There's a lot of ruin in a (rich, fashionable) city

What amazes is how well San Francisco does given it's utterly lunatic governance.  Two years to get approval to open an ice cream shop.  Two years.

Indeed

Iowahawk also noticed, "And now all the New York and New England players will return to their homes in income tax-free Florida and Texas."

Hello, we're from the Central Bank and we own most everything

Monetary phenomenon have a tendency to translate into real ones.  I be the major central banks have more capital than all private banks combined.  Add that to Fannie, Freddie, Sally, etc. and the US banking system could be substantially nationalized as it is.  Does anyone out there have a coherent perspective on all of this?

Why is Atheism such a poor evolutionary strategy

One of the things that I've always wondered about the 'rationalist' (aka atheist) community is why in evolutionary terms it is so poorly selected.  Religious people have far more kids than the 'rational' and us religious nutters don't even believe in meta-evolution.

If rational atheism is so right and accurate, why does it turn out to be such a lousy reproductive strategy?  

Is God hating a turn off?  Does belief in one's pending existential obliteration lower sperm counts?

Or is contempt for God simply correlated with contempt for children?

In other words, what is the rationalist argument for evolutionary irrationality?

This is my 3,000th post

My goodness, I'm long winded.

Obama's Enemies List

It's good to have the establishment on your side.  That way you aren't held accountable for your Chicago Style Liberal thuggishness.

TED OLSON CALLS OUT OBAMA’S ENEMIES LIST. I was talking to a CEO last year — an Obama supporter no less — who told me he was amazed at how openly Administration officials threatened to use media demonization if he didn’t play ball. It’s like they’ve got the press in their pocket or something.
But now some of those officials have to be thinking that the people they threaten will be around after Obama’s gone, and they’ll remember.

Divorce and the deadbeat Mom

Once again reality bites...hard.

STATISTICS: Deadbeat Moms More Common Than Deadbeat Dads.

Single dads are sick and tired of being labeled “deadbeats” when it comes to paying child support. And data suggest they have good reason to be upset.
The percentage of “deadbeat” moms is actually higher than that of dads who won’t pay, even though mothers are more consistently awarded custody of children by the courts.
Census figures show only 57 percent of moms required to pay child support — 385,000 women out of a total of 674,000 — give up some or all of the money they owe. That leaves some 289,000 “deadbeat” mothers out there, a fact that has barely been reported in the media.
That compares with 68 percent of dads who pay up, according to the figures.

Read the whole thing. And note this: “Not only are the dads paying up more when they don’t have custody, but when the court does hand the kids over to dads, they work more than moms who have custody. While 7 percent of custodial moms work more than 44 hours a week, 24.5 percent of single custodial dads work more than 44 hours. And only about half as many custodial dads get government help than moms.”

The Power Mad come in many different forms

Dieticians, for example.

NORTH CAROLINA DIETETIC BOARD: If you blog about diet, you are acting as an unlicensed dietitian. Really, guys? Really? My advice to the people and legislature of North Carolina — save some money, abolish the board, and quit licensing dietitians anyway.

Government crowding out real community

Ross Douthat of the NYT makes the point that the more the state does, the less room there is for truly voluntary community action.  One of the things that differentiates the US from Europe is our thriving independent, charitable sector.  In their rush to emulate the (Bankrupt) European model, the Obami are damaging civil society.   Take the HealthCare Reform bill for an example.

Sigh.

Good News: Residential Segregation Declining Rapidly

I think intermarriage rates are soaring too.  Some day, we'll even get rid of 'affirmative action'.

THE CONTINUED DECLINE OF RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION: Desegregation an Unsung U.S. Success Story.

As the figure shows, as of 1970, almost 80 percent of either whites or blacks would have had to move neighborhoods in order to achieve an even distribution of whites and blacks within the average metropolitan area. By 1990, that dissimilarity measure had dropped to 66 percent; it is 54 percent today. We are very far from living in a perfectly integrated society, but our nation is far more integrated than it was 40 years ago.
The progress over the last decade has been particularly dramatic. Every one of the 10 largest metropolitan areas experienced drops in both dissimilarity and isolation of 3.6 points or more. The isolation index is below 45 percent in every one of those 10 largest areas, except for Chicago. Long among the most segregated places in America, the Windy City has experienced a particularly dramatic decline in segregation since 2000.

Read the whole thing.

All you need to eliminate the income inequality 'problem' is to destroy the economy

Which seems to be the Obami's strategy.

#NARRATIVEFAIL: Tax Foundation: Income Inequality Is Lower Now Than It Was Under Clinton.

The "Sustainable" event horizon

At some point it will become impossible to use a sentence that does not use the word sustainable.  That is when civilization will collapse.  But don't worry, the collapse will be sustainable.

The Sucker Chart

The people that lie in the divergence of these two lines are largely Obama supporters  They are the suckers in this grand, insane but oh so 'progressive' tragedy.

Peak Oil Peak idiocy 2

The lower 48 states are the most intensively drilled part of the planet.  Yet oil production here is soaring.  The Peak Oil weenies should be fired.  Oh, wait, they all have government or academic sinecures - they never need to be right.

