A Stitch in Haste

Many reformers -- Galbraith is not alone in this -- have as their basic objection to a free market that it frustrates them in achieving their reforms, because it enables people to have what they want, not what the reformers want.
--Milton Friedman

It will be interesting (to use a euphemism) to read the flood of commentary, most of which will be glowing if not apotheosizing, on the death of John Kenneth Galbraith, especially from the new wave of ultra-liberal would-be central planner economists such as Robert Frank and Paul Krugman.

(SIDEBAR: Galbraith was literally a central planner -- he ran the Office of Price Administration during World War II ... and failed miserably at it. He was the closest this country ever came to a real-life Wesley Mouch. See also this post.)

I can't curse or damn Galbraith the way he probably deserves to be cursed and damned. Yes, he was about as radical a leftist as one can be in polite society. Yes he legitimized Keynesian interventionism to Washington in the 1950s. Yes he designed and propagandized the Great Society. Yes he was just plain wrong in just about everything he believed as an economist.

But he was no Paul Krugman and he was no Robert Frank.

Galbraith was a liberal in the sense that Danial Patrick Moynihan was, rather than the way Ted Kennedy is today. He saw economic and sociological trends that were completely new and that had admittedly ominous implications. He sought to understand and explain -- and warn about, if necessary -- the modern world that was emerging around him. He did what too few economists do: he looked forward rather than backward.

If you were to shoot one and only arrow into Galbraith's theories, it should be this: He lamented the supposed foolhardiness of consumers, who in his view are too easily manipulated by advertising and are innately controlled by the need to "keep up with the Joneses," yet he ignored the ability of politicians to engage in the very manipulation that he accused corporate America of committing. He bought into the Big Lie and fell into the trap of the "politician as enlightened public servant" combating the "corporate executive as soulless agent of greed and exploitation." And in the process inspired two generations of liberals to do likewise.

Once you start down that road of "some preferences are more legitimate than others" and "consumers are stupid," then all the rest follows. Soon you are dismissing some preferences as illegitimate, or unimportant, or counterproductive. Then come the targeted taxes, the subsidies, the regulations -- and the Politics of Pull.

To his credit, Galbraith was not a fan of the mathematization of economics; that entitles him to at least some level of redemption. One wonders, though, whether all those who will now idolize him as an "iconoclast" will afford others who also denounce the elevation of economic models over economic ideas the same respect.

--Wikipedia entry for John Kenneth Galbraith.

--Unfavorable review of Galbraith's work.

There are two high-profile cases of anti-gay bigotry in the form of shareholder proposals demanding that major corporations cease to be gay-friendly in one way or another.

Sorry, make that only one high-profile case:

Kraft Foods Inc. shareholders Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a proposal that the Northfield-based food and beverage giant cut sponsorship for the Chicago-hosted 2006 Gay Games and future competitions.

Saying the event promotes gay activity that increases the likelihood of transmission of sexually transmitted diseases and is inconsistent with the company's health-focused initiatives, shareholder Marcella Meyer of Chicago presented the proposal before the annual meeting in East Hanover, N.J. She saw 99 percent of the votes cast against the proposal, as company directors recommended.

Wow.

Of course, there's a fundamental difference between the bigot shareholder proposal of Ms. Meyer and the bigot amendments being submitted in states across the country -- besides the outcome, that is. Ms. Meyer is now free to sell her shares, leave the community of Kraft shareholders and sulk in the privacy of her own hatred, no worse off than she was had she never bought Kraft stock in the first place.

Gays in states with bigot amendments can make no such claim. Yes, they can theoretically relocate to Massachusetts or Vermont or Canada or wherever. But even doing that would not make them "no worse off" than had the bigot amendments never been enacted. Ms. Meyer didn't lose anything she was truly entitled to. Gays lost quite a bit that they were truly entitled to.

The very definition of a corporation is that shareholders have little or no input in the operations of the business. The very definition of "equal protection" is that the majority does not have absolute input in the operations of society or government.

Anyone who refuses to acknowledge these self-evident truths really does have a mob mentality.

A few days ago I asked whether Senator George Allen (R-VA) is a libertarian.

Well, given that libertarians tend not to collect nooses as a hobby, I'm going to pencil in "no, he isn't" on the answer sheet.

I would be astounded if, given this damning New Republic exposé, he remains a viable presidential aspirant for long.

Nooses?

UPDATE: The issue is gaining traction. It's important to remember that Allen cannot dismiss these allegations as mere happenstance, the way Robert Byrd tried to rehabilitate himself. Allen was not the child of racists and did not grow up in the racist South. He consciously sought out an environment that was more amenable to his "Dixie fetish."

Chronic "I'm not a bigot!" bigot Jeff Jacoby, whom I've lampooned before, might want to consider becoming a libertarian, because "it's all about the children" --

On April 20, in a story headlined "Parents rip school over gay storybook," the Globe reported on the latest controversy in Lexington, where school officials committed to normalizing same-sex marriage have clashed with residents who don’t want homosexual themes introduced in class without advance parental notice.
...
But homosexuality and gay marriage are not like arithmetic or geography; they cannot be separated from questions of morality, justice, and decency. No matter how a school chooses to deal with sexual issues, it promotes certain values — values that some parents will fervently welcome and that others will just as fervently reject. And what is true of human sexuality is true of other issues that touch on deeply felt religious, political, or ideological values.

When it comes to the education of children, there is always an agenda — and those who don’t share that agenda may find themselves belittled, marginalized, or ignored.

Put aside the sheer absurdity of the claim that homosexuality "cannot be separated from questions of morality, justice and decency." (Such a view is the very definition of the bigotry that Jacoby insists that he does not possess.) Put aside the downright obnoxious lament that it is "traditional" folk like Jacoby — and not gays — who "find themselves belittled, marginalized, or ignored" (can he be serious?). Finally, put aside the fact that books like Heather Has Two Mommies and King & King tend to have positive rather than normative themes and goals (i.e., "This is how the world is..." rather than "This is how the world should be...")

Let's just take Jacoby and people like him as a given: as taxpayers with children — and with rights — who want to see their kids educated in a certain way, chock full of questions (and the "correct" answers) about "morality, justice, and decency." How best to accommodate him?

By scrapping public schools entirely (i.e, eliminating the public provision of education) and replacing it with a system of public financing of education through vouchers.

In a private, competitive education market, if people like Jacoby are truly the majority of parents (i.e., customers), then the majority of schools would certainly cater to them. If gay or gay-friendly families are truly a sizeable minority of parents (i.e., customers), then there would be at least some schools that would cater to them. Demand creates its own supply, and everyone is happy.

But of course this is not at all what Jacoby and people like him want. They have no real desire for choice or even for an a la carte "opt out" system in which they can cherry-pick which elements of the curriculum their students will be taught. They love the notion of a command-and-control public school system as much as any liberal; they just want to be the commanders and controllers themselves.

If you're truly "just" an opponent to a gay-friendly curriculum for your kids -- and only for your kids -- then congratulations, you might be a libertarian.

But if in reality you're opposed not only to gay-friendly education but also to gay rights and gay marriage (and gays generally), then you're probably better off in the conservative camp with Jacoby and the rest of the "I'm not a bigot!" bigots.

Unlike public education, the choice is yours.

Breaking news: New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine is proposing lifting that state's ban on self-service gasoline stations.

In other news, New Jersey has a ban on self-service gasoline stations. (In other other news, so does Oregon.)

Anyone want to make the case that such laws achieve, or were ever truly intended to achieve, an increase in gas station safety? After all, gas stations blow up all the time, right?

