MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS: Two Years For The Price Of One.

MALINVESTMENT, visualized. “Below right is a photo taken of unused lumber hauling rail cars now parked on a closed railroad spur in Eastern Oregon, part of 20 miles of empty rail cars dedicated to hauling lumber to market. Most of these lumber hauling rail cars have been in mothballs since 2008 ….”

UPDATE: Reader Bruce Webster writes:

When I read your post and then went to the linked post, I immediately thought of these passages:

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Empty trains clattered through the four states that were tied, as neighbors, to the throat of Colorado. They carried a few carloads of sheep, some corn, some melons and an occasional farmer with an overdressed family, who had friends in Washington. Jim [Taggart] had obtained a subsidy from Washington for every train that was run, not as a profit-making carrier, but as a service of “public equity.” (p. 351)
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Six weeks ago, Train Number 193 had been sent with a load of steel, not to Faulkton, Nebraska, where the Spencer Machine Tool Company, the best machine tool concern still in existence, had been idle for two weeks, waiting for the shipment — but to Sand Creek, Illinois, where Confederated Machines had been wallowing in debt for over a year, producing unreliable goods at unpredictable times. The steel had been allocated by a directive which explained that the Spencer Machine Tool Company was a rich concern, able to wait, while Confederate Machines was bankrupt and could not be allowed to collapse, being the sole source of livelihood of the community of Sand Creek, Illlinois. The Spencer Machine Tool Company had closed a month ago. Confederated Machines had closed two weeks later.

The people of Sand Creek, Illinois, had been placed on national relief, but no food could be found for them in the empty granaries of the nation at the frantic call of the moment — so the seed grain of the farmers of Nebraska had been seized by order of the Unification Board — and Train Number 194 had carried the unplanted harvest and the future of the people of Nebraska to be consume by the people of Illinois. “In this enlightened age,” Eugene Lawson had said in a radio broadcast, “we have come, at last, to realize that each of of us is his brother’s keeper.” (p. 911)
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I suspect you can guess what book those came from. ..bruce..

Indeed. An Army Of Eugene Lawsons!

BIGOTS: Ninth Circuit Halts California Marriages Pending Appeal.

SEN. CARL LEVIN gets pied by protester. Shockingly, not a Tea Party person. But hey, the election season is young. . . .

WHY GIRLY JOBS DON’T PAY WELL. This is no big mystery. Men care more about making money because making money is important to attracting and keeping women, and determining their status in general. Women don’t value money as much, because it’s not so important to attracting and keeping men or determining their status. On the other hand, caring — or at least the appearance thereof — is. That’s why this solution (“We need to figure out how to honor girly values while earning manly pay”) is dumb. And note the very first comment:

We should try to reverse the point of view and ask: why are some “manly” jobs paid more then “girly” jobs? Sometimes, it’s the only way to attract suitable candidates. Who wants to collect garbage? Who wants be a sailor? Salary is not the only reason for chosing a job. Many “girly” jobs are gratifying, while many manly jobs are stultifying. Why would someone work in a mine, if not for money?

Indeed. And in the very next comment:

So called girly jobs are usually cost centers. They are necessary but do not directly create profits. Even within corporations, the girly department is always human resources; necessary but not a driver of earnings. Men also tend to be risk takers. We see this develop very early on in boys. During the school years, taking risks and thinking outside the box is frowned upon; even punished and may explain the growing gap between the academic achievement of girls vs boys. In the real world, risk, innovation, entrepreneurship; bucking the status quo is rewarded. So while girls do better in school, their earnings later are perhaps lower not only because they choose ‘caring’ jobs (working for someone else) but because they are so accustomed to succeeding in a system that rewards conformity and compliance, they are unprepared to take the risks necessary to innovate and truly compete in a world without an established set of rules to follow. Instead of finding ways for girly jobs to pay manly wages, women need to start companies and produce goods and services that make money from girly values. Women have to want to make money and they have to take risks and that does not have to interfere with ‘caring’.

I’m pleased to find such un-PC thinking among the New York Times’ readership.

OH, GOODY: Hey Taxpayers, Get Ready To Pay For the Union Pension Failure Tsunami.

TALKING CARS with the Car Lust guys.

OH, GOODY: Deadly Whooping Cough, Once Wiped Out, Is Back.

