Gus Van Horn blog

Via RealClear Policy, I have encountered a Reason Magazine article titled, "Why the Government Was Wrong to Shutdown Fung Wah Bus Company." The piece missed a golden opportunity to indicate that the regulations and the shutdown were improper uses of government. However, it offers value by detailing the degree to which the government micromanages transportation safety -- and the fact that it often does so incompetently on multiple levels. I also found the following cost-benefit analysis of the inter-city bus company shutdown worthwhile, although with the usual caveats such analyses deserve: Fung Wah customers actually have much to be nostalgic for and little to fear. Regulators could have shutdown Greyhound, or practically any bus company, on the same grounds they used to force Fung Wah out of business. And if saving lives is the whole idea, regulators should more logically prohibit intercity travel in passenger cars, while mandating travel in buses run by companies like Fung Wah. ... Again, unless riders were being forced or duped into using the buses, or the company were acting negligently, the government had no business shutting it down. The proper role of the government is to protect our right to make judgements, such as what we regard as safe or what risks are acceptable, ourselves. Even if the government were not forcing people to do something riskier (on average) than they might otherwise do (i.e., travel in cars instead of buses), it shouldn't be dictating to us how we should live. That said, this example eloquently illustrates one danger of the government imposing its "wisdom" on everyone. -- CAV Link to Original

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Jason Riley apty sums up (via HBL) the reaction of the left to the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial as a "predictable" call for "a 'national conversation' about this or that aspect of the case". He also gives this drivel exactly the answer it deserves: So let's have our discussions, even if the only one that really needs to occur is within the black community. Civil-rights leaders today choose to keep the focus on white racism instead of personal responsibility, but their predecessors knew better. "Do you know that Negroes are 10 percent of the population of St. Louis and are responsible for 58% of its crimes? We've got to face that. And we've got to do something about our moral standards," Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. told a congregation in 1961. "We know that there are many things wrong in the white world, but there are many things wrong in the black world, too. We can't keep on blaming the white man. There are things we must do for ourselves." Much has changed for the better since the words in the last paragraph were spoken, but some things have changed for the worse. The current "civil rights" establishment does a better job than any racist hick ever could have of ruining the prospects for millions of young black Americans. This it does by having them limit their own prospects -- by inducing them expect to have to do nothing to earn respect or to achieve the same standard of living that everyone else does. -- CAV Link to Original

George Will makes a colossal error in his latest column, defending an improper government survey on the grounds that it is good for the economy: Nothing Will says in defense of this survey is relevant to whether our government ought to be conducting it. The fact that this survey has historical roots in the Constitution is irrelevant: See slavery. The fact that the results of the survey were arguably beneficial to some business or other is irrelevant: So are lots of other things the government doesn't or shouldn't provide at the expense of people other than its proprietors. The fact that the program is inexpensive is irrelevant: It is wrong for our government to forcibly take moneyin any amount from the citizens whose rights (including that of property) it is supposed to be protecting. That completing the survey poses a minor inconvenience is irrelevant: The government shouldn't be issuing orders to citizens who pose no objective threat to others. Finally, that the survey does not (yet?) collect a particular type of information that some citizens would find objectionable is also irrelevant: Americans deserve to have a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding their personal affairs, including whether to trust some agency to keep any such information they choose to provide anonymous. Will's defense of this "inexpensive federal program" will seem reasonable to most people, but it actually epitomizes what is wrong with the whole idea that our government is "too big", rather than acting improperly. The former offers no reasonable criterion for limiting the role of government in our daily lives: See the metastasis of government meddling in medical care (and now even personal "lifestyle" decisions) over the decades. (And isn't a healthy population good for business?) The latter does offer a way to test whether a government action is legitimate or not. Unfortunately, the latter does not tolerate exceptions for the sake of expediency. The truly inexpensive cost of such a test is that "small government" conservatives will have to let go of a pet government program here and there. -- CAV Link to Original

Writing at The New Scientist, Alan Levinovitz introduces readers to the idea of the nocebo effect, noting along the way that it surfaced among the results of an Italian study of gluten intolerance: [L]ast February[,] Slate's Darshak Sanghavi reported on an Italian study that confirmed the existence of gluten intolerance ("non-coeliac wheat sensitivity") as a third, "distinct clinical condition". In the study, one-third of patients who self-identified as gluten-intolerant did in fact experience symptom relief after adopting a gluten-free diet. Case closed, right? Pass the gluten-free pasta. Not so fast. An important implication of the study is that two-thirds of people who think they are gluten intolerant really aren't. In light of this, the even-handed Sanghavi suggested that "patients convinced they have gluten intolerance might do well to also accept that their self-diagnosis may be wrong". The article is a mixed bag, but does a good job of showing with a couple of examples how common cognitive errors can lead otherwise intelligent people into becoming convinced that something benign is actually harmful. (His other example is "Chinese restaurant syndrome", which I'd heard of and which sounded semiplausible to me, although I've never personally known anyone who claimed to suffer from it.) -- CAV Link to Original

