Running on Empty

Long distance runners know that their sport leads to all kinds of chronic overuse injuries: plantar faciitis, shin splints, iliotibial band syndrome, patellar tendinitis - the list goes on and on.  For some reason, they see this as normal, which makes zero sense, but I used to be one of them, so I guess I shouldn't judge (too harshly).

Now, it turns out that excessive endurance training (of any kind) can damage the heart.



World Triathlon Grand Final in Auckland, New Zealand

 Those two studies—presented at recent medical conferences—follow the publication in recent months and years of several other articles finding cardiac abnormalities in extreme athletes, including coronary artery calcification of a degree typically found in the utterly sedentary.

That's right.  Spend hours a day torturing yourself running, cycling and/or swimming, and your reward may be the heart health of a couch potato.

Opinion is nearly unanimous among cardiologists that endurance athletics significantly increases the risk of atrial fibrillation, an arrhythmia that is estimated to be the cause of one third of all strokes. "Chronic extreme exercise appears to cause excessive 'wear-and-tear' on the heart," the editorial says.

In case you think the doctors behind these studies are couch potatoes trying to justify their sedentary habits...

The most vocal proponent of cutting back for cardiac reasons is Dr. O'Keefe, a 56-year-old cardiologist and former elite athlete. From 1999 to 2004, he won outright the largest sprint distance triathlon in Kansas City, a testament not only to his athletic abilities but also to hours and hours of early- and late-hour training.

But a sense that this regimen was aging him prematurely, coupled with the mounting awareness of cardiac issues in extreme endurance athletes, prompted Dr. O'Keefe to slash his running to below 20 miles a week, never faster than eight minutes a mile.



American marathoner, Ryan Hall



This article surprised me.  I've known for years - from painful personal experience - the damage that excessive endurance training does to the muscles, joints and bones.  But I had no idea it also damaged the heart.  On reflection, however, I shouldn't have been surprised. 

When a person focuses exclusively on one component of fitness, all the others will decrease.  In other words, if you focus exclusively on endurance, your strength, power, agility, balance, etc. will inevitably suffer, which means your overall fitness will suffer.  Fitness and health aren't the same thing, but they're closely related.  It makes sense, then, that if your overall fitness suffers, your health will too.

This isn't even new information.

...for years the endurance-athletics movement has prompted words of caution from none other than Kenneth Cooper, the Dallas physician widely credited with launching the aerobics movement nearly half a century ago. "If you are running more than 15 miles a week, you are doing it for some reason other than health," said Dr. Cooper...

So, what  do Drs. O'Keefe and Lavine suggest?

• Avoid a daily routine of exhaustive strenuous exercise training for periods greater than one hour continuously. An ideal target might be not more than seven hours weekly of cumulative strenuous endurance ET.
• Once or twice weekly, perform high-intensity interval exercise training to improve or maintain peak aerobic fitness. This is more effective in improving overall fitness and peak aerobic capacity than is continuous aerobic exercise training, despite a much shorter total accumulated exercise time spent doing the interval workout.
• Incorporate cross training using stretching, for example, yoga, and strength training into the weekly exercise routine. This confers multi-faceted fitness and reduces the burden of cardiac work compared to a routine of daily long-distance endurance exercise training. 
• Avoid chronically competing in very long distance races, such as marathons, ultra-marathons, Ironman distance triathlons, 100-mile bicycle races, etc., especially after age 45 or 50.

At the same time, a recent study claims that strength training increases life and health.

CONCLUSION: Muscular strength is inversely and independently associated with death from all causes and cancer in men, even after adjusting for cardiorespiratory fitness and other potential confounders.

The good Drs. make more suggestions, and I can't say I completely agree with all of them, but let's summarize all these results.

Basically, what the results tell us is that a complete fitness program that trains all components of fitness, while using short, intense, interval workouts and lots of strength training, is best for fitness and long-term health.

Gosh, where have I heard that before?

Again, this shouldn't surprise anyone.  Humans aren't designed to specialize the way other animals are.  Think about it.  No human can swim like a dolphin, but we can swim, and dolphins can't run or climb.  No human can run as fast as a cheetah, but a cheetah overheats and dies if it attempts to run further than 800m (0.5 mile).  No human can climb a tree like a gorilla, but gorillas can't swim. 


