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Gus Van Horn blog

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Everything posted by Gus Van Horn blog

  1. Two recent court rulings pertaining to the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka ObamaCare) are making the news. The lion's share of the attention is going to Halbig vs. Burwell, in which a court ruled that the ACA does not call for tax breaks for people who purchase insurance through "exchanges" set up by the federal government (as opposed to exchanges run by states). Depending on whom you read, this ruling is a disingenuous exercise in context-dropping (and the tax breaks are fine) or it exposes a serious flaw in the ACA (which has effectively been gutted). I'd love it for the ACA to be rendered moot, but I strongly suspect that the ruling that has gotten all the attention will be struck down. But my layman's speculations on the news are beside the point... The reactions to these rulings on the part of conservatives is what interests me, and it all reminds me of the atmosphere just before the Supreme Court first rescued ObamaCare (via calling the individual mandate a tax). Having failed to oppose the ACA on the principle that it (like the rest of the welfare state) violates individual rights, the conservatives, unsurprisingly, saw the law passed and seemed to be wishing for it to just go away. (I think the court should have ruled differently, but we shouldn't have gotten to that point, anyway.) The first article I cite brings this to mind in a couple of ways, primarily by means of the scenarios its author contemplates, obviously salivating at the prospect, should the ruling be upheld: In other words, the battle the GOP shrank from the first time hasn't gone away. Had ObamaCare never been passed, there would have remained calls for the government to "do something" about the uninsured and the choice to do something -- or not, and explain that it is wrong for the government to do so. Had the individual mandate been struck down, those calls and that choice would have come. Those calls and that choice are set to return if -- contrary to what I expect -- the Halbig ruling stands. And if the ACA remains untouched? Republicans won't have to stand up to self-righteous thieves, but some other excuse for the government to loot the productive and pass it around will come -- maybe even as a result of economic distortions caused by the ACA. And that familiar call and that choice will return. It is high time that conservatives question the moral basis of government looting and start to argue from the moral high groundthat limited government actually possesses. -- CAV Link to Original
  2. Caroline Glick gets Americans up to speed on events in Israel, which is currently using ground troops to destroy an extensive network of technologically advanced tunnels built by Hamas, the terrorist organization that runs the Gaza Strip. In the process, she also gets us up to speed on just how bad Obama's foreign policy regarding Israel has been: Due to their recognition of the threat Hamas and its allies pose to the survivability of their regimes, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have taken the unprecedented step of supporting Israel's efforts to defeat Hamas. They understand that a decisive Israeli blow against Hamas in Gaza will directly benefit them. Not only will Hamas be weakened, but its state sponsors and terrorist comrades will be weakened as well. Presently, Hamas's most outspoken state sponsors are Qatar and Turkey. And later: IDF forces in Gaza had destroyed 23 tunnels. The number of additional tunnels is still unknown. While Israel had killed 183 terrorists, it appeared that most of the terrorists killed were in the low to middle ranks of Hamas's leadership hierarchy. Hamas's senior commanders, as well as its political leadership have hunkered down in hidden tunnel complexes. In other words, Israel is making good progress. But it hasn't completed its missions. It needs several more days of hard fighting. Recognizing this, Israel's newfound Muslim allies have not been pushing for a cease-fire. In contrast, the Obama administration is insisting on concluding a cease-fire immediately. [bold added] While I regard "allies" is too strong a word to use for the Moslem regimes backing Israel due to Hamas being a common enemy, it speaks volumes that Israel has the backing of three such regimes for this offensive, while Barack Obama wants to bring it to a halt. The editor of Jewish World Review, where I found this piece, wishes to "make [this article] go viral", and I concur that it deserves to. The parts I have excerpted are just the tip of the iceberg regarding the threat Hamas poses to the most civilized nation in the Middle East. Glick also paints a vivid picture of what having to live near Hamas has meant in the daily lives of Israeli citizens. That aspect of the article alone makes it a powerful tool against the pervasive -- and wrong -- notion that both sides in this conflict are morally equivalent. -- CAV Link to Original
  3. An interesting example of cronyism (This involves government meddling in the economy, so please don't call it "crony capitalism".) surfaces at a web site devoted to the idea that free broadband would be a great way for governments to distribute loot. The Broadband Reportenumerates and details "19 State Laws That Stop Your City From Installing Blazing Fast Internet". Whether the government can or cannot provide superior Internet service is immaterial here, because it can only do so by stealing from individuals. (I do not mean this as a defense of these "roadblock" laws, although they are forestalling the government entering the ISP market with a huge price advantage.) Here's an example of such a law, which the article holds (and I have no trouble believing) a small number of internet service providers (ISPs) lobbied to have put on the books: Virginia allows municipal electric utilities to offer telecommunication services such as broadband. But there is a catch. Legislators in Virginia have forbidden cities from cross-subsidizing money for the purposes of creating a municipal broadband installation. (This is something corporations can do without regulation.) Then to make matters worse, municipalities are required to artificially inflate prices to match the costs of private industries for materials, taxes, licenses, and more. Certainly, administrative hurdles can act as one of the largest barricades to a municipality starting their own broadband service when legislators are involved. It is interesting to see how the outfit presenting this information has decided to frame this issue, as an obstacle to lots of people getting "free" broadband. I propose that we re-frame this as: ISPs have successfully thrown up roadblocks to subsidized competition from the government in their most profitable markets. As far as I know, telecommunications is one of the most regulated industries in the country, and has been for quite some time. Many of the players have doubtless not just grown accustomed to regulation, but have earned a share of the guilt for this sordid state of affairs via "regulatory capture", gaming the rules to avoid real, free-market competition -- much like the alcohol industry and taxi companies have. This is wrong, but even if this were not the case, ISPs might still end up lobbying the government, like railroads once did. Commenting on such a state of affairs (after providing historical context I don't have time to rehash here), Ayn Rand notes, in Chapter 7 of Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal: [W]hat could the railroads do, except try to "own whole legislatures," if these legislatures held the power of life or death over them? What could the railroads do, except resort to bribery, if they wished to exist at all? Who was to blame and who was "corrupt"--the businessmen who had to pay "protection money" for the right to remain in business--or the politicians who held the power to sell that right? Sadly, in today's mixed economy, the parties on both side of this battle want it both ways: (1) The now-corrupt businesses, which should instead be competing for profits on merit are lobbying for profits with protection from hard work and competition; and (2) Too many disappointed (or potential) customers are demanding the removal of these regulatory hurdles -- not to unleash the power of the free market, but so an entity (the government) can force some people to subsidize Internet service for others. At best, the ISPs are blind to the fact that government control of their businesses isn't freedom, and those who want broadband are blind to the fact that, in the government, they are putting themselves at the mercy of an entity that is larger and more powerful than the businesses currently getting fat off its rules. Perhaps, if we wanted cheap, "blazing fast" Internet (and better ISPs), we (and any pro-capitalist ISP's out there) should agitate for a prohibition of the government from interfering in the economy. Then, the profit motive could work again for cheaper, higher quality service, and the people who actually used it would be the ones paying for it. (As an added benefit, for those concerned with any remaining people "under-served" by the freer market, they would be free to subsidize (at lower cost) as many as they could afford.) One final note: As much as I disapprove of regulatory capture, it is ironic that this phenomenon seems to be all that (temporarily) stands in the way of a de facto government takeover of the Interent (via loot-funded competition) in some states. -- CAV Link to Original
