Canadian Cincinnatus

US economy outperforms doom-and-gloom prognostications, once again

Highlights of this Bloomberg report: US GDP grows at an annual rate of 2.5% in the last quarter, exports are soaring (thanks to the low dollar), manufacturing productivity is way up.

Maybe Phil Gramm was right when he said that America has become “a nation of whiners”. While this was undoubtedly a politically inexpedient thing to say, the current woes in the US economy are nothing compared to any past recession.

Or maybe the American people are just being misled by the mainstream media once again.

The Obama zeitgeist

I had a gut feeling about the incident last week ago that occurred at Fox News, the one where Jesse Jackson was caught on tape saying that he would like to cut Obama’s nuts off. I thought at the time that it revealed much more than just Jesse Jackson’s jealousy towards a newcomer who is overshadowing him, however I couldn’t put my finger on what it was until black conservative Shelby Steele pointed out the significance of this little event – and the Obama movement, in general – in this perceptive Wall Street Journal article.

I think Steele is right on the money when he states that the whole Obama thing is more about whites than it is about blacks. It is about lingering American white guilt over slavery and Jim Crow. Except that, unlike Jackson and Al Sharpton, Obama is not trying to leverage white guilt into more affirmative action pork barrel goodies for the black community. Rather, he is doing something much greater; he is offering white people redemption. Vote me in as president, he says, and the stain of racism will be washed away from America (and more important from all the people who vote for him in the upcoming election).

Obama’s mission poses an existential threat to Jackson and Sharpton – not because he is threatening to replace them as the race hustler du jour, but, by offering white people redemption, he is threatening to shut down their whole enterprise. The end of white guilt means the end of government (and corporate) pork for them to dispense.

Even though I have expressed deep reservations at Obama’s fitness as president in these pages, looking at it this way, one almost wants him to be president so that America can finally get past the ‘slavery thing’ once and for all. Something like this happened in Canada in the 1990’s when we got over the ‘sexism thing’. Prior to the 1990’s, Canadians were constantly being exhorted to elect a female premier or a female Prime Minister. And we did, Sharon Carstairs became opposition leader in Manitoba and Kim Campbell became Prime Minister in Ottawa. However, a curious thing happened once this was accomplished. The sexism issue lost its oomph. We elected women to high office, thereby proving that we are not sexist. This freed us to elect the best person for the job, regardless of sex. Perhaps the same thing will happen in post-Obama America. Once Americans know they are not racists because they elected a black president (once), they can get on with the job of finding the best person for the job (regardless of skin colour). The unintended consequence of Obama’s presidency might be that it will take the whole guilt-of-slavery issue off the table, freeing white Americans in all manner of ways: nobody else will be able to claim skin colour as a job qualification; whites will be free to criticize the dysfunction they see in the black community; affirmative action can be ended (“Hey, we made a black man president, what’s your problem?”); etc.

The guilt-of-slavery factor is a deep vein in the American psyche and should not be underestimated. This is a mistake non-Americans frequently make. They simply do not understand how much more idealistic America is compared to their country. Several years ago I was at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. While there, I perused the exhibit of Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream” speech there in 1963 (interesting aside – Charlton Heston was there, standing very close to King). What struck me was how idealistic Americans are – much more so than the haughty, insulated and corrupt Euro-elites they are constantly exhorted to emulate. This is one of America’s good points, but it does have its bad side. This being primarily America’s exasperating tendency to kick itself over its perceived flaws for far too long, flaws that other nations would shrug off without a thought. For isntance, how long have the Russians reflected on the brutality of the Chechen Wars?

How Obama's intention to gut NASA could be good

Obama may be elusive on many of his plans, but he's been upfront about what he has in mind for NASA's 16 billion dollar budget: slash it and transfer the money to education.  He says he'd like to "delay" the Constellation program for five years.  This is tantamount to killing it.

But is that a bad thing?  NASA is already going over budget on their Apollo redux, a journey to where we've been before using hardware from the shuttle.  Indeed, even Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the moon, has joined a growing crowd of ex-NASA engineers who want a review of the whole program and a simpler, cheaper approach.

The Ares crew launch vehicle is to be propelled off the launch pad by a single five-segment solid rocket booster (the shuttle had help from two four-segment boosters).  Some engineers have concluded that this single five-segment configuration will suffer a catastrophic harmonic vibration that will shake the astronauts to death.

NASA agrees but says it can eventually fix this problem, and I believe they can, but how much will it cost and how long will it take?

If Obama is elected this becomes a moot point.  The program will be shut down.  So as the Chinese improve their space systems, America will have to rely on the Russians for launch.  Or will they?

