Northern Exposure

A Supremely Good Idea

2007-01-02T19:52:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year! If you're looking for a good cause, Kiva is an organization that takes the concept of "microloans" that were behind the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize this year and brings it to the shrinking world. You can help make a loan to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world and give them the opportunity to start a business.

I Like My Markets Like I Like My Pepsi: Black, Bubbling, and Free From Government Intervention

2006-12-11T22:00:00.000-05:00

Slate reviews a book that is definitely on my reading list, given my interest in black markets and anarcho-capitalist economies:

The result, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, suggests that in some American neighborhoods, the underground economy is a source not just of sustenance but of order, and that while shady transactions may be illegal, they adhere to a distinctive and sophisticated set of laws.

As the article states, it brings to mind a great old headline from the Onion: "It's Not a Crack House, It's a Crack Home".

Their Job Is to Snow Us

2006-12-01T22:01:00.000-05:00

It's snowing a lot in B.C. right now (and me and my skis are here in Jersey...sigh), but in Santa Monica the government is really trying to snow the citizens by using 9-minute parking meters. Interspersed in the middle of a bunch of 9-hour meters, of course. And these are the only 9-minute meters in the city. And they (and their signs) look exactly like the 9-hour meters. If there's ever been a clearly illustrated instance of a municipality literally trying to trick people into getting parking tickets, I haven't heard of it. Whoever is behind this should be chained to one of the 9-minute meters for 9 hours. Where drivers can do to them as they please.

UPDATE: The city now says it was all a mistake, and they are changing the meters. I guess I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one, since the 9-minute parking space was perhaps (perhaps!) even too dumb a way for a municipal government to steal our money.

But Will They Be Allowed To Eat Muffin Stumps?

2006-11-30T19:34:00.000-05:00

hIn Fairfax Co, VA, life is imitating art in a sad, sad way that's far beyond even the abilities of Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld to conceive. Legislators there have decided that it would be better for homeless people not to eat than to risk eating something from an 'uncertified' kitchen and potentially getting food poisoning (not that that's actually ever happened). It's decisions like this that even make Matt Yglesias sympathetic to the libertarian perspective.

Stick a Pitchfork in Them

2006-11-29T16:58:00.000-05:00

Generally speaking, I'm not that interested in a stranger's reviews of music, which I find tend to reveal much more about the writer than the music they are reviewing. Namely, that they're usually full of self-indulgent blubbering and attempts to sound incredibly intellectual and insightful about something that more than anything is a personal, emotional experience. And the impression I have is that Pitchfork is the worst (yet by far the most influential) of the bunch. They have that anti-populism bias that's even more self-concious and superficial than the typical bandwagon-jumping teenager (not to mention being elitist). I'm all for challenging the status quo, but challenging the status quo of cultural taste merely on principle is taking things a bit far.

Slate's take is here.

A Timeless Cry: "Damn those lazy, no-good _________, who are ruining the country!" (fill in name of unpopular ethnic group)

2006-11-28T22:57:00.000-05:00

This post at H&R nicely sums up Tom Tancredo's (R-CO) dispicable, racist, and hypocritical stance on immigration. In short, after calling Miami (aka Little Havana) a "third-world country" and getting some predictable blowback from politicians representing South Florida, Tancredo responds with this:

''Moreover, the sheer size and number of ethnic enclaves devoid of any English and dominated by foreign cultures is widespread. Frankly, many of these areas could have been located in another country. And until America gets serious about demanding assimilation, this problem will continue to spread.''

What makes for some choice irony is that Tancredo himself is the gradson of Italian immigrants (you know, the ones who started all those "Little Italy" enclaves found in many major cities). What did an immigrant-basher in 1891 have to say about the trend at that time? Well, here's Rep. Henry Cabot Lodge (who I think was Veronica's father in The Archies) discussing immigration in the late 19th century:

"that immigration to this country is increasing and...is making its greatest relative increase from races most alien to the body of the American people and from the lowest and most illiterate classes among those races." He was speaking principally of the Italians, but also the Russians, Poles and Hungarians. He observed that these immigrants, "half of whom have no occupation and most of whom represent the rudest form of labor," are "people whom it is very difficult to assimilate and do not promise well for the standard of civilization in the United States."

And as Radley Balko wittily points out, Lodge seems to have missed the mark on the Italians:

In fact, the grandson of two of them grew up to be a modern-day Henry Cabot Lodge. Perhaps next century, a grandson or granddaughter of today's Mexican immigrants will grow up to become a leading voice against the next wave of immigrants, too -- the next Tom Tancredo. It's the American Dream!

I'm Sure Glad I Ignored My Teachers

2006-11-28T21:48:00.000-05:00

Well, about lots of things - but especially when they told me to "sit up straight" (and what's weird is that it already sounds very quaint and hopelessly out-of-date that a teacher would even care if you were slouching. I certainly don't). Because new research has shown that sitting up straight is bad for your back - leaning back at an angle of about 135 degrees is actually puts much less strain on your spine. Which means that as I work here laying out on the couch I'm actually in the pretty much ideal position! Sweet.

Shrouded in a Mushroom Cloud of Death

2006-11-27T12:16:00.000-05:00

Did you know that the awesome 80's hit "99 Luftballoons" ("99 Red Balloons"), while being a really peppy-sounding song (musically), is about a nuclear holocaust? I didn't. A definite landmark in the fun music coupled with depressing lyrics rock and roll catalogue. (title ref here, although the music from this song is more sweet than fun - the lyrical twist is certainly shocking, though)

In other pop culture news, it's almost December, which means Garry should be coming out with his Top 5 Albums of 2006 sometime soon (to go with his now-revised Top 5 movies of '06) . I've already got my top 3 ready for you, Garry. As for movies, the two at the top of my almost-year-end list are "Thank You for Smoking", and "Inside Man". I'll have to think more on the others.

No Causing Offense, Please, We're British

2006-11-27T11:12:00.000-05:00

Another sign that the Brits are going insane in their "public order law" efforts to completely outlaw any behavior that anybody doesn't like: the UK cops are worried that people's feelings are being hurt by the various slogans thrown around at political protests. As they say, "The police want powers to tackle a "grey area" in the array of public order laws. At present, causing offence by itself is not a criminal offence." What if I'm offended by your terrible taste in clothes/music/cologne? Can we criminalize that, too? As much praise as we give the Europeans for their (generally more) progressive attitudes towards sex and drugs, they've gone completely overboard with their anti-free-speech "hate speech" laws. As I've said before: If we don't have freedom of speech, how will we know who the assholes are?

Reflexive Anti-Americanism: The Defining Characteristic of the Canadian Identity

2006-11-16T19:33:00.000-05:00

Coming back to the 'nationalism' discussion, the Globe and Mail's discussion commentaries on their articles are absolutely fucking awful. I think it's great that they give people the opportunity to say something about the issues, but half the time these threads descend into America-bashing within two or three posts, no matter what the story is about. Grow up, Canada, you're embarrassing me.

Where Have You Gone, John Lennon?

2006-11-16T19:14:00.000-05:00

Economically-challenged xenophobe Lou Dobbs had this to say in his defense of populism: "I blame us for forgetting that the United States is first a nation, and secondly a marketplace or an economy". I couldn't disagree more, and what would be even better, of course, is if we thought of countries as just collections of people, and didn't set up barriers that kept free people from engaging in trade with whoever they see fit.

Chuck Klosterman asks a good question in his awesome new book, Klosterman IV - if you have to make the choice, will you betray a friend or betray your country? Like Klosterman, I sure hope I would choose to betray my country.

RIP, Milton Friedman

2006-11-16T18:59:00.000-05:00

One of the most important economists of all time and one of the leading thinkers of the 20th century, Milton Friedman, died today at the age of 94. In the words of the NY Times, he as "a prime force in the movement of nations toward lesser government and greater reliance on free markets and individual responsibility." The world is a better place because of his ideas.

Thank This Inanimate Carbon Rod Tax!

2006-11-10T13:31:00.000-05:00

Surprising as it may be, it sounds like the Republicans may be considering proposing a carbon tax, with former Bush speechwriter David Frum echoing former head of the President's Economic Advisors Greg Mankiw by suggesting that the time may have come to establish a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. I'm not a fan of new taxes, but I for one welcome our new eco-overlords. Especially if this can be used to reduce income taxes (but that's probably a wish coming from cloud cuckoo land).

Title reference here. I score bonus points for TWO Simpsons references from the same episode.

Worst. Labor. Negotiations. Ever.

2006-11-09T18:07:00.000-05:00

We all know that labor unions can behave pretty offensively, but when a union representing millionaire athletes threatens to sue the league because of unfair labor practices (because the refs are calling too many technical fouls), it's beyond satire and ripe for ridicule. These NBA players - it's not enough that they're mistakenly invading your house on a police raid, now they've proposing what is probably the 2nd-most ridiculous lawsuit ever (it still doesn't top those people who sued McDonald's for making them fat, of course).

Battle of the Bands of My Youth

2006-11-09T17:47:00.000-05:00

I will definitely admit that U2 wrote and recorded some of the greatest songs in the history of rock music ("One", "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", "Sunday Bloody Sunday"), but growing up they didn't really mean that much to me as a band. And to their credit, they've managed to keep it up, with some great stuff recorded this century, too. But I've never LOVED them as a band. R.E.M., on the other hand, was a band I felt comfortable with, probably due to their (perceived, at least) distaste for fame (the anti-Bono, in other words). I like that you can't really understand what their songs are about (and that they are willing to admit that they don't know, either), and everything they did felt so organic and warm. Automatic for the People was one of my first albums on my permanent Top-5 list, and one of my most enduring memories from high school is being 16, having just gotten a car, and driving around listening to "It's the End of the World As We Know It" (on cassette) over and over and over again.

Inspiration here.

For a gorgeous version of a beautiful song featuring Michael Stipe and Bill Berry from R.E.M. and Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen from U2, check this out.

Gridlock: A Noble Goal

2006-11-08T12:59:00.000-05:00

Will a divided government result in the dreaded (by politicians and those who support them) gridlock? Those of use who champion limited government can hope so. A government with their hands tied is a government that can't fuck anything up. At the very least, this might get President Bush to take out his veto pen, and maybe we'll see some investigations into the corruption in Congress.