American decathlete, Ashton Eaton


We're not designed to do any one thing extremely well.  We're designed to do many things tolerably well. 

In sports terms, we're designed to be decathletes, not distance runners or body builders.  Decathletes, by the nature of their sport, strive for complete fitness, because they compete in...

• 100m dash
• long jump
• shot put
• high jump
• 400m run
• 110m hurdles
• discus throw
• pole vault
• javelin throw
• 1500m run

Obviously, Olympic decathletes aren't just "tolerably" good at all those events.  They're world-class athletes in all those events.  They could probably qualify for the Olympic trials in each event, if they tried.  But Olympic decathletes, like all elite athletes, are genetic freaks, to which we ordinary folk should not compare ourselves.

So then, why do I say we're designed to be decathletes?  Olympic officials introduced the decathlon in 1904 to prove who was the fittest athlete in the world.  To that end, the ten events, together, test the athletes in all 10 components of fitness.

• Strength
• Power
• Speed
• Stamina
• Endurance
• Flexibility
• Agility
• Balance
• Coordination
• Accuracy

That is why the gold medal winning decathlete receives the title of "World's Greatest Athlete".  We should all train across all ten components of fitness, just as decathletes do, because that is what our bodies are designed to do.



Chad Mackay 



But that would take too much time, right?  If training for a pure endurance event requires hours of training per day, then training across all 10 components of fitness must require ten times as much time, right?

Wrong.

CrossFit's prescription of constantly varied functional movements performed at high intensity accomplishes that goal in just minutes a day.  Most CrossFit workouts train multiple components of fitness.  Some train all 10. 

What if you're an endurance athlete and don't want to give up your sport?  Try CrossFit Endurance.  If you follow their prescription, you'll run fewer total miles (preventing injury), improve all 10 components of fitness and spend less time training.  You don't have to be weak and frail, like your average endurance athlete, to excel at endurance.  The 2012 CrossFit games began with a triathlon.  Australian Chad Mackay won that event, despite being the heaviest athlete in the field.

Who looks fitter and healthier to you; marathoner Ryan Hall, or all-around athletes Ashton Eaton and Chad Mackay?

My purpose here is not to diminish the accomplishments of marathoners, ultramarathoners and triathletes.  My purpose is to inform the ordinary person who wants to be fitter and healthier that following that kind of training regimen will achieve neither health nor fitness.

Of course, some people will continue their chronic cardio ways regardless of the risk.

"Even if I knew for sure that running fast had an element of risk, I don't know that I would back down," said Foiles, the 56-year-old runner who lives in a Kansas City suburb. "To finish at the front of my age group, yeah, that's an inspiration."

But let's not pretend that they do it for their health.

Honoring God With Our Bodies

Aimee posted a great article on the importance of us Christians honoring God with our bodies.  But it's probably not what you think.

First, let me be clear about what I’m not talking about.  I am not talking about external beauty.  I’m talking about our health and fitness.  I’m talking about how we treat our bodies.  Our bodies do not belong to us; they belong to God (1 Cor. 6:19-20).  But we are stewards of our bodies.  Are we – as we are supposed to be – in charge of our bodies?  Or are we slaves to our bodies’ whims (I don’t feel like exercising.  I feel like eating a donut, instead of an omelet)?

Here's my favorite part.  One might think the Bible never mentions anything about physical exercise, but one would be wrong!



Note the little girl.  Start strength training young!

 Most wells back then were a type of cistern, and drawing water was women’s work.   She had to physically walk down stairs into the well, draw water to fill her huge clay jar, and walk back up the cistern with it.  She typically carried these huge jugs or jars on her head or shoulders and they weighed about 50 pounds or more when full.  So in the story it was no small feat for Rebecca to water Eliezer's camels.  He had 10 camels and a thirsty camel can drink up to 30 gallons of water in one sitting.  That means Rebecca carried about 300 gallons of water (2,504 lbs, not counting the jug!)  up from the well into the trough.  Do you think she was a frail, skinny thing; or 100 pounds overweight?  Probably not.

God did not design women to be weak.  He even tells us that strength is an ideal feminine quality (Prov. 31:17).

Unfortunately, church-goers are actually more likely to be overweight.  Yes, that study is based on BMI, which is a crock, but you won't find a study based on anything more solid.