Spacex, a company run by Paypal founder Elon Musk, is striving to develop a crew launch vehicle called the Falcon capable of taking six astronauts to the International Space Station.  But his dreams are even bigger than that: he's put a price beside the Falcon Nine Heavy of 104.5M for TLI--Trans Lunar Insertion.  Yup, he wants to send astronauts to the moon.

Now critics will point out that we're talking about a capsule with six people making it to lunar orbit with no hardware.  But why not buy two or three Falcons?

Falcon A takes the crew to lunar orbit.  Falcon B takes the lander to Lunar orbit.  That's where they will need to link up to land.  Falcon C actually goes first and lands cargo, say a habitat, a lunar rover, or whatever else they will need.

I admit that this system won't take anyone to Mars, but NASA's attempt to build a space system that will do both the moon and Mars will cost a fortune and probably will be technologically obsolete by the time they really decide to plan for a Mars trip.

So for 313.5M we could send astronauts to the moon.  Hey, why not add in a couple of extra Falcon flights just for redundancy.  It's still just a fraction of NASA's 16 billion dollar budget for one year, and NASA needs nearly ten years of budget to get anyone into space.

Of course there is the big question: will Musk actually get the Falcon off the ground?  Musk told us at the International Space Development Conference that he's heard the fastest way to become a space development millionaire is to start out as a space development billionaire.  He's taking one hell of a chance with his money and he knows it.  That's very big balls.

I wish him the best with Falcon.  If Obama wins it may be the only way Americans are going back to the moon.

Mike Downtown

What went right with Generation Kill?

HBO's new series, Generation Kill, has an identity crisis.  It wants to be the usual Hollywood anti-Iraq morality play, yet the undertones are distinctly masculine.

I'm willing to bet it was sold to the studio as an anti-Iraq war piece.  It has a predictable comment about WMDs.  It has a bad officer who guns down an unarmed man and another who hoards night vision gear.  It has a dead Iraqi girl on the side of the road.  It has a marine who just wants to kill someone.

Yet somewhere along the way to production, other themes crept in that don't fit the stereotype of an anti-war movie.  There's a journalist riding in the humvee who barely utters a word through the whole episode.  When they take heavy fire while driving through a town he actually participates in the operation, passing ammo to one soldier and helping to pull down the top man when he gets caught in some wires.

Where are the sanctimonious speeches that Alan Alda would have given had he played the journalist?  Instead, when he photographs the corpse of the Iraqi girl, a marine shouts, "Hey, going for a little exploitation?  Who's the blood-thirsty one now?  The fucking jarheads or the liberal media?"

The marine's point is well taken.

As for the bad officer theme?  Well, the bad officer's superior is a class act, aptly referred to as Godfather because of his husky voice.  He compliments good work and is a solid commander.  His last order during the episode characterizes the duality of this show.  He orders his troops to drive through a town that they know is hot, even though his juniors have figured out a way around the town.  This is a typical Hollywood theme right out of MASH--an officer needlessly risking his men's lives.

Yet, we see it from Godfather's perspective as he makes his decision.  They have no recon of the town.  The enemy is controlling where the marines go and are picking the battlefields.  Godfather makes what is suddenly portrayed as a wise and bold decision to break this pattern by going through the town.

The marines support him and love him.  That's just not Hollywood.  It makes you want to join the marines.

Will it get worse of better?  I can't say, but they've got me hooked.  I'll watched the next episode for sure.  If it were all just anti-war that wouldn't be the case.  Perhaps Hollywood has gotten tired of making money losing anti-war films.  Maybe someone (the writer? the director?) is a closet Republican.

The times are changing.

Mike Downtown

NY Times: Liberal Professors from the 60’s begin to retire

here.

I believe this is one those important ‘sleeper’ trends that is noticed by only a few but will gradually cause the ice to shift out from under our feet – more specifically, out from under the feet of the baby boomers.

As the article relates, universities enjoyed a massive expansion in the late 60’s and 1970’s, tenuring a large cohort of leftists in the process. These people have been the most important force in keeping the destructive left-wing ideas of the 1960’s alive - by indoctrinating today’s journalists, teachers and many other people who have passed through the halls of academe since.

The retirement of this cohort in the next decade will result in a significant shift towards political moderation on campus and away from the politically charged climate these baby boomers have always preferred to operate in. The reason is not because the next generation of professors will be more right wing. It is because the current generation of faculty is pinned so far out on the left edge of the meter that, in all probability, the next generation is bound to be more rightwing - or, more specifically, less extremely left. Statisticians call this phenomenon a regression towards the mean.

