perfidy

Sooner or later we're going to run out of cheap oil. There's plenty of disagreement about when that's going to happen. Ingenious humans will do clever battle with oil fields to pull more out; that pattern has already repeated. Still...the US was the world's premiere oil supplier until the 1950s, when the Hubbert Peak was reached. Domestic oil production is significant, but has declined substantially. The energy profit in the US has dwindled substantially.

Oil currently supplies around 85% of the world's energy needs. That's far too high, and we need to be doing something about it. The reason we need to start now is that if we do, we'll be able to soften the blow when oil starts getting more expensive. Estimates on when oil prices will increase substantially range from 2007 to about 2020, which provides us with a rough time frame.

Energy itself is not a problem. Solar energy provides everything we could ever use; its most convenient manifestation is wind. Hydroelectric power is also derived from sunlight (water becomes vapor, is carried by wind to mountains, flows down mountains). Gravity provides tidal forces, which can be used to generate rather incredible amounts of energy.

The price of wind power has dropped dramatically in the last two decades; at the same time, the efficiency of the equipment has risen steadily. We can now seriously consider wind as a legitimate alternative to other sources on a cost basis. We're not quite there yet, but with increases in oil price we won't be that far off. A generator/tower/battery system that can easily power an entire home (or ranch, for that matter) costs about $13,000 these days. When compared to the cost of a house, this is a small cost. On certain power grids, you can even sell excess power back to the utility grid...under those situations the grid acts as your storage device. You push power back into the grid when you have too much. The grid can shift this power to where it's needed. When you don't have enough, you can pull.

Hydroelectric-capable watersheds in the US are largely exploited at this point, but are capable of delivering a pretty large amount of power. We do pay a price in environmental terms for this, but maybe that price is acceptable.

Tidal forces are particularly power, yielding an energy profit of at least 15 to 1 (for each unit of energy expended to collect, you yield back 15). Tidal is capital intensive, but incredibly clean and possesses almost unlimited capacity.

Since I'm Canadian, I'll point out that Canada's hydroelectric watershed is mostly untapped, and is capable of generating far more power than the population could ever use. Likewise, we could turn most of the northern parts of our provinces into giant wind generating farms and nobody would notice. The Bay of Fundy is the world's premiere site for tidal generation; with tides in excess of 50 feet every six hours (due to the Bay's length matching the resonant frequency of global tidal patterns) the amount of energy being generated by the bay on a continous basis could supply all energy we need on the continent, if we could collect and transmit it. So Canada is good. ;)

The thing is, let's say there's effectively no oil. We can create plenty of electricity, though. Farms will need to convert their machinery to use electric engines. In fact, just about everything is going to have to convert to be that way. Suburban sprawl is going to be more of a necessity, because homeowners will want to have their own generators. Each house might end up having two or three large generators, possibly generating around 10 kilowatts or more a day, feeding into a battery bank. This overcapacity can be used to charge up the family vehicles; we can anticipate improvements in battery technology that will greatly extend the range of electric vehicles.

We've seen market corrections at work over the past couple of years. The market corrects very harshly. Can we not use a little foresight here and soften this particular landing? Can we not use our government to guide technology development and infrastructure development in the right direction? If the economy must absorb the shock of increasing oil prices, we need to spread that shock out across the biggest stretch of time possible.

We also have a tremendous opportunity to become world leaders in all of these technologies. The long view depends on it.

Occasionally coherent news site Al-Bawaba is reporting a "social and political crisis" over shooting an Arab version of the tacky reality show "Big Brother" in Bahrain.

Production was suspended after a "general outcry" over the show, meaning 1000 protestors hired by Islamist MPs made alot of noise about the show violating Islamic traditions. Whatever that means- does the Koran specify a particular television show over another? How would one watch TV in a properly Islamic manner? Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC), the channel producing and airing the show, made some mild protestation about the hubbub but readily caved.

But if you read the whole piece, substituting "Clear Channel" for "MBC" and "Howard Stern" for "Big Brother", you will probably be amused at first... then that icy knot forms in your gut and you realize that it's really not as funny as it is terrifying.

So it seems the West and the Arab worlds are really not so far apart culturally. Each world allows a tiny but angry religious right to decide what people can see and hear.

From the New York Times:

The entertainment industry's pursuit of tough new laws to protect copyrighted materials from online piracy is bad for business and for the economy, according to a report being released today by the Committee for Economic Development, a Washington policy group that has its roots in the business world.