Of course, such laws are mere case studies of the Politics of Pull and serve no purpose other than to irrationally and inefficiently prop up the station owners, by removing an element of competition and forcing consumers to purchase a service that they neither need nor want.

Too bad it requires a faux energy crisis and a publicity stunt by one of the hackiest of hack politicians to bring about the repeal of such a patently obnoxiously law.

Take what you can get, I suppose.

It must be an election year:

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ITEM: Many senators are, for example, up for re-election --

Senate Republicans advocate sending $100 rebate checks to millions of taxpayers, and a Democrat is leading the campaign for a 60-day gasoline tax holiday.

Either way, it seems no one in Congress wants to be without a plan, however symbolic, to attack the election-year spike in gasoline prices.

A vote is possible as early as this week on the Senate GOP approach, which calls for $100 rebate checks for taxpayers to cushion the impact of higher gasoline prices.

MY TAKE: I'm confused: Is this to be a gasoline tax rebate or an income tax rebate? The former would be impossible to implement and the latter makes no sense. I pay income tax (lots of it), but I don't own a car and buy no gasoline. So do I need or deserve a gas-inspired tax rebate? Likewise, the self-employed already get to deduct fuel costs from their income taxes. So again, where is the connection between gas prices and income taxes?

The connection between gas prices and Election Day is, on the other hand, crystal clear. Go figure.

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ITEM: But not everyone is up for re-election this year:

It appears [New York State] taxpayers can forget about those $400 rebate checks, despite the state's multibillion-dollar surplus.

State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said negotiations between legislative leaders and Gov. Pataki have failed to overcome the governor's veto of the rebates.
...
The rebate checks were to have been sent out weeks before Election Day.

MY TAKE: There was a time when it was illegal to try to buy a vote. It's still illegal for corporate directors to sell their votes. So remind me again who are the "greedy and corrupt sleazeballs" among our elites and who are the "dedicated public servants"?

I've blasted tax rebate checks as applied by another miserable hack politician (who got the idea from yet another miserable hack politician) previously. I'm not lamenting the deadlocked wranglings of Albany's ruling triumvirate that will keep the checks from being issued (for now). The proper (and efficient) was to reduce taxes is of course by reducing tax rates, not taking the money and then sending a smidgen of it back in the form of a well-timed rebate check.

What I'm lamenting is the apparent inability of the median voter to see through the brazen manipulation they are being subjected to. Those who refuse to see are neither blind nor innocent.

Seven students are suing to challenge a new, harsher version of New York City's anti-graffiti law:

The group, backed by fashion designer Marc Ecko, argued in federal court that the city went too far by banning people under 21 from possessing spray paint or broad-tipped markers.

Gabriel Taussig, a lawyer for New York City, said the law "strikes a proper constitutional balance between the First Amendment rights (to free speech) and the need to control the long-standing plague of graffiti."

Here's what troubles (depresses?) me about this litigation: why should it have to be couched in a First Amendment challenge (and one which, I think, is flawed and unlikely to prevail)?

Instead, why don't these kids adults who happen to be under 21 have an open-and-shut case based on simple rational basis review? A criminal statute must be rationally related to a legitimate government interest. There is simply no legitimate government interest here (combating graffiti is a legitimate government interest; combating the possession of spray paint, without a showing of criminal intent, is not).

Moreover, even if there were a legitimate interest, a possession proscription would not be rationally related to it, since there are perfectly reasonable uses of that which is being banned. This possession ban is disgracefully overinclusive. It is not automatically true in every instance that every minor with a can of spray paint is intent on creating graffiti. It might not even be true in the majority of instances — who can tell? One way or the other, this law bans perfectly proper and harmless activity and is therefore a travesty and, I submit, is a violation of due process.

It is not a valid function of government to prevent legal activities in the name of deterring illegal activities. Punish the crime, not the nebulous or imagined precursors of the crime. (See, e.g., the "War on Sniffles.") It is not a valid approach to criminal law for the government to relieve itself of the burden of showing criminal intent.

POST SCRIPT: Anyone in the Bloomberg Administration up for banning duct tape — since it too is being used for unlawful activities?

Good op-ed piece about self-loathing gay Republicans:

What's different this year is that it's not just the right-wing Republicans doing the bashing. The latest news is that the most gay-friendly of Republicans, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, is campaigning for arch-homophobes Senator Rick Santorum and Iowa's gubernatorial candidate Jim Nussle. In fact, the few non-right wing Republicans left in the party are all out on the campaign trail, avidly supporting the most extreme anti-gay rhetoric of their fellow party members.

So once more, in response to the new gay bashing, comes the old question: Why would any gay man or woman belong to a party that has stated, over and over, as clearly as can be, without equivocation, that he or she is not welcome?

No response yet from Republican National Committee Chairman Ken "That's Not an Appropriate Question" Mehlman.

Am I the only person who gets uppity when politicians describe a free-market economic phenomenon as a "tax"?

Gasoline price increases are like a hidden tax on the working people. They're like a tax on our farmers. They're like a tax on small businesses.

So says our Oilman-in-Chief.

Um, no.

Of course, neither the global nor the American petro-economies are, strictly speaking, free markets. Point conceded. Nevertheless, the increasing prices of oil and gasoline are the result of free market forces, namely supply and demand.

Rising prices are not a "tax" anymore than a pay raise is a "welfare check." By definition the government -- and only the government -- can tax. The market -- the economy -- cannot tax anything.

It is true that the government can cause rising prices (e.g., by stifling the development of new oil refinieries) just as government can cause a tax. But somehow I suspect that this was not what our Taxman-in-Chief had in mind and that his intent was not to take credit for higher gas prices. No, Bush's message was that expensive gas isn't his fault because it isn't anybody's fault. It's "like a tax." Just like the Refiner-in-Chief's asinine State of the Union gobbledygook that we are "addicted to oil."

We're not addicted to oil. But the politicians, especially our Addict-in-Chief, are addicted to oil obfuscation. The more that the line between prices and taxes, between market forces and political forces, between the market and the state, become blurred with sloppy terminology, the easier it is to suggest that government intervention in the economy is "no big deal." If the market is "taxing" people, then the government must "anti-tax" them -- through subsidies, penalties, regulations, antitrust, price controls -- whatever the Politics of Pull feels like at the moment.

It seems that oil is a key lubricant for the gears of Leviathan.

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Howling Point reminds us that the Defender-in-Chief also called rising gas prices "a matter of national security." Which I suppose means that he has, under this Administration's "Chief-in-Chief" theory of Article II power, plenary authority over the oil industry. Stay tuned.

Here's a fact pattern that every law school student comes across:

You are involved in an automobile accident that is 100% the other driver's fault -- call him Defendant #1. You suffer a broken arm that will result in $10,000 worth of compensatory damages.

You are put into an ambulance. On the way to the hospital the ambulance is itself in an accident that is also 100% the other driver's fault -- call him Defendant #2. You suffer a broken leg that will result in $50,000 worth of compensatory damages.

Question: If for whatever reason you choose to sue only Defendant #1, how much can you sue him for -- $10,000 or $60,000? Likewise, if you choose to sue only Defendant #2, can you sue him for $60,000 or only $50,000?

Answer: The general rule is that you can sue Defendant #1 for the entire $60,000, since he proximately caused both the first and the second accident. The negligence of the second driver does not break the chain of causality. But of course Defendant #2 cannot be held liable for the first accident -- he was not there and in no way caused it. So, in general, a defendant can only be held responsible for damages occurring after the negligent act, but not before.

