Just when you though the United States was finally going to get serious about protecting the planet from an atmospheric buildup of perfectly natural gases, it turns out we’re ignoring one of the biggest threats of all: gassy cows.
When a friend of mine sent me this article, I thought it must be a parody of real news from The Onion. But nope … according to the article by the Associated Press (which they apparently expect us to take seriously), cows produce more greenhouse gases than coal mines and landfills. Here are some quotes:
One contributor to global warming - bigger than coal mines, landfills and sewage treatment plants - is being left out of efforts by the Obama administration and House Democrats to limit greenhouse gas emissions: Cow burps.
Belching from the nation’s 170 million cattle, sheep and pigs produces about one-quarter of the methane released in the U.S. each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That makes the hoofed critters the largest source of the heat-trapping gas.
Heat-trapping gas, hmmm … Considering that animals who burp and fart have been around for millions of years, you’d think this information would prompt intelligent people to wonder if the whole global-warming theory is a lot of cowpie. But that’s not how our friends at the Associated Press reacted. The article is clearly lamenting the fact that Congress is too afraid of the farm lobby to include cow burps and farts in legislation “to limit greenhouse gas emissions.”
But of course, that legislation isn’t really about limiting greenhouse gases; it’s about collecting new taxes in the form of “air pollution” permits. If you have a functioning brain, you ought to be suspicious when natural gases such as methane and carbon dioxide are labeled as “pollutants” - especially when plants and animals have produced the vast majority of those gases since the dawn of time, at least among living creatures.
Normally, politicians can barely contain their excitement when they realize they’ve found something new to tax. If you’re a Monty Python fan, you may recall the sketch in which members of her majesty’s government were trying to figure out how to tax sex. So I believe the Associated Press when it says politicians are sidestepping the gassy-cow issue because they fear the farm lobby. But that misses the point. The intelligent reason not to tax this form of “pollution” is that it’s a deeply, totally, and unbelievably stupid idea.
In fact, the idea is so completely and utterly stupid, greenies and vegetarian activists couldn’t stop themselves from supporting it. The greenies love it because they tend to be scientific illiterates who believe natural gases are imperiling the planet, and the PETA crowd loves it because it punishes people who eat meat.
(If you want a good laugh, check out Penn & Teller’s Bull@#$% episode on environmentalism. They got hundreds of greenies - including supposed experts on the environment - to sign a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide … otherwise known as H2O … otherwise known as water.)
Well, I have my own proposal to limit greenhouse gases. If we’re going to tax methane, then to be consistent and fair, we need to tax all sources of it - including humans. As anyone who has worked in an emergency room near a college fraternity during initiation week can tell you, humans produce a form of methane that’s not only a greenhouse gas, but highly combustible as well. One flick of a Bic and POOF.
However, some humans produce more cubic feet of methane than others, so the relevant question is: how do we measure the emissions? The cheap and easy way would be to employ some sort of listening device - but that would place a disproportionate share of the tax burden on men, who tend not to be very subtle about these things. My junior year in college, I shared an apartment with three other guys in a cheaply-constructed building. One Sunday, the morning after we’d hosted a kegger, the cranky girl next door accused of us illegally keeping ducks.
Women, on the other hand - and I’m not mentioning any names, because she proofs my blog posts - produce methane that rivals ninja assassins for its ability to sneak up and kill you without being seen or heard. Clearly, we need an equitable form of measurement.
So I’m proposing that some government contractor produce a Toot-O-Meter that would precisely measure human methane output. Then all we’d need is an army of methane officers to follow people around and take readings. We can even sell the idea as another example of “creating green jobs.”
I don’t actually believe governments can create jobs, as I explained here. And as anyone who reads this blog knows, I think high taxes are destructive and man-made global warming is an inconvenient myth, as I explained here. But in this case, I’m supporting the whole ball of wax … the new taxes, the increase in government employment, everything. Why? One word: revenge.
For years, vegetarian wackos such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest have been agitating to slap high taxes on the foods they don’t think we should eat: fatty foods, fast-foods, animal foods, big foods, and pretty much everything else most of us enjoy. They also propose one stupid, expensive regulation after another, without ever concerning themselves with the cost to consumers, who ultimately bear all costs imposed on businesses.
But with my plan, I believe much of the burden and the cost will, at long last, fall largely on the vegetarian activists themselves. To explain why, I must first recount my run-in with a can of vegetarian chili.
Some years ago, I flew from Chicago to Las Vegas for an acting job. It’s not a long flight - at least not under normal circumstances. But this flight seemed to take forever, thanks to the can of vegetarian chili I consumed just before catching a taxi to the airport.
The first belly-rumble began just before the drink cart came around. I asked a flight attendant if they kept any antacids on board. She said sorry, we have Bufferin for headaches, but that’s it.
The next rumble was louder and actually hurt.
By halfway through the flight, I was literally holding onto my aching, bloated guts. Yes, I should’ve visited the restroom, but I couldn’t predict what the result would be. And worse, there was a line. That meant someone would be 1) standing just outside the door, which wasn’t soundproof, and 2) entering the bathroom as I exited. Maybe it’s my Catholic upbringing, but I didn’t want people pointing at me and whispering.
So I clenched my aching guts for the rest of the flight … and while waiting for my bags … and while waiting for a taxi … and while waiting to check in at the hotel … and I was growing ever-more bloated and miserable the whole time. The desk clerk even asked if I was okay.
Finally, in the sanctity of my room, I un-clenched my guts, at which point I produced the longest continuous methane emission of my life. I had to re-hitch my belt twice before it was over. My nether regions grew numb from the prolonged vibration. The planet was unaffected, but the hotel room definitely underwent a climate change. And yes, the ice in the nearby ice bucket became thinner.
