by Pat Heyman | Dec 13, 2009 | Uncategorized
The Curse of Good Government
Wednesday, December 09, 2009 by William L. Anderson
As one who has made a career out of criticizing government and exposing the various predations of government, one would think I would be intelligent and wise enough not to expect that entity we know as “good government.” In fact, given that I am quite familiar with the entire socialist calculation debate and have assigned numerous papers covering that subject to my MBA students, it should have dawned upon me by now that “good government” is an oxymoron at best and a delusional term at worst.
Yet I must admit that whenever I see government doing something that is outrageous or even wasteful or seemingly stupid, my “good government” ideals seem to kick in and I find myself thinking that the powers that be could learn how to do things correctly. At that point, it never occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, the mechanism of action we know as government cannot be operated in a “proper” way at all, because no intellectual device exists that permits us to properly determine just what is “good” or “bad” government.
Not that there is a dearth of true believers. Last year, Paul Krugman waxed eloquent about the goodness of the state (as long as it is run by “good” people), writing,
Before Mr. Obama can make government cool, however, he has to make it good. Indeed, he has to be a goo-goo.
Goo-goo, in case you’re wondering, is a century-old term for “good government” types, reformers opposed to corruption and patronage. Franklin Roosevelt was a goo-goo extraordinaire. He simultaneously made government much bigger and much cleaner. Mr. Obama needs to do the same thing.
However, before one can be a true goo-goo, one must believe in the state. Witness Krugman’s description of the failures of the Bush administration:
Needless to say, the Bush administration offers a spectacular example of non-goo-gooism. But the Bushies didn’t have to worry about governing well and honestly. Even when they failed on the job (as they so often did), they could claim that very failure as vindication of their anti-government ideology, a demonstration that the public sector can’t do anything right.
This is a curious way to describe the failures of government, blaming those malfunctions on the notion that those carrying out their powers really did not believe that their powers were legitimate, and so they failed. I recall many things that Bush and his minions did while they were in office, but I cannot recall any time that anyone in that administration was reluctant to use their powers. Indeed, the Bush administration was extremely abusive during its eight years in power, and I don’t believe that the administration engaged in such behavior because its principals were laissez-faire libertarians, and I do not recall Bush blaming the failures of the government’s pathetic and ill-advised response to disasters like Hurricane Katrina on the illegitimacy of government.
(Granted, I am using logic here, something that generally is missing from Krugman’s column. Instead, we see partisanship and personal invective, combined with the religion of statism, something that really should be beneath a man who has received the academic honors he has garnered in his career. While Krugman has viciously attacked the Austrians in his writings, I cannot recall reading anything by an Austrian, dead or living, that makes the same kind of politically partisan comments that regularly appear in Krugman’s articles and columns.)
Unfortunately, Krugman goes on to claim that FDR created a governing apparatus via the New Deal that wisely and honestly dealt with the economic calamity in a positive way:
F.D.R. managed to navigate treacherous political waters safely, greatly improving government’s reputation even as he vastly expanded it. As a study recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research puts it, “Before 1932, the administration of public relief was widely regarded as politically corrupt,” and the New Deal’s huge relief programs “offered an opportunity for corruption unique in the nation’s history.” Yet “by 1940, charges of corruption and political manipulation had diminished considerably.”
The historical record says something else. James F. Couch and William Shughart in their book, The Political Economy of the New Deal, lay out example after example of the political calculus that was used in determining where New Deal relief money would be spent. They concluded, after examining the spending patterns, that political considerations determined what projects would be funded and how much money would go into them.
In reviewing the book 10 years ago, I noted how the authors pointed out the Works Progress Administration (WPA) pay differentials in different states:
One example [Couch and Shughart] give is the dispersal of Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects. Given the supposed “compassionate” nature of the Roosevelt administration, one would think that those in the most dire need would receive the most help. Under the leadership of Roosevelt deputy Harry Hopkins, however, the WPA discriminated among states according to the political needs of the Democratic party, as government dollars were distributed according to their marginal political benefit.
Compensation was tied to area incomes. For example, an “intermediate” WPA worker in Tennessee would earn 23 cents per hour, while his counterpart in New York received $1.57. Skilled laborers working on WPA projects made 31 cents an hour in Tennessee and Alabama and $2.25 in New York. Professional pay was 34 cents per hour in Alabama and $3.03 in Pennsylvania.
