Recently in Say What? Category

One of the most difficult concepts that many people have problems understanding is that of diminishing returns. This applies to many different areas in our lives and in our society. I don't know whether it's a lack of education, a failure in their upbringing, or something inherently lacking in the people themselves. Perhaps it's a little of all three.

Going hand in hand with this concept is one that has many of the same roots - perceived risk - something that has driven some folks into action to get the government to "Do Something!" about something that is a minor issue at best.

In case you're wondering, however briefly, how this particular subject came up, it was during a discussion at work about this post from FuturePundit dealing with the declining return on investment from electrical power efficiency.

My employer is always looking for ways to reduce our energy usage, something that appeals to the frugal Yankee in me. Over the past five or six years a number of measures have been taken to reduce our electrical usage, including the use of more efficient lighting at all levels, timers on our existing electric water heaters to shut them off when no one is in the building, on-demand water heaters replacing the older tank-type water heaters as they wear out, more energy efficient refrigerators (used for both food and for storage of certain manufacturing substances...though not in the same refrigerator!), and motion sensors to shut off lights in rooms when no one is in them, just to name a few of the improvements undertaken. All of this has helped reduce our electricity usage by over 20% as compared to 6 years ago. Will further investment reduce our electrical usage any more than it has? Sure it will, but (and it's a big 'but') we won't see anywhere near the savings we already have unless we spend a lot more money than has already been spent. We have reached the point of diminishing return. We'd need to spend many times more than we already have in order to achieve a small fraction of the savings already made. From a financial point of view the return on investment makes no sense, meaning further investment in this effort will not result in energy savings equal to what was spent to achieve them. Or put more simply, we'll spend more than we'll save. It's not worth it.

OK, back to the subject at hand.

We've seen more than a few times where some project has reached its original goals, whether it's a cleanup of some Superfund site or the closing of a municipal landfill. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the contaminants were cleaned up or the landfill might leak 0.001% of the liquids or decomposition products from the landfill. But for some folks that isn't good enough. They want 100%. Never mind that achieving that last little bit will cost as much, if not more, than what has already spent. Never mind that it will likely be the taxpayers footing the bill. Never mind that in the end it won't make one bit of difference. The project has blown past the point of diminishing returns and spending any additional money won't help...other than to make the folks bitching about it feel better. (It would be cheaper to give them some mood-elevating drugs to do that than wasting taxpayer dollars to 'fix' the last little iota of the problem.)

We see this lack of understanding about diminishing returns in all kinds of places and situations. It is also where the problem with perceived risk comes into play.

One of the biggest disservices ever perpetrated upon the public is the notion that life should be totally risk free. This meme started some time in the 1960's. (Yes, I know drives to improve safety started long before that, but the 100% risk free crap started in the late 60's/early 70's.) There's nothing wrong with reducing risk. But to think life can be made 100% risk free is ludicrous. It can't be done. But that doesn't stop people from trying to do so anyways. I wouldn't mind that so much if those same people understood the difference between real risk and perceived risk. The problem is that they don't and because of that lack of understanding money is wasted on slight risks while major risks are ignored.

An example:

Which entails more risk to life and limb: Driving a car or flying on a commercial airliner?

The answer is, of course, driving a car. (There were over 32,885 traffic fatalities in 2010, with many times that number of injuries. As an aside, that number is the lowest number of fatalities since 1949 despite more miles being traveled then ever before, giving us the lowest fatality rate ever.) But people perceive flying as more dangerous. Yet how many fatalities have there been in the US due to commercial airliner crashes over the past few years? None. A person is far more like to be injured or killed driving to or from the airport than they are by flying on a commercial airliner, but they're more afraid of dying in a plane crash. It's all perception, not reality.

Let's try another:

One person lives near a nuclear power plant. Another lives near a coal-fired power plant. Which one is at a higher risk of cancer, injury, or death?

