I’ve wondered this for years: why do we get shampoo, but not toothpaste in hotel rooms?
It really does seem to be a true market failure, and one that’s become more acute since the stupid new TSA rules about carrying such things in carry ons.
Peak-Oil Blogging
…has peaked.
Now, let’s hope the same happens to climate-hysteria sites.
The Lawless Rolling Train Wreck That Is ObamaCare
The Affordable Care Act’s Section 1513 states in black-letter law that “(d) Effective Date.—The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013.” It does not say the Administration can impose the mandate whenever it feels it is politically convenient.
This selective enforcement of laws has become an Administration habit. From immigration (the Dream Act by fiat) to easing welfare reform’s work requirements to selective waivers for No Child Left Behind, the Obama Administration routinely suspends enforcement of or unilaterally rewrites via regulation the laws it dislikes. Now it is doing it again on health care, without any consultation from, much less the approval of, Congress. President Obama probably figures business and Republicans won’t object because they don’t like the law anyway.
Probably. But it’s a mess, and it’s only going to get worse.
America 3.0
On the anniversary of the birth of America 1.0, Michael Barone reviews a timely new book
A Declaration For All Generations
I’ve long advocated that a part of commemorating the nation’s birthday should be a reading of the declaration, and not just celebrating with beer, barbecue and fireworks. It seems particularly important in light of events of the past few years.
[Update late afternoon, as we’re slow-grilling ribs]
The Patriot’s Creed.
Testdisk: A Data Miracle Tool
Some of you may recall that I was having drive problems the other day. I was getting the data off my old drive and moving it to a new one when it started issuing bad sector and impending drive failure warnings. As a result, I failed to get the hidden files in my home Linux directory (the most critical data loss was my much of my sent email for the last three years). It was looking pretty grim. ddrescue, which is supposed to be a very powerful data-recovery tool, couldn’t see anything, and attempting to look at it with fdisk to see if the drive was even there just resulted in an overflow error. I took it to a local data-recovery guy, and he put his diagnostics on it, and told me that it was having a delay after the first 30g (of a 2T drive), and that he couldn’t do anything with it (though I think that he understood Windows much better than he did ext4). I was almost resolved to simply mourning the loss, or sending it to a specialist, with the potential of spending many hundreds of dollars and only getting back individual randomly named files with no file structure. But I tried one more thing.
I ran the program most of yesterday (it took from mid-morning until late evening to go through all two terabytes), but when it was done, the logical volume was restored, and the drive looked like new (it’s even possible that it will boot, though I haven’t tried it, and don’t really have any reason to). But I can’t recommend it more highly.
And yes, I will be backing up religiously, with a cron job every night (possibly also to my remote server).
Independence
And a century and a half ago, along with the celebration of the 87th anniversary of the signing, the Union was celebrating the defeat of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia the previous day at Gettysburg, and the fall of Vicksburg to Grant in the west. The southern cause’s fate was sealed.
Extreme Weather
No, it has nothing to do with “climate change.”
To think that it does is akin to, in the president’s words, being part of the Flat Earth Society. And unlike when the president said it, when I say it, it’s true.
Pickett’s Charge
Some thoughts on the 150th anniversary of the victory. I hadn’t realized that there was even a controversy about whose fault the loss was. I’d always thought it was clear that it was ultimately Lee’s responsibility — he ordered the charge — though having better information from Stuart might have resulted in different decisions on his part. I think that, after his previous string of victories, he’d grown overconfident, and was overcome with hubris.
Also, a bonus link to libertarian perspectives on the war. I’ve always thought that the tragedy of the war was that states rights were so damaged because the southern states chose to use them to defend slavery.
[Update a few minutes later]
How not to remember Gettysburg:
What, one must say, led this prolific best-selling writer to think anyone concerned with the meaning of Gettysburg would give a damn about where she and her husband slept when they were overnight guests at the White House? I was waiting to hear her say that, unlike others, she didn’t have to pay for the honor. And anyone who read her Dartmouth commencement address already knew this story.
As a historian, Kearns Goodwin should know that history is the means by which we, as a people, learn about our country’s past — how our ancestors took risks and measures that made the United States the hope of the world and created the great republic in which we now live and breathe as free men and women. Instead, Kearns Goodwin used the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the most important battle held on our own land to talk about herself, and the would-be greatness of the contemporary liberals she holds in esteem.
No less than what I would have expected.
Citizens United
Contrary to the Democrats’ lies, it didn’t cause the IRS scandal. It foretold it:
Citizens United exposed with rare clarity and forcefulness the partisan implications of a decades-long political conflict between justices who uphold the Constitution and activists like Stevens who undermine it with the procedural nitpicking and bureaucratic rulemaking that expand and dehumanize government.
Even better, Citizens United hamstrung an Obama reelection strategy of wielding the FEC’s regulatory power to stifle “enemy” speech, by delay and intimidation where possible, and with litigation where necessary. Thanks to the Supreme Court, the FEC was no longer available to play the role of crooked referee.
So, enter the Internal Revenue Service stage left armed with 157 White House visits, a BOLO, and the standard Chicago strategy of uncertainty, intimidation, and delay. Oh, yes… and Lois Lerner, who broke the IRS scandal with a planted question at an American Bar Association meeting. Lerner, formerly of FEC enforcement, where she is known to have harassed the Christian Coalition and Illinois Republican Senate candidate Al Salvi. It doesn’t get much better than this.
That gun looks pretty smoky to me.
[Update a few minutes later]
Wait, what? I thought that Lois Lerner said she didn’t nothing wrong or illegal. So what does she want immunity from?
“The committee is entitled to Ms. Lerner’s full and truthful testimony without further conditions,” said panel spokesman Frederick Hill in a statement to POLITICO. “If, however, Ms. Lerner’s attorney is interested in discussing limited immunity, the committee will listen.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), a senior oversight Republican helping oversee the IRS investigation, said the panel is still hopeful she’ll come to the committee on her own free will, arguing that questions of immunity and contempt are “down the road.”
And then there’s this:
“If the court finds that she didn’t waive, then it’s over, and if the court finds that she did and orders her to testify, then she goes to testify,” Taylor said, later, adding that there is “no danger under any circumstances of her going to jail.”
That’s a shame. I’d prefer to see her current taxpayer-funded vacation converted to a long stay at Club Fed.