a government contract. If he is a skeptic, then no contract. I am astounded that people advocate increased government funding for scientific research. We had better science and a more rapid advance of science in the early part of the 20th century when there was no centralized government funding.

Frank Tipler cites a bit of fascinating history about Galileo at the above link Warming or Hot Air?.

[edited] Aristotle's theory was the consensus view. The "out-of-the-mainsteam" Galileo had the gall to prove it wrong by devising simple experiments that anyone could do. Galileo's fellow "scientists" first failed to refute him by argument from authority. Then they tried calling Galileo names, but this made no impression on the average person, who could see with his own eyes that Galileo was right. Finally, they manipulated the Inquisition into trying and convicting him.

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Global Warming in 1000 Years
A warning from a scientist who believes in global warming. Don't think that we can quickly undo the current damage from high CO2 levels. Climate will be this bad, almost constant, for 1000 years.

[edited] People thought that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide, the climate would go back to normal in 100 - 200 years, but that is not true. Absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans acts to cool the Earth. Release of heat from the oceans warms the Earth. These processes will work against each other to keep temperatures almost constant (at current levels) for more than 1,000 years.

Doctors Can't View Your Medical Records

Censored medical records
01/23/09 - Throckmorton's other signs

[edited] Our hospitals don't have full electronic medical records. All efforts at them stopped when the President decided to mandate them. [No one wants to spend for a system that may be deemed non-standard by the government.]

We do have electronic lab reports and xray studies, etc. Well, apparently we are getting a taste of what happens when the government gets involved. They have decided that some medical tests are private and not available in any record, even to medical personnel taking care of the patient.

One of these is HIV status. Knowing this is very handy when trying to figure out why a chachetic patient (losing weight) has a pneumonia that isn't getting better, or has meningitis. They have even censored the CD4 levels so you dont have a clue if they have HIV.

If a nurse is bitten by a drunk patient, He/she can not find out if the patient had HIV. He must always get multiple blood draws over the next 6 months.

UV Radiation from Compact Fluorescent Lights

CFL bulbs spark safety fears
01/23/09 - HealthZone.ca Canada by Jen Skerritt of the Canadian Press

[edited] Health Canada is testing compact fluorescent lights. Two months earlier, Britain's Health Protection Agency warned the public that the bulbs emit UV rays.

They recommend that people should not be closer than 30 cm (1 foot) from an energy-saving light bulb for more than one hour per day, saying it is like exposing bare skin to direct summer sunlight. This could cause problems for people with medical conditions like lupus.

The bulbs have been widely promoted in Canada as an easy way to reduce greenhouse gases and are expected to replace incandescent bulbs by 2012 after a federal ban eliminates them.

The first comment is interesting:

[edited] I hate these bulbs. They give me migraines! They do not produce enough light to read by even when they are just behind my shoulder shining on the book page. One out of three malfunctions in some way (breaks etc). They take up to 5 minutes to reach maximum output. I'm usually gone by then. They are the wrong shape for most of my existing fixtures. If a new product is legislated in it should at least be as good as the one they are kicking out. I'd switch to LED but have issues again with having to replace every light fixture in the house. I like saving electricity but at what price?

Good and Bad News on Parenting

Good News and Bad News on Parenting
01/23/09 - Econlog.Econlib by Bryan Caplan

Good parents make their children happier, but they turn out about the same.

[edited] Twin and adoption studies have produced credible answers to the nature-nurture controversy. Nature wins. Heredity alone can account for almost all shared traits among siblings.

Steven Pinker is a professor of psychology at Harvard University:

Adult siblings are equally similar whether they grew up together or apart. Adoptive siblings are no more similar than two people plucked off the street at random. Identical twins are no more similar than one would expect from the effects of their shared genes.

The normal range of parenting styles has little effect on how your children turn out. You can be strict or permissive, involved or distant, encouraging or critical, religious or secular. In the long run, your kids will resemble you in many ways; but they would have resembled you about as much if they had never met you.

Both nature and nurture play a role in divorce. Mild spanking does no lasting harm, but harsh punishment can leave lasting psychological scars.

Why does almost everyone think that the family environment is most important? Family environment has substantial effects on children, but these largely fade out by adulthood. Children are not like clay that parents mold for life; they are more like flexible plastic that responds to pressure, but pops back to its original shape.

