Robert Tracinski argues that Donald Trump is an Ayn Rand villain.
Chuck Wendig is not so impressed with Tiny House Hunters. Where there’s a lack of land availability and a lack of money I can understand it, as well as for idealistic environmentalists, but mobile homes are relatively cheap! {via Saul}
Trumwill being Trumwill, I’m kind of jazzed at the prospect of floating houses. {via Jhanley}
Robert Colvile talks of the schools that Katrina Built. Though the most recent data on vouchers in Louisiana isn’t good, the charter school system has produced some pretty solid results.
Yahoo had better hope that Verizon buys it up, because the alternative is just too embarrassing.
This kind of bums me out, because Alaskan Socialism is Socialism I can believe in! {via Jhanley}
The good news is that there are some teaching jobs in paradise that pay $50,000 a year. The bad news is that Hawaii is expensive.
The intersection between church and daycare regulation is… tricky.
Frank Marcopolos says that audiobooks and “earbud content” are only getting started.
Uber found an interesting ally in the Travis County Sheriff’s office, on account of what they believe it does for the prevention of drunk driving.
Even setting aside the Brutalism (yay Brutalism!), these pictures of Hong Kong are surreal.
Joe Carter explains how churches can help the poor by combatting predatory lending.
“Do what you love” is still terrible advice.
There was a train line in Japan that continues to run to deliver one high school student to and from school. Then he graduated and it stopped.
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18 Responses to Linkluster Congressional Seat Elections
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I can’t help but mentally caption the image on that bill as “Come with me if you want to live.”
Ditto
Re Alaskan socialism… like Nevada, North Dakota, and Wyoming, have a small population and find a way to tax people in other states (hydrocarbons, tourism). Worked for Florida and Texas too, until they outgrew that tax base.
I don’t tend to view hydrocarbons as taxing outsiders. Rather, it’s using a place’s mineral wealth to enrich the people of that place. The most typical alternative is the Anaconda model, which was great for Anaconda but not great for the good people of Montana.
You’re right that it’s pretty dependent on a limited population, though. But preferable all the same!
Who do you think actually pays those 12.5% royalties, and the state severance taxes? A very large majority of the State of Wyoming’s revenues from coal are paid by people, through their electric bills, in states from Oregon to Georgia. The vast majority of Alaska’s state oil revenues are collected at gas pumps in other states, as part of the price.
Companies like Anaconda cut their deals with western states — or bought favorable treatment — in a much earlier era. Why do you think states with hard-rock extractive industries in the West all put in citizen initiatives and recalls during 1890-1910? Because they all lived though having their state legislatures bought, by either the railroads or the mining companies, or in a couple of cases the timber companies.
Texas is a fascinating case. As part of Reconstruction, much of the real power in the state government was put in the hands of the Texas Railroad Commission (initially filled with carpetbagger appointees). Oil was put under the TRC’s control, and they generally didn’t take any sh*t from anyone, including the Texas legislature, but especially from out-of-state interests. I have an acquaintance who manages drilling sites in different states. He asserts that Texas has fewer problems with spills and such than other states because the TRC is perfectly fine with bankrupting your company to make you clean up your messes.
He asserts that Texas has fewer problems with spills and such than other states because the TRC is perfectly fine with bankrupting your company to make you clean up your messes.
Which is rather interesting given that in the Northeast, our presumption is that Texas is some horrible state where oil firms can pollute and do whatever they want with no controls by state regulators.
That’s not something I would say qualifies as a “tax (on outsiders)” in any other context. Though I’m sure GE passes on Connecticut taxes to consumers, I don’t consider myself paying taxes to Connecticut when I buy one of their products. Or Pennsylvania for Comcast.
It’s a corporate expense, which factors in to pricing (probably, maybe) on where and how they do business. They can either agree to pay the royalty or try to find some place else to drill. They can be willing to pay for cleanup in Texas or find some place else to drill. I can’t imagine anyone arguing that the latter is a tax on the consumer, and so I don’t see why the former is.
The Hong Kong pictures are amazing. I would not have believed that someone could build a 30- or 50-story building and have it manage to look… rickety.
Well, it might not have looked so rickety when it was first built!
The ability to store so many people in such a small space… wow.
I want to know what these places look like on the inside.
Some years back I was visiting Amsterdam and saw the prototypes of those floating homes. I was impressed, much more solid that a lot of the house boats we have out here.
Re: Tiny House Hunters
As an avid watcher of the House Hunters series, the shows tend to select for the kinds of people that want to be on TV in exchange for minimal amounts of money, but the THH types tended to double down on the type of people who are willing to live a certain lifestyle to buy political credence with their peers.
FWIW, some of the houses were rather nice looking, and I can understand why somebody would buy them, while some of the others were just a waste of time from a viewing perspective.
Re: Hong Kong
To a certain extent, Hong Kong’s problem is that it’s a large population in a place where a sizable chunk of the land is unbuildable since it’s somewhat mountainous, and spreading outward isn’t idea because it’s restricted to the islands and small peninsula off the mainland. In a more rational context, you’d see far more growth into the areas where the PRC is located, but nobody in Hong Kong wants to live on the other side, and Shenzen itself also a large urban city too.
I always think of Shenzen as the largest city that nobody has ever heard of. It takes China to hide a city with a population almost the size of LA Metro and leave it as an afterthought.
On the one hand, trying to cramp so many people in such a small space when China doesn’t have a scarcity of land seems nuts in the way that it drives me crazy that we have such problems with California real estate prices when there’s a whole country of places to put people! And yet… it’s just kind of cool.
That piece about the regulatory exemptions for church day care centers sounds scary (undoubtedly its intent), but other than one death in Virginia there is no evidence given as to whether these centers are any more dangerous than ordinary, regulated ones.
I will actually be writing a post on the subject, but I would be interested in seeing the data on this. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were pretty unfavorable to unregulated states.
I find the tiny house movement kind of fascinating. Back before it became a thing on tv, I admit I thought, “I might like to live in one of those.” Except, it would have to be an in-place house with proper plumbing. And with proper climate control – I live in the south and could not survive a summer with “just” solar powered fans.
Also, I’m approaching 50 and I realize I would not want to climb up and down a ladder to get to and from a sleeping loft. Because that would lead to me not drinking water in the evening, so I don’t have to go down to the bathroom in the night, which might lead to kidney stones….
Also, I own a 7′ baby grand piano (family heirloom, and NO I would not give it up) so unless I’d be willing to sleep UNDER it, a “tiny” house for me could not be so tiny.
I admit I got really turned off the whole tiny-house thing when it became a form of virtue-signalling. When it’s “this is how I live and I personally like it but it might not be for you” it’s kind of cool and interesting, when it’s “look how small my carbon footprint is! Look at how minimalist I am! Look at how I value ‘experiences’ over stuff!” that’s very off-putting.
I also suspect the resale for a used tiny house is even harder than the resale for a regular house.
I like the tiny houses in theory and would have liked them when I was young and single. Unfortunately, I don’t live in theory and I’m not young anymore…