How bad is it for mom and pop store when a large massive corporation sets up shop next to there store?

Soon after declining Starbucks’s buyout offer, Hyman received the expected news that the company was opening up next to one of his stores. But instead of panicking, he decided to call his friend Jim Stewart, founder of the Seattle’s Best Coffee chain, to find out what really happens when a Starbucks opens nearby. “You’re going to love it,” Stewart reported. “They’ll do all of your marketing for you, and your sales will soar.” The prediction came true: Each new Starbucks store created a local buzz, drawing new converts to the latte-drinking fold. When the lines at Starbucks grew beyond the point of reason, these converts started venturing out—and, Look! There was another coffeehouse right next-door! Hyman’s new neighbor boosted his sales so much that he decided to turn the tactic around and start targeting Starbucks. “We bought a Chinese restaurant right next to one of their stores and converted it, and by God, it was doing $1 million a year right away,” he said.

So let me get this straight. When you offer a higher quality product at equivalent price you don’t lose your consumer base? Odd and here I thought capitalism failed when massive corporations got involved. Huh. I guess corporations don’t have coercive force like some of me reader’s best friend: the state. I trust corporations because I don’t I have to. Same can’t be said about the state.

It turns out that China’s economy is not nearly as large as previously thought.

China’s economy, said the bank, is smaller than it thought.

About 40% smaller.

China, it turns out, isn’t a $10-trillion economy on the brink of catching up with the United States. It is a $6-trillion economy, less than half our size. For the foreseeable future, China will have far less money to spend on its military and will face much deeper social and economic problems at home than experts previously believed.

This is noteworthy for a variety of reasons but I call attention to it as a means of showing how fickle the ‘truth’ can be. Like global warming, there has been a variety of coverage on the growth of China. Like global warming there has been a great many experts advising based on the massive growth of China. Like global warming there has been policy recommendations. And with one single report based off solid data everything changes. One can only think the same thing is bound to happen with global warming.

How many of you think Dave Lindorff’s global warming exists?

The area that will by completely inundated by the rising ocean—and not in a century but in the lifetime of my two cats—are the American southeast, including the most populated area of Texas, almost all of Florida, most of Louisiana, and half of Alabama and Mississippi, as well as goodly portions of eastern Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. While the northeast will also see some coastal flooding, its geography is such that that aside from a few projecting sandbars like Long Island and Cape Cod, the land rises fairly quickly to well above sea level. Sure, Boston, New York and Philadelphia will be threatened, but these are geographically confined areas that could lend themselves to protection by Dutch-style dikes. The West Coast too tends to rise rapidly to well above sea level in most places. Only down in Southern California towards the San Diego area is the ground closer to sea level.

So certain of this outcome he goes on to argue:

So what we see is that huge swaths of conservative America are set to face a biblical deluge in a few more presidential cycles.

And that the liberal response should be:

The important thing is that we, on the higher ground both actually and figuratively, need to remember that, when they begin their historic migration from their doomed regions, we not give them the keys to the city. They certainly should be offered assistance in their time of need, but we need to keep a firm grip on our political systems, making sure that these guilty throngs who allowed the world to go to hell are gerrymandered into political impotence in their new homes.

There will be much work to be done to help the earth and its residents—human and non-human—survive this man-made catastrophe, and we can’t have these future refugee troglodytes, should their personal disasters still fail to make them recognize reality, mucking things up again.

I wonder how many of you would say his idea of global warming is true or deny his doomsday predictions. Seems to me that his hatred of the conservative view point seems to harm his credibility on global warming. Given that he is a liberal investigative journalist I’m willing to bet he has made a long career out of shaping stories to fit his bias. No doubt his coverage of global warming will suffer as well.

Instapundit Rules.

GEORGE W. BUSH, CLIMATE-CHANGE HERO:

The Kyoto treaty was agreed upon in late 1997 and countries started signing and ratifying it in 1998. A list of countries and their carbon dioxide emissions due to consumption of fossil fuels is available from the U.S. government. If we look at that data and compare 2004 (latest year for which data is available) to 1997 (last year before the Kyoto treaty was signed), we find the following.

* Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%.
* Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1%.

* Emissions from non-signers increased 10.0%.
* Emissions from the U.S. increased 6.6%.

In fact, emissions from the U.S. grew slower than those of over 75% of the countries that signed Kyoto.

They told me that if George W. Bush were elected, the United States would lag behind the rest of the world on greenhouse gases And they were right!

Gifts for all you against gitmo detainment. Don’t ever say I never did anything for you.

Not only is the United Nations aware of the potential for torture in Japan’s prisons (more below), but courts here also tend to use different judicial standards when coming to decisions in cases involving non-Japanese.

Consider the Valentine case. On the evening of Dec. 9, 2003, a Nigerian nightclub worker surnamed Valentine was one of many Africans displaying flyers in Tokyo’s Kabukicho nightlife district. Two potential customers asked to see his club. Obliging, here’s what happened next:

On the way, his “customers” were rumbled as plainclothes police, Valentine says, and he panicked and ran away. Valentine was tackled, and a cop named Tanabu kicked him repeatedly below the knee until his leg was badly broken.

The police, on the other hand, claim that guilt gave Valentine wings, and while sprinting down a narrow alleyway, he dodged another policeman, crashed into a sign attached to a building, and thus broke his leg.

Valentine was then arrested under the Entertainment and Amusement Trades Control Act for handing out nightclub pamphlets, a charge he denies. However, whatever he-said she-said, Valentine was denied access to a hospital while in custody.

According to Valentine’s testimony, hospitals and doctors were contingent on him signing a confession, in Japanese (which he could not read), that the police had not hurt him. He refused. The interrogations continued for 10 days.