Compare the Couch-Shughart study to Krugman’s praise of the WPA:
The Works Progress Administration, in particular, had a powerful, independent “division of progress investigation” devoted to investigating complaints of fraud. This division was so diligent that in 1940, when a Congressional subcommittee investigated the W.P.A., it couldn’t find a single serious irregularity that the division had missed.
F.D.R. also made sure that Congress didn’t stuff stimulus legislation with pork: there were no earmarks in the legislation that provided funding for the W.P.A. and other emergency measures.
According to the very partisan Krugman, government under FDR acted with compassion and worked to meet needs as they existed. According to Couch and Shughart, government acted, well, like government. New Deal money was used to buy votes and to spread political influence.
Krugman also fails to point out that in many cases, WPA workers were forced to register as Democrats and some projects required workers to make financial contributions to the Democratic Party. But since he is a partisan Democrat, I suspect he believes that such a requirement was part of enforcing “good government.”
In other words, any accurate reading of the historical record demonstrates that the New Deal was not the epitome of “goo-gooism,” or whatever Krugman wants to call it. Instead, we find that people in government operated according to the political calculus that both Austrians and public-choice economists have been pointing out for years.
What can be done? To be honest, nothing. There is no way that we can create a government that taxes and spends according to some imaginary formula that “maximizes” the “public good.” These are merely terms created to hide the fact that the only calculus politicians can call upon is based upon political costs and benefits.
Obviously, pointing out that politicians make politically based choices is a no-brainer; even people like Krugman are not oblivious to political corruption. However, so-called progressives believe they have a way to create and maintain “good government”: place more power in the hands of the executive branch of the US government. The executive branch, which would be dominated by “selfless” bureaucrats and “experts,” would allow resources to be directed “properly” by taking the decision-making power from the hands of elected politicians who are prone to corruption and let the people with the best intentions make the important decisions.
However, if there is one thing we have learned from this country’s century-old experiment in giving “independent” bureaucrats more power, it is that the bureaucracies created their own political fiefdoms and the problems and economic dislocations they have forced upon our society are worse than anything even the most corrupt politicians have done.
We are dealing with human nature, and putting on the robes of a selfless bureaucrat does not increase one’s qualifications to run the affairs of others. Furthermore, the notion that experts placed in government are going to run things properly is delusional at best and dangerous at worst.
Take the Federal Reserve, for example. The Fed is a Progressive Era creation, with its vaunted “independence” from whims of politicians. Its chairman, Ben Bernanke, is a really intelligent person who has operated in the highest academic circles. He was valedictorian of his high-school class, went to Harvard, and received his doctorate from MIT. Bernanke is the epitome of Progressivism and “good government,” and if there is a “goo-goo” in Washington, it is Bernanke.
However, this really intelligent person almost has single-handedly run the US economy into the ground. Granted, it takes a very special person to have this kind of influence, but Bernanke has been up to the task. Now, it would seem to me that Bernanke is exactly the kind of expert we would want working in the temples of government. I don’t detect his taking money on the sly or engaging in the bottom-dwelling quid pro quo actions of many people in government.
In other words, I believe that Bernanke truly believes that he has been doing the right thing. However, the man has been a disaster. He has had the power to act on his belief that the Great Depression came about because Herbert Hoover’s government did not print enough money. The notion that inflation is a positive economic force should be verboten to anyone with a doctorate in economics, but here we see Bernanke as the apostle of inflation, being cheered by other “good government” elites who are either stupid or craven enough to demand the destruction of the US dollar.
The response of the elites has been predictable. The Atlantic magazine, in a recent issue praising Bernanke and other “Brave Thinkers,” sniffed that Bernanke “somehow found time to bear the made-for-TV harangues of financially illiterate members of Congress.” Bernanke’s quote for the article tells the story of the “expert” who is just plain wrong.
There were many people who said, “Let them fail. It’s not a problem. The markets will take care of it.” And I think I knew better than that.