The culprit, of course, was the vegetarian chili. It was full of beans - one of the few sources of protein vegetarians can eat without facing a moral crisis.
Based on this experience and a few others from my vegetarian days, I’m pretty sure vegetarians emit more greenhouse gases than the rest of us, and they should bear the cost of all that extra pollution. Since we know they’ll never resort to eating meat instead of beans, we could even design a methane cap-and-trade system.
Revenue benefits aside, this would provide the rest of us with some serious entertainment value. Imagine how much fun it would be to see a bunch of self-righteous PETA wackos gather for a protest in front of a meat-packing plant, then scatter like rats when a Toot Detector van screeches onto the scene.
In fact, I’d volunteer to be a methane officer myself, as long as I was guaranteed to be personally armed with a Toot-O-Meter and assigned to monitor Michael Jacobson of CSPI. I’d love to see his face when his own dietary choices cost him some extra dough.
“How was your lunch, Mr. Jacobson? Yes, I hear the vegetarian burritos are quite good. Would mind stepping over to the curb for a moment, sir? No, no, please remain clothed. Other people are still eating.”
As an added benefit, Jacobson would have to control his excitement upon discovering that yet another food contains saturated fat. Otherwise, when media dutifully assembled to record his outraged comparisons to a stick of butter, the performance would be marred by the sound of my Toot-O-Meter ringing up fresh charges.
The only real problem I see with my proposal is that it would be expensive, burdensome, difficult to implement, inconsistently applied, prone to corruption, and ultimately useless.
Which means it would probably sail through Congress with overwhelming support.
It’s impossible to explain a father’s influence on his son in something as measly as a letter. I could write volumes and still have more to say. So let me just talk about your shoes.
Although more than forty years have passed since I was a little boy, I still remember waiting for you to walk through the front door at night after work. You were HUGE. You wore dark suits and serious business shoes, usually black or brown wingtips, polished to a high shine. You always struck me as being in a bit of a hurry, and when you strode across our wooden floors, those shoes went BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.
I wanted to grow up as soon as I could and wear shoes like yours. Sometimes I would pull a pair of wingtips out of your closet and remove the wooden stretchers - which took some effort for a skinny kid like me - and slip those big shoes over my feet. I’d try walking in them, stepping carefully to avoid tripping. I wasn’t big enough to make them BOOM, but I liked the way they looked.
I knew the wingtips were your working shoes. I didn’t really understand what kind of work you did, but I knew working was how you took care of us. I knew the dark suits and the booming shoes and the daily trips to your office were the reason we lived in a nice house, and also the reason we didn’t look like the shabbily-dressed kids we saw when Mom took us along for her charity work.
Now and then you took Jerry and me to the office on a Saturday when you needed to catch up on some paperwork. We enjoyed those office trips, partly because of the old-fashioned soda dispenser, the kind with rows of metal rails that held the bottles upright by the necks. For a dime - you always seemed to have dimes in your pocket - we could slide a bottle along those rails and out the side to release it. The lid was heavy and you had to hold it up for us. But that was easy for you because you were HUGE.
I liked the way your office smelled … like paper and ink. I liked the starkness of the fluorescent lights. I liked looking at the photo on your wall of someone handing you a plaque and shaking your hand. I knew that whatever you did, you were good at it, good enough that people wanted to shake your hand. When I sat and did math exercises at my desk in school, I pretended I was in my own office, doing important work that would make someone want to shake my hand.
I don’t know exactly when I decided I didn’t want to grow up and be just like you. Certainly by the time I enrolled in college, I knew I’d never be happy wearing dark suits and working in an office. I rejected your advice about majoring in accounting. I explained, somewhat hesitantly, that accounting might appeal to you, but I’d be bored out of my mind.
That’s when I began to realize you didn’t want me to grow up and be just like you, either. When I chose pre-med for my major, you said that’s great, go for it, I’ll support you. When I switched to psychology, you said that’s great, go for it, I’ll support you. When I switched again to journalism as a junior, you said that’s great, go for it, I’ll support you.
I’d like to say you were simply doing what any father would do, but I already knew that wasn’t true. I had a girlfriend whose father disowned her when she switched her major from business to art; without any support from him, she graduated swimming in student-loan debt. In high school I had a classmate who’d been told from birth he was going to be a doctor like his father, period, end of discussion. He flunked organic chemistry in college and committed suicide.
When I had some humorous essays published after college, your golfing buddies told me how much they enjoyed reading them. I was proud to be published, but more proud to know you’d been bragging about me to your friends. When I announced I was going to quit my magazine job and go freelance, you said that’s great, go for it, I’ll support you - after all, you had quit a comfortable corporate job to run your own business and understood the drive to be independent.
And so, in a fit of optimism, I struck out on my own … and fell flat on my face. That’s when I found out what “support” truly means.
It was embarrassing to spend part of my adult life living off loans from you, loans I knew you would never let me repay. It’s still embarrassing when I think about it. But I believe things happen for a reason; and even if they don’t, we can find our own reasons in them.
Unlike Mom, you were never comfortable being affectionate. Until you became a grandpa, it took a couple of tall drinks to pry the words “I love you” from your lips. I knew you loved me, but I didn’t fully understand that you love me, period, no matter what, just like Mom.
I kept expecting one of those loans to come with a lecture attached, firm instructions to wise up, let go of my childish dreams, go get a real job as a sales rep. But that never happened. When you said anything at all, it was along the lines of, “Don’t worry. Do something you love, and be the best at it. Things will get better.” Those years, painful as they were, finally made it clear to me that you didn’t just support me. You supported me.
