Gas Tax : Punishing the Heretics of the Green Movement

There is a gap between funding for the highways and roads and the revenue coming in for it. The gas tax hasn't been raised for 22 years and you are going to hear calls for raising it.^[1][2]

End the Gas Tax

USA today calls for phasing out the gas tax because of the cost of bureaucracy. Anything government driven has this problem so this reason is moot.

Forbes calls for reform of the gas tax but gets the reasoning wrong. Forbes lays out the history of the gas tax and how funds in are tied to projects directly related to the road, however, in the 90's this relation was temporarily severed to pay for other things; this is blamed for the unpopularity of the tax and why reform is needed.

Bloomberg actually gets part of problem correct, ... fuel efficiency and less driving.

Government Created the Problem

CAFE standards demand better fuel efficiency in vehicles which means when the goals are met drivers buy less gas to go the same distance. So it stands to reason that less money is collected through taxes.

Fuel efficiency is nice but the government has no place dictating it; this is legislating physics which is a very arrogant thing for man to do.

The next problem is a double blow to the gas tax and funds for roads; the government's push for electric and hybrid vehicles.

Tax credits to buyers of the green vehicles is paid for by all tax payers. The first punch is these drivers don't use gas or only a little thus evading the gas tax and yet they still put wear and tear on the roads.

The double punch is the subsidy money could instead be put towards road construction and repair, but no. Instead we are going to continue to subsidize these vehicles and look to taxing the drivers that use gas more.

Last I checked only churches and non-profits were supposed to be tax exempt. (Yeah, the Volt lost money but that doesn't make it a non-profit organization.)

The subsidies don't go just to the people that buy the cars but companies within the pipeline that make the car or parts of it. There is an article that "debunks" Volt myths and fails on the government money myth. It frames the myth as "#5 It’s made of government bailout money." That is not the myth; the myth is "the Volt is a government subsidized car." In fact the debunking of the myth admits to the subsidies and blames Bush for the subsidies; whether this is a Bush subsidy or an Obama subsidy it is still a government subsidy. Supposedly the 2016 Volt will be profitable.

There's no telling how long these subsidies will continue. A subsidy is per model per model year and does not phase out till 200,000 units of it are sold. Even then the subsidy phases out to 50% after two quarters, 25% at four quarters, and no credit after six quarters after hitting the 200,000 mark. By then the car will be on to the next model year and a new set of subsidies.^[1][2]

To be fair there was a discontinued subsidy. It was replaced by a new one.

What's the Solution?

End the gas tax, end the green car subsidies, and budget the roads like any other part of the government.

Ending the gas tax will make the cost of the transportation of goods cheaper thus making them more affordable. This can lead to an increase of consumption and leading to the need for more production. In the end there could be more tax revenue through increased income tax revenues; in addition this enriches the lives of the citizens.

Ending the subsidies will also correct the car and energy market to use what is truly economical choices. Also, it is immoral to make one person to pay for part of another person's desired purchase. Can you imagine if the government subsidized the purchase of yachts? Subsidizing the purchase of a car because of the type of motor it uses is no different.

Budget the roads like other parts of the budget. Make the importance of running shrimps on a treadmill compete with the importance of good roads. Hopefully we can expose wasteful projects by making them compete with critical projects.

Or we can raise the gas tax making products more expensive due to transportation costs while we give money to people who buy cars that do not contribute to the road fund.

1 2 1 2 3

Multicultural or Racist Emojis

Let's inject race into Emojis! What could go wrong?

In a most bizarre rambling video DNews has ever done they talk about injecting race into a non-race sensitive communication to celebrate multiculturalism to make race less significant. What what? Racialising a neuter technology makes it less racist?

This will provide so much food for the trolls they will bloat our data streams.

Now the wrong person using the wrong emoji can be called racist.

We live in such a comfort zone we are designing ways to detect racism in the way you type. We are demanding you all be sheeple less be called racist or sexist.

