Dec
6
2019

URLs du Jour

2019-12-06

  • David Henderson writes at the Hoover Institution on The Assault On Wealth. He's against it. The assault, that is. RTWT, of course, but he hits one of my own bugaboos near the end:

    One final note. I know that politicians of all stripes lie, but one highly misleading line that Warren likes to use is that she’s asking the very wealthy to “pitch in two cents” line. I’ll put aside the fact that she really means two percent. She knows that and, hopefully, the vast majority of her audience knows that. My big problem is the word “asking.” She’s not asking; that’s not how the IRS operates. Warren is threatening to use force on those who don’t comply […]

    Note that the Warren campaign lingo also calls for her Medicare For All scheme to be partially paid for by an employer "contribution" for each employee. The Orwellian doublespeak is strong with this one.

  • At the Daily Caller, James Bovard exposes The College Hunger Hoax.

    “Nearly half our college students are going hungry,” presidential candidate Bernie Sanders proclaimed on Saturday. Sanders’ tweet went viral, spurring more than 20,000 retweets and likes. Starving college students are a new rallying cry for social justice warriors, spurring demands for new federal handouts and maybe even a college student meal program modeled after school lunches.

    I occasionally walk my dog on the well-maintained sidewalks of the University Near Here, and I can report no visible emaciation. What's the hoax?

    In reality, the College Hunger Hoax is largely the result of a bait-and-switch by social scientists. Rather than seeking to measure actual hunger, questionnaires ask about the vaporous topic of “food security.” Surveys rely on sentiments and opinions, not actual food consumption. If someone fears missing a single meal, they can be categorized as “food insecure,” regardless of how much they ate. And if someone desired to consume better quality or more expensive cuisine (attention Whole Foods shoppers), they can join the ranks of the “food insecure.”

    Why, it's almost as if the questions are designed to maximize the "problem", so that Bernie and his ilk can propagandize.

    [I should point to UNH's Swipe It Forward page that allows compassionate parties to donate free meals in the dining halls, which are all-you-can-eat.]

  • I'm a sucker for these state comparisons, and the security site Safehome.org has done one for telling us Which Americans Are the Smartest?. There's the Lake Wobegon Effect:

    There’s a well-known phenomenon in psychology where people tend to think they are smarter than the average person. For Americans, that belief may approach certainty. A 2018 study found that 65% of Americans believe they have above-average intelligence.

    In addition to about 2 in 3 Americans saying they are smarter than most other people, the study found that certainty of one’s superior intellect increased with income and education but decreased with age.

    OK, that's boring. Skip down, how did our state do…

    Well, that's also boring. New Hampshire is near the mediocre middle (#22). At least we ain't Idaho (#51, they included D.C.)

    Number one on the smart parade: New Jersey. Which makes me want to ask: if those folks are so smart, why do they live in New Jersey?.

  • And Atlas Obscura dinged our LFOD bell with its report on Old Man of the Mountain Profiler Plaza.

    The state of New Hampshire is known for its “Live Free or Die” mentality (it is, in fact, the state’s motto) and beautiful foliage, so tourists and newcomers may be confused to see the profile of a rather chiseled-looking man adorning the state’s highway signs, license plates, driver’s licenses, and even the state’s coin. Few are aware that this man was once one of the most-visited attractions in all of the northeastern United States—and that it’s not really a man at all.

    The OMotM has been gone since 2003, but the plaza remains, and if you stand just right the state has arranged some of the old support hardware to "create the illusion of the Old Man of the Mountain, sitting high above Franconia Notch once again."