Taiwanese Defense and the UN Charter

Is it technically illegal?  Whatever. Does anyone really think the major players in Asia are going to care about use of force rules in the UN Charter if/when things get dicey?  Give me a break.

Friday Fun: Remy on Independence Day

It's as good this year as it was when it came out last Fourth of July. 

As for my crew and me, we are absolutely grilling hot dogs and burgers, drinking unhealthy but delicious beverages, and having as much fun as possible.  We might even be making our own ice cream before going to see fireworks. 

Hey, let's end on a high note for liberty and personal choice and agency: Bloomberg's soda ban has recently been killed once and for all in New York, so yay!

Let Them Eat Regulations

A thought about food freedom.  You want government out of the bedroom and boardroom?  How about out of the kitchen too?

What Is the One Overriding Thing You Associate With the German Autobahn?

Now combine that with a bunch of nanny-politicians.

Another Reason (or Two) to Love Jeremy Irons

Aside from being a fantastic actor with a gorgeous voice?  He's a libertarian who just dumped on Bloomberg and nanny statism.

Headline of the Day: "It's a Crime for 12-Year-Olds to Read The New York Times Online"

Seriously.  Oh, there's a crime here all right. It's called felony stupidity.

"Why the Spectator Won't Sign the Royal Charter"

From the mess about oversight, regulation, and press freedom in the UK comes a moment of clarity from The Spectator:

It is just as the advocates of press freedom feared: politicians cannot stop themselves. Give them control over print and they’ll come back for digital. Next they will want to distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ journalists, to reward their friends and punish their enemies. Just a whiff of this sort of power has intoxicated Alex Salmond, who commissioned a review which recommended that Scotland make licensing of the press compulsory. His devolved government would license bloggers, a handy tool in the run-up to the 2014 referendum. He was forced to drop the plans after they caused an uproar, but his intention was clear. 

Perhaps the general public think state regulation is a good thing; that hacks should be restrained by people who aren’t themselves in the media. But what may not be appreciated is the insidious influence politicians already try to exert over the press: the quiet words over dinner, the phone calls made to editors, myself included. I have been asked to chastise ‘irresponsible’ reporters and remove articles that politicians find insulting from the website. On minister called to ask if I was aware that a Spectator journalist had been rude about him without first seeking the advice of his spin doctor. It’s as if MPs have lost sight of what a free press is for. 

When the public think of a ‘bad journalist’, they imagine a hack who plagiarises, lies, or in some other way breaks the law. When a politician thinks of a bad journalist, more often than not he imagines someone who has criticised him, unfairly in his opinion. So of course there’s political lip-smacking about an era in which politicians have the power to define what is acceptable journalism. Or, as Labour’s Jim Sheridan put it on Tuesday, expel the ‘parasitical elements’ within the press. But this is an attack on freedom.

Rant: Press Freedom in the UK

Take a good look.  Here's a more humorous commentary on the topic by the famously eccentric Mayor of London.

The 2013 Index of Economic Freedom

We're Number 10, which means we rank as "Mostly Free" instead of "Free" and got whipped by

1. Hong Kong
2. Singapore
3. Australia
4. New Zealand
5. Switzerland
6. Canada
7. Chile
8. Mauritius
9. Denmark

From the blurb about the US ranking:

The United States, with an economic freedom score of 76, has lost ground again in the 2013 Index. Its score is 0.3 point lower than last year, with declines in monetary freedom, business freedom, labor freedom, and fiscal freedom. 

Come on, people!  We have got to do better than this!

Blessed Are the Cheesemakers

Oui, mon ami.  Regulators and unions coming for your traditional unpasteurized artisan fromage?  TO THE BARRICADES!

Geek News: Congress, the UN, and Internet Regulations

For once Congress did something right.

Quote of the Day: Political Speech & Political Act in the EU

Food for thought by a French political scientist.  Here's a bit of it:

In Europe, what we say as citizens no longer has any importance, since political actions will be decided at some indeterminate place, a place we cannot situate in relation to the standpoint from which we speak. Everyone knows that the most solemn speech that a people can formulate, a vote by referendum, is a matter of indifference for the European political class, which charges itself with the responsibility of leading the necessary process of the “construction” of a united Europe. The supposed necessity of this process discredits and invalidates all political speech in advance. 

If this process continues—the financial crisis of the euro has put extraordinary pressure on it—we will soon leave behind the regime of representative government and return to one of speechless commandment. The commandment will no longer be that of the state, which at least occupied a place of a certain elevation, but that of regulations. We do not know the source of regulations—only that we must obey them.

Oh, dear.  

Some Health Expert Wants Global Regulation of Alcohol

La Parisienne just sent me this news story.  Good luck with that, pal.  All I'm going to say is: look at Prohibition and how well that turned out.  (Oh, and if you still haven't gotten around to watching Ken Burns's "Prohibition" documentary, you should.  It's really interesting!) 

String Theory: Violins and Mad Cow Disease

I don't even know what to say to this:

Musicians have warned that the works of Purcell, Handel, Vivaldi and Bach may never again be heard as their composers intended – because of EU rules to stop people catching "mad cow disease" from their instruments. 

Regulations which tightly control the use of certain types of animal tissue are unwittingly threatening the centuries-old technique of making musical instrument strings out of beef gut. 

The craft is covered by the same strict controls on raw materials from cows, even though campaigners say that to catch Creutzfeldt – Jakob disease, (CJD) – the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy – from violin or cello strings from an infected animal you would need to eat several metres of them.

I do think the word "unwittingly" is all too accurate.  Anyway, have you ever heard of anyone trying to eat violin strings? I mean, I know there's that romantic stereotype of "the starving artist," but this is ridiculous.