A Good and Bad Finish to 2010

The good news is that I just finished up a couple of days skiing at Okemo and Killington with the kids. The bad news is that the Georgia Bulldogs ended a miserable season with a pathetic loss to a mediocre University of Central Florida Team. We got home in time to watch the 4th quarter, [...]

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Fight over For-Profit Colleges Shows the Corrupting Influence of Federal Subsidies

The invaluable Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner is an expert at exposing the corruption of big government, and his article about for-profit colleges and government-subsidized tuition shows that everybody involved in this fight is sleazy. Unfortunately, no matter who wins, the taxpayers lose. It’s also worth pointing out that the main effect of government-financed [...]

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Something for the Terrorists to Think About

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Government-Run Healthcare Can Be Emasculating…Literally

Courtesy of Powerline Blog, we have a story about how Sweden’s bureaucratic health system made a mistake and…well, I’m not sure how to delicately phrase this…so let’s just give you the headline of the story: “Man’s penis amputated following misdiagnosis.” Here are some of the details from a news report about the incident. The man, [...]

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The Incest Edition of “You Be the Judge”

We have a heavy “ick” factor today. Our previous thorny legal posts have involved vigilante justice and a rather gruesome application of (what I assume to be) Sharia law. Our question today is whether government should have laws against incest for people over age 18, and we’re discussing this because Switzerland is considering a law [...]

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Obamanomics vs. Reaganomics

Previous posts on this blog have featured charts showing that Obama’s policies are not working (see here and here). I even showed a cartoon making the same point.And I cited a column with data comparing Reagan and Obama. The Heritage Foundation has a very powerful addition to this genre, a chart comparing job performance during [...]

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Mocking the TSA with Humor

I was thinking of doing a serious post about the TSA, especially after reading about the government’s petty and reprehensible attack on the pilot who exposed the bureaucracy’s absurdly inconsistent security rules. I also noticed a story about a 56-year old former rape victim who was arrested because she refused to let TSA bureaucrats grope [...]

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Why Can’t We Copy those Radical Free-Market Canadians and Privatize the Air Traffic Control System?

Like most federal agencies, the Federal Aviation Administration is a costly bureaucracy. Its $16.4 billion budget is enormous, but that is just the direct cost borne by taxpayers. The indirect costs, such as inefficiencies imposed on the air transportation system, also are significant. This has nothing to do with the TSA, by the way. The [...]

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The Prize for the Most Bizarre Example of Government Regulation? Japan’s Licensing Rules for Providing Coffee Enemas

Too bad the gift-giving season is already over. Thanks to this story about three men who were arrested by Japanese police for providing coffee enemas without regulatory approval, I now know that I could have purchased a “rectal infusion kit” for only $110. But since Senator Reid will still be around next Christmas, let’s focus [...]

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Want to Know How Social Security Works?

A picture says a thousand words.

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Some Good News on Education

You wouldn’t expect any positive developments from California when it comes to schooling, but this video shows that parents now have the ability, for all intents and purposes, to fire the incumbent management of a government school. I don’t think this is nearly as good as what’s being proposed in Douglas County, Colorado, but it’s [...]

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According to Census Data, People Vote with their Feet for Less Government

The world is a laboratory and different nations are public policy experiments. Not surprisingly, the evidence from these experiments is that nations with more freedom tend to grow faster and enjoy more prosperity. Nations with big governments, by contrast, are more likely to suffer from stagnation. The same thing happens inside the United States. The [...]

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The European Union’s War on Christmas (and War on Taxpayers)

The contest between the United States and Europe for dumb public policy is always hard to judge. The Europeans tend to make more policy mistakes, though Obama certainly is giving them some stiff competition. America, by contrast, is prone to really inane bouts of political correctness. But perhaps the Europeans are catching up in that [...]

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Merry Christmas from Ben Bernanke

The Chairman of the Federal Reserve is such a swell guy, but you already would know that if you saw his Facebook page. Well, thanks to his “QE2 plan,” he’s giving the rest of us a very thoughtful Christmas present. To be fair, I suppose it should be noted that Bernanke’s policy isn’t necessarily a [...]

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Even Santa Claus Is Having a Tough Time with Uncle Sam

Merry Christmas to all. Let’s hope Santa returns next year, notwithstanding all the hassle of dealing with government.

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Local Government Stupidity Contest

This post could be entitled, “So many dumb bureaucrats, so little time,” but let’s have some fun and turn it into a contest. Which bone-headed decision by a local government best exemplifies mindless bureaucracy, politically correct nonsense, and government waste? Contestant Number One is Sgt Brian Albert of the Baltimore County Natural Resources Police, who [...]