The answer is the person living near the coal-fired plant. The effluvia from the smokestack and any runoff from the ash pile are a far greater hazard than anything coming from the nuclear plant under normal circumstances. Yet people perceive the nuclear power plant will cause them to get cancer and other illnesses. Even after the Three Mile Island accident there were no increases in cancer or other radiation related illnesses. (Some initial studies stated there were, but review of those studies by the CDC found some creative editing of the health statistics to 'prove' the case. Once all the raw data was reanalyzed those alleged increases in cancer cases disappeared.)

Over the years it seems to me the the perceived risks have received far more attention (and money) than actual risks. Efforts will be made to reduce risks that have little actual impact, but large risks will be ignored.

For instance, the NHTSA wants to ban the use of cell phones and other electronic devices by drivers of cars and trucks. All kinds of efforts are being made to codify that ban in to law across the nation despite the fact that the actual percentage of accidents caused by these distracting gizmos is unknown. The perception is that these devices are leaving a swath of death and destruction along the highways and byways of the nation to rival those caused by drunk driving. The NHTSA reports that 3092 traffic deaths were caused by distracted driving in 2010. That's one out of every eleven fatalities. How many of those were due to cell phone use or texting? The NHTSA doesn't actually say, though the article linked implies all of them were (but there was no actual number cited). The implication is that this is a major risk and that the government must "Do Something!' even though the actual risk is quite small.

But will the government spend a dime on something like removing homes from flood plains or barrier islands, obviating the need to constantly pay out to rebuild them again and again after they are destroyed? (Disclaimer: The gubmint did do that after the Mississippi River floods in 1993, relocating a number of towns to higher ground because it was cheaper to do so rather than paying out the flood insurance claims again and again and again and again, ad infinitum.)

Or will money be spent on things like crumbling roads and bridges, things that endanger us all? We must remember incidents like the Mianus River Bridge collapse on I-95 in Connecticut, the I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis, or the Nimitz Freeway collapse during the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 , all of which killed and injured motorists. (The Nimitz Freeway collapse occurred because necessary upgrades to the highway support pylons were postponed.) How many other others are out there waiting to happen because we haven't spent the necessary funds to reduce a very real risk? Maybe this is due to the opposite of perceived risk, where people see no risk and therefore think nothing needs to be done, yet the risk exists and is higher than many of the perceived risks people waste time and money dealing with. How much did these real incidents cost compared to what it would have cost to fix the problems in the first place? Do I really need to answer that?

The people need to learn how to discriminate between real risk and perceived risk, and to understand the relationship to diminishing returns. Otherwise we will continue to ignore real risks and waste ever more money on things that are minimal risks at best.

After weeks of hullabaloo about the various OWS protests across the nation, it appears the whole thing was much ado about nothing.

Between unfocused or contradictory messages, hypocrisy, mob violence, rape, murder, theft, drug overdoses, totalitarian 'councils' confiscating donated money, and just plain foolishness, the Occupy Wall Street protesters have proven one thing to the public at large: they're spoiled children filling the role of useful idiots, showing the worst side of society, not the best as they have claimed.

What have they accomplished other than showing the rest of the country that they're mean-spirited wackos with little understanding of history, economics, or human nature?

It shows in hundreds of different ways, with one of the overriding themes I noticed being "We want you to pay for our stuff even though we could pay for it ourselves, but we don't want the rest of you freeloaders to take our stuff that someone else paid for!" This theme has recurred at more than one protest location, with the protesters not recognizing the hypocrisy of their demands.

Some want to replace capitalism with socialism, even though the socialism they're promoting has never lived up to the promises made and usually end up creating nothing but poverty, misery, and terror. It isn't until countless lives are sacrificed that the socialist utopias implode.

Some seem to think that anarchy is the answer, but all that ever leads to is destruction, lawlessness, and in the end, tyranny.

They claim they represent the 99%, but 99% of what? 99% of the spoiled privileged children of the 1%? 99% of the clueless drones feeling entitled to what others have earned through hard work? They sure as hell don't represent 99% of the American people.

In the end, OWS has been about nothing but selfishness, greed, and a sense of entitlement. In other words, a world class FAIL.

I think it's time to buckle down and get back to some of the allegedly more important doings around the world. In this case we'll delve back into the It's-All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans Anthropogenic Global Warming shtick.

