Wow, scientists “discover” something that anyone who’s ever had a dog would think is painfully obvious.
What’s next? New study reveals, unexpectedly, that when dogs are startled or angry they make a sort of barking noise?
Archive | December, 2008
Lawyers Without Borders
Did Stephan Kinsella just endorse open borders? Stephan’s past self must be turning over in his … temporal part?
Cato Institute Publishes Leftist Screed!, Pars Nona
More from Stephan Kinsella here and here, and another reply from Kevin Carson here.
It’s frustrating not to be able to jump in here yet (especially since Stephan’s and Peter Klein’s interpretations of my position have grown increasingly strange, and I want to grouse about it in detail) but I’m surrounded by stacks of term papers and final exams right now ….
Gritty Realism in Cinema
Check out the trailer for Chandni Chowk to China, an insanely strange and silly but oddly-appealing-in-a-WTF?-kinda-way fusion of Hong Kong martial-arts movie and Indian musical comedy, about a poor Delhi street vendor who becomes convinced he’s the reincarnation of an ancient Chinese 
warrior. Gordon Liu seems to be playing a cross between Yul Brynner and the hat-throwing guy from Goldfinger.
Another film that looks like it might be fun is this Ocean’s-Eleven-esque-looking film Duplicity. Any preview that starts out in front of the Pantheon automatically biases me in its favour. Seeing Clive Owen as an MI6 agent makes me wonder how he’d play James Bond ….
Don’t Know Much About Economics…
Guest Blog by Jennifer McKitrick
[cross-posted at Jen Mc’s Blog]
Don’t Know Much About Economics…
But as far as I can figure…
The plan of the Trouble Asset Relief Program is that the US government borrows money from China so that they can lend it to banks so banks can lend it to consumers/taxpayers.
(China should just open up banks in the US and lend directly to consumers. Cut out the middle men! Especially ones that spend the money on spa retreats for their clients.)
So basically, the government is putting taxpayers in debt so that money can be lent to same taxpayers, with interest.
If enough taxpayers pay back the bank, the bank can pay the government, and the government can pay back China, and if there’s any left over, it will “benefit the taxpayer,” whatever that means.
(Another short cut: If you really want to benefit the taxpayer, reduce the amount that they have to pay on their loans now, rather than giving them a promise of a cut of the profits made off their own interest payments.)
Now, if not enough taxpayers pay their loans, the bank can’t pay back the government, but the government still has to pay back China, so where will they get the money? From taxpayers! Which taxpayers? The ones who were unable or unwilling to pay their loans? Unlikely. For the others (and subsequent generations), after they’re done paying back any money that they may have borrowed, they still have to pay back the money that someone else borrowed. That sounds less like being financially responsible and more like being a sucker.
Another thing…
If the Big 3 are good for the money, why can’t they get regular loans?
Credit is tight, I know. But the government already gave billions to financial institutions so they could make loans. I guess the banks figure they shouldn’t risk the taxpayer’s money that way. That would be irresponsible!
But what do I know?
Jennifer McKitrick is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, and Vice-President of the Molinari Institute and Molinari Society.
No Ideas, No Ideas, No Ideas, No Ideas, No Ideas, No Ideas, No Ideas, No Ideas, No Ideas, No Ideas
Okay, so I know that Britney Spears’ popularity has never had anything to do with the poetic content of her lyrics. Even so, the chorus to her latest hit (possibly NSFW, depending on where you work) seems to flaunt lack of imagination as a virtue. (I love how they flash the title at the end of the video, just in case you were in any doubt as to what the name of the song was.)