Negative Railroad A Collection of Breaks in the Line

 I like to go on about the silliness of party politics, where people vote for the flag or the jersey without ever examining the particular issues in paticular context. It’s pleasant to have such tribalism in sports. But government is real violence on a societal scale, not just stylized violence limited to the voluntary participant-athletes.

John Pepple at I Want a New Left shares my view:

It’s been a busy day on the intertracks. The TJIC spur saw a wave of new visitors not in tune with the anarcho-capitalist ranting usually found there.

Regular TJIC rider “eddie” collected all the appeals to authority against the operation there:

“Shouldn’t the FBI or Secret Service look into this?”
“i have blocked and reported @tjic: to twitter”
“Well I just gave the FBI his twitter ID and a link to his website”
“I just reported you to the Washington field office of the FBI. You are worth checking out”
“I will make sure the FBI has your number. You belong behind bars”
“Feel free to FW this to a Homeland Security or FBI. Vilest #rwnj blog found (yet)”
“I’ve been grabbing screen-snaps of your site all ding dong damn day.”
“This dude needs reporting early and often for hate speech”
…

As a nice contrast to the factional finger-pointing today’s assassinations murders killings have inspired, Shannon Love predicts the shooter’s psychological profile:

The shooter’s outward and inward life has been dominated by the disconnect between his perception of his own worth in the world and his real accomplishments.

He believes himself more intelligent, more knowledgeable and more skilled than he actually is. He is incapable of accepting responsibility for the consequences of his own foolish actions. This exaggerated sense of his own worth leads him expect far greater rewards in all areas of life than he actually receives. He does not get the jobs, pay, authority, awards, social circle, romantic interest and overall social status he believes that he justly deserves.

I understand a couple of personages of minor political importance were shot at today. I’m sad for the others who were hit.

It’s been a great day for the internet. I’ve been scolded on Facebook and judged by total strangers in TJICistan. This because I have a mostly dispassionate reaction to what Big Media and those who toe line are calling a great tragedy.

I had to take time off from the intertracks to enjoy two fantastic NFL games. So, at the moment, I don’t know if the shooter was particularly politically motivated. When I parked my computer, I saw him having much in common with the TEA people.

I was chatting with one of my investment pallys yesterday and he sounded skeptical of all the optimism we’re seeing in the economic headlines. It’s always nice to have one’s view echoed.

In particular, this fellow, who had a career as a broker, was wary that so much news seemed to be aimed at convincing the retail investor to get back into the markets. (Retail Investors are the common folk, the small fish, like most of us)

When the big players are nearly out of tricks to make their numbers keep rising, it is a standard tactic to start pumping and touting to draw new money into the game. The big players need somebody to sell to in order to realize the paper profits they’ve built.

Local TV news has a story of economic optimism:

What a difference a year makes. Last year at this time, a trip to Mall of America showed empty stores and struggling businesses. This year, they’re packed with people ready to spend, even after the holidays.

The 2010 holiday season was the best since 2006. Shoppers spent $584 billion in the 50 days leading up to Christmas – up 5.5 percent from 2009. And economists believe the trend will continue into the new year.

Doing what Big Media does so well, the reporter interviews a handful of shoppers and store managers who say they’re seeing more traffic and more spending at the malls. But as I am so often reminded, the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”.

The more laws you have, the less relevant guilt becomes.

Quoted from: The Last Psychiatrist

H/T: Maggie’s Farm

It’s time to start a new calendar. We look at that arbitrary event as a fresh beginning. But I have the same pile of dirty laundry as yesterday. The same aches, the same frustrations, and the same opportunities.

If there was a change to be made in how I lived, why wait to make myself or my world one step better?

But attitude matters. So to those who like to use the calendar as motivation, a new year does make a difference. A vital bit, then is to keep the fresh viewpoint alive long enough for whatever real changes we make to take hold.

Don’t let the someone else’s sour view of their world take your optimism away:

I’m annoyed by the relentless greenwashing of every product offered for sale. I don’t care if your factory is powered by unicorns. Tell me that your stuff is good and a good value. If your primary market advantage is that your workers don’t use very much soap, you should probably spend less time giving yourself virtue awards and improve your product.

Cutting short what might be a therapeutic rant, consider this perspective from an amazon.com customer review of The Market for Virtue: The Potential And Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility:

I stumbled across Herman Cain a bit over a year ago while watching some righty convention on C-SPAN. The man knows how to deliver a speech. If only I could remember which one I saw first…

Cruising the intertracks today, I discovered that the Hermanator says he’s 70% likely to run for President in 2012.

