Book Of Norm

My thought of the day, or one of them: If everyone was actually telling the truth in used car listings, the use of Mobile 1 engine oil in this country would be stratospheric. So many listings state "Mobile 1 changed every 3,000 miles." Baloney. If this were true, Autozone would have to carry three shelves of Mobil 1 and I would be signing up as a distributor. Who actually does only 3,000 miles on an oil change? And how many people pay for Mobil 1? Now, combine the two, and I bet less than 0.1% of all cars in this country qualify. But used car listings? Probably 10% claim it.

England. My homeland. “An emerald set in the ring of the sea.” Albion. 1 CCTV for every 14 citizens. I kid you not. What to do when you have so many cameras, and so little time to watch them all for actions against the government crimes? You turn the population on itself. A private company has come up with the idea of letting individuals watch the CCTV recordings, and when they successfully find a crime and alert authorities of it, they get paid. Authorities are charged a fee per camera included in the service, and snooping and desperate individuals can make some cash by reporting on their fellow citizens. Someone actually thought this was a good idea? And this is actually legal - letting citizens watch other citizens actions on CCTV and report on them? And honestly, in terms of fostering a strong civic community where values etc compel the vast majority of citizenry to do the right thing, this is a completely idiotic idea. I think it is a ridiculous and undermining idea which violate...

Dont get me wrong - most Dyson designs are amazing. He revolutionized vacuum cleaners (though personally - I would give the biggest credit to iRobot and the Roomba, which I have much love for), he developed a completely amazing hand dryer that fixed a problem I did not realize annoyed me that much until I had used the "blade" in some random airport somewhere, and he recently re-invented handheld vacuum cleaners with the highest RPM engine in any consumer product. However, he just released a real clunker. In terms of fail, this one is going to be up there with the Segway (though obviously, not really, because the Segway had more hype than a boxing match between Don King and George Lucas). It is this: What is it? Its a $300 "bladeless fan". What does it do? It blows air at you. How does it do it? Inside that little base is the high-rpm engine which does so much for Dyson, it sucks in air then blows it out around the edges of the circle (as far as I can tell). ...

President Obama just won the Nobel Peace Price. My biggest problem with this? He has not done anything. Sure he has talked a lot about what he wants to do, and how the world should be a better place, and how we should all have an open dialogue. And while, granted, that is far far better than that shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach of his predecessor (who managed to drive the US international reputation into the ground, excluding Africa), the fact that he is not W does not grant you a peace prize. The worst part? The committee even admitted they were awarding it based on Obama's promises and to "kick the previous administration in the leg" or something to that effect. I dont care how much you hate Bush, how much you believe he screwed up in international relations - just being the next guy does not grant a Nobel Peace Prize, nor does being a socialist college professor, and the two combined still come nowhere close to what should be the requirement for winning. Which...

One of the Putin Regime's main thrusts has been to buff up the old rusting statues of the iron leaders of Russia. In particular, Stalin. History books have been re-written to expunge his brutal tactics during WWII, his treatment of Germans, Poles, and Jews, and his killing of millions of Russians and Eastern Europeans through forced labor camps, food shortages, etc etc. He was most likely the second most villainous leader of the 20th century, which is a highly contested title. Instead, the latest textbook refers to him as an "effective manager" who won WWII. Putin wants Russia to remember him as a leader. He wants Russians to remember how Russia was a feared and respected world power under Stalin. And so, when a liberal newspaper ran an article on declassified death warrants which bore Stalin's signature, his grandson (with the backing of the Kremlin Russia watchers believe) has now sued the newspaper for defamation. The ridiculousness of it is almost beyond belief. D...

Quick overview from the Cato Institute on how "costs" in the healthcare bills are being shoved off the books, and out of sight. Personally I love the irony that the same tactic used again an again by politicians is exactly what got Enron in so much trouble. For the real costs of the bill, read on: The Real Cost of the Baucus Bill: $2 Trillion+ Thursday, October 8, 2009 Michael D. Tanner , senior fellow mtanner@cato.org : The CBO scoring makes it clear that the Baucus bill's reduction in future budget deficits comes not from controlling government spending or reducing health care costs, but because of a rapid escalation in tax revenues. The bill imposes a 40 percent excise tax on health-insurance plans that offer benefits in excess of $8,000 for an individual plan and $21,000 for a family plan. Insurers would almost certainly pass this tax on to consumers via higher premiums. As ...

Short version: You cant create wealth by breaking windows and paying people to fix them Long Version: the “Broken Window Fallacy” by Frédéric Bastiat in his 1850 essay Ce qu’on voit et ce qu’on ne voit pas (That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Unseen). "Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James Goodfellow, when his careless son happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the fact, that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them, by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this invariable consolation—”It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?” Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our economical i...