Crush Liberalism

Liberalism: Why think when you can “feel”?

Sharks attacks? You guessed it…global “warming”!

When it’s not busy spreading AIDS before taking a decade off from sautéeing the planet, global “warming” likes to spend its free time egging on the sharks to attack people.  From Eurotrashland:

Three decades have passed since the movie Jaws sent terrified bathers scrambling out of the ocean. But as any beach lifeguard knows, there’s still nothing like a gory shark attack to stoke public hysteria and paranoia.

Two deaths in the waters off California and Mexico last week and a spate of shark-inflicted injuries to surfers off Florida’s Atlantic coast have left beachgoers seeking an explanation for a sudden surge in the number of strikes.
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Some experts suggest that an abundance of seals has attracted high numbers of sharks, while others believe that overfishing has hit their food chain. ‘I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s a convenient excuse,’ Burgess said. Another contributory factor to the location of shark attacks could be global warming and rising sea temperatures. ‘You’ll find that some species will begin to appear in places they didn’t in the past with some regularity,’ he said. …

Just when I thought they couldn’t blame anything else on that junk science fad known as global “warming”, I get proven wrong again.

May 5, 2008 Posted by | Euros, global warming | 9 Comments

“Windfall profits” tax

For those of you who aren’t economic illiterates, the following probably doesn’t tell you anything new.  For those of you on the left, however, you may want to think about this.  From WSJ:

… Mr. Obama is right to oppose the gas-tax gimmick, but his idea is even worse. Neither proposal addresses the problem of energy supply, especially the lack of domestic oil and gas thanks to decades of Congressional restrictions on U.S. production. Mr. Obama supports most of those “no drilling” rules, but that hasn’t stopped him from denouncing high gas prices on the campaign trail. He is running TV ads in North Carolina that show him walking through a gas station and declaring that he’ll slap a tax on the $40 billion in “excess profits” of Exxon Mobil.
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You may also be wondering how a higher tax on energy will lower gas prices. Normally, when you tax something, you get less of it, but Mr. Obama seems to think he can repeal the laws of economics. We tried this windfall profits scheme in 1980. It backfired. The Congressional Research Service found in a 1990 analysis that the tax reduced domestic oil production by 3% to 6% and increased oil imports from OPEC by 8% to 16%. Mr. Obama nonetheless pledges to lessen our dependence on foreign oil, which he says “costs America $800 million a day.” Someone should tell him that oil imports would soar if his tax plan becomes law. The biggest beneficiaries would be OPEC oil ministers.

There’s another policy contradiction here. Exxon is now under attack for buying back $2 billion of its own stock rather than adding to the more than $21 billion it is likely to invest in energy research and exploration this year. But hold on. If oil companies believe their earnings from exploring for new oil will be expropriated by government – and an excise tax on profits is pure expropriation – they will surely invest less, not more. A profits tax is a sure formula to keep the future price of gas higher.
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This tiff over gas and oil taxes only highlights the intellectual policy confusion – or perhaps we should say cynicism – of our politicians. They want lower prices but don’t want more production to increase supply. They want oil “independence” but they’ve declared off limits most of the big sources of domestic oil that could replace foreign imports. They want Americans to use less oil to reduce greenhouse gases but they protest higher oil prices that reduce demand. They want more oil company investment but they want to confiscate the profits from that investment. And these folks want to be President?

Carter tried a windfall profits tax on the oil industries, and as you can see, the results were disastrous.  Only a simpleton would truly believe that if you increase taxes on the providers of a good/service, you will get more of that good/service.  The only thing that offends me more than economic ignorance is a politician that panders to that economic ignorance.

Exit question, albeit somewhat rhetorical: Do Hilldawg and the Obamessiah really want to emulate Jimmah Freakin’ Carter’s energy policies?

May 5, 2008 Posted by | economic ignorance, Hillary, Obama, oil | 4 Comments

Euros: Plants have rights, too

Seriously, did the bunnyhuggers at PETA think that their barbarism would go unnoticed?  The senseless slaughter of arugula has left untold gallons of chlorophyll on your hands, you PEAT punks!Snicker…Karma’s a female dog, ain’t it?  From the Weekly Standard:

You just knew it was coming: At the request of the Swiss government, an ethics panel has weighed in on the “dignity” of plants and opined that the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong. This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called “plant rights” is being seriously debated.

