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What you see there is basically the result of a century or so of “bolting on” new licenses due to changes in the market, rather than any concerted effort to look at whether or not the underlying laws or licenses make sense. It’s the result of massive regulatory capture, as industries unwilling to change just run to the gov’t and demand to be compensated even as their old business models are going away. At what point do people say it’s time to scrap this mess and start from scratch?

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“It’s an incredibly consistent effect,” [psychologist Dacher] Keltner says. “When you give people power, they basically start acting like fools. They flirt inappropriately, tease in a hostile fashion, and become totally impulsive.” Mr. Keltner compares the feeling of power to brain damage, noting that people with lots of authority tend to behave like neurological patients with a damaged orbito-frontal lobe, a brain area that’s crucial for empathy and decision-making. Even the most virtuous people can be undone by the corner office.

Radley Balko overturns a rock.

That’s right. A hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars spending bill made its way through Congress, and no one even noticed that the damn thing didn’t have a name. Which also means you can probably count on one hand the number of lawmakers who actually know what’s in the bill—and still have a finger left over to let them know what you think of this nonsense.

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Career guides try to distill jobs into basic components. “Work hard and get ahead.” “Be your own advocate.” That sort of thing.

But anyone who’s been in an office for a while knows that human interaction undermines those components. The real trick — and it takes a long time to learn this — is realizing the work system isn’t a system at all. It’s an arbitrary and ever-changing rule set that often pushes reason to the sidelines.

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But did he ever get any credit? Of course not.

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Case in point: Senator Patty Murray (D-Washington) said on the Senate floor that 3,000 teachers in Washington were in peril of being laid off. The truth is that only 445 teachers were notified they would lose their jobs. And almost all of them were hired back. Now that President Obama has signed the bill, Washington State will get $206 million in taxpayer money to save jobs that aren’t being lost.

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And that tells you just about everything you need to know about what’s wrong with the world today.

Freeberg trudges through the muck of the New York mosque affair.

The problem with that is, that if these people were as good at logical thought as they claimed to be, they’d not only recognize this as ad hominem but they’d recognize the reason  honest people frown on ad hom: It’s all bullshit because it’s all irrelevant. If you’re caught being wrong about something, it means — nothing. Intelligent people are wrong. Decent people are wrong. Honest people are wrong. You don’t have to wait long to see it happen.

Stupid people often turn out to be right. Let’s pause here and carefully define exactly what I’m saying: Glittering personal attributes are not reverse-barometers of good ideas. That would be a silly thing to say. They are irrelevant, or mostly irrelevant.

And so a sound debate will revolve around the ideas. Not the character of the people who are debating them.

Intelligent, honest people do not argue a point by shunning, and that is a primary characteristic of shunning — that it is contagious, that it cascades. This is how you know you are in the presence of an intellectual lightweight. You are to be shunned, whoever does not shun you shall be shunned, whoever does not shun he who failed to shun you, shall likewise be shunned. These are signs of a big mouth coupled up with a weak mind.

Politics have become contentious, because this has become our chosen technique for discussing them: ostracism, alienation, excoriation, derision, all of it spread by contact. And I blame our most strident liberals. I think that’s fair. And the “green light people” at the center of this particular issue, represent the most brilliant example of why I think this way. They have created the situation in which the rest of us are living, and we have been allowing them to create it.

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One of the more embarrassing mysteries of human evolution is that people are host to no fewer than three kinds of louse while most species have just one.

Even bleaker for the human reputation, the pubic louse, which gets its dates and residence-swapping opportunities when its hosts are locked in intimate embrace, does not seem to be a true native of the human body. Its closest relative is the gorilla louse. (Don’t even think about it.)

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“My thesis,” Boehm says, “is that egalitarianism does not result from the mere absence of hierarchy, as is commonly assumed. Rather, egalitarianism involves a very special type of hierarchy, a curious type that is based on antihierarchical feelings” (9-10). A society can have an “egalitarian hierarchy” in which the subordinates use sanctions–such as ridicule, disobedience, ostracism, or execution–to restrain “politically ambitious individuals, those with special learned or innate propensities to dominate.” In every society, there will be leaders in some form. But an egalitarian society will allow only “a moderate degree of leadership” (154).

He’s at it again.