Power Logic - Trace mercury from power plants 100 miles way, bad, from light bulbs in your kids bedroom good!

The statists do not believe in absolute truth, they believe in absolute power.  Don't believe it, then read this:

WASHINGTON TIMES: Obama’s Twisty Light Bulb Logic. “Some critics have charged that hyping mercury poisoning in MATS was just a cover for the EPA to ramp up its regulatory assault on the coal industry. Trace amounts of mercury from coal-fired power-plant emissions affect a small number of Americans, chiefly those who live near the emissions sources. At the same time, however, the Obama administration has been trying to force Americans to accept even greater mercury risks by insisting that traditional incandescent light bulbs be replaced with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). The mercury vapor in CFLs is at a much more dangerous concentration than anything coming out of power plants.”

No Global Warming for past 15 Years

Pretty much coinciding with the period of maximum global warming hysteria.  Maybe 'green' bloviating serves as an aerosol that reflects infra red rays back into space.  Al Gore saved us!

SCIENCE: Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again): Met Office releases new figures which show no warming in 15 years.“The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years. The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century. Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.”

Many farmers are no better than thieves

Thieves who use the state to loot their much poorer neighbors.  Sugar is a good example.  We need to recognize that these looters are not the 'salt of the earth' but moral criminals.

The Experts: Biased in favor of hysteria

There are many honest scientists but they don't get funded. Because if there is no crisis, there is no money. The result, the most alarmist studies with the most alarmist interpretations are presented. They are then magnified by a press with a business interest in sensationalizing them. The result: demands that the state step in and 'do something'. The outcome is usually expensive, coercive and if not actively destructive, simply pointless. This unholy alliance of unethical scientists and power hungry state actors is causing our society to slowly but surely seize up.

Can't you please just leave us alone?

CHRISTINA HOFF SOMMERS: How The CDC Is Overstating Sexual VIolence In The U.S.

In fact, what the study reveals is the devastating impact that careless advocacy research can have on truth. The report proposes an array of ambitious government-sponsored “prevention strategies” and recommends “multi-disciplinary service centers” offering survivors psychological and legal counseling as well as housing and economic assistance. But survivors of sexual violence would be better served by good research and sober estimates — not inflated statistics and sensationalism.
The agency’s figures are wildly at odds with official crime statistics.

But perfectly aligned with funding prospects. Me, I’d rather see the CDC work on controlling actual diseases. rather than redefining behavior as a disease. But I was pointing out the politicization of public health back when InstaPundit was new.

The Higher Ed Cartel is in serious trouble from certification testing

If certification testing takes off, then most colleges are doomed.  James Taranto has the tale.  About damn time.  Bloodsuckers.

The crucial distinction here is actually between the "academic" and "investment" functions of higher ed. The industry has exploded over the past few decades based on a business model that focuses more on selling the college degree as a credential--an "investment" that yields an increase in one's own "human capital"--than on persuading young adults that education is intrinsically valuable.

If someone could offer a less expensive job-hunting license--one that assessed an entry-level job-seeker's worth to a prospective employer at least as accurately as a college degree does--then the demand for college would plummet, as young adults could realize the same gains from a much smaller investment.

That's where ETS and CAE come in. They will offer two tests. One, called iSkills, "measures the ability of a student to navigate and critically evaluate information from digital technology." The other, the CLA, "assesses critical learning and writing skills through use of cognitively challenging problems." As Vedder explains: "Students can tell employers, 'I did very well on the CLA and iSkills test, strong predictors of future positive work performance,' and, implicitly 'you can hire me for less than you pay college graduates who score less well on these tests.' "

If the practice became widespread, it would drive college costs down and force cost-cutting and downsizing within the higher-ed industry. So you can expect the industry to fight hard against it.

On using the F Word

Jonah Goldberg points out that I shouldn't use Fascism to describe our out of control Federal state.  Not because it's not true, but because in America the term is not understood properly.  So I won't..  Even though they are.

Basically, the answer is that Liberal Fascism was a failure in at least one regard. It was never my intent to make abuse of the F-word a bipartisan affair. The idea was simply that the Left should stop using the word because they don't know what they're talking about and they're looking in the wrong direction in their eternal vigilance for fascism. Conservatism in the Anglo-American tradition has no basis in, or relation to, European fascism. And it is not just slanderous but hypocritical for liberals to hurl the term at conservatives when the fact is American progressivism does share DNA with European fascism. But that doesn't mean we should go around calling liberals fascists.

We shouldn't do it because it's rarely true or appropriate, but we also shouldn't do it because most Americans are sufficiently ignorant about the nature of fascism to make conservatives hurling the term sound crazy or extreme. It's counterproductive. The irony for me is that my critics on the left insist that the whole point of the book was to call liberals fascists. It really wasn't, which is why it failed in at least one regard. 

So, yes, I could absolutely have written today's column about the similarities between Obama's fantasy of a militarized America and fascist doctrine (Mussolini described the exact same thing as the "socialism of the trenches"!). But, as George H.W. Bush used to say, that wouldn't be prudent. And prudence, unlike fascism, is at the heart of conservatism.