Celebrate Earth Hour by turning on the lights

(Cross-posted at RedState)

Never heard of earth hour? Me neither until I read this article in the LA Times online edition:

Get ready to fade to black. Millions of people around the world are expected to turn off their lights at 8:30 p.m. local time Saturday -- no matter what time zone they're  in -- to observe Earth Hour. Never heard of it? It was started in 2007 by the WWF conservation organization to make a statement about energy overuse and how it affects the planet.

Times Square, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Las Vegas Strip, Niagara Falls, the Opera House in Sydney, and many more landmarks around the world plan to douse the lights, according to Earth Hour's website.

In Southern California, the Queen Mary will blast its horn at 8:30 p.m. to indicate the beginning of Earth Hour. Then the Long Beach landmark will turn off lights on its smokestacks, the string of lights atop the ship and other areas as well as encourage guests staying in staterooms to do likewise.

I've decided to celebrate earth hour this year in a slightly different way. I'm going to turn all my lights on. I'm celebrating man's emergence from darkness. Man's use of technology that has saved millions from poverty and starvation. Won't you join me this year in the ritual lighting of an endangered species; the incandescent light bulb.

All kidding aside no one will be hurt by this silly event designed to make liberals feel good about themselves but the same can't be said about other liberal policies. From the millions of African children who have died of malaria because DDT was banned to starvation increasing in the third world because we have decided to turn food into fuel. Even something as simple as not allowing people to clear brush around their property which creates a fire hazard. (See this tragic story in the Australian Press) The progressives never give a second thought to the unintended results of their policies.

At least for one hour on Saturday they won't have to look at themselves in the mirror.

Red light cameras: A liberty issue or a safety issue?

(Originally posted at Red State)

Every year we lose more of our liberty. From unwanted intimate encounters with TSA agents, to calls for limits on free speech after Tucson. Even the freedom of the open road isn't as free as it once was with the introduction of cameras at intersections and on highways. A discussion of red light cameras may appear to be strictly a safety issue but I believe that the controversy over these cameras is more political than many people realize. It's somewhat like the anthropogenic global warming theory.

In the beginning AGW wasn't politicized, it was simply a scientific theory. As time went on those of us on the consevative side read all the articles, looked at the empirical evidence and came to the conclusion that AGW was a hoax. As for those on the left -- if they didn't plan it from the very beginning -- they quickly realized that the AGW theory would allow them unlimited power to regulate the economy. As we all know, liberals never let the truth get in the way of government expansion. And who can argue that having cameras on every street corner is not conducive to a larger more intrusive government?

However, the red light camera issue hasn't become so politicized yet, it's not a clear cut case of us vs. them. Many conservatives, looking at it from a law and order point of view, might say that the small amount of freedom we give up is worth it to catch those red light scofflaws and make the roads safer and they would have a point except for one small detail. The cameras don't work as advertised, they don't make the roads safer. In many cases it's just the opposite. To back up my outrageous claim I offer three news stories. The first is an excerpt from a recent article from the UK's Telegraph:

The number of people killed and seriously injured on Britain’s roads continued to fall as speed cameras were taken out of use last year. There were 510 deaths between July and September, compared to 596 in the same period in 2009.

This represented a 14 per cent drop at a time when the volume of traffic fell by only 1.3 per cent. There was also a five per cent reduction in the tally of people killed or serious injured.

The continuing decline in serious casualties coincided with the retreat of the speed camera programme as cash-strapped councils began switching off devices because of spending cuts.

Somerset, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire were among the areas where the number of active cameras was reduced.

The figures will add weight to those who have argued that the proliferation of cameras over the past decade had little to do with fall in casualties during the same period.

“When we have a recession we expect the fatalities to fall because people travel less far, less often and are therefore exposed to less danger,” said Claire Armstrong of the anti camera group, Safespeed.

“Coupled with excessive fuel prices, this is of no surprise to us and any benefit is nothing to do with cameras.”

The next news item is from the The Palm Beach Post, dated May. 24, 2010:

WEST PALM BEACH — Rear-end collisions more than doubled and accidents increased overall in the first 70 days of red-light cameras in West Palm Beach compared to the same period of 2009, traffic records reviewed by The Palm Beach Post show.

In the name of boosting safety, not revenues, West Palm Beach issued 2,675 camera fines worth a third of a million dollars in March alone.

But at the three city intersections from Feb. 21, when fines began, through May 1, The Post found:

--Rear-end collisions increased to five from two. Rear-end accidents sometimes go up with cameras because anxious drivers are more likely to stop abruptly.

