They only come out at night

People make a fuss about the long hedge of night-blooming cereus at Punahou, but there is more (much more) and bigger (much bigger) all along Baldwin Ave. Unfortunately most of it is obscured by haole koa. But the flowers are at their fabulous peak right now.

Plus, you can eat them.

This one was growing on my mailbox.

Are libertarians really as stupid as they look?

Short answer: Yes.

In the Times, Paul Krugman has a column making fun of the libertarian position, taking off from the problems caused by algae blooms in Lake Erie. It's a good column but as often happens the comments are even more enlightening.

Someone called Baron95 from the 1%er reservation of Westport, Connecticut, had this riposte:

Dr. Krugman completely misses the libertarian argument and what is actually the root of the problem.

The issue is that the government owns Lake Erie, its tributaries and the water authority.

If Lake Erie was privately owned, people would have to pay the owners to discharge items that would reduce the value of that asset - in this case water quality.

Similarly, if the water authority was privately owned, it would have a contract with the owners of lake Erie for minimum water quality, and another with its consumers. All violations would have simple economic actions, and very quickly things would settle.

For example, the owner of Lake Erie would charge more if water coming in had too much phosphorous, and charge less if it had been pre-treated.

Dr. Krugman doesn't seem to get it. A private owner will always be the one that will protect the quality of its assets the most. That is why a home owner takes better care of its home than a tenant or a rental management company.

The source of the issue is that the US, State, Local governments own more than half the land in the US. All the biggest problems, be it Lake Erie or Detroit, invariably happen on Government owned properties.

Did you catch where Baron95 shot himself in the temple? Right at the start, where he wrote "The issue is that the government owns Lake Erie. . ."

See, Lake Erie already has an owner, interested in its good health. And how does an owner like that manage its property? I see a hand in the back of the audience. Yes, by regulation. Exactly the thing that libertarians want to prevent the owner from using.

I could stop there, but let's state the obvious: Privae owners do a lousy job of protecting their own assets and are actually destructive of everybody else's assets when they get the chance, which in a libertarian world would be all the time because -- ha! gotcha! there woudn't be any effective government.

Surely you wonder if RtO can back up this broadly brushed assertion. Why, yes, yes I can.

General Motors.

Or an even better example: Kodak.

Kodak was not deterred by lack of contracts with Polaroid from stealing Polaroid's patented technology; nor did any libertarians, so quick to scold, ever complain about Kodak's highhanded and lawless behavior.

It took a long while but Polaroid, which did object, finally got some justice by -- gasp! -- invoking the assistance of government (for which it paid through taxes). And so Kodak went bust.

Luckily Polaroid was a large corporation, able to afford  to spend millions and millions of dollars and wait over 15 years for satisfaction.

You may not be a large, powerful corporation. If your property rights are abused the way Polaroid's were, will the libertarians go to bat for you? Let's put it this way: They didn't go to bat for Polaroid.



  

For lack of a Kurdish state

It is too, too late, but I hope (but do not expect) that Americans are wishing they had looked more favorably on the national aspirations of the Kurds than they have.

RtO has called for America to support a free and independent Great Kurdistan ever since it began in 2008. So far as I know, no one else except Kurds agrees. But consider what would be happening now if there were even a Little Kurdistan.

Well, we cannot know. Perhaps if they had attained their community interests, they would not feel like offering refuge to Christians, Shia Musims or Yazidis. They would surely be of two minds about the Shia, who have been no friends of the Kurds.

Possibly their behavior over the past 11 years has been only cynical, judging all their maneuvers according to how they thought they would play in America. They have not gained much in a positive way, but at least they have mostly managed to present themselves as less bloodthirsty and crazy and incompetent than the others in their neighborhood.

In my view, their strategy has been to avoid antagonizing the American government too much while keeping their powder dry and waiting for an opening to be created by the well-known inability of Arabs to govern anything. Just weeks ago, it looked as if their time had come.

 The Baghdad government is not functioning, and turmoil in Syria, Israel, Gaza and Egypt was occupying attention. The Kurds began grabbing for territory and consolidating a government. By sending oil to market, they forced the US government to take seriously their claims (still muted in public) to be a de facto government with substantial claims to practical ability and legitimacy.

The US government hates that.

Then something interfered. Not something unforeseen; it was almost a given. ISIL grabbed the  heavy weapons that the US had improvidently given -- didn't we learn anything in Vietnam -- to the illegiitmate, corrupt, incapable and failing pseudo-state in Baghdad.

That those weapons would never be used by the mythical Iraq army was certain. Probably the Kurds expected to get them. Too cautious because of their wariness about antagonizing the US, they were beaten to the prize by the reckless ISIL.

