Shooting the Messenger
I wonder if this is set to go off when the tax forms are delivered:
Click on image for full size. Via Eugene Volokh.
Culture
When Free is not Free
Over at Ebay you can pay good money for one of those free Google Gmail accounts. As Tyler Cowan notes “..right now supply is limited. Not surprisingly, a market in the accounts has arisen.”
Maybe the buyers think getting one will give them an inside track on getting a share of Google stock; or that they can get a special username that they can then resale at a profit; or bragging rights amongst some alien species; or…well, just why are they spending this money?
I’ll wait until they are readily available and then get one or two for ad hoc needs. They can sit on the shelf with my other freemail accounts for use as needed.
A Picture is worth….
Is a good, evocative picture worth a thousand words? Sure it is. It�s just that when it�s by itself, you can�t be sure which thousand words they are.
Go see what Teresa is talking about.
Smoking Assault
Radley Balko warns of creeping nanny-statism:
The California state assembly is now considering a law banning you from smoking in your own car if your kids are riding with you.
Make no mistake, they’ll be in your home next.
Radley, you are correct. There shouldn’t be any additional laws necessary regarding this. Assault it pretty straightforward and the kids could certainly sue concurrently or later. It shouldn’t take many assault convictions and successful law suits to pretty much eliminated this problem.
I consider adults who smoke in cars or even in their homes with accompanying children to be a bit senseless, if not stupid.
On the other hand, if it is a privately owned establishment that is clearly labeled as a smoking environment then consenting adults should be free to patononize or work there without any outside interference.
Reading List Aids Procrastination
A few folks have marked up this list of books(below). You know the deal: bold the ones that you have read. And this is easier then picking up the debate on Grand Stragies and conscription.
I found this via jaquandor who notes that it is like all such lists and leaves out some that should be there. So a couple items that I would add or change: add Kafka’s The Trial (or replace The Metamorphosis) and on the esoteric side add Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer. There are many more but, for now, I’ll leave them to others. Well, except for one: Jaquandor knows that I think highly of The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass.
I have read quite a few of these and l’d like to say that I could carry on a literate discussion about each and every one. Alas, this is not the case. Many of them I read long ago and as I lack an eidetic memory they have become shadows in the mists of time. They do look great in the book cases though.
It is also nteresting that the linkage trail is so short. After Jaquandor it goes like this: Jason who got it from Lynn Sislo who got it from Deb who got it from Misty. Is Misty the creator?
Update: Misty provides links to others in the comments.
See the list in the extended entry.