Week of March 18, 2002
[Note: Some now-dead links have been removed from archived items.]

TAXING TIME: I spent about 10 hours "doing my taxes," which really means getting stuff ready for the accountant I pay to really do my taxes. Yuck. I'm resolved to start balancing the books on a quarterly basis, in hopes of spreading the pain across the year. I doubt that it will save any time, though.

One fact that may interest readers. My revenue from this site—donations, plus Amazon book sales—came to $1490. My DSL service, which includes the server fees for the site, cost $1991 (which includes the one-time cost of a router). I suspect the results will be better for 2002, although donations have dropped off a bit since the early enthusiasm. Needless to say, I'm not getting paid for my time, except in nonmonetary form.

I'm now going to Washington to check out what I get for all that tax time and money. The official reason for my visit is a conference of the American Institute for Graphic Arts, but there's always plenty to do and see in DC. Monday morning, you can see me on C-Span's Washington Journal between 7:45 and 8:30 Eastern. [Posted 3/20.]

KASS WATCH, CONT'D: In response to this NYT puff piece on Leon Kass, Charlie Murtaugh offers some insights into what drives biomedical science. I think he's right: It's not the quest for immortality per se but a desire to end tragic suffering and death. That's a subtle distinction, which Charlie nicely argues for with examples from what would otherwise seem like misplaced priorities.

The Postrel household's response to the article is different: What a sleazy guy that Leon Kass is! He actually tries to argue that he didn't really mean all those articles he wrote. Give me a break. If he was playing devil's advocate, he was remarkably consistent in his worldview, even if on a very, very few subjects he has changed his policy positions. Just because you're drawn to fights where everyone else is on the other side (as I am) doesn't mean you don't believe what you say. The man is a Machiavel and, as Nicholas Wade's article indicates, as charming as that role requires.

Wade does get Kass to admit that his views depart from Jewish tradition and culture. In Kass's mind that shows there's something wrong with Jewish tradition and culture. There's no reason he needs to embrace that tradition, of course, except that he occasionally invokes Hebrew scripture for his own purposes. He also likes to pretend that his stacked commission is pluralistic because it begrudgingly let in a few scientists. It would have been harder to ostracize rabbis as insufficiently humanistic. The commission is a frame game, designed to cast the issue as science vs. the human spirit, and Kass knows exactly what he's doing.

In related news, this week Reason Online is hosting a debate on biotech and human identity between Francis Fukuyama and Greg Stock. [Posted 3/18.]

BLOG TOUJOURS: There's nothing like a trip to Mexico City to remind me of what a stupid decision it was to spend all those years in high school and college studying French. But Emmanuelle Richard's article on bloggers (via Ken Layne) gave me something to do with those otherwise wasted, and largely decayed, neurons. (It took a while to remember, for instance, that "professeur de droit" means "law professor," not "right-wing professor.") [Posted 3/19.]

CLARITIN CLARITY: In his new Reason Online column, Michael Lynch looks at how Claritin went over the counter after its manufacturer first resisted that move. "No, Claritin hasn't gotten any safer. Its patent is set to expire in December, opening it up to generic competition in the prescription market," he writes. You can't discuss pharmaceuticals and public policy in a neat, clean way, with obvious good guys and bad guys. Government is entangled in every stage of the process, distorting everyone's behavior:

This is a blatant example of a company gaming the regulatory system to ensure profits at the expense of its customers. I don't hate the pharmaceutical industry, which produces products that make life better for millions of people. But it's also extremely dependent on the government, which helps fund its basic research and then grants it monopoly patents. The industry also benefits from perverse incentives built into the tax-code-subsidized third-party payer system, which makes most drug customers insensitive to a product's real costs.

In this aspect of health care policy, as in so many others, the best we can hope for is incremental improvement. We don't get to start from scratch. But the combination of active consumers and changing technologies (not to mention new understanding of underlying biological processes) will force change over time. [Posted 3/18.]

GEEK PRESS: Geek Press used to be one of my favorite bookmarks until a server catastrophe destroyed it, and Paul and Diana Hsieh, who used to run it, threw in the towel. Now it's back, powered by Blogger and run by Paul. It's an easy way to keep up with science- and technology-oriented stories. "Why would a soldier want a 'molecular exoskeleton'?" asks one current item. Another links to this Scientific American article and map showing where, and how well, evolutionary theory is taught in public schools. Surprise! "Certain Southern states—North and South Carolina—have more rigorous educational standards than some Northern states, such as New York and Massachusetts."

Diana has her own blog, featuring Objectivist-flavored discussions of such issues as why kids lie. [Posted 3/18.]

REALPOLITIK RETALIATION: The European Union is looking to retaliate against Bush's steel tariffs by imposing similar barriers against U.S. exports from swing states—including Florida. This Guardian report (via Nick Denton) doesn't mention that a certain Governor Bush is up for reelection in the citrus-producing Sunshine State. (Actually, the piece is a bit shaky on U.S. politics in general, failing to distinguish between congressional elections and the electoral college.)

The new taxes would screw European consumers, of course, just as the Bush tariffs hurt U.S. consumers and steel-using manufacturers. But you can't fault the Europeans' political cleverness. [Posted 3/18.]

BRINK'S BLOG: Brink Lindsey has a great new blog at brinklindsey.com. One of his postings refers readers to a terrific discussion of "lifestyle entrepreneurship" by Will Wilkinson. If you are interested in the sorts of things I discuss here or, more to the point, the perspective from which I discuss them, Brink's work is a must-read: both the blog and his new book. (Of course, you should also read my book.) [Posted 3/18.]

BOEING FOUND: A few readers have written in to ask about conspiracy theories focusing on the supposed absence of plane debris and building destruction after the Pentagon was hit on September 11. Paul Boutin's new blog does an excellent job of getting to the bottom on the story.

I know Paul from his days at Wired, and when he and his collaborator Patrick Di Justo aren't figuring out plane-Pentagon impact physics, the site has an IT focus. If, like Dan Pink, you've become obsessed with Wi-Fi, you'll want to check it out. [Posted 3/18.]

FORMICA'S DECLINE: Dan Pink points readers to this interesting piece on the struggles of Formica, which recently filed for bankruptcy protection. One factor that the article doesn't mention is something I learned when interviewing Starwood Hotels designers for my book: The spread of granite countertops isn't just an effect of rising wealth or changing tastes. International trade is making them cheap. That particularly affects Corian, which has mostly lost its cost advantage over granite (though some of us still think it's very cool on its own merits), but inexpensive stone countertops are bound to affect Formica as well. Even if Formica is still cheaper, the difference is less, and many people will be wiling to trade up. [Posted 3/18.]