In other election news, having a look at various ballot measures is always pretty interesting, and tells you a lot more about people's opinions than the lesser-of-two-evils horse race in the elections. The common themes, nost of them discouraging: Americans are still not willing to legalize marijuana (Nevada, Colorado), let people marry who they want to (Virginia, Idaho, Colorado, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Wisconsin), or let workers and employers be free to form a contract that they see fit (Ohio, Nevada, Missouri, Montana). Some apparent bright spots: Missouri passes a bill to allow embyonic stem-cell research (this was the one supported by the add starring Michael J. Fox that got so much attention), Arizona may not ban same-sex marraige (51% against with votes still being counted), and South Dakota rejected a total ban on abortions.

And BREAKING NEWS: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is stepping down! Interesting timing... The liberal bloggers will be having a field day with this one. "It's intended to distract attention from the shift in the balance of power!", "It's to avoid investigations into his mismanagement of the war!", or (probably) "it's because he snorted coke off a 16-year old male Congressional page's stomach!".

UPDATE: I missed an important and encouraging trend in the discussion of ballot measures - property-rights protections via limits on eminent domain passed in 9 states, only failing in 3.

Election Blah-gging

2006-11-08T01:36:00.000-05:00

Dems take control of the House. Senate still up in the air, and likely will be while lawyers battle out Virgina's recounts (the only race I really care about, due to Allen's dispicable campaign tactics) . Either way, what do we likely end up with? A lame-duck president trying to create a legacy, being (cough) reined in by fiscally-liberal houses of Congress? In other words: SPEND, SPEND, SPEND!!!

As Nick Gillespie predicted: "The important thing to remember is that no matter what happens the American people are going to lose." Pretty much par for the course when we confuse "leadership" with "who can bribe the most voters with their pet projects?", and all the while ignoring any constitutional limits on power.

I wonder how this will affect K-Fed's career?

Always The Scene-Stealer

2006-11-07T20:40:00.000-05:00

Thankfully, we have something much, much more interesting in the news tonight besides the tedious election: Britney Spears Divorcing.

Get In the Game, Kids!

2006-11-02T18:10:00.000-05:00

Some of the finest (and funniest) sportswriting in the nation can be found at ESPN's Page 2. You don't have to like professional sports to think that Jim Baker's hilarious satire of suggestions to his 6-year-old's soccer coach is well worth reading. A finer analysis of "magnet ball" has never been penned.

Robert Byrd Is So Un-Funny I Can't Even Laugh

2006-11-01T11:32:00.000-05:00

Check out this video of Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) bragging (and receiving applause, of course) about bringing $36 million of federal taxpayer money to Marshall University. Multiply this by 100 senators and you can see why we've got a government spending problem in Washington.

And what's with the guy behind him in the green tie? He's either faking it, or he hasn't heard a joke that's actually funny since 1977. And given the reaction of the audience, neither have they.

Kerry Get Out Your Cane

2006-11-01T10:46:00.000-05:00

If John Kerry isn't the stupidest politician in America, he certainly is the least politically-savvy. Um, making a joke about the intelligence or career prospects of people in the military probably isn't the best thing for a Democrat to say 6 days before an election. Like 2004, Kerry is doing his best to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Title reference here.

Politics Imitates Art

2006-10-27T11:56:00.000-05:00

I'm always a little disappointed when a musician makes an overt political statement at a concert. (I find it less frustrating when it's done on record, but I prefer it to be subtle if it's there at all). To me, it comes off as a pretty lame play to the crowd's supposedly-predictable political sensibilities. Brian Doherty has an outstanding essay up at Reason on the intersection of politics and art, and (unsurprisingly) finds that we're all guilty of drawing far two many lines between the two. Especially the ongoing effort to assign every word written by Bob Dylan to a particular political viewpoint. I liked this perspective, which may help to explain the lasting respect Dylan commands:

...Dylan recognizes that it can only hurt an artist qua artist to be pinned down on worldly politics—that being held up as an exemplar of a specific political-ideological team may help the audience, but it's death to the artist.

Well worth reading. One of my favorite pieces of the year.

Worst. Campaign. Ever.

2006-10-27T08:59:00.000-05:00

I can't begin to describe how much I hate politics. Any system that rewards, gives the perception of rewarding, or even encourages lowest common-denominator behavior like we're seeing now in the race for the Virginia Senate seat is beneath me. We've assured ourselves that the people who are most willing to lie, cheat, and steal in order to gain power over us will do so, and I want no part of it.

The story that has me absolutely livid and sad is the game being played by Republican George Allen's campaign attempts to smear Democrat Jim Webb as a woman-hating pedophile, based on a descriptive, scene-setting passage from Allen's novel about Vietnam that describes an accepted SE Asian ritual of kissing young children all over their bodies (including their genitals).

A summary:

While George Allen was discovering his love for the Confederacy in Southern California and at the University of Virginia, Jim Webb was fighting the war in Vietnam, finding himself wholly immersed in a completely foreign culture. Webb was obviously rather profoundly affected by that experience. Because he chose to write about it, in a series of books that have won widespread praise from politicians, from fellow Vietnam vets, and from literary critics.
But war-loving, flag-waving George Allen has decided to hold all of that against Jim Webb. Tonight, Allen took what was clearly a scene-painting, cultural passage from one of those books, grotesquely took it out of context and sexualized it, then slapped it on a press release in an attempt to cheapen Webb's well-received books as cheap porn with hints of pedophelia.

This isn't just a political attack. It's an attack on art. On writing. On expression. Hell, it's an attack on knowledge and learning. It's cheap and tawdry and cynical.

Perhaps if George Allen hadn't himself procured a student deferment from the Vietnam War, he'd be more familiar with the country's culture, and wouldn't bastardize the work of a man who did fight, and who saw to share his experiences with the rest of us -- Allen and his campaign of course announcing and advertising their own willfull stupidity in the process.

Just politics, I guess.

I didn't really give a shit about this race until now. But now, I might become a US citizen, move to Virginia, vote against George Allen, and then swear off politics forever. But since the first three are clearly impossible to accomplish in the next 10 days, I'll have to be content with the last one.

More disgusting behavior on the campaign trail from both parties, but especially the GOP, here and here.

Obvious hat tip to Radley Balko, who made an excellent and terrifying point after doing some research on the practice of the touching of children's genitals in other areas of the world:

Of course, I'm probably now going to jail for what I just typed into Google to find those articles.

Title reference here.

A Life-Support System

2006-10-27T08:19:00.000-05:00

Much of the attention blogs have received has been for exposing scandals that result in getting someone fired or publicly embarrassed. So it's nice to be able to report on the blogosphere doing something positive.

This is somewhat old news that I've meant to blog about for awhile, but it appears that blogger Radley Balko (formerly of the Cato Institute, now with Reason Magazine) has essentially saved Cory Maye's life. The story, for those that don't know it: Maye was on death row in Mississippi for killing a police officer who was part of a botched home raid (the team mistakenly barged into Maye's home in the middle of the night with guns drawn, and Maye, thinking he was under attack, fired back in protection of himself and his infant daughter), and Balko has tirelessly worked to bring exposure to the case which have served to get Cory Maye a new trial. Balko's summary at the time went like this:

Cops mistakenly break down the door of a sleeping man, late at night, as part of drug raid. Turns out, the man wasn't named in the warrant, and wasn't a suspect. The man, frightened for himself and his 18-month old daughter, fires at an intruder who jumps into his bedroom after the door's been kicked in. Turns out that the man, who is black, has killed the white son of the town's police chief. He's later convicted and sentenced to death by a white jury. The man has no criminal record, and police rather tellingly changed their story about drugs (rather, traces of drugs) in his possession at the time of the raid.

The story only became more convoluted, with apparent discontinuities everywhere in the cop's story. And now, Cory Maye, rather than being killed, is going to live, in part because of Balko's tireless efforts. And at least get a fair trial.

In the words of Gene Healy, via Jim Henley: It sure beats getting Dan Rather fired, huh?

Ford Flap

2006-10-26T14:55:00.000-05:00

There's a minor bruhaha going on in Tennessee (and it's spreading) over a new political ad that uses satire to criticize Democratic senatorial candidate Harold Ford. Because Ford is black, and a white woman appears in the ad referring to a Playboy party that Ford attended, the ad is being deemed racist in some circles. Sorry, but like Jacob Sullum, I just can't see it. The ad is kind of tacky and stupid, but it's altogether not half-bad and mildly funny. The line that made me laugh the most: "Canada can take care of North Korea, they're not busy."

As to the charge of racism, I had this to say over at H&R:

The reaction to this ad is what you'd expect, given that there is a significant number of people who seek out examples of racism and (surprise!) find it everywhere. I'd also point out that if it was a black woman who appeared at the end of the ad, you ALSO be hearing cries of racism, for making disparaging assumptions about the morals of black women. So there's no way to win, really.

UPDATE: The playing of the race card never ends...now they're saying this radio ad is racist because it has uplifting strings during the sections talking about Republican Bob Corker and ominous-sounding drums during the sections talking about Ford. I think it takes a fucking racist to infer some kind of "jungle drums" negativitity in this. I mean, I guess I want the Dems to take control of the Senate next month, but god they can be annoying sometimes.

Two Cheers for Jersey

2006-10-26T11:15:00.000-05:00

On a more positive note, I'd like to commend the great state of New Jersey for two recent developments:

First, the state Supreme Court managed to strike a nice balance on the gay marriage issue and handed the ball to legislators to make a decision on the subject within the next 180 days. While not explicitly endorsing gay marriage, the judges, in a 4-3 decision, made it clear that some kind of equal-benefits opportunity must be available to homosexual couples, and whether that is civil unions, marriage or something else is left up to the lawmakers:

"Although we cannot find that a fundamental right to same-sex marriage exists in this state, the unequal dispensation of rights and benefits to committed same-sex partners can no longer be tolerated under our state Constitution."

Dahlia Lithwick has a nice piece at Slate on why this isn't an example of the much-maligned "judicial activism".

Second, the state has decided they won't be bullied by the federal government into accepting sex-education money that comes with thick strings attached. The strings being that taking the money would require the state to ban teachers from discussing contraception and force them to tell teens that sex within marriage is the "expected standard of human sexual activity".

It's about time some states stood up to the federal government's blackmail and thinly-veiled attempts to push an agenda by withholding money (that the feds have no business handing out, anyway). NJ is the 4th state to do so in this case.

Hat tip for both stories from To The People.

Making Me Sick

2006-10-26T08:43:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to avoid getting worked up about politics this year, but new Reason-man Radley Balko's story about the internet gambling ban is enough to light a fire in the pit of my libertarian sensibilities. What's most disgusting about the bill is not just that it outlaws a perfectly consenual activity that causes no direct harm to others, but how it was passed:

In the wee hours of the last night of the last session of Congress, Majority Leader Bill Frist attached a ban on Internet gambling to a port security bill.

