Recently in You have nothing to fear Category

Yet more proof that legislators should not be allowed to create laws without taking a drug test.I'm not suggesting that they are high on anything more than the smell of their own farts but the resulting proposals do nothing to support that view:)

First let's head off to a tiny little state with big problems.

Rhode Island proposal: Youth sports oversight, or overreach? - CNN.com

Democratic Sen. John Tassoni Jr. introduced a bill that would create a youth sports oversight council on the state level. The council would act as mediator in disputes between parents of youth athletes and sports officials.

I can't wait till they mandate a video playback rule for all games involving more than three people. Let's make an assumption that most of the parents were publicly educated.  How has their education and socialization by the state led to them being incapable , least in the eyes of their masters, from resolving disputes of a pretty trivial nature?  Some would say it's working too well should you want a relatively docile population that you relies on you for every little thing.

Now off to a tiny minded state, at least where the legislators are concerned.

Oklahoma state rep wanted to prevent Prof Dawkins speaking to university,

“The God Delusion”, and public statements on the theory of evolution demonstrate an intolerance for cultural diversity and diversity of thinking and are views that are not shared and are not representative of the thinking of a majority of the citizens of Oklahoma;

So says state rep Thomsen in house resolution HR1015 which replaced the foaming that the mouth version.I am glad they are interested in diversity because I can't work out if this is pandering or stupidity.Could Kansas employ Oklahoma as their village idiot?  Would more money for education solves this level of idiocy? Maybe not Rep Thomsen is on the education sub committee. Here's a follow up Dawkin's appearance.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves there are other deserving applicants.

Put another ban on the Barbie mate!

"Democrat Jeff Eldridge introduced a bill in the House of Delegates on Tuesday that would ban the sale of Barbie dolls - and "other dolls that influence girls to be beautiful" - in West Virginia."

Yet not a ban on male dolls without genitalia that influence people to become Democrats. 

Pennsylvania rocked by 'jailing kids for cash' scandal - CNN.com

For the judges that sent kids to detention facilities because they got kickbacks?   Maybe, but the real culprits  those that allowed it go on. The public. Those that would even support a system that could allow jailing minors  for three months for creating a spoof site on MySpace are more of a problem then the idiots  that order it.  

It's never been the politicians , it's always been us.

Be seeing you.

During my early life in the UK  the tax rate  for individuals  earning over  20k was 83% and if the money came from  investments or dividends another 15% was added onto it  meaning  for ever 100 you earned you could keep 2.

It's at this point I disagree with Mark Cuban and his insistence that  taxation  has minimal to no effect on those starting a business  which may hold true for a 5 - 10%  swing in either direction but at 83% I seriously doubt it.  Several , small, very small, ventures that Creddy and I considered  were impractical to enact because the local  town, county and state permits  made it prohibitively expensive  relating to the expected return. E.g you have spare herbs from a hydroponic garden  and you may make say   $1200 extra a year,  er no not legally you can't:)    Yeah I know it's not the big league but  come on  it's not legal to offer surplus  from your garden.. Grr  anyway  rant off:)


Public wants taxes that hurt the rich | Politics | The Observer

"People had assumed that this group were more than competent and it must have been deserved. There is now a feeling that these people have been responsible for others losing their jobs."

I know the name , least what's widely believed to be,  of the first "murderer" that was outrun by radio  Dr Crippen. People like to tie the new  with the  very very old  but usually it's in the other direction E.g  look at how these infernal machines are aiding those with malice in their mainframe to carry out. 
Would driving a  car get the same attention?  How about using a camera? Is it more newsworthy if it's silver halide or CCD that captures the  image?   Radio type   or something else?    Oo let's scare people with  VOIP  not only  does it not let 911 know where you are (rtfm)  it's now enabling decades old dispute in a new manner that's just so so so hard to have envisioned prior to its adoption.
VOIP is not the challenge  it's made out to be here.  Impossible?  Impossible to intercept    surely some mistake unless there's a whole load of forgetting about India's tussle with Rim. India wanted to monitor the Blackberry network and got that concession.
I'm also  rather  less impressed with stories on how  highly trained they are.  I must  be missing something here since shooting a passive crowd    and lobbing grenades  at the same time in different locations doesn't seem to be on my list of hard to conceive plots. 