  4. Reader Snedcat recently pointed me to a blog posting titled, "No, Conservatives, There Is No Left-Wing Soccer Conspiracy" by John Pepple, author of Soccer, the Left, & the Farce of Multiculturalism. Pepple's ruminations about the phenomenon of conservative commentators railing against soccer raise many interesting issues, but two stand out. Before I dive in, let me note that, contrary to Pepple, I do see some leftists glomming on to the soccer bandwagon and trying to politicize it (as I note in the last link). However, I do agree that the left hasn't been the force behind its now widespread and growng popularity in the U.S. First, Pepple, who strikes me as a disaffected, old-fashioned leftist, finds zero evidence of broad left-wing support for the game or -- and I find this even more interesting -- any other sport: Think about this. Every now and then Legal Insurrectionshows a photo someone has taken of a car whose rear end is filled with leftist bumper stickers. Have you ever seen one of these cars with a soccer bumper sticker on it? Of course not. Leftists who are soccer fans are few and far between, and even when they are fans, they don't make a big political thing about it (which goes against their habit of politicizing everything, but that is their business). When I go to games, many of the cars in the parking lot have bumper stickers related to soccer on their bumpers, and they never have anything related to leftist causes, but when I go to Whole Foods (which is almost never), the bumper stickers I see in their parking lot never have anything related to soccer. [format edits] Considering what sports offer vis-a-vis the leftist idea of equality, this comes as no surprise. (But still, don't expect facts like these to cause Ann Coulter and her ilk to question their emotional associations, or do anything other than double downon their peculiar brand of patronizing cluelessness.) Second, Pepple notes that the lukewarm reception of soccer by the left in general is despite the fact that one would think it a shoe-in, based on multiculturalist rhetoric: ... The "activists" have been inactive when it comes to advancing soccer, even though (as I spent a chapter arguing in my book) it seems to be right up their alley (especially in terms of multiculturalism). And this may be what conservatives are picking up on, that it seems perfectly natural for the left to adopt soccer, even though they mostly have not done so. This is because the "activists" aren't. They're bullies, from their style of argumentation, through their rhetorical approach, and down to their hypocrisy. Multiculturalism isn't about ending racism, but about perpetuating injustice to Western civilization through lip-service to a just cause. The lack of interest in soccer, even in terms of promoting it, is just a symptom. Pepple has helped me see that soccer is one of those rare cultural phenomena that can show much about both its more vocal detractors and those who seem like natural allies, but who remain oddly silent about it. And I have hardly scratched the surface regarding the issues his piece brings up. -- CAV Link to Original
  5. Political analyst Dick Morris comments on his recent decision to read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: As a liberal, I had never considered it and as a conservative, never gotten around to it. Based on the following, he seems to be pretty impressed: Last night, I read an eloquent statement by Dr. Hendricks, a character in the novel who was on strike and refused to donate his services to State run medicine. It is worth pondering today. It echoes the cri de coeur of every doctor in America[.] [format edits] Following is a direct quote of 380 words from the novel, which I recommend reading (or re-reading) in full. It ends, "t not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it -- and still less safe if he is the sort who doesn't." I am glad to see that someone as popular and well-regarded as Dick Morris is pointing out this work, and especially this particular quote. -- CAV Link to Original
  6. John Stossel notes the careless use of polling data to excuse government looting and meddling: It turns out that government spent your billions on urban transit based on surveys that asked people if they want to live in "walkable communities." Of course people said yes! Who doesn't want to live in a neighborhood where you can "walk to shops"? But if they'd asked, "Are you willing to spend about four times as much per square foot to live in a city instead of a spacious suburban home?" they'd get different answers. Set aside the important moral objections to the government confiscating money from individuals -- for any purpose -- and think about this for a moment. Why would the bureaucrats bother getting better information? They aren't accountable to customers or backers who will want to know where the money went if it doesn't yield some kind of return. They'll personally look busy collecting their data and analyzing it ad nauseam to produce the kinds of results their agencies need to justify raking in more money. So many people are used to being robbed of nickels and dimes on a daily basis that the few who are curious about where their money is going won't have the time to get into much of a lather about whether they think it is being wasted. Indeed, such polling data will make it look like most people are getting what they want and defuse all but the most principled anger. I could go on, but isn't it mind-boggling how the abdication of the trader principle makes government planning even dumber than common sense would suggest, based on the fact that government planners, being human beings, aren't omniscient to begin with. -- CAV Link to Original
  7. The latest good news/bad news story in which the bad news more than makes up for the good takes the form of a medical student who is receiving publicity for wanting to "take down" a popular quack. Unfortunately, his cure is short-sighted and, as such, worse than the disease: I wrote policy for the Medical Society of the State of New York [where Dr. Oz is licensed] and the American Medical Association asking them to more actively address medical quackery on TV and in the media -- specifically Dr. Oz. The New York policy was passed in modified form. Organized medicine in New York is aware of what Dr. Oz is saying and how he is able to fall through the gaps of regulation. Many New York physicians testified at their annual meeting about the harm they are seeing happen day-to-day with their own patients. Patients stop taking proven medications in favor of "natural" medications that Dr. Oz promotes. Many patients trusted Dr. Oz more than their own family doctors and this conflict hurt the doctor-patient relationship. When we brought the policy to the American Medical Association, they reaffirmed existing policy instead of our resolution asking them to take action against inappropriate medical testimonials on TV. The AMA basically thought they were doing enough with existing policy. [bold added] If I read this story correctly, Benjamin Mazer wants to sic the state regulatory apparatus on any physician who doesn't toe the line regarding what the government regards as proper medical advice. As harmful as pseudoscientific advocacy can be, that