February 2012
“Nonetheless, the oft-stated assertion that the new minimum wage research fails...”
– Minimum Wages and Employment, David Neumark and William L. Wascher
For Squashed.
Foxconn
Ari Kohen wrote about Foxconn earlier today, but I though it would be useful to review a few additional facts:
84.5% of workers surveyed reported mistreatment—many reported verbal abuse, some reported physical abuse.
Recent changes have reduced work weeks to a mere 80 hours a week. Nonetheless, it is not uncommon for workers to spend “12 or 14 hours straight” on their feet,...
No Sex Tape, No Outing in Tyler Clementi Case -... →
It’s bad to spy on your roommate kissing someone; it’s FAR, FAR worse to repeatedly blame someone from outing a gay person and streaming his sexual encounter over internet when neither happened. If Dharun Ravi deserves punishment, what does the New York Times and its less revered brethren deserve?
“A most unlikely collection of suspects — law schools, their deans, U.S....”
– TaxProf Blog: Cloud & Shepherd: Law Deans May Go to Jail for Submitting False Data to U.S. News
I’ve always been amazed that so many law professors teach Federal Criminal Law without the slightest regard to the insanity of its reach, when it has been abundantly obvious for ages that said...
“Like Fox News, The New York Times has a First Amendment right to spread...”
– The New York Times’ Disingenuous Campaign Against Citizens United - Wendy Kaminer - Politics - The Atlantic
The primary bias of the New York Times has been toward the interests of wealthy urbanites, but this propaganda campaign against Citizen’s United is justifying every claim made...
“A Kitchener father is upset that police arrested him at his children’s’ school...”
– TheRecord - Man shocked by arrest after daughter draws picture of…
Canada.
“We often try to fight problems by yelling at them instead of accepting the...”
– Marco
Marco’s whole article is worth a read. A well-placed trash can can do more to reduce litter than increasingly sanctimonious “Do Not Litter” signs. iTunes did more to reduce digital piracy than a decade of litigation.
There is a legal convention that it is inexcusably negligent to sign a...
“A Denver family was supposed to be in Belize this week enjoying a beach getaway...”
– Denver family stranded after passport denied because of crease | KDVR.com is the website for KDVR Television, FOX 31 News in Denver, Colorado
Back in the Bush days, you’d sometimes hear conservatives tell liberals and libertarians that they should just leave the country if they didn’t...
Santorum
There are 42 million Tumblr blogs. Is anyone aware of a single Tumblr blogger that supports Santorum? (Serious question).
“Describing “austerity economics” as “the insistence that governments should...”
– Donald J. Boudreaux, “It’s What We Know that Ain’t So….”
Perhaps the New York Times ought to provide a fact checker for its columnists.
“Have you heard of William Dore, Foster Friess, Sheldon Adelson, Harold Simmons,...”
– Robert Reich: The GOP’s Big Investors
Wow, I can only imagine how upset Mr. Reich is with President Soros.
(You might remember that Soros spent even more money—$26 million, to be precise—to try to get Kerry elected in 2004. If you search Google news for instances where Reich...
“Two forces make American laws too complex. One is hubris. Many lawmakers seem to...”
– The Economist
Hubris and lobbying is an appropriate way to describe the two forces that have resulted in excessive regulation in the land of the free. Hayek would have wept if he’d seen what the country known worldwide for its “free market” had become.
This battle of regulation shouldn’t be about...
Interview with Milton Friedman on the Drug War →
A great read.
Eliot Spitzer: "Citizens United was correct." →
Spitzer explained:
“I am with the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] on this one. I think as a First Amendment principle, Citizens United was correct.”
He told Maher that there is no distinction between some shows on the airwaves — all owned by corporations — and a company’s participation in politics through paid advertising. “Your show is owned by a corporation,” Spitzer said to Maher....
“On June 21, 2010, inmate David Coffey had been pepper-sprayed and was handcuffed...”