"Definitely they were trained,'' said a masked officer of the force.

''Not everybody can fire AK-series weapons.

''Using such weapons and explosives, it is obvious they were trained somewhere.

Do you have a spare 10 minutes?   Ak's are famous for their robustness when used by  irregulars, nades, baseball!  as for the explosives I  have no idea but they always kept me away from that safe  Oddly enough the  reporting in realtime that provided this alleged  edge is not considered to be an inappropriate use of technology.. weird that.
Mumbai terrorists' most powerful weapon: VoIP phones | Computerworld Blogs

The Times reports that the handlers were communicting with the attackers using VoIP phones that made it difficult, if not impossible, for the Indian authorities to intercept the calls, or even know they were taking place.
Here's how the Times explains it:...

Having seen too many  cases  of "if you don't do anything wrong you have nothing to worry about"  I   encourage you to read this. Law enforcement has over taken the concept of peace officer.  Any interaction can quickly go wrong  if you forget  whose really the boss so disgression being the better part of valor and all there's practically nothing to do about it but stay inside  keep the yard tidy:)

Unwarranted Violence by William Norman Grigg

Under existing judicial precedents, a police officer cannot be held criminally or civilly liable for failing to come to the aid of an individual citizen whose person and property are under criminal attack. However, police agencies across the country routinely discipline police officers who fail to fill their quota of traffic citations.

This may at first glance seem to be a spurious comparison. But consider it in light of the principle of opportunity cost as applied to the time budget of the typical patrol officer: Should he organize his time in such a way that he can be available to help a victim of violent crime, or in the best way to take advantage of "hot spots" for traffic violators, thereby making his quota and enhancing his prospects for lucrative overtime?

A given officer can be in only one place at a given time, after all, and each hour spent trolling for inattentive drivers represents an hour taken away from the task of "serving and protecting" the local population.

"Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads"

The industrial revolution is still spinning.  We're stuck  for the most part with a  work week, physically showing up  and  covering the costs of maintaining ourselves in food and transport outside of the house.  For many of us it makes little to no sense given that our jobs are hunting  ideas on the antipodes of our mental planes  ( oh  I just won a Private Eye Pseud  award:P) 

So the big plans  from our new Saviour in chief?   Newer versions of the same old ways.   Much as I dislike state  mandated jobs I can at lease express a preference for the kind of boondoggles that I like. Where's a decent broadband plan?   Where's the "iPhone in each pocket"  speech?   We're so in love with tangible structures that  even if you could prove 100% that schools could be run remotely , cheaper  with higher grades and none of the lose of their precious  "socialization  I doubt we'd ever see such a thing.     This looks more like a way to keep on living as we have rather than looking forward to something that may  look like change:) 

  My usual  reservations about the  energy issue is that mandating  technology or favoring it with tax policy can kill off truly innovative stuff. There's a reason we have ethanol in gas and it's not because it's good for anything other than those that happen to grow the raw material.  

How about getting rid of all the regulatory crap that has us  traveling to  "beg" permission to modify or uses the items as a trip reduction method? 

Now were did we put all those engineering graduates?

 Who is always in charge?

Why is that entity never to blame? 

Why is the cure for the failure of of that entity an excuse to give them more money and power?  Really really puzzling. The reason I need to write things like this is I'm  getting worse at discussing them because it's hard , really hard to get it across in person.  I'm tired of being in  MPG or environmental  debates with people whose cars are less efficient than mine. 

It's a bS argument because it's nowhere near as simple as they make it out to be.   Let's tax fuel more so people will use less of it.  After all poor people don't have cars ,fuck em.  That's not my experience with  my less well off  rural friends that can't afford much in the way of efficient cars  and end up driving the  motoring dregs. Still  it beats  walking  four miles  to store or taking kid to sitter, dr etc.  

