Gus Van Horn blog

Security expert Bruce Schneier describes an amusing example of a student quickly and elegantly eviscerating a cryptographic scheme his teacher had used in his classes for years. (The instructor encoded letters of the alphabet by means of the phone numbers of individuals whose last names started with them.) Scheier holds this out as a "great example" of what he calls "the security mindset". Needless to say, this made me curious as to what, exactly, he meant by "security mindset", and whether he was speaking of the student or, perhaps, the professor (and, by doing so, making some kind of sarcastic comment on the general state of his field). He was speaking of the student, and I found what he called the "security mindset" as well as what he had to say about it very interesting. I think that what Schneier is describing is what Ayn Rand would have called an active mind. (She might have called "closed" and "(wide) open" minds two sides of the mental passivity coin.) He is focused on matters of security for the most part, but note that he sees this kind of integrative functioning as more broadly applicable than just his particular field, and not just because people can and should think more actively about their own privacy and security. -- CAV Link to Original

Margaret Thatcher, my favorite modern political figure, has died. Tom Bowden of the Ayn Rand Institute notes that she was influenced by Ayn Rand, something I do not recall hearing about before. Here is part of the what Ayn Rand said about the matter, as supplied by Bowden: A story on Margaret Thatcher, the new leader of the British Conservative party ( The New York Times Magazine, June 1, 1975), stated that her "'think tank' of intellectuals" is studying and popularizing "the theories of"--and there followed a hodgepodge of so-called rightist names, ending on "Ayn Rand." I did not pay much attention to that story--but, later, I was told privately that my ideas actually do have an influence on Mrs. Thatcher's group. The full context of the quote, like Thatcher did at times, provides hope and inspiration: Rand herself had laughed about a New Republic column titled "The Ayn Rand Factor". And yet, here was a major political figure taking her ideas about government seriously. Today, as Bowden points out, Rand's name is everywhere just a few decades later. Bowden notes that, "The passing of Margaret Thatcher gives us occasion to pause and reflect on the time required for genuinely new ideas, such as those of Ayn Rand, to percolate through a culture." Bowden's observation reminds me of a thick-headed criticism I was on the receiving end of recently. Being preoccupied and without a snappy comeback, had to let it slide, but it bothered me that I did. I was basically criticized for my political views being too far from "the way things are". That is something I am sure that Thatcher -- and every other person interested in making things closer to the way they should be -- has had to hear. Were we all, unlike Thatcher, resigned to the way things happen to be, our civilization (if you could call it that) would still be saddled with such evils as slavery, state-sponsored religion, and a lack of civil rights for women. I am grateful to Margaret Thatcher for demonstrating, especially through her famous decisiveness and her unwillingness to compomise on her principles, that one person can make a big difference for the better, even in a day and age that one could understandably write off as hopeless. I will not allow myself to forget that again, even for a moment. -- CAV Link to Original

Mark Steyn comments on the high degree of intolerance of genuine debate evident once again among self-described "multiculturalist" leftists, this time regarding the possible outcome of the Supreme Court's deliberations over California's Proposition 8. There is a real chance that the ruling could legalize gay marriage. Assuming that such a decision were made for the right reasons, I think this would be a very good thing and would applaud such a ruling. Saying that would not save me -- and probably invites -- vitriol from such quarters, as Steyn makes clear: I can see why gays might dislike Scalia's tone, or be hurt by Irons' "lack of strong feelings." But the alternative -- that there is only one approved tone, that one must fake strong feelings -- is creepy and totalitarian and deeply threatening to any healthy society. Irons is learning, as Carrie Prejean learned a while back, that "liberals" aren't interested in your opinion, or even your sincere support, but only that you understand that there's one single, acceptable answer. We don't teach kids to memorize historic dates or great poetry any more, but we do insist they memorize correct attitudes and regurgitate them correctly when required to do so in public. [bold added] Over the years, I have learned to watch my back -- but not take it personally or regard it as serious criticism -- when someone outs himself in such a way as an anti-intellectual bigot. That doesn't mean I am unaffected: The real loser from the phenomenon that Steyn describes is any truly just cause that somehow finds itself being "promoted" with such "support". That saddens me. Here, something I do not discuss often, but care deeply about, is being discredited and trivialized. Americans should support gay marriage because they understand its relationship to their own freedom and, in turn, their own well-being -- not simply because it's what they are told to do. -- CAV Link to Original

1. I haven't tried it yet, but I'll definitely keep the new PDF data extraction tool named "Tabula" in mind the next time I want to fool around with data stored in a table from a PDF file. Come to think of it, I might try it on tables from PDFs generated from web pages by my web browser's "save to PDF" feature. 2. Having a neat idea is one thing; executing it is another. At some point during my Boston days, I recall thinking that it would be interesting to see a time-scaled map of Boston's subway system. So did the folks at Stonebrown Design, who then also did the hard part and created one. 3. A medical textbook features a graph showing a very strong correlation between stork sightings and population for Oldenburg, Germany. I guess I was wrong(scroll down) about where my baby daughter came from, after all. 4. "By definition, [a] CAPTCHA should be easy to read by humans but hard to read by machines," says a tech blogger of a nearly ubiquitous Internet security measure. (This blog employs them to make sure that only humans can post comments to posts.) He then provides an amusing example that he calls the "worst CAPTCHA ever". -- CAV Link to Original