--Overall accidents increased to seven from six.

--The only injury in either period came under cameras, in a rear-end crash in March 2010. The injury was "non-incapacitating," according to records supplied by cities and compiled in Palm Beach County's accident database.

City officials did not dispute the data but said it was too soon to draw meaningful conclusions.

In the UK they turn the cameras off and accidents are reduced and in West Palm Beach they add cameras and rear end accidents double! How can this be? It doesn't make any sense. Well, actually it does make sense if you happen to have an old issue of Car and Driver lying around from 2002. Patrick Bedard writes:

When the nation's No. 1 cheerleader for red-light cameras admits there might be one teensy-weensy downside to the program, you just know it's going to be a lulu so large it couldn't be crammed under the carpet without making a bulge the size of a circus tent.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) recently enthused over traffic-tickets-by-mail schemes for an entire issue of its Status Report. On red-light cameras, however, it did allow that "most studies also reported increases in rear-end crashes."

It went on to say, "This isn't surprising. The more people stop on red, the more rear-end collisions there will be."

Duh! [....]

Spillover effect is IIHS's trick for giving the cameras credit for reducing fatalities even where they aren't. It assumes that red-light cameras at a few intersections will cause drivers to stop promptly all over town, or all over the county, or maybe all over the state, so improvements outside the cameras' ZIP Codes are credited to them nonetheless. As statistical acrobatics go, this one is breathtaking.

But you ain't seen nothin' yet. The obvious way to gauge the payoff of red-light cameras is to compare intersections with cameras to those without, then zoom in on crashes actually caused by drivers running red lights. Instead, IIHS considered all crashes at all 125 signalized intersections in Oxnard and concluded that injury crashes dropped by 29 percent due to the cameras, even though they were installed at only 11 intersections.

Spillover effect, don't you know.

Skeptics will notice that crashes went down rather randomly all over town, and some ordinary intersections outperformed those with the gotcha equipment. The cameras look remarkably ineffectual until, just in time, spillover effect arrives to snatch victory from the jaws of ho-hum.

In addition to the three articles quoted above, here is a bonus. I know liberals like to think they have science on their side so I decided to include information on a study by Barbara Langland-Orban, professor and chair of health policy and management at the University of South Florida College of Public Health. ScienceDaily reported on this study in 2008:

Rather than improving motorist safety, red-light cameras significantly increase crashes and are a ticket to higher auto insurance premiums, researchers at the University of South Florida College of Public Health conclude. The effective remedy to red-light running uses engineering solutions to improve intersection safety, which is particularly important to Florida’s elderly drivers, the researchers recommend.

“The rigorous studies clearly show red-light cameras don’t work,” said lead author Barbara Langland-Orban, professor and chair of health policy and management at the USF College of Public Health.

“Instead, they increase crashes and injuries as drivers attempt to abruptly stop at camera intersections. If used in Florida, cameras could potentially create even worse outcomes due to the state’s high percent of elderly who are more likely to be injured or killed when a crash occurs.”

Looking at the evidence from a safety perspective it appears that speed cameras are ineffective and red light cameras are downright dangerous. At this point it should be noted that this evidence only relates to traffic cameras not security cameras like the blue-light police cameras in Chicago. The jury is still out on those, although this quote from Anthony Daniels at The Corner is not encouraging: "Britain has the highest crime rate in Western Europe, despite having a third of all the closed-circuit television cameras in the world..."

As for traffic cameras, I think I've made my case. In summation I would simply add, "cameras bad, freedom good." What do you think?

Save the incandescent light bulb, sign the petition

"The ban on standard incandescent bulbs was included in comprehensive legislation passed by a Democratic-controlled Congress and signed into law by Republican George W. Bush in 2007. The ban will go into effect next year, but the legislation can still be stopped. Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX) has recently introduced H.R. 91, the Better Use of Light Bulbs (BULB) Act to amend the original bill, removing the anti-light bulb provisions. Your signatures will be compiled and sent to the Congressmen in your state."

Sign here

Social scientists at UC Berkeley study the Tea Party

(Originally posted at: Red State)

Do you ever feel like someone is watching you? Do you ever feel like someone is studying you and those you associate with from afar? Well guess what, you're not paranoid it's real. We've been under the microscope for two years now by Berkeley's Center for the Comparative Study of Right-Wing Movements. And here you thought those cars driving around your neighborhood with the funny looking cameras on top were from Google.

