Titled:   LPG conversion costs jump as motorists scramble for rebate

The Australian government decided to subsidize LPG conversions for motorists. Hours later, the costs of converting to LPG mysteriously rose almost as much as the subsidy:

The cost of converting a car to LPG soared by hundreds of dollars in just a few hours yesterday as WA motorists rushed to take advantage of windfall government subsidies.

Gas conversion specialists across WA were flooded with inquiries from motorists who were keen to book their cars in and claim the $3000 in State and Federal government payments.

The increased demand drove prices up about $200 to $2800 at most businesses, with the RAC claiming some installers were quoting a staggering $4850.

A survey by The West Australian showed many installers appeared to have simply taken their phones off the hook, while others let them ring out. One installer’s answering machine message told callers he had stopped answering the phone because he could not get any work done.

The RAC was forced to bring in extra staff after a 600 per cent surge in calls to the motoring group’s advice line — which included claims that installers had refused to deal with new inquiries until January.

“We would certainly be watching out for any profiteering that might occur,” RAC manager vehicle policy Mike Upton said. “We wouldn’t want that to happen, there’s no reason for it.

Another example of unintended consequences proving just how bad the idea was in the first place.

Hat-tip to Samizdata

Titled:   Lebanese Financial District Bombed

MSNBC covers the Israeli bombing of the Lebanese financial district of Sidon and fails to notice the sheets of uncut US $100 bills laying all around. 1:07 minutes into the video the camera lingers on the sheets laying on the floor.

Maybe the Fed Reserve has decided to outsource its note printing operations overseas to save money?

I think not.

Titled: To Da Moon Baby 2

In a post in January I mentioned the potential for a meteoric rise in gold and silver prices.

On the 16th January, the prices of gold was a strong $560 an ounce and silver was $9.

Today, three and a half months later, gold is passing $675, silver $14.30, gains of 21% and 59% respectively.

Annualized, this is 72% and 203%.

Especially promising is Silver which has almost doubled over the last six months.

Considering in many places, there is no tax on purchases of physical gold and silver, and maintainance / storage costs are zero, this is an investment choice worthy of further inspection.

Precious metals of this class are traditionally hedges against inflation and are almost certain never to become worthless, unlike almost any other form of investment.

Think carefully.

Usual disclaimers apply: This is not intended as investment advice - please do your own due diligence

Titled:   Iran oil bourse next week

Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh said on Wednesday that the establishment of Oil Stock Exchange is in its final stage and the bourse will be launched in Iran in the next week.

He told reporters, upon arrival from Qatar where he attended the 10th General Assembly of International Energy Agency and consultations with OPEC member states, that registration of the Oil Stock Exchange is underway and the entity will operate after being approved by by Council of Stock Exchange.

He rejected a statement attributed to him saying that Oil Stock Exchange will bring to the ground the US economy and said, "I don't know who has speculated that I've not talked about US economy." Asked about conference on energy in Doha, he said that more than 60 countries and 30 oil companies and consultants took part in the conference.

Vaziri Hamaneh said that serious discussions were held including security of supply and demand, security of investment in energy and environment issues.

"The best method for security of demand in the oil sector is that consumers should be given opportunity to enter into partnership with the suppliers in investment in oil industry."

He said that the conference called for diversifying energy resources and cooperation of the developed states with the countries possessing oil and gas resources.

Asked about the oil price rise, Vaziri-Hamaneh said that oil price is being influenced by political situation, whereas it should be freed from political impacts and economic and technical fundamentals should determine the oil prices.

"As long as political impacts dominate the oil market, price hike will continue," he concluded.

Iran is going to sell oil denominated in Euros. Countries will need not buy US dollars to buy oil, reducing the value of the dollar even further.

Of course Iraq tried to do this just before we went in to save the dollar / world iraqi people.

Titled:   Two Tier Currency Rumor

As the Federal Government works to find a way out of impending fiscal doom, rumors are starting to spread of a two tier currency system.

George at UrbanSurvival is trying to track down sources:

I am trying to find a source of a disturbing rumor in an email or two yesterday about so-called "red backs" - which it was speculated might be the beginning of a two-tier currency system.  The buzz is that a "normal" bill, used inside America's borders would continue to be the "green backs" and they would be heavily devalued in the event of a monetary crisis, and that "red backs" would be used outside of the US.  The "red backs" would not be devalued.  The idea is that if your greenbacks only bought, say 25-cents on the dollar outside America, we would, as a nation, import less.  (Might cause the immigration problem to reverse, too.)  At the same time, while countries outside the US would retain their purchasing power, then our exports would soar, at least so far as we make things any more.

