Radioactive Communist Zombies

Dopamine Defense

The reason you like too drive fast is the way your brain is built.  It's not your fault.  That according to research published in the Journal of Neuroscience.  As Time reports:

A new study by researchers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City suggests a biological explanation for why certain people tend to live life on the edge - it involves the neurotransmitter dopamine, the brain's feel-good chemical.

Dopamine is responsible for making us feel satisfied after a filling meal, happy when our favorite football team wins, or really happy when we use stimulating drugs like amphetamines or cocaine, which can artificially squeeze more dopamine out of the nerve cells in our brain. It's also responsible for the high we feel when we do something daring, like skiing down a double black diamond slope or skydiving out of a plane. In the risk taker's brain, researchers report in the Journal of Neuroscience, there appear to be fewer dopamine-inhibiting receptors - meaning that daredevils' brains are more saturated with the chemical, predisposing them to keep taking risks and chasing the next high: driving too fast, drinking too much, overspending or even taking drugs.

So the reason I drive fast is biological: I'm lacking in dopamine receptors.  And I'm addicted to it:

[P]eople who take risks get an unusually big hit of dopamine each time they have a novel experience, because their brains are not able to inhibit the neurotransmitter adequately. That blast makes them feel good, so they keep returning for the rush from similarly risky or new behaviors, just like the addict seeking the next high.

So, see, officer, it's not my fault I'm doing 100 in a 70 zone (not that I've ever done that).  It's the dopamine. 

Think the dopamine defense will hold up in court?   

Predictions 2009

Well, guess I stick my neck out again and try some predictions for 2009 (I didn't do too bad for 2008):

1) The economy will continue to falter and sputter along through 2009 as various "stimulus" plans fail to do much.

1A) The Dow Jones Industrial Average will not be more than 10% higher than it is today (closed the day at 8776.39)

2) Gasoline will settle somewhere around $2.00 a gallon.

3) Barack Obama's middle class tax cut will barely survive intact and will be much smaller than Obama promised.

3A) Taxes overall are going up, perhaps including taxes on carbon or selling of "carbon credits."

4) There will be an attack on an American interest somewhere in the world.  This may be on U.S. soil.

5) Obama's State of the Union speech will be Castroian in length (2 hours, minimum).

6) There will be a movement to lower the national speed limit.

7) Gun control will come back with a vengeance.

8) The Fairness Doctrine will rear its ugly head.

9) Mitch McConnell will be the left's new whipping boy now that Bush is out of the picture.

10) Something amazing will happen that almost no one predicts.

U.K. Proposes GPS Speed Limiters in Cars

Technology is sometimes a double-edged sword especially when government uses it to control behavior. 

In an Orwellian move,  "government advisers" are suggesting cars be fitted with devices that use GPS satellite technology to determine a car's location, a database of speed limits to determine the speed limit at that location, and then automatically slow the car to the speed limit, applying the brakes if necessary.

As the the U.K. Mail reports:

The Commission for Integrated Transport (CfIT) and the Motorists' Forum published a report yesterday which called for the voluntary introduction of the devices - called intelligent speed adaption (ISA).

The study also looked at how the devices would help fuel consumption, emissions, noise and ease traffic on the roads.

It found that on 70mph roads, keeping to the speed limit could lead to savings of up to 6 per cent  in CO2 [sic] emissions.

Well, of course, if it will cut greenhouse gases it's definitely worth having these Big Brother devices in your car.

Not everyone is convinced this is a great plan:

But Claire Armstrong, from the road safety charity Safe Speed, said that the devices could be dangerous.

She said truck drivers using speed-limiting devices had been shown to 'go into fatigue mode or zombie mode' and stopped paying attention to the road.

Mrs Armstrong added: 'That makes it highly dangerous in those scenarios. So you've taken the responsibility away from the driver and that is not good for road safety.'

Derek Charters, from the Motor Industry Research Association, said using devices to automatically limit speed could cause accidents [as cars slow down unexpectedly]

Right now the CfIT is only recommending these be placed in cars of people who volunteer to have them.  But as government mission-creep proceeds unabated, it probably wouldn't be long until they are mandatory.