I have to admit that I was goaded back to this subject by the WP Brother-In-Law as we discussed the matter post-Thanksgiving dinner. He had moderated his viewpoint quite a bit, particularly in light of the original ClimateGate scandal and further investigation on his own. While he no longer automatically assumes any climate change is automatically our fault, he's still on the fence about what to do about it.

With ClimateGate 2.0 making the rounds, as well as more data showing the climate models being used to predict future global climate seriously underestimate the effects of some factors while overestimating others, making the models useless (most are so defective they can't even predict past climate, meaning using data sets that encompass several decades of weather data up in to the 60's and 70's they weren't able to 'predict' the climate we actually experienced in the 80's and 90's), the debate is heating up again.

I won't delve deep into the controversy as I have expressed my opinion about the "settled science" more than once - that there is no such thing. New data, new observations, disproved theorums, and new hypotheses can unsettle the settled science at any time.

One of the latest blows against the warmist claims is this report that CO₂ may not warm the planet nearly as much as everyone thought.

The climate may be less sensitive to carbon dioxide than we thought - and temperature rises this century could be smaller than expected. That's the surprise result of a new analysis of the last ice age. However, the finding comes from considering just one climate model, and unless it can be replicated using other models, researchers are dubious that it is genuine.

I find the last sentence to be hypocritical. How many of the claims made by the IPCC, UEA, and a host of other climate researchers are any more valid than the one from this analysis? Many of the critics of this report used cooked data, algorithms which give the same answers regardless of the data fed into them, and outright fraud to 'prove' their theories. Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?

Another instance of hypocrisy: data from NASA satellites show the radiation of heat from the Earth into space is higher than many of the warmists believed. You would think that information would have some effect on their predictions, but all we've heard from them has been a muted "It doesn't make a bit of difference" and then silence. New data and observations in contradiction of 'settled' science are supposed to lead to further investigation and modifications to or scrapping of theories that are not supported by that data. Instead, it is ignored in order to preserve the theories so many have staked their reputations (and funding) upon. That is not how science is supposed to work.

And so it goes.

By way of Instapundit comes this from Professor Jacobsen in response the rather vague Occupy Wall Street protests.

The silent majority.

The ones who pay the bills, and the taxes, and the tuitions, and the pensions, and the benefits, for the people who falsely claim to be the 99%.

The ones who did not graduate from the school of perpetual expectations and handouts.

The ones who falsely have been called terrorists and extremists and racists because they dared to object to trying the same socialist policies here that have failed everywhere they have been tried before.

The ones who showed up at the polls in 2010.

The ones who will show up at the polls in 2012:

#OccupyWhiteHouse2012

Looking at the photos of those protesting, I am struck by how many of them are obviously college age. If I had to guess, few if any of them have ever had to do a hard day's work in their lives. Yet somehow they feel qualified to judge those of us who've never had it easy, who work hard every day to make ends meet, and actually made it possible for them to be free from want.

While the media has been playing up the OccupyWallStreet protests across the nation, the video, pictures, and press releases have been showing that most of the folks joining the protests are absolutely clueless about what it is they're protesting for/against, or the irony of their protests.

Let's hope they never wise up.

It was just before lunch when I received a phone call from my wife, Deb. She was taking a lunch break from her microbiology class at the local college when she called.

You may ask "What was so important that she had to call DCE during lunch?"

I can tell you on three words: She. Was. Livid.

During the morning lecture her professor, in the midst of talking about microbiology, went off on a tangent. That in itself isn't all that remarkable. It happens from time to time. But this time was different.

The 'tangent' in this case was a political diatribe that lasted quite some time. All the professor did was spout vitriol and vile slanders on Republicans, praise the all-knowing and caring Democrats, demonized anybody who disagreed with Leftist ideology, and so on. Some of the other students were overtly agreeing with the professor, but others were uncomfortable as the diatribe continued. As the vitriol continued, Deb started getting mad.

I have to explain that while Deb is fiscally conservative, she has her liberal side (and by liberal I mean a classic liberal, not a "government-knows-best" liberal). I guess that makes her libertarian.