I’m happy with my life, Dad. It’s been a thrill to play in a band, act in plays, publish humor in magazines, travel the country as a standup comedian, and produce a film. But without you behind me, I wouldn’t have done half of those things. At some point, I would’ve given up.
I once asked another comedian what his parents thought of his act. He said they’d never seen him perform; they didn’t think standup comedy was a respectable career, and they weren’t going to encourage him by showing up. He asked if you and Mom had seen my act. I just said yes; I didn’t think it would be polite to say, “Yes, many times, and they bring their friends.”
You didn’t choose my path, and I didn’t follow in your footsteps. But when I look back, I realize I’ve worn your shoes many times.
When I left a secure job to pursue my own goals, I was wearing your shoes. When I wrote clearly and powerfully, I was wearing your shoes. When I made people laugh out loud with a witty observation, I was wearing your shoes. When I worked and re-worked a programming project to get it exactly right, believing that “good enough” isn’t good enough, I was wearing your shoes. Every time I returned money to someone who accidentally overpaid me, or gave to a charity, or helped someone in distress without expecting anything in return, I was wearing your shoes.
These past few years have not been kind to you, Dad. Cancer, Alzheimer’s and age have diminished your body and your mind. Your quick steps have slowed to a shuffle. I’ve had to hold your arm and help you navigate the single step from the garage into the house so you don’t trip over it. On some days, you don’t recognize Mom and have to ask who she is. I know the next time I visit, you may not know who I am.
But I know who I am. I’m your son. And in my mind, you’ll always be huge … and you’ll always BOOM when you walk.
Clips from news stories published in the past year:
The coldest summer ever? You might be looking at it, weather folks say. Right now the so-called summer of ‘08 is on pace to produce the fewest days ever recorded in which the temperature in Anchorage managed to reach 65 degrees.
This winter has been one of the toughest in decades, with temperatures today reaching as low as -38C in large areas of the Midwest.
Germany marked record low temperatures for the third day in a row on Thursday, with meteorologists measuring a frosty -33.4 degrees Celsius (-28 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Bavarian Alps in the early morning hours.
Flint broke a 95-year-old record early Wednesday morning when the temperature plummeted to a frigid 19 below zero.
Charlottes Pass at 13 degrees below average set a new Australian record for cold today at -13 degress celcius. This sets a new cold record for April for anywhere in Australia.
If it seemed cold to you in Green Bay on Saturday, it was. The high temperature for the day, reached at 9:50 a.m., was 52. That set a record for the lowest high temperature for June 6, according to the National Weather Service office in Ashwaubenon. The old mark was 53, set in 1943.
Last summer was one of the coolest on record. It was followed by one of the coldest winters on record, which in turn was followed by a record-cool spring. May in New Zealand was the coldest on record … but the resorts were delighted, because ski season arrived early. In Michigan, farmers are concerned that frost is killing off their crops – in June.
Faced with these inconvenient truths, several prominent members of the media apologized for having such a girl-crush on Al Gore, promised they’d no longer count U.N. bureaucrats with no scientific background as “scientists” who believe humans are causing global warming, and assured the public they will stop referring to CO2 – one of the most common and natural substances on the planet – as a “pollutant.”
Kidding! Of course that didn’t happen. Good news doesn’t sell newspapers or draw ratings, and good news on the climate doesn’t support the agenda of the media’s favorite political party and the president they openly worship. (I’m assuming they would view a cooling trend as good news, which is itself debatable. Warm weather supports life. Cold weather kills.)
Instead, we are being treated to the same old scare-mongering. I recently bookmarked this article on the MSNBC site, which offers a harrowing vision of what the U.S. could look like in 2100 if we don’t stop global warming: forest fires, hurricanes, droughts, heat waves, beachfront property in the Rockies … oh my!
Well, yeah, the country could end up like that. Or, given the current cooling trend, Americans could end up freezing their asses off while paying through the nose for heating fuel, thanks to all the “cap and trade” schemes designed to stop global warming. Either scenario is possible, and of course the MSNBC article is pure conjecture. But look at the words the writer chose:
We can still turn it around, but here is the world our grandchildren will live in if we don’t.
Pardon me? This is the world our grandchildren will live in?! She doesn’t know that any more than I know they’ll be ice-skating in Miami.
And you wonder, “Is climate disaster already upon us?” Scientists say the answer is “yes.”
Uh, no … some scientists say the answer is “yes.” Some also say the answer is “no,” or at least “we have no idea.” An anti-Kyoto petition states:
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”
That petition has been signed by 31,000 scientists, including 9,000 with doctorate degrees in atmospheric science, climatology, Earth science, or environmental science. (They apparently forgot to consult with Al Gore before forming their opinions.)
After I read the article online about how the Antarctic ice is getting thicker, I kept my eyes open to see how often the story was picked up by major U.S. newspapers and TV networks. As far as I can tell, it wasn’t – but a story about the ice thinning in the western region of Antarctica was.
A more recent news story warned that CO2 “pollution” is estimated to increase by 40 percent over the next 30 years or so. (Oh my gosh! My kids will have to wave the stuff out of their faces just to see where they’re walking!) The story doesn’t say anything that isn’t true, you understand – that is the official government estimate. But a journalist without an agenda might bother to mention a few facts to provide a little perspective, such as:
It’s an estimate … one that assumes we won’t develop a new means of producing energy in the next 30 years.
If humans increase their CO2 output by 40 percent, that doesn’t mean CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will rise by 40 percent. Humans produce a fraction of the CO2 emitted – about 5%. (Plants and animals contribute more of the “pollutant.” That’s why the greenies are so upset about cow farts.)
