Some not so random thoughts for the day

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@BDaddyLiberator #Pac12 cannibalizes itself again, tho if OR can't beat Stanford's ground & pound, sure as hell aren't going 2 beat Tide's

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) November 8, 2013

For the 3rd straight year, the lower-ranked team in this now-rivalry ended the BCS title hopes of the higher-ranked team as Stanford dominated the undefeated Oregon Ducks, 26-20, in a game not nearly as close as the score would suggest (2 years ago, it was the Ducks who dashed Stanford's title hopes).


Same ol' Oregon


Every year, we hear about how Oregon is going to be more physical at the line of scrimmage and every year we see them get pushed around at the point of attack by an Auburn, LSU or Stanford. Colin Cowherd on ESPN Radio brought up an interesting point earlier this morning by noting that Oregon did not just lose a game they lost the argument. That argument being the benefit of the doubt when it comes to evaluating Oregon for the BCS title game or next year in the four-team playoff format against teams with identical records. If, say, next year the 4th and last spot comes down to a one-loss Duck team and a one-loss LSU Tiger team, who do you think is going to get the benefit of the doubt?


As self-professed West Coast homers, it pains us to admit it: the die has been cast and a team that is physically dominant up on both the defensive and offensive lines, like an LSU, is going to get the nod. Stanford, last night, merely confirmed what we see each and every year with this Oregon team and that is, at some point, you are going to have to grind out 3rd and shorts with the running game by being physical up front and that simply isn't in the Oregon football program DNA (Stanford's Tyler Gaffney's 45 carry/157 yards was the very definition of grinding).





The feds being who they are, are going after a product that is already frowned-upon:

Heart-clogging trans fats were once a staple of the American diet, plentiful in baked goods, microwave popcorn and fried foods. Now, mindful of the health risks, the Food and Drug Administration is getting rid of what's left of them for good.

Condemning artificial trans fats as a threat to public health, the FDA announced Thursday it will require the food industry to phase them out.

Manufacturers already have eliminated many trans fats, responding to criticism from the medical community and to local laws. Even so, the FDA said getting rid of the rest _ the average American still eats around a gram of trans fat a day _ could prevent 20,000 heart attacks and 7,000 deaths each year.

It won't happen right away. The agency will collect comments for two months before determining a phase-out timetable. Different foods may have different schedules, depending how easy it is to find substitutes.

(italics, ours)

http://t.co/CO96gowpHl @BDaddyLiberator Isn't banning trans fats akin to banning plasma TVs?

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) November 7, 2013

California did just that a year or two ago and it left us scratching our head as plasma T.V.s had effectively been banned not by legislation buy by technological obsolescence. Who even made plasmas anymore? That technology had been left behind years ago superceded first by LCD and then LED technology. Such is the speed of emerging technology and correspondingly that of the regulatory regime that they were getting around to doing something about a problem that was made extinct by two successful tech innovations.


It would appear that trans fats are in the same category as plasmas. They are going by the boards due to public health pressure and advances in dietary technology. The free market is working so why does a regulatory beak need to be stuck into matters?



Totally related: We purchased a 42" Samsung plasma hi-def television 9 years ago for... $4,500.


Now check out today's Friday Fry's ad:

We're not quite sure how we're going to do it but we want to work the above phenomena into the broader "increasing income inequality" discussion that is predominant in many socio-political circles and it would be along the lines of increasing consumer buyin power.


We may ask for the assistance of B-Daddy of The Liberator Today who is far more versed in these areas than we are.



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Video clip of the day

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Pops Riehm has a saying about things like this and it's: a solution in search of a problem.


With one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation and a regulatory regime that has made our fair state the target of business-poaching from the likes of Texas and Arizona, surely the law enforcement agencies of California can find better things to to do than aggressively crack down on the scourge that is unlicensed contractors.


From Reason.tv the answer is apparently "no".


(video approx. 2 minutes long)







Color us guilty as charged as we have participated on numerous occasions in this gray market when it came to house-cleaning, painting and landscaping from both sides of the table and under the table as the case may be and never have we experienced anything untoward or whatever it is the regulatory state is hoping to protect us from.


Word-of-mouth, referrals, reputations and the free market all working together to provide quality work at competitive prices.


Again, to paraphrase Pops, "what's the problem?"



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Video clip of the day

Peter Schiff, radio host, financier and unabashed capitalist and proud member of the 1% went down to the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan to chat up the Occupiers.

Touring the Occupy Wall Street scene in New York with a sign that read "I Am the 1%, Let's Talk," Schiff spent more than three hours on the scene, explaining the difference between cronyism and capitalism, bailouts and balance sheets, and more.

"The regulation we want is the market," said Schiff. "That's what works."

