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The Impact of Audacity

Posted by L Gravel on Thursday, July 31, 2008 11:22:40 AM
According to the International Herald Tribune:

Business and consumer confidence plunged in the 15 countries using the euro in July, hitting the lowest level in more than five years, the European Commission said Wednesday.

In other news, Barack Obama has recently completed his Eurpoean tour.

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Liberal Strategery

Posted by L Gravel on Monday, July 14, 2008 11:58:50 PM
Fred Barnes in the Weekly Standard provides an excellent analysis of how various coordinating groups, funded by liberal wealth, have smacked around conservaties in Colorado:
Eric O'Keefe, chairman of the conservative Sam Adams Alliance in Chicago, says there are seven "capacities" that are required to drive a successful political strategy and keep it on offense: the capacity to generate intellectual ammunition, to pursue investigations, to mobilize for elections, to fight media bias, to pursue strategic litigation, to train new leaders, and to sustain a presence in the new media.  Colorado liberals have now created institutions that possess all seven capacities.  By working together, they generate political noise and attract press coverage.  Explains Caldara, "Build an echo chamber and the media laps it up."
Read the whole thing.

Meanwhile, I can attest that Republicans are divided amongst themselves.  Here in Colorado's fifth district, we have a perfectly good, first-term conservative congressman in Doug Lamborn.  But he won a squeaker over Jeff Crank in the Republican primary two years ago, and the Crank forces want to rectify that injustice this time around.  I am all for unseating a liberal Republican in favor of the real thing, but this is nowhere near the case.  So time and money are being spent in internecine fighting while Rome burns.

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Private Enterprise in Action

Posted by L Gravel on Thursday, July 10, 2008 6:00:00 PM
Toyota has decided to build the Prius in Mississippi.  One will notice the word "Detroit" is absent from the article.  That is because no one in their right mind would start or expand their business into that business-hostile city.  The Detroit city council is famously corrupt, and Lansing thinks raising taxes and investing in education is the answer (not realizing that college students, despite heavily leftist indoctrination, are usually smart enough to move to warmer weather and more economically friendly climes upon graduation).

One will also notice Toyota is electing to slow production of pickups and SUVs in order to make more Prius hybrids.  This shows that high prices on their own are sufficient encouragement to "conserve energy".  Federal fuel economy mandates in the name of "doing something" are redundant if not outright harmful -- creating jobs for bureacrats on the one side and compliance officers on the other, but reducing the number of people engaged in productive activities, such as bringing us more energy-efficient products.

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Patriotism Outgrown

Posted by L Gravel on Tuesday, July 08, 2008 6:00:00 PM
Thomas Sowell blames the fall of France in WWII on the Teacher's Union:
In France, after the First World War, the teachers’ unions launched a systematic purge of textbooks, in order to promote internationalism and pacifism.
...
At the outset of the [German] invasion, both German and French generals assessed French military forces as more likely to gain victory, and virtually no one expected France to collapse like a house of cards — except Adolf Hitler, who had studied French society instead of French military forces.
I love Thomas Sowell.

Incidentally, if you haven't read the International Baccalaureate mission statement lately, here it is:
The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment.

These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.
The IB site has a "World School" search capability on the left-hand side.  Colorado, for example, has 22 high schools with an IB program.

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Uranium? What Uranium?

Posted by L Gravel on Sunday, July 06, 2008 11:01:46 PM
The Associated Press decided the Independence Day holiday weekend was a good time to slip this story through:
The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program -- a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium -- reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" -- the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment -- was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy.
We wouldn't want anyone to think Saddam's Iraq had any kind of nuclear capability, would we?  Return to your grills and hot dogs people!  Nothing to see here!

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Shoot the Speculators

Posted by L Gravel on Tuesday, July 01, 2008 10:46:59 AM
Oxford Analytica in Forbes discusses reasons for the rise in commodity prices:
1. Supply and Demand
2. Weak Dollar
3. Questinable Policies
4. Speculators
5. Monetary Policy

Re: #1, duh.

#5 affects #2.  Because interest rates are low, foreign investors can earn a higher rate of return elswhere.  Therefore there is less demand for the dollar.

Re: #3, as I always say, Ethanol is the answer... because the presidential primary begins in Iowa.  As the article states, ethanol consumes a quarter of the U.S. corn crop.  Hello!

Re: #4, if in doubt, follow the lead of Vladimir Ilych Lenin and blame the speculators!  What do you want to do, folks, shut down the futures market?  You do realize, any time you agree to buy something at a certain price in the future, such as locking in a mortgage interest rate, you're a speculator.

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