Anyway, read Aimee's entire article.  It's good stuff!

“But I discipline my body, and make it my slave for fear that, having proclaimed the Gospel to others, I should be rejected as a counterfeit.”  ~ 1 Corinthians 9:27

Egypt's New Pharaoh

Where are all those "enlightened ones" who told us the Muslim Brotherhood is a "moderate" political organization?

Almost two years after Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak was removed from power, Cairo's Tahrir Square is still an epicenter of protest and violence. It's an epicenter of protest and violence because Egypt is again ruled by a man who has declared himself dictator. The country's new president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, announced that constitutional declarations, decisions and laws issued by the president are final and not subject to appeal.

That didn't take long.  Egypt just went through the age-old cycle: despotism to revolution, to democracy, right back to despotism.

More Guns, Less Crime - Media Shocked

The Associated Press discovered a disturbing (to a "Liberal") phenomenon: violent crime rates keep dropping even as gun sales soar.

Gun-related violence has fallen steadily since 2006 in Virginia despite record firearm sales, according to a university professor’s analysis.

Virginia Commonwealth University professor Thomas R. Baker compared state crime data from 2006 through 2011 with gun-dealer sales estimates obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Baker’s analysis shows the number of gun purchases soared 73 percent in the six-year period, while gun-related violent crimes fell 24 percent. Baker, who specializes in research methods and criminology theory, said the comparison seems to contradict the premise that more guns lead to more crime in Virginia.

Who could've possibly predicted this outcome?  I mean, besides everyone who's been paying attention over the last 20 years? 

The funny thing is that these people actually think of themselves as "well informed".  Daniel Mitchell sets them straight.

Gee, there are more innocent people with guns and people are surprised that criminals are now more reluctant to commit crimes? I guess you have to be a reporter or an academic to be surprised by this common-sense observation.

Stupidity inevitably increases with increasing education Leftist indoctrination.

Why We Home School (Continued)

Not content to attempt to feminize boys, female teachers (remember, the vast majority of teachers are female) also discriminate against them.

Female teachers mark male pupils more harshly than they do their female students, research has claimed.

Additionally, girls tend to believe male teachers will look upon them more favourably than female teaching staff, but men treat all students the same, regardless of gender.

The study, released on Thursday, told 1,200 students in 29 schools to place financial bets on who would give them higher grades: external examiners or their teacher.

Conducted by professors Amine Ouazad and Lionel Page, for the London School of Economic’s Centre for Economic Performance, the report said:

“Male students tend to bet less [money] when assessed by a female teacher than by an external examiner or by a male teacher. This is consistent with female teachers’ grading practices; female teachers give lower grades to male students."

Note that the researchers asked the students to place a bet - in other words, to take a risk.  By making it impossible to succeed, female teachers instill in boys - early in life - that the risk isn't worth the reward, or, as Dr. Helen Smith says:

What they leave out of the equation is that boys and men are discriminated against–giving them little incentive to try.  With little incentive to try,  college and the American Dream is often not a reality, or even desired, leaving a multitude of men without work skills, and/or achieving their full potential.

Women increasingly complain that modern men are slackers, unmotivated, unaccomplished.  Guess who's to blame.

But we're the crazy ones for home schooling.

Obamacare: Told You So (Continued)

Just in case you thought it was only those evil businesses with their dirty profits cutting workers' hours to avoid Obamacare's penalties...

Community College of Allegheny County will cut the hours some instructors to avoid paying for their health insurance coverage under new Affordable Care Act rules.

CCAC President Alex Johnson announced in an email to employees last week that the school would cut course loads and hours for some 200 adjunct faculty members and 200 additional employees. The Affordable Care Act -- nicknamed Obamacare -- classifies employees who work 30 hours or more per week as full-time, and CCAC would be required under the new law to provide employer-assisted health insurance to those employees. Instead, temporary part-time employees, such as clerical, computer, seasonal and other positions, will be limited to working 25 hours per week, and adjunct instructors will only be able to teach 10 credits per semester. Permanent part-time employees, already eligible for health care coverage, will be unaffected. The Pittsburgh-based college estimates the move will save it from spending an additional $6 million. 

