Wednesday, December 17, 2003

SpaceShipOne Rockets To 68,000 Feet [Slashdot] Great news! There was considerable speculation that they were trying for the 100th anniversary of the first powered flight, and they made it! 6:55:23 PM    comment () Is Organ Bootlegging Inevitable?. Jailing people for the voluntary sale of human organs helps neither those who need the organs nor those willing to sell them. Until medical science comes up with new ways to ease the growing shortage of transplantable organs, making the current voluntary black market into a white market with legally enforceable contracts could well forestall the development of an involuntary black market in organs. That would be win/win for us all. [Reason] If a government makes sales of organs legal it would be a strong message in favor of both free markets and the principle that people own their bodies. On the other hand, if organ sales remain illegal and criminals begin kidnapping people and stealing their organs it will be a scary new crime that will send the sheep shrieking to the government for protection. Since it's so heavily in governments' interest to keep organ sales illegal, and sets a (for government) dangerous precedent to make them legal, I expect governments to continue banning voluntary sales. 1:02:15 PM    comment () Thanks to John Robb's Weblog, I realized that Radio now has full Trackback support. I gather it's been there for a while but I somehow missed it. At any rate, I've enabled it for my weblog. 11:14:03 AM    comment () WSJ.  Inflation plunges to lowest level in 40 years.    The report "allows us to extend further our estimate of the 'considerable period' before" the Fed raises its federal-funds rate target, now 1%, said Steve Cecchetti, an economics professor at Brandeis University. "It is now extremely difficult to see how conditions for a rate increase can emerge before early 2005."  Nice!  That means the Fed will probably keep rates low.  It is bad news for the Dems. The new economy is still in effect. [John Robb's Weblog] I can't read the original article without a subscription, but let's suppose for the sake of arguement that they're talking about the year to date. According to the Federal Reserve, the money supply increased by 3.66% from January through November. However, during the same period in 1993, the money supply increased by 1.71%. Lowest level of inflation in 40 years? No, not even the lowest in ten years. John Robb is write, though--the "new economy" is still in effect. 10:35:14 AM    comment () "Free-Speech Zone". On Dec. 6, 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft informed the Senate Judiciary Committee, "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty ... your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and ... give ammunition to America's enemies." Some commentators feared that Ashcroft's statement, which was vetted beforehand by top lawyers at the Justice Department, signaled that this White House would take a far more hostile view towards opponents than did recent presidents. And indeed, some Bush administration policies indicate that Ashcroft's comment was not a mere throwaway line. When Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up "free speech zones" or "protest zones" where people opposed to Bush policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event. [...] Is the administration seeking to stifle domestic criticism? Absolutely. Is it carrying out a war on dissent? Probably not--yet. But the trend lines in federal attacks on freedom of speech should raise grave concerns to anyone worried about the First Amendment or about how a future liberal Democratic president such as Hillary Clinton might exploit the precedents that Bush is setting. [The American Conservative] I've noticed that collectivists never really give any thought to the possibility (or rather, the likelyhood) that their own oppressive tactics will be turned against them in the future when a different faction of collectivists comes to power. 9:55:32 AM    comment ()

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