My friend Tom Palmer says that whenever he sees somebody sporting a Che Guevara t-shirt, he likes to ask the wearer, “That’s a great t-shirt; do you have the entire collection?” The wearer usually responds either with a blank stare or by asking Tom what does he mean, to which Tom then responds: “You know, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot…”
Now I can happily say that the disgusting Che is in the right company in at least one type of merchandise. The…
This article from CNET News does a (perhaps unintentionally) brilliant job of describing the Bootleggers and Baptists forces behind California’s new law banning using cell phones while driving, unless using a hands-free device. The first paragraph sums it up perfectly:
A good number of Californians think the state’s new hands-free cell phone law will bode well for public safety, if a random sampling of consumers by CNET News.com is any indication. But gadget retailers have their own reason to cheer–they’re reaping the cash…
Ars reports that the RIAA is lobbying the government to sneak rules mandating web filtering into the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The proposed regulations would mandate that ISPs filter out copyright-infringing materials - and, in fact, all services that facilitate infringement, even those that also have legitimate uses. Killing P2P software in such a way would violate net neutrality principles far more than anything any ISP has yet tried. It would also gut the safe harbor provision of the DMCA, which…
Wired reports that:
In their eagerness to visit justice on a 49-year-old woman involved in the Megan Meier MySpace suicide tragedy, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles are resorting to a novel and dangerous interpretation of a decades-old computer crime law - potentially making a felon out of anybody who violates the terms of service of any website, experts say.
Apparently, the terms of service were violated in this case by registering under a false name - a pretty minor offense that many of…
Congress is now pushing for the creation of a taxpayer-subsidized “affordable housing trust” in mortgage bailout legislation nearing passage. The Boston Globe has a story on how the fetish for “affordable housing” resulted in dangerous, costly, wasteful subsidized housing units in the Chicago region, that enriched corrupt developers. Federal obsessions with ”affordable housing” and “diversity” in homeownership also helped spawn the mortgage crisis.
Broadband Reports has news:
The FCC made changes to cable franchise rules last year which prevent “local franchising authorities from unreasonably refusing to award competitive cable franchises”. Those changes have faced an ongoing battle in court by various city and state franchising agencies which argued that the FCC had usurped their power when changing the rules. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that the FCC was within its authority to make those changes. FCC Chief Kevin Martin issued a…
Taxpayer-funded AIDS subsidies are being used to subvert successful anti-AIDS programs in African countries like Uganda that succeed by instilling a politically-incorrect truth: fidelity saves lives. That’s what Sam Ruteikara, Chair of Uganda’s National AIDS Prevention Committee, explains today in the Washington Post, in an editorial, “Let My People Go, AIDS Profiteers.” He laments, “In the fight against AIDS, profiteering has trumped prevention. AIDS is no longer simply a disease; it has become a multibillion-dollar industry.”
Western governments (and charities subsidized by them) have spent…
I just criticized the ditzy Europeans for banning the sale of undersize kiwifruit. But now as I go through accumulated emails I come across this story by my friend Quin Hillyer on undersized lobster imports. I’m afraid it’s a close contest on which set of regulators is more idiotic. But since people were actually sentenced to jail in the U.S. case, I think America wins the foolishness contest. You decide.
When the story first broke in 1999, the Mobile Register played…
Because you’ll get treatment sooner as a dog! Reports Macleans magazine:
Dr. Danny Joffe is only half joking when he says that if he’d fallen asleep on the last day of vet school in Saskatoon and woken up some two decades later in his current workplace, he would not have believed it was an animal hospital. Joffe is one of 11 specialists at the C.A.R.E. Centre, a 28,000-sq.-foot palace of veterinary medicine built two years ago in Calgary by a consortium…
The line “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you” has long been a comic favorite. As well it should. The Daily Mail reports:
A market trader has been banned from selling a batch of kiwi fruits because they are 1mm smaller than EU rules allow.