Making an argument akin to that Frederic Bastiat made in his Parable of the Broken Window, Thomas Sowell raises the following points regarding the defensive gun use: Surveys of American gun owners have found that 4 to 6 percent reported using a gun in self-defense within the previous five years. That is not a very high percentage but, in a country with 300 million people, that works out to hundreds of thousands of defensive uses of guns per year. ... Although most defensive uses of guns do not involve actually shooting, nevertheless the total number of criminals killed by armed private citizens runs into the thousands per year. A gun can also come in handy if a pit bull or some other dangerous animal is after you or your child. [bold added] Sowell also nicely contrasts these facts with the popular stereotype of defensive gun use as resembling "the gunfight at the OK Corral". This he does both by helping the reader imagine a situation in which having a gun (but not necessarily having to fire it) would be nice, and by succinctly demonstrating the misuse of statistics by proponents of gun control. -- CAV Link to Original

Prominent "libertarian paternalist" Cass Sunstein reviews Sarah Conly's Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism, in the New York Review of Books (HT: reader Snedcat). There are many, many things wrong in this piece, but one of the things that struck me the most was how trivially Sunstein seems to regard personal choice, and why he does so. (He discounts as "frustration" the way individuals rightly react to the government trampling their freedom, for example.) Soon after the outset of his article, Sunstein proposes that "a significant strand in American culture appears to endorse" the central argument of John Stewart Mill's On Liberty, which he summarizes as follows: Mill offered a number of independent justifications for his famous harm principle, but one of his most important claims is that individuals are in the best position to know what is good for them. In Mill's view, the problem with outsiders, including government officials, is that they lack the necessary information. Mill insists that the individual "is the person most interested in his own well-being," and the "ordinary man or woman has means of knowledge immeasurably surpassing those that can be possessed by any one else." Americans would be wrong to argue for individual rights based on this, but let's run with it, anyway. Let's assume that the individual is in the best position to know what is best for him and is most interested in his own well-being. (This is not always the case, and not simply due to ignorance and error. Evasion of what is best at any level can cause an individual to make poor choices.) Even in such a case, a relative lack of information by outsiders is hardly the only reason the government has no business dictating to people what they should do, even in the form of the velvet-gloved fist of a "choice architecture". That government officials can force people to harm themselves due to bad information and their own cogitive errors is part of why preventive law and government regulations are a bad thing, and Sunstein readily concedes that risk. (He does downplay it, however.) Nevertheless, as I noted in the case of individuals, evasion, which Ayn Rand rightly called man's "basic vice", is also something government officials, as individuals, are perfectly capable of. Voters, too, and on a massive scale. Read on. Sunstein's failure to consider normative arguments (including, by the way, how anyone (acting on his own behalf or as some sort of public guardian) is to determine what is good or for whom) causes him to blatantly ignore something that was obvious to America's founders: the prospect of tyranny. When individuals concede their autonomy to a government -- the sole social institution with the legal power to force them to do things -- they don't just open themselves up to being made to abide by mere mistakes by their "guardians" (which would be bad enough); they open themselves up to being forced to live with the consequences of whatever evil that a majority of voters or officials in the government feel they can get away with. Ayn Rand put all this very succinctly when she summarized MIll's philosophy of Utilitarianism (and warned us against it) as follows: "The greatest good for the greatest number" is one of the most vicious slogans ever foisted on humanity. This slogan has no concrete, specific meaning. There is no way to interpret it benevolently, but a great many ways in which it can be used to justify the most vicious actions. What is the definition of "the good" in this slogan? None, except: whatever is good for the greatest number. Who, in any particular issue, decides what is good for the greatest number? Why, the greatest number. If you consider this moral, you would have to approve of the following examples, which are exact applications of this slogan in practice: fifty-one percent of humanity enslaving the other forty-nine; nine hungry cannibals eating the tenth one; a lynching mob murdering a man whom they consider dangerous to the community. There were seventy million Germans in Germany and six hundred thousand Jews. The greatest number (the Germans) supported the Nazi government which told them that their greatest good would be served by exterminating the smaller number (the Jews) and grabbing their property. This was the horror achieved in practice by a vicious slogan accepted in theory. But, you might say, the majority in all these examples did not achieve any real good for itself either? No. It didn't. Because "the good" is not determined by counting numbers and is not achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone. [bold added] Although we are not discussing the establishment of concentration camps in America, the above quote shows us how tyranny slips in, and not just if some obviously evil faction were to come to power: It also explains some interesting "questions" Sunstein raises near the end of his review. Notably, we see Conly arguing against banning the use of food stamps for the purchase of soft drinks, and yet also arguing that cigarettes should be banned. Do notice further that neither Sunstein nor Conly ask about the propriety of harming some people (by taking their money) to allegedly help others (via the food stamps). We aren't enslaving anyone or committing genocide, but we are already being harmed by the immoral actions the government is making us do. Sure, I can and do make mistakes, but do I want even more of this? Absolutely not. I'd rather remain free to do something Sunstein and Conly seem to assume I can't: learn from my mistakes and those of others. -- CAV Link to Original