Okay, I don't have any proof that they are studying us cloak and dagger style but we are being studied nonetheless. Slate has the story, the subtitle of the article reads: "Lefty academics convene in Berkeley to try to make sense of the Tea Party movement." To the academic elites at Berkeley we are like an alien species that just landed on Earth and they are naturally curious.

Put yourself in their shoes for a minute. Obama and the progressives in Congress gave us all these wonderful things like the Stimulus and Obamacare and Finance reform. They are also trying to save the planet with Cap and Tax. And how do we show our appreciation? We go to town halls and shout at them. No wonder they are confused and perplexed. This calls for some serious research, here are a couple of papers they are working on:

Prospects for an American Neofascism. Initially the project would consist of a review of recent research on American right wing groups (including the Tea Party movement, the Minutemen, and the Christian right); and of trends in national and transnational political economy that bear on our subject (such as cyclical and structural economic crises, corporate/government interpenetration, and the explosive growth of the military/industrial/security complex).

A Macro-Micro Model of Participation in Political Action: The Tea Party and Cognitive Biases in Information Consumption and Processing. Hypotheses were tested using qualitative data obtained from interviews with two groups: protest participants from various Tea Party protests (protesting group, N-15) and non-protesting Tea Party "supporters" (supporting group, N=3). Results show that strongly held pre-existing beliefs (particularly economic and political individualist ideology) heavily impacted levels of dissatisfaction with government policy and choices of information consumed.

Gee, I didn't know I was a neofascist. I just thought I wanted a smaller less intrusive government based on our founding principles. Now I admit I'm not as smart as these researchers but I think I know what "Cognitive Biases in Information Consumption and Processing" means. It's just a fancy way of saying that I listen to Rush Limbaugh too much. I'll have to plead guilty on that one.

The results of two years of study are in and the participants in this conference have found that the tea party is racist:

"There is that U.S. DNA that goes all the way back and does provide the conceptual source for this lynch mob mentality," says Steve Martinot, who teaches at San Francisco State University. "And that is white supremacy. Shouldn't we be looking at the Tea Party through that?"

Perlstein moves around the question. "The thing that makes America different, and this is a very dialectical, paradoxical concept, is that we have a lot of democracy," he says. "The idea that everyone has an opinion of about what they're hearing is both the glory and the tragedy of American democracy."

But the social scientists are more ready than the historians to crunch numbers and prove that racial animosity is key to the Tea Party. It's cold comfort for people like Hardy Frye, but it does suggest that Obama's ability to form some grand populist coalition was always limited.

So, there you have it. According to the academics at this conference, "racial animosity is key to the Tea Party. And we have a " lynch mob mentality." And apparently it's a "tragedy" that we have so much opinion in this country.

There is only one small flaw in their logic. If America is a boiling cauldron of racial animosity as they seem to imagine how did Obama become president when only 12.4% of the population is African-American? Is it possible that the sinking popularity of the President has something to do with his failing policies?

And by the way, do these academic types realize that Obama is not on the ticket in this upcoming election? Race has nothing to do with what is going to happen on November 2nd. And all those White Democratic Congressmen and Senators about to be unemployed know it.

Anger, Anguish and Anxiety Across America

(Originally posted at Red State)

The editors at Time missed an opportunity to make the perfect title for their article, Encountering Anguish and Anxiety Across America. They just needed one more A word to make it perfect -- Anger.

The "Yes We Can" crowd hasn't reached the boiling point yet but they are full of "anguish and anxiety" they just don't know who to blame anymore. The Bush piñata has been beaten to death. But they are starting to suspect that it could be the messiah's fault. Obama can't even go to a carefully screened town hall or a backyard barbecue without getting tough questions from his own supporters! The rest of us are just angry watching him shredding the Constitution. So what does Time think the problem is? Here is a taste:

On a blistering evening in Phoenix recently, a group of prominent civic leaders met to talk about America. It didn't take long for the conversation to get around to the fall of the Ottoman Empire. That's what happens when smart Americans get to talking about politics these days. Topic A is the growing sense that our best days as a nation are behind us, that our kids won't live as well as we did, that China is in the driver's seat.

I'm experiencing deja vu all over again, this is the exact same thing we heard when Jimmy Carter was in office, only then it was Japan in the driver's seat not China. Back then the MSM was telling us our best days were behind us and we better get used to it. Lucky for us Ronald Reagan came along just when we needed him.

Can you guess what Reagan would tell this group of civic leaders? He would tell them our best days are not behind us and all we have to do is unleash America's entrepreneurial spirit by reducing regulations and taxes. He would then add: "Government is the problem not the solution."