harm is nothing compared to that of subjecting to government scrutiny (beyond prosecution for outright fraud) everyone who voices an opinion. Some time ago, on the related issue of nutritional advice, I commented that: There is no reason consonant with the government's proper function of protecting individual rights for the government to restrict what individual citizens say or to whom they say it. That is, barring instances in which what someone says violates the rights of others (e.g., slander or fraud), it shouldn't be against the law, period, for anyone to say anything, including offering advice of any kind. People who hear advice have free will and minds of their own: They can accept or reject what they hear, and simply offering advice, good or bad, doesn't pick their pockets or break their legs. On top of this, as John Stossel recently pointed out, the whole idea of the government relieving consumers of the need to think for themselves is bunk for several reasons. (Regarding the Stossel piece, I noted, too, that such "protection" does far more harm than any charlatan can by paving the road for them -- by putting people to sleep.) As much as I sympathize with Benjamin Mazer, I find his agenda self-defeating and inimical to freedom. The government is simply unable to serve as a substitute brain for patients who refuse to think. Furthermore, by dictating what constitutes acceptable "expert" advice, it endangers the progress of medicine by both lulling patients who might otherwise take a more active role in their own care and by making experts who might have good reasons to depart from the orthodoxy reluctant to air their views. -- CAV Link to Original
  8. Here's a sign of the times. Flytenow, an online flight-sharing service, is seeking to allay the legal concerns of its clientele that flight-sharing might run afoul of regulatory authorities, namely the FAA. On February 12th, 2014, Flytenow submitted an official FAA Chief Counsel request for legal interpretation of its services. The FAA's self-imposed deadline to respond to our request was June 18th, 2014. In lieu of a formal deliberation from the FAA, Flytenow offers the following interpretation of the [Federal Aviation Regulations] in consultation with Gregory Winton of the Aviation Law Firm for general information purposes only... [link in original] This "informational" post goes on for about another 500 words interpreting regulatory arcana regarding whether the pilots who offer services are "holding out" or share a "common purpose" with their prospective passengers. I am no attorney, but working within this system by interpreting these rules to cover this new business model should be a no-brainer even for a bureaucrat. (These rules shouldn't even be on the books since they criminalize mutual agreements between individuals that harm no one, but still...) Nevertheless, in over four months, the FAA couldn't or wouldn't cough up an answer. For anyone who subscribes to the notion that we need the government to monitor and regulate every last move we make, I ask this question: "If the government is supposed to be so wise and powerful, why can't it answer even a simple question like this one in the more-than-ample time it gave itself?" This is not to frame the issue of government regulation as a matter of mere competence, although it is an interesting way of considering that issue. -- CAV Link to Original
  9. Regulars here know that I oppose government regulation of the economy on the grounds that it violates individual rights and is, therefore, contrary to the proper purpose of government. That said, in the fight against regulation, it can be persuasive to consider cost-benefit analyses, such as one I got wind of a few years ago that placed a price tag of $1.75 trillion per annum on federal regulation alone. However, this approach comes with a couple of problems, one of them being that, in the face of such analyses, many people lose sight of the main objection against regulations noted above. Another problem is that an ideological opponent might simply lob the results of a completely different cost-benefit analysis your way: My analysis ... went through the [Office of Management and Budget] data, which indicate that the benefits of government regulations have consistently and significantly exceeded their costs. Unless you have at least a basic understanding of at least one of these analyses, you aren't going to be able to offer much insight about this little discrepancy -- not that there's anything right about the government issuing marching orders. That said, I think it is safe to say that the author of the above quote did not factor in a close cousin of Bastiat's Broken Window. Let's call it aborted innovation. The Health Care Blog reports that Google's co-founders have a very limited entrepreneurial appetite for branching out into medicine due to the regulatory environment they would face: On the face of it, it's pretty amazing that a company that doesn't think twice about tackling absurdly challenging scientific projects (e.g., driverless cars) is brought to its knees by the prospect of dealing with the byzantine regulation around healthcare (and more generally, our "calcified hairball" system of care, as VC Esther Dyson has put it). A similar sentiment has been expressed by VC and Uber-investor Bill Gurley as well; evidently taking on taxi and limousine commissions is more palatable than taking on the healthcare establishment. [minor edits] The author thinks that there is a path forward even "within the constraints of our existing system", but this system may have already cost us the progress that two very able minds could have brought us. Whatever the calculable costs or alleged benefits of the government building hoops and making us jump through them -- which is wrong to begin with -- I fail to see how many people would tolerate this going on for long if they knew these hoops were causing people to pass on the chance to save or improve their very lives. -- CAV Link to Original
  10. A. Barton Hinkle writes a thought-provoking piece in which he examines a common political argument he phrases as "[Fill-in-the-blank] is great for the economy!" Hinkle considers numerous examples of politicians and others using this excuse to push various forms of government meddling, including: even more money for government schools (Barack Obama), government enforcement of the Christian definition of marriage (Rick Santorum), and government loot for the movie industry (the Virginia Film Office). Of this rationale, even in those cases when it is true, Hinkle notes: Why give so much top billing to the bottom line? Well, Americans are pragmatic. They might not care about a particular endeavor by itself, but if you can show that it's good for business, they might agree to go along. The only trouble is that not everything can be good for business all the time. The economic argument is also rather sad. There is more to life than dollars and cents, and it seems a little pusillanimous not to say so. ... Neil deGrasse Tyson believes in space exploration because of its glorious scientific promise -- not because it might be good for Lockheed-Martin. Why not make the case for space on its own merits? We should educate children for their own benefit, not because of their potential future utility to us. People ought go to theaters and art galleries to gasp in wonder at artistic brilliance and beauty -- not because of the multiplier effect. That's the real irony of the ubiquitous economic argument. Worthwhile causes speak for themselves. Pitching them as little more than economic stimuli really just sells them short. [bold added] Hinkle is half-right, but he fails to see that "the economy" is both a worthy cause and is being worse than sold short. Although he notes that the economy is about trade-offs, he forgets to ask, "for whom?" it is or ought to be. Had he done so, he'd might have seen that all of these proposals involve the government making Americans less free to make their own choices on numerous matters that harm nobody else and are nobody else's business. Indeed, he might even have seen that these arguments not only sell short such things as education, science, and the arts, they sell the economy down the river -- a proper, free economy that enables Americans to become prosperous and make their own choices. However, Hinkle hardly bears the blame for this. As Ayn Rand helped me see, and I have subsequently noticed