Carbon dioxide makes up about .039% of the atmosphere, and is estimated to account for about 2.3% of the total greenhouse effect.
So the real story is that if nothing changes in our energy use, humans will add another 40 percent to the small fraction they emit of a gas that causes a teensy bit of the total greenhouse effect. Is that enough to tip the atmospheric balance, give the earth “a fever,” melt the ice caps, and sink Manhattan? I don’t know. Neither does Al Gore. Neither does whoever wrote the story. But given our record-cold temperatures over the past year, I doubt it.
The scare-mongers will, of course, start coming up with ad-hoc theories to explain the cold weather: It’s an anomaly, you see, so it doesn’t mean anything … Without man-made global warming, it would’ve been even colder, and when this anomaly is over, we’re going to be cooking the planet again … Well, global warming actually causes colder weather … Global warming? Did we say “global warming?” We meant “climate change,” and by gosh, look at the change in climate!
Real scientists have a word for ad-hoc theories: bull@#$%. I learned a lot about ad-hoc theories while researching my documentary Fat Head. Ad-hoc theories are how bad scientists explain results they don’t like. Ad-hoc theories are how the anti-fat hysterics defend the “saturated fat causes heart disease” theory, despite all the evidence against it.
In real science, you propose a hypothesis, then check the data as it comes in to see if it supports the hypothesis. If the data doesn’t support the hypothesis, a real scientist concludes that the hypothesis is probably wrong. (Unfortunately, real scientists are becoming a rare breed in some fields.) The recent cooling trend certainly doesn’t support the theory that human beings are giving the planet a fever.
So what’s causing the cooling trend? Nobody knows for sure. But buried beneath all the noise about man-made global warming, there has long been a competing hypothesis to explain climate change: sun spots. According to this theory, sun spots produce warmer temperatures on earth.
The bad thing about this theory is that it has zero appeal to leftists. You can’t blame American corporations, industrialization, capitalism, greed, the World Bank, Republicans in general or George W. Bush specifically for what happens on the sun. U.N. bureaucrats can’t release position papers on global sun-spot initiatives and feel self-important. Environmental groups can’t raise millions of dollars by promising to fight sun spots.
The good thing about this theory is that it seems to fit the actual data; when scientists compare historical warming and cooling trends (and there have been several of them) to sun-spot activity, there’s a strong correlation. Lots of sun spots, warmer temperatures. Fewer sun spots, cooler temperatures.
And guess what? Sun-spot activity has been declining lately. If the decline continues, we could even be heading into a “little ice age” – the kind Newsweek warned about in 1975 before jumping on the global-warming bandwagon a decade or so later.
Below, I’ve posted YouTube clips of a lecture by one of the many scientists who dispute the idea that we’re warming up the planet. (As far as I know, he doesn’t deny the Holocaust.) But first, here’s my favorite news clip from the previous year:
Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday - the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922.
This time, the greedy capitalists have gone too far. I’m just glad that, for once, it wasn’t an American company taking a place in the hall of shame. (Well, actually, they are sort of an American company now, but don’t tell that to the locals, eh? National pride is at stake.)
If you haven’t seen the story in the news, I am referring to the decision by the makers of Molson beer to reduce and in some cases even eliminate the allotment of free beer it provides to present and former employees. In Newfoundland, for example, the company will reduce the beer benefit for current employees from 864 bottles per year to a mere 624.
If you’ve ever hung out with Canadians on their home turf, then you know this means the workers could end up paying for 75% of their beer expenses out of their own pockets. And it’s even worse for retirees: currently expected to get by on 72 bottles of free Molson per month, they may eventually have to self-fund their beer consumption entirely.
Naturally, the union has filed grievances. A union spokesman neatly summed up the company’s treachery: “There was no consultation; we just received a letter that this is a done deal, which is totally unfair.”
Darned right. An issue as important as free beer shouldn’t be subject to the whims of greedy capitalist managers. It should be hammered out during weeks of bare-knuckled negotiations. And if management plays hardball, I’d encourage the unions to call a strike – if only because it would allow their members to sit at home for a few weeks and drink more Molson.
This may sound like a petty disagreement to many Americans, but I know better. In Canada, Molson is a quality-of-life issue. Back when I was a full-time standup comedian, I spent weeks at a time touring Canada and subsisting on Canadian food – which, like much of Canadian culture, was inherited from the British. I enjoyed some excellent meals in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver, but pretty much everywhere else, Molson beer was not only the tastiest part of any meal, it was also the most nutritious.
One night, cooped up in a motel somewhere in Alberta, I was so desperate for food that hadn’t been boiled or fried beyond recognition and then slathered in mayonnaise, I ordered a pizza from a local Pizza Hut. Since Pizza Hut is a franchise operation, the pizza was, as I’d anticipated, nearly identical to the American version, except with most of the flavor removed. (I suspected this may have been imposed by Health Canada as a strategy for discouraging over-indulgence. If so, it worked.)
I know Canadians are sensitive to being over-Americanized, but I believe in this situation, they can and should take a page from the American handbook for doing business in the modern era: Molson should demand a government bailout.
GM, after all, pushed itself to the brink of financial ruin largely through its generous pension programs, which ended up being under-funded by billions of dollars. (Hey, if it’s good enough for Social Security, it should be good enough for GM.) GM’s reward for this behavior was an infusion of cash — courtesy of ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren.
And Molson wouldn’t even have to demand cash. They could merely frighten the Canadian government into providing free bottles of Molson for all employees and retirees. Molson executives could testify before Parliament and ominously predict that without a bailout, they may have to shut down all operations. Faced with the prospect of eating deep-fried carrots covered in mayonnaise without a cold Molson to wash them down, the legislature would have no choice but to give in.