When the MSM and the ruling elites tell us that our best days are behind us, that we can't be the engine that drives the world economy anymore and this is the "new normal", I just wish I could reach right through the TV screen and slap them silly. Of course we could get out of this recession if the progressives in Washington would just take their boots off of our necks. As Rush Limbaugh might say: "Why would anyone start a business or hire more workers in this hostile business environment."

So, they tell us the Obama administration is not hostile to business? Really... Across the board tax increases heading our way in January, Cap and Tax, offshore drilling shut down, threats to insurance companies from Kathleen Sebelius. The list is endless. Obama has put in place an army of progressive bureaucrats making arbitrary and binding decisions affecting business. Uncertainty rules the day. If one of Obama's Czars decides to target your business you could be wiped out. Alan Greenspan touched on the subject of uncertainty writing in the Financial Times:

The instinctive reaction of businessmen and householders to uncertainty is to disengage from those activities that require confident predictions of how the future will unfold. For non-financial corporations (half of gross domestic product), the disengagement is best measured by the share of liquid cash flow allocated to illiquid long-term fixed asset investment. In the first half of 2010, that share fell to 79 per cent, its lowest reading in the 58 years for which data are available.

Liberals seem to think the economy is like the weather, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. They fully expected the business cycle to be on the upswing this November, and guess what? It would have been except for the actions of Reid, Pelosi and Obama. Isn't karma grand?

Liberals and progressives also have difficulty understanding the concept of "animal spirits" in the business world. They think people are in business simply to provide jobs. What they don't realize is that jobs are a by-product of profits. And profits come from entrepreneurs risking it all in the marketplace. Keynes defined animal spirits as: "a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction..."

Have you seen any business people acting spontaneously lately?

When Obama famously said now is not the time for profits. It put a real damper on the business psyche. But the one thing that Obama forgot or doesn't know is that without profits there are no jobs.

Obama won't be in Washington to see the aftermath of the destruction of the Democratic party on November 2nd, he'll be packing to go on a worldwide tour including a stop in India. He'll return on November 14th reinvigorated and undaunted in his efforts to transform America.

Congress is increasingly irrelevant to Obama. He couldn't even get the current Democratic controlled Congress to vote to tax the rich. The Wall Street Journal reports: "Forty-seven House Democrats have signed a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi urging that tax rates on capital gains and dividends be maintained at the current level of up to 15% for all earners." Apparently Obama's own party isn't radical enough for him.

Don't look for Obama to move to the center like Clinton did. Clinton was a politician, Obama is a far left ideologue. If anything he'll move farther to the left. Look for Obama to dust off his tattered copy of Rules for Radicals for inspiration. There are executive orders to sign, recess appointments to make and hundreds, perhaps thousands of regulations and taxes to be unpacked out of that Obamacare monstrosity.

As the Republicans start to bring our fiscal house in order Obama -- playing the role of populist demagogue -- will be there every step of the way to thwart their efforts, while at the same time claiming success for himself as the economy improves. Unfortunately success for Republicans in Congress means the possible reelection of Obama in 2012.

I don't want to end on a pessimistic note but I'm afraid anger, anguish and anxiety will be with us for at least two more years even with huge Republican victories in November. We are in for the fight of our lives. Obama recently said a Republican victory in November will mean hand-to-hand combat. Maybe he's right. At least now the battle is joined.

Why the left hates nuclear power

(Originally posted at Red State)

From 1908 when the first Model T rolled off the assembly line until the mid-nineties vehicles powered by the internal combustion engine produced real pollution. They emitted nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and other nasty pollutants. Many of us can remember the eye-burning smog in the Los Angeles basin. Those days are thankfully behind us.

The environmental activists of that era deserve our thanks for encouraging government and the auto industry to clean up the air we breathe. But after the automobile exhaust had been essentially eliminated as a major source of pollution these same activists had a problem -- what next? Instead of congratulating themselves and moving on to other professions they decided to continue in the agitation business. But they needed a new bogeyman to attack.

The answer came from Professor Roger Revelle at Harvard, the self proclaimed "grandfather of the greenhouse effect." A young Al Gore attended Professor Revelle's class and apparently the Professor's theory made a big impression on him. As many liberals seem to do Al Gore focused all his energy on an obscure theoretical threat to society. War, famine and natural disasters are so boring. The idea that modern man was capable of destroying the planet simply by existing seemed to mesh perfectly with his progressive ideology. And as they say: "The rest is history."

Shortly before his death in 1991 Professor Revelle wrote: "The scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time." Of course no one paid any attention to the dying professor's words. The carbon genie was out of the bottle and it is proving extremely difficult to put him back.

