Something Is Wrong Here

What am I missing? Two airplanes may have had a close call in Las Vegas, and, if they did, it may have been because an air-traffic controller became confused. [reg. req'd]

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 – An America West passenger jet taking off from Las Vegas missed hitting an Air Canada jet by about 100 feet last Thursday night, according to a preliminary report, because a controller in the tower confused two planes and issued conflicting instructions.

First, let’s be clear that this is not a criminal setting. The concepts of “innocent until proven guilty” and “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” have no relevance in this case. If the FAA thinks the air traffic controller may have been responsible for a near miss, they must remove him immediately from his position. Fortunately they did:

The controller has been taken off duty and sent for more training, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, and the episode is under investigation.

While “the episode is under investigation” makes some sense, but why was the controller “sent for more training”? If the controller was confused, I don’t want that person in the control room again.

Being an air-traffic controller is not the type of job in which even one mistake can be tolerated, and this message must be sent, loud and clear, to all air traffic controllers:

You must not make a mistake. If you do, people might lose their lives, and you will surely lose your job.

At the same time, if the investigation reveals that the controller didn’t make a mistake and was not confused, what is the point of sending him off for more training?

Perhaps this short-term decision is just a way of marking time while the investigation proceeds, a policy to make it look as if something is being done.

My Prediction: The CBC Will Settle Soon

As I have posted several times before, I have been delighted with the current CBC lockout. The only thing that would improve it would be having a manager announce the titles and performers of music that is being played both before and after it is played.

But I think this slice of near-heaven is doomed for two reasons:

First, if management has any sense, they will realize that most CBC listeners/viewers do not really miss the CBC. From Michael Campbell, p C03, of the Sept. 29th Vancouvre Sun [h/t to JAK]:

Day 46 and the CBC is still out, but the country’s holding together. Is there any limit to the resilience of the Canadian public?

You’ll have to forgive me (of course, friends of the CBC won’t), but the passionate supporters of the national broadcaster have always been over the top in couching the CBC as the glue that holds the nation together. For some, it’s the primary rationale for the nearly $1 billion that taxpayers pay to support the public broadcaster.

To be more precise, according to the latest budget documents, Canadian taxpayers spend about $2.7 million per day to subsidize the CBC, which works out to $982.4 million a year (up from $702 million in 1997). It’s this level of spending, combined with low ratings for the CBC’s English-language television, that has many people asking whether taxpayers are getting their money’s worth.

And if nobody misses the CBC, what is the point of subsidizing it to the tune of $47quadzillion? CBC managers should soon become concerned about whether a different set of politicians might vote to privatize the broadcaster and remove its subsidy because, if that were to happen, many of them would be looking for new jobs.

Second, the NHL is about to begin regular-season play. Hockey night in Canada has been a major revenue source for the CBC, and if they are unable to present hockey in its full glory, if at all, they will suffer both short-term revenue losses and long-term reliability concerns: the NHL could easily strike new deals with the other networks to provide even more hockey than those other outlets already provide, and the CBC could be left on the outside. The expectation of this possible loss of revenue, in both the short term and long term, gives the members of the guild a stronger hand in bargaining now than they had a month ago.

Management has presented a new offer to the Guild.

CBC management made what it described as “significant compromises” yesterday on several contentious issues, particularly new limits on the number of contract workers it would hire per year, in order to end its labour dispute.

However, the Canadian Media Guild, which represents the 5,500 locked-out CBC staff who have been walking on picket lines throughout Canada for seven weeks, called management’s settlement offer only a small step toward ending the dispute.

My point estimate is that they will settle by mid-October. Here is hoping I am wrong. But if I am correct, here is hoping it is not for the wrong reason [$ subscription required]:

Heavyweight Liberal MPs called for an overhaul of the CBC management and an end to the labour law that allows the crown corporation to lock out staffers as management put a new offer on the table last night.

I had been impressed, up ’til now, that Liberal and NDP politicians have not become more involved on the side of the Media Guild. But this is something we do not need: MPs declaring the CBC a sacrosanct employer that must not be allowed to lock out its workers.

My Prediction: The CBC Will Settle Soon

As I have posted several times before, I have been delighted with the current CBC lockout. The only thing that would improve it would be having a manager announce the titles and performers of music that is being played both before and after it is played.

But I think this slice of near-heaven is doomed for two reasons:

First, if management has any sense, they will realize that most CBC listeners/viewers do not really miss the CBC. From Michael Campbell, p C03, of the Sept. 29th Vancouvre Sun [h/t to JAK]:

Day 46 and the CBC is still out, but the country’s holding together. Is there any limit to the resilience of the Canadian public?