Keep all that in mind when you read about the most recent Vioxx verdict, Garza v. Merck:

If you've been relying entirely on AP or national press coverage of the Garza case, you perhaps do not realize what a giant miscarriage of justice it is.

Not just that, by the Garza's own theory of the case, Leonel Garza had been taking Vioxx for under a month.

Not just that Leonel Garza was a 71-year-old smoker who was overweight, had high cholesterol, and previous [sic] had both a heart attack and a quadruple bypass, yet was awarded $7 million in "compensatory" damages.

But the fact of the matter is that there is no documentary evidence that Garza was even taking Vioxx. Garza never had a prescription for Vioxx.

Read the whole thing.

Let's assume that Garza had, contrary to all evidence, actually taken a few Vioxx pills. They did not "cause" Garza's heart attack any more than Defendant #2 "caused" your broken arm in the hypothetical. Mr. Garza's age, weight, smoking and poor health caused his heart attack. If anything, the Vioxx -- again, assuming Garza ever took any -- may have slightly worsened his condition or slightly increased the already extant risk of Garza's heart attack. It is therefore totally inappropriate to hold Merck liable -- even assuming it should be held liable at all -- for the totality of Garza's heart attack or his death, just as Defendant #2 cannot logically be held responsible for the totality of your injuries in the chain of accidents.

Assuming Garza even took Vioxx, and assuming that Vioxx really contributed minimally to Garza's self-inflicted coronary, then the most that could have be reasonably awarded was some token amount, perhaps $1,000 per pill (Garza took no more than 15 pills), representing the incremental injury caused by the drug. This case, almost certainly worth zero, was clearly not worth $32 million.

This was a very scary verdict. It went against the weight of the evidence and every established rule of causation and liability in tort law. It was nothing less than a violation of due process. Let's hope the appellate courts make that clear.

More thoughts from Coyote Blog.

Only six percent of high school freshmen in Chicago schools will ever earn a college degree:

The prospects are even worse for African-American and Latino male freshmen, who only have about a 3 percent chance of obtaining a bachelor's degree by the time they're 25.

The study, which tracked Chicago high school students who graduated in 1998 and 1999, also found that making it to college doesn't ensure success: Of the city public school students who went to a four-year college, only about 35 percent earned a bachelor's degree within six years, compared with 64 percent nationally.

Could someone please explain to me how such a school system qualifies as a "public good"?

(Via Joanne Jacobs. More thoughts at EclectEcon.)

Do you think, now that a potential doorman and porter strike in New York City has been averted, the union might undo the damage it inflicted on my neighborhood?



Every single lamppost in my neighborhood — every single one — was vandalized with these permanent stickers.

This phenomenon is, at least here in NYC, a recurring asymmerty between the radicals of the left and the right. Whether it's unionists, socialists, Marxists, anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-America, save the earth, save the schools (but not from the teacher unions) or whatever, leftists seems to have very little compunction destroying and defacing public — and sometimes private — property.

But you never see stickers on lampposts from the Federalist Society. Go figure.

Vandalism is both illegal and immoral. It's also counterproductive: Why would these people presume that defacing my neighborhood would make me sympathetic to their cause? It's really quitet moronic.

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Meanwhile, here are some sightings of Kip's Law from a New York Times apologist piece puffing the role of doormen:

During World War II, when some landlords wanted to save money by dismissing doormen altogether — but without reducing rents — federal officials defined when a doorman is essential, at least in wartime.

"The doorkeeper who is dressed like a Balkan general and who performs no necessary service, but flatters the tenants' vanity by saying 'good morning, sir' or 'good evening sir,' or 'do you want a cab, sir,' is of course not essential and can be eliminated without affecting the rent," said Louis H. Pink, the New York area rent director for the Office of Price Administration.

"But the doorkeeper who is really necessary to the smooth running of an apartment house and to the comfort of the tenants, who aids in the distribution of mail, packages and supplies; who keeps peddlers and suspicious characters out and prevents tramps from sleeping on the red plush furniture in the lobby; who aids visitors in locating the apartment of their friends; who sees that children get safely across the street on the way to school; does perform a real service," he said.

"Office of Price Administration"? Now that will give a libertarian nightmares. And I wonder whether the OPA deemed the "real service" of doormen so "real" as to warrant a draft exemption? "Real service" is of course in the eye of the bureaucrat.

More:

City and state housing laws do not mandate doormen. In the late 1940's, when automatic elevators started replacing elevators with operators, tenants fearful of crime unsuccessfully lobbied for legislation to demand that buildings with self-service elevators hire doormen.

That the issue would even be subject to review by city and state hack politicians is astounding. If you want to live in a doorman building, then do so; if not, then don't. Makes the current smoking ban debate seem tame by comparison.

File this tidbit away the next time you hear that "gays are solely responsible for the AIDS epidemic" --

Although male prisoners have a relatively high rate of HIV infection, very few of them acquire the virus while behind bars, according to a federal study that is the largest and longest one to look at the issue.

About 90 percent of HIV-positive men in Georgia's prison system -- the nation's fifth largest -- were infected before they arrived, the study found.
...
The study, published yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, refutes the widespread impression that U.S. prisons are hotbeds of the AIDS epidemic, and that incarceration contributes directly to the high rate of HIV among black men, who make up the majority of male prisoners in many states.

Combine this factoid with what reasonable people already knew -- that most prison inmates are not gay and that prison sex is not gay sex just as man-on-woman rape is not straight sex -- and suddenly the whole "gays are solely responsible for AIDS" thesis becomes a lot less tenable.

Which won't stop bigots from repeating it.

More thoughts from Hit & Run.

He wants you to think so:

Mr. Allen says he has "a libertarian sense." He describes himself as more in sync with Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan than with George Bush. "I'm one who dislikes limits. I don't like restrictions. I like freedom. I like liberty. Unless you're harming someone else, you leave people free."

Let's check the record:

--Supports federal subsidies for tobacco farmers.

--Supports the flag-desecration amendment.

--Supports (albeit quietly) the Federal Marriage Amendment.

--Supports the war on drug users.

--Denounces "activist judges."

--Supports government subsidization of nanotechnology.

--Supports relaxing wiretapping rules.

That's a mighty high price to pay to get a repeal of the estate tax, which is the only unequivocally libertarian position he's taken, at least that I can find.

There are far worse candidates that the Republicans can put forward in 2008 than George Allen. But can they please not debase and defame the word "libertarian" in the process?

(Sources: Official George Allen website, On The Issues.)

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Speaking of "libertarian Republicans," did you know that there actually never was such a thing? No, instead there was only the "elitist Rockefeller business wing" --

Still, most conservatives felt that after the victory of Ronald Reagan and the Republican Revolution of 1994 their point was made and the country-clubbers would know their place. They were wrong. The Rockefeller wing is now attempting to reassert its control over the party and is openly hostile toward the Reagan populists who created the Republican majority in the first place.

We should be so lucky.

One thing's for sure, though: Nelson Rockefeller was no libertarian. Whether any Republican ever was, or can be now, is open to debate.

"There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served."
--Jane Jacobs

I've blogged previously about how rent regulation, at least as it is practiced in New York State*, not only violates the most rudimentary principles of introductory economics but also the most rudimentary principles of progressivism. If you love the poor, then you should hate rent regulation, since it doesn't help the poor; it helps renters — who quite often are anything but poor.

But did you know that the same Alice-in-Wonderland logic is also exhibited in New York's other major "anti-poverty" residential program, public housing itself?