many times myself, it has been conservative and libertarian commentators who have failed, time and time again, to make a moral case for capitalism -- when they haven't outright attacked capitalism as immoral on altruistic grounds. (The latter is usually via some kind of "admission" along the lines of it being the least-bad way of promoting some vague "common good".) Although the poor would generally be better off under capitalism, the moral basis for that system, rational selfishness, directly conflicts with the idea that man exists to serve other men, and its political spawn -- the notion that it is good to steal from one person or otherwise compel him to allegedly benefit another. This contradiction, between capitalism and the default morality of the vast majority of Americans, is what many who want a freer economy hope to avoid having to address when they merely tout some slight loosening of government controls as "good for the economy" (rather than, say, a baby step in the direction of freedom). The failure to address this contradiction is also why you rarely see them asking pointed questions, like: "Why isn't every day a 'tax holiday' if those are so good for the economy?" or "Why confine tax incentives to such a stingy amount or to just one industry?" or "Isn't government manipulation of the economy, even for an apparent short-term gain, directly antithetical to its mission of protecting the rights of all individuals, all the time?" (In every case, they would quickly face the task of questioning the propriety of the entitlement state.) This failure has persisted for so long that most people accept some government measure (vice their own freedom) as indicative of what's "good" for "the economy". So now, the fiscal conservatives' chickens have come home to roost: "Good for the economy" (or even other past shibboleths) is no longer even vague shorthand for lower taxes or less central planning, let alone capitalism. As we see from Hinkle's piece, it often means quite the opposite. -- CAV Link to Original
  11. Within an article about Monsanto, which Bloomberg Businessweek notes is "America's third-most hated company", is the following instructive and amusing tidbit: While the debate about the impact of [Genetically Modified] crops on the environment continues, the question of their effect on human health looks increasingly settled. The National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, Britain's Royal Society, the European Commission, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, among others, have all surveyed the substantial research literature and found no evidence that the GM foods on the market today are unsafe to eat. One of the few dissenting research papers, a 2012 study in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology that found tumors in rats fed modified maize, was retracted by the journal last fall after questions were raised about the researchers' methodology. [format edits, bold added] The science is "settled"? I'm hardly surprised, but where have I heard this claim before? Isn't the source of the rabid hatred for Monsanto from the left, which is currently in throes of "climate change" hysteria? And isn't it interesting -- setting aside the question of the validity of the claim that climate science is settled -- that the same people who cudgel us to death with that mantra sweep under the rug settled science they don't like? I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to divine what "science" might mean to such cherry-pickers and recommend the article for a much more positive reason: It is very interesting. Near the end of the article, there is an account of an epiphany by one businessman who "hadn't heard many good things" about the company before having to decide about negotiating with it. It concludes: What [Climate Corp. co-founder David Friedberg] realized, though, is that the best way to think about Monsanto is as a technology company. Its technology "just happens to take the form of a seed," Friedberg says. "As I got to learn about it I was like, 'Wow, this company is as innovative and as impressive as Google.' " Read the whole thing, and consider passing it along to any reasonable adult of your acquaintance who might be on the fence about the safety of food obtained from genetically modified crops. -- CAV Link to Original
  12. Writing at PolicyMic, Chris Miles notes a drop in Denver crime and increased Colorado tax revenue six months after the state legalized marijuana. "We are witnessing the fruits of Colorado's legal weed experiment, and those fruits are juicy indeed." [his emphasis] Miles does concede that it may be too soon to draw the conclusion that crime has dropped and we'll overlook his common mistake of regarding the increase in tax revenue (i.e., government looting) as a good thing. He is nonetheless right to take heart from the fact that the sky has not fallen, as Governor Hickenlooper had predicted. But is he is wrong to get too excited about the "fruits" when the vine on which they grow is obviously diseased. For example, later in his article, Miles notes the following: In yet another sign that 2014 is shaping up to be the year of marijuana reform, the Department of Drug Enforcement (DEA) is waving a white flag and surrendering on a crucial policy issue that has kept legalization from gaining traction across the nation. The DEA is now asking the Food and Drug Administration to remove marijuana from its list of the most dangerous and harmful drugs. This could signal a radical shift in the way our government regulates and enforces weed. Marijuana advocates hail the decision as a necessary policy step towards eventual legalization, removing a critical roadblock that has constrained marijuana legalization on the local and federal levels. It is, of course, the first step of many. Then there's the city of Washington, D.C. This November, it's all but certain that D.C. will vote on a marijuana ballot measure and even pass it, setting up a battle with Congress to legalize. This could be the most important battle yet in the marijuana prohibition fight; D.C. is considered a staging ground for many local policies that get enacted throughout the country, and a victory for pot could open the floodgates elsewhere. [link in original] Granted: So long as the government is improperly meddling with our affairs, that meddling should at least be as reasonable as possible. Marijuana is indeed, to my knowledge, no more dangerous than alcohol, so, as long as the government is telling people what to ingest and what not to ingest, it should at least refrain from claiming that marijuana is one of the most dangerous drugs. But it seems that too many people are content with having permissionfrom the nanny state to use marijuana, rather than remaining concerned that it is telling us what we can and cannot consume in the first place. If the proper purpose of the government is to protect individual rights, why is it proscribing behavior, such as drug use, that harms no one but the user (if the drug is dangerous)? (This is a separate issue from the state properly punishing public intoxication, where there is a danger to others.) It is interesting that the word "right" appears only twice on this entire web page -- both times within a copyright notice. The good news, such as it is, is that it may well be that the innocuousness of legalized marijuana will somewhat lessen the credibility of drug laws. The bad news is that such laws will remain on the books and, worse, their precedence left unquestioned, unless those who are interested in using marijuana (among others) stand up for themselves on moral grounds, and work to end government meddling with individual decisions on what foods and drugs we consume. Denver may be a mile high in more ways than one these days, but it isn't really much freer. -- CAV Link to Original