In anything like an equal fight, the Pesh Merga (who, let us not forget are a kind of commies) will prevail against unmotivated Iraq conscripts and timeservers wearing the uniform of the illegitimate Baghdad regime. But ISIL is as devoted as the Kurds are, so the bigger battalions prevail.

But an armed, independent Kurdistan (even Little Kurdistan) could have been an effective counter to ISIL. Whereas the central government never could have been.

Here, it is useful to restate the fundamental error of the Obama foreign policy as regards the Koran Belt (which is completely different from the Bush errors but no less damaging).

Obama bought into the fantasies of David Kilcullen, making him his unconventional warfare adviser, that religion is not important in the political calculus of the Koran Belt.

Guess what. That was completely wrong. As I said in 2009:

The so-called Awakening in Anbar came about because (we are offered a choice of two) the local tribes objected to bids from the outside Muslims to have them for sons-in-law, or they objected to having their children baked alive.

One can see why they would object to either, but it is harder to see why, up to 2007, they thought it well to ally themselves with people who baked American children. Kilcullen never explains why we should want such people on our side now (or ever) or care what happens to them. Worse, he acknowledges that the alliance of the Anbar (and similar) sheikhs with the Coalition and/or the central (not national) government of Iraq may not endure. Count on it. The sheikhs were not fighting for a unified, free and democratic state. Nothing could be less congenial to them.

As it turns out, the sheikhs joined ISIL.

What else did anyone expect?

Kilcullen was Petraeus's adviser in the Surge. It is a small mercy that the idiot could not keep it zipped up and screwed himself out of the direction of the CIA.  But his replacement has been no better, and the US is still backing ridiculous and hopeless surrogates. Did we learn nothing in Vietnam? 

Ultimate gun nuttery

 Readers outside Hawaii may or may not be aware that 2 tropical storms are heading our way (one has already passed without much impact). So people have been getting ready. Some fill water jugs and buy batteries. And some . . .

I have now seen five posts about people stocking up on ammunition for the hurricanes.

I'm gonna plant my big opinionated flag here:

If you are preparing to shoot, maim, or intimidate people who may find themselves in trouble or lacking supplies instead of trying to figure out ways you can help (even a little) your neighbors and fellow islanders - you are doing it wrong.

No not storm prep. You are doing life wrong.

That's a Facebook post by my younger daughter who lives on Oahu.

 I think she needs to get better quality friends, but I also think we need to confiscate all the guns. Because there is no way to tell who can be trusted to have one.

Old bugbears

It is amusing to watch Mauians, even newcomers, rushing to stock up on rice and toilet paper in anticipation of storms Iselle and Julio.

Buying bottled water makes no sense either.

Batteries, yes. Tank of gas? Half a tank ought to be plenty for most people. Cash? Maybe, where are you going that you will be spending money? If it really does rain 4 to 8 inches Thursday and maybe again Sunday, I am not going anywhere except in an emergency. Nor will I be calling for pizza delivery.

It's been over 20 years since we've experienced a big storm and nearly that long since even a moderately big one. With a population turnover in the neighborhood of 4% a year, probably half the people on Maui (not counting the tourists) have never been through even the outliers of a hurricane.

Stocking up on TP has more to do with memories -- second hand at that for most people -- of dock strikes over 60 years ago. Distribution methods have changed a lot since, and a TP or rice famine is hard to take seriously now.

But rushing to the stores to stock up doesn't hurt anybody and probably has more to do with socializing than real preparedness. It gives people a chance to ask each other if they are being prudent and to reassure themselves that, 1) it won't be that bad; and 2) they've done what they can (short of offering a bed indoors to a homeless person, something I haven't seen or heard any concern about, although the shelterless are one group that could have a rough time even if Iselle arrives as nothing much more than a winter windstorm).

Sustained winds of 55 mph, if that's what we are going to get, are no scarier than the usual winter nights where I live (Makawao), where 60 is common.

Should either storm turn out much worse than current forecasts (always possible, remember that the Butterfly Effect means that forecasts more than 5 days out are pretty much imaginary), or if you have the rotten luck to have a tree fall on your car in even a moderate blow, make sure your insurer will honor its contract.

After Iniki, a lot of people on Kauai and Oahu got stiffed. Amongst all the precautions I have seen being passed around, no one has mentioned that one.

And bottled water. Fill a jug from the faucet. County water is just fine.

Bending over backward to be correct in Utah.

Read this. And the comments.

What happens in Vegas . . .

. . . is not always as lurid as the ads make it seem.

Here, for example, I am competing in a game of Giant Jenga. The chances that I would be photographed in Maui playing Jenga are remote. (This is what kept me from blogging a couple of weeks ago.)