Don't Buy Green Bananas, Apparently We're Doomed

A recent study published in Nature claims that global warming kills phytoplankton.  A blogger claims that this means the end of life on Earth.  Kevin Drum argues that we could avoid certain death if we were willing to pay another $100 a year on our electric bill.  Megan McArdle, in a remarkably balanced post, points out that this is nonsense on stilts.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about.  One of the reasons that I'm skeptical about global warming is that is too perfectly fits the agenda of the far left.  Capitalism is evil, the environment uber alles, our only hope is that we cede power to international institutions of technocracy and, by the way, we're going to need a whole lot more taxes.  If your recommended solution to a new, serious problem that pops up out of nowhere is exactly the same as the solutions you were recommending to our pre-existing problems, you'll have to excuse me if I suspect that the new problem is more convenient than real.

Which is why its somewhat annoying that, more and more, my preferred policy responses to the possibility of induced global climate change are exactly the same as my responses to most other policy problems we have:  we (meaning the entire human race) need to dump regulation and focus on getting as rich as we can as fast as we can.  At this point in history, richer functionally means smarter.  Richer societies can spend more money on pure research and on applied research.  We can put more minds to work trying to understand the problems facing us and more minds means more possible solutions.  Once we have a theoretical solution, being richer improves our chances of being able to turn theory into practice and makes us better able to withstand whatever problems global warming causes.

That of course assumes that global warming is a real threat.  On the other hand, if it's not a threat, well, we'll just have to make do with being richer and smarter.

Contrast that with the left's plan to impoverish the world because of the chance that global warming is a real threat.  We will live miserable lives and still -- taking the science seriously -- suffer global warming.  If the science is wrong, we will have made ourselves poor for no reason at all.

Say What, Now?

The New York Observer is reporting that a Democratic incumbent congressman, representing Staten Island, is circulating a list of "Jewish Money" donors to a potential Republican opponent.

The file, labeled "Grimm Jewish Money Q2," for the second quarter fundraising period, shows a list of over 80 names, a half-dozen of which in fact do hail from Staten Island, and a handful of others that list Brooklyn as home.

 "Where is Grimm's money coming from," said Jennifer Nelson, McMahon's campaign spokeman. "There is a lot of Jewish money, a lot of money from people in Florida and Manhattan, retirees."

 I know that the Left is the new home of antisemitism in the US, but this is pretty remarkable.  Taking as a given all the "what if a Republican did this" points, what could this jerk possibly have been thinking?  Presumably, he thinks that he knows his constituents.

It's Focal Bias Day Here At The Secret Blog

Recently, I've been seeing focal bias everywhere.  Both this post at Volokh Conspiracy and this post from Megan Mcardle are examples of focal bias, which is our tendency to think that a particular factor must be important because we're focusing on it.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

U.S. Atheists Reportedly Using Hair Dryers to 'De-Baptize' (NewsCore, 7/17/10)

American atheists lined up to be "de-baptized" in a ritual using a hair dryer according to a report Friday on U.S. late-night news program "Nightline."  

Leading atheist Edwin Kagin blasted his fellow non-believers with the hair dryer to symbolically dry up the holy water sprinkled on their heads in days past. The styling tool was emblazoned with a label reading "Reason and Truth."

That's How I Roll

Focal Bias

Truck Accident That Killed Rafters in Canyon Sparks Truck-Canyon-Rafter Reform Debate

Initial Reactions To McDonald v. Chicago

The Supreme Court has just held that the Second Amendment, interpreted in Heller to protect a natural right to self-defense by ensuring access to firearms, applies to (i.e., limits) the states as well.  This probably (but not necessarily) means that Chicago's gun ordinance, which has the practical effect of preventing private citizens from owning guns, is dead.

My off the cuff reactions:

1.  The privileges and immunities clause, which for more than 100 years has been thought to be dead, is really, really dead.

2.  Justice Thomas' lone opinion that the Second Amendment applies against the states because of the privileges and immunities clause, rather than through the due process clause, was necessary for him to concur in the result because he disbelieves in due process clause incorporation (as do I).

3.  Thomas' opinion is defensible, because the right to keep and bear arms really is a privilege of federal citizenship and arguably the amendment applies against the states on its own terms ("the right of the people" (emphasis added)), although the Supreme Court has long since rejected that idea.

4.  This opinion will be a seven day wonder, much like Heller and the corporate free speech decisions, with the media lamenting conservative judicial activism.  A few laws will be tweaked and someone in Chicago will get a new gun, but not much will actually change.

5.  The only exception might be that McDonald will weaken the NRA.  Not much existential threat to gun ownership if it's a recognized constitutional right.

Anyone Else Hate The Phone?

Over the last few months, I've started to realize that I hate the phone.  I hate being called, and I hate having to call out.  Calling someone now seems like intensely rude, hateful behavior -- "HEY, WHATEVER YOUR DOING, STOP IT AND PAY ATTENTION TO ME!!!!"  Whatever I'm doing when they call, that's what I want to do. And if I call actual people, I assume that they have something they'd rather be doing (since they're in the middle of doing it) than talk to me.  Having to call some business, and navigate phone trees, and wait for a customer service representative, is just Hell.  As you may have guessed, at this point calling me is probably the worst way to get me to do something, like buy your product or contribute to your cause. Frankly, at this point I'd rather you just drop by.  At least then you're making more of an effort than you're forcing me to make.

Is it just me, or are we all on the cusp of having our phones yanked out of the house?