Schiff describes himself as "sympathetic" to the plight of the OWS protesters, but thinks their anger is misdirected at legitimate business interests and should be better at the White House, Congress, the Federal Reserve, and the crony capitalists they've bailed out.

We'll play and break down the full 20 minute video within the next couple of day.

If you read nothing else today...

... make sure you check out the WaPo interview of Eric Schmidt, Executive chairman of Google in the wake of his testimony before Congress.


On the nature of his testimony:

So we get hauled in front of the Congress for developing a product that’s free, that serves a billion people. Okay? I mean, I don’t know how to say it any clearer. I mean, it’s fine. It’s their job. But it’s not like we raised prices. We could lower prices from free to…lower than free? You see what I’m saying?

On regulation:

Washington—having spent a lot of time there, I grew up there and have spent a lot of time there recently—is largely defined by detailed analytical views and policy choices that are not very good. You know, each policy choice has a winner and a loser, right? Somebody’s ox is getting gored. They’re complex arguments: They’re economic and political and social, and everyone has an opinion on those. Here, the arguments are, how do we make something that affects a million people? How do we change the economics of an industry?

And one of the consequences of regulation is regulation prohibits real innovation, because the regulation essentially defines a path to follow—which by definition has a bias to the current outcome, because it’s a path for the current outcome.

And the answer to regulation with respect to Washington not screwing things up:

You’re asking it the way an engineer asks. It’s not an answer, it’s a journey. If it were an answer, then after we had done our thing and told everyone to leave us alone, they would have left us alone. That’s not how Washington works. That’s not how government works. It’s naïve, on our part. So the modern model is that we spend a lot of time trying to make sure the government understands how large the contribution is that technology has made to the GDP of the country. One of our quotes: Fifteen percent of the GDP growth has been due to the two-and-a-half percent of the economy that’s IT. In other words, don’t screw that up.

On rent seeking:

Let me give you a counter example. Now there are startups in Washington. And these startups have the interesting property that they’re founded by people who were policymakers, let’s say in telecommunications. They’re very clever people, and they’ve figured out a way in regulation to discriminate, to find a new satellite spectrum or a new frequency or whatever. They immediately hired a whole bunch of lobbyists. They raised some money to do that. And they’re trying to innovate through the regulation. So that’s what passes for innovation in Washington. And again, God bless them. But they have a political strategy to get their particular legislation and niche approved. That’s unheard of here.

And the counter concept to that:

The conclusion that we came to [as far back as when I was at Sun Microsystems] is that there are two kinds of lobbying. And this, I think, is grossly unfair but kind of true. There’s the kind of lobbying where you pay an ex-senator to get the current senator to write a sentence into a bill, and there’s no confusion as to what this is about. You are representing your corporate interest. It’s specific to your company. In Washington, for example, you can pay an ex-person $50,000 to arrange a meeting to get that process, to get those five sentences written in this bill, and so forth and so on.

The punch line is, we concluded that we didn’t want to do that as industry, and certainly not at Sun. We wanted to lobby based on ideas. And as far as I know, every company that I’ve worked with—and I was part of the Business Software Alliance and all these other groups—we all sort of agree with this. There’s a line that we’re not willing to cross. So what we do from a leadership perspective, at least in terms of political leadership, is we talk about ideas. And inevitably what happens is everyone says ‘yes,’ yet inevitably on the Hill you have an older gentleman or lady.

On immigration with respect to the tech sector:

A classic example is H-1B visas. Now, the following arguments are so obvious, it’s hard for me to believe that anyone would believe that they’re false. These industries are full of very smart people. There are very smart people who don’t live in America. They come to America, we educate them at the best universities, they are smarter than I am, and then we kick them out. If they stayed in the country, let’s just review: They would create jobs, pay taxes, have high incomes, pay more taxes than the average American, and generally increase the GDP of the country. I hope my argument is clear, and if it isn’t I’ll start screaming about it. It’s the stupidest policy the government has with respect to high tech. So you have this conversation and people say “yes,” and you say, ”This is the single thing that you can do that will lead to innovation occurring in our country, and the future economic wealth of our country.” And then they don’t act.

Check out the rest of the interview at the link above.

Video clip of the day

Donna Matias of the University of San Diego does pro bono legal work to help low and medium-income entrepreneurships navigate their way through the mazes of the local and city licensing, permitting and regulatory regimes.

It's really frustrating to work with a client who's really passionate about their business, who needs to support a family but is faced with all of these obstacles, the business permits, the licensing, the taxes, the employment compliance and all of that. It's very frustrating for me to see and to know what they have ahead of them because starting a business is something they are very passionate about.

One of the best ways for the state of California to get back on track financially, I think, is to allow businesses to operate and operate without all the compliance and regulatory burdens they have been suffering under.

