Kathy G. Abortion
At first, I thought, what an odd pseudonym!
"Kathy G. Abortion? Who's that?" Pwned by AWB.
"eg"? I can see from the rest of the post that you're capable of using periods and italicizing and time to compose never seems to run short for you, so I'm just flat out mystified.
You might say, ben has some eg on his face.
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Goddamnit. It took me two minutes to figure out where my post went.
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The "charity hospitals screwing the poor" thing seems to be Geoghegan's hobbyhorse - it also featured in his 2005 book The Law in Shambles. Not that it's not relevant, but I found other examples more poignant. For example, there apparently used to be some well-established common-law principles by which businesses had to exercise some basic responsibility on who they sold to, and over the 70's and 80's judges basically threw these principles out on behalf of tobacco and firearm companies, with little legal justification other than the paramountcy of laissez-faire. (IANAL, and I think Geoghegan was among the plaintiff's counsel on one of these cases, but still.)
Guns -- he worked on a case trying to impose liability on gun manufacturers.
People seem to forget that the "heroic" period of unrestrained (and basically small-scale) capitalism was absolutely miserable for the majority of people involved. Trying to recapture that moment when the players are so vastly bigger seems almost suicidal. It's like people think we're all still out in the Old West, getting by on pluck and ingenuity.
the "heroic" period of unrestrained (and basically small-scale) capitalism was absolutely miserable for the majority of people involved
What, as opposed to the hedonistic lifestyles of those uninvolved? Early 16th century Holland was not a happy place. The fishermen were the lucky ones.
The "charity hospitals screwing the poor" hobbyhorse comes from one or more meritless lawsuits Geoghegan brought. It's also completely fictional -- as I document in my rebuttal of Geoghegan's book, charity hospitals write off the vast majority of unpaid bills without bringing lawsuits, and would have to shut down entirely if they didn't engage in collections practices.
And Minivet, Geoghegan's characterization of the underlying law behind tobacco and firearms cases is also fictional.
The "charity hospitals screwing the poor" hobbyhorse comes from one or more meritless lawsuits Geoghegan brought. It's also completely fictional -- as I document in my rebuttal of Geoghegan's book, charity hospitals write off the vast majority of unpaid bills without bringing lawsuits, and would have to shut down entirely if they didn't engage in collections practices.
And Minivet, Geoghegan's characterization of the underlying law behind tobacco and firearms cases is also fictional.
I'm not a disinterested observer wrt preemption in the federal banking laws. The notion of a federal system immune from state regulation is hardly new, though, and i think more than arguable.
The wiki page for Marquette had a nice little bit:
During oral argument, Justice Thurgood Marshall . . . asked the Marquette [pro-state regulation] attorney if he was correct in stating that the citizens of Minnesota can go to their bank and get a credit card at 12 percent. The attorney agreed. Justice Marshall again asked the Marquette attorney if he was correct in stating that First National Bank of Omaha [pro federal regulation] is sending mailing solicitations into his territory and signing up a large number of citizens. The attorney agreed. Finally, Justice Marshall asked the Marquette attorney, "You're claiming that the Omaha bank is taking customers away from Marquette?" The attorney agreed. Justice Marshall concluded that the bank does not have a legal problem, but that they have a marketing problem.
This is of a piece with the recent bankruptcy reform and lawsuit reform. It's all screw the little guy under the guise of "personal responsibility."
We're a simple amateur blog with no redeeming social value, but a impartial expert from the American Enterprise Institute have graced us with his presence. We should be proud.
Speaking of judges, The Vine has a post on how the core of the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act are hanging by a single Supreme Court justice.
By the way, a convention of putting two spaces after a full stop would have helped with the confusion over Kathy G.'s name.
Well, if somebody from the AEI says it, who am I to disagree?
13: CN linked this 2003 holbo post over in another thread, but it bears directly on your comment and I like it so much, I thought I'd re-link here.
16: I don't think browsers preserve double spaces in HTML for some reason. Test:
Kathy G. Abortion
Kathy G. Abortion
The latter had two spaces, but no difference in the post.
It's necessary for conservatives to fund research at places like AEI because universities are controlled by liberals.
Oops, I meant to post that at Emerson's other blog.
eg
i used to abbreviate f.e, but then realized that people do not read it like for example
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I had always wondered what the narrative was behind McCain's divorce and remarriage. Every rendering of it I've seen has been driven by the current political situation.
