Vox Popoli

NL wants to see mushroom clouds:

Seems you figured out the problem yourself. You said Nagasaki and Hiroshima were the only successful air bombing runs. Wonder why the rest failed us? There only firecrackers compared to the atomic bombs. So, why don’t we use them? That’s the real question you should be asking.

I don’t need to ask that question. First, since we did not launch nuclear attacks on the Soviet Union, China, India, Pakistan or North Korea, we will certainly not do so in the case of Iran. Iran is far less of a potential threat than three of the current nuclear powers as it will have far fewer weapons with a much shorter reach than either Russia or China and it is significantly less crazy than North Korea, media histronics about the Hitlerhood of the man who isn’t even the top dog in Iran notwithstanding.

Second, my understanding is that Iran has its development facilities distributed around eighty different sites; were the USA to drop eighty nukes on Iran, the other nuclear powers would likely regard that as a virtual act of war on them and look to retaliate in a variety of very significant ways.

Chris Naron appears to have read a book:

I noticed you mentioned the fall in real wages again today, and it reminded me of a question I wanted to ask you. Are you familiar with Michael Cox and Rishard Alm’s book Myths of Rich and Poor? Thinking I was ordering something new after reading Thomas Sowell’s article a few weeks ago, I found instead that I had been suckered into a book published in 1999. Oh well.

It is interesting however that here’s a book that attempts to counter exactly what you are saying about the fall in real wages by deconstructing the statistics and reassembling them. Normally, I would take it with a grain of salt–it’s just another partisan GOP attempt to talk up the economy to make “Dear Leader” look good. But this book was written at the height of Clintonian prosperity and by a libertarian (I only assume that given the author’s association with the Cato institute).

At any rate, I would like to get your opinion on their work because much of it reinforces my own intuition about the insufficiency of the real wage stat. To use one of the examples from the book, which would you rather be, a billionaire in 1890 or an average American in 1990? Consider the things you cannot have at any price in 1890 before you choose. (Someone without his Treo…forever…)

They’re confusing the march of technology with real wages. Forget Treos and Macintoshes, how much food can you buy? How much gold? This is just the same sleight of hand that people use to try to claim that there isn’t any inflation either.

Think about it. The number of workers more than doubles. The amount of consumption increases by significantly less than double. I’m assuming that you understand enough of the law of supply and demand that you can figure out what happens to the price. There’s no need to delve into the statistics to prove the concept theoretically, as it happens, the statistics – however nebulous government statistics are – support exactly what theory would predict.

I have no doubt in my mind that you’re right about real wages falling because of women in the work force. But I don’t get your point about buying food. It’s easier to get food now than ever before as evidenced by the fact that poor people tend to be fat. And how does the march of technology not affect standard of living? Is it slight of hand when the truth is that we’re far better off materially now than during the period when real wages were increasing?

The evidence is flawed, given that it doesn’t account for people choosing to eat differently. If the affordability of food was the sole fat factor, then the rich would be fatter than the poor. This isn’t the case, therefore the point doesn’t hold up. Furthermore, the fact that the state and federal governments subsidize the poor’s purchase of their food doesn’t actually make it cheaper. For example, chocolate in the form of a Hershey bar cost 12.3 cents for 1.55 ounces in 1973. The same 1.55 ounces cost 80 cents in 2003. So, you can see, when there’s no technological change to disguise things, the cost of food rose 650 percent while the wage rate fell 16.3 percent.

Did the quality of Hershey’schocolate really improve so much in those thirty years? Is it faster and more efficient? Does it taste 6.5 times better? How would Cox and Alm attempt to explain away that example?

Standard of living and real wages are two entirely separate things. A Turkish harem girl in 1650 had a higher standard of living than a Welsh miner in 1880, but the miner’s wage rate was infinitely higher since the harem girl wasn’t paid for her services. Our standard of living is surely higher than in 1973, but that is based on our advanced technology, not an increase in wages or personal wealth. Suppose, for example, that cheap nuclear fusion is discovered and the government is sudennly able to provide every individual in the country with free pizza, a super-comfortable condo on the beach, flexible robot sex slaves and a 10-foot plasma screen with free video games and movies on demand. Even better, the individual doesn’t have to lift a finger to work for a single day in his life.

