No Oil for Pacifists

From Michael Lynch's op-ed in the February 25th New York Times:

As WikiLeaks’s trove of diplomatic dispatches continues to trickle out, one recent release has caused quite a stir: a cable from an American diplomat who said he was told by a Saudi oil executive that both official estimates of Saudi oil reserves and their ability to meet global demand in the long run have been vastly exaggerated. In turn, many proponents of "peak oil" theory, the idea that the global rate of oil production has entered a terminal decline, have insisted that the cable confirms their view on resource scarcity.

Actually, it does nothing of the sort. The Saudi executive, Sadad al-Husseini, a former head of exploration for the Saudi oil monopoly Aramco, has been making such claims for years. Finding them repeated in a confidential cable is news only to those unfamiliar with the field.

More important, his claims don’t stand up to scrutiny. For one thing, according to the cable, Dr. Husseini said that estimates of Saudi "reserves" were exaggerated by some 300 billion barrels. But this is impossible, as the Saudi government’s estimate of proven reserves is actually less than that amount -- roughly 267 billion barrels.

More likely, Dr. Husseini was referring to claims by some Saudi oil executives that, over the long term, they expect to find 900 billion barrels in the ground, and that 51 percent of it will be recoverable. So the dispute has nothing to do with current reserves, but with projections that are speculative by definition. Aramco’s numbers may be an educated guess, but experts in the field know they are just a guess.

And, in fact, they are hardly an unreasonable estimate. While peak-oil advocates have in the past ridiculed optimistic industry expectations, the evidence continues to confound them. Over recent decades, the consensus estimates of the amount of recoverable oil on the planet have roughly doubled. And recovery rates -- the percentage of those reserves that we are technologically able to collect -- have grown from 10 percent a century ago, to 25 percent a half-century ago, to an estimated 35 percent now. In some areas, like the North Sea, the figure is above 60 percent.

There are several other reasons to remain calm about Saudi reserves. Officials there have discovered approximately 70 major oil fields that they have left untapped over concerns that increased Saudi production would cause global oil prices to collapse.

And while Aramco is hardly likely to find anything on the scale of the Ghawar oil field, the world’s largest, they haven’t been looking very hard. The Saudis drilled about 500 wells last year; some 11,000 are drilled every year in the United States alone.

So why is this a big deal? Because advocates of peak-oil theory love to latch on to such press reports to push their political and environmental agenda.

From the February 26th Gulf Times:

It is genocide, says Qaradawi

Qatar-based scholar Sheikh Yousuf al-Qaradawi yesterday called upon the Libyans to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi, saying that the Libyan dictator was perpetrating "genocide" against his own people to continue in power after four decades of ruling the country.

Delivering the Friday sermon at the Omar bin al-Khattab mosque in Doha, Qaradawi said that Gaddafi had despised the dignity of his people and stole their treasure and now he was threatening to bomb them.

However, the Egypt-born scholar said: "The Libyans have ignored the dictator’s intimidations and broken the fear barrier."

Qaradawi said that senior officials in the Libyan regime were abandoning Gaddafi and called other close loyalist to follow suit.

The prominent scholar, who enjoys large respect in the Islamic world, advised the Libyan people to "pardon" the African mercenaries, describing them as "poor and mislead groups who were recruited by the dictator".

It's the first day of the weekend over here:



Currently reading: Budiansky's "Perilous Fight: America's Intrepid War with Britain on the High Seas, 1812-1815".

My hotel room:



What's that on the ceiling--a smoke detector? A camera?

No--it's a Qiblah: a pointer in the direction of Mecca. They're in many rooms (and virtually all hotel rooms) to show Muslims the proper direction to pray. Here's a (fuzzy) close-up of mine:



There's also one on the electronic maps on the airplanes -- the pointer shifts from southeast to southwest as we travel from DC to Doha.

The Qatar Ladies Open tennis tournament started this week. I declined free tickets (too busy). Besides, from my building (albeit not my office), we can see everything except the main court:

They call it a "dust storm," but it's a sand storm. Here's the same view as the sun vanished:

There's signs like this all over the place:



Another one says "Inspire."

BTW, my office is the building on the extreme right.

Mr. Steve Jobs changed the world, he created the iPod, iPhone, iPad, media tools that make my life better, and arguably make many lives better. As the genius behind Pixar Animation, he perhaps saved Disney, and enhanced many lives with wonderful animated movies.

Mr. Jobs is also the creative intellect behind the Macintosh computer, which easily does what most people need. Music, video, email, write letters, keep track of things. From my perspective, the thing that is so great about the Mac is not what it does today, even though it does it so easily. It is the promise that the next incarnation of the Mac will be better than the last. (In contrast, the Microsoft operating system never seems to get better, only different. Installing a printer on the PC has always been a chore, it just never gets any easier.) On a Mac, it is effortless and seamless. Installing a scanner I was up an running within 60 seconds, which is as long as it took me to search for the scanning app that comes as part of the built-in software. It is there because Apple knows people need to do those things without thinking about them.