However, it is utterly clear that Bernanke did not know better than the markets. And what were the brilliant things that he did in order to confound those ignorant markets that wanted to liquidate the failing firms? According to the Atlantic,
He dropped target interest rates to near-zero for the first time in history; made trillions of dollars in government cash available to financial institutions; expanded the Fed’s lending and relaxed its collateral requirements; bought up billions of dollars in securities backed by consumer debt and mortgages; prevented the collapse of AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac…
This is not brilliance; this is cranking up the printing presses, something that governments have done in Argentina, Zimbabwe, and Bolivia, not to mention Weimar Germany, with predictable results. The problem was that none of the things that Bernanke did addressed any of the real damage done to the structure of production in our economy. He just showered the markets with paper money, and his adoring chorus in the media and academe sang his praises.
I suspect that Bernanke has set an example of “good government” for these elites. First, he “saved” the economy; second, he has had to put up with “non-goo-goos” like Ron Paul, who clearly do not worship the state nor the characters that statism produces.
Those of us who understand that the mechanism of economic calculation is not something that “goo-gooism” can successfully reproduce via simple brilliance certainly won’t be declared heroes by the apostles of statism. Indeed, we are placed in the category of the “financially illiterate” because we understand that sound money is not a hindrance to economic growth or even to economic fairness.
Unfortunately, the “good government” advocates don’t see it that way. Instead, “good government” seems to involve reckless spending by Washington, endless printing at the Fed, and bailout after bailout. After all, the “goo-goos” know best.
William Anderson, an adjunct scholar of the Mises Institute, teaches economics at Frostburg State University. Send him mail. See William L. Anderson’s article archives.
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by Pat Heyman | Dec 13, 2009 | Uncategorized
People such as George Soros and Michael Moore certainly talk a good game, but the next Mother Teresa they are not. Mother Teresa never criticized the free-market system; wealth just wasn’t for her. Soros and Moore are quite the opposite. They will never take a vow of poverty and dedicate themselves to helping the poor. They just want our civilization to take a vow of poverty and become poor.
This has caused many to wonder: How can someone preach socialism while being the most rapacious "capitalist" imaginable? Well, I have a theory about this.
It has often been observed that those who preach liberalism the most practice charity the least, and research bears this out. For example, in a piece titled "Bleeding Heart Tightwads," self-proclaimed liberal Nicholas Kristof wrote,
Arthur Brooks, the author of a book on donors to charity, ‘Who Really Cares,’ cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. A study by Google found an even greater disproportion: average annual contributions reported by conservatives were almost double those of liberals.
Then there is a fascinating article by Peter Schweizer, titled "Don’t listen to the liberals — Right-wingers really are nicer people, latest research shows." In defense of this thesis, the author presents some scientific findings and then a bit of anecdotal evidence, writing, "Most surprising of all is reputable research showing those on the Left are more interested in money than Right-wingers."
Both the World Values Survey and the General Social Survey reveal that Left-wingers are more likely to rate ‘high income’ as an important factor in choosing a job, more likely to say "after good health, money is the most important thing," and more likely agree with the statement "there are no right or wrong ways to make money."
You don’t need to explain that to Doug Urbanski, the former business manager for Left-wing firebrand and documentary-maker Michael Moore. "He [Moore] is more money-obsessed than anyone I have known — and that’s saying a lot," claims Urbanski.
The article also cites one Linda Hirshman, who "tells women not to have more than one baby so they can concentrate on a career. ‘Find the money,’ she advises."
Additionally, Schweizer reports on studies showing that Leftists are the embodiment of envy. This finding should come as no surprise, despite liberals’ propensity to rail against the rich and preach redistribution of wealth. Because, you see, it’s not that they care about the downtrodden so much — it’s just that they’re just insanely jealous of those who have more than they do.
But what about advocating socialism? Why would these greedy leftists try to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs they crave? To understand this, we have to delve into the psychology of vice.
There is a chasm between the heart and head. It is one thing to know something is wrong; it’s quite another to feel it on an emotional level. This is probably why Confucius once said (I’m paraphrasing), "It is not that I do not know what to do; it is that I do not do what I know." The heart is both a terrible master and a terribly alluring one, as its fires so often trump the head’s cool logic. It is the demagogue of the mind’s elections, whose rhetoric is hard to resist because it just feels so right.