Basically, the state needs to lower taxes and decrease the regulations.

You think Sacramento has any desire whatsoever to pursue any of these initiatives offered by Matias?



And speaking of regulatory bureaucracies, every year, we wonder why it is we are scratching out that $130 check to the state DMV. Now, one may argue that renewal of your vehicle registration is tied into smog compliance every two years. That logic is debateable but for the sake of argument, so be it. But what about the off year? For what purpose are we "renewing" our registration and why does it cost $130 to do it... every year? Propping up a state bureaucracy is not going to cut it as a reason.

Great moments in the history of California statism

We've got one of the nation's highest unemployment rates, the ruling class in Sacramento is banking on $11 billion that is magically going to appear out of nowhere to help close the state's budget gap and this same ruling class intends on driving more jobs out of California with job-killing AB 32-sanctioned environmental regulations yet a regulatory agency sees fit to harrass and exact financial pain upon a private concern because it believes another regulatory agency is getting into its rice bowl.

The California Coastal Commission has threatened to fine the Flower Hill mall up to $15,000 per day unless it immediately stops construction on its recently approved expansion.

But the mall’s attorney said work will continue on the Flower Hill Promenade’s remodel, which includes a Whole Foods Market, offices and retail space.

The mall, just east of Interstate 5 on Via de la Valle, is technically in San Diego, but borders Solana Beach and is advertised as being in Del Mar. The San Diego City Council unanimously approved the expansion in April after six years of proposals and community comment.

The Coastal Commission has argued in letters to the city dating to 2006 that it’s the proper agency to issue the development permits.

(italics, ours)

Wait, what?

The California Coastal Commission?

Folks, this mall is nearly a mile and a half from water's edge (map here).
That the California Coastal Commission is that far from the, you know, coast, let alone east of I-5 and attempting to throw its weight around tells you all you really need to know about the completely dysfunctional state of California at this time.

Your high-speed choo-choo update

Paging Thomas Friedman, paging Thomas Friedman.


So, if an epic near-miss at a nuclear reactor in Japan appears to doom the future of nuclear power, should a terrible high-speed train accident doom the future of high-speed trains? No. But it doesn't mean that high speed trains are not a fantastically bad idea, either.

With all the other horrible events of the weekend, China's high speed rail crash sort of faded into the background. But the toll is horrific: 43 dead, and hundreds more injured after one high speed train ran into another. Critics, such as Michael Sainsbury of The Australian, are now arguing that this is the result of cut corners in the construction process:

China's decision to build a $400 billion, 16,000 km high speed rail network in the space of a few years was initially greeted with awe at their commitment to winning the future, and laments from the usual suspects that America could never do something this fantabulous. Then the network was forced to slow the average speed of its bullet trains down due to safety concerns; lower-than-projected ridership caused big deficits; and the head of the rail ministry was removed in a tawdry corruption scandal.

That's good ol' one-party technocratic autocracy for ya? And that's China and their system that New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman is so enamored of.

In a sense, we should be glad that we can't do something that fantabulous here in this country as it's going to take that same sort of can-do, one-party technocratic autocracy to get anything built here in the States given enviromental regulations and required impact reports as well as the gazillions of eminent domain issues that will need to be resolved.

Unfortunately Fortunately, that's not the way the system is wired here in our representative republic where the electorate may display a tendency from time to time to throw out the bums who would skirt the law and trample rights in the name of shiny, rest-of-the-world-approved technology.

Maybe it's time to realize, with our system of governance, our infrastructure (a pretty damn good interstate system that we use extensively and plentiful commuter and cross-country flights) and the population dispersal of our country (what may work in the D.C.-Boston corridor is not going to work on the West Coast) that high-speed choo-choos just are not a good fit for us.

It's cool. Let's work on something else, like teleporters.


P.S. We continue to luxuriate in the irony of the regulatory and environmental regime erected by the statists which may be the largest hurdle for them to achieve their favorite form of transportation.

Follower blog post of the day

It could never happen here, could it?


One of the criticisms we've heard through the years regarding Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is that its portrayal of the government as oppressor was too overbearing and exaggerated.

Ya think?

Just last week brought news that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was attempting to dictate where it was a private enterprise could and could not do business.

Straight out of the pages of Atlas Shrugged Obama-appointed Lafe Solomon has filed a complaint on behalf of the NLRB contending that Boeing must manufacture 787 Dreamliner airplanes in Washington, a non-right-to-work state, rather than completing a new plant in South Carolina, a right-to-work state. Thus by regulatory fiat the NLRB might soon declare that its illegal to move to a freer state to do business. Can you hear the shackles clicking closed on your legs? By what right? By what right does a government bureaucrat dictate where we can work?

Please check out Shane Atwell's outstanding post on this matter, here.