Another example: My first computer was a Mac 128k, the original. Out of the box, the day I took it home, I created a ten page technical paper in six hours with integrated text and graphics. In 1984. I printed it on an Imagewriter and turned it in the next day. I was able, without ever having used a computer before, to do this. Try that today! It's almost an impossible experiment. But, you get the picture.

Whereas a simple thing like installing a printer on a PC has never gotten any easier, Apple makes improvements. Why? Because people want to do things on the computer, without thinking about how. That is the Apple advantage. Thanks Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs created great things that make many peoples lives much better. We communicate, collaborate, share, love, cry, learn easier, better, faster and without taking a day to learn how to install a stupid printer on a stupid computer! Thank you Mr. Jobs! He was able to do these things because he had to do them to compete. Competition and capital allowed him to do great things, a truly Great American.

Want to know what competition and capitalism can do for you? Just pay a visit to the local grocery store. Notice the abundance of cheap food. The absence of long lines and queues. When the government takes care of food control and production, shortages and high prices exist. Just take a look at the former Soviet Union, Cuba and North Korea to know that. Ten million people get fed in New York City each day because of competition an capitalism. Where does the best food go? To those that can afford lobster and caviar.

But, Steve Jobs is dying. Well, we are all dying, but Mr. Jobs is dying sooner than most of us, from pancreatic cancer, notoriously low five year survival rate. He has extended his life by buying the best medical care, and being on every transplant list in the country. He can do this because he is wealthy.

And, Mr. Jobs may be the last Great American. Ever.

Why? Because government growth is squeezing out the ability to be a Great American. Take a look at the American car industry: destroyed by unions, no longer competitive. These unions grew in power and were protected by federal, state and local governments. Sure, individuals in those unions are better off, but the country is worse because the auto industry is going elsewhere. There is no competition for jobs when the work (and pay) is allocated based seniority insted of productivity. A younger, better, faster worker will be laid off before a slower, older, lazier worker. How does that make sense? No, life isn't fair.

I would argue the public education industry is failing us as well, because of teacher-union control, facilitated by Big Brother. There is little competition, and thus less incentive, to excel as a teacher. Government and union control of education is killing it.

And finally, in Mr. Obama's world, the government will be in control of health care. Most likely that is the future, if we don't kill the thing now. In Mr. Obama's world, health care will be controlled by an inefficient government, rationed and you will line up in queues to get it. Steve Jobs could never buy the best medical care, he would stand in line like everyone else.

In Mr. Obama's world, the liver that Steve Jobs has now would have more likely gone to waste as a discarded organ, due to lack of funds for transplants, or just as likely, gone to a diabetic single mother of four on welfare. That would have made her life better, certainly. That liver makes a big difference to that one person. However, Steve Jobs makes my life better! He makes a lot of lives better! That's what makes him a Great American. He makes many lives better. In this America, if you can afford the liver transplant then you can get something like the head of the line, by being able to cross the nation for available organ at a moments notice. That allows you to be on the list of more than just your local donor list. Most of us cannot afford that, but Steve Jobs can, because he created wealth by being a Great American.

Instead of 'fixing health care' by making it worse, we should fix health care by letting capitalism and competition cure the system. That has has worked everywhere it has been tried. If socialism were better, we'd all be speaking Russian.

Capitalism and competition works to create a Great America and Great Americans. People that hate America, want to destroy it and create a mediocre place to live where everyone is at the mercy of a controlling big brother authority.

That's why Steve Jobs may be the Last Great American, because if America doesn't cease to exist, it will not be a place where greatness prospers... only mediocrity.

John Hawkins of Right Wing News polled right-of-center bloggers for preferences on a candidate in 2012. His results are here: basically, the favorites (in order) were Chris Christie, Sarah Palin and Mitch Daniels.

I was among the bloggers polled. And my second thoughts are little different from my first: I supported Mitch Daniels followed by Haley Barbour with Jon Huntsman as my "dark horse" candidate. Mind you, I don't oppose Christie--I just think he needs more experience.

Surf here for the full results.

But it looks pretty at night:



If I say that it's only about 72 degrees (and windy) during the day (1) those of you freezing in the winter will be annoyed; and (2) OBH will be even more convinced I'm in Florida.

MaxedOutMama asked about lighting fixtures. This is my hotel's atrium:



It's not really a light. Just like the lamps in my room--all CFLs, and at least five must be on to have enough light to read.

That's not enough candlepower to read the budget.

From page one of the February 14th Gulf Times:

Warning over cologne drinking

The increase in cologne consumption is causing loss of productivity to companies and a variety of ailments among labourers, according to officials

The abuse of cologne as liquor amongst low-income workers has reached alarming proportions in Qatar, construction industry officials have warned.

The increase in its consumption is causing loss of productivity to companies and a variety of ailments among labourers, they said.

"Its use has reached epidemic proportions. Almost every week we end up terminating an abuser," said a human resource official managing 2,800 labourers.

Readily available in mega-marts and neighbourhood shops, suspicious-looking cologne bottles with virtually no labelling are bought by low-income workers for using the stuff as an alcohol substitute.

"What we do now is, issue a verbal warning followed by a written one. If a worker is caught again, we suspend him for 3-5 days. As a last resort we terminate the services of the individual in an attempt to maintain discipline in the workers’ camp," the HR official said.