You’ll have to forgive me (of course, friends of the CBC won’t), but the passionate supporters of the national broadcaster have always been over the top in couching the CBC as the glue that holds the nation together. For some, it’s the primary rationale for the nearly $1 billion that taxpayers pay to support the public broadcaster.

To be more precise, according to the latest budget documents, Canadian taxpayers spend about $2.7 million per day to subsidize the CBC, which works out to $982.4 million a year (up from $702 million in 1997). It’s this level of spending, combined with low ratings for the CBC’s English-language television, that has many people asking whether taxpayers are getting their money’s worth.

And if nobody misses the CBC, what is the point of subsidizing it to the tune of $47quadzillion? CBC managers should soon become concerned about whether a different set of politicians might vote to privatize the broadcaster and remove its subsidy because, if that were to happen, many of them would be looking for new jobs.

Second, the NHL is about to begin regular-season play. Hockey night in Canada has been a major revenue source for the CBC, and if they are unable to present hockey in its full glory, if at all, they will suffer both short-term revenue losses and long-term reliability concerns: the NHL could easily strike new deals with the other networks to provide even more hockey than those other outlets already provide, and the CBC could be left on the outside. The expectation of this possible loss of revenue, in both the short term and long term, gives the members of the guild a stronger hand in bargaining now than they had a month ago.

Management has presented a new offer to the Guild.

CBC management made what it described as “significant compromises” yesterday on several contentious issues, particularly new limits on the number of contract workers it would hire per year, in order to end its labour dispute.

However, the Canadian Media Guild, which represents the 5,500 locked-out CBC staff who have been walking on picket lines throughout Canada for seven weeks, called management’s settlement offer only a small step toward ending the dispute.

My point estimate is that they will settle by mid-October. Here is hoping I am wrong. But if I am correct, here is hoping it is not for the wrong reason [$ subscription required]:

Heavyweight Liberal MPs called for an overhaul of the CBC management and an end to the labour law that allows the crown corporation to lock out staffers as management put a new offer on the table last night.

I had been impressed, up ’til now, that Liberal and NDP politicians have not become more involved on the side of the Media Guild. But this is something we do not need: MPs declaring the CBC a sacrosanct employer that must not be allowed to lock out its workers.

My Prediction: The CBC Will Settle Soon

As I have posted several times before, I have been delighted with the current CBC lockout. The only thing that would improve it would be having a manager announce the titles and performers of music that is being played both before and after it is played.

But I think this slice of near-heaven is doomed for two reasons:

First, if management has any sense, they will realize that most CBC listeners/viewers do not really miss the CBC. From Michael Campbell, p C03, of the Sept. 29th Vancouvre Sun [h/t to JAK]:

Day 46 and the CBC is still out, but the country’s holding together. Is there any limit to the resilience of the Canadian public?

You’ll have to forgive me (of course, friends of the CBC won’t), but the passionate supporters of the national broadcaster have always been over the top in couching the CBC as the glue that holds the nation together. For some, it’s the primary rationale for the nearly $1 billion that taxpayers pay to support the public broadcaster.

To be more precise, according to the latest budget documents, Canadian taxpayers spend about $2.7 million per day to subsidize the CBC, which works out to $982.4 million a year (up from $702 million in 1997). It’s this level of spending, combined with low ratings for the CBC’s English-language television, that has many people asking whether taxpayers are getting their money’s worth.

And if nobody misses the CBC, what is the point of subsidizing it to the tune of $47quadzillion? CBC managers should soon become concerned about whether a different set of politicians might vote to privatize the broadcaster and remove its subsidy because, if that were to happen, many of them would be looking for new jobs.

Second, the NHL is about to begin regular-season play. Hockey night in Canada has been a major revenue source for the CBC, and if they are unable to present hockey in its full glory, if at all, they will suffer both short-term revenue losses and long-term reliability concerns: the NHL could easily strike new deals with the other networks to provide even more hockey than those other outlets already provide, and the CBC could be left on the outside. The expectation of this possible loss of revenue, in both the short term and long term, gives the members of the guild a stronger hand in bargaining now than they had a month ago.

Management has presented a new offer to the Guild.

CBC management made what it described as “significant compromises” yesterday on several contentious issues, particularly new limits on the number of contract workers it would hire per year, in order to end its labour dispute.

However, the Canadian Media Guild, which represents the 5,500 locked-out CBC staff who have been walking on picket lines throughout Canada for seven weeks, called management’s settlement offer only a small step toward ending the dispute.

My point estimate is that they will settle by mid-October. Here is hoping I am wrong. But if I am correct, here is hoping it is not for the wrong reason [$ subscription required]:

Heavyweight Liberal MPs called for an overhaul of the CBC management and an end to the labour law that allows the crown corporation to lock out staffers as management put a new offer on the table last night.