An article on a case pending before the Supreme Court reveals that the government regularly steals from raisin producers in order to "help" them. Unfortunately, not only does the government meddle in a similar way with the markets for thirty agricultural products, but the the lawsuit, which concerns only whether the producers should be compensated, is unlikely to result in the kind of clear-cut, principled decision that would end to such practices once and for all. It is worth noting that such controls have been lifted from the markets for walnuts and citrus fruits "without any ill effects". -- CAV P.S.: Regarding the title, I have not suddenly forgotten how to use quotation marks. The title is not my own turn of phrase, but is indeed a quote, taken from the article. P.P.S.: I wish to express my disagreement with Justice Kagan, who called the law "outdated". The government working against its own proper purpose, such as by stealing from individuals never has been, and never will be a good idea. Calling this law "outdated" implies that such a scheme can be legitimate. Link to Original

Some time back, I commented that Matthew Yglesias of Slate ought to consider whether privatization might help passenger railways survive and prosper. A Michael Barone piece I ran across this morning provides some interesting historical and economic data in support of my contention. Hint: It is titled, "Why Freight Rail Pays and Passenger Trains Flunk". We've heard plenty of stories about expensive government transit projects that nobody is going to ride (but Barone provides an executive summary, just in case), but how many of his readers will know the following? Oh, and freight costs are less than half of what they were in the early eighties. Barone's piece provides solid, obviously relevant data on why government "bullet trains" and the like are a questionable proposition. More important, however, it does an outstanding job of demonstrating not just that central planning is bad, but that freedom is a viable alternative. In this day and age, when far too many people simply cannot imagine an alternative, this is a great help. -- CAV Link to Original

Oops! Due to error, my calendar incorrectly tells me that Edison Hour(aka Human Achievement Hour) is tonight. Actually, it was a week ago. Fortunately, it isn't too late to amuse oneself with what leftists are doing to save the planet feel good about themselves via the slide show at WWF. Much more important than that, it isn't too late to support the causes of reason, justice, and capitalism. Weekend Reading "Concierge physicians routinely report greater job satisfaction, because they can practice the way they were trained -- taking the time to really talk to their patients and use their skills to their fullest extent." -- Paul Hsieh, "Is Concierge Medicine the Correct Choice for You?", at Forbes "[T]he problem is that the minimum wage doesn't ensure everyone can earn a living--it ensures that many of us can't earn anything." -- Don Watkins, in "To Protect the Defenseless, We Must Abolish the Minimum Wage", at Forbes "Your time is more precious than that money that's going to tick down to zero whether you're parked there or not." -- Michael Hurd, in "What's Your Time Worth?", in The Delaware Coast Press "So how do you handle the process of dealing with tradespeople? Simple: Treat them the way you want to be treated." -- Michael Hurd, in "A Little Respect Gets Things Done" at The Delaware Wave "As we reach the law's third year mark, we know what's in it--and we know it is poison." -- Scott Holleran, in "It's Never too Soon to Repeal Obamacare", atThe Washington Times My Two Cents Apropos of Edison Hour, Michael Hurd's point about the value of piddling amounts of money versus time reminds me of a very good one I ran into years ago versus the kind of pointless recycling environmentalists indulge in and try to make the rest of us do: "If it's immoral to waste, then it's immoral to recycle when the benefits of doing so are less than the value of the time it takes to do so." [my bold] Is it really worth even a second to treat that used soda can like gold? Lock-In by Any Other Name I ran across a thought-provoking phrase a while back: "digital sharecropping". The article makes some great points, but I dislike the term "digital sharecropping" because it smears legitimate business practices by invoking the predation that bad laws and a backward culture once made possible. One can say, "Have a Plan B," without impugning a company for making decisions it deems best (but which might pose problems for third parties). --CAV Link to Original

