perfidy

I've been thinking about this a bit, and while I can see certain tactical advantages for those who oppose Obama - this strikes me as on the whole entirely bad. Despite the decline in trust in our public institutions, the Supreme Court remains prestigious, and it has leant its imprimatur to a staggeringly bad policy. I can imagine the Republicans using this as a whipping horse, and it may help them retake the presidency, and possibly even the Senate (though almost certainly not a filibuster-proof majority...) Once again in power - how does this go away? If it had been struck down in its entirety, which we were apparently one vote away from doing, we could have a) done something sensible for once - unlikely in the extreme, b) done something marginally less stupid - moderately likely, or c) done nothing at all - also moderately likely. Option C would likely be best - we could have edged stepwise to better solutions like what Singapore has, or toward a more purely market solution, or even just reforming the most egregious abuses around the edges. But with Obamacare still in place, we have to hope that 535 self-involved, semi- to completely corrupt psychopaths will see it in their own best interest to remove something that is already a fait accompli. The badness is really intense. Consider:

1. We are already throwing money onto the fire at a ridiculous rate. This one program alone will add a minimum of a trillion dollars to the burn rate.
2. We are now for all intents and purposes going to be paying taxes to private entities. Remember how tax collectors were regarded in the New Testament?
3. It establishes a precedent for even greater government tentacle - your ass interface. The IRS will be watching whether you are paying the insurance company, and come down on you with all it's famed respect and care for the individual. Given their regard for due process, this is going to be fun.
4. The effect on jobs - are you going to start a new company when you might - in addition to all the normal risks - be subject to tax evasion if you let your insurance lapse?
5. The general fuckedupedness of the whole thing. The problem with our health care system is that patients are not the customers. You are spending (psychologically) someone else's money for your health care. More tests? Why the fuck not? Insurance covers it. Doctors and patients are marginalized. Try and find out how much something medical costs before they do it. I dare you. Obamacare not only does nothing to address this or other problems, it adds to them. The only 'positive' thing is that more people have coverage. Everything else is nightmarish.
6. The Supreme Court ruling basically gives the gubmint all the justification it needs to construe any behavior-modification scheme as a 'tax' and know that it will fly. The commerce clause is dead, long live the tax power! Granted that the constitution is mostly dead, this gives them a fig leaf the size of Rush Limbaugh's gut. Which is altogether too big.

I could go on. But this is bad, and it will all end in fire.

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[sub-wik] original image died a lonely death somewhere in the vasty depths of the internets. So, begin your guided visualization of what once was here with this starter meme template: 

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[alsø alsø wik] Through the magic of the Wayback Machine, I have recovered the original image that was lost:

Over at the Veil War, the battle continues. Lots of new fun stuff going on, and lots of explosions. So give Chapter 21 a read. If by some supremely odd chance you are a reader of this blog and yet still are unaware of the Veil War, imagine that some alien scooped out some of JRR Tolkien's brains, and mixed them with a shot of Tom Clancy's brains. Continue to imagine that the alien then shook the brains together, added ice, and hooked the result up to a word processor and told it to write a novel. Finally, imagine that the brain set a up a webpage to publish the novel. The result would be the Veil War. Read it, love it, tell your neighbors and friends. Link it on your blog, friend it on facebook, tweet about it, and hire a herald to declaim its victories. And really, let's be honest. It's been too long since you linked the Veil War.

... has begun.

Chapter 19 is up over at the Veil War - read, and tell your friends.

Interesting discussion on stuff going on over here. A little bit more here.

Discussions of political taxonomy are always fraught with danger. Danger in that you are starting out from a counting angels on pinheads sort of place, and then heading into the deep from there. Still and all, Aretae and the other commenters have had some interesting thoughts.

One contribution I made was to suggest this:

That's why I am somewhat dubious about Leonard's distinctions between traditionalists and conservatives. I mean sure, we see differences between self-labeled advocates of those positions on the internets - but conceptually I don't think you can suss out meaningful categorical boundaries between them. An intuitive understanding of the law of unintended circumstances is a powerful starting point. It isn't fear of change, per se. It's something closer to humility, as opposed to the radical/progressive's hubris.

The difference between this position:

France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,
Or break it all to pieces: or there we'll sit,
Ruling in large and ample empery
O'er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,

and this one:

conspire To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits - and then Re-mold it nearer to the heart's desire!

are real. However both are active, meddling, arrogant. But, both are different in the same way from conservatism and libertarianism. The latter two passive in that they want either their world or themselves to be left alone.

You could plant a flag and say:

For more on what that might mean, go over to Aretae's.

Homer apparently has some mad skills in the rhetoric:

Homer's Figures of Speech

Though sometimes misjudged as a complete moron, Homer is actually a deft manipulator of the oxymoron: "Oh Bart, don't worry, people die all the time. In fact, you could wake up dead tomorrow." And our favorite figure of ridicule is actually quite handy with figures of speech. To explain human behavior, for instance, he relies on personification:

The only monster here is the gambling monster that has enslaved your mother! I call him Gamblor, and it's time to snatch your mother from his neon claws!

