Let's get rowdy with the administrative state.

Charles Murray on a little light civil disobedience. This idea has merit.

http://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-podcast/lets-render-some-federal-codes-unenforceable

August 2014: Tony begins MBA program at Dartmouth.
January 2015: Dartmouth bans hard liquor
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/us/in-response-to-student-misconduct-dartmouth-to-ban-hard-liquor-at-parties.html?_r=0

If I know anything about statistics, it's that correlation always implies causation.
Slow down there hoss, we still want our friend around after business school.

Articles I've been reading (T): July 30th, 2014

• Inside Colorado’s flourishing black market, WaPo
• Democrats want to ban government contracts for companies that leave the US to avoid taxes, WaPo
• Malaysia Airlines is stuck with its name, FT
• A surreal week with the Donetsk rebels, FT 
• Why seven hours of sleep might be better than eight, WSJ
• Cuomo's office hobbled ethics inquiries by Moreland Commission, NYT

Articles I've been reading (T): July 28th - 29th, 2014

Passing along some recent reads that I've enjoyed.  Share yours.

(FT and WSJ require subscriptions)

July 28th, 2014

• "A Clinton in power will not bring back the good times," Financial Times 
• "IMF says ‘overvalued’ pound preventing rebalancing," Financial Times
• "Compassionate conservatism is still dead," Bloomberg View
• "Missing the point on inversions and corporate taxes," AEI Ideas

July 29th, 2014

• "Building a better college ranking system," NYT
• "KKR co-founder works to transform his legendary buyout firm," WaPo
• "At Purdue, a case study in cost cutting," WSJ
• "The Olympian and the Cross-fitter," WSJ
• "DC Circuit rules Obamacare tax bill isn't revenue raising," Pacific Legal Fund
• "The poor need Ryan's regulation reform," Bloomberg View

Poetry

Here are the poems I've written in the last while. I started with the first one to inoculate myself against your criticism or at least to make you feel bad for thinking it. Of course, I always welcome constructive criticism or typo corrections.


Creative
Who are the creative ones?
Who makes the new?
Who sings the unsung songs 
And forms the formless true?

Strength and Spirit, Blood and Time,
Sacrifices all,
Crusted hair with layered brine
Mark creation’s thrall

To open the soul to acclaim or scorn--
All of Art’s a risk.
Uncovered dreams to be scarred and torn,
For all must hit or miss.

No joy without a try,
No day while unawake,
Step off the ledge to fly,
Create for life’s own sake.

Loathing will they offer,
Indifference at best,
And deride your precious proffer,
The child of your mind detest.

For all must face rejection,
Of such is this our life.
The heart bleeds dejection,
When stabbed with the critics’ knife.

Yet tastes are fickle and foolish,
One view stands supreme.
The verdict from you is the truest,
If you own your created dream.

For what is now was not.
Formed is the formless true.
From nothing it is wrought,
You have seen it to fruition
Breathed life to your ambition,
Without which there is no new.

Druidic Spooning
Solid as the oaken column,
Gentle as the summer’s breeze,
Hold me close, tender and solemn,
Underneath the meadow trees.

Time leaves us alone and hollow,
Fills our heads with constant fear.
For it’s always on the morrow,
One must leave the other here.

But right now, for an hour,
Or a second, hold me fast.
And perhaps some unknown power,
Will make such special moments last.

Unknowing
Into the dark meanders time
Heedless of the light
Of future days' predicted rays
That never last the night.
For the sun sets on the present
And fades a shiny plan,
The now starts in darkness
To humble a once sure man.

Soldier Rest (continuation of the poem by Sir Walter Scott)
Sailor, Rest! Thy Watch is ended,
Plow no more the troubled sea,
Let the torn sails sit unmended,
Feel the sure winds lift thee free.

On the fairer ocean’s span,
T’ward the Sunset clear and glowing,
Full ahead to promised lands;
Steady tailwind at thee blowing.

Sailor, Rest! Thy Watch is ended,
Leave the sheets and sails untended,
Toil no more on violent seas,
Float to Heaven on thy breeze.

Precipice
On this day the world is breaking
On the faultline we stand astride.
On to this side or the other,
Clear your person of the fissure.
Oh be quick, my straddling brother,
Commit forever to the making
Of the Choice you soon are taking
And the Choice you are forsaking
When you stand on the divide.
Leap and tumble to decide.

Great Climate Change article

http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/climate-today/

"I have seen no study which reasonably demonstrates that our current climate is truly ideal.   It seems extraordinarily unlikely to me that we were born into a perfect climate which could never change for the better in either direction.  Still, from ice ages we know with certainty, that colder is very, VERY bad for people in general.  If 6 degrees colder is so bad, how can it be so certain that only two degrees warmer is going to result in destruction[?]" 

In which I hurl invective at Community Supported Agriculture

(I never posted this when it was relevant last summer. Consider it a warning as warmer weather beckons.)

Friends, I am a chump thrice-over. Despite my long-standing and well-founded skepticism towards local food, organic farming, and the whole manure-clod-laden clump of related feel-good food philosophies, I signed us up for a weekly portion in a local CSA. After six weeks of boxes, I have moved from a position of skepticism to one of active hostility.

We joined with a friend who wanted to split a weekly half-share to make the cost and amount of food reasonable. My first error: I misunderstood what the monthly outlay would be. A half-share in this thing runs about $35 a week, so our share of half of that means that we're shelling out $70 a month or so, twice what I'd originally understood. That's a full fifth of our monthly food budget, making the whole thing a rather extravagant luxury.

And what do I get for my hard-earned spondulix? Here's last week's haul: two zucchini, two crookneck squash, a pattypan squash, a cucumber, two or three small beets, a tomato, about twenty okra pods, and a small sachet of purslane (a succulent microgreen). With the exception of the purslane, everything here could easily be picked up at a supermarket for less than $10. It would also be pre-washed and healthy-looking.

To top it off, the taste of this organically grown produce is indistinguishable from any other produce I have ever eaten. Perhaps an extra dash of moral superiority for buying organic would make it more flavorful, but I'm fresh out.

I'd go on, but Freakonomics summed up a lot of the real arguments against this kind of wasteful nonsense:
The Inefficiency of Local Food