Expect to see much more of this in the near future.  Thanks, Obama voters!

Nobody Needs Assault Rifles (Until They Do)

One of the arguments that anti-2nd-Amendment hoplophobes is that civilians simply don't need assault rifles, therefore they should be illegal.  What weapon, then, is best suited to defend ones family when multiple assailants violate ones home or business?

AR-15 with 30-round magazine

Stephen Bayazes Jr., 57, who lives in an attached apartment in the rear of the business with his wife, said he awoke to a loud bang and the silent store alarm going off.

Police said he got out of bed, grabbed his AR-15 weapon and found three men inside the store.

The men crashed a vehicle into the business and were smashing display cases and taking guns when he said he heard one of the men shout, “kill that (expletive deleted ).”

He told investigators he emptied a .223-caliber 30-round magazine and then retreated to his room to reload.

When he returned, he said he saw the vehicle pulling out from the business.

Note that Mr Bayazes used an entire 30-round magazine, then went back for more.  If anti-2nd-Amendment types had their way, Mr Bayazes - at best - would have been limited to a 10-round magazine.  At worst, they wouldn't allow him a gun at all, which would render him defenceless.

But because anti-2nd-Amendment types didn't have their way, the outcome was very different.

Mr Bayazes' store after the robery

The Aiken County Sheriff’s Office says Eddie Stewart and Franklin Robinson will be charged with burglary 1st, grand larceny and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. Both suspects are still in the hospital and will be taken into custody once they are released.

The Aiken County coroner says the third suspect, 20-year-old K’Raven Goodwin of Eastover, S.C., died from multiple gunshot wounds on Thursday morning.

The whole altercation took but one minute, he said. The burglars escaped with roughly 50 guns that night, however all of them have been returned safely.

But that only happened because Mr Bayazes owns a gun store, right?  If we just made guns illegal, assaults by multiple criminals simply wouldn't happen, right?

A second suspect in the attack on a Tulsa minister was arrested Tuesday night, Tulsa police said.

Markedrik Delmar Wilson, 26, was arrested about 8:40 p.m. after a witness identified him as one of five men who forced their way into the Rev. Kenneth Brooks' home in the 2700 block of North Denver Avenue shortly before 2 a.m. Tuesday, according to police and reports.

......

Five men accused of a home invasion in Wareham where two women say they were raped are now facing Superior Court charges.

Brian Santiago, 20; Justin J. Gomes, Jr., 17; Robert J. Brown, Jr., 18; Jordan J. Gomes, 21 and Kendrick O. Williams, 19 were indicted by a Plymouth County grand jury on Friday in Brockton Superior Court.

All five are charged with four counts of masked armed robbery and one count of armed home invasion. Santiago and Gomes are charged with aggravated rape and Williams is being charged with unlawful possession of a firearm without an FID card.

......

The violence incident unfolded about 1:45 a.m., when a group of four or five men broke into a at near the intersection of Elmwood and Ashland avenues, police said. At least one of the intruders was armed with a handgun.

Four people were inside the home at the time and one of the residents was pistol-whipped, police said.

There are many more such cases.

Have you considered this four-man home invasion in Philadelphia?  Or how about this three-man home invasion in Charlotte, North Carolina?  Or this three-man home invasion in Franklin Country, Alabama?  Or this three-man home invasion in Pawtucket?

There is no better weapon than an assault rifle with which to defend ones family in such a situation, because that is exactly what those weapons are designed to do; defend against multiple assailants at close-to-medium range.  Those who wish to ban such firearms, wish to deprive law-abiding people of the right to defend themselves and their families.  Period.

Finally, anti-2nd-Amendment hoplophobes fail - over and over again - to prove that banning any firearms at all - including assault rifles - reduces crime.  In fact, although sales of such firearms continue to rise, murder rates continue to fall.  The hoplophobes know this.  But their motivation was never to reduce crime.  Their motivation is to exert greater power over their fellow Americans.

BMI Is A Crock

How big a crock?  The following are the world's 10 fittest male athletes as of July 2012.  Every one of them is fat or obese, according to current BMI standards.

