Category Archives: Economics

Peak Oil

…has been delayed again:

It’s not clear yet how much oil is recoverable, but even at the low end the field would include as much shale oil as America’s Bakken formation, which has helped transform U.S. energy production and the global energy landscape. If higher estimates prove more accurate, Australia could join the U.S. as one of the world’s top oil producers.

Good news for the world. Bad news for OPEC (and those who want to fund Islamism). And for global-warming hysterics.

How Much Would A Death Star Really Cost?

To the disappointment of thousands who signed the petition, the Obama administration recently informed us that it has, and will have no plans to build a Star-Wars-style death star. Now, there may indeed be good reasons to forgo this addition to the nation’s defense, but the first one listed, that it would cost 850 quadrillion dollars, was based on an extremely flawed estimate. Which isn’t surprising, because among the people doing the estimating, only one has any experience in aerospace engineering (and probably none in costing of such projects). Continue reading How Much Would A Death Star Really Cost?

A Plague On The Earth

That’s what misanthrope extremist David Attenborough thinks of humanity.

I suspect he also wants to confine the infection to a single planet.

And as always, my advice to such people is to lead by example.

[Update a while later]

Here’s another person who should lead by example. Paul Ehrlich, who’s been wrong about pretty much all of his predictions for forty years, says that no one has a right to twelve, or even three children.

Post-Bankruptcy San Bernardino

It’s not a pretty picture:

…as part of a plan to reduce the state prison population, nearly 4,000 criminals who would once have been sent to state prison have been put in the custody of San Bernardino County law enforcement authorities. Some have been released, putting more low-level criminals back on the streets of San Bernardino, Chief Hardy said, and adding to the challenges already faced by the police.

“All of our crime is up, and the city has a very high crime rate per capita anyway,” Chief Handy said. “I can’t police the city with much less than this. We’re dangerously close as it is.”

As lawyers wrangle in court over San Bernardino’s plan to cut $26 million from its budget and defer some of its pension payments, city officials say there is little more they can do to turn back the rising tide of violence.

No, but there is something that Sacramento could do, but won’t. It could roll back California’s draconian gun laws that have made places like San Berdoo (and Watts and Willowbrook, and other places) into the Wild West, except that no one is armed except the criminals.