From what I’ve seen so far, he is a smack in the mouth to many of the stereotypes lefties have against righties.

I would love to see both Sarahcuda and the Hermanator on the offensive against Barry Soetoro. I hope the country lasts that long.

Progressive radio was giddy yesterday over the current President’s signing the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. From what I heard, the old Obama was back! I guess Barry’s power zone is the rhetoric of delivering “justice” to some class of victims.

I was disappointed—but not surprised—that all the chatter in Big Media and most of my blogosphere regarding DADT paid little attention to the military consequences. It was primarily a political and symbolic issue. Given my position that there simply aren’t as many gays out there as we’re led to believe, and far fewer in the military, I didn’t think this was such a big deal either way.

Only a handful of people receive a genuine benefit. And an even tinier handful present trivial risk to U.S. military capacity. If they present any threat at all.

Not quite the Babel fish, but this is only version 1.0:

Future versions that work with Kanji and Arabic could change the world.

H/T: Maggie’s Farm

Having one of those moments common to most of us:

The intertracks have just called to my attention that Frederic Bastiat, the economist who inspired this little project (the NRR), started studying the dismal science at the age of 43.

I think I am 44 right now. There is time…

All Aboard!

Thanks to the information pirates at WikiLeaks, lefty propaganda is exposed:

Cuba banned Michael Moore's 2007 documentary, Sicko, because it painted such a "mythically" favourable picture of Cuba's healthcare system that the authorities feared it could lead to a "popular backlash", according to US diplomats in Havana.

The revelation, contained in a confidential US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks, is surprising, given that the film attempted to discredit the US healthcare system by highlighting what it claimed was the excellence of the Cuban system.

…the only way a Cuban can get access to the hospital [shown in the movie] is through a bribe or contacts inside the hospital administration. "Cubans are reportedly very resentful that the best hospital in Havana is 'off-limits' to them," the memo reveals.

The article titles these as economic myths, but they’re not all economic issues.

Here’s the list:

10. GM Repayment Shows Taxpayer Bailout Worked
9. All the Economy Needs is More Stimulus
8. Soda is Like Cocaine and Ads Cause Obesity
7. Obama the Tax Cutter
6. The Tea Parties are Astroturf, but Green Groups Aren't.
5. Despite Largest Budget in History, Obama is Fiscally Conservative
4. Lack of Press Freedom in Gulf Doesn't Point to Obama
3. Nearly 10 Percent Unemployment Isn't So Bad
2. ClimateGate? What ClimateGate?
1. The Chamber of Commerce is Taking "Secret Foreign Money" for Election

Always keep in mind the news is not what’s happening, it’s just what they’re telling you.

If you like football, read this piece by Gregg Easterbrook. It’s long, but it is worth your time. It’s called Tuesday Morning Quarterback. He writes one these every week…wow.

If football isn’t your thing, he tucks in some other commentary. Like this:

Ships, bridges, spacecraft -- they should bear inspirational names of great men and women, leaders and artists, or of important historical moments. Instead, increasingly they bear the names of insiders and political hacks.

The aroma of California’s Central Valley will endure in my memory. The scent of lettuce with a gentle undertone of soil arrives as a stark contrast to motorists heading west out of the desert.

Apparently that overpowering lushness is disappearing:

Not in the greasy-pelican pollution sense, but in the magic of higher prices leading to increased production:

As an article last month in The New York Times observed: “Just as it seemed that the world was running on fumes, giant oil fields were discovered off the coasts of Brazil and Africa, and Canadian oil sands projects expanded so fast, they now provide North America with more oil than Saudi Arabia. In addition, the United States has increased domestic oil production for the first time in a generation.” Further still: “Another wave of natural gas drilling has taken off in shale rock fields across the United States, and more shale gas drilling is just beginning in Europe and Asia.”

A few years back, when oil was $120+ per barrel and gasoline was over $4 per gallon, the economically ignorant were concerned about the end of oil. Then the depression started and oil dropped back to the 60s for a while. The price of crude has drifted upward into the 80s over the past year. But the break-even price to make all those new fields viable was in the 40s.

So North American drillers kept working their plays.

With rising production from shale fields, the U.S. surpassed Russia last year to become the world’s largest supplier of natural gas.

If the law is not reasonable, the behavior of those who reject it often will not be either.

Quoted from: Vox Day

Nearly everyone on this platform was hoping the proper officials would stop the train in time. Nearly everyone…