Of course, this would also prevent using speed enforcement as a revenue raising tool.  So perhaps governments won't like these devises.  But green meanies and safety Nazis will love them.  Be interesting to see who wins that fight.

Won't be long until the government will simply have the technology to control your car for you.  Then you won't even have to worry about driving.

The Coming Federal HMO

Remember HMO's?  Those "Health Maintenance Organizations" that were so successful at lowering health care costs but did so by rationing care in such a manner that Congress tried to pass a Patient Bill of Rights (apparently it's never made it through the Senate)?

Well, the Obama Administration is going to make federal health care (which consumes 46% of all health care) one massive HMO, according to Sally C. Pipes writing in today's Wall Street Journal.  Tom Daschle as Health and Human Services Secretary would be the man in charge of this.  And the former senator wrote a book explaining how he would do it:

In his book, Mr. Daschle proposes a National Health Board to regulate the way health care is provided. This board would have vast powers in regulating the massive federal health-care system -- a system that includes Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs. Under Mr. Obama, it is likely that that system will be expanded and that new government insurance for the nonelderly, nonpoor will be created.

Given the opportunity, Mr. Daschle would likely charge the board with determining which treatments and drugs are cost effective and therefore permissible to use for patients covered by the government. And because the government is such a big player in the health-care market (46% of health-care spending comes from the government), the board would effectively set parameters for private insurers.

Mr. Daschle's board would be charged with determining what medicines and treatments are "cost effective."  He has praised the U.K.'s health care model (See here and here) which has such a board:

Mr. Daschle complains about overuse of new technology and praises the United Kingdom's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), a rationing system that controls government costs. NICE's denial of care is legendary -- from the arthritis drug Abatacept to the lung cancer drug Tarceva. These drugs are effective. It's just that the bureaucrats don't consider them cost effective.

Daschles' board could decided your mother's hip replacement isn't cost effective or your sister's cancer drug isn't cost effective.

And, of course, such a board would have to be unelected and distanced from politics as possible so that voters can't have any influence on it and elected officials can have plausible deniability: "We can't do anything, they are appointed." 

Tom Daschle wants to imitate Massachusetts on a nation-wide basis, according to Ms. Pipes.  But the Bay State's health care plan in turning into an expensive disaster.

The only way the Massachusetts plan will survive is with continued and increasing federal subsidies -- that is, tax revenue from the residents of other states. The only way Mr. Daschle's proposed plan would survive is with massive deficit spending . . .

The left in this country has long had the goal of nationalized health care.  And they think now the stars are aligned and they could get it.

But will Americans put up with the lack of choices that will be forced upon them?  Or will they have a choice?

Wind and Biofuels: the Next Meltdown?

Are wind energy and biofuels poised to be the next great government meltdown?  William Tucker writing in the Wall Street Journal thinks so:

Wind generation is the prime example of what can go wrong when the government decides to pick winners. The idea that it can replace significant quantities of coal or natural gas in electrical generation is a fantasy.

Windmills generate power only 25% of the time and can change output minute-to-minute. A contemporary electric grid is a highly tuned instrument that cannot vary in voltage by more than a few percentage points without causing brownouts or damaging electric equipment. Under these circumstances, wind is more of a nuisance than a source of power.

Nonetheless, wind is our fastest growing form of electrical generation, due entirely to federal and state subsidies and "renewable portfolios," in which the government tells utility companies what to build. In a few years we could find ourselves in the position of Denmark -- which has built thousands of windmills without closing a single fossil-fuel plant.

Spending billions of dollars and not achieving much in the way of CO₂ reductions because of the inefficiency and dangers of wind power. 

And biofuels aren't the answer either:

Biofuels have already proven to be an even bigger disaster. They've gobbled up 30% of our corn crop and have leveled tropical forests, while replacing less than 3% of our oil.

While receiving billions in subsidies and protectionism and still asking for more money.

Throwing good money after bad with wind and biofuels could be the next big taxpayer bailout.

The solution?  I don't know, how about doing nothing?  Nothing is a very good solution.  One, it costs nothing and two, if man-made climate change is real, lowering our wealth now for a minimal reduction in CO₂ emissions will make it harder for those in the future to develop the technologies to replace carbon-based energy.

