A Short Post Gone Long

Lately I haven't had a lot to say about much of anything, but I do have a few short things to say, so I've gathered them all into one post:

1) Wikimapia is about 6,000 times as much fun to edit as wikipedia. I'm quite proud of the fact that I have made a significant contribution to the world's knowledge of southeastern Wyoming geography.

2) If a recipe ever advises you to "wrap the cinnamon sticks, cloves, and the remaining bay leave in cheesecloth and tie it with a string to create a spice bag," ignore it. Who's got cheesecloth and string in their kitchen? Now, if you're like me, you've probably got coffee filters and a stapler. Yeah, it totally works.

3) According to my little sister (who is a manager at a 2700-sow commercial hog farm) there is a foolproof way for spotting the illegal aliens. 1) They have a really, really Anglophone a name but barely speak English and 2) they frequently misspell their name. This actually happens. (Alternative method: they tell you about walking from Guatemala and going three days without water.) She says that HR sends them the workers and the managers are just expected to manage and not question their workers' status. That's some courageous corporate leadership - "We can't compete because everyone else uses illegals; so the corporate strategy committee has come up with a plan we call 'taking the low road.'"

It's not that I dislike immigration. I actually think that we need to liberalize immigration AND step up enforcement at the same time. It's not fair to companies that actually care about not contributing to organized identity thefts rings.

Corporation - "We need these workers! No Americans will take these jobs because they're hard/dangerous/mind-numbingly boring/in rural Oklahoma!"
Rational Individual - "Actually, what you mean is that no American will take that job for the wages you offer, the problem is that you need to raise wages."
Corporation - "We pay a competitive wage compared to our industry."
Rational Individual - "But you admit your entire industry can't find enough legal employees. Maybe you all need to raise wages."
Corporation - "That would raise expenses! We're in a low-margin business!"
Rational Individual - "Then perhaps you need to raise prices or become more efficient."
Corporation - "We can't raise prices! We're a commodity item! And we've already pressed efficiency as far as we can!"
Rational Individual - "Well, then here's what I suggest you do: go out of business. You're a net welfare loss to society. You're missing the point of capitalism - crappy enterprises fail. If you can't succeed within the rules, then admit that you suck and get on with life."
Corporation - "But think of the workers that would lose their jobs!"

The conversation ends there because the Rational Individual has given up on the Corporation and is off to efficiently allocate some capital.

Let's be clear here, I don't hate corporations. I hate whiny corporations that won't admit that they're bad at their business and instead of spending money fixing their problems, they spend money on lobbying politicians to tilt the playing field towards them.

Here's a handy reminder for business people out there thinking about investing in lobbyists: government is society's overhead cost. You hate overhead costs, right? So stop giving money to lobbyists and political action committees. Just because it's an industry standard doesn't make it a good idea.

4) Paolo Nutini is pretty good. My roommate discovered him through iTunes free song of the day. Paolo Nutini is not Italian. He is not related to Nutella. He's actually Scottish and a pretty good singer. I'm a big fan of the title track of his debut album - "these streets." I am kind of freaked out by the fact that he was only 19 when this album was recorded, but I'll still recommend it.

5) And finally, an item that I know my friend is probably already complaining about in his blog - Baltimore passed a city-wide smoking ban in public places! I, on the other hand, am psyched. I love breathing non-carcinogenic air and yes, I do believe that it jives with a libertarian/classic liberal viewpoint. It's okay to have the government regulate to keep people from hurting other people. Second-hand smoke hurts other people. Only 10 months until the ban takes effect!

Big Up Yourself

I'd like to publicly recognize, or in the parlance of our times, "shout-out" to my friend Greg. Greg has just been accepted to Johns Hopkins University's Post-Baccalaureate Pre-Med program. Here's to a man willing to give up a comfortable lifestyle in pursuit of a higher calling.

A Modest Proposal

Recently, I was thinking about Eastern European countries that you don't really hear too much about, such as Slovakia. I was reading up on Bratislava and considering how difficult it might be to visit such a place. Kayak.com told that it would actually be cheaper to fly into Vienna than into Bratislava.

"Vienna?" I said to myself, "If I'm going to fly into Vienna, why would I drive to Bratislava? I've never been to Vienna either! Anyway, how far is it from Bratislava to Vienna?"

The answer: about 50 km!

So, here's my proposal: Slovakia, you're not a rich country. I'm sure Bratislava is a very nice city, but let's face it: no one is going to pick Bratislava over Vienna. So why not make some lemonade with those lemons? Drop all the taxes off of your airport. Heck, subsidize flights into the airport. Become the T.F. Green of Eastern Europe!

It's a great plan. People will rent Slovakian cars, buy meals at Slovakian restaurants, maybe stay a night in Slovakian hotels, and perhaps decide "What the hell? Let's spend a day sight-seeing in Bratislava before we continue to Vienna!"

So, in the interest of international development and cheaper flights to Vienna, please pass this along to any high-ranking officials you may know in Slovakia.

You Really Ought to Read this Book

Last night I did something I haven't done in a long time, I read a brand-new book cover-to-cover in one sitting (ok, I did get up once to use the bathroom and get a snack).

