The Month of Seuss: And I Feel Fine

The Mayans lived in Central Time, or at least so I hear
So I think we've three hours more before we're in the clear
But when the clock twice midnight strikes, you all can have a laugh
Unless, of course, the Mayans made a slight error in math

The Month of Seuss: If I Ran the Country

Every armchair economist is quick to point out
That their Econ textbook lends their theories some clout
But if you want me to think that you're really in the know
Then first learn what separates micro from macro
You might be so quick to discount Dr. K,
But he gets that point right more than you any day

A Modest Analogy

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled Seussish poem for the following rant:
 
If pilots had reacted to 9/11 the way some gun owners have reacted to Sandy Hook, then I guess we would have seen the following statements made the week after the twin towers fell:

• Planes don't kill people.  People kill people. 
• The only way to stop a bad guy with a plane is a good guy with a plane.
• If everyone on the plane was a pilot, then the tragedy never would've happened.
• If they hadn't used planes, they would've used something else.
• Controlling access to planes = tyranny.
• This had nothing to do with planes.  It had to do with the erosion of our society's moral fabric.
• If you make it harder for law-abiding citizens to fly planes, then only criminals will fly planes.

Do those statements sound ridiculous?  Or, at the very least, insensitive and lacking in empathy?  Well, I hope you recognize that a lot of the gun propaganda being posted on the Internet this week sounds even moreso.  I hope that, if you are a gun owner, you possess both sensitivity and empathy.  Otherwise, if you are walking around with a deadly weapon and you can't see all people as people rather than as objects or numbers or labels, then you are truly frightening.

I am neither a gun nut nor a gun control nut, but I will say to some of the gun owners out there:  using your public voice to defend a tool that was just used to kill 20 children is not helping your cause.  I don't care how factually right you are (or you think you are.)  It's effing insensitive.  Period.  If you're going to talk about the tragedy, then talk about the tragedy, but if your first reaction to the death of 20 children is to defend the tool used to kill them, then you need to look at your priorities.

Guns aren't inherently evil any more than planes are.  They are tools, but in the wrong hands, they can do great harm, so as with planes, we as a nation have the right to take measures to ensure that these tools don't end up in the wrong hands.  Will those measures be 100% effective?  No.  Nothing ever is.  We made a lot of mistakes after 9/11, and hopefully we learned from at least some of them.  However, even if a particular gun control policy is only 1% effective, that's still 100 fewer lives lost every year.  Who is willing to say that it's not worth a little more red tape to attempt to save those 100 lives?  Or maybe even 1000?  Or 2000?  Maybe more gun control wouldn't have prevented Sandy Hook, but maybe it would've prevented other tragedies.  Four times as many people die every year from gun murders than died in 9/11, yet I can obtain military spec hardware easier than I can obtain a truckload full of fertilizer, and you're telling me there's nothing about the system that can be improved?

The Month of Seuss: Crappy Maps App Gets B-Slapped

Though the iPhone 5 still won't work with all your gadgets
With your docks and your clocks and your sockets with ratchets
At least now if Apple sent you out to the outback
You can use Google to plot the right route back

The Month of Seuss: That Song Is So 1991

Perhaps it takes a theorist to explain how or why
Technotronic is not being ripped off by Psy
I used to dance to that stuff when I was in school
I guess I was Gangnam when Gangnam wasn't cool

The Month of Seuss: 'Twas the Night Before Festivus

The store had but one of that one special gift
When another man reached for it, we had a tiff
As I rained blows upon him that dark winter's day
I knew that there had to be a better way
And thus a new season was born for the rest of us
A yearly tradition we now know as Festivus

And is there a tree?  No, instead there's a pole
Aluminum, for its high strength-to-weight ratio
Tinsel's distracting, and leave out the bows
And no stars and no orbs and no lights all aglow

And the dinner, the night of the Festivus feast
After meatloaf is served in the stead of roast beast
Comes the airing of grievances, lacking good cheer
Where I tell how you've all disappointed this year

And when grievances have aired for some greatish length
Then, only then, come the feats of great strength
We wrestle, and Festivus will only end
When the head of the household's been properly pinned

The Month of Seuss: Rules for Online Photographs

Everyone likes photos, it's plain to see
But when you snap a shot of a flower or a tree
Please choose one you like, don't post all three
And unless the chef is of worldwide acclaim
No one really gives a radish about your chow mein
And the cardinal rule, all you lads and lasses
Not a soul likes to look at a pic of their asses

The Month of Seuss: More On the Moron War On Christmas

Like the mistletoe or a fine roast beast
Comes a Christmas tradition as old as the feast
It's the yearly War, but it's easy to win it:
Put less Fox in your life and more CNN in it