As a way to have your cake and eat it, the idea looks promising to the Fed. As far as making it very expensive to travel outside the US, this would seem to be not quite so attractive.

Quite how it would work with international transfers and purchases using digital dollars I'm not sure. Maybe they plan to have people convert their dollars at the borders...

Probability of truth: <5%

Update:  Subject is also found here, and here

Titled:   As Canada's Slow-Motion Public Health System Falters, Private Medical Care Is Surging

Canada's health system has often been held up as a paragon of success by those interested in instituting a single-payer system south of the border, in the US. It is technically illegal to charge for treatment, resulting in long and incresing waiting lists for basic operations:

The Cambie Surgery Center, Canada's most prominent private hospital, may be considered a rogue enterprise.

Accepting money from patients for operations they would otherwise receive free of charge in a public hospital is technically prohibited in this country, even in cases where patients would wait months or even years in discomfort before receiving treatment.

But no one is about to arrest Dr. Brian Day, who is president and medical director of the center, or any of the 120 doctors who work there. Public hospitals are sending him growing numbers of patients they are too busy to treat, and his center is advertising that patients do not have to wait to replace their aching knees.

The country's publicly financed health insurance system — frequently described as the third rail of its political system and a core value of its national identity — is gradually breaking down. Private clinics are opening around the country by an estimated one a week, and private insurance companies are about to find a gold mine.

Dr. Day, for instance, is planning to open more private hospitals, first in Toronto and Ottawa, then in Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton. Ontario provincial officials are already threatening stiff fines. Dr. Day says he is eager to see them in court.

"We've taken the position that the law is illegal," Dr. Day, 59, says. "This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years."

...

The median wait time between a referral by a family doctor and an appointment with a specialist has increased to 8.3 weeks last year from 3.7 weeks in 1993, according to a recent study by The Fraser Institute, a conservative research group. Meanwhile the median wait between appointment with a specialist and treatment has increased to 9.4 weeks from 5.6 weeks over the same period.

Average wait times between referral by a family doctor and treatment range from 5.5 weeks for oncology to 40 weeks for orthopedic surgery, according to the study.

Current waiting times in the UK:

• 8 months for cataract surgery
• 11 months for a hip replacement
• 12 months for a knee replacement
• 5 months to repair a slipped disc
• 5 months for a hernia repair

It's the same story across the Western world:

A recent survey of hospital executives in five countries (Australia, Canada, Britain, New Zealand and the United States) found that none of the U.S. executives thought a 65-year-old man would have to wait six months or more for routine hip-replacement surgery. The numbers for other countries, which have greater government control of healthcare, were significantly higher: 81 percent of hospital executives in Britain, for example, thought the wait would be more than six months.

And this is for non-urgent medical care, for just pain. Look at the current times for Ontario:

Hospital wait times for key services. Average wait time in days.

• MRI scan: 55
• CAT scan: 30
• Cancer surgery: 37
• Angiography: 22
• Angioplasty: 11
• Bypass surgery: 22
• Cataract surgery: 142
• Hip replacement: 162
• Knee replacement: 203

The BBC reports of a UK woman being asked to wait for 18 months for an MRI!

There are some benefits to a centralized, one-payer, socialized medical system, but quick access to needed services is clearly not one of them.

Titled:      In wooing Cabela's, village suspends local gun rules

With no public discussion, the Hoffman Estates Village Board on Monday voted unanimously to eliminate parts of the village's local firearms ordinance.

The changes mean that gun purchases will not have to be reported to the Hoffman Estates Police Department. It also means that the police department will no longer run its own background checks on gun buyers and it will not issue permits.

Firearms retailers and consumers, however, must still comply with state and federal gun laws, which require buyers to obtain an Illinois Firearms Owner Identification (FOID) card, submit to a background check and comply with the standard 24- or 72-hour waiting period, depending on what type of gun is being bought.

The new ordinance was tailored on behalf of Cabela's, a national camping and hunting outfitter which is planning to open a 200,000-square-foot store in Hoffman Estates in 2007. Cabela's will sell shotguns, long rifles and handguns in addition to second-hand firearms. The retailer is expected to generate annual sales tax revenues of about $2 million.

