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Smoke If You Got ‘Em

For a while now I have been predicting that the feds will loosen up the marijuana restrictions in order to bring in extra revenue, just as FDR ended Prohibition when he took over. (I’ll dig up my predictions when they become more completely satisfied.) Today CNBC reports: Feds to Issue New Medical Marijuana Policy Federal […]

Bob Higgs Doesn’t Sugarcoat It

Bob Higgs lets loose on his views of American politics (HT2 Karen De Coster): Because I despise politics in general, and the two major parties in this country in particular, I go through life constantly bemused by all the weight that people put on partisan political loyalties and on adherence to the normative demarcations the […]

SuperFight Claims Naive Academic

After this post, I am not going to bother weighing in on this particular issue anymore, because at this point you need a flowchart to keep things straight. Joe Romm has started a humongous blogosphere attack on the new Superfreakonomics book, the worst charge of which is that the authors misrepresented the views of the […]

Those Dirty Rotten Taxes

Oh man. When last we left our protagonists the children of Israel, King Solomon had asked for wisdom, and the Lord granted not only that (wise) request, but showered Solomon (David’s son) with peace and legendary riches. But then things fell apart. I’m not sure if we are supposed to infer that the wealth corrupted […]

Potpourri

* Brian Domitrovic was one of the speakers at the recent ISI conference I attended. He is a history professor but (like Tom Woods) he has the gumption to cross disciplinary lines and do very good economic analysis. Domitrovic is an avowed supply-sider, but if you think “oh so he thinks you cut taxes, receipts […]

Why Are Progressive Economists So Afraid of Negative Comments?

Believe it or not, I actually agree with Paul Krugman’s harsh assessment of Superfreakonomics. (Before you chalk this up to my evenhandedness, keep in mind that I am still jealous of the success of Freakonomics.) But what the heck? In both posts (here and here), Krugman shuts off the comments from the get-go. His explanation: […]

I Don’t Get No Respect, I Tell Ya

For those who are curious, check out Silas Barta’s attempt to use Jedi mind tricks to embarrass me in my challenge to evolutionary psychology. But if Silas read EPJ, he would know that I am similar in many ways to Jabba the Hut.

"Which is what happens when you call the Feds!"

One of my favorite scenes in Firefly–a show that was taken from us much too soon–is from the episode “Ariel” when Jayne tries to collect the reward on the fugitives traveling with them, and the official with whom he had the deal ends up arresting Jayne and trying to collect the bounty himself. Now I […]