50 years ago, Detroit was a thriving metropolis, the fourth largest city in America. It had no presentiments whatsoever of any imminent disaster. Today it is a burned-out ruin, more or less. This is the sort of objective phenomenon that, if you’re a student of history, you can’t help but try to explain.

When gentlemen look at progressivism, they see a movement whose purpose is to help the underclass, those whose plight is no fault of their own. When peasants look at progressivism, they see a movement whose purpose is to employ gentlemen in the business of public policy, by using the peasants’ money to buy votes from varlets. Who, in the peasants’ perception, abuse the patience and generosity of both peasants and gentlemen in almost every imaginable way, and are constantly caressed by every imaginable authority for doing so.

San Francisco’s public school system, which literally assigns children randomly around the city to aid in the great cause of social homogenization – a cause which makes the war in Afghanistan look like an unqualified success – causes immense headaches, costs or both to the very same social class which sets the public policies of San Francisco. Yet they accept it with hardly a murmur.

Peasants see a patron-client relationship between the gentlemen and the varlets – a relationship not at all unlike the late Roman relationship of clientela, where a patrician measured his social status by the vast army of plebeians that battened on his trenches. Again, what to the gentleman appears as a noble act of charity, compassion, etc, to the coarse and cynical peasant reveals itself as a purchase of political power, with his tax dollars if not his physical safety. Therefore a vision of the gallows arises in his hindbrain.

As Solzhenitsyn said, the line between good and evil runs through every human heart.

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Obama, it is clear, masqueraded as a synthesizer in order to gain power. He took advantage of America’s yearning for a president who will bridge our divisions. He never intended to be such a president. Rather, he intended to be the agent for one side of the debate — a side I think is properly viewed as the antithesis to the traditional American narrative that we are good country with a good economic system.

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It’s struck me in my studies that the Progressives and America’s Founding Fathers are on the polar extremes of two very important issues: the nature of man and the role of government. And if you’re coming from two diametrically opposite worldviews, it of course leads to opposite conclusions. The problems we face today are a direct result of the fact that Progressive beliefs and the Founders’ beliefs, as found in the Declaration and Constitution, are like oil and water: they will never mix.

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We can’t meaningfully discuss virtue without recourse to ideas of honor, for honor itself is grounded in the recognition of performed excellence. Achilles took the idea so seriously that he was willing to let the Achaeans be slaughtered rather than bear the offense. He was not unjustified in doing so, for Agamemnon’s actions overturned the whole social order. The destruction of the interconnection between virtue as a public excellence and honor as its rightful recognition exacts enormous social costs.

Where honor perfects virtue, it creates deep ties between the participants in a mutual social order. Honoring one’s parents is, after all, the only one of the 10 Commandments that carries with it a promise – in this case, the maintenance of a stable and enduring social order. It need not be thought of in patrician terms, and becomes inordinately difficult to sustain as the size of the social order expands.

The first is endemic to the Dutch immigrant community in which I was raised and in which I live. I suspect a similar phenomenon will exist in other subcultures. It goes by the name of “Dutch Bingo.” Whenever we find ourselves in conversation with someone with an obviously Dutch last name, we immediately attempt to seek out persons with whom we are mutually connected or, barring that, to discuss known public figures of the community and start tracing their various connections through birth and marriage. It is a fun game and fairly innocent. I am not without skill at it, but I recently spent a riveting afternoon in the company of two true virtuosos. One of these virtuosi, a keen observer of human behavior, smartly pointed out to me that such games become more important as group identity becomes more fragile or threatened through assimilation. It holds off anonymity, and perhaps even anomie. The benefits of the game are obvious, and the costs seem low. No one is really harmed by such conversations.

People in the military do this habitually. The first thing one does at a new duty station is start finding out who you know that your new shipmates also know. (If you’ve been in for three our four years, you’ll only be about two or three degrees of separation away from anyone in your specialty.) It even works in civilian life — when I arrived at Indiana for law school I met a guy in the University Science Fiction club who had just gotten out; he had been on the Yarnell, the usual Task Group escort for my ship, the Kennedy, and his LPO had been a First Class ET who had been my LPO on the Kennedy. It’s a small world, if you let it be.

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The author of ‘Talk Like A Pirate Day’ displays his genius once again.

It seems a bit strange to me that the media carefully warn about and label any content that involves sex, violence or strong language — but there’s no similar labelling system for, say, sloppy journalism and other questionable content.

I figured it was time to fix that, so I made some stickers.