Appreciating Ayn Rand Tom Bowden of the Ayn Rand Institute points to a thoughtful essay on Atlas Shrugged by Brad Keywell, who co-founded Groupon and Lightbank. Keywell doesn't claim to be an Objectivist, and even though I disagree with some of his formulations, I can highly recommend reading the entire essay, available here. If you're undecided about reading the whole essay, Bowden supplies some good excerpts at the first link above. Weekend Reading "People who are together but aren't very happy have, in most cases, simply neglected their relationship." -- Michael Hurd, in "To Love is to Cherish", at The Delaware Wave "Do you share the widespread assumption that morality has to be based on religion? If so, are you willing to check that assumption?" -- Harry Binswanger, in "Capitalism Without God: Freedom is a Secular but Absolute Value", at Forbes My Two Cents The Binswanger piece is one of those that is difficult to pull a teaser quote from because it is so tightly integrated. Fortunately, his first two sentences provide an excellent motivation to read it, whether you wonder where he's going, or are already there. Eyes Great and Small The following Richard Feymnan quote appears, with further context, at Futility Closet: So the same artist who made the smallest drawing ever has also made the largest. Let's go up another scale, the same amount again, another hundred thousand, and then try to draw an eye: Where would we have to draw it? Well, it turns out that it's there -- it's a beautiful eye in the heavens, namely Saturn with her rings! Follow the link to see Tom Van Sant's drawings, whose scales differ by a factor of ten billion. --CAV Link to Original

1. I'm pretty sure it isn't available in my area, but doesn't Instacart sound like great way to cut down on errands: Founder Apoorva Mehta says Instacart's "secret sauce" is its fulfillment software, which allows the online retailer to combine orders placed at different times and fill them from different stores--supplementing frozen food from Trader Joe's with fresh fruit from Whole Foods and cereal from Costco. Customers assemble their orders with lengthy drop-down menus on Instacart's website or app. [links dropped] The full article sounds much more hopeful about the grocery shopping startup than its failed predecessor, Webvan, for several good reasons. 2. Vivek Haldaron becoming a parent: Becoming a parent is a singularity-like event. Those not there have no idea what it's like. Those past the point of no return can't get the message back out. It instantly changes the world you live in and the person you thought you were and what's important and precious. I also like his thoughts on "work-life 'balance'". [my scare quotes] 3. Some coffee shops offer unlimited free wireless to draw customers, but others are looking for ways to drive out "laptop hobos" (not to be confused with "laptop zombies"). 4. One day a few months ago, after we came in from playing outside, I filled a glass with water, drank it in one gulp, and said, "Aaaaaah!" when I finished. My daughter promptly imitated me and smiled, causing me to laugh. Ever since, she has often looked at me, smiled, and said, "Aaaaaah!" after seeing me drink water. -- CAV Link to Original

Victor Davis Hanson looks at several recent examples of celebrities who got into trouble with the leftist media for "hate speech" -- as well as a few who got off scott free for doing essentially the same thing (or worse). Hanson rightly concludes that what is really being penalized isn't speech, but thought. But then he makes the following additional observation: Poor Paula Deen. She may protest accusations of racism by noting that she supported Barack Obama's presidential campaigns. But the media instead fixates on her deep Southern accent and demeanor, which supposedly prove her speech was racist in a way that left-wing and cool Jamie Foxx purportedly could never be. We cannot forgive conservative Mel Gibson for his despicable, drunken anti-Semitic rants. But it appears we can pardon liberal Alec Baldwin for his vicious, homophobic outbursts. The former smears are judged by the thought police to be typical, but the latter slurs are surely aberrant. The crime is not hate speech, but hate thought -- a state of mind that apparently only self-appointed liberal referees can sort out. It makes sense on a psychological level that the kind of personality that imagines it knows better what is good for you than you do would "know" better than you do what you actually think. It also makes sense that someone accustomed to yanking data out of context (or adding one's own random emotional associations to it) when it suits him would realize on some level that he doesn't know it all. Being able to so easily wield the club of "hate speech" serves several purposes to such a mentality, but first and foremost it is to avoid exposure of what he is to others and, most of all, himself. It is too bad for those of us who do not need such mollycoddling that there are real-life consequences to innocent victims for it, be they unjustly accused of bigotry or unjustly victimized by it. We do not serve the cause of liberty (or, therefore, ourselves) by pretending that certain words, however repulsive, should be illegal or that they, alone, apart from any and all context, damn the one who utters them for all eternity. -- CAV Link to Original

