Category: Uncategorized

The danger of biting at ankles

You tend to get kicked in the teeth a lot:

Ok, so we go the whole day and no-one points out that free fall most certainly is acceleration. 9.8 m/s/s, to be exact.

The statement was not “freefall is not acceleration”, but that “acceleration is not freefall”. Does an orbital rocket blasting off accelerate? Does an automobile? And are either of these machines in freefall while they are accelerating as per their normal operation?

Some commenters appear to have an amount of trouble understanding the concept of sets and subsets. The subset is not, and cannot be, the set of which it is merely a part. (Cue Markku bringing up the null set.) I tend to doubt anyone would have felt the need to attempt offering a correction had I stated, for some inexplicable reason, “Numbers are not nine”. I desperately hope, anyhow, that even the most cluelessly contrarian anklebiter would have been able to resist the urge to reactively insist that “Nine is a number!”

Yes, it most certainly is. But three is a number and it is not nine. Ten is also not nine. There are, in fact, a vast collection of numbers that do not happen to be nine, just as there are many rates of change of velocity over time that do not involve the motion of a body where gravity is the only force acting upon it. The two terms overlap, but they are not interchangeable.

So, a helpful word of advice to the pedantically inclined. If you make a habit of actively seeking to criticize others or just have a tendency to react to assertions in an instinctively contrarian manner, I suggest learning to first ask questions rather than immediately attempting to offer corrections even when you are reasonably sure that you have understood what the other person said. Always get confirmation first. Because when you are dealing with anyone who is reasonably intelligent or even just precise in their thinking, there is a very good chance that your posturing – and let’s face it, that’s what it is – is going to cause you to make an ass of yourself by trying to correct something that is not, in fact, incorrect.

I understand that my towering intellectual arrogance is infuriating to some readers. Even those who often agree with me are sometimes sorely tempted to attempt to “bring me down” when they perceive an opportunity. But not every red flag waved in your face merits a blind and heedless charge. If you’ve read this blog for any time at all, you should be aware that there are few things in which I find more personal amusement than publicly skewering a superficial and reactively contrarian would-be critic.

The cancerous eyes of the state

Murray Rothbard expands his logical case against empiricism in economics, specifically, explaining how the systematic gathering of statistics tends to lead inevitably to bureaucracy and increased government intervention in the economy:

[S]tatistics are desperately needed for any sort of government planning of the economic system. In a free-market economy, the individual business firm has little or no need of statistics. It need only know its prices and costs. Costs are largely discovered internally within the firm and are not the general data of the economy which we usually refer to as “statistics.”

The “automatic” market, then, requires virtually no gathering of statistics; government intervention, on the other hand, whether piecemeal or fully socialist, could do literally nothing without extensive ingathering of masses of statistics. Statistics are the bureaucrat’s only form of economic knowledge, replacing the intuitive, “qualitative” knowledge of the entrepreneur, guided only by the quantitative profit-and-loss test. Accordingly, the drive for government intervention, and the drive for more statistics, have gone hand-in-hand….

Suffice it then to say that a leading cause of the proliferation of governmental statistics is the need for statistical data in government economic planning. But the relationship works also in reverse: the growth of statistics, often developed originally for its own sake, ends by multiplying the avenues of government intervention and planning. In short, statistics do not have to be developed originally for politicoeconomic ends; their own autonomous development, directly or indirectly, opens up new fields for interventionists to exploit.

Each new statistical technique, whether it be flow of funds, interindustry economics, or activity analysis, soon acquires its own subdivision and application in government.

In the RGD chapter entitled “No One Knows Anything”, I demonstrated how wildly inaccurate, mutable, and untrustworthy the economic statistics on which so much government policy is predicated are. But the problem is that regardless of how inaccurate or even irrelevant they are, they will be used to justify government action in various areas of the economy and inspire public malinvestment while simultaneously exacerbating private malinvestment. If statistics are the eyes of the state, the central flaw with them that they will always be short-sighted, astigmatic, subject to optical illusions, and prone to aggressive intraocular lymphomas.

On podcasting

I get a lot of requests to do more podcasts on a regular basis, and while I’m amenable with regards to the necessary talking, interviewing, and so forth, I’ve finally concluded that I’m simply not at all interested in doing the necessary editing and studio tinkering. So, if there is anyone who is interested in that side of it, let me know. I don’t have any grand ideas about going full media, but given how most of the world seems to be astonished that the global economy is headed back tostill experiencing economic contraction, I figure that there may be a need for more of the sort of thing I started with the Voxonomics podcasts.