It was a dubious maneuver, which not only prevented any real floor debate over the ban, but also attached an intrusive, unnecessary, big government measure to a bill that addressed important national security concerns. This meant that any senator who held the position that what Americans do with their own money in their own homes on their own time is none of the government's business couldn't vote against the gambling ban, lest they risk being smacked about the head with the "soft on national security" cudgel.

How did we let it happen that THIS is how laws are passed in this country? I don't really give a crap about internet gambling per se, but the underhanded manner in which so many bills get through Congress removes any last bit of credibility the government had. Get them out.

Read the whole thing.

Ethanol: Brown, According to Greens

2006-10-25T18:36:00.000-05:00

Even the enviro-mag Grist is criticizing ethanol:

Most environmentalists agree that the "green" case for corn-based ethanol is a sham: Even if the fuel's energy balance is marginally positive, that factor is probably outweighed by the vast environmental liabilities of large-scale corn production.

Quote of the Day

2006-10-24T20:57:00.000-05:00

Steve Chapman, discussing the minimum wage:

"Economics was dubbed "the dismal science" because it is constantly at war with one of life's most pleasant occupations -- wishful thinking."

Principles

2006-10-24T20:44:00.000-05:00

Reasonable, thoughtful members of Congress are few and far between, but it appears Barney Frank (D-MA) is at least on-target some of the time. He gives the proper response to the idiotic online gambling ban:

"People have said, What is the value of gambling ? Here is the value. Some human beings enjoy doing it. Shouldn't that be our principle? If individuals like doing something and they harm no one, we will allow them to do it, even if other people disapprove of what they do."

Can I get an 'amen'? My only quibble is that we shouldn't even think of "allowing" someone to do something that doesn't harm others. The right is not "ours" (aka the government's) to "allow".

The Great Ethanol Scam

2006-10-24T20:32:00.000-05:00

I've blogged before about the dubious environmental benefits from ethanol, and the evidence seems to get more convincing all the time that this is NOT the solution it is touted to be. And because my friend Chubby is probably missing having to answer for my criticisms of ethanol, I think it's time for one more:

Consumer Reports has a cover story looking at the decrease in fuel economy that accompanies using ethanol rather than gasoline (due to a decreased energy content), as well as describing the perverse incentives that automakers have to produce the "flex-fuel vehicles" to run on E85, even if the car never acutally uses ethanol. The question of whether ethanol provides a net thermodynamic advantage when the entire production chain is factored in continues...of course if we got rid of all the subsidies to ethanol AND conventional fuel we wouldn't have to argue about it, the market would provide a ready answer. The information-hiding aspects of government subsidies are probably even more of a problem in the grand scheme of things than the offensiveness that they are spending our money to support certain companies and industries.

Their Fantasy is My Nightmare

2006-10-23T23:24:00.000-05:00

This has been pointed out elsewhere, but my god, I can't believe that people are playing Fantasy Congress. It makes Fantasy Football look like the coolest way to spend your time...which is something I thought I'd never say.

Personally, I'm not thinking that encouraging "passing legislation" as a point-scoring test is quite the message we need to send to this, or any, Congress (or the people they represent, for that matter). David Boaz at Cato agrees.

My New Least-Favorite Basketball Player

2006-10-23T14:06:00.000-05:00

Like Radley Balko, I'm speechless over reports that Shaquille O'Neal has helped out with police drug raids in Virgina and LA. It's not enough that he plays the most boring game of basketball that has ever graced the NBA hardwood? Now he has to participate in constitutionally-dubious home invasions? Here's a call for Ron Artest and Latrell Sprewell to foul Shaq extra-hard this year.

'NEAR COLLISION' ON PLAYGROUND 'ALMOST' RESULTS IN BRUISED KNEE!!

2006-10-18T18:25:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, that's not a headline from The Onion.

Continuing an effort to raise a bunch of couch-potato wimps with no competitive spirit, another school (this one near Boston) has banned games of "tag". Says one mother: "I've witnessed enough near collisions." WTF?

If I had a child at this school, this would cause me to pull them out immediately. Of course, since there isn't much of a competitive market for schools, you might just be stuck with crap educational environments like this that try to child-proof the world.

Via H&R.

A New Hobby

2006-10-09T21:26:00.000-05:00

I think I've decided that my new hobby will be infiltrating Marxist-unionist protest groups. If this article is representative, these probably score about 17 out of 10 on the unintentional comedy scale.

This Weed is Ripe for Satire

2006-09-20T10:50:00.000-05:00

In a bold new step that will surely turn the corner on the decades-old (and 1% successful) drug war, the ONDCP has put up some anti-drug videos on YouTube to educate/discourage teens from using drugs.

The over/under on the time it will take before some hilarious spoof videos of these spots also appear on YouTube is currently set at 3.5 minutes.

Pouting Over It

2006-09-18T13:56:00.000-05:00

There are many allowances for interrogation under the Geneva Conventions, but President Bush has recently turned up his nose at making any kind of compromise that would achieve worthy objectives in the war against terrorism (please, let's drop this whole War on "Terror" business) while remaining legal and moral. He's giving people the false choice between his way or not at all, like these are the only options. This reminds me of the stupid "choice" given by my 5th grade teacher: "my way or the highway", and is aptly pointed out by Matt Yglesias:

Bush wants to order intelligence agencies to violate all the country's traditions and several of its laws in order that they might torture people. To that end, he's willing to say that if he can't torture people he just won't interrogate them at all.

Tim Lee also makes a couple of important points:

Here, he's fighting tooth and nail to prevent Congress from second-guessing his decision to torture suspected terrorists. The only principle that seems to be operating in both cases is the principle of unbridled executive power. He appears to believe that when he makes a decision, Congress has a duty to defer to his judgment. Fortunately, that's not the way our Constitution works.
....
As near as I can tell, what the president has done is flout the law, get caught, and then declare that if Congress doesn't retroactively ratify his illegal behavior, he'll be forced to set the terrorists free. This is simply reprehensible.

As near as I can tell, the president is acting like a spoiled brat who doesn't like the way the rules of the game don't allow him to play however he damn well feels like it, so he's going to take his ball and go home. Well, fuck him.

Required Viewing

2006-09-16T15:15:00.000-05:00

OK, I'll apologize for the infrequent posting lately. A few things have been getting in my way for the past week or so: 1) the start of the school year, always a busy time with plenty of distractions, 2) a vague lack of interest in current events...I've been much more relaxed since I've been back from the summer, and I think part of it might be that I've been spending less time frantically searching the internet for something in the news that will offend me enough to write a post on it (this is definitely a positive development...and if it leads to fewer posts, so be it), and 3) Season 1 of "Lost". Oh man, it's so good. I'm completely addicted.

But today I came across this video of Milton Friedman being interviewed in 1975 on PBS about limited government. This was the year before Friedman won the Nobel Prize in Economics. It's awesome. A transcript is available here, but here's a part that I really liked:

HEFFNER: Yes, but it interests me that you just said that mankind is selfish and greedy. And that has always been the battle cry of those who have said; therefore, we must impose controls upon them.
FRIEDMAN: Therefore, we have to put power into the hands of other selfish and greedy men. Now I want to apologize for what I said. The great bulk of mankind. There are always conspicuous exceptions, not everybody. And also for each person there is an exception. People are selfish and greedy in one aspect of their activity. They are unselfish and generous in another.
HEFFNER: No, I understand that, but -
FRIEDMAN: I don't mean to be making a -
HEFFNER: I understand, but again that is the philosophic basis of the argument that government must step in.
FRIEDMAN: But it's a false argument, because it assumes somehow that government is a way in which you put unselfish and ungreedy men in charge of selfish and greedy men. But government is an institution whereby the people who have the greatest drive to get power over their fellow men, get in a position of controlling them. Look at the record of government. Where are these philosopher kings that Plato supposedly was trying to develop?

Indeed. An even ignoring the obvious opportunities for corruption that accompany power, what makes people believe that the government (run by people) will be any better at avoiding errors than people themselves?

So I have two recommendations for you today: watch this 28 minute video and you'll have a better understand of where I'm coming from, philosophically (but from from an economic perspective), with regard to my beliefs in limited government. Then, if you missed it when it was on TV and haven't watched it on DVD yet, go get Season 1 of "Lost". Believe me, it's fantastic.

It's 2006! Where Are the Flying Cars?

2006-09-07T17:35:00.000-05:00

Awesomely, the answer to that classic question is right here.

Hey, At Least They're Paying Attention To Us!

2006-08-30T11:44:00.000-05:00

After a lengthy hiatus from blogging due to travelling, a funny/sad post at H&R on the drug war has finally inspired me to tentatively make my first post in almost a month:

As I'm sure you'll agree, most anti-drug ads are utterly awful, even if they aren't filled with a bunch of lies that kids quickly see don't reflect the reality of drug use they see around them. I don't know anyone who praises these as being something they think will actually make a difference. And furthermore, kids today are very media-savvy: many have been taught to be pretty skeptical of what they see on television commercials. So is it any surprise that even the government has found that the government’s anti-drug ads ($1.2 billion worth) have been unsuccessful in preventing teens from changing their opinions about drugs?

The funniest angle on all of this is that the Partnership for a Drug-Free America is claiming that their ads are successful because they have been the recipient of satire and the butt of countless jokes. Um, we're laughing at you, not with you. But is any publicity good publicity? Well, it probably is... for the drugs.

And to top it off, check out the great placement of a new full-page anti-drug ad in USA Today, right across from a headling reading "Anti-drug advertising campaign a failure, GAO report says":

Fascinating Historical Figures

2006-08-03T17:47:00.000-05:00

Here's someone I've never heard of before but sure sounds like an interesting character: John Wilkes, who's the subject of a new biography by Arthur Cash. Some snippets from Daniel McCarthy's review in Reason:

...John Wilkes—radical journalist, member of Parliament, outlaw, prisoner, lord mayor of London, and self-described libertine.... His life and career go a long way toward dispelling the superstition that liberty must advance hand in glove with order, guided by men of sterling moral character.

...Wilkes helped lay the foundation for some of the most basic rights taken for granted in the United States and Great Britain: freedom of the press, the right to privacy, religious liberty. Most often Wilkes did this—at considerable risk to himself—by goading the government into overreaction and then suing the king’s ministers and agents. Along the way, he conducted innumerable adulterous affairs, dabbled in dueling, accumulated debts he had no intention of paying—“I take the liberty to inform you that at present it is not my interest to pay the principal, neither is it my principle to pay the interest,” he told one creditor—and published what some have considered the filthiest poem in the English language.