Cass Sunstein writes an interesting article on confirmation biasamong certain detractors of ObamaCare. (Interestingly, Sunstein (or at least his editor) feels the need to call such detractors "haters".) Noting the chorus of "I told you so" roused by the recent decision by the Obama administration to delay implementation of part of the measure by a year, Sunstein likens the chorus to the work of Edwin During-Lawrence, whose work, Bacon is Shakespeare, he cites as an example of confirmation bias. He continues: To the critics of the health-care law, however, the real lesson of the announcement is clear: OBAMACARE IS A DEBACLE. And to those critics, that is the real lesson of essentially every development in health-care reform. If governors decline to establish state exchanges, leaving that task to the federal government, then Obamacare is a debacle. If the administration releases a complex application form for the coming exchanges, then Obamacare is a debacle (even if the application is just a draft). If states opt out of the Medicaid expansion, then Obamacare is a debacle. [link dropped] It is tempting to liken Sunstein's serial dismissals of the difficulties in implementing ObamaCare to his holding the preordained conclusion that OBAMACARE IS JUST ANOTHER LAW. However, I think it is more important to concede that he has raised a good point. Perhaps the recent delay really is just because reporting requirements are in dire need of revision. I haven't studied the matter enough to know whether Sunsteins's position is correct or the decision really is a symptom of the law being so badly written that it is, beyond being improper, also a comedy of bungling. It doesn't matter which is the case, because a principled opponent of ObamaCare will see the latter case as merely a symptom of a greater problem. Even were the law flawlessly executed, it would remain immoral (and an improper use of government) to dictate to physicians and patients alike the terms by which they are to do business. (Oh, and it would, as such, be a debacle on those merits alone.) Any opponent who can't see this -- who feels the need to grasp at straws -- is going to lose the fight to repeal it, if he sees the need for such a fight at all. ("'Repeal and replace' Republicans, I'm talking to you.) Maybe this decision deserves ridicule, maybe not. Just don't hang your hat on it. To do so is to concede a bigger issue: whether we should have such a law at all. -- CAV Link to Original

Still adjusting to life with two children, I have been thinking about time management a lot lately. I recently recommended a book on the subject for authors, Time to Write, by Kelly Stone. Around the time I was finishing that one off, I came across an installment of an advice column based on another promising book, this one geared towards working parents. The Balance Myth: Rethinking Work-Life Success, by former Qwest CEO Teresa Stone, offers, in the words of Anne Fisher: ... the kind of 'nitty-gritty details' you're looking for, starting with the premise that the whole idea of 'work-life balance' is an unrealistic goal that just makes people feel as if they're failing at everything. Among the six tips Fisher gave as examples was the following: Keep one calendar. Early in her career, Taylor kept separate calendars for work and home, which meant "I bifurcated my life, and as a consequence I felt bifurcated. This was not pleasant. Meeting and appointment overlaps occurred, and I dropped the ball and missed a few things." Noting personal and professional items on the same calendar prevents that. That's one I needed to hear. I also like the advice against "multitasking". If anyone who passes by has read this book or has recommendations for other, similar books, I'd be interested in hearing from you. -- CAV Link to Original

Facebook employee Tom Stocky, whose paternity leave is ending, reports on his experiences as a stay-at-home dad. Overall, his experiences pretty much resemble mine. Anyone contemplating such an endeavor for whatever reason, would do well to do the quick read. This is because Stocky is really writing about doing two difficult things at once: (1) starting life as a parent, and (2) assuming a very non-traditional role. While we were in Boston, I took care of our daughter full time, except for a part day off on Friday and whenever I had consulting work to do. There, I had to use babysitters. Daycare was not an option because it was even more expensive than our outrageous rent. In St. Louis, we can use daycare part time. I think that it is fair to say that parenting is both unexpectedly difficult on a day-to-day basis and very rewarding in the long haul, and that Tom Stocky might agree with me: For the first few weeks, I missed my old job. The new one was more physically exhausting and less mentally stimulating. Each day was almost identical to the last: wake, change, feed, play, feed, change, nap, change, feed, play, feed, change, nap, change, feed, play, feed, sleep. The fact that my day was interlaced with palindromes didn't make it any more exciting. A switch flipped sometime just after the 2nd month, when I could more easily imagine myself being happy doing this full time. Maybe it was because she was 2 months older and had learned new and cooler tricks or maybe it was because I was really starting to reap the benefits of my work. It was nice to have her like me so much, to come to me for comfort when she fell, to come and cuddle with me when she got sleepy, to run toward me screaming with excitement after I'd been away for awhile. I realized that's just because I spent so much time with her, but I didn't care, it felt really good. Maybe it was also because I got better at childcare. It feels nice to be good at something, and I got much better at the work I was doing at home. Now that I am caring for a two-year-old and a newborn, I can say that the improvement in Stocky's outlook was for both reasons: Past a certain point, one can only be so well prepared. One has to "learn" the individual child and there are too many unexpected challenges to adjust to. One almost can't help but improve over the first couple of months. At the same time, very young children, simply by becoming more capable, become easier to care for. You wouldn't believe, for example, what a treat it's going to be for me when my son starts being able to hold his own head up. (Just holding him will become a lot easier.) But Stocky isn't just assuming a difficult role. He is also bucking tradition. I didn't like being the only dad at the playground, getting cautiously eyed as moms pulled their kids a bit closer. It probably didn't help that I tried to lighten the mood the first time by saying, "Don't worry, I'm not going to nab your kid, I already got this one." I felt awkward at the mid-day baby music class, like I was impinging on an established mom circle, so I switched to the 5pm one that had more dads. But honestly, I got used to most of that, and I understand that websites, classes, and organizations are targeting their primary demographic. If I remember correctly, something like 96% of full-time parents in the US are women. While I never made the mistake of joking about the obvious apprehension that many people have about men at the playground, I have had my share of awkward moments. (These are by no means due only to stereotypes about men as caregivers.) Stocky goes on to discuss other common prejudices about full-time dads and his observations are spot-on. Stocky notes that his return to work will come with mixed emotions. I am in the midst of a difficult career change made harder by the economic depression and the fact that I have had to move twice over the past few years due to my wife's career. I am sure that, as happy as I will be to see my career progress upon my eventual return to full time work, I will miss full time parenthood very much. -- CAV Link to Original

