Freedom
Blogging for the inverterately lazy
Hello, to my now single reader. (I still think it’s my mom…)
Anyway, I’ve obviously not got my act together to blog like Megan McArdle, and as I’m thinking more and more, argue like Don Boudreaux (of whom I am enough of a fanboy to recently buy donboudreauxismyhero.com after seeing some sympatico from Steven Landsburg and [...]
White guys do not look all alike…
Catching up child development and behaviour related articles that I’ve seen and read over the past few weeks.
A study was recently published by Sophie Labrecht, Lara J. Pierce, Michael J. Tarr and, James W. Tanaka, from Brown University and the University entitled “Perceptual Other-Race Training Reduces Implicit Racial Bias“. The team attempted to:
…examine the relationship [...]
Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy
If you have any interest in the writings of Adam Smith and see his name and works seemingly quoted in the press, you really should take a peak at Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy. Gavin Kennedy, a prof out of the UK, does an excellent job deconstructing and critically evaluating the general misuse, misunderstanding and misquoting [...]
Top 5 things I’d like to see Obama do
These are more pet issues that the world saving ideas that top other lists, but they’d make a significant difference in America and in it’s sphere of influence.
1. Trade with Cuba
The trade embargo has allowed a despot to drive his country into abject poverty, and kill thousands. Trade will increase - and would have increased [...]
Why the federal budget is poorly conceived…
Ok, ok, ok. I know it’s late and this topic has been pundited to death, but I figured I should throw my two dollars in here.
The Canadian Federal Government recently (last week) brought down the new budget. In it there seemed to be something for everyone, and like in the US it’ll take us, federally, [...]
Global warming duds…
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy represented an article from the Melbourne Herald Sun entitled Top 10 Dud Global Warming Predictions.
While I would rank myself as a skeptic of global warming, especially of the histrionic man-bear-pig Al Gore variety, articles like this entertain me for reasons other than the debunking.
Global Warming, or Climate Change as [...]
Surprise! More competition serves consumers…
From a paper entitled How does access regulation affect broadband penetration?, the authors do a study trying to determine the type of regulation that provides for the highest acceptance of broadband internet access.
They compare three regulatory regime styles that in turn allow for:
single technology where resellers sell the same thing
single technology where resellers also can [...]
Madoff’s con won’t be fixed by regulations…
…only by improved personal responsibility.
To put things very simply, it wasn’t a lack of regulations that let Madoff run his scheme for as long as he did.
What allowed him to evade prosecution by current laws was merely a lack of due dilligence on the part of the investors in his “fund”. While most investments take [...]
Bush was a freemarket leader?
Since the market crash that followed the cratering of the property market in the US and elsewhere, many people have been shouting that this cratering proves that capitalism and markets don’t work. The contol-the-world types of both ends of the spectrum have trotted this one out, often for political expediency, but mostly because they seem [...]
US still hates gays…
In an unsurprising - and selfish - move the United States has decided that it should still have to right to criminalize the mere existence of homosexuality. The reason the US delegation put forward for not supporting the declaration is that as the federal government they are not legally aloud to contravene laws of individual [...]
More clueless bureaucrats in the UK
Given the recent lack of posts making fun of UK bureacrats I’ve decided to do an omnibus edition to catch up. Here is a round up of pettiness from the past two weeks.
The Hampshire County Council decided that the tinsel adorning the stop sign of a lollipop man should be removed in case it distracts [...]
Terrorism and lessons from Dubai
Short post since all the good content is on Bruce Schneier’s site.
In the latest Cryptogram, Bruce Schneier puts together 3 short articles on things we should keep in mind after the terror attacks in Mumbai. My favorites are:
Low-tech is very effective. Movie-plot threats — terrorists with crop dusters, terrorists with biological agents, terrorists targeting our [...]
Economic Manhattan Project or simple creative destruction?
