Stones Cry Out

Good morning.

1. From the economists, trouble ahead and rebuttals to the notion that minimum wage increases don’t actually help the poor are very weak.
2. Why are you laughing? I’m trying to figure out why the side of his head is melting! That seems a lot more relevant than what he’s saying.
3. An unusual Iranian (putting it somewhat mildly).
4. Mr King.
5. On standing on the right side of history.
6. This would be a better side, or at least a side I’d like to, well, own.
7. Uhm, that would be yes.
8. Still a dumb idea, GOP people for impeachment seem to forget that as bad (horrible) as Mr Obama might be and whatever he does, Mr Biden would be far worse.
9. Mr Biden apparently thinks the Detroit economy is doing just fine.
10. Maybe? Don’t hold your breath.
11. Gills?
12. Editorial bias?
13. Nah, it’s a master-race kinda novel.

In 36 years, from 1970 to 2006, the world poverty rate fell 40%. 40%! This is huge news, but you probably didn’t hear about it anywhere else. I certainly didn’t until I saw the link someone posted. But the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would have put it, is how this happened. For the explanation, I defer to Arthur Brooks.

It turns out that between 1970 and 2010 the worst poverty in the world – people who live on one dollar a day or less – that has decreased by 80 percent. You never hear about that.

It’s the greatest achievement in human history, and you never hear about it.

80 percent of the world’s worst poverty has been eradicated in less than 40 years. That has never, ever happened before.

So what did that? What accounts for that? United Nations? US foreign aid? The International Monetary Fund? Central planning? No.

It was globalization, free trade, the boom in international entrepreneurship. In short, it was the free enterprise system, American style, which is our gift to the world.

I will state, assert and defend the statement that if you love the poor, if you are a good Samaritan, you must stand for the free enterprise system, and you must defend it, not just for ourselves but for people around the world. It is the best anti-poverty measure ever invented.

Not aid, not handouts, and not a government interfering with the economy; capitalism and free enterprise are the poor’s best friend. Remember this the next time a politician has a “bold new approach” to income inequality and poverty.

Tickets sold out immediately for the Answers in Genesis Museum’s night of debate between Bill Nye "The Science Guy" and Ken Ham, proprietor of Answers in Genesis. The topic is “Is creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era?”

Since tickets sold out so fast, the debate will be live-streamed on the Internet at http://debatelive.org/ . The debate will be on Tuesday, February 4th, at 7pm. Should be interesting.

I posted something on my personal Facebook page about how one of the booming businesses in Detroit is photographing the dilapidated buildings. I labeled my link to the article, “Documenting decades of Democratic dominance.” Can you tell I like alliteration?

This bothered one of my Democrat friends who said that my bias was showing, and that blaming Democrats for Detroit was like blaming Republicans for the Katrina response. His contention was that both were unfair. I, and some other friends of mine, had to point out a few differences.

• The Republican administration wanted to come into Louisiana before the storm hit to be ready when it arrived, but the Democrats in the state capitol wouldn’t allow it.
• The Democrats at the city level in New Orleans failed to use the resources they already had to evacuate their own people.
• Democrats have been running Detroit for 50 years. To say that blaming their policies is unfair, is to make one wonder how long one party has to rule a city for their policies to actually affect that city.

So no, the analogy isn’t even close. And the devastation in Detroit wasn’t caused by Mother Nature, either.

This is yet another example of how Democrats seem to take the stance that it’s never their policies that failed, and in fact the best way to solve any problems they cause is to do the same thing with more money. That has always been Paul Krugman’s solution regarding stimulus spending. That has always been the solution for failing public schools, poverty programs, and every other idea that just isn’t panning out the way they thought it should.

Oh, and when ObamaCare drags down our economy, expect the same excuses, because we’re hearing them already. Republicans are being accuses of “sabotaging” it, when all they did was make the Democrats own it by not voting for it. As it is, the need to a revamp of the website, and delaying key parts of the law, are not sabotage by any means. But Republicans will get the blame while the Democrats will throw more money at a program that was sold as a way to reduce the deficit.

Blame is useful, if it is honestly applied. Using it, we can find our mistakes, and correct them. Democrats will never accept it, even after a half century track record. Does that give you confidence?

Links?

1. So there’s this survey …. I have a beef with one of their questions. There is a question asking if you value higher self-control or creativity. This is a confusing question to answer, I think creativity is incredibly important. I also think that self-discipline/self-control are a pre-requisite for creativity. If you think calculus is valuable can you weigh the relative importance of the ability to do algebra or calculus higher? I answered algebra, because calculus. Is this how we distinguish liberals from conservatives, liberals are those who don’t think creativity requires discipline? What? Do they think creativity just sort of “happens” magically?
2. A died in the wool classical liberal.
3. Mammals can learn.
4. So, cui bono and the minimum wage. When you factor in how much a higher min wage boosts automation, you can pretty much set aside notion that the beneficiaries are the “the poor”.
5. Ignorance, democracy, and gun control.
6. Safety nets.
7. Haute couture.
8. Obamacare. And the coming bailout.
9. Climate change, I’m missing the part where this is bad.
10. More on climate here.
11. A quality American education, eh?
12. “Republicans” do that? Not all of us.
13. Bigotry exemplified. Don’t judge on the quality of the work (content of character) but the gender count of your references, i.e., the color of your skin.
14. Income inequality.
15. That voter fraud.
16. Go girl!

