The Chicken Whisperer

Uh...

My friend Geb sends this along. I frankly don't have anything appropriate to say about it.

Kiss Liberty Goodbye if....

The court decides with New London. If you don't have true property rights, you don't have liberty.

I Love Cobb County, Georgia

Yes, we here in Cobb County have had several notorious and stupid policies by our local government (the anti-gay resolution of last decade, and the current attempt by Creationists to put stickers in books to discredit evolution). But, you know what? I don't care. This is a county that continually votes against sales tax increases. Yes, we have schools opening up overcrowded from day 1. Still, our citizens seem to understand that population growth equals increase property values which means increased property tax revenue from the increase values AND volume of citizens and their commercial shopping spaces. So, why do we need a new sales tax? This causes great stress to the Atlanta Journal and Constitution's editorial board, but its a badge of honor. Now, apparently the county commission is proposing another sales tax referendum that would increase our lowest in the state sales taxes. This time for "infrastructure" and a new court house. And, as these reader responses to the an AJC article on the tax proposal indicates, this tax increase may well be headed down in flames as well. Here's hoping that the citizens of Cobb continue to make me proud and ask a simple question! What's wrong with the current court house?

Anti-Home Schoolers are Statist Reactionaries

In case there was any doubt that home schoolers are a threat to the very idea of state control, this political cartoon spells it out in plain site. I don't mean to go all raving libertarian on you, but this cartoon is so full of angry and ignorant stereotypes, never mind the willfull ignorance ot the many abuses that occurs at public schools, it is amazing it got by the editor.

I have no idea of the reputation or political tilt of the newspaper it is printed in, but this speaks ill of it. According to this, child abuse apparently only occurs at home and if we let people home school, then the state can't keep an eye on the children. After all, it takes a village to raise kids. Or something.

If I had a nickel for everytime somebody raised the idea that only religious nutjobs homeschool (never mind the incredible growth of homeschooling by non-religious people) I'd be rich enough to open a private school. Why is it that Andrea Yates is allowed to tar the reputation of all homeschoolers, but I'm not allowed to view Columbine or any of the other school shootings as a black eye towards public schools? Oh, that's right. It's not the schools, its the guns. Then how come I can't point to the hundreds of sexual abuse cases that occur by teachers and gym coaches on an annual basis? Or how 'bout the usual ass whoopin that home schooled kids do on their public school counterparts in that apparently unimportant realm of academics? But only deviants homeschool while the government, through its public schools, is the only safe place for kids to grow up in. After all, we need the watchful eye of big brother of well meaning teachers to prevent child abuse.

My wife and I are the farthest thing from religious nuts, yet homeschooling is one of three options (home, private and public schools) that we view as equal in our choices for our son. But, there I go using that word "choice." We know of at least one political party that views choice as being only something afforded to pregnant women who would like to abort their fetuses. Beyond that, its government knows best.

OK, end rant.

Iraq wasn't just about WMD, For the 188th Time

Normblog reminds that democratizing Iraq wasn't a goal in Iraq that Bush just came up with when the WMDs didn't turn up. It was always part of the plan.

Won't Kerry Just Go Away?

That's not me. That's my favorite Democrat, Mickey Kaus. He's been on a roll lately covering the Eason Jordan affair and the obvious conflict of interesting fo the Washington Post's Howard Kurts. But, his other main subject is on how the Democrats can politely (and not so politely if need be) tell John Kerry to can any ideas of running again.

The Tragedy of Being a Woman

James Lileks has a great take on a Newsweek article that apparently takes the point that because its stressful trying to be a supermom, we need to tax the rich more. Seriously, this appears to be the leap the author takes. Lileks takes apart the article in his typically irreverent way. Normally I'd say to skip past Lilek's initial rundown of his day, but I think he's especially descriptive in this article in order to make his point more thoroughly.

A sample:

I don't dispute that women are stressed, face a variety of conflicting expectations, etc. Welcome to the world. But I cannot take the article seriously when it puts forth a specious thesis like this:

Women today mother in the excessive, control-freakish way that they do in part because they are psychologically conditioned to do so. But they also do it because, to a large extent, they have to. Because they are unsupported, because their children are not taken care of, in any meaningful way, by society at large. Because there is right now no widespread feeling of social responsibility—for children, for families, for anyone, really—and so they must take everything onto themselves.

Imagine that. You have to take the responsibility of your children on yourselves. The day I expect "society" to take care of my child in a meaningful way is the day I give society the right to take her away and do a better job if I don't schedule daily flash-card phonics sessions.