Rich Froning BMI = 28

      

Matt Chan BMI = 30 (obese)

  

Kyle Kasperbauer BMI = 28

Scott Panchik BMI = 28

          

  

Jason Khalipa BMI = 31 (obese)

             

Dan Bailey BMI = 27

         

Marcus Hendren BMI = 29

        

Austin Malleolo BMI = 29

    

Chad Mackay BMI = 31 (obese)

       

Graham Holmberg BMI = 26

Given what all these men can do, is there any chance - at all - that any of them are "overweight", or "obese"?

The question answers itself, doesn't it?

So then, if BMI can be so obviously, pathetically inadequate at predicting obesity (which is its purpose); why use it at all?

There is no such thing as an "ideal weight", or "ideal BMI".  Focus on performace - as opposed to appearance - and you'll avoid a lot frustration and get better results.

Jurors Agree: UI Discriminated Against Conservative

Ah, the "tolerance" of the Left:

A federal jury believed the University of Iowa’s law school illegally denied a promotion to a conservative Republican because of her politics, former jurors told The Des Moines Register.

.....

This case involves a lawsuit filed by Teresa Wagner against the law school after she was turned down for a faculty position in the legal analysis, writing and research program. Wagner is a Republican who has worked for anti-abortion organizations. She alleged that she was passed over the position not because she lacked the qualifications but because she was blackballed by liberal members of the law school faculty.

Universities whine incessantly about "diversity" and "tolerance", yet they consistently ignore, or outright suppress, the only kind of diversity that matters; diversity of thought.  Everyone knows universities discriminate against non-"Liberals".  The statistics prove it.

A staggering 99 percent of political donations among faculty and staff at Princeton University went to President Obama, while Mitt Romney earned just 1 percent, according to public records.

Is it any wonder that so many college students graduate as brain-washed "Liberals" who only come to their senses when they start a small business and reality smacks them in the face?

A Metaphorical Kick in the Junk

Reuters Social Media Editor, Anthony De Rosa, demonstrated to the world what a biased, pro-terrorist, useful idiot he is via Twitter.  Thankfully, a reader called him on it.

At the beginning of the day, I noted an ugly tweet by Reuters’ Anthony De Rosa. One response to De Rosa was sufficiently embarrassing and, uh, viral enough to make the wire service’s social media editor remove his tweet.

This is why the Lame Stream, dinosaur media hates the Internet, social media and bloggers in particular.  Technology makes it possible for ordinary people to demonstrate that they are nothing more than mouth pieces for Leftist causes.

How dare we, the unwashed masses, assault their ivory towers?!

Secession, No. Federalism, Yes

You may have heard that the White House website now has petitions from all 50 states requesting permission to peacefully secede from the Union.  The most famous of these - and the one with the most signatures - is from Texas, naturally.  The whole thing is silly, but it reflects a real problem.  A whole lot of Americans are unhappy with the federal government, which makes perfect sense.  It's impossible to please 350,000,000 people at the same time.  It's highly unlikely that any state will actually attempt to secede, but the existence of so many disgruntled voters is no laughing matter.

There is, however, a very simple solution to this problem.

 Let the central government do the things that only central governments can do -- national defense, regulation of trade to keep the provinces from engaging in economic warfare with one another, protection of basic civil rights -- and then let the provinces go their own way in most other issues. Don't like the way things are run where you are? Move to a province that's more to your taste. Meanwhile, approaches that work in individual provinces can, after some experimentation, be adopted by the central government, thus lowering the risk of adopting untested policies at the national level. You get the benefits of secession without seceding.

Pretty simple, right?  If you want to live in a state with enormous debt, high taxes, business-stifling regulations, high unemployment, lots of poverty, welfare and income inequality, and crappy schools, move to California, New York or Illinois.   If you want to live in a state with low debt, low taxes, little regulation, lots of jobs and low unemployment rates, move to North Dakota, Texas or Utah.

It's not even a new idea.

Sound good? It should. It's called federalism, and it's the approach chosen by the United States when it adopted the Constitution in 1789. As James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 45, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State."

It's a nice plan. Beats secession. Maybe we should give it another try.

For a bunch of racist old white dudes, those Founding Fathers sure were smart!

Why We Home School (Continued)

Since when is it acceptable to allow students to scribble on a kid's face with permanent marker because he doesn't read all that well?

A formal complaint regarding a Declo teacher’s treatment of students who failed reading goals has been filed with an Idaho commission on educators’ professional standards and ethics.