I'll begin my obligatory (but belated) snow-in-spring post with the line, from a <a href="http://gusvanhorn.blogspot.com/2011/03/tom-leherer-interview.html">Tom Lehrer</a> song, that I belted out when I went outside to join my wife and daughter in the snow: "<i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Evening_Wasted_with_Tom_Lehrer#.22Poisoning_Pigeons_in_the_Park.22">Spring is here. Spring is here. Life is skittles and life is beer</a></i>."<br /><br />Last Sunday's snowstorm was memorable, to me anyway, as dumping the most on top of me while I was awake. The morning started with nothing on the ground, but the snow and sleet had already started. Not because I am used to snow and was planning ahead, but just to get it over with, I went out to do the week's grocery shopping at 8:30 a.m. During the forty-five minutes or so between my entering the store and leaving, the parking lot acquired enough snow that I met resistance as I pushed the shopping cart back to the car. The drive back, before any plows had made a dent in anything, was touch-and-go: I was doing thirty on the Interstate. None of the other drivers passed me or gained ground on me.<br /><br />Between the usual Sunday chores and some shoveling to keep up with the snow, I watched my daughter play and took a few pictures for my own amusement. I hope you enjoy them, too. (Regarding keeping up with the snow, I was glad I did the next day: I got all our sidewalks and the driveway -- along with the car -- done in less than half an hour, and without breaking my back. Not bad for a greenhorn.)<br /><br />Without further ado, here are the pictures. Brief captions follow below them. Click to enlarge.<br /><div align="center"><table><tbody><tr><td><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-B2cV9yO_oio/UVVPZXI7cxI/AAAAAAAAA70/R3EfzTM7pLk/s1600/deck_1.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-B2cV9yO_oio/UVVPZXI7cxI/AAAAAAAAA70/R3EfzTM7pLk/s320/deck_1.jpg" /></a></td><td><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RUEiko5zte8/UVVPfsXw5MI/AAAAAAAAA78/wsS4qUEYbaE/s1600/deck_3.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RUEiko5zte8/UVVPfsXw5MI/AAAAAAAAA78/wsS4qUEYbaE/s320/deck_3.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr></tr></tbody></table></div><br />The image at left is the deck at mid-afternoon. I went out a bit later to find out how deep the snow piling on the railing was. We got two or three more inches after that picture was taken, but it didn't accumulate any further on the rails that I could tell.<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kn7qy7S-kKU/UVVPp0b5SBI/AAAAAAAAA8E/1YCpWVnspk4/s1600/deck_2.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kn7qy7S-kKU/UVVPp0b5SBI/AAAAAAAAA8E/1YCpWVnspk4/s320/deck_2.jpg" /></a></div><br />This is another view from the back door and across the deck.<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kG7Pst2geA8/UVVPyV9fGjI/AAAAAAAAA8M/CoLbPZabc1g/s1600/snowman.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kG7Pst2geA8/UVVPyV9fGjI/AAAAAAAAA8M/CoLbPZabc1g/s320/snowman.jpg" /></a></div><br />Around ten, Mrs. Van Horn built this snowman. As I was out shoveling snow a couple of hours later, I noticed that snow had built up on his arms and took this shot. As the day progressed, additional snow caused the snowman to tilt further and further to his left until he fell and then turned into a lump with a single twig sticking out at a crazy angle. Sadly, my plans to create digital documentation of the progression for posterity went by the wayside.<br /><br />Over the course of the week, especially over the past few days, warmer temperatures made this impressive snow cover all but vanish. Yesterday, I took the baby outside to enjoy the remnants, wearing a light jacket and enjoying a sunny spring day. This was the most fun, I think, for both of us, as she is really too young to do much more than poke around until she gets too cold. Yesterday was perfect for that, except that I wouldn't let her eat the now filthy snow.<br /><br />-- CAV Link to Original

Taking a look back through bookmarks of potentially "blogworthy" material this morning, I came across a <a href="http://swombat.com/2011/6/5/golden-opportunity">short post</a> I'd forgotten about regarding why highly skilled and talented people can be a hard sell when courted to work on projects proposed by others. In particular, the following two bullet points stood out to me: <br /><ul><li>People ... often dramatically underestimate the amount of development work, or the complexity of it.</li><li>There's an opportunity cost to working on someone else's idea...</li></ul>I could have understandably been accused of "scorning opportunity" a few times upon realizing that some project or other entailed some combination of (a) much more work than was apparent to the person making the pitch, and ( the fact that this work would keep me away from other, better opportunities.<br /><br />Not all opportunities are equal, and some can actually be detrimental to one's objectives even if they would look great to almost anyone else. It takes experience in a field before the full payoffs and costs of an opportunity become, as Daniel Tanner puts it, "blindingly obvious".<br /><br />If opportunity knocks, should you answer? It depends.<br /><br />-- CAV Link to Original

Thomas Sowell slams"Me-Too" Republicans for drawing the wrong lesson from Mitt Romney's electoral defeat, particularly with regard to how a recent report proposed that the GOP appeal to voters who happen to belong to racial and ethnic minority groups: Sowell notes further that the party needn't chip that much away at bloc voting to improve its electoral fortunes. Then he really hammers the approach exemplified by the above proposal: "You might think that a Republican Party that talks about individualism would try to appeal to individuals." Either one is attempting to effect positive change or not, and either there is, at any given moment, a critical mass of support for such change or there is not. Assuming the answers to the implied questions are "yes" and "no", then the proper course of action is to start changing minds. The first step down that road is making it clear that there is a better alternative. Pretending to be "more of the same" will backfire when one inevitably has to deliver more of the same, or is caught not doing so. It is also insulting to the minds of the real audience one abandoned in a mindless quest for quantity as a substitute for quality. Constructive change requires quality and quantity. -- CAV Link to Original

John Polacek discusses how getting married and having kids made him a more effective programmer. Needless to say, having kids motivated him to do good work, but, much to his surprise, he got an additional boost from his new time constraints. First, Polacek compares his old timescape and workstyle to his new: Noting that the brain can and does work on problems even when one isn't necessarily concentrating on them, Polacek eventually realized this was a common occurrence for him, and that it was a "blessing in disguise": I have had what Polacek calls "unconscious cognition" happen occasionally both before and after our baby arrived. In fact, I very recently benefitted from it when I decided to force myself to work on a project in short increments over a couple of weeks as an experiment, even though we have the baby in daycare part time. After my time ran out one morning, I drove off to do errands and, as I left the driveway, an elegant solution to a problem I could have easily wasted the whole morning on popped into my head. It is encouraging to be reminded of this phenomenon on the heels of that experience. -- CAV Link to Original

