Treasure Hunting Pays Off

CBS News reports that Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, Florida has discovered the wreck of HMS Victory, a 110 gun ship-of-the-line, that went down in a storm in 1744.  The ship was apparently carrying four tons of gold coins. The price of gold is currently around $900 an ounce. There's more information here at the Odyssey website. Aside from the treasure aspect, this is a major historical find of one of the largest warships of the time, the flagship of two admirals. Its disappearance in the storm, and where it sunk have been mysteries for over two and a half centuries.

HOT5 Daily 2/3/2009

1. "The reason why Paul Krugman is not a historian...." A whole bunch of reasons, actually.

Representative Sample: Paul Krugman does what other policy wonks with an agenda do, which is to cherry-pick data that fits his current mantra

2. "One comment about nukes, a critical mass of mail" A realistic look at energy, and why we need nuclear power.

Representative Sample: Here’s a big picture perspective on our energy situation: Our energy demands are huge, and the clean alternatives - such as wind, solar, biofuels and conservation - cannot keep up.

3. "The British Military at a Crossroads" One part of the picture of what I call the sad decline of Britain.

Representative Sample: a military at the crossroads of history, with choices over the near term determining the long term standing of Great Britain

4. "Concerning Puppies, Angry Muslims and Fleeing Police Officers"  More on the sad decline of Britain.

Representative Sample:From the Prime Minister on down, appeasement is the order of the day. What do you do when you are under attack? Blame Israel.

5. "Isn't It Time For God To Put An End To The Atheist Bus Campaign?"  No. Apparently he wants to stay hidden.

Representative Sample: I know that if I was all powerful with a bit of a wrathful edge to me, I would do something to prove these atheist buses wrong.

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.

Police Terror

The Washington Post has a story up called, "Deadly Force," which recounts in detail the story of the botched drug raid on the house of Cheye Calvo, Mayor of Berwin Heights, Maryland. I remember when this story first broke.  To summarize, police mistakenly raided Calvo's house with a SWAT team. They broke down his door, killed his two harmless pet dogs, put a gun to his mother-in-law's head,  and kept him and her bound for almost four hours while they ransacked the house. They finally figured out that they had the wrong place.  The police lied about what happened in their report, refused to apologize, and still insist they did nothing wrong.

Is it too much to expect the police to use some judgment and commonsense before launching a military style assault into someone's house? Is it too much to ask that the incompetent fools who authorized and planned the raid be removed from law enforcement forever? Apparently it is. This type of mistake has occurred far too often, and sometimes leaves innocent people dead, not just pets. Why does a SWAT team need to invade a home for a mere drug bust? Here's an idea. How about we save the urban assault tactics for locations that are known and confirmed to be occupied by armed and dangerous criminals?

The reason these types of incidents take place isn't just because of the war on drugs, although that has been a major catalyst in the militarization of the police. It's because in many areas, the police and those who control them have forgotten that the police forces are supposed to be public servants, not mere government enforcers. The reason that the police like using SWAT teams is obvious. As with a military operation, overwhelming force lessens the risk to the attacker. Why send a couple officers to knock on a door? That could be risky if criminals are inside. Instead, why not launch a surprise attack with SWAT and overwhelm them before they can react? It's much neater and safer from a police standpoint. But there's one problem with this sort of thinking. The primary mission of the police is not to protect themselves from harm, it's to serve the public. And when they screw up in a major way, there should be major consequences. All too often that isn't the case.

Two More Economists Speak Out

There's an article up in today's Wall Street Journal by two economists, one from the University of Pennsylvania, and one from UCLA titled, "How Government Prolonged the Depression." This is sure to produce sputtering rage on the left, from those for whom Roosevelt's New Deal is some sort of holy grail of government economic policy. The whole article is worth reading, but here are some key points.

the facts do not support the perception that FDR's policies shortened the Depression, or that similar policies will pull our nation out of its current economic downturn.

Why should we be wary of following in FDR's footsteps?

New Deal labor and industrial policies prolonged the Depression by seven years.

They argue that the U.S. emergence from depression by World War Two, was actually assisted by a reversal or at least weakening of key New Deal policies.

The wartime economic boom reflected not only the enormous resource drain of military spending, but also the erosion of New Deal labor and industrial policies.

So what is the main lesson they found from their New Deal research?

wholesale government intervention can -- and does -- deliver the most unintended of consequences.

That might be something to keep in mind, instead of looking to the government out of panic, dismissing any voices of caution or disagreement, and just blindly supporting big government intervention -- whether in the form of bailouts, spending packages, or any other knee-jerk reaction based on shaky theories.

HOT5 Daily 2/2/2009

1. "The Obligatory Stimulus Quote Post, Part II" A variety of quotes from differing viewpoints about the stimulus.

Representative Sample: I don't even know how many Democrats will vote for it, as it stands today. -Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE)

2. "The Soft Landing" Where do new unbelievers come from, and what are the implications for the future?

Representative Sample: atheists should team up with moderate believers - whenever and wherever they're willing to work with us - to oppose destructive fundamentalism.

3. "Welcome Back Carter" A younger, blacker version of Jimmy?

Representative Sample: Barack Obama is being portrayed by opponents as a new Jimmy Carter - weak at home and naive abroad 

4. "The Davos Downer"  A look at a survey of how corporate CEOs view the current economic climate.

Representative Sample: the survey of corporate CEOs is rather telling.

5. "How Can You Fix It, If You Don’t Know What Is Broken?"  Good question.

Representative Sample: I don’t see any evidence that any of the 535 members of Congress really have a clue what’s happened, much less why.

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.

A Second Look at Obama's Executive Orders

I bashed Obama recently for his executive orders, but maybe I jumped the gun a bit. That's one of the problems commenting on news stories right after they are first reported. Sometimes you don't get a complete picture, and can end up looking like an idiot after the full story comes out. The LA Times reports that the controversial CIA rendition program will continue, and may even expand under the Obama administration. In addition

One provision in one of Obama’s orders appears to preserve the CIA's ability to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects as long as they are not held long-term.

As the quote above indicates, the CIA will continue to be able to run secret interrogation facilities. If this report is correct, it is a huge difference from what was reported earlier. Preserving rendition and the CIA's ability to carry out secret interrogations indicates that the Obama administration is much more realistic about national security than previous news reports suggested. 

I attacked the president in an earlier post, for the idiocy of thinking that an intelligence organization that operates in secret shouldn't be allowed to have secret interrogation facilities. But apparently he doesn't think that at all. I have no problem with merely closing a few long-term secret prisons. Given this latest report, it is also possible that Obama really isn't going to tie the CIA's hands by restricting it to military interrogation procedures. Maybe most of his national security executive orders are actually cosmetic changes for public relations purposes, as some suggested earlier. Let's hope so.

HOT5 Daily 2/1/2009

1. "Shades of gray" Things are rarely all black or all white.

Representative Sample: I get so frustrated by the rigid polarity of many moral debates.

2. "Let me just talk about numbers again for one second" Are there better ways to spend 819 billion dollars?

Representative Sample: So let me ask you, what do you think would stimulate the economy more

3. "God's Facebook" A must see.

Representative Sample: It's a graphic. Go look at it. 

4. "And another thought: A failure of diversity in the Obama team"  With the economy the current number one national problem, who's been left out of the administration?

Representative Sample: the one group that has yet to make it into the top echelons of the Obama Administration is the one group that might be most useful in times like these

5. "Bloggers Medical Syndromes and Conditions"  A list of aliments particular to bloggers.

Representative Sample: Nymphoblogmania - A compulsion to blog any subject that crops up and to read and comment on as many other peoples blogs as possible.

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.