P.D. James Blasts BBC

"Bestselling mystery author P.D. James blasted the BBC in a surprising interview with the British broadcasting network. Baroness James blasted the organization for its bloated executive salaries and failure to pay sufficient amounts to writers and producers of programming."

More at The Writer's Blog, http://www.writerswrite.com/blog/104101 .

As you read this all-to-rare attack on government-bureaucrat privilege, think of how widely this could be applied to every level of our own government, especially with the government monopolists all crying poor so loudly and demanding more money: A recent story in the San Francisco Chronicle lists the many police and sheriff's department managers who have retired with breathtaking pensions, in some cases exceeding their already generous working pay.

Fat paychecks, waste, mismanagement, overreaching in every aspect of public life -- yet the only answer ever proposed is: More money.

In an article reporting the general negative reaction to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed state budget, a simple chart illustrates the problem perfectly, yet its implications were not mentioned (or noticed?) by the article writers, or by any of those complaining: If the governor's proposal to cut the budget level next year were enacted, the spending level would be reduced to where it was all the way back in -- 2006.

That famously tight-fisted year in which we starved our noble bureaucrats, as you remember.

The ironclad rule in government budgeting is and has always been this: The budget can *never* go down; it must *always* go up. Always, regardless of any other factor.

Of course, if your ambition is overweening and limitless, your vision of government responsibilities completely open-ended, well of course the government will never have enough money. Because its ambition knows no bounds.

Now if only this elementary insight would dawn on a single political reporter or newspaper editor and affect the reporting on budget battles, we might have a chance at reform.

Not likely.

Is the Current Freeze a Sign of Global Cooling -- or What?

1. The NYT published a short article yesterday (Jan 9, 2010) answering that question. Their answer: Nothing to do with global warming, or global cooling -- just an occasional recurring twisting of the jet stream that brings extra cold weather down from Canada. Meanwhile, the North Pole is warmer than usual (as a result).

2. That is the ONLY article answering this obvious question that I've seen anywhere -- and the first and only time I've seen the MSM talk about the issue ever. When it's really cold, they ignore the question.

3. The real problem is: When it's really hot, the warming enthusiasts immediately jump on the bandwagen and talk about how this is proof positive of global warming.

Last year was unusually warm, and that's all they talked about. The past decade was the warmest in a while, and that's all they talked about. This winter is the coldest in 50 years and -- complete silence.

Wouldn't want those antiwarming nuts to have something to latch onto, would we?

4. Weather is not relevant to the arguments over global warming. It's climate, which is the longrange (decades and centuries) overall weather. One hot winter or one cold winter is proof of nothing - the timeframe is too short.

There appears to be some evidence - not overwhelming and not perfectly persuasive - that we are entering a warming period in the climate. This would not be a shock; we had a cold period in the 900s or so, a warming period in the 1100-1300s or so (when the Vikings planted crops in Vineland), another cold period in the 1400-1500s (when the Vikings died or left Vineland because it was too cold), a warm period in the 1600s, a cold period at the end of the 1700s (when Washington crossed the Delaware popularly shown as ice-choked, though it hasn't often been ice-choked at Trenton in a long time in modern times), then a warm period since then. It is entirely possible we are entering a warm climate period that could last 50 or 100 or 150 years.

5. A separate question, though you'd never know it, is to what degree human activity contributes to whatever warming might be going on -- indeed, whether human activity is stimulating a warming period that would not otherwise be happening. This latter question is unanswerable, the former question involves issues so unbelievably complex that it may never be resolved or resolvable. (Back in the 1970s when I was researching future auto fuels for Southern California Edison, one scientist argued that climate is a topic so complex that we may never be able to fully analyze it or predict it.)

Those who are enthuse about the idea of human-generated climate change fall into several camps. Those who would use it as a club to beat whatever hobbyhorse they are on: anticapitalists, antimodernists, big-government enthusiasts, self-righteous assholes, and the like. And, separately, those who hope it's human-created because, if it is, maybe we can stop whatever we're doing and avoid disaster -- whereas if it's inevitable climate change, we're all screwed.

6. If we don't simply accept that it's human-caused change that could be significantly stalled if we took practical steps to reduce our impact on the climate -- whether because we think that's idiotic, or because we don't believe the changes required would leave society in a condition we'd either recognize or accept -- then we are left with only two options that I can think of at the moment: Hope the climate isn't changing; or think of what we can do to reduce whatever negative impacts might occur if it does come through. (This latter is an option even if we believe the climate is human-changed but we don't want to be reduced to living in caves to stop it.)