In the latest Edge newsletter is an article proposing and discussing an economic Manhattan Project where a group of good scientists would get together and “solve” the current economic crisis. On the surface this doesn’t sound completely bad when the initial description is:
The economic crisis has to be stabilized immediately. This has to be carried [...]
US Libertarians demonstrate why they are unelectable
An article titled The Left-Libertarian vs. Right-Libertarian Controversy is a clear example the kind nitpicking that makes the US libertarian movement marginal.
Libertarianism is generally defined as individualism, with clear property rights and minimal (but not zero) government - and is clearly an antonym of authoritarianism. A pretty simple definition. Getting into the line between left [...]
New Toronto trash service offers higher incentive to cheat
In caring, kind Toronto, if you want your garbage picked up, you need to place it in city mandated grey bins or you need to have it labelled with city-issued garbage tags. If neither of these is done, you can’t expect your trash to be collected. Additionally home owners must pay according to the volume [...]
Che Guevara was a murdering thug
Reason TV published a video about the celebrity impact of Che Guevara juxtaposing it with interviews by a Cuban-in-exile musician and a Chinese basketball player who played during Mao’s tenure.
The clearest point made in the segment is that people seem to very comfortable wearing clothing of mass murderers as long as they’re the communist brand [...]
Marking with red is aggressive
Queensland state government has published educational changes that pointedly suggest marking with red pen is aggressive and may harm the fragile egos of children. In addition to marking with more subdued colours, such as blue or black (likely to be culled for racist overtones), the guide also includes mandated peer reviewing and tutoring - of [...]
Canadians less likely to dole out bribes
Transparency International just released their Bribe Payers Index this week. It tracks the perceived propensity of various nationalities to pay bribes in foreign countries. The rankings are determined by polling almost three thousand executives from around the world with questions like:
How often do firms headquartered in (country name) engage in bribery in this country?
Basic stats:
Canada [...]
UK: Welcome mats are health and safety risk
A recent Telegraph story tells of the local council in Gosport deciding that residents of council flats who have welcome mats outside their doors are quite possibly causing safety problems. Not only this, but some renters have been threatened with legal action if they don’t remove the mats. This was opposed by some senior local [...]
Disincenting everyone is a poor policy idea
I stumbled across this book by Daniel Raventos distributed by the University of Michigan Press. In it Mr. Raventos suggests that everyone should have, freely available, a subsistence income with no strings attached. He supports this idea with these perceived benefits:
Anyone could opt out of employment at any time. Those with few skills would no [...]
Pay the fine before you light up inside
In Holland where the laws are much nicer to pot than to cigarettes, some bars that illegally still allow smoking have resorted to asking for a cover charge to defray eventual fines. It’s not only an interesting way to make a statement about laws that affect property rights it’s a solid economic move as well, [...]
Public schools are a must unless you’re rich
TSC points out that left-of-centre Obama is sending his kids to a private school instead of a public one. While this may be surprising to some, most left-leaning politicians with enough cash send their kids to private schools while stridently opposing anything resembling a voucher system.
This is true of most aspects of enforced public funding, [...]
Clamp down on petty infractions, but not if it’s an MP
As the CSM suggests, all the zero-tolerance, petty bureaucrats in the UK are allowed to push the citizens around, as long as it doesn’t begin to affect the lifestyles of British MPs.
Counterterrorism unit,
Officers didn’t just search the home of [MP] Damian Green – they arrested him, raided his office, and detained him for nine hours [...]
Good teeth help women in the labour market
Sherry Glied and Matthew Neidell attempt to show in a recent paper that having good teeth is an asset in the labour market.
Their study tracked the earnings of a mix of people comparing those who grew up in communities with fluoridated drinking water and those without. They came to a variety of conclusions based on [...]
Tomatoes, Weed, what’s the difference?
A crack team of constables tore apart a Scottish house after mistaking tomato plants for marijuana - explicitly stating their obvious confusion as they burst through the door.
