The Chinese New Year Parade is upon us. Soon Butte's Chinese New Year Parade will being. It's the Coldest, Loudest, and Shortest Chinese New Year Parade In the World. Today was the day to take the dragon out of is home at the Mai Wah Chinese History Museum and put it in the courthouse. The parade will take it back.

And of course like years past there will be firecrackers all along the parade route. However unlike years past this time the whole affair will be illegal. The Council of Commissioners showed a profound disregard for personal freedoms last month and passed an ordinance against fireworks except for immediately before and after New Years and the 4th. This is the face of 0 fireworks related incidents; and after reassurance to the public that Chinese New Year would be specifically excluded from the ban.

Labels: Chinese New Year, image, Montana, politics, rights

There is a law that prevents any foreign person or entity from operating a domestic airline. I'm sure it's very well intentioned. We don't want the French or Chinese to buy up all our airlines. Nor would it be all that bright to have most domestic air service provided by an individual who may well hate Americans.

However... It should be my choice. If Aeroflot wants to give me non-stop service from Bert Mooney here in Butte to San Francisco International they should be allowed. I would find that a very compelling product. And the risks are mine. I'll take the risk that Aeroflot is in for the money and thus has a vested interest in my safe arrival.

Further... Freedom of the sky means greater peace. If Iran (just as an example) uses JFK as a hub for its substantial service provided to Americans then our Government is going to that much less likely to fabricate some reason to attack them. In the off chance Iran deserves a good ass whoopin' I would imagine that Americans would come out the wood work to neutralize any threat poised by Iran Air.

In any case... This law has ensnared Virgin Atlantic. Branson is a Brit and that disqualifies him from prodding us excellent service. I've never met Sir Branson (it's Sir, right?) but from everything I've heard I would imagine any airline he makes would be great. His intention (if I may be so bold as to tell you what Branson's intentions are) is to provide a safe, high-quality airline at whatever price point he thinks the market will bear. I doubt he has some evil scheme to position the UK for a first strike.

If you would like to see Virgin Atlantic air service and think the DOT should aprove them then write your Congressman, write your Senator, write your President and let them know!

Labels: airlines, big government, economics, global, opinion, politics

The ability of Americans to be apathetic is astounding. The Government can read your email! "So what?" you say. "Anybody who thinks email is private is dumb" you say. The Government can listen into your calls. "So what?" you say. "There are too many to listen to. They aren't listening to mine." you say.

The list of 4th amendment violations goes on! Sneak-and-peek searches, no-knock search warrants, tracking your cell phone, using your phone as an ease dropping device. Every time the Government takes some of your rights your warned about the "slippery slope". "Bah!" you say. "I'm not a criminal it's no problem. And besides they will stop here."

What if one day the Government decided it could read your mail. You'd be sufficiently pissed about that, yes? Well it happened. While we were all enjoying our holidays the Democrats and Republicans both pushed forward H.R. 6407, the "Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act". The President's own press release following the out-of-session signing states that the Government no has the power to open your mail.

I'd say that now that your angry you could get a hold of me and we could talk about how this a clear violation of our freedoms and what can be done about it.... oh but wait! I forgot! we can't use the cell phone, email, telephone, or regular mail. That leaves us with notes under rocks and smoke signals.

Labels: big government, politics, rights, society

I'll go on the record as a small 'l' libertarian. I'm likely to vote for Libertarian Senatorial Candidate Stan Jones for the Montana Senate seat despite his inability to update his webpage since his failed bid for Governor of Montana, and his largely true but man-off-his-meds sounding rants during debates. The point being I'm not encouraging anyone to vote for the has-been Republican Senator Burns nor am I suggesting that a supporter of Democratic Senatorial Candidate Jon Tester change their vote even though he is clearly distorting Senators Burn's support for the so called Fair Tax.

Instead this blog post is about how someone in the Democratic camp must either have sleep through high school algebra or slept with their high school algebra teacher to pass. (The details are unknown to me but I'm pretty sure sleeping and high school algebra are involved). Like the the "Fair Tax" or hate it; the Democratic camp is not only miss representing the issue but if they had done their math right they could accuse Burns of worse.

In question is the recent Democratic campaign ads claiming that Senator Burns supports a "23% extra [tax] on everything you buy". Lets begin with a short list of the primary distortions just to get them out of the way before we get into the math.