Bill de Blasio was recently elected as the mayor of New York City. De Blasio is a liberal Democrat, as opposed to the liberal Republican Michael Bloomberg, who just left the post. The NY Times wrote a rather hopeful piece on de Blasio just before the end of the year, which included this paragraph.

His administration could be a redemptive moment for a national left whose policies were often blamed for the crumbling of urban centers in the 1960s and 1970s, yet has now started to reassert itself in smaller jurisdictions with bold new approaches on issues like income equality and poverty.

1960s and 70s? How about the 2010? Detroit anyone? Anyone? Bueller? That city had half a century of Democratic rule, and look where it is now! But the Times conveniently forgets this, preferring to suggest that Democrats only screwed up 50 years ago, and really haven’t had a chance since then. These “bold new approaches” are simply novel ways of destroying the economy, which hurt the poor the most.

As home schooling parents, who happen to reside in California, it has always been our intention to give our children the opportunity to attend whichever university they desired and were qualified for. While private universities are certainly an option (an expensive option), we have also wanted our children to have the opportunity to attend a state supported school (primarily because of the lower cost involved). Yet, it wasn’t until our first child was in her junior year of high school that we seriously addressed the following question:

How does a home schooled high school graduate properly apply and get admitted to either a Cal State University (CSU) or University of California (UC) school?

Are you a home schooling parent, in California, who can relate to this question? Has the prospect of home schooling your child through high school caused you to have more than a few sleepless nights?

Read the rest of this entry

Links?

1. A question of bias. Case in point.
2. Zoooom, or should that be “hyper-zoom”.
3. Eating only fast food, what really happens.
4. Moving towards single payer, because we all wish our health care was as good as the VA. The wealthy just wish they had it so so good. This is their strategy for getting that. File *that* under “cunning plan”.
5. Reading between the lines that means plastic = cheese and the big companies like Nabisco &c have figured out how to make sawdust taste “good”. Apparently we can thank Ms Obama.
6. Copyright silliness.
7. Our brilliant, err, cunning foreign policy plan. I recently read a hisory of the Crimean War. Cunning plans seem to spring up in foreign policy quite frequently. (as in Am I jumping the gun, Baldrick, or are the words “I have a cunning plan” marching with ill-deserved confidence in the direction of this conversation?)
8. Poverty is ended in the US. Who knew? By the calculation a single person making about 11k per year is “below the poverty level”  but that same person typically gets 20k in aid .. putting them well above the poverty line, hence my conclusion. Oddly enough a single young 20-something makinger 11k per year but who live at home with his parents counts as “below the poverty line” by their calculation I think.
9. Our tone deaf and aggressively stupid Administration, exhibit A.
10. Putting Mr Coates down a few notches.
11. Diet and exercise are the key I suppose.
12. No no no. Congress-critters are on a par with used car salesmen, it’s the life long bureaucrats and executives that are on a par with criminals.
13. Well grammar is one culprit, I suspect “because they don’t read” is the other.
14. This was known before Oct. 1 2013.
15. Hint: people who defended Mr Obama vis a vis the IRS scandal don’t have a leg to stand on regarding criticism like that without being hypocritical.

Links?

1. So, will this news spread? Or will left wing MSM loyalists quash it successfully?
2. The scandal of the day, it’s been my impressions that people are also saying “the cover up is making it worse.” If cover ups always made it worse, politicians would learn an never do it. That they do, gives reason to believe that most of the time, the cover up is successful. Which likely means that like icebergs 90% of the crap is under the surface.
3. Watch for the smears to begin.
4. So, in the wake of a cold snap, we are warned that “weather doesn’t equal climate” … except apparently when it is convenient to pretend it does. Consistency is apparently not required.
5. Obama and Afghanistan. Has there been a more shallow President, ever?
6. Cross-aisle praise.
7. Thesis sometimes should begin with the letter “F” at the start instead of the di-graph “Th”.
8. Crime and concealed carry.
9. Stupid laws across the pond.
10. What is a right (hint: not having healthcare/job/food/home provided)?
11. An MIT climate scientist speaks on climate.
12. Modeling and economics.
13. Cold weather and verse.
14. A commercial has “people talking” … how they talk beyond saying … “that’s really dumb” escapes me. I suppose they could enumerate the many ways in which it is really off the rails.