While this may be unsurprising to some, it will certainly come as a shock to the RIAA, should they ever read the report. The article continues:

Until recently, those who opposed strong copyright protections have been characterized by the entertainment industry as a leftist fringe with no respect for the value of intellectual property.

"The ideas of copy-left, or of a more liberal regime of copyright, are receiving wider and wider support," said Debora L. Spar, a professor at Harvard Business School. "It's no longer a wacky idea cloistered in the ivory tower; it's become a more mainstream idea that we need a different kind of copyright regime to support the wide range of activities in cyberspace."

...The group called for a two-year moratorium on changes to copyright laws and regulations to allow for more public debate. "Our first concern should be to 'do no harm,' " the report said.

Sensible advice that.

This whole gay marriage thing reminds me of the original women's suffrage debate all the way back in the 1850's. (Yes, the 1850's. Now, ask yourself why the 14th and 15th Amendments, passed after the Civil War, specify "male[s]" as citizens and voters.)

In particular, a great quote comes to mind. Judge Hurlbut of Massachusetts wrote to Susan B. Anthony in the early '50s on the question of why women couldn't be allowed to vote: "[y]ou have the argument, but custom and prejudice are against you, and they are stronger than truth and logic."

Arab News, an English-language daily that covers the Arab world, discusses the new sandy action flick "Hidalgo". The movie is based around a hoss race across the desert, ca 1900, in which uber-stud Viggo Mortensen out-hosses the locals.

Apparently the film has run afoul of culturally sensitive Arabs everywhere due to portrayals of Arab characters conforming to unspecified stereotypes. Ibrahim Cooper, head of CAIR, said:

"Given the growing prejudice against Islam, Muslims and Arabs, we believe a film with this type of dialogue and imagery could have a negative impact on the lives of ordinary American Muslims and Arab-Americans", and adds, “We sincerely hope that anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bigotry will not be added to historical inaccuracy in a film that is being marketed to families".

So.... we all know it's just a movie right? Like, for fun?

If you read the whole article, you'll find that Disney agreed to give CAIR an advance screening. You know, to make sure it wouldn't upset people of Arab decent or Muslims in America. Seemingly they failed, but the larger point is unmistakable. And ironically the new stereotype that Hooper and other commenters on this piece perpetuate is that of the dour, literalist, humorless Arab rumor monger who sees a Jewish plot behind every "negative" portrayal of Islam or its followers, whether in real life or in make-believe.

It's interesting that the Arab press, which is largely anti-American and its reportage can be cover for terroristic propaganda, blames America for its own portrayal in modern media. Yet for a fanciful adventure story, set well over 100 years ago, and a movie to boot, THAT's bigotry.

It seems that this is the future of filmmaking. Develop an idea, wash it through the lawyers; produce a rough cut, wash it through the focus groups; edit a final cut, wash it through every ethnic, cultural, fraternal, and linguistic organization conceivable; once more through the lawyers, then to your local megaplex for you to sort of enjoy. If there's any fun left in the thing.

As part of my cunning plan to become the next Donald Trump, I now have a townhouse to rent. Anyone in the DC metro area who is looking for a place to live, I have for your consideration a three bedroom, two and a half bath townhouse. It has a finished basement; washer and dyer, dishwasher, and new refrigerator; and a fenced-in brick patio. It's in Springfield, Virginia in the Newington Forest area, and is a nice brick faced townhouse located on a cul-de-sac. It's very convenient to the Metro, being right off the Fairfax County Parkway five minutes from Franconia Metro on the Blue Line. All this for $1650 per month. If you're interested, send me an email at [email]rent@perfidy.org[/email].

Despite the Boston Globe's ongoing love affair with John Kerry, I just can't bring myself to like him.

A portion of those similarly displeased with Kerry take issue with his post-war shenanigans. His brief career as a hippy is enough to turn that portion off. Others are suspicious of the circumstances surrounding his decorations, earned under fire (so the stories go), yet thrown away in a fit of highly visible faux disgust a short time later. Except they weren't his, as we know, and the real ones are now resting comfortably carefully framed and displayed in his office. I consider these parts of Kerry history as poor form, but they're not enough not to vote for him, 30 years on.

