000929.html
Essentially, the "party line" for both the Demopublicans and the Republicrats, when confronted with their own drug experiences, seems to be "Uh, we smoked pot in college, yeah. But that's because we were in college in the late '60's or early '70s, and that meant we got to do that sort of thing, because everyone did that sort of thing back then. But today's generation of college kids aren't supposed to get high...you kids are supposed to get your "highs" from Extreme Sports or Britney Spears videos or Youth For Christ rallies. For us, smoking pot was a "generational thing..." - that's the exact stupid sounding term used by Anti-Drug Czar and General Dictator Barry McCaffery. Words just can't describe the idiocy here...the hypocritical excusemongering, the pitiful attempt to save political face at the cost of honesty, and the downright asinine "it was okay for me, but not for you" morality.
Deekoo L. - Peeves: The War on Freedom: a drug war screed from Monde's significant other. Good reminders of why it is really a war on freedom. [randomonium]
Deekoo L. - Deekoo's Personal Statistics: randomly generated each time you refresh the page. Hehe.
Height: 2'10" Length: 5.98" Weight: 268
Brian Fitzgerald - distribution of wealth: Brian reminds us of one thing that people of all political stripes seem to agree on. None of us are satisified with the current distribution of wealth. Well said, Brian. [brianf]
Libertarian Party - Why Americans should oppose mandatory high school "drug" tests for cigarettes: The latest use of the fourth amendment as toilet paper is random drug tests of student athletes for cigarette use.
"While no one argues that in a perfect world, teenagers wouldn't smoke, the idea that students should be drug-tested for a bad habit that might cause illness or premature death in 50 years is absurd," he [Steve Dasbach, LP director] said.
Free-Market.Net - Doing time at the big (school)house: a spotlight on freedom in schools. In response to a perceived wave of school violence, big brother is alive and well and living at your local public school.
Public school students today are watched, regimented, documented, muzzled and forced to surrender body fluids as a matter of course......
But draconian as these efforts may be, they're justified in reaction to a wave of school violence, aren't they? Better the kids under the thumb than under the ground, right?
Well, y'see, the problem is this: There is no wave of school violence. According to the Centers for Disease Control, "[l]ess that 1% of all homicides among school-aged children (5-19 years of age) occur in or around school grounds or on the way to and from school." Even better, incidents of violent crimes in school have been dropping through the 1990s. That's not to say that things are great in the nation's high schools -- just that they're getting better, not worse.
Free-Market.Net Wishing for a raise: Why raising the minimum wage is a really bad idea.
Not too long ago, my mountain-town newspaper editorialized that, since all serious economists have dropped their objections to government-mandated minimum wages, Congress ought to go ahead and add a dollar or two to the hourly take-home pay of bag boys and burger-flippers. I did a double-take, wondering if I'd dozed through the repeal of a few fundamental laws of economics. Had legislating prosperity really turned out to be so easy after all?...
In fact, when it comes to inflating paychecks by government mandate, the news is never good. With the exception of that New Jersey study, which lives on in newspaper editors' hearts if not in economic science, economists have found that hiking the minimum wage invariably hurts the folks it's supposed to help.
How can that be? It's not such a mystery, really. The people earning minimum wage are at the bottom of the employment rung to begin with. They don't yet have highly marketable skills and experience, so their labor is worth relatively little to an employer. If you hike an employee's wages above that employee's value to a business, some kid isn't going to make an extra buck-an-hour; instead, he'll make nothing while the boss redistributes a task or two among fewer workers.
Burnie Thompson at liberzine - Minimum wage: the irony of good intentions: another article on why increasing the minimum wage increases poverty. [market]
The law of supply and demand is a stubborn thing: as prices rise, less is purchased. Thus, as wages (prices for labor) are artificially increased, less labor is purchased. And once again, the least skilled are denied the prospect of attaining upward mobility.
Glenn Powers - CueCat: Game Over: claims that the CueCat mailing was "in violation of Title 39, Sec. 3009 of the United States Code". Encourages people to report it via The U.S. Postal Inspection Service's Online Mail Fraud Complaint Form. [faisal]
Any merchandise mailed in violation of subsection (a) of this section, or within the exceptions contained therein, may be treated as a gift by the recipient, who shall have the right to retain, use, discard, or dispose of it in any manner he sees fit without any obligation whatsoever to the sender. All such merchandise shall have attached to it a clear and conspicuous statement informing the recipient that he may treat the merchandise as a gift to him and has the right to retain, use, discard, or dispose of it in any manner he sees fit without any obligation whatsoever to the sender.
