PROFESSOR JACOBSON: Demography, Schmemography. “Try as the Democrats do to segregate people ideologically based on skin color, the concept of ‘race’ is becoming more and more blurry, so much so that the Census bean counters are pulling their hair out and federal agencies are having similar problems. The implications for electoral politics and the diversity industry will be profound.”
Archive for 2012
November 19, 2012
LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: Reforming Legal Education’s Finances.
AT AMAZON, Holiday Gifts in Arts & Photography.
Also, today only: Up to 50% Off Select Panasonic LUMIX G-Series Compact System Cameras. I have several Lumix cameras, and they’re all excellent.
DID MISSING MCCAIN VOTERS go Libertarian in 2012? “It may be a continuing liability for the GOP that roughly one percent of the electorate believes strongly in limited government, but votes in a way that does not empower the GOP to do anything to limit that government.”
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Inspector General: Tax Preparers and IRS Agents May be Stealing Taxpayer Direct Deposit Refunds.
THEY DON’T CALL IT THE “STUPID PARTY” FOR NOTHING: Republican Study Committee Disowns Intellectual Property Paper. Opposing protectionist IP would help with younger voters, tech-libertarian types. It also cuts against the interest of industries — Big Entertainment, basically — that are the Dems’ key cash cow. It should be a no-brainer for the GOP, but instead, apparently, the GOP has decided not to have a brain.
Clearly Republicans aren’t quite ready to have this fight with the content lobbies quite yet.
But the fact that the paper got published at all in the first place is notable, as was the rapturous way it was received across the web. There’s a real constituency for this kind of reform. And it’s part and parcel of VM‘s own reform hobbyhorse: promoting smarter, leaner, and more efficient government. Copyright law has been bloated beyond its initial, limited and useful purpose into something way beyond what the Founding Fathers intended.
We encourage VM readers to take a look at the entire policy paper, hosted here by the Maryland Pirate Party. This is certainly not the last we’ll hear of these kinds of initiatives. GOPers shocked by the last election are worrying that the Party of Lincoln is becoming the Party of Out of Touch Middle Aged Men; copyright reform is an issue where the GOP potentially could be siding with the young and the hip against the Hollywood power elite.
If the GOP can’t break with the corporate money machines and the Status Quo Lobby on an issue like this one, you have to wonder what the party’s capacity to lead and to innovate really is.
Yes. I’m very disappointed at this retreat.
JOHN FUND: Allen West fights on amid bizarre Florida recount mayhem. “Then there is Gertrude Walker, the 32-year-veteran election supervisor of St. Lucie County, who has spent much of the last two weeks explaining why her office completely botched the count. She admitted that her office had acted in ‘haste’ in issuing election results, and that ‘mistakes were made.’ Among her mistakes was failing to count 40 of the 94 precincts under her jurisdiction on Election Night — and then counting the other 54 twice. Indeed. On Friday, her office announced it had ‘discovered’ 304 additional early votes left in a box. None had been counted. But Walker wasn’t available for comment. She has been hospitalized for unknown reasons.”
CALIFORNIA: What happens when Dems get everything they want. “The California Republican Party is functionally dead. And how is California doing, now that liberals have successfully terminated the state’s remaining conservatives?” #1 in debt, #1 in welfare, #1 in taxing the rich. And hoping for a federal bailout, I suspect. As is Illinois, which is in similar straits for similar reasons. “One-third of all the nation’s welfare recipients live in the state, despite the fact that California has only one-eighth of the country’s population. That’s four times as many as the next-highest welfare population, which is New York. Meanwhile, California eighth-graders finished ahead of only Mississippi and District of Columbia students on reading and math test scores in 2011.”
SO I GOT A COPY OF TIM FERRISS’S The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life, and I’m wondering if I should try following his advice and blogging it. What do you think?
NANCY PELOSI: No Fiscal Cliff Deal Without Tax Hikes On The Wealthy.
It occurs to me that whatever bill goes to the Senate, Boehner should make sure it includes a restoration of the motion-picture excise tax and my 50% surtax on “excess” earnings by former government officials. Let the Senate Dems either swallow those, or remove them and take the political heat.
UPDATE: Reader Greg Lesko writes: “If I were Boehner, I would add to the motion picture excise tax, language recognizing that the highest earners already pay more than their fair share and this tax hike proves they are willing to be even more generous than they have already been. Time to end the class war.” Yes. Praise their generosity!
DEFENSIVE MEDICINE: How To Survive ObamaCare.
MORE PROBLEMS WITH THOSE UNDERFUNDED / OVERGENEROUS PUBLIC PENSIONS: Now Oregon Is In Trouble. More thoughts here.
NOBODY THOUGHT THIS WAS COMING: Increasing U.S. Oil & Gas Reserves.
EXCEPT THE PRESS COVERAGE HAS BEEN DIFFERENT: “This Is Our Katrina:” Coney Island Reels From Hurricane Sandy’s Wrath. “FEMA and the city have been slow to offer assistance, Stevens said, as did other business owners interviewed there on Tuesday. She said that since the storm occurred, the only help she had been offered was the opportunity to apply for a low-interest small-business loan from FEMA.”