Internet Cafés vs. Homelessness? In Japan, some workers affected by the depression are living in Internet cafes. At a discounted monthly rate of about 1,920 yen ($21) a day, the 24-hour cafes offer private rooms with computers, reclining chairs, and an endless supply of coffee and soft drinks. Shared bathrooms and laundry service are also included. Government estimates in 2007 put the number of people staying in Internet cafes on any given night at nearly 61,000, and long-term at 5,400. A Japanese documentarian is reporting on the phenomenon in order to, "reveal a glimpse into the lives of the people being affected by the global economic downturn". Weekend Reading "This research asks you to uncritically accept and to take for granted that the physical makeup of the brain determines your emotions." -- Michael Hurd, in "Programming the Brain" at The Delaware Wave "Thousands of books and interviews based on the opinions of supposed 'experts' insist that countless years must be spent analyzing the past - but nobody has ever explained why!" -- Michael Hurd, in "Get Past the Past!" at The Delaware Coast Press "On the issue of racial quotas, a precursor of affirmative action, Rand had choice words[.]" -- Tom Bowden(introducing a republished essay by Ayn Rand), in "How Would Ayn Rand Have Commented On Last Week's Supreme Court Race Ruling?" at Forbes My Two Cents I am glad to see that Ayn Rand's essay on racism is appearing in print again. Neither the left nor the right had the right stand on the issue when she wrote about it back in the 1960s and nether has the right stand now. As she puts it in her essay, "[T]he smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." There is no place in the laws of a civilized country for laws based on racial heritage. Google is as Google Does Headhunter Nick Corcodilos comments on Google's recent admission that its "brain teaser" interview questions were bunk: Google's admission is no surprise. Managers who interviewed using goofy questions like, "How many barbers are there in Chicago?" were basically saying, "Search me!" about who was worth hiring. Trouble is, they're still saying, "Search me!" when they use canned personnel jockey questions to figure out who can do the work. It amazes me (though it shouldn't) in how many fields I see the same phenomenon as we see here: The conventional wisdom is idiotic, but so are many alleged departures from it. Corcodilos is right to point out that everyone here is missing the big picture by failing to connect their actions with their goals. --CAV Link to Original

1. Modern "art" does occasionally have its moments. Greg Ross of the Futility Closet writes: In 2009 experimental poet Robert Fitterman erased most of The Sun Also Rises, retaining only phrases that begin with the word I. The result can sound strangely like the diary entry of a random Saturday afternoon[.] See his post for a passage. 2. The below comes from a samplng of complaints medieval monks left in the margins of the books they transcribed: As the harbor is welcome to the sailor, so is the last line to the scribe. I have to admit a feeling of kinship for a monk complaining of back pain: Much of the week, I have had to hold the baby, whom I often call "No-Doz", while pecking things out one-handed and looking at the computer at a very awkward angle. 3. Is your phone set to vibrate? Then you might find this explanation of phantom vibrations interesting. One occasional benefit of such false positives for me has been that, upon reaching to check my phone, I have discovered that I have forgotten to take it with me. 4. Good news/bad news for a salesman who told a designer that, "I just need cards by Wednesday so I look like I know what I'm doing." The good? I bet nobody threw his business cards away. The bad? If he ever gets a clue, he might want them to. It was a rush job, and I would have preferred better images, but he gave his approval and we met the deadline in time for him to attend a bunch of conferences and hand out most of his cards. Curious, I took to finding out what the formulas were for. Turns out the client handed out cards with the formulas for cocaine and a variety of other hard drugs to a bunch of chemists. He could have just passed out cards that read, "Caveat emptor," but that wouldn't have been as funny. -- CAV Link to Original