However, the abuse has become so widespread it does not even raise an eyebrow. Yesterday afternoon, a group of three low-income workers was spotted in a hypermarket buying three bottles of a particular cologne brand.

"We will mix it with a soft drink and consume it," said a member of the group. "It should be good for seven to eight people in our room. We use it for medicinal purposes," the worker said.

By way of contrast, a photo of an actual "shovel-ready" project:

FYI, a different hotel than last time.

I've returned to the Mid-East. Blogging will be light for a while.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of the far-left Nation magazine, in the January 16, 2011, Washington Post:

It will be a year this week since Chief Justice John Roberts and his conservative activist colleagues on the Supreme Court joined together in a dramatic assault on American democracy. . . As former senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), himself a victim of Citizens United spending, said, "It is going to be worse in 2012 unless we do something -- much worse."

Senator Russ Feingold in the January 13, 2011, Nation magazine:

Money in politics is a huge issue. But let's be clear: I certainly wasn't underfunded [in 2010]. I don't think another $100 million would have changed the outcome of my race. I don't think even $100 million would have mattered, because of the mindset that had developed, because of the desire on the part of a lot of voters to send that message. I think it's important to make this point, because I'm not here to say that I was a victim in particular of that. I think we have to see the whole money-in-politics issue in a broader context.

Conclusion: Don't believe what you read about the Citizens United decision. As Wendy Kaminer says in the February 8, 2011, Atlantic magazine:

It takes chutzpah, shamelessness, or negligence to cite as support for a factual assertion an authoritative statement that directly contradicts it. Maybe vanden Heuvel didn't read the interview in her own magazine; maybe she relies on incompetent research assistance; maybe she assumes that her readers don't bother checking links and accept her claims at face value; maybe, like the right wing propagandists The Nation deplores, she's decided that facts don't matter. Whatever. I like to think they matter to the Washington Post, so, naively perhaps, I emailed a request for a correction. I received no substantive response (only an automated message acknowledging receipt). Vanden Heuvel's disingenuous column still appears uncorrected.

(via NewsBusters)

The February 7th Wall Street Journal suggests another reason for the economy's slow recovery--anti-competitive over-regulation:

[C]at groomers, tattoo artists, tree trimmers and about a dozen other specialists across the country . . . are clamoring for more rules governing small businesses.

They're asking to become state-licensed professionals, which would mean anyone wanting to be, say, a music therapist or a locksmith, would have to pay fees, apply for a license and in some cases, take classes and pass exams. The hope is that regulation will boost the prestige of their professions, provide oversight and protect consumers from shoddy work.

But economists--and workers shut out of fields by educational requirements or difficult exams--say licensing mostly serves as a form of protectionism, allowing veterans of the trade to box out competitors who might undercut them on price or offer new services.

"Occupations prefer to be licensed because they can restrict competition and obtain higher wages," said Morris Kleiner, a labor professor at the University of Minnesota. "If you go to any statehouse, you'll see a line of occupations out the door wanting to be licensed."

While some states have long required licensing for workers who handle food or touch others--caterers and hair stylists, for example--economists say such regulation is spreading to more states for more industries. The most recent study, from 2008, found 23% of U.S. workers were required to obtain state licenses, up from just 5% in 1950, according to data from Mr. Kleiner. In the mid-1980s, about 800 professions were licensed in at least one state. Today, at least 1,100 are, according to the Council on Licensure, Enforcement and Regulation, a trade group for regulatory bodies. Among the professions licensed by one or more states: florists, interior designers, private detectives, hearing-aid fitters, conveyor-belt operators and retailers of frozen desserts.



At a time of widespread anxiety about the growth of government, the licensing push is meeting pockets of resistance, including a move by some legislators to require a more rigorous cost-benefit analysis before any new licensing laws are approved. Critics say such regulation spawns huge bureaucracies including rosters of inspectors. They also say licensing requirements--which often include pricey educations--can prohibit low-income workers from breaking in to entry-level trades.

Texas, for instance, requires hair-salon "shampoo specialists" to take 150 hours of classes, 100 of them on the "theory and practice" of shampooing, before they can sit for a licensing exam. That consists of a written test and a 45-minute demonstration of skills such as draping the client with a clean cape and evenly distributing conditioner. Glass installers, or glaziers, in Connecticut--the only state that requires such workers to be licensed--take two exams, at $52 apiece, pay $300 in initial fees and $150 annually thereafter.

California requires barbers to study full-time for nearly a year, a curriculum that costs $12,000 at Arthur Borner's Barber College in Los Angeles.

Such regulatory burdens are killing job growth.

(via EconLog)

Lefties like choice--except when they don't, says JammieWearingFool:

You will never hear the Democrats argue the merits of the education children will receive whenever the topic of school choice comes up. Instead they will tug at the heart strings with cataclysmic stories of homeless teachers standing in bread lines, which once again only leads one to the conclusion that that only happens if the probably union member teacher, who apparently has no other marketable skills, was not able to get a job teaching at a private institution.