If nothing else, the legislators could sell the program to the Canadian media by claiming “This will actually save money in the long run.” In America, so many hugely expensive health, education and welfare programs have been passed with the promise that “this will actually save money in the long run,” I expect our treasury to start running a trillion-dollar surplus any year now.
In Canada, free Molson would probably pay for itself immediately by reducing the cost of all that free health care. Imagine you’re a Canadian with no cartilage left in your knees, and you actually expect the government to deliver on that knee-replacement surgery it promised a couple of years ago. Instead of taking a prescription painkiller that makes you unable to work and places you on welfare, you could drink a few government-issued Molsons and head off to your job. Eventually, you’d forget about your knees, thus clearing a spot in the queue for someone who truly needed surgery – say, a guy who’s been waiting 12 months for a triple bypass.
My only concern is that the tourist trade in the American states bordering Canada could be harmed. Currently, hundreds of Canadians cross the border every year to buy health care that is actually available instead of being free. (Don’t worry, Health Canada officials; we’re going to eliminate this inequity soon enough.) Unless the “medical tourists” are sleeping in their cars and enduring a long pre-surgical fast, they’re certainly patronizing American hotels and restaurants.
But this is a minor concern, because I trust greedy American capitalists will find other ways to draw the Canadian tourist trade. Give them time, and they’ll teach the wait staff to end their sentences with “eh?” They’ll offer raffle tickets to hockey games. They’ll add a man-made lake to the local mall, complete with a beach and a submarine ride.
Or they could just learn to boil the taste out of every meal on the menu … with a free bottle of Molson to wash it down.
In a comment on my last post, fellow comedian and blogger Josh Goguen wondered what would happen if the “empathy” crowd played Monopoly. That reminded me that back when Tim Slagle and I produced a radio show titled “The Slagle-Naughton Report” for a libertarian station (yes, there was one … once), we tackled exactly that concept in an episode.
The episode led to a recurring bit called “Uncle Knows Best.” We recorded these in the mid-1990s, but I think this episode in particular is still relevant … especially lately. If you click the link, the audio should play in your computer’s MP3 player.
“We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.” — Barack Obama
“I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.” — Sonia Sotomayor
Sotomayor told a California audience in 2001 that “a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion” than a “white male” judge. — News reports
“What distinguishes the rule of law from the dictatorship of a shifting Supreme Court majority is the absolutely indispensable requirement that judicial opinions be grounded in consistently applied principle. That is what prevents judges from ruling now this way, now that, thumbs up or thumbs down, as their personal preferences dictate.” — Antonin Scalia
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” — Chief Justice John Roberts
“So the only person Obama considers qualified to sit on the Supreme Court is a gay, disabled, elderly African-American who was once a poverty-stricken teenage mother, but still managed to become a judge. Good luck with that, Mr. President.” – Tom Naughton
“Timeout! Timeout! Ref, I want to talk to you!”
“Yes, coach?”
“Let me ask you something: are you blind?”
“No, I don’t believe in blind refereeing. It’s not progessive.”
“So what the hell kind of foul were you calling there? My kid wasn’t within three feet of that shooter!”
“Yes, but he was standing between the shooter and the basket, and he’s very tall. I called him for Creating An Environment of Intimidation.”
“What the … ? That’s not a foul!”
“It is now. I just set a precedent.”
“Precedent? You can’t just make up a new rule whenever you damned well feel like it!”
“Of course I can. I’m the ref. I have a uniform and everything.”
“Yeah, you’re the ref! That means you call the game according to the rules!”
“No, no, no. It means it means I use my empathy and my experience to try to understand the players involved. It means I’m their advocate when they’re the victims of bias.”
“Bias? What the @#$% does bias have to do with it? You shoot the ball. It goes through the hoop or it doesn’t. It couldn’t be any simpler!”
“Well, just look at the results. Your team is scoring twice as many baskets as the other team. And the only difference I see is that Christ the King’s team is a bunch of white kids, while your team is made up entirely of African-Americans. Now unless you’re going to stand there and admit to being some kind of racist, bias is the only possible explanation.”
“You want an explanation? I got an explanation for you. We practice for three hours every night. My kids have been playing basketball every day since they could walk. They live for basketball. All they think about is basketball. Hell, half these kids think they’re going to end up in the NBA.”
“I see … so it’s cultural bias. Well, I still have to level the playing field.”
“Look at the damned court! You see any hills out there?”
“That’s not what I mean, but don’t feel bad. You don’t have the empathy to understand what it’s like to be a marginally athletic white adolescent who can’t touch the rim. But I do, and this allows me to make wiser decisions.”
“Wait a @#$%ing second! Are you telling me you’re calling this game based on the fact that you’re white and you want the white team to win?”
“Good gracious, no. I’m calling the game so the white kids have a chance to win. There’s a big difference.”
“Bull@#$%! You can’t do that!”
“This whistle says I can. And by the way, since your guys have been scoring twice as many points, from now on they get one point per basket. I believe that’ll make the game completely fair.”
“Oh yeah, smart guy? What about when my guys hit a three-pointer?”
“Boy, I hadn’t thought of that. The scoreboard can’t display a half-point. Well, that’s it, I’m ordering the school district to install a new scoreboard that can work with fractions. Until then you’ll get two points for a three-pointer, then Christ the King will get one automatic free throw.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“You’re right; they’re lousy shooters. Okay, two free throws.”
“Where the hell are you coming up with this stuff? Have you even read the rulebook?”
“Of course I have. It was required reading in ref school.”