1. While not the worst possible crime it is shady that none of the ads mention the Fair Tax by name, keeping a key piece of information from the audience that might allow them to educate themselves. Since I like to help people educate themselves I encourage you to read the Fair Tax Acts for yourself (there are four versions in '05, '06, Senate and House flavors)
2. I'll make you a bet. Send me a dollar to escrow and if the Fair Tax passes in its original mostly pork free form I'll send you $100.00. Otherwise your buck is mine. Enter as often as you'd like. That's 100 to 1 odds for any Democrats who are struggling with the math.
3. The phrase "everything you buy" is just a filthy lie. "The Fair Tax is a single-rate, federal retail sales tax collected only once, at the final point of purchase of new goods and services for personal consumption. Used items are not taxed. Business-to-business purchases for the production of goods and services are not taxed. A rebate makes the effective rate progressive." - fairtax.org. While all retail goods and services are a lot stuff "everything you buy" is either a lie or overt ignorance. (Is the difference significant?)
4. The Fair Tax is designed to be net neutral to government tax revenue and your pocket book. The Fair Tax would: Abolish the IRS, close just about every tax loophole, ensure Social Security and Medicare funding (at least better than the current plan of -uh- wait, there is no plan), make taxes easy to understand, make a taxes easy to file (no more CPA's, 1040s, HR Block, or TurboTax. April 15th becomes just another nice spring day.) eliminate all hidden payroll and business taxes buried in prices, Make it harder for the government to slip new taxes by you, allows American products to compete fairly, reimburses everyone for taxes on spending up to the poverty level, enables retirees to keep their entire pension, enables workers to keep their entire paycheck, abolishes all federal personal taxes, abolishes all gift taxes, abolishes all estate/death taxes, abolishes all capital gains taxes, abolishes all alternative minimum taxes, abolishes all Social Security taxes, abolishes all Medicare taxes, abolishes all self-employment taxes, abolishes all corporate taxes and makes it harder for special interests to build in special tax breaks for themselves. The Fair Tax replaces all that crap with a simple federal sales tax. So if you spend wisely you can essentially decide how much of your own money you get to send to government every year.
5. The Democratic literature also accuses Burn's of supporting the elimination of the coveted mortgage deduction. Well Duh! If your not paying income taxes at all you wont need any deductions.

On to the math!! Yaaay for math!

The claim is that the Fair Tax would add an extra 23% onto prices (which as I already pointed out are not all prices, only some). But that's also wrong. The plan, amusingly enough, adds more than that. It includes 23% in the price. That's Add vs. Include - big difference!! If you add 23% to $100 you get a $123 price tag. But the Fair Tax says that if your ring up a $100 item, a $23.00 portion of that is tax. In other words the $23 would already be included! Which means that the price of the item doesn't go from $100 to $123 like the Dumb-ocrats are saying. The price goes from $77 to $100 (an increase of $23); which is an increase of, $23 divided by $77, or 29.87%. So really the Fair Tax will increase prices 29.87% or $29.87 on top of a $100 item. That's more than 23% or $23 on a $100 item. But those Democrats can't do the math even when it benefits them.

In defense of the Fair Tax there is allot of economic data that suggests that the prices wouldn't actually go up 29.87% or even 23% because the Fair Tax would eliminate the business, payroll, and other taxes baked into the price already.

So my ultimate point (Aside from having some fun at the expense of a major political party) is that politicians aren't to be trusted. They not only lie but are just plain dumb. The only real way to know what the sneakily morons are up too is to read primary sources like actual legislation, or watch primary sources like CSPAN. Ignore the pundits (they're no better), ignore the ads. Its all crap.

But hey, you knew all that anyway; because in highschool you passed algebra.

