Megan McAardle notes that are current living standard for the poor is better than than the pharaoh of Egypt.

Scientists now think that King Tut may have died of malaria. As the fellow who sent me the link dryly noted, King Tut did not have good comprehensive health insurance.

All kidding aside, this is a good excuse to meditate on just how rich we are. King Tut was probably the wealthiest man in the world during his time. He died of something that wouldn’t kill the most abjectly immiserated welfare mother in the United States today, because of a combination of public health efforts, and cheap antimalarial drugs.

I think many on the left are to quick to judge our economic system by poor without giving consideration to poor in most other countries and during most any other time in history.

One superintendent actually cares about the education of children. She fired all the teachers in the union.

Under threat of losing their jobs if they didn’t go along with extra work for not a lot of extra pay, the Central Falls Teachers’ Union refused Friday morning to accept a reform plan for one of the worst-performing high schools in the state.

The superintendent didn’t blink either.

After learning of the union’s position, School Supt. Frances Gallo notified the state that she was switching to an alternative she was hoping to avoid: firing the entire staff at Central Falls High School. In total, about 100 teachers, administrators and assistants will lose their jobs.

Teachers unions are the biggest problem in educating the youth. If only other superintendents could fire union teachers.

Google is fighting censorship:

Google is seemingly bent on making a clean sweep of the Pacific Rim in its new anti-censorship campaign: first it refused to go on censoring its services at the behest of the Chinese government; now it has refused the Australian government’s (batshit crazy) request to censor YouTube videos that Canberra’s censor board put into its “refused classification” bucket.

Its good to remember that corporations don’t necessarily need to put profits before principle. It nice to see that Google is willing to take a potential hit in its profits to maintain its principles.

A recent study has shown that for parents to instill passion in their children its best to take a hand off approach.

The study focused on what psychologists call autonomy, the basic need to feel like you’re acting based on your own values and desires, not those of others. Controlling parents chip away at their child’s autonomy, by pushing them into a hobby, the researchers say. So when the kid picks up his clarinet it’s not out of a desire to play music, but due to a sense of obligation or a fear of disappointing his parents, according to Mageau.

If their is evidence showing that a more laissez-faire approach to parenting results in greater passion I wonder if the same kind of evidence can extend into state intervention into the individual passion of the citizens. Is one of the problems with extensive state intervention is that it kills off the passions of the citizenry?

Seems likely but then I’m biased against the state.

Arnold King asks:

The important point is that Progressives are never wrong. Top-down reform is the only way to fix the health care system. Anthropogenic global warming is scientifically proven, and its solution requires strenuous exercise of political control over individual behavior. Deficit spending is necessary and sufficient to create jobs. Technocrats can make banks too regulated to fail. Markets without technocratic control are like adolescents without adult supervision. Individual happiness can be improved by political authorities using scientific knowledge. Concentrated political power is the wave of the future, and it is good.

I am not a populist. I fear the mob. But how can I fear the Progressives any less?

Technocracy and the mob are to be equally feared.

This headers is large and unreadable. No doubt my brother will hate it. But it looks so damn good.

Triumph of style over substance. Woo Hoo!