funny things to do on a bike

David Kerber wrote:

In article , says...

...


For reference, something like this is now widely thought to have
triggered a worldwide economic crash at the beginning of the Dark Ages.
At that time, it was an earlier explosion of the volcano later known
as Krakatoa that is thought to have been responsible. (Krakatoa erupted
with much less force in the 1800s, but still caused significant turmoil.)

People took the Nuclear Winter issue seriously, including people at the
top of the relevant governments. The number of nuclear warheads has
diminished greatly - although we probably still retain enough to trigger
that sort of catastrophe.


Of course, since then the "nuclear winter" theory has been discredited
in it's then-popular form...

And we can chase that issue down another sub-thread. But it's even more
irrelevant than Mark's recurring "ice age" remark.



--
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com.
Substitute cc dot ysu dot
edu]

Mark Hickey wrote:

Frank Krygowski wrote:


Mark Hickey wrote:


Frank Krygowski wrote:

http://www.suntimes.com/special_sect...hijackers.html

Wow. Almost all from Saudi Arabia. None from Iraq! What's up with that?

[re-inserting what I said, and was trimmed:]
Aren't we still buying lots of oil from Saudi Arabia?

Isn't Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia frequently listed as one
of the world's worst dictators?

Did we attack the wrong country??



And that changes my (deleted) point exactly how?


Well, I thought you were saying we were right in spending 100 billion
dollars to take over Iraq, because Iraq might have been [partly?
possibly?] behind the 9/11 attacks, and in any case, Saddam was an evil
dictator.

It's not clear why that doesn't apply to Saudi Arabia.

--
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com.
Substitute cc dot ysu dot
edu]

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(JP) wrote:

Mark Hickey wrote...

But it's interesting you don't find the biggest air pollution
reduction act in over a decade significant. Go figure.

What act are you talking about? The rules you referenced were released
as required under the existing Clean Air Act. Nothing new there,
except for the rules that the Sierra Club forced the Bush
administration to revise.

Sure if you consider the portion of the Clean Air Act that the Clinton
administration slipped in AFTER Bush was elected, but before he
actually took office. Clinton did nothing to actually improve air
quality. Bush reworked the act to make it both evironmentally AND
economically viable, and turned it into law. Like it or not, it's the
biggest improvement in over a decade (spin it as you will).

Bush *must* just be a more
environmentally friendly president than Clinton.

In terms of the Clean Air Act, certainly.

Rightfully so, IMHO. So seldom can you
get a unanimous decision out of the Senate that there should be no
doubt that Kyoto is a really, really bad idea.

The EU, Russia and Japan don't agree with you.

What's your point?

For God's sake, that maybe the US Senate is not the last word on
whether Kyoto "is a really, really bad idea".

The whole premise of the Kyoto accord is to reduce carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere. As written, a HUGE portion of the cost for doing this
falls to the US - a crippling amount, actually. And it would be
different if reducing carbon dioxide actually did anything positive to
reduce "global warming". Fact is, the hype surrounding the issue is
SO blown out of proportion it would be funny if it wasn't for the
possibility that someone will actually try to make it happen at the
cost of many, many billions of (wasted) dollars.

We went over (and over and over) this subject recently. In the end,
carbon dioxide in the atmoshere - if the worst-case scenario is played
out - will result in warming totalling a whopping 0.2 degrees C in the
next century. The computer models used to justify Kyoto predict HUGE
increases in temperature over the last 25 years - increases that
simply didn't happen.

Here's a clue... global warming doesn't exist. There's been a net
cooling trend for decades, and the effect of the Kyoto accord would be
at best a small fraction of 1 degree centigrade over the next century
(at a truly horrendous cost to the US economy). But let's not go over
that well-plowed land again.

Oh, brother.

The only thing more costly than taking steps to slow global warming is
not taking steps to slow global warming.

You might wanna check with the folks at NASA to see what the real
"warming trends" look like...

http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/MSU/msusci.html
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/head...d13aug98_1.htm

The economy is not roaring.

I'd disagree - and from the looks of the leading indicators, it's
going to do nothing but continue to improve.

See Paul Krugman ins today's NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/25/opinion/25KRUG.html

Can't - it requires a subscription. Besides, the NYT isn't the most
reliable, unbiased source of news on the planet (akin to me posting a
link to something on Rush's blog). ;-)

I posted figures - investment increased dramatically following the tax
cuts.

