Defenestrating Thoughts from the Bivouac

Apparently the government is considering changing or getting rid of the ridiculous color-coded terrorism alert system. The system has five colors, but the bottom two (blue and green) have never been used, while the top (red) was only used once. So, aside from that one time, for the past 9 years, the level has been either “High Risk” or “Elevated Risk”.

So, what should I do differently if we’re at “High Risk” as opposed to “Elevated Risk”? I’m not sure anyone knows, which, of course, severely limits the system’s usefulness.

But, fear not. The Department of Homeland Security is setting up a task force to look into it:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will appoint a “task force” made up of national, state, and local government experts, possibly including governors and mayors, to examine whether the color-coded system has outlived its usefulness. Bush administration officials who developed and oversaw the system may also play a role. The committee is likely to solicit comments about the alert system from industries affected by it, including airlines and companies that make or ship hazardous materials. The committee will have 60 days to examine the system and draw up recommendations on its future.

Since it’s a “task force” and not an “tiger team”, you know they mean business. :-P

A friend sent me a link to this commentary about the housing market, the societal and political changes that brought us here, and what to expect moving forward. It is definitely worth reading in its entirety (note: there’s some bad language); here’s a good excerpt:

The lies we’ve been told by government, corporate America, and the media are no worse than the lies we’ve told ourselves. We have tripled the size of our houses, and reduced the sense of community in our nation. Many have perfectly manicured lawns, polished appliances, 12 spotless rooms and dysfunctional, aloof, joyless lives. A McMansion, stainless steel appliances, 6 flat screens, and granite countertops do not guarantee happiness. When all of these items are bought on credit, you have a tragedy. America has degenerated into a materialistic, corrupt, me first, soul-less society. Nobody is right. Nobody is wrong. Everyone deserves to win, even if they made horrible decisions. Unless this changes soon, this country is doomed. By 2020 the United States will essentially be an old aged pension fund with an army.

This just cracks me up:

(Source)

The Army last month stopped accepting felons and recent drug abusers into its ranks as the nation’s economic downturn helped its recruiting, allowing it to reverse a decline in recruiting standards that had alarmed some officers. (Source)

I guess this is good news…

As you know, Crissy and I have been quite the nomads the past few weeks. On Sunday, we got back from about 5 days in California. All this traveling has given me some interesting anecdotes about the theater of the airport and border security.

First of all, it was much, much easier to enter Switzerland than for us to re-enter our own country. In Zurich, the guy just scanned our passports and said “Have a nice visit!” Customs was opt-in; if you had nothing to declare, just walk out of the airport! No forms, no fuss.

Granted, it wasn’t hard to re-enter the US, but it was quite annoying. Fill out this form, stand in this line, answer lots of questions, go stand in this line, answer more questions, and so on.

The fact that it’s easier to enter a foreign nation then your own is pretty frustrating.

Now about that stupid secondary screening. Usually, you only go to secondary screening if there’s a reason, like the TSA saw something weird in your carry-on luggage. Sometimes though, if TSA is staffed for it, they will “randomly” select people for secondary. And, as you may expect, I usually get chosen “randomly”.

It’s especially frustrating now that the Denver airport installed those Millimeter wave scanners. If you’re not familiar with these contraptions, they are basically scanners that produce a “three-dimensional image of the body, with facial features blurred for privacy.” These images are then reviewed by “by a Transportation Security Officer in a remote location.”

In other words, some guy is sitting in a dark room by himself and looking at naked pictures of you.

Fortunately, on my way back from California, I accidentally discovered a way for me to avoid secondary screening: stand in line behind a Sikh man.

Seriously, since the Sikh in front of me was wearing a turban, the TSA guys sent him straight to secondary and swooped in on him. I just walked right through as if as I were, well, white.

And how about that liquids rule? On a earlier trip, as I was departing the security area, I noticed that the flight attendant ahead of me had 2 1-liter bottles of water in her carry-on and had no problems getting through security!

Since we’re not supposed to have liquids (unless they are less than 3 oz), I was a little confused and asked her why the TSA didn’t take her water. It turns out that the airport worker unions raised a huge stink about the rules, so any airport employee is allowed to bring as much liquid as they want past security.