Might technological innovation have saved safe, decent electric lighting from improper government, at least for the time being? A post at conservative blog Hot Air makes this claim about LED light bulbs, which do at least appear to be technologically superior to CFC "Bush bulbs". Hot Air quotes the New York Times regarding the merits of the technology: Hot Air elaborates that, "if the goal is to get people to buy bulbs that use electricity more efficiently, government mandates aren't nearly as effective as a product that can actually make those electricity savings ... more worthwhile," and furthermore, that "If these bulbs really are everything they're cracked up to be, they'll catch on -- no government mandates necessary." [link in original] That last link takes the reader to another conservative blog, where an author gushes that, "The market is already bringing us sexier, greener, more efficient light bulbs on its own." Linking to Hot Air, Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds chimes in saying, "Not only have CFL's not lived up to their promise, but their lousy record has made people less enthusiastic about LED bulbs, which just might." I have a bone to pick here. It may well be true, as Hot Air put it, that "f people figure out that Product A is more expensive or of lower quality than comparable substitute Product B, people will buy Product B." Nevertheless, we should not lose sight of the fact that it is really only due to the momentum of the anti-industrial movement behind the impending ban on incandescent "Edison" bulbs that so much effort had gone into making this technology affordable. Thus, thanks to the ban, this product is not truly an outcome of a free market: It looks attractive primarily because the cheaper alternative will soon be gone and its heir apparent was such a poor substitute. This is not to say that LED lighting would never have been developed absent government coercion or green hysteria: Perhaps the long-term energy savings might have proved appealing enough to a frugal segment of the lighting market. Perhaps the bulbs might have found a niche for people who hate wasting time changing bulbs, or who have fixtures that are inordinately difficult to reach. That said, let me get to what really bothers me about this argument: I advocate free markets, but I am sure that any random socialist or fascist could see through that argument, too. So I am led to ask, "What does this flimsy argument against the incandescent bulb ban hope to accomplish?" The folks at The American Interest give us the clue we need: "The market is already bringing us sexier, greener, more efficient light bulbs on its own." [Again, it isn't, really.] The argument is an attempt to sell capitalism to environmentalists by tricking them into thinking that they don't need the cudgel of government to achieve their goals because the free market will get people to use less energy on its own. First of all, this isn't true. Consider this use case: I'm moving in a month and the light goes out in my hallway. I can, in a truly free market, buy a cheap, incandescent bulb that might last a few months or an expensive LED array that might last longer than I have left to live. Guess which product is better suited for my purposes. If someone wants "the world" to be more energy efficient, he is going to have to either convince me to make a different choice or force me to buy the expensive bulb. So, while free markets might produce energy-efficient alternatives, they can't and won't guarantee that such alternatives are always used, because they will not always be the most cost-effective options for individuals. Second, the "goal [of getting] people to buy bulbs that use electricity more efficiently" is one whose justification leaves plenty of room for dispute, and that is regardless of the scientific merits of the AGW hypothesis. Telling Greens that free markets can get people to use less energy by fudging on what a free market really is, is an attempt to bypass the necessity of telling them what they need to hear, which is this: There is no rational justification, save self-defense, for one man to force another to do his bidding, whether one does the coercion himself or pawns that task off on the government (whose actual job is to prevent this). The only moral way to get others to change how they act is to appeal to the rational self-interest of the other party. The Greens already know they can't appeal to self-interest. They are also, generally, bright enough to see that the market for LED bulbs is artificial, and will be quite happy to call this bluff. Conservatives and other advocates of free markets should quit pretending otherwise -- and not just to the Greens, but, more important, to themselves. There is no need to fool a small opponent when standing up for what is right is the winning strategy. The incandescent bulb ban is a bad idea, not because free markets are better able to achieve energy efficiency, but because it is wrong for the government to act as a substitute for individual judgement. -- CAV Link to Original

John Stossel, after exposing the contribution of teachers' unions to the deplorable state of our government schools in his first installment of "Stupid in America", got to wade through a union protest oustide his office. He was told the following (probably by flyer, given the absence of expletives): I love his full answer, which comes in three parts. First, he admitted an error without ceding a single inch of the high ground: Second, he checked to see whether the assertion that things would actually be better if the unions were put in charge might have been put to the test. It has: Finally, Stossel demonstrates that the unions are not really interested in having their assertions tested by debate: Unfortunately, this is only the silver lining to his piece, which describes a snuffing-out of a government school reform attempt in Oakland, California, and for that reason deserves a full read. This said, I must raise a criticism: I am not sure whether Stossel thinks government schools can be reformed, but I do not. Furthermore, I think Stossel's work here and elsewhere goes a long way in showing why this is so, and, therefore, why government education should be eliminated. -- CAV Link to Original