  13. Through an entryin Word Spy, I have seen an explanation of a phenomenon that has annoyed me to no end over the years. Thanks to the explanation, I see that much of my annoyance may have been unnecessary, or at least greater than it should have been. Have you ever been asked a question that at once seems clueless and patronizing? Have you ever innocently asked a question only to be surprised that you caused offense? Either way, this explanation may be for you, either to help you keep your patience or to keep from testing someone else's. The blog posting uses a common type of question fielded via Twitter by the organizers of a yearly convention of Doctor Who fans (aka "Gally") as a springboard. For the sake of brevity, I have shortened some of the author's points to essentials. Read the whole thing for more complete explanations. The con[vention] has grown so much in recent years that tickets sell out quickly. In the run-up to the moment tickets went on sale this year, I saw some twittering to the official @gallifreyoneaccount expressing worry that the system might not work well enough to purchase tickets easily. ... [T]here are a few things going on here: A) This was most definitely done from a place of love. ... However… That concern is irrelevant. Like I said, intent only goes so far. It's great that folks care about the convention, but that doesn't make this kind of tweeting look any better from the receiving end (or to bystanders), and that's because… C) They've already thought of it. That's their job. The people who work for Gally (or the comic store or Big Finish, etc.) think about this stuff all the time. It's what they do. If they haven't thought about it already, there are far bigger problems going on, besides… D) At this point (mere hours before the event), it's too late to do anything about it, so you just look like a dick. If the folks in charge genuinely don't know what kind of situation they have on their hands, the appropriate time to let them know is far in advance, and preferably via some sort of private message. It's only polite. By making a public statement like this… E) You're basically saying (publicly) that you have no faith in the organizers. You might as well just declare "You're an idiot and I do not trust you to do this thing correctly. Oh, and I am also hereby cementing my right to say 'I told you so' after the fact if something does go wrong." Yep. That's how it comes off from the outside. If I was on the receiving end, I'd be tempted to say "Okay, so you don't trust me to get it right? Maybe just stay home and skip the whole thing, how 'bout?" [link and emphasis in original, footnote indicators dropped] I have both hastily asked questions like this -- mostly when I was young -- and have probably misjudged the intent or intelligence of others who have asked such questions of me. Of course, in modern culture, presumptuousness and cluelessness (much of it fostered by endemic context-dropping and dis-integrated thinking that often looks like it) are rampant and there may well be even less to such a question than meets the eye. In any event, I thank the author for making me better aware of the issue, both in terms of improving my ability to judge others and in terms of making sure my own advocacy never comes off this way. -- CAV Link to Original
  14. The more I read about Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran's primary defeat of a strong Tea Party challenger, the less prophetic I feel. First, recall that Thad Cochran engineered his electoral victory by pandering to voters who want government handouts, or at least depend on them and fear that they'll suddenly be cut off. I didn't anticipate this, not being as good as I ought to be at gauging just how low a big government conservative can stoop. And now we have some interesting ratiocinations, albeit from flawed premises, from leftist commentator Froma Harrop. Regarding the great net cash flow of federal loot realized by the Magnolia State, Harrop asks "where do they think that [money] comes from?" She even notes that "not every item on [the Tea Party's] wish list would be bad for progressive America." Taken out of context, she sounds almost like she is beginning to see the light regarding the government taking money from one person and handing it over to another. But -- no surprise here -- she hasn't. The first clue is her use of the term "progressive America", rather than "progressives" or even "Americans". Commenting on the same phenomeonon Harrop indirectly does, of conservatives who are happy to take tax money, I noted: [P]erhaps most relevant to anyone financially dependent on another: What happens when those who are being looted either decide they've had enough, or are themselves ruined? Ayn Rand had something to say about that, too. Harrop's thinking along these lines surprised me a little, though it shouldn't have. She doesn't see ruin in the cards and she doesn't view this problem in terms of the individuals who are being robbed. But she does think of a way, lower federal taxes, to solve the problem of the wrong kind of people getting the goods. States paying most of the federal taxes would be able to retain more of their wealth. They could redirect some of those savings toward things Washington underfunds, say, commuter rail. They could leave more money in the pockets of their own taxpayers to be spent in their communities. Importantly, wealthy progressive regions would have control. They could choose to continue helping poor Mississippi schools as a kind of internal foreign aid. But they could also decide not to send millions to multimillionaire cotton farmers. In Harrop's eyes, it isn't individuals who are being robbed, but states. And, in her own particular dictator fantasy, it's the left-leaning blue states who would be better able to call the shots were they the ones, rather than the feds, pocketing the loot. She even thinks of them as having "internal foreign aid" programs for other states. Not being eager for such "largesse", but well aware of the consequences of governments controlling purse strings, I am reminded less of foreign aid and more of dictators deciding to pass loot to political allies and deprive it from political enemies. If the Democrats want to pretend that an orderly tranistion to a free economy is impossible, they have a reason for doing so, and don't think they won't hesitate to suddenly cut people off if they can convince themselves they're doing the right thing. Harrop wants to, and chooses what she sees as a safe target: cotton farmers. (Let me reiterate that I don't think they -- or anyone else -- have a right to a penny of money taken from another by force.) If Harrop's line of thought is any indication of how voters think in blue states -- and I think it is -- then advocates of individual rights and limited government need to think past mere elections and consider the need for a massive, abolitionist-like campaign of "moral suasion". This includes boning up on why limited government is good. Whether government loot runs out because there is nobody left to rob, or because the people in control of its distribution feel like cutting it off, or because we have decided it's better to be in charge of our own lives is up to us. But that "us" includes voters who may not yet see the dangers of dependence or the propriety of their keeping their own individual money. Harrop is right to ask where the money comes from, but wrong to treat money as government property, or to pretend that individuals, by virtue of consent, aren't part of the government. Individuals in the blue states should continue Harrop's line of inquiry until they see that Connecticut taking their money and their control over their own lives is just as wrong as the United States doing so. (And if charity is important to them, nothing would stop them from creating their own "internal foreign aid programs", using the money they earned.) -- CAV P.S. Don Watkins of the Ayn Rand Institute writes a good blog post on why government theft doesn't bother most people as much as it should. Link to Original
