Author: Dave

But I’m still a bit worried about the 64K memory chip manufacturers. Seriously, though: he actually told them to stop writing checks? I also didn’t see any concern over rating agencies, end of the world, etc.  Hmmm.

Notably absent from both Krugman’s and this post about deficits and debt: spending numbers.  Federal spending more than doubled between 2000 and 2009. Total gov’t spending is now at ~40% of GDP, which has destroyed any hope of growing our way out of this mess (yes, the GOP deserves lots of blame for this too)…

Over at Ace of Spades, re medical marijuana being legalized in New Jersey: As I wrote I just no longer have any interest in using the coercive power of the state to impose my personal preferences on recreational drug use on anyone else. Well said. I think this sort of law winds up undermining respect…

How could this possibly have gone unnoticed? What’s scary is that this was really really obvious fraud. Apparently the bar for successfully defrauding taxpayers is appallingly low. There must be thousands of cases where the perpetrators weren’t this stupid about it and so evaded detection. Yet another concrete example of why GDP growth is negatively…

From Glenn: LEFTISM DEFINED? “He prefers the inequality that comes from a government hierarchy, over inequality that comes from voluntary trade.” I always figure that people who feel this way do so because they think they’re better at sucking up to authority figures than at creating value on their own. And my guess is, they’re…

I somehow nearly missed this Tyler Cowen crushing of the argument that Fannie and Freddie did not play a major part in driving the financial crisis: 1. It is not denied that the mortgage agencies were guaranteeing about half of all U.S. mortgages right before the crisis (Yet somehow they had not so much to…

So, I’ve been following the debt-limit debate fairly closely, especially at Megan’s, and I’m struck by two claims that have virtually no basis in reality but have  somehow achieved a strange ubiquity. First is the notion that reaching the debt limit means default.  In fact, not only are revenues are about ten times interest payments,…

James Taranto, one of the web’s best writers and clearest thinkers, on drug legalization: Since we live in the real world and not Libertarianland, it’s unreasonable to think that legalization of drugs would not result in at least some of the sort of government expansion of the sort Greenwald desires. Thus we continue to lean…

Obama’s down 8 to a generic Republican …among registered voters.  He’s down 10 among indepenents, so he’s probably down ~12 among likelies.  Wow. That’s a lot of ground to make up while the economy slips into recession under the weight of his Keynesian/statist policy failures.  I’m not sure he even understands the effect of PPACA, stricter enviromental…

Let’s be realistic:  contra Michael Tomasky, Michele Bachmann can’t possibly be elected President of the United States. She doesn’t pal around with terrorists, have a racist pastor as her spiritual adviser, a card-carrying Communist as her mentor, an illegal immigrant aunt, a property she purchased with the help of a convicted felon political fixer, or…

I’m pretty sure Glenn suggested the 50% surtax on people leaving gov’t for the private sector at least partly in jest, but the more I think about the idea the more it seems to deserve serious consideration. There is a huge problem in Washington with regulatory capture; it affects everything from Fannie and Freddie to…

Iowahawk tweeted the POTUS during the town hall, but responses were not forthcoming. Sample queries: Let’s say instead of winning the future, we end up in a tie. Do we then go to sudden death overtime? Would you get tougher with Iran if you knew they were working with Scott Walker? My own questions of…

I think it is unconscionably cruel of Mediaite to make Rick Sanchez publicly humiliate himself with a column this way. I mean, come on guys. Have mercy. He was fired from CNN, and he’s probably really sorry about the paralyzed kid he ran over and the whole “Jews control the media” thing. Let the poor…

As an addendum to Eric’s post below, here’s some quoteworthy snark making its way across the intertubes: “It’s a good thing Syria has gun control; otherwise the citizen-slaughtering troops could get hurt.” It’s noteworthy that in both cases, security officials want those being gunned down defenseless and dependent.

A lot of libertarians, including Glenn, are taking note of this graph: Huzzah! …but, notice that most of the movement is on the question of whether the government is currently doing too much. Now take a look at this graph of total U.S. spending: Don’t get me wrong — I’m all for an increasingly libertarian populace,…

The random liberal who thinks libertarians supported “too-big-to-fail” is utterly banal and predictable, but I expect better from Ann Coulter. Some fun video with Nick at the bottom.

Finally: “The proposition that the government is always right is manifested either in corruption or benefits to ‘preferred’ companies,” he said. “My choice is different. The… economy ought to be dominated by private businesses and private investors. The government must protect the choice and property of those who willingly risk their money and reputation.” ……

1. Declare yourself on the side of  “the Enlightenment ethic of using science and reason to forge a better society” 2. Demand people stop using science and reason to examine your claims

This is sort of an interesting article: Nylon was first introduced around 1939 and was rapidly in extremely high demand in the US, with up to 4 million pairs of stockings bought in one day. The riots occurred between August 1945 and March 1946, when Du Pont shifted its manufacturing from wartime material to nylon…

Filing this under “skeptical, but cautiously optimistic” — a guy named James Woodward may have created a reactionless (well, propellantless) engine based on the Mach effect.  We’ve been talking to some of Woodward’s associates over the years at physics site TalkPolywell, and they seem earnest and sincere — Woodward apparently actually refuses donations to support his work for…