The New York City Housing Authority announced yesterday that it wants to raise the rents paid by tens of thousands of its better-off tenants.
...
The proposed rent increases, some as high as several hundred dollars a month over the next two years, would affect nearly 47,000 households with annual incomes ranging from $19,800 to as high as $100,000.
...
The authority, the largest in the country with more than 400,000 tenants, last fixed rent ceilings, beyond which no tenant's rent could climb, in 1989. The aim of those "ceiling rents" was to encourage upwardly mobile families to remain in public housing, cultivating a socioeconomic mix that some say has been crucial to the authority's success.

So the best way to help poor people is by offering public housing to not-poor people? This is a definition of "success," in the same way that the authority running out of money is also a sign of "success"?

And I'm confident that my readers are not so naive as to think that the Politics of Pull plays no role in allocating those "rent-ceilinged" apartments.

How does the saying go? "Great socialism — if you can get it."

If you really want to maximize the housing stock available to and affordable by poor people, then your first, most urgent priority should be to get upper-income people out of middle-income housing and middle-income people out of lower-income housing. And the most straightforward ways to achieve that are, first, by scrapping all rent regulation in private housing and, second, by means-testing public housing.

Either that, or fess up and acknowledge that you don't really care about poor people at all, but merely those lucky few, regardless of income, who win the interventionist housing lottery.

(The idea of homesteading public housing, thereby giving the poor some direct economic empowerment through marketable property rights, is far too delusional utopian for this blogpost. Some other time, perhaps.)

(*Contrary to popular belief, rent regulation in New York is governed by state law, not city law, and there are a handful of rent-regulated apartments in cities like Buffalo and Rochester, not just New York City.)

Wall Street Journal editor Dan Henninger pens yet another "guys in pajamas" screed against blogs:

The human species has spent several hundred thousand years sorting through which emotions and marginal neuroses to keep under control and which to release. Now, with a keyboard, people overnight are "free" to unburden and unhinge themselves continuously and exponentially. One researcher quotes the entry-page of a teenage girl's blog: "You are now entering my world. My pain. My mind. My thoughts. My emotions. Enter with caution and an open mind."

The power of the Web is obvious and undeniable. We diminish it at our peril. But what if the most potent social effect to spread outward from the Internet turns out to be disinhibition, the breaking down of personal restraints and the endless elevation of oneself? It may be already.

His example of a disinhibited, self-elevating, anti-social personal website: The Becker-Posner Blog. Oh wait, that's his gratuitous "exception proves the rule" counter-example. (Of course, in reality sometimes the exception really does disprove the rule. But let's put that aside.)

No, Henninger's example of anti-social Internet pathology is MySpace. The fact that MySpace pages are not blogs is, apparently, besides the point.

As is besides the point the fact that most such pages are crafted by youths, who have never been known for their inhibitions.

And as is besides the point the fact that people "disinhibited" themselves long before the Internet. People kept diaries, people made home movies. People confessed to their priests. People joined clandestine clubs.

And finally besides the point is, most importantly, the fact that Henninger's ideal alternative is, apparently, no alternative at all — just shut up and keep your neuroses to yourself, for the greater good of society.

This is, of course, utter nonsense.

If keeping a blog or a MySpace page is a therapeutic release, then why shouldn't we encourage it? Because it offends Henninger's sensibilities? Who is the one committing an "endless elevation of self" here?

Since when is it wrong, online or otherwise, to commisserate with another soul, to encourage catharsis, to find another person intriguing, to learn that — no matter what makes you you — that there are people out there just like you?

Not every entry on a blog is a narcissistic preening or emotional purging. Not every visit to someone else's personal website is prurient voyeurism.

From Dan Rather to Dan Henninger, it's the same old MSM nonsense: "That which is not us is inferior, unhealthy and possibly even dangerous..."

Remind me again who needs a healthy dose of inhibition?

More thoughts from PoliBlog, Unqualified Offerings.

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Another Henningerism:

Intense language ... used to be confined to construction sites and corner bars. Now it is normal discourse on Web sites, the most popular forums for political discussion. Much of this is new. Politics is a social endeavor. The Web is nothing if not "social." But the blogosphere is also the product not of people meeting, but venting alone at a keyboard with all the uninhibited, bat-out-of-hell hyperbole of thinking, suggestion and expression that this new technology seems to release.

"Bat-out-hell hyperbole"? Like these snippets from some of today's Townhall columnists, all of whom are conservatives and none of whom are "disinhibited" bloggers:

Mike S. Adams: "It ain't over 'til the fat lesbian sings."

Brent Bozell: "Viacom used to be the scum of the Earth, parading around and accept awards from the ACLU for their "courageous" programming. ... These people are still the scum of the Earth, but now they can't in any way claim that they're courageous when it comes to controversy. They're hypocrites and cowards of the most odious rank."

David Limbaugh"You have to be naive not to recognize that the radical homosexual lobby is pushing its lifestyle on American society and using intimidation tactics..."

I repeat: Who needs a healthy dose of inhibition here?

Hard to tell:

It is my belief that industry and government around the world should work even more closely to protect the privacy and security of Internet users, and promote the exchange of ideas, while respecting legitimate government considerations.

This was said, of course, during a meeting with China's Communist dictators, with whom Gates has, thus far, been an unapologetic collaborator.

So the question now becomes: What are "legitimate" government considerations deserving of "respect"?

Is, for example, wholesale censorship of the Internet, complete with political prisoners, a "legitimate government consideration"?

Just wondering.

...in order to save it?

Mississippi's two U.S. senators included $700 million in an emergency war spending bill to relocate a Gulf Coast rail line that has already been rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina at a cost of at least $250 million.

Republican Sens. Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, who have the backing of their state's economic development agencies and tourism industry, say the CSX freight line must be moved to save it from the next hurricane and to protect Mississippi's growing coastal population from rail accidents. But critics of the measure call it a gift to coastal developers and the casino industry that would be paid for with money carved out of tight Katrina relief funds and piggybacked onto funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It is ludicrous for the Senate to spend $700 million to destroy and relocate a rail line that is in perfect working order, particularly when it recently underwent a $250 million repair," said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who is planning to challenge the funding when the $106.5 billion war spending bill reaches the Senate floor. "American taxpayers are generous and are happy to restore damaged property, but it is wrong for senators to turn this tragedy into a giveaway for economic developers."

I, for one, am neither generous nor happy.

Just as investment bankers on the Upper East Side should not have Mississippians paying for their subway lines, so too should Mississippians not have New Yorkers paying for their scenic casino access roads. This project is not only not properly a federal concern, but certainly has no relation to either Katrina relief or — give me a break — the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. This is pork, and is far worse than the Bridge to Nowhere: at least there was no perfectly functional bridge in Alaska that was going to be torn down to build a new bridge two blocks away.

It's quite simple really: When the principle of fiscal federalism is violated and everybody starts paying for everything, then everybody overpays. The Politics of Pull knows no credit limit.

More thoughts from Porkbusters, Heritage Policy Blog, Rolling Doughnut.

POST SCRIPT #1: And why would it not surprise me if it turned out that there will likely be some eminent domain condemnations as part of this rail relocation cum casino highway project?

POST SCRIPT #2: Senator Thad Cochran was, you may recall, named by Time Magazine as one of America's Ten Best Senators for just this very reason — the ability to spend your tax dollars secretly. Talk about "accuracy in media."

Problem #1: Doctors make too much money.

Problem #2: Doctors pay too much for medical school.

