Friday 26 June 2015

Friday morning ramble

So Wellington Council introduced a “living wage” hourly rate for workers. So workers worked fewer hours. So Wellington Council extends the “living wage” to contractors.
So ratepayers stump up the difference.
Welfare state today - the good and the bad – LINDSAY MITCHELL

“If the Minister isn't signing off on an $11 million dollar transaction, there's something wrong with his management. If he did sign off this $11 million dollar transaction, then there's something wrong with his judgement.” – Taxpayer’s Union.
'Outrageous' new pad for UN man – STUFF

Note to Greenpeace:
770,000 tons of solar panels to end up in garbage in 2040 – JAPAN TIMES

Economic inequality in NZ: Commentariat points one way. Evidence points the other.
Inequality falling despite rising headlines – Jason Krupp, NZ INITIATIVE

Phew!
Umaga has unfinished business with Counties – STUFF

“New Zealand MPs are so keen to be seen to be "doing something" about cyber-bullying that they are about to pass a poor piece of law that will do something terrible.” “If Harmful Digital Communications Bill passes, MPs who feel sad because of a media story can have the publisher jailed.” - NRT
Je ne suis pas Charlie say NZ MPs: eroding free speech – Tim Watkin, PUNDIT

Russ Roberts very politely rips Paul Krugman a new one on Keynesian fiscal policy, economic prosperity & evidence.
Krugman is human, just like me – Russ Roberts, CAFE HAYEK

“He sees "systemic risk in the system" and is concerned that global debt, particularly mortgage debt, has been inflated to record levels by extraordinarily low interest rates that will soon come to an end.”
Leading British Bond Fund Manager: "Time to Hold Physical Cash" – Jo Salerno, MISES WIRE

New Video Shows Bailouts Are a Recipe for Moral Hazard and Cronyism:

The Myth that ‘Buying Local’ Is Good for the Local Economy:

Postmodern protesting:

Opening paragraph of Orwell’s manuscript of 1984:

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“People-smuggling” is a creation of prohibition.
“People-smugglers’ business-model” – Watch for concern-trolls – XBORDER OPERATIONAL MATTERS

“Detention and the war on refugees.”
Why are we locking up migrants? – NEW INTERNATIONALIST

“German concentration camps had rigid secrecy and censorship. To hide the atrocities committed. So do Australia's.”
Detention centres and State censorship – Kelly Tranter, WINSTON CLOSE

“The Marxist zero-sum view that "they" are coming in to take "our" jobs just flies against reality and reason.”
Immigrants create tons of jobs for local workers – BUSINESS INSIDER

“We shouldn't be afraid of opening up our borders to immigration.”
No, Immigrants Won't Destroy Your Freedom – David Bier, THE FREEMAN

“The government has no more right to lock people out than to lock them in. The same principle damning the Berlin Wall damns walls erected to keep people out.”
Amnesty for Illegal aliens is not enough, they deserve an apology – Harry Binswanger, VALUE FOR VALUE

“The reason Pope Francis can call today's healthier, cleaner human environment a "pile of filth": He's bought into the dogma that anything man creates is evil.”
The moral case for fossil fuels (that the pope needs to hear) – Alex Epstein, REBEL MEDIA

“The pope’s handwringing over climate change is just window dressing. His real target, in solidarity with previous popes, is prosperity. Again: Why? Poverty and misery are the foundation of modern Catholicism.”
Pope Francis: Prosperity, Liberty, and Climate Change are the Common Enemy – Michael LaFerrara, PRINCIPLED PERSPECTIVES

“Often wrong but never in doubt.”
The Pope's Climate Confusion – Ross Kaminsky, AMERICAN SPECTATOR

“More valuable than a tool to preserve objects, of course, air conditioning is a tool to preserve lives. Two years ago, the National Bureau of Economic Research published a study concluding that air conditioning reduced heat-related deaths in the United States by 80 percent and could save even more lives in hotter, often poorer countries.”
Pope Francis Is Wrong about Air Conditioning – NATIONAL REVIEW

“Wasting several hours of our day to save a bit of electricity, water, or some other resource is to ignore the value of human life and to waste what Julian Simon called “the ultimate resource.””
Unsustainable: Little Ways Environmentalists Waste the Ultimate Resource – THE FREEMAN

“South Pacific Islands are not sinking. Claims they are due to global warming driven sea level rise are opportunistic.”
Pacific Islands Not Sinking – CLIMATISM

“Industrial turbines that only last ten years and that are predominately made in China using Australian coal! Talk about shifting ’emissions’.”
Wind Turbines: lucky to last 10 Years – STOP THESE THINGS

“Climate models can be good tools for predicting future sea ice levels — unless, of course, they are completely wrong.”
Climate FAIL: Antarctic Sea Ice Did The Exact Opposite Of What Models Predicted – WATTS UP WITH THAT

Well, that’s awkward …
Study Predicts Decades Of Global Cooling Ahead – DAILY CALLER

Just thought you’d like to know:

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The Good: “For the first time ever, “atheist” isn’t the worst trait in a Presidential candidate.”
New Gallup Poll Shows That Atheists Are No Longer the Least Electable... – RICHARD DAWKINS.NET