This Independence Day, I find myself recalling a line from the movie, Smoke Signals, in which one character asked another something like, "So, are you feeling independent?" The question struck me as based on bad premises, but understandable. At the same time, it was a question that could have been spot-on (and applicable to all Americans) based on good premises and the accelerating trend of government abuse called for by the electorate. With that in mind, I direct your attention to a lesson we could learn from our neighbors to the north. Their forebears may not have rebelled against England, but they now freer than we are in some respects and are moving in a better direction overall than we are. Here is just one example: ["Hate speech"] legislation was nowhere near unique to Canada, as charges of "hate speech” are a ubiquitous tool of the worldwide Left, intended to silence opposition while elevating their approved opinions to the level of law. But the fact that Canada has abolished this shameful codification of censorship reveals a tendency toward renewal of liberty that the United States, and other nations, would do well to emulate. My thanks to reader Steve D. for bringing this article to my attention. The piece shows that there is hope that the tide of statism can be turned. It can happen here, too, and that is cause for celebration. This is especially true for those of us who realize that the fight for liberty never ends. -- CAV Link to Original

I think that John Stossel makes a good case for the keeping the following perspective on recent revelations about widespread, inappropriate government spying on ordinary citizens: I don't suggest that we should be passive about data mining and surveillance. But we should not let the latest threat make us passive about the old ones, some of them much more clearly wrong. He correctly notes that, regarding the spying, while we may be on "a terrible, privacy-crushing slippery slope, ... we're not there yet." On the other hand, he notes numerous other outrageous government violations of our rights that are both deeply entrenched and ... apparently unworthy of the same amount of concern that the recent revelations have raised. -- CAV P.S. The piece also notes the ineffectiveness of London's numerous surveillance cameras against crime, something that comes as no surprise to me. Link to Original

Regarding federal regulation of the economy, I wrote the following a couple of years ago: The silent killer in this story is federal regulation of the economy. Its estimated annual cost of $1.75 trillion is about two-thirds that of the tax burden. Sam and Karen, although fictional, are based in part on averages obtained from a recent report (PDF) prepared for the Small Business Administration on the impact of federal regulations on the United States economy. Notably omitted from the report arethe additional costs of state and local regulations, as well as snowballing effects, such as lost opportunities and a slower pace of innovation. [bold added] Well, via HBL, I have learned of an attempt to quantify the snowballing effects, and the results are quite shocking.Investor's Business Daily reports the following, among other things, from a study of the effects of federal regulations on the growth of America's GDP: "Federal regulations added over the past 50 years," they say, "have reduced real output growth by about two percentage points on average (annually) over the period 1949-2005. That reduction in the growth rate has led to an accumulated reduction in GDP of about $38.8 trillion as of the end of 2011. "That is, GDP at the end of 2011 would have been $53.9 trillion instead of $15.1 trillion, if regulation had remained at its 1949 level." Numbers that big aren't easy to put into perspective. But at a more micro level, they mean losses of "$277,100 per household and $129,300 per person" per year, the the authors reckon. [bold added] As in the earlier study I wrote about, the numbers, as shocking as they are, still omit the additional drag that state and local regulations place on the economy. The time to begin dismantling the destructive apparatus of government regulation of the economy is now. -- CAV Link to Original

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner runs meetings in a radically different way than I have ever seen or heard of: At LinkedIn, we have essentially eliminated the presentation. In lieu of that, we ask that materials that would typically have been presented during a meeting be sent out to participants at least 24 hours in advance so people can familiarize themselves with the content. [bold in original] Weiner notes that meetings at LinkedIn start off with five to ten minutes of time for attendees to familiarize themselves with or review the background information. This practice, along with a few other rules, has resulted in shorter, more useful meetings. (e.g., "Define the objective of the meeting.") I was impressed with the kind of thinking behind Weiner's meeting protocol. He neither takes the way meetings are usually run as a given nor buys into any number of faddish ways (like making everyone stand) to remedy the problem. Rather, he asks what meetings are for and how they can better achieve that purpose. It follows from Weiner's thinking that the best way to use what he has learned is not to ban all presentations all the time, but to include them, perhaps in modified form, when it is clear that one is needed or desirable. If the purpose of a meeting is to help a team get up to speed on new data or a new method, it could well be that some of the background information cannot be adequately conveyed by written material alone. Also, a roomful of people watching, say, a demo video, all at slightly different times on their laptops or tablets would be less useful than simply having everyone paying attention to a presenter at once. Weiner's insights should be applied, and not simply imitated. I hate aimless, interminable meetings. I'll keep Weiner's advice in mind the next time I have the chance to run one or influence how one is run. -- CAV Link to Original

