$ jlc (10,317)

HA! Good.

Jan

You may not be kidding.

Jan

This breaks my heart. There has to be a way for people to fight back against bullies - especially when the bully is 'the gov'.

The only positive outcome I can now imagine is if someone like Pacific Legal Foundation takes the case and sues the government.

Jan

Thanks for the heads-up. I use Malwarebytes; I'll look this up.

Jan

DrZ -
Generally, I agree with your posts, but in this case I read your above email and thought, "So. What's wrong with that?"

I do not know if you are aware that land that is used (but not over-used) is in better condition, has more species of both animal and plants, and a healthier turnover in life cycles than land that is left as untouched wilderness. (Admittedly, this could be because we have altered the ecology by destroying the large predators and the beavers.) There have been a number of studies on this.

I like the idea of the states having their own lands, just so that we have many 'experimental crucibles' going to see what is best. With specific reference to mines, Wm has commented to me that in the MidWest, where he is from, when a strip mine was mined out, the developers would compete for the site. They would make a lake out of the mine, and then construct an elite country club around the lake, and sell the houses for a pretty penny. Apparently there are a lot of these developments where he came from.

I too prefer to live in as close to rural surroundings as possible, but there are many people who prefer the concrete jungle.

Jan

Unfortunately, this sort of human behavior is exactly what we have to deal with in the real world. My sister told me a story about a woman with two young children and a diabetic father who was stuck (30 Hours???) on the freeway in the snow amidst all the other stalled traffic. My heart was supposed to be rent by this tale, but I just said, "What the heck was she doing out on the freeway with two small kids and a diabetic dad?"

If you appeal to common sense, then you will get maybe 16% of the people stay home. If you threaten arrest, then very few people will dare to yank on the chain. What to do? What to do?

Like you, I dislike the idea of people being controlled by martial law 'for their own good'. But I will have to pay for the rescue operations that save those people and I am also the one who will not be able to drive down the empy-and-snowplowed freeway to take my neighbor to the hospital for a genuine emergency.

I think that a better solution would have been to say, "It will cost between $5K and $20K to rescue each car full of people stalled on the freeway in the snow. We will waive this fee in case of genuine emergencies. Everyone else will be charged." That might have actually had enough teeth in it to alter behavior patterns, and it would have been philosophically better.

But it would not have happened - no one would have said that (or done it).

Jan

John Galt is a character who perceived that individual freedom was more important than supporting the State and who had the charisma and character to persuade the people who were the economic keystones of the State to withdraw their support of it until freedom could be restored.

I love the White Whale analogy, but I would like to remind you that the Whale, like Galt, was in every aspect of their respective books from the beginning. These archetypes Owned the books, and everything else that happened was about them: Would there have been a Moby Dick book without the Whale? Would there have been an Atlas Shrugged book without Galt. They were there, they just were not on the page yet.

Jan

You did give us a bit of a warning that there was a different meaning to the headline. If not for that, I would not have caught on til the end, I think.

Yep. Interesting.

Jan

This would make a great song: fun words, catchy refrain, scans well. Did you have a tune in mind?

Jan

evw-

I think I agree with CircuitGuy (OMG! Was that my Outside Voice?). From one of Matt Ridley's articles:

"Compared with 50 years ago, people now live 30 per cent longer; have 30 per cent more food to eat; spend longer in school; have better housing; bury 70 per cent fewer of their children; travel more; give more to charity as a proportion of income; are less likely to be murdered, raped or robbed; are much less likely to die in war; are less likely to die in a drought, flood or storm."

We become obsessed by news and do not give enough weight to statistics.

I am hoping that technological progress will make many of the government mandates irrelevant.

Jan

So, they are selling at a 'loss leader' price? Is that the $13 per barrel price? Does that price include the cost of transporting it to the US, or is that added on depending on where it is shipped?

So, one of the articles I read pointed out that fracking can act as a buffer in a solution: you can turn it on or off relatively quickly. If that is so, then 'turn fracking off' and let the Saudi's loss leader dismantle OPEC and Russian oil. Then we 'turn it back on'.