I'll say it. I'm racist if it means I'm okay if I'm white. I don't really care what race you are but I'm okay with being white. Racism seems to now mean you can't like being white.

I'm also a male and I am good with that. And somehow that make me sexist in the trill chatter of today's language.

So we will now take one of the inert communications where we exchange ideas and insert race. The sex will follow, right?

So all of this coming together equally we will find ways to pollute the exchange of nothing but ideas with our race and sex to taint the quality of the idea?

You all just freaking SUCK!

Fossil Fuels are Good for the Environment

Can't tell if ...

John McAfee, founder of the anti-virus company McAfee, is wanted for questioning in the murder of his neighbor in Belize.

Brilliant!

Many people hate advertisements. The thing is advertising reduces and sometimes removes the cost for a consumer to consume some form of media. You do not have to pay to listen to FM or AM radio because there are ads. Satellite radio you have to pay for since much of it is commercial free.

Online content and services need to make money in order to operate. Just having a website up and running costs money. I encountered the following and thought it was brilliant. A very capitalistic solution to security.

This dialog is a form of a captcha: an interactive applet that requires human interaction to prove a "bot" is not using a site en masse. Hence, captchas are a security mechanism to ensure only people are using a site and spam bots are not taking over.

By incorporating the ad into the captcha and typing in part of the ad, you get product retention. I imagine this form of advertisement must cost a little bit more, but what a brilliant idea. Advertisement retention and security all in one!

Second Warning! Environmentalists are coming for your Internet!

I alerted you last week about this with Green Peace. Now the New York times has done a story on how environmentally unfriendly the Internet is and the story is being repeated.

They are coming for your Internet! They are coming for your Capitalism!

The NYT article attacks the Internet based on data centers' power usage. They use a lot of energy and right now energy usage is framed as bad for the environment. To try to add punch to the story a straw man is set up:

A yearlong examination by The New York Times has revealed that this foundation of the information industry is sharply at odds with its image of sleek efficiency and environmental friendliness.

Environmental friendliness? I have never heard that about computers! I have read stories of how toxic it is to make computers. How low wages are paid to workers in China to build them and the factories spew out pollution. Throwing away a computer is awful for the environment because of the materials that comprise it, not to mention the Lithium batteries they house.

Environmental friendliness? Don't make me laugh!

Do a search for "internet environment friendly" and see what you get. Articles and posts about the effect of the Internet on the environment. Scads of companies claiming to have green hosting by being more responsible or being solar powered. Articles about how to make your use of the Internet more environmentally friendly. Years before this article people have been working on solving the environmentally unfriendliness of the web.

The article claims that 90% of the energy consumed by data centers is wasted. That is hard to believe that a company that wants to make money would throw it away. However, this is potentially possible if the energy bill is relatively low in comparison to other operating costs. That is something that the article does not cover. What are the energy costs compared to other operating costs?

The article just laments how much energy is wasted. How idle data in old emails or business archives is still powered but not accessed or used. How the energy is wasted. The companies are more concerned with having up time on the servers than energy efficiency. It is so easy to make energy consumption look bad when its cost is not compared or given any relevance to any other operating costs.

The article is puffed up with paragraph after paragraph restating the same problem over and over in different ways. However, the most amusing part of the article is when talking about the diesel generators that the data centers will have as power backup.

To guard against a power failure, they further rely on banks of generators that emit diesel exhaust. The pollution from data centers has increasingly been cited by the authorities for violating clean air regulations, documents show. In Silicon Valley, many data centers appear on the state government’s Toxic Air Contaminant Inventory, a roster of the area’s top stationary diesel polluters.

An example used to illustrate the evil of the energy usage was Amazon. In 2010 they were to be fined $554,476 for the use of diesel generators without a permit. It was bargained down to $261,638. Since then Amazon now has the proper permits.

Did you catch that? Running polluting diesel generators without a permit is awful. Pay the government to get a permit to run diesel generators then everything is honky dory. Did the generators magically become clean because of the permit?