Replacing Google Reader John Cook notes: Google Reader is going away on Monday. ReplaceReader.com lists many alternatives, sorted by popularity. Another RSS reader I didn't see on their list that looks promising is Yoleo. Also, Digg Reader is supposed to be released soon. And, if Google's ending Reader makes you uncomfortable with relying on the Internet giant's other free services, you might be interested in "Leaving Google's Silo". Weekend Reading "[T]elling someone they're 'too sensitive' suggests that their thoughts are 'too intense' or that they're 'thinking too much.'" -- Michael Hurd, in "How Sensitive Are You?" at The Delaware Wave "There's a world of difference between, 'I sacrificed for you, so give back!' and, 'I did a good job; please give me some credit.'" -- Michael Hurd, in "Should Kids Be Grateful to Their Parents?" at The Delaware Coast Press "If someone touts the enhanced 'coverage' under ObamaCare, ask if that's the same as actual medical care." -- Paul Hsieh, in "4 Questions to Ask During the Upcoming ObamaCare Public Relations Blitz" at Forbes "[M]edia shield laws are a mistake, because they treat freedom of speech like a privilege to be doled out by politicians like so many special interest perks." -- Steve Simpson, in "We Don't Need A 'Media Shield' Law For Fox And AP, We Already Have The First Amendment" at Forbes "Nonprofit status is no more a gift to social welfare groups than it is a gift to you for the government not to tax every one of your bank accounts every time you deposit money into them." -- Steve Simpson, in "Speech Laws and the IRS" at The American Spectator My Two Cents In his discussion of sensitivity, Michael Hurd draws an important distinction between people who merely express their feelings and those who go overboard. I think that this distinction is often overlooked, and that it is necessary one to make to understand how accusations of being "too sensitive" are so insulting. Charge® Card Paying homage to three "small ideas that make a difference" David Pogue describes one that can put an end to "Battery Death Anxiety": The cleverly named ChargeCard ($25) was a Kickstarter.com success story. It's a replacement charging "cable" shaped like a black rubber credit card; you're supposed to carry it in your wallet. At one end is the connector for your gadget; in the middle is a flexible rubber tongue with USB contacts on the end. [link in original] It's the thickness of two credit cards: That might be thin enough even for this All-Ett fan. --CAV Link to Original

1. The good news: Our newborn son seems to do well in thisbaby carrier, provided he is in a reasonably deep sleep when I put him in. The bad news: His sleep cycle is currently inverted, meaning that he is predominately awake at night (and almost continuously during my writing time!) and asleep during the day. He loudly objects to it if he is awake. As our daughter has transitioned into toddlerhood and, over the past couple of months, sleeping through the night most of the time, I'd managed to forget just how demanding the needs of early infancy are. By contrast, with all the things I was starting to be able to accomplish, it had felt as if I were finally beginning to breathe again. Once our son establishes a normal circadian rhythm, the carrier will help a lot with keeping up with chores during the transitional time between when I write and when everyone else gets up for the day. 2. If my check of Urban Dictionary this morning is any indication, I may well be the only person who uses the term "terraform" to mean something like, "clean up someone else's unworldly mess". (e.g., "When I started the job, I had to terraform my part of the office off and on during my first week.") This needs to change! Of course, my normal blogging topics suggest to me another possible slang meaning for the term. 3. If you subscribe to this blog via RSS, remember that Google will kill Google Reader on July 1. John Cook posted about alternatives some time back at The Endeavour (as did a few commenters there). I use Netvibes as my RSS reader. If anyone has an alternative they like, feel free to extol its virtues in the comments. Similarly, if there is one you did not like, you could save fellow readers some time by explaining why you did not like it. 4. Where should I live?That's an important question, and too few professionals seem to give it enough thought. Cost of living is a major concern, but I agree with Louiville resident Ernie Miller that control of one's own time is a greater one. That's one that many people miss. It's often said that "time is money," but nothing could be more misleading. Time is most definitely not money. Some of us have much more of the latter than others, but everyone has the same 24 hours in their day. Therefore, I value my time, and I protect it. When I do decide to "waste" time, I try very hard to do so on my terms. Here, again, Louisville helps me. I already mentioned that I crave peace and quiet to recharge. If having that place to recharge meant dealing with an hour-long commute each day, or long drives every time I wanted to do anything even remotely entertaining, I don't think I'd make the trade. He's right that small, but "respectable" cities such as his offer a great chanceto make time and money go as far as possible. -- CAV Link to Original

Economist Barry Poulson, commenting at Forbes, drew me in this morning with the following rather inspiring title: "It's Well Past Time to Scrap the Federal Student Loan Program". But then he lost me when he noted that, "Milton Friedman challenged this social benefit argument and questioned whether government subsidies to higher education are a good investment". At this point, it became apparent that Poulson was merely engaging in a cost-benefit analysis, and was not using his careful documentation of the damage wrought by this federal program as part of a broader argument for limited government. The rest of the piece bore these suspicions out. For example, rather than noting that such gimmicks as loan forgiveness and federal guarantees constitute redistribution of loot, Poulson takes the looting as a given and merely advocates a different means of fencing the goods: If the federal government is to subsidize college students it should replace the student loan program with a voucher plan. All direct federal subsidies to higher education could also be redirected to a student voucher plan. With devolution of the voucher plan to the states much of the federal bureaucracy in higher education would be eliminated. I pass over such questions as whether fifty bureaucracies are better than one, whether a voucher plan would do anything to eliminate the perverse incentive for people to attend college when they shouldn't, and how the chance for students to invest "their" "voucher funds" is any better than investing their own money has proven to be. These are all irrelevant since the government would still be picking our pockets and would still remain in a position to dictate how colleges are run. --CAV Link to Original

