Open Choke

Politicians...

An old man gave me the most succinct explanation of a politician the other day...

"Son, a politician can only do three things. He can take your money. He can spend your money. And he can tell you how to behave with the rules and reg'lations he makes".

"Most people would be pretty durned careful with this if it was to him only. Likely to choose someone not very interested in doing any of the three! Never could figger out why that same concern didn't come when votin'".

Being an old man, he didn't say "He or she" like you and I might, being all politically correct and all, or, actually recognizing that women are making huge inroads in the body politic today.

With age comes wisdom, I guess. Brilliant.

Does Incompetence > Greed?

As the decibel count of shrill howl of industry hate gets louder from our Masters and Pundits, another seeming paradox has emerged.  BP, no longer "Beyond Petroleum" but rather, perhaps "Badly Pummeled" by the media frenzy, has responded pretty well thus far by preventing land fall of the slicks.  In the next day or two, we will see if the British giant's thunder dome experiment will capture the rest of the oil escaping and actually turn this into a revenue stream to partially offset its costs;  costs which Obama quickly set at $8 billion or more in an amazing feat of on-the-fly actuarial prestidigitization, without knowing any more information other than there WAS an oil spill.   AIG actuaries are bowing their head in admiration. 

This event has been used to drum support for more government oversight, more industry regulation, and, to be sure, we will soon see some sort of tax or fee instituted in the name of this disaster.  

Never ones to let a good disaster go to waste, environmental groups are reaping the bonanza by cutting down trees and hustling their members and recruiting new ones with mailouts preying upon the fears that "corporations are destroying the Earth", despite all objective evidence to the contrary.  

Not one to be left behind in the lucrative pursuit of environmental, anti corporation hate mongering, The Democratic Party is also leveraging the disaster in order to increase donations and power, presumably to insure that they can buy enough jackboots to keep on the necks of all the citizenry that need it.  Having given money to folks from both political parties, I am the recipient of the steady diet of bullshit polarizing fear-mongering mail that passes for politics today from both pathetic sides of the aisle.

So, let's compare BP's "greed" in not having every type of blow out preventer on site and working to the Army Corp of Engineer's "incompetence" or "corruption" in having received hundreds of millions, if not billions of tax and tariff dollars throughout two decades to fortify New Orlean's levies. But they didn't get around to really doing it. And the money, though spent, really didn't get spent on that, although it was specifically earmarked for it.  Most unfortunately, though, this isn't a one off example of government competence, but rather, par for the course. 

But, unlike industry, they can't get sued them for incompetence, or negligence, or fraud.  

Insanely, those that decry "the evils brought about by of corporate greed" call for the oversight of it all by empowering UNACCOUNTABLE  entities  (and please, don't give me hooey about "our elected representatives"... we are run by job-protected bureaucrats that owe fealty to Unions and can interpret laws any Kafkaesque way they see fit) and PROVEN incompetents or at least substandard in virtually every endeavor they undertake!

Now THAT'S a tragedy!

Imagine Football with Activist Refs...

Governmental entities love vague laws, and our lawmakers serve the beasts what they want.  Why? Because vague laws = power.  Why?

Because the vaguer the law, the more subjective it is.  The more subjective it is, the more power is vested in the policing authorities.

An interesting alliance of the conservative Heritage Foundation and criminal trial attorneys recognize this and are doing something about it on the criminal law side...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100504/ap_on_go_co/us_too_many_crimes

But the problem extends well past criminal laws.  In the suburban township I live in, there are laws that dictate how much impermeable cover I can have.  Fine.  However, they have interpreted "impermeable cover" to mean both compacted granite and loose riverstone, neither of which is impermeable from any objective point of view and the latter of which might be the most permeable covering on the planet.

This is the danger of government.  It seeks to destroy our Rules of Law.  Our Rules of Law dictate a playing field.  You can make good decisions knowing what the rules are.  When the rules can be arbitrarily changed, you are entirely at the mercy of those that interpret the rule.  Arguably, one can make the case that even very well written rules, over time and subject to Judicial Activism, lose their meaning as reasons are found to chip away at something as straightforward as "the sky is blue" to mean, eventually, "the sky is red".

