The Broken Window Fallacy (via the Mises Institute)

Absolutely AWESOME, courtesy of the Mises Institute.

Technorati Tags: bailout, business, economy, history, unintended consequences

Quiet Is Not The Same As Inactive

I tell my students that the prime reason to get a college degree is to be able to land a job where you can work in A/C during the summer months. I was brought up not to be afraid of hard work --I just became averse to sweating on anything other than my own terms.

I am teaching what amounts to beyond-a-full load: six classes. That's a lot for a regular term, so you can imagine how draining it is for the summer, which is compressed into two five-week terms. June and early July saw me teaching non-stop from 8 to 3:30, with no prep period and very little lunch time (plus it was more draining than high school, since there was no time for group work, worksheets, grading, etc. to break the routine). I have it "easier" this part of summer, I don't have to start until 10:30. And don't forget, that does not include time at home on the laptop, doing prep and grading things.

But the money is good, and damn if I don't actually enjoy doing what I do. Little time for blogging, and for that I express my regrets.

Technorati Tags: academia

If Not The Nation, Then The Idea

It's obvious, isn't it? No one "automatically" deserves special treatment. Everyone can live, be free and do what they need to do --and no one can take that away. The whole reason government exists is to make sure of that. And if it can't --or won't-- then it should be changed so that it will, or else eliminated. (Me, in class, just the other day)

It has long been fashionable to criticize --from the Left and from the Right--the nation known as the United States I mean, look at every bad thing under the sun --racism, sexism, statism, classism, corporatism --and inevitably we can say, "it's America's fault!" And I myself am not entirely convinced still that we're ever going to get it completely right.

But the very second we throw out the inspiration --in that instant that we forget those immortal words, we are no longer men. We are the servants of whomever takes command, be they lefties or righties. And our children, too, for ever and ever, and they will damn us for it.

No, the United States hasn't always been great. But the idea behind it is ultimately more powerful than anything else yet mortal man has created. Make very loud noise tonight with pyrotechnics. Give thanks and rejoice. Share the blessings of liberty with your family and friends. And let no one deny the power of these words, the translation into 21st-Century-Studentese I gave above:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Technorati Tags: history

When Next You Obsess About American Obesity, Consider This As One Explanation

CARPE DIEM: As Share of Income, Americans Have the Cheapest Food in History and Cheapest Food on the Planet: and especially consider the point made about wholesale milk prices. Think of how much cheaper still milk would be if we eliminated dairy subsidies! Choke on that, "oh, big agribusiness is horrible for everyone" folks!

[Yes, we can quibble about hormonal additives and genetic engineering of the American diet, very true. But the infrastructure is nonetheless in place: we could be super-groovy-healthy in a matter of years without significant food price increases --thanks to agribusiness]

Technorati Tags: business, history, puppy

This Is EXACTLY What I'm Trying To Warn Everyone About!

FuturePundit: Climate Engineering With White Clouds: which talks about how relatively easy it would be to perform "emergency" climate alteration.

I've warned folks about this before, but I'll say it again: the hysteria needs to end, before someone is convinced that The End Is Nigh and takes drastic action that will cause The End.

Technorati Tags: climate change, unintended consequences

Cutting The Grass Being Smoked On Comedy Central

Famously, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert is challenging Americans to jobs that Americans won't do. How frightfully clever! And yet I'm not entirely happy with the response here, in Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert Challenges Americans to Do Jobs Illegals Won’t. Free market capitalism does provide a long-term solution to the lettuce-versus-jobs debate, but it is somewhat incomplete. I would offer a few observations of my own:

1. Construction jobs in the Southwest that pay upwards of $20/hour are dominated by Hispanic workers, a good many of whom are undocumented. This is not because Americans won't do those jobs. It's because construction unions priced Americans out of those jobs long ago. Union scale today would be closer to $25 an hour by my estimates.


2. But it's irrelevant now. You can't get a job in construction now without being highly fluent in Spanish, which most Americans are not --and the ones who are can't be bothered with taking a blue-collar job. As I've always said, the people who are least nervous about immigration are the ones whose jobs are not at risk.


3. I'm tired of "undocumented immigrant" --it implies a level of legality that simply is not there. But I also don't want the stink of being labeled a hater for using "illegal alien." I will now use "unauthorized worker" and have no qualms about it.


4. I mow my own damn lawn.

Technorati Tags: economy, immigration, unintended consequences

Hot 'Nuff For Ya?

