Are We a Self-Hating Commercial Society? - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily

Are We a Self-Hating Commercial Society? - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily: "If buying this cup saves trees, an even better way to save trees is not to buy coffee at all. And it's not clear that lowering the demand for paper is going to actually save trees at all, since a lower demand would eventually mean less reason to plant and renew the resource. And do we really need to save trees anyway? Does someone know the optimal number of trees that are supposed to be alive on the planet at any one time?

The case of socially just coffee is the one that really gets my goat. The coffee plantations that pay the highest wages and offer the most benefits to their workers are the largest, most established, and most well-connected plantations. The smaller, family-owned plantations can't afford all these things, but they are less likely to have access to the rating agencies and export companies. Why, precisely, are consumers supposed to favor the corporate big shots over the family farms, and do so in the name of enlightened social consciousness?"

"Whether a cereal is called "Sugar Smacks" or "Earthen Honey Morsels" is neither here nor there to me, and if some marketing genius figures that the cereal company can make more money with one name over another, good for him and the company. Capitalism is so darn good at what it does that it can even bamboozle muddleheaded socialists to cough up money for its products; that's wonderful."

The Contractors that Couldn't Shoot Straight? | David Isenberg | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Contractors that Couldn't Shoot Straight? | David Isenberg | Cato Institute: Commentary: "For eight years we have been supposedly training the police in Afghanistan. And here is what we have done. We've flushed $6 billion, $6 billion.

Now, am I exaggerating? Let me quote the general in charge of training the police in Afghanistan. This is what General Caldwell said. And I quote, 'It's inconceivable that in fact for eight years we weren't training the police.' He went on to say that essentially we were giving them uniforms."

Avoid Campus Club Conundrum | Ilya Shapiro and Neal McCluskey | Cato Institute: Commentary

Avoid Campus Club Conundrum | Ilya Shapiro and Neal McCluskey | Cato Institute: Commentary: "It is impossible to reconcile free speech with governmentally compelled support of speech. Just as public colleges cannot choose both which student groups to fund and avoid discrimination, they cannot pay a professor without privileging his speech over that of the taxpayers who pay his bills. It also cannot fire him for saying something that taxpayers dislike without the government being guilty of censoring speech.

There is only one complete solution: Government must stop funding higher education — which, after all, is a form of regressive taxation, with lower-income households subsidizing the children of higher-income households (who attend college at a much higher rate). Ultimately, it's the only way to preserve real freedom and equality for each and every American."

New Rules for Your Taxes | Daniel J. Mitchell | Cato Institute: Commentary

New Rules for Your Taxes | Daniel J. Mitchell | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Here's where CBO accounting would be a big help. Why don't you assume that you were going to get a raise of $10,000. Because your pay 'only' went up by $5,000, you can claim your pay was reduced. The IRS will come down on you like a ton of bricks, but you can tell the agents as they cart you away that you were following official government methodology. (Maybe they'll go easy on you when you tell them that an identical approach helped push the IRS budget up to $12 billion.)"

"When filing your taxes, you can fantasize that you moved into a much larger house with a higher mortgage. Then, claim a bigger mortgage interest deduction. Once again, the IRS may frown upon that approach, but perhaps a judge will sympathize if you say you'll pay your full tax bill if and when Congress follows through on the supposed Medicare savings in the Obamacare legislation."

FOXNews.com - Obama Administration Eases Path for Airline, Rail Workers to Unionize

FOXNews.com - Obama Administration Eases Path for Airline, Rail Workers to Unionize: "In a 2008 election, 5,253 Delta flight attendants voted to be represented by the AFA. But the union lost under the old election rules because the roughly 8,000 flight attendants who didn't vote were counted as 'no' votes."

When not voting is interpreted the same as a "no" vote, why should you go to vote if you would vote "no" anyway?

FOXNews.com - French University Builds 11,000 MPG Car

FOXNews.com - French University Builds 11,000 MPG Car: "they run over a much shorter course, only a few miles, at very low speeds"

Apparently they only go 15 mph. I can get infinite MPG by just riding a bike -- and I would be going about the same speed!

FOXNews.com - How the Subsea Oil Recovery System Works

FOXNews.com - How the Subsea Oil Recovery System Works: "The structure is a 40-foot tall concrete chimney that conveys leaking oil to a ship on the surface, the Deepwater Enterprise. Once there, oil is separated from water and stored until the ship can return to shore, where it is offloaded and shipped to an on-shore terminal.

The ship is capable of storing 139,000 barrels of oil, processing it at a rate of 15,000 barrels per day. BP hopes it will be able to collect as much as 85 percent of the oil leaking from the sea floor."

I hope it works!

Passive House in the Woods

Passive House in the Woods: "The exterior wall assembly of the Passive House in the Woods consists of 11” Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) for structure, and an 11” Exterior Insulation and Finish System (EIFS) facade with an overall R-value of 70. Windows and doors are Passive House certified, come with high solar heat gain (64%), triple pane low-E coated glazings, as well as insulated frames for installed R-values of 8. The slab sits on 12” of extruded polystyrene insulation with an R-value of 60. The flat roof utilizes an average of 14” of polyisocyanurate insulation with an R-value of 95."

Education Race to Top Hits Bottom | Neal McCluskey | Cato Institute: Commentary

Education Race to Top Hits Bottom | Neal McCluskey | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Indeed, as Duncan conceded when he announced the victors, what put Delaware and Tennessee in the winners' circle wasn't embracing cutting-edge reforms, but getting all districts and teachers' unions to endorse their applications."

LOL!

The War on Drugs Is Lost | Patrick Basham | Cato Institute: Commentary

The War on Drugs Is Lost | Patrick Basham | Cato Institute: Commentary: "In prisons, drugs are plentiful and their use is widespread. No matter what they try, prisons can't keep drugs out - an important lesson for those who would turn Russia, or any country, into a prison to stop drug use.

The startling, deeply unpleasant, but equally unavoidable fact is that 80 percent of drug-related deaths aren't the result of drug use. They are the result of drug prohibition."

"filling prisons with substance abusers doesn't make any public policy sense. If we ended the war on drugs, drug addicts could be treated as patients, not as pestilence."