As far as that state representative comments about taxpayer money going to private institutions doesn't help public education, I would just say taxpayer dollars going to public schools certainly doesn't help public education either. It has already been proven over and over again that the amount of money thrown at schools does not guarantee a better education. For the state of Georgia, the city of Atlanta spends more, almost double as a matter of fact, per pupil, and yet continually ranks down at the bottom even while their neighbors in the adjoining metro areas spend less and constantly receive national recognition for their schools and students. If you could take the Atlanta school district test scores and graduation rates out of the reporting statistics the state would probably move up about 10 positions on those list of best education lists. I am sure she will remind you it is all about the kids though. It always is

Democrats can not stand the idea of choices. Whether it is in the food you eat, activities you engage in, the type of car you drive or the health insurance you choose to have or not have, to them there is only one choice and that is to have the government dictate it to you. Sort of frees you up from all that personal responsibility thing and makes life so much easier and stress free when you can at once blame government for your failings in life and at the same time allow them to make all of your decisions for you. Well actually, you don't have to make decisions anymore.

And that folks is called liberal utopia.

Agreed--both with respect to progressives' preference for compulsion and their putting teachers unions ahead of effective education.

(via Maggie's Farm)

The "conventional wisdom" holds that global warming brings more frequent winter snowstorms. Al Gore says it. Dr. Michio Kaku says it. The National Wildlife Federation says it. Some "scientists" say it.

Even assuming the validity of man-made global warming -- this is an appropriate time to note that the satellite-measured "temperature anomalies" in the lower troposphere between 70 degrees South and 82.5 degrees North dropped to only 0.083 degrees C in January -- is the conventional wisdom correct?

No--none of these zealots can "cite a peer-reviewed paper that definitively shows a link between the posited increasing blizzard frequency or intensity due to human-caused global warming, but [instead] resort to a hand-wavy, thought-experiment that uses the phrase 'completely consistent with' and 'all sorts of havoc' causing warmcold and drywet." In fact, water vapor anomalies are either declining or uncorrelated with CO₂ concentrations. (Which may be why hurricanes haven't gotten worse, contrary to green fears.) Plus there's been cooling since the end of last year's El Nino.

In sum, there is no evidence global warming caused recent heavy snowfalls. Rather, as Dr. Ryan N. Maue reminds, "It’s snowed before, it’s flooded before, and it will again."

Welcome to winter--the conventional wisdom is worthless.

On January 27th, the Cambridge (U.K.) Union Society debated "This house believes in the spread of Western liberal democracy, by force where necessary." Writer/blogger Norm Geras -- a Marxist who I've quoted and concurred with often before -- was among those speaking in favor of the proposition.

Geras reprints his text here. I recommend its sanity and syllogism, even though his approach is narrower than I've often endorsed.

Unsurprisingly, the motion was defeated by a ratio of about two to one.

My previous post on manufacturing productivity and jobs was controversial. So let me fan the flames; according to the Wall Street Journal:

U.S. manufacturing, viewed as a lost cause by many Americans, has begun creating more jobs than it eliminates for the first time in more than a decade.

As the economy recovered and big companies began upgrading old factories or building new ones, the number of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. last year grew 1.2%, or 136,000, the first increase since 1997, government data show.

Econ prof/blogger Mark Perry graphs the change:


source: Carpe Diem

Conclusion: The supposed collapse of U.S. industrial output is overstated.

From the February 5th Washington Post:

A visit former U.S. President George W. Bush planned to make to Switzerland next week has been canceled because of security concerns, after left-wing groups called for mass protests and rights activists proposed legal action against him for allegedly ordering the torture of terrorism suspects.

Bush's spokesman David Sherzer said the two-term president was informed Friday by the United Israel Appeal that his Feb. 12 dinner speech in Geneva had been called off.

"We regret that the speech has been canceled," Sherzer told The Associated Press in an e-mail Saturday. "President Bush was looking forward to speaking about freedom and offering reflections from his time in office."

Saturday's edition of Swiss daily Tribune de Geneve quoted the Jewish charity's lawyer, Robert Equey, as saying the visit was canceled because of the risk that protests by left-wing groups could result in violence.

"The calls to demonstrate were sliding into dangerous terrain," Equey told the newspaper. "The organizers claimed to be able to maintain order, but warned they could not be held responsible for any outbursts."

Protest organizers had called for participants to each bring a shoe to the rally outside the lakeside Hotel Wilson -- named after Bush's predecessor Woodrow Wilson -- where the dinner was to be held. The shoe was meant to recall the moment an Iraqi journalist threw his footwear at Bush during a news conference in Baghdad in 2008.

See also the February 5th Denver Post:

Saying it received an "onslaught of personal attacks," a Colorado nonprofit announced in a news release today that it was canceling a scheduled May appearance in Glendale by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Palin, the former Alaskan governor and possible 2012 Republican presidential candidate, was to be the keynote speaker at the May 2 Patriots & Warriors Gala at the Infinity Park Event Center in Glendale.

The event, sponsored by the Sharon K. Pacheco Foundation, was announced to the media on Friday. The group said today the event had been canceled because of "safety concerns resulting from an onslaught of negative feedback received by the organization."

