Tag: You’re Doing it Wrong

The Unintended Consequences of Wind Energy

I’m continuing my assault on the failures of progressive environmentalism by addressing another dark side of wind energy. Previously I explained how carbon taxes would hinder the adoption of wind energy but now I’m going to discuss the unintended consequences of adopting it. The problem with progressive environmentalism is the same problem that faces any central plan, you only have a handful of individuals mulling over the plan and therefore a great number of possible issues aren’t brought up.

Progressive environmentalists have been demanding more wind power. They have also been advocating the protection of wildlife. What didn’t occur to them was that these two goals are mutually exclusive. Let’s take a look at a report generated by the Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS):

Focus on Key Sectors: In fact, the rapid expansion of the wind industry will also be addressed in general as the second part of this Law Enforcement initiative to lessen the impact of energy production on wildlife resources. While wind power promises to be an important part of the Nation’s strategy to address climate change, wind farm operations already kill significant numbers of birds, bats, and other species. With more than 100,000 turbines expected to be in operation in the United States by 2030, annual bird mortality rates alone (now estimated by the Service at 440,000 per year) are expected to exceed one million.

Wildlife, it appears, doesn’t understand human central plans. Politicians and progressive environmentalists have been generating propaganda for the wind energy industry for some time now. What they didn’t stop to consider was the fact that humans are the only species that can read. When we build a giant wind farm the local airborne wildlife doesn’t comprehend that those wind turbines are giant rotating murder machines. Anything that flies into those spinning blades is almost certain to come out the other side in more pieces than it entered.

Now the progressive environmentalists have to make a decision, birds or wind energy. Like the decision between trees and water, the decision between birds and wind energy is mutually exclusive. You can’t simply build wind turbines away from birds because birds inhabit every part of the planet (even Antarctica). Today the FWS already estimates the bird mortality rate from wind turbines to be around 400,000. As the number of wind turbines increase the number of dead flying animals will also increase (until so many of them have been killed that their populations collapse due to lack of genetic diversity or breeding stock).

It’s actually amazing that the same central planners that enacted legislation to protect wild birds didn’t stop to consider giant spinning blades in the air as potential threats to birds. Oh well, at least there is always solar… son of a bitch [PDF]:

Solar One related animal mortality.–During approximately 40 wks of study, we documented 70 bird fatalities involving 26 species at Solar One (Table 1). The mean rate of mortality between visits was 1.7 birds _+ 1.8 SD (n = 40, range 0-7). Results of the scavenger bias experiments indicate that from 10-30% of carcasses were removed between searches, thus, the actual rate of mortality may have been from 1.9-2.2 birds. Two causes of avian mortality were identified at Solar One, colliding with structures and burning from standby points.

It’s almost as if there are no free lunches on this planet.

Failing to Learn Lessons

I know when we fail to learn from history we doom ourselves to repeat it but you would think we’d still remember the housing bubble since it only burst and caused massive economic damage a few short years ago. Apparently not:

Amid global economic woes and a struggling jobs market lies a silver lining: Mortgage rates have fallen to the lowest level in at least 40 years, giving the housing market a much-needed boost in Minnesota and across the country.

The rate for a 30-year mortgage is 3.62 percent, less than half of the historical average.

For crying out loud the only thing we need is for some shill at Freddie Mac to come out and tell people how great of an opportunity this is… damn it:

“It’s just an incredible opportunity,” said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for Freddie Mac, which tracks national mortgage rates.

So we’re going to do it? We’re going to repeat the same bad economic polices that lead us into the current economic crisis before we’ve even managed to get ourselves out of said crisis? No lessons were learned? The idea that giving cheap money to people in the hopes they’ll buy a home is still considered solid? I guess if something doesn’t work we must try it again, only harder!

By Thor in Valhalla, we’re screwed. If the idiots in charge of economic policies can’t even learn lessons from things that happened a few short years ago there’s no hope.

Rahm Emanuel’s New Gang Fighting Strategy

It appears that Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, has a new method of fighting the city’s gang problem, which is to appeal to the gangs’ sense of values:

Heaven’s death is the latest of 253 murders so far this year in what has become a numbing drumbeat of violence. But her killing may be a crescendo. It prompted an angry Mayor Rahm Emanuel to lecture the gangs driving this staggering 38% increase in Chicago homicides.