Lulu Matheson had been growing tomatoes on her windowsills and these seemingly set the alarm bells ringing for the local police. Obviously the Northern Constabulary’s training criteria doesn’t [...]
UK: No more cheap booze
The national government in the UK is determined to slap new regulations on drinking to attempt to curb a rise in anti-social behaviour. The suggestions range from a ban on happy hours and ladies nights, along with stringent labeling on cans and bottles.
From the Daily Mail:
Critics of liberalised licensing laws claim the move three years [...]
We don’t need no stinking property rights
From the Frontier Centre this week comes an article about the truly unstable state of Canadian personal wealth.
Stephanie Farrington found that 50% of Canadian’s wealth is tied up in property, will a large chunk of that sunk into primary residences. What makes this unstable, besides the current expectations of home price deflation, is that in [...]
Invisible Hand analysed
Three friends of mine, who I will for the sake anonymity name PJ, Mike1 and Mike2, were chatting over brews recently and got into a discussion about the meaning behind the term Invisible Hand. They knew that it was coined by Adam Smith and that Milton Friedman had commented on it as well.
PJ had suggested [...]
1st Annual Christmas gift guide…
What kind of low, boring product would a modern blog be if it didn’t promote some solid seasonal consumerism with a Holiday Gift Guide? Lame, seriously lame. So in the interest of being fabulous and not lame here are the Sauce Captain picks for the season.
Booze
These 3 picks have been real surprises for me over [...]
Gaming addicts don’t exist
In a bold, yet startlingly obivious, move the world’s only gaming addiction treatment centre has admitted that chronic gamers are not gaming addicts. After two years of operation the clinic in Amsterdam says that it has become clear that 90% of excessive gamers are merely poorly socialized. The other 10% are compulsive in general and [...]
Niels Veldhuis says don’t blame greed
An excellent article (PDF) written by Niels Veldhuis of the Fraser Institute lays out solid description of the poor government incentives that significantly contributed to the recent market crunch. He does all of this while discussing the difference between greed and self-interest (one of my favourite topics) and why self-interest is truly what makes the [...]
Toronto Mayor clueless on basic economics
David Miller - the seemingly basket-case mayor of Toronto - has decided to change the way they’re trying to discourage plastic bag use by Toronto citizens.
It seems that the original idea was to force supermarkets to pay their customers a dime for bringing in a reusable bag. The change was to instead have the stores [...]
The Canadian Human Rights Commission publishes report suggesting they were really really wrong
The Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC), recently famous for the Mark Steyn debacle and other petulant garbage has published a report by Richard Moon, suggesting that the very controversial Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) be repealed forthwith. It goes on to say that the CHRC should get out of the business [...]
Turn the world economy around - legalize drugs
I was reading the Post blog today and came across a clip covering a smoke-in in Toronto. It reminded me of a conversation I had with some friends a couple of weeks ago.
Take general estimates of the Canadian drug trade - let’s assume about $18 billion/year. Now say that legalization and lower business risk would [...]
Science Fiction is mainly collectivist?
L. Neil Smith wrote earlier this year:
But the driving ideology [of Science Fiction] was almost always some form or another of socialism.
While the pap that passes for science fiction for the often has utopian collectivist themes, the truly brilliant writers of the past century wrote of freedom and individualism triumphing over command structures.
Smith continues by [...]
Queen’s Deane doesn’t grasp free speech
Patrick Deane of Queen’s University had the gall to trot out this statement when defending his crack squad of thought police:
Freedom of speech and thought is impossible without respect, consideration and a commitment to mutual understanding.
Is he willfully ignorant or merely inept in his understanding of the words he uses?
Freedom of speech needs nothing but [...]
British clown music a danger to the public, especially children
I know that I seem to be picking on British public policy quite often, but it’s just so easy. From a link off the Reason Brickbats page comes this astounding obtuse abuse of civic power.
Zippos Circus clowns were banned from playing musical instruments because the Birmingham City Council told them the music contravened the Licensing [...]