Here's a fair-seeming and rather sympathetic portrayal (or so I regard it) from the Washington Post.
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I've been eagerly waiting for the Dow to break 10,000.
19: Yes HTML compresses white space. My pet theory is that this was an attempt to forestall the proliferation of BUAFs and BUAGs*.
The easiest way to put in spaces is using " " (non-breaking space).
For instance, the second one has an "nbsp"
Kathy G. Abortion
Kathy G. Abortion
*We could have a lot of fun with those if the powers that be here would support the <pre> tag.
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Perth ->*.--._/
v < - Tasmania
25: It's like watching a train wreck. Easy to forget we are riding on the train.
Wow, Ted Frank and an ascii Australia in the same thread.
30: I come from a long line of stutes.
24: That's a great article. Carol comes off as quite a remarkable person.
29: I feel old. It just occurred to me that people born at the beginning of the September that never ended are now almost old enough to drive.
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If anyone wants in on an election betting pool, email me. $10 a ballot, weighted odds on outcome of every state.
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33: Worse yet. There are people voting out there who have no memory of the cold war, and think of Regan as a heroic figure people name airports after. Some of them may even be on this blog. I feel a duty to educate them.
The cold war sucked! We do not want another one! Regan was a disaster as president! Listen to your elders!
Don Regan was Secretary of the Treasury and White House Chief-of-Staff, Rob. People don't name airports after him.
I come from a long line of stutes.
Togolosh is a horse?
My dad still pronounces it "REE-gun."
Right now, Roe v. Wade rests upon the slenderest of reeds: the continued good health of an 88-year old man
God, what a stupid system. I thought the whole constitutional form of government thing was supposed to buffer us from seeing wildly different outcomes based on the mortality rates of old judges and the finer points of graphic design on a ballot in south Florida.
36: Maybe the youth will listen to their elders more when we learn to check our spelling.
37: a lady horse, to be precise. But really, a fish.
37: I am Bad Horse. The Evil League of Evil has been monitoring Unfogged for some time.
16, 19, 26: I meant to refer to an old argument on the One True Way of how many spaces there should be after a full stop/ period. Misjudged how obvious this would be.
I am a unicorn. Each of my comments is a subtle variation on a single pun.
The extra space wouldn't have mattered to me. I up the font size in my browser a bit, and there's a line break between the G and the Abortion.
When did Reagan become loved by all? Did I miss the ceremony? At the time he was hated about as much as GWB is now. SDI, Pershing missles, etc.
43 - I am not familiar with this "Evil League of Evil", but I am intrigued. Do you have a membership brochure I could peruse?
It's like people think we're all still out in the Old West, getting by on pluck and ingenuity.
There ya go agin! I tell ya, when ya have to go after yer wolf er yer polar bear with nothin but a helicopter 'n a high-powered rifle, you betcha ya need some old fashioned shining city maverick maverick maverick rears his gosh-darn western plucky values I can see you betcha!
Reagan became loved by all about the time when Nixon became an elder statesman.
A lot of the viciousness of the Republican party comes from people who think that Nixon was framed and that Iran-Contra was perfectly OK. Many of the Republican criminals of those periods remain active -- Chuck Colson is a man of God.
48: Getting a membership can be difficult for some.
Many of the Republican criminals of those periods remain active
Gordon Liddy seems to make a good living, too.
The most prominent Nixon alumnus was riding high for awhile, but he seems to have been holed up in an undisclosed location for some months now.
50.1 is very true. The Unitary Executive BS is strongly driven by the post-Watergate limitations placed on executive power, which particularly pissed off Ford's chief of staff, Dick Cheney. Also the assault on Clinton was perceived by some movement conservatives as payback for Nixon.
Walt - check out the link in essear's 51. This is important cultural literacy stuff.
I just got Schmidt's "Disciplined Minds", recommended by Michael Berube and one of our own posters (either Megan or Katherine, those girls look alike to me). It looks very very good.
Also the assault on Clinton was perceived by some movement conservatives as payback for Nixon.
Was it supposed to be something else?
56: A principled defence of ethics in government, if you believe the people actually pushing it at the time.
A principled defence of ethics in government, if you believe the people actually pushing it at the time.
Don't forget the feminism. Sexual harassment and all that, don't you know.
Holy Cow, two comments from Ted at AEI. Wow.
Hey Ted, a couple questions if you have the time.
First, who pays you to do what you do? Where does the money come from?