Asked about this shooting at an economic development event, the mayor said, “This is not about crime. This is about values. Take your gang conflict away from a 7-year-old. Who raised you? You have a 7-year-old selling lemonade. You’re a member of a gang coming to get lemonade and another gang member is driving by. Where were you raised and who raised you?” His voice rising and pointing his finger, he continued sternly, “Stay away from the kids!”

I’m sure this strategy will work, after all gang members are known for their high moral standards. Just because some thugs are willing to murder other individuals over petty turf wars doesn’t mean they can’t be reasoned with, right? That’s been the problem throughout history, people simply haven’t nicely asked violent criminals to stop! It’s almost certain that Chicago’s crime rate is going to drop like a rock now that Emanuel asked the gangs to abide by societal values!

Seriously, what a putz. Violent crime is spiking in Chicago and the best Emanuel can do is ask the gangs to be nicer? He’s still fighting any attempted loosening of Chicago’s almost blanket ban on self-defense because allowing non-violent individuals to defend themselves against violent criminals would obviously be crazy.

Your Lack of Logic is Disturbing

The Illinois gun rights organization Guns Save Life decided to use the Chicago Police Department’s gun buyback program against them but donating junk guns and raising money for a youth camp that teaches children how to safely use firearms. Needless to say the gun control zealots were not amused and as always they have resorted to emotional pleas to demonize gun rights activists. As is standard for gun control zealots the argument being made by the author was nonsensical:

The group, Guns Save Life, based in Champaign County, said they’d use the gift cards to buy ammunition and firearms for a youth program that teaches gun safety and marksmanship.

Clever, huh?

While in town, though, we have to wonder if the pro-gun group happened to read about Heaven, the 7-year-old girl who was killed last Wednesday by goofs with guns who shot into a crowd outside her mother’s house. And we have to wonder if they happened to catch the news about the eight other people killed over the weekend, including a 3-year-old boy, and the 17 who were wounded — all shot by people with guns.

What’s interesting about this is how the Chicago Police perform their gun buyback program. When you bring a gun in the Chicago Police Department gives you a gift card and no questions are asked or records kept. After the event concludes the collected guns are destroyed, not submitted to forensics to determine if any of the firearms were used in a crime. The gun buyback is one of the most effective means of evidence destruction available to a criminal in Chicago. Because of the gun buyback program the perpetrators of the shootings mentioned in the article could have easily handed in the murder tool and got the Chicago Police Department to destroy the evidence.

Gun buyback programs, like every program conjured up by gun control zealots, are poorly thought out and thus come with numerous unintended consequences attached. The author then makes another interesting statement:

To mock those efforts, even as one might disagree with them, is offensive. Our children lie dead in the morgue.

What is more offensive, exploiting a poorly implement program in order to teach children how to safely use firearms or having the police destroy evidence in murder cases? To me the latter is extremely offensive because it prevents the perpetrators of the crimes mentioned by the author from being prosecuted.

A tip of the hat goes to Days of our Trailers for this demonstration of gun control zealot idiocy.

Intellectual Property is Expensive

Intellectual property is an interesting concept to me. The state can grant a monopoly to somebody on an idea even though ideas aren’t scarce, if I tell you my idea I don’t lose it. Yet the state manages to use its violence to protect the monopolies it grants which has given rise to a whole new industry, the industry of patent trolls. Patent trolls are nothing more than companies that buy up patents for the express purpose of suing anybody violating said patents. This industry is certainly enriching lawyers:

In the past, “non-practicing entities” (NPEs), popularly known as “patent trolls,” have helped small inventors profit from their inventions. Is this true today or, given the unprecedented levels of NPE litigation, do NPEs reduce innovation incentives? Using a survey of defendants and a database of litigation, this paper estimates the direct costs to defendants arising from NPE patent assertions. We estimate that firms accrued $29 billion of direct costs in 2011. Moreover, although large firms accrued over half of direct costs, most of the defendants were small or medium-sized firms, indicating that NPEs are not just a problem for large firms.