Shanty-town anarchy

... and those who subsidize it.


If you read nothing else this week please check out Victor Davis Hanson's "Two Californias".

Hanson goes on a biking and car tour of California's fruit and vegetable basket, the Central Valley and makes many anecdotal observations and notes that the California regulatory regime which is one of the most pervasive and invasive in the Union is curiously absent in the Central Valley.

Many of the rural trailer-house compounds I saw appear to the naked eye no different from what I have seen in the Third World. There is a Caribbean look to the junked cars, electric wires crisscrossing between various outbuildings, plastic tarps substituting for replacement shingles, lean-tos cobbled together as auxiliary housing, pit bulls unleashed, and geese, goats, and chickens roaming around the yards. The public hears about all sorts of tough California regulations that stymie business — rigid zoning laws, strict building codes, constant inspections — but apparently none of that applies out here.

It is almost as if the more California regulates, the more it does not regulate. Its public employees prefer to go after misdemeanors in the upscale areas to justify our expensive oversight industry, while ignoring the felonies in the downtrodden areas, which are becoming feral and beyond the ability of any inspector to do anything but feel irrelevant. But in the regulators’ defense, where would one get the money to redo an ad hoc trailer park with a spider web of illegal bare wires?

Thomas Sowell provided an accompanying article, here, where he makes specific mention of minority enclaves here in this country that appear to be shut off from the rest of society.

What is going on? These and other groups, here and abroad, are treated as mascots of the self-congratulatory elites.

These elites are able to indulge themselves in non-judgmental permissiveness toward those selected as mascots, while cracking down with heavy-handed, nanny-state control on others.

The effect of all this on the mascots themselves is not a big concern for the elites. Mascots symbolize something for others. The actual fate of the mascots themselves seldom matters much to their supposed benefactors.

So long as the elites have control of the public purse, they can subsidize self-destructive behavior on the part of the mascots. And so long as the elites can send their own children to private schools, they needn’t worry about what happens to the children of the mascots in the public schools.

Other people who cannot afford to send their children to private schools can simply be called “racists” for objecting to what the indulgence of the mascots is doing to the public schools or what the violence of the mascots is doing to other children trapped in the same schools with them.

An ideology and thought process based upon a dysfunctional mutual dependency.

Be it ever so decadent, there's no place like home Pt. II

Good news to start off the New Year's here in California: the hub of California's agricultural economy in the Central Valley is being compared to Zimbabwe. From IBD:

Fresno, Calif., stands as the de facto capital of California's mighty Central Valley, the breadbasket of America. So why is that city preoccupied with winning a $1 million prize to stave off hunger?

Local newspapers and Fresno County officials are trying to rally Facebook users to vote for Fresno in a corporate contest sponsored by Wal-Mart for $1 million in charity food donations for the hungry. Fresno, a city of 505,000, has taken the national lead because 24.1% of Fresno's families are going hungry.

Civic spirit is good, but something big is wrong here. Fresno is the agricultural capital of America. More food per acre in more variety can be grown in the fertile Central Valley surrounding this community than on any other land in America — perhaps in the world.

Yet far from being a paradise, Fresno is starting to resemble Zimbabwe or 1930s Ukraine, a victim of a famine machine that is entirely man-made, not by red communists this time, but by greens.

State and federal officials, driven by the agenda of environmental extremists, have made it extremely difficult for the valley's farms, introducing costly environmental regulations and cutting off critical water supplies to save the Delta smelt, a bait fish. It's all driving the economy to collapse.

In the southwest part of the Central Valley, water allotments as low as 10% of normal have created a visible dust bowl. The knock-on effect can be seen in cities like Fresno, where November's unemployment among the packers, cannery workers and professional fields that make agriculture productive stands at 16.9%.

Other Central Valley cities such as Hanford-Corcoran, Merced, Modesto, Stockton and Visalia-Porterville have similar jobless numbers, the highest in the country. The Wal-Mart Foundation notes that "24.1% of families in this community (Fresno) cannot afford regular meals compared to a national average of 9.2%."

That's right — a community that supplies a quarter of America's fruit and vegetables is begging for food. City officials and the media seem oblivious to this irony. "Even if Fresno doesn't finish first (in WalMart's Facebook contest) the fight against hunger will still come out a winner," the Fresno Bee crowed, citing publicity.

Fresno was ranked dead last at 102 as the worst city in America to do business, according to a 2010 MarketWatch survey. Four other Central Valley cities made the national bottom 10 — Bakersfield, Sacramento, Modesto and Stockton.

Then again, what would you expect from a state that will be adopting strict new diesel emissions standards from a report authored by someone who lied about one of his Ph.Ds
and obtained another from an on-line university?



And you always know it's going to be good news when someone calling himself "The Business Relocation Coach" is assembling "top ten lists" for your state. Here's Joe Vranich:




Only in California!