Some time ago, I encountered a thought-provoking post directed towards freelancers about turning down clients one knows are about to waste their money, even though it might hurt in the short term. (Men with Pens author "James" correctly notes that it is not always easy to know when to take on or refuse a new client.) Here's the conclusion, which is actually much more broadly applicable than just to business relationships: Even when you encounter someone who will simply refuse to hear your advice, you come out ahead. James makes an excellent point regarding doing so as a matter of integrity. (You may well "get away with" swindling a client out of money, in terms of nobody else being the wiser, but you will know what you did.) Consider further the fact that you are supposedly being hired based on the value of your advice. Being ignored when you make it clear why you think your prospect is making a mistake shows that this simply isn't true. One likely consequence is that the job will be difficult in many, often unpredictable, ways because you have basically started out as an order-taker, as opposed to an expert adviser. -- CAV Link to Original

Over the weekend, I encountered an interesting article about an entrepreneurial phenomenon that has really taken off over the past few years: food trucks that serve restaurant-quality food. The story shows that two dueling aspects of modern America -- innovation and government control -- gave rise to the trend even as the second threatens to snuff it out: The article does not discuss government regulation of restaurants in any detail, but it does mention high market entry costs and razor-thin profit margins. Nevertheless, just off the top of my head, I can think of a couple of ways that restaurants are being throttled by government regulations, including the overall economic downturn mentioned above; and measures such as zoning that artificially limit the amount of building space available for restaurants. I would hardly be surprised to learn, upon closer examination, that these and other regulations were already making it hard for chefs and others interested in the restaurant business to earn a living before a daring few drove food trucks through the temporary regulatory loophole. -- CAV Link to Original

Government Funding as Wastefulness Although the author does not advocate what I do (i.e., getting the government almost completely out of funding science), he brings up the following interesting fact regarding the wastefulness of the government grant system: There are other even more compelling reasons to divorce central planning from science -- and there would still be some costs for administering the money, whatever its source -- but it's interesting to consider the bite that bureaucracy is taking out of research funding. Weekend Reading "[Rockefeller's] cheap, safe oil products--and the innovative business methods he developed to produce them--lifted Americans' standard of living by several degrees of magnitude." -- Yaron Brook and Don Watkins, in "'Give Back' Is One of the World's Most Impoverishing Commands", at Forbes "Sadly, addicts buy into this politically correct nonsense and wait for medical solutions for their 'diseases' - at their own peril and that of their loved ones." -- Michael Hurd, in "Stop Waiting: Help Yourself!", at The Delaware Coast Press "Is telling people they're helpless better than suggesting they take responsibility for deciding what's worth it to them, and tackling it case-by-case?" -- Michael Hurd, in "What the Heck is Misophonia?", at The Delaware Wave "Perhaps more people will come to realize that the minor spending-growth restraint entailed in the sequester not only entails no disaster, but is a positive development fully consistent with a steadily-rising stock market and more robust job gains." -- Richard Salsman, in "Why The Fiscal 'Sequester' Scheme Is Actually Bullish", at Forbes My Two Cents I have a minor quibble with Yaron Brook and Don Watkins -- or might it be with their editors? After reading their examples of how, via trade, America's great capitalists have already more than "given back" (and for valid, selfish reasons), I'd add "and Ridiculous" after "Impoverishing" in their title. Dirty, Filthy Data A New York Times piece about the possible causes of celiac disease points to an interesting possible accomplice to genetics and gluten: You may be surprised at where the research might lead. --CAV Link to Original

1. I recently enjoyed an essay, written along the lines of the classic, "I, Pencil", about the complexity of making a can of Coke. It ends as follows: Following are links to other, similar pieces, including the classic mentioned above. 2. When my daughter was a newborn, I learned early on that one of the most common winter mistakes new parents make is bundling their babies up too much. I also remember being badgered almost constantly regarding the "need" to bundle my baby up like an Eskimo. (For stroller dashes from one heated building to another, my rule was to dress in a similar number of layers as I gave the baby, give her a blanket, and provide wind protection with a canopy or fitted rain tarp, as needed.) I was thus amused, and -- yet still somewhat surprised to learn -- that leaving babies outside in below-freezing temperatures to nap is a widespread custom in Scandanavia: This certainly comports with my now-toddler's apparent obliviousness to cold weather. This dad now counts himself among those most eagerly looking forward to the arrival of spring. I'll happily trade applying sunscreen for shivering while she has fun outside. 3. If you shop online, you should take some time out to contemplate the minor technological marvel that is the Amazon drop-down menu. 4. I enjoy learning Cajun and Creole recipes and my wife is from Louisiana. Naturally, we have a can of Boudreaux's Butt Paste on standby at the changing table. We don't have to use it that often, but my daughter started saying "butt paste" a couple of months ago. That still cracks me up. -- CAV Link to Original