Inspectors told 53-year- old Tim Down he is forbidden even to give away the fruits, which are perfectly healthy.
The father of three will now have to bin the 5,000 kiwis, costing him £1,000 in…
The U.S. is still the largest and most productive economy, but the warning signs are there. The latest is that America is losing its lead in share of millionaires worldwide. It’s an imperfect measure of economic success, to be sure, but does offer a rough measure of entrepreneurship and economic regulation. And the score is not good. Reports Robert Frank in the Wall Street Journal:
The U.S. is losing its market share of global millionaires.
The population of millionaires grew five times…
All you have to do is read British publications to see what the mess otherwise called the National Health Service. Yet the NHS is a sacred cow on right and left. The Institute of Economic Affairs has just published a new monograph which gives a flavor of the NHS’s many problems:
Politicians will go to any lengths to persuade the voting public that the National Health Service is safe in their hands. Alternative policy models cannot be placed before the electorate unless…
American politicians are busy talking about how to socialize the U.S. health care system. But in Canada the father of the nationalized system is prepared to kill his child.
David Gratzer writes in Investor’s Business Daily:
Back in the 1960s, Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.
The government followed his advice,…
Today, Bill Gates left Microsoft. As Cord Blomquist pointed out, Bill Gates has created more value for the world in his time at Microsoft than Mother Theresa:
Like it or not, it was Windows that provided the platform for much of the information revolution, which subsequently created a worldwide economic boom. We shouldn’t relegate this accomplishment to a mere footnote in Mr. Gates’ biography and it’s certainly worth considering the moral implications of that sort of wealth creation.
Donating his time and…
Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, the crooked trial lawyer who helped orchestrate multibillion dollar settlements between the States and the big tobacco companies, was sentenced today to five years in prison for conspiring to bribe a judge, plus a $250,000 fine. We earlier discussed how consumers got ripped off by those settlements, how corrupt trial lawyers like Scruggs collectively received more than $15 billion (not million, billion) for helping to rip-off the public, and how states are misusing the money they collected under…
The New York Times reports today that Google is now displaying ads on its search results page that are relevant to not just the search that you just performed, but also to the previous search. So, as Google explained in its comments to proposed FTC principles on behavioral ads, “a user who types ‘Italy vacation’ into the Google search box might see ads about Tuscany or affordable flights to Rome. If the user were to subsequently search for ‘weather,’ we might…
Airplanes emit greenhouse gases, so airlines–and ultimately passengers–are about to pay for the privilege of flight.
The European Union reached a landmark agreement Thursday to cap emissions from aircraft, raising the stakes in an increasingly ferocious battle with the United States over how to regulate global greenhouse gases.
In the first requirement of its kind, all airlines arriving or leaving from airports in the European Union would be required to buy pollution credits beginning in 2012, joining other industrial…
You’d better close your trash bin tightly, or else. At least if you live in England. Reports the New York Times:
But when Gareth Corkhill, a bus driver, was fined $215 — and given a further $225 fine and a criminal record when he failed to pay — for leaving his garbage can lid slightly ajar this spring, Whitehaven’s residents banded together in dismay. They raised the money to pay the fine, and they began to complain.
“I consider the fine against…
Ars reports that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is giving out grants as part of its new Games for Health program. Performing modern electronic surgery is often much playing a video game. And video games are taking off as fitness tools. Wii Fit was the #3 video game sold in the US last month, plus it sold over a million units in Japan in its first month there.
Just goes to show that video games won’t turn everyone into couch potatoes after all.
…
I had the pleasure of seeing distinguished trade economist Jagdish Bhagwati speak yesterday. He is promoting his new book, Termites in the Trading System: How Preferential Agreements Undermine Free Trade. Bhagwati’s insights are well worth sharing.
He attacked the current wave of bilateral Free Trade Agreements… on the grounds that they hurt free trade. Bhagwati, always a stickler for precision of language, thinks these FTAs are better called PTAs, or Preferential Trade Agreements. By only including a few countries, they are discriminatory…
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