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Thanks to lobbying, Congress chooses to subsidize foods that we’re supposed to eat less of.

‘Crony capitalism’ trumps ideology. My, what a shocker.

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Notice that British Princes are no longer going into the Royal Navy….

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Any country that lets Muslims cross its border is insane.

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As, indeed, you might expect.

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Most of them once members of the Soviet Politburo….

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Well, if their co-religionists would quit blowing people up, they wouldn’t have that problem, would they?

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Read it.

“It’s an interesting thing, though because … It’s fun that you bring that up because I can kind of give some insight into development and how games are made. When you actually put in female characters, typically you have to put in an entire new skeleton model and that entire new skeleton model adds an entire new level of animation and an entire new level of rigging. You basically double the amount of data and memory for soldiers that would need to go into your game.

“So it turns into one of those things that’s like: How much will putting something like this in give us, whether the rewards of putting something like this in [are worth it]. The reward has to match what you have to give up somewhere else.

Much like real life. Fortunately game designers, unlike us, can decide ‘No, it’s more trouble than it’s worth.’

Read it.

How hard is it to grasp that if you raise the price of something, people buy less of it? Six-year-olds understand that; many professors and legislators, alas, do not.

May? Damned straight will.

Nearly two years later, the governor’s ambitious plan to reclaim the river of grass, as the famed wetlands are known, is instead on track to rescue the fortunes of United States Sugar.

United States Sugar dictated many of the terms of the deal as state officials repeatedly made decisions against the immediate needs of the Everglades and the interests of taxpayers, an examination of thousands of state e-mail messages and records and more than 60 interviews showed.

When a “fairness opinion” commissioned by the state found that those appraisals had overvalued the land by $400 million, Florida officials orchestrated a public relations campaign to discredit the findings, internal e-mail showed. Appraisers from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which was required to sign off on the deal, were also cut out of the process after raising concerns, e-mail messages showed.

Sure, we want government employees in charge of our health care. What a brilliant idea.

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Let that be a lesson to us all.

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Increasing innovation and economic growth is absolutely key — but such things do displace people and jobs, and those people will fight like hell to have the government protect those jobs, and will become angry when the government fails to do so, and that can create social unrest and populist political movements that do more harm than good. But those movements aren’t necessarily driven by the same people that Manzi was discussing earlier as “have nots.” In fact, many of those movements are often engineered by the “haves” who are seeking to just have the government prop up their existing markets in the face of competition driven by innovation.

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I just got interesting email from Amazon: the Colorado government recently enacted a law to impose sales tax regulations on online retailers […] We and many others strongly opposed this legislation, known as HB 10-1193, but it was enacted anyway. Regrettably, as a result of the new law, we have decided to stop advertising through Associates based in Colorado. We plan to continue to sell to Colorado residents, however, and will advertise through other channels, including through Associates based in other states. The message goes on to say that they’ll pay out all the money they owe me but I won’t earn any more money for referring people to them.

This reminds me of the complaint by the Beggar at the beginning of Fiddler on a Roof:

‘Here’s one kopek.’
‘One kopek? Last week you gave me two kopeks.’
‘I had a bad week.’
‘So you had a bad week – why should I suffer?’

Read it.

I have my doubts.

Check it out.

137 years of Popular Science, online.

Steve Sailer speaks wisdom.

Going to the movies has been one of the few things that hasn’t gotten more complicated. Seemingly everything else in my life has gotten complicated due to the number of choices available to me. I hate choices.

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The great mystery of the health care debate is why liberals, who don’t trust doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies or insurers, trust Congress and federal bureaucrats.

Perhaps because they’re on the same side?

Read it.

A new book has claimed that Robin Hood was not as selfless as he is often depicted, suggesting he stole from the rich and lent money to the poor as an early kind of loan shark.

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As the glamour of Barack Obama fades, Americans are likely to turn to entirely different presidential candidates next time, argues Toby Harnden in Washington.

Karl Rove? John Hodgman?

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The welfare state cannot be deliberately scaled back by the politicians allegedly in control of it. It can only collapse.

A new word.

O•ba•ma•lar•key (n.):

Rhetorical defense of a dumbass idea, offered by subtly re-directing the discourse from the merits and weaknesses of the idea itself, toward the appealing but meaningless attributes of the personality most prominently associated with it.