"Due to an onslaught of personal attacks against Gov. Palin and others associated with her appearance, it is with deep sadness and disappointment that, in the best interest of all, we cancel the event for safety concerns," according to the news release.

These days, lefties are more likely to be lunatics than conservatives.

UPDATE: Don't miss Hernando de Soto's WSJ op-ed.


Bill Kristol in the February 14th Weekly Standard:

The question is how the U.S. government can do its best to help the awakening [in Egypt] turn out well.

In his column, Krauthammer refers to the French, Russian, and Iranian revolutions. They all turned out badly. But before 1789 was 1776. After 1917, there was 1989. And after 1979, there was also 2009, when the Obama administration shamefully and foolishly did nothing to help topple the most dangerous regime in the Middle East.

Furthermore, in the last quarter century, there have been transitions from allied dictatorships to allied democracies in Chile, South Korea, the Philippines, and Indonesia, to name only a few. The United States has played a role in helping those transitions turn out (reasonably) well. America needn’t be passive or fretful or defensive. We can help foster one outcome over another. As Krauthammer puts it, "Elections will be held. The primary U.S. objective is to guide a transition period that gives secular democrats a chance."

Now, people are more than entitled to their own opinions of how best to accomplish that democratic end. And it’s a sign of health that a political and intellectual movement does not respond to a complicated set of developments with one voice.

But hysteria is not a sign of health. When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He’s marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s.

Nor is it a sign of health when other American conservatives are so fearful of a popular awakening that they side with the dictator against the democrats. Rather, it’s a sign of fearfulness unworthy of Americans, of short-sightedness uncharacteristic of conservatives, of excuse-making for thuggery unworthy of the American conservative tradition.

It was not so long ago, after all, when conservatives understood that Middle Eastern dictatorships such as Mubarak’s help spawn global terrorism. We needn’t remind our readers that the most famous of the 9/11 hijackers, Mohammed Atta, was an Egyptian, as is al Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al Zawahiri. The idea that democracy produces radical Islam is false: Whether in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian territories, or Egypt, it is the dictatorships that have promoted and abetted Islamic radicalism. (Hamas, lest we forget, established its tyranny in Gaza through nondemocratic means.) Nor is it in any way "realist" to suggest that backing Mubarak during this crisis would promote "stability." To the contrary: The situation is growing more unstable because of Mubarak’s unwillingness to abdicate. Helping him cling to power now would only pour fuel on the revolutionary fire, and push the Egyptian people in a more anti-American direction.

Unlike many on the right, I think the Obama Administration's diplomacy on Egypt has been -- although not perfect -- reasonably praiseworthy. These situations are tough: America cannot get either too far out front or too far behind events, which requires a delicate balance.

We have to hope for the best. But, I can't say a conservative Administration would have done better.

Oh, and check out Yaakov Kirschen's take on Dry Bones:

Item: Washington Post, in its October 17, 2008, editorial endorsement of Obama for President:

Mr. Obama is a man of supple intelligence, with a nuanced grasp of complex issues and evident skill at conciliation and consensus-building.

Item: Reuters article, April 3, 2009:

Where President George W. Bush was known for his "cowboy diplomacy," his successor, President Barack Obama wants to be known as a listener and a builder of bridges. . .

As financial markets rose on relief that the G20 summit had not ended in argument, Obama played up his role as a consensus-builder -- an image he emphasized during his political rise in the United States.

Item: PBS's Frontline, quoting the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza, April 13, 2010:

Obama's identity was he was a consensus builder.

Item: Gallup poll, February 4, 2011:

President Barack Obama's job approval ratings were even more polarized during his second year in office than during his first, when he registered the most polarized ratings for a first-year president. An average of 81% of Democrats and 13% of Republicans approved of the job Obama was doing as president during his second year. That 68-point gap in party ratings is up from 65 points in his first year and is easily the most polarized second year for a president since Dwight Eisenhower.

Conclusion: As Instapundit says, "A divider, not a uniter."

Catherine Rampell in the New York Times' Economix blog reprints a chart from World Bank economist Branko Milanovic's new book "The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality":




The numbers are at purchasing power parity--critical for cross-country comparisons. And the chart "shows the relationship between a) the distribution of income by "ventiles" (5% groups) for the U.S., Brazil, China and India on the horizontal axis and b) the percentile of world income distribution on the vertical axis." That means, for America, according to Catherine:

Notice how the entire line for the United States resides in the top portion of the graph? That’s because the entire country is relatively rich. In fact, America’s bottom ventile is still richer than most of the world: That is, the typical person in the bottom 5 percent of the American income distribution is still richer than 68 percent of the world’s inhabitants.

Now check out the line for India. India’s poorest ventile corresponds with the 4th poorest percentile worldwide. And its richest? The 68th percentile. Yes, that’s right: America’s poorest are, as a group, about as rich as India’s richest.

In other words, America's poor are comparatively well-off. More evidence that income inequality mostly is meaningless (in part because it reflects return to talent).