Imagine the following football game with Activist Refs...

"It's first and down here in Soldier Field where the Chicago Bears are taking on defending Super Bowl champs the Houston Texans.  There's the snap... he looks, finds a receiver downfield, and completes a pass for a 20 yard gain and, what?  A change of possession?  It seems that the safety stumbled, opening up room for the receiver to get past him, so the ref has called it a "change of possession", presumably because the safety could have perhaps intercepted had he not stumbled! OK, and exciting game underway here that sees the ball change hands on the first down.  The Bears with the ball now on the 50 yard line.  Hand off the the Bears halfback, who is stopped on the line, but wait!  The refs are saying that the ball be placed halfway to the goal line, because the Bears running back is Native American and gay!  Good call, the Native American and gay fans in the stands are going wild, applauding this audacious call."

It is no longer about the game, it is about the refs.  Enjoy that game over a $9 beer at your bond-funded stadium... 

Some Things I Have Learned These Last Two Weeks...

I have been travelling throughout parts of Western Europe these last two weeks... a combination of pleasure and business.  I find Western Europe too socialistic for my taste, but I admire their lack of "soundbite" politics, much the same way I like(d) Canada before they gutted their royalty system.

Wouldn't it be nice to see a society where policy is driven by facts, facts are valued, and folded around policies that enable the individual to pursue their dreams?  Western Europe has the first part, but it is wrapped around policies that strengthen the state.  Eastern Europe may be the closest thing we have in the World to the ideal, because they have seen first hand the Hell that is the Strong State.  Sure, Europeans can talk the populist talk in their parliaments all they want, but, in the end, the know what the difference is between rhetoric and reality.  My experience in Washington screams to me that in our system, rhetoric IS reality.  This is problematic for a scientist, you see.

In any case, here are a few experience-based facts I have learned this last couple of weeks about the meaningless Kabuki Theatre of Airport Security that I offer my fellow man.

1.  If you think 3 hours is enough time to check bags and clear passport and security controls at Charles De Gaulle airport on a Sunday, you are sadly mistaken.

2.  Never book a ticket on a flight to the US from France that has had a terrorist incident on the same flight or destination.  The French love to show Americans how seriously they take security, to the point of taking Americans out of queue to give them an extra dose of frisk for good measure.

3.  Remember the good old days when their was a line for passengers of returning flights to the US that read "US Passports" and another for "Visitors"?  Apparently that quaint custom is going away, which leads to Lesson 3.  Avoid any queue with lots of beetle-browed pasty folks with bad leather jackets and bad teeth wielding red passports with Cyrillic lettering on the covers.  The full monty of photography, fingerprinting and lack of understanding of English causes you to think you have been caught up in a Kafkaesque Soviet-era line at a state-run store to buy left shoes that don't fit.

4.  Because of these new security policies, 2 hours is NOT enough time to pass through passport control, customs AND security all over again to catch your departing flight out of Terminal X, the farthest terminal from where you land.

5.  Delta NEEDS to spend some money, now that they are the "Biggest Airline On Earth", on some people skills training, especially for their older, pissed off officious women manning the re-check station for the harried passengers trying to get to Gate 931 in Terminal X who have 10 minutes to make it three and half miles.

6.  Detroit still sucks.

7.  Air France does a good job in the air.  On ground, not so much.

8.  If you think Big Brotha Airport Security is a senseless joke, just wait until you see our new medical system.  Maybe they will get it right.  There is always a first time.

McCain/Feingold Dies...

The Supreme Court overturned critical portions of the McCain-Feingold, the controversial spending limits/get evil Corporations out of government bill, when it held, in a 5-4 decision, that political speech shouldn't be abridged based on a case where they were asked to decide if a strongly political documentary focused on Hillary Clinton should be considered a political ad .