Did what the professor was saying piss her off? No, not really. As she told me the professor did have a few valid points (though very few). So what was it that was pissing her off? Simply this:

She had paid good money that we could not easily afford to take a microbiology class she needed in her quest to become an RN. She hadn't paid that money to be subjected to a leftist political diatribe that belonged in a Marxist Political Science 102 lecture.

She called me again a couple of hours later, telling me that she'd gone to her adviser to complain about what had happened in the class. At that point her adviser started spouting off as well. Needless to say, that pissed off my wife even more.

So what has she learned from this episode in her college career?

Institutions of higher learning are not about education, but political indoctrination.

So endith the lesson.

Harking back to my earlier post about clueless "you owe everything you have to the government" US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, here's an object lesson about how government is not the leading 'agency' when it comes to roads, utilities, housing, and so on being the only thing that allows entrepreneurs to create anything, including jobs.

To take a look at her lunatic vision and how it is so wrong all we have top do is look to China to see how absolutely wrong she is about the whole thing.

China, anticipating the need for more housing, schools, and recreational facilities for all the people who will be working for all of the new businesses have built entire new towns and cities to provide all those things. The only problem? They're empty. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Some have been empty for ten years and the only people living and working in them are the government employees tasked with maintaining these ghost towns.

I'm sure Elizabeth Warren would think such a venture is exactly how things have been done in the US. But that isn't the case. History shows that businesses arrive, build factories and the roads that lead to them. They pay to have water, sewer, and gas lines run to their businesses. The same is true of electrical and telecommunications lines. The government doesn't pay for any of that.

Well, that's not entirely true.

Some states, cities, or towns cut deals in order to entice new businesses to come to their areas. Some even go so far as to take private property by eminent domain to hand over to them all in the name of increasing the chances of having new jobs come into being. (That worked out so well for the city of New London, Connecticut after they won their case in the US Supreme Court - the infamous Kelo vs New London decision.)

But to attribute all of the infrastructure needed for businesses to even operate solely to government is being disingenuous at best and irrational at worst. For the most part developers pay the cost of adding to the infrastructure need to support new construction, not the taxpayers. And then the businesses pay utilities bills for the electricity, water, gas, and sewer services, sometimes to the municipality and sometimes to private utilities. But none of that is paid for through taxes. So Warren's claims that government is the one who provided all those things is only partially correct, end then only peripherally. Government may be the agent for some of those things, but they generally don't use taxpayer dollars to provide those things.

Roads are different, but even then it isn't as if roads were built just for the businesses she's demonizing. They were built for everyone, including her and the businesses that provide the jobs for the people she says she wants to serve.

I find it interesting that the AGW faithful aren't using new data to conclude climate change is All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans. Much of the same kind of data they're using to 'prove' global warming is due solely to human activity was used back in 1973 to prove the same thing about global cooling, proposing many of the same 'solutions' to fix the problem.

In 1973 I attended an Ecology Symposium at Ohio State University meant for faculty and graduate students in the auditorium of the engineering school. I was an undergrad, but I sneaked in among the several hundred attendees, an got a seat in the back of the auditorium before the doors were shut. I heard several presentations and lectures by a distinguished panel of professors and researchers from other universities speaking on the approaching perilous demise of planet earth by global cooling. The earth was literally beginning to freeze because mankind was using too much fossil fuels so that the pollution was blocking the suns rays and its warmth.

The consensus of the distinguished panel was that our end was certain by 1980, or 1985 at the latest. The northern polar ice cap was going to expand rapidly, devouring first Canada, then the upper half of the United States. Canadians were going to flood the U.S. and they, and Americans would then flee south to Mexico and Central America triggering a bloody war as those Latinos would have to fight off the invasion. In the midst of this bloody war, America's bread basket would be gone as our fertile land could no longer feed the rest of the world as it would be under ice. The end result would be the loss of at least 75% of the planet's human population.

The solution offered by this august group of distinguished experts: Americans, and only Americans, would have to surrender their cars, single family homes, all of their electric gadgets, and their individual liberties to a strong central government which would hire these, and like-minded experts who would forever manage our society. The rest of the world could be permitted to press on as they were because they were not guilty of our over-consumption of the world's resources.