H/T: Temple of Mut

The interwebs new minders?

On Tuesday, the FCC ruled in favor of a new set of regulations on Internet access.

New Internet access rules approved by federal regulators on Tuesday prohibit network operators from meddling with Web traffic into American homes but do not extend to the fast-growing market for smartphones and tablet computers.


The regulations passed the Federal Communications Commission along party lines, with two Democratic commissioners reluctantly siding with agency Chairman Julius Genachowski in a 3-2 vote.


The rules seek to uphold a principle called net neutrality, under which Internet service providers are supposed to give equal treatment to all legal Web content on their networks. But the measure met with swift opposition Tuesday.


Republican lawmakers immediately promised to work to overthrow the rules, while analysts predicted that cable and telecom giants will file lawsuits challenging the FCC's authority to regulate the broadband market.

Go to link above for more reaction to this ruling.

We freely admit that we don't know a whole lot about these new regs but what little we do know it seems to be a classic case of a solution in search of a problem. Is there anything wrong with how the internet is currently operating?

And why don't we know a whole lot about these new regs?

He's (FCC chairman Julius Genachowski) bringing a new set of proposed net neutrality regulations to the five-member panel Tuesday. Unfortunately, nobody knows any details of the new proposal because Genachowski has kept them secret until the last possible minute even as he rushed them forward for a vote. How ironic that the Internet, the great and empowering liberator of information that "wants to be free," is being chopped up behind closed doors by an unelected panel.

(italics, ours)

Obama era regulations and legislation kept in secret until the last minute before a forced vote? Shocking, we know.

Linked Op-ed notes that Genachowski tried this stunt before, last April, but was smacked down by a federal court saying the FCC had no jurisdiction over the internet. It is believed the courts will strike down whatever was adopted by the comission and there is indication that the Republican-controlled House of Representative will take this up when the 112 convenes in January.

Here's Meredith Baker, a Republican appointee to the comission:

"We have two branches of government -- Congress and the courts -- expressing grave concerns with our agency becoming increasingly unmoored from our statutory authority. By seeking to regulate the Internet now, we exceed the authority Congress has given us and justify those concerns."

At any rate, chalk up another victory for opacity and overeach for Team O as this time around they didn't even wait for a crisis. Indeed, far from it.

H/T: W.C. Varones

The kitchen is no place for this woman

Continuing in the grand tradition of pet causes, the wife of the Smoker-in-Chief, Michelle Obama, has chosen childhood obesity and healthy eating as her particular cause.

A few days ago she addressed the National Restaurant Association regarding the virtues of offering healthy alternatives on the menu and disclosure with respect to providing calorie data for individual menu items.

Look, we've really no problem with the First Lady using her bully pulpit to "encourage" restaurants to offer more healthy options but as can be expected from members of the regime, even those not technically on the payroll, they go seamlessly from simple and harmless nagging to codifying menu changes by fiat.

After playing nice for the first three-quarters of her speech employing words as "asking", "challenge" and "encourage" implying voluntary cooperation, she gets down to brass knuckles.

That’s why we’re committed to helping increase that demand and making it easier for you to do what’s right. And we’ve started by requiring chain restaurants to provide calorie counts on their menus and menu boards. And I am grateful for the support we’ve received from the NRA to get this done. And I want to encourage restaurants that aren’t providing calorie counts to join us in this effort.

How much awfulness can be packed into one paragraph?

Translation:

Americans are too damn stupid to make these decisions on their own so we'll "help" by forcing you to do what we think is right and we've begun this dictatorial process, thank you, by telling you what is required to be on your menus, menu boards and any thing else bearing the name of your establishment. And we're grateful that you've pretty much allowed us to steamroll you on this (not that you had any choice in the matter) and let's just say we know who all those other restaurants are out there that escaped our clutches and which we will be strong-arming into compliance at a later date.

These people are simply drunk with power.

We had almost forgot about this whole menu thing. We believe the cut off for compliance with this ridiculous regulation is 20 or more restaurants. So, imagine if you own 21 or 22 restaurants: you will be faced with making a decision to comply with a needless and expensive regulation (how exactly does one go about getting a calorie count for every single item on their menu and however it is done, do you think the going rate for CalCount Inc.'s services just went up a tad as a result of this regulatory capture?) or cutting back on your restaurant locations and putting a few dozen more people out on the street. And conversely, factor in yet another reason to not expand and not add more jobs in the private sector for that restaurant owner of 18 or 19 locations.

This probably is no big deal for massive chains like Denny's or McDonald's who have the resources to comply but as we've seen with ObamaCare and how it hoses the smaller insurance providers, these menu regs will be another unwanted expense on the small and medium-sized chains.

