Stats

 

Stats

Scientists have discovered a reservoir of liquid water on Mars - deep in the rocky outer crust of the planet.

While there is water frozen at the Martian poles and evidence of vapour in the atmosphere, this is the first time liquid water has been found on the planet.

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Some 90% of the US has air conditioning, according to one estimate, compared to only 19% for Europe. Worldwide, the US, China and Japan account for about two-thirds of all air conditioning…

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Germany: In no other OECD country do workers spend less time on the job. With labour input shrinking by some 1 per cent a year, labour productivity would need to rise by an equal amount for the economy to stand still. Unfortunately, productivity increases per hour worked have stood well below 1 per cent in recent years. The country’s fundamental speed limit for growth may lie below zero.

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…the country’s migration minister is celebrating the fact Sweden has “negative net immigration”, with more people thought to be leaving the country than entering for the first time in more than half a century.

“The number of asylum applications is heading towards a historically low level, asylum-related residence permits continue to decrease and for the first time in 50 years Sweden has net emigration,” Maria Malmer Stenergard announced earlier this month.

Sweden’s Moderate-led government, which is supported by the far-right Sweden Democrats, has pursued increasingly restrictive asylum policies, including plans for a “snitch law” that would legally require public sector workers to report undocumented people.

…the UN high commissioner for refugees confirmed the trend. It was surprising, the UNHCR said, that while global displacement was at an all-time high, the number of people seeking asylum in Sweden was at an all-time low.

“The statistics show Sweden having a net outflow of immigrants for the first time in decades,” Annika Sandlund, the UNHCR representative to the Nordic and Baltic countries, told the Guardian.

Interview

Interview

It turns out that the long-awaited interview with Ms. Harris was not a test of her; it was a test of the electorate. Ms. Harris, in her sixteen-minute interview with CNN's Dana Bash, walked a fine line between calculated ambiguity and elements of "The Office" or "Anchorman." It was an exercise in manipulation, disguising, to an uncertain degree, ineptness.

Ms. Bash's questions were leading and kind, and Ms. Harris's answers were vague, circular, and unrewarding.

This encounter can be summarized in any number of partisan ways but the interview did not reveal someone capable of international leadership. The question will really be, is the electorate capable of recognizing these failures and acting upon them.

Put another way, is the general voting population capable--or willing--to do the right thing?

Raw Milk

Raw Milk

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he only drinks raw milk.

In Iowa. Montana, North Dakota, Alaska, Georgia and Wyoming all have passed laws (or changed regulations) since 2020 legalizing the sale of raw milk on farms or in stores.

Drinking raw milk is “like playing Russian roulette with your health,” as the director of the FDA Division of Dairy and Egg Safety once said. To be clear, the CDC’s own study says raw milk is estimated to have caused three deaths from 1998-2018 while oysters cause 100 deaths every year. Weiss writes “for new consumers, raw milk is a symbol. … To drink (and especially to produce) raw milk is a way of breaking with convention and raging against the machine — the United States Department of Agriculture, the Centers for Disease Control, the FDA, doctors, PhDs, state regulators, and Big Dairy.”

Big Dairy.

The final and biggest blow to raw milk came when a federal judge ruled in favor of the Ralph Nader-founded advocacy group, Public Citizen, and banned all interstate sales of raw milk.

According to an FDA study relying on 2016 and 2019 data, 4.4 percent of Americans report consuming raw milk in the past year, although the number has almost certainly grown since then.

Sally Fallon Morell, the president of the pro-raw milk Weston A. Price Foundation, which lists 3,000 locations in America where one can purchase raw milk, said “I think Covid had a lot to do with [people’s newfound interest in raw milk]. A lot of people don’t believe everything the government says anymore.”

Emissions Reduction

 

This is an informative Opinion Piece by Jenkins from the WSJ.

Emissions Reduction

'Even Democrats don’t want to hear about climate change. The words were barely mentioned at the convention, and every transcript I examined omitted the once obligatory Biden modifier “existential."

The reason isn’t a mystery. Joe Biden’s policies are having not the slightest effect on climate change and yet somebody will still have to pay Ford’s $130,000 in losses per electric vehicle in the first quarter. This sum, a calculation shows, is equal to $64.80 per gallon of gasoline saved over four years of average driving. And yes, this amounts to a ludicrously costly subsidy to somebody else to use the gasoline that EV drivers are paid to forgo.

Voilà, the flaw in the Biden strategy from the get-go, which completely defeats the goal of reducing emissions.