I know that they sell a lot of goods besides guns, but I still don't understand why they choose to patronize states that chose to restrict the liberties of their customers. Cabela's is a major attraction to any area. Michigan's store has become the state's greatest tourist attraction. Customers come from hundreds of miles around. I can't see many of the longer distance customers willing to drive back to the store after a 24-hour or 72-hour wait to pick up a firearm they could buy locally without a wait. 

I would rather they set up in gun-friendly states and pull the customers, and the sales-tax, out of the more oppressive areas.

Still, its a minor victory for that one small town.

Titled:   Ithaca Gun is back in business

Ithaca Guns is back in business:

Ithaca Gun is back in business, but, for the first time since the company was founded in the 1880s, it is headquartered no where near Ithaca.

I t is now Ithaca Guns USA, LLC, and headquarters is Upper Sandusky, Ohio, rather than Ithaca, King Ferry or Auburn. But they are making familiar Ithaca Gun models.

...Using their 30,000 square-foot CNC machinery-equipped plant and Ithaca Gun plans and specs, the new company is already turning out variations of the Model 37 pump that has been the flagship of the troubled Ithaca Gun name for nearly 70 years.

Their website, though still under construction, is up and running.

Titled:   After 150 yrs, Western Union ends telegram service

"Effective January 27, 2006," the company said in a note posted without ceremony on its Web site, "Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage."

James Lileks, as usual, has gathered some long lost art from the bygone days:

Happy Caucasian Patriarch Day! Here you see the variety of boilerplate available to the tongue-tied son. Note the art in the corner – either Dad has ascended in the Rapture, or was the victim of spontaneous human combustion. Note also that one could send a telegram from home and have it charged on your phone bill – something that must have seemed quite modern. Which, I suppose, it was.

Titled:      Winchester Rifle Plant Prepares to Close

U.S. Repeating Arms Co. Inc. said Tuesday it will close its Winchester firearm factory, threatening the future of a rifle that was once called "The Gun that Won the West."

"It's part of who we are as a nation just like it's part of who we are as a city," Mayor John DeStefano said.

The announcement touched off a lobbying effort by city officials and union leaders who hoped to find a buyer for the plant before it closes March 31. If no buyer comes forward, it could spell the end for nearly all commercially produced Winchesters, said Everett Corey, a representative of the International Association of Machinists District 26.

John Wayne would not be pleased.

Titled:     Gold hits new highs

Titled: It's the Demography, Stupid

Another excellent column by Mark Steyn on the impact of falling Westen birth rates and the impact this will have on the western way of life. Some quotes:

Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries...

If anything, the West is awash in an epidemic of self-hate crimes. A commenter on Tim Blair's Web site in Australia summed it up in a note-perfect parody of a Guardian headline: "Muslim Community Leaders Warn of Backlash from Tomorrow Morning's Terrorist Attack." Those community leaders have the measure of us.

That's the wonderful thing about multiculturalism: You can choose which side of the war you want to fight on. When the draft card arrives, just tick "home team" or "enemy," according to taste.

In National Review recently, I took issue with that line Gerald Ford always uses to ingratiate himself with conservative audiences: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have." Actually, you run into trouble long before that point: A government big enough to give you everything you want still isn't big enough to get you to give anything back. That's what the French and German political classes are discovering.

In the 2004 election, John Kerry won the 16 with the lowest birthrates; George W. Bush took 25 of the 26 states with the highest. By 2050, there will be 100 million fewer Europeans, 100 million more Americans--and mostly red-state Americans.

Well worth the time to read.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago has upheld a verdict in favor of General Motors, after a born-again Christian employee sued the automaker for religious discrimination. The case stemmed from 43-year-old computer engineer John Moranski, who petitioned GM to form a company-sponsored Christian group.

Moranski's attorney argued that the manufacturer sponsors 'affinity groups' for minorities including women, gay men and women, veterans, disabled people, and racial and ethnic groups, and the manufacturer's refusal to create a similar group for Christians violated their client's civil rights.

The automaker has a blanket policy to refuse sponsorship to any groups centering on religious or political grounds. In a nine-page ruling, the court found no merit in Moranski's arguments tying his claim to the 1964 Civil Rights Act's Title VII provision (prohibiting discrimination based upon color, race. religion, sex, or national origin).