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!

Fun with the Democratic Process

So today has certainly been the most exciting mid-term election that I can remember. Then again, I don't have a very long memory, especially for things that I spend most of my time hating (like politics). It seems like O'Malley is going become governor. I'm still not sure how I feel about that. Without a doubt I'll be feeling lighter in my wallet, I can't imagine O'Malley passing up the opportunity to increase Maryland's tax burden. On the other hand, I can't really come up with anything I like about Ehrlich. I guess that if O'Malley does become governor, then something good could come of it: Sheila Dixon will become Baltimore City mayor. Not that I know anything about her, but she apparently she might support an ban on indoor smoking in Baltimore City. I really enjoy places where people don't smoke, so I think I would enjoy more of Baltimore City in that case.

Anyway, voting is always fun. The best part being that I can stop hearing about politics and political strategy all the damn time of WYPR. I really wish NPR would cover politics less and anything else instead. The worst part is that there's never any talk of the issues, it's all talk about how the political parties are using popular opinion on current issues to try to eke out some minuscule advantage over the other party.

You know what I think is a strange race? Maryland's 5th House District, where there is a Democratic candidate and a Green Party Candidate, but no Republican. I suppose you could write-in the Constitution Party candidate, but that seems even crazier than the Green Party. Apparently, the Republicans didn't bother because the incumbent is a 25-year incumbent, but I think it's kind of silly that the Green Party candidate is pulling 17% of the vote (with 57% of the precincts reporting).

On computerized voting: it worked pretty well for me. Obviously, I've grown up with technology, but it was really a piece of cake. So much for the news media giving us an accurate warning for technology leading to the collapse of society...looks like they're 0 for 2 if you count Y2K. I don't even want to count all the times they've warned us of the impending near-collapse of society due to identity theft, illegal music downloading, and social networking websites. Oh, and no children have started a nuclear war by accident yet either.