– Why wasn’t this a crime? Tioga County taxpayers will pay the price to settle a civil lawsuit | The Ithaca Journal | theithacajournal.com
“At 9, he settled a dispute with a pistol. At 13, he lit out for the Amazon...”
– John Fairfax, Who Rowed Across Oceans, Dies at 74 - NYTimes.com
This obit sounds like a Wes Anderson film.
That Economists Poll
With respect to this post, it’s worth noting that Cecilia Rouse was previously a member of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, and Michael Greenstone is a former chief economist Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. That’s at least 3 of the forty-one economists who had some hand in the policies they were asked about.
“Michael Clements from the Center for Global Development points out that the...”
– Matthew Yglesias, Auctioning residency permits could raise a lot of money and solve the illegal immigration problem. - Slate Magazine
The further Yglesias dables in economics, the more libertarian he becomes.
“Known only as “Jose,” a Mexican immigrant has outed a famous Arizona...”
– Paul Babeu, Immigration Hawk Sheriff, Outed by Alleged Mexican Gay Lover - The Daily Beast
Sometimes you’ll see a Republican outed as gay, and sometimes you’ll see one exposed for being a hypocrite about immigration, but this is the rare case where both happened at the same time.
Thoughts for the New Editors
In an eminently sensible move, the Tumblr folks have refreshed the slate of editors for the #Politics page. I found my time as editor extremely rewarding, and I’m beyond grateful to the folks at Tumblr for the experience.
For what it’s worth, here are a few thoughts for the new editors:
1. The hardest part of being an editor is finding good content to promote. Try to cast wide...
Ryking
producermatthew:
Tumblr users launch petition to have fellow publisher removed as tag editor
Tumblr users are asking 1,000 bloggers to sign an online petition that calls for a controversial publisher to be removed as an editor of an enhanced tag on the site.
The petition targets user “Ryking,” with the claim that the blogger has defended “rapists, calling women who disagree...
Althouse: The Obama Administration clearly states... →
… although it is telling the Supreme Court that it is a tax. The truth is whatever the administration needs it to be at any given moment. Obama is Romney, in other words.
“Dorothy Canady said she would never forget the man who shot a retired New York...”
– Open Channel - Witness error: How mind tricks can put the innocent behind bars
“There’s a poignant scene in the documentary Mississippi Innocence in which...”
– Justin Albert Johnson Sentenced | Radley Balko, The Agitator
“To understand how Kane Waselenchuk became the dominant player in the history of...”
– Self-Taught Racquetball Player Is in a Class by Himself - NYTimes.com
Sometimes writers have too much fun with a first sentence. This just skirts the line.
“Following its November debut, HTML5 publishing platform (and TechCrunch Disrupt...”
– Pressly Goes DIY: Will Turn Tumblr, WordPress & Twitter Into Touch-Friendly Websites | TechCrunch
Seems potentially interesting. You can request an invite here.
Santorum
Lately, I find myself hoping Santorum get the nomination. And that Obama will win 46 states. And that Gary Johnson will get 15% of the vote in some of them. And that the Republican Party will learn from this, and go a decade or two without nominating another Santorum.
In the long run, a Santorum landslide loss would probably do more for liberty than an Obama loss to Romney.
Santorumism needs...
“Santorum said he was “absolutely” against indexing the minimum wage to the...”
– Santorum on Romney: ‘Desperate People Do Desperate Things’ - By Katrina Trinko - The Corner - National Review Online
I oppose the minimum wage law for all of the reasons that economists have historically opposed the minimum wage law. But if you are for the minimum wage, as Santorum claims to be,...
Internet Strangers Have Let Me Down Again
You internet strangers have let me down again. I’m talking about the ones posted to babycenter.com and other parenting websites, suggesting that Dumbo would be a good movie for a toddler. These are things that happen in Dumbo:
A baby elephant is teased because he has big ears.
His mommy spanks a mean man who teases him.
The mommy is whipped, shackled, and placed in solitary confinement,...