Labels: lies, math, politics

Pollution:
Ethanol blended fuels burn 20% cleaner. Which is good. However the real coup is that it removes the need for the additive MTBE. MTBE pollutes ground water, kills fish, corrodes fuel lines, makes fuel production more expensive, and reduces fuel efficiency. It was mandated as a way to decrease air pollution (which it kinda does); but was clearly a mistake.
1 point for Ethanol

Cost:
Ethanol adds 20 cents to the production cost of blended gasoline. The government gives a 51 cent a gallon tax break so that means a theoretical price reduction at the pump of 31 cents. Sound good. Oh except in order to meet the growing demand, corn production will need to ramp up even further. Corn subsidies will grow, and we will be taxes accordingly. So Its probably a wash cost wise. Well, that is unless you live in the corn belt and then its a boon. But I'm sure that the congressmen from those states aren't going to be influenced by all that money and will make the best decision for all Americans.
It's a tie - Still one point for Ethanol.

Fuel Supply Independence:
In my opinion not pissing off fuel producing countries is an excellent way to stabilize fuel supplies; but that being said, fuel source independence is nice. Since Ethanol is corn, and US policy is rigged for corn then its not a bad idea. Well not a bad idea until a massive crop disease hits corn and our entire fuel demand hits the open market again. Mitigating that; in the future ethanol might be replaced with cellulosic ethanol with can be made from a variety of things (read: non-volatile fuel market) such as sweet potatoes, switch grass and pineapple tops). Brazil is pretty much converted over to domestically produced ethanol. That probably helps out their trade balance immensely. Brazil deserves a whole post by itself.
So I'll call it 1/2 a point for a total of 1.5

Fuel Efficiency:
Uh oh! Ethanol will reduce fuel efficiency. An auto getting 20mpg will get 14.2mpg with an blended fuel. And that makes it more expensive per mile and increases the total pollution.
Minus two points for a total of -.5

So I guess ethanol isn't totally despicable. But why bother when biodesil our pure used vegetable oil is so cheap and easy? Here is a list new cars that can run on biodiesel. A dollar says that they are competitive with a similar class of hybrid on fuel efficiency and cheaper to buy. Not ot mention manlier.

Fun Ethanol Fact: the Model T could run on any mixture of gasoline or ethanol.

Factual information for this post is largely plagiarized from the Wall Street Journal. Which I recommend instead of watching the news.

Labels: economics, opinion, politics, science

From a historic perspective the United States it's self a super-state. Under the Articles of Confederation the Federal (super-state) Government had very limited powers. It was found lacking and there in the Constitution was born that gave the Federal Government more power. Further amendments gave the Federal Government ever increasing authority over the States. The power to regulate trade, the power to tax income, and so on were not in the original draft of either document. In fact the Revolutionary War was fought so that the colonists(or at least the wealthy ones) could operate without that kind of government meddling. The Federal Government is now so powerful that's its almost impossible to view constituent states as autonomous. Its only out of precedent that we refer to them as states at all.

Super-states seem to be the trend of the future. Many states in Europe have joined the European Union. The EU is not a full fledged super-state. The laws aren't entirely universal, The EU doesn't tax it's member state populations (directly) and so on. It does have a standardized currency and the EU Defense Force is a growing possibility. The EU's biggest obstacle to becoming a super-state is the total lack of European identity. Most Europeans still identify themselves with their individual state. Osama Bin Laden wants an Islamic Super-State that would incorporate numerous sovereign states all around the Indian Ocean.

Apparently the Executive branches of the United States, Mexico, and Canada are also fond of the idea. Without congressional approval to do so the states have been secretly planning the creation of a "North American Union". PAUSE: I'm not one of those OH MY GOD! BUSH IS IN LEAGUE WITH THE ALIEN ILUMINATI TO CREATE A NEW WORLD ORDER! kinda guys. But oddly enough this group of foil-headed morons might be on to something. UNPAUSE: The Administration now admits that through the NAFTA office they have created the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). This organization will be a super-state to Canada, Mexico and the US and be a forerunner of The North American Union. The SPP will over see trade, customs, border security and do more of that "fight against terror" you've heard so much about. Orwell is spinning is his grave.

For those of you who would like to be a citizen of the North American Union, I'd like to point to the most super of would be super-states is the United Nations. The UN manages to be one of the largest collection of clowns, profiteers, despots and the otherwise despicable. Why? because nobody in some far flung state cares much about anybody else in their far flung state (ours included). I have difficulty imagining that someone from Quebec gives a rip about how sales tax affects your families budget. Further, I'm sure that a foolproof solution for Mexico City is perfectly applicable for Los Angeles (well ok, I might give you that one). And while I’m sure La Paz has lots of nice people who need help; I'm plenty busy trying to prevent the local government from tearing down a historic building right next door. Oh, and one more: are you comfortable with the law enforcement of all three of these states sharing your personal data? Listening to your phone calls? Arresting and charging you?