At issue is the restriction, placed by McCain/Feingold, placed upon Corporations, including Non Profits and Unions, from airing candidate support or attack ads within a fixed time frame prior to an election.

The left wing frames the decision as opening the doors for full corporate takeover of the Republic.  Obama scolded the Supreme Court on its decision during his State of the Union, invoking "Big Oil" bogeymen once again.

The right wing frames the decision as a victory for 1st Amendment rights.

So which side is correct?

For all practical purposes, McCain/Feingold was DOA when it was passed, because everyone had a "get out of jail free" card due to the lack of restrictions on "527" political organizations, so named for the tax exempt status of "political organizations" as defined by section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code.  One has to ask themself, "What do you expect when you force whores to cut their pay?  They won't do it until they have a ready alternative".

Should corporations be allowed to politically support their allies or attack their enemies as a singular citizen is able?  On the face of it, is it the structure?  Corporations?  Partnerships?  LLC's? 

Since corporations are really merely an aggregation of individual owners bound together for a commercial purpose, as are Unions, although their memberships are not owners, and Non Profits are aggregations of individuals bound together to proselytize a particular point of view or value system,  is the only rationale for discrimination against their political communication that they are too rich?  Or that they are a voluntary grouping of people?  What about rich individuals?  

It's not clear to me what the real issue is.

The left wing states that the huge amount of money available to spend is a practical reason to restrict political speech.  That makes one ask "why just corporations, then?  Or Unions?  Why not rich people?"

The right wing claims that media corporations are not bound, due to their claims of first amendment rights, to this restriction, so that the restriction is imposed only on Non Media Corporations, and thus is unconstitutional, in that the law, as written, creates an arbitrary  prohibition against political speech for some corporations but not others.  That is an interesting take.

I don't hate lobbyists or PACs of any particular flavor.  At their best, they serve to educate our rulers, who rarely today have any practical business experience in our real world, and as such, are often blind to the unintended consequences of their actions driven by their natural political pandering.  At their worst, they can be  a bit sleazy.  One thing I know for a fact, though, is that Lobbyists Love Big Powerful Government.

With McCain/Feingold, our rulers told us that they were weak whoreswho needed discipline.  Then they passed a law that contained a glaring 527 loophole gimpball for "people".  Nice.  They cannot keep their snouts out of troughs if their lives depended on it, yet we want them to govern us.

Why is there so much money in politics today?  It is because these folks can grant monopoly powers to people or corporations or Unions or various other Special Interest Groups, or they can erect huge and arbitrary barriers to entry to restrict the free market.  

As long as they have that power, people and groups of people will try to take advantage of that fact. The last thing our glorious rulers want to change is that fact, because they become wealthier or more powerful with it in place.   Take the power out of government, and the money will evaporate. The more powerful, the more money will be attracted to it.  It really is that simple.

What do you think?  What is YOUR logic for restricting political speech?  

A 'Dark' Future, Indeed...

Want to know what 40 years of Liberal Hegemony in education has wrought?

Look no further than this latest poll.  http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/general_business/just_47_oppose_nationalizing_oil_industry

Less than a majority of the citizenry are opposed to nationalizing the US oil industry.  30 percent of our enlightened populace think government research is the answer to our energy needs.

Republicans are 4:1 in favor of private enterprise, while democrats are "evenly divided". 

Be afraid.  Our children's future is being sealed.  The Borg awaits.

It's About TIME...

I finally got around to reading the TIME magazine that features an "expose" of how carbon non-neutral and energy deficient corn-based ethanol is.  Great article.  5 years to late exposing facts that were well known then, BEFORE policy was implemented.  Too Late Now.  My guess is that Global Warming will have a Golden Age of similar objectivity AFTER we have implemented the tax and regulatory control schemes that have made this a cause celebre with Tax and Regulate folks.

In any case, I saw an interesting ad for WE television WE Vote initiative.  WE is Entertainment for Women Television.  It has a picture of a fat white man with a cigar and a cowboy hat... yep, it looks just like me... saying something about Healthcare and "Being Tired of Freeloaders" and "If you can't afford healthcare, don't get sick!", then asks the readers that this is what is coming of they Don't Get Out and Vote.

