losing brings out your true character

I've always disliked Roger Federer, for far more reasons than I explained in this post from last year:

Why I don't like Roger Federer

What's interesting now is that after winning for so many years, he's starting to lose more and more matches, in earlier rounds, and losing more decisively. Today, he played a super opponent in Thomas Berdych, who played a stunningly good match, leaving Federer on the defensive much of the match. But after losing (again), his true colors are starting to come out:

Berdych Stuns Federer in Wimbledon Quarterfinal

For years, Federer was always praised for being such a gracious opponent, but it's very common for top athletes to feign modesty when they are winning. Now that he's losing, he's revealing that he's a sore loser on top of everything else he's done to make tennis look like a sport played by rich snobs. There are so many great players on the tour right now and the future of tennis will be bright now that the age of Federer is finally over.

the father outdoes the son

As much as I like Rand Paul, his father still has way more integrity and guts than him:

The Trouble With the '64 Civil Rights Act

It takes a tremendous amount of strength to say something that will generally incite a knee-jerk negative reaction from people that won't spend the time to think about what he's saying here. What people forget when they look back at things that happened in the past is that there COULD have been a better way to do things. Just because we passed the Civil Rights Act doesn't mean that if we didn't, there would be less racial equality today than there is. Until we invent a time machine, we'll have to try the more difficult route of thinking for ourselves and not just reacting.

why is the BP oil rig there in the first place?

There's blame being thrown around about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, with the usual finger-pointing going on:

• It's BP's fault, the evil oil company
• It's Transocean's fault, the owner and operator of the rig
• It's Halliburton's fault, who did construction on the rig before the explosion
• It's the government's fault, for not regulating the safety of oil rigs enough

The question no one seems to be asking is:

WHY IS THE OIL RIG THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE?

I rarely use all CAPS, but sometimes it helps! The question we should be asking is: why is it that anyone can drill for oil a mile below the ocean's surface, right in hurricane central, pipe it up, haul it away, refine it, haul it somewhere else, load it into trucks, drive it to gas stations, and sell the end product for less per gallon than just about any liquid you can buy, even tap water? How can any company possibly make money doing something like this?

The answer is that the US government (and many state governments) do the following:

• Large tax breaks to oil companies, such that they pay an effective tax rate that is just over half that of the average corporation
• Funding research and development in the areas of oil exploration and other technologies
• Reduced state sales tax on gasoline than the sales tax on other items
• Tons of money spent on regulation and inspections
• Assuming the liability of oil companies when people or property is harmed when a huge oil spill happens
• Below-cost (and sometimes tax-free) loans for construction, exploration, and other activities
• Continued funding and expansion of the interstate highway system rather than alternatives that may be less fossil-fuel dependent
• The list goes on

On top of all this absurdity, the big oil companies are all among the largest companies in the world who rarely have a year where they lose money.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a small business where the government gives you a cheap loan, they pay for your R&D, the lower your tax rate, and if something goes wrong, they step in and pay for any damages your company may have caused. Pretty sweet deal, eh?

So, the reality of the situation is, without all this massive government spending, this rig that is decimating ecosystems everywhere, wouldn't exist in the first place, because no sane company would consider it a venture that could ever earn a profit.

So, instead of vilifying BP as an evil corporation, remember that they had some help and this spill NEVER would have happened without government cooperation and support because we wouldn't have oil rigs drilling for oil a mile below the ocean's surface.

Some interesting links:

Subsidizing Big Oil
Oil Industry Subsidies for Dummies

Note that the second link is a private company that has a vested interest in green technology, so while there may be bias there, their facts check out. Plus, I'd put more trust in a company that wants to make a buck creating technology that makes our lives better than one that can do nothing but harm our quality of life.

he's already a racist

When Ron Paul was running for President in 2008, it wasn't until he started looking like a threat that people in media and politics started tossing out the racist label. Sadly for Rand Paul, it took less than 24 hours!

Democrats pounce as race row clouds Tea Party champion

Libertarians are frequently called racist purely for believing that you can't legislate racism and discrimination out of existence; and attempts at doing so can often prolong and inflame the problem you are trying to solve. It's a very nuanced and principled position that most people don't have the attention span to try to understand.

one more voice for sanity?

If he keeps his momentum going, it looks like the Senate may be getting one more voice for sanity in Rand Paul:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rand_Paul

Sadly, out of 535 people in Congress, the number that believe in the following things can probably still be counted on one or two hands:

• Withdrawing troops and closing bases in every country in the world but the USA
• Repealing the Patriot Act
• Balancing the budget and laying out a long-term plan to retire the public debt
• Following the Constitution to the letter and amending it if needed, rather than ignoring it

Critics of Rand Paul point to his position on a Constitutional amendment to ban abortion. Even though I disagree with him, the guy understands the correct way to do something. Passing a law is easy. Amending the Constitution is REALLY difficult, but it's the right way to approach an issue like this. He'll fail, but I admire him anyways for understanding that Congress cannot simply ignore the time-tested principles of the Constitution.

john dvorak gets it right for once

John Dvorak is pretty much famous for being wrong about everything, but he hits the nail on the head when it comes to "net neutrality":

Net neutrality becomes a dangerous issue

Even without this proposal from John Kerry, few people realize that the Internet has been almost entirely unregulated for most of its existence and thrived because of it. The proponents of net neutrality are proposing the wrong cure for the problem. The problem is the concentration of power over the Internet into a increasingly smaller group of companies. This is due to government granted monopolies (the local loop being the most egregious) and government control over wireless spectrum (this is why we have at most two carriers in any one area using a specific spectrum).

In other countries where the local loop is not a monopoly and many carriers can compete, people generally don't pay ridiculous amounts of money to send a few characters of text via SMS. That's generally when you know a monopoly exists.

come for the tennis, stay for our captive breeding program!

I played tennis recently at a "public" court owned by Valley Church in Cupertino, CA. I was browsing their website today and came across a page about the tennis courts:

Valley Church: Sports Ministry

I think the mission statement bears repeating:

"Building bridges with people through sports, introducing them to Jesus Christ, establishing them in their faith, assimilating them into the church and training them to reproduce."

Could that possibly be any creepier?