THOUGHTS ON SAFETY

Take a look at this photo.



The city safety nannies must have decided the construction fence was “unsafe” and required that a stair rail be installed for the concrete stairs (which have been there for years without a rail).

But take a careful look – in fact, two careful looks.

The rail is only in place where there are three or more steps in succession. Two or less steps don’t require a rail.

And on the other side of the fence, the construction workers’ “stairs” are simply dug out of the dirt. “Stairs” dug out of loose dirt are safe enough for them. I guess that’s because they have safety helmets and steel-toed shoes.

Another reason for limited government.

TAXES, TAXES, AND MORE TAXES

“No new taxes; not one thin dime.” So spoke presidential candidate Barack Obama in September 2008: “Barack Obama and Joe Biden will cut [federal] taxes for 95% of working families, and provide at least three times as much tax relief for middle class families as John McCain and Sarah Palin.”


Instead he left it to the states to increase taxes: “Facing mounting budget deficits and seeing few areas left to cut spending, states increasingly are turning to the only option they have left: raising taxes.”

And guess who the states are passing it to?

THE EMPEROR HAS CLOTHES

He just isn’t wearing them.

TOO BIG TO FAIL

Too big to exist.

Exit California, stage Left ....

HE’S BAACK ...

Mike Baker, that is, with a review of Nancy Pelosi and her recent fabulous performance as the wronged woman in the CIA’s surprise hit musical “The Speaker’s Missing Briefs.”

Thank God for small favors ....

THE WINGNUT EXPLAINS

"Our undercover conservative answers a tough question: If socialized medicine is so awful, how come no country that's adopted nationalized healthcare has ever gotten rid of it?"

"It's a bit perverse," the American think tank director added, "but if the system treated everyone worse but didn't kill anyone, there would be a lot more pressure from voters seeking reform."

"The fact is that the system [nationalized healthcare] kills quite a lot of people -- but that's still only a tiny percentage of the overall population -- so it reduces the pool of people who are dissatisfied," she said.

Right. Dead people can’t vote no.

DOESN’T CONGRESS HAVE SOMETHING BETTER TO DO?

Good news! Responsible credit card users to subsidize deadbeats.

"Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit."

"Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks."

So now I’m going to get to pay the deadbeats’ credit card bills ....

For God’s sake, Congress, please stop helping. Take a vacation. Go on a junket. Watch Oprah. Just don’t vote.

OVERTAXED AND UNDERWORKED

The average state government worker makes $50,350. The average private sector worker makes $43,889.

And we wonder why taxes are too high?

ELECTION RECOMMENDATIONS

Found on Michelle Malkin’s comments page ...

Hangfire: “I think all of the U.S. House and Senate should wear NASCAR-type uniforms, with stickers and patches showing who their ‘sponsors’ are.”

b-cat: “That’s brilliant! Then we can reelect them based on brand loyalty, which is more to recommend them than we have now.”

Truesoldier: “I dont think there would be enough room.”

walterc: “But there’s all that room on the limos and airplanes for stickers also.”

The only thing I would add would be to insist that the stickers/patches have the contribution amounts prominently displayed.

MIND-NUMBINGLY STUPID

”With two of Detroit's Big Three automakers no longer able to resist, the Obama White House will announce sped-up fuel economy standards that will require all auto-makers, including Detroit's foreign competitors, to increase fleet fuel efficiency by 5 percent per year starting in 2012. The new rules will require a fleet fuel efficiency standard of 35.5 miles per gallon by model year 2016, a big jump from the 2009 model year requirement of 25 mpg.”

I simply don’t get it. The U.S. is in a recession, two of the three U.S. automakers are in bankruptcy, new car dealerships are being closed right and left; and the solution is to force production of cars that people don’t seem to want (at least judging from the number of vans and SUVs on the road)?

Over at Don Surber’s place, commenter alanstorm nailed my reaction:

Carol Browner was on TV early this morning, claiming that this would force automakers to “produce the cars Americans want”. My jaw ’bout hit the floor. Can she really be so mind-numbingly stupid? (I find myself thinking that a lot these days)

My DOGS are smarter than that - and they’re not that swift.

If I was trying to destroy the U.S. economy, this is exactly how I would go about it.

WHERE’S MY VIOLIN?

My personal credit crisis. While I appreciate his candor, my sympathy meter hovers at zero.

Via Megan McArdle, who writes:

[For writers] this is what David Brooks calls "status-income disequilibrium" .... Everyone you write about makes more than you. Most of the people you know make more than you. And you come to feel that shopping at the farmer's market, travelling to Europe, drinking good coffee, are minimum necessities. Your house is small, your furniture is shabby, and you can't even really afford to shop at Whole Foods. Yet you're at the top of your field, working for one of the world's top media outlets. This can't be so.

And so the debts creep up, one happy hour or Colorado backpacking adventure at a time.

Now I like Megan McArdle. She’s intelligent, and an excellent writer.

But. What she writes about was called “keeping up with the Joneses” in my time. I did my time living paycheck-to-paycheck, squirreling away enough money away to (hopefully) retire reasonably comfortably instead of “keeping up”, and I don’t like being taxed to death to pay for those who weren’t willing to live within their means.

The sympathy meter is still hovering around zero.

GOING GOLISANO

Billionaire B. Thomas Golisano decides to save nearly $14,000 a day in state income taxes by moving from Rochester, N.Y., to Naples, Fla.

Blue states are chasing folks out according to the Wall Street Journal.

Capital and people are mobile. Abuse them and they will move - to Texas, Florida, and other states without income taxes.

GUN CONTROL?

The Washington Post editorializes on gun laws.