So, if you’re keeping track, I believe it’s: (1) unions are more important than “security”, (2) “security” is more important than liberty, and by the transitive property, (3) unions are more important than liberty. :-P

I came across an interesting article from NASA about how aerosols partly contribute to arctic warming and this passage jumped out at me:

Sulfates, which come primarily from the burning of coal and oil, scatter incoming solar radiation and have a net cooling effect on climate. Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed a series of laws that have reduced sulfate emissions by 50 percent. While improving air quality and aiding public health, the result has been less atmospheric cooling from sulfates.

How weird is that? I guess it just goes to show how important the Law of Unintended Consequences is when we’re trying to control complex systems.

Reminds me of what Henry Hazlitt said about economics (which is pretty applicable to every field):

The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

Right after I posted about how government policy uncertainty is preventing a recovery, I came across an interesting article with recent comments from Fidelity’s Edward Johnson:

Johnson, sounding like he’s never been a big fan of the original New Dealers from the 1930s, warned of too much government involvement in the economy and indicated Fidelity is beefing up its government-affairs unit to fend off possibly burdensome new regulations.

Now there’s a money quote! With the market paralyzed with uncertainty about what the next random game-changing policy to come out of Washington will be, companies are hiring lobbyists in an attempt to protect themselves!

So, I guess Obama’s job creation plan is working; it’s creating all sorts of demand for lobbyists.

(Source: Dilbert.com)

I’ve written before how Environmentalism is basically becoming a religious dogma where logical thinking or reasoning is not allowed. I firmly believe that there is already significant intrinsic motivation to be a good steward and take care of the environment, but the Environmentalist Dogma is relying on simplistic slogans and dogmatic behavior, which causes more harm than good. Michael Crichton gave a great talk on this a few years ago, which I strongly recommend reading.

Today we’re very worried about global warming; but did you know that 30 years ago we were terrified of global cooling?

Citing ominous signs that the earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically, the magazine warned of an impending drastic decline in food production. Political disruptions stemming from food shortages could affect just about every nation on earth. (Source)

Part of the problem is that this sort of dogmatic attitude leads to people blindly simple ideas like “more gas mileage is good”. This, in turn, leads to legislative proposals like tax breaks if you crush your old car in favor of buying a new car with better gas mileage:

[O]wners of older cars would get vouchers worth thousands of dollars toward the purchase of newer, more fuel-efficient vehicle… To qualify for a voucher, a car buyer would have to trade in a vehicle with EPA-rated fuel economy lower than 18 miles per gallon… For the customer to get that cash, the car dealer would have to certify that the trade-in was getting scrapped and not resold…

…

Crushing the old car has two benefits. First, it ensures that the consumer’s purchase of a more efficient vehicle actually has a net environmental benefit.

Really? It has an net environmental benefit? Sure, you have less gas consumed, but what about the manufacturing costs of making the car? Building a car has a lot of environmental impact. And this proposal subsidizes the destruction of working cars in order to replace them with a new one.

This actually has a worse environmental impact than driving the car until no longer runs. Using goods for the longest time possible (barring game-changing technological advancement) is conservation which is what we’re supposed to do. Instead, this proposal claims that unnecessary destruction and resource-intensive production of replacements is going to produce a net gain.

Which is clearly ludicrous.

Another case where this gets interesting is with wildfires and logging. We’re told “logging is always bad”. During the deadly Australian wildfires a few weeks ago, environmentalists were quick to point to “Climate Change” as the cause. But in this area of Austrialia, they have a yearly “wildfire season”. Normally, residents can allowed to clear out underbrush and maintain the land so the fires can be controlled, but no longer:

Angry residents last night accused local authorities of contributing to the bushfire toll by failing to let residents chop down trees and clear up bushland that posed a fire risk.

[Residents] criticised the Nillumbik council for the limitations it placed on residents wanting the council’s help or permission to clean up around their properties in preparation for the bushfire season. “We’ve lost two people in my family because you d—heads won’t cut trees down,” he said. (Source)

In fact, one family went ahead and maintained their land. Though they had to pay significant fines, they feel they did the right thing: “We have got proof right here. We are the only house standing in a two-kilometre area (source).”

