…and confusion about eggs and fish at the New York Times.
Our Long-Term Unemployment Problem
Is it caused by the government?
Yes. Next question?
I think that she underestimates the effects of regulatory uncertainty and the war on business that started rhetorically in 2008, and for real in 2009. I also think that she’s missing another problem — the huge mismatch between skills and employers’ needs, which are themselves a result of terrible government education policies.
[Update early afternoon]
One other point. We also have a labor mobility problem, due to the housing crisis, in which many are still unable to sell their homes and move to where the jobs are. That too was caused by government policies.
That Pro-Gun-Control Groundswell
Still waiting for it:
That last result is consistent with the hypothesis that the more people knew about the gun control legislation, the more likely they were to oppose it. Which reinforces a point that should be kept in mind whenever anyone cites public approval of a policy as a reason to support it: The public does not necessarily know what the hell it’s talking about. That is demonstrably true in the case of “assault weapon” bans, which received majority support in polls taken after the Sandy Hook massacre, probably because most people don’t know what an “assault weapon” is. Likewise, Obama is fond of saying that 90 percent of Americans support expanded background checks for gun buyers, which is what a CBS News survey conducted in January found. To be precise, 92 percent of respondents said they favored “a federal law requiring background checks on all potential gun buyers.” Yet Obama himself says “most Americans think that’s already the law.” How well-informed can support for requiring private sellers to run background checks be if most people who favor the idea don’t even realize it would represent a change in policy? Might these people be less inclined to support this proposal if they were not only familiar with current law but understood the reasons why background checks are not effective at keeping criminals from obtaining guns as well as the burdens and risks that a universal mandate would entail?
They’re going to wait a good long time, I think and hope.
As he points out, there is no duty on an elected representative to vote in accordance with the polls. Doing so would basically remove him from his responsibilities to vote his principles and conscience, and uphold his duty to the Constitution. The polls are ephemeral, and the only polls that matter are the ones on election day. Like Jacob Sullum, I’m glad as hell that we don’t have to put the Bill of Rights to a popular vote, because it would almost certainly lose.
Scared By Scare Quotes
“You can’t challenge my views! What do you think this is, a university?”
Fast And Furious
The administration continues to stonewall.
Germany’s Green Fail
They may have to start using shale to remain competitive with the U.S.
They worry that the country’s ambitious environmental goals are far less meaningful if the economy withers in achieving them.
You don’t say.
It would be a shame if they decided to start being economically sane.
[Update a while later]
More bad news for the warm-mongering econuts — scientists say that fracking is safe. And of course, they’ll believe it, because as they always tell us, we must follow the science.
Synesthesia
When three plus green equals four.
Actually, I think that this would explain a lot of the administration’s environmental and energy policy.
Big Bangers
Steve Hayward wonders if there could be a sitcom about think tankers.
Actually, it would be amusing to see the interactions between denizens of, say, AEI and Brookings. And imagine the snark from Cato, CEI and Reason. I’d cast Katherine Mangu-Ward as herself. But Kate Micucci might be able to do the job, too. And then there’s Jonah.
Someone needs to work up a treatment, stat.
“Stop Thinking We’re Violent!”
“…or I’ll kill you or blow off your legs!”
[Update a couple minutes later]
Mark Steyn on anger management:
And now the media are full of stories about how the Tsarnaevs were all-American kids and “beautiful, beautiful boys” and maybe it was the boxing or the Ben Affleck movies or the classical music but, whatever it was, it was nothing to do with Islam. Nothing whatever.
So I guess it worked.
It always works with the fools in the media.
[Update a couple more minutes later]
“Soon we’ll be told American society is responsible for the Tsarnaevs because of our consumerist addiction to pressure cookers.”
Also, I fearlessly predict calls for, and introduction of legislation to ban the purchase and possession of recreational fireworks by the general public.
[Update a few minutes later]
Aaaaaannnndd…Jerry Rivers is first out of the gate.
When It’s Hot, It’s Climate
But when it’s cold, it’s just weather.
And CO2 does increase temperature. But not much. Certainly nothing to justify all the economically ruinous hysteria.