Cassia County School District Superintendent Galen Smyer said Monday his district filed the complaint after fourth-grade teacher Summer Larsen allowed students to scribble with permanent marker on the faces of classmates who failed to meet reading goals.

McGrath said the commission meets five to six times a year.

“They investigate complaints and then take any necessary action if they find an individual has violated state ethics code,” she said.

McGrath said action can include suspension or revocation of a license.

“It’s a long process,” she said.

It's always a long process.  You know what would make it a short process?  School choice.  Parents whose kids were humiliated like this would simply take their kids to another school with better teachers, and the funding would go with the kids.  School administrators would fire the bad teachers and hire better ones for fear of losing even more funding.

Problem solved.

But, for the most part, we don't have school choice in the US.  So we can either send our kids to sub-standard public schools, or spend money on top of the taxes we already pay to educate them elsewhere.

But we're the crazy ones for home schooling our kids.

California Running Out of Other People's Money

In the past, when I've written about how, "the trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money", I've used Greece as an example.  Although I still think Greece is the best example, several states in the US are doing their best to catch up.  California is arguably in the lead.

The real cause for California's fiscal crisis is simple: They spend too much money. Between 1996 and 2012, the state's population grew by just 15 percent, but spending more than doubled, from $45.4 billion to $92.5 billion (in 2005 constant dollars).

What are Californians getting for all this government spending? According to a new census report released Friday, almost one-quarter, 23.5 percent, of all Californians are in poverty. One-third of all the nation's welfare recipients live in the state, despite the fact that California has only one-eighth of the country's population. That's four times as many as the next-highest welfare population, which is New York [another "Liberal" bastion ~ OS]. Meanwhile, California eighth-graders finished ahead of only Mississippi and District of Columbia students on reading and math test scores in 2011.

Surely, California can solve all its problems by taxing the rich, right?  I mean, that's what Democrats always tell us.  Except, California has already tried that.

Despite Brown's historic tax hike, the California Legislative Analyst's Office announced this week that the state still faces a $2 billion budget deficit just for the next fiscal year. California's liberal electorate has already racked up an additional $370 billion in state and local debt over that last decade. That is more than 20 percent of the state's gross domestic product.

According to the California State Budget Crisis Task Force, that comes to more than $10,000 in debt for every Californian. And because the state's credit rating is so low, California taxpayers must fork over about $2 for every new dollar borrowed. In 2012 alone, the state budget included more than $7.5 billion in debt service -- more than most states' budgets.

Don't think for a second that California's chronic deficits are caused by low taxes. Even before last Tuesday's tax hikes, California had the most progressive income tax system in the nation, with seven brackets, and the second-highest top marginal rate. Now it has the nation's highest top marginal rate and the nation's highest sales tax. And the budget still isn't balanced.

What do Californians do when fed up with excessive taxation, regulation and debt?  Move to Texas.

Middle-class families that want actual jobs, not welfare, are fleeing California in droves. According to IRS data compiled by the Manhattan Institute, since 2000, almost 2 million Americans have left California for other states. Their most popular destination: Texas.

It isn't a tough move to make. Thanks to low taxes and simple regulations, Chief Executive magazine ranked Texas as the best state to do business in for 2012. Guess who ranked dead last? That's right, California. And not only does Texas (6.8 percent) have a far lower unemployment rate than California (10.2 percent), but, according to the Census Bureau, income inequality is worse in California than it is in Texas.

Again, this is a case of federalism at work.  States with low taxes, light regulation and a business friendly climate attract businesses (duh!), which create jobs, which attract people.  The opposite is also true.

From the Manhattan Institute's Civic Report of September 2012.

Note how the top "sender states" - the ones people are leaving in droves - are "Liberal" bastions, while the top destination states - the ones to which people and businesses are escaping - are largely Conservative.  This shouldn't surprise anyone.

What makes matters worse for California is that when they push people out of their state, those people take their money with them (duh!), which shrinks California's tax base.  California isn't just losing people to other states, it's losing money.

From the Manhattan Institute's Civic Report of September 2012.

So, California keeps raising tax rates on a smaller number of people, which causes more people to move out, which shrinks the state's tax base, so they raise tax rates...