How to fight back? Patronize these Mom and Pop shops or medium-sized chains that may be on the cusp of this regulation. We're open to other suggestion and, as always...

This is what they're attempting to regulate?

We guess we never really gave any thought to the ridiculous notion of having to license barbers before now. It's not like licensing barbers has done a single thing to curtail the number of truly horrible haircuts we have seen over the years.

The government licensing and regulation of barbers, like other hair stylists, is driven by the self-interest of the profession. Licenses restrict entry and reduce competition, enabling those with licenses to capture more rents. This is actually the case with most licensing regimes, even those that appear to serve a greater public interest than barber licenses. Though I doubt Yglesias would go this far, I would argue that it’s rare that a licensing regime of this sort is put in place without the support of those who stand to benefit economically, and that many public spirited rationales, including health and safety, are a smokescreen.

This is really no different than what major beer and wine makers and distributors are attempting to do by further regulating how it is that beer and wine can be purchased and distributed. Nor is it any different than casket makers in Louisiana putting the squeeze on a small group of monks who make simple, understated caskets (We covered both situations here and here).

Beer, wine, caskets and bad haircuts, regulated all and for what benefit to the consumer and to society as a whole?

O ye rogue monks

Regulatory capture occurs when a state regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead acts in favor of the commercial or special interests that dominate in the industry or sector it is charged with regulating.

Related...

Rent seeking occurs when an individual, organization or firm seeks to earn income by capturing economic rent through manipulation or exploitation of the economic or political environment, rather than by earning profits through economic transactions and the production of added wealth.

Yesterday, we saw how a handful of distributors and beer and wine makers are attempting to squeeze out the competition by restricting the ways and means by which wine and beer can be purchased and transported.

Today, we are seeing how the monks of Saint Joseph Abbey of Covington, LA who for the past 100 years have been hand-crafting caskets of "noble simplicity" are being sued by the state of Louisiana for selling caskets without a license.

The caskets are an important part of the Abbey's income but now the monks face crippling fines and even jail time for their wanton non-compliance.

The Institute for Justice has taken up the monks' cause which is detailed in the video below via Secular Apostate.

More choices, more freedom

To the barricades, people!


Maybe because it's a slow news cycle in the dog days of August but once again we see a confluence between liberty and our ability to purchase and consume booze on our terms here in California.

With little public notice, distributors of alcoholic beverages are pressing for a federal law that would allow states to block interstate sales of wine and beer to their residents — a result that could limit consumer choices, raise prices and hurt hundreds of small vintners and micro brewers.

A bill pending in the House would put the authority to regulate alcohol more squarely in the hands of the states and would require those challenging the regulations to prove the rules violate federal law or the Constitution.

And it would supersede a number of recent court rulings that have struck down limits on interstate sales of alcoholic beverages.

“It’s the cumulative effect of all these lawsuits, and the confusion,” said Paul Pisano, a vice president at the National Beer Wholesalers Association, which proposed the legislation in the spring and backs a lobbying campaign. “We’re asking to make sure that states aren’t having their hands tied when they’re trying to defend their alcohol laws.”

Critics countered that the distributors’ real motive was to restrict competition.

Internet and direct-mail sales have become essential to the growth of smaller winemakers and micro brewers in the last decade.

South Coast Winery in Temecula, Calif., for instance, sells almost 30 percent of its wine through a 10,000-member wine club and ships to customers in about 20 states, owner Jim Carter said.

“It’s very important for small wineries, especially, to be able to have these wine clubs because it’s our best vehicle for dealing direct with the public,” Carter said. “We sell more wine through our wine club than we sell in the wholesale market.”

Through consolidation in recent years, many markets are controlled by only a handful of high-volume distributors, and they have little incentive, critics contend, to carry wines and beers that are available only in small quantities.

That last paragraph is key, because whatever alleged mess of conflicting state and federal laws this bill would supposedly clarify, the end result of this bill would represent a constriction of small vintners and microbreweries' ability to compete in the open market.

San Diego is dominated by essentially 4 distributors: Crest, Budweiser, Stone and Wine Warehouse and the article is quite correct in its contention they have no interest in pushing small volumes. Stone does what they can for the little guys but they have their own beer to get to the thirsty masses, as well.

This bill will have a devastating effect on local microbreweries who ultimately depend on a literal out-of-the-back-of-the-van distributorship.

And in case you were wondering how the free market is effected by all this, check this out:

Jerry Ellig, a research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, studied wine prices in the years before and after Virginia enacted a law in 2003 to allow direct shipping to residents. The study, published in 2007, found that the law had prodded retail stores to become more competitive with online sellers.

Wait. Is Ellig suggesting that increased competition from increasing the avenues by which a product is brought to market... lowers the prices of those products?