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The Crust take care of their own.

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He’s the victim, you see. Nick Green was just minding his own business, cheerfully ignoring the congressional election that he’s paid to cover, blowing off the Republican challenger’s campaign as too insignificant to merit his attention and then — without notice or warning — somebody called him on it.

Sucks to be you, doesn’t it, Nick?

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The Wall Street Journal’s Greater New York section has a dispatch  reporting on a $150 million interior renovation at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York: “Many of the latest changes were made to accommodate the addition of 600 Fed employees, hired after the financial crisis began to work in the markets group helping to stimulate the economy.”

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Well, considering how sheep appear to have taken over America, can The Shire be that far behind?

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A Connecticut-based law firm, Scott + Scott, filed a shareholder derivative suit in Santa Clara County Superior Court in California on Tuesday against H-P’s board, alleging directors violated their fiduciary duties in connection with the events surrounding the resignation on Friday of Hurd.

Among other things, the 45-page suit alleges that H-P’s board violated its corporate-governance guidelines by failing to inform shareholders of the investigation. It also attacks details of Mr. Hurd’s exit package, which is estimated at above $35 million.

All this is rather odd. Considering how dramatically he turned the company around, I should think it more appropriate for shareholders to sue the Board for firing him, since the actual transgressions determined were pretty trivial. But that’s me.

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One of the primary documents [pdf] used in the Holy Land Foundation trial in 2008 was the “Explanatory Memorandum: On the General Strategic Goal for the Group”. It was written on May 22, 1991 by Mohamed Akram, and gave a brief description of the mission of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States:

The process of settlement is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with all the means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions. […] It is a Muslim’s destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is…The above is a clear declaration that the front organizations of the Muslim Brotherhood — CAIR, ISNA, ICNA, NAIT, MSA, IIIT, etc. — intended to “bore from within” and overthrow American constitutional government by subverting our own institutions.

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When I interviewed him for my column this week, Fraternal Order of Policy Executive Director Jim Pasco differentiated citizen-shot video from police dash cam and surveillance video this way:

How do you know the video hasn’t been edited? How do we know what’s in the video hasn’t been taken out of context? With dashboard cameras or police security video, the evidence is in the hands of law enforcement the entire time, so it’s admissible under the rules of evidence. That’s not the case with these cell phone videos.

Pasco may be right about the potential for citizen-shot video to be edited, though from what I understand that’s pretty easy to detect. The problem with Pasco’s statement is that there are too many stories where dash cam and surveillance camera video has gone missing, particularly in cases where there’s alleged police misconduct.

Freeberg lays ’em down.

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Mariam Ghorbanzadeh, 25, who was six months’ pregnant and miscarried after being beaten up in Tabriz prison this week, was initially sentenced to death by stoning for adultery but her sentence has been commuted to hanging in a rapid judicial review. The decision is thought to have been driven by the Iranian authorities’ desire to avoid further international condemnation over the barbaric punishment.

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On the other hand, the linchpin is the one that often shears under pressure. Take whatever action you deem appropriate.

Linchpin is all about doing remarkable work. One way to do that  is by being creative. Left to our own devices, we tend to do things that are well within normal. Looking at things creatively, on the other hand, opens up a world of new possibilities.

Few are more creative than a lazy person avoiding work. A word to the wise….

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Roman charioteers earned far more than even the best-paid footballers and international sports stars of today, according to academic research.

Hey, tenure doesn’t grow on trees, you know.

Darwin Award nominee.

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Coming soon to an XBox 360 near you.

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In 2008 a one-car accident killed a Mansfield, Mass. 19-year-old and her 20-year-old friend; their car hit a tree. Now a lawyer for the passenger’s family has sued the town of Foxboro and the Kraft Group, saying the operators of the New England Country Music Festival did not do enough to deter underage drinking in the parking lot outside Gillette Stadium.

‘Our kids won a Darwin Award because they were too stupid not to drink and drive, so it’s your fault that we were bad parents, and we’re going to sue.’ Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

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Of course, from his name, Abuelazam, anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell that he’s an Arab, and probably a Muslim; to call him an Israeli, although possibly technically correct, is the sort of tone-deaf misdirection that is the hallmark of the Lame Stream Media these days.

More here.

Freeberg lays it out.

