A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.
P.J. O'Rourke
Image of the Day
Lauren Hill's Opponents
A few months back, I, like many bloggers around the world, covered terminal brain cancer victim and college freshman basketball player Lauren Hill's quest to play and score; the opposing team agreed to move up their game. (Lauren signed up for hospice care a few weeks later in December. On March 4, she was named to the all-conference first team. At last mention, Lauren is fighting the good fight, although her deadly adversary, cancer, continues its assault.) This little CBS Sunday Morning story (I used to watch Sunday Morning years back; they would routinely close the show with some nature clip) is a gem, covering the other team which went over and beyond sportsmanship.
Facebook Corner
(Libertarian Catholic). "Individuals must be free to choose the terms upon which they exchange with each other, or they are not free."
Agreed. It's one thing when government itself imposes discriminatory laws (e.g., Jim Crow). But the idea that government would tell businesses what goods or services they have to exchange to others is absurd. If and when there is a need for consumer demand, the market is willing to provide that good or service at the right price--obvious examples include prohibitions on alcohol and drugs. Every single case I have heard, this was not a case of a gay person being deprived of a good or a service because of a single vendor's refusal to give goods or services. The gay couples in question were able to get a photographer, baker, etc.,; this had everything to do with a malcontent gay furious with the idea a vendor turning him down for any or no reason and using the monopoly power of force of government to punish them. In everyday life, we run into refusal of services--we can't get our kid enrolled in a preferred school, I didn't get a university faculty position I applied for, the lovely single woman turns me down for a date, I can't get reservation at a five-star restaurant, I can't get my car repaired at a convenient time, etc. Are the reasons for refusal acceptable? I'll leave the judging of others up to God. But I know my money is just as green for another vendor.
(Reason). The Supreme Court should strike down the Vermont GMO-labeling law and effectively settle the issue once and for all.
The crackpot anti-scientific anti-GMO movement cannot validate their conspiracy nonsense in the free market of ideas, so the food fascists seek to impose their alarmist agenda through bastardized ignorant populist government. Non-GMO food producers and distributors already have the ability to advertise their hyped, overpriced, non-competitive products and provide third-party certification of their claims. Forcing out-of-state vendors to respond to to any arcane special-interest demand is anti-competitive and unconstitutional at its core: SCOTUS must strike down this perverse Vermont law.
(LFC). If the state wanted to drastically reduce the amount of educational content on the Internet, the best way would be to mandate that no one could post anything unless it was closed captioned and met a host of other federal disability regulations.
"The U.S. DOJ on Thursday announced a settlement with online course provider edX Inc over allegations its platform was not accessible...."
It's time for the dysfunctional State to stop erecting barriers to education innovation. The market will find ways of addressing the needs of disabled people intrinsically without the lose-lose intervention of State thugs.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Gary Varvel via Townhall |
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists
John Denver, "Sweet Surrender"