I had been impressed, up ’til now, that Liberal and NDP politicians have not become more involved on the side of the Media Guild. But this is something we do not need: MPs declaring the CBC a sacrosanct employer that must not be allowed to lock out its workers.

A Coffee-through-the-Nostrils Moment

From Kip Esquire:

Frederic Sautet has a theory:
I believe indeed that methodology and epistemology are the main reasons why Austrians are not invited and perhaps the reasons why they won’t be invited for a long time….Kauder explained that economic laws are ontological and that to be an economist is also to be a metaphysician. Austrians are not alone in claiming that economic laws (as well the laws of mathematics, geometry, etc) are apodictically certain.

I have an alternative explanation: People ignore Austrian economists because they tend to use words like “ontological,” “metaphysician” and “apodictically.”

I use words like those.

Even some of those exact words.

But only when I’m writing up pretentious artist’s statements for some of my art shows. E.g.:

His photographs and art work spring from his appreciation of rural life, relating human ontology with that which is beyond humanness, capturing the spirit and soul of both people and nature.

Perceptions and Risks

In the Global Spin, published today by Hahn Investments, there is a lengthy diatribe about the uses and misuses of statistics [h/t to Jack]. It concludes,

While we may have waxed somewhat philosophical in this issue of the Global Spin, it nevertheless partly illustrates why we have embarked upon a cautious course for all the portfolios under our stewardship over the past year. We have been responding to heightening risks … and our interpretations of the fairy tale “statistics.” These may not be as popularly perceived, but to us the facts say that the risks are presently high and real.

The risks they see are the global explosion of debt, coupled with an inflation of the money supply. More reasons to go liquid. Consistent with this view, JJ says, “a realistic goal for the next decade may be to avoid losing money.”

Going liquid: Ms. Eclectic recently brought home several bottles of “The Six Isles”, a premium blended scotch. She doesn’t much like it, but I like it at least as much as I like Cardhu. So, it appears, do others. No, I do not keep a bottle of it in my office.

The New Anti-Semitism of the Left

When John F. Kennedy was in Camelot, the left may have had socialist tendencies, but it stood for freedom of opportunity and was rabidly anti-racist regarding all races. Not so, anymore, or so it seems.

From “The New Anti-Semitism” by James Lewis in The American Thinker [thanks to BenS for the link]:

I never thought I would see an open anti-Semitic political campaign in my lifetime. But after fifty years of skulking in the shadows, the old hatreds are rising like Count Dracula from his mouldy grave. According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, The London Guardian is reporting that the academic boycott against Israel’s universities is being revived in Britain.

… The new anti-Zionist campaign calls for the abolition of Israel as a nation, but its supporters on the Left assure us it has nothing to do with racism…. [A]nti-Zionism equals racism, pure and simple. In fact, anti-Zionism, now spreading like wildfire among leftist churches, shows a particularly despicable kind of racism.

This next part really rings true for me:

One of the biggest lies on the Left these days is that there is a difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism means advocating the genocide of Jews. Anti-Zionism means advocating the genocide of Jews who live in Israel. I’m puzzled. What’s the difference supposed to be?

When the Anglican Church calls for delegitimizing the State of Israel it doesn’t use words like “mass murder” or “ethnic cleansing” — but that is clearly implied. No sane person believes that five million Israeli Jews will simply hop a plane to Argentina or Germany, leaving the land of Israel to the tender mercies of Hamas and Hizbullah. Israeli society is deeply rooted in the love of its land. It can only be driven out with overwhelming force, like the nuclear weapons the Mullahs of Tehran are telling us they are building just for that purpose.

What the Anglican Church is therefore demanding is the abolition of an entire people in their land. That is the political program of Pol Pot, Stalin and Hitler. It is simply monstrous coming from Christian church leaders.

When I attended theological seminary back in the mid-60s, it was because I thought the church and organized religion would be a vehicle for social change. It was because I shared a world view with many of my fellow seminarians that racism and genocide are wrong.

I am disgusted by the views of so many church leaders who appear to be overt racists and anti-Semites.

Oil Futures

Nouriel Roubini says the price of oil is sure to go over $100/bbl sometime in the next few years. He argues,

Global demand for oil is growing at about 2.1% per year or about 2 mmb/d (million barrels a day) per year. So, new net supply has to increase by as much just to maintain prices at current high levels. But since existing production fields get depleted at the rate of over 4 mmb/d per year, new production from new oil fields has to be at least 6 mmb/d per year just to ensure that the additional net demand is satisfied.

So, where will the new 6 mmb/d per year new production come from? We would be very lucky if, between OPEC and non-OPEC producers, we get two thirds of this new production per year available between now and 2010. Thus, based on standard elasticities of demand for oil in face of a highly inelastic medium term supply, this implies that we will oil at $100 per barrel well before the end of this decade.

