What did we do to celebrate?
We spent the entire day together doing things we either had never done together before - walked the WOW Trail in Laconia, ate at the Lunch Box Diner in the Laconia Antiques Center and then perused the aisles looking at all kinds of things that triggered memories of our childhoods – and then did something we've done before and always enjoyed – taking a drive around the lake and stopping at the Old Country Store in Moultonborough, then ending the trip at The Wine'ing Butcher to pick up some awesome sirloin burgers that made their way on to our grill.
All in all it was a great day!
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They've been telling us for years that our salt intake is too high. Some have been forced on to low sodium diets as a palliative for hypertension or high blood pressure. Of course one of the downsides to these diets is the increased incidence of heart arrhythmia due to electrolyte imbalances.Today there seems to be a lot more evidence out there that concern over salt intake has been blown out of proportion. But that hasn't stopped the federal government from trying to control your salt intake even though nothing in the US Constitution or in federal law gives the government that kind of power.
It will be “bad policy based upon bad science.”
So what else is new?
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Related to the above, David Starr reminds us that all kinds of government agencies can issue regulations having the force of law without any of them being reviewed or vetted by Congress or the President. Even if they are unconstitutional they can be used to make criminals out of ordinary citizens.There have been some regulations that ended up being reviewed and then overturned by the US Supreme Court, but the court decision was ignored and the regulation continued to be applied. (The EPA is notorious for this, ignoring federal court decisions and even Supreme Court decisions, making it a rogue agency that seems to think it is above the law. So is the IRS.)
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While some may consider Stacy Dash's opinion of the whole “bathroom” issue as insensitive, I think she's dead on target.“I’m not gonna put my child’s life at risk because you want to change a law,” Dash, the mother of 13-year-old Lola, said. “So that you can be comfortable with your beliefs — which means I have to change my beliefs and my rights? No.”She goes on to label it as “tyranny of the minority.”
“Why do I have to suffer because you can’t decide what you wanna be that day?” Dash continued.
Amen.
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Gay Patriot tells us “why you only run into nice people at Chik-Fil-A .”Because leftists don’t eat there.Heh.
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Dr. Helen answers the question “Should men get married?”My answer: No. It's a no-win situation for men and until the marital laws are changed to make sure men are not automatically presumed to be scumbag criminal abusers and are treated equally in regards to child support, custody, and division of assets, they should stay as far away from marriage as they can.
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These days too many people assume experts in various fields are also competent enough to exercise political authority.Here's a clue for you – They Aren't.
The additional power that is being granted to experts under the Obama administration is indeed striking. The administration has appointed “czars” to bring expertise to bear outside of the traditional cabinet positions. Congress has enacted sweeping legislation in health care and finance, and Democratic leaders have equally ambitious agendas that envision placing greater trust in experts to manage energy and the environment, education and human capital, and transportation and communications infrastructure.As Robert Heinlein opined about experts decades ago, listen to experts, then do just the opposite. More often than not you'll do the right thing.
However, equally striking is the failure of such experts. They failed to prevent the financial crisis, they failed to stimulate the economy to create jobs, they have failed in Massachusetts to hold down the cost of health care, and sometimes they have failed to prevent terrorist attacks that instead had to be thwarted by ordinary civilians.
Ironically, whenever government experts fail, their instinctive reaction is to ask for more power and more resources. Instead, we need to step back and recognize that what we are seeing is not the vindication of Keynes, but the vindication of Hayek. That is, decentralized knowledge is becoming increasingly important, and that in turn makes centralized power increasingly anomalous.