So, for the time being we have to live with the anthropogenic global warming theory (AGW) and the entire economy of the world must be changed because of this unproven theory. (I know Obama's science adviser says we should call it "global climate disruption". These constant name changes are too confusing, I'm going to stick with AGW for now.)

The reputation of that poor little carbon dioxide molecule has been maligned beyond repair and he must be banished from this earth, it doesn't matter that he is a harmless trace gas that loves to help plants grow, he must be eliminated. But how best to do that?

What if we had a power source that produced no carbon dioxide, zero, none, nada, zilch. Wouldn't that be a miracle? Don't you think the environmentalists who want to save the planet would be marching in the streets demanding that we convert to that power source?

If you really believe we are at the tipping point of no return, if you really believe that the Earth could look like Mars in a few decades wouldn't you demand that we embark on a "Manhattan Project" to ramp up this power source immediately? Apparently, no.

Perhaps today's environmentalists realize that with a solution for the AGW problem at hand they might have to go out and find real jobs.

There are two types of environmentalists in the world today. One wants to find real solutions to "save the planet". The other type seems more interested in making a career of his activism and promoting draconian measures to change our lifestyle, with the health of the planet being a mere afterthought.

A good example of the career type can be found in this recent article by Mark Cooper in The Hill. Mr. Cooper is identified as a Fellow at the Institute for Energy and the Environment. He seems to be worried that the U.S. might follow France's lead on nuclear power generation:

Among backers of nuclear power development in the U.S., France has long been held out as the model to emulate. Now, as pressure builds on policy makers in Washington to set a new domestic energy course, the French experience once again is being heralded as proof that nuclear power is the way to go.

Trouble is, France's nuclear "miracle" is more fantasy than fact. And facts are what Congress - and the American public - deserve before massive public subsidies are committed for new reactor construction. [...]

He continues by pointing out problems with cost overruns and other issues with the French system. Surprisingly he doesn't mention the real concern of safety and waste disposal. But a few paragraphs down we find what is really bothering Mr. Cooper:

Nuclear reactors crowd out energy efficiency efforts and renewable energy investments. The French track record on energy efficiency and renewable energy is poor compared to similar European nations. In France, commitment to huge nuclear reactors has led to excess generating capacity which, in turn, has discouraged efficiency. Consumption, not conservation, is critical to underwrite the bloated costs of these giant power stations. That is not the direction the U.S. should set for its own energy policies.

By heavily subsidizing large central station generating facilities, France has drained away public and private incentives to cut energy use or develop alternative "green" generating capacity.

Now we come to the real issue for this environmentalist. A clean abundant source of power would eliminate the need for "energy efficiency efforts and renewable energy investments."

The logic of his argument is, well... illogical. We shouldn't use this clean abundant power source because it will eliminate the need for ugly, noisy, bird killing wind turbines and habitat destroying solar farms?

So, even if we have a carbon free power source we still can't be allowed to enjoy life, we still have to live like monks and conserve. The lefties who have taken over the environmental movement are a strange breed, they are only happy when everyone else is miserable.

But not all environmentalists are that cynical. Patrick Moore the founder of Greenpeace explains in this 2006 article in the Washington Post why he came around to the nuclear solution:

In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.

Look at it this way: More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions -- or nearly 10 percent of global emissions -- of CO2, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power. And these days it can do so safely.

Unfortunately Patrick Moore is in the minority. As I stated earlier if those in the the environmental movement really believe that runaway AGW will destroy the planet they would be demanding that we start a crash program building nuclear power plants.

However, abundant clean power provided by nuclear energy would allow us to enjoy life and use as much electricity as we can afford. There would be no need for a smart grid or thermostats controlled by big brother. Electric cars recharged by these power plants would actually be pollution free. The environmental statists would lose the power to control us and our thermostats.

They fight against this clean abundant power source because if we obtained almost 80% of our electricity from nuclear as they do in France we would have no need for them. It would mean the end of their raison d'etre.

What is Gymkhana?

Watch this video and then you'll know. And I'm afraid it's true, Obama may be good at basketball but he can't gymkhana.

RIGHTNETWORK: The alternative to the liberal MSM

Are you tired of watching news, commentary and comedy on the liberal main stream media? Are you tired of watching comedians recycling old jokes about Bush? Have the P.C. police been knocking on your door? Then turn off cable and point your browser to http://www.rightnetwork.com/ for some refreshingly P.C. free comedy and drama.

