Bob Hayes Online

I think the debate over AGW has grown confused for many reasons, but one of the important ones is that there actually two related but separate propositions being argued. For political reasons, proponents of the AGW theory have deliberately fused the two propositions, but for clarity of perception I think it important that we separate them and see them in their actual relatioship.

The first proposition is that due to the activities of mankind – eating, breathing, farming, building cities and factories, driving – the planet is getting somewhat warmer – not drastically, but measurably.

The second proposition is that these changes, combined with our species’ other environmental depredations, is going to lead to some type of Climate Armageddon, with the species’ future in doubt and our poverty all but assured. (I regularly see AGW-friendly commentators expounding this doom and gloom as a simple stated fact, something assumed as obvious, as a consequence of AGW.)

Science has largely decided that the first element – it’s getting warmer, mostly – is true. Wrangles over the CRU’s exact level of culpability aside, they don’t need to fudge the data to show some warming; the exact instances of malfeasance at CRU look at this early date to be in areas like trying to eradicate inconvenient truths like historical climate optima when things were a bit warmer than they are now. That effort, to dampen debate by trying to create a pretend consensus that something inconvenient to a simple, easily-sold narrative simply never happened – an “unevent” – is reprehensible and vile, but not central to the core of AGW proposition number one. Other data sources also show a warming trend, and while I am very willing to believe that there are corrupt scientists in the world, I do not believe that they are everywhere. Someone is always willing to be the hero by proving the truth in the face of such conspiracies of lies, and climate science is hardly Mafia-like enough to enforce complete silence.

It’s the second element where the real debate should be occurring, and mostly, it isn’t.

Could AGW lead to catastrophic scenarios? Sure. I’d wager it won’t, for complex reasons having to do with human adaptability and the survival instinct, but I’ll readily admit I could be wrong in my guess. But the burden of proof for such catastrophic possibilities is on the people proposing them; the rest of us don’t have to justify our use of energy to selfishly heat our homes and feed our families by first disproving that this is going to cause Gotterdammerung.

Society must tread warily. Advocates of the strong AGW position are fond of arguing the precautionary principle, but seem much less heedful of its guidance when it comes to social engineering. Our EPA has just declared that every human being (and other breathing life form) on the planet to be polluters, by virtue of our respiratory metabolism and its production of carbon dioxide. Global elites are meeting now in Copenhagen to throw bones to the developing world and monkey wrenches into their own economies.

I do not believe that the science justifies such strong measures. A social precautionary principle, that we should not throw away centuries of economic progress and betterment of human welfare on a whim, must guide us as we determine how best to match the needs of our species with the constraints of our planet.

Pretty impressive. These things often turn out to be hoaxes, but this one has a legitimate feel.

And young Mr. Hignite seems to have done his homework.

OK, so they don’t believe us.

Normally I would say “whatever”, but in this instance what “they” think has some bearing on what we’ll pay.

So I think that perhaps we need to show them a second time.

I was at the rally. I’ll be honest – I don’t think were two million of us there; I somewhat doubt there were one million.

But there were a hell of a lot more than 70,000 of us.

And now they want to PUT US IN JAIL if we don’t want to buy their insurance policies. Man, I wish I was an insurance salesman with that kind of firepower! “Ma’am, I suggest that you just sign the policy. I don’t want Officer Murphy over there to have to put you in the squad car, ma’am.”

Not just no. Hell no.

And so I think, this once, that we do actually have something to prove.

Forgive a personal aside. After the rally, my wife and I took the opportunity to visit Mount Vernon, to pay our respects to General Washington and his wife. Neither of us had been before and it was invigorating to see where Washington had been, where he had lived and led. Yet, both while we were there and after we left, I felt saddened to think of what Washington would think of us today. Perennially indebted, led by rogue after rogue, paying shattering taxes for a debilitating nanny state – what a spectacle we would present to that titan!

Yet, there are things that our Founding Father would approve of, too. One, I think, is that despite whatever initial astonishment he might feel at the prospect, in time he would be delighted to know that the liberty he established has reached the stage where an American of African descent could become its chief executive.

The other is that he would be delighted to know that as the Republic was threatened, there would continue to be brave men and women who would defend her, both on and off the battlefield.

I propose another March on Washington, to make unmistakable what has been mistaken. I propose that two million American patriots, taxpayers, lovers of freedom – at least two million – come to Washington this fall, to demonstrate once again – and this time irrefutably – that there are millions of us, that we are angry at what has been done and is being done to this our beloved country, and that we will not stand by and watch.

I propose that the March be held on December 15, 2009, the 218th anniversary of the day the Bill of Rights became law in these United States. (April 15 would be an even better day, but that’s too far in the future – we’ve got to put a stop to these people now.) October 31, 2009. It’s a Saturday, the last one before the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons take over the memespace. It’s Halloween – the best time to resist The Man. We can have one heck of a barbecue/picnic/protest march/rally in the daytime, and a heck of a party that night.

