Thursday, July 31, 2008

Arnold: Kicking Ass and Taking Names

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in efforts to fight the state's estimated $15bn budget deficit, announced today the firings of 22,000 state employees and pay cuts for a further 200,000. Democrats are livid, but the simple fact of the matter is that Schwarzenegger, faced with a seemingly insurmountable budget deficit, did what was necessary to take a major step towards balancing the state's budget.

California is currently in a dire state of affairs, and these cuts will save it $100m a month, or roughly $1.2bn of the $15bn budget shortfall. After signing the order cutting jobs and pay for state employees, Schwarzenegger was quoted saying something I, after seeing his support for the morally/intellectually bankrupt Republican presidential candidates, would have never thought could possibly come from his mouth. He said,

"Today I am exercising my executive authority to avoid a full-blown crisis and keep our state moving forward." ... "This is not an action I take lightly but we do have a budget and, as governor, I have a responsibility to make sure our state has enough money to pay its bills."

Brilliance. Sheer brilliance. True, fiscal responsibility. Unlike the federal government, the State of California lacks the ability to simply print more money to pay its bills. The three presented options for Schwarzenegger to consider, therefore, were a.) borrow against California's future, and the futures of its children, b.) raise taxes, thereby exacerbating the economic woes that created the budget deficit in the first place, or c.) make a tough, surely unpopular political decision that is in the state's best long-term interests. Schwarzenegger has made the correct choice.

When presented with a severe budgetary crisis, the first reaction of any executive should be to take the steps necessary to cut as much of the massive, inefficient bureaucracy as possible. Yes, 22,000 people will lose their jobs, and 200,000 more will take a substantial pay cut, but compared to the other choices, namely raising taxes, the economic hit the state takes due to this action will be negligible.

The simple fact of the matter is that the public sector in California, or anywhere, produces nothing. This is a truism that spans all governments wherein the means of production exist within the sphere of the private sector. By cutting 22,000 jobs instead of raising taxes or borrowing against the state's future, Schwarzenegger has chosen to subject Californians to longer DMV lines over economy stifling taxation. The state will (easily) survive the loss of 22,000 bureaucrats.

Governor Schwarzenegger undoubtedly has more tough choices ahead of him in his attempts to make up the additional $13.8bn budget shortfall, but his willingness to make tough choices such as thing one should give a prelude to his future actions to ensure California's fiscal solvency. His ability to make the correct choice despite its political ramifications should give heart to all Californians worried about the future of their great state.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

We don't need any more oil! Just inflate your tires!!

The title of this post speaks for itself. It is flabbergasting to me that this man is a major party nominee, though after Carter, Dukakis, Dole, Gore, Kerry, and W., I guess its just more of the same.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Thanks Matt Drudge, for bringing this wonderful gem to all our attention

Obama the Prophet~

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article4392846.ece

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Bureaucracy makes me pull my hair out

About a year ago, a friend of mine left his broken-down, piece of garbage 1991 Bronco on the street outside my house. Two months later, it was still there. Another month passed, and one day, walking home from class, I noticed that the City of Corvallis, Oregon had placed a notice on the street. It read something like this:

"This street will be undergoing maintenance from (date) to (date) and no parking shall be allowed here for the duration of this work."

So I pulled out my phone, and I called my friend, who drove to town immediately and moved his vehicle. I thought to myself, "cool, you can leave your car on the street here for months on end, and nothing bad will happen to it."

Flash forward to on or around July 1, 2008. Having graduated with my BA in political science from Oregon State, the time came for me to say goodbye to Corvallis. The final day of my lease was June 30th, and my run down truck that I had intended to sell for scrap metal still sat in the driveway at my rented house. Knowing full-well that my lease was up, I, through considerable effort, managed to push my broken down truck with three flat tires into the street and "parked" it legally on the side of the street. Three weeks have now passed. I have had numerous phone calls from people interested in the vehicle, but all have been lowballs and I have been unable to make a special trip back to Corvallis in order to sell my truck.