It seems to me that this sort of price war is in the best traditions of capitalism...I just want us to 'win'.

Jan, not unbiased

Thank you for asking this question, richrobinson. I have been wondering if there were something I was missing when I read the alarming news reports. I think that 'low oil prices' are good. That means we can do more stuff with oil and then sell it at a cheaper price.

When people quote the 'cost' of oil from overseas, from Saudi for example, does that include the transportation cost to get it to the US?

Jan, not an economist

Hmmm. Prior email did not go through. Let me try again.

But isn't 'selling at their best price' exactly what the Saudi's should do. Why should they inflate their prices to the benefit of their US competitors in the fracking industry?

Jan

I agree with you, Prof, and with Herb too: I would not put economic laws in the same class as physics, but they are closer to physical laws than they are to arbitrary man-made laws.

Your point about people believing that economics can be manipulated without an inherent 'cost' is well stated. Physical laws can likewise be manipulated if you take the cost into consideration (we can make a hollow hunk o'metal fly us through the sky, for example).

Thank you both for making valid points.

Jan

Good analysis. Definitive improvement is going to require a social change such that 'what is appealed to in order to get the votes' has altered. In the meantime, I will hope for a marginal improvement: Someone who can say, "...a Utopian chicken in each pot..." with a straight face and who has a covert intent to solve some of the real problems when he gets elected.

Jan

While I like the MS OS (though, don't like the Win10 campaign), that company pays more than a token allegiance to the liberal causes. So you have a capitalist mega-corp that supports liberal philosophy and dislikes open source.

Maybe a bit confused?

Jan

If the developer made it open source, why should anyone object?

Jan

...and because I knew enough about history to remember the Roman and Viking warm periods.

Yes.

Jan

And consultants. Dogs make excellent consultants.

We have 3 dogs at work today: a Tibetan terrier, a border collie, and an enormous fuzzy GSD.

Jan

I love that image. Point.

Jan

That is what the Medieval Guilds were: The Master craftsmen were the Guild members.

Unions were organized to specifically combat the Guilds, which rather quickly had become good ol'boy clubs that represented power blocks rather than either high quality work or the conditions under which Apprentices worked.

Jan

I do not mind labels and warnings. Correct labeling is necessary for a rational decision.

Jan

Back in the 1960's, Consumers Report wrote a book that reviewed recreational drug use. The authors admitted in the Intro that they expected it to be an open-and-shut case against drugs. They were surprised to the contrary.

What they found was that for the majority of illegal drugs (including heroin) the major negative repercussions of drug use per se were...nothing. Nothing at all. All of the 'negative repercussions' of the use of most drugs were due to the illegality of the drug and not to the use of the chemical itself.

Heroin was the example they used most frequently. Apparently, if you become addicted to heroin you have to keep using it for the rest of your live - kinda like oxygen. So you keep a container of it on the door of your refrigerator, next to the orange juice. Taking it no longer gets you high; you just need it in order to live. So it is not good but it does no damage.

Hepatitis, STDs, prostitution, crime...these are the results of the illegality of drugs, not of drugs themselves.

Consumers Report did make exceptions for PCP and for LSD (which would be illegal or restricted to constrained use), and they did define normal social limits of drug use as that which was evidenced by alcohol consumption - so if you were on a drug that induced change of consciousness, you could not drive.

My take away from reading the book was that the authors had their beliefs overturned by having been part of this study and that the drug bandwagon was yet another vehicle driven by Mr Social Hype.

Jan

You are factually inaccurate, wiggys. While there are some aspects of human life that are totally environmental (which religion you have, which language you speak) the Minnesota Twin Studies (back in 1979) observed that the aptitude for language (of whichever place you live) is about 80% defined by heredity. This finding has been upheld by subsequent twin studies (though with slightly varying percentages). If twins are adopted in different countries, for example, they each learn their native language with the same degree of literacy and fluency as the other twin - even though the languages themselves are different.

The statement that 'humans do not have inherent qualities' represents a theory that has been overturned by the Twin Studies and other research.

Jan

I totally disagree. Education is handy, but inherent abilities are more important.

Jan