Recovering

View 712 Saturday, February 11, 2012

It’s Subscription Drive Time!

I woke up feeling as if I am recovering, but with no energy or ambition. All I wanted to do was stay in bad, so I did. That helped. I am pretty sure I am recovering now. Symptoms lessened, etc. Still no energy, and of course I now face an enormous pile of undone stuff, including errands for the house, taking care of Roberta – she’s two days behind me on this – paying the bills, shopping, and of course catching up with the mail here.

I have had KUSC turned of while I was sick – not easy to enjoy music when your head is pounding – but I wanted to lie down in the great hall, and silence doesn’t work well for me. I’ve had tinnitus or ringing in the ears since the radiation therapy, and it’s less annoying if there’s some real auditory input.

And of course I found that it’s Pledge Drive Week at KUSC, which means that it’s time for a Chaos Manor Subscription Drive. It’s an awkward time since I haven’t provided much content this week, but on the other hand that is what will happen if I don’t get subscriptions. I also want to thank all those who have recently renewed their subscriptions. I try not to spend a lot of time talking about money and subscriptions, and since this place runs on the same plan as the KUSC good music station – it’s free but if it doesn’t get subscribers it won’t stay open – it seems reasonable to bug you for money about as often as KUSC does. So, for the next few days, prepare to be bugged.

We have a really good renewal rate here. New subscriptions seldom come in except during the pledge drive weeks, which when you stop to think about it is what you’d expect since I don’t spend a lot of time hounding people for money any other time.

So if you have been watching this place for a while and like it, now’s a good time to subscribe. Of course if you just started looking here all you’ve been seeing is a series of excuses for not having much, so don’t make up your mind just yet..

I have been neglecting the mail lately, but in normal time I will contend that I have about the best mail section on the Internet. I got a lot of mail, select what I think is most interesting, write answers which may be short of long, and try to encourage rational discussion of a number of topics that don’t get much rational discussion. That will continue, and sometime this weekend I should catch up with a pile of good mail I have and have been neglecting.

Anyway: if you’ve been here a while and haven’t subscribed, this would be a good time to do it. And thanks to all those who keep this place open.

clip_image002

The big news of the week is President Obama’s breathtaking coup which delivers to him far more power than any President has ever had, and at least so far with minimum discussion.

First he discovered that Obamacare, a law passed at the last minute by the Democrat lame duck Congress, by one vote and that on a parliamentary technicality, allows him a power:

A provision of the 2010 healthcare reform law mandates that basic birth control services for women be included in as part of any employer-provided health insurance plan. Among the institutions that will feel the impact of this new rule are those affiliated with the Catholic Church—including its hospitals, charities, and universities. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2012/02/09/obamacare-birth-control-mandate-tramples-religious-liberty

His announcement mobilized opposition as nothing else has in years, and the effect was immediate: the President retreated, or said he did.

On Friday, after three weeks of controversy that pitted the nation’s Catholic bishops against the White House, Obama retreated. Instead of requiring employers to cover contraception, the policy would now require insurance companies to provide free birth control coverage in separate agreements with workers who want it. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-02-11/obama-birth-control-cpac/53046728/1

The position he “retreated” to allows him to mandate that insurance companies must now provide free contraception to anyone who asks for it. No copayment, no increase in premium: just free. Of course this is going to be challenged, but the President has just asserted a right to command private companies to give out entitlements. Women can demand The Pill. It’s not clear what men are entitled to. Nor is it clear what entitlements can be demanded for gays, lesbians, cross dressers, those desiring sex change operations, etc., but we may be sure that there are law offices preparing looking into the matter.

It’s obvious that neither the Framers of 1787 nor those who proposed nor those who ratified any Amendment to the Constitution intended any such power to be given to either Congress or the President. The President asserts that he has it. Some retreat.

clip_image002[1]

I have been reading Charles Murray’s new book Coming Apart. It’s disturbing. More when I have finished it. We have sown the wind. What we will reap is not clear. Murray fears that what is coming is the end of the American experiment in self government.

clip_image003

clip_image002[10]

clip_image002[11]

clip_image005

clip_image002[12]

Feeling Filleted; Tell us Senator, what’s your plan?

View 712 Thursday, February 09, 2012

Today I merely feel filleted, so perhaps I am recovering, but I’m sure not in good shape. I won’t be going to my LASFS meeting tonight, and I don’t have much energy, but it’s all better than yesterday. Of course I sort of remember a week ago when I thought I was recovering, too, but since most of these things last about two weeks, I think I really am on the mend. Meanwhile all kinds of interesting things are happening out there.

clip_image002

Mr. Santorum now has the opportunity to be what he said he wanted to be, the conservative alternative to Mr. Obama. He can ignore Romney. If Romney fires up the attack machine, he can reconsider, but the proper way to do that would be to put forth his own program.