I have long believed that the enthusiasms of the baby boomers are the cross that subsequent generations are fated to bear. Their retirement from campus will likely be the event that results in their greatest loss of power and a signal that we can finally put the cross down.

This will happen quietly. One fine morning we will all wake up and wonder, what on earth were those strange people screaming about at Woodstock such a long time ago?

The London Times: “Tolerate Sharia yes, but never respect it”

here.

I think it is a good thing that somebody influential is making the distinction between legal tolerance and respect. As the Times correctly pointed out, “Tolerance, however, is not the same as respect.” Just because something becomes legal, it doesn’t mean that the citizenry are now obligated to like it. This piece of sophistry is a major prop of the various Human Rights Commissions in Canada to stifle criticism of the identity groups the left wants to protect.

For instance, the fact that it is legal to practice Islam in Canada is no reason, or rather, shouldn’t be a reason to require non-Islamic Canadians to respect that religion. In a free society, not only should we be free from such an obligation, we should be entirely free to criticize and condemn anything we don’t like.

Just like Moslems should not be obligated to respect the cross of St. George, or the whole of Christianity for that matter.

The gay lobby has been very effective in utilizing this logical error to legally squash all vocalized criticism of their lifestyle.

Enough is enough. Lets return to being a free society, before it’s too late.

An analysis of the gun control debate in Canada

With the big victory down south, this is perhaps an opportune time to take a good look at the state of the gun control in Canada.

The single best analysis of the mechanics of the gun control debate in Canada appeared in the May, 1999 issue of the National Firearms Association (NFA) publication Pointblank. The article is titled Self-Defense: A Pro-Gun Strategy and it is written by John Orth. Unfortunately, I do not have an electronic version of this article, but only a few excerpts are sufficient to illustrate the main points of Orth’s argument:

“Canadian gun owner are slowly digging our own graves with our timid, apologetic approach to gun rights. Most Canadian gun owners, and most Canadian pro-gun organizations have utilized a sporting purposes only argument in support of civilian gun ownership. Self defense has become a taboo topic. This reticence is a huge blunder. By failing to actively promote handgun ownership for self-defense, we leave ourselves tongue-tied at the most critical juncture in the gun control debate: the aftermath of a mass murder.

The march towards civilian disarmament has followed the same pattern in nearly every English speaking nation. Pro-gun and anti-gun forces generally battle to a draw until there is a mass murder involving firearms. After a massacre has taken place, outraged citizens will grasp at any solution, regardless of how limited its chance of success. It is at these times the gun grabbers have scored their greatest victories.”

“The pattern has been repeated so many times you would think gun owners would have recognized the pitfalls by now. Time and time again we are drawn into the same debate. Time and time again we offer the same ineffectual arguments. Time and time again we lose, and the noose is pulled ever tighter around our necks.”

“Pro-gun forces have failed completely to grasp the mechanics of the debate. The public is seeking a method of minimizing the possibility a similar massacre could happen again. Our opponents suggest numerous ways of tightening gun control laws which they say will prevent a comparable tragedy. We then attempt to demonstrate why their plans are not feasible. But we never offer any viable solutions of our own. When backed into a corner, and pressed to provide some kind of positive suggestion, we will mutter something about bringing back the death penalty, or increasing penalties for the use of a firearm in a crime. But harsh punishment would be completely ineffective as a strategy to combat mass murder. … in the majority of cases the murder kills himself … It is unlikely the threat of a long prison term would be much of a deterrent to someone who has decided to commit suicide in a blaze of gunfire.

There is only one very effective method of preventing mass murder which does not involve gun prohibition, but it is one Canadian gun owners have typically been loath to suggest: concealed carry of handguns.”

Historic Supreme Court Second Amendment decision – District of Columbia vs. Heller

I have not commented on the Heller decision until now because I believe this is a significant event, so I wanted my post on it to be well researched and thought out. After researching it, I found that the best synopsis of the decision is the Syllabus of the ruling itself. Here is a slightly abridged version of that Syllabus:

District of Columbia law bans handgun possession by making it a crime to carry an unregistered firearm and prohibiting the registration of handguns; provides separately that no person may carry an unlicensed handgun, but authorizes the police chief to issue 1-year licenses; and requires residents to keep lawfully owned firearms unloaded and dissembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device. Respondent Heller, a D. C. special policeman, applied to register a handgun he wished to keep at home, but the District refused. He filed this suit seeking, on Second Amendment grounds, to enjoin the city from enforcing the bar on handgun registration, the licensing requirement insofar as it prohibits carrying an unlicensed firearm in the home, and the trigger-lock requirement insofar as it prohibits the use of functional firearms in the home. The District Court dismissed the suit, but the D. C. Circuit reversed, holding that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess firearms and that the city’s total ban on handguns, as well as its requirement that firearms in the home be kept nonfunctional even when necessary for self-defense, violated that right.