Dear Willard

So, a couple of things have been really bugging me.  One of them is your statement about cutting any programs that would result in borrowing money from China.  OK, but why aren't the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan high on your list?  Your running mate tries to draw parallels between your plan to reduce the top marginal tax rate and JFK's, but there's a big difference.   The top marginal tax rate when JFK took office was 91%, and it was set that way to pay down the debt from World War II.   Once the debt was paid down and we began running a surplus, then the top marginal tax rate was reduced to 70%, then later to 50% during Reagan's first term.  That's a far cry from the 35% that it is now, or even the 40% that it was during the Clinton-era boom.  You see, the problem is that no one in this country-- no one, not the rich, not the Middle Class, not the poor-- has paid for the wars in the Middle East.  We have now been at war for a longer period of time than any in U.S. history, yet we did not, as a nation, raise any revenue to pay for it.  Rather, we decreased taxes during wartime, for the first time in history.  I'm not suggesting that a return to the tax rates of the 1950's is a good solution, but I also know that, during the 1950's, there was no shortage of entrepreneurs, rich people did not stop working, and the economy did not come to a screeching halt because the top marginal tax rate was 90%.  I hardly think that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire-- for everyone-- would cripple us.  Personally, the Bush tax cuts saved me all of $50/month.  You can have it back, with my compliments, if you'll just acknowledge that paying higher taxes is the responsibility of any nation that chooses to go to war.  Perhaps, had we raised taxes to pay for Iraq and Afghanistan, there would have been political pressure to end those conflicts much sooner.

The other thing that's been bothering me is your statement regarding jobs.  You seem to be in favor of creating jobs at any cost, but I think we can all agree that there are some jobs that are better left uncreated, even if we disagree on exactly what those are.  I would imagine that you probably do not consider "marijuana grower" to be a job that is worth creating, for instance, although it is undeniable that this activity does boost the economy in states where it is legal.  Now understand that there are many of us who believe that "mountain top removal coal miner" is not a job worth creating, even though it undeniably also boosts the economy in states where it occurs.  We have more than sufficient natural gas resources in this country to eliminate the need for coal as a fuel, so let's please stop talking about "jobs" as if it is a zero-sum game.  We all have things that we're not willing to give up in order to create jobs-- your "things" are moral, and my "things" are environmental, but at the end of the day, we're both unwilling to sacrifice the soul of our nation in order to create jobs.  Besides, you really think that ObamaCare won't create jobs?  There aren't enough health care professionals out there now to accommodate the number of people who will likely seek health care once they have insurance.  That sounds to me like a market that is about to boom.

Everything's Bigger in Texas, Including Health Insurance Refunds

The argument that de-regulation keeps costs down makes one very big and often fallacious assumption:  that the market is healthy and competitive.  Such is not the case with the individual health insurance market.  Thus, policyholders in Texas, in which regulations are lax, found that they received higher refunds under the ACA-- because their premiums were higher to begin with.  Why were they higher?  Because any company that can get away with charging more money is going to do so.  The Laffer curve for the health insurance market looks a lot like the Laffer curve for the crack cocaine market.  There's a lot of leeway for them to jack up the price and not lose a single bit of demand, but that doesn't mean that they should be allowed to.  Sometimes, the greater good of society trumps the profits of one company or even one industry.  Society != Socialism.

Why Chik-Fil-A Is Not a First Amendment Issue

Free speech is a right.  Customers are a privilege.  Offend some of them, and you lose some of them.  This is not a violation of First Amendment rights.  It is a simple fact of doing business.  A person's private beliefs are just that-- private-- but if said person uses their company to publicly promote a particular belief (both monetarily, and by saying outright that "my company believes thus and so"), then that invites public scrutiny and invites people who disagree to take their business elsewhere.   A person can believe whatever they want, but at the end of the day, unless a particular issue affects a company's ability to do business, then the company has no business throwing their hat in that ring.

Hater's Guide to "The Grey"

A tour de force steeped in the tradition of such fine cinematic masterpieces as "Anaconda" and "Jaws 3".  Let's see ... Token black guy dies:  check.  Whiny douchebag dies:  check.  Sidekick family man who talks about his future plans dies:  check.  Liam Neeson wallows in self pity for half an hour:  double check.  Director, who has apparently never been to Alaska, tries to pass off BC as Alaska to unsuspecting audience:  check.

Switching Channels

I think I get it now.  So, Sci-Fi has moved to the Science Channel, SyFy is now The Paranormal Channel, The Learning Channel is now The Dysfunctional Family Channel, The Discovery Channel is now The Motorbikes and Blowing Crap Up Channel, Nat Geo is now The Criminal Law and Religion Channel, and History is now The Junk, Rednecks, and Conspiracy Channel.

And we wonder why this country is 11th in science and math.