The Secret Blog Is In Albuquerque

And this was its breakfast:

Remember: The American Word For American Is "American"

It's World Cup time come again, and the excitement is palpable as all the papers recycle all those same old stories.  This will be the year Americans love soccer; really, shouldn't the game where you use your feet get to be called "football;" all those soccer playing kids now grown to adulthood will sit riveted to their televisions watching adults play their childhood game (an argument never made for hopscotch); etc.; etc.; etc.  This year the big evidence is that Nike spent as much as $100 million producing an admittedly really cool commercial about the World Cup and that ABC/ESPN paid $100 million for the rights to broadcast the 2010 and 2014 in the US in English.  (Tellingly, Univision paid $325 million to broadcast the same games in the US in Spanish.)  These are apparently big numbers for soccer, although they are ridiculously small for the US.

And that's the point.  The rest of the football loving world should be doing everything it can to keep us convinced that soccer is a boring, pointless sport played solely because it's better than the alternative, which is sitting huddled in misery in some foreign country (oops, redundant).  In fact, I suspect that this is what actually is going on when some bloody foreigner tries to explain the joy of a 1-0 game, in which not a single goal was scored but which was won by that odd tie-breaker kick-off thing that looks like nothing so much as a pre-game warm-up drill.  I'm reminded of a criticism of Quiditch that pointed out that having the game end when the snitch is caught is like having a basketball game end when there's a knockout in a boxing match being held next door.  Soccer suffers from exactly this problem:  you could end it at any random moment (the score being much the same throughout) and then run that warm-up drill that has almost nothing to do with the actual game, in which, we're told repeatedly, the point is the beautiful passing and athletic jumping and falling down and pretending to be hurt....  Sorry, got lost there for a moment.  Where was I?

And that's the point.  If America really got excited about football, we'd just take over.  I'm not saying we'd always win the World Cup.  I'm saying that the World Cup would be run to suit us.  For instance, today, the US is playing England at 2:30 pm Eastern time, which is 7:30 pm in England.  If ABC/ESPN could actually get decent ratings, they would have paid a billion dollars for the World Cup, which is about what NBC paid for the last Olympics.  (The NFL is guaranteed about $4.4 billion per year in tv revenue through 2014, even if they don't play a game in 2011 when the CBA is up.)  For a billion dollars, FIFA would do what it's told, and the game wouldn't start until ABC wanted it to.  As demonstrated by the on-going NBA finals, that's 9:00 Eastern time, or 2:00 am English time.  So, if the rest of you all ever want to see a World Cup game in prime time again, without three times as many commercials, without cheerleaders (I assume foreigners don't have cheerleaders), pray that the US doesn't suddenly learned to love soccer.

Of course, it's always good to pray for something that's bound to happen anyway.

P.S.  Apparently, they don't do that tie-breaking thing at the World Cup.  Who knew?

Not Evil Or Stupid, But Conservative

One of the things that conservatives like to obsess about is why liberals are liberal.  The two most common explanations are referenced in the title, but sometimes I think that there's a third explanation.  At least in the US, I think that liberals are liberal because they are instinctively conservative, in the sense of being content with the status quo.  If you're content with the status quo and the status quo is liberal, then you end up being liberal.

That's why my conservatism isn't much shaken by the big questions status quo conservatism got wrong, which in the US are basically slavery, Jim Crow and civil rights.  Status quo conservatism is too prone to the position that some practice is unfair/unjust/oppressive, but now's not the time to rock the boat.  Once you've taken that position, it's never time to rock the boat.  The right position is that it's always time to rock the boat, if the cause is worth risking upsetting the boat entirely.  That's why, for the past 30 years, our reactionaries have been liberals and our radicals have been (non-status quo) conservatives.

Does Being The ...

Iconoclast's Iconoclast make me an Iconophile, or put me off in some third room by myself?

Sometimes I worry it's the one, and sometimes I worry it's the other.

Odd To Discover

That I hadn't forgiven Daniel Ellsberg, "a hero and an icon of the left."  I had just forgotten about him.  Apparently, he's just as big a horse's ass as he ever was.

I Bet You Think This Song Is About You

"Which One?"

I can't be the only person who had the above reaction to this headline.

Interesting Graph

"Comprehensiveness" basically means how good a job you do gathering all the relevant information about your industry and firm.

"CE" is corporate entrepreneurship, which is more or less how good the firm is at doing new stuff.

As comprehensiveness increases, so does CE, which makes sense.  But it does so faster for low-risk firms, which at high comprehensiveness engage in more CE than high-risk firms.

The chart comes from Heavey, G., Simsek, Z., Roche, F. & Kelly, A. (2009), Decision Comprehensiveness and Corporate Entrepreneurship:  The Moderating Role of Managerial Uncertainty Preferences and Environmental Dynamism, Journal of Management Studies, 46:8, 1289-1314.

If You Need Music For Your Hit Pop Song

Demography Is Destiny

Here is a nice little post on demography and why Japan -- definitely -- and Europe -- probably -- are screwed.

First Amazon Orders

Megan McArdle suggests going back and looking at your first Amazon order. Here's mine, from June 7, 1996:

Mrs. Mike, Spot Goes Splash, The Bootstrap Entrepreneur: Everything You Really Need To Know About Starting Your Own Business, A Crown of Swords.

Two young kids, my wife was starting a practice and I love trashy genre fiction.

All Is Vanity

1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
3 What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?
4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
5 The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
6 The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
7 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full: unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
8 All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
10 Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
11 There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.