Solution: Centrally plan both --

Doctors, to some extent, work for the public good. Why shouldn't the country subsidize their education -- particularly if they go into high-need specialties or work in inadequately served areas -- but lower their pay?

And who exactly gets to decide which specialties are "high-need" and which areas are "inadequately served" and just how much their pay should be lowered?

Hmm?

Kip's Law: Every advocate of central planning always -- always -- envisions himself as the central planner.

---

Klein actually goes a step further and not only wants to centrally plan doctors' financial compensation, but their pyschological compensation too:

And being a doctor shouldn't be about the money anyway...
This, of course, from a man who is not a doctor. Talk about hubris.

(Via Kevin, M.D.)

(Originally posted 9 January 2006.)

The warrantless wiretap scandal has introduced a new term into the lexicon: "Fourth Amendment absolutist." The term is used, disparagingly, by apologists for the policy and is a mundane straw man argument: If you don't agree with with warrantless wiretapping, then you must think that there can never be any exceptions at all to the Fourth Amendment.

Perhaps there are "Fourth Amendment absolutists," but I'm not one of them:

On the afternoon of August 27, 1998, seven Detroit police officers approached the home of Booker T. Hudson seeking to execute a valid search warrant for narcotics and weapons. Upon reaching the door, several officers shouted, "Police, search warrant," but did not actually knock on the door. After waiting only three to five seconds ... the officers opened the unlocked door and proceeded into the home. ... Upon entering, the officers found Hudson sitting in the living room and several other people running throughout the house. On Hudson's person, the police discovered five rocks of crack cocaine. Elsewhere in the house police found numerous baggies of cocaine and a loaded revolver.

Hudson was charged ... with possession of cocaine with intent to deliver and with possession of a firearm during commission of a felony. Hudson moved to suppress the evidence found in his home on the ground that the failure to knock and announce before entering violated the Fourth Amendment and Michigan law.

Cut to the chase: the Supreme Court is now reviewing the case.

The formal "Question Presented" is as follows:

Does the inevitable discovery doctrine create a per se exception to the exclusionary rule for evidence seized after a Fourth Amendment "knock and announce" violation?

The informal "question presented" is as follows: Is there a constitutional right to "flush it down the toilet"?

I say: No, there is no such right.

The police had a valid warrant, announced their presence and entered through an unlocked door. This is troubling to civil libertarians — why?

Here's what I don't get: If the defendant hadn't been home when the police showed up (which the police thought was the case), then none of this would be an issue. How does his being home affect the legal reasoning, except if one argues that he had a right to hear the "knock" (didn't he hear the "announce"?) and make a dash for the bathroom. How did a "20-second headstart" become a constitutional requirement? Especially when the warrant is for, not only drugs, but also a weapon. Twenty seconds is more than enough time to lock and load — and kill a cop or two.

Knock-and-announce serves one purpose and one purpose only: to give criminals a chance to destroy the evidence (or to escape). It seems obvious that a de minimus oversight that was not the result of intentional police misconduct, and that in no way affected the outcome of the arrest and the seizing of evidence, should not vitiate the entire prosecution.

I certainly believe, strongly, in the broad concept of the Exclusionary Rule (a doctrine that appears nowhere in the Constitution, incidentally). But to expect perpetual perfection by police in "hot" situations such as serving a warrant for a weapon, and to then quash cases for the sake of nit-picking, is to go too far. Michigan and the Department of Justice are right on this one. Failure to knock as part of "knock and announce" should only trigger the exclusionary rule if the misconduct by police does not prevent misconduct by the suspect (i.e., an opportunity to destroy evidence). In other words, if the police misconduct merely denied the defendant the opportunity to engage in his own misconduct (e.g., to flush the evidence), then the Exclusionary Rule should not apply.

The real threat to the Fourth Amendment, as we are seeing, is in circumventing the warrant requirement altogether. That was simply not the case here. Knock-and-announce is a good idea, but it not worthy of "Fourth Amendment absolutism."

The case is Hudson v. Michigan, No. 04-1360.

UPDATE: The Supreme Court has scheduled a re-argument of the case before all nine justices (the case was argued before Justice Alito joined the Court). This suggests a 4-4 deadlock or some other convoluted vote. Stay tuned. More thoughts at SCOTUSblog.

So I was perusing this New York Times article on photographic versus live police line-ups when I came across this scary dictum:

"There are people who'd say it's better to let 10 guilty persons free to protect against one innocent person being wrongfully convicted," said Roy S. Malpass, a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso... "I'm fine with that when we're dealing with juvenile shoplifters," Dr. Malpass said. "I'm not fine with that for terrorists. We haven't figured out the risk there."

Oh really?

It's bad enough that we have declared pretty much the entire Fourth Amendment, and much of the rest of the Bill of Rights, "optional" (if not "null and void") where the War on Terror is concerned. It's bad enough that some jurists are brazen enough to suggest that omnipresent government data mining is no big deal, because a government computer isn't really "the government." It's bad enough that we have a megalomaniacal President who argues, with a straight face, that he is, as Commander-in-Chief, essentially a dictator during time of war.

No, even all that, apparently, is not enough to win the War on Terror. Now we are, as a society, going to jump the shark by not only wrongfully detaining people but also wrongfully convicting them with little or no reluctance, because "it's worth the risk"?

That's easy to say when you're not one of those wrongfully convicted.

As I've said before: The terrorists want to destroy our way of life. And judging from people like Professor Malpass, they are succeeding.

The income effect is as follows: If the price of one good increases, then you have less real income to spend on other goods (i.e., you have less real income); hence you will, all else equal, reduce your consumption of those other goods as well as the good whose price is rising.

There is also an income effect for taxes: If the government imposes or increases a tax on one good, then people will, since they now have lower real purchasing power, decrease their consumption of all other goods, all else equal, and not just the good being taxed.

Hack politicians and other lovers of taxes like to ignore the income effect of the taxes they seek to impose. Here's a textbook example:

The normally fractious rental car industry is uniting to battle what it views as its common enemy: state and local governments intent on imposing more taxes and fees on renters.

Increasingly, governments are viewing taxes and fees on its cars as a primary option for local civic projects that the rental industry says should be funded locally: sports stadiums, art centers and convention centers.

"It's taken on a wave of popularity," says Richard Broome, a vice president at Hertz. "It's politically expedient to tax out-of-towners because the presumption is that they don't vote."

True, but there's another presumption at work too: the presumption of a zero income effect from the tax.

Let's say you are planning a vacation. Assume you have a limited budget for the entire trip. If the cost of the rental car rises due to a tax, then you will, at least in part, simply reduce the money you spend on other aspects of the vacation. Maybe you'll eat in a less expensive restaurant, or go to one less play or museum, or cut back on the souvenirs. In any case, the fallacy that "only the visitor pays the tax" is utter nonsense; local businesses pay the tax as well through lower revenues. The income effect of the tax is not zero.

New York City's hack politicians are notorious for invoking the zero income effect fallacy. Which is part of the reason we have a scandalous 13.375%* hotel tax -- because people have been conned into thinking that "only the tourists pay it." In reality, every business and every resident pays some of that tax as well.

Just as there is no such thing as a free lunch, so too is there no such thing as a free tax.

Hat tip to Tax Policy Blog.

For Discussion: Students of economics know that there is another phenomenon that occurs when prices or taxes change -- the substitution effect. How do oppressive "tourist taxes" like those on rental cars or hotels come back to haunt the locals via the substitution effect?

(*Actually the hotel tax is 13.375% + $3.50/room/night. Which, if you're a liberal who believes in progressive taxation, sucks: Why should the family of five cramped in a Best Western pay the same $3.50 as the corporate executive staying at the St. Regis?)