The story tells of research that has been done to make energy usage more efficient but it has not been adopted in general. Some companies are working on the problem though.

No one knows what innovations will be next. This problem, if it is a problem, could be resolved a year from now with a brilliant invention.

What is really needed is a sane energy policy. This story is just a ploy to get people to stop using energy. We instead need a policy to make energy more abundant. Stop shutting down coal plants. Let the KeyStone pipeline go through. We can try wind and solar but only as a supplement, not the solution. We need everything, not the shutting down of sources because they are not culturally popular. Other countries aren't which puts us at a disadvantage.

Heed my warning. This attack on the Internet through energy usage is just another prong in the attack of capitalism! Push back!

Whose Phone Is It? #ObamaPhone debunked?

People are real fired up about this #ObamaPhone meme!

Conservatives are having a field day with the comments a woman made because she got an "Obama phone." She is going to vote for Obama and predicts Obama will do more. It illustrates for the conservatives the portion of the population that feed off the government largess at the taxpayers expense, and she shouts it loud and proud.

The liberal blogs are getting upset over the conservatives having a field day with the meme because there is no such thing as an Obama phone. They think the conservatives are stupid for perpetuation the meme.

There is no "Obama phone?" Technically it looks like there is not. The "Obama phone" has quite a history:

1. Communications Act of 1934. President Franklin Roosevelt^[tAW]
2. The Lifeline program started in 1984. President Reagan^[tAW]
3. The Lifeline program expanded in 1996. President Clinton^[tAW]
4. SafeLink started in 2008. President George W. Bush^[E][TP][FC]

The blogs debunking the Obama phone are calling the conservatives racist or stupid. Some are even claiming this is the "Bush Phone" according to the history cited above. They are trying to take a woman gloating about her government swag that will vote for Obama because of it and trying to turn it on the conservatives. Even twitter is trying to squash the meme by posting the Think Progress post about the meme at the top of the hash search for #ObamaPhone.

The conservatives' point is not that there is an "Obama Phone" but that this woman illustrates the awful 47% that can be bought off for her vote on government swag.

In the end, the liberals trying to make fun of conservatives over the Obama phone concept are really making fun of the Obama supporter whom thinks she has an Obama phone. And the conservatives are making fun of her for being proud of her government hand out.

However, do not worry about your tax dollars going to this program. It is funded by a charge on your phone bill called a "Federal Universal Service Charge." This charge is, of course, mandated by the government. So if you do not want to pay for these free phones you simply have to stop owning and paying for your own phone. As long as you pay for your phone, you are paying for hers.

Just to confuse matters a little more, the blog Jammie Wearing Fools points out that there is an Obama Phone website.

Government Contest to Create a Sexist and Racist App

Reducing Cancer Among Women of Color App Challenge

That is the app contest in which there is $100,000 in prize money.

From the HHS post:

“This app challenge is an example of our work to reduce health disparities, building on the HHS Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities,” said J. Nadine Gracia, M.D., M.S.C.E., acting deputy assistant secretary for minority health.

Since there is a disparity among white women and ethnic women in cancer prevention and treatment, Health and Human Services want an app just for ethnic women. Forget about raising health standards for all women, or all people, but spend money on just a portion of the people.

Reeks of the concept of "fairness." Equal outcome, not equal opportunity. Will there be a $100,000 contest for white women or ethnic men or white men? Spend the same amount of money on all groups? Wouldn't that be fair? Or do we dump money on isolated groups, no matter how much it is, till everyone has an equal survival rate?

This is the new institutional racism under the banner of fairness and equal outcome.

One of the conditions of the app is it must be multilingual. Basically, make sure people that have not assimilated to the American culture by learning English can still use the app. Can't help but hear a "dog whistle" in that requirement.

