Kevin Drum is on vacation this week. While I thought that might leave me without boneheaded material to criticize, I’m afraid he’s found guest bloggers as credible and clueless as himself. Today we have Andy Kroll, who wants to delve into meta-debates about rights and entitlements with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker: But the statement that [...]

Ezra Klein has a rather thought-provoking post today about human genome sequencing and its ability to allow doctors to better-tailor treatment to the specific needs of an individual patient. It presents a phenomenal opportunity to both make medicine more effective, and IMHO to make it cheaper by spending less time and energy on substandard treatments. [...]

Ezra Klein, on education & health care costs: I’m not going to end this post with some wan paragraph explaining how to transform these two industries into something closer to their potential. My ideas on health-care reform are available elsewhere on the blog and I don’t know enough about education to say anything worthwhile. But [...]

Who joined whom? Gay marriage has always been an ideal niche for liberaltarians. After all, it’s the states, not the feds, that are the ones deciding whether it should be legal, a question that feeds into libertarians’ federalist affinities. And when you strip away the cultural and identity politics, gay marriage is really just a [...]

It had to happen sooner or later – a song about no knock raids. Be warned, this music video contains disturbing footage from actual no knock raids. But you know what? This is an issue that we should be disturbed about. What disturbs me the most is the double standard concerning shootings in these raids. [...]

Last Friday, June 17, 2011 marked the 40th anniversary of Richard Nixon’s “War on Drugs.” As Jacob Sullum points out here, the drug war didn’t actually begin with Nixon and it’s not likely to end on Obama’s watch (even though the Obama administration admits that current drug policy over this period has been a failure). [...]

With the latest revelation that a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Jose Antonio Vargas, has come out as an illegal alien and John McCain’s latest stupidity, the issue of illegal immigration has popped back up. More and more states are joining the lead of Arizona and Alabama and are trying to take the immigration issue into [...]

Coyote, on Paul Krugman’s claim that the Isaac Asimov Foundation series was an inspiration for him to go into economics: I find it absolutely unsurprising that Paul Krugman was enthralled by the vision of a science that can be used by a few people to control the actions and futures of all humanity. He said [...]

While I laud any state trying to expand the freedom of its residents while simultaneously thumbing it’s nose at Washington, I can’t see this ending well: On October 1, 2009, Montana passed the Montana Firearms Freedom Act, the purpose of which was to regulate guns manufactured and kept within Montana state lines under a less [...]

In case you missed it, John Stossel dedicated the whole hour of his show last Thursday to answer the question: Who is Gary Johnson? When Stossel took Johnson’s picture around the streets on NYC, only one person knew who he was. I think this could be one reason why his poll numbers are so anemic [...]

Press release from the Libertarian Party on the passing of their first candidate for president: John Hospers, first Libertarian presidential nominee, dies at 93 WASHINGTON – John Hospers, the Libertarian Party’s first presidential nominee in 1972, died on June 12, 2011 in Los Angeles, California at the age of 93. Hospers became the Libertarian Party’s [...]

Coyote, on the limits of government and the Amendment process: While I am sympathetic to issues folks have with taxation, from a legal and Constitutional perspective the income tax actually comes from a better, almost more quaint time. Why? Because instead of dealing with the Constitutional problems with the income tax by having a series [...]

So the big debate is whether the gov’t should sell their post-IPO shares in GM. At current prices, they’d [unsurprisingly] be losing money on the sale, compared to the amount put up in the bailout. So we have to ask — was it worth it? To determine that, we can’t base our entire calculation on [...]

I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time reading 74 pages of forum posts on an pilot’s message board discussing the crash of Air France flight 447 several years ago. Fascinating stuff. It’s the tale of pilots faced with a situation of mechanical failure, but even worse, a situation which they misdiagnosed and thus took [...]

Sometimes you hear a guy like Kevin Drum say this: But of course, that’s the real slippery slope. If the state is allowed to prohibit me from killing myself, what else is the state allowed to do? Can it force me to accept medical treatment that will save my life? Can it force me to [...]

Seen over at Megan McArdle’s place today (original source unlinked): Dear Dr. Boli: How can I progress from ordinary sleep into slumbering dogmatically? –Sincerely, “cs.” Dear Sir or Madam: Dogmatic slumber, that easy and comfortable state of resting on one’s unexamined assump­tions, has been shown in multiple studies to be greatly desirable for promoting health [...]

As reported in Politico: “I can’t think of too many tribal countries with which we’ve been involved — Afghanistan is another one — where it’s easy to extricate yourself once you get involved,” Huntsman told reporters here after finishing a cruise with Republicans on northern New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee. “So it might sound like it’s [...]

Of 13 candidates and potential candidates for the G.O.P nomination who were invited to participate in the June 13th debate in New Hampshire, 7 have decided to participate. As of now, the 7 participants in the debate will be Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. Notable [...]

Every soldier and every police officer swears an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” but as a practical matter, what does this mean? What happens if the CO issues an order that violates the Constitution; is soldier or peace officer still required to carry [...]