Tag: You Can’t Cure Stupid

More Proof Ben Bernanke is an Idiot

I’m sure you read the headline of this post and thought to yourself, “Ben Bernanke is proof that Ben Bernanke is an idiot.” That’s true but I like to be thorough when building cases against the intellect of stupid people. Take for instance Bernanke’s recent appearance in Minneapolis (sadly I wasn’t able to join the protest as it took place a noon and I was working) where he pointed out the reason the economy isn’t recovering. Here’s a hint, it’s our fault:

Then he said something new: Consumers are depressed beyond reason or expectation.

Oh, sure, there are reasons to be depressed, and the Fed chairman rattled them off: “The persistently high level of unemployment, slow gains in wages for those who remain employed, falling house prices, and debt burdens that remain high.”

However, Mr. Bernanke continued, “Even taking into account the many financial pressures that they face, households seem exceptionally cautious.”

Consumers, in other words, are behaving as if the economy is even worse than it actually is.

Yes the reason the economy isn’t recovering is because people aren’t spending money due to their overly cautious nature. I’m not sure if Bernanke realizes this but in order to spend money you have to have money. On top of that when you’re unemployed spending any money is a scary proposition because there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to make more money in the near future. That is to say when you don’t have any sources of income all expenditures or potentially permanent reductions in your available savings.

Anybody with two brain cells to rub together would be able to reach such a logical conclusion. Of course Ben Bernanke doesn’t have two brain cells and thus he is throwing out nonsensical theories to explain why people without work aren’t spending money:

Why? Well, one possibility is that Americans collectively are suffering from what amounts to an economic version of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Let me guess, the next plan the Federal Reserver is going to develop will involve economic post-traumatic stress disorder therapy. Either that or they’ll just try to pump $10 trillion into the economy because if at first you don’t succeed try the same thing again, only harder.

The Winners of the Scummiest Parents of the Year Award

It’s not secret that I’m avidly against so-called gun buy back programs. First of all the terminology is misleading because buying back an item implies that you at one point owned it. For example if I purchase a car from you and later sell it back to you the transaction could be considered a buy back. As I’ve never purchased a firearm from the government they can not claim previous ownership and therefore can’t “buy it back.” The other major issue I have with so-called buy back programs is the simple fact that they’re often funded with taxpayer money. Did I mention the fact that they’re completely ineffective as no criminal is going to turn over a perfectly functional firearm for a measly $100.00 gift card?

Well it seems a group of idiot anti-gunners, but I repeat myself, got together and came up with a rather moronic idea befitting their movement. Behold, a gun buy back program for children:

The guns being bought back from the streets weren’t 9 mm handguns or Glocks. Instead, they were Nerf guns or toy pistols.

And they weren’t being bought with cash. This time, the currency was pizza slices, notebooks and dress shirts.

The FATHERS group and Bona Pizza teamed up Monday for a buyback aimed at younger teens and preteens at the pizzeria at Bailey and Kensington avenues.

You know what? So long as you’re privately funding this stupidity I’m not going to kick up too much fuss but I am going to call you on the fact that you’re bloody morons. The way I see it this move is either purely stupid or purely brilliant depending on whether or not the children of the pizzeria owner end up with a bunch of new Nerf guns. Either way the justification for this buy back is sickening:

The idea was simple: Don’t let kids get used to firing weapons, even if they’re toys.

“It makes them too comfortable, holding that gun,” said Leonard Lane, president of Fathers Armed Together to Help, Educate, Restore and Save. “Then there’s no fear holding the real gun when they get older. We want to put that fear back into our children, teaching them what guns can do, how they affect their community.”

“A toy gun today, a real gun tomorrow,” said Charles Cina, owner of Bona Pizza. “That’s what we want to stop.”

Emphasis mine. I don’t even have to take any journalistic creativity here, the own of the pizzeria actually wants to frighten children. He wants to put fear of inanimate objects into them. What kind of asshole wants to put fear into a child? That kind of dickery takes a special kind of jackass in my never humble opinion.

On top of that I don’t know why there should be fear in holding a real gun. I’ve spend more time behind the trigger of various firearms than many and I’ve never felt any fear. Sure there is respect for the device and what it’s capable of but respect and fear are completely different. Respect of potentially dangerous objects is something that children should be imbued with while fear or anything is something that they should be taught to reject.

Humans are taught to fear that which they do not understand and what this group of parents is trying to do is ensure children never understand firearms. Firearms are deceptively simple mechanical devices and once you understand that guns become far less mystical and frightening. On top of that there are safety rules which, if followed, will ensure nobody is accidentally injured with a firearm. If these parents really gave a damn about the development of their children they would take their kids to a firearm safety class instead of trying to turn firearms into a mystical black box technology.