***sigh***

I just don't have the energy to fully and properly complain about this app and the goals of the agency. Not to mention some of the potential security issues like the downloading of medical files and information. Isn't that just what you want on your smart phone if it is stolen?

Where is the sanity check on these things?

Creepy Calls for Obama

Have you ever fancied yourself a good candidate to be a telemarketer? Or do you just want to call people at random and freak them out because you know their name ahead of time?

Well, you get all of that with Obama's campaign. If you want to call people for Obama, he has a database at your fingertips for you to access. Log in, dial, and talk.

But I do get it. If you support Obama and you want to support his campaign he will give you some phone numbers to call. The calls are made on your dime, not his.

But here is the real creepy part. Personal information on his supporters is available to the public. Opponents have a chance to misuse this service. Just like how his donations page lacks security and your credit card is vulnerable, these Obama supporters are vulnerable.

Who dreamed up this project? Don't they care enough about their supporters to protect them?

---

UPDATE

Romney is creepy too!

1 2

"How to Personalize Learning" class taught via impersonal webinar

This is by no means a controversial story, but the irony of it just bears mentioning it.

The Department of Education held a class via webinar to teach and discuss how to personalize the classroom to get children interested in learning. The stated class topic:

how to personalize learning in a classroom full of diverse students with varying interests, skills and learning styles.

The idea seems to be a bit touchy-feely and perhaps emphasizes the teacher bending to the students instead of the students paying attention, but I didn't take the class. I am just going off of the description. But they are trying.

My two cents on the subject, and it adds to the irony. With the way people are becoming tech junkies and seem to be living more of their life through the view of handheld and tablet computers, the best way to catch students attention and get them to learn might be to make school more impersonal and done through this medium. I think it is bad for the human condition, but the impersonal touch might be more effective.

Crazy Grants : July 10th

Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science for Research Relevant to the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (P50)	$4,000,000
More research into how bad tobacco is so that it can be used in regulations policy.
Climate Change and Archeology in Northwest Alaska: Nuluk STudy	$47,000+
Study how in the past man reacted to climate change. Study how climate change will affect archaeological sites.
Strategic Trade Management Law Industry Outreach - Mongolia	$200,000
Influence Mongolia's trade laws.
Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Pacific Northwest CESU	$124,000+
Study Alaskan trout.
Fuel Tax Evasion Intergovernmental Enforcement Grants	$2,000,000
Find people evading the fuel tax. I can do that. One year later : Looks like everyone is honest. No evasion here. Can I have my money now?
Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission - 100th Meridian Initiative	$49,000+
Don't let zebra mussels spread into the Columbia River Basin.
ADVANCE: Increasing the Participation and Advancement of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Careers	$9,900,000
Get more women into STEM ( Science, technology, engineering, & Mathematics ) because a lack of diversity means that those areas do not perform well. Also, teach everyone more women need to be in STEM otherwise STEM will suffer. STEM suffers if there is not enough vaginae in the field.
Computer and Network Systems (CNS): Core Programs	$60,000,000
Computer R&D. This should be handled by the private sector only. No place for government unless done internally in the intelligence community.
Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF): Core Programs	$100,000,000
Computer R&D. This should be handled by the private sector only. No place for government unless done internally in the intelligence community.
Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS): Core Programs	$100,000,000
Computer R&D. This should be handled by the private sector only. No place for government unless done internally in the intelligence community.
Nitrogen: Improving on Nature	$8,000,000
Good lawrd! The hubris of it all! Quote from the grant: The ultimate aim of this Ideas Lab between the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the US and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) in the UK is to help meet the challenge of sustainably producing enough food for a growing population while reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. The grant is about greenhouse gasses resulting from the production of nitrogen in fertilizer and how unused nitrogen in run-off enters the environment. Warmer weather is GOOD for plants. CO2 is good for plants. Nitrogen is 78+% of the atmosphere. WTF is this really for?
Today's Total	$284,320,000+

< 7/11

more grants

7/9 >

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Hybrid Intelligence

Pervert