Quick Jots: March 2023

Gas stoves hysteria
#environmentalism
A few months ago, there was a study released that linked gas stove use to childhood asthma which the US Consumer Product Safety Commission weaponized to seek a ban on gas stoves though a major backlash caused them to make a U-turn. It turns out the study likely didn't properly control for other appliance types. Another study shows the type of food being cooked has more of an effect than the fuel of the appliance. I doubt this study would be read by any of the politicians seeking a ban, even if it somehow ended up on their desks.

Pot legalization points to positive outcomes
#drugwar
Whaaaaa?? Ending prohibition leads to positive outcomes? Who would have thought? A metastudy shows that pot legalization reduced suicides, traffic fatalities, and opioid deaths. Some studies showed that there may be a negative correlation between laws and teenage pot use, though there were some that the correlation was positive. At the very least, it shows that the fear of legalizing marijuana would lead to mass usage by minors was completely unfounded. There was more evidence that legalization led to fewer violent crimes than the other way around.

Rape rates down after prostitution legalized
#prostitution
Whaaaaa?? Ending prohibition leads to positive outcomes? Who would have thought? Legalizing prostitution was found to cause the rate of rapes to go down. Countries that removed the prohibition of commercial sex saw a reduction of rape by 3 out of 100,000 people. Those that introduced or furthered prohibition saw an increase in rape by 11 per 100,000 people, relative to the control countries.

Tucker Carlson gets footage of Jan 6th
#media
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy provided tens of thousands of hours of January 6th video footage to Tucker Carlson to review and broadcast. The media and pols could have had the same argument as I do and not seem like they have something to hide: "The footage should be made available to everybody". Instead, they had the most insane reaction possible: "Keep it a secret! The video must not be released!" If they wanted to portray themselves as wanting to keep people in the dark as much as possible, they're doing a great job of it. Following the release, media outlets slammed Carlson for "falsely portraying the riot as a peaceful gathering", but Carlson literally showed the violent clips (that everybody has already seen), stating there was violence. The whole point, that MSNBC seemed to have missed was that there is additional footage that showed it was "mostly peaceful". The establishment media claimed Carlson would cherry-pick video clips to show. Yeah, kind of like how CNN and MSNBC cherry-picked and published only the videos that showed violence? At least it got some people to realize how much the establishment has been lying to them. Either way, at least Carlson actually showed peaceful coverage while saying "mostly peaceful" unlike CNN which claimed BLM riots were "mostly peaceful" as cars were engulfed in flames in the background. Now release all of the footage on YouTube. 

When Biden first learned to accept gays
#joebiden #lgbt
Joe Biden, in an interview with Kal Penn, looked back to when he first learned to accept gay people for who they are. He told a story about how he saw two men kissing when he was just a wee lad back in the turn of the American Revolution, and his father told him "Joey, it's simple. They love each other." Just a problem. The story almost certainly never happened. Back when he was a child, homosexuality was so forbidden in society that two men would never dare kiss each other in public, particularly in the business setting he told. Then you look back at the other times Joe told this story and they were wildly different. Sometimes, it was he who was the father, telling his children that the two people love each other. But, let's just take him at his word. How evil is he, then? He recognizes way back when the Egyptians were building the pyramids, that there is nothing wrong with being gay? Then why did he say in the early 1970s that gay people in the military pose a security risk? Why did he vote for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 that codified marriage as being between a man and a woman? Why did he reiterate this position in 2006 in an interview with CNN? Why did he wait until 2012 to announce he was in favor of legalizing gay marriage when he has been highly influential in politics since the 1970s? Hrm. Maybe because the polls didn't show 51% support for gay marriage until 2011. Maybe because even in 1988, only 3% of people strongly agreed with the right for gay people to get married. Maybe this all means Biden is full of shit and cannot be trusted as someone who would fight for the rights of the oppressed. Maybe people should turn to the Libertarian Party which has been pro-gay marriage rights since its inception in 1971.

Bay Area gas ban
#regulations
In California's multi-faceted approach to banning everything related to natural gas, so we can all maximally suffer when the electricity is shut off, the Bay Area Air Resources Board voted to ban the sale of gas water heaters and furnaces. They try to ease people's minds that they're only banning the sale of new appliances, but when the older appliances start to fail, we have to either spend large amounts of money to repair the old appliances or replace them with new electric ones. It's more than just a simple replacement. Currently, electric water heaters aren't powerful enough to be tankless, so you'll need to replace your tankless, if you have one, with a tank. This takes up space and your garage depth might mean one of your cars will no longer fit. Your electrical panel may also need to be upgraded. New lines may have to be run to your furnace. The total price tag for the retrofit could cost thousands of dollars. If you're in the region, I sure hope you're not in the lower middle class.

Baby formula shortage again
#economics #regulations
Remember that baby formula shortage nearly a year ago? They're back! After lifting some tariffs and regulations, the government solved the shortage...at least, insofar as it stopped causing the problem for a while. Now that the government resumed those tariffs and regulations, the shortage has returned.  Ask yourself why, if lowering tariffs and regulations eases formula shortages, would they bring them back? When are people going to realize the government exists to enrich the local baby formula conglomerates that have powerful lobby groups, not children and mothers?

SVB bank failure
#economics
As tech stocks scaled back drastically and inflation rose, Silicon Valley Bank's risk skyrocketed. The regulation lemmings blamed rollbacks on Dodd-Frank regulations that lifted tighter scrutiny on banks to assets above $250 billion. But the evidence for this is as paper-thin as the Swiss cheese arguments back in 2008 that claimed the bank failures were due to the partial rollback of Glass-Steagall. Looking at the investment strategies, SVB did exactly what regulators would have wanted them to do: invest heavily in conservative government bonds and treasuries. But as inflation ramped up due to loose monetary policy, the Fed rose interest rates, establishment economists called the inflation "transitory", and their investments plummeted, causing a good old-fashioned bank run. Rightly fearing more blowback following 2008's disastrous bailouts of banks where millionaires and billionaires were bailed out, politicians decided not to bail out SVB. Instead, the FDIC was directed to make the depositors whole, even if they held more than the maximum insured quarter million dollars in the bank. Yes, that would be a bailout. Who do they think SVB customers are? Silicon Valley millionaires and billionaires.