Utopia, you are standing in it!

Ken White is an attorney specializing in free-speech issues, and is the main contributor to the well-known and useful law website Popehat. This week he has a good article in The Atlantic about American free-speech law, which you can read by clicking on the screenshot below:

We talk a lot about free speech on this website, as it’s an important issue in politics, especially on American college campuses. But “free speech” as construed by students often differs considerably from free speech as the courts have defined it under the First Amendment. White’s article aims to let us know what the law really is, not what it should be. As he says:

Here is Reason’s Remy with a parody of the Beatles, with Remy playing the whole band. Making fun of the Left is always great fun, and Remy is good at it.

When it comes to minimum wage research, most folks join one of two teams. First, Team Econ 101 will tell you, sensibly in my view, that when raise the price of something, people buy less of it. Labor is not exception. Second, Team Common Man says that this is misleading. Sensibly, they argue that firms have slack and customers who purchase services offered by low wage workers, such as fast food, can usually pay a little more. To make things worse, Team Econ 101 and Team Common Man love to cherry pick studies that show why they are right.

So what’s the deal? I recently listened to this very long and extensive interview with Jacob Vigdor, professor of public policy at the University of Washington, that sheds light on this issue. He is in a very special position to discuss minimum wage research because he designed the only major…

Jim Callaghan, Britain’s Labour Prime Minister in the late 1970s told a great story which I read about last week.

In the early Thatcher years he received a telephone call from a zealous young woman, campaigning on behalf of Labour.

“Can we expect your vote?” she asked.

“Oh definitely”, Jim replied.

Encouraged by this, she asked whether he’d be prepared to become more deeply involved with the Party.

“Well,” Jim said, “I was Prime Minister last year”.

What ‘getting ready for Summer’ means in South Australia & Victoria.

As Summer approaches, Australia’s wind and solar obsession means more mass blackouts are guaranteed.

During January 2018, load shedding caught power consumers short in South Australia, Victoria and NSW. Energy hungry businesses such as aluminium smelters and even hospitals were forced to power down during a run of scorching days and nights, when temperatures soared and wind power output plummeted: Australia Closes Coal-Fired Power Plants: Hospitals Forced to Cut Power Use & Power Prices Rocket

On the Australia Day long-weekend in January 2019, the barbecue stopper was that week’s round of what’s euphemistically called “demand management”: Soviet era power rationing, an integral part of Australia’s ludicrous attempt to run on sunshine and breezes. If it wasn’t deadly serious, it’d almost be hilarious.

STT spelt out the truly ‘inevitable’ consequence of attempting to run on sunshine and breezes back in…

It’s six a.m., I am sipping my first cup of coffee on the small balcony near the tall coconut tree. It’s still dark but I can see a short stocky woman sweeping the ground of the open space in front of the hotel next door. Right away, I detect that something is wrong in the picture although I am not fully awake. The broom the woman is using is too short, its straw end is frayed. She is bending over more than should be necessary; some of her energy is being misspent because she pushes harder than she would have to with a newer broom. No big deal! Except…

Mexico is the kind of country where the dentist kisses you when you leave. (This particular dentist is a pretty willowy blonde.) Perhaps, Mexico is the only country of its kind. I don’t know; I have not been everywhere. No American…