In a controversial move aimed at curbing the escalating issue of sideshows, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors has taken a bold step by passing an ordinance that criminalizes onlookers, penalizing them with hefty fines and potential jail time. While the concern over sideshows and their undeniable negative impact on public safety is justified, the decision to target mere spectators raises serious questions about the legal validity and efficacy of such measures.

As I pointed out a few months ago, empirical studies of the minimum wage have a way of stepping into a host of price-theoretic potholes. Among these pitfalls, there’s one in particular that seems underdeveloped. It relates to the margins of adjustment.

This piece is one side of the argument in our two-post debate on Ron DeSantis’s feud with Disney. You can find the argument on the other side, written by Samuel R. Staley, here.

Like a lot of corporate giants these days, The Walt Disney Company weighed in on behalf of progressive politics and got burned.  

Government has often been characterized as the institution that has a monopoly over the legitimate use of force. But effective governance requires more than this. Government must be able to display the ability to use sufficient force against those who oppose its mandates so that resistance appears futile. Most people comply with government mandates because not doing so is not a viable option. Actual use of force is reserved for those few who try to resist, to demonstrate to everyone else the negative consequences that come with non-compliance.

This piece is one side of the argument in our two-post debate on Ron DeSantis’s feud with Disney. You can find the argument on the other side, written by Graham Walker, here.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is plainly serious about the presidential race, but can he build the momentum needed to win the Republican Party nomination? A key to his campaign’s success may well be how he unwinds his political feud with the Disney Corporation. 

In 2012 Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize marijuana for recreational use. Minnesota recently became the 23rd. Maryland, New Jersey, and Minnesota are expected to follow soon. When they do, 25 states and Washington DC will allow adults to use a Schedule 1 substance recreationally. 

I was recently told that humanity is “rapidly advancing” toward solving the socialist calculation problem. I wasn’t told why, but around the same time, economist Daron Acemoglu suggested that artificial intelligence could be the solution. To get literary, perhaps we are on the verge of creating the Machines, the artificial intelligences that plan the global economy in Isaac Asimov’s short story, “The Evitable Conflict” (which became the last chapter of his book, I, Robot.) The Machines perfectly calculate the needs of humanity and organize the economic order to best provide for them, in keeping with the first law of robotics, that “a robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm.”

The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled in favor of Maine lobstermen by ordering the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to vacate a 2021 biological opinion regarding North Atlantic right whales that cut in half the number of lobster traps that could be deployed. The appeal court ruled 3-0, and Judge Douglas Ginsberg authored the opinion. 

The ongoing saga of the Oakland A’s impending move to Las Vegas continues to demonstrate what’s wrong with using taxpayer money to subsidize professional sports teams.

Several NSA whistleblowers, and later most notoriously Edward Snowden, tried to warn us that “The government unchained itself from the Constitution as a result of 9/11.”