True Radicals

John Fund likes Brian Doherty’s new book on the history of libertarians in America:

Libertarian ideas have enjoyed a surge of respect lately, helped by the collapse of Soviet central planning, the success of lower tax rates and the appeals of various figures in popular culture (e.g., Drew Carey, John Stossel and Clint Eastwood) who want government out of both their bedroom and wallet. Even so, libertarianism is often not the people’s choice. Part of the problem is the inertia of the status quo. “In a world where government has its hand in almost everything,” Mr. Doherty writes, “it requires a certain leap of imagination to see how things might work if it didn’t.” Many people couldn’t make that leap when, for example, economists proposed channeling some Social Security payroll taxes into private accounts.

Yes, that’s the problem. People like the idea of the government leaving them alone, until they realize that in many cases, they’re on the dole themselves. As Fund notes, the net may help spread the idea of personal freedom and personal responsibility, and perhaps these ideas, on which the country was founded, can be reinvigorated, and fight back against the inertia of the past seventy big-government years.

In The Eye Of The Beholder

While I take Virginia Postrel’s general point that beauty is as genetic as any other attribute, I think that there’s a slight category error here, in that it is much more subjective than the other characteristics (taller, more agile, smarter). For this reason, we have a better shot at all being beautiful, since it might be possible to be beautiful to someone, and this isn’t subject to objective dispute.

Back Stateside

Flew in from Amsterdam late last night. Posting may resume once I figure out what time zone I’m in. I will note, though, that NASA has to be a prime suspect in Anna Nicole Smith’s death–it seems to have knocked Nowak out of the news.

Just joking, of course. NASA hardly ever does things like that any more…

Rainy And Dreary

I’m in the Netherlands now. We had a whirlind tour of Belgium including a high-speed train ride from Calais to Brussells. It was quite a thrill–I don’t know how fast it was going, but I’m sure that it was the fastest I’ve ever been in a ground vehicle. Planes seem much safer, when you see all the landscape whizzing by (particularly when you pass another train a couple feet away at a relative velocity of whatever it is).

Drove down and had lunch in Ghent, then spent a couple hours in Bruges, and back east and up to the Amsterdam area. Taking care of business here, then back to Florida late tomorrow night.

On the previous post, I was going on the initial reports that Shipman was an astronaut, and hadn’t gotten the latest (it was a frazzled week). And yes, regardless of her actual accomplishments, I should have know to refer to her as a Naval aviator, not a pilot.

[Update a few minutes later]

Sorry, that was sloppy wording in the last sentence. The “her” referred to Nowak, not Shipman.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!