Held:
1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.
(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress
power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved.
(c) The Court’s interpretation is confirmed by analogous arms-bearing rights in state constitutions that preceded and immediately followed the Second Amendment.
(d) The Second Amendment’s drafting history, while of dubious interpretive worth, reveals three state Second Amendment proposals that unequivocally referred to an individual right to bear arms.
(e) Interpretation of the Second Amendment by scholars, courts and legislators, from immediately after its ratification through the late 19th century also supports the Court’s conclusion.
(f) None of the Court’s precedents forecloses the Court’s interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, nor Presser v. Illinois, refutes the individual-rights interpretation. United States v. Miller, does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes.

2. Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.

3. The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an
entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this prohibition—in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute—would fail constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional. ...

SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ.,
joined. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, SOUTER, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined.

To summarize Justice Scalia, he concluded that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, not a state right, and that the Second Amendment purposely upholds the individual’s right to use firearms for self-defense.

Other supporting documents can be found here. The whole text can be read here. Commentary by a panel of distinguished experts at Reason magazine can be found here.

As can be readily appreciated, this decision will have a monumentous effect down the road. For starters, from this time forward, no liberal can claim that the Second Amendment is just about state militias. Second, the Heller decision will be a powerful tool that can be used to judicially revisit many existing gun control statues. Look for many municipal gun-ban ordnances falling in the near future, or at least being substantially altered in favour of the individual.

In more immediate terms, the reaction has been muted. This is largely because, in the past several years, the Democrats have slowly begun to realize that the gun control issue has been a loser for them - in spite of the fact that public opinion polls consistently show that a majority of citizens support it. What those polls do not show is the degree of support. Almost none of gun control supporters care enough about the issue to allow it to sway their vote on Election Day. However, for gun owners, gun control is an existential threat. Not only will it be the predominant issue that will decide their vote (assuming the issue is in play), these otherwise apolitical citizens will volunteer, donate money and organize against the gun grabbers running for office.

This is the principal reason why the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994. The Democrat-controlled Congress has just passed the assault rifle ban that summer. This energized the gun owners like they have never been energized before. Unfortunately, most political commentators – left and right – are not gun owners and missed the phenomenon entirely. The normally astute conservative flagship, The National Review, had several articles analyzing why the Republicans won that November. The assault rifle ban was hardly mentioned. Because most of the writers at NR did not own firearms, they did not experience the atmosphere of crisis and fear that existed among shooters. In fact, it was the Democrats who first realized the magnitude of the gun owner’s ire, but only after the 2000 election. Prior to the 2000 election, they thought the Columbine massacre made gun control a winning issue for them, enough to propel Al Gore to the White House. Yet it didn’t happen. Forget about Florida. Think West Virginia. In the 2000 presidential election, the vote in this once-reliable Democrat state swung 20% towards Bush and the GOP. Why? Because of two issues Al Gore was pushing: global warming and gun control. This state of coal miners interpreted him as saying, first I will close down your coal mines, then I will take away your guns. Of course, if he were smart, he would implement these policies in reverse order. West Virginia has 4 Electoral College votes. If they had gone to the Democrats like they did every time before, all the hanging chads of Florida would have meant nothing.

Thanks to Dc vs. Heller, the US is now in the reverse situation, with gun owners feeling more secure about their rights than they have in years. This will likely make a Democrat victory in November more likely. It will be that much harder for the GOP to pry gun owners away from the reloading bench to the polling booth when the Supreme Court is covering their flank. Heller took away one of the most reliable vote-getter in the GOP’s arsenal.

The danger, of course, is that if Obama becomes President, he will likely be able to nominate a Supreme Court justice or two. Since the Heller ran 5 to 4, there is a real danger that it could be overturned down by Obama’s justices. For this reason, Eric Raymond thinks Heller will energize gun owners http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=298. Doubtlessly it will energize some, but you won’t get the mass influx of new energized GOP voters that you had in 1994.

Later this week I will post a lengthy analysis of the gun control situation in Canada.

Stay tuned.

News item: 550 tons of Saddam Hussein’s enriched uranium arrives in Canada for disposal this Saturday.

Read about it here.

Good thing Iraq didn’t have a program to develop weapons of mass destruction!

