Wednesday Morning Linkorama

  • Yet another decorated soldier is run out of the military for the heinous crime of being gay.
  • Another debunking of the Peak Oil Theory. I think Peak Oil is partially wrong, but I still think investment in alternative energy is a good way to hedge the bets here. We’re going to run out of oil some day. Eventually the Peak Oilers will be right (and, of course, happily ignore the century or so that they were wrong).
  • My understanding is that Obama doesn’t control the Social Security COLAs, which are set to go to zero this year. COLAs need to change if Social Security is to be viable in the long term. This will be a good test of the political feasibility.
  • My take on the wealth gap? I think we are all moving up, true. But it seems that there is a class of people who are simply stuck at the bottom.
  • Cash for Fridges. Is there any payout that our government isn’t going to do?
  • It turns out that education costs are rising faster than healthcare. This is almost certainly aided by the open-ended commitment of our government to pay for higher ed, no matter what the cost. However, if another industry were experiencing such rising costs — and paying, on average, half a million to its presidents, you can bet we’d be hearing some noise about it.
  • Typical. The ban on pseudoephedrine, designed to combat meth, is just forcing the dealers to use more dangerous methods. A similar thing happened in the 80’s, when an ether ban forced coke makers to use cancer-causing benzene. The only way this make sense is if you think the only good drug user is a dead drug users.
  • Another scathing indictment of the teachers’ union. Note the salaries being paid. What strikes me most is how bad I feel for the teachers caught up in this nightmare of a system. Wasting five years in a rubber room is a terrible way to live.