As I said humans are taught to fear that which they do not understand but before receiving this despicable lesson children are very inquisitive. It takes years of beating fear into children before they come to the conclusion that objects they don’t understand are somehow scary. Until that fear is beat into them they are curious about anything they lack an understand of. As a parent you have two options available to you; either teach your children about things they lack an understanding of or teach your children to fear things they don’t understand. The first option will teach children to strive for knowledge while the second will teach them to just do as they’re told and never question authority. The second option is also one taken by a parent who is incredibly lazy.

A funny thing happens to children who are taught how to responsibly handle firearms, they usually handle firearms responsibly. That isn’t to say you should allow children to handle firearms unsupervised; supervision, in fact, is the teaching that will take away the mysticism of the firearm and ensure children develop a proper respect and understanding of the lead throwing contraptions instead of bumbling around with one curiously which usually ends in injury or death.

I will say that any child who participated in this program should have learned one important life lesson, some people are assholes and will try to rip you off:

So kids such as Tarence Callaham, 14, a Buffalo ninth-grader, brought in his green and orange Nerf gun. In return, Tarence got a piece of pepperoni pizza, a snazzy dress shirt and the chance to shoot some hoops in the pizzeria parking lot.

Nerf guns aren’t exactly the cheapest toys on the planet. Generally you can buy a piece of pizza and a dress shirt for less than a Nerf gun. Likewise most cities have numerous free basketball courts available for use without charge and basketballs can be had for very little money. Lets look at what another child received for his Nerf gun:

Tynell Ruffins, 9, a fourth-grader at Community Charter School, got a bigger haul in return for his orange and black Nerf gun. He got the pizza, a soft drink, a notebook, a dress shirt and a Marvel Heroes folder.

Once again a piece of pizza, soft drink, notebook, dress shirt, and folder can generally be had for far less than a Nerf gun. Not only are the parents involved in this scheme trying to frighten children but they’re also ripping them off. Make no mistake, these parents are equal to scam artists that rob little old ladies of their retirement funds. That is to say these parents are scum pure and simple. With that said I do want to take one of them up on an offer they made:

“We’ve got to be willing to exchange everything and anything to get guns off the street,” he added.

Deal, for every two ounces of pure gold you give me I’ll give you one of my firearms. How about it? I’m dead serious and this offer is available to anybody.

If Your Right Requires the Labor of Another It’s Not a Right

Everybody repeat after me, “If the labor of another is required to provide your right then it’s not a right.” California is looking once again to prove itself as the looniest state in the Union by making home ownership a protected right:

California could ban lender-initiated home foreclosures, under a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that would make home ownership a fundamental right.

Initiative 11-0014 could appear on the ballot in November 2012, if supporters submit more than 800,000 voter signatures necessary to qualify the measure.

You can read the text of initiative 11-0014 but I think the following piece sums it up:

Makes home ownership fundamental right. Prohibits lenders from foreclosing
on California citizen’s personal home. Requires lenders to assist California borrowers not paying on home loans due to financial hardship or illness. Requires lenders to reduce home loan principal to reflect drop in local property value i fmore than 10 percent, and to reschedule payments, reduce interest rates, and/or refinance without new credit review. Requires lenders to refinance home loans a t minimum cost within 45 days of request i f loan has been maintained for three years. Provides back property tax assistance to homeowners.

First of all you can’t infringe on a right to own property if you don’t, you know, own the property. What is proposed is so full of cognitive dissonance that it would make the head of a logical person literally explode if they attempt to make sense of it. First of all if you have a loan on your home then it’s not your home. Let’s look at what a mortgage is, it’s a loan that is backed by real physical property. That is to say you give the title of some property to a person giving out loans and they take it as collateral. When you take out a mortgage you are saying, “I promise to pay back my loan and if I fail to do so I relinquish the ownership of my property to you.”

Until you pay back the loan you are not the owner of that property. A mortgage is an exchange of ownerships rights; the entity giving the loan exchanges the right of ownership of a sum of money for the right of ownership of the collateral. Until the loan is paid back with any contractually agreed to interest the entity who gave the loan is the owner of the property. Thus what this initiative proposes is impossible because it’s claiming to protect the “right of home ownership” by pissing all over the right of ownership.