Now, finally, after people have died, the policy makers said, “changes were likely to be made about the council’s policy surrounding native vegetation.” If they had only thought through the consequences of their decisions in the first place instead of making snap judgements based on dogma, those people may not have died.

A friend of mine has an annoying co-worker who is trying to be “green” by turning off lights in every room that is unoccupied. As my friend is frequently in and out of his office, he comes back to find the light out many times a day. After all, “turning off the lights is good”. Finally my friend had to post this note:

Please do not turn off these lamps

These lamps use a fluorescent bulb with an integrated ballast. This bulb is no longer manufactured.

Turning the bulb on and off frequently accelerates ballast failure in fluorescent lights.

Once the ballast fails, the bulb and the entire lamp (as bulbs are no longer available) must be disposed. The company will then need to replace the lamps and bulbs at a cost of approximately $100 per lamp. Turning the light on and off will accelerate the replacement; accordingly, turning the lamps on and off is not a cost savings.

Additionally, the carbon footprint of a new lamp, manufactured in and shipped from China where in excess of 66% energy is from coal sources, is arguably higher than that of the additional electricity consumed by leaving the lights on in this region where energy is in excess of 40% from hydroelectric sources.

Lastly, the hype and “sky is falling” mentality is causing psychological problems for people:

Last year, an anxious, depressed 17-year-old boy was admitted to the psychiatric unit at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. He was refusing to drink water. Worried about drought related to climate change, the young man was convinced that if he drank, millions of people would die. The Australian doctors wrote the case up as the first known instance of “climate change delusion.”

Robert Salo, the psychiatrist who runs the inpatient unit where the boy was treated, has now seen several more patients with psychosis or anxiety disorders focused on climate change, as well as children who are having nightmares about global-warming-related natural disasters. (Source)

Remember, I firmly believe that there is a significant intrinsic motivation to be a good steward and take good care of the environment. This attitude needs to be fostered through logic and reason, not through propaganda and mindless slogans. Dogma of any kind is very harmful to a society, as it dumbs down the populace and makes them susceptible to more dogmatic propaganda moving forward.

President Obama is very gifted at controlling the public’s and media’s perception of him. Though, as I’ve noted before, his real actions don’t match his rhetoric and it seems like the same cast of characters continues to have significant influence on what gets done.

Last week, we heard a lot about Obama’s plan to limit the salaries of any executives at companies that take taxpayer money. This plan got fantastic press coverage and reaction. People were very happy as this seemed to indicate a departure from “business as usual” and embody the “Change” we were promised.

The devil, however, is always in the details:

For companies getting massive assistance to prevent a wide collapse, the $500,000 cap on senior officer pay would be mandatory. So far the government has provided that kind of extraordinary aid to only a few companies, including American International Group, Citigroup and Bank of America.

Because the rules do not apply retroactively to any of the 359 banks that have received government aid, these three firms are not subject to the new restrictions. But administration officials said they expect the government will need to stage more such rescues as the financial system continues to deteriorate.

For the bulk of firms getting fresh government aid, the new limits would be voluntary. Companies could waive the restrictions by disclosing executive compensation publicly and, if requested, allow a shareholder resolution on the matter, though the results would not be binding. (Source)

The salary caps only apply to companies that receive “extraordinary” aid: AIG, Citigroup, and Bank of America. And all of them are exempt because they were grandfathered in! So the billions of taxpayer money given to these firms continues to have no terms or even oversight on where the money went.

Furthermore, for the 356 remaining banks, the new limits are voluntary and salary disclosure requirements can be waived at the company’s discretion.

One of Obama’s first major acts is all smoke and mirrors. He pretends to lead us with great reform, when in reality it accomplishes absolutely nothing. It’s par for the course in Washington; where’s the change?

So when I hear that the students of a local high school want to rename the school to Barack Obama High, it just makes me sad.

Let’s wait until he actually does something before we deify him. If this is really the “change” he’s going to deliver, I think you may want to hold off on renaming the high school.