California really should be the #1 place to live in the US.  The state's natural beauty, raw materials (petroleum and natural gas abound), fertile soil and weather should make it a great place to live and do business.  Instead, California's politicians, elected by California's people, keep making it increasingly difficult to make a living, so people move to Texas, where doing business is much easier.

So, which model do you think the US as a whole is currently following; California or Texas?  Which model should we follow?

Throwing Good Money After Bad

The federal government's insistence on wasting money on "green energy" companies has achieved self-parody.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu at A123 Systems

Electric car battery maker A123 Systems received a $946,830 check from the U.S. Energy Department on the day it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month -- providing more ammunition for critics who say the Obama administration is blindly funding failed clean energy companies.

The Waltham, Mass.-based company also told two U.S. senators in a letter this week that it may seek more money from the $249.1-million Energy Department stimulus award it won in 2009. A123's Oct. 16 check was the latest payment as part of the original grant, which is distributed incrementally as the company meets certain benchmarks. A123 has received $133.3 million of the grant so far based on its investments in new battery plants in Livonia and Romulus, Mich.

You know what we really need in this roaring economy?  We need the federal government to take our money and give it to politically connected loser companies in the administration's pet industries.

Who do you think makes more productive financial decisions with your money; you, or DC politicians and bureaucrats?

Remember, governments don't pick winners and losers.  They only picks losers, because winners don't need governments to prop them up with money confiscated from tax payers.

The Girl Who Feels No Pain

It doesn't seem that way when you're in the middle of it, but pain is a good thing.

The girl who feels no pain was in the kitchen, stirring ramen noodles, when the spoon slipped from her hand and dropped into the pot of boiling water. It was a school night; the TV was on in the living room, and her mother was folding clothes on the couch. Without thinking, Ashlyn Blocker reached her right hand in to retrieve the spoon, then took her hand out of the water and stood looking at it under the oven light. She walked a few steps to the sink and ran cold water over all her faded white scars, then called to her mother, “I just put my fingers in!” Her mother, Tara Blocker, dropped the clothes and rushed to her daughter’s side. “Oh, my lord!” she said — after 13 years, that same old fear — and then she got some ice and gently pressed it against her daughter’s hand, relieved that the burn wasn’t worse.

She can feel warmth and coolness, but not the more extreme temperatures that would cause anyone else to recoil in pain.

Saudi Dakota? (Updated)

The US economy may be stagnant, but North Dakotans haven't noticed.  Recession?  What recession?

The “Economic Miracle State” continues to lead the nation with the lowest state unemployment rate at 3% in September, at almost five percentage points below the national average of 7.8%.  There were 11 North Dakota counties with jobless rates below 2.0% in September, and Williams County, which is at the epicenter of the Bakken oil boom, continues to boast the lowest county jobless rate in the country at just 0.7%.  The exponential growth in North Dakota oil production has fueled exponential growth in the state’s oil and gas jobs, which have more than tripled over the last three years.  Overall employment throughout the entire state increased 5.6% over the twelve month period through September; four times the tepid 1.4% pace of job growth nationally during that period.

It ain't no miracle.  It's a deliberate decision to allow free market forces to work and create wealth by accessing the state's natural raw materials, namely petroleum.

What’s especially impressive is the incredible exponential increase in North Dakota’s oil production over such a short period of time.  The state’s oil production has doubled in just the last 16 months, from 364,160 bpd in May of last year to 728,494 in September of this year.  Oil coming out of the state’s Bakken Formation is behind the huge increase, as that oil field in western North Dakota now supplies 91% of the state’s oil, up from only 78% of the state’s oil two years ago.  Bakken oil output has doubled in just the last 15 months, from 320,435 bpd last June to 662,428 bpd in September (see bottom chart above).  At the current pace of production increases, North Dakota’s oil production will surpass one million bpd by the end of next year.  And it’s the exponential increases in shale oil production in the Bakken region of North Dakota and the Eagle Ford Shale region of Texas that have the United States on a trajectory to become the world’s largest oil producer in the next eight years.

Considering North Dakota's economic boom due to "frackin' the Bakken", and that the US has more petroleum in the Green River Formation than all the world's known oil reserves, the federal government must be eager to allow more drilling and exploration on federal lands, right?

Not so much.