I also have copy of the Jan 13, 1972 issue of the Columbus Dispatch with lead editorial on the demise of mankind from over-population. It recommended the implementation of the President's Commission on Over-population. . . . president Nixon's commission. According to this AP editorial, we had mere months to get moving on this matter or face extinction. The solution: Americans had to surrender. . . . etc.

You get the point.

Funny how regardless of whatever crisis conjured up by our ruling elites the solution is the same.

I've noticed that, too. Just about any crisis, even a faux crisis, will be used as an excuse to expand the power of our self-defined and self-delusional ruling elite. After all, they know much better how to run our lives than we do. And because they do, they will be exempt from the restrictions placed upon the rest of us because of the 'burdens' they bear on our behalf.

Yeah. Right.

And now for another exciting episode of Is This Stupid, Or What?

I'm sad to say that this episode takes place in my home state of New Hampshire.

= = = = = = = = = = =

Shawn Stevens, a seventh grade student at Dover Middle School, had received an American flag from the mother of a US Marine getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan.

Imagine his surprise when the moment he stepped of his school bus carrying that flag it was taken away by a school staff member because "because it can be considered a weapon."

Excuse me?

Co-Principal Kimberly Lyndes said the spear point of the flag's stick was the problem.

"A student came to school yesterday with a flag that was rather large and didn't fit inside the backpack," she said. "A staff member felt that it could potentially be dangerous because of the pointy end and took the item and let the student know and the parent know that they took the item and could pick it up.

"It had nothing to do with patriotism or it being a flag. It was about potential danger and school safety."

I saw video of the "weapon" and I have one question for Co-Principal Lyndes: Are you kidding me? That "pointy" end was as about as pointed as the eraser at the end of a pencil. As Shawn's mother said, there are plenty of everyday items at school that are far more dangerous than Shawn's flag.

This is what happens when school administrators stop being educators and instead become bureaucrats. They take something that no one else would think twice about and turn it into a situation that makes them look stupid. And we trust people like this with our kids?

No wonder more parents would rather send their kids to private school.

This is such a cool thing to see, and certainly fools the eye.



There are a number of follow on videos showing other optical illusions, and a few of them show how it was done.

Very cool, indeed!

Gee, I wish I could be this eloquent!

Allen West's response to CAIR's demands that he cut all ties with such conservative "anti-Muslim" pundits like Pam Gellar was classic, right out of history. Too bad the Think Progress folks (or at least those commenting at their blog), did not understand either the reference or the meaning of his one-word response.

But then the Left's understanding (or even acknowledgment) of history has always been poor, and too much of what they do know is heavily revisionist, so the fact they couldn't figure out West's response wasn't all that surprising.

Reading the comments to Ann Althouse's post about this shows that more people support his response, particularly to the pro-Islamist group that has, on more than one occasion, given tacit support for Muslim charities in the US who have funneled their funds to Islamic terrorist groups.

Says one commenter at Althouse:

This is just another example of the political media game in which a simple declaration of a position is "bizarre". What is expected of the modern politician is an insidious hedging of opinion in a fog of sophistry. One of the ways in which the media thinks it protects Obama is in ignoring his simple declarations while celebrating his opaque meanderings. The latter, while useless in negotiation, leadership, or self-understanding, seem smart to the smart set.

Of course, as the commenters at the Think Progress make clear, those on the left are happy to express blunt opinions. West is a "Scumbag. Ignoramus. Idiot. Fool. Tool. Clown. Psucho. (sic) Nutjob. Whacko." But their mealy-mouthed leaders keep letting them down. How demoralizing!

And here's this West guy, and Perry, and Palin, and Bachmann, who keep saying blunt, disagreeable things.

Oh, the horror!

(H/T Instapundit)

By way of Maggie's Farm comes this announcement that Katherine Hepburn's home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut is for sale. The asking price is $28 million.

I know the place as we used to drive near it on occasion on our way to or from Lenny and Joe's Fish Tale, one of our favorite restaurants on the Connecticut seacoast.