What figures? From where?

This isn't the link I used, but it has reams of information on the
increasae in investment...

http://www.house.gov/jec/fiscal/tx-g...al/optimal.htm

You gotta start updating that "jobs lost" number downward. ;-)

I already did. It takes into account the 900k gained since last
August. Again, see Krugman.

Lessee... 2 million minus 900 thousand equals 2 million. Is Krugman
the guy in charge of their subscription statistics? ;-)

Funny thing - the alternative Democrat budget didn't have any more
funding for NCLB. But it's still the most expensive education act in
history (and not "severely underfunded" IMHO - just not funded to the
limits set up, as is the case with most bills). The NCLB, like most
other things in this country - has become a politicized issue meaning
that you're going to get mass hysteria from both sides. In the end,
it's the only thing I've seen that's likely to actually improve the
horrendously bad performance of our public schools.

It's a farce. It is severely underfunded because it does not do the
fundamental thing that is needed to improve our public schools:
provide money for teaching, as opposed to providing some (but not
enough, even) money for testing students. You want the students to
pass the tests, you gotta pay for the facilities and teachers they
need to learn. (Or you could just cheat, like they do in Texas.)

Or, you could just throw more money at the failing public schools and
expect them to get better. They won't - it's clear there's little
correlation between money spent and results. Washington DC has the
highest spending per student and the worst results.

Until the schools are held accountable to some measurable standard,
it's NOT going to get better. I wish there was another alternative
(one that would work, that is). Throwing money at the problem
certainly won't fix it.

I think we covered that pretty well. It was a broad based tax cut -
top to bottom... what portion of the US taxpayers did it miss (other
than - obviously - the large number who already didn't pay US federal
income tax).

The large number who don't pay federal income tax nevertheless pay
Medicare and Social Security payroll tax. Their tax revenues are being
used to cover part of the deficit created by the Bush taxcuts. In
other words, those payroll taxes are being used as general tax revenue
by the government. Why shouldn't they be entitled to a taxcut as well?

Because the two programs are funded in expectation of receiving an
eventual return. What happens to the premiums is an entirely
different issue - you won't get a refund on your car insurance if part
of the premiums are spent on something other than paying out accident
claims, for example.

Amazing to what degree the Bush administration depends on character
assisnation to defend its policies.

Right... exposing the fallacies presented in O'Neill's and Clarke's
books is "character assassination". Both of these guys were demoted
of fired under the Bush presidency. Both made a lot of money writing
a Bush-bashing book.

O'Neill did not write a book, he gave extensive interview; and he was
already incredibly wealthy. It strains credulity to suggest that he
criticized the policy-making process in the Bush White House for the
money.

Money, power, fame - whatever.

Clarke, well, yes you're right. In reality, Bush, after being informed
by his national security advisors that an attack on the US by
terrorists was imminent, cancelled the remainder of his month-long
vacation at Crawford and rushed back to Washington, where he brow beat
the members of his cabinet into piecing together the intelligence they
had that would anticipate the the 9/11 hijackings. Thanks to Bush's
strong leadership, the terrible tragedy that would have taken place on
9/11 was avoided. Clarke is just a liar, out for a quick buck.

Clarke is obviously a liar, based on nothing more than his own
statements.

Right... (what's your point?). The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts mean there
are 4 million more people who pay no taxes at all. A single parent of
two making $20,000 a year is $750 ahead,

Only if they were already paying $750 in taxes, which they probably
weren't.

How else are they going to get $750 ahead via the tax cut?

Give them a refund on their Social Security Tax.

Do we cut their benefit as well then?

Those 4 million people you're talking about are still paying
taxes- Medicare and Social Security, and their taxes are going to pay
for payments to current retirees and they're going to cover the
federal deficit so that Bush can give out his big taxcuts to the
ultrawealthy and still pretend that the deficit is *only* half a
trillion.

What's your point? The bottom 50% of taxpayers pay only around 4% of
the total US federal income taxes. How much less can they pay?

They pay a lot more than 4% federal income taxes. Just because you
refuse to admit that Social Security and Medicare taxes are income
taxes does not mean that they are not. Social Security and Medicare
taxes ARE federal income taxes.