The Interior Department on Friday issued a final plan to close 1.6 million acres of federal land in the West originally slated for oil shale development.

The proposed plan would fence off a majority of the initial blueprint laid out in the final days of the George W. Bush administration. It faces a 30-day protest period and a 60-day process to ensure it is consistent with local and state policies. After that, the department would render a decision for implementation.

As I wrote before, "it's not as though, in this roaring economy, we need all that inexpensive energy or high-paying jobs".

The US is over $16,000,000,000,000 in debt and counting.  The federal government added over $120,000,000,000 to that debt in October 2012 alone and is on track to add another $1,320,000,000,000 to the debt by the end of fiscal year 2013.  Raising taxes will likely cause the economy to slow even more.  Even if the federal government were to cut spending drastically (good luck with that), we would need enormous economic growth to begin paying down our monstrous debt.

In other words, we need the kind of growth North Dakotans have enjoyed for years.

UPDATE (19NOV2012): The following charts demonstrate how hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has increased total US reserves of petroleum and natural gas by making previously unavailable reserves available.  Further technological advances will make the Green River Formation available.

From the Energy Information Administration

Making Health Care More Affordable

Have you ever walked into a doctor's office and seen a list of prices for the services they offer?  No?  Have you ever asked why not?  Every establishment that sells a good or service provides an up-front list of prices, or at least an estimate.  The one exception is health care providers.  The reason is insurance.

When you buy something for yourself with your own money, you naturally look for the highest quality at the best price.  That desire, and competition between providers, drives costs down and quality up.

When you buy something for yourself with someone else's money, you naturally look for the best quality, but not necessarily the best price.

That's what happens with health insurance, and why health care prices keep increasing. 

The "solution" you'll typically hear for this problem is to make health care 100% government-run.  But that makes the problem worse, because it introduces another layer of separation between the customer and the price.  When you buy something for someone you don't know or care about with other people's money, you neither care about the price nor the quality. 

Furthermore, that solution fails to take into account the fact that government caused the problem in the first place by placing price controls on the amount companies could pay employees back in 1942.  Companies then began compensating workers with health insurance packages, and the modern health care behemoth was born.  Believing that greater government intervention will cure a problem government intervention caused is like believing that a poisoned patient should drink more poison to save himself.

So, what's the solution?  Some doctors in Oklahoma believe they've found it.

The Surgery Center demonstrates that it’s possible to offer high quality care at low prices. "It's always been interesting to me,” says Dr. Jason Sigmon, “that in any other industry, tons of attention is devoted to making systems more efficient, but in health care that's just completely lost."

The bill, which is strictly for the hospital itself and doesn't include Sigmon's or the anesthesiologist's fees, totaled $33,505. When Sigmon performs the same procedure at the Surgery Center, the all-inclusive price is $5,885.

How can the Surgery Center offer the same procedure at 1/6 the cost of the hospital?

Three years ago, Dr. Keith Smith, co-founder and managing partner of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, took an initiative that would only be considered radical in the health care industry: He posted online a list of prices for 112 common surgical procedures. The 51-year-old Smith, a self-described libertarian, and his business partner, Dr. Steve Lantier, founded the Surgery Center 15 years ago, after they became disillusioned with the way patients were treated at St. Anthony Hospital in Oklahoma City, where the two men worked as anesthesiologists.

The following is from the Surgery Center's website.

Transparent, direct, package pricing means the patient knows exactly what the cost of the service will be upfront. Fees for the surgeon, anesthesiologist and facility are all included in one low price. There are no hidden costs, charges or surprises.

None of this should come as a surprise.  Corrective eye surgery prices keep dropping because it's not covered by insurance.

"In every other field of medicine, the price is going up faster than consumer prices in general," said Dr. John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis.

"[But] the price of Lasik surgery, on average, has gone down by 30 percent." [this article is from 2006, whereas the chart to the right is from 2009 ~ OS] 

Prices dropped even though doctors pay for advertising. And while the procedure got cheaper, it also got better.

"When the lasers first came out, all they could treat was nearsightedness," Bonanni said. "[Today] the lasers are faster, more precise."

The same is true of most cosmetic surgery procedures.

So, the answer to ever-increasing health care costs is not more government intrusion, but less.  The answer, as usual, is the free market.