Are red light cameras dangerous?

When you combine government greed with technology you are bound to end up with severe unintended consequences. As West Palm Beach is discovering, red light cameras cause more problems than they solve. From The Palm Beach Post:

WEST PALM BEACH — Rear-end collisions more than doubled and accidents increased overall in the first 70 days of red-light cameras in West Palm Beach compared to the same period of 2009, traffic records reviewed by The Palm Beach Post show.

In the name of boosting safety, not revenues, West Palm Beach issued 2,675 camera fines worth a third of a million dollars in March alone.

But at the three city intersections from Feb. 21, when fines began, through May 1, The Post found:

--Rear-end collisions increased to five from two. Rear-end accidents sometimes go up with cameras because anxious drivers are more likely to stop abruptly.

--Overall accidents increased to seven from six.

--The only injury in either period came under cameras, in a rear-end crash in March 2010. The injury was "non-incapacitating," according to records supplied by cities and compiled in Palm Beach County's accident database.

City officials did not dispute the data but said it was too soon to draw meaningful conclusions.

If only some of those city officials had a subscription to Car and Driver they would have already known that those cameras don't work. Patrick Bedard wrote about this back in 2002:

When the nation's No. 1 cheerleader for red-light cameras admits there might be one teensy-weensy downside to the program, you just know it's going to be a lulu so large it couldn't be crammed under the carpet without making a bulge the size of a circus tent.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) recently enthused over traffic-tickets-by-mail schemes for an entire issue of its Status Report. On red-light cameras, however, it did allow that "most studies also reported increases in rear-end crashes."

It went on to say, "This isn't surprising. The more people stop on red, the more rear-end collisions there will be."

Duh!

The rest of the article is fairly technical as Patrick shows how the (IIHS) twisted the data like a pretzel trying to make it look like the cameras were effective:

Spillover effect is IIHS's trick for giving the cameras credit for reducing fatalities even where they aren't. It assumes that red-light cameras at a few intersections will cause drivers to stop promptly all over town, or all over the county, or maybe all over the state, so improvements outside the cameras' ZIP Codes are credited to them nonetheless. As statistical acrobatics go, this one is breathtaking.

But you ain't seen nothin' yet. The obvious way to gauge the payoff of red-light cameras is to compare intersections with cameras to those without, then zoom in on crashes actually caused by drivers running red lights. Instead, IIHS considered all crashes at all 125 signalized intersections in Oxnard and concluded that injury crashes dropped by 29 percent due to the cameras, even though they were installed at only 11 intersections.

Spillover effect, don't you know.

Skeptics will notice that crashes went down rather randomly all over town, and some ordinary intersections outperformed those with the gotcha equipment. The cameras look remarkably ineffectual until, just in time, spillover effect arrives to snatch victory from the jaws of ho-hum.

Maybe we shouldn't be too upset with the city officials at West Palm Beach. More than likely there are more readers of the New York Times than Car & Driver working at city hall. But perhaps they might have read a report by Barbara Langland-Orban, professor and chair of health policy and management at the USF College of Public Health. ScienceDaily reported on that study in 2008:

Rather than improving motorist safety, red-light cameras significantly increase crashes and are a ticket to higher auto insurance premiums, researchers at the University of South Florida College of Public Health conclude. The effective remedy to red-light running uses engineering solutions to improve intersection safety, which is particularly important to Florida’s elderly drivers, the researchers recommend.

“The rigorous studies clearly show red-light cameras don’t work,” said lead author Barbara Langland-Orban, professor and chair of health policy and management at the USF College of Public Health.

“Instead, they increase crashes and injuries as drivers attempt to abruptly stop at camera intersections. If used in Florida, cameras could potentially create even worse outcomes due to the state’s high percent of elderly who are more likely to be injured or killed when a crash occurs.”

With local governments always on the lookout for more revenue it's understandable that they will be open to the sales pitch of the companies promoting these systems. But a simple google search showing the dismal safety record of red-light cameras could have saved city officials a lot of embarrassment.

Of course my analysis of the actions of the officials at West Palm Beach is based on their stated goal of "boosting safety, not revenues". However, I still can't help wondering if the "third of a million dollars" they received in March will have any effect on the final decision to keep the cameras?

Civil disobedience in the Federal Government

Mark Levin believes that civil disobedience is coming, in this audio clip at the 2:50 mark he makes an interesting prediction:

I think at some point you're going to see civil resistance and I don't mean in a dangerous way. People are just going to say you know what I'm not following that rule, you know what I'm not filing that form, you know what I'm not getting that insurance, you know what I'm not paying that tax. I'm not encouraging it, I'm just analyzing this. I think at some point that may well happen.