Normally I wouldn't even post anything about this as I have little real interest. But a recent viewing of The Aviator (the story of Howard Hughes) reminded me of something I had almost forgotten. (I cannot say for sure this actually happened, but it certainly made for interesting cinema.)

There was a scene that took place at the Hepburn house (and I believe it may have even been shot there, comparing scenes from the movie to photos seen in the listing), where Howard accompanied Katherine to dine with her family one summer weekend. During the meal Katherine's mother, a rather outspoken woman in her own right, blathered on about being socialists and that she didn't care who knew it, and anyone who disagreed would never step into her house.

Howard sat there quietly fuming until he couldn't stand it anymore. He replied to her, saying that she and her family could afford to be socialists because they had money, while the average working man could not. He basically lambasted her for her ignorance about how business and the economy actually worked, then got up from his seat and left.

Howard Hughes may have been eccentric, but he knew his stuff when it came to business, economics, and the working man. He also spoke a truth (or at least the Howard Hughes in the movie did).

Those with money can afford to be socialists. The rest of us can't.

Socialism rarely effects the limousine liberals. After all, they've already got theirs. Living with the effects of socialism is only for the little people. (That means you and me, folks.) It also means that it's the little people who, in the end, pay for it all, be it with confiscatory taxes, crappy social services, poor educational and health care systems, substandard housing, or dead end it's-for-the-public-good 'jobs' of the "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us" variety.

As I wrote in my previous post about Obama's Afghanistan speech, I don't believe he knows what he's doing. This is particularly true when it comes to economics. There's certainly been plenty of evidence that drives me to make this claim, but this one takes the cake: Obama believes technology leads to job losses. It's such an old saw that has been disproven again and again, but he's trying to sell it as the reason the American job market is in such dire straits.

"There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers," he said. "You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don't go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you're using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate."

The president calls this a structural issue--we usually call it progress. And it isn't exactly a new phenomenon. It's been going on for centuries, and its pace has accelerated over the past 50 years. Businesses relentlessly look for ways to replace workers with machines. The machines get better and smarter. We go from spoons to shovels to excavators, not the other way around.

I get the feeling he'd like to see us go backwards, reducing productivity, increasing the costs of goods, and making even more American jobs disappear to other countries that haven't deluded themselves that technology costs jobs and that increased productivity is a bad thing.

I hate to say this, but what he put forward almost sounded like it came right out of Atlas Shrugged, with the government forcing producers to use less efficient production methods as a means to 'create' more jobs. Of course it won't work out that way and they'll end up with even fewer jobs as they price themselves right out of the market.

And so it goes with One-Term Wonder, a master of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

The battle between Wisconsin Republican lawmakers (including governor Scott Walker) and the public sector unions continue.

It seems the unions have decided to borrow a page or two out of old-time union playbook by sending letters to small businesses that, in effect, tell them "Support us and our cause...or else." Gee, it didn't take them long to resort to extortion to get their way, did it? While the unions could have claimed there was a misunderstanding, the union executive who sent the letters says he means what he wrote, so there's no possibility they can claim such a misunderstanding. The gist of the letter:

Dated March 28, 2011, the letter is addressed to "DEAR UNION GROVE AREA BUSINESS OWNER/MANAGER," in Racine County. And it begins with this warm greeting: "It is unfortunate that you have chosen 'not' to support public workers rights in Wisconsin. In recent past weeks you have been offered a sign(s) by a public employee(s) who works in one of the state facilities in the Union Grove area. These signs simply said 'This Business Supports Workers Rights,' a simple, subtle and we feel non-controversial statement given the facts at this time."

We doubt "subtle" is the word a business owner would use to describe this offer he is being told he can't refuse.

The missive concludes by noting that, "With that we'd ask that you reconsider taking a sign and stance to support public employees in this community. Failure to do so will leave us no choice but do [sic] a public boycott of your business. And sorry, neutral means 'no' to those who work for the largest employer in the area and are union members."

The threat is implicit: put a sign supporting us in your window or we'll make sure it will negatively affect your business.

How...how...mob like. Vito Corleone would be proud.

