Monthly Archives: July 2003

How Many Pages does it Take to Choke a Country?

This entry was posted in Capitalism Democracy Law Libertarianism Regulation on by

I’m afraid we will find out before it gets better. From the Washington Post 2002 Federal Register Is Longest Ever:

The Bush administration, philosophically wedded to the idea of smaller government, issued a record-high number of pages of new federal regulations last year, according to a study to be released today by the Cato Institute.
…Federal Register boasted 75,606 pages of federal regulations in 2002, up from a high of 74,528 pages in 2000, when President Bill Clinton was still in office.

On the other hand:

A total of 4,187 rules were in the federal pipeline in 2002, down from 4,509 rules the previous year and from a 10-year peak of 5,119 in 1994,…..

For a full analysis see the 2003 Cato Institute report: Ten Thousand Commandments, An Annual Report of the Federal Regulatory State.
Via Bespacific.

The Themes of Harry Potter

This entry was posted in Harry Potter on by

Warning: Some of these links lead to spoilers.
While not all encompassing there are a lot of interesting discussions going on about the political/moral implications of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. And most of them that I’ve run across seem to run counter to Jesse Cohen’s 2001 Slate piece suggesting an anti-Thatcher pro welfare state view of the Potter series through volume 4:

Aside from being a politically corrected reconstruction of the English public school, Hogwarts is a microcosmic welfare state, stepping in to care for orphan Harry when his nightmarishly bourgeois relatives fail him.

Natalie Solent enumerates libertarian aspects of the book.

Mindles suggests a Randian connection.

Brian at Catallarchy looks at market regulation and money and banking.

Update: Hanah at Quare suggests some non-libertarian themes:

There are definitely some good libertarian themes in the books. But there are also some blatant non-libertarian ones.

The Philosophical Cowboy tells us “there’s some great comparisons to be drawn between the events in the book, and Britain under New Labour.”

Greg, who has a blog entitled Harry Potter Prognostications tells us (in the comment thread to the above Mindles link)

I thought that HP5 was most similar to George Orwell’s 1984 – the overall theme of the book having to do with truth and trust. The ministry installed Umbridge as a functioning Minister of Truth at Hogwarts, suppressing facts that the ministry felt were incompatabile with their agenda.

And this from Julian Sanchez:

While most parents celebrate anything that gets adolescents to put down the remote and pick up a book-a powerful bit of magic in itself-others are concerned that the series celebrates the “dark arts.” An Australian school is only the most recent to have banned the bespectacled mage. Perhaps parents and teachers who relish unquestioned obedience are right to be concerned about Harry Potter, but their focus is misplaced. It is not the magic, but the morality of Harry Potter that is truly subversive.

In response to the AS Byatt Op-Ed piece in the NY Times, Jessica Crispen chimes in with this in response:

A. S. Byatt is full of shit. I may not understand the Harry Potter obsession among (most) adults, but I don’t go as far as Byatt. I don’t think reading a children’s book is regressing or a symptom of our society’s decay.

Frail and Bedazzled agrees with Crispin and argues:

As for there being no heavy issues or themes presented in the books, well, I think she’s wrong, and if she’s read PoA, GoF or OotP, she obviously hasn’t done so very closely, because the books are teeming with issues, simplistic at first, but still – the issues are there.

I enjoyed the book and am thrilled at the wide variety of discussion that is occurring. I don’t remember anything quite like this after book 4…but then I wasn’t participating in the blogosphere 2 years ago.

Talking Left Walking Right

This entry was posted in bush on by

Or persuading seniors they aren’t being screwed….and persuading democrats to step up to the public plate.

Go read this post at Ruminate This:

It’s not the first time Bush has insisted that senior citizens deserve no less “choice” than he or our representatatives enjoy.
…
The problem here for Bush and the majority is that the plan proposed by his side looks nothing like the plans offered Federal employees like Mr. Bush. Seniors will have to pay lots more for less in the way of coverage.
….
You know, if the Democrats were smart, they’d go to the daily trouble of highlighting the differences between themselves and their right-wing counterparts.

Whether you are a democrat or not you should demand truth in advertising!

Total Government Information Awareness

This entry was posted in US Politics on by

This looks like it might grow into an interesting site. Its mission:

To empower citizens by providing a single, comprehensive, easy-to-use repository of information on individuals, organizations, and corporations related to the government of the United States of America.
To allow citizens to submit intelligence about government-related issues, while maintaining their anonymity. To allow members of the government a chance to participate in the process.

Via Alex Knapp at Heretical Ideas.

The Coalition of the Misled

This entry was posted in Iraq on by

As this US Independence day weekend comes to a close the leaders of the coalition of the willing continue their transformation into the Misinformers:
From Australia:

Australian Prime Minister John Howard defended himself against accusations on Monday that he had claimed Iraq was developing nuclear weapons to justify going to war, despite being told by Washington the allegation was dubious.

From Britain>:

he Foreign Affairs Select Committee is set to deliver its verdict on whether Downing Street exaggerated the case for war in Iraq.
The MPs’ report is likely to censure Downing Street’s director of communications Alastair Campbell.
He was responsible for the second so-called “dodgy dossier” published in January 2003, which included 12-year-old material from the Internet.
However, the committee is expected to clear Mr Campbell of wrongdoing in relation to the first dossier, published in September 2002.

From the United States:

An envoy sent by the CIA to Africa to investigate allegations about Iraq’s nuclear weapons program contends the Bush administration manipulated his findings, possibly to strengthen the rationale for war.

On the other hand some senators are excited about pending wmd announcements while others are skeptical:

Senators just returned from Iraq differed on whether U.S. officials there had turned up solid evidence of weapons of mass destruction programs.

It will be interesting to see if this is more then another color change in the alert system. Whatever is presented will have to be dramatically stronger then if it had been found and presented prior to or shortly after the fall of Baghdad. Where was the imminent threat?