Regular readers may feel vindicated by a new study this week in the prestigious journal Science. It examines 1,500 “climate” policies adopted around the world and finds only 63—or 4%—produced any emissions reductions. Even so, press accounts strained to muddy the study’s simple lesson so let’s spell it out: Taxing carbon reduces emissions. Subsidizing “green energy” doesn’t.

In fact, this should be old hat. One of the most cited papers in climate economics is 2012’s “Do alternative energy sources displace fossil fuels?” by the University of Oregon’s Richard York. His answer: not “when net effects are considered.”

Mr. York and a colleague returned with a 2019 empirical paper showing that while “renewable energy sources compose a larger share of overall energy production, they are not replacing fossil fuels but are rather expanding the overall amount of energy that is produced.”'

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*Ford’s $130,000 in losses per electric vehicle. Equal to $64.80 per gallon of gasoline saved over four years of average driving.

*Of 1,500 “climate” policies adopted around the world only 63—or 4%—produced any emissions reductions.

This is a gigantic shift in investment, a huge misappropriation of the economy's wealth. And not only are these so-called leaders wrong-headed, they seem to be unteachable.

With Nina Garcia on the Supreme Court

With Nina Garcia on the Supreme Court

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Abbygate/Afghanistan withdrawal and I saw a ceremony in remembrance. It was followed by a news article on the failures of the Secret Service at Trump's appearance at Butler.

These astonishing failures may be more than emblematic of the problems of government dysfunction. This is the best they can do.

It's like the country is being run by the candidates on Project Runway.

An Election

An Election

Harris has become a contorted candidate as she runs as the candidate of change against the established incumbent government she represents.

She emerged from a convention the unanimous winner in a contest where she received no primary votes and her only opponent received millions.

In a wild effort to tag her convention with some sort of personality, she has become the candidate of "Joy." That may have a revivalist tent appeal to many but at its core is religious certainty. Conviction beyond reason. 

So Trump conspired with Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 election, he called all Mexicans rapists, praised neo-Nazi marchers at Charlottesville, advised Americans to inject bleach to combat COVID, and promised a “bloodbath” if he loses in November.

Hallelujah.

Notes

 

Notes

The horizon is obscured by the dark clouds as scary as the clouds of Independence Day. These political events are astonishing. How could these unbelievable disparities be exorcised? 

How about a sentimental argument encouraging a symbolic write-in campaign for Biden.

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The U.S. economy from April last year to March this year created 30 percent fewer jobs than the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) originally reported. An error of 810,000 jobs.

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So, Kamala is a serious political thinker, she has had a significant political impact over the last four years, and the administration over the last four years is really Trump's.

You can sell anything.

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An amazing Pirate game last night. They started a guy who pitched a perfect game last year for the Yankees. He pitched 7 shutout innings and looked really good. How did they get him? Waivers, after he got drunk, beat up his wife, and then broke up the manager's room.
Probably won't be doing a lot of Pirate Charities appearances.

On Monday, three Chinese warships collided with and damaged three Philippine Coast Guard ships.

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The Arsonist Passes the Torch

Well, no rebalancing of the American political wheel last night as Biden raged into the night. The intergalactic torque remains--but the center holds. Sex cannot be defined. Price controls are reasonable governmental tools and may work. Police are a danger to public order. America can be run by people with no experience; indeed, they can be sought out. Voting is not necessary.

So, no answer to the lightning and the dark clouds.

The Revenge of the Community of Innocence

The Revenge of the Community of Innocence

I have been watching a culture progressively lose its mind, culminating recently as a major political party invalidated its primary, canceled the results, and substituted a new winner by fiat. There, as usual, was no discussion or criticism. So imagine the shock when, after Harris rolled out her solution to inflation--wage and price controls--she received an avalanche of criticism from the Press.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

One wonders if some line has been crossed, if some huge distortion has shifted and rebalanced. Perhaps an avalanche will be unleashed to counter the craziness that has been built up and the craziness now will shift the other way to compensate the previous goofiness.

Maybe Biden tonight will rise up in bitterness, pardon Hunter--as expected--but also pardon Trump.

Notes and Notables

Notes and Notables

22 days ago Biden dropped out of the presidential race and neither Biden nor Harris have publicly commented.

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Harris has said she wants to eliminate taxes on tips.

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There is a definitive tape of Gov. Walz' stolen valor speech. Why would someone do this and why would the press not care?

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US Intelligence Shows Flawed China Missiles Led Xi to Purge Army

China missiles filled with water, not fuel according to US intelligence.