Now, let’s talk about that seemingly greedy man, George Soros. As a 14-year-old Jewish boy in Nazi-occupied Budapest, Hungary in 1944, he posed as the godson of a government official who had been bribed to protect him. Soros then accompanied his protector while the man would make his rounds confiscating property from Jews who were being shipped off to death camps. During a 60 Minutes interview with Steve Kroft, Soros said he felt no guilt over this and explained why, stating, "Well, of course I c — I could be on the other side or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that I shouldn’t be there, because that was — well, actually, in a funny way, it’s just like in markets — that if I weren’t there — of course, I wasn’t doing it, but somebody else would."
It’s just like in markets…that’s an interesting comment. But what is this similarity of which Soros speaks? Is it just that by his lights, in both situations he had to choose between being the predator and the prey? Well, read two more statements Soros made in the interview. When asked about his mercenary currency trading, he said, "I don’t feel guilty. Because I’m engaged in an amoral activity which is not meant to have anything to do with guilt."
An amoral activity or an amoral man?
And when asked whether he deserved the blame for various nations’ financial collapses, he replied, "I am basically there to — to make money. I cannot and do not look at the social consequences of — of what I do."
No, but he sure looked at the social consequences of what George Bush (whom he called a Nazi in his book) did. But I digress.
It’s clear that Soros sees our free-market system as an evil, much like the Nazi system whose death camps he eluded. And I wouldn’t be surprised if, just as when he was 14, Soros sees himself as a victim caught in its web (the difference is that in 1944, he actually was a victim, whereas now he is the spider). If he doesn’t rape the system, someone else will. Yet he is a victim only of his own greed.
Taking this a bit deeper, it’s much like someone in the grip of any vice. It’s like a man who just cannot resist the bottle and gets falling-down drunk. He may sometimes have moments of clarity during which he actually hates his vice — and he may start to hate alcohol itself. At these times he may wish it didn’t exist, for then the temptation wouldn’t be there. But as long as it does exist, he can’t help but partake.
George Soros is a greedy man. Because of this, he cannot be "free" of his vice until the opportunity to make money is gone. He cannot retire, cannot rest, as long as there is another dollar to be made in the evil system. He wishes his "bottle" didn’t exist, but as long as it does, he can’t help but partake. Thus does he want Profit Prohibition.
This should surprise no one. I once heard of a woman who was told by her Leftist college professor not to give money to charity because it was the government’s job. But you see, to liberals, everything is little g’s job — and also its responsibility. In just the way a criminal isn’t responsible for his actions because "society made him the way he is," Leftists want the government to fight their temptations for them, and they see a free-market society as being one big occasion of sin. The message is simple: It’s not my fault if the government places us in a situation in which we can be immoral. Just as liberals outsource their charitable responsibilities, they outsource their moral ones.
The problem is that it doesn’t work. There will always be "the other side" and those "from whom the thing is being taken away." There will always be an "evil system." In communist governments, those in power — who are more equal than others — get the new Mercedes, the plush apartment, the fine food, and all the other luxuries any commissar could want. And the George Soroses of the world would always try to be among them, for greed still lay in their hearts. And it wouldn’t be hard for them to rationalize, either. They would simply reason, "If I’m not more equal than others, someone else will be. If I don’t do it, someone else will."
Contact Selwyn Duke
by Pat Heyman | Dec 13, 2009 | Uncategorized
The Washington Toy Story
by by Timothy P. Carney
The following is an excerpt from Tim Carney’s new book, Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses, published November 30 by Regnery Publishing.
A staple of Obamanomics is the regulations, pitched as consumer protection, that functions as Big Business protection. We have seen this at work in the toy industry.
“The year of the recall,” as some people called it, saw recalls of Dora the Explorer and Barbie dolls due to excessive lead in the toys’ paint. Mattel, the largest toymaker in the world, recalled more than two million toys. All the recalled toys were made in China.