Professor Roubini is a very smart economist, and so I am reluctant to disagree with him. But as I have posted earlier, citing The Emirates Economist, the Alberta tar sands and the Western US oil shale reserves are potentially gi-normous. [see the item just below this one]

But more to the point: As I write this, oil futures prices over the next five and a half years range from under $67/bbl in the short-term down to near $60/bbl five years from now. If Roubini is right (and for all I know, he might be right), why hasn’t his argument been capitalized into futures prices for oil?

Victor Davis Hanson:Four Rules Learned from Ward Churchill

Professors outside the arts at major research universities are supposed to have Ph.D.s. The phantom Ward Churchill does not. How he was hired, promoted, and tenured without a doctorate is a mystery — the equivalent of a high-school teacher credentialed with an AA degree, or a medical doctor operating without an M.D.

Ward Churchill proclaimed that he is a Native American of various tribal affiliations; he is not. Even his ridiculous costumes, occasional threats, and puerile rants cannot disguise that fact.

He seems to be a pop artist of sorts, but his canvasses are not quite his own either. Those of like political mind have praised his scholarship, but much of what he writes seems derivative, or misrepresents or outright plagiarizes others.

In this article in the National Review, Victor Davis Hanson says there are four rules for all of us to learn from the Ward Churchill affair:

1. Rule 1: Profess to be as far left as possible, understanding that extremism in the service of utopian virtue is no vice.
2. Rule 2: Among the nerds and dorks, act a little like a Brando, Che, or James Dean, a wild spirit that gives off a spark of danger, who can at a distance titillate Walter Mitty-like admirers and closer up scare off the more sober censors.
3. Rule 3: Whenever possible, reinvent yourself as anything but a white, straight American male. [Oops. Does Canadian work?]
4. Rule 4. Don’t worry about the anti-capitalist’s embarrassing six-figure salary, plush job, lifelong guaranteed employment, and fondness for jet travel and hotels. Just keep acting like an ageless denizen of the Woodstock nation, professing to be a timeless dagger pointed at the heart of money-grubbing square America.

What a sad indictment of university bureaucracy that this guy got as far as he did.

Recalcitrant, unbending, immobile, a throw-back to a better, more idealistic age — this is the rock-cut image that the perpetual ‘60s professor taps into. And Churchill, with his photo-studio manufactured profile, pageboy locks, occasional fake Indian name, hip street lingo, and sassy banter did it better than any we’ve seen in quite a while — or at least well enough to wow the flabby university committees that allowed him to cash in.

[h/t to BenS for the link]

Victor Davis Hanson:Four Rules Learned from Ward Churchill

Professors outside the arts at major research universities are supposed to have Ph.D.s. The phantom Ward Churchill does not. How he was hired, promoted, and tenured without a doctorate is a mystery — the equivalent of a high-school teacher credentialed with an AA degree, or a medical doctor operating without an M.D.

Ward Churchill proclaimed that he is a Native American of various tribal affiliations; he is not. Even his ridiculous costumes, occasional threats, and puerile rants cannot disguise that fact.

He seems to be a pop artist of sorts, but his canvasses are not quite his own either. Those of like political mind have praised his scholarship, but much of what he writes seems derivative, or misrepresents or outright plagiarizes others.

In this article in the National Review, Victor Davis Hanson says there are four rules for all of us to learn from the Ward Churchill affair:

1. Rule 1: Profess to be as far left as possible, understanding that extremism in the service of utopian virtue is no vice.
2. Rule 2: Among the nerds and dorks, act a little like a Brando, Che, or James Dean, a wild spirit that gives off a spark of danger, who can at a distance titillate Walter Mitty-like admirers and closer up scare off the more sober censors.
3. Rule 3: Whenever possible, reinvent yourself as anything but a white, straight American male. [Oops. Does Canadian work?]
4. Rule 4. Don’t worry about the anti-capitalist’s embarrassing six-figure salary, plush job, lifelong guaranteed employment, and fondness for jet travel and hotels. Just keep acting like an ageless denizen of the Woodstock nation, professing to be a timeless dagger pointed at the heart of money-grubbing square America.

What a sad indictment of university bureaucracy that this guy got as far as he did.

Recalcitrant, unbending, immobile, a throw-back to a better, more idealistic age — this is the rock-cut image that the perpetual ‘60s professor taps into. And Churchill, with his photo-studio manufactured profile, pageboy locks, occasional fake Indian name, hip street lingo, and sassy banter did it better than any we’ve seen in quite a while — or at least well enough to wow the flabby university committees that allowed him to cash in.

[h/t to BenS for the link]