Take a moment to learn about Exxon.

Then ask yourself whether you could serve as Chairman and CEO of that company, even if you had 43 years to learn the job.

If the answer is "no," then please just shut up about Lee Raymond's retirement package, whether incorrectly headlined as $398 million or correctly valued at far, far less.

Meanwhile, if the answer is "yes," then either you are already the CEO of a huge multinational oil company, or you suffer from a very severe case of hubris, or -- most likely -- you have been taught that a business' management serves no real purpose and makes no real contribution to the firm; that profits reflect nothing more than the process of exploiting workers and gouging customers; that entrepreneurship is not a factor of production deserving of a return just like land, labor and capital; that "no one deserves to make too much;" that life under capitalism is nothing more than a lottery -- or a scam -- that you happen to be on the losing end of; that what you are feeling toward CEO salaries is not petty envy but righteous indignation.

Regardless of whichever it is, you're dead wrong. So again, please just shut up.

Now about those "excessive" salaries of professional athletes...

Time Magazine has one of the silliest and most asinine pieces I've seen in a while, even by its standards (if that's the right word) — America's Ten Best, and Five Worst, Senators:

There is no fixed journey to greatness in the Senate. Instead there is a whole variety of skills that America's Senators have developed over 218 years to help them raise and spend tax dollars, oversee the operation of government and, in the case of the best among them, pass laws that benefit their constituents, their country and the world.

So the more ways that the members of what was once called The Millionaires' Club can come up with to be activist legislators, the better? Hogwash.

Here's the rundown on Time's list, with my hasty-stitchy translations, based on Time's own commentary:

--Thad Cochran: The Quiet Persuader. Translation: Great at spending your money behind closed doors.

--Kent Conrad: The Statistician. Translation: Lies, damn lies, and Senate graphics.

--Dick Durbin: The Debater. Translation: Make it up as you go along.

--Ted Kennedy: The Dogged Achiever. Translation: Ted Kennedy.

--Jon Kyl: The Operator. Translation: "The Caricature" (i.e., of the far right) would be a better descriptor.

--Carl Levin: The Bird-Dogger. Translation: Made Enron the new Hitler — big deal.

--Richard Lugar: The Wise Man. Translation: Senator Richard Lugar (R - Russia).

--John McCain: The Mainstreamer. Translation: In what alternative universe?

--Olympia J. Snowe: The Caretaker. Translation: Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R - Democratic Party).

--Arlen Specter: The Contrarian. Translation: "We swear in absolutely everyone, wirthout exception, who appears before this committee — unless I don't feel like it."

---

As for the five "Worst Senators," three (Daniel Akaka, Wayne Allard and Jim Bunning) are included for — gasp! — not introducing enough "major legislation" (Time's term). Oh the horror — legislators who don't overlegislate! What's the Senate coming to? The other two — Conrad Burns and Mark Dayton — are admittedly both total jackasses who have no business ever being outside a trailer park or sawdust-floored speakeasy. So Time scores 2 out of 15.

By now you have probably heard about the recent story of the DEA agent who, while conducting a weapon safety lecture in a grade school (SIDEBAR: Do grade schoolers really need safety lectures about automatic weapons?), accidentally shot himself in the foot and is now suing the DEA (for allowing the video to make its way to the Internet, thereby embarrassing him).

Well, in case that wasn't enough for you, here's another one:

A man is suing Coca-Cola because, as he was opening a can of Diet Coke, some soda sprayed out into his eye. He is not alleging that the can was defectively manufactured in any way, but instead is suing because the can did not carry a warning, in the spirit of coffee cups ("Caution: Contents Hot!") and shaving cream cans ("Caution: Contents Under Pressure!"). Will we soon see "Caution: Fizzy!" on our soda cans?

The really sad part is that an appellate court has overturned a motion for summary judgment against the plaintiff; the lawsuit will therefore actually go to trial. Stay tuned.

Details and links at Point of Law Forum.

New York City's Republican ultra-liberal mayor, Michael Bloomberg, wants everyone, absolutely everyone, to be eligible for food stamps:

The waiver now being sought by the city, which is expected to be approved by the federal government, would affect adults ages 18 to 49 who are not responsible for a child or incapacitated relative and are not physically or mentally unfit for work. The federal welfare overhaul of 1996 imposed a three-month limit on food stamps in any three-year period for this group, known as able-bodied adults without dependents.

Make no mistake about it: If you believe that "adults ages 18 to 49 who are not responsible for a child or incapacitated relative and are not physically or mentally unfit for work" are entitled to food stamps, then you believe that everyone, absolutely everyone, is entitled to food stamps. There can be no rational basis for excluding anyone from such a program.

Which is the same as saying that you really have no principles whatsoever, liberal or otherwise. For if your concern is truly for the deserving poor, then you don't demonstrate it by expanding the public tax burden to subsidizing the undeserving poor. It is neither unreasonable nor cruel to insist that those who can work either do so or rely on private charity — which, incidentally, is abundant in this city.

Libertarians can afford, and endorse, a modest and reasonable welfare state where those truly unable to care for themselves are not expected to. But this isn't that. This is just politicians being politicians, with no sense of responsibility and no sense of ethics. Just keep spending other people's money on whatever gives you that self-serving warm fuzzy feeling until either your term, or the money, runs out. And then pat yourself on the back for your "compassion."

That's no way to run a city. And it's no way to help the poor.

UPDATE: Oops -- backlash! Never mind.

Teachers in the U.K. say school isn't boring enough.
--Because life isn't like that trip to Disney World you just took.

Of course, this is the same U.K. that is proposing "happiness classes."
--In case your parents couldn't afford that trip to Disney World in the first place.

The connecting theme between these two seemingly contradictory stories is the notion that children should be indoctrinated not to expect much in life (and, therefore, from their government?). Don't focus on teaching about skills, or about letting letting kids be kids, but rather transform schools into dejection factories that ensure that children are quickly and summarily processed into little stereotypical European existentialists. "Life just sucks, kids, so you might as well get used to it now." Childhood is an illusion, apparently even for children.

And since it's impossible to simultaneously be an existentialist and a capitalist-consumerist, be sure also to remind them -- in their "happiness classes" -- that "Even if life doesn't suck for some, money can't buy happiness anyway, so what's the point?" Bottom line: Just smile and shrug it off and be good little drones.

More thoughts from Joanne Jacobs.

...then let me take a moment, on tax day, to thank you for buying me a Second Avenue subway line with your tax dollars. Your federal tax dollars, totaling $1.3 billion.

Because apparently a new NYC subway line is -- somehow -- not just a public good but a federal public good, worthy of federal subsidization.

Somehow.

While most people will thank the politicians, I'll be one of the few who will thank those who really made it possible -- the people like you who are paying for it.

Maybe someday I can return the favor by funding a bridge to nowhere for you with my tax dollars. My federal tax dollars.

I'm sure the politicians can easily arrange that.

POST SCRIPT: Ditto for those of you who live elsewhere in New York State and who are chipping in $450 million of your state tax dollars.

Two hasty stitches about the (non-)controversy over the presence of gay families at this year's annual Easter Egg Hunt at the White House:

1. AFP headline:

Gay parents to crash White House Easter party
Um, no. To "crash" a party means to gain entry without an invitation. The whole point of the (non-)controversy was that the White House was in fact supposedly welcoming the gay-parented families so long as they followed the long-standing rule of no more than two adults and at least one minor child. Just like everyone else. So why the inflammatory headline?