TheBlaze raises an interesting question regarding attempts in a couple of rural towns to require gun ownership: Its hand-waving answer is that it would not. Law professor Glenn Reynolds elaborates more definitively in reaction to the piece: This may well be the case, but give some credit to TheBlaze, which raises a better question towards the end: "[D]oes it hamper individual rights?" This is on the right track, but the real question is this: "Does forcing people to own guns violate their individual rights?" The proper answer is that it does, but to understand why requires one to step back and consider what individual rights are. I'll defer to Ayn Rand on this: I elaborated previously on how a requirement to bear arms represents coercion by other men (at the hands of their government), but I'll repeat myself here: Forcing people to own guns may well be constitutional, but so was slavery until the Constitution was amended. It can be important to ask whether something like a measure to force gun ownership is constitutional, but this is not the same thing as asking whether it ought to be. Anyone who is genuinely concerned with protecting his right to bear arms in self-defense should steer clear of advocacy of (or even the mere appearance of acquiescence regarding) any requirement to keep arms. He should furthermore advocate individual rights on principled grounds, rather than on hinging his arguments on preexisting law, when such law can (and, in this case, should) be changed. -- CAV Link to Original

A very good John Stossel piece on fracking has just come out. The piece stands out both for debunking the absurd claims environmentalists have begun making about fracking and for making apparent the anti-industrial animus of the environmentalist movement. Setting aside the validity of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis, one would think, as Stossel indicates, that environmentalists would support fracking. They do not. The Stossel piece is a timely reminder that environmentalism is not fundamentally in favor of such things as clean air, but is instead against man's excercise of reason to improve his own environment. This is a point Keith Lockitch of the Ayn Rand Institute made a few years ago in a column titled, "It's not Easy Being Green." He noted then, "that whenever there is a conflict between the goals of 'preserving nature' and pursuing some actual human value, environmentalists always side with nature against man." Since any actual human goal involves us interacting with nature, it clearly follows that no matter how "green" something might look, the greens will always be able to find or invent a problem with it. See also nuclear power. -- CAV Link to Original

Statistician John Cook made an interesting observation some time back regarding certain instances of the ad hominem fallacy: "A statement isn't necessarily false because it comes from an unreliable source, though it is more likely to be false [bold in original]." Cook elaborates: Nobody knows everything, and our division-of-labor society makes the use of guesses about the knowledge level of others unavoidable. On top of that, gathering additional data takes time and effort. (This last might help explain why ad hominem attacks often succeed.) While one cannot necessarily gather additional data every time a stranger makes a point or offers unsolicited advice, one can make the most of the data he already has by attempting to see how some proposition fits in with the rest of his knowledge. Part of this is considering whether the person has offered any kind of a sound basis for, or means of checking his argument. What to do, though, when what you are hearing comes from out of the blue and is offered arbitrarily or on some patently absurd basis? Even a parrot can make sounds resembling true statements. I ignore such advice until and unless I hear it coming from another, better source. (One could say that the fact that the person indulged in the arbitrary was sufficient data regarding the person, but that the new source may offer additional data on the point he raised.) Regarding such claims, Ayn Rand put it best when she stated, "Since an arbitrary statement has no connection to man's means of knowledge or his grasp of reality, cognitively speaking such a statement must be treated as though nothing had been said." Some individuals habitually make arbitrary statements. While dismissing everything they say is not good formal logic, generally ignoring them can save enormous amounts of time and mental energy. -- CAV Link to Original

Sam Harris, in an attempt to "give you some sense of what we are up against whenever we confront religion", writes of what he calls "the fireplace delusion": I personally have no trouble with the idea that a wood fire belches out toxic smoke, but then I don't subscribe to the popular dogma, common in some circles, of "natural good, man-made bad" (as if man is somehow not a part of nature). I'd like to elaborate on an issue Harris has raised. When someone accepts something as fact on an arbitrary basis, he is pretending that certainty can be achieved without good evidence or sound argument. Hearing such a "truth" put to question will immediately put such a person on the defensive in the same way that hearing heresy will upset a religious person. Why? Because a bluff to oneself is being called and, on some deep, disturbing level, that person knows it. So far, so good, but I take issue with Harris's closing sentence (See also postscript.): If Harris is including the kind of people who bristle at any suggestion that fire smoke might be harmful as part of the "we" who are "up against" religion, he is wrong to do so. Traditional religion is just one manifestation of irrationality. Harris's fireplace cult is another. There is no room, in a fight to uphold reason, to allow anyone who permits himself to indulge in the arbitrary to masquerade as an ally. Harris's attempt to shame irrational people into shaping up will fail in most cases. While people can change, the process of evasion that predisposes some people to accept the arbitrary in the first place usually becomes so entrenched that genuine introspectionbecomes nearly impossible. The fireplace delusion strikes me as less a teachable moment and more a diagnostic tool -- a warning that the person one is dealing with is not necessarily rational. (This is not to say that initial resistance to a new idea always portends the worst: There can be other reasons a person finds an opposing view disturbing the very first time he hears it.) Harris does have a point, though I strongly suspect a bigger one than he realizes: Religion isn't the only thing an advocate of reason is up against. -- CAV P.S.: I also take issue with his assertion elsewhere in the piece that the recreational use of fire should be banned, but that is beyond the scope of this post. Link to Original