Of course, the steps we can take to minimize negative impacts of climate change -- such as protecting coastlines against flooding, and adjusting agriculture to weather changes -- can also lead statists to enthuse over yet more ways the government can boss us around, or send money to other countries, and the rest of their favorite ideas for ruining our lives. I see in the recent climate international meeting that suggestion was actually made: How the rich countries will have to pay big bucks to poor nations being affected by changing weather, and to small island nations that will be flooded. These demands will grow in the near term; be prepared for them.

mac mccarthy

Government Failure in Antiterrorism? A: More Govt!

"To judge from the news accounts, Umar Abdulmutallab did everything to get himself caught except wear an Osama bin Laden T-shirt onto that Northwest Airlines flight Christmas Day. Yet the danger didn’t dawn on anyone until he allegedly set himself on fire while trying to detonate the explosives hidden in his underwear.

"So the solution being proposed is the one we hear whenever the government fails: Give it greater power.

"This is a common liberal impulse. The public schools aren’t educating students adequately? They need more money. The stimulus didn’t rev up job creation? Pass another one.

"But when it comes to national security and law enforcement, the same tendency afflicts many conservatives. They generally think the federal government could screw up a three-car funeral, but they expect it to perform with flawless efficiency in finding murderous fanatics. And if it fails, they look to expand its authority to do the job it botched....."

--Conservative columnist Steve Chapman http://townhall.com/columnists/SteveChapman/2010/01/07/the_naked_truth_about_airport_scanners?page=1

Sacrificing Liberty for Security? No!

The Independent Institute

[a post on their Facebook page Jan 6, 2010--http://www.facebook.com/independentinstitute?ref=nf]

Charles Peña in Baltimore Sun: "just as we shouldn’t sacrifice essential freedoms to fight crime—such as probable cause and the need for a search warrant—neither should we do so for the sake of security."

The reason why we and you are against terrorism is because we believe that the rule of law should be upheld and innocent people should be protected from invasive force. The purpose then of policing/security and a system to enforce justice is to adhere to such a rule of law, in which no one is exempt from such rules, regardless of whether the person is a private terrorist or a government employee.

"War" is a condition in which the rule of law is suspended for "emergency" or "crisis" rationales during when individuals are allowed to deliberately and unaccountably harm others. In other words, "war" is precisely what we are against in insisting on the imperative of a rule of law. Hence, when a terrorist or a gang or an army invades and harms others, we are saying that this is unacceptable and those responsible should held accountable because we are basing this on the objective standard of the rule of law. We then fight against such predation in order to restore the rule of law, not postpone or end it.

However, the "war on terror" isn't even a declared war, but instead a state of permanent war operated by the President at his whim and for the advantage of those who support him. Indeed, aircraft carriers, ICBMs, spy satellites, and drone missiles have nothing to do with stopping a lap bomber. Instead of cheering on the warfare and national surveillance states and U.S. global interventionism, we should insist on the cessation of such oppression and the complete privatization and marketization of air transportation and security.

For a superb book on the subject, please see "Opposing the Crusader State": http://tinyurl.com/yckahz2

and....

Moral ethics and individual rights are not situational. The end never justifies the means because every means is an end in itself and whatever standard is used to justify any end also applies to each and every means. Moreover, the view that "safety" can be used to trump rights and justice invariably produces the opposite. Perhaps you should read the following book by Robert Higgs, "Neither Liberty Nor Safety: Fear, Ideology, and the Growth of Government": http://tinyurl.com/69lljx

Kiss Your Freedoms Goodbye If Health Care Passes

Kiss Your Freedoms Goodbye If Health Care Passes

by Andrew P. Napolitano
by Andrew P. Napolitano
Recently by Andrew P. Napolitano: Health-Care Reform and the Constitution

Congress recognizes no limits on its power. It doesn’t care about the Constitution, it doesn’t care about your inalienable rights. If this health care bill becomes law, America, life as you have known it, freedom as you have exercised it and privacy as you have enjoyed it will cease to be.

Tomorrow, the House of Representatives will vote on a 2,000-page bill to give the federal government the power to micromanage the health care of every single American. The bill will no doubt pass. It will raise your taxes, steal your freedom, invade your privacy, and ration your health care. Even the Republicans have introduced their version of Obamacare Lite. It, too, if passed, will compel employers to provide coverage, bribe the states to change their court rules, and tell insurance companies whom to insure.

We do not have two political parties in this country, America. We have one party; called the Big Government Party. The Republican wing likes deficits, war, and assaults on civil liberties. The Democratic wing likes wealth transfer, taxes, and assaults on commercial liberties. Both parties like power; and neither is interested in your freedoms. Think about it. Government is the negation of freedom. Freedom is your power and ability to follow your own free will and your own conscience. The government wants you to follow the will of some faceless bureaucrat.

Read the rest of the article

The One Minute Case Against Socialized Healthcare

The One Minute Case Against Socialized Healthcare

from "One-Minute Case," at RationalMind.org

There is no right to healthcare

The United States was founded with the declaration that all men have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The Founders recognized that all men have a moral right to be free from the coercion of others, as long as they allow others the same freedom. They believed that rights do not impose a positive obligation on others, but only the negative obligation to restrain from the initiation of force.

