Roman's Observations of the Gulf Coast 11/18-11/20/05

Along the Blvd of Broken dreams we saw some had spray painted messages on plywood, among them “Katrina 1, Gulfport 0, but it’s only halftime,” “Gone to the Virgin Islands,” and only three “You Loot, we Shoot” signs. Many had erected impromptu flagpoles and flew the Stars and Bars. Some flew their Mississippi flags as well. We parked and walked amongst the houses, poking around, feeling like thieves (though we had no stealing intentions – I took only a ziplock bag full of sand from the beach for my collection). It was very sad to see where owners had made small piles of whatever they could salvage. Broken china plates, vases, baby spoons, an ash tray. A small pile in the corner of the foundation, the only remaining possessions in what was surely a beautiful home along one of the nicest beaches on our side of the Gulf. We could see where the kitchen had been by the linoleum, the hallways by the hardwood floors, and tiles on porches amongst the stumps of columns that once rose in front as grand entrances. Bulldozers and excavators rumbled in nearby lots behind the trees like dirty yellow dinosaurs. Many of the fallen trees, great live oaks, had been spray painted with day-glow pink. A line around the circumference of the trunk or a large branch indicated CUT HERE, an X meant to haul away, and SAVE had been written on the larger unbroken portions, the purpose being to sell the wood to make into planks. I was happy to see this resource salvaged wisely.

For the COMPLETE story visit Roman's blog!

Canada's Creepy

The waves of the future are upon us now. These are the waves that Plato spoke of.
Send in the Clones.


Universal day care, i.e. indoctrination camps for "re-education."

Drucker

CJ,

What's the mood on Claremont's campus after the passing of Peter Drucker? Do students on campus respect that he did so much for America's corporations or are they too busy advocating for "fair" trade?

Brandon

Question about a comment about rent controls.

Howdy from Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Today I got an email from a fella named James with a comment addressed to me re: rent control. I've pasted it below. I've searced both blogs I contribute to and can't find wtf the comment refers to; I've spent fifteen frikken minutes trying to remember what conversation it came from. I've got nothing.

So James, whichever James in my life you are, could you please be more specific? Email me the text you're commenting on? Is it my notes from the seminar? (If so, it's not my thoughts; it's the thoughts of whoever was lecturing, which should be on the header of the notes.)

I've got a Southern Miss football game to tailgate for, so I'll see ya'll later.

(More later on my observations of Gulfport and Biloxi, MS)


MYSTERIOUS COMMENT:

I don't know where you get the idea that rent controls hurt the poor.

Developers will only build rental housing at the expensive end of the market to maximize their profits regardless of the demand as the past century has proven which is why there has always been a shortage of affordable housing.

Here is some information on Rent Controls from this Tenant site.

Schmoller vs. Menger

Here
You will find a very good article on why Germany, and by extension every other Socialist country in the world, is having, and will have, economic stagnation, leading to ruin and probably a new virulent totalitarianism. Yay.

Anyway, one of the very interesting things in this article concerns an argument about the universality of economic principles. This arises between the two schools of thought mentioned in the title of this piece (just add an -ism if you will). The laissez-faire folks take the position that regardless of time or place, the free market works, and works better than anything else. Of course the historicists disagree.

What is intriguing about this argument besides what's on the face of it? Well, deep down at the heart of it all is a question concerning epistemology and ethics. The question is whether we can discern the nature of the universe, of man's mind, of man's necessary conditions for not just survival but also "good" living; for if we can, all else follows and, most importantly, a correct political regime is manifest.

The question is whether there exists a right and wrong from which to judge our existence by. The historicists say "no, get used to it." The laissez-faire folks say "yes, and watch what happens when you employ it."

Ayn Rand's philosophy holds as much as the latter. But hers is a little deeper. Starting from the metaphysical nature of the universe, Rand traces a path to natural right from teleological foundations. What strikes me about this article is that it does as well, at least implicitly. But what is this foundation but natural law and "the laws of nature and of Nature's God," as Jefferson said?

Any Scorpios Here?

As we all know, the popular site, the Onion (who the White House is going after for completely unrelated reasons) often posts nonsensical stories that are funny, and occasionally, nonsensical stories that are not.

This was their listing for the horoscope of Scorpio this week:

This Week’s Horoscopes
Scorpio: You'll lose the use of your left arm this week when your city uses rather draconian eminent-domain laws to commandeer it for garbage-hauling and tree-removal duties.


...You know you are a libertarian when you feel rallied by this.


I was at a political meeting yesterday, and everyone thought I was nuts for being so crazy over property rights. Sigh.

I Need Some Help For A Paper

I am supposed to write a paper in my Intro Stats class. It is supposed to be very simple and use at most a Bivariate Regression. I don't know what a Bivariate Regression is yet, because that chapter is next week. I tell you this so you realize where I stand on Stats knowledge and so that anyone who rights back won't feel the need to use big words.

Anyway, the idea is to test two variables against each other, or so I gather. My ideas are thus: (1) Use a simple and easy to find economic indicator of freedom, i.e. something that indicates lack of regulation or minimal state interference, and see if good things accrue, i.e. less crime, more good shit, etc.

(2) Use an indicator of gun ownership, like NRA membership, and then test that against less crime, good shit, etc.

I was hoping to do this across the 50 States so that my sample isn't too small, or I could use the counties in California. I would love suggestions for what variables I should use and where to find them. My goals are to do this easily, for a grade, and not so much to prove a point, although if that can be done in this little silly paper please let me know.

Thank you for your help with this!
I look forward to hearing from you.