Well guess what? It's already happening but it isn't your average Joe or Jane citizen who's ignoring the maze of incomprehensible regulations in Obamacare, it's the federal government, as this excerpt from NRO's health-care blog explains:

The law is so complex that even the federal government is not complying! Last week, we reported that the office that administers health benefits for federal workers is basically ignoring the law and plans to keep its program operating as is, even though the Congressional Research Service seriously questions the legality of doing so.

How did this happen? Examiner.com enlightens us:

[I]t appears they have royally mucked up their own health insurance - for all 535 members of Congress and untold congressional employees. In a hurry, they forgot to get it right and wrote it all wrong; now it's the law...

The law puts Congress in the same boat they built for the rest of America, without a clue what the new health care reform will mean to them. The beauty of their dilemma is pure poetic justice to some -they have written law requiring that they move into a system that doesn't yet exist.

How could that be? Simple, a scaled-down provision of Republic Senator Grassley's “Health Reform Accountability Act” - this one requiring all congress members and their employees, with the exception of Senate committee and leadership staffs, to get their health insurance through the same health insurance exchanges where the general public would get theirs was left in the bill, unopposed, and was signed into law by President Obama.

That's right -- in an rare show of solidarity with average folk -- congress appears to have discarded their Cadillac health care plan and put themselves under the same Cuban style health plan the rest of us poor saps will be forced to use.

For a few days the fear in the halls of Congress was palpable. However it appears that this exercise in humility was merely a symbolic measure designed to win the support of the majority of Americans who have a small problem with Obamacare being rammed down their throats. It didn't take long for the bureaucrats to find a solution, they simply decided to ignore the law they had just passed.

It seems that tea partiers and federal workers have something in common, neither group wants anything to do with Obamacare. I wonder what would happen if a majority of Americans followed the example of our friends in government and refused to comply with the onerous mandates and regulations in Obamacare? If they can ignore Obamacare why can't we?

Mark Levin: Civil disobedience is coming

Bill Brady and the Hispanic vote

Will Hispanic demographic trends doom conservatism?

The East Coast Republican elites have been telling all of us rubes over here in fly-over country that Reaganism is dead. That we have to move to the center to win elections. That demographic trends are turning against us. The burgeoning Hispanic population will only vote for moderates. Really? Then how do they explain this little nugget of information from The Washington Examiner:

Who is Bill Brady? Fifty-five percent of Illinoisans have no idea. And according to a new poll from Public Policy Polling, a plurality still plan to vote for him over their incumbent Democratic governor.

Brady, the Republican nominee, leads Gov. Pat Quinn, D, 43 to 33 percent. Quinn’s unfavorable numbers are double his favorables. To add insult to injury, Brady leads Quinn 37 to 29 percent among Hispanics.

Meanwhile, the Democrats’ Senate candidate, Alexi Giannoulias, is losing, too.

"Brady leads Quinn 37 to 29 percent among Hispanics." That's interesting, Brady must be a moderate Republican, right? The Chicago Tribune analyzes the choices:

Brady, a real estate developer with several other financial interests, represents the keep-government-out-of-my-business conservatism that emanates from his legislative district. He is a staunch fiscal and social conservative who is as opposed to tax increases as he is abortion rights.

Quinn, the longtime Chicago populist who was elevated to the governor's office more than a year ago after the impeachment of Rod Blagojevich, has long attached himself to liberal causes, including universal health care. But Quinn has struggled to accomplish his public policy goals, manage an overwhelming state budget deficit and persuade lawmakers to support his proposals for tax increases.

It would seem that Hispanic voters in Illinois have chosen conservatism over liberalism. But even if some of them don't know who Bill Brady is, they sure know that the Democrat's socialist policies are hurting the economy. Hispanics are hard working people who believe in conservative traditions like faith and family. They are not as ideologically wedded to the Democratic Party as the experts believe.

But wait -- our friends at the Tribune have some sage advice for the conservative candidate. "If general election contests represent a time for candidates to move to the center to secure the votes of independents, Brady may have a farther drive."

My advice to Brady is: don't listen to the mainstream pundits. Conservative principals are universal, any politician who runs on those principals will do well at election time.

Health care was really about redistribution

First it was called health care reform then it was renamed insurance reform, just what is this thing the Democrats have rammed through congress? Now we finally have the answer, it's about redistribution. From Bryon York at the Washington Examiner:

It hasn't attracted much notice, but recently some prominent advocates of Obamacare have spoken more frankly than ever before about why they supported a national health care makeover. It wasn't just about making insurance more affordable. It wasn't just about bending the cost curve. It wasn't just about cutting the federal deficit. It was about redistributing wealth.