Michael Hurd takes a look at the leftist campaign rhetoric behind Hillary Clinton's presumptive 2016 candidacy for President and finds both dishonesty and insults. Regarding the latter, he says, after noting that someone like Margaret Thatcher would never enjoy such support: Why does Hillary Clinton insult herself, and other women of all political points-of-view, by making one's gender the centerpiece of fitness for office? Transgendered people aside, you don't choose your sex organs. Why is being a woman any more an accomplishment than being a man? It seems to me that it's what you do with your masculinity or femininity--more importantly, your humanity and your intellect--that really counts. The question is rhetorical, and its answer is as simple as asking what this tack is supposed to accomplish. Leftists want to be able to tar Mrs. Clinton's opponents as sexists, as if opposing her could only be due to misogyny. This is just a typical example of the intellectually bankrupt default "debating" tactics of the left. (A commenter here once called an example "a typical [leftist] non sequitur".) Another example can be observed in the push for draconian government controls of the energy sector in the name of staving off global warming. Even if human activity were causing the climate to become warmer, such a conclusion would not justify their legislative agenda. (Too many of their opponents fail to grasp that it violates the proper purpose of government, as protector of individual rights.) But they act like it does, and that anyone who opposes it for whatever reason is scientifically illiterate, anti-science, or in "denial". They don't really give a damn about "the science": They just want to be able to smear opponents. Package-dealing support of Hillary Clinton with the view that women have rights equal to men -- or a central planning scheme with a pro-reason, pro-science outlook -- fails to provide actual reasons for supporting either, and actually epitomizes the opposite point of view. Or, as Ayn Rand once put it, package-dealing employs "the shabby old gimmick of equating opposites by substituting nonessentials for their essential characteristics." -- CAV Link to Original

I have not been following immigration "reform" closely, but I am aware that there is talk of the Senate voting on it without bothering to read it. After reading Mona Charen's piece about the immigration bill, I have a pretty good idea about why that might happen. I also see lots of reasons to oppose the bill, which are related to why the Senate is so keen on delegating so much responsibility (read: blame) to bureaucrats: It should be axiomatic that if a bill is 1,190 pages long, it is full of mischief, and this one is. Just as Obamacare hands lots of discretion about everything from medical school admissions to antibiotic ointments to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the immigration law hands many crucial decisions to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor. Labor would be empowered to question the personnel decisions of any firm that hired even one high skilled immigrant. The law further requires that immigrants be paid significantly more than native-born hires -- supposedly to prevent companies from replacing Americans with foreigners. But as Shikha Dalmia notes in Reason magazine, the more likely result will be that firms will choose to locate abroad. Byron York reports that the bill sets pay scales for "Animal Breeders; Graders and Sorters; Farmworkers and Laborers, Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse; and Farmworkers, Farm, Ranch and Aquacultural Animals." There are probably more wage controls in this bill than we've seen since the Nixon administration. [format edits, bold added] We need a bill that removes illegitimate roadblocks to immigration, and we need to reform the process of acquiring citizenship. We don't need to merely tweak illegitimate controls, or dump enormous numbers of voters onto the rolls, or have the government running even more of the economy. -- CAV Link to Original

Back in 2006, security expert Bruce Schneier wrote an excellent post on the value of privacy. Here's an excerpt: Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." Watch someone long enough, and you'll find something to arrest -- or just blackmail -- with. Privacy is important because without it, surveillance information will be abused: to peep, to sell to marketers and to spy on political enemies -- whoever they happen to be at the time. Schneier is addressing one of the more common "retorts" against people who value their privacy, "I have nothing to hide." The above quote puts in concrete terms something I noted some time ago about comunications being taken out of context. (And maleveloent intent isn't even necessary for this to be a problem.) When I hear, "I have nothing to hide," the best I can conclude is that the speaker hasn't given much thought to the value of privacy or the problem of widespread surveillance. However, I can often infer from the context that I am hearing a little dictator, or someone indulging in what I call the "dictator fantasy", or just a plain old bully who is trying to belittle my concerns. -- CAV Link to Original