Well, we made it home Saturday. Then it snowed. Then it got cold. The diesel didn’t start when we got home (not because of any diesel fuel issue but because of a dead battery). Since it was snowing … and today it was -20 F we didn’t trickle charge it yet. We’re going to charge it tomorrow and then try starting it Wednesday when the temps are supposed to get north of 10.  We’ve discovered some things about packed snow, ice, and salt.  When temps are below -15 salt doesn’t do squat. Snow melted/softened by salt which then is cooled below 10 or 15 below is hard as a rock. Squeeky snow (which is snow below 0) is very slippery on the roads. The only solution is to go slow … and finally, I live on a road which is on about a 15% grade. You can’t drive up it for the last few days. You can only go down. If your speed gets above about 5mph … you’re out of control and won’t be able to stop without pinwheeling a it. Creeping is only way.

A reminder, the difference between 60 and 20 is the same as the difference between 20 and -20. Think of what you wear at 60 compared to 20. Stay warm out there if you’re out and about in this arctic blast.

OK.

1. An economics question (dismal science indeed).
2. Bike meets phone.
3. Growing up is hard to do … apparently.
4. An amazingly bad analogy.
5. The right corrects the right regarding Obamacare.
6. Gains given up. Regrets? Or not?
7. I haven’t read the paper yet, but I suspect there’s a catch.
8. Misunderstanding Plato noted.
9. Guns are one thing, perhaps we need less emphasis on gun control and more on intelligence minimums for politicians.
10. Rules like this have completely eliminted gun violence in Chicago, oh, wait.
11. Actual science imitates 1970s Michael Moorcock  science fiction. His character Jerry Cornelius was big on optical stimulation for various effects.
12. If something can’t continue, it won’t.
13. Look what a little confirmation bias can get you.
14. Relationship advice.

Well, after a good almost full day of skiing … my injured knee stiffened. Kids are having a blast which is the important thing.

1. Obamacare wins an award.
2. And it losing (apparently) the hard left.
3. Bio oil from a different source.
4. Hmmm.
5. Examining the lack-of-logic behind  the thoughts of those desiring to ban guns.
6. A case for which shooting drones (as suggested by that Colorado town) makes perfect sense.
7. Seems to me, when you discuss other’s sins … you should remember 1 Timothy 1:15.
8. He’s not saying that … he’s saying higher taxes lead to greater economic growth. That’s not right, but that’s what he thinks.
9. China, children, and economics.
10. Climate models.
11. Star Trek mocked.

Have fun with those resolutions. (Which are so often summed up via Spike Lee’s enjoiner “Do the Right Thing”).

1. Well, in January, it seems I’ll be following the rich and famous (that is to say having a my colon scoped). My results will not likely reported by ABC News.
2. Without cause. Oh, goody.
3. Good news presented as bad.
4. On the hand, perhaps “if true” needs to be appended to the above.
5. Father Time is a T. Rex.
6. Who is surprised?
7. What a perfect landing looks like.
8. I’d share some of the other links, but my guess none of my readers would be interested in things like this.

Posting in general seems to have slowed. Have a good New Years day!

Links?

1. Hypocrite of the year award in the field of privacy law sense … voting and nominees.
2. Resolutions and advice.
3. World currency. Which brings to mind the classic Rocky and Bullwinkle series  of cartoons in which the world economic leaders despairing of a basis for currency settle on “box tops”, which a particular moose in the Dakotas has an abundance.
4. Lassiz-Faire defended.
5. A book reviewed.
6. For the Palin fans.
7. Mr Gandleman, showing how to jump to the wrong conclusion. This is evidence primarily of the increasing failure of scientific credibility. Exhibit A, elsewhere “climate change, formerly global warming, formerly global cooling” is another.
8. Another NSA whistleblower.
9. On crossing the aisle.
10. Affluence.
11. And … a flash mob.

Yo. Links?

1. A book noted, still in my inbox.
2. Some lessons forgotten in peacetime.
3. Some science and short animations.
4. Tax money wasted.
5. An Evangelical and the East.
6. As a Rightie who “supports” him (in the sense of don’t fire/suspend), that one supports the right of a man to say a thing doesn’t (oddly enough) mean you support what he says. That seems to be lost on the linked blogger.
7. Some income inequality for discussion.
8. Missing a major point, that is, the reason that civilians are being targeted it because the rebels dress like and hide among the same. War crimes beget the same, but the original crime it seems can be laid at the feet of rebels.
9. Remember this.
10. A meaningless statement by the Democrat organ of record noted.
11. An elephant does the high hurdles. There’s a lesson here on government eptitude.
12. After all, the more time a doctor spends doing paperwork/data entry the better off we’ll all be, according ACA supporters is yet another one of their non-economic economic claims. Kinda like taxes on new medical equipment development will spur the same.