Okay, now this is the part I dislike about living where I live, region-wise: unless you have immediate access to a swimming pool, there is no realistic outdoor activity that you can do with small children between 10AM and 6PM around this time of year. It is simply Too Hot. We went to SETTFest 2010 yesterday and Wee One could not play on the playground because the equipment was too hot to safely touch. Even in the shade it was stifling. So we had to leave earlier than I wanted. I think next year we'll go early in the morning so that she can have playtime while we're out there.

I have a ton of mowing to do today. That will probably happen sometime after 6PM. I'm not risking heat stroke over tall grass. Why is there never a wandering yard crew when you need one?!

Meanwhile, grading exams is always a good A/C'd activity. First exam of summer term is behind us now. The gutshot students will probably tuck tail and run. I warn them and warn them about how summer courses are an unholy trap if you are trying to work 40-hour weeks and/or dealing with small children, but a combination of self-delusion and financial-aid greed always seems to keep them around until they realize that they have no hope of passing --oh and by the way, it's too late to get more than 25% of your money back from dropping. They're adults, though, and those who do not learn must feel...

Counterintuitive But Somehow Not Surprising

Keynesianism Questioned by Harvard Researchers : "Contrary to the Keynesian theory that government spending can spark economic growth in times of recession, a new study demonstrates that pork, at least, may damage corporations within the states that receive these federal dollars."

Technorati Tags: bailout, economy, history, unintended consequences

Better To Remain Silent And Appear Foolish...

...than to open it and remove all doubt.

Remember: most perps are stupid and/or egotistical, and cannot help opening their yaps under questioning, even after being told their rights. But police have been hampered by Supreme Court doctrine that self-incrimination was a sacred cow. Not quite so much now.

Berghuis v. Thomkins was handed down yesterday by the Supreme Court, in a serious revision of the Miranda Rights that we all know by heart. I was always of the opinion that Miranda went too far (thank you, Warren Court!) and this is a good move back towards center. Short version: you can still remain silent, you still never have to answer any questions unless you want to, but the cops can still ask you the questions unless you clearly tell them, "No, I want counsel present before answering any questions."

For more, see Power Line - Miranda pruned.

Technorati Tags: history

Where's My Boat?

Several weeks ago I booked a cabin on a lake in Central Texas so that I could spend Memorial Day Weekend being thrown from the towable while my wife drove the boat. That is now in question. My boat is still in the shop. And this is chafing my Important Parts.

I appreciate that a boat can be like a hole in the water into which you throw money. I accepted that when I bought it ten years ago this summer. I certainly know that Very Bad Things Can Happen, including blown cases and cracked hulls (yes to the former, no to the latter). But when a routine maintenance job goes over two weeks, I get steamed.

I took my boat in for its yearly checkup over two weeks ago. I specifically told my guy, "I need the boat ready for Memorial Day Weekend. I need you to call me if Something Expensive is about to happen. "
"Yes, Teacher [that's what he calls me], I can do it!"

Called last week for an update:
"We just started on it, should be ready soon."

Called two days ago: "We're just about done overhauling the carbs and are going to put in the new theromostats."
"What???"

Okay, they were both needed. But a bit of heads-up would've been nice. And certainly overhauling the carbs could've waited until AFTER the holiday --I can deal with a poor gas-usage situation for a bit longer. Now I'm facing a long weekend at a lake cabin without a boat.

I Am Unhappy.

Technorati Tags: boating

I Recall My Legendary July 4th Fireworks Extravaganzas *

A Brief History of Nakedness by Philip Carr-Gomm is reviewed by the Times of London.

(*and Post-Midnight Nude Bathing Excursions --true stories, they were once something of a sordidly grand [or grandly sordid] tradition I inaugurated back in the Nineties in my circle. Hazards included mosquitoes, bottle rockets and ranging cattle.)

Technorati Tags: humor, News I Can Use

Guess What's In This Box?

Hint: what day is today?

Technorati Tags: humor

One Book to Explain Yourself: What Would It Be?

Omnivoracious: One Book to Explain Yourself: What Would It Be?:

Animal Farm by George Orwell. I'm Benjamin.

Technorati Tags: history, News I Can Use

On The Corruption Of Academia

As my granddaddy once told me, "You dance to whatever tune that makes the cash register bell ring." Too true, even in my world.