The claim that there is a “right to healthcare” violates the principle of individual rights because it requires that the liberty of doctors and the property of taxpayers be violated to provide for others. When the New Deal and Great Society programs forced doctors and taxpayers to become sacrificial offerings to the “common good”, the current “healthcare crisis” was born.

The myth of “free” healthcare

It is a common belief that when government provides something, it is free or cheap. But politicians cannot create wealth – they can only redistribute it. Money for all government spending comes from business – whether by entrepreneurial investment, the wages of patients, or taxes.

Whether by price controls of outright nationalization, when governments make prices artificially low, demand skyrockets, and shortages result. Politicians respond by passing ever more regulations to control costs. These regulations stifle innovation, drive up costs, and force healthcare providers out of business. The end result is to replace capitalism, the greatest wealth-generating system known to man, with an onerous system of central planning.

Capitalism cannot guarantee that all our medical needs will be provided for – no system can do that. But it does give entrepreneurs the incentive to compete to provide the best possible service they can. Centralized socialized systems have no incentive to improve service or to try bold new techniques. Politicians can force prices to be artificially low, but they cannot lower costs – they can only drive doctors, hospitals, and drug companies out of business.

The victims of “universal” healthcare

The waiting time for treatment in Canada varies from 14 to 30 weeks. Waiting lists for diagnostic procedures range from two to 24 weeks. Some patients die while waiting for treatment. To stop sick people fromcircumventing the “free” system, the government of British Columbia enacted Bill 82 in 2003, which makes it illegal to pay for private surgery. Patients waiting for critical procedures are now forced to seek procedures in the U.S. and doctors are abandoning Canada in droves. Cleveland, Ohio is now Canada’s hip-replacement center. Ontario is turning nurses into doctors to replace some of the 10,000 doctors who left Canada in the 1990’s. ^{1 2}

What will patients do when it is illegal to seek private medical treatment in the U.S.? Politicians are already working towards that goal. State and federal regulation impose onerous regulations which forbid insurance companies from offering services such as basic coverage for emergencies by requiring coverage of many types of procedures. Medicare forces doctors to follow 130,000 pages of regulations. Critics often attack the “capitalist” nature of American health care system. The reality is that the government now pays for 50% of health care, and closely regulates the rest.

Healthcare is only affordable under capitalism

If a society is not wealthy enough to afford healthcare, health socialism will not make it richer. Cuba, a poster child of socialist healthcare schemes, spends $229 on healthcare per person each year, while the U.S. spends $ 6,096.³ Premium services are available only to paying foreigners, while natives must bribe doctors for timely treatment and bring their own towels, bed sheets, soap, food, and even sutures.⁴

A government can decide to replace individual choice with state-mandated decisions of what goods and services are more important for the “common good.” But it can only spend on one area at the expense of another. If Cubans are not totally deprived of medical treatment, it can only be at the expense of all other goods. A doctor’s salary in Cuba is 1.5 times the median at $15-20 per month. ⁵ A telling sign of their deprivation is the Cuban suicide rate, which is the highest in Latin America and among the highest in world. Cubans in Miami on the other hand, kill themselves less often than other Miamians.⁶ When they risk their lives in leaky boats to escape to the U.S., the right to make their own decisions regarding their health is among the freedoms they hope to gain.

References:

1. “Free Health Care in Canada” by Walter Williams
2. “Do We Want Socialized Medicine?” by Walter Williams
3. Reuters: Health care in Cuba more complicated than on SiCKO
4. BBC: Keeping Cuba Healthy by John Harris
5. “An Evaluation of Four Decades of Cuban Healthcare” by Felipe Eduardo Sixto (PDF)
6. Miami Herald: “Study: Suicide epidemic exists under Castro” by Juan O. Tamayo

Further reading:

• Moral Health Care vs. “Universal Health Care” by Lin Zinser and Dr. Paul Hsieh
• Health Care Is Not a Right by Leonard Peikoff, Ph.D.
• Health Care Is a Business—or Should Be by Richard E. Ralston
• Video: Unisured in America (Free Market Cure Documentary Series)
• Americans for Free Choice in Medicine
• American Health Care: Essential Principles and Common Fallacies
• FIRM: Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine
• The “Cost” of Medical Care by Thomas Sowell
  
• Michael Moore’s Shticko by Michael C. Moynihan
• NY Times: “As Canada’s Slow-Motion Public Health System Falters, Private Medical Care Is Surging“
• Do fat people deserve medical treatment?
• The One Minute Case for Individual Rights

Govt Stimulus Actual Vs Forecast

No comment needed from me....