That’s just one glaring problem with this initiative. The other glaring problem is the fact that it is trying to declare something a right that requires the labor of another to provide. A right to property means you have a right to ownership over legitimately obtained property not a right to be provided property by another. The difference between the two is huge. For instance I can’t have a right to own a home unless I can build the entire home myself of materials I can entirely produce myself. If my “right” requires action from another either that right isn’t a right or I get to declare select people as slaves. The same logic applies to healthcare, unless you can provide your own healthcare you can’t claim a right to it.

If I can homestead or purchase a property, extract the raw resources needed to build a home form that homesteaded of purchased property, refine those materials into a state usable to build a home, and then build a home entirely of those materials by myself then I can claim a right to it. On the other hand a failure to perform any of the following procedures means that I must rely on another to provide a link in the chain of home ownership and thus can declare no right to owning that type of property.

You have no right to owning a home but you do have a right to the ownership of your labor because you are a self-owner. That means you can exchange your labor for a home but you can’t demand somebody provide you a home outside of a voluntarily agreed to (by both parties) exchange. That’s why a right to ownership of your labor doesn’t translate into a right to own specific types of property.

I’m not sure how so much stupid was written on paper. It baffles me that somebody unable to see the cognitive dissonance in this bill is able to read or write.

Manufacturing Outrages

Miguel over a Gun Free Zone has been covering the anti-gunner’s latest manufactured controversy, a Republican fund raiser where they raffled off a Glock pistol to raise money for the party. I glossed over the “controversy” because other people were already doing a great job of covering it and honestly I’ve been paying little attention to the ongoings of the anti-gunners as of late. But now that the pistol has been successfully raffled and everybody is still alive I thought a recap would be a good idea just in case anybody every believes that this situation was controversial. First and foremost we need to note something that was well stated in the story:

The model of Glock is not the same as the one Jared Lee Loughner used in the Jan. 8, rampage. The gun used by Loughner was a Glock 19. The weapon being raffled is a Glock 23.

I’m throwing this out there because many of the anti-gunners claimed that the raffle was for the exact same gun that was used to shoot Giffords. Seriously, the verbiage some of those idiots were using would lead readers to believe that a representative of the GOP walked into the evidence room, confiscated the gun used to shoot Giffords, and raffled it off at their fundraiser. What the anti-gunners were trying to twist and mutilate to fit their mission was the simple fact that the pistol being raffled was made by the same manufacturer as the gun used by the psycho who shot Giffords. Guess what? I own three Glock pistols, many of the local police departments issue Glock pistols, many militaries issue Glock pistols, and most people I know have at least one of the damned things. They breed like jackrabbits which is possibly the reason they’re such a popular firearm.

Do you know who else owns a Glock pistol? Giffords:

A gun, by any other name, is just a gun. Unless it’s a Glock semi-automatic pistol raffled off by Republicans in Pima County, which just happens to be the same county where Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 other people were shot, six of them killed.

Then it’s an outrage.

Or so we’re supposed to believe.

[…]

By the way, Giffords owns a Glock.

Emphasis mine. That’s it, argument over! No, seriously, we’re done. I’d like to thank Snowflakes in Hell for providing the closing argument.

The fact of the matter is Glocks are extremely popular pistols and thus it’s not surprising that they end up being used in crimes from time to time. This wasn’t a case of some GOP crony sitting in the Arizona Republican Party office wringing his hands in glee as he came up with the single most offensive plan he could conjure up to raise money for his party. It just ended up being a case where the GOP wanted to raffle off a firearm to raise money because gun rights is one of the things they pay lip service to periodically. As Glock pistols are popular it made perfect sense to select one to raffle off at their fundraiser.

The simplest explanation is usually the right one as this case demonstrates.

Citations and Anti-Gun Stupidity

Remember when I said that from here out I will demand citations when anti-gunners make claims? Here’s an example of why I am now making such demands:

Guns are not being manufactured in our neighborhoods. Somebody brings them in. Yet our Legislature and Congress refuse to do anything about gun trafficking.

Why can’t they require background checks before gun purchases at gun shows? The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has called gun shows a “major trafficking channel.”

Where did the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) say that? What study specifically? Because according to the United States Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics less than 1% of crime guns came from gun shows:

In 1997 among State inmates possessing a gun, fewer than 2% bought their firearm at a flea market or gun show, about 12% from a retail store or pawnshop, and 80% from family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal source.

The reason they say 2% in that paragraph is because they’re lumping gun shows and flea markets together. The raw data given shows gun shows being a source of only 0.7% of guns possessed by inmates. You know what else? The Bureau of Justice Statistics also isn’t smuggling guns illegally into foreign countries unlike the ATF. Just pointing that out.