They are programs that return value directly to the investors - just
like any other insurance policies / annuities. Are you suggesting
that we should rework the system so that some pay in a lot more than
others for the same benefits?

But I'm not even saying that they should pay less; I'm saying that the
top 2% should pay more. Those people making a quarter of a million a
year under the old tax rates were actually living pretty comfortably.
I think they'll survive. Probably won't even have to cut back on their
maid service.

What entitles you to demand that they subsidize your tax bill? Just
curious. I personally think that ~28% is more than enough for anyone
to pay.

The "flow of jobs" out of the US has remained relatively constant for
many, many years.

And it's been a problem for many, many years. It has caused
fundamental, negative changes in US society.

I'm not so convinced that's it's quite the crisis it's "grown into"
during the current political silly season.

It has been a crisis for at least three decades. It gets attention
every election. Remember Perot?

Good point. I don't think we can agree more on this issue. Oh my!

The reason it's gotten a lot of interest is that it's now happening to
white collar jobs. When an accountant's job is off-shored, what should
they be retrained for? Perhaps as a "food service worker"?

I'm a bit more global in my outlook than most I suppose (having lived
overseas in several countries). Ultimately creating opportunity in
other countries isn't a bad thing.

I have lived overseas in a couple of countries, and have a pretty
global outlook myself. But let's be clear: the opportunity that is
being created is at the expense of American workers. If I extrapolate
this trend to its limit, I see an averaging of income and standards of
living between US workers and the Third World. I would prefer to see
opportunity created in Third World countries as a function of their
improving standards of living, rather than as a function of the
deterioration of ours.

I don't see a direct connection - the jobs we're sending overseas tend
to be those Americans don't really want to do. Yes, there are
exceptions - some of which are getting a LOT of visibility (especially
in the computer industry). But no matter what we do, the global
economy will continue to change and adapt - the move will be away from
the manufacturing sector to the service sector. We could impose
artificial limits on sending production overseas, but that would only
mean that our ability to remain competitive would dwindle.

I guess I'm a believer that the economy will always adjust to the
situation at hand.

(much as a 5.7% unemployment rate was a shining
indicator example of Clinton's economy in 1996 but an indicator of a
total disaster for the American worker in 2004).

There is no comparison between the economic conditions in 1996 and
now. At that time employment was improving- it had been adding jobs
for most of the last three years, the economy had been growing for
three years and the deficit was trending toward a surplus in the near
future. Those were the days.

Please don't try to tell us that things are as good now as they were
in '96. We know better, and it makes you look like a liar.

Those were the days all right - but they were being artificially
bolstered by the dot-com bubble.

There was not a significant bubble in 96.

The market was priced beyond all
reason, and it had to come to an end because there was simply nothing
to back up the capitalization. The bubble popped and we were in a
full-blown recession by the third month of the GWB presidency (which
is really just a continuation of the trend from the previous year).

The bottom line is - 5.7% unemployment is NOT a historically high
figure. If you buy into the media frenzy - that's your choice.

This is not a media frenzy. It is people knowing what their wage
growth is, and what their job mobility is, and how hard it would be to
find another equivalent paying job if they lost the one they have. You
can sit there and try to tell us different until hell freezes over,
but it ain't gonna change what we know.

Permit me to suggest that it's just "what you've been told". There
are certainly localized issues, but overall I don't see anything
worthy of the word "crisis" going on.

It's
just that a dispassionate examination of the reality shows that it's
lower than the average of the past several decades (and it's
decreasing from that level).

Oh, I guess if you insist hard enough that everything is all right,
then it must be. I mean, you apply for a job in a place as miserable
as Iraq is right now, and, even though you are very well qualified,
you can't get hired. Yep, the job market's pretty tight, alright.

I would hardly try to extrapolate a single anecdotal data point into a
nationwide trend, personally. Besides, they are using me for
something else I'm very good at (making me more valuable to them than
I would be in Iraq). So if I were to extrapolate the trend, it would
have to show 100% employment at higher-than-ever salaries. ;-)

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

Tue, 25 May 2004 14:03:53 -0700,
, Mark Hickey
wrote:
\whack

Lines: 312

"A really long post my reader didn't download (I have a limit of 300
lines - any post longer than that is wasting bandwidth)."

