On Myers and crackers

When I first read about P.Z. Myers’ decision to destroy a consecrated communion wafer (which he followed up with actual action), I was appalled at his lack of regard for the feelings of a billion people who had never personally offended him. I was inclined to agree with Andrew Sullivan’s characterisation of his action:
It is one thing [...]

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Political freedom vs economic freedom

Scott Aaronson has a nice post in which he plots political freedom and economic freedom on a chart and concludes that while the two are definitely correlated, the correlation seems to disappear near the high-freedom areas of the chart. In fact he hypothesises there might be a ‘Pareto curve’ fitting this negative correlation between the two freedoms near [...]

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Eminently quotable nonsense

This is a voluntary fee. No one has to pay it. You only have to pay it if you choose not to use reusable bags.
– Seattle city council president Richard Conlin, who worked with Mayor Greg Nickels on the proposal to levy a 20 cent tax on shoppers at grocery, drug, and convenience stores for each paper [...]

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You cannot restrict your way into prosperity

I exaggerate not a bit when I describe the prevailing politics of L.A. to be roughly as follows: Wal-Mart and big box stores = evil, and need to be stopped at all costs. Also, we need more cheap supermarkets! Mom and pop stores need to be defended from Big Corporations, unless they sell fried chicken [...]

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Smoking pot is like child rape?

Another hard hitting article about the insane war on drugs by Jacob Sullum at Reason Hit and Run.

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Obama as constitutional law professor

Before Barack Obama decided to run for President, he spent twelve years as a highly popular lecturer at the University of Chicago law school. The New York Times has a fascinating account of Obama’s time there. (A free registration might be required to view the linked article) 
Prof. Barnett, writing at the conservative-libertarian blog The Volokh Conspiracy says that the materials [...]

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“World no alcohol day”

This guy needs to loosen up. Someone get him a stiff drink!

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Mandatory health insurance does not work

There are many good arguments libertarians put forward against the idea of mandating universal health insurance (either through single payer or a Massachusetts style measure).
It is morally wrong to coerce some people to disproportionately pay for others’ costs or to tell someone who decides to take his chance that he cannot do it.
A mandate would almost surely be [...]

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The nature of morality

Earlier today, Eliezer Yudkowski wrote the final post of his long series of articles on the nature of morality which I had blogged about here.
Eliezer’s basic point, which I agree with, is that morality is subjectively objective. For more, go over to his blog. Be warned though, it will require time and effort.

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Liberty is a fictional figure

I agree with Aristotle the Geek; some people really don’t get it.

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Wrong in the right direction

“The (top-billed) Libertarians are wrong, just like everyone else, but they are wrong in the right direction to correct several major problems.  When the country becomes too deregulated, I’ll let you know.”
 – Eliezer Yudkowsky

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Parallel terrors

At least thirty-seven people are dead in a series of horrific blasts in Ahmedabad, India.
Iran is going to hang thirty people tomorrow.
At first sight, the situations look dissimilar. The people dead in Ahmedabad are innocent victims of terror, their lives snuffed out brutally and callously by vengeful terrorists. The Iranians who will die tomorrow have undergone [...]

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Randy Pausch’s last lecture

Randy Pausch died yesterday.
He was Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and achieved worldwide fame for his September 2007 ‘last lecture’ – a warm, funny, inspirational 76 minute talk about achieving your childhood dreams and enabling others to do the same. Though the talk was really aimed at his kids, it has, over the last ten months, been viewed [...]

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The hidden force behind ideology?

Tyler Cowen suggests that for many people, “the real force behind a political ideology is the subconsciously held desire that a certain group of people should not be allowed to rise in relative status.”
Take the so-called “right wing.”  I believe that some people on the right do not like those they perceive as “whiners.”  They [...]

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More on the Scrabulous story

I had written earlier about the Scrabble vs Scrabulous saga. There is a post on the same topic at Reason Hit and Run today, with an interesting discussion below.

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