“Then you should know you can’t just decide how many points we get for a basket! It’s not in the rulebook!”
“True, but you see, while The Founders of the Rulebook may have been experts on basketball, they couldn’t have anticipated a situation like we have here. I mean, we never had games like this until school busing ended up making your district entirely African-American. So you need to think of the rulebook as a living, breathing document.”
“A living–? What the @#$% does that mean?!”
“It means I get to interpret the rulebook in a way that brings about the kind of equality we all so urgently desire.”
“Look, ref, the rulebook means what it means. If you think the rulebook needs changing, you can call for a meeting of the rulebook committee. That’s how it’s supposed to be done.”
“I’m sorry, coach, but these kids need the rules to work for them now. Besides, the committee might not make the changes I want. I can’t risk that.”
“If they don’t make the changes you want, then they don’t make them! In the meantime, call the @#$%ing game the way the rules are written!”
“Look, coach, I’ve had it up to here with your racist, anti-progressive, strict-constructionist nonsense! You’re outta here!”
The Gaffemaster is at it again. A few days ago, Joe Biden gave a speech to the big government-employee labor union and claimed that the stimulus package has already created or saved at least 150,000 jobs. This is supposed to be great news, but there are couple of little problems with it.
The Gaffemaster performing.
Here’s one: there’s no actual data to back up that claim. Or, as the Obama-worshipping media put it, the figure is “elusive.” (Apparently the figure got loose and is running around the West Wing, hiding under desks and nibbling on staffers’ cookies when no one is looking.)
So Biden’s staff found itself scrambling to save the Gaffemaster’s bacon, saying the figure was in a report they compiled … but, uh, well, it’s not actually in the report, you see, but it could be in another report due later this year.
Well, that explains it. At least they didn’t claim they were misled by the CIA.
Before we look at the other problems with the “creating jobs” claim, I need to make a confession that I hope won’t anger my conservative friends: I’m glad Biden ended up as Obama’s vice-president. The prospect of a bad economy being “fixed” by big-spending socialists scares the hell out of me, and Biden provides some much-needed comic relief.
This is, after all, the guy who explained to Katie Couric that when the stock market crashed in 1929, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt immediately went on television to calm the public, thus preventing a major panic. If you’re not a history buff, here’s what’s wrong with that story: 1) FDR wasn’t elected until 1932, and 2) there were no home TV sets in 1929.
I suspect that sometime in the near future, Biden will explain how people who listened to the Lincoln-Douglas debates on the radio thought Lincoln won because his arguments were superior, but people who watched the debates on TV thought Douglas won because he looked better on camera.
And it was Biden who, while on the campaign trail, encouraged a man in wheelchair to “stand up and let ‘em see you!” The major media and the late-night comics didn’t find this funny enough to bring to the public’s attention, but you can find it on YouTube. (And remember: they labeled Dan Quayle a moron because he misspelled “potato.”)
So I’m glad we’ve got Biden. But I digress. Back to the problems with Biden’s speech.
We’ll start with a really big one. In fact, this is the single most-important concept to keep in mind when you hear politicians talking about how this or that government program will create jobs! Ready? Write it down:
Governments can’t create jobs.
If you didn’t get that the first time, don’t feel bad; most reporters go their entire careers and never get it. So I’ll say it again:
Governments can’t create jobs.
What governments can do is transfer jobs from the private sector to the public sector. Or, if they’re engaging in “stimulus,” they can transfer jobs from one industry to another, or from some future decade to the present. But they can’t create a net increase in jobs, any more than you or I can sit in a bucket and lift ourselves up by the handle.
Sure, governments can hire people. They do it all the time. And that would be a terrific jobs program if not for one minor detail: the people they hire have to be paid. The only way to pay them is to confiscate the money from other citizens. That’s money the other citizens can no longer spend – and consumer spending is what creates and supports jobs. (Even your average reporter understands that concept.)
So when you “create” government jobs, you destroy private-sector jobs. Politicians get away with the “creating jobs” charade because people can see the new government jobs (Oh, isn’t it lovely? People are working!), but not the private-sector jobs that were destroyed in the process – especially if we borrow the money to pay the government employees. Then we’re merely destroying jobs in the future.
Meanwhile, the taxpayers end up on the losing side of this equation, because their hard-earned money ends up buying goods and services they wouldn’t choose to buy for themselves.
Need a clear example? Here’s one: if I spend my money, I get a high-def TV, or a new computer, or a down payment on a bigger house. I want those things.
If Obama spends my money, I get an additional scientist writing papers explaining that the planet seems to be warmer than it was 30 years ago. Or I get an additional government-supported theater group in New York City performing angst-ridden plays I wouldn’t sit through if you paid me.
In which scenario am I wealthier?
In the “stimulus” model, we give the confiscated income to private companies instead of government employees, but it works the same way. We save jobs in some industries while destroying jobs in other industries … usually in industries that weren’t rich enough or smart enough to hire lobbyists. And once again, the government uses your money to buy goods and services that you wouldn’t buy for yourself. If we actually wanted GM cars, GM wouldn’t need a bailout.
The idea of the government “creating jobs” is so appealing, a lot people insist it can be done simply because they wish it could be done. And politicians make it sound feasible by tossing out phrases like “the multiplier effect.”
If you find yourself desperately wanting to believe this fantasy, try this real-world example: Suppose you have a job, but your wife is unemployed. Well, heck, just “create” a new job! Hire your wife at a salary equal to yours. Now all you have to do is use up your entire paycheck to fund her salary — but you must be better off, because you’re both working now.
(If you actually believe this would make you better off, you should take the civil service exam as soon as possible. You’re perfect for government work.)