Chiasmus guides Homer to new levels of self-understanding:

All right, brain, I don't like you and you don't like me--so let's just do this, and I'll get back to killing you with beer.

And here, in just five words, he manages to combine apostrophe and tricolon in a heartfelt encomium: "Television! Teacher, mother, secret lover."

It's Friday the 13th, sort of. Chapter 13 is up over at the Veil War.

“Is it the habit of officers of the SANG to insult officers of the United States Marine Corps?” Lewis asked in a quiet voice.

Surprise crept across his face. “Excuse me?”

“The United States is allied to your Kingdom. You hold prisoner over a hundred of my countrymen. You lie to me about a farcical customs inspection. You intend to deprive me of my weapons and imprison me with the others.”

“That, my friend, is an insult.”

Chapter 12 was updated yesterday, too, so if you didn't reread that, you'll want to.

Some science-flavored links for your enjoyment:

• Viruses make you gay
• Nothing at all might make you a gay cat lady
• Ice Age or bust! Given a choice of civilization-ending climate calamities, I'd prefer an Ice Age. I have cross-country skies, and I know how to use them.
• DHS says we are woefully underprepared for a repeat of the Carrington Event. Ya think?

So, we're all going to become gay cat ladies, then freeze to death in the new ice age because all the power was knocked out by a stupendous solar storm. Then, the ice weasels come.

HBD stuff:

• IQ ceilings - very interesting. The tendency of smart people to come from colder climes has been known for a bit, this adds a lot to that thinking.
• The Middle Ages and marriage patterns - interesting in its own right, and dovetails well with the IQ ceiling thinking.
• Detroit - the gift that keeps on giving.
• High altitude adaptations of the Ethiopians - I find it fascinating that there are so many different ways to go about this. It's almost as if there's evolution or something going on here.
• Neanderthals, Madness - via HBD Chick.

Economics:

• Why recessions happen - nice basically Austrian summary.
• Future of money - is there one? this is big fodder for anyone with a conspiratorial mindset re: bankers.

... this post by Borepatch is pretty good. It points out the one good thing about Newt.

Well one of two things. Obviously the best thing about Newt Gingrich is the fact that he's named Newt Fucking Gingrich.

I alluded to Newt Gingrich's moonbase plans earlier. I am not totally convinced of the shark's claims to have colonized space - I admit I have my doubts - but even absent a selachimorphic space empire the Newt's plan is problematic.

First and foremost, in the speech Newt hisownself used the term grandiose to describe the adventure. Not a good sign, really. A second relaunch of the JFK? A monolithic governmental exercise that pursues a politically chosen goal at all costs, consuming and destroying all other options as it progresses; a program that might (only if successful) result in something kind of amazing but which will leave a sterile policy wasteland where even cockroaches and lobbyists have trouble surviving? More, please.

We are just now recovering from the original sin of Apollo. NASA's finally shed itself of the ridiculous abomination that was the space shuttle, though I imagine most of the tens of thousands of people who worked on that program are still on the payroll. The 21st century re-imagining of the Apollo program - known collectively or in its parts as Orion, Constellation, Ares, EDS (sounds like a disease you'd be embarrassed to have), Altair and for all I know, "Oh shit we better think of something or we're fucked" - is on the ropes as well. NASA, through massive effort, the dedication of thousands of brilliant engineers and managers, and the application of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars has managed to achieve the impossible: get to the moon six times forty years ago, and make space travel seem as exciting as a local zoning planning board meeting.

There are now several enterprises looking to change that, mostly funded by tech-industry billionaires. Of these, Space-X has the most hardware in actual use. They've successfully flown a rocket large enough to put a capsule in orbit. That capsule is about this close to being man-rated, and could carry as many as six people into orbit. They've got plans for a heavy lift vehicle that builds off the success of existing rockets and there's no reason to imagine it wouldn't work. Elon Musk could be on the moon a decade before Newt, and for far less money. Significantly, far less of our money, since Senor Elon will be spending his own money to do it. And even if Space-X fails because a rocket falls on Musk's head, there are others - Paul Allen working with Scaled Composites, Bezos with Blue Origin, and more besides.

Please, please, please don't start another government space program. Because if you do, it will kill a private space industry that is just about off the ground. I want to go into space, and I trust Elon Musk more than I do Newt Gingrich. I said that so I can say this:

I think the most interesting thing about Newt's speech is that he thought that the moon could become the 51st state. A "Northwest Ordinance for Space" has been ridiculed by some, but I think that making fun of one of the great achievements of the Confederacy is mean-hearted and unwise. The Northwest Ordinance was probably one of the most successful government enterprises ever. By setting things up such that the colonists pushing back the frontier would come into the union on the same terms as the original colonies, now states - that more than anything assured the success of the American experiment.

If we are to avoid a repeat of the whole belters vs. flatlanders wars that we read about in science fiction, we'd need a Northwest Ordinance. Having a framework for communities in space to join on equal terms with their compatriots back home on Earth would be a good thing. And if people heading out knew that they would, in time, be on an equal political footing with those who stayed behind and that the rule of law would extend into space with them, we'd do more for space settlement than spending any amount of actual tax dollar money could ever do.