Basically, I’d like to be able to record an MP3, upload it to a server, and have a reasonably edited podcast magically appear within a day or two. If that’s not possible because no one is interested, it’s completely fine, but I thought I should at least throw this out there for any audiophiles with some time on their hands.

Tipping Point USA

Scott Adams suspects there may be one in the near future:

Yesterday I went to Walmart and demanded that they give me a cartload of merchandise for free. This demand was not well-received, so I didn’t get to the second part of my plan which would have involved criticizing the job performance of the people who were giving me free stuff.

Okay, I didn’t really go to Walmart and demand free stuff. You probably knew that because it sounded ridiculous on face value. We all understand that no entity can survive for long if it gives away its resources while asking nothing in return. And this leads me to my point: In the United States, 51% of adults pay zero federal income tax, and yet they have the right to vote. That’s the very definition of a system that can’t last.

I’m not sure where the tipping point is. So far, the power of the non-tax-paying majority has been blunted by the influence of political parties and the misdirection of the media. If the majority ever figures out that they can legally confiscate the wealth of the minority, tax rates will double overnight. My best guess is that the United States will go into a death spiral at about the point that 55% of adults pay no federal income taxes.

It’s not quite a legitimate analysis, in that many of those who don’t pay any income tax do pay payroll taxes. But the general point is correct. No quasi-democratic system, even a very limited representative one, can reasonably hope to survive as long as those who benefit from it are permitted to vote themselves benefits.

It’s too soon to tell, on the basis of a single Congressional election, if the mere threat of partially pruning the entitlement programs is enough for a sufficient number of swing voters to turn against the Republicans in general and the Ryan Plan in particular, not that either will actually solve the dire financial and economic situation in which the nation has mired itself. But if Americans simply will not support the eviscerating of Social Security, AFDC, Medicaid and Medicare despite the fact that they cannot afford to pay for them, it will prove the point that Adams is making.

But he is incorrect about one thing. The USA is already in a death spiral. It simply hasn’t struck the ground yet.

You don’t say

The headline on Drudge made me laugh.

“‘WE ARE ON THE VERGE OF A GREAT, GREAT DEPRESSION‘”

Really now? I am… so very surprised!

“Interest rates are amazingly low and that, thanks to Ben Bernanke, is driving everything,” Yastrow said. “We’re on the verge of a great, great depression. The [Federal Reserve] knows it. We have many, many homeowners that are totally underwater here and cannot get out from under. The technology frontier is limited right now. We definitely have an innovation slowdown and the economy’s gonna suffer.”

This was all entirely predictable. It was, in fact, predicted. My timing was a little off, as usual. I thought the media would start realizing the reality of the situation towards the end of 2010, not the middle of 2011. But the situation remains precisely the same one I described in the Introduction to The Return of the Great Depression and I see no reason to change a word of it.

“Due to the sizeable bear market rally that began in March 2009, many, if not most, economic observers are presently convinced that the global economic difficulties of last autumn are largely behind us now, courtesy of the aggressive, expansionary actions of the monetary and political authorities.

They are wrong. It is not over. It has only begun.

I believe that what we have witnessed to date is merely the first act in what will eventually be recognized as another Great Depression.”

Acceleration is not freefall

I tend to find it somewhat mystifying when an anklebiter yet again attempts to pronounce the irrelevance of Vox Popoli for the Nth time since the very first one did so sometime back in October 2003. I never thought to create a general interest blog, in fact, it took a six-month false start before I even managed to start doing daily posts. Now, posting here is just a part of my routine that requires about as much mental effort as going to the gym or making lunch, the difference being that I am considerably less likely to sprain something while posting here.

(Speaking of which, I was pleased that I was able to jack my dumbbell military press up to 5x30kg yesterday. I was rather less pleased to discover that my neck now objects to being turned to the right. Ah, the bittersweet joys of age.)

Anyhow, in response to one of the anklebiter’s claims that the blog was in decline, I mentioned that its readership, like that of WND’s, has continued to increase over time. But what surprised me when I went back to look at the actual numbers was that the rate of readership growth has also been increasing.

May 2008: 136,577 monthly visits
May 2009: 151,610 +11.0%
May 2010: 185,275 +22.2%
May 2011: 245,493 +32.5%

In fact, last month set new records for both visits and page views (365,271) despite the fact that there were no new books released, no incoming traffic from any of the big blogs, and nothing of exceptional interest happening around the world. At this rate, there will be 350k monthly readers by this time next year, which is about 320k more than I’d ever imagined there would be.