2. Was the (non-)controversy a controversy after all?

After waiting outside overnight to be among the first to enter this year's White House Easter Egg Roll, families in line were surprised to learn that the White House had changed the ticketing policy for the annual event, PageOneQ has learned. The unannounced change means that the families who waited in line the longest, in one case for twenty-four hours, will not be among the visitors at the event's opening ceremonies.

Apparently no gay-parented families were admitted until after the First Lady had left the event. Because, of course, "it's all about the children." Hat tip to Arkanssouri.

(Cross-posted at Spectrum Bloggers.)

"The words 'recreation' and 'enjoy' have no meaning to my programming..."
--Star Trek: The Motion Picture

A Wired commentator discloses his alternative lifestyle:

Let us praise the joys of double-wielding a pair of Uzis with unlimited ammo; let us delight in the gorgeous fractal carnage of a rocket launcher as it slams into your target. Let us talk openly about how just totally awesome it is to grab a fully loaded railgun in Quake 4 and wade into a mass of gibbering Strogg aliens and kill and kill and kill again, until there are guts on, like, the ceiling.
...
This is a subject that huge numbers of gamers feel strongly about, but are terrified of saying out loud. After all, we now live in an age where the pop-culture mainstream has decided that games are fascinating — but only the "complex," socially nuanced ones. Everyone moons over Will Wright's emotionally sophisticated Sims, and his impending, world-modeling Spore. Critics gush over the social valences of life inside World of Warcraft, or the cinematic scope of the Final Fantasy series, or the massive forking narratives of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

But when it comes to shooters — the Cro-Magnon sector of the gaming world? Everyone recoils. If only gamers would grow up, sigh the pundits, these infantile titles would finally vanish, and gaming would finally be respectable.

I concur fully. It's been four months since I ended my twenty-year video gaming hiatus by purchasing an Xbox 360 and I have to tell you, destruction is fun (though unlike the columnist I hate the railgun — too clumsy — and vastly prefer the rocket launcher and dark matter gun when slaughtering Strogg from a distance).

In any case, here are my reviews of the Xbox 360 games I've played thus far:

Five Stars — Buy Now and Buy New
--Quake 4: As addictive as crack; I've destroyed the Nexus at private, corporal and lieutenant levels and will soon embark as a "general."

--Call of Duty 2: Upside = killing Fascists. Downside = doing so as a Communist. I'm about half-way through the war, on easiest setting.

Four Stars — Buy Used on Ebay
--Ridge Racer 6: My first driving game since Spy Hunter in college. Fun and G-rated; some say it's not the best racing game. I have no basis for comparison. The "World Explorer" races get really hard about halfway through the map — very frustrating.

Three Stars — Borrow a Copy
--Perfect Dark Zero: Microsoft builds a mission-style shooting game. Enough said. Final mission is insurmountable (for me at least) even at beginner level. And the hero is actually a heroine — ick!

Two Stars — Opportunity Cost is Too Great
--Gun: Hard to get excited about shooting a rifle in the Wild West when you've been shooting your dark matter gun on Planet Stroggos.

One Star — WTF?
--Kameo: A fairy-pixie traveling through a wondrous fantasy-land. Sorry, but I'm not gay enough for that. Chucked it after 20 minutes.

What games do you play now or did you play in your youth?

---

My single biggest disappointment with the Xbox 360 has been the online gaming. I admit it, I totally suck at it. "Suck" isn't even an adequate word — "hypersuck" is closer to accurate. I can't even begin to compete with these kids on any game I try to play online. (And boy do they have foul mouths!) The difference between single-player and multi-player gaming is like the difference between figure skating and ice hockey. Oh well, I guess my descent into isolated sociopathy will progress undeterred.

Or, more correctly, "put a sock on it" --



About the time that I returned from Iceland, Diamond developed a case of the itchy-lickies, especially her paws. It might have been the cold-warm-cold weather, or an allergic reaction, or just a routine case of doggie dermatitis. But by last Friday it had appeared to be subsiding and I was taking no further notice of it.

Then on Saturday morning I had a Godfather moment and awoke to find blood-stained sheets. In the night Diamond had completely chewed/ripped off one of the pads from her right rear paw.

Since the damage was already done and getting her to a vet on such short notice would have been difficult, I opted instead for home nursing and a bit of improvisation.



Fast forward through the past week, and the paw is doing much better, the tissue has dried and is starting to heal. Her skin condition has cleared up, she's not doing licky-scratchies anymore and she can sit on the paw, although she's still a hippity-hop dog when we go for walks.

Prognosis is for a full and sock-free recovery.

Thanks to everyone who left such kind messages and emails for her.

(Carnivalized at Modulator's Friday Ark and Mickey's Musings' Carnival of the Dogs.)

Legal Theory Blog reminds me to remind you to mark your calendars for the annual Lavender Law Conference, to be held September 7-9 in Washington, D.C.

I intend to go, if I can efficiently concatenate it to my Prague vacation. Easier said than done, as there are no direct flights between Prague and Washington.

Law students should also note that there is a writing competition associated with the conference. Prize is $1,000, an all-expense-paid invitation to the Conference, and guaranteed publication in a law journal.

The Chunnel is going bankrupt.

I'll bet the central planners who insisted, contrary to all evidence at the time, that the tunnel was a good idea, didn't plan for it to go under (pun intended) after only 12 years. (Eurotunnel is nominally a private corporation, complete with shareholders and such, but it is of course strictly a creature of the British and French governments.)

A fundamental fiction common to all central planners is that supply (i.e., of vanity projects) will inevitably create its own demand. Yet in reality, "if you build it, they will come" is not a law of economics but merely a law of political propaganda.

Something to keep in mind the next time some hack politician insists that a new taxpayer-subsidized stadium, or convention center, or Olympic games, will somehow "pay for itself." It's always wishful thinking.

Reading Wall Street Journal editor James Taranto's "Best of the Web Today" screed is a lot like driving past a car crash: you know what you'll see will likely repulse you, but you just can't help looking.

Today, in regards to some obscure academic hissy fit about whether there is such a thing as "the Israel lobby" (answer: of course there is), Taranto raises up a Straw Man of Babel toward conservative heaven:

It seems to us [David] Bernstein has an incomplete picture of libertarians. He probably thinks of them as cute little nerds who have basically sound (if somewhat extreme) ideas about economics along with various eccentric enthusiasms: private toll roads, pornography, drugs, head-freezing. This is the libertarian world of Reason magazine. ... But libertarianism is an ideology. Ideology can lead to fanaticism, and fanaticism to hatred.

So let me see if I understand Taranto's "Reasoning" (pun intended) correctly: A man I've never heard of, associated with a think tank I've barely heard of, writes an op-ed piece about a subject for which there is no obvious default position for libertarians. That, plus a five-year-old Reason article about people who want to clone their dogs, yields the conclusion that all libertarians are potential hate-filled fanatics? And this is coming from a senior editor at the Wall Street Journal?

It is no secret that the Journal editorial board has, like so many others in the Republican establishment, abandoned libertarianism in recent years, choosing instead to embrace the radical social conservative elements (e.g., anti-gay rhetoric and laments about "activist judges" appear on the Journal's op-ed pages with depressing frequency). But is the puerile name calling and the hopelessly strained and twisted logic really necessary?

We libertarians already know you don't like us anymore, conservatives — there's no need to get, um, fanatical about it.

