a brilliant tax policy...

"they won't miss it."

click through to read the story. would we hold any other thievery to the same standard?

why isn't there more outrage...

that we're paying an international cartel for our gas, a monopoly that actively restricts supply to keep prices artificially high?

"If we had increased our production given all these factors, you wouldn't have been able to miss the impact on prices," [Algerian Energy minister and OPEC president Chakib Khelil] said, suggesting prices would have slid.

oh, that's right, it's because our own government keeps pumping the economy full of worthless dollars to boost demand and keep prices on everything else artificially high.

have you got a boo-boo, baby?

i just saw one of the more asinine headlines on cnn while at the gym. (what are headlines called when they run across the bottom of the screen?) here's what it said:

"should swimming with sharks be banned?"

now, apart from being absolutely hilarious (should swallowing knives be banned? should eating chandeliers be banned? should sleeping on beds of nails be banned?), this question is apropos to the political discussion in which this nation is currently engaging. or, i should say, the utopian fantasy this that this nation is eagerly swallowing, hook, line, and sinker. and if we're going to understand where we're headed, we have to crack open this little chestnut.

what would make cnn think this question is even appropriate to ask? well, obviously, some idiot got ate. yes, the world is now one-sixth of the way to meeting its yearly quota of 1/1,000,000,000 of the world population
who die every year in shark attacks.

this guy was swimming in waters chummed with bloody fish parts and, lo and behold, a shark bit his leg off. our genius lawyer friend is fifty miles off the the sunshine state's coast. that's a one-hour hour boat ride, minimum. obviously, he buys his tickets before boarding the boat. let's put the time of purchase at least an hour before kick-off. i'm sure the crew and staff walks herr groh through a safety lecture including the same warning they post on their web page: Please be aware that these are not 'cage' dives, they are open water experiences. let's add a half-hour of pre-boarding time for the safety talk. finally, upon arriving at the diving site, it's likely that the crew chum the water while the divers assemble and safety-check their gear. you've got to let the chum dissipate a little so it doesn't get all over the divers, and so that the really big sharks can smell it and swim in. half-hour for that. finally, this guy watches crew divers jump in the water, the bloody water, without a cage. then he jumps in. no one pushes him. all told, our austrian friend has at least three hours to reconsider swimming unprotected with the meanest, dumbest and biggest carnivores in the ocean. and he decides to take the risk.

he decides to take the risk.

so, what grounds does the government have to ban an activity the risk of which the participant knowingly assumes?

first, protect the sharks. well, maybe. maybe the sharks are unhappy. i don't see how, what with the free meal and all. they're not getting killed. they are getting photographed, but scientists have conclusively proven that getting your picture taken does not rob you of your soul.

second, protect the diver. this is the tack that all such arguments take (e.g. the argument for universal health insurance); it's the most dangerous kind of argument and we don't seem to be getting it.

why do we need to protect the diver? because we feel bad for him, or because it costs the rest of us money? see, since we've decided to pay for everyone's healthcare (whether through private insurance or public, this sort of injury is covered: hospitals cannot turn people away who have sharkbites), we have to be able to say what sorts of risks they should be allowed to take. mark my words: the more control we give the government over healthcare, the more the nanny-statists will be able to tell us what we can and cannot do with our time (free or otherwise). no jaywalking. no trans-fats. no cholesterol. no smoking. wear your seatbelt. eat your vegetables. no swimming with sharks. no riding your bike without a helmet.

granted, many of the the things on that list are good things to do. smart for your body. but think: do we want the government telling us that we have to do them, under penalty of fines or jail time? well, it's going to happen. those of you who think the republicans want to take your liberties away to fight the war on terror (they do and it's bad) should stop to consider how your most-private liberties will be given up as you ask the government to take more and more control of your lives. as you ask the government to spend money on things, it will start to impose restrictions on spending and on behavior, just like a good parent. you will be told what kind of sex you can have. you will be told how many children you can bear. you will be told how many times you have to go to the doctor. you will be told what sort of vitamins you have to take. see, safety-nets affect risk-perception. people will do more risky things if they know they'll be cared for regardless. thus, the nanny draws lines.

in a world without universal healthcare, we currently have universal healthcare through tax-code enforcement and government entitlement programs, smokers might die earlier of lung cancer, people who swim with sharks might slowly bleed to death in the ocean, gastropods who gorge themselves on trans fats might trip their heart out at 30. in short, people would reap what they sow. but they would have the freedom to choose where to sow. (and the market and the world as God designed it would communicate risk so that people would probably engage in less risky behavior overall. water runs uphill. people by and large don't like to stick their hands into open fires.)