Supreme Court of Canada inflicts health tax on airlines
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in their infinite wisdom has passed down a decision forcing airlines to accomodate the disabled, even when the costs become prohibitive. Interesting that by this decision they also included obesity as a disability.
Since Air Canada and WestJet weren’t able to prove that accommodation of the disabled, including the exceptionally [...]
Clean, immoral people less conflicted
In a study published in the past month, Simone Schnall and her team showed that people who viewed themselves as physically cleaner were more likely to find objectionable actions less repulsive than a control group.
The researchers tried two tests to verify changes in behavior - being primed by ideas about physical cleanliness or through actual [...]
UK says littering should maybe not be considered terrorism
In a landmark psuedo-decision the national government of Britain has decided to stop equating littering with terrorism. It is now safe enough to litter since the government has suggested that surveillance tools and regulations used to attempt to stop terrorism are a bit much when it comes to more mundane offenses - offenses such as [...]
Selfish vs self-interest
An excellent post crossed my path today from the blog Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy.
I’ve always been meaning to read more of Adam Smith’s two seminal tomes - The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations - but have so far limited myself to chunks from [...]
Damn, I have no idea if I’m as smart as I thought…
As a response to the 1999 paper by Unskilled and Unaware of It, Burson, Larrick, and Klayman wrote Skilled or Unskilled, but Still Unaware of It to show that regardless of your skill and intelligence you’re likely clueless anyway.
The original study purported to show that the most unskilled people tend to be the least clued in [...]
Saskatchewan high school to nix fails
Saskatoon High School, Nutana Collegiate, under auspices of Principal Shirley Figley is considering not putting failing grades on student report cards, replacing sub-50s with an incomplete or no mark. Figley says:
…teachers don’t want their students to fail… [and] We don’t need to degrade the student by giving them a number
Based on what I’ve read about [...]
London boroughs fighting musical terrorism
In a huge push to ensure the safety of chemically enhanced ravers all over the London, police are targeting live music performances that don’t comply with new strict discloser rules.
Detective Superintendent Dave Eyles of London states:
Music promotions attract people who have a propensity to use violence. That’s not speculation. We have a duty to prevent [...]
Britain to Lojack fatties in war on obesity
Ok, the title is a bit hyperbolic but in Britain is now promoting a new scheme to tag and track people in an effort to improve health by targeting obesity. In addition to the tags, which track calories and exertion, marketing campaigns and fitness facilities will be deployed to round out the effort. They feel [...]
Gestational diabetes and lower test results
In a study from Université Laval, researchers compared the language skills of children from mothers with gestational diabetes (GD) to a control group. While nothing in the summary shows specifics, children whose mothers had GD exhibit poorer results on tests of verbal vocabulary and grammar. These findings are tempered by suggestions that:
…the impact of pregnancy-related [...]
Lego loses to Canuck copy
So after many years battling it out in the courts Lego loses it’s block shaped patent since it’s an obvious shape. From the Financial Post:
EU trademark law “precludes registration of any shape” that is “sufficient to obtain the intended technical result,” the court said. This is the law “even if that result can be achieved [...]
UK to fine running motorists…
…who are stuck in traffic jams. The incredible British nanny-state has decided to levy fines of £20 on drivers who happen to have their cars running while stuck in traffic. This is likely to:
make a wholesale change in the behaviour of people who are already under stress or,
piss loads of people off and likely cause [...]
From today’s Financial Post
A couple of well penned paragraphs in the business section showed up in the Post today.
The first was a reprint of an editorial from the WSJ talking about the potential nationalization of the auto industry (read: Big 3):
A Detroit bailout would also be unfair to other companies that make cars in the U.S. Yes, those [...]
Remembrance Day 08
While war is certainly nothing that I’d wish for, for me my family, my friends or most anyone, I believe that at times war is necessary. There have been certain wars in the last 100 years that have been necessary though I’d presume, given my readings of history, most have been avoidable.
November 11 was established [...]