There are many more substantive reasons that I would be reluctant to vote for the man.
As a resident of a perpetually impoverished region of Massachusetts, I am intimately familiar with the utter lack of effort on the part of Kerry and his mistress, Ted Kennedy, to improve this part of the world. Now, if you live here it can be kinda funny how self-centered Bostonians can be- the punchline of course is that the state is so ridiculously small. But it's not that funny when the people who run the place actually live that way. Matter of fact, alot of people on Beacon Hill aren't even clear where New York starts; Ted even believes that the NY border runs near Springfield (heard him say it with my own ears). So those of us in western MA, who have seen little real growth here in my lifetime, would ask Mr. Kerry how, if he can't improve an economy on the scale of western Massachusetts, and he's been on the job for about 22 years, how he can claim to have an effective policy for improving the national economy within 4 years? That might sound good on TV, but here we know better.

The economy, though, is not a major concern of mine and does not influence my voting decision. Unlike Ross, I am convinced that I will never have the $$ I think I deserve, regardless of who's President. I'll just continue to work 2-3 jobs until I die, and that's that.

More to follow.

I will not be posting until after the weekend (cue weepy violins; the wails of millions), as I am travelling South. Friday night is the Partial Perfidous Caucus on Evil, Malfeasance, and Spawn Admiration at the Buckethead residence: drinks provided. Then family stuff, and then an excruciating marathon drive from Richmond to Boston on Sunday. If I don't make it back, remember me well.

From the comments section of this post from Jane Galt, we find this fascinating article from the July, 1926 issue of the Atlantic Monthly.

The chaos that ensued is a bit of a cautionary tale. (And yes, I am aware of the differences between the Soviet Union of the mid twenties and our current utopian paradise in America.) Read the whole thing, as they say. Some of the consequences of Communist efforts to make the New Soviet Man (and Woman) prefigure the results of the introduction of the Pill and the Sexual Revolution.

I also found interesting this bit from Jane's post:

And people who were cheering the various court decisions, and are now screaming about this, need a consistency check. Yes, we all support gay marriage -- but a majority of your fellow citizens don't. You thought you'd found a way to end run the tedious process of cultural change by getting judges or officials who lean your way to read rights you're in favor of into the constitution. You can hardly scream "foul" when they try to get legislators who don't lean your way to write those rights right back out again.

This gets to some of what I was saying - that from the conservative point of view, liberal judicial activism leaves them no recourse but quixotic attempts to pass constitutional amendments because no matter how many legislative battles they win, liberals can always find an agreeable judge.

Since nobody gets my quantum cat box gay marriage riff, I'll explain something else.

Poor and middle class people in this country have been told that we need to give a large tax cut to the wealthiest 1% of people in this country. The reason, we are told, is that this will produce expansion in the economy. This, in turn, will create more jobs, raise the incomes of everyone, and just generally make everything turn out super.

Yesterday a one of my colleagues asked a question about taxes. We pulled out a spreadsheet and calculated roughly how much he's paid in social security taxes over his career of seven years (he's not yet thirty). We calculated that he has paid roughly $78,000 in social security taxes in that time. Seems like quite a lot, doesn't it? We are including, of course, both sides of the social security puzzle -- employer paid and employee paid taxes. If the employer was not paying these taxes, they could (and would) be given to the employee as wages.

At this point is is useful to note that the tax cuts for the wealthy are being financed by removing money from the social security surplus. Very large parts of my everyone's social security payments are diverted into the general fund. The general fund is operating at a huge deficit.

Is my colleague better off holding a promise to pay social security from the federal government, approximately valued at $0 and a promise by the GOP that the improving economy will help him out? Or would he be better off with his $78,000?

Any potential benefit to the poor and middle class derived from ephemeral supply-side effects is dwarfed by the tax theft this country is currently engaged in.

The social security taxes apply massive pressure against poor and middle class income mobility. Without being able to save this money and develop some capital of their own, they are forever trapped in a paycheck to paycheck existence, and forced to be wage earners.

When we give massive tax cuts to the wealthy, we do tremendous damage to the hopes and dreams of the other 99% of Americans, who can't save enough to make changes in their lives.

A corporation runs a pension plan for twenty years, and manages the assets in the trust fund. The workers have contributed 15% of their paychecks to this fund, on the understanding that it will be used for their retirements. The officers of the company "borrow" money from the trust and use it to finance general operations of the company and give themselves massive pay increases. They leave an IOU, signed and stamped and gold-starred.

In the private world, we would prosecute. We would call this theft. Or at least we would have, before the GOP congress of 1998 got its hands on the IRS, prevented them from investigating corporate fraud, and told them to go after earned income tax errors instead, so they can extract dozens of dollars from maids who make $6,000 a year.