The book is Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

You may have heard parts of this story before in the news media, but basically, this woman went from being a dirt-poor member of the Muslim Brotherhood to a secular Member of Parliament in The Netherlands (with a master's degree in political science along the way) in about 15 years. Usually the media loves to play up these sort of rags-to-riches stories, so one might expect that the real stories is somehow less fantastic than the one-sentence summary. That would be a mistake; the story is way, way, way more fantastic and amazing than I (or anyone) could summarize in a paragraph, much less a sentence.

The only shame is that there a probably a lot of people out there that will dismiss this woman as just another right-wing hack because her current employer is the American Enterprise Institute. They are very closely associated with the Bush administration, so that is enough to get them blacklisted by a lot of people. To be honest, my general impression of them has been that they are the kind of place that produces papers like "School Vouchers Cure Depression" and "Terrorists will Bomb YOUR House (without a Troop Surge in Iraq)." That's kind of a shame, because they probably aren't all that bad, but it really says something about how much faith I've lost in our present administration's ability to come up with non-terrible policies. Given what we've learned about the inner workings of this administration leading up to the war in Iraq, do I really believe they've got the sharpest people working on domestic policy? I used to be a Republican...6 years of GW and a Republican congress cured me of that. Now I'm just desperate to find any sort of politician willing to support any sort of libertarian policy.

I suppose that's why I found Hirsi Ali's book so engrossing. Here's a woman that grew up in a culture completely opposed to individual freedom, but through hard work and a lot of luck managed to make the journey (both geographic and intellectual) to the modern world and a liberal conception of individual rights and interactions between the government and intellectuals. Sure, in my case she is preaching to the converted, but her book does such better job of explaining to people why they ought to be libertarians than I ever could.

You should read Infidel, even if you disagree with the politics at the end of the book, it's still an unbelievable story.

Kayak.com is NOT a website about kayaking

Since the moment I first laid eyes on this website, I've been pretty evangelical about it. The problem with telling people about neat websites is that no one ever remembers the address unless you actually email it to them. So from now on, when they say "What's the address?" I'll just say, "There's a link in my blog." Of course, about half the time people aren't going to be aware I even have a blog, so maybe this isn't the most efficient way to do things...

Whatever, Kayak.com is so freaking efficient it'll make up for the fact that you had to find my blog before you could find the website.

Anyway, bottom line, Kayak.com is probably the best travel website I've seen. They definitely have the most authoritative listing of airfares (of course, they can't browse Southwest fares, but Southwest is so good at providing ridiculously cheap fares that I don't mind going to their website in addition to searching a general travel site).

Recent News

It's been quite some time since I've posted anything new, but recently a couple of New York Times articles have caught my eye. These articles absolutely fall into a category that I like to call "People are dumber than you can imagine."

First of all, there is a story about Zimbabwe's economic problems. For those of you who've spent the last five years watching American Idol and couldn't find Zimbabwe on a map (much less name it's capital or ruler), you should probably just skip the next few paragraphs.

Anyway, long story short, Zimbabwe used to be considered the breadbasket of sub-Saharan Africa and net exporter of food, now they are consistently in famine. How could this happen? Natural disaster? A war? AIDS epidemic? Nope, how about misgoverance so egregious that the standard of living in the country is well below where it was a decade ago (or more). How terribly incompetent are the people ruling that country? A quote from the article:

"The central bank’s latest response to these problems, announced this week, was to declare inflation illegal. From March 1 to June 30, anyone who raises prices or wages will be arrested and punished."

Imagine the kind of person who would think that this is a logical way out of economic free-fall - that person would be Robert Mugabe. Although he did not advance that policy (he is the president, not the governor of the central bank), there's no doubt he approved it before it was announced. He got the country into this mess, and I'm sure that he'll drive them further into disaster before the world is rid of him.

Mugabe is like a walking worst-case scenario. Every time you think "Damn, things can't get much worse in Zimbabwe," Robert Mugabe announces another ludicrous plan.

The sad thing is, you don't care, you've got some "Deal or No Deal" to watch. Of course, I'm even more of a hypocrite; I've been aware of this ongoing disaster for the last few years, but haven't really done anything about it. Anyone know of a way I could? I mean besides giving some money to some NGO, any actual ideas on this issue?

Ok, article #2: how can you see an article called "Ousted Pastor 'Completely Heterosexual'" and not click? Remember that ultra-conservative pastor that was all anti-homosexual until a male prostitute came forward and explained that he was paid to have gay sex with the pastor? Vaguely? Apparently that's because you're not from Colorado Springs or a member of the National Association of Evangelicals. So the story here is that after "three weeks of intensive counseling," the pastor has realized that he is "completely heterosexual." Church officials say that his "homosexual activity had not been "a constant thing.""

This is a great example of a story so absolutely ludicrous, no one would have thought to make it up. The man has a three-year-long sexual relationship with another man, but he's not actually gay? Can we get a show of hands on who believes this guy?

For a final bit of zaniness: apparently the pastor has said that "he and his wife were taking online courses to get master’s degrees in psychology."

Wow, being part of the meta-media is fun...I suppose this is why we get news stories reporting what prominent bloggers have been saying about the latest news story about a politician's reaction to an article about recent events. I really hate that, but at least now I've become part of the problem!