Safe, But Also Sorry

Safe, But Also Sorry
01/23/09 - Reason.com by Katherine Mangu-Ward
The tradoff between security and restrictions.

She interviews security/encryption expert Bruce Schneier

[edited] I consider myself a realist. Most people who say that are pessimists, but I'm not. Most people are honest and trustworthy; otherwise society would fall apart. Attacks are rare. Ten times as many people die each year in car crashes than did on 9/11, and the most dangerous part of an airplane journey is still the taxi ride to the airport.

Security is designed to protect us from the dishonest minority. It's important to remember that. I remember being told as a child: "Never talk to strangers." That's actually stupid advice.

If a child is lost, scared, or alone, the smartest thing he can do is find a kindly looking stranger to talk to. The real advice is: "Don't answer strangers who talk to you first." The difference is important.

In the first case, the child selects the stranger. The odds of him selecting a bad person are pretty negligible. In the second case, the stranger selects the child; that's more dangerous. I don't think that it is optimism to point out that most people are honest, or pessimism to figure out how to best secure ourselves from the dishonest minority. It is analytical realism.

Too Many Federal Prosecutions

Heritage Foundation challenges federal prosecutions
01/22/09 - DC Examiner Editorial

Former Attorney General Ed Meese is the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and its Director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. He is quoted:

[edited] The Heritage Foundation's goal is to restore the criminal law to what it has traditionally been used for, to protect the public safety and to deal with real crime. We want to avoid more of what has occurred, the multiplicity of laws and regulations that carry criminal penalties. These ensnare ordinary citizens for things that nobody would anticipate are crimes.

Many special interest groups have urged Congress to attach criminal penalties to regulatory legislation to "show its importance." Many of the worst examples involve obscure environmental regulations or business rules. The criminal process is abused when civil or administrative actions would suffice to protect public health and safety.

In one case, seafood importers spent eight years in jail because their lobsters were improperly packed in plastic rather than cardboard. “Zero tolerance” policies land children in jail for making paper guns in school, or having small knives on campus in the trunk of their cars after moving and opening boxes. A cancer patient aged 61 was jailed because her hedges were too high. This is law enforcement run amuck.

- -
Washington's Biggest Crime Problem
April 2004 - Reason.com by William Anderson and Candice E. Jackson. Just a small part of an interesting article.

[edited] The federal government's ever-expanding criminal code is an affront to justice and the Constitution.

In 1996 Edward Hanousek Jr., a road master for a railroad company running between Alaska and Canada, was convicted of negligently discharging a harmful quantity of oil into the Skagway River, a U.S. waterway, in violation of the Clean Water Act.

An independent contractor had accidentally ruptured a pipeline while attempting to clear rocks off the tracks. Hanousek was off duty and at home that day, nowhere near the accident site, and he had no knowledge of the pipeline rupture until after the fact.

The government nevertheless prosecuted Hanousek, a federal jury convicted him, and he received a sentence of six months in prison, six months in a halfway house, six months of post-release supervision, and a $5,000 fine.

- -
USDA: You sold too many bunnies. Penalty: $90,000.
05/20/11 - Big Government by Bob McCarty

Update:  USDA Responds to the pressure of publicity
05/25/11 - Big Government by Bob McCarty

[edited]  John Dollarhite and his wife Judy live in tiny Nixa, Mo. The USDA has fined them $90,000 by Monday, or they will face additional fines of almost $4 million. Why? Because they sold more than $500 worth of bunnies ($4,600) in one calendar year. They had made a $200 profit overall on the bunnies.

Eight weeks passed after some questions by USDA representatives. John called Colorado Springs, then a number for the USDA in Washington D.C. The lady he talked to was blunt.

She said, ‘Well, Mr. Dollarhite, I’ve got the report on my desk, and I’m just gonna tell you that, once I review it, it’s our intent to prosecute you to the maximum that we can, and we will make an example out of you.”

The USDA stands forthrightly against the tide of lawlessness represented by unlicensed rabbit breeding.

- -
How Corrupted Language Moved from the Campus to the Real World
02/23/10 - Minding the Campus - Reforming Our Universities
by Harvey A. Silverglate

[edited] George Orwell wrote his critique "Politics and the English Language" in 1946: "One must let meaning choose the word, not the other way around."   Administrators and legislators ignore this truth. They have crafted imprecise regulations which give campus disciplinary staff and federal government prosecutors enormous and grotesquely unfair power.