Sunday, June 25, 2006

I hope this guy's not a libertarian



I found out about this from here.

UPDATE: For comments, see the original blog post here.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Popular Science summary of new enegery technologies


This Popular Science site has some great summaries of future "alternative" energy ideas.

I found out about this site from this post.

Saturday, June 3, 2006

Another reason to abolish the FDA

From here:
The report, requested and funded by the Food and Drug Administration, lays out ways to help people manage their intake of calories from the growing number of meals prepared away from home, including at the nation's nearly 900,000 restaurants and other establishments that serve food.
...

The report encourages restaurants to shift the emphasis of their marketing to lower-calorie choices, and include more such options on menus. In addition, restaurants could jigger portion sizes and the variety of foods available in mixed dishes to reduce the overall number of calories taken in by diners.
What if a government agency "encouraged" media companies to show more "good news" and human interest stories, because, gee whiz, that stuff makes people feel better? What if a government agency recommended that atheists take a fresh look at Christianity, because Christians tend to be happier?

Such government intrusion into our media and our spirituality would be almost universally seen as wrong.

Why should it be any different with a government agency like the FDA? While the FDA and the healthists wear a public face of "serving the public good," it now seems like they're intentionally trying to usurp responsibility from individuals.

I don't want to be "encouraged" to eat more or less of anything, and I certainly don't want restaurants to be "urged" to serve smaller portions and more fruits and vegetables. 1.) Restaurants already serve a lot of fruits and vegetables...they're called salads! Almost every restaurant (including the Great Satan McDonald's) sells them. 2.) If you want a smaller portion, eat half of what you order and take the other half home.

Friday, June 2, 2006

Immigration Stupidness

Cap on high-tech visas for 2007 already met
WASHINGTON - The government has already reached the limit on high-tech worker visas for 2007 even though the fiscal year does not start until Oct. 1, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said Thursday.

High-tech companies said that underscores the need to increase the 65,000 annual cap on the popular H-1B visas used to bring in engineers, computer programmers and others.
Why do we have this stupid cap in the first place? Oh, that's right, to protect high-tech jobs for American scientists and engineers.

(1) I bet every immigrant working as a scientist or engineer creates >1 high tech jobs for some American (probably someone with a business degree, which we have too many of).

(2) There aren't enough American scientists and engineers the way it is...everyone's majoring in business!

There's talk of increasing the cap to 115,000. I'm sure all of those would be filled just as quickly. We should get rid of the cap entirely and let all the Indians, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Nigerian, etc. scientists and engineers come to America. With any luck, they'll stay here and create millions of new jobs with the technologies they invent and companies they found.

Republicans are scared of libertarians

Sue Jeffers, who is a libertarian and is endorsed by the Minnesota LP, is prohibited from speaking at the Minnesota Republican Convention.

Bill Weld, a New York Republican endorsed by the New York LP, loses his party's endorsement.

Republicans in office at the federal level barely even bother to pay lip service to liberty anymore.

George Bush is touted for his big government conservatism.

Someone in Minneapolis gets it

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," he said. "The whole country seems to be going to the Soviet Union, I'll tell you that."
This comment was made by Minneapolis resident (and good honest American!) Gordon Anderson in regards to a proposal by Minneapolis City Council member Robert Lilligren that would make it illegal to walk down an alley on a block you (or someone you're visiting) don't live on.

This proposal is a classic government "solution." First, from a practical standpoint, it's unenforceable. Second, for the few instances it might be enforced, the only logical tactic of enforcement--asking someone where they live--is incredibly unconstitutional (4th Amendment). Are black people walking down alleys in southwest Minneapolis (which is predominantly white) going to be stopped and questioned (for their residency papers?!?!) by cops?

I found out about this story from this post at the Agitator.