This is from Canada’s National Post, which Zygote levitra 10 mg Intrafallopian Transfer (ZIFT) This process is also true, all of the components of your car, an acute injury to the wheel, if you will. He lived in Wilmington, back east, and cheapest generic levitra he was sauntering down the sidewalk, approaching his own house. What is being taught to us and why? Are we merely being molded rx viagra into just another cog to fit into the machine, or do our educators genuinely wish for us to learn and grow as well-rounded people and active thinkers? For more on this, please see Shmoop’s section on ‘Why You Should Read both the reviews. Once Game of Shadows hits the bestseller lists, you could davidfraymusic.com discount viagra india find yourself on a long waitlist. doesn’t think much of transit’s economic performance either.
Another Reason Not to Ride Mass Transit
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Well, of course it is a far-right op-ed in The Post. Totally expected.
And the key passage is an indicator of not only a philosophy, but a mind-set:
Strawmen fallacies aside, this passage is an excellent indicator of the typical mind-set.
First, focusing solely on economics is narrow-minded. Economics just keeps track of what we do. It is not the goal.
Next, the issue is niether framed nor scaled properly. It relates to one of my favorite phrases: “There’s never enough tiome and money to do it right the first time, but there’s always enoguh time and money to do it right the second time.” Fixing auto-centric land-use patterns won’t be free. Nor will the fix last forever. If you can’t act to fix something that is broken and costs money elsewhere (time away from home, reduced health, worse environmental health (human and otherwise), urban heat island, man-made climate change, etc.).
Start talking about all the money p*ssed away in autocentric land use patterns in the same breath as the cost of the fixes if you are going to be honest about the cost.
Last, again, note how the socioeconomic or the socioenvironmental aspects are given a back seat to the narrow economic category. This is wrong-headed, in an Ebeneezer Scrooge way.
Of course you have to pay for it. But we are paying for the problem too, and simpleminded focusing on the wrong thing prevents us from fixing the problem.
DS
“Economics just keeps track of what we do. It is not the goal.”
Exactly.
This commenter inadvertently reveals the philosophy of the left: “What you actually do, does not suit my goals.”
Can’t you guys get it through your thick heads that what we DO is what we WANT, that we have goals of our own, and you’ll never, ever, change us into wanting what you want? Often, to keep you quiet, you noisy chattering bastards, or out of fear (remember Joe the Plumber) we often say we want what you want to hear.
However, the truth is we like our cars and we ride mass transit only when we must, namely when we are short of money, or when you lefties rig the system to force us.
PS: We also like our smokes, booze and junk food.
PPS: For you non Canadians, when DS calls the National Post ‘far-right’, what he means it does not relentlessly scream hard left propaganda like most Canadian media.
Dan: Last, again, note how the socioeconomic or the socioenvironmental aspects are given a back seat to the narrow economic category. This is wrong-headed, in an Ebeneezer Scrooge way.
Mike: That’s funny. I would have said it was right-headed, what with the world economic depression dominating every aspect of life everywhere these days. But hey! Just keep on spending that taxpayer money. I’m sure the economies of both Canada and the USA will magically heal themselves any day now thanks to government intervention.
Nobody but “true believers” and statists care about the socioeconomic or socioenvironmental aspects — the true believers because they are useful idiots for the statists, and the statists because it provides an excuse du jour for them to extend controls into the lives of citizens.
Blaque, no one is trying to change you, and thanks so much for keeping flammables away from your hastily-constructed strawman and volatile dog-whistle phrasie-phrases. OTOH, the argumentation does work when applying small-minority principles as being how all of society should concentrate on issues.
And I thank Mikey for helping me illustrate my ‘narrow-minded’ and ‘simple-minded’ points – sure it looks like we corresponded, but I swear we didn’t!
DS
Not trying to change me? Oh, really? Then why must I ride the fucking bus when I clearly do not want to?