From the February 4th New York Times:

For Tucson Survivors, Health Care Cost Is Concern

It's bad enough to try to exploit a tragedy to shore-up support for Obamacare. Especially when the article itself concedes that "most, if not all, of the 13 people wounded that morning had health insurance, and health care providers say they expect insurance companies to cover the bulk of the medical cost."

(via Best of the Web)

UPDATE: below

Item: Michigan's "zero tolerance" law mandates expulsion for public school students knowingly possessing any "dangerous weapon". Dangerous weapons include any "dagger, dirk, stiletto, [or] knife with a blade over 3 inches in length."

Item: Two years ago, a 9-year old fourth-grader in Fruitport Michigan was expelled for at least 90 days for carrying a "wedding cake knife" aboard a school bus.

Item: Last week, educators decided zero tolerance depended on the meaning of "zero":

A Detroit-area district says Sikh students are permitted to wear a small, religious dagger to school.

The decision by the Plymouth-Canton Community Schools reverses a ban put in place in December after a fourth-grader at a Canton Township elementary school was found with a dull, 3- to 5-inch kirpan.

source: FOX Detroit; other pictures here

According to Sikh community leaders, "After they are baptized, members of the faith, which originated in South Asia in the 15th century, are expected to carry [a kirpan] all the time."

Item: The Michigan decision is similar to a 2006 ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Conclusion: Call it a partial victory for the ACLU, which has argued Michigan's zero tolerance law was "disproportionately" applied to black students and thus "unfair." I dislike modern pettifogging school expulsions for harmless offenses. I like even less made-up multi-cultural exceptions to what should be equally-applied laws.

If you want to wear your dagger to school, move to Canada.

MORE:

The "Canadazation" of Canada accelerates:

A dozen Muslim families who recently arrived in Canada have told Winnipeg’s Louis Riel School Division that they want their children excused from compulsory elementary school music and coed physical education programs for religious and cultural reasons.

"This is one of our realities in Manitoba now, as a result of immigration," said superintendent Terry Borys. "We were faced with some families who were really adamant about this. Music was not part of the cultural reality." . . .

The families accept physical education, as long as the boys and girls have separate classes, but do not want their children exposed to singing or the playing musical instruments, Borys said.

(via Jawa Report, Don Surber)

Enjoy the Super Bowl.

I'm heading back to the Middle East later this week. So I'm desperate for book recommendations: fiction or non, available as an eBook. Today's purchases include "King Solomon's Mines," Yeats's "Autobiographies," "The Balfour Declaration," and "O: A Presidential Novel" (by Anonymous). Other suggestions?

UPDATE: below

Today would have been Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday. The event will be celebrated by the resurrection of Life magazine and at the Superbowl. Reagan would have been amused by either tribute. He would have laughed at the various academic symposia.

Both points are to the credit of our 40th President--the first successful campaign for which I volunteered; the only Administration in which I worked. His striving for individual liberties and economic freedom, his belief in Americans and America, and his contagious humor and optimism inspired many (myself included) and changed the lives of millions. Reagan made a difference in part because he believed that he could--my favorite quote comes via his first national security adviser, Richard Allen, four years before moving into the White House:

In January 1977, I visited Ronald Reagan in Los Angeles. During our four-hour conversation, he said many memorable things, but none more significant than this. "My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic," he said. "It is this: We win and they lose. What do you think of that?" One had never heard such words from the lips of a major political figure; until then, we had thought only in terms of managing the relationship with the Soviet Union.

This kind of stuff drove Democrats (and Frenchmen) mad--but proved correct. And anyone who denigrates Reagan as a mere actor should read the President's own writings.

Happy birthday and requiescat in pace, RWR--a great man, leader and American.

MORE:

Via reader Doug J., Chicago law prof Richard Epstein explains "The Secret of Ronald Reagan's Success":

The secret to Reagan's success was that he cared about the big stuff without troubling himself with the little stuff. The determined simplicity of his vision made him the butt of many a joke by liberal pundits who had him beat cold on IQ points. But in so ridiculing him, his critics misunderstood the key virtues for a political leader.

I have spent my entire career in legal education. Whenever I write about technical subjects, I quickly find myself mired in multiple exceptions to a general rule. "But what about" is the phrase that guides academic inquiry. That approach works for lawyers, who spend inordinate time arguing about novel cases that fall at the margin of two competing principles.

But political leaders are, thankfully, not necessarily lawyers. Their job is to define the terms of the debate. They should leave the details to, well, people like me.

Any effort to go down into the weeds has two fatal consequences for the politician who wants to be a statesman. First, it narrows the scope of the principle so that the general public can no longer figure out where their political leader stands. Second, the public emphasis on minutiae presents the image of the postmodern man consumed by doubt and devoid of inner conviction.

Leadership cannot thrive on nuance or uncertainty. It depends on unshakable commitments to sound principles.

That is where Ronald Reagan excelled as a president.

Charles Krauthammer in Friday's Washington Post:

The House of Mubarak is no more. He is 82, reviled and not running for reelection. The only question is who fills the vacuum. There are two principal possibilities: a provisional government of opposition forces, possibly led by Mohamed ElBaradei, or an interim government led by the military.