is that so bad? or do we want a big nanny to care for all our boo-boos? how many of your cherished freedoms are you willing to give up for socialized medicine?

all authority is God-appointed to bless or discipline God's people. we will need to honor whoever gets elected president. but will we be honoring a man who is appointed to discipline us or to bless us? who among the viable candidates is not an enemy of the church?

how is this fearmongering?

wait, wait, wait. why would the obama campaign call the release of this 2006 photo "shameful offensive fear-mongering"? didn't obama put the costume on? fear-mongering to whom?

and what's the subtext of his campaign's statement? does obama think dressing up in head-scarves and robes is offensive? well, if he doesn't, why didn't he just put out a statement saying, "chill out, freaks. it's just a robe"? why remind people that they need to keep being afraid of sashes and walking sticks?

interesting. listen: if you're going to run for president, don't make a porno, hire illegals as maids, or dress up in ethnic clothing. otherwise, just come out, say you did it, and move on. that was obama's move on smoking weed.

a friend of mine summed up obama's brilliant, two-point change-the-world plan as follows: 1) i have a plan, 2) my plan will work. change you can believe in, indeed.

it's no secret

while this post will not focus on the socialist smokescreen of "progressive" taxation (as if stealing more from those with more makes usurious taxation appropriate or justified, anyway) i did just want to point out the idiocy behind one of our more-recent "save the poor" pieces of legislation boosted by the non-thinking emoticrats on the left and the right:

as you may know, bush recently signed into law the SCHIP bill, which extended a certain government health-insurance program supposedly aimed at low-income children. well, the dems got in a fuss because they said the bill was underfunded. they wanted to hike the tobacco tax to pay for the bill (earlier vetoed versions contained that provision).

hmm, that makes sense. we're going to pay for health insurance (not health care, that's a completely separate ball of wax) for the "poor" using a tax on a product used by four times more people living below the poverty level than those who have college educations. these folks, republicans and democrats, want to do away with private "insurance" (which we don't really have any more, more about that later) – in which a person pays for his own insurance – with public insurance, the thought being that poor people can't pay the cost of their own insurance. meanwhile, the SCHIP bill they pushed in '07 would have almost entirely funded the expanded SCHIP spending with taxes on those living below the poverty level. (that assumes, of course, that demand doesn't decrease with the imposition of additional taxes. if this bill were funded by a tobacco tax and then people stopped buying as much tobacco, i suppose we'd need to raise taxes again, maybe on high fructose corn syrup or trans fats. or just some other regulation to pound this pesky market into submission. and make water run uphill.)

make no mistake, america isn't robbing the rich to pay the poor anymore. they're robbing everyone. who they're paying is anyone's guess.

consumer confusion

anybody else think it's a bit odd that we're told we need to fund social
security because americans can't be trusted to save for their futures,
but every time consumer spending is down we're all supposed to get
freaked out that the economy's taking a down-turn? (remember after 9-11 when bush told us to be patriotic americans and go shopping?) and every time the economy's "down," the politburo in dc pumps new dollars into the economy to increase consumer spending (bear in mind, the increase in dollars actually decreases the value of everybody's savings).

is that a good thing? a couple thoughts:

why is spending down? supply and demand: prices are too high; demand is too low. so either merchants hold on to their inventory until demand increases (which could put them out of business), or you slash prices (which could also put them out of business). since we have a total aversion in america to 1) consequences of our actions and 2) directly regulating prices (that would be socialism, ya pinko!) we just inflate demand by increasing "buying power," i.e., pour new money into the economy. "rebates" for all, including non-tax payers!

this market intervention empties inventories, and we all calm down because consumer spending is UP UP UP! and people are selling stuff! so what's the problem with that? first, because we don't let the market adjust, the prices stay high, and the ants who've had the foresight to save get screwed over by the grasshoppers. that's inflation. second, if you don't save today, you're going to spend less in the future, which means that we'll need another "economic stimulus" package so that merchants can clear their shelves then, which will mean that you'll save less then, and spend less in the future of that future, which means we'll need another stimulus package. it's turtles all the way down. and we're wall-papering our houses with $100 bills.

rrraugh! saving... good! spending... good! grog like peanuts!