Friday, September 1, 2017
Thursday, August 31, 2017
A materialist imagines that for the first time in history we are free
Wow, while I wasn't looking utopia suddenly arrived. Reminds me of nothing so much as Millerism.
It never occurs to this guy that "the end of the working class" can mean only one thing. The middle class replaces the old working class and becomes the new working class. And that won't be good for your bank account.
Here:
We can hope for something better because, for the first time in history, we are free to choose something better. The low productivity of traditional agriculture meant that mass oppression was unavoidable; the social surplus was so meager that the fruits of civilization were available only to a tiny elite, and the specter of Malthusian catastrophe was never far from view. Once the possibilities of a productivity revolution through energy-intensive mass production were glimpsed, the creation of urban proletariats in one country after another was likewise driven by historical necessity. The economic incentives for industrializing were obvious and powerful, but the political incentives were truly decisive. When military might hinged on industrial success, geopolitical competition ensured that mass mobilizations of working classes would ensue.
Helen Raleigh sounds the alarm: Antifa is Mao's Red Guard
If you read nothing this year, you must read this:
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Meanwhile, we get "broken window fallacy" nonsense from The New York Times about Hurricane Harvey
Destroy the previous products of GDP which produced GDP of their own, and presto! More GDP!
Might as well just print the stuff on steroids and spend it.
About 21% of taxpayer money and borrowings is already misallocated to expenditure by the federal government. Some of that is absolutely necessary, but even that is not spent well.
Hurricanes aren't called disasters for nothing.
Here:
Ellen Zentner, chief United States economist at Morgan Stanley, said that although Hurricane Harvey’s impact on national gross domestic product in the third quarter might be fairly neutral, “the lagged effects of rebuilding homes and replacing motor vehicles can lost longer,” providing a lift to gross domestic product in the fourth quarter and beyond.
On the other hand, an extended rise in gasoline prices could have a more immediate effect. Each 10-cent rise in the price of gasoline is equivalent to a $10 billion tax on consumers, Ms. Zentner said, so “should higher prices be sustained, it would rob other categories of spending as dollars are diverted to filling tanks.” ...
The economic impact of the storm will not be clear with any degree of accuracy for a while. But given Houston’s commercial importance — and its perch along a well-trod hurricane zone — economists and others have long taken it for granted that an epic storm would hit the region eventually, so have a head start on the numbers.
Monday, August 28, 2017
There were lots and lots of articles today about a tax reform bill . . .
. . . as if the Obamacare repeal debacle had never even happened.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Laugh of the Day: "Maybe this will chase all the Katrina refugees back to New Orleans"
Seen here in the comments.
Cuckservative schizophrenia at The Weekly Standard: 27 antifa arrests for anti-police violence in Boston, but Trump still wrong
From the August 20th story here, which also misses the growing polarization between antifa and BLM:
The atmosphere of the counter-protest was not as violent as these sentiments. Nor, with the exception of the small antifa group, was there the whiff of militarism that leaks from the alt-right. So President Trump was wrong to characterize the crowd as “anti-police agitators.” ...
In the park, the counter-protesters divided into two camps. The BLM protesters gathered on one side, the socialist groups on another. Eventually, the antifa and the police got to grips. The Police Department tweeted a request that people stop throwing “urine, bottles, and other harmful projectiles at our officers.” Twenty-seven people were arrested.
Saturday, August 26, 2017
The victims surrender: Half a million fools march in Barcelona against Islamophobia
From the story here:
"We are here to say we're not afraid, we are united and we want peace," said 59-year-old pensioner Victoria Padilla as she marched. Slogans carried by marchers read "The best answer: peace" and "No to Islamophobia".
Police estimated the march at half a million people.
Members of Spain's Islamic community marched alongside the King and Prime Minister Rajoy, including women wearing hijabs. Speakers gave readings next to a floral display with the words 'Barcelona' and 'I am not afraid' in different languages including Arabic.
Jonah Goldberg knows a thing or two about self-hatred
In "Behind the monument wars is a plague of self-hatred", Goldberg calls self-hatred a "Western disease". Gee, where'd we catch that?
The mobs of students — and their enabling professors and administrators — renaming buildings and bowdlerizing the language are still products of Western civilization. Even the poseurs who think Googling a few phrases from Karl Marx and wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt make them anti-colonialists are disciples of Western thinkers. Where does Mark-Viverito think her mother’s feminism came from? The Arawaks? For centuries, to the extent that educated Muslims talked about the Crusades at all, it was to boast about how they emerged victorious from them.
But Osama bin Laden and his ilk read too much Noam Chomsky and caught the Western disease of victimization and resentment. That’s the plague sweeping the land now. And tearing down some statues and renaming some streets isn’t a cure, it’s a symptom.
Friday, August 25, 2017
Why I haven't flown since TWA Flight 800
 |
| Memorial to Pam, Shannon and Katie Lychner, 3 of 230 who perished |
I worked for a cargo airline at the time, and we went into freak-out mode after Flight 800 with cargo inspection procedures to prevent against the introduction of explosives. We were promised that technology was just around the corner to insure that everything going on the plane was safe, and that we wouldn't have to expend all the extra effort for long, opening up everything to check it ourselves. But it never happened, at least not adequately, and to this day it hasn't. For me, it meant operational burnout, and I quit.
You fly at your own risk.
Crappy News Network reports, here, that the problems still remain:
As the TSA continues to study its current cargo screening protocols, it is unclear if or when it might implement any changes.
But an airport security official told CNN that new safety protocols and additional resources may not close all the gaps that exist in airline cargo security.
"Cargo is a vast area with lots of access points -- you can never get it completely right," said Mark Hatfield, chief security officer at Miami International Airport.
"It's something that keeps us up at night," he added.
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