Obama, after backing away from a pledge to ban all Chinese-made toys, put his support behind a bill called the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). This bill passed Congress in July when Obama was on the campaign trail, so he missed the vote. But he issued a joint press release with another Democratic senator reading, in part, “‘Keeping America’s children safe from dangerous products must be a top priority’ said Senator Obama. . . . ‘I urge the President to sign this bill into law as quickly as possible.’” [1]
When Obama entered the White House, he made enforcing this law a priority. His nominee to head the Consumer Products Safety Commission, Inez Tenenbaum, testified during her confirmation hearings that “one of the things that is urgent is the full implementation of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act which you passed last year.” [2]
Although standing up for child safety is a pretty safe bet politically, this bill isn’t all puppies, rainbows, and smiling babies. Like most Washington regulation, it has a sordid backstory. And, as with most instances of Obamanomics, Big Government has been a boon for Big Business and a bane to smaller competitors.
Mattel wins the game
Pulling more than two million toys off the shelf in 2007 was a blow to Mattel’s reputation – it’s hard to generate worse PR than you get for selling over-leaded toys to kids. Mattel responded to its critics by immediately instituting a new testing regimen for its toys and by working to standardize and streamline the process. [3]
While Mattel was investing in its factories, it was also investing in Washington. The company had spent a steady $120,000 per year on lobbying from 2002 through 2006, [4] but the number ballooned to $540,000 in 2007, the year of the recall. In 2008, its lobbying expenditures hit $730,000 – more than six times what the company had spent two years before. [5]
In August 2007, during the recall scandal, Mattel retained the lobbying firm Johnson, Madigan, Peck, Boland & Stewart. [6] The company’s lobbyists included Sean Richardson and Sheila Murphy, who had recently been the chief of staff and legislative director, respectively, for Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar. A month later, Klobuchar became a co-sponsor of CPSIA.
The bill imposed new but bearable costs on Mattel. Perhaps more important, it promised to provide a government stamp of approval on Mattel’s toys which had – justly – earned the distrust of consumers. CPSIA established a principle that any children’s product was guilty until proven innocent – or in this case, unsafe until proven safe. The bill required every manufacturer of children’s products to submit its products to third-party testing for lead and other toxins before selling them. It also promised to crack down on second-hand sales of products violating the new lead standards.
The law sent shivers through the world of thrift stores. Products that were perfectly legal to make and sell in 2008 might be outlawed in 2009. “This has gotten so serious and it is so frightening because we serve consumers that sometimes have no other way to clothe their children,” said Adele Meyer, executive director of the National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops. She added, “You could wipe out a whole industry.” [7]
Thrift stores didn’t have a powerful lobby in Washington, but they had plenty of public sentiment behind them. In its final days, Bush’s CPSC tried to allay the fears:
The new safety law does not require resellers to test children’s products in inventory for compliance with the lead limit before they are sold. However, resellers cannot sell children’s products that exceed the lead limit and therefore should avoid products that are likely to have lead content, unless they have testing or other information to indicate the products being sold have less than the new limit. Those resellers that do sell products in violation of the new limits could face civil and/or criminal penalties. [8]
You got that, Salvation Army? The bill doesn’t require you to test your products for lead. But if you sell a product with 301 parts-per-million of lead – even if nobody gets sick – you could get sued or go to jail.
And small craftsmen were threatened by the testing requirement. Every manufacturer, including grandpa in his woodshed, would need to submit its products to an accredited outside testing facility. This would be costly and burdensome. But written into the law was a provision that, while common sense, seriously favored mass-producers. Look at this guidance from the CPSIA:
If your products need to be tested, and they are materially identical and made in the same fashion with no change in assembly, equipment used, etc., then a single sample may be all that is necessary for testing purposes. A change in materials or design can be enough to alter testing results. [9]
So if you’re rolling 10,000 petroleum-based Barbies off an assembly line in Shanghai, you need test only one. If you’re making ten sets of children’s rosary beads to donate to the kids in your parish receiving their first communion, you also need to test one – unless these rosaries are unique, or if you made some at home, some at your office, and some while visiting your grandchildren. In those cases you need to get each one tested – not just each rosary, but each component: the little beads, the big beads, the crucifix, and the string.
Mattel was deploying the “Overhead Smash”: crowding out smaller competitors and potential start-ups by lobbying for stricter regulation.
Obama’s CPSC, to its credit, moved fairly quickly to exclude certain safe materials from testing requirements. [10] And come late August – six months after the law took effect – the government lifted the testing burden on Grandpa’s all-wood, unpainted chair – depending on what sort of screws, nails, or joinery he used.
