Time To Make With The Happy

What a couple of days we've had here. From DPs to PMs, carbon tax to taxing my patience. So now is the time for a bit of a chill out before the long weekend. It is hot here in London, so I am going home to have a beer and grill something. Enjoy your Thanksgiving. And don't forget to swing!

The People Have Spoken

NoCarbonTaxes.com is website set up to counter the ivory-tower elites, hell-bent on bankrupting our country to further their own agendas. One wants to create an academic oligarchy, where all policy is put before academic economists before it is enacted. And not just economic policy, but all policy. Economists is that smrt.

The other wants to burn the earth and salt it.

And since honshui lurvvs the pictures, here is one for him. A great example of Albertan tolerance, openness, business acumen and intellectual heft.


At least he was born in Calgary, unlike the rest of the phony Albertans.

The Medium is the Message

The statue of David, realized in marble; the Mona Lisa, a masterpiece of oil and wood; Singapore's Bronze Buddha, an artistic and touristic icon.

In each case, the medium chosen by the artist speaks to its subject. The medium, with its benefits and constraints, can often convey as much about artist and subject as the final product.

And sometimes even more.

I give you, courtesy of Don Marco:

Sarah Palin in Crayola

My Betters Have Spoken, As They Always Do

Open letter to the Canadian Electorate : erwingerrits.com: "Mr. Harper is an economist first, politician second."

Who am I (or you for that matter) to argue with someone with a Masters degree in economics?

h/t to the Canadian Cynic.

More Open To Double Penetration

From his brief part in Thelma & Louise, to his inspired role as Early Grayce in Kalifornia, and his spot-on voice work as Patch Boomhauer, on King of the Hill, I love Brad Pitt when he goes full redneck.

And here he is in fine redneck form selling beer on Funny or die.

Gaaaahhhh! Make it Stop!

Most irritating web page ever.

230 Helens Agree - A Carbon Tax Is Good

In what was called "In a rare show of agreement" by the Ottawa Citizen, 230 academic economists have agreed that a carbon tax is ""the best approach" to combatting climate change."



This carbon tax, which would be phased in over time, and would ideally be revenue neutral, is politically agnostic.

I expect the right side of the aisle, with their predictable sputtering, and dismissal of any thinking from elitist, ivory-tower academics, will be delightful. I await their factual rebuttal of the proposal.

Here are the 10 key points:

1. Canada needs to act on climate change now.
2. Any substantive action will involve economic costs.
3. These economic impacts cannot be an excuse for inaction.
4. Pricing carbon is the best approach from an economic perspective.
   1. Pricing allows each business and family to choose the response that is best and most efficient for them.
   2. Pricing induces innovation.
   3. Carbon is almost certainly under-priced right now.
5. Regulation is the most expensive way to meet a given climate change goal.
6. A carbon tax has the advantage of providing certainty in the price of carbon.
7. A cap and trade system provides certainty on the quantity of carbon emitted, but not on the price of carbon and can be a highly complex policy to implement.
8. Although carbon taxes have the most obvious effects on consumers, all carbon reduction policies increase the prices individuals face.
9. Price mechanisms can be regressive and our policy should address this.
10. A pricing mechanism can allow other taxes to be reduced and provide an opportunity to improve the tax system.

Update:

And the first dismissal was easy to find. Turns out all you have to say is that "anthropogenic global warming is a pernicious lie" and the whole house of cards falls apart. Silly Helens.


Update 2

There is just no pleasing some people.

A Million Dollar Idea. Did I Say A Million? I Meant Two Million.

Our friend Crazy Legs, from the Theater Of Cruelty, has been asked to be a reviewer of, and perhaps investor in, the world famous pin-hole glasses.

Always ready to help a brother out, I am going to offer up some of much-in-demand marketing advice. By much in demand I mean never. By advice I mean crap I just thought up.

If you go to the pin-hole glasses website, you will note that it is a bit dry, a bit antiseptic. What these glasses need is some street cred. Some urbanacity...um...urbaniciousness...skanks and gangstas!

So allow me to offer two of the models from my modeling agency, Fire On The Old Back Porch Models, Inc. I think these two up-and-coming superstars can help bring Pin Hole Glasses out of the lab, and onto the faces of the young urban hipsters, so crucial to success in the fashion corrective lens market.



Orange Slice and and Necro-G are sure to make this, or any product, the next cool thing. With their cred, urbanishness, and curious "it" factor, these two will put pin hole glasses on faces faster than Peter North can DNA. And they never give you pink-eye.

Now if for some reason (like you are crazy and hate money) you don't like these two, I have another fantastic idea

Street rappers. Viral marketing using the swagger and urbaciousness of street rappers. And girls in bikinis.

Money.

Don't believe me? Then would you believe 400 gazillion dollars in sales?




So, what do you say CL? Ready to step up to the plate and be the hot new kid on the block?

Call me. We'll do lunch. Shawarmas. I know a place.