Fraud is more poisonous than Anthrax

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Friday August 08, 2008 · 4:46 PM PDT

2008/08/08 · 16:46

The blogosphere has been questioning the "sources" of ABC New/Ross reporting of the anthrax scare back in 2001. ABC News/Ross reported falsely that (1) the anthrax contained Bentonite and (2) this showed it came from Iraq.

But the issue is much bigger than that. Glenn Greenwald, the Salon magazine blogger, has taken the lead on this issue. But he became rather vehement when I challenged the basis for his main concern: there is NO evidence that ABC News/Ross ever had any sources.

The larger issue is that ABC News/Ross sensationalized this concocted story in order to obtain money, and there is every evidence that they did so fraudulently.

zoniedude

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Saturday May 03, 2008 · 11:26 AM PDT

2008/05/03 · 11:26

I think all three presidential candidates are wrong about the gas tax holiday simply because they don't understand how prices work. There will not be any $30 savings to consumers if you eliminate the gas tax. If anything, the price of gasoline will go up.

The fundamental role of economics is that demand will always exceed supply, therefore some people have to be dissuaded from buying and price is the ultimate dissuader. Therefore total price, the price the consumer actually sees, rises until enough consumers are dissuaded so that the remaining demand balances the supply available.

Total price is determined by that balance and if you lower the tax, or raise the tax, total price will stay the same. The price you see today is the price that balances the demand to the supply. However, removing the gas tax can make supply go down.

zoniedude

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Saturday July 21, 2007 · 5:34 PM PDT

2007/07/21 · 17:34

When I was in college, looking for a parking space on campus, I spotted one in an adjacent aisle. But I was fairly certain if I tried to drive around to that aisle, somebody else would get there first. But it was possible to drive over the edge of a curbed planter box directly into the parking space.

Which I tried, but midway my tires slipped off the curb and my car slid into the bumper of an adjacent car. There I was, with a dent in my passenger door from the corner of that car’s bumper. The question was, what do I do next? If I drive forward the bumper continues to crease the entire length of my car. If I drive backward, same result. And then someone drove into the parking space I was after.

The answer that was apparent to me at the time, is that I should not have driven over the planter box in the first place. I should have anticipated the consequence I found myself in. There was no way to undo that, and no good choices once I’d done it. It represented to me a learning experience: consider the consequences before you do something stupid, and then accept the consequences if you do something stupid.

zoniedude

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Friday July 13, 2007 · 11:05 PM PDT

2007/07/13 · 23:05

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix seems to be about the evil of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Some of you may take umbrage at this, but a certain character is a dead ringer for Margaret Spellings. I don’t have to tell you who; if you see the movie it will be obvious.

Margaret Spellings tells the students that Hogwarts is a failing school. She says they will no longer be learning practical arts, but instead will focus solely on theoretical topics that will be on the test. Which is, she proclaims, the whole reason they are at Hogwarts.

Does J.K. Rowling know about NCLB? How could an English author know about the great evil that has befallen American education? But then, watch the movie and see how she describes what is in store for Hogwarts. The drill and kill, etc.

zoniedude

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Friday May 18, 2007 · 10:21 PM PDT

2007/05/18 · 22:21

I was alone then. I hadn’t realized it was almost exactly thirty years ago until just now. I was alone now. Then in a motel room. Now in my living room, my wife and son away on a camping trip.

Then there was knock on the door. Two state troopers told me to call home. I asked why. They said that was all they knew. My grandfather answered the phone. My mother, his daughter, had been killed in a car accident on her way to the motel where we were to visit. Suddenly, irrevocably, a huge part of my life vanished.

Now, in my living room, I worried that a knock might come. I knew what my brain was telling me. It was about my son. How proud I was at how accomplished he was, and the life he had ahead of him. About the thirteen years I had with him, all the hopes and efforts and worries and guidance and long talks about morals and decisions. All gone.

zoniedude

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Friday March 09, 2007 · 7:16 PM PST

2007/03/09 · 19:16

With the Appeals Court decision stating that the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution applies to individuals, the country is in great danger. The second amendment does not refer to "guns," it says "arms" and that includes everything from bazookas to nuclear weapons.

Perhaps the more important issue, however, is that the U.S. Constitution applies only to the federal government, it does not apply to the states. States have the right to create militias (in accordance with the second amendment) and to determine what constitutes a militia and to what extent "arms" can be borne by individuals. Thus the Appeals Court decision overturns the rights of the states to determine what "arms" individuals may "bear."

As a consequence, if there is an absolute right of individuals to "bear arms" with no ability of the state governments to regulate this, then there is also an absolute right for individual militias to be formed within a state and across state lines with superior powers to the police and the state National Guard. Osama bin Laden could finance a private Islamic Army right in the United States and there would be no authority to interfere with it as long as the soldiers were U.S. citizens.

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Fraud is more poisonous than Anthrax

The Gas Tax Holiday Hoax

The Importance of Leaving Iraq

Harry Potter and NCLB

Reflecting On A Military Father's Loss and Nobility

The Right To Bear Arms: not just guns