Every Republican candidate has pledged to end Obamacare. There’s no more issue in that. Attacking Romney for Romneycare is not precisely conservative: if Massachusetts wants Romneycare that’s their affair, not that of the Federal government. So far as I am concerned Massachusetts can reinstate the Congreagational Church as an established religion. That’s the plain meaning of the Constitution, and this modern interpretation of the Civil War Amendments forbidding the States from an establishment of religion didn’t even exist before 1947, and it took a while after that before it became the politically correct monstrosity the doctrine has become now. True enough, no state will establish a religion, and the last state to have one disestablished it just before the Civil War, but the First Amendment is very clear: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. This was explicitly intended to prevent the federal government from disestablishing the established churches of the seven states that had them in 1787. There is zero evidence that those who adopted the Civil War Amendments intended them to extend the authority of Congress over established religions, nor that those states that ratified them intended that result. The intent was protection of the freed slaves, not involve the Federal government in religious matters.

The conservative position is expressed in the ninth and tenth amendments. It was expressed by the Virginia ratifying delegates:

That those clauses which declare that Congress shall not exercise certain powers be not interpreted in any manner whatsoever to extend the powers of Congress. But that they may be construed either as making exceptions to the specified powers where this shall be the case, or otherwise as inserted merely for greater caution.

Indeed, Hamilton didn’t want any Bill of Rights because, he said, Congress could not do anything not set forth in the enumeration of powers. “Why forbid that which the Congress cannot do?” he asked. Contrast that to the modern interpretations which infer government powers and restrictions from emanations and penumbras of the Constitution.

Showing that Romneycare does not work in Massachusetts is perhaps a supporting argument for the repeal of Obamacare, but since all the candidates are agreed that Obamacare has to go, what’s the point? We are not going to mandate that Massachusetts give up the state’s health care program. That’s their business, not mine, and one part of conservatism is a firm belief in minding one’s own business.

What we need from Senator Santorum is a discussion of his economic plans. What regulations will he get rid of? When? What other Obama laws will he cause to be repealed? These are the important matters. Tell us, Senator, which will you do if you have the power? It’s your turn in the spotlight.

clip_image002[1]

I wrote that this afternoon and didn’t manage to post it. I’ll put it up now and go to bed. I think we are recovering, but it’s a slow energy sapping recovery. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have some gumption. There’s plenty to write about. I just need to be able to think straight.

clip_image002[2]

The radio is telling me that ten states have been “granted” indulgence against meeting the requirements of No Child Left Behind, as if anyone could meet those requirements in any way other than making sure no child gets ahead. Leveling the public education system is a means of creating castes and hereditary rule, of course: if only the children of the ruling class can get a real education, the iron ring is well forged. The waste is enormous and the effect on wealth and growth is enormous.

The simplest improvement to the public school system would be the abolition of the federal Department of Education, turning out everyone in it to find a job. Some of them might even start private schools, but of course most would seek other government work. Once on is accustomed to being an Iron Law bureaucrat, it’s hard to do much else. If the Department of Education is so smart, why are the DC schools so awful? Congress has full authority to use DC as an experimental education system and give it the very best schools the geniuses at the Department of Education can devise.

[The Congress shall have Power] To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States.

clip_image002[3]

clip_image002[10]

clip_image005

clip_image002[11]

An election on principles?

View 712 Wednesday, February 08, 2012

The miseries continue here. Our trip out to Kaiser yesterday was precautionary, but it’s just as well that we did it, given that things aren’t any better today. This is one horrible cold, unlike any I have had in years. Apologies for being brief. I’m doing well to concentrate on anything. Alas.

clip_image002

Santorum emerges as a real contender for the Republican nomination for President. He says he is not the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, he is the conservative alternative to Barrack Obama. I was impressed. The last time I was really impressed by Santorum was the night he won the Iowa caucuses. He sounded Presidential then, and he sounded Presidential last night. Perhaps the election of 2012 will be on issues and causes, not on personalities: a self-proclaimed conservative candidate against a left liberal, without a lot of personality and personal history baggage. Mr. Obama will have to run on his record, and Mr. Santorum can run against that. Neither has any great personal record. The only executive experience Obama can claim is as President, and that’s in essence running on his record.

Let the election be about freedom.