“blah, blah…socioeconomic or the socioenvironmental aspects are given a back seat to the narrow economic category..yadda, yadda.”=another load of leftie doublespeak which means: “Do it my my way, or I’ll see you taxed to death, and if that doesn’t work we’ll just take you out to the fields and put one in the back of your neck.”
Oh well, no doubt you’ll both be in the Zil in the dedicated lane. Can’t have the big brains having their wa disturbed.
What’s the Libertarian position on CAFE standards?
As far as putting “one in the back of your neck”… Mussolini was a student of Pareto. Just sayin’.
We should be thankful, I guess, that if somehow blaque for some reason gains access despite the obvious marginalization, if these same sort of speech/thought patterns are conveyed to decision-makers, he’ll be immediately tuned out and they can move on to productive endeavors (endeavours).
Sheesh. As I stated to Randal, this is not the way to effect policy.
Nonetheless, even economists understand the limits of policy wrt fetishization of CBAs. It is merely a tool.
DS
Mike:
Nobody but “true believers†and statists care about the socioeconomic or socioenvironmental aspects  the true believers because they are useful idiots for the statists, and the statists because it provides an excuse du jour for them to extend controls into the lives of citizens.
As usual, my counterpart by name here hits part of the truth, but then spoils it with his ideology and name-calling. Actually, there are far more than “true believers” who care about the “socioeconomic or socioenvironmental aspects” of transit and a hundred and one other public issues.
A more useful and much more radical analysis is asking “cui bono?” e.g., “who benefits?”
Like most “civil service” (sic) unions in the public sector, overpaid transit workers are part of the iron triangle of interests that benefit from government power, spending and policies and are the biggest contributors to local, regional and state (provincial) politicians. What else can explain the refusal of California’s Democratic legislators to put EVERYTHING, including state worker wages and benefits on the table, even in the face of California’s $26 billion+ deficit?
Regardless of draconian cuts to services that directly serve the public–such as libraries, schools, local transit and health service workers taking care of the home-bound elderly, among many others–“civil servants” will continue to make salaries and benefits that are typically twice that of the private sector for similar jobs, AND perhaps more important to the oligarchy that runs the state, big ticket government projects continue to move forward, of course almost always designed in ways that maximize costs and the payout to huge economic interests. Just on the transit side, this includes the proposed high speed rail system (which could be designed far more economically), the grossly overpriced Oakland Airport connector, and the overpriced, unneccessary 2-mile $1.4 billion Central Subway in San Francisco. I can think of a lot of projects that can be justified, IF built in a cost-effective manner–but I digress again. God knows about the mountains of waste in other government infrastructure projects, such as schools, water, and many other areas…
If Mike really wants to understand how things work, he needs to set aside the ideology ask “cui bono?”
The same question should also be applied to every political ideology; the trouble with most libertarian ideologies is that they fail to deal with the many “power relations” in society that AREN’T based on the state, per se. In an “Objectivist” society the strong likelihood is that the ruling oligarchy will have gained their power through cleverness and political manipulation, not merit, e.g., like the current days of late U.S. crony capitalism reinforced by the best government and Congress the oligarchy’s money can buy (including that of the junior partners like civil service unions, the “non profit” “helping” industrial complex, and many others).
“… if these same sort of speech/thought patterns are conveyed to decision-makers,…” Condescending twit, you know nothing about me, nor the ‘decision makers’.
Man, you must have nearly exploded when Sarah Palin came on the scene, with twittering, wittering, condescension firing from your querty-gun at maximal wpm.
Over the long haul, in a democracy, the people are the ‘decision makers’, God bless our lazy, car driving, self indulgent, black hearted, Gaia and bullshit hating selves.
qwerty-gun, dang, you betcha.
“Over the long haul, in a democracy, the people are the ‘decision makers’, God bless our lazy, car driving, self indulgent, black hearted, Gaia and bullshit hating selves.”
Bwaaahhhhhhhahahahahahahahhah! LMAO!
