The Law of Intended Darkness - Jason King - Mises Institute

The Law of Intended Darkness - Jason King - Mises Institute:

"Let's first consider what a family is saving by turning their 'nonessential' lights off. To do this we'll do some very simple math: being generous, one 100-watt light bulb costs around a penny per hour to operate and generates around 1 tenth of a pound of carbon. If one therefore ran 10 light bulbs, then, a little over 1 pound of carbon would not be emitted and a dime would be saved by Earth Hour.

The question all individuals should ask themselves is, since this decision doesn't occur in a vacuum, what alternatives are present to sitting in a dark, lightless house. What is this family going to do in the dark? They might burn candles — and if they're paraffin, they are based in fossil fuels and will provide a dubious savings in either carbon or monetary cost. If they were to use flashlights instead of light bulbs the result would be an increase in carbon because candles and light bulbs are less energy efficient.

What if that family drove for 15 minutes, went and watched the stars, and drove back home? That trip would cost whatever a half-hour's worth of driving costs. If this trip took a gallon of gas, that would create around 20 pounds of carbon dioxide and would cost over $2 … for a dramatically increased cost in cash and carbon.

One can wonder further about the ramifications on safety and efficiency of turning off "nonessential" lights and conclude that no meaningful savings can be had. Because households are responsible for only 25% of the total electric lighting, we must also consider the commercial and industrial sectors. Instead of being at home, in darkness, will shopkeepers have to return to their stores to guard them for an hour? Will adults turn on lights in dark rooms when they need to move around the house? Will candles generate more fires? Obviously none of these unforeseen circumstances — all of which seem plausible — will improve our carbon footprint."

Now if they suggested that everyone went to bed an hour earlier and assumed that they would still get up after it was light and therefore save an hour of electric light then it could reduce the carbon output but possibly not significantly because residential use is only a small portion of total use.

Teacher Unions vs. Poor Kids

Teacher Unions vs. Poor Kids: "Two of the kids affected by the action, Sarah and James Parker, attend Washington's prestigious Sidwell Friends School. Their scholarships will end with the next school year. The classmates they'll be leaving will include Sasha and Malia Obama. The Obama children, of course, do not need voucher money to avoid Washington D.C.'s failing and sometimes dangerous public schools."

Better education while savings the taxpayers money -- who could oppose D.C.'s voucher program?

The Indefensibility of Political Representation - Gerard N. Casey - Mises Institute

The Indefensibility of Political Representation - Gerard N. Casey - Mises Institute: "Given the contemporary firm linkage between democracy and representation, a problem in political philosophy is how best to conceive of political representation. Is a political representative an agent of those whom he represents, limited to the carrying out of their instructions? Or is he a trustee, free to act in the interests of those whom he represents according to his own best judgment of what those interests are? Or is he neither an agent nor a delegate, being simply able to do more or less whatever he likes once elected? Or are there other possibilities in addition to these?"

The Indefensibility of Political Representation - Gerard N. Casey - Mises Institute

The Indefensibility of Political Representation - Gerard N. Casey - Mises Institute: "In what way are our political representatives representative? What does it mean for one man to represent another? Under normal circumstances, as our examples show, those who represent us do so at our bidding and cease to do so at our bidding. They act on our instructions within the boundaries of a certain remit and we are responsible for what they do as our agents. Furthermore, the central characteristic of representation by agency is that the agent is responsible to his principal and is bound to act in the principal's interest. Is this the situation with my so-called political representatives? Political representatives are not (usually) legally answerable to those whom they allegedly represent. In fact, in modern democratic states, the majority of a representative's putative principals are in fact unknown to him. Can a political representative be the agent of a multitude? This also seems unlikely. What if the principals have interests that diverge from each other? A political representative must then of necessity cease to represent one or more of his principals."

One type of representation in the private sector that seems to be similar to political representation is a corporation's board of directors that is elected by the share-holders. Does that type of representation (and political representation) fall under rule #2 (freely arrived-at binding agreement)? As long as citizens are free to leave a country (exit the agreement) then is the law and political representation a form a of a freely arrived-at binding agreement? Looking back to the countries found it does appear to be something like that.

The Indefensibility of Political Representation - Gerard N. Casey - Mises Institute

The Indefensibility of Political Representation - Gerard N. Casey - Mises Institute: "In iconic representation, A is said to represent B if A is like B in some particular respect; so, a woman, simply by virtue of being a woman, represents other women; a person of a particular skin color, simply by virtue of that fact, represents other people with the same skin color. But there is a logical problem here. Everything is like everything else in some respect or other, and so it comes about that, on this notion of representation, anything or anybody represents any other thing or anybody else. Such a notion of representation evacuates it of any real significance. What sense can be made of claims sometimes made that some group, say women, are 'underrepresented' in particular professions? In most contexts, there is simply no representation at all going on. Suppose that I, a man, am employed in a particular capacity in a particular firm — just by virtue of being a man I do not represent men. By the same token, I don't represent fathers, philosophers, the middle-aged, the cranky, or any other group.

These are not appropriate arenas for representation and so there can be no under-representation simply because there can be no representation. (Oddly enough, one rarely hears complaints of groups being underrepresented in such nonglamorous occupations as trash collection or sewage works.)"