And I propose that there be a central registry for attendees to sign in, attest their name, address, and citizenship – you know, the things that are impossible for us to expect voters to do – so that whether the media decides to cover it or not, we’ll have proof that we were there.

I’d love to organize it (and will if drafted) but the people who facilitated the 9/12 rally would be the obvious choice. I’ll go. I’ll sell the contents of my garage if I have to to pay for it, but I’ll go.

We have a country to defend.

Go, Mr. Simberg, go!

Buzz Aldrin is apparently more energetic than I thought. He has a crackling editorial in the Post today on getting on with Mars colonization. Hear, hear!

We went to the Moon. (If you disagree, don’t bother to post your ‘argument’. Buzz is an old man, he doesn’t have the energy to go around punching *everybody*.)

It’s time to go back, although not in the same way. We’ve done the Christopher Columbus thing – now it’s time to do the John Smith thing.

Every blogger in creation – even the ones who should instead be concentrating on earning money so they can throw Blogger Bashes – will be blogging about the inauguration of Barack Obama today. And rightly so; it’s a historic event and an achievement of which our country can justifiably be proud. If you had told me thirty years ago that one day a black man would be president…well, I wouldn’t have blinked, actually, because I was ten and very idealistic about America. But if you’d caught me a few years later, when the cynicism had set in, I would have been surprised.

Unsurprisingly to anyone who knows me, Mr. Obama is not, to say the least, on my political team. There is no doubt whatsoever that within a month I’ll be spluttering at the TV news and pounding out spasmodically pained editorial pieces about the latest Obama disaster and how he’s the Worst President Ever. But bearing that in mind, I do find myself with an elevated spirit today.

This is an optimistic moment for America, and – whatever policy disasters Mr. Obama leads us into – this cannot help but have a bracingly salutary effect on the racial divide in this country, which for years has been a quiet cancer on the soul of the republic. Every black child in the United States is about to see a black man taking the reins of the most powerful country of the world – a slap in the face to the still-animate ghost of a racist social order that proclaims blacks are fit only to entertain or to draw welfare checks, and a crushing blow to the “progressive” rhetoric of permanent racial oppression. To the person saying “you can’t do that because you aren’t good enough” and the person saying “you can’t do that because they won’t let you”, Barack Obama is a shining counterexample.

It’s nice to find out that my ten-year old self was the one with wisdom. Good morning, Mr. President. God bless you and godspeed.

Imagine a network of rail/bus/street/streetcar/parking nexi, distributed over a metro or semi-metro area.

Each node in the network is connected to at least one other node, so that the network is completely routable; there might not be direct connections from every node to every other node, but there is at least one indirect path from each node to every other node.

To access the system, individual travelers (and possibly cargo shipments with handlers) access a node by whatever means they wish – parking their car there (for a fee), and registering at a computer kiosk similar to the ticket sales machines and booths common to current conventional mass transit systems. Each traveler indicates (on a computerized system) their intended destination, and their bid for the trip – i.e., how much they will pay for the trip. They could also signal mode preferences (I’d rather take a cab over the river than the train) or book future travel (I know I will want to get on the train back home every day around 5:15.) The transit authority would set the minimum prices and maximum prices, or might choose to allow free bidding. Passengers could also access the system from home or public computers with Internet access.

The owners and operators of the conveyances on the network – whether trains, buses, cars, streetcars, hovercraft, or what have you – act as independent contractors on the network. The transit authority will no doubt have a registration, screening, and inspection role to play in the supply- side access to the market. Each contractor will monitor, in real time, the expressed demand within the network and route their capacity accordingly; the real-time monitoring will permit conveyances to signal acceptance of conveyance terms to groups of people at a time and “snap up” those customers – first come first serve. Once a passenger accepts the terms (“a train will take you to the Napoleon Hill station and will arrive within four minutes; the fare is $2.00″), the kiosk charges their credit card or accepts cash and makes the sale. The negotiation process could take place at the kiosk, or via the traveler’s own independent communications device. The kiosks themselves would constantly show the average prices for various trips on the network, allowing travelers to be aware of the going market rates for the travel they wished to buy.

The experience from the point of view of a traveller would be something like this. John enters the Union Station transit terminal and hurries over to the nearest free kios. He has a hot date, and wants to get to the Lincoln Tunnel terminal – just one block from his girlfriend’s apartment – as quickly as he can. Punching in “Lincoln Tunnel, and make it snappy.” He sees that the train ride most recently has gone for $3.50, the train will arrive in seven minutes, and the transit time will be half an hour. Not good enough – but a cab company offers to pick him up immediately (they have a car already at the station) and get him there in twenty four minutes or less for $27.00. He accepts, swipes his card, grabs the receipt that tells him to go to cab stand B and get in cab 974, and hurries away from the kiosk.

