Brewers Win NL Central

Posted on September 24, 2011 | Comments Off on Brewers Win NL Central

The magic number is 0. They did it.

Ryan Braun’s 3-run homer sealed the Marlin’s fate, bring it down to 1. When the Cubs beat the Cardinals 25 minutes later, the Brewers officially became the 2011 NL Central champs.

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Posted in Sports

Regulation Roundup

Posted on September 23, 2011 | 1 comment

Here’s another batch of regulatory bloopers:

  • In Seattle, Washington, the maximum length allowed for concealed weapons is 6 feet.
  • The federal government has a Shell Egg Surveillance Program.
  •  In Pocatello, Idaho, “The carrying of concealed weapons is forbidden, unless same are exhibited to public view.”
  • In Memphis, Tennessee, it is against the law for frogs to croak after 11:00pm.
  • In Oregon, it is illegal to wipe your dishes with a cloth or towel to dry them. They must drip-dry.
  • In Norfolk, Virginia, it is illegal for hens to lay eggs outside the hours of 8am-4pm.
  • In Jamestown, New York, dentists can be fined $250 for hypnotizing their patients.
  • In Utah, birds always have right of way on all state highways.

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$16 Muffins a Hoax?

Posted on September 23, 2011 | 1 comment

The Justice Department’s auditors have been getting a lot of press lately. They found that the department paid $16 each for muffins at a recent event in Washington. At another event in San Francisco, the department spent $76 per person on lunch.

According to the Hilton hotel chain, which hosted the DC muffin event, the auditors didn’t read the invoice very carefully:

Hilton Worldwide, which manages and franchises hotels including the Capital Hilton where the conference took place, says the price included not only breakfast baked goods but also fresh fruit, coffee, tea, soft drinks, tax and tips. It says the report misinterpreted its invoices, which often use shorthand and don’t reflect the full menu provided.

So it appears that part of the story has been exaggerated. The $76-per-person lunch in San Francisco, also held at a Hilton, included “slow-cooked Berkshire pork carnitas, hearts-of-romaine salad — and coffee at $8.24 a cup.” That one still looks dodgy. A bit fancy for a government conference. But the muffins do seem to have been blown out of proportion.

In related news, after an assistant told Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that the muffins didn’t actually cost $16, he was reportedly overheard muttering to himself, “soon…”

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Posted in Economics

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Mets 8, Cardinals 6

Posted on September 23, 2011 | Comments Off on Mets 8, Cardinals 6

The Brewers enjoyed a day off yesterday, but their magic number still went down, courtesy of the Mets. It is now 2.

Tonight, the Brewers start a 3-game series against the Marlins, and the Cardinals take on the Cubs. If the Brewers win and the Cardinals lose, the division is clinched.

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CEI Podcast for September 22, 2011: E-Verify

Posted on September 22, 2011 | Comments Off on CEI Podcast for September 22, 2011: E-Verify

Have a listen here.

E-Verify is a program that checks the immigration status of new hires. The House is expected to vote on legislation that would make E-Verify mandatory nationwide. Policy Analyst Alex Nowrasteh thinks E-Verify should be scrapped altogether. Not only does it make it more expensive for companies to hire people, it misses over half of the undocumented immigrants it is supposed to identify.

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Posted in CEI Podcast, Immigration

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It Gets Better: Sears Catalog Edition

Posted on September 22, 2011 | Comments Off on It Gets Better: Sears Catalog Edition

I forget who I’m paraphrasing here, but the two iron laws of modernity are 1) things are getting better, and 2) people think they’re getting worse. The short video at the bottom of this post is one way to prove the first law to victims of the second law. It’s a rough cut adapted from a recent talk Don Boudreaux gave; I eagerly await the full version.

When I took macroeconomics in graduate school, the professor circulated a Sears catalog from 1900 or so around the classroom. Most of the prices were given in cents, not dollars. Now imagine that you could buy anything you wanted from that catalog today at those low prices. They’re still too expensive. Take these vacuum cleaners pictured below:

$12.50 for a vacuum cleaner? What a deal! And yet, given the choice, I would not buy it. Too expensive. I wouldn’t even be willing to pay $5.00 for it. Heck, I wouldn’t even want it for free.

Why is even a price of zero too expensive for that vacuum? Because it doesn’t even use electricity. It’s manually powered. No thanks. I’m better off with the $90 vacuum I bought a few years ago.

Of course, I’ve been ignoring inflation. As a useful public service, the Minneapolis Fed has an inflation calculator right on its homepage. It only goes back to 1913, and our vacuum is a 1909. But that’s close enough for the point I’m making.

If that vacuum cost $12.50 in 1913, it would cost $285.17 in 2011. This manually powered vacuum, that I wouldn’t pay a dime for, is three times as expensive in real terms as my electric vacuum.

Things are better now. Modernity is a blessing. The first law holds. Hopefully the second law won’t prove quite so rigid.

Click here if the embedded video below doesn’t work. It’s well worth 1:26 of your time to watch.

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Posted in Economics

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Google’s Antitrust Troubles

Posted on September 21, 2011 | Comments Off on Google’s Antitrust Troubles

Holman Jenkins sums it up:

Google will be accused of having a “monopoly” on search, though its market share is only 65%, and it charges consumers nothing for its services.

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Posted in Antitrust, Economics, Technology

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Regulation of the Day 197: Planking

Posted on September 21, 2011 | Comments Off on Regulation of the Day 197: Planking

Planking is an odd, odd trend. Plankers are people who pose for pictures by lying face down on the ground in unusual places, stiff as a plank of wood; hence the name. It isn’t clear how the fad started, but a quick Google image search for “planking” will give results of people planking everywhere from a swimming pool to a camel’s back to the spare tire on the back of an SUV.

Winston Castelo, a legislator in the Philippines, has had enough. That’s why he introduced the Anti-Planking Act of 2011. There is a transportation labor dispute happening in Manila right now, and there have been some strikes. Some groups of protesters have taken to planking in the middle of the street, tying up traffic. Hence the anti-planking bill.

The protesters shouldn’t be doing that, obviously. Not only is it rude, it’s probably illegal. Offenses like jaywalking and disturbing the peace are already on the books.

People all over the world have been poking fun at Congressman Castelo’s odd sense of priorities. Good for them, I say. Threats to freedoms even as trivial as planking should not be taken lying down.

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Posted in Nanny State, Regulation of the Day

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Brewers 5, Cubs 1

Posted on September 21, 2011 | Comments Off on Brewers 5, Cubs 1

The magic number is now 3. If the Cardinals cooperate — they didn’t last night, downing the Mets 11-6 — the Brewers could officially win the NL Central as soon as tomorrow.

Since St. Louis is on a hot streak and Milwaukee is on a tepid streak, it could be a bit longer than that. There are 7 games left in the regular season.

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Penn Jillette on Atheism, Libertarianism

Posted on September 20, 2011 | Comments Off on Penn Jillette on Atheism, Libertarianism

The ever-loquacious Penn Jillette talks to Nick Gillespie about his new book, God, No! He doesn’t know if any gods exist or not, and he doesn’t know what’s best for other people.

His basic philosophical humility is a refreshing departure from right-wing religiosity and left-wing social engineering; they do know what’s best for other people.

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Posted in Political Animals, The Old Religion

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