  15. If there's a gift horse you should look in the mouth, it's one coming from a "service" premised on the idea that it's okay to confiscate your money and call the process voluntary. That's what I did Saturday when I received an unexpected refund check from the IRS. Despite recent revelations about the way the IRS handles its own email records, I was still amazed at what I learned. Here's a sample: One tax preparer said that it was common for her clients to receive refunds due to mistakes by the IRS. About five percent of her clients got unexpected refunds last year, and, "Eighty percent of the time, the checks were issued erroneously..." Anyone who cashes such a check will be expected to repay it -- with penalties and interest. According to MSN Money, "The IRS shows no mercy just because it sent the money in the first place." The agency warns against cashing such checks until you have received an explanation, but can take up to a year to send one, if it ever does. Consumer's Digest advises calling the agency and, if still in doubt, voiding the check and sending it back with an explanatory letter. Consumer's Digest notes that "back-and-forth arguments over stiff penalties can get nasty, even if IRS made the error." A tax attorney interviewed for the article noted that only once in his sixteen years of practice had he ever seen a penalty waived. Many of the errors pertain to IRS mistakes related to estimated tax payments -- and are followed by notifications of penalties for the "missed" payments. The last article I cited puts it well: ""[T]he IRS and other agencies make mistakes on a level that would put any of us out of business." Great: So on top of having my money taken, and wasting time preparing taxes, I have to screw around tracking down someone else's mistake -- or else. Any passer-by who feels the inclination to call me a something like a "whiner", or say something to the effect that this is all "part of being an adult" or some other such nonsense should check his premises. Being robbed and harassed on a regular basis is not the way things ought or have to be. I am astounded that so many people tolerate the existence of a band of legalized thieves who can plead incompetence while also brandishing the threat of financial hardship or jail time. -- CAV Link to Original
  16. An article at NPR describes how important kitchens were in the Khrushchev-era Soviet Union as gathering places and centers for civic culture. The piece is somewhat erroneously titled "How Soviet Kitchens Became Hotbeds Of Dissent And Culture", but it doesn't really answer that question. Nevertheless, the piece is still quite interesting for the perspective it lends to our current cultural and political situation: When Nikita Khrushchev emerged as the leader of the Soviet Union after Stalin's death in 1953, one of the first things he addressed was the housing shortage and the need for more food. At the time, thousands of people were living in cramped communal apartments, and one bathroom with sometimes up to 20 other families. "People wanted to live in their own apartment," says Sergei Khrushchev, the son of Nikita Khrushchev. "But in Stalin's time you cannot find this. When my father came to power, he proclaimed that there will be mass construction of apartment buildings, and in each apartment will live only one family." They were called khrushchevkas -- five-story buildings made of prefabricated concrete panels. "They were horribly built; you could hear your neighbor," says Edward Shenderovich, an entrepreneur and Russian poet. The apartments had small toilets, very low ceilings and very small kitchens. But "no matter how tiny it was, it was yours," says journalist Masha Karp, who was born in Moscow and worked as an editor for the BBC World Service from 1991 to 2009. "This kitchen was the place where people could finally get together and talk at home without fearing the neighbors in the communal flat." The emphasis on privacy -- which helps "[set] man free from men" is interesting for many reasons, among them: how much value even a semi-private space brought with it, how much privacy we still have by comparison, and how much privacy has come under attack of late. Anyone blithely says things like, "I have nothing to hide," in reaction to the torrent of news about our deteriorating ability to keep the meddlesome out of our affairs, would do well to read this. -- CAV Link to Original
  17. Writing at the Telegraph, Christopher Booker notes yet another example of cooked-up global warming data: [blogger Steven] Goddard shows how, in recent years, NOAA's US Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) has been "adjusting" its record by replacing real temperatures with data "fabricated" by computer models. The effect of this has been to downgrade earlier temperatures and to exaggerate those from recent decades, to give the impression that the Earth has been warming up much more than is justified by the actual data. In several posts headed "Data tampering at USHCN/GISS" [i found only this, in a cursory search. --ed], Goddard compares the currently published temperature graphs with those based only on temperatures measured at the time. These show that the US has actually been cooling since the Thirties, the hottest decade on record; whereas the latest graph, nearly half of it based on "fabricated" data, shows it to have been warming at a rate equivalent to more than 3 degrees centigrade per century. This finding, interesting in itself, reminds me of an item I encountered a few years ago in Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth (which I gave a mixed review) to the effect that an apparent warming trend in surface temperatures might merely be an artefact caused by development near once-isolated temperature measuring stations. I am sure that the adjustments unearthed by Goddard would be justified (or excused) as corrections, but it would seem that, if anything, the adjustment should have been made in the opposite direction. That said, it is possible that the data Goddard and I are discussing are from different sources: I am writing based on a skim of his piece and my memory of a lengthy and turgid volume I read over four years ago. Booker concludes his piece by reiterating a past speculation of his: Any theory needing to rely so consistently on fudging the evidence, I concluded, must be looked on not as science at all, but as simply a rather alarming case study in the aberrations of group psychology. That's charitable, given that there is a clear incentive to massage the data, in the form of acquiring loot and prestige from the government. -- CAV Link to Original
  18. Consistency Slandered as Hypocrisy Don Watkins of the Ayn Rand Institute notes: Whenever I attack Social Security as an immoral institution that needs to be abolished, someone announces that my arguments are irrelevant because Ayn Rand was a hypocrite who took Social Security. (One version of this "argument" claims that Rand ended up a poverty-stricken welfare recipient, which is only wishful thinking on the part of her opponents.) What most people don't realize -- and what surely is relevant to the debate -- is that Rand herself argued that opposing Social Security and cashing Social Security checks is not hypocritical. Watkins points to a post by Onkar Ghate (also of ARI) that elaborates on this point. It reads in part, as excerpted by Watkins: Precisely because Rand views welfare programs like Social Security as legalized plunder, she thinks the only condition under which it is moral to collect Social Security is if one " regards it as restitution and opposes all forms of welfare statism" (emphasis hers). The seeming contradiction that only the opponent of Social Security has the moral right to collect it dissolves, she argues, once you recognize the crucial difference between the voluntary and the coerced. Social Security is not voluntary. Your participation is forced through payroll taxes, with no choice to opt out even if you think the program harmful to your interests. If you consider such forced "participation" unjust, as Rand does, the harm inflicted on you would only be compounded if your announcement of the program's injustice precludes you from collecting Social Security. This being said, your moral integrity does require that you view the funds only as (partial) restitution for all that has been taken from you by such welfare schemes and that you continue, sincerely, to oppose the welfare state. This is also a point many conservatives would do well to take to heart. Weekend Reading "It's psychologically healthy to attach conditions to your self-worth" -- Michael Hurd, in "Don't Expect Your Self-Esteem for Free" at The Delaware Coast Press "... I suggested to my client that she suggest to her friend that it pains her to see him so selflessly - yes, selflessly, i.e., with no concern for himself - squandering his life. " --Michael Hurd, in "Remind Them Why You Care" at The Delaware Wave In Further Detail The Hurd piece on self-esteem mentions the issue as it relates to parenting, noting in part that, "[C]hildren are actually quite perceptive and can often see through the unwarranted, feel-good muck that adults (especially in today's society) sometimes inflict upon them." I am glad to hear this since current fashions seem to call for enormous amounts of unwarranted praise to be directed towards children. In reaction, and in the hope of helping my children know they can rely on me for useful feedback, I make it a point to praise actual accomplishments, but not join in the chorus of phony "affirmation". The Art of Oddsmaking Updating myself on the World Cup yesterday evening, I ran into a mesmerizing graphic that allows one to check on the current odds of any given team advancing to: the knock-out stage (winning its pool or placing second in its pool, figured separately), the round of 16, the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, or the final. Last, but Not Least It is hard to believe that I have been a father for three years today! (I have had two children for just a bit over a year, too.) I remember seeing each of my children for the very first time like it was yesterday, and marvel at how much they have grown in that short amount of time. Happy birthdays, Pumpkin and Little Man! --CAV Link to Original