...Endorsing one bill for religious tolerance, he declared, “I wish to see rising in the neighborhood of a Christian cathedral, near its Gothic towers, the minaret of a Turkish mosque, a Chinese pagoda, and a Jewish synagogue, with a temple of the sun, if any Persians could be found to inhabit this island and worship in this gloomy climate the God of their idolatry.” At the time, as Cash writes, “Jews had no religious rights at all” and “it was specifically against the law to hold a Roman Catholic mass, and a Catholic who took in pupils or opened a school could be imprisoned for life.”

And this was in the 1760's! Pretty impressive, and definitely someone worth learning more about.

End the War On For Farming

2006-08-03T13:05:00.000-05:00

This is probably a big risk considering I'll be home in Saskatchewan next week, but I'm going to link very favorably to this op-ed in the LA Times by Jonah Goldberg on farm subsidies. He's right in saying that there is almost no issue besides this one that almost everyone outside of the benficiaries (and their political connections) agrees is terribly policy, yet nobody has the political will to do anything about it. These subsidies cost billions, hurt consumers and the environment, and most appallingly, make it almost impossible for farmers in really poor countries compete on the global market and move along a path to development. All to please less than 1% of the the population in the richest nations on Earth.

We just can't seem to let go of the romantic notion of a farmer toiling away in the fields. This idea is behind similar policies found in most states and provinces where an "agricultural land reserve" is artificially maintained through zoning and subsidies. Unwisely, many environmentalists actually support these types of protections despite the fact that a monoculture such as field of corn is about as "natural" as downtown Manhattan. And probably less so than Central Park.

Read the whole thing.

Surprising/Useless Baseball Trivia

2006-08-03T01:49:00.000-05:00

Which team had the best record in the major leagues when the 1994 season was called in August due to the players' strike?

The answer is in the comments.

Using the Right Tool for the Job

2006-08-03T01:38:00.000-05:00

Tim Lee makes a great observation about ends and means while discussing Matt Yglesias’ insightful post regarding the uselessness of violence in achieving the kind of goals we would like to achieve in the Middle East. It's worth quoting at length:

…the policy tools you use largely dictate the kinds of policy ends you can achieve. Brutal repression is generally not a good way to create a liberal democracy. Prohibition is not an effective way to reduce drug use. Government construction is not generally a good way to create safe and attractive housing for poor people.

Unfortunately, this is a point that tends to get lost on politicians, who are often intoxicated by the power of the tools at their disposal. They come to believe that they merely need to decide on a goal, and the awesome machinery of government will go to work making that goal come to pass. That works pretty well if your goal it to blow up a building, construct a new highway, or send a man to the moon. But it tends to backfire when your goal involves reshaping fragile, highly interdependent social systems. Because the same lumbering giant quality that makes government so good at blowing things up and sending people to the moon tends to shatter the intricate social networks on which liberal social goals depend.

People who don't grasp this problem get drawn into asinine political debates that miss the real issue: should there be liberal democracy in Iraq? Should people use fewer drugs? Should the poor have more housing? The answers to these questions are obvious, but the fact that the ends are clear doesn't mean that the means are obvious.

I am (rightfully) pretty hard on politicians, but for the most part I don't think they are actively evil and destructive people - the just have some outrageous and contempuous (but well-intentioned) ideas about how to create a better world. The problem-solver in all of us wants to believe we've got the answers to whatever situation we're confronted with. But usually the correct path isn't immediately obvious and we need to step back and let things develop. A precautionary approach, whereby you reduce the risk of catastophic consequences, is a wise outlook. Society can be amazingly resilient (which can of course be both a blessing and a curse), and so-called "lawmakers" need to realize that laws aren't really made (or at least maintained) in the policies they create, but in the social institutions people create with each other. Giving a little more thought to using the right tool for the job would go a long way in creating a more effective government.

Justifiable Outrage

2006-08-02T18:40:00.000-05:00

Ron Bailey at Reason has stepped away from looking at science issues for the last couple of days and is doing a bang-up job exposing the disgraceful disregard for civil liberties currently infecting the government. He rightfully criticizes the secret trials proposed by the Bush administration for dealing with terror suspects. A former Navy lawyer summarizes these trials like this:

"We know you're guilty. We can't tell you why, but there's a guy, we can't tell you who, who told us something. We can't tell you what, but you're guilty."

This is what stands for due process these days? An outraged Bailey adds:

Is the Bush Administration taking a cue from how the People's Republic of China conducts secret national security trials? The two Congressional committees hearing testimony today on this scandalously un-American proposal should hold Administration officials in contempt of Congress for violating their oaths to defend the Constitution and toss them in jail.

Third-Party Morality

2006-08-02T18:25:00.000-05:00

It appears as though the Green Party of Pennsylvania has received/accepted over $66,000 in contributions from Republican supporters in order to try and get on the ballot in the PA Senate race. The thinking by the GOP is that this will split the far-left vote between the Green candidate and Democrat Bob Casey, thereby allowing everyone’s favorite frothy mixture, the beyond-awful Rick Santorum, to overcome his deficit in the polls and retain his Senate seat. Predictably, the Bleed-Blue-Forever! Dems at Daily Kos and elsewhere are outraged at this, saying the Greens should be ‘ashamed’ and claiming they have no principles and are tools of the GOP. Now, there is no Senator in America I want to lose more than ol’ man-on-dog Santorum. And if I cared about the Democrats’ success in the election (for the record, I would like them to take control of the Senate), maybe I’d care a lot more. But has the Green Party really done anything unethical here? I admit it feels a little dirty, but they have potentially enabled themselves to get on the ballot in a major Senate race, no small feat in a system that creates almost insurmountable barriers to entry for parties outside the mainstream. Should they care where there money is coming from? Or is it justifiable means to and end? Have they simply used the Republicans to achieve their goal of getting on the ballot? Or have they sold their soul to the devil on this one? I think some of the confusion lies with many Dem-supporters' belief that the Greens ‘like’ them. More likely, the Greens believe (as I do) that the Dems are as corrupt, power-mad, morally bankrupt and bereft of good ideas as the Republicans are.

Colbert v. Wikipedia

2006-08-02T12:46:00.000-05:00

America's finest satirist and political talk-show host takes on the online encyclopdia.

(And to update this, the Wikipedia entries for African elephants and Stephen Colbert are now locked due to so many people trying to change them in an act of "vandalism". Very reminiscent of This Hour Has 22 Minutes' gathering enough signatures to force a referendum on changing then-Canadian Alliance Party leader Stockwell Day's name to Doris.)

Related hilarity from "America's finest news source": Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence.

On to Plan I-rony

2006-08-02T11:53:00.000-05:00

The cultural conservatives who oppose OTC access to Plan B are actually urging President Bush not to bow to political pressure in appointing a new FDA head. Unbelieveable. This is reminiscent of their criticism of the FDA's review process on the drug, which they criticized for only considering "the drug's safety and its effect on pregnancy". You know, like the FDA is supposed to do.

Reason's headline: "Stop Politicizing My Heartfelt Desire to Oppress Women"

For The Ladies

2006-08-02T11:46:00.000-05:00

Don't delay, the "Men of Mortuaries" 2007 Calender is out now! For those who have a sexy bodybuilder/grave digger obsession. [Via TtP]

The FDA (May) Take (Tentative) Steps Towards 1991

2006-08-01T11:49:00.000-05:00

After much political monkey business meant to please the ultra-conservative base, the FDA may be poised to allow Plan B, the "morning after pill", to be available without a prescription. Despite the fact that restricting access to Plan B probably increases the likihood of women having actual abortions, the Christian wing of the Republican party has fought removing the prescription requirement because they consider it a form of abortion and claim that this easy-out will encourage sexual promiscuity - although much noise is made about supposed "health reasons" behind restrictions. In taking this wise move, the FDA is just taking their own advice (their own advisory comittee studying the issue recommended doing this years ago) that has been silenced for political reasons.

The Descent of Perspective on Human Freedom

2006-08-01T11:33:00.000-05:00

Patrick Henry, 1775: "Give me liberty or give me death."

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), 2006: "I am a strong supporter of the first amendment and fourth amendment and civil liberties, but you have no civil liberties if you are dead."

More here.

A Regulation in Search of a Problem

2006-08-01T11:20:00.000-05:00

This is old, but still worthy of a post: Writing in the NY Times, Christopher Elliot brings our attention to the fact that there is currently no federal requirement for restrooms on planes:

A functioning toilet is such a basic necessity that the law appears to take it for granted. Perhaps it shouldn't.

Thank god somebody is looking into this, because I'm sick of having to shit in a paper bag at my seat on long flights. He continues:

Of course, airlines don't exploit this regulatory lapse.

Oh, right. So remind me again why we need a law?

Finding Meth Just Got Easier

2006-08-01T10:59:00.000-05:00

Doing his usual excellent job over at Slate fighting meth hysteria, Jack Shafer describes how the online meth offender registries are a futile attempt at curbing the drug trade, prevents those convicted of meth offenses from turning their life around...and they make it really easy to find people who might be able to sell you meth, if you're into that sort of thing. But kids don't know much about negotiating the internet, do they?

Maybe They Don't Want Your "Help"

2006-08-01T10:51:00.000-05:00

Last week, Chicago City Council approved a measure that would require stores with greater than 90,000 square feet of retail space and more than $1 billion in sales to pay a higher minimum wage and provide additional benefits. This was brought on to help poor residents of the city have a living wage. Besides the questionable constitutionality of the law, economists know that the real effect will be to drive big-box retailers out into the suburbs, making it more difficult to find work in the city. Interestingly and encouragingly, those who actually want and need these jobs are far less keen on the idea than the people who spend their time trying to "help" them:

More than a dozen church and community leaders ratcheted up the rhetoric Monday over a proposed city wage ordinance for big-box retail stores, saying the measure would hurt economically depressed areas.

The group, made up of leaders from predominantly African-American communities, said the measure would scare big retailers away from the city because it sets a higher minimum wage than the federal minimum.

"Why aren't we doing all we can to attract businesses?" said Dr. Leon Finney of the Metropolitan Apostolic Community Church. "Many of these jobs in retail are starter jobs.... I'm more interested in having a job than a living wage."

At least some people understand economic incentives.