$29 billion was completely wasted in 2011 by businesses defending themselves against patent trolls. That $29 billion could have been spent on productive endeavors, which would have given way to cheaper and better products for consumers. Instead a bunch of lawyers were enriched because the state has granted a monopoly on certain ideas to entities that exist solely to sue other entities that managed to have the same idea. When you boil it down patent violations are a form of thoughtcrime.

Gratitude

I post a lot of stories about police officers acting like total dicks but once in a while the tables are turned and it’s the police officer who is in the right and the average person who is acting like a total dick:

he was grabbed by a desperate parolee and who held her with a knife to her throat in Woodbridge Center Mall until a police officer shot and killed the man.

Good on that police officer, he likely saved the woman’s life. Obviously she’s grateful for the police officer’s actions… or not:

Now the woman, Ellen Shane, 62, of Carteret, plans to sue the township for $5 million, claiming it failed to protect public safety and that she was injured as a result of the officer’s acts.

Both Shane and her husband, Ronald Shane, “are suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome and both have been dramatized from this incident,” according to the tort claim notice filed by their lawyer, David Corrigan of Eatontown.

What an ungrateful little prat. A random goon puts a knife to her neck, the police officer shoots the knife wielding asshole, and now that woman is suing the city because she suffered “post traumatic stress?” Would she have been happier if her throat had been slit? Post traumatic stress syndrome sucks but being dead sucks a whole lot more. You also have to love this:

Court papers filed with the township state Garcia told the officer he would harm Ellen Shane if not allowed to leave.

“Instead of attempting to resolve the situation, Barrett took out his gun and shot the suspect while he was holding Mrs. Shane,” the paper states.

Actually, I’d say the officer resolved the situation rather effectively.

The Meaningless Drone Legislation Introduced by Rand Paul

Rand Paul’s endorsement of Mitt Romney sure created a schism in the libertarian camp. One side believes Rand Paul to be nothing more than a game playing neocon who tries to appease the libertarians when it’s convenient while the other side believes Rand Paul is really a super secret libertarian who is merely maneuvering to gain the presidency in 2016 where he’ll then bring a wave of liberty to this country. The latter camp has used Rand Paul’s introduction of legislation to protect American against unwarranted drone surveillance. It would be great if that’s what Rand Paul actually did but the Devil, as always, is in the details. The legislation in question is S 3287, the Preserving Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act of 2012. The bill claims “To protect individual privacy against unwarranted governmental intrusion through the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles commonly called drones, and for other purposes.” It then goes on to state:

SEC. 3. PROHIBITED USE OF DRONES.

Except as provided in section 4, a person or entity acting under the authority, or funded in whole or in part by, the Government of the United States shall not use a drone to gather evidence or other information pertaining to criminal conduct or conduct in violation of a statute or regulation except to the extent authorized in a warrant that satisfies the requirements of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Sounds good so far, right? Let’s have a look at the exceptions mentioned in the above paragraph:

(1) PATROL OF BORDERS- The use of a drone to patrol national borders to prevent or deter illegal entry of any persons or illegal substances.

So drones will continue to be used to monitor the 100 miles “Constitution free zone” that 2/3 of the United States population lives within? It appears as though Rand Paul’s bill only protects 1/3 of the population from these unwarranted drone uses. That appearance is deceiving though as there are more exceptions:

(2) EXIGENT CIRCUMSTANCES- The use of a drone by a law enforcement party when exigent circumstances exist. For the purposes of this paragraph, exigent circumstances exist when the law enforcement party possesses reasonable suspicion that under particular circumstances, swift action to prevent imminent danger to life is necessary.

