Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Kenesaw Mountain Chicken Droppings

To the tune of "Kenesaw Mountain Landis" by Jonathan Coulton:

Kenesaw Mountain Landis was a scumbag and a bigot
and shouldn't even be immortalized in funny songs;
he should be mocked and ridiculed forever
for keeping baseball segregated for so long . . .

Not to mention all the First Amendment vi-o-lations
at the trials of dissidents that he presided at;
while I love Jonathan Coulton I hate Kenesaw Landis
(although he had a cool name)
and that is all that I have to say about that!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Too Skinny Even For Me


I enjoy Ralph Lauren's fashion sense -- it reminds me of the Reagan era -- you know, "morning in America" -- but this time I'm on the other side, along with Xeni, Cory Doctorow, Instapundit, Popehat, and the American Bar Association:

Sunday, July 05, 2009

"Those who protested the war in Vietnam cite our losing it as proof they were right. I cite the enemy’s since adopting most of our core values as evidence that we were right to fight for them at the time." -----John T. Reed

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Hear, Hear

"The party's over. Neither I nor anyone else in government has a right to anything you earn or own. And you have no right to anything that I or anyone else earns or owns.

"It's okay to love your neighbor, but I have no right to force you to take care of his medical needs ... or support him money if he loses his job ... or hire him at a wage that I deem to be fair ... or help him financially, or otherwise, in any other way.

"From octomoms in California to welfare bums in Massachusetts ... from environmen-talists in Oregon to heroine addicts in New York City ... I have no right to force you to accommodate their desires just because they call them needs. And by no stretch of the imagination are anyone's "needs" rights. The only rights an individual possesses are those given to him by God."

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

"Reporters tend to treat public policy issues with all the depth of, well, movie directors: See problem. Talk about problem. WHY ISN'T PROBLEM BEING FIXED!" -----Matt Welch, "Ink-Stained Retch"

Never Again

"The fact that the Holocaust Museum
needs armed guards

is why we need a Holocaust Museum." -----James Lileks

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Prescriptions for Disaster

"I think getting doctors on a salary is the very first solution..."
The original rationale for HMOs was that the insurance company would be paid a fixed amount per patient per month (although this might be modified by the patient's pre-existing medical conditions) and would be required to provide whatever medical care was necessary; therefore, they would have an incentive to do things the most economical way, i.e. through preventive medicine whenever possible.

That sounded great to me, and it still sounds like a good goal.

Unfortunately, as Adam Smith predicted (when talking about education), instead this gave an incentive for insurers to provide as little care as possible, by making the quality as low as possible, and making it as difficult as possible to obtain it.

In Bryan Caplan's class on microeconomics, he explained the concept of "moral hazard" to us, with plenty of amusing examples. I suggest this as another one.

So, how do we actually accomplish the original goal?

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Second-Best News All Day

My friend and mentor Bryan Caplan -- the guy responsible for my switching from political theory and English literature to economics, and for going to George Mason University -- thus forcing me into courses in which I actually have to learn something during the semester! -- has asked to blog one of my answers to one of his exams.

I'm pretty thrilled. It kind of makes up for the crapsack April I had (with severe downward trends in school, finances, health, and a friendship).

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Placeholder Post

David Friedman (and others) talk about the Stupid Party and the Evil Party.

I believe it was H. L. Mencken who said "Each party claims the other is unfit to rule, and they're both right."

Here's a YouTube video from one party about the other.

"How I Became A Libertarian" by Michael Shermer

I'm a big fan of skepticism and skeptics, and my heart breaks and bleeds when I see how many of them are gullible followers of left-wing pseudoeconomics. One of the brightest lights of skepticism is Michael Shermer, who has written a blog post called "How I Became a Libertarian."

Thursday, April 16, 2009

PCer Than Thou

I just posted this on Ezra Levant's blog:

Rebekah wrote: "I am in a debate with someone at the moment who says that freedom of speech is a civil right, and as such we have no right to judge other cultures or regimes that deny freedom of speech. Could I ask, how would you answer this?"

Oh, I love debating against leftists. It's so much fun to see their eyes pop out when their own Politically Correct slogans are used against them!

I would use two arguments. The first is: "I believe in freedom of speech because I believe in equality. If there is no freedom of speech, that means that some people can say what they want, and some views get expressed, but other people -- minorities and the oppressed -- and other views get suppressed. Don't you believe in equal rights for everyone in society?"

If the PC leftist actually admits that he thinks "respecting other cultures" is more important than equal rights, my other argument would be: "Okay, I won't argue against that position. Instead, I'll just say that according to your own statment it's fine for Americans or Canadians or other Europeans to suppress arguments for pacifism, atheism, homosexuality, feminism, or anything else because those are against the values of Eurocentric culture."

Of course if you happen to know the particular Politically Correct causes that he supports, you should use them as examples.

As far as I can see, the only argument against that would be for the leftist to claim that Islamofascist values are actually *better* than our cultural values. If he does, you can attack him for being "judgemental" and "inegalitarian" and also debate him on the merits of our values versus his.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Old Skool Gamin'

I'm getting back to my roots, to my ancestral culture, to my people's ancient heritage.