mrclay.rg

Bad Analogies Lead to Bad Policies

I was forwarded an e-mail that made a terrible analogy (my emphasis): Here’s another way to look at the Debt Ceiling: … You come home from work and find …  your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings. Sewage would make a home immediately uninhabitable and actively damage the value of the

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“Buy American”

When economies are struggling, protectionism seems well-intentioned: By “buying American” we can go back that golden fantasy age when everything was American-made and everyone had a decent-paying job and could afford the latest luxuries. I have some examples that I hope can convince you that freer trade benefits everyone. It’s not completely intuitive; we commonly

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E-mail Address Munging Still Mitigates Harvesting

At least a decade into the use of simple e-mail munging on web pages (my own solution here) there’s a growing consensus—and it seems like common sense with the advancement of the web in general—that this surely can’t still work on modern harvesters. While trying to look up some old research I’d read about this,

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“Cartels don’t make any money on marijuana”

Opponents to CA’s Prop 19 ran pretty well with the narrative that legalizing cannabis would yield no reduction of the cartel violence in Mexico. After all, they don’t really make their money on pot; it’s all California-grown, they promised. They even were kinda sorta convincing me that might be the case.  Maybe—just somehow—they know that.

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The Hard Road Ahead

I’m starting to believe the only way out of this recession and national deficit is through tough choices that offend the ideologies of every political party: higher taxes for everyone spending cuts, including the military bailouts for state/local safety nets that ease real human suffering, not select industries finding and migrating to foreign aid measures

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Research Chain E-mails in 30 Seconds

A friend or family member has just forwarded you a wonderful piece of propaganda: It’s filled with inflammatory bare assertions, stirring anecdotes, and a dare to pass it on to everyone you know! And no sources. 1. Find a phrase in the message that’s a) unlikely to appear in anything else on the web, and

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Reasons to Extend Unemployment Benefits

From the left, Ezra Klein: the Bush tax cuts certainly majorly increased the deficit [CBO], and it’s unfair for the GOP to demand that the unemployment extension be deficit-neutral. Further, if tax cuts don’t need to be paid for because they generate so much taxable economic activity that they pay for themselves, then neither do

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You Are Not So Smart

The Misconception: You are a rational, logical being who sees the world as it really is. The Truth: You are as deluded as the rest of us, but that’s OK, it keeps you sane. You Are Not So Smart is a blog devoted to self delusion and irrational thinking. And it’s great. The latest post

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Charter Cities seem better than foreign aid

The Atlantic has a great piece on Paul Romer and his push for “charter cities”. I agree completely with Romer that fair laws with economic liberties is the only way to support economic growth. While probably true in the old world, very few countries remain impoverished simply because of geography. Tyrants plague the people of

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California’s upcoming Cannabis ballot initiative

In November Californians will see on their ballot the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010. The act would basically “legalize” cannabis—all involved in such an industry would remain in violation of the federal Controlled Substances Act, and subject to the whims of the federal DEA and Dept. of Justice—for adults 21 and up,

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HealthCare Thought Exercises

I can’t remember where, but I’m fairly certain I saw compelling evidence that nations with universal access to healthcare, contraceptives, and abortions have the lowest rates of abortions. Let’s assume this is true. Also assume that the U.S. military, as well as foreign militaries aided by the U.S., engage in a perhaps small but non-zero

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Shifting Morals and Shifting Laws

Blogger Classically Liberal shows how codifying the morality of the day (“societal justice”) can give you laws that abuse a slowly changing demographic of victims. With support of Christians, England at one time had criminalized homosexuality; but now that most brits openly accept it, England’s remaining Christians and their speech are becoming targets for abuse

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Patent Absurdity

Don’t miss Patent Absurdity, a free half-hour documentary that “explores the case of software patents and the history of judicial activism that led to their rise, and the harm being done to software developers and the wider economy.” When you open the page, the embedded video begins without human interaction, a violation of an Eolas

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On the FairTax

I’ve not read the original FairTax book, and have only flipped through the follow-up written to answer the critics, but I have spent many hours reading about it online over the years, and back when I listened to Boortz of course he pushed it. At the moment, I don’t see it as workable and I

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It wasn’t torture when America did it.

Suuure. Salon’s Mark Benjamin on what our last Vice President has described as “a dunk in the water”. Disturbing. Also looks like Obama’s (unsurprisingly) caving on civilian trials. Nothing says “rule of law” like pre-trial torture sessions and determining location and rule of court by political theater. KSM may be a mass murdering bastard, but

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Is Detroit the Outcome of Liberalism?

Lately Detroit’s terrible situation is given as proof that liberalism inevitably leads to cities lying in ruin with high unemployment, high crime, poor education outcomes, etc.

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HOPE Turns Into a Bill

Sent to my House Representative Corrine Brown (links added here): Ms. Brown, I encourage you to support H.R. 4055, Honest Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE) Initiative Act of 2009. Hawaiian Judge Alm’s probation and parole reform program has shown we can significantly reduce both crime and imprisonment. The program is a clear winner all around:

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A Bad Precedent?

While Microsoft has certainly used unlawful practices in the past to build the Windows empire, I fail to see how Opera’s EU antitrust case was anything more than a thinly veiled (and successful) attempt by Opera—and later additional competitors—to strong-arm Microsoft into directly promoting their products. Users of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows operating system in Europe

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Moyers Considers Similarities Between Afghanistan and Pre-War Vietnam

Bill Moyers treats us to LBJ’s telephone recordings, highlighting some of the similarities between today and the days before our escalation in Vietnam. I wish we could hear the conversations of all our presidents like this. Moyer’s concludes with this: Now in a different world, at a different time, and with a different president, we

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Latest 9/11 Victim: our Justice System

Greenwald makes a pretty convincing case that Bush/Obama’s “justice system” for accused terrorists is merely for display purposes only. If you’re accused of being a Terrorist, there’s not one set procedure used to determine your guilt; instead, the Government has a roving bazaar of various processes which it, in its sole discretion, picks for you

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