Wrong Debate During a news break on a jazz station I sometimes listen to when I'm driving, I heard about a contentious debate between President Obama and congressional Republicans. Too bad that when I checked the news later on, I found no such thing: Differences between the two sides involve when the rate on a loan gets locked in, with Obama calling for it to happen right away while the House measure would allow it to rise until a student graduates. Another difference concerns maximum rates. The House measure would cap interest rates at 8.5% for student loans while the Obama proposal would contain no such cap but would include a program to limit a former student's annual expenditures on the loan to no more than 10% of discretionary income. In other words, both sides agree that the goverment should be in the business of dictating how some banks and college students do business with each other. They're just quibbling over details. Weekend Reading "Question: How many other businesses in Fortune's top ten have been recently subjected to some kind of antitrust enforcement? Answer: all of them." -- Tom Bowden, in "Why Is Apple Inc. On Trial? For Good Behavior, It Turns Out" at Forbes "Her pleasure makes him feel so good that it's clearly in his self-interest to ensure her happiness every chance he gets." [links dropped] -- Michael Hurd, in "Can 'Single-Think' Become 'Couple-Think?'" at The Delaware Coast Press "If someone is your friend, doesn't it make sense to try and stop her from making a mistake?" -- Michael Hurd, in "Care Enough to Have an Opinion" at The Delaware Wave "By not seriously considering what the minimum wage demands from such business people, we are treating them not as human beings with rights, but as pack animals that must obediently carry whatever additional weight is piled on their back." -- Doug Altner, in "The Forgotten Man of the Minimum-Wage Debate" at The Daily Caller My Two Cents As one can see from the Bowden piece, many antitrust actions against technology companies have been, at least in part, attempts to legislate against vendor lock-in. I hate vendor lock-in, but oppose such efforts. First of all, I think more people should look before they leap, and either find alternatives that permit them to avoid lock-in -- or at least recognize that they gain something (e.g., convenience) in return for accepting it. Second, the government has no business re-writing contracts (e.g., by forcing companies like Apple to "unlock" their phones) just because some people don't like some of the terms that they agreed to. Heh! I can't see how this idea could work profitably, but I like the idea of a "Get Rid of Crap Every Month Club". --CAV Link to Original

1. My wife went through lots of Greek-style yogurt during each of her pregnancies. I wasn't a fan, as I found its odor to be ... unappetizing. In fact, on several occasions, upon entering a room where, unknown to me, she was eating some of this, I thought it might be time to change our daughter's diaper. Then one day I tried it out of curiosity. Now, I often have some as part of breakfast. As a bonus, it is interesting to read about the rise of Chobani from nothing to leading national brand. 2. I usually put our daughter in a diaper and pajamas after her bath, but my sister-in-law often lets hers run around naked afterwards. They were visiting this week and, after the two two-year-olds had had their second bath together in our large tub, my daughter wanted to do this. She had skipped her nap that day, and so was extra cranky. "I want to go naked!" she said to me, crying. This was so cute I went ahead and let her. More baby-talk fun came when I was snacking on some pork rinds by the grill yesterday. I let her taste some a few months ago, but the spices put her off. On a later occasion, I offered her one, and she demurred, but decided to call them, "Daddy fries". I loved it, and so, yesterday, I asked her in front of company what I was eating. "Pork rinds," she said. This wasn't the particular cute answer I thought I'd get, but it was correct, and I didn't think she knew it! 3. We never signed up, but each week, we get a copy of the West End Wordtossed into our yard. I had Pumpkin pick it up for me a few days ago. The next day, I pulled it out of its plastic sleeve and asked her what it was. I expected to hear, "book", which seems to be her generic term for "something with writing on it", but got "mail". That's a pretty clever guess, coming from someone who is just shy of two. 4. Have scientists made a significant advance against the problem of infectious bacteria acquiring antibiotic resistance? I sure hope so. -- CAV Link to Original

Columnist Ron Hart takes note of yet another misuse of government power by the Obama Administration: A high school buddy sent me an e-mail saying the EEOC was suing Dollar General for performing criminal background checks on prospective employees. I thought it was such outlandish Internet misinformation and did not even try to verify it via Snopes. It turned out to be true. ... The EEOC suit alleges that, by performing background checks for convictions for murder, assault and battery, rape, child or spousal abuse, and manufacturing of drugs, Dollar General is "racist." It says because African-Americans have higher conviction rates than whites, background checks are discriminatory. Hart frames the story as yet another example of the Obama Administration going after political opponents. That is alarming enough, whether or not it is true. Nevertheless, the fact that such laws remained on the books for so long without serious efforts at repeal is what alarms me. Not only has the government no business telling people -- even racist scoundrels -- whom to hire, but such laws have also always presented the potential for abuse through selective enforcement. So-called anti-descrimination laws, like our tax code, routinely violate everyone's rights, set the precedent for further abuses of government power, and provide a ready-made means for government officials to intimidate people who are merely minding their own business. They should be repealed, and ought to have been long ago. It shouldn't have taken their blatant abuse by a political opponent to cause anyone to see that. -- CAV Link to Original