The Harm in Hate-Speech Laws - David Gordon - Mises Daily

The Harm in Hate-Speech Laws - David Gordon - Mises Daily: "you do not own your reputation, since this consists of the ideas other people have of you, and you cannot own other people's thoughts."

Trim Nuclear Fat from the Pentagon Budget | Benjamin H. Friedman and Christopher Preble | Cato Institute: Commentary

Trim Nuclear Fat from the Pentagon Budget | Benjamin H. Friedman and Christopher Preble | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Even by the most merciless arithmetic, this triple threat is unnecessary. Congress should take the advice of experts like former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James Cartwright and decommission either the bomber or ICBM leg while cutting the forces in the remaining two legs, leaving a deployed warhead total under 500."

"Monumental leaps in our ability to precisely aim conventional and nuclear weapons have greatly reduced the number and size of the weapons we need to threaten enemies. And the U.S. military's vast advantage over all rivals makes it even less plausible that we will ever be desperate enough to resort to a nuclear strike."

"The peace among rich states increasingly seems to depend on factors beyond mutual terror. Only poor, threatened states now develop nuclear weapons for security."

D.C. Wants a Bite at the Apple | David Boaz | Cato Institute: Commentary

D.C. Wants a Bite at the Apple | David Boaz | Cato Institute: Commentary: "For more than a decade, Microsoft went about its business, developing software, selling it to customers and — legally — making money.

Washington politicians and journalists sneered at the company’s naiveté. A congressional aide said, “They don’t want to play the D.C. game, that’s clear, and they’ve gotten away with it so far. The problem is, in the long run they won’t be able to.”

A major antitrust case and a few other inquiries later, Microsoft got the message. They now play the game."

With Alaska's Pebble Partnership, The EPA Waves the Precaution Flag | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary

With Alaska's Pebble Partnership, The EPA Waves the Precaution Flag | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary: " The Assessment is designed to be used for regulation based upon the “precautionary principle”. This darling of the global left states that “if something has the potential to cause harm, it shouldn’t be done”. The UN’s a big fan and reports are that they have been sniffing around parts of Bristol Bay looking for a way to get in on the Pebble issue. In fact, its Framework Convention on Climate Change—the scaffold upon which the failed Kyoto Protocol on global warming was erected-is based on the precautionary principle, noting that a lack “full scientific certainty” should not provide grounds to preclude regulation."

How could they travel there to do research when the travel causes harm? What doesn't have "the potential to cause harm"?

"Under the precautionary principle, there is simply no way that antibiotics would ever have been marketed, had scientists had known of the potential for bacteria to mutate into resistant strains. There would be no airplanes or cars (they can and will crash, you know). Even today, New Jersey and Oregon won’t let you pump gas because your car could explode (and the price of gas must therefore go up)."

"Wouldn’t it be a shame if the cost of slamming Pebble shut was to price hybrids even more out of the market?"

Cyberrisks to U.S. electric grid a matter of timing | Security & Privacy - CNET News

Cyberrisks to U.S. electric grid a matter of timing | Security & Privacy - CNET News: "Two companies, Open Access Technology International (OATI) and GlobalSign, which are authorized by the NAESB to issue digital certificates to the industry, argue that a 30-year expiration for digital certificates is fine."

30 years seems like a very long time! RSA was only invented 35 years ago! Is it save to use the same key when RSA is twice as old as now? With computing power doubling every 18 months, in 30 years computers will be 1 million times as powerful!

Romney amends budget goals, assails Obama's record | Fox News

Romney amends budget goals, assails Obama's record | Fox News: "Mitt Romney told business leaders Wednesday that he would try to put the federal budget on track to be balanced within eight to 10 years, acknowledging it could take longer than two presidential terms to get the job done as he had previously hoped.

Romney told members of the Business Roundtable that "I will, in my first 100 days," take steps that will lead to a $500 billion reduction in the deficit by the end of his first term. Cutting some government programs, sending others back to states and hiring fewer government workers and reducing their salaries will "get us to a balanced budget within eight to ten years," he said."

The situation is so dire that we need to stop the bleeding within the next decade! :-/

Hearkening Back to the USSR | Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar | Cato Institute: Commentary

Hearkening Back to the USSR | Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Back in the 1970s, the U.S. government passionately pleaded for untrammeled emigration as a fundamental human right. In 1975, the U.S. imposed trade sanctions on the Soviet Union for levying an exit tax on citizens wishing to emigrate (mostly Jews). In a complete reversal of that moral passion, Senator Charles Schumer has now introduced legislation to levy a tax of 30% on assumed capital gains of people like Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook, for giving up American citizenship and emigrating to Singapore. The exit tax proposed on Saverin and others like him is thousands of times higher than anything the Soviet Union dreamed of."

Barnes & Noble: Ebooks Should Be Expensive So Amazon Won't Kill Us And Make Ebooks Expensive | Techdirt

Barnes & Noble: Ebooks Should Be Expensive So Amazon Won't Kill Us And Make Ebooks Expensive | Techdirt: "the argument is that we're better off having expensive ebooks today, because if we don't, we might have expensive books in the future"

Free Markets Require Increased Legal Immigration | Alex Nowrasteh | Cato Institute: Commentary

Free Markets Require Increased Legal Immigration | Alex Nowrasteh | Cato Institute: Commentary: "What should not be contentious, however, is the commitment for increasing legal immigration by anyone supporting free-market principles.

The current immigration system is the antithesis of a free-market economy and resembles nothing so much as a Soviet-style economic central planning bureau.

The government fixes quotas and subquotas on the number of immigrants by skill, country of origin, employer and even where they can live. Arbitrary rules, inspections and other requirements make the system virtually unworkable for all but the most committed of employers, with the result that American companies are prevented from finding the talent they want.

Soviet bureaucrats thought they knew everything about the labor market, including the number of workers, their skill level and even where they should live. Their efforts failed, and so has our immigration system."

"Our immigration regulations are not just arbitrary, complex and expensive, but are based on an entirely false premise that there is a fixed pool of jobs over which people must compete. Jobs are constantly being created and destroyed in a healthy economy. And immigrants create many of them."

WTO Correctly Calls the U.S. to Task for Lying about Dolphins | K. William Watson | Cato Institute: Commentary

WTO Correctly Calls the U.S. to Task for Lying about Dolphins | K. William Watson | Cato Institute: Commentary: Tuna caught in a part of the Pacific Ocean near Mexico must meet strict requirements before it can be labeled “dolphin safe.”

"tuna caught elsewhere, like the Western Central Pacific where U.S. fishing fleets operate, may be labeled dolphin safe without any certification that dolphins were not harmed."