Life, Liberty, and Property

McCain’s somehow commissioned Jethro Tull to write this latest attack ad:

I despise Barack Obama. He is a little man. He’s also a liar (at very least a deceiver). He just ran an ad in which he says, “For eight years we’ve been told that the way to a stronger economy was to give huge tax cuts to corporations and the wealthiest Americans.” Where are these mythical “huge tax cuts to corporation?”  Where are these huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

The U.S. has some of the highest corporate taxes in the World. Barack doesn’t mention this fact because it doesn’t fit with his worldview. He also doesn’t mention that that the top 10% of income earners paid over 70% of all income taxes. To Obama corporations and people who make money are evil who deserve greater punishment through increased taxes. It doesn’t matter that they are already paying the lions share of taxes. It also doesn’t matter that George Bush’s stimulus package gave more money to the poor and middle income than the top 10% of income earners.

The truth doesn’t matter to Barak Obama. I’m not surprised since the truth matters little in Washington. I just hoped for more. Instead rising above politics, Obama just shows us what a little man he really is.

Economist Russ Roberts at GMU doesn’t go so far as to claim that government forces were the sole cause of the housing bubble, but they were a very large contributing factor:

before we conclude that markets failed, we need a careful analysis of public policy’s role in creating this mess. Greedy investors obviously played a part, but investors have always been greedy, and some inevitably overreach and destroy themselves. Why did they take so many down with them this time?

Part of the answer is a political class greedy to push home-ownership rates to historic highs — from 64% in 1994 to 69% in 2004. This was mostly the result of loans to low-income, higher-risk borrowers. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, abetted by Congress, trumpeted that rise as it occurred. The consequence? On top of putting the entire financial system at risk, the hidden cost has been hundreds of billions of dollars funneled into the housing market instead of more productive assets.

Beware of trying to do good with other people’s money. Unfortunately, that strategy remains at the heart of the political process, and of proposed solutions to this crisis.

Read the whole thing here.

When I wrote an earlier post about the Tour de France’s organizers losing their minds with respect to Lance Armstrong, I failed to really consider how irritated they are going to be at this year’s Tour. Besides the return of the hated Lance Armstrong, we might see Tyler Hamilton (blood doper), Floyd Landis (convicted on dubious evidence of doping), and Alexander Vinokourov (blood doper). Armstrong, Landis, and Vinokorov could possibly do very well in the tour and Hamilton could get a stage win. In 2010, Ivan Basso will be back riding the Tour and there will be one more convicted doper pissing off the Tour’s organizers.

Here’s just one more reason John McCain will lose next month:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain is proposing a $300 billion program for the federal government to buy up bad home mortgages and allow homeowners to keep their houses.

McCain said: “Until we stabilize home values in America, we’re never going to start turning around and creating jobs and fixing our economy and we’ve got to get some trust and confidence back to America.”

In an unusual step, McCain announced the plan during Tuesday’s debate. He said that as president he would direct the federal government to purchase mortgages directly from homeowners and mortgage providers. The loans would be replaced with fixed-rate mortgages, ostensibly at a loss to the government.

“Is it expensive? Yes,” McCain said.

Really John? Housing is still overvalued and your brilliant idea is to try to prop up home prices by purchasing really bad mortgages? I could think of worse ideas but they involve leaping.

It’s not necessary a good thing Obama is going to win, but there are many reasons Obama will be better than McCain. One reason is because the Republicans will remember their small government/fiscal responsibility roots when Obama is president.

…but I write a bunch of stuff related to energy for work. Here’s our website. Our blog posts are here (but we are working on making them look more blog-like). I wrote this post this morning in response to an AP story and hyperbolic nonsense like this from NRDC.

Generally speaking, environmentalists don’t know what they are talking about. The guy from the NRDC believes there were “tremendous” oil spills from offshore oil and gas production when, according to the AP article, there was only one spill offshore. That “tremendous” spill only totaled 200 barrels and “left no trace because it dissipated with the winds and currents.” That’s what passes for “tremendous” if you are an environmentalist and you only make money through scaring people about environmental problems.

The Tour de France is not happy with Lance Armstrong. They weren’t happy with him winning 7 times and they really weren’t happy they could never catch him doping. Doping rumors surrounded Armstrong, but we was never caught even though many of his biggest rivals were.  The Tour de France organizers have developed Lance Armstrong derangement syndrome. Here’s what Jean-Etienne Amaury told the French sports newspaper L’Equipe on Saturday, “We can’t say that he has not embarrassed the Tour de France, as he has had a quite a complicated history with it.”

Maybe double negatives are fine in French, but at very least he isn’t ruling out the fact that Lance Armstrong has possibly embarrassed the Tour de France. [Hopefully Nate will find the L'Equip article and give up a translation.]  How exactly has Armstrong embarassed the Tour. HE WAS NEVER CAUGHT DOPING.  I don’t know how I can state that more clearly for the Tour’s organizers.

I love Armstrong’s response to the Tour’s organizers (partially because it is complete BS):

“It comes down to an issue of distraction - while I love the event and France’s people, I cannot accept this sort of grandstanding which distracts from the Livestrong message that is urgently needed, and being sought out, in many other places around the world.”

Lance Armstrong cares about the fight against cancer, but more than that I believe Lance Armstrong loves to win and he really loves to win cycling biggest race. The Tour’s organizers hate him, which is too bad.

Armstrong also said:

“The last time I checked I won the tour seven straight years and was never once found to be guilty of doping despite seven years of intense scrutiny,” Armstrong said. “Not to mention that my team of 25 riders over those seven years was also never found to be positive. We won clean and fair.

“Also, according to industry standards, TV ratings, worldwide media impressions, spectators along the route, and global sponsorships were at an all time high. Where’s the embarrassment in that?”

As things stand, I really want Lance to ride the tour and to win. I hope work is slow next July so I can watch the race live every day.

This is a great version of A-Ha’s Take On me. The lyrics are a literal version of what’s in the video. You owe it to yourself to watch:

And the Family Guy’s Take On Me:

If you want to donate this money to a good cause, fighting extremely drug resistant TB is clearly a good cause:

More on extremely drug resistnat TB from the CDC.

In tonight’s VP debate Ifill stated,  “Senator Obama has said that he supports clean coal technology, which I don’t believe you have always supported.”

Biden responded, “I have always supported [clean coal].”

Someone needs to mind Biden of what he said when he was drunk on the campaign trail and said, “we are not supporting clean coal…no coal plants here in America.” Here’s the video so you can witness Biden in action: