Busing in New Orleans: Then and Now

I am amused and relieved that there are 320 buses with professional drivers in place to carry anyone wishing to be evacuated from New Orleans. The buses are commercial (think Greyhound with high-backed, reclining seats, air conditioning, and built-in potty) , not school buses.

Seven years ago, ahead of Katrina, the emergency evacuation plan said school buses were to be used, but the mayor and his emergency manager neglected to read their emergency plan even though they had days of warning before Katrina killed 1800 of his people. The buses were there, but they neglected to tell the drivers. They had no call tree like the National Guard units use to alert members of a call-up.

In a call tree, someone calls the commanding officer, who in turn calls three others, who in turn call three others, and so on until the entire unit is notified. Redundancy is built into the tree to cover anyone not notified; in other words, people will be called several times to make sure everyone is called.

Instead, the bus drivers had been busy getting their own family out and didn't know they were supposed to be driving others. Over 250 buses were flooded and useless. 

One bus was "unofficial appropriated" by a kid, who stopped by the Superdome, picked up a load and drove them to Houston. He was fifteen and had no drivers license. I hope someone kept track of this kid and helped him later to succeed. He is an amazing kid who outperformed the mayor and his staff. 

The mayor was re-elected, but I never heard whether he replaced his emergency manager. This manager was offered 1000 free seats by Amtrak the night before Katrina hit, but turned them down as unneeded. Of course, both these happenings were later denied. I don't blame them for the denial (How many of the 1800 would have come through?).  

I am glad the new mayor has not only invoked the plan, but has improved on it, even if Isaac is barely a hurricane.

Central Planning

From: Oxford, England
 

I've noticed something strange over the past few weeks, maybe you have too. It seems that every 'contrarian' website out there has joined together to collectively bash the Olympics and anyone who tunes in to watch.

This seems nuts. Nobody should feel guilty for wanting to see athletes in peak condition push the boundaries of human performance. I certainly don't feel guilty about it. In fact I came to the UK several days ago specifically to catch some of the Olympics live.

Unfortunately it turned out to be much more difficult than I had expected.
As it turns out, the British government has centrally planned Olympic ticket issuance in a way that's so remarkably inefficient it would make Karl Marx look like Steve Jobs.

There's only one way to buy London Olympic tickets-- through the 'official' office that's controlled by the government. They've even solidified their monopoly by making it a CRIMINAL OFFENSE for individuals to resell Olympic tickets.

The concierge at my hotel, an affable Italian named Paulo, explained to me that the police even came around to warn (i.e. threaten) him against helping hotel guests find tickets.

Paulo directed me to the government's official website so I could buy tickets the legal way. I quickly found out how Byzantine it is-- there are all sorts of ridiculous hoops to jump through; if you're a resident of the UK, you follow one procedure. If you're a resident of the EU, you follow another. If you're a resident of other countries, you follow yet another.

Then after creating an online profile and giving them all sorts of personal information, they'll actually MAIL (i.e. snail mail) the physical tickets to the address you give them in your profile... and only to the address of your legal residency. It doesn't matter if you're traveling.

The alternative is that you could spend a couple of hours going to one of the ticket offices, all of which seem to have been strategically chosen for being in the most inconvenient locations possible.

Even if you can get through that maze, they've really screwed up their inventory management. Nobody seems to have any idea what tickets are available at any given time. An event may be 'sold out' at 10am, then have hundreds of seats available by noon.

The government's central planning of Olympic ticketing has been a complete failure, perhaps best evidenced by the THOUSANDS of empty seats at many of the events.

                         

Annoyed beyond belief, I asked the concierge at my hotel if there were any alternatives. He said, 'maybe', told me to write down my phone number, and wait.

Within a few minutes, my phone started ringing off the hook with calls from ticket brokers; since the government made it illegal for these guys to sell tickets, they've been pushed into dodgy underground boiler rooms for the past two weeks as if they're Prohibition-era bootleggers trying to move a shipment of hooch.

Negotiating ticket prices with these guys, I couldn't believe we were talking about a sporting event... it seemed more like an arms deal. One guy asked me three times if I was a cop, and another refused to give me his phone number when I said I needed to call him back.

Totally crazy. The government has managed to monopolize an entire industry and screw it up with Soviet-level inefficiency... then make it a criminal offense for the private sector to fix it.

                          

This is typical of how a government operates. They take a very cavalier attitude because they don't care about results, they only care about maintaining control. As a result, they run their operations based on the premise that people really have no choice.

With regard to Olympic ticketing, this is mostly true. My choice was either to go through the system legitimately (albeit painfully), deal with some dodgy backroom ticket broker at three times the price, or just watch it on television. 

Simon Black 

Doing the Right Thing

I am happy that President Obama has now decided to allow immigrants to stay who were brought here as children, at least, for two year intervals until hopefully something is done to make this permanent. It is the right thing to do, even if he did it for political reasons as indicated by it being late in the election cycle.  These kids or young adults are culturally American, and some do not even speak the language of the country they came from. They were raised American.

I find some of the criticism disgusting. For example, we are setting a bad example. Since when are we so small a people and a country that we would persecute a few for the failings of their parents--not to mention the failure for years and even decades to enforce the laws, thus creating these American kids without a country.

Another criticism that makes my skin crawl is that issuing these people green cards places them in competition with those citizens how are already having trouble finding work. I find this gambit really nausiating coming from the politicians who empowered the banksters to meltdown the economy, and now these same politicians haven't a clue or desire to do anything about it (FDR created millions of jobs in a few months. Look up one Harry Hopkins if you want to know how.).

I am happy that at least Rhomney, whether for ethical or political reasons, is agreeing with this action.

Man As The Bad Guy

I am amused.

A major academic theory explaining the disappearance of  megabeasts coming out of the last ice age is that migrants from Asia hunted them to extinction. These academics apparently don't get out of their ivory towers much if they seriously think a few thousand persons armed with pointed sticks can hunt over a dozen species of beasts to extinction in a few hundred years.  This is absurd on so many levels.

For example, Neanderthals used this type weapon and were built like WWE professional wrestlers.  Their remains show major injury was common. Had their coordinated hunting method using spears been as prolifically successful as these same tactics supposedly were in North America,  Neanderthals would have expanded to populate the earth rather than disappearing from the fossil record 25K years ago.

Another consideration comes from modern hunters. Many enjoy hunting with long bows, compound bows, and cross bows, all superior to pointed sticks, but modern hunters do not go after grizzly bears. They hunt species that run away if missed or wounded. Short-faced bears, one of the megabeasts driven extinct, were thought to have a personality ill-tempered enough to make grizzlies seem sunny in disposition. Short-faced bears drove lesser species off their kills, and would probably view men with pointed sticks contesting a kill like cannibals might view the arrival of a pizza delivery guy.

An indication of the actual hunting prowess of the American immigrants can be drawn from the history of the Lakota. The Lakota were respected, if not feared, by adjacent tribes, but these tribes also tell of the Lakota before horses. Lakota were a tribe of ne'er do wells who did not command any land along a river, so spent their time in subsistence hunting of bison. Once the Spanish horses proliferated and migrated up to the northern plains, the now-mounted Lakota could kill sufficient meat in one day per month to leave the other 29 days free for mischief.

The academics point out that the North American immigrants had a new technology for their pointed sticks--the Clovis point. Clovis points, named for Clovis, NM, where they were first discovered, are indeed an advance, and were wide spread over the 48-state area of what would become the United States. However, they are still just the pointed end of a pointed stick. The Clovis point was unknown in Asia, where the migrants originated. The Asian level of technology was inserting flint chips in a grooved line in the spear point--or in an animal bone. Yet, the megabeasts went extinction in Asia simultaneously.

In all probability, the extinctions resulted from either the Younger Dryas, or whatever caused the Younger Dryas. The Younger Dryas was a 1300-year span where temperatures returned to ice-age levels. The cause of this reversion continues in debate, ranging from a release of fresh water into the North Atlantic, halting the warm currents from the south (think Gulf Stream); a meteor strike causing a nuclear winter; a volcano in Switzerland. None concur with all the circumstances of the time--or have the expected substantiating happenings.

For example, there has been ongoing argument whether the Younger Dryas was a local, or just northern hemisphere, or world-wide event. Apparently the ice cores from Antarctic have settled the argument--it was world wide--but it occurred in the southern hemisphere several hundred years earlier and was warming when the northern hemisphere cooled.

In other words, one may logically conclude all their theories are inadequate, and another is needed. The academics also argue that the Younger Dryas cold should not have killed the megabeasts who had just survived tens of thousands of years of ice age. Good point. The key may be in the speed of onset. Ice cores show it happened within a decade and maybe much shorter. If the stories of mastodons and mammoths frozen so quickly their stomach contents  remained fresh, "much shorter" would be more like "abruptly." The bulk of a beast like an elephant is such that upon death their body heat cooks as well as digests their stomach contents--but these mastodons and mammoths were frozen too fast for that to happen. The sudden chill was enormous--such as happened in the movie The Day After Tomorrow.

The key here is "if the stories are true." Most mammoth and mastodon remains show normal decay, leaving only bones.

The academics have now come up with a new cause for the Younger Dryas. Man killed off these giant herbivores so fast, the world-wide generation of  methane, a greenhouse gas some twenty times more potent than CO2, ceased, causing the Younger Dryas cooling.

I am not only amused, but envious they get paid to generate such.

Our Earliest Heroes

On this Memorial Day weekend, there are a few I wish to single out for extra honor and appreciation: Those men who risked and often lost all during the Revolutionary War. This conflict started April 19, 1775, not a year later when someone signed a document.

At 4:30 a.m., the first Americans lost their lives to the big red machine. The British army was marching on Lexington and Concord to seize weapons and ammunition stored there. It marched over the dead in Lexington, then were harassed and killed all the way back to Boston. Patriots from surrounding towns and counties raced to take on the British who had killed their brethren.

 Over the next decade, many died defending this country that might never exist. In fact, the odds of winning against the greatest military power of their age were dismal. They risked all anyway, just on the off chance that something new and wonderful might result. They fought and died for an idea.

Student Loan Rates and Government Spin

Actually this is political BS. The government charges students 3.4% now, on money they borrow for 2.7% average, so government profits already. By doubling the rates charged to 6.8%, government would generate an extra $34 billion in profit.  This extra profit is what they are trying to replace. In other words, they aren't giving anything to anybody unless you count the banksters.

Banksters borrow from the Fed window at 0.25% (no sic). They then buy government bonds paying 5.5%, take those back to the Fed window as collateral to borrow that much more at 0.25%, which they use to buy government bonds paying 5.5%, which they can take back to the Fed window, ad nauseam. Figured on a trillion dollars, the banks are making $55 billion less $2.5 billion they are paying to the Fed on little initial capital. If you wonder why banksters are not overly interested in making loans; It would cost them too much. In the meantime, the Fed proudly announces they have made $1.5 billion (0.25% minus the average note rate of 0.10%) profit from the banksters.

As Henry Ford once quipped, "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." It's morning.

So what the government proposes "giving" students is total BS. So is what they really are giving the banksters. Like I say, it's morning.

World War II GI Bill's Return on Investment

One of the most profitable actions the federal government ever took was the World War II GI Bill. Its primary purpose was not that, but to prevent the economy from falling back into the Great Depression with the return and discharge of 15-million veterans into an economy that was shifting out of full-blown war production.

 It greatly expanded the middle class because the degrees earned allowed many to earn previously undreamed of incomes and send their children to college, too. The additional income generated a long-term stream of increased tax revenues that is only ending now with retirement of the boomers. When the World War II GI Bill was being considered in Congress, the most heard criticism was it's socialist. It turned out the best thing the government could have done for its citizens and itself.

Now, we have this cannibalistic pretense that hurts both its citizens and itself--and an opposition complaining its socialist. Actually investing in one's citizens is the best of capitalism. If education seems expensive, try ignorance.

Greenland Ice Core Temperatures

These are the ice core temperatures from Greenland. Global Warming is the uptick at the left. Please, note that it is less than the peak 1000 years ago, which is when Vikings were populating Greenland. Please, note, too, that the temperatures since the last ice age have for the most part been higher than the current temperatures. These higher temperatures are known as the Holocene Optimum, which you don't hear much about from the Warmistas. It clearly illustrates with data that man-made global warming is a ploy to grab government funds--and not related to anything scientific. That's technical for "AGW is BS!" 
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 The graphic has an indicator called the 8.2 Kiloyear Event. It was not part of the point I was making, but it is where I obtained the graph. For those interested, more information can be obtained: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.2_kiloyear_event

Global Temperatures 2500 BCE to Present

Warm and cool periods associated with history: Note the Roman Empire occurred during a warm period, followed by the Dark Ages during a cool period. No one has explained the sudden cold down around 1300, which led into the Little Ice Age. Temperature rises within the lifetimes of people alive today are recovering from the Little Ice Age, not overheating from too many SUVs.

Taiwan Doubles GDP in the Decade

Taiwan has virtually no natural resources, yet doubled per capita GDP in the last decade; America has not. While providing quality health care for all citizens, Taiwan cannot send its manufacturing jobs to Communist China. Taiwan accomplished its GDP doubling by investing in its people instead of feeding them to the special interests.

GDP Grope, ah, Growth

"Dial 911 If This Story Makes Your Eyes Bleed" (New York Post)

In order to get to [the] 2.8 percent growth [reported last Friday,] the Commerce Department used a very unrealistic level of inflation in its calculations.

Let me explain: The government comes up with a figure on how much it thinks the economy grew, or shrunk. Friday’s figure was a first estimate for the fourth quarter, so most of the numbers used in the calculation are only guesstimates anyway. (But that’s for a different story.)

The government then takes that growth figure, subtracts the rate of inflation and comes up with the real growth it reports in its press release.

So, in other words, if inflation is rising it reduces the rate of actual, after inflation, growth — which is the figure that Washington reports.

In Friday’s number the government used 0.4 percent as the rate of inflation. Zero. Point. Four. Percent.

In which country is inflation that low? Certainly not in America. Absolutely not in the last four months of 2011.

The consumer price index, which is put out by the US Census Bureau, had prices up 3 percent for the year.

And the rate of inflation used in calculating the third-quarter 2011 GDP was 2.6 percent; in the first and second quarters, combined, the rate was 2.5 percent; it was 1.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010.

So how does the Zero-Point-Four-Freakin’ percent sound now?

That’s how Commerce got to the not-very-inspiring 2.8 percent growth it reported last Friday.