ElBaradei would be a disaster. As head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he did more than anyone to make an Iranian nuclear bomb possible, covering for the mullahs for years. (As soon as he left, the IAEA issued a strikingly tough, unvarnished report about the program.)

Worse, ElBaradei has allied himself with the Muslim Brotherhood. Such an alliance is grossly unequal. The Brotherhood has organization, discipline and widespread support. In 2005, it won approximately 20 percent of parliamentary seats. ElBaradei has no constituency of his own, no political base, no political history within Egypt at all.

He has lived abroad for decades. He has less of a residency claim to Egypt than Rahm Emanuel has to Chicago. A man with no constituency allied with a highly organized and powerful political party is nothing but a mouthpiece and a figurehead, a useful idiot whom the Brotherhood will dispense with when it ceases to have need of a cosmopolitan frontman.

Item: Attorney General Eric Holder, October 19, 2009:

[T]he facts are clear . . . Disturbingly, intimate partner homicide is the leading cause of death for African-American women ages 15 to 45.

Item: The Federal Department of Health and Human Service's Center for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ("Your Online Source for Credible Health Information"), leading causes of death for African-American women ages 15-45, most recent year available (2007):


source: CDC (custom age-range query; chart from link on 15-45 age group)

Item: "Homicide" covers all murders, both those committed by intimate partners and those by friends or strangers.

Item: Christina Hoff Summers in USA Today, February 4, 2011:

Holder's patently false assertion has remained on the Justice Department website for more than a year.

How is that possible? It is possible because false claims about male domestic violence are ubiquitous and immune to refutation.

Conclusion: Remember President Obama's Inaugural Address vow to "restore science to its rightful place"? Neither do I.

(via TigerHawk)

According to a Financial Times survey:

An overwhelming majority of business and financial leaders from around the world think there is a chance that one or more euro zone countries will leave monetary union over the next three years.

More than four out of five senior executives, or 85 percent, said there was a chance of this happening, while two in three, or 60 percent, said there was a chance the euro zone would break-up over the next three years.

I'm actually surprised the soft-power currency's lasted this long.

(via Instapundit)

Two days ago, I wrote about Florida District Judge Vinson's opinion voiding most of Obamacare. This post responds to Anony's praise for the ruling.

While I agree it's a well-written decision, Judge Vinson's opinion has some legal weaknesses:

1) As Sue mentioned, it panders to Justice Kennedy by quoting his concurring opinions. See Slip Op. at 40, 54. Although two justices almost certainly will favor similar limits on the reach of the "commerce clause," see Alderman v. United States, No. 09-1555 (Jan. 10, 2011) (Thomas, J. dissenting from denial of cert., joined by Scalia, J.), I'm not positive about the Chief and Alito. And, in any event, the play for Justice Kennedy so obvious as to alienate him.

2) The opinion is a bit fast-and-loose on the "necessary and proper" clause analysis in not genuinely applying Supreme Court precedent.

3) It is overly political, as the example I cited about footnote 30 on Obama's change in position shows. This is un-judicial.

4) I'm torn about the opinion's sweeping view on severability. It is controversial--and close to the edge. Even absent an explicit severability provision, statutes are not presumed not to be severable. The exception is where "it is evident that the Legislature would not have enacted those provisions which are within its power, independently of that which is not, [and] what is left is fully operative as a law."

Obamacare without the mandate unquestionably would be a readable statute, able to be applied and interpreted. But Judge Vinson focused on the Congressional finding that the mandate was "essential to creating effective health insurance markets in which improved health insurance products that are guaranteed issue and do not exclude coverage of pre-existing conditions can be sold," PPACA, Section 1501(a)(2)(I) (page 144). According to Vinson, this meant the provision was essential to almost all of Obamacare as a whole.

The Judge is right as a matter of policy, and thus Vinson was unwilling to re-write other provisions to make them workable absent the mandate. On the other hand, such policy determinations are best left to the legislature, not the Courts, meaning the ruling borders on judicial activism. The more conservative course would have been to stick with legal severability and let Congress decide next steps absent the mandate.

Conclusion: Anony may be right--Vinson's view may command Justice Kennedy's fifth vote. But, like MaxedOutMama, I'd rather this be solved in Congress as opposed to courts.

Jay Cost on the Weekly Standard's blog:

Barack Obama is stuck in the 1960s. And it's not just because his style of liberalism -- spend, spend, spend! -- is reminiscent of that era. Liberals since the New Deal have enjoyed spending. It's because he likes to spend money as if we are in the middle of the greatest economic boom in the history of the nation, as if there's plenty of cash to go around. The country could afford, in the 1960s, to send a man to the moon and to create brand new entitlement programs. Real GDP increased, on average, by 4.4 percent every year for the whole decade. But those days are long gone. As much as getting a great return on an "investment" in infrastructure improvement is appealing, it's always a bad idea to invest one's spare cash when the creditors are about to bust down the door. Ever dime should go to deficit reduction -- not two for new spending, one for the deficit.

