ECONOMICS DEPT.
The Dumbest Take Yet On the Whitefish Energy Scandal
I know I shouldn’t be picking on left-leaning goofballs (because they’re powerless these days, and all the damage is being done by the right) but Kate Aronoff at In These Times has written the dumbest thing I’ve seen yet about the Whitefish Energy scandal. The article is titled “Repulsed by Whitefish Energy? Maybe You Also… Read more
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT DEPT.
The Unknown Reason for the Vegas Shooting
Like everybody else, I’ve been trying to make sense of the Las Vegas shooting, in which a 64-year-old guy named Stephen Paddock apparently opened fire on a crowd of 22,000 country music festival attendees from his 32nd-floor room in the Mandalay Bay hotel, killing 59 people and injuring hundreds more. One of the confusing things… Read more
FREEDOM DEPT.
Football Players and Legs
But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. — Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVII (source) Jefferson was talking about freedom of religion, but truth be told, I feel the same way… Read more
UNCATEGORIZED DEPT.
Ethics of the Arpaio Pardon
After seeing what a professional dominatrix had to say about Trump pardoning former Mericopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, I decided to see what professional ethicist Jack Marshall had to say. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Is the balance between profiling, which in such situations is a valuable law-enforcement tool, and the importance of equal treatment… Read more
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT DEPT.
The Dominatrix and the Sheriff
I’ve been watching the reaction on Twitter to President Trump’s pardoning of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Arpaio is a despicable authoritarian bigot, who I’ve written about several times previously. He is famous, and famously proud, of how tough he was on the prisoners in his custody. He liked seeing them mistreated and humiliated,… Read more
Classical liberalism, criminal laws, the war on drugs, economics, free speech, technology, photography, sex work, cats, and whatever else comes to mind.