Pro-Government Libertarians?

I'm not sure "Pro-government libertarian" is a sensible concept.

But I do like the idea of "Pro-liberty libertarian."

And there are some circumstances--we'd have to argue about which--where the existence of a state can enhance liberty. 

I'm not really a fan of either (1) the state is never right, or (2) the state is always right.  Both are religious observations, rather than policy prescriptions.

Female Hurricanes: Deadlier?

Female hurricanes are deadlier than male hurricanes 

Kiju Jung et al. 
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 17 June 2014, Pages 8782–8787 

Abstract: Do people judge hurricane risks in the context of gender-based expectations? We use more than six decades of death rates from US hurricanes to show that feminine-named hurricanes cause significantly more deaths than do masculine-named hurricanes. Laboratory experiments indicate that this is because hurricane names lead to gender-based expectations about severity and this, in turn, guides respondents’ preparedness to take protective action. This finding indicates an unfortunate and unintended consequence of the gendered naming of hurricanes, with important implications for policymakers, media practitioners, and the general public concerning hurricane communication and preparedness.

World Cup and Other Mega-events: How to Decide if They Are "Good"?

And for whom?

Where Will My Talents Go?

LeBron James famously said he would be taking his talents to South Beach, in that ill-considered press conference.

Now he may be moving his talents again.

It come down to who will take more of his "talents" from him.  If you think of talents as a unit of money, or a weight of precious metals--and given the Biblical knowledge of KPC readers, we KNOW you have been thinking just that--LeBron is indeed a man of many talents.  And states are broadly different in their tax policies.  LeBron won't be able to look just at the salary offer...

If a "talent" is unit of money worth $22,239, then here is a table of how many talents LeBron would have to give up from his salary in each city:

	Loss of Talents (at $20.7 million salary…)	Team Record This Year
Dallas, TX	With Mavs:  0	49-33
Miami, FL	With Heat:  0	54-28
LA, CA	With Clippers:  124	57-25
Chicago, IL	With Bulls:47	48-34
Pheonix, AZ	With Suns:  42	48-34
Cleveland, OH	With Cavaliers:  50	33-49

This is at a price of silver of $21/ounce, a conversion rate of 35.3 ounces per kilogram, and 30 kilograms per talent. Your results may vary…

Bouncy, Bouncy

So, a faulty emergency slide deployed while the plane was in flight.  Well, I guess the slide was not faulty, because it deployed.  But the switch was faulty.  Or something like that.

Which led M.K. to wonder if perhaps we couldn't use the "Boob Bouncy Castle" at the NY Museum of Sex (that's a thing?  The museum, I mean...) as an emergency slide.  Though presumably for a very different kind of emergency...

M.K. also notes that the Boob Bouncy Castle might be the perfect place for the LMM and me to renew our marriage vows.  M.K. is not a very nice person.

The PPE Program: UNC and Duke Actually Cooperate, for Once

By my friend and colleague Jonny Anomaly:

Where Duke and UNC Happily Collaborate

Thunder Roared

To paraphrase the old kids' doggerel:

Thunder roared, lightning flashed.
Tree fell, car got smashed.

They come to take away the Lincoln today.  It was a fine car.  We had just put new tires and suspension on the thing, within the past year.  Which, unfortunately, cost more than the total blue book value of the car.  Still, it only had 120k miles on it, and those Town Cars last double that, at least on the drive train.  So we were in for the long haul.

Now, it's a short haul, to the dump.  The LMM pays her last respects.  Note the murder weapon, sawed up into fireplace-sized bites, in the background.

Government Waste (!)

EPA employees are apparently fed up with bureaucracy.

And they are taking matters into their own hands.  And putting "waste" in the hallway.  Ew.  Excerpt:


Environmental Protection Agency workers have done some odd things recently. Contractors built secret man caves in an EPA warehouse, an employee pretended to work for the CIA to get unlimited vacations and one worker even spent most of his time on the clock looking at pornography. 

It appears, however, that a regional office has reached a new low: Management for Region 8 in Denver, Colo., wrote an email earlier this year to all staff in the area pleading with them to stop inappropriate bathroom behavior, including defecating in the hallway. In the email, obtained by Government Executive, Deputy Regional Administrator Howard Cantor mentioned “several incidents” in the building, including clogging the toilets with paper towels and “an individual placing feces in the hallway” outside the restroom. 

Confounded by what to make of this occurrence, EPA management “consulted” with workplace violence “national expert” John Nicoletti, who said that hallway feces is in fact a health and safety risk. He added the behavior was “very dangerous” and the individuals responsible would “probably escalate” their actions. 

You do have to like how they consulted an "expert."  These people are supposed to take care of problems with toxic waste, but they had to go to a poop expert to see if this was incorrect behavior?

The Nanny Who Wouldn't Leave

The set-up.

The update.

Monday's Child

1.  Here we thought that trees and fungi were socialist.  Unless you are an actual biologist.  In which case you know there is no socialism in nature.

2.  Tracy Lawson (spouse of Bob, who married WAY better than Tracy did...) has a book coming out August 6.  Check it out!

3.  Running barefoot....good?

4.  I had meant to post this link to the post my friend Tony de Jasay had written in May, about the Pope.  So, belatedly, here it is!

5.  I am a little tired of having people tell me that, since someone somewhere receives money from the Koch Foundation, my views can be dismissed.  So you might try this:  When someone says they oppose fracking, you can just dismiss them as a front for Russian imperialism.

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