According to the U.N., this sort of thing is not all that unusual. The U.N. Committee Against Torture recently criticized Japan (CAT/C/JPN/CO/1, May 18, 2007, Sections 15(c) and 17) for “the lack of appropriate and prompt medical care for individuals in police custody,” and for “undue delays in provision.”

Consequently, Valentine’s leg injury worsened. When he ultimately did sign and was released to Immigration, officials saw he wasn’t running anywhere, and immediately sent him to a private hospital for emergency treatment.

Two of these in 24 hours. Feels good.

Premise #1: Wealth makes men cowards.

Premise #2: When all men are cowards, there will be no war.

Conclusion: When all men are wealthy, there will be no war.

Reasons to Believe Premise #1: Richer countries are much less violent than poor countries; within countries, the rich are much less violent than the poor. Also, in rich countries, small numbers of casualties seem to have large negative effects on public support for war. (My main qualification: It may take a generation or two for the cowardice to kick in. There is probably a gradual social multiplier effect that amplifies the change in individual behavior).

Reasons to Believe Premise #2: This seems obvious enough. However, game theorists will tell you that matters are a little more complicated. When everyone else is a coward, even a coward can safely become a bully. In the real world, though, a small probability that a cowardly victim will defend himself will be enough to deter a cowardly bully.

Upshot: Since there is every reason to expect economic growth to continue throughout the world, world peace is probably only a few generations away.

Do you buy it? Why or why not?

Huh. Well who knew? Link here.

I thought the democrats had a majority in both houses.

This much is clear: Democrats in Congress buckled under pressure from the White House to hold spending near the administration’s specified limit, and they’re poised to give the president more war money with no strings attached.

But the buckling didn’t stop there.

Democratic policy priorities that liberals hoped would be included in the omnibus spending legislation were also left on the cutting-room floor.

Under a veto threat, Democrats removed the reversal of a long-standing anti-abortion provision, abandoned long-sought provisions that would have loosened travel and trade restrictions on Cuba and deleted a line item demanded by unions that would have required federal contractors to pay union wages in disaster areas like New Orleans.

The one groups of people I do not blame is the citizens that make up the constituency of these Democrats. I have no doubt the citizens wanted all these things and if not for the corrupting influence of these special interest groups the democrats would of had enough votes to pass these laws even if the president vetoes the bill.

Link here.

This absurdly funny diagram details all the way global warming will kill people. The best part? The sources are the Lancet and the Proceedings of National Academy of Science. How much you want to bet PNAS article was approved through the buddy system review process. (Correct me if I got that wrong Jamie). The Lancet last year published a study estimating the death toll in Iraq to be at least 600,000. That was true just like mass death by global warming will be.

Anyway since people are absolutely sure to die of global warming the state has the right to tell people how to live their lives. Go using global warming to violate citizen rights.

Iowahawk captures perfectly my feelings on the housing crisis. Makes sure to read the whole thing.

When I opened the mail on November 1, everthing started to go downhill. For some reason my house payment had gone up by $700 per month! There was no way I was going to squeeze that onto my plastic. I thought that maybe it was some sort of fat-crazy-chick revenge thing from Linda, so when I called First Coralville to complain I asked to talk to her supervisor. “No, it’s not a mistake,” says the guy. “You have an adjustable rate mortgage, and it adjusted.”

“Ex-squeeze-me?”

“Adjustable rate mortgage, A-R-M,” he says. “After the first 6 months, it adjusts up to the prevailing interest rate. You should have realized that, because it’s all there in your contract.”

Who am I, fucking Oliver Wendell Smallprint? I thought ARM meant “always ready money.” I told the dude there’s no way I could pay.

“Have you considered refinancing?” he says.

Duhhhh! I had forgotten that another three months had passed since my last home equity loan, so I hopped into the new Benz and drove to First Coralville to collect my quarterly Fifty Large. But when I got there he starts giving me a big song-and-dance.

“I’m sorry Mr. Burge, you don’t qualify for home equity financing,” he says. “According to the latest appraisal, the value of your home has dropped $500,000. In fact, the value of every home on your block has dropped an average of $200,000 since April.”

“WTF??”

“I’m sorry Mr. Burge, home prices in your neighborhood have been hurt by the national housing bubble, and a steep increase in crime and noise.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do now?”

“Have you considered moving to Lakewood Mobile Home Court? It’s very affordable, and the whole neighborhood has undergone an amazing renaissance this year.”

Ever since that day, its been a non-stop job dealing with the phone calls and certified letters and eviction notices. I keep throwing them in the garage behind the Benz and the dirt bikes, but I get the impression these guys are serious. I put up some official-looking “Smallpox Quarantine” signs on the front plastic sheet, but I don’t think they’ll keep the cops away forever. I can’t pay the mortagage, and can barely scrape enough to pay for the $2 million flood insurance policy.

I’ve had a long time to think about it, and it’s finally time to face up to the ugly truth: I’m a victim. A victim of a pernicious system that entices innocent borrowers with 5000 square foot homes and free money and Igloo coolers, only to bury their dreams under a bunch of APR-ARM-XYZ shyster bullshit gobbledygook.

But the blame doesn’t rest completely with First Coralville; ultimately, the resposibility lies with our government, and society itself. Because it was you that elected the politicians that allowed this stupid crisis to happen, and continue to sit idly while victims like me lose our American Dream.

But it’s not too late to make amends: contact your local elected officials and demand that they do something to alleviate our suffering. Demand an end to ARMs, and demand subprime do-overs. If we don’t act now, the entire economy will collapse, and people like me — and my children, and my dirtbikes — will be out on the streets looking for a new place to live. Maybe in your neighborhood.