Second, assume for the moment that you, like, actually get your way and you can transform all of society and culture around your dream. What would that look like?
I mean what does your utopia look like? Cause it seems to me we are not very close to it, even after years and years and years of your kind of preaching. So tell me again what dream world are we shooting for? Reality keeps getting in the way.
59: First, who pays you to do what you do? Where does the money come from?
Well, most of it comes from me -- my salary at AEI is a small fraction of what I made in private practice billing several hundred dollars an hour, so my opportunity costs are huge. The money on my pay stub comes from AEI, and their funding sources are disclosed on the AEI website, but they lose control of the money once it ends up in the AEI coffers. What I like about working at AEI is the intellectual freedom; I've written op-eds and papers critical of Wal-Mart and of a lobbying position taken by the pharmaceutical industry (endorsed by other AEI scholars), and no one has ever told me not to do so. There's no central AEI line, other than a common respect for the merits of freedom and free enterprise.
I mean what does your utopia look like?
I don't pretend to do utopia. I work for improvement at the margins (or, more accurately these days, given the political climate, avoiding government policies that will make matters worse).
This surprised me. I thought your treasured first amendment was only a joke on major issues.
The idea that the money comes from you, because you could be making other money doing something else, is a little confused.
61 was maybe a bit too flip. I think Emerson has had a bad effect on me.
No no, it makes sense Ben. See, because his opportunity costs are higher than the salary he gets from AEI, he's actually working at a loss. They pay him X, but he could make 3X, which is why his salary shows up as a gain of $2X on AEI's balance sheet.
Porn producer invokes the Bush/Yoo defense -- unsuccessfully
(updated below)
On Friday in Tampa, Florida, Paul F. Little was sentenced by a federal judge to 3 years and 10 months in a federal prison after being convicted of the grave and terrible crime of distributing pornography "over the Internet and through the mail" -- films featuring only consenting adults and distributed only to those consenting adults who chose to purchase them.
63: No, it was just the right amount flip. Our First Amendment has failed us in matters big and small. Or more precisely, our judiciary has failed to deliver what the First Amendment promises.
47
... At the time he was hated about as much as GWB is now. ...
Actually he wasn't. Compare Reagan vrs Mondale to Bush vrs Kerry
I should have added the modifier "by those on the left". Reagan was very popular, which drove some people crazy. It was Like Bush derangement syndrome and Clinton derangement syndrome combined.
I thought the whole constitutional form of government thing was supposed to buffer us from seeing wildly different outcomes based on the mortality rates of old judges and the finer points of graphic design on a ballot in south Florida.
Only as long as there are enough decent and functional people involved to keep the other sort from subverting it. No piece of paper will ever repeal "people suck."
Also:
Well, most of it comes from me -- my salary at AEI is a small fraction of what I made in private practice billing several hundred dollars an hour, so my opportunity costs are huge.
Cry me a fucking river. Like many of us, you got out of private practice because less money + more enjoyable job added up to a net win. That isn't altruism, it's just plain old Econ 101.
The idea that the money comes from you, because you could be making other money doing something else, is a little confused.
Not in the slightest. The implicit claim in the original poster's questions appears to be that, because AEI pays me, my positions are biased to please AEI or AEI's funders, whomever they may be. I note my opportunity cost because it refutes the premise of the original poster's question. If I were motivated by financial gain to take the positions I take, I have far more profitable opportunities than writing heavily-footnoted academic pieces on public policy.
And, yes, #70, non-pecuniary factors count in that decision. Such as the academic freedom AEI offers me--which is ironic, given again the implicit claim of others that my conclusions are bought and paid for.
And I note that, notwithstanding all the snark and ad hominems, no one has addressed the substance of the extensively documented paper refuting Geoghegan's screed.
It's still true, though, that the money doesn't come from you. If you want to point out that you could make more elsewhere as a means of denying that your opinions are bought and paid for (which would be a naïve accusation to make anyway, as I'd imagine that the self-selected are cheaper and more effective anyway), that's fine. But the money with which AEI pays you doesn't come from you, unless you're one of their donors.
I note my opportunity cost because it refutes the premise of the original poster's question.
No it doesn't. If you like your job notwithstanding the lower pay, you have an incentive to produce what your employer hires you to produce.
It's a shame dsquared doesn't seem to be around tonight.
Took me a few glances to figure out "Kathy G. Abortion" wasn't the author's actual name.