But the CPSC issued another, crucial exemption: the commission voted unanimously to allow Mattel – and only Mattel – to test its own products on-site rather than submit samples to an outside tester. [11] Now, this exemption was not given out lightly. Mattel spent considerable resources developing its own testing facilities, which the company “firewalled” to protect it from corporate influence. Mattel, through extraordinary effort and expenditure, had earned the right to test its own products. The company made its case to the CPSC, and the CPSC agreed.
There’s no evidence of cronyism or any sort of wrong-doing here, and the law explicitly provided for such exemptions. But this episode gets at the heart of the problems with Obamanomics.
First, Mattel had already begun developing its own in-house testing regimen before the CPSIA even passed. We also can tell – thanks to their lobbying filings – that Mattel had significant input into the bill’s drafting. The relationship was probably a two-way street: Mattel lobbyists guided the bill’s testing requirements to match the company’s testing plans, and lawmakers’ demands on testing helped shape Mattel’s testing process.
And after the law went into effect, the world’s largest toymaker had decent access to Obama’s CPSC. One day in late August, according to CPSC notes, Mattel executives met with CPSC Chair Inez Tenenbaum and other CPSC commissioners, at the request of Mattel executive Jim Walter. [12]
Do you think grandpa in the back shed would get meetings with three CPSC commissioners? No, Mattel was exploiting the First Law of Obamanomics: “During a legislative debate, whichever business has the best lobbyists is most likely to win the most favorable small print.” Playing the “Inside Game,” Mattel found it easier to follow all the rules because it was there as the rules were being drafted.
Also, consider that no small manufacturer could afford to build its own in-house testing facility. This was all typical of Big Government, one-size-fits-all regulation: the smaller businesses, many serving the poorer communities, don’t have their own K Street lobbyists (and certainly not a former chief of staff and a former legislative director for a U.S. Senator). And they get steamrolled.
Notes
[1] Press Release, “Obama-Cardin Amendment Set to Become Law as Senate Passes CPSC Modernization,” July 31, 2008.
[12] CPSC.gov
December 12, 2009
Tim Carney [send him mail] is the author The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money and Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses. He is also the Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Copyright © 2009 Tim Carney
by Pat Heyman | Dec 13, 2009 | Uncategorized
The Fiction Of Climate Science
Gary Sutton, 12.04.09, 10:00 AM EST
Why the climatologists get it wrong.
Many of you are too young to remember, but in 1975 our government pushed “the coming ice age.”
Random House dutifully printed “THE WEATHER CONSPIRACY … coming of the New Ice Age.” This may be the only book ever written by 18 authors. All 18 lived just a short sled ride from Washington, D.C. Newsweek fell in line and did a cover issue warning us of global cooling on April 28, 1975. And The New York Times, Aug. 14, 1976, reported “many signs that Earth may be headed for another ice age.”
OK, you say, that’s media. But what did our rational scientists say?
In 1974, the National Science Board announced: “During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end…leading into the next ice age.”
You can’t blame these scientists for sucking up to the fed’s mantra du jour. Scientists live off grants. Remember how Galileo recanted his preaching about the earth revolving around the sun? He, of course, was about to be barbecued by his leaders. Today’s scientists merely lose their cash flow. Threats work.
In 2002 I stood in a room of the Smithsonian. One entire wall charted the cooling of our globe over the last 60 million years. This was no straight line. The curve had two steep dips followed by leveling. There were no significant warming periods. Smithsonian scientists inscribed it across some 20 feet of plaster, with timelines.
This is a perfect example of horrible research and shoddy reporting and perhaps pure idiocy. This quote: “During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but mor
Last year, I went back. That fresco is painted over. The same curve hides behind smoked glass, shrunk to three feet but showing the same cooling trend. Hey, why should the Smithsonian put its tax-free status at risk? If the politicians decide to whip up public fear in a different direction, get with it, oh ye subsidized servants. Downplay that embarrassing old chart and maybe nobody will notice.
Sorry, I noticed.
It’s the job of elected officials to whip up panic. They then get re-elected. Their supporters fall in line.