  19. 1. I really enjoyed seeing Clint Dempsey score the fifth-fastest goal in World Cup history (30 seconds into the match) en route to the U.S. Men's National Team defeating Ghana 2-1 during round robin play Monday. Our best hope of advancing past the first round hinged on a victory, given that Germany and Portugal are also in our group -- and despite the African nation's having sent us home from the last two tournaments. 2. I like the movie, but I'm not so sure The Big Lebowski merits enough academic study to justify a volume titled, The Year's Work in Lebowski Studies. (HT: Snedcat) 3. Pumpkin, who will turn three this weekend, surprised me a little by throwing an "actually" at me for the first time. She was playing with baby dolls and I mistook a powder dispenser for a bottle. "Actually, that's baby powder," she corrected me. 4. What's it like to be bitten by a black widow spider? I'd take the following, from an account of the work of an early researcher, as a good executive summary: One of the questions [Allan] Blair had in mind when he began his experiment was whether people acquire immunity over successive bites. He never answered this question because, as he frankly admitted, he was afraid of having another experience like his first. But if you're harder to convince, you can find more detail at the above link. -- CAV Link to Original
  20. An information technology expert lists six reasons the government's claim that the IRS "lost" emails pertinent to its targeting of conservative political groups is ... implausible. After detailing the six reasons, the article concludes: [Normal] Cillo, who has been working in IT for roughly 16 years and is currently a consultant for a tech company, said it's possible the IRS is telling the truth if the federal agency is "totally mismanaged and has the worst IT department ever." Other than that, it's just not "feasible," he told TheBlaze. "If the IRS' email server is in such a state that they only have one copy of data and the server crashes and it's gone, I've never heard of such a thing." " I don't know of any email administrator that doesn't have at least three ways of getting that mail back," he added. "It's either on the disks or it's on a TAPE backup someplace or in an archive server. There are at least three ways the government can get those emails." [bold added, minor format edits] Isn't it funny how the question of whether President Obama -- or his minions in the government -- is evil or incompetent keeps coming up? Such a question of a government official would almost always make much less of a difference in our daily lives were voters to demand a government limited to its proper purpose, vice one that runs almost everything. Of course, perhaps on some gut level, Obama senses that many Americans are content to rely on the government as if it were some sort of autopilot. I am no IT expert, but I personally found the assertion that the IRS (for whom record-keeping would presumably be a fine art) lost the emails an insulting explanation. Furthermore, with the domestic spying cat out of the bag, Obama also sounds like he is practically daring Republicans to do what Steve Stockman has done: request the metadata from the emails in question from the NSA. The real question about Barack Obama isn't whether he is evil or incompetent or both, but how long Americans will put themselves in a position in which the answer to such a question is so important. Our government clearly has too much power over our daily lives. -- CAV Link to Original
  21. The case for reparations for slavery has been revived lately by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a writer for whom I once had a fair degree of respect. Fortunately, Walter Williams has made mincemeat of that evil idea on many levels, starting with the moral: ... I also agree that slave owners and slave traders should make reparations to those whom they enslaved. The problem, of course, is that slaves, slave owners and slave traders are all dead. Thus, punishing perpetrators and compensating victims is out of the hands of the living. Punishing perpetrators and compensating victims is not what reparations advocates want. They want government to compensate today's blacks for the bondage suffered by our ancestors. But there's a problem. Government has no resources of its very own. The only way for government to give one American a dollar is to first -- through intimidation, threats and coercion -- confiscate that dollar from some other American. Therefore, if anybody cares, a moral question arises. What moral principle justifies punishing a white of today to compensate a black of today for what a white of yesterday did to a black of yesterday? [bold added] But Williams is not done, yet. Many advocates of "reparations" like to claim a superior knowledge of history, as if this bolsters their case for committing wrongs against the innocent. Williams goes on demonstrate that such claims, as judged by the proposed remedies, are just about as ridiculous as the white guilt he lampooned ages ago through his "Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon Granted to All Persons of European Descent". It is clear from this piece that advocates of reparations must be ignorant or evasive of almost everything but the facts that slavery once existed in this country, the slaves had African heritage, and persons of European heritage owned slaves. This is a piece well worth reading in full and keeping in mind, in the event one realizes that an otherwise intelligent and thoughtful adult is falling for the kind of nonsense that Coates has decided push. -- CAV Link to Original
  22. In "Rum Deal: Counting Up All the Ways America's Booze Laws Are Terrible", Jim Saksa of Slate exposes an absurd regulatory environment and the perverse incentives it creates. Although these regulations vary quite a bit by state, many of the same economic phenomena play out across the country. Perhaps the most obviously ridiculous regulations, in terms of purchasing alcohol, exist in Pennsylvania: Throughout the article, it is clear that these regulations are vestiges of Prohibition, and do little to encourage anyone to enjoy alcohol responsibly -- not that that would be a legitimate function of government, anyway. The reader will indeed wonder why such silliness remains on the books at all -- and Saksa will have a big part of the the answer. These laws create an artificial set of circumstances that enable some individuals to enrich themselves. This parasitical class sees to it that nothing changes: Let me emphasize that I respectfully disagree with Saksa's use of the term "legitimate" to describe this racket. It may be legal, but the government has no business making such laws in the first place. And that issue leads me to a larger point about the many other similar tales out there about absurd regulations. Too many people take for granted the notion that the government is right to regulate the economy, and see such rules (and their inevitable consequences) as somehow unusual or "excessive". But that glosses over the nature of governmentas having "the legal power to initiate the use of physical force against other individuals or groups and to compel them to act against their own voluntary choice". What is absurd is not so much any particular regulation, or whatever legalized criminal enterprise it creates -- but the very fact that the government is meddling with ordinary trade. The government should be protecting us from those who would violate our rights -- not doing just that by telling us what to do. Were more of us intolerant of being told what to do, no amount of lobbying or demagoguery on the part of the creatures of government meddling would succeed in maintaining the idiotic -- and wrong -- status quo of the government running practically everything for long. -- CAV Link to Original