High oil prices and hysterical nonsense

What is it about high oil prices that brings out the hysteria in people? So much over-the-top nonsense has been written about what is basically a simple problem. As Ronald Bailey over at Reason pointed out, the reason oil prices (and the price of other important commodities) fluctuate so much is that the both supply and demand are inelastic. That means small variations in one or the other can have a big impact on prices. In other words, it takes a large variation in price to affect either the supply or the demand. Right now, what is driving up oil prices is the increased demand for oil from India and China as they modernize and grow.

1. Its not because we are running out of oil – we have plenty. It has been said that the age of cheap oil is over. Maybe. But the age of medium priced is just beginning. At current prices, oil from Alberta’s tar sands is very economical. The proven reserves of tar-sand oil is already higher than that of Saudi Arabia. But according to some estimates, there may be as much as 2 trillion barrels in Alberta, with a comparable amount in Venezuela. Shale oil from the high plains of the US has also becomes economical to produce. And there is a lot of that too. And then there is synthetic oil produced from coal, the most plentiful fossil fuel on the planet. The problem is that nobody is producing oil from shale or coal right now. At $130 per barrel, it is economical to produce oil from coal using technology used by Nazi Germany in World War II. The reason is partly because doing so in any significant quantity requires a large investment of capital. Projects of this size take years to develop. And then there is the purely artificial restrictions brought about by environmental regulations. And then there is the conventional oil we know about but can’t produce because of more environmental restrictions. There are huge off-shore reserves off both coasts of the United States that are currently off limits to production.

2. High oil prices has nothing to do with the environment or global warming. In fact, if you believe that humans are causing global warming and that global warming is bad, high oil prices are a good thing because it reduces oil consumption. If Stephane Dion wanted to walk the talk, his carbon tax would be aimed at jacking the price of gasoline even more.

3. It has nothing to do with foreign oil dependence. That is a separate (but very real) problem. As catalogued above, there are plenty of oil sources away from the Middle East that we could use to substitute for OPEC oil. The reason we don’t is because Middle East oil is cheaper. A free market is always biased towards the more cost effective solution. That’s what makes the free market so efficient. Even at $130 per barrel, a producer would rather sell oil from Saudia Arabia that costs, say, $2 to produce than oil from the Alberta tar sands that costs, say, $20 to produce. Even at $130 per barrel, $18 is $18. All high oil prices do is to make extracting oil from tar sands economically viable. It doesn’t make it preferable. If one wanted to minimize western dependency on middle eastern oil, one would have to apply a tariff at the border against all imported oil. Free market economists don’t like this solution because it is a government interference in the marketplace, something that always results in a suboptimal solution. This is true, but there is more to things to life than economics. To pick one item, Saudi oil money is currently funding and exporting subversive Wahabbiism around the world. Stopping that is a good thing, but let’s not kid ourselves – applying a tariff would jack up our oil prices even more. Which is why politicians do not like it, and which is why it isn’t being done. To make matters worse, oil is a fungible quantity. It would be very difficult to apply a tariff to only Saudi oil. Once it gets on the international market, oil is difficult to track. You would have to apply the tariff on all imported oil, regardless of origin, whether from Saudi Arabia or Norway.

4. High oil prices has very little to do with electricity consumption. While some electricity is generated from oil, the vast majority of our electricity comes from coal, hydroelectricity, nuclear power or natural gas. Go ahead and put a solar panel on your roof but you aren’t cutting back on global oil consumption. The reason natural gas is getting expensive is that, for environmental reasons, it is becoming a favourite source of energy for electricity generation. Again, supply and demand.

So, what will happen to oil prices? While supply and demand are ineleastic they are not infinitely so. Over time, demand will go down (at least in areas outside of China and India). This is already happening as people adjust their lifestyles to high gas prices. Supply will also go up as new wells are dug, tar sand production is stepped up and new oil extraction technology is brought on line. However this takes time. It takes at least a couple of years for a new refinery to come on line. In Alberta, tar sand production is hampered by labour shortages. As mentioned before, a lot of our restrictions are self imposed. Take the off-shore oil that is presently off-limit to production. High oil prices have a way of focussing priorities which has resulted in the current US presidential debate on domestic oil drilling.

The flip side of the supply and demand coin is that when all these mega-projects come on line, they have to produce oil for many years in order to recoup the initial investment regardless of the price (as long as the oil price remains above a certain minimum level). This, combined with lower demand in the developed world caused by the adoption of more efficient practices, will be the force that will drive the price of oil down again. Of course, as Ronald Bailey notes, you will never see $10 oil again, thanks to China and India.

But it will come down. So relax. The world isn’t coming to an end.