He Has To Speak For the Trees Because They're Free

2006-07-31T16:06:00.000-05:00

My favorite Dr. Suess books have long been the modern-day parables of The Butter Battle Book and The Lorax. And much like everyone else, I have long thought of The Lorax as a well-told poem about corporate greed and preserving the environment. But courtesy of Jonathan Adler at The Commons Blog, here's a new interpretation (suggested by Paul Feine at IHS) of the tree-hugging classic:

Viewing the tale of the Lorax through an institutional lens, ruin is not the result of corporate greed, but a lack of institutions. The truffula trees grow in an unowned commons. (The Lorax may speak for the trees, but he does not own them.) The Once-ler has no incentive to conserve the truffula trees for, as he notes to himself, if he doesn't cut them down someone else will. He's responding to the incentives created by a lack of property rights in the trees, and the inevitable tragedy results. Had the Once-ler owned the trees, his incentives would have been quite different -- and he would likely have acted accordingly -- even if he remained dismissive of the Lorax's environmental concerns.

The story ends with the Once-ler giving a young boy the last truffula seed. He tells him to plant it and treat it with care, and then maybe the Lorax will come back from there. The traditional interpretation is simply that we must all care more for the environment. If we only control corporate greed we can prevent environmental ruin. But perhaps it means something else. Perhaps the lesson is that this boy should plant his truffula trees, and act as their steward. Perhaps giving the boy the last seed is an act of transferring the truffula from the open-access commons to private stewardship. Indeed, the final image -- the ring of stones labeled with the word "unless" -- could well suggest that enclosure, and the creation of property rights to protect natural resources, is necessary for the Lorax to ever return.

Very interesting: The Lorax as a story about propery rights (or more precisely, the destruction that follows when they don't exist). While I don't imagine this was what Dr. Suess had in mind (although I wouldn't put it past him; he was quite a crafty fellow), I will certainly offer this interpretation to my own hypothetical children when they read The Lorax sometime in the future, in addition to the important but more traditional lesson about preserving the environment.

Isn't it great that so many important lessons about the world can be drawn from simple children's stories like these? Animal Farm is of course another tale that almost perfectly describes the horrors of totalitarianism in a way that a child can understand. That's pretty damn cool.

Obligatory Mel Gibson Post

2006-07-31T13:22:00.000-05:00

Not wanting to miss out on the hottest topic screaming across the blososphere, I thought I should say three words about Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic rant while being arrested for drunk driving (which also included of the Passion of the Christ filmmaker calling a female officer "sugar tits"). And while this proves without question that Mel Gibson is a racist idiot, this stereotype shouldn't be extended to everyone on the Christian right. But it is very interesting that the same guy who made a movie that was called anti-Semitic (a charge that was vehemously denied) has turned around and said that Jews are responsible for everything that's wrong with the world after having a few drinks. Will this be the end of Gibson's career in Hollywood? I think he's got some tough times ahead, no matter what kind of ham-fisted apology he makes. Of course, this incident is ripe for satire.

The Libertarian Ethic

2006-07-30T22:53:00.000-05:00

Because I am a staunch opponent of the drug war on both practical and philosophical grounds, I have recently begun investigating drug rehab programs that I can assist with either monetary contributions or volunteer time. This I feel not only helps people who I feel desperately need help from their fellow human beings (i.e. those with drug problems), but has the added benefit of adding legitimacy to my position that drugs should be legal for adults to consume. [Aside: the requirements for a program I would support are that it not promote a helpless-victim “addiction as disease” mentality, be anti-prohibition, and preferably be non-religious. I am currently looking into some options and I will post an update with what I discover.]

I mention this because it brings up a broader idea: as I have grown more libertarian in my political/philosophical views, I think that I have actually become (to a degree, and on a broad, non-specific scale) more moral, thoughtful and compassionate. This runs counter to the belief that many people have about libertarians believing in “every man for himself”. Here’s my explanation for this (and don’t get me wrong, I still have a long way to go in living the kind of life I think I should be): The libertarian perspective removes responsibility from government and places it the hands of individuals. As this idea has become more ingrained in me, it has led me to start using that responsibility to do good in the world. For example, I believe in the power of the free market, which requires me to make smart and ethical decisions as a consumer (i.e. if I don’t believe that factory farming is ethical, then I need to only buy free-range animal products; if I believe in renewable energy, then I must but power from green producers (if available) and/or financially support alternative energy research. Putting my money where my mouth is, as the saying goes). What is interesting to me is that as I have become more libertarian and freedom-oriented, I have become more interested in making responsible choices and being an ethical member of society. Which supports my theory (with one self-referential data point, which is of course meaningless, but bear with me) that as people are granted more liberty in their own lives, and as a consequence perceive themselves as having a greater role in the society around them, they will move towards becoming more integrated – economically, socially, and morally – with the surrounding world. As we have let government take over more and more of our lives, we have become less and less interested in playing a role in the direction our society takes.

When we give people responsibility, they will make (by and large) good, ethical decisions with it. For too long, we have outsourced our morality to the government – we haven’t needed to think about helping others, because we’re good little citizens and pay our taxes and the government takes care of society’s problems (as if paying taxes with the threat of jail as the alternative implies some sort of morality…it’s more of 'coerced giving' than true compassion, but that’s another discussion). But if you want, as I do, to live in a world with less government and more personal freedom, you must be prepared to accept the responsibility that comes with it. People will never be perfect, and people will always make mistakes, and there will always be murder, crime, and inequality. But when we remove the government from it’s pole position in our consciousness and as our de facto moral center, we can release the well-intentioned member of society that has been hidden behind it. Over time, freedom will encourage people to really look (maybe for the first time) at the society around them and see how they can play a positive role in the world.

The Air Up There Stays Up There

2006-07-27T17:33:00.000-05:00

In a controversial move, the World Anti-Doping Agency is proposing banning altitude tents and altitude training rooms which simulate the effects of high altitude in order to improve the benefits from athletic training. The WADA says these artificial methods violate “the spirit of sport”. Of course, it also hands a huge disadvantage to any athlete not fortunate enough to live at high altitude (or able to move there). Personally, I don't think this is a good move for the WADA, and hypoxic devices should remain legal. If a particular league or the governing body of a certain sport wants to ban them, fine (although I also think that would be a mistake), but making a call on what consitututes "the spirit of sport" is outside the WADA's mission and probably creates more inequality in training opportunities. Any former Huskies out there with an opinion on this one?

History Can Be Cool, Too

2006-07-27T17:01:00.000-05:00

This is fascinating: according to a new study out of Columbia University, it was the unsanctioned trading done by sea captains working for the East India Company that was responsible for the establishment of the first global market (which led to the success of the East India Co.).

The researchers analyzed data from 4,572 voyages undertaken by the East India Company between 1601 and 1833, totaling over 28,000 port-to-port journeys. In a paper in this month’s American Journal of Sociology, they describe how many rogue captains ignored orders to trade in established markets and then return directly to England, choosing instead to explore new locations and trade between local Asian ports for their own personal profit. Although they were breaking the law by appropriating supplies and ship crews for this private trading, in doing so they ultimately benefited the East India Company by building a larger market and gaining a unique knowledge of local market fluctuations.

A great point is also made about the nature of markets:

Because a market is a decentralized structure, it must consist of many individuals who can act in their own interest. “We sort of take the process for granted at this point,” says Erikson. “We live in a capitalist society, we think markets are good, we believe in individual freedom. But back then, people didn’t believe individual initiative was a good thing, especially in the context of a monopoly organization.”

[Via H&R]

The Willingness to Accept Challenges to Your Beliefs

2006-07-26T19:45:00.000-05:00

Charges of "flip-flopping" can be pretty meaningless sometimes (the '04 election did nothing to help this). I'm not a Keynesian, but one of my favorite quotes is from him:

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?

While debating anyone with different worldviews than your own can often be frustrating, it has great potential for learning on both sides, provided neither party suffers from excessive confirmation bias. I fear this in myself, and try as best I can to keep an open mind in situations where the data seems to indicate a failure of libertarian thought (or wherever I happen to stand). Tim Lee channels Jane Jacobs and makes some interesting points about worldviews and people's ideological blinders.

Somewhat relatedly, here is an interesting case of Federal Air Marshalls proving that if you look hard enough for something, you're going to find it. Especially if your job depends on it.

Signing the Constitution Away

2006-07-26T19:17:00.000-05:00

Cato's David Boaz, discussing President Bush's "signing statements", makes a point similar to one I brought up a few days ago:

If you are a conservative, ask yourself: would you want Hillary Clinton to have this power?

(Come January 2009, you can bet they won't.) He also reminds us that since WWII, presidents have "increasingly found themselves driven to sign bills that they believe are at least partly unconstitutional." The response has typically been by using signing statements to indicate that they believed some provisions were unconstitutrional. Bush did just this when signing the ill-conceived (and grossly unconstitutional, by the way) McCain-Feingold bill restricting campaign spending. He said the bill as written had "serious constitutional concerns" and his expectation that "the courts will resolve these legitimate legal questions." But of more concern is how Bush has used signing statements to essentially say "I'll follow this law only if I want to", as he did with the anti-torture bill earlier this year. Here's an interesting analysis on whether Bush is playing the role of Andrew Jackson in Ol' Hickory II: The Veto Wars.

Of course, Bush recently used his first-ever veto to keep federal funding from supporting stem-cell research. Although I am a strong supporter of stem-cell research there is an obvious libertarian conflict point on this issue (in libertarian paradise, the feds wouldn't be funding this research anyway, it should happen through private investment). But since we are living in a decidedly un-libertarian world, funding things with legitimate promise (such as embryonic stem cells) is something I can get behind. If the government is going to spend my money, I'd like it to be spent well.

Budding Businessboy Busts Bonbon Ban

2006-07-25T00:44:00.000-05:00

Try as the government may, it's almost impossible to eliminate a market for a product for which there is demand. A school in England that has banned vending machines from the school has learned the rule of irrepressible markets via a 13-year-old entrepreneur who's pulling home $100 a day in black market candy sales. Somebody give this kid a diploma, he's clearly a lot smarter than the people running the school board.

Should I say it? ...Aw, what the hell: When candy sales are outlawed, only outlaws will sell candy.

"I enjoy cocaine because..."

2006-07-24T22:17:00.000-05:00

Start you week (or more likely, your Tuesday) off right with some great footage from the Colbert Report. In this segment of "Better Know a District", Stephen manages to get Rep. Bob Wexler to say "I enjoy cocaine because it's a fun thing to do". What, possibly, would be going through the head of a politician agreeing to go on this show? You know Colbert is going to make you look like a fool.