Has the individual’s standard of living increased or decreased from today’s norm? And has his wage rate risen or fallen?

The Telegraph again, this time on children versus career:

Women who have children earlier in life forgo hundreds of thousands of pounds in lost earnings and “seriously harm” their career prospects, a new report warns today.

The survey, by the Institute for Public Policy Research, claims that British women face a rising “fertility penalty” the earlier they have their first baby. After giving birth, almost one third return to a less well-paid job. The report states, however, that the trend of putting off having children until the late thirties is bad for the economy because falling fertility rates mean that taxes will have to go up.

I find it interesting that the mainstream media – at least in the UK – is beginning to wake up to the fact that the child-career tradeoff faced by women is not only real, but that there are detrimental societal effects when a woman chooses a career. I’ve yet to see anyone follow my lead on the negative effect on wages, however, even though that is far more obvious and easily provable than the positive effect on taxes.

I don’t know why women have such a hard time accepting the obvious. Life is about nothing so much as opportunity costs. When a man marries, he gives up your opportunity to live the care-free life of the hedonistic bachelor. When a man becomes a father, he almost always has to trade in the Porsche or the Miata, whatever, for the minivan. But since women insist that men who refuse to embrace the idea of marriage, family and paternal responsibility as being pathetic, immature Peter Pans, why do they not likewise view career women as similarly pathetic, immature creatures clinging to their vanishing girlhood?

Aside from the one-third of women who work out of pure necessity, I tend to view career women as neutered worker-ants, but then, I don’t share the view that a man has to be immature in order to wish to avoid the lion’s mouth that is government-granted “marriage” in modern America.

From the Telegraph:

Four out of 10 British Muslims want sharia law introduced into parts of the country, a survey reveals today.

The ICM opinion poll also indicates that a fifth have sympathy with the “feelings and motives” of the suicide bombers who attacked London last July 7, killing 52 people, although 99 per cent thought the bombers were wrong to carry out the atrocity. 50pc said interracial relations were worsening

Overall, the findings depict a Muslim community becoming more radical and feeling more alienated from mainstream society, even though 91 per cent still say they feel loyal to Britain.

The multicultural facade is crumbling fast, and those who stand by it like Bush and Blair are going to be swept away by the nativist tide. Which reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to point out for quite some time. If Bush is a genuine conservative in ANY way, then why are his policies inevitably mimicked – when they aren’t anticipated – by the leader of the British Labour party, which is more socialist than the American Democrats?

You were sold snake oil, my Republican friends. Venomous snake oil.

Gordon Prather on the war drums:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated, “It is obvious that if Iran cannot be brought to live up to its international obligations, in fact, the IAEA Statute would indicate that Iran would have to be referred to the U.N. Security Council.”

OK, what “international obligations” is Condi talking about? Well, it’s not clear. But Condi does refer to the IAEA Statute. So, the House assumes she must be referring to the safeguards agreement that Iran concluded with the IAEA way back in 1973.

Whereas on Feb. 4, 2006, the IAEA Board of Governors reported Iran’s noncompliance with its IAEA safeguards obligations to the Security Council …

But, the House is mistaken. The IAEA Board didn’t report any such thing. In fact, the Board didn’t “report” anything.

So, again it appears that the administration is knowingly being deceitful about its reasons for acting. What I don’t understand is those who believe ANYTHING the administration says, given that it has repeatedly demonstrated its disdain for the truth. There is a long and ignoble list of the president’s deceptions dating back to his first presidential campaign, why does anyone put any more trust in him than they would in Bill Clinton? It’s pretty clear by now that Bush is the better liar.

I just wonder if Three Monkey Republicans are as eager to accept a similar level of dishonesty in their friends and family members.