Al Gore thought he might ride his global warming crusade back toward the White House. If you saw his movie, which opened showing cattle on his farm, you start to understand how shallow this is. The United Nations says that cattle, farting and belching methane, create more global warming than all the SUVs in the world. Even more laughably, Al and his camera crew flew first class for that film, consuming 50% more jet fuel per seat-mile than coach fliers, while his Tennessee mansion sucks as much carbon as 20 average homes.
His PR folks say he’s “carbon neutral” due to some trades. I’m unsure of how that works, but, maybe there’s a tribe in the Sudan that cannot have a campfire for the next hundred years to cover Al’s energy gluttony. I’m just not sophisticated enough to know how that stuff works. But I do understand he flies a private jet when the camera crew is gone.
The fall of Saigon in the ’70s may have distracted the shrill pronouncements about the imminent ice age. Science’s prediction of “A full-blown, 10,000 year ice age,” came from its March 1, 1975 issue. The Christian Science Monitor observed that armadillos were retreating south from Nebraska to escape the “global cooling” in its Aug. 27, 1974 issue.
That armadillo caveat seems reminiscent of today’s tales of polar bears drowning due to glaciers disappearing.
While scientists march to the drumbeat of grant money, at least trees don’t lie. Their growth rings show what’s happened no matter which philosophy is in power. Tree rings show a mini ice age in Europe about the time Stradivarius crafted his violins. Chilled Alpine Spruce gave him tighter wood so the instruments sang with a new purity. But England had to give up the wines that the Romans cultivated while our globe cooled, switching from grapes to colder weather grains and learning to take comfort with beer, whisky and ales.
Yet many centuries earlier, during a global warming, Greenland was green. And so it stayed and was settled by Vikings for generations until global cooling came along. Leif Ericsson even made it to Newfoundland. His shallow draft boats, perfect for sailing and rowing up rivers to conquer villages, wouldn’t have stood a chance against a baby iceberg.
Those sustained temperature swings, all before the evil economic benefits of oil consumption, suggest there are factors at work besides humans.
Today, as I peck out these words, the weather channel is broadcasting views of a freakish and early snow falling on Dallas. The Iowa state extension service reports that the record corn crop expected this year will have unusually large kernels, thanks to “relatively cool August and September temperatures.” And on Jan. 16, 2007, NPR went politically incorrect, briefly, by reporting that “An unusually harsh winter frost, the worst in 20 years, killed much of the California citrus, avocados and flower crops.”
To be fair, those reports are short-term swings. But the longer term changes are no more compelling, unless you include the ice ages, and then, perhaps, the panic attempts of the 1970s were right. Is it possible that if we put more CO2 in the air, we’d forestall the next ice age?
I can ask “outrageous” questions like that because I’m not dependent upon government money for my livelihood. From the witch doctors of old to the elected officials today, scaring the bejesus out of the populace maintains their status.
Sadly, the public just learned that our scientific community hid data and censored critics. Maybe the feds should drop this crusade and focus on our health care crisis. They should, of course, ignore the life insurance statistics that show every class of American and both genders are living longer than ever. That’s another inconvenient fact.
Gary Sutton is co-founder of Teledesic and has been CEO of several other companies, including Knight Protective Industries and @Backup.
Editor’s Note: This quote was mistakenly sourced from two separate National Science Board reports. We thank our readers for pointing out the error.
“During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end…leading into the next ice age.”
by Pat Heyman | Dec 12, 2009 | Essays, Pat
One of the best things about Randy’s classes is his encyclopedic knowledge firearms equipment. Randy’s philosophy is that the most important aspect of a defensive weapon is that it is reliable, and the goal of shooting is to hit the target. As a result his gear selection tends toward the tried and true, with availability of replacement parts weighing strongly in his selection. Hence, his choice of shotgun is the Remington 870 as much for its ubiquity and availability of parts as for its inherent reliability.
Moreover, you will get a chance to see other people with various options and how they work, giving you ideas for your own gear, both what works and what doesn’t. And of course Randy will try to help you steer clear of transfer devices—gear whose main purpose is to transfer your money to the vendor.
