Wow

NOAA Scientist Admits White House Created Gulf Oil Spill Report Not the NOAA.

Not much to say about this one, except that this is the 2nd time they've tried this exact same thing on this exact same topic.

I'm sorry to have to tell you this

But "the internet is over".

Thank you, Artist-Formerly-Known-as-the-Artist-Formerly-Known-as-Prince-not-to-mention-the-unpronounceable-symbol-thingy.  I appreciate you telling us.  Now I can go back to my 1980's life, just like you.

from the dept. of stupid

"EPA classifies milk as oil".

No, seriously.  Farmers, you've now got to have a spill prevention plan and extra spill-storage tanks if you have dairy cattle.

No mention in this article about what prevention measures are necessary if when cows release deadly poisonous methane from their backsides into the environment.

Economics 101 - ebook edition

Found this NYT article through Marginal Revolution.  Here is the relevant quote:

“The sense of entitlement of the American consumer is absolutely astonishing,” said Douglas Preston, whose novel “Impact” reached as high as No. 4 on The New York Times’s hardcover fiction best-seller list earlier this month. “It’s the Wal-Mart mentality, which in my view is very unhealthy for our country. It’s this notion of not wanting to pay the real price of something.”

In which Mr. Preston confuses price with cost.
Listen.  It "costs" the book publishers a certain amount of money to create, in this case, a physical book called "Impact".  That cost includes royalties to the author and salaries to the various employees who do editing, copyediting, proofing, art design, marketing, and production among many others.  Also included in that cost are charges for paper and ink.  We won't even get into pro-rated portions of property, plant, and equipment.  Add up everything that goes into creating, publishing, and distributing the work of fiction called "Impact".  That, Mr. Preston, is the publisher's "cost".
Then there is the middle man: Barnes and Noble, Amazon, your local book shop.  That book shop has certain expenses it must cover also, and therefore must sell the book at some dollar amount over and above what they paid for it.  This is called the retail profit.
Price, on the other hand, is what a willing buyer (me, the book reader) will pay to a willing seller (Amazon) in exchange for a good or service, in this case, your book.  That is the "real price".  The willing seller must make a profit.  The willing buyer must get something of value for the money exchanged.  If the bookseller cannot make a profit, they can either reduce their costs, or in the long run, go out of business.  If the buyer (me, the book reader) does not feel like he would receive enough value for the price the seller is charging, the buyer will not purchase the good or service - or he will purchase the good or service from a competitor of the book shop.
On a more macro level, and in a competitive marketplace (in which booksellers and publishers operate), the ultimate price of the book is determined by supply and demand, which changes over time.  The "Wal-Mart mentality" that you so decry is the economic theory of supply and demand playing out, and applying downward pressure on book prices.

The great thing about the capitalist marketplace is, if you don't like it, or if you can't make enough profit you can either find a different (more cost-effective) way of doing business or you leave the industry altogether.

The Mindset of a Thoroughly Modern Liberal

From Kos, in the aftermath of Scott Brown's win in MA, comes this commenter:

MHB: What we’re witnessing is the product of a corrupt media and a dumb, distractable electorate. I’m not sure that anything can be done at this point, but one thing I am sure of is that continuing to operate on the premise that the majority of Americans are reasonable, intelligent people who will do the right thing if the facts are presented to them objectively is not going to work. I know that it’s not what most people who come to this site want to hear, but most Americans need to be manipulated into doing the right thing. Reasoning with them might be the morally correct thing to do, but is simply not going to get the job done.

That, my friends, is a disgustingly good example of a "progressive's" mindset.

The culture of unions

The headline of the (Allentown, PA) Morning Call news story reads:
Union troubled by Eagle Scout project in Allentown.

Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park.

"We'll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails," Balzano told the council.

Balzano said Saturday he isn't targeting Boy Scouts. But given the city's decision in July to lay off 39 SEIU members, Balzano said "there's to be no volunteers." No one except union members may pick up a hoe or shovel, plant a flower or clear a walking path.