Health reform is "an income shift," Democratic Sen. Max Baucus said on March 25. "It is a shift, a leveling, to help lower income, middle income Americans."

In his halting, jumbled style, Baucus explained that in recent years "the maldistribution of income in America has gone up way too much, the wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy, and the middle income class is left behind." The new health care legislation, Baucus promised, "will have the effect of addressing that maldistribution of income in America."

At about the same time, Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman and presidential candidate, said the health bill was needed to correct economic inequities. "The question is, in a democracy, what is the right balance between those at the top ... and those at the bottom?" Dean said during an appearance on CNBC. "When it gets out of whack, as it did in the 1920s, and it has now, you need to do some redistribution. This is a form of redistribution."

Summing things up in the New York Times, the liberal economics columnist David Leonhardt called Obamacare "the federal government's biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago."

Now they tell us. For many opponents of the new legislation, the statements confirmed a nagging suspicion that for Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress, the health fight was about more than just insurance -- that redistribution played a significant, if largely unspoken, part in the drive for national health care. [More]

People with good insurance (Cadillac plans) will be taxed at the rate of 40%. Young healthy people just starting their careers will be forced to buy insurance. And poor folks will get a subsidy to buy insurance, at least until the insurance companies go out of business due to all the new mandates and price controls placed on them. At that point we'll all be on medicare and the progressives will have their utopia, mediocrity for everyone.

Obama's 17 minute answer to a question about taxes

Here is the video of Obama's odd 17 minute answer to this simple question: "... is it a wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care because we are over-taxed as it is?"

The reason Obama had a problem answering this question is very simple. Liberals don't have an answer to this very basic question. They believe that they can raise taxes on everyone -- although they always claim only the rich will be taxed -- and the economy will just keep humming along not missing a beat.

But anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows that when entrepreneurs are heavily taxed to grow the public sector, the private sector shrinks and jobs are destroyed.

E.O. “Coots” Matthews, the passing of an era

In these politically correct times where we are afraid to use our own natural resources. And a Democratic president cynically throws a bone to conservatives and opens a few areas for offshore drilling, it's hard to imagine there was once a time when Americans were proud to search for oil all over the world.

One of the brave men who was a big part of that era passed away recently. The Houston Chronicle has the story:

E.O. “Coots” Matthews, a famed oil well firefighter and founding partner of Houston-based Boots & Coots — a company legendary for putting out some of the world’s most spectacular fires — has died at age 86.

Matthews died Wednesday of natural causes at his home in Humble.

During his 50-year career, Matthews, along with Asger “Boots” Hansen and Paul “Red” Adair, became the sooted faces of the storied “hellfighting” business, in an age when wildcat wells erupted on a regular basis.

Their exploits battling the biggest infernos in the oil patch inspired the 1968 John Wayne movie Hellfighters, and their adventures are part of the fabric of Houston’s history.

In a true roughneck-to-riches story, Matthews helped build Boots & Coots into a company with one of the most recognizable names in the oil industry.

“It was a pretty good trick,” said Jerry Winchester, president and CEO of Boots & Coots. “You start with two or three guys and a secretary and then you look up 30 years later and it’s a $200 million business with 700 employees.” [...]

As a young man Matthews joined the Air Force and served as a tailgunner in Europe during World War II. After the war he worked for Halliburton -- for a while:

Halliburton fired Matthews for allegedly crashing six company cars during his roughly 10 years with the firm. Matthews jokingly told friends the company punished him once for crashing a $700 car by making him drive a $1 million pump truck.

Thanks to a family connection, he was hired soon after by Adair to work for M.M. Kinley Co., a pioneer in well control and firefighting. That’s where Hansen and Matthews met. [...]

The trio would go on to develop firefighting and well control methods that paved the way for today’s sophisticated blowout preventer and pressure control technology, Winchester said. They figured it out through “sheer tenacity and ingenuity,” Winchester said, at a time when the industry lacked the equipment and science that now make well fires much less frequent.

As the AGW theory becomes discredited, most Americans are beginning to realize that there is nothing standing in the way of drilling for oil anywhere, except for the liberal agenda of the Democrats. Americans still possess the same drive and determination that motivated men like E.O. “Coots” Matthews. If we can fire the Social Democrats in congress this November, America can get back to work. Coots would be proud.