Oregon Governor Proposes GPS Mileage Tax

Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski has proposed supplementing the gasoline tax with a tax on miles, tracked via GPS.  As the Albany Democrat Herald reports:

A year ago, the Oregon Department of Transportation announced it had demonstrated that a new way to pay for roads — via a mileage tax and satellite technology — could work.

Now Gov. Ted Kulongoski says he’d like the legislature to take the next step.

As part of a transportation-related bill he has filed for the 2009 legislative session, the governor says he plans to recommend “a path to transition away from the gas tax as the central funding source for transportation.”

As I predicted, taxing you for driving your car and using GPS to do it was the next step in "VMT" which is the attempt to reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Now the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) assures us that the GPS data won't be used for any other purpose:

In more than one interview with the Democrat-Herald and others, James Whitty, the ODOT official in charge of the project, tried to assure the public that tracking people’s travels was not in the plans . . .

The final report detailed the technical aspects of the program. It also stressed the issue of privacy.

“The concept requires no transmission of vehicle travel locations, either in real time or of travel history,” the report said. “Accordingly, no travel location points are stored within the vehicle or transmitted elsewhere. Thus there can be no ‘tracking’ of vehicle movements.”

So the government that brought us speed cameras and red light cameras promises not to use this technology to track vehicles or speed limits.  How long until the revenue raising possibilities of that makes it too tempting to resist?  This is just more governmental Big Brother intrusion into the lives of citizens.

"Green" Economy?

Victor Davis Hanson points out that there is a dichotomy in the treatment of the economy and what the left supposedly wants for a "green economy":

Given that we were told we had to immediately cut back on carbon emissions (even before sustainable alternative energies are in place), largely by curbing our lavish energy-dependent lifestyles, why then all the concern about stimuli and global depression?

The global depression is achieving the aims of the global warming alarmists.  Their policies would have plunged us into a global depression anyway, so why is Obama proposing a trillion dollars in stimulus?

Could it be that the left knows their anti-global warming program can not be sold to the public?  Could it be that they actually think we can have a growing economy and throw trillions down the rat-hole of "green" technology.

As Hanson says:

[I]n the booming 2004-6 years, radical suggested scale-backs would have probably led to something akin to what we are experiencing now? So why the gloom instead of headlines blaring—"The Planet Continues to Green—as Archaic Consumption Practices Erode Further!"

Why indeed?

2008 Predictions: a Review

Last year I made several predictions about 2008.  Let's see how they stand up now that the year is almost over:

1) Hillary Clinton will not win a majority of popular votes in the general election for President.  That absolutely happened.

1A) Like Bill (who got 43% of the popular vote in '92) not getting the majority does not mean she might not become president.  Nope.

1B) This could be, however, because she didn't win the nomination of her party. Yes.

2) Barack Obama will be on the Democrat ticket as either presidential candidate or (more likely) vice presidential candidate.  Yes, that happened.

3) There will be voting irregularities somewhere.  Minnesota.

3A) If a Democrat wins, they will be pretty much ignored except by bloggers.  If a Republican wins, they will be the top story for weeks thus reducing the legitimacy of a Republican victory.  Still hasn't been settled, although it looks as if Al Franken might pull off stealing that election.

3B) King County, Washington (Seattle and environs) will have massive voter fraud.  No evidence of that (doesn't mean it didn't happen).

4) There will be no 9/11 scale attack on American soil in 2008.  Got that right.

5) There will be at least one large terrorist attack against a non-Muslim state.  Mumbai.

6) Someone will sue Nintendo for damage to a body part suffered playing the Wii.  Apparently, this had already happened.

7) There will be some new cyber trend that today no one can predict but when it happens many people will say "why didn't I think of that?"  Twitter started in 2006 so I can't think of anything that fits this.

8) Apple will come out with some amazing new gadget that will make iPods and iPhones obsolete, perhaps iBrain.  Nope.

9) The GOP will nominate a white male.  His running mate will be either black or female or both. Nailed that one.

10) Most predictions made in 2007 will fall short of the amazing things that will happen in 2008.  Yes.

Therefore, out of 14 predictions, I got 8 right for 57% correct.  Not bad.