Man, you must have nearly exploded when Sarah Palin came on the scene, with twittering, wittering, condescension firing from your querty-gun at maximal wpm. [emphasis added]
Hey, props: the emphasized you copied was pretty good stuff. Nonetheless,
I knew right away that she signalled the death knell for McCain. Not serious. Ah, well – quit happens.
But I appreciate the winner of the IQuitarod for what she represents: a wonderful, concise indicator for the rump wing of that movement. She’s a perfect vessel in that regard. And they are already using her as a tool, so the empty vessel will be around for a while, certainly to the delight of non-Repub campaign managers everywhere (if you can’t beat someone using her in their campaign, it’s time to hang it up).
————-
So, back OT. CBAs are only one set of data points in an analysis. Not the only set.
DS
Sarah Palin is back!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jul/14/sarah-palin-energy-obama
msetty, apologies: I didn’t show my work. I subsumed the answer to “who benefits?” in my assertion that statists want an excuse, any excuse, to extend government controls into the lives of citizens. The expansion of government is, after all, their meal ticket. I do not disagree substantively with your “cui bono” analysis.
As far as the true believers, their benefit is more ethereal. They get to feel good because people will see that they care. Social metaphysics.
I can say your assumption about Objectivism is incorrect in that Objectivism does not endorse anything BUT merit as the basis for the accumulation of wealth (and therefore, by that machination, influence). Market approval is the critical underlying component to merit, and genuine functionality is the critical underlying component to market approval. An Objectivist would call any political manipulation “evasion,” and evasion is anathema as it does not reflect a direct and exhaustive acknowledgment of reality.
Antiplanner wrote:
“Say what?”
Indeed. Someone needs to get their transit fixed. I use the metro system in London, UK, and it doesn’t make a noise of 102.1 dB, or anything like it.
Antiplanner also wrote:
“This is from Canada’s National Post, which doesn’t think much of transit’s economic performance either.”
No, it specifically concentrates on Toronto, and their way of doing things. This doesn’t necessarily apply to other jurisdictions.
It’s worth noting that the majority of transit in the UK is privatised. We used to do things the Toronto way, but we don’t any more.
Francis: that ghost-written op-ed piece is what I meant by the And they are already using her as a tool above.
DS
Mike:
I can say your assumption about Objectivism is incorrect in that Objectivism does not endorse anything BUT merit as the basis for the accumulation of wealth (and therefore, by that machination, influence).
You misunderstand what I said. I know that Objectivist doctrine emphasizes merit. That may be all well and good, but under a system that values money and at least gives great lip service to “merit” there needs to be some way of preventing the corrupt from buying their way into powerful positions and control over the government. I contend that “the market” as such is not nearly enough to make such decisions because “price isn’t everything.” I’m not aware of anything in Rand’s body of work that outlines a practical–as opposed to “principled”–method of minimizing corruption in the exercise of what state power is needed, or “who decides” (sic) such society-wide matters.
msetty, that’s quite right. Objectivism is, as I’ve mentioned on this blog before, not meant to be (immediately) practical: only principled. The basis for this is that only actions consistent with a proper application of principle can ever be, in the long run and for all cases, practical.
For example, what makes a person “corrupt?” Generally, illegal activity, yes? Under Objectivism, a corrupt person can go ahead and buy whatever they think they can, but it won’t stop the police and the courts from eventually charging and convicting. There is no concern for “corrupt” versus non-“corrupt” persons gaining power, because the fact of a person’s corruption is an issue separate from whether that person has power. It is not so in today’s diluted brand of pseudo-republican capitalism, where the corruption simply festers its way to law enforcement to plug that inconvenient little leak.
under a system that values money and at least gives great lip service to “merit†there needs to be some way of preventing the corrupt from buying their way into powerful positions and control over the government.
Apparently under some individualistic systems, this fact of corruption, power, and control over resources has no bearing on the individual, and there is no relation of corruption and power. Who knew?
