“It is the duty of every patriot to protect his country from its government”

– Thomas Paine

Hollywood Boulevard, from the top of the Roosevelt Hotel.

Oliver Winery in Bloomington, Indiana.

#3: “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” from Bringing It All Back Home.

In a post about Wal-Mart signing on to an employer mandate for health insurance, Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein says he was initially skeptical, but then read the joint letter between Wal-Mart, the Service Employees Union International, and the Center for American Progress, and pronounces himself convinced.

He notes, though, that Wal-Mart isn’t doing this for altruistic reasons, and in doing so Klein comes perilously close to grasping the concept of rent seeking and regulatory capture. But then he whiffs.

This isn’t, of course, a story of altruism. By being of use to the administration, Wal-Mart ensures that its concerns will be heard and heeded. By publicly associating itself with health reform, the company repairs some of the damage SEIU and others have done to its reputation in recent years. And, in a more macro sense, by throwing its weight behind strict cost controls, Wal-Mart makes it likelier that it gets the largest of all possible benefits: an eventual slowing in the double-time march of health-care costs.

Klein then almost stumbles onto the point again. But again it eludes him.

But health reform isn’t supposed to be about altruism. And that’s arguably the most important message of this letter. Reforming health reform [sic] isn’t just some liberal president’s agenda item. It’s good business.

Supporting new regulations is usually good business if your company is big enough to absorb compliance costs that could slow down or cripple your competitors. Even better if can you sign on early and win over a few influential opinion makers, interest groups, and politicians so you’ll have some pull over how the regulations are written.

Swimming pool in Key Largo.

….if Walmart had given, say, the Cato Institute somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million, after which Cato issued a joint letter with Walmart executives calling for the federal government to pass new policies that would hurt Walmart’s competitors, I’m pretty sure people like Matthew Yglesias would be calling Cato a bunch of corporate whores.

But this isn’t the Cato Institute we’re talking about. It’s Yglesias’ employer, the left-wing Center for the American Progress.

So you see, that means it’s all okay.

Can’t remember where I read it first, but someone who isn’t me once posited if the Bill of Rights were put to a vote (under a different name and slightly different wording, of course), it would probably lose in a landslide. Seems about right.

Aaron Rochester, a city councilman in Sioux City, Iowa, who led an effort to get pit bulls banned in the city is now appealing to prevent his own dog from being euthanized after it apparently bit a neighbor. His dog? A Labrador.

It’s just an anecdote, but it’s illustrative of the problems with breed-specific legislation. Bad owners create bad dogs, regardless of the dog’s lineage. Bans on pit bulls don’t prevent dog fighting, nor do they prevent people from raising vicious dogs. They just ensure that dogs fitting the pit bull description will be vicious, because the well-bred lines will be discontinued and good owners will stop raising them. Meanwhile, people who raise dogs for fighting will simply move on to another breed.

Moreover, the term pit bull isn’t really a breed at all. It’s a generic term that can and has been applied to just about any dog with bulldog and/or terrier traits (take the pit bull test here). The American Kennel Club-recognized breed that’s generally associated with the term is the American Staffordshire Terrier. And the vast, vast majority of staffies are harmless (they’re actually considered a child-friendly breed).

I hope Rochester’s dog isn’t put down, and instead sent to a trainer. But Rochester ought pay the approriate damages to his neighbor and perhaps take a couple of dog-rearing classes before he’s allowed to own another dog. Maybe he’ll even learn from all of this why specific breeds aren’t the problem.

….or better yet, is this a super clever marketing campaign by Firefox?

Argentina’s Patagonia.