Viagra and the War on Terror

(Hat Tip The Corner)

It seems in Afghanistan, the CIA has found a use for Viagra.  As the Washington Post reports:

The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.

Four blue pills. Viagra.

"Take one of these. You'll love it," the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.

The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes -- followed by a request for more pills.

Seems Viagra is just one of many creative bribes used to get information.  And bribes have to be creative because of Afghanistan's tribal culture:

The usual bribes of choice -- cash and weapons -- aren't always the best options, Afghanistan veterans say. Guns too often fall into the wrong hands, they say, and showy gifts such as money, jewelry and cars tend to draw unwanted attention.

"If you give an asset $1,000, he'll go out and buy the shiniest junk he can find, and it will be apparent that he has suddenly come into a lot of money from someone," said Jamie Smith, a veteran of CIA covert operations in Afghanistan and now chief executive of SCG International, a private security and intelligence company. "Even if he doesn't get killed, he becomes ineffective as an informant because everyone knows where he got it."

So the CIA offers some unique incentives:

These include pocketknives and tools, medicine or surgeries for ailing family members, toys and school equipment, tooth extractions, travel visas, and, occasionally, pharmaceutical enhancements for aging patriarchs with slumping libidos, the officials said.

Which works in Afghanistan's tribal culture:

Officials say these inducements are necessary in Afghanistan, a country where warlords and tribal leaders expect to be paid for their cooperation, and where, for some, switching sides can be as easy as changing tunics. If the Americans don't offer incentives, there are others who will, including Taliban commanders, drug dealers and even Iranian agents in the region.

Once again, American know-how--even pharmaceutical know-how--is helping us win the war on terror.  And using Viagra as bribes to get information sort of gives new meaning to the phrase "hard intel.

Obama's Stimulus Flunks the Math Test

Hat tip Instapundit and from the "why didn't I think of that file":

Carole Baum writing in Bloomberg looks at the math on Obama's stimulus plan:

[Former Teasury Secretary Paul] O’Neill did the math so you don’t have to. Each job “will cost $250,000, which doesn’t suggest much labor intensity for the dollars spent,” he said. “It makes me wonder if any of the planners or commentators are good at arithmetic.”

And it's easy math.  Obama is promising 3 million jobs with $750 billion in stimulus.  So $750,000,000,000/3,000,000 jobs = $250,000/job (one thing I learned in physics was "keep your units straight").

According to Baum there's 10 million unemployed in the U.S. right now.  So a) the stimulus won't make a dent (especially since about 3 million more people will enter the work force in the next couple years) and you could just more easily write $75,000 checks to each unemployed person which should keep them in beer and pretzels for at least a year.

And if putting people back to work is the goal, there is a way to achieve it:

If putting people to work is the goal, we could get rid of all the heavy earth-moving equipment and go back to digging ditches with shovels.

Why stop there? If it takes one man two days to dig a trench three feet deep and 30 feet long with a shovel, how long would it take 100 men using spoons? 

But of course, you couldn't pay them anything because they wouldn't be very productive (well, I suppose the government could pay them anything it wished because it doesn't have to worry about things like profit.

That's what a lot of people don't understand, that capital (supplied by capitalists) allows people to be more productive and being more productive raises the value of your labor allowing you to make more money.  If your employer provides you with a shovel rather than a spoon, you can be more productive.  If he hands you a backhoe (which cost him a fair amount of capital) you can be even more productive.  As Baum notes:

Automation and technological innovation have had the effect of replacing humans with machines. Yet the unemployment rate isn’t perpetually rising. As countries develop, they create new and better jobs, not more of the same old ones. The goal is to raise the standard of living, something that (all economists agree) can only be achieved through higher productivity growth.

That’s something the government can’t provide. It doesn’t “sell” its goods and services to discerning buyers. It isn’t driven by the prospective return on its investment.

But the government doesn't worry about such things in its make-work projects. 

Instead, the government requires us to pay taxes in exchange for goods and services -- transportation, education, homeland security -- that may or may not be worth the “cost.”

Obama's stimulus is going to give us very expensive jobs for things we may or may not want (yes, I want more and better roads, I'll admit).  But it doesn't pass the math test, nor the economics test.  It's just more spending that will have to be paid for with taxes or debt, neither of which will help the economy.