This fall, I took Randy Cain’s Shotgun class. In preparation for the class, I have already posted a couple articles on the shotgun in general and what to look for in a Remington 870. Now that I have taken the Shotgun class, I will be posting an article on recommended modifications to the Remington 870. But this article is dedicated to the class itself.
Videos from the class are available for friends and family. E-mail me.
Day 1
Shotgun I is the second class that I have attended with Randy, and it followed the same pattern as Tactical Handgun 101. The first thing is a discussion on safety. You will learn Jeff Cooper’s safety rules for firearm safety word for word. Following safety is a general orientation to the shotgun as a whole and the Remington 870 in particular (everyone in our class had an 870) including how to load and how to unload the shotgun.
Then we were out on the firing line with buckshot to pattern the guns. Patterning consists of shooting buckshot at paper at varying distances to see what the pattern (or shot distribution looks like). You will need (at least) six rounds of two different types of buckshot (12 total) There are three reasons for this exercise:
- It helps you determine the best ammunition for your shotgun. Every barrel shoots every load differently.
- It helps you to understand your shotgun’s capabilities with buckshot at various distances.
- It demonstrates the folly of the Hollywood school of shotguns. At 7 seven yards (across the room distance), the pattern on my shotgun was only 4 inches across—so much for the “just point and you can’t miss” myth.
We exchanged our buckshot for birdshot and went to the steel plates and practiced various drills such as firing on the move, searching, and Rolling Thunder. Rolling thunder is a team exercise designed to put you under a bit of stress while manipulating the shotgun as quickly as possible just to keep it loaded. We would repeat Rolling Thunder with different variations several times over the next few days. This was followed by a competition to see who could knock down three steel plates the quickest.
Day 2
The next day, Randy showed us various slinging techniques and how to shoot from them. We then had a demonstration of how quickly one can shoot from African Carry. After some more birdshot drills, we exchanged shot for slugs and began the process of zeroing our shotguns, while Randy instructed us on prone shooting, the seven points of contact, and natural point of aim. The idea is that the prone shooting should be totally relaxed, and the sights should only move up and down as you breathe—easier said than done.
Randy’s preferred zero with the shotgun is at 25 and 75 yards. The parabolic trajectory of a slug makes the zero the same at 25 and 75 yards, allowing for a very versatile zero. Our day was scorching hot (the following weekend was cool and crisp), so we had frequent breaks where class members picked Randy’s brain for gear selection. Here we learned that the clamps that most extension tube manufacturers use affect the zero of the shotgun, and you must re-zero after every time you remove the barrel for cleaning. So Randy doesn’t use the clamp and has his gunsmith drill and tap the metal between the barrel and retention ring to mount his slings (see picture).
Then we learned various shooting positions, sitting, squatting, and reinforced kneel. We shot several exercises in various positions followed by yet another Rolling Thunder and called it a day. Depending on the time of year and level of the class, Randy sometimes has a night shoot, but our class did not.
Day 3
After recapping the basics and what we had learned the previous two days, we shot several birdshot drills, refined our zeroes, and proceeded to shoot several several slug drills and competitions (some of which you can see on my videos page). We also performed select slug drills and a drill where Randy gives you a sequence of slugs and birdshot to shoot, and then you must load the shotgun correctly and hit the appropriate targets (hint: don’t shoot slugs at the steel targets).
And then all too soon we were saying good-byes and driving back home.
Last thoughts
Randy’s courses are incredibly fun and educational. They can also be incredibly frustrating if you show up with the wrong gear. In the case of the shotgun, you’ll get the most out of the course if you have a Remington 870 with Rifle sights with a recoil pad. (A maxi pad under your shirt also helps.) A sling is mandatory. You should cut the stock down to a comfortable length of pull (this will help your shoulder immensely). Get a fanny pack or military style drop bag to hold your shotgun shells, but make sure you can close it with a zipper or pull string, because some of the drills have you getting up and down, going prone, and spilling your shells everywhere. Also bring a mat or blanket of some kind. If you forget to, you can use your car’s floor mat in a pinch. Other than that, wait until you complete the course before spending any additional money on your shotgun.
And finally come with an open mind. As Randy says, you’re paying him good money, so you might as well try it his way first. You can always go back to what you were doing if it doesn’t work out for you. Take good notes, and start saving up for your next class.
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