Collabrative voting and amending resolutions

On Saturday I was at the WI 3rd district GOP caucus.  The resolutions seemed like they took longer than they needed to.  The county caucus was similar.  Does anyone have any ideas for improving the process?

• Show any changes from floor and main arguments on a projector so everyone can see info being discussed.  This would stop people from asking for the ammendment to be re-read and could reduce people re-stating the same points.
  
• Use some type of wiki website where changes can be easily voted on.  It could have an on-going "straw poll" so it is easy to determine how long discussion should take place.  The voting could take place on the website so that it is faster and people don't have to feel self-conscience for voting differently.  It might be hard to integrate this effectively with people not on the website.
• SMS messages for voting with a website that calculates and displays the results.  This could also be used for straw polls on the current topic.  When registering for the caucus interested people could include their phone number so they system knows which messages to accept.

We're all guinea pigs in Google's search experiment | News Blog - CNET News

We're all guinea pigs in Google's search experiment | News Blog - CNET News: "'As Google gets faster, people search more, and as it gets slower, people search less,' she said.
The same effect happened with Google Maps. When the company trimmed the 120KB page size down by about 30 percent, the company started getting about 30 percent more map requests. 'It was almost proportional. If you make a product faster, you get that back in terms of increased usage,' she said."

Senator Proposes Bill to Rescue Newspapers - Presidential Politics | Political News - FOXNews.com

Senator Proposes Bill to Rescue Newspapers - Presidential Politics | Political News - FOXNews.com: "Speaking on the Senate floor, Cardin added, 'As local papers are closing, we're losing a valuable tradition in America — critically important to our communities, critically important to our democracy.'"

Just because newspapers are dying doesn't mean that the press is being reduced.  There is still plenty of journalism -- it is just taking a different form.

Senator Proposes Bill to Rescue Newspapers - Presidential Politics | Political News - FOXNews.com

Senator Proposes Bill to Rescue Newspapers - Presidential Politics | Political News - FOXNews.com: "'We are losing our newspaper industry,' said Cardin. 'The economy has caused an immediate problem, but the business model for newspapers, based on circulation and advertising revenue, is broken, and that is a real tragedy for communities across the nation and for our democracy.'"

If the business model doesn't work anymore then let it die!  With the internet we have more efficient ways of getting the news.

Change and Hope on Drug Policy?

Change and Hope on Drug Policy?: "Brookhiser, a staid senior editor at National Review, hardly resembles the stereotypical pot smoker. But in 1992, he contracted a particularly virulent form of cancer and found that only marijuana would allow him to hold down enough food to survive the treatment.

'God forbid that anyone in this room should ever need chemotherapy,' Brookhiser testified, but if you do, 'Let me assure you that whatever you think now, or however you vote, if that moment comes to you, you will turn to marijuana. Extend that liberty to your fellow citizens.'"

FOXNews.com - French Strikers Release 3M Exec Hostage - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

FOXNews.com - French Strikers Release 3M Exec Hostage - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News: "The workers locked Rousselet in an office Tuesday, demanding better severance packages for those laid off and better conditions for those who keep their jobs."

They are now taking hostages to demand better job benefits?!?

Bioethics Forum - Federal Funding of Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Bioethics Forum - Federal Funding of Embryonic Stem Cell Research: "On March 9, President Obama removed restrictions on federal funding of research on embryonic stem cell lines derived by means that destroy human embryos. Although members of the President’s Council on Bioethics have been divided on this question and some of our colleagues disagree with us, we think it may be useful and clarifying to set the president’s action in three ways into the context of work the council has done over the past seven years."

Tesla Motors - Tesla Leadership

Tesla Motors - Tesla Leadership: "Despite the many electric concept cars, validation prototypes, and design studies seen at auto shows and in the media, Tesla is still the only car maker with a highway capable fully electric car that customers can actually buy."

Wild Wisconsin: Tony Evers Bashes Homeschoolers

Wild Wisconsin: Tony Evers Bashes Homeschoolers: "While homeschoolers are saving the state $198 million per year with better educational results, he knocks them for having an 'agenda'."

The Tragedy of the Commons: Fishing

Since fishing rights are shared overfishing can easily happen.  What if fishing rights were sold to specific areas of the ocean like mineral rights.  Then each fishing organization would buy fishing rights and have the incentive to keep the fish polulations sustainable.

This may initially be easiest to do inside each nation's territorial waters.  This would a good way for the government to initally make some cash.  But once the rights are sold the government would stay out because the owner would be able to sell his rights and therefore would have an incentive to keep the value of his rights high.

Realtime electricity changes

Why doesn't the electric company support billing me at a rate that can change often each day(hourly?) instead of quarterly?

This would work by them sending a signal with the current rate over the power line and each house would have a box (by the thermostat?) that shows the current rate.  That info could also be sent to any automatic electric appliances (heater, water heater, air conditioner, etc) so that they would automatically adjust to the current rate.  The heater thermostat temp would decrease as the rate increases and vice versa.  Then I could also quickly check the current rate if I need to run a high usage appliance (arc welder, or even possibly microwave).

Right now the only way they can affect usage is by cycling or turning off certain appliances but that is like having a car with only a go and stop button instead of a brake and accelerator pedal.

Realtime market pricing would give people the info needed to use the correct amount of electricity. This would greatly reduce the need for using expensive methods for generating electricity (that are probably also less energy efficient).