The next customer at the kiosk, Mary, arrives with her daughter and a crated dog in tow. Mary is heading for the veterinarian, and has an appointment there in an hour. She’s not in a big hurry, and she doesn’t want to spend a lot of money. On the downside, the vet is four blocks from the nearest terminal, and Mary does not want to carry this dog four blocks in the July sun. There isn’t a train service to her vet’s terminal (the tracks haven’t been laid yet by the rail companies – but Mary does check the box to indicate that she’d be interested in rail service if someone decides to make the option available) but the bus takes just 40 minutes and costs only $2.00 for Mary, $1.00 for her daughter (kids ride for half price on most conveyances, a marketing tactic almost universally adopted), and an additional $2.00 fee for the dog crate. Mary books the bus ticket and splurges on an additional $5.00 to cover the quick cab ride from the destination terminal to the vet’s office.

(In one alternative timeline, when Mary and family return from the vet the total fare ends up being $17.00, because now it’s rush hour and the bidding for rides is hotter. In another timeline, the dog has to stay with the vet overnight so Mary and her daughter take in a movie and dinner out to avoid the rush hour, and come home much later for $5.00 total.)

A third customer – a married couple this time, Phyllis and Phil, arrive for their regular commute. It’s mid-afternoon, but both Phyllis and Phil work an odd shift as CD duplicators at the local software company. They punch in their standard commute settings on their iPhones and quickly confirm a $3.00 bus-ride to work, and hasten on their way – nothing fancy, they do this every day and the fare is always about $3.00. Today there’s one change, though – Phil also remembers to buy a ticket for his dad, who’s coming to visit for Saturday dinner the next day. He locks in a great deal on the 60-minute train ride for his father, with a bus ride to cover the six blocks between Phillis and Phil’s apartment and their home terminal, and e-mails the ticket information and confirmation code to his dad before taking the escalator up to the bus loading area.

By utilizing a bidding model, and publishing the average bid amount information, both passengers and conveyance providers have exact and accurate information of the demand picture at any given time. Given most urban infrastructures, it would seem a logical first assumption that much, if not all, demand could be profitably met by transit companies. Full buses and trains make money, and the classic problem of mass transit has been the need to have large quantities of the equipment running at low capacity in order to provide service at a particular time of day. Under a bidding model, people wishing to take trips that other people don’t want to take will have to bear the costs of their relatively expensive choices or needs. Alternatively, people with those needs could trade time for money, by waiting longer periods in order to accumulate more bidders for a particular ride. (“There might not be anyone else needing to go over to the little-used Junktown terminal, but if I wait a half an hour, I bet a few more people will show up.”)

This would also be a highly profitable model for the conveyance companies, while also promoting vigorous competition and eliminating the kind of ill treatment of passengers that “you’re stuck with us” mass transit authorities are notorious for providing. If train company A will not provide good service to the people wishing to make a trip, then bus company B is certain to spot the opportunity (“look, a whole wad of unmet bids from Johnson Street – let’s snag those and send a bus over”) and scoop them up. Customers equal money in this model – and customers who want to represent more money in order to get better levels of service are free to do so.

I would anticipate the development of several tiers of service providers, in fact – from luxury cabs to utilitarian jitney bus companies – in order to capture the entire transit market. There is so much diversity of demand and desire that a similar diversity of providers would spring into existence, funded by the real demand for real service.

The main peril that I see in such a system is that established conveyance companies would engage in regulatory capture of the transit authority and try to keep out new competition. I would mitigate that risk by building free competition principles into the charter and structure of the transit authorities themselves – for example, by establishing an “open audition” policy by which any comer could offer services on a trial basis within the system (indicated clearly as such), so that the more adventurous travel patrons could “take a chance” on the newcomer and quickly establish a bona fide track record. There are other ways of keeping competition open, but all of them in the end rely on a demand for free competition from the transit customers themselves.

Municipalities or areas that wished to subsidize travel for their poorer citizens would, of course, be free to do so. However, my suspicion is that this model would drive down the costs of travel for nearly all travelers – with the exception of those who under current systems enjoy high level of service in areas or times of low demand. Those folks, it should be acknowledged, would end up paying more or enduring worse service.

Having a discussion with Lynn Gazis-Sax about whether the current court battles over gay marriage are going to result in polygamy being validated by the courts. I say yes, she says no; her “no” is based on how difficult it would be to integrate polygamy into current law. My “yes” is based on the fact that in my view, when it comes to sexual morality and the courts, the courts will rule on the basis of emotion, not the textual language of the Constitution or the law. So we have a bet (which this post is to memorialize): I say within ten years, a state court will create a right to polygamous marriage. If I am right, Lynn will donate $100 to the Federalist Society. If I am wrong, I will donate $100 to Amnesty International. (Now I just have to add an entry to my Google calendar for ten years from now, otherwise I’ll forget.)

Well, he says it nicer.

Not unrelated.

(H/T Evangelical Outpost.)