  23. Stephen Moore of Fox News has just pronounced himself unfit for commentary on sports (and highly suspect as a journalist) by means of writing a piece titled, "Why I Won't Be Watching the World Cup". This piece falls into a genre I named "The Anti-Soccer Editorial by Someone Who Has No Appreciation for the Game". After first checking that Moore's and Robert Tracinski's respective pieces aren't actually Microsoft Word templates that slipped past editors, I remain confident in calling this "a phenomenon that crops up reliably in America every four years, around the time of the World Cup". Conservatives usually write these. The equally ridiculous leftist equivalent, which I spotted only this time around, might be called "Soccer ISAnti-American, and That's a Good Thing". I will never fault someone for his taste in sports, so long as he either has some solid reasons for enjoying (or not) the spectacle a given sport has to offer, or admits that he just doesn't know enough about a sport to enjoy watching it. Moore does neither: I'm an American. I want scoring. I want action. Maybe it's part of the instant gratification culture but 90 minutes of kicking with zero or one or two goals doesn't exactly move heaven and earth. This is coming from someone who professes to admire golf -- a game whose participants walk (or ride) in between swings of a club and seek to score fewer points than their opponents. (I'm not very knowledgeable about golf, but, having played a little -- and having also realized that its popularity might exist for good reasons -- I can see past these "problems". Or has Moore just enough guile not to claim that he enjoys a "chukker of golf" now and then?) Moore's criticism of soccer is about as even-handed and well-informed as the following hypothetical criticism I made of basketball some years ago: Basketball ... is [racked] with inflation, robbing its players of the value of the successes they have already produced by making them have to score "too many times" to win a game. No wonder it's popular with blacks, who bloc-vote for Democrats (and their inflationary policies), and [is] becoming more so in socialist Europe, particularly in nations (like Greece and Italy) which historically had high inflation and unstable currencies before the Euro! And the spiritual experience for the fans, of seeing points scored, is cheapened by the fact that it occurs so often. By Jove, one might as well watch footage of a printing press reeling off fiat currency! Basketball may allow players to use their hands all they want -- just like men in inflationary economies are free to use their minds -- but it retroactively robs them of the value of their past efforts! Moore intriguingly claims to have argued that soccer is "a manifestation of the labor theory of value applied to sports". But if he hasn't the patience to gain some modicum of insight as to what is going on in a typical soccer game, why should I bother to read these? How would he know, even if, arguendo, he is parroting the words of a completely accurate assessment, a correct conclusion? Moore's article is no more an indictment of persuasive writing than the (illegal!) flops for easy scoring chances he uses to condemn soccer are of that game. No that I know enough to judge Moore's motives in writing this piece, but there is a lesson here for anyone interested in persuasive writing aimed at a rational audience. -- CAV Link to Original
  24. Projection, Anyone? A joke has become the latest excuse for feminists to spew bile online, in the form of a Twitter hashtag campaign to end Father's Day. Apparently, Father's Day is just another way of perpetuating the patriarchal dominance that is so rampant in American society. Forget that Mother's Day is also a thing, that's not important. All that matters is that we end a day dedicated to the monsters among us, or something. While we're surveying intellectual and psychological wreckage... I find it absurd (and revealing) that so many such "outraged" people both emulate in deed their own stereotypes of non-leftists as "haters" and act as boorishly as they suppose "all" men do in a supposed show of "liberation". Weekend Reading "ecause of its vital role, health care should be an industry in which success should be most praiseworthy, given that financial viability is essential for continued operations and the opportunity to purchase health care services." -- Amesh Adalja, in "In Defense of Jeffrey Romoff" at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Apparently, smiling can unleash the power to self-fulfill a happy prophecy." -- Michael Hurd, in "The Health Benefits of Smiling" at The Delaware Wave "[T]here are things you can do to make transition a little less traumatic." -- Michael Hurd, in "Life Is Not Static" at The Delaware Coast Press "If we really want to kill off the campaign finance monster, we need to drive a stake through the wrong-headed view of free speech at its heart." -- Steve Simpson, in "The Campaign Finance Monster that Refuses To Die" at Breitbart In More Detail The Simpson piece, through its historical survey of attempts to regulate spending on political campaigns, demonstrates just how close we are to completely losing government protection of freedom of speech. The "Marriage Problem" I enjoyed Robert Krulwich's explanation of a mathematical solution for quickly making an optimal choice from among a limited pool of options: It works any time you have a list of potential wives, husbands, prom dates, job applicants, garage mechanics. The rules are simple: You start with a situation where you have a fixed number of options (if, say, you live in a small town and there aren't unlimited men to date, garages to go to), so you make a list -- that's your final list -- and you interview each candidate one by one. Again, what I'm about to describe doesn't always produce a happy result, but it does so more often than would occur randomly. For mathematicians, that's enough. Read the whole thing for historical background and quick-and-dirty explanations of the strategy and why it often works. --CAV Link to Original
  25. 1. If you live in the St. Louis area, you should make the newest location of this business your beer emporium -- or have your head examined: Craft Beer Cellar was founded in 2010 by ex-restaurateurs Kate Baker and Suzanne Schalow on a desire to create a beer store that they would want to shop at, passion for the industry, and a commitment for changing the world of beer. They fell in-love with craft beer in the late '90s, and began a quest (which they're still on) for amazing beer, the people behind it, and all that it entails! Their focus is on awesome beer with flavor, not those beers whose ingredients are intended to lighten color or lessen quality. This store is amazing. I didn't spend an eternity looking, but they had almost everything I could think of and, for a slight per-bottle premium, it was possible to buy individual bottles, thereby creating a custom six-pack. There is a tasting bar with five taps in the back and the brothers Nickelson, obviously passionate about fine beer, offer outstanding customer service. 2. My son -- now one year old! -- loves puppets, just like his Grandpa. He particularly likes a panda hand puppet and waves back at it when I make it wave to him. 3. A professional in the field of imaging software has devised a technique to produce paintings very much like Vermeer's: It took another seven months to actually paint the picture. The work was tedious and very hard on the back, but the machine worked well. My experiment doesn't prove that Vermeer worked this way, but it proves that he COULD have worked this way. And the impossible white wall came out looking about the way Vermeer painted it. Tim Jenison's efforts are further detailed, with the help of Penn Jilette and Teller in a documentary titled, Tim's Vermeer. 4. Says Greg Ross: Here's a special kind of genius: In 1997 Daniel Nussbaum rewrote Oedipus Rex using vanity license platesregistered with the California Department of Motor Vehicles[.] [bold added] Read it all at the link above. -- CAV Link to Original
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