Now, go read the rest. It's not near as anti-woman as it may sound, and his larger point is that the patronizing "oh the tragedy of being a woman" attitude of the article is actually what is anti-woman.

The Eason Jordan Affair, Epilogue

In case you haven't heard about the Eason Jordan affair (and you probably didn't since the media didn't cover the story until after he resigned), the long and short of it is this: CNN Executive Eason Jordan said at the Davos conference a couple of weeks ago that the U.S. military targeted journalists and killed them. He was very popular with the Arab crowd after this remark, but a couple of Congressman in attendance (Democrat Barney Frank, for example) asked him to offer evidence, which led Jordan to back down. After a couple weeks of people asking for a video tape from Davos and with CNN saying he was being misquoted, Jordan finally resigned. All the pressure came from the weblogs and NOT the national media who largely ignored the story of the head of the America's supposedly most trusted news network accusing the U.S. military of assasinating journalist while offering no evidence. If true, it would the biggest military scandal since Vietnam, but of course, he had no evidence. He was probably speaking to the anti-American crowd and wasn't prepared for people on this side of the Atlantic to actually take him seriously.

Anyway, the main stream media has reacted with charges of a witch hunt and all those crazy right wing bloggers being a lynchmob. Of course, it was more of a case of the media elites being pissed that they tried, unsuccessfully, to bury a story of a fellow journalist displaying his anti-American bias on his sleave.

Peggy Noonon at the WSJ has a great epilogue on the whole affair and how the main stream media would be better off getting used to coexisting with the weblogs and appreciating that the weblogs are chasing what the media elites are supposedly after: the truth.

Where Have I Been?

No, I haven't forgotten about the Chicken Whisperer, but I have been involved in getting another weblog off the ground. My friend Geb and I are starting a Video Game and Personal Tech weblog, one that we will try to make a little cash on the side from. So, I've been coding html, learning a little about Movable Type and cgi while Geb did his magic with the graphics. Moreover, I've been researching advertising and associate programs like Google AdSense and Amazon Associates. It's been taking up a lot of my spare time so I just haven't had it in me to post to much here.

Well, today, we went live. If you have any interest in my favorite hobby, video games and PC hardware, check out Nomad Gamer for interesting links and commentary on those topics.

Hopefully, after the initial trial and error stage of "oh crap, this doesn't look right, I need to code this a different way" the backend work on the site will sort itself out and I can just post to it with little other work.

So, by this weekend, I should be back to posting on this site with more regularity. Thanks for you patience.

The Latest Social Security Lie

Rabid lefty Paul Krugman, of the NY Times, had a column that purported that the White House's personal accounts idea was the equivalent of borrowing on margin (i.e. taking a loan out and then investing it in stocks). Donald Luskin torpedoes the lie that this is and notes that the private accounts are merely an opportunity costs. In other words, you forgo a low guaranteed rate of return for the chance at a much higher return. Your opportunity costs is the amount of the low guaranteed rate. Here's Luskin's simple to understand explanation which apparently is too difficult for lefty economists to comprehend:

Here's an example. Suppose you have $1000 in a money market fund earning 3%, and you are considering investing that money in the stock market. The opportunity cost of that investment will be 3%, because you give up the 3% yield of the money market fund. That means you'll only come out net ahead on the stock investment if it returns more than 3% -- just as in proposed Social Security personal accounts. But there's no loan involved here. None.

In this case, your future benefits are analogous to the money market fund. In order to invest in stocks in your personal accounts, you have to give up the future benefits. A simple trade-off. An opportunity cost. Not a loan.

Here's what a real loan would look. You have that $1000 in the money market fund, but you want to invest $2000 in the stock market. So you borrow an additional $1000 from your stockbroker.

Or in the case of Social Security, suppose you are a struggling young African American working for minimum wage. You urgently want to own stocks, so you can start building a nest egg for your family. But you have no money to invest, because Social Security taxes have sucked up anything you could have set aside from your small earnings. So you manage to borrow some money, and you invest it in stocks. That's a loan. That's speculation. And that's what the opponents of personal accounts would prefer for America.

Be sure to read the rest to see the low standards of journalism in action at the New York Times.

The Social Security debate is only going to get nastier. Just remember, that your goal shouldn't be what is financially best for the social security system, but what is financially best for you and your family. Giving you the CHOICE to invest in the private accounts or take the low rate offered by the standard Social Security system is really about freedom to use your tax dollars for yourself. Apparently, this provides to much freedom for liberals, who somewhere around 1965 warped liberalism into something that is decidedly illiberal and anti-choice. Well, anti-choice when it involves something other than aborting fetuses.