Let me just say for the record: you are a sick man.

Study: Stupid Laws Produce Stupid Results

Another in the long line of the unintended consequences of government intervention. I forget what number we're up to now.
Anyway, there are federal subsidies in Porkulus that will help you invest in the lucrative market for...golf carts.

The IRS also has ruled there’s no limit to how many electric cars an individual can buy, the Journal reports, inspiring some enterprising investors to stock up on multiple carts while the federal credit lasts, in order to resell them at a profit later on.

Seriously. What does it take to get lawmakers to just shut up and stop making stupid laws?

Clueless

More than an hour after its first reports, CNN anchor Kyra Phillips said on the air that CNN's initial report [ed. note: of guns fired during a Coast Guard training excercise] stemmed from someone saying "bang, bang, bang" over a radio frequency monitored by the network's police scanner.

So they can't tell the difference between someone saying "bang, bang, bang" and actual gunfire. Idiots.

The Quest for Truth That Matters

This article is as good a summary of why it's important to look at both sides of an argument and not just pay attention to what your side is saying.

Today, conservatives and liberals can join vacation tours attended by only their side of the debate or join dating services to court only the like minded. At night, one side watches only MSNBC and the other side only Fox News. And when people are around likeminded individuals, one study found, their viewpoints only become that much more extreme.

And this:

We are ever more polarized today and so may be the conspiracies. The less each base understands the other side perhaps the more outlandish the theories become, in order explain the hold of the other side.

There was a good post up at Behavior Gap the other day about the folly of single-factor decision making. It applies here thusly: people are complex. This is easy to say, out of context, but oddly it's very hard to say when talking about people with whom you disagree strongly. Humans have a tendency to reduce the behavior we find distasteful in others down to one single characteristic: "oh, he's just a drunk", "oh, she's just a bitch", "oh, democrats just are stupid, they just want to take over the world with their socialist agenda". What's wrong with this?
Well, it takes away everything that makes a person a person, for one thing, their history, their family experiences, their religious beliefs, their lifetime of love, hate, hurt, anger, remorse, elation, and sanguinity.
He is not just a drunk. He's manic-depressive because he's gone through more crap in his life than you will ever dream about, and he can't handle it very well anymore. She's not a bitch. She's a single mother, insecure about her position at the company, and she wants to be liked, but she's afraid to be seen to fail lest she lose her job and have no money to feed her children.
As I have said before, the closer you get to someone, the harder it is to demonize them. Throwing stones only works when you stay at a distance. No one of us wants to be seen as one-dimensional. So why, just because you disagree with something someone else believes, would you reduce them to labels like "stupid", "power-hungry", or "elitist"? Because you don't want to take the time to get to know them more fully. Because if you did, you might find that they aren't easy to label at all. You might find that you will change your mind, or at least your attitude.

That's a pretty daunting concept, isn't it?

Teenagers and their sex drive

The Political Law of Unintended Consequences continues...except that this consequence was so very obvious, you'd have to be stupid...or a liberal...to not see it coming.
From the UK:

A multi-million pound initiative to reduce teenage pregnancies more than doubled the number of girls conceiving.

The Government-backed scheme tried to persuade teenage girls not to get pregnant by handing out condoms and teaching them about sex.

Original article here, commentary here. A PW commenter puts it very succinctly:

Don’t ya love it? Am I the only one to notice that if a leftist/liberal/democrat says that doing “A” will stop “B” from happening then YOU KNOW that what’s going to REALLY happen is more “B”?

Rents high?
Introduce rent control = Higher rents.

Teens getting pregnant?
Teach them birth control = More teen pregnancies.

High cost of Health care?
Government backed health insurance = Higher health care costs.

Economy in recession?
Government bailouts and buyouts and stimulus = Depression.

High murder rate in cities?
Eliminate citizens owning guns = highest murder rate in U.S.

Couldn't have said it better myself.