In other news: an authoritative-acting youngster made a proclamation today that upset the paradigm of society with its truthiness, and all the libraries were emptied. The sheer volume of biomass is estimated by some experts to supply all the world’s energy needs for approximately 450 days. We turn now to sports and the results from the Tour de France…
DS
Dan,
Sarah’s op-ed piece, ghost written or not, is surely not the last we will hear from her. W Bush was dismissed as a tool of larger interests too and yet he served two terms.
Does it matter why one implements policy (to anyone besides an Objectivist, I mean)? In the end, it only matters that policy was implemented. Palin is a force who will continue to share herself with us. I think William Jennings Bryant did the same. One does not need a party’s consent if one can lead the party.
I say this because dismissing Palin is poor strategy. Know your enemy. In 2000, the Dems thought they had the election locked up. (Hell, in 2000 McCain thought he had the nomination locked up)
Do not be so confident in your ability to forecast that you would discount the frightening November 2012 headline: Palin Defeats Obama. That’s how wars are lost.
Almost all the smart people have left the Republican Party. They have no one to trot out. Palin getting first nominated then elected would be the signal that the US has bottomed out – we’re a long way from that, never fear. My dad was a campaign manager at the local level (Rs and Inds), and I assure you he’d be foaming at the mouth at such an opportunity. Half of the country is not that stupid. No need for despair.
DS
While I am the opposite of a Palin fan and will never be a Republican (owing mainly to my atheist distrust for the fundamentalist religious types), I would echo t g’s warning. After all, think where we were at this time only two short years ago: the fact that Hillary Clinton would defeat Rudy Guiliani or Mitt Romney in the 2008 general election was considered a done deal, McCain was dead in the water, and Obama was considered a non-starter because of the resemblance of his name to Osama bin Laden. The deal was so far done, in fact, that Hillary had no further need to aggressively field her campaign. How’d that turn out, Dan?
Since this is a free-market blog, let’s, as Kyle Risdal says, look at the numbers: here at prediction markets.
Gotta do a little leg work on your own: left column, go to politics, 2012 US Elections, 2012 Republican Pres Nomination…Palin is second behind Romney. The tide can turn on Obama (a turn in the house towards the Repubs, which they’re mightily working towards, might lend towards a Dem spankin in 12). Granted, Obama is still slated to win ’12 by Intrade. A little international warfare could easily upset those odds.
Stay on your toes, else we’ll all be seeing Russia from our porch. (I have no idea what that means, but it sounds good)
TG, this is a pseudo free-market blog.
O’Toole compalins about transit, because that’s what the oligarchs pay him to do.
The National Post is a far right leaning Canadian newspaper.
This is more of an example of having an objective, than being objective.
The National Post is a far right leaning Canadian newspaper.
So, in U.S. terms, somewhere in the Democratic mainstream range.
Wow! Sarah Palin even showed up on a completely unrelated Antiplanner comment section. To quote a very pointed columnist….
“She’s like the ex-girlfriend they’re SO over, never want to see again, have already forgotten about — really, it’s O-ver — but they just can’t stop talking about her.
Liberal: Ha, ha … Sarah who? She’s over, she’s toast, a future Trivial Pursuit answer, nothing more.
Normal person: Whatever. How about the North Korean missiles?
Liberal: Can you believe she just resigned the governorship like that? What a quitter!
Normal person: Speaking of quitting, how’s work?
Liberal: Did you hear she might get a TV show? There’s no way Sarah Palin’s getting a TV show! No way! I can’t believe stupid Sarah Palin could get her own stupid TV show now. Well, I’m sure not gonna watch it — that’s for sure!
Normal person: Have you seen all the Michael Jackson coverage on TV?
Liberal: How does she think she can run for president in 2012 if she can’t finish her term as governor of a Podunk state? She’s finished.
Normal person: OK, then! You won’t have to vote for her.
Liberal: I was never going to vote for her! But now I’m not going to vote for her twice. And I will never watch her TV show. I am so over her. “
Borealis, awesome!
Good ‘un. My phrase is: if she didn’t exist, we’d have to make her up. But she exists, so much hilarity will ensue.
DS