Bacon tastes good!
Year: 2010
“Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive,” he said. “In the middle of the Civil War you had a guy named Lincoln paying people $16,000 for every 40 miles of track they laid across the continental United States. … No private enterprise would have done that for another 35 years.”
Ummm…wrong. On so many levels.
It is not surprising that Joe Biden, an individual who has spent his entire career in government, possesses a child-like devotion to the federal government’s capabilities. Biden is a major proponent behind the Obama administration’s misbegotten plan to build a national system of high-speed rail. That Biden stands to achieve historic notoriety for helping facilitate this latest government boondoggle is only fitting.
See Cato essays on federal transportation subsidies and the Department of Transportation timeline, which notes the Credit Mobilier scandal:
1872: The New York Sun exposes the Credit Mobilier scandal, perhaps the largest business subsidy scandal of the 19th century. Credit Mobilier is a construction company financially controlled by the leaders of the Union Pacific Railroad that makes huge profits at taxpayer expense. Congressman Oakes Ames (R-MA), who is an agent of Credit Mobilier and part-owner, distributes shares of the firm’s stock to members of Congress at a discounted value. In return, those members treat Credit Mobilier favorably in a variety of ways, such as by voting to appropriate funds for the firm. The scandal illustrates the corruption that usually results when the government intervenes in the economy and subsidizes businesses.
Opera Vista presents the world premiere of The Silent Prince, a “Bollywood” opera with music and libretto by Thailand’s leading operatic composer, Somtow Sucharitkul. An aesthetic fusion of east and west, The Silent Prince’s lush score combines western and traditional Indian instruments. Classical and Bollywood choreography, provided by the Anjali Center for the Performing Arts, and a live elephant on stage contribute to an evening of both sophistication and spectacle.
The Silent Prince tells the Buddhist tale of Temiya Jataka, a Buddha who has been reincarnated as a prince. When forced to choose between committing terrible karmic deeds and disobeying his father, Temiya withdraws from the world into silence. The royal court tries to draw him back into the world, but a king’s patience can only last so long….
The opera lasts approximately 95 minutes with one intermission.
Cast (in order of appearance):
Suja/Maya/Concubine Kelly Waguespack
Apsara Nueng/Amba Elizabeth Borik
Apsara Song/Ka Raatchasamnak Sam Vanessa Beaumont
Apsara Sam/Ka Raatchasamnak Si Zina Hemingway
Shakro Devanam Indra/Yama/Procurer Matthew Strader
Ka Raatchasamnak Nueng William Stewart
Queen Chandra Devi Shannon Langman
Sunanda Gregory Smith
Raja of Kasi Timothy Jones
Temiya Ryan West
Dancers of the Anjali Dance CenterMusic Director: Viswa Subbaraman
Stage Director: Joe Carl White
Choreographers: Rathna Kumar and Mahesh Mahbubani
Tickets are $25-$75 ($10 Student and Senior discounts with current valid ID), and are available through the Hobby Center…get yours now!
The Silent Prince has been made possible by:
Jefferies
Houston Arts Alliance and the City of Houston
KUHF
Crisp & Raw Graphic Design
Fresh Arts Coalition
Spacetaker
Uniquely Houston
Lexus
Continental Airlines[From Silent Prince World Premiere at Hobby Center, 10/15 8pm | Opera Vista]
Peter Boettke, Policy is the Problem:
Bottom line, it is policy that is causing the slow adjustment of the market to changing circumstances, not market forces themselves. All readers must remember Adam Smith’s words: “The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often incumbers its operations.” When this doesn’t happen, we need to ask about the thousands of impertinent obstructions that are incumbering the adjustment path.
Man faces jail for videotaping gun-waving cop:
Police officer Joseph Uhler was caught on film charging out of his unmarked car and waving his gun at a unarmed motorcyclist pulled over for speeding. When the footage was uploaded to YouTube, authorities raided Anthony Graber’s home, siezed his computers, arrested him, and charged him with “wiretapping” offenses that could land him in jail for 16 years. Glyn writes in:
The ACLU of Maryland is defending Anthony Graber, who potentially faces 16 years in prison if found guilty of violating state wiretap laws because he recorded video of an officer drawing a gun during a traffic stop. The ACLU attorney handling the case says, “To charge Graber with violating the law, you would have to conclude that a police officer on a public road, wearing a badge and a uniform, performing his official duty, pulling someone over, somehow has a right to privacy when it comes to the conversation he has with the motorist.”
Indeed, Maryland contends that Uhler had a reasonable expectation of privacy while waving his gun around in public and yelling at a motorist with a giant video camera mounted on the top of his helmet.
Remarkably, the state Attorney General has already opined that when police record in public, that is not a private conversation subject to the same laws. In other words, in any public interaction between a police officer and a member of the public in Maryland, it is private for one of them but not the other.
“We have looked, and have not been able to find a single court anywhere in the country that has found an expectation of privacy for an officer in such circumstances,” writes the ACLU.
Sixteen Years in Prison for Videotaping the Police? [MCLU via Submitterator]