 Person is on min wage/  tips.  Fuel prices =  higher food prices   say another 10-12  a week.  That's a couple of meals , few hours sitting or something useful that a person working 40-60 hours a week may want.  Only ear thhis shit from people with jobs that could readily afford it.. you know  I wouldn't mind paying.. well  fucking do so.     Save $1 a gallon each time you fuel and donate it to something tangible to help the people ,you're so eager  to take money out their pockets , rather than  hurting others to feel good about yourself.  Sadly no  we'll take that money and give it to  state to make the Soylent Wheels for our slow  backslide into steam.  I've driven a lot of cars made by nations rather than private companies and boy  do they suck!   Put it this way I'd not  be surprised if  they added in flotation devices  as a requirement from the Senator from Massachusets.  
 
LewRockwell.com Blog: That Private Jet Non-Issue, and Political Thinking

I am sure that Henry Waxman truly believes he can run an auto company or any other company when, in truth, he only can run his mouth. One reason that Congress really wants this bailout is that people like Chris Dodd and Waxman want their chance to be acting CEOs and show everyone how to build "green cars." Of course, anything which is built under their direction will be horrible, an overpriced and heavily subsidized piece of garbage that no people in their right minds would buy.

Yeah we really need another  President that believes any means necessary to hold onto central power is justifiable.  :(  That protectionist  tariffs are a good thing and that  arresting people that oppose you peacefully was valid.  How can one get such a great reputation in history for just the words and not the actions? 
Can Lincoln's playbook help Obama in the years ahead? - CNN.com

# There are several similarities between the two politicians
# Historians say Obama can use Lincoln's strategies to help him lead the country

I hate the cars that states make.  Think about it  Yugo, Lada, Skoda , Trabant   and anything British Leyland, Austin put out are not known for anything other than their  abject crapness. Some of these have gone onto great things after being privatised though. To be told that by people that have probably flown more carbon unhappy miles in their campaign than most of us will in our lives is equally frustrating.


Here's what annoys me.  These companies   DO already make efficient cars  but people will not BUY  them.  They don't need to retool  much. They make  world cars,  GM and FORD make successful small vehicles that work quite well in every other country  apart from the US because we all know that a good anti pollution measure in CA , in one big town in CA ,is  valid for the rest of the nation :(    We had that crap in the UK were the short distances we traveled and the ambient temperatures made our cars pollute more with the early catalytic converters  but it's the thought that counts.

 


Transcript: 'I'm going to confront this economic crisis,' Obama says - CNN.com

I would like to see the administration do everything it can to accelerate the retooling assistance that Congress has already enacted. In addition, I have made it a high priority for my transition team to work on additional policy options to help the auto industry adjust, weather the financial crisis, and succeed in producing fuel-efficient cars here in the United States of America.

I'm lucky that I never had a horse in this race I find both sides odious. I find the propositions can be even worse. People that claim to be religious  would rather spend 73 million dollars on making sure other people have less rights than they want to enjoy. Preachers  that get up daily and tell us that $20  a month saves a life , you know that life is life  one could go as far to call them pro-life  crowd?   Yep rather than having two men  or women  be recognised by the state  ( big problems with that but going to ignore that for now;) )  they would condemn  3.65 million people to an early death just to stop two people expressing a civil commitment.   What the fuck is wrong with you sick bastards?    That 73 million  was just for the CA marriage amendment by the time you add in the other states it's quite a bit higher.  That's pretty much evil right there.  In some ways it's a good thing we substituted naked aggression for the paper substitute because  they really would act out their malevolent fantasies again and again as they have done throughout history.  We call this progress;)  Anyway  to a post from a  rather good UK  blog that captures in many more words than  Mencken did.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. H. L. Mencken

Now over to. Samizdata.net

Many will find the glee of the statist left over the next few days and weeks hard to endure, but to be honest I have been walking around with a grin all day. Finally the era of gradualism is over and the masks are going to come off. The USA has voted for statism and it is going to get exactly what it voted for at a juncture in history where it will very quickly be impossible to hide the cost of those votes. Obama is not the start of a new era, he is the death knell for the old one.