On the Radio – Unemployment Benefits

Posted on July 22, 2010 | Comments Off on On the Radio – Unemployment Benefits

Yesterday, the Senate voted to extend unemployment benefits to a maximum of 99 weeks. I’ll be on the Paul Molloy Show at 10:15 EST this morning to talk about the costs and benefits of the extension.

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Posted in Media Appearances

On the Radio – The Federal Register

Posted on July 20, 2010 | Comments Off on On the Radio – The Federal Register

Tomorrow morning at 6:50 am, I’ll be on the Brad Davis Show on the Talk of Connecticut. We’ll be talking about the Federal Register and regulation in general.

If you live in Connecticut, you can tune to  640 AM, 1240 AM, 1360 AM, or 1470 AM, depending on which part of the state you’re in.

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Posted in Media Appearances

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Al Qaeda: Clowns or Killers?

Posted on July 20, 2010 | Comments Off on Al Qaeda: Clowns or Killers?

As he often does, Gene Healy hits a home run in his Washington Examiner column. More and more hilarious stories of bumbling, incompetent terrorists are coming out. Gene shares some of the better ones and asks, “You ever get the feeling that some of these guys aren’t the sharpest scimitars in the shed?”

This leads to a conclusion reached by far too few:

We’ve given al Qaeda power over us they don’t deserve. When we recognize that they’re often inept and clownish, we weaken their ability to sow terror. For the sake of our liberty and security, it’s prudent and patriotic to allow an occasional smirk to cross your stiff upper lip.

He’s right. Terrorists win when we overreact. And overreact we have. From airport security theater to the 854,000-employee post-9/11 homeland security aparatus, Americans have willingly handed al Qaeda a bigger, longer-lasting victory than they could ever have hoped for.

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Posted in Security Theater

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Federal Register Hits 40,000 Pages

Posted on July 19, 2010 | 1 comment

I’m a bit late getting to this, but an SEC “Order Approving Proposed Rule Change Relating to the Restated Certificate of Incorporation of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc.” pushed the 2010 Federal Register to the 40,000 page mark on Tuesday.

The Federal Register’s page growth has been accelerating as the year has progressed. It is currently on pace for 76,536 pages. That’s about 2,000 pages more than the Bush administration’s average. In January, the projected page count was only 63,187 pages.

Earlier in the year, an average day’s volume contained 278 pages. Now it’s up to 306 pages per day. As new rules hit the books as required by the health care bill, the financial regulation bill, and other legislation, the pace could pick up further. And if Democrats lose control of Congress, we can expect a very busy lame duck session.

The Code of Federal Regulations already weighs in at 157,000 pages. It will probably be pushing 160,000 before too long.

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Posted in regulation

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Light Blogging for the Rest of the Week

Posted on July 14, 2010 | Comments Off on Light Blogging for the Rest of the Week

I’m leaving town for a few days to escape the DC heat. Back in action on Monday.

In the meantime, feel free to peruse the blogroll on the right side of the page. There are links to some fine writers who cover a variety of topics.

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Posted in Housekeeping

Responding to Media Matters

Posted on July 14, 2010 | 1 comment

Apparently the folks at Media Matters didn’t care for my July 12 article in the Daily Caller debunking the cell phone cancer scare.

The trouble is, I’m not quite sure why. They never say. Jamison Foser’s blog post doesn’t touch a single argument I made in the article. Instead he attacks me personally, as well as CEI. For all I know, he agrees with everything I said. Or maybe he disagrees. I don’t know.

His main point is that corporate funding makes arguments untrustworthy. Since CEI receives some corporate funding, we are therefore suspicious. This is not a rigorous line of thought. Arguments are either right or wrong. The presence or absence of corporate funding has nothing to do with whether an argument is right or wrong.

There is also the matter of Media Matters’ own very generous corporate donors, which Foser does not address.

Media Matters’ fixation on corporate funding is an easy way for them to avoid genuine intellectual engagement. It is a diversion. If you are unable to attack the argument, then attack the person making it.

This ad hominem attack deserves a rebuttal. The Daily Caller was kind enough to run mine this morning. I hope you will take a few minutes to read it.

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Posted in Argumentation, Correspondence, Everybody Panic, Philosophy, Publications, The Partisan Mind

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Cell Phones Don’t Cause Cancer

Posted on July 13, 2010 | 1 comment

Over at the Daily Caller, I debunk the fear that long-term cell phone use can cause brain tumors. San Francisco and Maine already have warning label regulations on the books. Rep. Dennis Kucinich has introduced federal warning label legislation. Here are the main reasons they’re wasting their time:

-Activists promoting the scare only ever mention brain tumors. But you hold your cell phone in your hand. You hold it next to your ear and your jaw. Why no mention of those cancers? Suspicious.

-Most phones only emit one watt of energy. The human body generates about a hundred times that much energy during normal, everyday activity. Adding a single watt to that baseline does nothing to contribute to the DNA damage that can lead to tumor growth.

-Cell phone photons are so weak, they fall short of DNA-damaging energy levels by about a factor of 500,000. So you might have something to worry about if you strapped half a million cell phones to your body. That would be getting crushed to death, not cancer. Phones don’t operate at cancer-causing frequencies.

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Posted in Everybody Panic, Publications, regulation, Science, Technology

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On the Radio – Smart Meters

Posted on July 13, 2010 | Comments Off on On the Radio – Smart Meters

I will be on the Mark Carbonaro show on KION 1460 AM in California at 9:20 am EST this morning to talk about smart meters.

I’m for the concept, but against the execution.

Real-time congestion pricing is long overdue in electricity markets. But so far, smart meters aren’t doing a very good job at achieving that goal- with some very bad unintended consequences.

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Posted in Economics, Media Appearances

Unintended Consequences of Unemployment Benefits

Posted on July 8, 2010 | 1 comment

This letter of mine ran in today’s New York Times in response to Paul Krugman’s July 4 column.

To the Editor:

Paul Krugman is at a loss to explain why some people oppose extending unemployment benefits. One reason people hold such an opinion is that when government subsidizes something, there tends to be more of it.

The more government subsidizes unemployment, the more people will indulge in it for longer periods of time.

Ryan Young
Washington, July 6, 2010

The writer is a journalism fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

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Posted in Correspondence, Economics, Price and Wage Controls, Publications, Spending

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Friday Regulation Roundup

Posted on July 2, 2010 | Comments Off on Friday Regulation Roundup

-The federal government has a Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee. I also had one when I was a kid – my parents.

-In Fire Island, New York, it is illegal to eat cookies on the beach.

-Not sure how to drink water? The National Drinking Water Advisory Council can help.

-In North Dakota, it is against the law to sleep with your shoes on.

-Does your company make blood-based products? Consult the federal government’s Blood Products Advisory Committee.

-The government is starting an Advisory Committee on Breast Cancer in Young Women. Those resources could have been used for research.

-If you have ever been in a duel, you are ineligible to vote in Mississippi.

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