Links and Fundraiser
Jul. 2nd, 2014 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chris_gerribFirst, this week's beg for our wonderful Hadley Rille Books fundraiser, now with no totebags!
Second, links!
1) Independent bookstores start a new chapter: Growth. Their numbers are up, along with their sales, as e-book novelty wears off and human interaction becomes a top priority.
2) Krugman on global warming. Tl;dr = a) the "war on coal" is BS - coal mining jobs are being lost to stripmining, not environmentalists, and b) if you believe in Ayn Rand, the only response to global warming can be angry denial.
3) An interesting article about the economics of developing self-driving cars.
4) Not news to my readers, but the US missile defense system is utterly broken.
Second, links!
1) Independent bookstores start a new chapter: Growth. Their numbers are up, along with their sales, as e-book novelty wears off and human interaction becomes a top priority.
2) Krugman on global warming. Tl;dr = a) the "war on coal" is BS - coal mining jobs are being lost to stripmining, not environmentalists, and b) if you believe in Ayn Rand, the only response to global warming can be angry denial.
3) An interesting article about the economics of developing self-driving cars.
4) Not news to my readers, but the US missile defense system is utterly broken.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Semantic bias is such fun.
Date: 2014-07-03 01:48 pm (UTC)- Now, look at what he really said:
> Along come some scientists declaring that unrestricted
> pursuit of self-interest will destroy the world, and
> that government intervention is the only answer.
Is it really. The ONLY possible answer is insulated bureaucracy and OSHA-style regulation. O I C. And these guys are competent to express this opinion on what grounds? [They undoubtedly survive on government grants - for them, personally, it IS doubtless the only answer, at least all they have any experience with!]
Tell me - historically, what problem has this “answer” ever solved? Remember that we're talking about invention and development.
SovietFederal Socialist “Hero Projects” like Hoover Dam and the TVA invented nothing - and I've heard that the TVA was actually a TSA-style typhoon of fraud and waste, that what it accomplished could have been done far faster and for a fraction of the cost if it had simply been awarded as an open-bid contract…“The King's cheese is half wasted in parings - but no matter, 'tis made of the people's milk” - Poor Richard's Almanack, AD 1735
If you believe in Ayn Rand - or know anything at all of history, particularly of the 20th century - the only response to those grant-funded ivory-tower chuckleheads is indeed angry denial..
[Say, how many people are living on the Moon nowadays? It's been fifty years since massive government intervention - a k a malinvestment - “solved” putting men on the Moon. Why, there must be hundreds of people living in Lunar colonies by now… right?]