Opponents of the bill also claim that the bill would be the proverbial camel's nose under the tent and would prove to be the conduit to even more regulatory meddling in the liquor industry.

Of course, proponents of the bill go the "it's for the children route" (which, by the way, is an automatic disqualifier in our book) by claiming the tightening up on the ways that booze can be sold will cut down on underage drinking.

Right. Because the last time some under aged scrub hit us up for beer, it was to buy a couple of 22 oz. bombers of Green Flash's 30th Street.

Just another assault on our collective ability to enjoy perfectly legal adult activities.

H/T: Got an assist on a couple of points in this article from Michael Craig of Hoffer's in La Mesa.

Hooray, regulations?

We don't think it's a stretch to imagine these people back in the 60s and 70s, stinky armpits, matted hair and all, agitating and fomenting on the campus greens across our nation on behalf of free speech and the more libertine and perhaps taboo aspects of society.

Who are these people and if they are the same what the hell happened to them?

President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging the public to create video advertisements that explain why federal regulations are "important to everyone."

The contest, which ends May 17, will award $2,500 to the makers of the video that best explains why federal regulations are good and how ordinary citizens can become more involved in making regulations. The videos must be posted on YouTube and can be no more than 60-90 seconds in length.

In the current contest, each video must include the slogan “Let your voice be heard,” and it must direct viewers to the government’s regulatory website www.Regulations.gov. The winning video will then be used by the entire federal government to promote the regulatory process and enhance the public’s participation in it.

The EPA is managing the contest, part of the government’s eRulemaking program, on behalf of the entire government.

As explained in the EPA press release announcing the contest, the purpose of the videos will be to remind the public that federal regulation touches “almost every aspect” of their lives and to promote how important those regulations are.

“The contest will highlight the significance of federal regulations and help the public understand the rulemaking process. Federal agencies develop and issue hundreds of rules and regulations every year to implement statutes written by Congress. Almost every aspect of an individual’s life is touched by federal regulations, but many do not understand how rules are made or how they can get involved in the process.”

The videos should be designed to “capture the public imagination” and to “explain” why government regulations are “important to everyone.”

So, that's what happened to them? Now sitting at the levers of power, all that "sticking it to the man" is just a wistful memory, if they happened to believe any of it at all.

But that is the psychology of the liberal-Left. Diversity of thought and action is cool as long as it's conforming to the "correct" standards as defined by...them.

And not even bothering to disguise the Mao/Dear Leader tone of the language bears this out. Because regulations touch "almost every aspect" of everybody's lives there is a oneness and a collective justice to a regulatory regime, thus there is an inherent goodness to regulations. The more the better.


Fortunately, the good people at Americans for Prosperity have made their entry



H/T: Hot Air

So, about that 'critical health priority' setting on your dinner table?...(UPDATED)

(Please scroll to bottom for update. Thanks.)

File this one under: Is there anything in life that these people do not wish to regulate?

The Food and Drug Administration should regulate the amount of salt added to foods to help Americans cut their high sodium intake, which can lead to high blood pressure, kidney failure and strokes, an influential federal panel said on Tuesday.

The Institute of Medicine said this was needed because Americans get most of their salt from processed and restaurant food, and merely telling them to eat less salt has not worked.

Meghan Scott, a spokeswoman for the FDA, which sponsored the IOM report, said the agency has not yet decided whether to regulate salt in U.S. foods. "We are not right now working on regulations," she said, but the agency is considering the panel's recommendations.

(italics, ours)

So when the incessant nagging and caterwauling doesn't work, you break out the big regulatory guns of compulsion.

And dig this Meghan Scott character: she wants us all to believe that they are merely considering regulation after a study they sponsored recommend that they do so. Don't you think that if you commission a study that concludes the FDA should regulate salt, the FDA will most likely regulate salt? Folks, the FDA is going to regulate salt.

"For 40 years we have known about the relationship between sodium and the development of hypertension and other life threatening diseases, but we have had virtually no success in cutting back the salt in our diets," Jane Henney of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Ohio, who chaired the Institute of Medicine panel, said in a statement.

"The best way to accomplish this is to provide companies the level playing field they need so they are able to work across the board to reduce salt in the food supply."

For those of you scoring at home, "Level playing field" is statist lingo for mandatory rules and regulations

"There is now overwhelming evidence that we must treat sodium reduction as a critical public health priority," said Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard School of Public Health and a member of the Institute of Medicine.

The panel said companies should be allowed to reduce sodium on a step-by-step basis so that they do not lose customers due to sudden changes in flavor, the panel of experts said.

That companies would be graced by this leniency is proof of the ultimate benevolence of this panel. All hail the Institute of Medicine!

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Senator Tom Harkin said on a conference call they would pressure the FDA to regulate salt intake in the U.S. food supply.