A hat trick of wrongly decided cases:

ITEM: Is a juror, in a death sentence deliberation, quoting the Bible (in favor of execution, incidentally) a permissible "internal" influence (i.e., the juror) or an impermissible "external" influence (i.e., the Bible)? The Fourth Circuit wrongly decides that it's the former, despite testimony that the Bible was brought into the jury room by a bailiff following a juror request. The Sixth Amendment requires that jury deliberations be based solely on the evidence. The Bible is not "evidence." QED. The case is Robinson v. Polk, No. 05-1 (4th Cir. 2006). How Appealing has the links. I blogged about a similar case a year ago in which a death sentence was overturned for pretty much the same juror misconduct.

ITEM: Are you the kind of person who, for deterence, leaves the lights on and maybe even the television when you go out? Or maybe you're like me and don't bother shutting off every light and gadget, or even locking the door, when you step out quickly to run a very quick errand or to walk the dog. If so, then congratulations, because you've just waived your Fourth Amendment rights. Crime & Federalism has the details from U.S. v. Quezada, No. 05-3254 (8th Cir. 2006).

ITEM: I've blogged before about what I call the "War on Sniffles," in which the government argues that curbing the sale of perfectly legal decongestants to people with perfectly legal colds will somehow end the meth crisis in America. Well, here's a denied appeal of a conviction of a pharmacist for selling too much decongestant -- two packages -- to undercover narcotics agents. That's right: selling two packages of Sudafed now makes you a criminal under federal law. The case is U.S. v. Kim, No. 05-50112 (9th Cir. 2006); hat tip to Decision of the Day, which has the links.

It is so hard to stay optimistic about the future of this country sometimes.

Sorry, folks, but a one-two punch will keep from any significant blogging for the next week or so. First, Diamond developed a medical condition over the weekend that is distracting me. Nothing life-threatening, but I have to try to help her heal as quickly as possible. I'll explain in the next Friday Diamondblogging.

Second, I'm spending this weekend in Las Vegas at my parents. This not only means I'll be offline this weekend, but also right now, because I need to focus on Diamond's problem and try to do what I can to clear it up before I leave.

Maybe a few "look at this" type posts for the next few days, but that will likely be all.

Carry on.

I blogged recently about Wal-Mart's petition to establish an in-house bank, to be nominally based in Utah, in order to service its own credit-card operations and perform other "back-office" banking functions in order to reduce costs.

The extent of the opposition to the plan is as surprising as it is irrational and shrill.

Of course, people have been hating Wal-Mart for a while now, but something struck me about this particular version of antipathy toward the retailer:

Opponents are not convinced. They portray Wal-Mart's proposed in-house bank ... as leading eventually to full-scale banking with retail branches that would destroy local banks.
...
"Wal-Mart is a company that does not play by the rules," Robert E. McGarrah Jr., a corporate governance official with the AFL-CIO, said in a statement prepared for Monday's hearing.

"That factor alone makes its proposed bank a threat to the taxpayers and the nation's banking system. ... Wal-Mart's record in communities across America reveals a company that ruthlessly wipes out important community businesses," McGarrah said.

Does any of this sound familiar? "Leading to," "destroy," "rules," "threat," "community"?

That's right: It's the lexicon of anti-gay bigotry, particularly in the context of same-sex marriage.

Same-sex marriage will "lead to" polygamy and sex with dogs; Wal-Mart's plan will "lead to" full-scale retail banking. Same-sex marriage will "destroy" the institution of marriage; Wal-Mart's bank will "destroy" the institution of local banking. Same-sex marriage litigation ignores the "rules" of majoritarianism; Wal-Mart ignores the "rules" of agreeing to kowtow to labor unions. Same-sex marriage is a "threat" and so is Wal-Mart. Same-sex marriage ignores the wishes of the "community;" neither should Wal-Mart be allowed to so drastically impact the "community."

And remember, this is all coming from a pillar of the left, a labor leader.

The lyrics may change, the singer may change, but the song remains the same.

What exactly do the NSA warrantless wiretapping program and government data mining of telecommunications entail?

AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company.
...
[Mark] Klein's job eventually included connecting internet circuits to a splitting cabinet that led to the secret room. During the course of that work, he learned from a co-worker that similar cabinets were being installed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego.
...
The secret room also included data-mining equipment called a Narus STA 6400, "known to be used particularly by government intelligence agencies because of its ability to sift through large amounts of data looking for preprogrammed targets," according to Klein's statement.

There is, of course, no reason to believe that this clandestine rerouting of telecommunication traffic and construction of "secret rooms" is limited to AT&T.

And there is also, of course, no reason to believe that the government would go to such extraordinary lengths (and costs) just to intercept a handful of international phone calls — even if they're to al Qaeda.

This is a systematic, comprehensive and unapologetic plan by the Bush Administration to enable the monitoring of all telecommunications. Voice and data, international and domestic, related or unrelated to the War on Terror, with or without probable cause.

Keep in mind that warrantless wiretapping apologist-in-chief Alberto Gonzales said as much just a few days ago.

The transmogrification of the War on Terror into the War on Privacy has reached a whole new plateau.

One can only wonder what next big idea — or Big Brother idea — Bush, Hayden, Gonzales and the rest of the warrantless wiretapping cabal will come up with.

Especially given that they probably won't tell us about it.

More thoughts at Mixed Signals, Hit & Run, Catallarchy.

It is less than six months until the five-year anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

And after all that time, not only is the site not rebuilt, not only is it behind schedule, but there is in fact no schedule, no plan, and it would seem, no urgent plans to make plans.

Every hack politician who has even a secondary or tertiary claim to jurisdiction or authority for the site has inserted himself into process. And they together constitute only half the equation — the counterparty is a real estate developer, better described as a government tax-and-spend collaborator than a free-market capitalist, who had the lease for the World Trade Center for all of three weeks before the attacks. The courts, meanwhile, have had to resolve such questions for the ages as whether there were one or two attacks that day for insurance purposes.

And still Ground Zero is exactly that — a patch of ground with zero on it and zero visibility.

With that in mind, and strictly in a devil's advocate frame of mind, I shall make a modest proposal:

Submitted,

Congress should use its federal eminent domain power to seize the World Trade Center site from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and implement a competitive private redevelopment program for the land.

Some hasty stitches:

--September 11th was an attack against the United States, not against the City or State of New York and certainly not against the Port Authority. It is only logical therefore that the rebuilding become a federal undertaking.

--The federal government has already committed $2.7 billion to Ground Zero. It's practically a federal project already.

--This would not be a private taking; that all happened decades ago when the Towers were originally built. The federal government would be seizing state property, not private property.

--Tenants, as opposed to landlords, are not entitled to "just compensation" under the Fifth Amendment and have no recourse whatsoever in eminent domain proceedings. Larry Silverstein would be out of the process permanently. That can only be a good thing.

--Other than memorials and museums and such, the actual redevelopment could still be kept private — simply auction off the land, with the proper covenants attached, to the highest competent bidder. The hack politicians could still scratch their itch to centrally plan everything through the standard swamp of zoning laws and other intrusions upon private property. They would simply lose their special status with respect to Ground Zero. That can only be a good thing.

--The federal government has successfully entrusted private not-for-profit development of public memorials before. One current example is the Victims of Communism Memorial is Washington, D.C. The World Trade Center Memorial would certainly be a more complex undertaking, but there's no reason conceptually why it couldn't be done.

Enough is enough. Pataki and Bloomberg (and now Corzine) have betrayed their public trust and demonstrated gross incompetence in their (non-)discharge of the duties. Perhaps there's no reason to think Congress could do any better, but at this point is there any reason to think they could do any worse?