I had a column on this subject a while back.

UPDATE: Dr. George Milonas emails: “Again, I repeat myself ad infinitum. Why haven’t the lawyers filed class action lawsuits against these anti vaccine gurus that are scaring parents with autism nonsense? These guys could get billions suing Jenny McCarthy and her evil minions for infecting thousands of innocent children.” If only things worked that way. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Allen S. Thorpe writes:

Your post on whooping cough reminded me how few modern parents have experienced the horror of those diseases like mumps, measles and especially whooping cough, not to mention diseases that were with us into the early 20th Century like malaria, dysentery, small pox, typhoid fever and polio. We have fought so hard to rid ourselves of these scourges, it should be a priority to support continued production of vaccines and effective antibiotics. I’m in favor of compensating people who can prove that they were harmed by defective vaccines, but that should be determined by qualified experts at the CDC, not by juries moved by tragic stories. Suits against vaccine makers leave out the interest of the public and are therefore a failure of our legal system.

Indeed.

RATS ON THE WESTSIDE, BEDBUGS UPTOWN IN THE OUTER BOROUGHS: More than 10% of New Yorkers report bedbugs. “According to the poll, New Yorkers making less than $50,000 a year were twice as likely to have bedbugs as those with higher incomes, and 10% of respondents in Queens, Staten Island and Brooklyn reported bedbugs, as did 8% of Bronx residents. But just 3% of respondents in Manhattan were afflicted.”

WHY LAWYERS should work no more than 40 hours a week. Are you kidding? Law professors work more than that.

CAN WOMEN FIGHT? Since most real fights don’t last long at all, endurance is not so important. But that’s not quite what they’re talking about.

KEEPING U-HAUL on speed dial. “Berman, whose new book is ‘No Place Like Home: A Memoir in 39 Apartments,’ has made it her goal to dwell in homes in two of the most expensive cities in North America but spend as little money on them as possible — and, often, as little time in each as well.”

HACKERS CREATE wifi-sniffing aerial drone.

EUGENE VOLOKH: Sensuous? I Can’t Help But Be Sensuous.

CHANCE BALLEW ON how to save money with your AR-15.

RICHARD POLLOCK: With DOJ Stonewalling on New Black Panthers Case, Civil Rights Commission Asks for Expanded Powers.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE: College gets less useful, more expensive. “There is a similarity between the debt crisis on Wall Street and what threatens higher education. Just as investors borrowed more and increased their leverage in volatile markets, many colleges and universities are borrowing more and betting on an expanding market in higher education at the precise moment their product is becoming affordable for fewer people.”

FORGETTING JUSTICE MARSHALL. Marshall was a great litigator; he was not a great judge. The litigator part tends to be forgotten, which is why — as I’ve mentioned before — I like to show the film Separate But Equal in my Constitutional Law class sometimes.

JUSTICE: DoJ clears Tom DeLay of any lawbreaking. “It took six years and two administrations, but the Department of Justice has finally completed its probe into Tom DeLay’s connections to corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff — and found nothing to charge. Mike Allen at Politico reports that Delay’s counsel has been informed that Delay is now free to report that the grand jury has closed the case.”

Plus this: “Now that the Abramoff case has closed, maybe the American media can pursue the story of Paul Magliocchetti and PMA with at least half the vigor of their pursuit of the Abramoff scandal. After all, we have another well-connected lobbyist allegedly laundering campaign contributions and winning legislative gifts for his clients. Are they less interested in a similar scandal tied to Democrats? And if so … why?” Heh. Like you don’t know . . . .

HIGHER EDUCATION’S tech dilemmas. I think I read as fast on the iPod Touch Kindle App as on a print book.

JENNIFER GRANHOLM questions the patriotism of Chevy Volt critics. That’s making the Leaf sound better all by itself . . . .

HMM: Harvard Confirms, DID NOT Divest its Israel Holdings.

BABALU BLOG: Audio evidence of the Castro regime’s brutal repression of Reina Luisa Tamayo.

IN THE MAIL: The Servile Mind: How Democracy Erodes the Moral Life.

BRINGING “BRUNO THE THUG” TO A TOWN HALL MEETING?

UPDATE: More: Tainted By Rangel Cash, History, Rep. Bean (D), Censors, Intimidates At Townhall Event.