(via Maggie's Farm)

Even this year's winter wonderland isn't immune from . . . lawyers:

It's one of the simple, most wonderful pleasures of life: zooming down a snow-covered hill just fast enough for a touch of fear to quicken your pulse. Maybe it's a solo run. Maybe you're clinging to a loved one as you tear down the hill tandem. Surely, sledding is one of those things that makes it worth toughing it out and living in New Jersey when sunnier climes often beckon. . .

But more and more, we found, the hills that have thrilled generations of sledders are now closed.

Lawsuits filed by injured sledders, it seems, have struck fear in the hearts of municipal and county government officials, prompting them to simply ban sledding at some of the state's erstwhile sledding meccas. . . [S]ome of the best sledding hills in the state sit snow covered and silent.

(via Moonbattery)

From a January 24th editorial in Investor's Business Daily:

After the 1998 tobacco deal, many wondered where the next battleground for the shakedown lawyers would be. Few wonder now. The legal war over climate change is heating up -- and it'll be costly. . . And the media are finally picking up on this.

"Climate-change litigation is fast emerging as a new frontier of law where some believe hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake," AFP reported Sunday.

Though not yet widespread, climate-related lawsuits have "ballooned" in the last three years, AFP said. Deutsche Bank says filings in the U.S. alone went from 48 in 2009 to 132 last year. "Entrepreneurial lawyers" are stalking prospective defendants, while businesses and insurers are trying to find ways to protect themselves.

While none of the lawsuits has been successful, the sheer volume of future suits is expected to generate what Rutgers law professor Howard Latin predicted in 2007 would be "one of the biggest legal practices in the next 20 years."

The typical defendants are energy-related companies and those that emit large amounts of carbon dioxide, or whose products generate CO2, which is supposedly causing the planet to heat.

We've found no reliable estimates as to how much global warming litigation will cost. But this we do know: It will be expensive, and painfully so.

AFP reports that "compensation for losses inflicted by man-made global warming would be jaw-dropping, a payout that would make tobacco and asbestos damages look like pocket money."

The potential defendants in global warming litigation have a far bigger financial footprint than the handful of giant tobacco companies who were victimized by the settlement.

(via Maggie's Farm)

My views on Judge Vinson's opinion holding most of Obamacare unconsitutitonal are much the same as the Volokh Conspiracy's Ilya Somin. And there's no better breakdown than MaxedOutMama's wonderfully snide review. To watch the Judge going over-the-top from law to politics, see Slip Op. at 76 n.30 (Obama was against the mandate before he was for it).

Even so, the Vinson decision is far better than Judge Hudson's ruling from December. I still think the individual mandate will be upheld. Yet, Judge Vinson's ruling confirms that the winning side will be the one which can best define some limits to its governing principles: if this is interstate commerce, what isn't? Or, in the opposite sense, if the Commerce Clause authorizes prohibition of pot, isn't economic regulation of insurance (even if accomplished through a mandate to participate in commerce) a "lesser included offense"? And, unlike Judge Hudson, the Florida opinion strikes down most of Obamacare because the mandate's not severable--an idea Judge Vinson says he got from the Administration.

The only certainty is that the issue will be resolved by Justice Kennedy. Unless, unless, the democratic process manages to speak first.

From the November 2010 Journal of Physical Oceanography, Vol. 40, No. 11, at 2546-2555, the abstract of an article titled Changes in Temperature and Salinity Tendencies of the Upper Subtropical North Atlantic Ocean at 24.5°N, by Pedro Vélez-Belchí, Alonso Hernández-Guerra, Eugenio Fraile-Nuez and Verónica Benítez-Barrios:

Strong interest in multidecadal changes in ocean temperature and heat transport has resulted in the occupation of the North Atlantic Ocean hydrographic transect along 24.5°N five times since 1957, more than any other transoceanic section in the world. This latitude is chosen because it is where the northward ocean transport of heat in the Atlantic reaches its maximum. An analysis of the five oceanographic cruises at this latitude shows that there has been a significant cooling of -0.15°C in the upper ocean (600-1800-dbar range) over the last 7 years, from 1998 to 2004, which is in contrast to the warming of 0.27°C observed from 1957 to 1998.

As reported in the Register (U.K.):

In the opinion of Vélez Belchí and his colleagues, the drop in temperature seen in the mid-Atlantic cannot be put down to climate change -- in particular they don't consider that meltwater from glaciers or the polar cap is responsible. If that had been the underlying cause, a corresponding temperature drop "should have been observed clearly in the areas close to the North Pole", he says -- and none was.

The Register also quotes the paper's lead author conceding that "[t]he ocean's natural variability mechanisms are more significant than we thought."

No fooling--ocean temps have been steady or sinking for years. Meaning that, contrary to warming alarmists, the science isn't settled.

(via Don Surber)

Mostly, the United States. The 1979 Camp David Accords committed America to significant military assistance to Egypt, most recently about $1.3 billion annually. Not all of that is weapons. Still, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's Arms Transfers Database, in 2009, the U.S. and/or U.S. firms exported about $279 million in arms to Egypt (figure adjusted to 2009 dollars). And, considering arms alone, the United States still supplies the vast majority of military hardware imported by Egypt:


source: NOfP chart via SIPRI data

Question: What happens should that weaponry be used against Israel? Answer: The United Nations will condemn Israel.