The American Institute of Physics - "Spooky Photons" May Break Miniaturization Barrier for Computers: some layperson-level details on the new theory that may one day soon allow optical lithography to create integrated circuit patterns that are smaller than half the wavelength of the light used. This "quantum interferometric optical lithography" uses "entangled" photons to get around the Rayleigh criterion. Do I understand this stuff? No. But it's good to see that there's a likely mechanism for continuing to put more and more transistors in less and less space. Long live Moore's law! [tbtf]
Ian Fried at CNET - Apple hit by lower sales; shares plunge: Wall Street pummeled Apple Computer in after hours trading yesterday. The price fell from its $53.50 close to $29.25. Time to buy? I watched Apple's stock price during the 5 years I worked there. Up and down. Up and down. Definitely not a good long term investment from where I'm sitting. Oops. Now I'll get the SEC on my case. Disclaimer: my stock experience is nil. Act on my advice in that department and you are a fool. [script]
James Ridgeway at the Village Voice - Atlas Rising: Mr. Ridgeway thinks that Harry Browne may tip the election to Gore. [lew]
Mark Steyn at the National Post - You just can't trust the polls, But you can conduct your own, if you have the right calling plan: Mr. Steyn conducts his own poll and concludes that Bush is way ahead in the electoral college. [lew]
The crazy guy who came up with that Newsweek poll last week with Gore 14 points ahead insisted he was right and it was the Rasmussen fellows, showing Bush with a slight lead, who were way off. He noted that Rasmussen's polling is conducted not by a human being but by an automated voice. He may have a point here. It could be that Rasmussen's polls tend to put Dubya ahead because their droning robot subliminably reminds voters of how annoying a Gore Presidency would be....
The reason for the lack of polls is the cost. It's true that it's very expensive to commission a poll. On the other hand, it's fairly cheap to conduct your own, as long as you've got the right calling plan. That being the case, this column is proud to announce the only daily electoral-college tracking poll in any Canadian newspaper. It's very scientific. All I've done is dial my own phone number in every other area code. If that number is unavailable, I try my fax number. The advantage of this system is that it's closer to the weighted votes of the electoral college than any other...
...
This tracking poll will be updated continuously until the election, and we'll see how my area-code system measures up against Gallup and Co. For the purposes of my next random sample, I'll be using the phone number of my plumber Gary.
Lew Rockwell at LewRockwell.com - The Rich Are National Treasures: Though most of them don't realize it, American's ultra-rich are the people who create our country's wealth. They are national treasures. [lew]
It is commonly believed -- even taught in business school -- that these people are "taking" from the community. Hence, they have a moral obligation to "give back" in the form of philanthropy and other forms of "community service." The problem here is not charity itself. Rich or poor, capitalist or worker, giving is always a good idea (whether that should be done at the expense of stockholders is a different issue). Indeed, American businessmen are the most generous in the world and are the foundation of the half-trillion dollar non-profit sector in the US.The trouble is the idea that charity should be a quid pro quo for making money. In truth, making money in a capitalist economy is identical to giving to the community. In a market economy, profits are an indication that one is serving one's fellow man. The richer you become in business, the more you have contributed to the betterment of humanity -- even if you are doing so for purely selfish reasons.
...
... The American business class, and in particular the richest 400, deserve our admiration and respect. If you doubt it, compare the magnificent achievements that led to their accumulation of $1.2 trillion with the deadweight loss and destruction of the $2 trillion the government will take in this year.
John Leo at townhall.com -
Sleeper effects of divorce affect children forever: a bad marriage
may be better for kids than a good divorce according to Judith
Wallerstein's new book,
The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A Twenty-Five Year Landmark Study. [lew]
Wallerstein's work undercuts the notion that divorce saves children by eliminating the open conflict of parents. She finds that kids generally tune out their parents' bitter quarrels and aren't much bothered by them. They don't much care whether their parents like each other or sleep in different beds. A cordial divorce doesn't help. The children just need parents to stay together.
I signed up for Barnes & Noble's affiliate program. The link to Ms. Wallerstein's book above will earn me money if you buy the book it points at. The Barnes & Noble affiliate web pages don't work in Opera. I had to use IE. Also, you need to register each pointer on the affiliate page and they ask you to use their HTML. What a pain. Amazon's is much easier: add your affilliate code to any link and presto, you're done. Maybe that's part of their patent, and that's why B&N makes it so much harder. Don't know.
Marc Mutz - Linux Encryption HOWTO: How to patch your Linux 2.2 kernel to encrypt your disk and network traffic. Added to the crypto section of my links page. [grabbe]