'kay
--
zk

Frank Krygowski wrote:

David Kerber wrote:

In article , says...

...


For reference, something like this is now widely thought to have
triggered a worldwide economic crash at the beginning of the Dark
Ages. At that time, it was an earlier explosion of the volcano
later known as Krakatoa that is thought to have been responsible.
(Krakatoa erupted with much less force in the 1800s, but still
caused significant turmoil.)

People took the Nuclear Winter issue seriously, including people at
the top of the relevant governments. The number of nuclear warheads
has diminished greatly - although we probably still retain enough to
trigger that sort of catastrophe.



Of course, since then the "nuclear winter" theory has been
discredited in it's then-popular form...


And we can chase that issue down another sub-thread. But it's even
more irrelevant than Mark's recurring "ice age" remark.


David are you saying that an earlier eruption of Krakatoa caused the
"Little Ice Age"? Can you post a reference? I thought it was just a
ripple in a larger wave - the slow ending of the last real ice age.
Bernie

Frank Krygowski wrote:

Mark Hickey wrote:

And that changes my (deleted) point exactly how?

Well, I thought you were saying we were right in spending 100 billion
dollars to take over Iraq, because Iraq might have been [partly?
possibly?] behind the 9/11 attacks, and in any case, Saddam was an evil
dictator.

It's not clear why that doesn't apply to Saudi Arabia.

That wasn't my point at all. Sorry.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

Zoot Katz wrote:

Tue, 25 May 2004 14:03:53 -0700,
, Mark Hickey
wrote:
\whack

Lines: 312

"A really long post my reader didn't download (I have a limit of 300
lines - any post longer than that is wasting bandwidth)."

Yep, I just noticed that myownself. Apparently there's no limitation
to the outbound size.

Either way, it's a sure sign that the thread should be finished.

Hitler.

That oughta do it.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

Frank Krygowski wrote:

David Kerber wrote:

In article , says...

For reference, something like this is now widely thought to have
triggered a worldwide economic crash at the beginning of the Dark Ages.
At that time, it was an earlier explosion of the volcano later known
as Krakatoa that is thought to have been responsible. (Krakatoa erupted
with much less force in the 1800s, but still caused significant turmoil.)

People took the Nuclear Winter issue seriously, including people at the
top of the relevant governments. The number of nuclear warheads has
diminished greatly - although we probably still retain enough to trigger
that sort of catastrophe.

Of course, since then the "nuclear winter" theory has been discredited
in it's then-popular form...

And we can chase that issue down another sub-thread. But it's even more
irrelevant than Mark's recurring "ice age" remark.

I wasn't talking about "nuclear winter" but about the absolutely
positively terrifying scientific reality of (drum roll...) "global
cooling" that was just as popular in the 70's as the "global warming"
theory is today. Give it another 30 years, and I predict we'll all be
worried about hoarding polypro underwear again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

Frank Krygowski

wrote:

Wow. Almost all from Saudi Arabia. None from Iraq! What's up with that?

Aren't we still buying lots of oil from Saudi Arabia?

---snip---

Yes we are and in light of our "conquest" of Iraq, I want to know why! We are
just *taking* that Iraqi oil, aren't we? I mean, that is what happens to
conquered nations, no? To the victor go the spoils. What? We are not simply
taking what we want from them? What kind of two-bit conquest is THAT? (Sarcasm
mode off)

Isn't Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia frequently listed as one of
the world's worst dictators?

---snip---

I don't want to live in that country because I value my freedom to dissent but
"one of the world's worst dictators" is hyperbole. How many Saudis has he
murdered? IIRC, Saddam had broken into the six figure range quite easily.

Did we attack the wrong country??

See above.

Regards,
Bob Hunt

Frank Krygowski

wrote in part:

Well, I thought you were saying we were right in spending 100 billion
dollars to take over Iraq, because Iraq might have been [partly?
possibly?] behind the 9/11 attacks, and in any case, Saddam was an evil
dictator.

Nowhere in this or any other thread I've read has Mark ever claimed that Iraq
was behind the 9/11 attacks. Has he said it's *possible* they had some indirect
involvement? Yes. Has he ever claimed that possibility as justification for the
war? No, and you know it.

Regards,
Bob Hunt

Regards,
Bob Hunt