There it is, the one exception that makes this entire bill meaningless. Law enforcement don’t need a warrant to use a drone if they have “reasonable suspicion” that circumstances are such that imminent danger to life exists. “Reasonable suspicion” is another way of saying “because law enforcement wants to.” It’s a catchall phrase that has been used by law enforcement agents to avoid that pesky Forth Amendment. Worth noting is that probably cause and reasonable suspicion are legally different as laid out in the Supreme Court case Terry v. Ohio:

On the one hand, it is frequently argued that in dealing with the rapidly unfolding and often dangerous situations on city streets the police are in need of an escalating set of flexible responses, graduated in relation to the amount of information they possess. For this purpose it is urged that distinctions should be made between a “stop” and an “arrest” (or a “seizure” of a person), and between a “frisk” and a “search.” Thus, it is argued, the police should be allowed to “stop” a person and detain him briefly for questioning upon suspicion that he may be connected with criminal activity. Upon suspicion that the person may be armed, the police should have the power to “frisk” him for weapons. If the “stop” and the “frisk” give rise to probable cause to believe that the suspect has committed a crime, then the police should be empowered to make a formal “arrest,” and a full incident “search” of the person. This scheme is justified in part upon the notion that a “stop” and a “frisk” amount to a mere “minor inconvenience and petty indignity,” which can properly be imposed upon the citizen in the interest of effective law enforcement on the basis of a police officer’s suspicion.

In other words, reasonable suspicion grants an officer the power to stop and frisk an individual but does not grant them the ability to make an arrest. What is reasonable suspicion is really up to the police officer as no judiciary input is required. Nice little cop out for this bill that’s supposed to protect use from unwarranted drone use, isn’t it? Finally, just to make extra sure that this bill means nothing, a third exception exists:

(3) HIGH RISK- The use of a drone to counter a high risk of a terrorist attack by a specific individual or organization, when the Secretary of Homeland Security determines credible intelligence indicates there is such a risk.

The risk of terrorism has become the de facto standard for ignoring constitutional protections. In fact the state claimed a connection between terrorism and copyright infringement to get around a great deal of legal red tape between law enforcement and those suspected of infringing copyrights. Counterfeit goods have also been linked to terrorism. It’s not very difficult to use those cases to fabricate a scenario where a high risk of terrorist attack exists.

Pretend that you’re an employee of the Homeland Security and your boss says, “Hey, we need an excuse to use a drone to spy on some guy infringing Disney’s copyright.” Within a minute or so you would likely respond by saying, “We have evidence that the many you mentioned has been siphoning funds obtained through selling bootleg Disney cartoons to Al Qaeda. Evidence suggests that this money is being used to buy equipment for an immediate strike against the United States.” Your boss gets his excuse and you get a promotion.

Rand Paul’s bill is entirely meaningless. The exceptions are so large as to offer zero legal protection against warrantless drone surveillance. Just as Obama wrapped a bank bailout in a pleasantly titled bill, Rand Paul has just wrapped an entirely worthless bill in a title that will appeal to libertarians. Many people claim that Rand Paul is a libertarian that knows how to manipulate neocons but he’s actually a neocon that knows how to manipulate libertarians.

It’s Like Watching Children Argue

What do you get when you get to individuals who are entirely oblivious to economics arguing about economics? A presidential debate:

Taking the stage near Cleveland in Cuyahoga County, Mr Obama pitted his economic plan against Mr Romney’s “top-down” vision, saying Mr Romney would lead the economy down the path it had taken for the last 10 years.

Mr Obama said his vision of the economy saw growth coming from the middle class and that voters had “two very different visions to choose from”.

You know how you can tell when a presidential candidate is clueless about economics? When they talk about how the president can fix the economy. The president has as much ability to fix the economy as I do… scratch that, I actually have enough knowledge to advise people on economic issues with some competency (not much mind you, but more than either Obama or Romney).

Raising taxes isn’t going to fix the economy. Giving tax incentives isn’t going to fix the economy. Increasing regulations isn’t going to fix the economy. Reducing regulations isn’t going to fix the economy. There are only two ways to fix our economic woes, either the state must remove itself entirely from economic issues (I’ll see a leprechaun riding a unicorn before that happens) of the economy removes itself entirely from the state (this would be known as agorism).

The United States and most of Europe are learning the same lesson the Soviet Union did no so long ago, centrally planned economies fail. A centrally planned economy cannot work because it’s impossible to plan for the wants of other individuals. I cannot know what you want and you cannot know what I want, we must be allowed to employ our own means to obtain our own ends. This is what neither Romney or Obama understand, they both think the economy must be “helped” by the state.

