November 28, 2008

Friday Ark #219

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can board the Friday Ark by submitting your post here, leaving a comment or a trackback to this post or emailing fridayark AT themodulator.org.

You can find previous editions at the not quite up to date Arkives page.

Note: The Ark Staff is celebrating a long thanksgiving weekend and will be offline for extended periods. Boardings may be delayed.

Cats

Dogs

Birds

Other Vertebrates

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn't Make It

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

  • The Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings
    • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Posted by Steve on November 28, 2008 | Comments (7)

November 27, 2008

I and the Bird: The Three Day Session

Cool! Three full day sessions in Singapore!

I and the Bird #89 hosted by the Bird Ecology Study Group.

And,...the price is right!! Just a few finger stokes and click, click, click, chirp, chirp, chirp.

Posted by Steve on November 27, 2008 | Comments (2)

November 25, 2008

A Slightly Different View of Evolution With A Delightful Result

Via Advertising Age

Posted by Steve on November 25, 2008

Who Should Bail Out the Auto Industry?

The other day Laurie David, writing at the Huffington Post, suggested that the oil industry rather than the us government should bail out the auto industry:

"The best idea I've heard in the last few days comes from an unlikely source, the actor Ashton Kutcher on the Bill Maher show, who repeated the suggestion that the auto industry go meet with the oil industry - their partner in crime - and ask them for a bailout. At least we know ExxonMobil can afford it."

Laurie and Kutcher are partially correct. The oil industry is a partner but, alas, it is not the only partner and not even the main partner.

The big 3 were at their normal and largest trough, congress. The difference now is that the play is visible to the rest of us. Normally the industry's subsidies are indirect, yet massive, and by some strange perversion of perspective we do not typically lay the consequences at the feet of the auto industry which is much broader than the big 3, the oil industry or their federal, state and local government accomplices.

A subsidy example: like it or not, the thousands of miles of concrete spread across previously fecund land that the vehicles require to be useful are massive subsidies to the auto industry.

A consequence example: over 40,000 people/year die in the US as a result of traffic accidents. Unfortunately, these deaths are diffuse; one or two or three at a time and widely dispersed geographically. We ignore them. Yet, after a concentrated 3,000 die in the World Trade Center the country goes to war.

This is not the only subsidy nor are the fatalities the only consequence.

The appropriate approach begins with not a bailout but eliminating all subsidies at all levels of government...starting with, but not ending with, auto industry subsidies.

In time we will, then, start seeing the best results socially and economically. Amongst other things the former fat cats will no longer get to feed at the public teat; income disparities will start diminishing; legislative types will spend most of their time at home; lobbyists will go in search of real work; government can get back to basics, e.g., providing an accessible judicial system.

Posted by Steve on November 25, 2008

November 21, 2008

Nah, No Problems In the Auto Business

it's just that no one is buying...even at half price.....or better...

autoflyer.jpg
Why buy now when it might be 3 for the price of one next week...you know, deflation mentality.

Via Planet Money

Posted by Steve on November 21, 2008

Friday Ark #218

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can board the Friday Ark by submitting your post here, leaving a comment or a trackback to this post or emailing fridayark AT themodulator.org.

You can find previous editions at the not quite up to date Arkives page.

Cats

Dogs

Other Vertebrates

Birds

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn't Make It

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks:

  • The Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe is on hiatus
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings
    • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Posted by Steve on November 21, 2008 | Comments (4)

November 20, 2008

Happy Fourth...

...blogiversary to Bryan at Why Now? who already has a hobby

Posted by Steve on November 20, 2008 | Comments (1)

November 17, 2008

Brooks in Fantasyland

In the course of pondering the appropriate fate of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler David Brooks provides some misdirection to his readers.

First, and apparently to mask his normal right of center leanings, he tells us who the real bogeyman is:

It is all a reminder that the biggest threat to a healthy economy is not the socialists of campaign lore. It’s C.E.O.’s. It’s politically powerful crony capitalists who use their influence to create a stagnant corporate welfare state.
Well, yes, as are rent seekers everywhere, they are miscreants. But are they really a bigger threat to a healthy economy than those politicians who continually enable them at the national, state and local level?

He closes his essay with the following:

But the larger principle is over the nature of America’s political system. Is this country going to slide into progressive corporatism, a merger of corporate and federal power that will inevitably stifle competition, empower corporate and federal bureaucrats and protect entrenched interests? Or is the U.S. going to stick with its historic model: Helping workers weather the storms of a dynamic economy, but preserving the dynamism that is the core of the country’s success.
Excuse me!??

Brooks must be living in an alternate reality; or perhaps is simply delusional.

This country's slide into progressive corporatism began long ago and dramatically accelerated from the mid 19th through the 20th centuries.

If you want a root cause of the current economic fiasco you need look no further than the financial, industrial and agricultural structures that have been created over the past 200 years by our politicians. Yes, often at the behest of corporate rent seekers.

Our federal, state and local politicians did not have to choose to entwine themselves in a web of corporatism. But they did and it has had exactly the effects that Brooks called out: stifled competition and protection of entrenched interests.

Plus the bonus effect, inter alia, of the current financial crisis.

Posted by Steve on November 17, 2008

November 14, 2008

Friday Ark #217

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can board the Friday Ark by submitting your post here, leaving a comment or a trackback to this post or emailing fridayark AT themodulator.org.

You can find previous editions at the not quite up to date Arkives page.

ALERT -11/14 11:30 AM EDT: Updates will be slow or possibly not at all until after 4:30 PM EDT due to offline obligations.

Cats

Dogs

Birds

Other Vertebrates

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

Didn't Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

  • The Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings
    • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Posted by Steve on November 14, 2008 | Comments (4)

November 7, 2008

Friday Ark #216

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can board the Friday Ark by submitting your post here, leaving a comment or a trackback to this post or emailing fridayark AT themodulator.org.

You can find previous editions at the not quite up to date Arkives page.

Cats

Dogs

Birds

Invertebrates

Other Vertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn't Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

  • The Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings
    • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Posted by Steve on November 7, 2008 | Comments (4)