Global warming may be interrupted by decadal (a few decades of) cooling. If you can’t illuminate by facts, darken by jargon.
This statement about cooling ranks with, “We can get through them in a day.”– Custer before the Little Big Horn. “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” General John Sedgwick before his fatal wound, Spotsylvania, Virginia.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — “Despite a torrent of high-profile recalls that have tarnished Toyota’s once stellar reputation, a study published Wednesday reveals that the automaker actually gets fewer customer complaints per car than the majority of its competitors.
Edmunds.com reviewed more than 200,000 complaints filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) over the last decade and found that Toyota ranked 17th among the top 20 automakers in the overall number of complaints per vehicle sold.”
Some Toyota executive will be forced to face Congress, a group whose livelihood is based on mendacity and spin, to explain how this horrible thing happened. The public humiliation done, the lawmakers will move on to doing useless and harmful things based on current illusions while the person doing useful things will be allowed to slink away, properly chastised by his betters. And that’s politics for you.
from the Book: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:
In 1957, Standard and Poor’s examined the 500 biggest publically traded companies. In 2007, only 86 of these companies existed. Even the ones which did not go out of business were mightily transformed whether still existing or taken over. If one made up a list of 500 of the largest government agencies in 1957, the vast majority would still be sopping up public money while growing larger. Government agencies can never fail, thence, never succeed.
Universities become self-perpetuating centers of socialism as the search committees choose applicants in their own image. People who come from favored groups, are made full professors because of their ethnicity, gender and political views. These pampered elite, without any real intellectual accomplishment, especially in the social sciences where clever writing is so much more highly valued than accomplishment, accomplishment is practically excluded. The result is touted as evidence of “diversity”, “scholarship” and academic “freedom”.
Universities cost so much because they are run by those who are financially irresponsible and have the notion of social justice which means "keep the government money coming, we are proud tax consumers and, if you gave us everything you have, it would not be enough.". OR “The peasants should give the elite their money so it may go to those favored by the elite.” They are also dedicated as “agents of social change” which is code for, “Socialism must prevail.” OR “Because we have such great love for the proletariat, We, The Enlightened must control their lives.” This top-down, command model represents much of what universities require to justify themselves. If research found that people did best directing themselves, direction by the shepherding elite must be shown to be harmful.
Many people described and predicted the inefficiency, incompetence, waste, corruption and patronage of governments long before the Romance With Socialism became the dominant set of assumptions of western academics and media. Europe is discovering that adding an extra layer of government reduces prosperity. Why anyone finds this surprising is beyond any possible belief, but, as McCloskey observes, "Impatience with calculation is the mark of the romantic…".(p. 189). Governments have been busily engaged for millennia providing special privileges, either by money, punishment of competitors, or both, for favored groups, thereby diminishing the general standard of living. All of the mischief done by government agencies comes from the lack of responsibility enjoyed by those who have jobs independent of accomplishment who justify their actions by pretending INTEND-IS is DOES.
Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies
McCloskey, R. Bourgeois Virtue, American Scholar, 63, 1994.