Radley Balko predicts that the continued embarrasment of lawmakers on the Colbert Report will result in congressional hearings on "disingenuous interviewing" within the next year. Sadly, it doesn't seem like an impossibility. These guys do not like to be the butt of jokes they just don't get. (Wexler's reaction is here.)

Serves You Right

2006-07-23T02:31:00.000-05:00

You know what really pisses me off? Liberals (or anyone, really, but it falls more on this side of the dial) who have done nothing but encourage the expansion of the government, and then bitch about it when someone they don't agree with uses that power in ways they don't like. The tangentially-related comment that set me off about this tonight was this little snark on DailyKos regarding Canada's environment minister:

...But you're right, you can be sure she doesn't make a move without checking in with Big Steve first. He's the authority figure for ALL of Canada, ya know. ;-)

Well, yes, I totally agree, it is ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING how much authority rests in the PMO. And it happened because so many people happily handed authority over to the government when their guys were in power.

Sometimes I think people NOT in power should be the ones who actually make laws, so lawmakers (and their supporters) might be able to appreciate how those rules are going to be twisted and interpreted by the other side when they inevitably take the reins someday. So few people seem to think about this. One should always imagine how one's political enemy would use a certain authority before voting to give that power to the government. (Determining the public school science curriculum through the political process is a perfect example of this. I doubt your average Darwinist would feel the way they do about public schools if they were in the minority and creationism was the standard story being taught because of the particular beliefs of the majority of the public and elected officials).

If the people offer absolute power to a well-meaning government, they shouldn't be surprised when a less scrupulous government uses that power to enslave them.

Lengthening My List of Tales About the Long Tail

2006-07-23T00:54:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned previously, some people have the (silly, in my opinion) concern that the growth of niche culture will be harmful to society because of a loss of shared experiences. Mickey Kaus shares a great observation from an e-mail commenter that points out another twist - technology has made it much easier to share the slice of culture you’re into than it ever has been before:

... even though there are fewer people watching Jay Leno every night, it's now much easier to communicate with all the people who are watching.

When Bob and Mickey were growing up, you went to school if you wanted to talk about the Ed Sullivan Show and hoped your classmates would be talking about it.

Today if you watch even a niche Bravo reality tv show -- say Top Chef or Project Runway -- you go to Technorati an hour after the show ends and find hundreds of people, far more than attend your classes or work in your office, who are talking about that night's show.

[snip]

So years ago, common culture required that everyone be watching something at once. Now the Web allows things that would become defining cultural moments but for an audience to attract that audience after the fact.

How many people say that World Cup head butt live? How many saw it on SportsCenter, on an Internet video clip, etc. later on?

For the record, Chris Anderson has never said that the era of “hits” is dead, and actually argues that they are still necessary in order to bring consumers down the long tail.

Friday Fun Link

2006-07-21T13:38:00.000-05:00

Via To The People, here's the blog of a taxi dispatcher relating stories about all the stupid calls he gets. Hilarious.

If It Weren't for the Housing Inspectors, No One Would Have a Roof

2006-07-21T13:02:00.000-05:00

A sans-leather jacket Nick Gillespie, editor-in-chief of Reason, recently took on Jonah Goldberg of National Review at an AFF roundtable on whether libertarians and conservatives can really get along. There’s audio (of terrible quality) available here, and commentary on it at Hit & Run here and here. I think H&R commenter Warren makes an excellent point that has sometimes frustrated me – that people assume that libertarians subscribe to an every-man-for-himself philosophy (he’s actually making the point that people assume libertarians are against “tradition”, but there are parallels). Libertarians (or at least myself) believe that people should be free to develop whatever kind of organizations they want, but they shouldn’t be forced into those relationships. From his comment:

Goldberg seems to think there is a strong cultural anarchy vein to libertarianism, an insistence that all tradition and "ancient wisdom" be discarded. But this is flat out false. Nothing in libertarianism requires it's adherents to embrace the Bohemian creed. Libertarians believe in self-governance, the 'devolution of authority' as Nick so eloquently put it. There is nothing in libertarianism that prohibits you from practicing the most austere forms of Puritanism. What libertarians object to, is having your (elitist/arbitrary/white-man's) traditions imposed on others.

[Apologies to David Wiegel for stealing his title, but it was just too good to resist. It perfectly captures the libertarian perspective on regulation.]

Landis, Near Biggar

2006-07-20T22:14:00.000-05:00

If you're not following the Tour de France, you missed one of the greatest athletic achievements in recent memory. Attacking the field early on and essentially riding alone up 5 major climbs for 125 km, Floyd Landis put himself back in contention for the overall title. A truly inspiring performance. When your heart is pounding just reading updates online, you know it's something pretty amazing.

Lance who?

Drug War v. Science

2006-07-20T22:11:00.000-05:00

Who do you think the winner is?

The “gateway drug” hypothesis has taken another blow (ahem). A recent study finding that adolescent rats given THC were no more likely than a control group to become addicted to heroin. Although the THC group took stronger doses of heroin, based on this study there appears to be no physiological basis for a connection between marijuana use and later heroin. Of course, the biggest reason there might be a connection in real life (which is very small, even if there is one, with 97 million Americans having tried marijuana versus only 3 million having tried heroin) is that buying pot puts you in contact with the kind of people who sell heroin.

[Tangentially: the oft-debunked “gateway drug” thing is bogus for many more reasons, too. A link between trying pot and trying so-called harder drugs would be completely expected, since people who try pot are exactly the type of people who might be willing to try heroin (or whatever). To repeat an overused phrase, correlation does not imply causation. If you lack the rebelliousness to even smoke marijuana, it’s unlikely you’ll stick a needle in your arm for a hit of heroin.]

Plus, another study has found that no link between smoking pot and cancer, even among very heavy users. The likely reason: even smoking a pack of cigarettes a day leads to very small increases in cancer risk (which honestly surprised me, and sure puts the “smoking will kill you” theory in an uncomfortable place), as the big jump in cancer seems to kick in at around 2 packs a day. And to get as much cancer-causing chemicals as are found in two packs of cigarettes, you’d have to smoke more than 10 joints a day, a level beyond all but the most chronic users. Marijuana’s cancer-fighting agents no doubt also play a role.

Give up, Drug War. You’re losing, and you’re hurting millions of innocent people in the process.

Governmet Protects Their Monopoly On "Helping" People

2006-07-20T14:39:00.000-05:00

Stop helping your fellow citizens, Las Vegas. That's the message coming from City Hall, as the Las Vegas City Council has passed an ordinance that bans giving food to homeless people. Even charging a nominal fee is illegal. So if you're going to give homeless people a sandwich, make you charge them a lot for it.

While this bylaw may shock you, don't worry: "This is to help people", according to Mayor Oscar Goodman. "The people who provide sandwiches have good intentions, but they're enabling people not to get the help that is needed." In other words, government help. That's their territory, you lousy do-gooders!

As for identifying the homeless (because you can of course still give food to your friends who are proper members of society - this bill is specifically focused on the "indigent"), the mayor assures us: "Certain truths are self-evident. You know who's homeless." [Unbelievable. I can't believe he used the phrase "truths are self-evident" to describe this blatantly unconstitional and unconscionable law. ]

The ACLU is fighting the ordinance.

[Via]

Why Not Also Sue the Car Manufacturer For Making Vehicles With Back Seats?

2006-07-19T12:02:00.001-05:00

Imagine this: Pete and Julie, a couple of teenagers, meet at a local coffee shop. After phone calls and emails, they arrange a date - McDonalds and a movie - and one thing leads to another in the back seat of Pete's car. When Julie’s mom finds out, she’s furious, especially as Julie is only 14. Pete is practically a jaded oldster at 19. Result: family hires lawyers who announce that they’ve identified a perhaps unexpected culprit. According to the family, the coffee shop is to blame for putting Julie in a position where an "adult sexual predator" (namely Pete) could sweet-talk the girl into an eventually dangerous situation. The family sues the shop’s owners for $30 million, which their lawyer says is a "bare minimum" to compensate the damage done and to punish them for not better chaperoning their premises.

Of course, this wouldn’t have been the most talked-about American lawsuit of the past month had Pete and Julie actually met at a coffee shop. As everyone now knows, they instead met on MySpace.

Walter Olson, discussing the MySpace lawsuit.

Not-So-Sweet Home Chicago

2006-07-18T11:40:00.000-05:00

Residents (and future residents) of Chicago might be suffering from a reduction in menu items if City Council gets its way. Councilor Edward Burke has introduced a proposal to ban trans fats from the Windy City. For those who doubt the slippery-slope argument against government legislation of private behavior (i.e. smoking), this is a perfect example of how the micromanagement of our lives has no reasonable stopping point in the eyes of power-mad government officials.

In what would make great satire if it wasn’t real life, Burke manages to invoke the classic “it’s for the children” argument and has audacity to imply without irony that these types of prohibitions are what make a city civilized. In Chicago…where previous experiments with prohibition didn’t exactly create a civilized utopia.

[HT: The Agitator]

On the Summit

2006-07-17T13:30:00.000-05:00

You Will Be Contacted By Telegram Regarding Your Application

2006-07-17T13:16:00.000-05:00

Kerry Howley points to an uninentionally-hilarious article in Time, which looks at the impending doom of "brain drain" from the federal government as the baby boomers retire. The articles notes that the government has streamlined the hiring process...it now only takes 53 steps, rather than 114.

Best of all, there's a great recommendation on how to attract more people to these jobs:

The truth is, the average American would love one of these jobs — but they don't even think to look. Out of sight, out of mind. The government will need to wake up to the modern age, using recruiters and newspaper advertising.

Howley responds: "So wake up, government! Newspaper advertising is the wave of the future."

In Defense of Niche Culture

2006-07-17T12:54:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a big fan of the niche culture opportunities being opened up by technology, as explained in Chris Anderson's The Long Tail. To me, the opportunity for people with unique and eccentric tastes to satsify them is a beautiful thing. Of course, some people don't like the fact that we all aren't mindlessly watching the same TV shows anymore, because that's what "binds us together". Now, I love pop culture. But this is the dumbest argument against decentralization I've ever heard. Jim Henley and Jesse Walker rightly bring Marc Gunther down a notch in his cry for the death of mass culture.

The unfounded fear of "too much choice" is debunked here and here by Radley Balko, a process he wittly refers to as "The Tyranny of Mustard" (due to complaints that too many brands of mustard were destroying us via choice overload).

