Americanly Yours

I am currently reading two books.

The first is Thomas Sowell’s Black Rednecks and White Liberals.  This is an interesting historical and sociological study of different cultures throughout the world.

The second book is Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy.  If you have little or no economic background, I strongly recommend this book.  It is so easily written that a middle school student could fully understand it.  It explains economics without using complicated jargon.  It also offers plenty of historical examples to make understanding easier.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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Ive got no artistic skills whatsoever and I need a new logo for my site.

It needs to be 576 x 131 pixels.  It needs to be either your original work or work that you have permission to use.  Other than that, there are no guidelines.  Design whatever logo you think would work best for this site.  The contest will run until July 4th, but I reserve the right to stop it earlier if I get a design that I really like.

I will give the winner 2% of the revenues from my site (not a lot right now, but its growing) until July 4th, 2010.

Im gonna put it up on top of the site where the stretched out Gadsden flag is now.

You can email it to me at phredbarnet@gmail.com

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and California are lobbying the government for up to $80,000,000,000 [$80 billion] in loans to bolster their flood insurance programs.

Providing residents of these areas with flood insurance lowers their costs.  This amounts to a federal subsidy for those living in hurricane zones.

Subsidies, like taxes are inducements to change behavior.  You can think of a subsidy like a negative tax–or a rebate.  A tax is a fee charged to someone for doing something.  A subsidy is a payment made to someone for doing something.

Subsidizing flood insurance for those who live in hurricane zones makes it cheaper for people to live in those zones.  This attracts more people to these areas then would naturally choose to live there.

When a hurricane inevitably destroys these areas again, the government will have to pay billions of dollars in insurance claims.  Then they will spend more money redeveloping the area.  Then they will again offer subsidized flood insurance to the residents of the area, lowering the cost of living, and thereby encouraging more people to move there.  Then another hurricane will hit the area…

This has happened so many times before.  It will likely happen again and again in the future.

While the money is being asked for in the form of loans, the terms of the loan proposals are explicitly clear that if there is a disaster, the federal government will have to pick up the tab.

The government should not subsidize people to live in disaster prone areas.  Doing so does not make sense.  It provides financial incentives for people to make a bad (or at least life threatening) decision.  It forces the rest of society to pay for these bad decisions.

The government should get out of the private insurance business.  It should let the market determine where people should live.

The Republican governors of two of the States, Louisiana and Texas have rejected some of the funds from the “stimulus” bill, but they have no problem in asking for larger handouts from the federal government.

Scientists believe that global warming will lead to an increase in the number and intensity of hurricanes.  This makes subsidizing people for living in hurricane zones a much more reckless proposal.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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One final thought on liberals and conservatives:

“I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals.”

Matt Stone

Take this test to see how liberal (in the classical liberal sense) you are.

Created by LPUK

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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I hate watching the news on tv, but I happened to catch about 30 seconds of it last night.  The Supreme Court is now hearing a very peculiar case.

The case is over whether a public school has the right to conduct a strip search on one of its students [in this case, a 13 year old girl].  As I watched this story on the news, I asked my self aloud “what possible compelling interest can there be to justify strip searching a 13 year old girl at her school?”

Well, the girl was accused of hiding something very dangerous–a few ibuprofen pills.

Seriously.

The school decided to search the girl–an honor student with no history of being in trouble–because another student was caught with the pills and falsely said that the pills came from this girl.

After searching her belongings, the school subjected her to a strip search, searching her bra and panties.  For a couple of Advil.

The fact that this case has made it all the way to the Supreme Court boggles my mind.  For one, this girl obviously has a right to privacy.  She also has a 4th Amendment right to protection against unreasonable search and seizure.  And she was searched because of suspicion that she had a legal, over the counter drug which has been approved for use in people of her age.

I dont know why the school decided to search this girl at all, especially a strip search, and especially without the permission of her parents… For a couple of Advil.

I hope that the Supreme Court does the right thing and dismisses the case.  And I hope that afterwords, the parents sue the school for a lot of money.

Oh, and by the way–no Advil was found during the search.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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