By any objective standard, it was a bigoted ad that advanced negative sterotypes, which means it was alright as long as it was pointed in the right direction... guys that look like me.  Sensitivity, apparently, is not a trademark of the middle age, girth enhanced white male.  Mock them at will.  It's alright.

In any case, I look like that guy, and I agree with the part about the freeloaders.  The "Don't Get Sick" comment was thrown in to make it look like Guys Like Me are uncaring about the rising costs of healthcare (never mind that we pay a good chunk of it for those that work for us), and that we have a shallow understanding born of privilege and wealth, and not in touch with the Women Who Watch WE in their concerns for the family.

Incredibly insulting, I thought.  Do I support Universal Healthcare?  Does it matter?  We have it today.  We have mandated the responsibility to our cities, who have emergency wards not used much for emergencies, but rather uninsured health care clinics.  That is why it is now about Universal Coverage, NOT Healthcare. 

Do I want something for nothing?  Sure.  Of course, there is no such thing.  Voting for Government Mandated Universal Coverage literally means "I want other people to pay for me to have healthcare, and I am willing to make it even more poorly managed and run in order to get this".  I could be snide and add that "because I value a new car more than my families health" or some such, but that would be insensitive.  The part that you can't argue with is that the movement is about having the Federal Government manage the damn thing!  The folks that brought us the IRS, the Post Office, and the most worthless bunch of bureaucrats ever designed. 

What am I missing here?  I have a lot of progressive readers here... Make a cogent argument for this, please!

"bright spot"

Here is a NYT article on the loss of 63,000 jobs from the private sector.  At the bottom was a "bright spot" about the government adding 42,000 jobs in the last two months. 

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/international-usa-economy-jobs.html?em&ex=1205038800&en=cd18927f5b1d36aa&ei=5087%0A

So, 63,000 people leaving the sector that creates new wealth and 2/3 of them entering the sector that absorbs and redistributes wealth.  I fail to see the "bright spot".

It Takes a Village...

I live in a Village.  A 3,000 household village in a suburb.  We have a city council comprised of members that viscerally hate each other.  A typical council meeting has devolved into "Aha" moments where the mayor or the opposing group each claim the other side broke a law by saying the wrong thing or adding agenda items improperly and then asking for a censure vote.  They are, in  a word, pathetic.

These are my local partisans.  Although not weighed down with party names, they act just like it, they want you to belong to Tribe 1 or Tribe 2, with the requirement being only that you hate the other tribe because "the OTHER tribe will destroy the village with their (crookedness, stupidity, laziness).  Because we lack the easy metatag of "Democrat" or "Republican" to tell us who to hate, we actually have to pay attention to how each Tribe looks at the issues. 

One underlying fact about both Tribes... Both claim to be for the people, and both want to control heavily what the people do.  Both Tribes are huge control freaks with the only variation I can discern being a nuanced differential about WHAT they want to control.

Under the current Tribe, at least now I can put in a bird bath or replace my roof without being slapped with a "Red Tag".

I got a letter from City Council the other day.  It stated that California had demonstrated that wildfires were a real thorny issue, and that the Village had decided, as a service to the citizens, to arrange for a sticks and branches pick up day in late November.  Cool, I thought.  Good responsive governing.  I kept reading.

It then said that the sticks and branches had to be placed on the edge of property Just So, or otherwise they wouldn't be picked up.  Hmmm, I thought.  This isn't sounding so good.  Last thing I want is a huge pile of sticks in my front yard that were not picked up if I happened to bundle 'em wrong.

Then came the list of "Approved" contractors who were authorized to do this work in my little burgh.  Noticeably absent were the less expensive guys local guys... like the old Greek guy I use who always tells me that Tree or Branch removal is $X when we negotiate for the first one, then tells me, once I have agreed and his crew is onsite, that he can do two other trees for 1/10th X now that he is here.  This "government service" was seeming less and less appealing by the moment.