Jacknife

2006-07-17T12:40:00.000-05:00

Random (minor) chaos observed this weekend: apparently, highway engineers are serious when they say “no vehicles longer than 35 feet beyond this point”.

The Evolution of Markets and the Spontaneous Order of Nature

2006-07-17T11:50:00.000-05:00

As mentioned below, I recently finished reading The Moral Animal by Robert Wright, which is definitely one of the most profoundly interesting books I’ve ever read. A thought that came to mind early on while reading this is how there seems to be a disconnect among many people in their willingness to accept evolutionary thought in different realms. I will posit that “believing” in the ability of market forces to produce better outcomes is very analogous to “believing” in the theory of natural selection (Darwin was influenced by Adam Smith’s ideas, after all). Yet many people who are sympathetic to market capitalism (i.e. many conservatives) resist the theory of natural selection, while many liberals who favor the theory of Darwinian evolution have strong reservations (if not open hostility) towards the free market.

Beating me to the punch in thowing this question up on a blog was Jonathan Alder at The Volokh Conspiracy, who touched on at least half of this same idea in a recent post:

…I am quite puzzled that so many conservatives who accept the idea of spontaneous order in the marketplace are nonetheless enthralled by the idea of "intelligent design." As F.A. Hayek and other important economic thinkers explained, the order and coordination of the marketplace arises spontaneously and does not require any central planner (or intelligent designer). Further, the economic order evolves over time without any such central planning, as successful innovations and organizations displace their predecessors. Why is it that those who see no need to ascribe the existence of complex evolutionary organizational systems to a central intelligence in one sphere find the concept so necessary in another.

The whole “watchmaker” analogy always seemed pretty weak, anyway. I would just add that that reverse is also quite puzzling – why would many liberals who accept evolution and spontaneous order in nature find it so hard to accept that no omnipotent being (i.e. government) is necessary in the economy? If it is possible for many people to accept the lack of a central planner in one instance, why is it so difficult to do so in another? This is a question I don’t have the answer to, but I would like to come back to it at some point to try to get at the root of the apparent inconsistency displayed by many people on both sides of the debate.

[As an aside: Anti-capitalistic people often talk derisively about "the invisible hand" as if it is some kind of mythical creature, while failing to realize that its the same mechanism that is at work in evolution. Why do these people abhor the notion of a designer in nature (often with a good deal of superiority over those who doubt natural selection), yet embrace it in the economy (in the form of government)? It seems to reveal a certain arrogance to believe that natural selection is all well and good for nature, but the principles don’t apply in our economy, because WE can do better. Personally, I think that people who think they can design the whole economy better than the market can are supremely arrogant and tragically naïve. ]

To be provocative, let’s just say that conservatives who won’t buy evolution are like communists (“we need a central planner to design this complex system!”) and liberals who won’t buy market capitalism are just like proponents of “intelligent design” (creationists, in other words). That should get everyone on the defensive. For the record, I believe in natural selection AND free markets. I don’t like central planning in nature, so why would I want it in my economy?

Laughing Our Way to Genius

2006-07-17T11:47:00.000-05:00

On Friday, during a talk I was at on “The Principles of Economics that Aren’t Taught in The Principles of Economics”, I was struck by a question that arises directly from reading Robert Wright’s The Moral Animal over the past couple of weeks (I’ll be blogging more about this excellent and fascinating book soon). Why, from the standpoint of evolutionary psychology, does laughter help us learn? And more generally, why do we learn the way we do, and what is the evolutionary basis for that?

So, my my new idea for the book I want to write (which will likely get filed away beside my other not-yet-started-and-unlikely-to-get-started-anytime-soon book idea “The Libertarian Environmentalist”) is what can evolutionary psychology teach us about how to best teach our kids? Hmmm…Next summer’s grant proposal? But how can I justify going to Patagonia/Nepal/BC/Alaska to study it?

Fun and Mismanagement at 10,358 ft (3,157 m)

2006-07-17T11:34:00.000-05:00

This weekend I had the pleasure of reaching the summit of South Sister, one of the highest peaks in Oregon. A fantastic and grueling hike, and highly recommended to anyone spending time in the Cascades. And I hate to dwell on any negatives with what was truly an outstanding day (except obviously, complaining about things is central to the whole blogging philosophy), but the Three Sisters Wilderness area of the Deschutes National Forest could use a bit of recreational management. Now, I’ve always actually had pretty positive experiences with recreation in the National Forests. I like their campgrounds, and I support the “pay-to-play” direction they’ve moved in with regards to maintained failities. But this weekend, the US Forest Service had me on the offensive before I even started hiking, with their lousy info regarding wilderness access permits. While I like the fact that self-service day permits are available at the trailhead, the website should probably not explicitly say “permits are not available at the trailhead”, which may cause law-abiding individuals like myself to drive around Bend for half an hour trying to find a Ranger Station that’s open on a Saturday morning, which is something that just doesn’t exist (not that I mind spending time in Bend, which is one of my favorite towns in the world). And on the trail that crosses a lot of snow even in mid-July, perhaps it would be a good idea to have something indicating to hikers where the trail is through the alpine and subalpine areas. In low-use areas, I’m all for keeping signage to a minimum, but when you’ve got one of the most popular hikes in the state going through the most fragile ecosystem in the world it might be a good idea to put some flagging on some trees to keep people on the trail. It would help with public safety and keep people from wandering across alpine meadows because they’ve lost the trail. (And the signs made out of dead, sun-bleached wood? Very attractive close up, but not so visible with the white rock everwhere and tons of other dead, sun-bleached timber around). What’s frustrating about the poor trail management is that it’s just so easy to make it much better – it would take one ranger one day to put up flagging along the trail that would cut down on 90% of the unintentional wandering people do. I’ll say one thing about the east – they don’t have the vast expanses of wilderness, but the hiking groups (Adirondack Mountain Club, etc) that look after the trails out there do a great job with maintenance and signage. And beautifully, it’s all done voluntarily, because the people looking after it are the same people who use it and care about it.

Political Honor: 99% Irony-Free

2006-07-14T11:48:00.000-05:00

A bipartisan group of members of Congress and the Senate will be honoring some of their own next week for their “hard work, service, time and the sacrifices made in upholding the office with which they were entrusted.”

What’s absolutely unbelievable about it is that one of the people who is receiving an award is former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.). That’s right, the one who’s now in prison for bribery he undertook while in office.

What’s wrong with these people?

When's Zidane Bobblehead Day?

2006-07-13T22:26:00.000-05:00

Like Bill Simmons, I think the whole Zidane thing was blown way out of proportion and been completely overanalyzed. Haven't these people played sports before? You don't get to be as good as Zidane without being incredibly competitive, and sometimes their emotions will get the better of them in battle. And he managed to make the World Cup way more interesting than it had been up to that point. This can only help the sport's growth in North America, as some people seem strangely worried and passionate about. Still a dumb move, but geez, get over it.

Sez the Sports Guy:
I thought it was fascinating to watch him wipe out two stereostypes at once: That soccer players are wusses, and that French people are wusses. I'm also delighted that the Euro papers hired lip readers to see what the Italian said to him -- you know how I've been pushing for lip readers to replace sideline reporters for the past few years. But I didn't think the Zidane thing was as big of a deal as everyone made it out to be -- 8 minutes left in extra time, and it's not like they didn't have 10 guys left. Plus, their keeper, Paul Shaffer, didn't come close to stopping any of Italy's penalty kicks. They would have lost either way. I'm just excited that Tyson's ear bite on Holyfield finally has a sports rival.

Hilarious anti-Materazzi video here, via TtP.

Happiness Is Not A Fish That You Can Catch

2006-07-13T22:03:00.000-05:00

I hate to be too hard on the eco-socialist hippies, since I used to be, you know, one of 'em, (and still hold some crunchy granola sensibilities) but this new "study" reporting that Vanuatu (yes, from Survivor!) is the happiest nation on earth is more than a little suspect in its methodology. I would argue that trying to measure this statistic is essentially impossible, but let's look at their methodology and see how much sense it makes. The Happy Planet Index (good grief!) ranks 178 countries by "multiplying life expectancy by life satisfaction, and dividing it by environmental impact in each country, including carbon emissions." Ahhh! So if you're a country with high happiness scores and long lives but produce lots of carbon dioxide (i.e. western Europe, Australia, and North America) you're going to score poorly - I guess because you can't be really happy, with all those carbon emissions sucking the joy right out of you. The whole set-up is rigged to penalize wealthy, energy intensive economies. And I agree, there are certainly things to criticize about these economies. But that they somehow "produce" unhappiness isn't one of them, and this study certainly doesn't establish that link. For an interesting contrast, check out this graph showing a positive correlation between CO2 emissions per capita and reported life satisfaction.

Will Wilkinson has a more detailed criticism here.

Tragically, some major news outfits are picking this story up and trumpeting that Vanuatu is the happiest place on Earth, and nobody in the MSM seems to be looking critically into the study at all.

The Long (T)Ale

2006-07-13T21:54:00.000-05:00

A story that combines a couple of my favorite things (decentralized economics and beer), Chris Anderson (author of the just released book, The Long Tail, blogged about previously by me here and here) draws our attention to the rise of the microbrew in the new niche-market economy.

Objectivist Theatre 3000

2006-07-13T21:50:00.000-05:00

Jane Galt explains the origins of her moniker and has a few funny and interesting things to say about the upcoming movie version of Atlas Shrugged. The comments are worth reading, too, if you know a bit about the book. The post also features the phrase "hot Objectivist nude scenes". Come on, you know you want to click.

We Wouldn't Want to Hurt Anyone's Self Esteem

2006-07-13T16:47:00.000-05:00

Note to the New England Journal of Medicene: In the future, when discussing the issue of childhood obesity, at least acknowledge the possibility, that perhaps, there is a small role for parental responsibility. Go ahead and call for fat-taxes and regulations, if you must. But at least mention the fact that personal responsibility is a (likely pretty big) part of the equation.

Whatever the reason, the fact that two articles about the problem of childhood obesity in the NEJM could fail even to mention individual parental responsibility is indicative of what one can only call a totalitarian mindset. According to this mindset, it is for the government to solve every problem, either by prescribing behaviour, or forbidding it, or of course both. It is not that I think that the proposal that the government should ban the advertising of noxious products to small children is wrong; what bothers me is the failure to recognise that there is any other dimension to the problem, a dimension that is in fact much more serious. (emphasis added)

Yeah, but if we said that we might make parents feel bad, and we wouldn't want that! Anyone who can't say "no" to kids begging for junk food deserves to feel lousy about the shitty job of parenting they're doing, anyway.

