Thomas, Bourgeois Hero
Today at Mises I have an article talking about Thomas the Tank Engine:
Even Thomas himself has flaws. Sometimes he argues and even gets haughty with the other engines, overreacting to slight transgressions. (For a while my son — echoing Thomas — would announce that he was “very cross” with us when he didn’t get his way.)
The reason Thomas is the hero of the show isn’t his strength (Hiro is stronger) or his speed (Spencer is faster). Rather, Thomas’s one superlative trait is that he’s a “Very Useful” engine. More so than any others, Thomas is the goodie-two-wheels who always tries to do a good job and follow Sir Topham Hatt’s instructions. (Thomas’s other endearing quality is that his favorite job is to carry around children.)
TSA Suppressing Cancer Cluster Among Its Workers?
I am engaging in yellow journalism here, because I’m not taking the time to look into this carefully. But Tony G. sends this post by a group that used a FOIA request to apparently get memos from the TSA admitting that there were unusually high cancer rates among its agents near passenger and baggage screening checkpoints. I report, you decide.
Ron Paul on Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck further praises Ron Paul. This is really significant, not because Glenn Beck’s opinion matters per se, but because it is a signal of how much the climate has changed among self-described conservatives. (HT2 Jessica Belle on FB)
Peter Falk on Ben Bernanke
Robert Wenzel over at EPJ posted this hilarious clip from “The Inlaws.”
Jordan Page Listens to God
I saw this guy last night at Porcfest. (Note the video below is from last year.) He was awesome. It was one of the most memorable musical performances I have ever seen.
What was really neat was his last song (I think) was the update or part two to the above. And he said something like he was dreaming and heard these amazing lyrics in his head, and had his wife start typing it before he lost them.
Now at this point in the night–he’d been playing for at least an hour–this particular crowd thinks he is The Man. So even though there were probably a lot of atheists in the crowd, Page got away with telling them that he felt God was telling him what he needed to tell people at this time.
I realize this may sound corny but if you were there, you would know it was very earnest.
Post From Valley Forge and an Article
Well I’ve been here at Porc Fest for almost a full 24 hours and it’s going pretty well. I think I will try to write up something more formal after I get back home, to summarize my experience and the status of the “Free State Project.” For right now, let me just say it’s not as out-in-the-wilderness as I thought it might be. I actually brought protein shakes in case we’d be eating bark by Saturday, but there are lots of food options.
In the meantime, here’s my article on Walmart and discrimination. An excerpt:
Last example: If we went to all the Outback restaurants around the country, and rounded up (a) the women who were assigned to be hostesses, greeting people at the door and (b) the women who were assigned to be dishwashers, would we notice any patterns in their physical appearance? I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the first group would be a lot more attractive, as conventionally defined.
So is this yet another case of rampant and outrageous bias on the part of business owners? Why aren’t Americans up in arms over this discriminatory policy? In fact, what’s the story with all the beautiful movie stars?
The reason most Americans are perfectly happy with these latter examples of discrimination is that it’s what they want. Most Americans don’t have a particular preference for having a man versus a woman ring up their groceries at Walmart, and so they take claims of sexual discrimination seriously. But Americans on net do have a preference to be greeted at the door of a restaurant by a young, pretty woman, and that’s why restaurants cater to that preference. This also explains why movie producers are willing to pay millions of dollars to gorgeous stars, even though less attractive thespians could give “the same” performance for much less money.
Off to Porc Fest
I’ll be traveling most of the day to “Porc Fest.” Not sure how much blogging I’ll be doing over the next few days. In the meantime, some links:
* Lew Rockwell explains the “tragedy of immigration enforcement.”
* Steve Horwitz says that yes, we are in a police state, no hyperbole.
* Another good Horwitz post on the stimulus failure. This isn’t mere re-hash of the standard claims. Steve points out that what we have is worse than “disaster” as defined by (some) Keynesians before we went down this path, and he also brings in the CPI info. (Quick question from me: Is it totally fine for Keynesian models that both unemployment and price inflation went way up from the time the stimulus started?) Be sure to check the comments, where Mario Rizzo and I take the fight to Daniel Kuehn. Resistance is futile!
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