"My view of self regulation is that it has not worked in the past," DeLauro said. "We need to move this along."

This quote was given after the article noted that food giants like Pepsico, General Mills, Kraft Foods, and Campbell Soups Inc., all had stated goals to reduce the sodium content in their products across the board.





(UPDATE #1): A funny thing happened on the way to the Institute of Medicine...

High-salt diets may not increase the risk of death, contrary to long-held medical beliefs, according to investigators from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.

They reached their conclusion after examining dietary intake among a nationally representative sample of adults in the U.S. The Einstein researchers actually observed a significantly increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease (CVD) associated with lower sodium diets.

The researchers analyzed data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III), which was conducted by the federal government among a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. These data were then compared against death records that had been collected by the government through the year 2000. The sample of approximately 8,700 represented American adults who were over 30 years of age at the time of the baseline survey (1988-1994) and were not on a special low-salt diet.

After adjusting for known CVD risk factors, such as smoking, diabetes and blood pressure, the one-fourth of the sample who reported consuming the lowest amount of sodium were found to be 80% more likely to die from CVD compared to the one-fourth of the sample consuming the highest level of sodium. The risk for death from any cause appeared 24% greater for those consuming lower salt, but this latter difference was not quite large enough to dismiss the role of chance.

“Our findings suggest that for the general adult population, higher sodium is very unlikely to be independently associated with higher risk of death from CVD or all other causes of death,” says Dr. Hillel W. Cohen, associate professor of epidemiology and population health at Einstein.

(italics, totally ours)

Color us unsurprised. ObamaCare is not about better healthcare and neither is this pending regulation of salt. It's about control. It's about a fundamental distrust of individual freedoms and liberty.

They may try to dress it up in the fineries of doing what's best for the greater good of individuals in society but at the end of the day the compelling logic is that you cannot be trusted to make healthcare decisions or dietary decisions on your own.

Looking at the way Obamacare was fashioned and looking at what is actually in the bill as we have been doing in our Nancy's Nuances: a journey of discovery and now looking at the statements, motives and facts regarding salt regulation, how can it be anything but?

Quote of the day

...while the healthcare debate rages, there is still other business being tended to in D.C.

“Americans are frustrated and angry, as we all know, they've lost faith in our markets, and they wonder if anyone is looking out for them.”

That from the on-his-way-out-the-door, Connecticut Senator, Chris Dodd unveiling new sweeping financial regulations that came out of committee on Monday.

It is now confirmed that Congress has a special tailor on the premises solely for the purpose of fashioning the appropriately-sized pants required to house the basketball-sized stones possessed by the likes of Chris Dodd and Barney Frank.

How else does one explain a man sitting in the epicenter of the financial/housing meltdown and who was getting sweetheart deals on his own properties from Countrywide Mortgage, saying something like that and there not be such a person? Wouldn’t it be downright embarrassing for all involved for Dodd and Frank to be bouncing around Capitol Hill sans culottes?

It is duly noted that Dodd made his announcement at a news conference alone – not even accompanied by any of his fellow Democrats on the Banking Committee that he chairs. The man is that toxic. This could be the greatest piece of legislation ever written but the man has zero credibility on this or any other issue for that matter and no one wants to be associated with the man as he pushes for his legacy bill.

Happy Trails, Senator

Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead...

And in other news today, former Fannie and Freddie execs still have not given back their bonuses.

While the two aforementioned points are unassailable facts, they also miss the point regarding executive bonuses

There are far more politicians and government employees who are in a position to help their former companies and campaign contributors than those who don't have a conflict of interest. The idea of a neutral government not picking winners or losers based on political favoritism is a joke, and so is the assumption that only the government can figure out where trillions of dollars need to go and which companies deserve to live. The real outrage in today's society should not be over a single corporation's corruption, but the crony corporatism that is the result of unhealthy blurring of the private and public sectors.

We know we sound like a broken record at times and we would apologize for it except for the fact that we continue to hear of the “failure of Capitalism” and “dangers of deregulation”. What was it precisely about the system circa pre-Obama with the way that Congress effectively ran the housing and banking industries that would suggest in any way this blurring of private and public sectors was “free” let alone run-away unbridled and unchecked capitalism?

Whatever "deregulation" that occurred during the Clinton and Bush years appeared only to expose these industries more and more to the increasing whim and fancy of their Congressional overseers.

Don’t confuse greed and avarice with capitalism. One can be a greedy capitalist just as easily as one can be a greedy politician who owes no allegiance to any socio-political stripe outside of one’s own lust for power.

And now this cozy little relationship will be strengthened and legitimized under the guise of increased regulation. As we’ve mentioned before, regulation… deregulation… it’s all really a moot if governed and overseen by this Parliament of whores.