Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Education, Government Gone Wild on Feb 15th, 2021
“White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that Biden’s goal is for more than 50% of schools to have “some teaching” in person “at least one day a week” – not necessarily fully reopened – by Day 100 of his presidency.” We are living in a failed state. Have a nice day. My prediction […]
Posted in Central Planning, Environment, Unintended Consequences on Jan 27th, 2021
So, many drink companies have replaced their plastic straws with paper ones. No biggie I guess, I don’t use straws. But for some, the other benefit of a plastic straw seems to have been that it is easier to jam a hard plastic straw through a rigid lid than a floppy paper straw. One of […]
Posted in ethical foundations, Socialism on Jan 23rd, 2021
A lovely story: To generate “settlers,” the government reinstated the hated system of domestic passports that had been banned after the 1917 Bolshevik coup. Almost immediately, police throughout the country began rounding up anyone found in a place other than where they were registered. … He was a miner from Novokuznetsk. Married, with two children. […]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Price Controls, Racism and Anti-racism on Jan 20th, 2021
If (when) Biden’s $15 national minimum wage causes disparate unemployment outcomes of black teens vs white teens, will we strike it down as racist policy? Remember, Kendi tells us that a policy is either racist or anti-racist. We would hope that we distinguish results from intent. Doing the empirical work here is the bread-and-butter of […]
Posted in Central Planning, Environment, If I Really Hated the Poor ..., Special Privilege on Jan 18th, 2021
One of the desirable features of a nuclear power plant, particularly in an age when we are told that climate change is the greatest risk that faces humankind, is that once constructed, the marginal electricity generated by the plant emits zero emissions of noxious gases and of course the global warming causing carbon dioxide. So, […]
Posted in Disingenuous, Environment, Fun Facts on Jan 15th, 2021
How many people were killed from the radiation fallout of the Fukushima Nuclear incident? … ZERO. Here is Robert Bryce: In 2013, the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation released a report on Fukushima, which found that “no radiation-related deaths have been observed among nearly 25,000 workers involved at the accident site. […]
Posted in Environment on Jan 15th, 2021
In Cohocton. The Starbucks Rule, so to speak, is the idea (as reported in Business Week over a decade ago) that wind developers put projects in areas that are at least 30 miles away from the nearest Starbucks. Why? If the wind mills were sited any closer, there would be too much NIMBYism about the […]
Posted in Environment, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Jan 14th, 2021
You can’t just toss around the term “renewables,” it has no meaning. It really doesn’t. In addition to it having no meaning, the term is often conflated with “good” which again doesn’t follow from the definition. In any case, in today’s episode, this is your reminder that if you want to have intermittent and poorly […]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Environment, If I Really Hated the Poor ..., You Can't Have it Both Ways on Jan 13th, 2021
Solar powered trash cans do not pass the smell test. It is claimed that by installing solar panels on a bulky trash can that landfill space is saved and that maybe carbon emissions are reduced. Of course, the places that purchase and use these trash cans seem to not actually measure whether these trash cans […]
Posted in Environment, Family on Dec 26th, 2020
My father-in-law’s home was, for many many years, heated by coal. (In my own apartment in NYC, we had oil heat, which I contend is no better). The job of the coal delivery driver was not at all fun. He had to muscle and finagle an enormous truck close enough to the house so that […]