On top of that background checks are required to purchase firearms from federally licensed dealers at gun shows and a vast majority of sellers are federally licensed dealers. If Mrs. Martens is so sure she can go and purchase a firearm without receiving a background check at a gun show I challenge her to try. From there she basically demonstrates that government regulations have lead to much of our social turmoil… while she’s demanding more government regulations. Hypocrisy thy name is Heather Martens:

We hear a lot about bad parenting, but less about the public policies that limit our ability to parent. The drug war has forced the mass incarceration of a generation of parents for drug offenses like possession of marijuana.

People of color are disproportionately sent to prison, despite similar rates of actual commission of crimes. Some parents can’t parent because they are in prison.

And when people come home after being in prison, they can’t get a job because most employers will not even look at an application from a person with any kind of prior conviction.

The result is that, for many people, it is easier to get a gun than to get a job.

So government regulations against the possession of certain substances have lead to parents being imprisoned which prevents them from being able to properly raising their children. Government regulations on the free market have lead to a collapsing economy which in turn has caused ever increasing unemployment. Yet if the government places further restrictions on firearms they will managed to not cause some kind of horrible series of side effects? That’s her logic? HA HA HA HA! I’m sorry I shouldn’t laugh but by Thor in Valhalla that’s a fucking hilarious attempt at logic if I’ve ever seen one. And she didn’t stopping shooting her argument in the foot there, not by any means:

The causes of gun violence are complex, while the effect of gun violence is very clear. It is devastating to families, communities and schools.

The causes of violence in general are complex. Yet with ever more liberal (using the classical definition of the word) gun laws violent crime has been on the decline nationally. On top of that violent crime in Minneapolis, the city where events have lead to the writing of the author’s article, is down.

That shows a negative correlation between stricter gun laws and decreases in violent crime but a positive correlation between more liberal (classical definition) gun laws and decreases in violent crime (again I’m not making the argument that correlation shows causality, I’m just pointing out that the author’s claims are wrong). Any person who had some basic cognitive capabilities would conclude stricter gun laws aren’t going to solve the problem. Finally she closes with the following:

It is time for us to stop assigning blame to others and to start looking at the policies we should support to make our communities safer.

If it’s time to stop assigning blame then why are you blaming inanimate objects? The blame is easy to assign, the person who initiated violence is at fault. Case closed.

Only the Government Could Lose Money Selling Alcohol

I believe the government is the only entity on the planet that could lose money by having a monopoly on wine and spirit sales. It makes sense though considering that government agencies design their contraptions and “services” around politically correct ideals instead of consumer demands:

In a report issued today, Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner says the state liquor control board’s wine vending machines, a wonderful illustration of what happens when a government monopoly tries to act more like a business, are operating at a loss, costing taxpayers more than $1 million since they were introduced a year ago.

[…]

When they are working, the kiosks dispense a limited selection of wines at limited locations and times (not on Sunday, of course!) to customers who present ID, look into a camera monitored by a state employee, breathe into a blood-alcohol meter, and swipe a credit card.

I think I see how they’re losing money. When people want to purchase alcohol, like any other product, they don’t want to be hassled anymore than they absolutely have to be. In other words people want to walk in, make their selection, show their state issued identification, pay the cashier, and leave. Making a customer also submit to a breathalyzer test and having their image monitored by some hidden state employee are going to create a rather annoying hassle, especially when the selection of liquor is limited.

So Much Stupid it Hurts

Our old friend the broken window fallacy made a guest appearance on MarketWatch:

That said, the effects of the storm have the potential to boost the fourth quarter’s GDP by this much and more. This is because the need to clean up and rebuild will create numerous jobs — especially in the construction industry, which, as you know, is languishing from lack of activity in housing, shopping centers and office buildings.

Add to this spending on flashlights, batteries, generators, plywood and tools that would otherwise have not taken place. As these items are restocked, this will add to the GDP, as will the wages paid to construction, maintenance and utility workers.

You know what Mr. Kellner, I think your community needs economic stimulus. Would it be all right with you if I were to come over to your home, smash all of the windows in your house, and set fire to your car? Just think of all the work my arson will create for Home Depot, the local glazier, and the automobile company you’ll buy your new car at!

Fear of Vaccinations My Ass

No this post isn’t me not jumping on the anti-vaccination bandwagon; I just found a “study” with such an absurd conclusion that I had to call it out. A recent study released by a Mayo Clinic physician claims that the recent fear of the measles vaccine being linked to autism is having devastating effects:

More than 150 cases of measles have been reported in the United States already this year and there have been similar outbreaks in Europe, a sign the disease is making an alarming comeback. The reappearance of the potentially deadly virus is the result of unfounded fears about a link between the measles shot and autism that have turned some parents against childhood vaccination, says Gregory Poland, M.D. (http://www.mayoclinic.org/bio/10966366.html), of Mayo Clinic. In the September issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings (http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com), Dr. Poland urges doctors to review extensive scientific research that has found no connection between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.