Anyhow, I appreciate the way so many of you take the time to stop by on a regular basis and see what’s going on, I’m glad you continue to find the posts here to be of interest, and I appreciate the way in which your questions and substantive criticism help to clarify my thinking.

Mailvox: a profound change of thinking

MK writes to tell how she has found the dreadful miasma of misogyny that engulfs this blog to not only have adjusted her thought processes but also aided her marriage:

It occurred to me yesterday what a profound change in thinking I have had as a result of reading your blog and one of the books you referenced (Married Man’s Sex Life). In my youth in the 70’s, I was happy to soak up the happy horse-sh#$ that popular culture sold about roles of men and women. My marriage of [two decades] has been a difficult struggle owing in part to my desire to see my husband as a badly designed female.

For his part, in my assessment, my husband still struggles with the reality that I am not a man – that is, that I lack career ambition, aren’t that good at finishing what I start (except household duties), and would prefer he initiate sex. It might be harder for him to give up the desire for me to share the providing than for him to give up on primary child-care duties (when that was needed) and housework. The upshot: it is a relief to accept I am not the woman Madison Ave. promoted who wants and can bring home the bacon, serve it up in a pan, and also provide hooker style sex services to my man. That never was me and I always felt inadequate.

I hate to say, I think my husband does view me as inadequate (he works with many woman/mothers who earn big bucks alongside him, not to mention his mother was a dynamo working wife/mother out of monetary necessity). The blog has helped me, however, to accept that I am who I am and more importantly, he is who he is as a he. I have a newfound respect for that. Little by little, I am changing my behavior and attitude and while my husband may always feel he got ripped off because I really wasn’t the career woman he thought I was (I had a job when we met, was good at it, liked it, and parlayed it into working from home so I could take full-time care of and homeschool our children, not because I needed to work for my identity or the money; rather, I did it because I knew my husband wanted me to make money).

I am a Christian of [more than a decade], and this has been an area that the church we were involved with was no good at leading (male/female roles). I have a friend who has been a Christian all her life, but struggled in her marriage. She did not marry a devoted Christian and longs for leadership, but from our conversations, it is clear, she’s at least 50% of the problem. I have shared insights with her from the blog and it is changing her too. Thank you and please keep doing what you’re doing.

I’m glad she’s found the blog to be helpful. I think it’s interesting to see how MK’s email shows the flipside of the female employment issue. Whereas many men don’t want their wives to work so that the women can focus on their careers as wives and mothers, those who do marry working women often expect them to continue working so the men do not have to shoulder the responsibility as the sole income provider. This is dangerous ground, because it is a potential deal-breaker should the woman decide she wants to unilaterally change the arrangement ex post facto.

While women tend to feel they always have the right to change their mind, consider it from the male perspective. What wife would appreciate it if her husband told her that he wasn’t happy with his job and had decided to stay home and master Guitar Hero instead? Would she be delighted that he was pursuing his dream or would she be upset that he had, in a single stroke, suddenly put pressure on her to figure out how to increase her salary by at least 50 percent or accept the necessary reduction in the lifestyle to which she was accustomed? Even though MK’s decision was beneficial for both her marriage and her children in the long term, it’s perfectly understandable that her husband would feel as if he had been played with a bait-and-switch, because it would appear that he was, at least to some extent. There are no shortage of men who have discovered that housework isn’t as unpleasant, stressful, or time-consuming as office serfdom and they are more than happy to divide the responsibilities as they have been told that women want them to do. Naturally, they will resist a sudden demand that they to return to a more traditional role for which they are completely unprepared, and indeed, might even consider to be evil and sexist.

It’s also noteworthy that she has found the church to be useless with regards to offering support for traditional male and female roles. Churchianity is relentlessly feminized and feminist, which is only one of the many reasons to reject it as a pale, bureaucratic, heretical imitation of Christianity.

But I am pleased to hear that MK and her friend have derived a modicum of personal utility from this blog, and I’m sure Athol could use the encouragement as well.

Does anyone know where Ice-T was?

I am not at all surprised that the police are now being targeted for murder due to nothing more than their membership in the Badge Gang. And there isn’t a soul in the country who can reasonably argue that the police haven’t collectively begged for such targeting, considering how many innocent Americans they have killed with shameless impunity in the last two decades.

Bexar County Sheriff Amadeo Ortiz said the seemingly senseless and coldblooded slaying of a sergeant early Saturday on the East Side has sent a chilling statement to local law enforcement: No one is safe.

“The way it happened sends a message to the law enforcement community that we’re not safe, even responding to calls and helping citizens,” Ortiz said Sunday. “Officers sometimes get hurt responding to domestic violence calls or shootings, but not while they’re stopped at a red light.”