But let’s suppose governments actually can create jobs. Suppose the mystical “multiplier” effect is real. Biden’s proud announcement that the Obama administration has saved or created 150,000 jobs still has a little problem: it’s called basic mathematics. Let’s do some.
The stimulus package came with a price tag of more than $700 billion. If we truly have “created” 150,000 jobs, that means each new job cost the taxpayers around $4.6 million. Only in Washington would this be considered a good deal. If you have a real job with a private enterprise, ask your boss for $46 million so you can hire 10 new employees. See what kind of reaction you get.
And if you believe in the multiplier effect, I want you to explain how one new job can multiply itself enough to justify taxing ourselves, our kids and our grandkids to the tune of $4.6 million. Cancer cells don’t multiply that rapidly.
But since I enjoy the comic relief Biden provides, I’m going to cut the guy some slack and assume that these newly-created jobs are just the beginning. After all, the stimulus package was promoted as a two-year program. I’ll pretend I’m an Obama-worshipping, economically illiterate media reporter and assume we can stimulate ourselves into creating a million new jobs with all that borrowed money – without destroying any private-sector jobs in the process.
In that case, it’ll only cost the taxpayers $700,000 for each job we create. Wow, what a bargain! If my daughter grows up to be a surgeon and pays $100,000 per year in income taxes, it’ll only take seven of her to clear the bill for each job we “created” while she was in kindergarten. (More, actually … let’s not forget about the interest on the debt.) She’ll be so happy to know we employed all those artists, ACORN activists, and global-warming researchers at her expense.
I’ll probably still be working too, helping to fund the pensions of government employees who get to retire at age 50 or 55. Since my kids will be grown, I may even take another shot at being a touring comedian.
If so, I hope Biden is still alive. I want him to open for me.
In a previous post, I explained how cutting $100 million from the federal budget is akin to me cutting 14 cents from my monthly budet. Here’s a YouTube video that demonstrates the same idea visually:
One of the biggest laugh-out-loud moments in the Mel Brooks classic film “Blazing Saddles” was the scene in which Cleavon Little arrives as the new sheriff in town. He’s black, the townsfolk are outraged, and they surround him threateningly. Little pulls his pistol, puts it to his own temple and says, “Back up! Back up, or I’ll blow this n*****’s head off!” The townsfolk are confused. They back away. An old lady wails, “Isn’t someone going to help that poor man?”
It doesn’t occur to a single one of them to invite the sheriff to go ahead and shoot.
I thought about that when AIG warned this week that it is still “toxic” – meaning that in spite of receiving $180 billion from the taxpayers, it could go belly up and (we are to believe) drag the rest of the economy down with it. This is the same threat we heard from banks, insurance companies, brokerage firms and automakers when they were demanding taxpayer bailouts: if you don’t take these toxic assets off our hands, the entire economy will fail.
In other words, after they managed to perch themselves on the brink of bankruptcy (aided and abetted by the “affordable housing” crowd in Congress), they stuck their pistols against their temples and said, “Bail us out! Bail us out, or we’ll blow this n*****’s head off!”
And the threat worked. To avoid having these business-school geniuses splatter themselves all over us, we gave them a trillion dollars, which we borrowed from our kids and grandkids. (And they can’t even vote yet. Didn’t we fight a fairly significant war over taxation without representation?) That’s a trillion dollars they won’t be able to spend to support businesses that would’ve provided them with jobs and products when they’re adults. We’ve made them worse off in advance.
If that concept is a bit too abstract, think of it this way: how would you like to be paying an extra $100 per week in taxes right now because your grandparents decided to bail out the Hudson Motor Company? What, you’ve never heard of Hudson? That’s because the company doesn’t exist anymore. And yet somehow, the country and the economy managed to survive. The country also weathered the failure of the horse and buggy industry.
When the GM executives put the pistol to their heads, they reminded Congress that 10 percent of all American jobs are auto-related. So by gosh, if they go under, 10 percent of the American workforce would be unemployed, right? Wrong. The auto industry wouldn’t go away; GM would go away. More efficient producers would buy up their assets and take over their markets. Americans would still buy cars, and those cars would still need parts and services.
But with their eyes fixed firmly on the polls, Congress decided somebody has to help that poor man! And now the business community and conservative pundits are shocked – SHOCKED! – that the “help” came with strings attached. You know, minor stuff, such as the administration deciding who will run the companies and what kind of cars GM will produce.
“Does the Obama administration really believe they know how to run an automobile company?!” screams the conservative press. Yes, of course they do. Someone once asked Milton Friedman why socialism appeals to so many intellectuals. He answered that socialism doesn’t necessarily appeal to smart people; it appeals to people who believe they’re smarter than everyone else.
So a bunch of arrogant leftists believe they know how to run the auto industry, the mortgage industry, the banking industry, the brokerage industry, and of course the health-care industry. Am I supposed to be outraged? Hell, I’m not even surprised. It’s exactly what I expected from this crowd.
My outrage is reserved for the supposed capitalists who put the pistols to their heads and threatened to shoot. They took taxpayer money. They made the federal government the major stockholder in what had been private businesses.
Please think about what that means. In supposedly competitive industries that are largely regulated by Washington, the federal government now has a financial stake in who wins and who loses. If the feds were “invested” in a business that competes with yours, wouldn’t that scare you just a little?
But fear not. The administration has promised that this public-private “partnership” will be temporary. Sure … like the temporary federal income tax enacted during World War One, and the temporary farm subsidies enacted during the Depression.
We should’ve gone for the permanent option. We should’ve invited the failed capitalists to blow their own heads off. I’m sure the rest of us would’ve survived – and our grandkids would be a trillion dollars richer.