8. He’s not in touch with his “feminine side” and does not wish to be.

17. He will take a bullet for the ones he loves. He knows who they are, and if the time comes, he’ll be there.

22. He does not drive his kids to school. His kids know how to do things, including how to get themselves to school.

24. He knows how to spell things. He knows how to use punctuation. He knows his homophones and homonyms. He has mastered the complexity of “it’s”.

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Nothing is more common than a combination of businesses using government to exclude competition through regulation and licensing laws; ask anybody who wants to drive a cab in New York city. This is just another tiresome example of the same.

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Apparently not.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has been cracking down on efforts to disqualify potential hires with criminal records or bad credit history, arguing that the practice can be tantamount to discrimination, as such applicants are disproportionately black or Latino.

And whose fault is that? Not the employer’s; he has to make his best judgment on the information available to him.

The EEOC indicated its disapproval of such practices last fall, when it it filed a class-action discrimination lawsuit against Dallas-based Freeman Companies, an events planning firm. The EEOC alleged that Freeman Companies used credit history and criminal records to discriminate against against blacks, Hispanics and males.

This is Yet Another Stupid Bureaucracy at work.

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Speaking for the first time since the attack, the Afghan told how several of the charity workers tried to hide under vehicles but were gunned down or hit with grenades as they fled.

When the eight aid workers and two Afghans had been killed, the attackers told associates over a radio: “Everything’s finished. We killed them.”

Two of the three women in the team, which included the British medic, Dr Karen Woo, 36, jumped into the 4×4 vehicle to try to escape but were killed by a grenade.

One-by one the rest of the group were shot, included the team’s cook who was hiding under a car.

Safiullah told investigators the lead gunman spoke like a Pakistani.

Despite the safe-passage the British had been granted, they were attacked by Ghilzai warriors as they struggled through the snowbound passes.

Looks like things haven’t changed very much in 150 years:

On 1 January 1842, following some unusual thinking by Elphinstone, which may have had something to do with the poor defensibility of the cantonment, an agreement was reached that provided for the safe exodus of the British garrison and its dependants from Afghanistan. Five days later, the withdrawal began. The departing British contingent numbered around 16,000, of which about 4,500 were military personnel, and over 12,000 were civilian camp followers. The military force consisted mostly of Indian units and one British battalion, 44th Regiment of Foot.

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A Jewish Telegraphic Agency dispatch  from Washington provides a fascinating look at how government programs turn religious and non-profit groups into partners of the government: “President Obama signed an extension of vital Medicaid funding, which was a top priority of the Jewish community….The six-month extension of FMAP had been a priority of the Jewish Federations of North America, as 60 cents on every dollar of public revenue brought in by the federations or their partner agencies comes from Medicaid. Nearly $6 billion per year in government aid goes to Jewish hospitals, nursing homes, Jewish Family Service outposts and other social service agencies through Medicaid….The FMAP money will prevent cuts that could have cost the Jewish community $150 million to $200 million in social services funding.”

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‘You’re not paid to think.’ seems to be the foundation stone for government employment.

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A 15 year-old in New Zealand was told to hand back her beauty pageant crown after posting a photo of herself with dyed brown hair on Facebook.

Hadn’t know that there was that much stupidity in New Zealand. Her dyed hair is the same color as mine and I’ve been called blond as long as I can remember.

Miss O’Neil told Ms Osborne it was not a wig and she had dyed her hair.

She added that if she wasn’t allowed to dye her hair then beauty pageants might not be for her.

Ms Osborne responded by telling the 15 year-old to choose between the hair dye and her title.

She said: “Well you better decide, miss. Hand over your crown with an attitude like that. I’m sure someone will step into your place with manners.”

Ms Osborne also told the teenager that she would not go far in the world.

Just looking at Olivia’s picture, I suggest that, however far she goes in the world, it will be farther than Ms Osborne. Miley Cyrus should look that good.

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I’m opening a book on how long it takes before some American flies an airliner into it.

Unfortunately, the irony would be lost on the entire ruling class of the Western world, to say nothing of the Dar al-Islam.

In convenient graphical form.

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I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked.

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The pictures follow Sir Elton’s decision to perform at Limbaugh’s wedding to his fourth wife Kathryn Rogers, 33, in June, reportedly for a $1 million (£690,000) fee.

Ah, the dulcet sounds of blue-state heads exploding on both Left Coasts.

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

Actually, the first step is ‘Don’t get on a plane.’ But you knew that.