Miscellany

I Thought We Were Evolving - If we really are evolving, then we should just be able to adapt to all of these wireless signals we're creating right? Why should there be any cause for concern? I can't say for sure whether they pose a health threat or not but the linked article says we're living in an electromagnetic field that is a billion times stronger than the one we supposedly evolved in. If some people get cancer from it, so what? They're just genetically weaker and shouldn't be swimming in the gene pool anyway right? Any honest atheist shouldn't have a problem with people dying from environmental causes.

Sheryl Is Crowing - I expect to hear a lot of moronic things from the entertainment industry but this is going to go down in history as one of the worst. Sheryl Crow, a famous environmental expert singer is telling us that there should be limits on how much toilet paper we can use at any one sitting. She thinks we only need one square each most of the time. Can you imagine the oversight committee for this sort of thing? We'll be forced to have toilet paper meters in every bathroom. I'm just imagining the black market for unmetered toilet paper! Imagine, Smokey And The Bandit hauling Charmin instead of Coors and trying to outwit Beaufort T. Justice!

Implied Discrimination - A new study by the American Association of University Women suggests that the income gap that still exists between men and women is the result of discrimination. Dang right it is! And why not? As I said in the comments of the previous post, any employer should be allowed to discriminate against anyone for any reason. If an employer doesn't think a woman is going to be as valuable of an employee for whatever reason, he's going to give her lower pay. Why shouldn't an employer be able to base compensation on what some anticipated behavior might be. Some employers are refusing to higher smokers or seriously obese people too. Discrimination is not inherently wrong, it's simply a choice between variables.

In Related News

In Florida, the House defeated a bill, sponsored by the NRA that would have prohibited business owners from banning guns on company property.

Specifically, the law would have prevented business owners from making a policy stating that employees cannot have guns in their cars on company property. Presumably, it would have made it illegal for an employer to fire someone for carrying a weapon in their car.

Honestly, I was a little conflicted over this until I thought it through. In the end I support the property owner/business owner. First of all when you bring your property on to my property it is subject to my rules or you simply can't enter. I can't compel you to bring something on to my property against your will, neither can you compel me to allow something on my property.

Secondly, a business should be able to fire anyone for any reason they wish including but not limited to race, color, religion, eye color, clothing style, shoe size and juggling ability. This is known as "freedom of association." Moronic discrimination policies can hurt a business but that's up to the owner to decide.

I'm disappointed in the NRA for sponsoring this bill, they should have known better. The 2nd Amendment was written so that we'd have the right to protect the rest of our rights. Obviously the NRA has lost sight of the strict sense of property rights we used to cherish.

It's Your Fault

If you have ever supported more gun control, you are morally complicit in the deaths of those 31 people at Virginia Tech University.

Their blood is on your hands.

You voted for gun control. You support gun control. You talk about more gun control. You think guns are evil and only the police should have them. You think that we are not responsible enough to handle weapons. You want the government to treat us like children.

You are guilty.

Missing The Point

Sacha Sagan of PC Magazine misses the point entirely when it comes to the government and free markets.

In what seems like an otherwise innocuous article about advanced cell phone capabilities in Europe, Sagan opines:

But I can't help thinking that our carriers' locked-down thinking on mobile applications needs to be opened up with a government crowbar.

If the market can't provide sufficient competition on its own, let's goose it, so a new market of mobile applications and Web services can truly take off.

Sagan doesn't seem to understand that as soon as American consumers demand the services currently in use in Europe and elsewhere, that those companies will provide them. Perhaps the wireless providers can be forced to offer certain applications but consumers cannot be forced to use or pay for them.

People just don't think. If the government can demand that company X provides a product or service, especially something like wireless phone service then we have ceased to have a free market at all. Whatever innovation and autonomy remains is simply because the government has not yet taken an interest. Maybe we should force BestBuy to sell circuit boards and diodes so consumers can build their own electronics and have more real choices. Maybe we should force Starbucks to start serving full meals because consumers have to make a separate stop for food. I'm sure if Starbucks started serving meals people would buy them. We need government regulation to force Starbucks to provide what consumers really want!

This isn't really about mobile applications, it's about the mentality that the government should intervene when we aren't happy with the choices presented to us. The government is simply not capable of being an innovator or forcing innovation. The first thing that someone will point to will be the break of up the phone company in to Baby Bells. It was government regulations to begin with that prevented competition from getting a foothold in the first place. Look at what VoIP service such as Vonage and Skype is doing to the traditional land line market! No government regulations were necessary to create that market. Regulation could halt it though. It's big, established companies that have a long and proud history of using government to stifle their competition.

A smaller government with few, but well established laws prevent big companies from limiting their competition through lobbying for various laws and regulations. Sure, those companies will whine and complain about the cost of regulation compliance but they know those same costs are what keep the competition away and leave consumers with fewer choices.

More government is NEVER the answer when it comes to what the market offers consumers. It's a lesson I hope Sacha Sagan learns soon.

I'll Bet It Was A Muslim

A man at a Milwaukee museum has destroyed a painting because he apparently didn't like the image of David holding Goliath's severed head.

10 to 1, this is a Muslim who simply couldn't stand to see a depiction of a Jew being victorious.

The story does not give the man's name.