<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="1"></a><b>McArdle on the Chavez Legacy</b><br /><br />I didn't find the opening of Megan McArdle's <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/07/why-hugo-chavez-was-bad-for-venezuela.html">article</a> on Hugo Chavez's legacy to Venezuela particularly promising, but I read on anyway. I found the piece to be a good catalogue of the ways Chavez harmed Venezuela, a sort of primer for people who need to hear something other than the standard leftist line, and smears against his detractors. She includes a particularly good excerpt from another piece about how Chavez rigged elections without rigging them. Read the whole thing.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="2"></a><b>Weekend Reading</b><br /><br />"Saying what you feel before employing rational thought is like expecting to buy something for nothing." -- <b>Michael Hurd</b>, in "<a href="http://www.drhurd.com/index.php/Life-s-a-Beach/Published-Columns/Think-before-you-speak-Delaware-Wave.html">Think Before You Speak</a>", in <i>The Delaware Wave</i><br /><br />"Do you really want to be in the good graces of somebody who feels that your time and property just don't matter all that much?" -- <b>Michael Hurd</b>, in "<a href="http://www.drhurd.com/index.php/Life-s-a-Beach/Published-Columns/Your-time-is-your-property-DE-Coast-Press.html">Your Time is Your Property</a>", in <i>The Delaware Coast Press</i><br /><br />"Breaking bad laws to build a better life is not dishonorable; it is admirable, provided breaking the law involves no use of force" -- <b>Harry Binswanger</b>, in "<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2013/03/04/amnesty-for-illegal-immigrants-is-not-enough-they-deserve-an-apology/">Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants is not Enough, They Deserve an Apology</a>", in <i>Forbes</i><br /><br />"If we truly want to encourage innovation in the beer market, we ought to pursue ways to liberate small brewers and wholesalers rather than thwart the growth of larger breweries." -- <b>Michelle Minton</b>, in "<a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/26/beer-market-needs-liberty-not-lawsuits/">Beer Market Needs Liberty, not Lawsuits</a>" at <i>The Daily Caller</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="3"></a><b>My Two Cents</b><br /><br />The Binswanger piece is the best demolition of the whole notion of "securing our borders" as an excuse for making bad laws I have ever seen.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="4"></a><b>The "Near Beer" Monopoly</b><br /><br />This beer snob was amused by an unintentional pun in the Minton piece. Near beer monopoly -- or "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_beer">near beer</a>" monopoly? (Think in terms of an <a href="http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/02/27/is-american-beer-like-sex-in-a-canoe/">old Monty Python joke about American beer</a>.) When I was young, American lager was just about the only game in town in terms of beer. I couldn't see the point in drinking it, so I wasn't a beer drinker. And then I spent a semester in Europe and had, as I put it then, "the real thing". Once I became aware of the growing presence of imports and craft brews, I became a beer customer.<br /><br />--CAV Link to Original

<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="1"></a><b>1</b>. My daughter has developed a new interest: dress-up. This started one Saturday when she found some hats in a box of clothes. She had me put one on her, and then pointed to my head and said, "Hat."<br /><br />It was suddenly crystal clear to me that I had a glaring sartorial deficiency. Needless to say, I corrected it immediately. Pretty soon, Momma Van Horn, too, was wearing a hat. Pumpkin has had me put shoes and clothes on teddy bears, too. Most recently, inspired by her mother's purchase of a box of hair ribbons, she has taken to pointing to our heads and saying, "Bow." <br /><br />Who knew that fatherhood would come with manhood initiation rites, such as your daughter basically asking, "<b>Are you man enough to wear a bow in your hair?</b>" Of course I am, much to the amusement of my father-in-law, after he heard about this. This week, he asked me over the phone, "What color ribbon did the baby make you wear today?"<br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="2"></a><b>2</b>. Fatherhood also comes with numerous small moments of amazement. (When you see what not having instincts -- what having to learn <i>everything</i> -- <a href="http://gusvanhorn.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-first-fathers-day.html">means</a> on a concrete level, you gain a priceless new sense of wonder.)<br /><br />My daughter has colors down pretty well now and is <b>becoming aware of numbers</b>, or at least the idea of quantity. So far -- although she has also used the words, "one" and "three" correctly a few times -- she seems to use "two" to mean either <i>two</i> or <i>many</i>. Ask her "how many" of something there is and she'll usually say, "Two!" and sound very pleased with herself. I jokingly call two her favorite number -- and know in no uncertain terms that white is her favorite color. (She was even reaching for the white crayon first, for a while.) It is really amazing what she has figured out or picked up in less than two years of being alive and starting from scratch.<br /><br class="mceContentBody " id="tinymce" /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="3"></a><b>3</b>. One evening this week, with my wife at work very late, I was entertaining the baby and turned away for a moment to straighten out some toys. I soon felt Pumpkin climbing onto my back. She has very good coordination, so I eased myself onto all fours. She sat up well enough that I felt comfortable giving her <b>her first "Daddy-Horse" ride</b>. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="4"></a><b>4</b>. <b>My daughter has started using the phrase "Bye-bye!" to very amusing effect</b>. She sometimes uses it in the sense of "Go away!" <br /><br />Usually, this is during diaper changes, which she has grown to hate. A few years back, there had been a wave of saying, "Bye-bye" (as "BUH-bye") sarcastically, and my daughter coincidentally says it almost the same way. I sympathize with the hatred of diaper changes, but it is sometimes almost impossible not to laugh when she does this.<br /><br class="mceContentBody " id="tinymce" />-- CAV Link to Original