Last Friday, I received a call from my previous landlord to tell me that my truck had been tagged for impound. Apparently, the City of Corvallis municipal code states that no vehicle can remain parked in the same spot for more than 48 hours at a time, and that violators were subject to impounding. I am currently more than an hour away, and am unable to make the trip down to Corvallis to meet someone to sell my vehicle, so I figured I would do the next best thing - call the City of Corvallis, attempt to negotiate some sort of extension, where I would have another week or so until I can make my final trip to Corvallis to assist my girlfriend in moving the last of her stuff out of her apartment, and sell my truck.

Unfortunately for me, the City of Corvallis' Parking Enforcement Bureau is a state-run agency. This means that it is apparently impossible to get a phone call answered or even returned during normal business hours. It doesn't matter that were I to drive to Corvallis, put my truck into neutral, and push it forward twenty feet, it wouldn't be impounded. Nor does it matter that my friend's Bronco was parked in the very same spot for three months without any trouble. My truck has been tagged for impound and I can do NOTHING about it, save spending a considerable amount of money and time to drive the eighty-odd miles to push my truck into a new parking spot. But wait, I can't intelligently do even this, seeing as how everyone I know in Corvallis has left for the summer, my landlord has gone back home to Arizona, and Parking Enforcement won't even answer my phone call to tell me if, indeed, my truck has even been towed yet.

Stupid government regulations enforced by lazy, worthless state employees cost everyday Americans like myself billions of dollars annually. My truck, worth about $500, has probably already been impounded, which carries with it a fee probably close enough to that figure that, adding the gas expense and the time involved with driving to deal with the problem, I'd likely barely break even.

How much better would this situation be if the City of Corvallis Parking Enforcement Bureau was a privately-owned service? Much.

Firstly, I'd be able to get my phone calls answered, or even *gasp* returned because a private service on contract with the city would be held liable for the way it treats its customers (citizens) and poor treatment of these customers would result in the loss of the service contract.

Secondly, were I able to get in touch with Parking Enforcement through this high tech device known as "the telephone", it is likely that a privately owned parking enforcement service would be likely to grant case-by-case exemptions from the 48-hour parking limit, once again a beneficial side-effect of a city service wherein customer service actually matters.

Thirdly, due to the profit motivations of a private entity, residents of Corvallis, also known as tax-payers, would be able to enjoy the services of high quality parking enforcement at a far lesser cost.

Now, as I do in every argument I make, I am searching my brain for a counter-argument to my position. In what ways are a government-run parking enforcement system preferable to one in private hands? I can think of none.

Parking enforcement is simply not in the same boat as "the judiciary". While I understand many of the arguments both for and against a government-run judiciary, my Libertarian leanings notwithstanding, I do indeed favor a state-run court system. Private institutions with the power to deprive individuals of their freedom are a scary thought, but parking enforcement isn't in the same boat. It is a service, and should it be provided by a private entity, it would be far better. One has to look no further than the average DMV branch to see precisely why government has no place providing services, even services that are a direct result of its intrusive regulation.

At this point, my only hope is that the inefficiencies in municipal government that have frustrated me to the point I was compelled to write this post will benefit me in that it will be another few weeks before the City manages to get around to impounding my vehicle.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Let's not make Martyrs out of them

Barack Obama has recently called for the execution of Osama bin Laden (should he ever be caught). John McCain, and most other Americans, likely share the same view of the issue. They are all wrong. Only through martyrdom will extremists like bin Laden live to corrupt another generation of Islamic youth. We must not make this mistake.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Re: My Fourth of July post

Just wanted to make it clear (as it apparently was not) that my Fourth of July post wasn't an anti-fireworks rant. It was, instead, merely pointing out that the actual purpose of fireworks are to simulate a war zone, and thusly every Fourth of July American's are given a slight reminder of what the revolutionaries in the War of Independence went through, and to furthermore point out that for most Americans, this thought doesn't even cross their mind. I was just hoping to remind people how nice it is that we, as Americans, only have to deal with explosions once a year, as opposed to every day, and to remind them how especially nice it is that our explosions aren't meant to kill people.