Sgt. Kenneth Vann, 48, was en route to a call for a shooting around 2 a.m. Saturday when a small white car pulled up next to his marked patrol car at a red light at Loop 410 and Rigsby Avenue, officials said. A barrage of shots was fired from the white car, likely from a high-caliber semiautomatic weapon, striking the passenger-side windows of Vann’s patrol car and killing him, officials said.

Now this is the interesting part. A retired police lieutenant said in the article that the ambush-style killing “is part of a two-year national trend….Every officer in Texas and the U.S. knows there’s a guy who could pull up next to them and kill them. How do you stop that sudden assault?”

You don’t. You can’t. And if you think the police are worried now, just wait until a) they start being gunned down when they leave their homes in the morning and b) their families start being targeted.

There is only one way the police can stop this and it is to immediately stop the militarization, shut down the SWAT units, end the no-knock raids, and return to keeping the peace rather than swaggering around as law enforcement officers. Because what is happening is what always happens when the balance of power is tipped too far. If the rules are stacked against you, you stop playing by the rules.

Of course, getting rid of more than 10 million illegal aliens and ending immigration from south of the border would also be a significant help. But that’s not going to happen either.

Here’s an interesting comment from a retired cop at Denninger’s place: “I am a former police officer from a high crime town in the Chicago area and have witnessed the changes to police tactics first hand. 20 years ago when I worked patrol we showed up with shoes and leather polished, said Sir when pulling someone over, stopped and talked to the residents and children and tried to de-escalate situations whenever possible to avoid confrontation. Now??? Military style uniforms, AR15’s, Taser’s and the general thinking that that badge gives them additional rights. Act like you are at war and you will be, guaranteed…. Its a shame that I can’t teach my grandson that the police are there to help, because I no longer believe that myself.”

Contrast with this the march protesting the police murder of Marine Jose Guerena.

A group called Oath Keepers organized a march and protest for Jose Guerena. Guerena was killed by a Pima County SWAT team on May 5th. They entered his home with a search warrant, but deputies said when they went in, Guerena aimed an assault rifle at them. They fired 71 rounds and killed him. More than a hundred people took part in the march, some of which came from as far away as Vegas. The people said they were there for a number of reasons: pay tribute to a fallen marine, support the victim’s family, and protest the tactics of the SWAT team.

Some protest, some shoot. If the police don’t abandon their present path of violence and start prosecuting police killers instead of protecting them, they can expect more of the latter and less of the former.

Imagine

I noticed this little gem among the comments at Science Based Medicine: “Imagine how many unnecessary deaths could be prevented by parents acting responsibly and vaccinating their children.”

Imagine… just imagine. It’s certainly interesting how pro-vaccine propagandists, who claim that their position is based in science, rely on nothing more than an appeal to imagination in their rhetoric. But there is no need to imagine how many “unnecessary deaths” could be prevented by 100 percent vaccine compliance since deaths caused by communicable diseases are tracked by the CDC. Here are the number of recent annual deaths attributed to each disease:

Measles = zero deaths
Chicken pox = 66 deaths
Polio = 1 death
Tetanus = 4 deaths
Pertussis = 17 deaths

Throw in a few deaths caused by Rubella, Mumps, and Diptheria, and that indicates around 100 “unnecessary deaths could be prevented by parents acting responsibly and vaccinating their children”. That’s 530 fewer deaths than could be prevented by banning bicycles and 426 fewer deaths than could be prevented by banning swimming pools. And since the CDC refuses to accurately track the number of deaths caused by adverse vaccine reactions, we have no idea how to balance those 100 “unnecessary deaths” against the additional risks posed by the vaccinations.

But it is educational to see how the facts undermine the effectiveness of the pro-vaccine rhetoric and tend to demonstrate the intrinsic lack of integrity demonstrated by the pro-vaccine propagandists.

Droit du banquier

I’m not sure which is more unsettling. The fact that these bankers think they’re irresistible or the fact that they find nondescript Manhattan hotel maids to be so utterly alluring:

Another international moneyman has been busted for sexually assaulting a maid at a luxury Manhattan hotel, cops said last night. Mahmoud Abdel-Salam Omar — the 74-year-old former chairman of Egypt’s Bank of Alexandria — allegedly groped and “gyrated” against the maid in Room 1027 at The Pierre hotel on Fifth Avenue, a law-enforcement source told The Post. He was wearing a bathrobe at the time, but it was not clear what, if anything, he had on under it.

I suppose this is one way to bring the ongoing financial madness to an end. Just keep arresting bankers, one grope at a time.