Read it. And watch the video.

The evidence of my senses tells me that being for this President, has something to do with monopolizing the conversation. It’s not true of all of Obama’s supporters, of course, but there is certainly a correlation there: “I’m not here to debate your or check your facts, I’m here to throw them down the memory hole.”

But being an Obama supporter seems to have a lot to do with shut-uppery.

Read it.

Using fossil fuel in vehicles is better for the environment than so-called green fuels made from crops, according to a government study seen by The Times.

The findings show that the Department for Transport’s target for raising the level of biofuel in all fuel sold in Britain will result in millions of acres of forest being logged or burnt down and converted to plantations. The study, likely to force a review of the target, concludes that some of the most commonly-used biofuel crops fail to meet the minimum sustainability standard set by the European Commission.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Jerry Pournelle asks some pointed questions.

“You want me to pay more taxes so that your tuition will be lower. What are you learning that will benefit me? What is it you intend to do that will make my investment worth while?”

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Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

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Don’t ever say that we don’t have useful stuff here.

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There are two million civilian federal workers. 1.1 million of them have direct private sector equivalents. And they are laughing their asses off at those private sector suckers, who are doing similar jobs for less pay—often a lot less.

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We invented the federal Highway Trust Fund in 1956, promising motorists and truckers that all proceeds from a new federal gas tax would be spent on building the interstate system. They aren’t. Congress has expanded federal highway spending beyond interstates to all types of roadways. And ever since 1982, a portion of those “highway user taxes” have been diverted to urban transit. Today, the federal role in transportation includes mandating sidewalks, funding bike paths, and creating scenic trails.

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Except, of course, that there isn’t any such thing as ‘Palestinian’; these are Arabs, specifically Muslims.

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Sometimes the old ways are best.

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Quite a lot, according to rabid right-wing Tea-Party activist Larry Summers — oh, wait….

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So standards still exist. I am amazed.

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An online dictionary to explain the opaque terms and phrases – or “edubabble” – used by educationalists has been developed to help parents, students and even confused teachers.

Read it.

10. Anytime Obama calls on Congress, they see it’s him through caller ID and let it go to voice mail.

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Q: Why is it called the OED? Why not just say Oxford English Dictionary?

A: Simple. If you say “OED,” everybody knows you’re an English major. If you say “Oxford English Dictionary,” people will assume you’re in Engineering.

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I may have to set up a new category: Politics, Chicago-Style

The White House is denying that its nomination of Scott Matheson for U.S. Circuit Court Judge has anything to do with the fact that his brother, Congressman Jim Matheson, is on the fence when it comes to supporting the President’s health care reform proposal.

And if you believe that one, they’ll tell you another one.

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Just think of these people in charge of your health care.

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Tremendomeatatarianism  is the ethical stance of vowing only to eat meat that’s tremendously delicious.

Sign me up.

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The traditional British chip is already thicker  –  and therefore healthier  –  than the French fries served by big fast-food chains.

Despite this, officials from the Food Standards Agency watchdog are encouraging chip shop owners to produce even thicker versions, much like potato wedges.

Check it out.

Read it.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

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The problem, of course, is what happens when you actually open these up to regulatory interference. Suddenly, they become political footballs. We’ve seen this with copyright, where it’s become a case of regulatory capture — laws are pushed to protect entrenched interests, rather than to support what copyright is supposed to do (promoting the progress).

Read it.

Read it.

“Moringa oleifera is a vegetable tree which is grown in Africa, Central and South America, the Indian subcontinent, and South East Asia. It could be considered to be one of the world’s most useful trees,” says Michael Lea, a Canadian water-purification researcher. “Perhaps most importantly, its seeds can be used to purify drinking water at virtually no cost.”

Read it.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Me want.

Jacob Sullum looks at healthy living and the scientific method.

The failure of the subsidies (an idea championed by anti-fat crusaders such as Kelly Brownell) is not surprising, since people do not buy Doritos and ice cream because they are cheaper than broccoli and brown rice. As for the success of the taxes, the enthusiasm of health nannies should be tempered by the fact that the experiment was highly artificial, since the subjects were not spending real money on real food.