A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring “account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms.” No one knew exactly what it meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out. The resulting report, “The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants,” is enough to short circuit the brain.

A “clear majority” of the panel adopted what it called a “biocentric” moral view, meaning that “living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive.” Thus, the panel determined that we cannot claim “absolute ownership” over plants and, moreover, that “individual plants have an inherent worth.” (Oh, I see!  Human individualism is bad, but plant individualism is good?  Got it.  Thanks for the clarification. – Ed.) This means that “we may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily.”

No, it’s not a hoax.  This is another case of Euros doing what Euros do best: wallowing in moonbattery.

Exit question: We’re not supposed to eat animals, and now we’re not supposed to eat plants…so just what in the blue hell are we supposed to eat?  Paint chips?

May 5, 2008 Posted by | environuts, Euros, moonbats | 8 Comments

Private sector works…again

Warning to any socialist or otherwise Big Government advocates: the following information may disrupt your worldview.  Unless, of course, you’re impervious to facts, in which case you may feel little to no discomfort at all.  From Hot Air:

In the aftermath of the Northridge earthquake, California needed to take quick action to repair damaged freeways to restore order to traffic in the Los Angeles area — or at least as much order as one can get in the region.  Instead of using Caltrans to repair the destroyed overpasses and roads, the state government waived volumes of regulation to allow outsourcing to the private sector.  The result?  The contractor restored the roads and bridges in months instead of years, and at a fraction of the cost that Caltrans would have incurred.

Minnesotans learned a lesson from that when the St. Anthony Bridge collapsed last August into the Mississippi river.  The rebuilding project may finish as much as three months ahead of schedule, thanks to a series of financial incentives and the hands-off management by MnDOT:
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The project has had its share of detractors ever since Flatiron won the contract.  It was the most expensive of the bids, but the state chose it for its overall package.  If they can deliver a high-quality bridge three months earlier than expected, no one will spend much of that extra time criticizing the contract award.

Like California, this proves a lesson in free-market power to solve problems efficiently, and in the long run, less expensively.  Instead of running the project themselves, the decision by MnDOT and the legislature to outsource the project applied the skill and experience of the private sector to a critical part of the traffic infrastructure.  The early completion of the project will save millions of dollars in traffic inefficiencies and relieve stress on parts of the local traffic system that weren’t designed for the loads that the bridge’s failure created for them.

Perhaps at some point, people will learn to harness the power of the private sector more completely for future public efforts as well.  If we started to apply this lesson to non-emergencies as well as emergencies, perhaps we would have fewer of the latter.   When we incentivize succes, we succeed.  When we incentivize bureaucracy, we get red tape, delays, and frustration.

Imagine that…the private sector doing better than a Big Government bureaucracy at solving problems!  But hey, let’s go ahead and have the government manage our health care, right?

May 5, 2008 Posted by | big government, capitalism, socialism | 1 Comment

Twin Cities’ daily fishwrap going under

One down, so many more to go.  Ed Morrissey chronicles the timeline of the Star-Tribune’s destruction, including how its hopelessly leftist agenda got in the way of reporting the truth…which, among other things, led to the decline of the rag.

The Strib could be dead, the NYT is watching the vultures circle overhead, and many other daily fishwraps (mostly those with a decidedly leftist tilt) are bleeding profusely.  You would think they would learn better.  Then again, you would think…and these fishwraps are counting on you not to do that.

May 5, 2008 Posted by | media bias | 1 Comment

Hope for the Brits

The UK just booted the dhimmi mayor of London, “Red” Ken Livingstone, and elected a conservative, Boris Johnson.  From the Beeb:

Boris Johnson has won the race to become the next mayor of London – ending Ken Livingstone’s eight-year reign at City Hall.

The Conservative candidate won with 1,168,738 first and second preference votes, compared with Mr Livingstone’s 1,028,966 on a record turnout of 45%.

In a message that American liberals should (but won’t) take to heart…:

However, Justice Secretary Jack Straw said Labour as a whole should shoulder the blame for Mr Livingstone’s loss.
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Mr Straw admitted that the row over the 10p tax rate had left some voters “understandably very upset”.

WHAT??  Increased taxes don’t resonate with the electorate?  Who knew?

Hopefully, Johnson will lead London away from its fatal politically correct dhimmitude and oppressive tax policies  Time will tell.

May 5, 2008 Posted by | Euros | 1 Comment

   

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