I'm not a Trump fan, so I really enjoy it when Trump is having a bad day, but there are things about the convictions of Cohen and Manafort that bother me.Political campaigns are mostly free speech, which should be well-protected by the First Amendment, but campaign finance laws attempt to control the money that pays for producing or disseminating this speech. This requires … [Read more...] about Why I Can’t Enjoy the Cohen and Manafort News
Jack Marshall Watch 2018-08-20
Reading Jack Marshall's Ethics Alarms is like picking at a scab: I know it's going to hurt, but I can't stop doing it. Jack's blogging output is far greater than mine, so I don't have time to post a response every time I disagree with something he says. I've been leaving comments on his blog, but getting into arguments there uses up time I should probably spend writing for my … [Read more...] about Jack Marshall Watch 2018-08-20
No, a Conservative Think-Tank Did Not Say Single-Payer Saves Money
I've seen a few stories and tweets saying that a conservative think-tank accidentally proved that single-payer healthcare will save Americans a lot of money. They're talking about a working paper released by Charles Blahous at the conservative Mercatus Center. The dumbest story I've found so far is from Matt Bruenig at Jacobin magazine: The US could insure 30 … [Read more...] about No, a Conservative Think-Tank Did Not Say Single-Payer Saves Money
Carbon Dividend/Carbon Tax
I've fallen behind on my blog reading, so I missed Greg Laden's post a few days ago in which he tries to argue that carbon taxes aren't really taxes. Actually, he seems to prefer to call them a "carbon dividend," which is apparently the trendy new name for this idea. I googled and found this page at the Citizens Climate Lobby which explains it. It's basically a carbon tax -- … [Read more...] about Carbon Dividend/Carbon Tax
Building My New PC
When I first started buying computers, they got so much better every year that a seven year old computer like mine would have been completely unable to run software designed for the newest computers. The pace of advancement is slower these days, however, so even though it's several generations out of date, my computer was still pretty usable from a performance perspective with … [Read more...] about Building My New PC