And:…vast fields of missile silos in western China with lids that don’t function in a way that would allow the missiles to launch effectively

Suleiman the Magnificent

The Ottoman Empire was founded by Osman in 1299 and it was ruled for ten successive generations by capable and often brilliant leaders, culminating in the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1494-1566), who led the Empire to its cultural and geographic zenith. He built Topkapi, captured Belgrade and Budapest, and completed the conquest of the Balkans. He besieged Vienna, the keystone of central Europe, and except for a quirk in the weather would have taken it. He was well on his way to solidifying the Ottomans as the rising historic star in Europe.

All that changed when he met the redhead.

He was given a red-haired Russian girl named Ghowrem, who came to be known as Roxelana, as part of his share of a slave-gathering raid into what is now Poland. She must have really been something. He was so taken by her he rejected his hundreds of other harem girls and spent his time with her exclusively. Then he did the unheard of. He married her.

She was soon known as "The Witch." She had a son, Selim II, and she poisoned Suleiman against his favorite, the brilliant and able Mustafa, to the advancement of her son. Mustafa was clearly the man to succeed to the throne but she had Suleiman kill him. Suleiman actually watched as it was done. Selim became the new leader of the Empire and its new genetic father. A drunk and a coward, he brought dissolution to the Empire, personally and genetically. He started the tradition of killing every male in reach that looked to be a competent rival. This negative selective pattern reaped incompetent rewards. The behavior continued into the 20th Century when the Ottoman Empire fell apart in World War One, leaving the rest of the world with the aimless Middle East.

There is a great difference between phenotype and genotype. Its sharp edge can split the world.

Investing in America

Investing in America

Trade surpluses and deficits measure the movement of money across borders. So buying an EV made in China moves a car into the U.S. and money out to China. While that's a fair trade, the accounting follows the money. That fair trade gives China money in exchange for its metal car and is booked as a deficit. This accounting includes investments. Like the car buyer invests in the Chinese EV, the investor invests in an economy.

Surpluses simply mean that global investors, including those in the country in question, consistently find better investment opportunities outside of that country than within that country. Why countries, such as the U.S., that are net recipients of these investments, should complain is a mystery. This is the advantage of lower corporate tax rates: they attract investment.

An even worse error is to describe surplus countries as “trying to … acquire other countries’ assets.” The amount of capital in the world or in any country isn’t fixed; it can and does grow. When the Dutch company Ikea builds a store in Newark, it doesn’t so much acquire assets that once belonged to Americans as it creates assets in America that would not otherwise exist – assets that improve employment opportunities for Americans as well as expand Americans’ access to goods and services. Ditto when the German company BASF builds facilities in Louisiana, when the Mexican company Cemex constructs a plant in Texas, and when the Japanese company Toyota erects a factory in Kentucky. It’s beyond mysterious why someone, who’s frantic to have more manufacturing in the U.S., peddles policies that would reduce such foreign investment on America’s shores.

The foreign buying of so-called 'strategic land' is probably a different question and is worth discussion though it might be reasonable to start with being less polite to spy balloons.

A Riddle of Freedom

A Riddle of Freedom


We are teetering on the edge of an election that will pit viewpoints against each other that bear little resemblance to principles that are woven through the country's history since its founding.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn. “One of those riddles is: how is it that the people who have been crushed by the sheer weight of slavery and cast to the bottom of the pit can nevertheless find strength in themselves to rise up and free themselves first in spirit and then in body, while those who soar unhampered over the peaks of freedom suddenly lose the taste for it, lose the will to defend it, and, hopelessly confused and lost, almost begin to crave slavery?”

Symbolic Trade and Tradeoffs

Good news! Chess has been discovered to be unfair and a paper offers a solution to the distortion!
After White's first move, Black gets to make two moves consecutively. Then White makes two moves in a row, after which the game resumes as normal.

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Kamala Harris choose Eric Holder to review and recommend possible candidates for VP.

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Symbolic Trade and Tradeoffs

When the Trump administration decided in 2018 to impose a 25 percent tariff on all imported steel, ... employment tradeoffs emerged…. The steel industry employs about 147,000 workers, while there are roughly 2.3 million workers in steel-using industries. The tariffs cost Ford Motor Company a billion dollars in added costs of production because the tariffs made American steel the most expensive in the world. The higher steel costs also hurt Caterpillar and John Deere, as well as machinery producers. One study suggested that, as a result of the steel tariff, the number of jobs in the iron and steel industry and the fabricated metal products industry would increase by 44,000, but there would be 17,000 fewer jobs in motor vehicles and parts and 209,000 fewer jobs in construction.--irwin

While not perfect, it's a close approximation of zero-sum game theory, like corporate taxation.