You said after you and Dad retired that you hoped to discover your purpose in life someday. Since you’ve read rather a lot on spiritual topics, you already know that people who’ve had near-death experiences often recount being told to return to their lives, and to remember that the purpose of an earthly life is to love, to learn, and to teach.
If that’s true (and I like to think it is) then you’ve already been living your purpose, even if you’re unaware of it.
When I was attending Illinois State, I met some of your former students, and they all thought you were a marvelous teacher. I could’ve told them that. I’ve been attending the Shirley Naughton School of Moms for five decades. Here’s just some of what I’ve learned:
Pre-preschool: Moms are warm and sweet, and they kiss you a lot because they love you. When you grow up, you will probably marry Mom.
Preschool: Moms don’t like it if you use your crayons to create an artistic expression on the bricks. If you draw on the bricks, Mom will make sure you learn how to remove crayon marks with a toothbrush. She will still love you, though.
Kindergarten: Moms know how to make buttered toast with cinnamon and sugar and hot milk poured on top. This is quite possibly the best breakfast ever invented.
First Grade: If you don’t wear your scarf and hat, you’ll get an earache. Moms warn you about these things because they love you.
Second Grade: If you get an earache, it’s okay to wake up Mom in the middle of the night and tell her about it. She’ll hug you and kiss you so you’ll feel better. The next day, she’ll take you to the doctor. He’ll put oily stuff in your ears. And you should’ve worn your scarf and hat.
Third Grade: Moms know how to take an ordinary can of Spaghetti-Os and turn it into the best lunch ever invented. They do this by mixing in pieces of hot dogs. It’s a lot of work, but they do it anyway because they love you.
Fourth Grade: Really good Moms become den mothers for a bunch of Cub Scouts. They teach you techniques for creating modern art, such as gluing split peas to a jelly glass and spray-painting the whole thing gold. You can give these masterpieces to your grandparents.
Fifth Grade: Moms don’t like slugs. If you find a slug on the sidewalk, you definitely should not put it on the kitchen counter shortly before Mom walks in to cook. Hearing your mother scream isn’t as much fun as you might think. If you do put a slug on the kitchen counter, Mom will still love you.
Sixth Grade: If you learn a new song at school, Mom would like to hear you sing it. If you sing really well, your Mom will say so. If you don’t sing really well, she’ll say you do anyway. You probably shouldn’t judge your talents based on what Mom says.
Seventh Grade: If they are surprised, Moms can forget what their own kids look like. If you forget your homework, you probably should not let yourself into the house through the garage door and surprise Mom coming out of the bathroom. In this situation, Moms often mistake their kids for axe murderers. If you do grow up and become an axe murderer, your Mom will still love you and tell people you’re just confused.
Eighth Grade: Moms love dogs. They also love hamsters and guinea pigs. If you want any of these animals for pets, you should go straight to Mom.
Ninth Grade: If you make Mom angry enough, she’ll spank you. This isn’t much of a concern, however, because it doesn’t hurt. Also, it will probably only happen two or three times in your entire life.
Tenth Grade: Good Moms love your friends and feed them better meals than they get at home. They also talk to your friends as if they have brains, which is true in most cases. This means your friends will want to spend a lot of time at your house.
Eleventh Grade: Moms are smart! They can go to college and learn about English literature and philosophy. The good news is that if you’ve also been reading literature and philosophy, you can enjoy talking to Mom about those subjects. The bad news is that sometimes you’ll end up talking until 2:00 in the morning and spend the next day feeling tired and not all that philosophical.
Twelfth Grade: If you’re studying literature in school, you should raid Mom’s library and see if she’s already read whatever book you’ve been assigned. If she has, you could almost write a term paper on what you glean from the notes she scribbled in the margins. At the very least, you’ll have some interesting points to raise in class and impress the teacher.
College, First Year: Moms love you and don’t care what you plan to do for a living as long as you’re happy.
College, Second Year: Moms don’t mind if your band practices in the basement. They like hearing the same song fifty or sixty times in one week.
College, Third Year: Moms love you and don’t care what you plan to do for a living as long as you’re happy.
College, Fourth Year: When you come home for weekends and holidays, Moms celebrate by making Beef Bourguignon. This is the best dinner ever invented and only takes a couple of days to whip together.
College, Fifth Year: Moms love you and don’t care what you plan to do for a living as long as you’re happy.
Early Twenties: When your best friend is getting married, Moms will make moussaka for the rehearsal party. This is the second-best dinner ever invented and only takes a couple of days to whip together. The next morning, it’s also the best breakfast ever invented.
Later Twenties: If you write a play, Mom will be reasonably sure you’ve established yourself as a literary genius.
Thirty: Moms don’t care if you can’t find anything to do for a living as long as you’re not completely miserable. Moms will assure you that if you follow your dreams, something good will happen.
Early Thirties: Moms are good to your girlfriends and can even miss them when you decide you didn’t actually mean to get engaged. Some girlfriends will tell you they wish they’d had your Mom instead of theirs.
Mid Thirties: Moms make excellent comedic material. If you can’t make people laugh by talking about your Mom, you’d better find another career to pursue.
Later Thirties: Great Moms make great Grandmas. Contrary to what some little grandsons believe, grandmothers don’t necessarily live in little houses that smell bad, and it can make you feel warm and fuzzy to see how much your nephews like going to grandma’s house.
Forties: Little boys don’t actually grow up and marry their Moms. But when the lucky ones grow up, they do get married and are almost ridiculously happy because they learned how to love and be loved - from Mom.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. You really are a marvelous teacher.
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