Having said that, I will repeat: This is a crucial election and I prefer each and every one of the seven Republican contenders to the current president. I am not endorsing anyone; but it would appear that a Santorum/Obama contest might be the closest thing we can have to a straight contest on conservative vs. liberal principles. That could be a significant election.

clip_image002[1]

not flashy, but damn important

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204369404577209112780407698.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

We’re the government and we will tell you how to live.

Phil

As for instance Obamacare. There are other fundamental differences between where Obama has taken us and where conservatives want to take us.

clip_image002[2]

I’ll try to have more later.

clip_image002[3]

clip_image002[8]

clip_image002[9]

clip_image005

clip_image002[10]

A tiny jobs program; Climategate II; and other matters.

View 712 Tuesday, February 07, 2012

We’re still under the weather here, and I’m going to take Roberta out to Kaiser in a few minutes, so this will be late. I have a big bag of good mail to present, and I made a lot of notes at the breakfast table.

clip_image002

The Small Pournelle Jobs Plan

The Pournelle Jobs Plan. This is easy to implement: in every legislation or regulation that exempts small business from the regulation, double the size of the exemption. If it applies only to businesses with more than 10 employees, that becomes 20. If 20 it becomes 40. Fifty becomes 100, and 100 becomes 200. This will have the effect of allowing successful small businesses to expand without incurring new and more stringent regulations. It could create a lot of jobs, and I don’t see much of a downside.

The House could pass this in a week, and let the Democrats argue as to why it should not pass the Senate.

clip_image002[1]

Another of my notes is on the climate debates: so far we have on the one side a group of scientists and others who point out that the data do not support the AGW hypothesis predictions, and the AGW Believers have responded by attacking the credentials of those who point out that the data don’t match the predictions. That’s pretty irrelevant. Why do I need scientific credentials to point out that your own data do not match your predictions?

When I was a Marxist back in undergraduate days, we had a debate phrase we used often: “Before you attack your opponent’s motives, answer his arguments.” I thought that was right then and I think it now. Of course when I questioned some of the Marxist predictions I got denunciations from my former colleagues, thus proving that it was a catch phrase. And gee, I thought they meant it. I did. Ah well.

But the data keep coming in, and so long as you actually believe in science rather than merely Believe, it’s getting hard to ignore.

The current policies are based on assumptions.

1. The Earth is in fact steadily warming; not only is the cold not coming back, but AGW is overcoming the ‘natural’ trend of the past 200,000 years toward glaciation.

2. That warming is caused by CO2 and the cooling from 1320 to about 1800 was caused by something else; volcanism, perhaps, rather than solar activity. A seldom discussed corollary is that we can ignore volcanism as a determinant of the future.

3. Warming is bad, not good. There is some discussion of this but no big grants to do definitive studies that I know of.

4. People in the West – USA, Europe, perhaps Japan – can do something about this even if the Chinese and Indians are Deniers and will continue to burn fossil fuels.

5. What we can do will be cost effective: that it won’t bankrupt us while accomplishing little to nothing. At least if we bankrupt ourselves and fail it may be easier to live under more primitive conditions if it’s warm. The worst would be that we bankrupt ourselves, stop warming, and we have no way to combat the cold.

Admittedly I have been a bit whimsical there, but the questions are serious, and I see little discussion of them. Most of the “defense” of the “consensus” position on AGW is that those who don’t believe it are incompetent and not worthy to be part of the great climate science community – and probably take oil money. Government grants through universities are not corrupting. Oil money corrupts.

clip_image002[2]

“Well, you know, it turns out that our Founders designed a system that makes it harder to change than I would like sometimes.” Barrack Obama, onetime lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Chicago, currently President of the United States.

I would have thought that anyone who spent much time studying the Convention of 1787 would be well aware that the system was one of checks and balances, designed to resist quick ‘reforms’; and that it took a long time and a lot of effort to distort it as far as it has been distorted. What this does make clear is that the President is not unhappy with what he has done so far, but he is saddened by the fact that the Constitution resists his reforms and changes; and given the chance he will impose more of his will, through any means necessary.

clip_image002[3]

We’re back. Fortunately we didn’t waste much time or money – ours or our physician’s – in discovering that what we have is bad cases of the common cold, and what we need is painkillers, rest, and chicken soup. This will end. It’s a matter of endurance. I got some takeout soup on the way home. I’ll go out for a chicken and other ingredients in the morning. Too tired now. I make a good chicken soup in the pressure cooker. Of course I tend to make too much, but that’s not a severe problem.

I have some good books to read, and I ought to learn patience. Sort of. If you have a cold buy one of my eBooks. It won’t cure your cold but then nothing else will either, and a good book will take your mind off your problems. Of course so will Tuesday night TV I suppose.

clip_image003

clip_image002[12]

clip_image005

clip_image002[13]