The kicker was contained in the last paragraph, however.  It stated that the City Council had voted to require citizens to clean up dead branches and sticks from their yard, and those that did not would be fined and possibly jailed if we did not comply.  There it was.  A big old steaming pile of government that I was holding in my hand.  Basically it said that they had voted to make me spend $10k or more to their "approved" contractors or face sanctions.  Nice. 

I told my Dad, who lives in Ruidoso, NM about this, and he laughed and said the Forest Service had done the exact same thing last year, with its "approved" contractor list that did not include anyone he had ever used.

These Bozos I helped elect than came out and said that they were supporting Free Markets by doing this through private contractors.  What a load of hooey.  Government Fiat represented as Free Markets.  Companies paying to become "approved" and then lobbying for the power of government to be used to force business. 

Don't let people totally misrepresent the term Free Markets that way.  Like I blogged a while back about my method to judge how bad legislation was by only its title ("Comprehensive Patriot Hungry Children and Mothers Homeland Defense Act" is a guaranteed to make toilet paper of the Constitution and what rights we might have left), the meaning of words are being intentionally mangled so that our underlying beliefs can be attacked.  If "Capitalism" and "Free Markets" equal "Enron", rather than "Enron" equals "Fraud", then you have not so subtly equated "Capitalism" and "Free Markets" with "Fraud", although Fraud exists everywhere there is an exchange of goods and services.  This isn't accidental "misunderstanding".  If you look at the bankruptcy and criminal records of our US Legislature, you could much more easily make the claim that "Legislator" equals "Crook". 

In any case, gotta get the government approved crew over here so I's don' get whupped by massa.  No one likes an uppity taxpayer.

Its Cool...

How cool would it be to tell your operating partner that you screwed up the joint operating agreement and Division Order and that you REALLY meant to put into them that you had 20% working interest instead of 15% working interest and that you had a 20% non consent penalty instead of an in or out provision... AND you did it several years after the fact... after several wells were drilled.

What do you think your "partner" would tell you?  I expect the first coupla letters would be F and U.

I know, I know.  You are saying to yourself  "There goes ol' Choke again, on one of his ridiculous tangents".  But you would be wrong.  It is only ridiculous and wrong if the "you" in the preceeding scenario is actually "you" or anyone you know... a private citizen or entity.  It is NOT ridiculous if it is your duly elected representative of the people.

This has occured at least twice in recent months, and not in some God foresaken South American or African shit for brains idiocracy, but right here in the good ol' US and Canada. 

The first occasion was when Congress decided that the Mineral Management Service had "accidentally" signed and awarded leases with fixed royalty provisions.  Congress after the fact decided that they could get more, and claimed this "mistake" and asked the oil companies to relinquish their old leases in favor of the new.  Mind you, this was NOT a "misprint".  The original lease terms were what the oil companies thought they were bidding on, not the new deal.  Most of the oil companies said... well, the first two letters were F and U.

Congress, a group downright unamenable to being questioned like that, then declared that any oil company that did NOT relinquish their leases would no longer be allowed to bid on offshore blocks.  Take that, Rule of Law.  Don't you dare question the Great and Powerful Ahhhs-oles.

Alberta, heretofore known as the Texas of Canada... a bastion of he-man risk taking kick ass capitalism in the Peoples Republic of Canadastan, decided to confiscate mineral royalty there as well.  The better a well you drill, the bigger the percentage take.  Kinda like progressive taxation.  They used the excuse that the old method, where the royalty rate was fixed and the leases were sold in open auction, didn't reflect "market value", presumably because an open auction doesn't reflect market value.  That would take a Galbraithian economist to explain, so don't hold your breath trying to understand it.  By doing this after that fact, the result is they get the auction price up front, then change the terms on the back end to screw the buyer.  This only works once.  Alberta can get ready to see a lot less money bid at auction, and probably a lot fewer wells drilled, unless the US adopts this kleptonometric approach to royalties.