Are we sure we want people like this to be working for us? Better yet, do we want them to have this kind of power over us?

Since this 'incident' the union has been back-peddling, removing signs from the businesses that knuckled under to the union extortion. But that doesn't undo the fact that they threatened business owners into 'supporting' them, meaning they've lost any credibility or moral high ground. They proven themselves be nothing more than thugs.

It wouldn't surprise me to find they've opened themselves to prosecution under RICO statutes. But somehow I doubt the US Attorney General will direct federal prosecutors to investigate such matters, considering his track record when it comes to dealing with corruption and coercion.

Why that is the case is ably described by Andrew C. McCarthy, one of the few adults working at National Review these days. The brutal and sadistic murder of the Fogel family was, in a perverse way, more dreadful than the horrific calamity that struck Japan around the same time. I'm thinking of the jubilant reaction to it by Palestinians in the street.

Oh, how I miss the days when John O'Sullivan was the editor of NR and Peter Brimelow was publishing front-page stories!

And another important insight is provided by the underappreciated reporter Charlotte Allen. Touring the streets of Cairo for the Weekly Standard, she discovers that what the typical Muslim yearns for is very different from what we yearn for. "It's as if they live in their own world," she concludes. (I may be paraphrasing.)

Over the years I have had interesting conversations, and not a few heated discussions with progressives of all stripes. Far too often their arguments devolve into what they feel about something rather than what they think about it. Other times it's one lame talking point after another, many which sound good on the face of it but aren't backed up by personal experience, or history. It's all theory and feel-good sound bites. Failures in practical applications of their beliefs are explained away with excuses like "It was implemented poorly" or "Everyone has to be brought into the fold otherwise it doesn't work" or "We won't make the same mistakes the others made."

That last one is always my favorite, allowing me to use one of two rejoinders, those being: "Yeah, you'll make worse mistakes!" and "Do you know the definition of insanity? It's doing the same thing over and over, but expecting the results to be different this time." That always brings them up short.

But I am not the best person to speak on such matters. That title belongs to those who lived under the oppressive regimes of "progressive" or "socialist" utopian countries. More often than not they're capable of skewering ever single talking point or nonsensical utterance brought forth by the 'enlightened' progressives because they suffered under the very system the progressives wish to force upon us.

One such is ex-Soviet immigrant Oleg Atbashian, who poses a number of questions progressives are loath to answer:

Dear Americans, these are some questions I have collected in 16 years of living in your country. Please see if you can answer them for me:

If all cultures are equal, why doesn't UNESCO organize International Cannibalism Week festivals?

If all beliefs are equally valid, how come my belief in the absurdity of this maxim gets rejected by its proponents?

Once a politician labels the truth as hate speech, can anyone trust him to speak the truth afterward?

If a politician gets elected by the poor on a promise to eliminate poverty, wouldn't fulfilling his promise destroy his voting base? Wouldn't he rather benefit from the growing numbers of poor people? Isn't this an obvious conflict of interests?

How did the "war on poverty" end? Has there been a peace treaty or a ceasefire? Who is the occupying force and who are the insurgents?

Why weren't there demonstrations with anti-feudal slogans under feudal rule? And under Stalin, no anti-communist demonstrations? And under Hitler, no anti-fascist demonstrations? In a free capitalist society, anti-capitalist demonstrations are commonplace. Is capitalism really the worst system?

If the poor in America have things that people in other countries can only dream about, why is there a movement to make America more like those other countries?

If diversity training benefits everyone, why do those classes mostly consist of white heterosexual males?

How come those calling Sarah Palin a "bimbo" often look like part of Paris Hilton's entourage?

How come the unselfish Americans hate their country out of personal frustrations, while the selfish ones defend America with their lives?

If being a winner in nature's struggle for survival is selfish, does being extinct make you an altruist?

How come so many anti-American radicals are wearing American brands, listen to American music, watch American movies, and play American video games on computers designed by American engineers?

And finally, if all opinions are equal, how come a liberal who disagrees with a conservative is open-minded, but a conservative who disagrees with a liberal is a bigot?