Somewhere around 150 cases of measles in the United States is devastating? Really? Because according to numbers put out by the National Institute of Health 150 cases in one year is absolutely unworthy of noting if you look at the number of measles cases reported in the United States since the release of the vaccine:

Measles—Incidence (Historic)
During this century, there has been a dramatic decrease in measles epidemics. Prior to the development of the measles vaccine, 5.7 million people died each year from measles. (Some historians have suggested that measles might have contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire.)

In 1920, the United States had 469,924 measles cases and 7,575 deaths due to measles. From 1958 to 1962, the United States had an average of 503,282 cases and 432 deaths each year. (Measles reporting began in 1912; prior to this time, no statistics are available.) In large cities, epidemics often occurred every two to five years.

When the measles vaccine came on the market in 1963, measles began a steady decline worldwide. By 1995, measles deaths had fallen 95 percent worldwide and 99 percent in Latin America. In the United States, the incidence of measles hit an all-time low in 1998, with 89 cases and no deaths reported.

There have been several epidemics in the United States since 1963: from 1970 to 1972, 1976 to 1978, and 1989 to 1991. The epidemic of 1989-1991 claimed 120 deaths out of a total of 55,000 cases reported. Over half of the deaths occurred in young children.

You’ll notice that since the introduction of the measles vaccine the number of reported cases dropped dramatically but have never hit zero. Likewise since the introduction of the vaccine there have been three epidemics of measles with a lower number of reported cases between each epidemic. These epidemics occurred before anybody noted a potential link between the measles vaccine and autism which means there must have been a different factor.

Instead of trying to blame the anti-vaccination movement (which isn’t even that big of a movement from what I’ve seen) for the sudden upsurge in measles infections maybe researchers should look into the cause of previous epidemics and use that data to determine likely reasons for the current upsurge in cases.

The Irony is Too Much

The New York times has an op-ed piece titled “Republicans Against Science.” What’s ironic is the fact that it’s written by Keynesian economics Paul Krugman. That’s a bit like a pot calling a kettle black. Keynesians like to tout their scientific approach to economics through the use of empirical and mathematical methods but being economics isn’t a natural science, and individual factors can’t be isolated, traditional scientific methods prove to be almost completely useless. Any scientist will point out the fact that you have to use the right tool for the job and the only effective tool for studying economics is praxeology.

I’m Sure Our Laws Are Also Responsible for The Black Death in Medieval Europe

We’re going to play the destroy-an-illogical-argument-with-critical-thinking game. This game is easy, I’ll present a scenario put forth by some idiot who the newspapers have judged as being worthy of coverage and you use critical thinking to find a flaw in the presented argument.

The scenario is as follows; and arsonist has come to your home, doused it in gasoline, and set it ablaze. Using your ability to think critically try to determine where the blame for the blaze should go. I’ll give you a few seconds to think about it.

If you said the arsonist was to blame then you win. On the other hand if you decided lax United States gun laws or the country’s war on drugs was to blame you’re now qualified to be the president of Mexico (and you’re an idiot but I repeat myself):

His voice cracking with emotion, President Felipe Calderon said Friday that the United States bore some blame for “an act of terror” by gangsters who doused a casino with gasoline and set a blaze that killed at least 52 people.

[…]

But in unprecedented, direct criticism of the United States, Calderon said lax U.S. gun laws and high demand for drugs stoked his nation’s violence. He appealed to U.S. citizens “to reflect on the tragedy that we are living through in Mexico.”
“We are neighbors, allies and friends. But you, too, are responsible. This is my message,” Calderon said.

He called on the United States to “once and for all stop the criminal sale of high-powered weapons and assault rifles to criminals that operate in Mexico.”

Because of the United State’s “lax” gun laws the arsonists who burned down the casino were able to… purchase gasoline? With stellar logic such as that I’m sure our “lax” gun laws were also partially responsible for the black death in medieval Europe. Heck those same laws probably caused the recent earthquake near Washington D.C. as well.

Why does anybody take Calderon seriously? The guy is obviously incapable of making logical arguments and likely has trouble tying his shoes. What happened in Mexico was a tragedy by all means but blame needs to be aimed at those who committed the crime.

A tip of the old Australian hat goes to Snowflakes in Hell for bringing this absurdity to my attention.