• Offical Government Information on the Security and Prosperity Partnership
• LibrityPost.org's opinion
• Largely unrelated opinion piece about the rift in EU and American perspective from the Balkans

I pledge allegiance /
to the flag /
of the North American Union /
And to the Federalist Super-State Regime /
for which it stands /
Three nations /
under The Creative Designer /
Irrevocable without a civil war/
for security from terror /
and central planning /
for all. /

Whew! That might be the craziest I've ever been.

Labels: economics, foreign affairs, global, politics

I've decided I'm against corn. To much food comes from corn; corn syrup, corn oil, corn starch and all modified, partially-hydrogenated, high fructose variants. Also remember that your chicken was probably feed a corn mixture, as well as your feed-lotted cattle. So if i had to guess 70% of what's in the supermarket has corn in it.

Cob Corn... MMM Tasty. especially on the BBQ next a tri-tip; and then all messy with butter. I digress.

The other corn isn't probably all that good for you. Humans need something like 40 nutrients. Only a few can be found in corn. We need a wide variety of food sources. With so much food being from corn I don't think we are getting it. Further, dependence on a single food source really sucks when a crop disease springs up.

All this extra corn is processed corn. I think manufacturers choose it because its cheap filler. I think it's cheep because its heavily subsidized. So in a sense our tax dollars are being used to promote corn over other food stuffs. Are you as excited as I am about that possibility?

And then there is ethanol. Which is a whole post by it's self.

Amuse yourself with this experiment. Don't eat anything with corn, corn syrup, corn starch, corn oil, corn feed meat, dairy from corn feed livestock, or any other corn product for a week. I bet you'll eat something corn by accident.

Labels: economics, fitness, opinion, politics, science

Hurricane country is piss poor place for a house. By the way the Federal Government already has a map of the possible destruction that will be caused if Lake Okeechobee overflows but wont release it because it "might help terrorists". I just bet that FEMA will happily put your needs above national security concerns despite now being controlled by the Department Homeland Security. For those of you without sufficient sense to leave I want to wish you the best of luck for the 2006 Hurricane Season.

Labels: earth science, opinion, politics

Good news. There is a bill in the Senate to send us all a $100. It's a relief check for all the high prices were paying at the pumps. Whahoo. I was going to be homeless but now I've got enough money for 2.1 tanks of gas (gas is cheap here). Of course I'm sure the bureaucracy involved will cost $25 per check but hey. Oh, and SURPRISE! In the bill there is a portion of the bill that would allow drilling in AANWR, but I'm sure that's an oversight. Another potion of the bill will suspend federal gas taxes for 60 days. Which is cool. But why not say, Forever? If it's not so critical that we can go without for 60 days then, do we need it at all? Or how about a permanent 1/6 cut in the tax (60/365 is roughly 1/6)? Yeah! 3 cents/gallon (18 cents/gallon x 1/6)! What a budget breaker. Now I can afford a stamp every time I get gas! One might say that this is an attempt to bribe the US citizens into allowing drilling in national refuges. But I say look on the bright side. Perhaps this is a new trend. Perhaps from now on when the government tries to hose us at least they will send us $100 and a stamp first. Read more about this at http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/gascheck27.html Of course I'm way behind the ball on mentioning this but I don't have TV so sue me.

Labels: economics, opinion, politics

I have an anecdote:

A nice older lady was checking me out at Wal-Mart. And by that I mean she was ringing up my purchases not as in she was scoping my goods. Near the end her lazy manager, draped over a cash register, spoke. "Doris" (or whatever her name was) "turn off your light for lunch.". Doris was delighted and promptly turned out her number light, indicating her lane was closed. She grumbled a bit about how late her lunch was coming. "Those great Wal-Mart labor practices..." I said. Doris chuckled, "Well its better than when i was worked at Safeway. They never gave me a lunch at all.".

I'm a firm believer that anecdotal evidence is the weakest kind, but it is amusing none the less. Perchance those boycotting Wal-Mart should instead not shop at Safeway.

Labels: culture, economics, opinion, politics