Friday, July 4, 2008

The Fourth of July

The Fourth of July: the one day every year in which Americans get to simulate the experience of living in a war-torn nation. On this one day, like every day in Chechnya, the former Yugoslavia, much of Africa and the Middle East, Americans get to feel what its like to have the explosions and lights of perpetual warfare around them. The explosions we hear as we take part in the festivities, should they be taken out of the context of a national holiday, would be quite frightening to most Americans.

Americans, by and large, have never experienced civil strife. They have never experienced the frightening explosion of a nearby building being struck by an errant mortar. They have never had to deal with the reality of the constant sound of explosions interfering in their everyday lives.

One day a year, we put up with the loud noises of fireworks well into the night. Cities deferentially allow fireworks enthusiasts to violate noise ordinances. America becomes a war zone. A kiddie war zone.

The bright and happy national tradition of symbolically reliving the Revolutionary War once a year gives Americans a(n extremely) basic understanding of what it is like to be in a war zone.

Most fail to recognize the meaning behind the sounds of the fireworks. To them, they are the sounds of fun, of a national holiday. To me, they are the sounds I am happy to not have to hear the other 364 days a year.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

I didn't see this one coming!

Barack Obama has "taken a step back" in his promises to remove all American combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of him taking office. I wonder how all the mindless Obama lovers will manage to justify their continued support for the "change" candidate. How much of a change from "politics as usual" is it really when a politician says one thing during the primaries and something completely different in the general election?

Want to save the planet? Buy a used car

One of the most infuriating facets of this entire "carbon footprint" green environmentalist nonsense is when the guilty bourgeois - yuppie upper-middle class liberals with a guilty conscience and enviro-activist mindset attempting to offset years of vapid consumption - buy hybrid vehicles to "save the planet" from, essentially, themselves.

Members of this guilty bourgeois express incredulity at anyone who would be as brash and irresponsible as to drive an SUV, yet the hypocrisy of their positions is extremely hard to deny. Personal freedom be damned, the guilt-stricken believe that all carbon emissions(read: all economic activity) should be taxed heavily, and the government should become entrenched in the day-to-day lives of all Americans in the hopes of "saving the planet".

The global warming debate is still raging, despite what the IPCC and other groups would have us believe, but let us pretend for a moment that global warming is real, and it will spell doom for humanity within the next hundred years. Shouldn't the proponents of anthropogenic global warming be the ones most up to date with information on the methods in which humans can reduce their carbon footprint?

This would logically be the case, but these people are not known for their logic. These are the same people who would have had us believe in the 1970s that the world was about to reenter an ice age. These are the same people that buy hybrid vehicles in an effort to reduce their carbon footprints. These people are stupid.

The construction of the average car requires 27-54 barrels of oil (1,100-2,000 gallons). Hybrids, due to their numerous high-tech subsystems, require more. By today's oil prices of $144, at least $7,776 dollars of a new automobile's purchase price pays for the energy required to make said auto. This energy comes from, guess where, oil, coal and natural gas.

The carbon footprint created by the manufacture and transport of each and every hybrid vehicle on the road, should we be concerned with such things, is huge. Anyone who purchases one should not be able to call themselves an environmentalist with a straight face. Any true environmentalist who both cares about his or her carbon footprint but also recognizes the need for personal transport in daily life should without a doubt engage in the purchase of an automobile that has already set its carbon footprint - a used car.

Many used cars, especially ones released following the oil shocks of the 1970s, get extremely good gas mileage. Many newer model used cars do as well. Yet, regardless of whether or not a hybrid gets 45 mpg as opposed to a mid-80s sedan's 33, the sedan's carbon footprint was already set when it was manufactured. In 1988. This is a no brainer: hybrids, the same as all new cars, are terrible for the environment, and anyone who drives one to save the environment is a fool.