Indeed. Read the whole thing and if there are any questions you can think of that might also annoy progressives, add them to the comments of Oleg's post.

Here are a few questions gleaned from the comments:

Why are gun control advocates so violent?

Why is it that the Left's mantra is "Celebrate Diversity" yet they all think the exact same and anybody who has a "diverse thought" is taken to the town square and hung?

Why is it I've never worked for a poor person?

If Communism was such a shining example for everyone, why didn't they put up a "Picture Window" instead of an Iron Curtain?

If all cultures are equal, then why are the liberals down on red-necks and conservatives?

Why do all leftist states have to build walls to keep their own people in, whereas rightist states have to build walls to keep other people out?

Why is leftism never judged by its reality but only by its lofty promises?

And the list goes on and on. Can any of you think of questions that would annoy progressives?

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

Are these law enforcement personnel out on Long Island using their badges as a means to "harass us and eat of our substance"? Taking a look at the case of Nancy Genovese, I'd have to say yes.

After her arrest for supposedly posing a terrorist threat by taking pictures of a tourist attraction outside a public airport, being subjected to an illegal search and seizure, theft of $5300 in cash, confiscation of her camera and other personal belongings in her car (which have not been returned), being denied her right to an attorney, being imprisoned based upon false testimony by one of the arresting officers, she was interviewed by the FBI and found to be no threat. But the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department still held her in custody for some time, but finally released her, dropping the charge of criminal trespass (the only thing which she was charged). How can someone 'criminally trespass' on a public right of way, to whit, a public road?

Did she take this sitting down? Nope. She filed a $70 million lawsuit against the Town of Southampton, Suffolk County, and various other county and town officers and officials.

Now here's a bit of irony: the Town of Southampton town attorney failed to respond to the suit in a timely fashion, causing the town to default.

How did this happen? According to the now former town attorney "he forgot" to file the town's response to the suit. Genovese asked for a summary judgment against the town, but was denied by the court.

Here's more on the Genovese case, including an overhead view where the 'terrorist' incident took place.

They are now requiring college students to prove actual need before getting up to $200 a month in food assistance? So up to now tax payers in Michigan have, in effect, been paying for their beer. HT.

The students even had a Facebook page devoted to the abuse. One said, "Feasting like kings, MORE MONEY FOR ALCOHOL!"

He's overrated because of the times.

But you might want to think twice before calling him Dr. The guy plagiarized so flagrantly that Boston University should revoke his degree. But they won't.

No words of others were safe from him--nor, apparently, other men's wives.

You know the Canadian justice system is screwed up when a homeowner confronts three men throwing Molotov cocktails at his home and is arrested for defending himself.

It seems the Canadian government has got some seriously screwed up people in their Parliament, making it illegal for their citizens to defend themselves against dire threats to them, their families, and their property.

The incident began six years of trouble for Mr. Thomson that culminated early one Sunday morning last August when the 53-year-old former mobile-crane operator woke up to the sound of three masked men firebombing his Port Colborne, Ont., home.

"I was horrified," he said. "I couldn't believe it. I didn't know what was happening. I had no idea what was going on."

So Mr. Thomson, a former firearms instructor, grabbed one of his Smith & Wesson revolvers from his safe, loaded it and headed outside dressed in only his underwear.

"He exited his house and fired his revolver two, maybe three times, we're not sure. Then these firebombing culprits, they ran off," said his lawyer, Edward Burlew.

What's ironic is that Thomson had surveillance video of the incident, showing the arsonists setting Thomson's house ablaze and Thomson exiting his home and firing the two or three gunshots. When Thomson showed the video to the police, they arrested him on the charge of careless use of a firearm.

It must be noted Mr. Thomson is an expert marksmen, meaning if he wanted to hit and wound or kill the miscreants, he could have. Instead, he showed restraint, aiming to miss and to drive the arsonists off. I would say that he wasn't careless at all. Instead he was exercising his god-given right to defend himself.

This amazing video of a sacred lake in Mali, Africa, where fishing is permitted only once a year is sure to go viral.

But you can see it here first. The fish don't stand a chance with that crowd!