[via H&R]

A comment from the H&R post I particularly liked:

The more we look to government to fix problems, regardless of how they were created, the less we look to ourselves, not only as individuals but as parents, to act responsibly. It would seem to me that even those most enamoured with government as the agent of our social desires would have some misgivings about the increasing extent to which that has become the norm, not only because government cannot solve all of our problems or satisfy all of our desires but also because of the sort of people we want to be and want our children to be.

Right on - how about some meliroism, people? We may not be in complete contol of our (or our children's) destiny, but standing there helplessly moaning about needing the government to step in and solve our problems is going to achieve far less, far more slowly then doing something to directly improve the world around you.

Welcome to the United Dictatorship of America

2006-07-12T17:45:00.000-05:00

Where "the President is always right". Absolutely terrifying. Bets on this guy getting fired?

It's Not Like the Lottery is Gambling

2006-07-12T16:54:00.000-05:00

Since you aren't capable of deciding how you should spend (or lose) your money, Congress has banned internet gambling. Of course, they rejected an amendment to the bill that would have extended it to include horse racing and state lotteries. Incidentally, the profit margin from state lotteries is in the 40% range, while casinos average about 3-5% (I'm looking for the source on this, I heard it a couple of weeks ago). Recent evidence indicates that the growth of casinos on Indian reservations is cutting into the profits of lotteries - if this trend continues, I'd expect the government to shut down these casinos any way they can. And Radley Balko asks the same question I did: why does the Washington Post break down Congressional votes by astrological sign?

More from Jacob Sullum:

You can't even give Goodlatte credit for being a consistent moralistic busybody. His bill, co-authored by Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), makes exceptions for lucrative state lotteries and the politically influential horse racing industry.

It seems government sponsorship renders what would otherwise be a "scourge" as wholesome as the Postal Service, Amtrak, and the Interstate Highway System. And horses are so beautiful and majestic that naturally you can bet on them, online or off. But not on dogs; that would be crazy.

Goodlatte's bill likewise leaves untouched gambling on riverboats, on Indian reservations, and in cities such as Las Vegas and Atlantic City. It's one thing to engage in this distasteful activity out in the open, quite another to do so in the privacy of one's home.

Who Will Kill The Conspiracy-Theory Documentary?

2006-07-12T15:43:00.000-05:00

I haven't seen the upcoming documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?", but I'm pretty suspicious of it. Do people really believe that it was a conspiracy involving ALL the oil companies, and ALL the car companies (which is what you'd need for a conspiracy to work if the electric cars were actually decent) and that NOBODY leaked anything about it? In an era where we know every time Lindsay Lohan buys a new bikini?

If the electric car was profitable, someone would have supplied it (or they will, once there's a market for it). The car's range, which was "up to" 130 miles (although this dropped significantly if you ran the headlights or had the heater/AC on) is completely impractical for most people. Sure, that's fine for lots of trips around town, but what about going away on weekends or summer vacations? Unless you mind stopping every 130 miles for an 8-hour charge, you need to own two cars - which is even more energy and materials intensive than owning one average gasoline vehicle.

And even more interestingly, why are people so enthusiastic about electric cars, anyway? Don't they know where the electricity comes from?

#1 on Day 1

2006-07-12T15:40:00.000-05:00

On the day I was born, the #1 song on the UK charts was Paul McCartney/Wings' celtic anthem "Mull of Kintyre", and the #1 album was Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours". I'm pleased.

Try it out for yourself here.

Private Preservation

2006-07-12T15:08:00.000-05:00

My favorite granola-eating organization, The Nature Conservancy, is up to their usual good work. They have purchased federal trawling permits in order to conserve marine areas in California. No backroom lobbying and distortionary regulations, just the market at work - when property rights are assigned and enforced, then we can really start to vote with our dollars to preserve the parts of nature we care about.

The Great Paperclip Caper

2006-07-12T00:20:00.000-05:00

Earlier this year, I blogged about Kyle MacDonald, who was attempting, through a series of transactions, to trade a red paperclip for a house. Well, as of today, he's found success! Exactly one year after he began this adventure, Kyle has sucured a house in my home province. The people of Kipling, Saskatchewan have traded a house on Main St. in the small town for a movie role.

Incidentally, pretty much everyone thought he was crazy when he traded the one year rent-free in Phoenix for the day with Alice Cooper, and crazier still when he traded that for the Kiss snowglobe. But never underestimate the eccentric tastes people have - Corbin Burnsen offered a role in his movie because he's one of the world's biggest collectors of snow globes. And now a resident of Kipling will have a role in a movie being filmed this fall.

This gets my vote as one of the best stories of the year.

Setting Free the Bear

2006-06-29T12:04:00.000-05:00

An alternately sad, then wonderful, yet potentially tragic story about nature’s greatest animal: “Boo”, a grizzly bear living in a wildlife refuge in British Columbia, has escaped for a second time in order to pick up chicks. To do so, he broke through a 180kg (about 400 lbs) steel door and stormed over a 4m (over 12 ft) high electrified fence, an enclosure that was thought to be escape-proof. The 480kg (over 1000 lbs) bear is certainly determined to get some action, as he was recently spotted from a helicopter in the company of another bear (who is undoubtedly a female).

How many times did something wrong happen here?

1. Somebody illegally shoots Boo’s mother, making him an orphan. (Incidentally, if I knew who did this, I’d put them in an “enclosure” with Boo, no guns allowed.)
2. They take Boo and put him in captivity, and keep him there indefinitely.
3. After escaping one time, the capture him and put him back in captivity.
4. They say stupid things like “Boo didn’t know how good he had it.” Like they know what’s good for a bear. I imagine if he wanted to get out so badly, it wasn’t that great living in an enclosure without any females. This is like telling a convict “you don’t know how good you’ve got it here in prison.”
5. They propose castrating the bear if they catch him to remove his temptation to escape.

I hope they never find him.

God Spoke To Obama and Said “Bring My People to the Democrats”

2006-06-29T11:38:00.000-05:00

Barack Obamalamadingdong goes wrong in two ways with his calls for Democrats to bring more evangelicals into the fold. First, aren’t the Dems supposedly the ones who support keeping a distinct line between church and state? Sure, he’s calling it “faith” here, but we know what that means. Second, isn’t the idea of pandering to religious people for the expressed purposed of getting more votes just kind of icky?

The Charity of Night

2006-06-29T01:48:00.000-05:00

Much has been made of the massive donation ($30-ish billion or so) Warren Buffett has made to the Gates Foundation, and it is indeed admirable that he is willing to donate this sum of money to charity. (Best line about it goes to Stephen Colbert: “Warren Buffet is so rich he just hired Bill Gates to spend his money.”) But two points arise from this story that put it into perspective:

1. Not to take anything away from Buffett’s philanthropy, but as Greg Mankiw points out, the current proposal to reduce trade barriers (that is almost certain to fail) at the Doha round of trade talks would produce global gains of about $54 billion annually. So these improvements (lowering tariffs, cutting domestic support payments, elimination of export subsidies) would give the world every year almost double what Buffett can give once after a lifetime of being the world’s most successful investor. Makes it pretty clear: lower trade barriers.

2. I had the pleasure of meeting Don Boudreaux today, chair of the very libertarian economics department at George Mason University (one of the perks of working for a free-market think tank). In addition to meeting with us in the Cascade office this afternoon, he gave a public speech in the evening on the economic foundations of liberty. One interesting point he made was that if you wanted to measure what Warren Buffett has contributed to the world, his charitable donations would pale in comparison to the positive macro effects his brilliant investing has had on global wealth (Boudreaux didn’t have concrete numbers for this, but estimated that this would fall upwards of $100 billion based on standard multipliers used in economic models). With Buffett’s investments in successful ventures, he has given people capital which they have used to create wealth, and we shouldn’t ignore this even in light of his recent altruism.

(K)not Tying

2006-06-29T01:26:00.000-05:00

I think Bonnie must have a brick loose, but hey, congratulate these two awesome kids anyway!

Seantors Attempt to Burn Bill of Rights in Order to Stop the Burning of Flags

2006-06-27T13:34:00.000-05:00

A bunch of ~~idiots~~ "patriots" will be attempting to pass a flag-burning bill today (it's actually an anti-burning amendment, but this is how it's usually referred). Tragically, unlike the other stupid amendments that have been proposed recently, this is more than just a political stunt and tragically, actually has a chance of passing. Cross your fingers that this one fails.

UPDATE: In a vote that was too close for comfort, the bill failed by one vote. Apparently 66 senators don't give a damn what the Constitution says (or at least they care about it much less about their re-election chances).

Hip-Level Burns

2006-06-27T11:30:00.000-05:00

In my opinion, that sounds more sexy than scary. But this letter to the editor (scroll down) in the NY Times exposes the health risks associated with walking the sidewalks of New York City. For instance: the pesky hip-level cigarette burns and the inescapable clouds of secondhand smoke. Now, I've never found these clouds to be a problem on the street, but I think the letter-writer misses the bigger picture about the health concerns from walking. Yes, it's convenient and perfectly acceptable to rip on smokers, the most indefensible of minority groups. But, I just have to ask Emily Barsh of New York - have you ever noticed something else around the sidewalks that just might be producing about a thousand times more pollutants in a few minutes than smokers produce in an entire day?

[HT: Rogier van Bakel at Nobody's Business]

The Regressivity of Carbon Policy

2006-06-27T08:56:00.000-05:00

A story in today's Oregonian on the difficulties facing local hunger-relief organizations due to high gas prices spotlights one of the problems with measures to combat global warming. A carbon-emissions reduction policy will raise the price of energy, which will hurt poor people the hardest. While the upper class can 'afford' an increase in their heating bills and transportation costs, those living on the margins are going to suffer as the price of everything increases. Anyone proposing strong policies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions should have to answer this criticism. I am not necessarily saying that a carbon tax (or whatever your preferred policy might be) is something we definitely shouldn't do, but that we need to be aware of the costs and benefits of these policies and who they end up helping and hurting.

Root for the Home Team

2006-06-27T08:27:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to the Oregon State Beavers, winners of the College World Series!

Quote of the Day

2006-06-26T19:04:00.000-05:00

Jeff Taylor, writing in Reason, comes up with this gem:

Nothing is more dangerous than a lunatic with government letterhead.