IN THE PAST few months, some 50 people have been slaughtered in the United States in mass attacks involving firearms. Police officers in Oakland, Calif., and Pittsburgh were mowed down by gunmen using assault weapons.

Asked at that news conference whether he planned to keep his campaign promise to reinstate a U.S. ban on assault weapons, Mr. Obama said he still supports the measure. He then proceeded to ease away from the promise by arguing that enacting such a ban would not be easy ....

Clayton Cramer, a Second Amendment historian, responds that it isn’t a Second Amendment issue.

Mentally ill homeless people wander big city streets, unless they freeze to death, or die of tuberculosis, or of violent crime. A small fraction of them become headlines when they go on a rampage, as happened in Binghamton, N.Y., in Colorado Springs, in an Amish school last year, and dozens of other tragedies the last few years.

We can make all of America like a mental hospital, where we don't trust anyone with anything dangerous. Or we can hospitalize those who are severely mentally ill--before they become a headline.

For Cramer’s personal story, go here.

PENTAGON BIBLE USE

Pentagon briefings no longer quote the Bible. "The Pentagon said Monday it no longer includes a Bible quote on the cover page of daily intelligence briefings it sends to the White House as was practice during the Bush administration".

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he did not know how long the Worldwide Intelligence Update cover sheets quoted from the Bible .... For a period in 2003, at least, the daily reports prepared for President George W. Bush carried quotes from the books of Psalms and Ephesians and the epistles of Peter .... The Bible quotes apparently aimed to support Bush at a time when soldiers' deaths in Iraq were on the rise ....

Let’s see. Um, 2003 was 6 years ago. Why is this news in May of 2009?

THE GOVERNMENT FULL EMPLOYMENT ACT

Keeping our air clean is obviously a Herculean task.

“After all, if it was easy, why would we employ thousands of scientists and bureaucrats to feverishly toil away, examine every particle of air, determine if there’s any harmful pollutants, and — if any are found — put controls on the source?”

“And it’s a growth industry at a time of financial stress. Just remember that when your government asks for more tax money.”

ANOTHER NEWSPAPER BITES THE DUST

From the Washington Post, ”Arizona's oldest continuously published daily newspaper, the 138-year-old Tucson Citizen, will publish its final print edition today after its owner failed to find a buyer.”

In the same edition, Bruce W. Sanford and Bruce D. Brown argue that “[u]nless Congress embarks on far-reaching change in public policy to maintain the viability of journalism as it evolves online, we will soon find ourselves with the remnants of a broken industry incapable of providing the knowledge necessary to manage life in a complex world.”

Um, guys, ever hear of that thing called the internet? Al Gore invented it, you know.

Sarcasm aside, I have a hard time believing that if newspapers go away, you and I will be unable “to manage life in a complex world.” I also have a hard time believing that newspapers are going to go away.

Be that as it may, Sanford and Brown argue that in order to survive, newspapers need regulatory reform “to adopt a new business model.” I can agree with that, provided reform means less regulation, not more.

But some of their proposals strike me as just plain silly, or worse, counterproductive.

Enforce copyright infringement on search engines? I would think that the newspaper would want the widest possible distribution in order to sell web page advertising.

Federalize the “hot news” doctrine? That strikes me as a double-edged sword, since there are already cases in the blogosphere of newspapers stealing from bloggers.

Use tax policy to promote the press? Oh, come on. The legacy media, the ones who are going down, are already government lapdogs, which pretty well explains why they are going down. And Sanford and Brown want to make newspapers even more beholden to the government?

HIS HIGHNESS, THE MAYOR

Another case of rules are for little people.

There is a certain haughtiness in [Washington DC Mayor Adrian] Fenty's bearing, a trace of scorn in his demeanor, a sense of self-importance that was not present (or at least was not noticeable) in him before.

The word that comes to mind, and which frequently slips out of the mouths of people who spend time observing the mayor, is "arrogance."

And in today’s (radio) news, Mayor Fenty is off to Las Vegas without so much as a “by your leave” to the citizens of DC.

DOING PENANCE

Victor Davis Hansen:

[T]he problem is not that we all can change our minds as events change, or that acts sometimes are at odds with words. Rather the rub is the vehemence in which views are expressed-and for some, the propensity to slur and slander others, and the readiness even to call for criminal penalties. Once that extremism, fueled by self-righteousness, begins, we rightly suspect the virulence comes not just from the issue in question, but rather from some deep psychological desire for penance, to expiate one’s own past sins by finding their new counterparts in others.

Read it all.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM? ON PBS?

PBS stations are debating the limits of one of public television's basic commandments: thou shalt not broadcast religious programming.

Surely you jest.

Under bylaws enacted in 1985, PBS stations are required to present programs that are noncommercial, nonpartisan and nonsectarian. The rules were put in place to ensure balance and fairness among PBS-affiliated stations, which rely on government funding, private-sector grants and sponsorships, and contributions from viewers.

Noncommercial? “This program was paid for by ABC MegaCorp, producers of wonderful things like ....” is noncommercial

Nonpartisan? Oh, dear, where to begin?

Nonsectarian? Gaia worship is nonsectarian?

Let’s put it this way: PBS should be weaned from the government teat and required to “adopt a new business model.”

IMPROVING HEALTH CARE

David Brooks has a fascinating piece on health care that says absolutely nothing. The bottom line?

“There are deep structural forces, both in Medicare and the private insurance market, that have driven the explosion in health costs.”

OK, so what are these “deep structural forces?” After consulting with experts, he (and the Obama administration) have no answer. But no matter.

The solution is:

- improving health information technology,
- expanding wellness programs,
- expanding preventive medicine,
- penalizing hospitals for poor outcomes
- instituting comparative effectiveness measures

Those of us who are engineers generally try to understand the “deep structural forces” before designing a solution.