Highlights from the Wash Post’s online forum with Vanilla Ice:

Minneapolis, Minn.: Yo Vanilla — do you still rock the mic like a vandal?

Vanilla Ice: Oh, of course, that’ll never stop. A lot of people don’t remember anything since Ice Ice Baby, but I’ve got 3 records out since then and they’re all successes — but not commercially…

There’s a lot of people in Minneapolis, but I know a White Buffalo when I see one.

From the Washington Times:

The White House is obviously not listening to the congressional uproar over Dubai Ports World. Lawmakers want to know why a federal panel allowed a state-owned United Arab Emirates shipping firm to pay $6.8 billion to acquire six major American ports — including critical ones in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia — despite its home country’s glaring ties to international terrorism. But the White House is yawning.

The issue interrupted this week’s House Ways and Means Committee hearings on the budget, and Treasury Secretary John Snow’s non-answer — he explained to curt questioning from Rep. Mark Foley, Florida Republican, that the Commission on Foreign Investment in the United States followed its regular processes — simply won’t cut it. Yesterday, Stewart Baker, an assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security, asserted flatly that “We came to the conclusion that the transaction should not be halted.” National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said that it was “rigorously reviewed.” In other words, the White House considers it a done deal.

But why? Why must the United States let a state-owned firm from a hotbed of radicalism own the major ports of the Eastern seaboard? No one has answered this to our satisfaction.

Occam’s Razor states that the simplest logical answer is usually the correct one. In this case, it would indicate either that the adminstration is in favor of terrorism in the United States, presumably because it would allow the government to speed up its current centralization program, or that it knows for a certainty that turning over the ports to the Islamists will create no genuine risk to the American people.

In an old essay published in his Apocalypse Postponed collection, Umberto Eco wrote about the symbiotic relationship between government and terrorist. He was writing about the European governments and the Red Brigades at the time, but the same logic appears to be increasingly at work here in the United States.

I’m not impressed by those who aren’t willing to at least consider the possibility that American presidents are less than perfectly loyal to their country. Clinton was in bed with China, Bush appears to be even more closely bound to his Wahhabist friends. I’m quite open to listen to alternative explanations, but instead, all I ever hear are assertions of how impossible it is that the current administration could possibly have anything but the best interests of the American people at heart. Even the most staunch Three Monkey must admit, in the face of overwhelming evidence, that the president has proven to be utterly disloyal to the Constitution he swore to defend.

This is, of course, laughable to anyone who has studied a decent amount of history and knows how unusual it is for any government of any type to harbor even a minimal amount of concern for its population, so long as they remain passive.

Only the sexy people:

Not only are physically unattractive teenagers likely to be stay-at-homes on prom night, they’re also more likely to grow up to be criminals, say two economists who tracked the life course of young people from high school through early adulthood.

“We find that unattractive individuals commit more crime in comparison to average-looking ones, and very attractive individuals commit less crime in comparison to those who are average-looking,” claim Naci Mocan of the University of Colorado and Erdal Tekin of Georgia State University.

Mocan and Tekin analyzed data from a federally sponsored survey of 15,000 high-schoolers who were interviewed in 1994 and again in 1996 and 2002. One question asked interviewers to rate the physical appearance of the student on a five-point scale ranging from “very attractive” to “very unattractive.”

These economists found that the long-term consequences of being young and ugly were small but consistent. Cute guys were uniformly less likely than averages would indicate to have committed seven crimes including burglary and selling drugs, while the unhandsome were consistently more likely to have broken the law.

So much for that “you are beautiful, no matter what they say” theory. Then again, pop music has never been the most reliable of life guides.

Houston’s police chief is suggesting putting surveillance cameras in apartment complexes, downtown streets and even private homes.

So, you still think the police are on your side? Do you still think it’s just a problem of “a few bad apples”? Never forget, one can’t have a police state without the police.

Sure, the good ones may be dedicated to fighting crime. But who defines what is and is not a crime? And at the end of the day, the “good” policeman is going to follow his orders, regardless of what they might be.