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Talking about Earmarks and the “Carousel of Corruption” on Taxpayer-Subsidized Radio

Since I’m involuntarily forced to finance National Public Radio, I guess I should be happy that free-market views occasionally are allowed on air. Click here to listen to a segment where I talk about earmarks, “phonemarks,” and special interest corruption in Washington. The risky part of a pre-recorded interview is that you never know what [...]

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Time to See Whether “International Liberty” Really Is “International”

I’ve added a “flag counter” to gauge whether this blog is fulfilling, in at least a small way, its original mission of serving as a useful platform in the global fight for liberty. I try to cover international developments in the battle against statism, but the majority of posts inevitably are about developments in the [...]

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I Don’t Know Whether this Should Be Called Jury Pre-Nullification, but It’s Great to See Americans Refuse to Enforce Bad Law

Nullification occurs when jurors refuse to find a defendant guilty because the underlying law is unjust (visit the Fully Informed Jury Association if you want more details). And if I ever wind up on a jury and the government was trying to throw someone in jail for a victimless crime, I certainly hope I would [...]

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A Janet Napolitano Romance Novel

There’s an unconfirmed rumor that Wiki-Leaks got hold of a romance novel being written by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. I don’t want to get the folks at Harlequin upset with me, so I can only share a small excerpt from one of the chapters. He grasped me firmly but gently just [...]

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From Policy Wonk to Hollywood Star

Okay, perhaps the title of this post is a slight exaggeration, but I make my debut on the silver screen early next year. One of my softball buddies asked me to play a small role in an independent film called “Adams Morgan.” I wondered whether I would wind up on the editing room floor, but [...]

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California: From Golden State to Welfare State

Here are a few predictions for next year. It will be hot in Dallas in July, it will be cold in Stockholm in February, and Governor Jerry Brown of California will ask Uncle Sam for some sort of bailout. I’m actually not sure about the first two predictions, but I think the last one is [...]

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No Matter What You Think about Home Schooling, this Video Is Funny

One of the few success stories in American education is the home-schooling movement. About two million kids are being taught by their parents and the evidence is overwhelming that these students get a far better education than children in government schools. And since my youngest kid was home schooled for a couple of years, I [...]

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John Galt Tells Oregon Politicians to Screw Off

The Oregon Ducks will compete for the national championship early next month, so they’ve had a good season. Unfortunately, Oregon’s government isn’t doing nearly so well. Politicians approved a big tax hike on those bad, evil rich people in 2009, and Oregon’s spite-filled voters approved that measure earlier this year. So how’s is Oregon’s class-warfare [...]

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Two Cheers for Governor Christie

While I think of myself as being in favor of harsh punishment for criminals, I try to restrain this bloodthirsty impulse by remembering that many laws are unjust, all governments are incompetent, and prosecutors often place personal ambition above justice. And the last point is why I worry about electing people like Rudy Giuliani to [...]

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Discussing the Tax Deal on Bloomberg TV

Appearing on Bloomberg TV, I pontificate about the good, the bad, and the ugly in the recent tax deal. I also make what I hope are good points about the Laffer Curve and the meaning of deficits. The video won’t embed, but just click below and you can watch it on youtube. As always, feedback [...]

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Why Does Friedrich Hayek Get all the Girls Instead of Me?

This doesn’t have the production quality of the Hayek-Keynes rap video, and it presumably won’t get as many views, but this young lady has a very clever love song for Friedrich Hayek. (h/t Instapundit)

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A Not-Safe-for-Work Obamacare Joke

Since not everyone appreciates naughty humor, you’ll have to click on thumbnail to read this joke. But be forewarned that it is R-rated. Some of you may recognize this as a modified version of an old HMO joke, but it definitely makes sense in this context. Here’s somethings similar from an earlier post, for those [...]

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Who Needs Krugman, Summers, and the San Francisco Fed When You Have a Ramirez Cartoon?

I don’t now why I bothered spending all that time perusing the writings of Paul Krugman and Larry Summers in order to produce my previous blog post when this Michael Ramirez cartoon makes the same point in a much simpler way.

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Why Do Democrats (and Republicans) Want More Unemployment?

The two main political parties are sniping at each other about the just-concluded tax deal, largely because Republicans are happy and Democrats are displeased that all of the 2001/2003 tax cuts are being extended for all taxpayers. Almost nobody is paying attention to the new spending that is in the agreement, however, most notably the [...]

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