Not that I'm a huge fan of The Nation (I gave a subscription one year to a friend as a joke), but even a broken clock is right twice a day, and this piece - Big Tobacco and the Historians - really hits hard. We academics like to think of ourselves as being "above" and "superior" to That Sort Of Thing. Buelle Chitte. Research grants are the mother's milk of academics. I can remember one of my seminar being taken out for beer by a very senior member of faculty, who proudly stated that at least part of this was being paid for by his new grant. (Not that unusual, but he made me present the final paper of the semester after I'd had about half a pitcher. Tricky b*st@rd! I showed him, though, and he admitted it to me later...) You show me an academic without a grant, I'll show you an adjunct (or someone with more years under tenure than I've had hot dinners).

I bring this up only because of this comment from Jim Lindgren's piece on The Volokh Conspiracy regarding the nascent kerfluffle over Michael Bellesiles's new book (over which I posted yesterday myself):

After the Bellesiles affair was over, I asked a law professor who had in the past received funding from the NRA why the NRA was so savvy to stay out of it and let the academics handle it in the normal way. The answer I got is that the NRA wasn’t savvy so much as it is suspicious of academics, whom they neither understand nor trust. If the NRA pays for something, they want to control the message — and most academics won’t take money on that basis. [emphasis mine]

That's a bit of a howler! And it's sad that it has come to that. The Body Academic is has been injected by a dose of arsenic --or gold, in this case.

Or maybe it's just ideology. There is some suggestion that a few historians aren't entirely unhappy that Venona was only a brief glimpse into the Soviet archives. At the very least, there seems to be a certain amount of ostrichism, if not ostracism, regarding some of this, as "A Hidden History of Evil" by Claire Berlinksi in City Journal suggests:

Stroilov says that he and Bukovsky approached Jonathan Brent of Yale University Press, which is leading a publishing project on the history of the Cold War. He claims that initially Brent was enthusiastic and asked him to write a book, based on the documents, about the first Gulf War. Stroilov says that he wrote the first six chapters, sent them off, and never heard from Brent again, despite sending him e-mail after e-mail. “I can only speculate what so much frightened him in that book,” Stroilov wrote to me... Stroilov sees in these events “a kind of a taboo, the vague common understanding in the Establishment that it is better to let sleeping dogs lie, not to throw stones in a house of glass, and not to mention a rope in the house of a hanged man.” I suspect it is something even more disturbing: no one much cares.

There have always been rumors among the John Birchers, for instance, that the Commies paid off professors during the Cold War --and a few ex-Soviet types have even vaguely hinted at that themselves. Right-wing paranoia? Surely yes, we know academics never get... wait, nevermind. [UPDATE: Ron Radosh responds to Berlinski here]

And don't even get me started on Professor Michael Mann. I may not agree with the recent decision by the Virginia AG's office to begin a corruption investigation, but it never should even have come to that. But very few scientists are willing to disrupt the grant gravy train. It's not group-think with global warming advocates, it's rational self-interest! Quo vadis, Al Gore?

I think one of the key themes of the early 22nd century historiographers will be the examination of just how corrupt academics became in the mid-late twentieth century, extending well into the twenty-first. It will probably be at least that long before there's a sufficient revolutionary paradigm shift to the right that will allow for academic self-examination.

Technorati Tags: academia, climate change, Cold War, education and pedagogy, history, Michael Bellesiles, News I Can Use, revisionism, Soviet Union, Venona

Spit-Take of the Day

History News Network reports that former Emory University scholar and former Bancroft Prize winner Michael Bellesiles is publishing a new book, this time on the year 1877. I use "former" for both descriptives because this clown --and that is a generous term-- was stripped of both his tenure (!) and his prize for his infamous book on colonial gun policy. It seems that someone may (or may not) have faked his research...

At any rate, that's not the spit-take part. That's here, from the publisher's blurb:

"Michael Bellesiles is perhaps most famous as the target of an infamous "swiftboating" campaign by the National Rifle Association, following the publication of his Bancroft Prize-winning book Arming America (Knopf, 2000)—"the best kind of non-fiction," according to the Chicago Tribune—which made daring claims about gun ownership in early America.  In what became the history profession's most talked-about and notorious case of the past generation, Arming America was eventually discredited after an unprecedented and controversial review called into question its sources, charges which Bellesiles and his many prominent supporters have always rejected."

News flash: the man lost his tenure! Now for the bien pensant world of academia to turn on one of its own, there has to be something so seriously wrong that it cannot be ignored without calling academia's own credentials into existence. (Note that this was before climate change and the controversy over Professor Mann, so maybe that's no longer 100% true.)

Technorati Tags: academia, history, Michael Bellesiles, revisionism