Statism and Self-Projection

Read the following excerpt from this article and tell me what you see:

Age is just a number… except when it comes to marriage.

Let’s look at my stats:
Current age – 29
Divorced for – 8 months
Separated for – 1 year, 9 months
Age when I met my ex – 19
Age when I married – 24

Which brings me to my point: couples should not be allowed to get married before age 25.

While I know that this statement is going to make me very unpopular with readers, I do believe that it would be for the best — better both for the institution of marriage and the individuals getting married — if we could change the law to prevent couples from getting married before the age of 25.

OK, you can’t really tell me what you see so I’ll tell you what I see. I see a woman who is projection herself onto all other people and this projection is leading her to demand legislation. Statists seem to think because something happened to them it will happen to everybody. Gun control zealots sometime talk about what a situation would have been like if they had had a gun. Instead of ending peacefully the gun control zealot will talk about the death that would have occurred, and because they projection their violent tendencies onto everybody else they demand everybody be disarmed.

This is why I believe statism is synonymous with arrogance. When you say there ought to be a law because of an experience you had in life you’re making the arrogant statement that everybody else is just like you. Because the author of the above excerpt ended up divorced after marrying a man when she was 24 she believes everybody who marries before or at the age of 24 will end up getting divorced. This belief also requires her to believe that the cause of her divorce was the fact she was still “developing” as a person and such “development” completes at exactly 25 years of age, for everybody. This is incredibly arrogant. I know people who were fully “developed” much earlier than their 25th birthday and I know people who are much older than 25 and still “developing.” Humans don’t conform to specific cutoffs. Some children hit puberty at an early age while others hit is later. Some adults are capable of living independently when they turn 18 while others aren’t capable of such feats at any point in their lives. There are 16 year-olds I trust implicitly with firearms while there are 30 year-olds I won’t go to the range with. Everybody is different.

Differences in individuals is what individualists recognize. If I were married at age 24 and got divorced at age 26 I wouldn’t assume everybody else who married at age 25 would experience the same outcome. Projection ourselves onto others is a basic human action, one that I try to avoid (although I’m not always successful). Every time somebody argues for a law based on their personal experience they’re projecting. We need to divorce ourselves from demanding laws based on personal experience. Just because you did something doesn’t mean everybody else will do it.

Some People Don’t Want to See the Truth

You know the “Rand Paul is actually a secret libertarian who knows how to manipulate the Republican better than his father” group? Some of them are still lying to themselves:

Time to tell which Paul supporters are intelligent enough to read between the lines and which will allow their knee-jerk reaction be to abandon Rand Paul and call him a traitor to the cause of liberty.

So, tonight Rand Paul endorsed Romney for president. I think it was a good move on Rand’s part seeing as party loyalty runs deep for the sheeple of our country. Deep down, however, I’m sure he knows it will garner exactly zero votes for Romney from the Liberty movement… in fact, with that in mind, I see no danger in the move at all.

After Romney loses in a landslide to Obama, Rand can run in 2016 without being blamed for contributing to the margin that caused Republicans to lose in 2012. I’m sure the faint of heart will abandon Rand, will cry foul play, will call him names, but that’s ok. So far, he’s given me no real reason to mistrust him. Besides, it’s not like he says he agrees with his philosophy (as if he Romney has one) – just that they have similar family values and agree on like 4 policies (none of which Romney will actually do anything about).

I’m sorry that I’m the one who must tell you this but… you’re in an abusive relationship.

I know you believe politics truly loves you. After all it offers you liberty, freedom, and all the other sweet things a lover has to offer. Unfortunately when you’re not around politics is cheating on you with tyranny. It’s offer of this entire Rand Paul announcement being nothing by a clever ploy to lower Romney’s guard is enticing, and I know you want to believe it but… it just isn’t true. Politics is just lying to you again in order to stop you from leaving. Please, for your own sake, leave politics. Until you do the cycle of abuse will continue and you’ll find yourself constantly hurt.