The Bad: Oh god. The Theocrats are back.
Jeb Bush Says Catholic Dogma Trumps US Government – PATHEOS.COM

“Faith – believing claims without sufficient evidence, or claiming to know things that you don’t or can’t know – is an increasingly shaky endeavor. And in order for religious faith to survive, it requires a lot of social support: the more people who share it, the easier it is to maintain and reproduce. Thus, anyone who rejects the tenets of your faith, or calls them in to question, is a threat.”
Why [Religious] Americans Hate Atheists – Phil Zuckerman, PSYCHOLOGY TODAY

Faith is properly used to describe a belief commitment made beyond the evidence. It is meant to be the gap-closer. Faith almost always is an emotion-driven process in which one wills oneself to believe that which one wants to be true… So in more abstract language, the question is of the relationship between reason and emotion ...”
Are Reason and Faith Compatible? – STEPHEN HICKS

Spot the common theme.
Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's magazine has an issue called "Cartoonists Under Fire." Guess which cartoonist actually under fire for cartooning was excluded, and why.
Two outspoken free speakers edit a flagship liberal magazine with the them ‘Saying the Unsayable.’ And their cover was pulled because their artist drew the undrawable.
What’s the common theme here?
CBLDF Writes About "Cartoonists Under Fire" while ignoring This Cartoonist who was Literally Under Fire – BOSCH FAWSTIN
Drawing the Undrawable – AMANDA PALMER.NET

“"If Westerners want to win the cultural war against Islam, we must be willing to recognize—and to openly acknowledge—the fundamental and relevant truths of the matter. Those truths include the fact that Islam *is* a religion, and the fact that faith is *not* a means of knowledge. Conservatives are uncomfortable with these facts because they are religious themselves, and they want religion and faith to be good things. But discomfort with facts doesn’t alter them. And wanting things to be good doesn’t make them so.”
Yes, Conservatives, Islam Is a Religion – Craig Biddle, THE OBJECTIVE STANDARD

I'm not convinced that faith can move mountains,
but I've seen what it can do to skyscrapers.

- William H. Gascoyne

"After three Uber rides in the last two weeks, not only am I more convinced about the value that the so-called 'sharing economy' is providing, but I have been struck by the way technology helps to solve the fundamental problem of the marketplace."
Uber Solves the Fundamental Problem of the Marketplace – Steven Horwitz, THE FREEMAN

“As new, more efficient firms like Uber enter the market, old taxi companies are getting forced out of business by creative destruction — but they aren't going down without a fight.”
Sabotaging Uber: The Umpire Strikes Back – THE FREEMAN

“If competition were celebrated rather then reviled, and freedom in everything decriminalised, what do you think the results would be?”
Paris Taxi Drivers Burn Cars in Violent Anti-Uber Riot – GIZMODO

'Hate speech' is what 'progressives'
call free speech they don't like.

- Pat Condell

“How is it that ideas that used to be pieties in the liberal catechism now get you labelled as a howling reactionary?”
Seven Liberal Pieties That Only the Right Still BelievesRobert Tracinski, THE FEDERALIST

“A deep rot has set into Political Correctness. Hell is freezing over and pigs can now fly… So let my contribution be an indication of how philosophy has laid the groundwork for this phenomenon and how only philosophy can get us out.”
Understanding Triggers and Microaggression as Strategy – Stephen Hicks, EVERY JOE

“The great bulk of the studies show that gun control laws do not in fact control guns. On net balance, they do not save lives but cost lives.”
Gun Control Laws Protect Criminals By Disarming Their Law Abiding Victims – Thomas Sowell, CAPITALISM MAGAZINE

“Homeschooling produces better students at lower prices than government schools, with less time spent on indoctrination — so naturally, the government sees it as a threat.”
Homeschooling: The Public Schools’ Invasive Species – Wendy McElroy, THE FREEMAN

“The trade-off between liberty and safety is an illusion. The real trade-off is between my liberty and someone else’s power over me.”
Visualizing the Trade-Offs between Liberty and Safety – THE FREEMAN

So maybe the west isn’t the most racist of places after all. Well, apart from France.

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You might be surprised.
The most expensive and cheapest cities for expat living – TELEGRAPH

Before and after pics of Pompeii's restored frescoes.
Open House – ARCHAEOLOGY

Try to name them without looking.
15 great buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright – MSN.COM

“I must ask myself if we want to design buildings for people to fit some preconceived idea of a glass world. Is this really the future of cities?" – Minoru Yamasaki.
First WTC architect's posthumous critique of the new World Trade Center - ARCHINECT

“Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes! I'm sick of having my plate snatched while others at my table are still partaking of their meals.” #FirstWorldProblems
 The most annoying restaurant trend happening today– WASHINGTON POST
Why do waiters clear your plates away so quickly? – Tyler Cowen, MARGINAL REVOLUTION

But should you move the bucket?

Remember yesterday when I said 1967 was a golden year for television? A golden year for the television partnership of Diana Rigg and Patrick Macnee too, who died yesterday. Vale Paddy Nee. This, from that golden year:

And this from a charming reunion a few years later on an otherwise substandard American sitcom. But they did finally get to kiss …

And finally, the finale of a long piece, with a decent build-up, but if you were never to hear another piece of music again …

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