What school of economics teaches this logic?

In his book “Capitalism and Freedom” (1962) Milton Friedman (1912-2006) advocated minimizing the role of government in a free market as a means of creating political and social freedom. Friedman was perhaps our country’s leading economist. Here’s an excerpt from a 1979 interview with Phil Donahue:

Those basic principals of sound economics stand in sharp contrast to the big government in store for us today. It pains me to see how far we as a nation are straying from the basic philosophy of capitalism. I hope we see the error in our ways before it’s too late.

After the failure of “Casual Fridays”, the office briefly tried “Casual Tiedays” with the same unfortunate result.

Snowmen from across the nation gather at the Washington Monument to protest global warming.

WASHINGTON, DC—Braving balmy temperatures and sunny skies, millions of scarfless snowmen and snowwomen gathered in cities across the world Monday to raise public awareness about the heavy toll global warming is taking on their health and well-being.

According to organizers of marches in Washington, Atlanta, Montreal, Berlin, London, Reykjavik, and Moscow, global warming is the primary cause of the steep reduction in the snowman population throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Demonstrators worldwide called on their governments to take more aggressive steps to reduce the effects of climate change.

Organizers estimated the crowd at more than 375,000, but D.C. Police Commissioner Charles Stacey estimated turnout at 30,000 whole snowmen, with scattered rounded abdomens accounting for an additional 5,000. Atlanta organizers and police agree that all demonstrators had melted by 11 a.m.

Read the full story…

Professional photographer David Bergman made this giant panoramic image showing the nearly two million people who watched President Obama’s inaugural address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC on January 20, 2009. Taken from the north press platform, it’s made up of 220 Canon G10 images. The original image size is 59,783 X 24,658 pixels or 1,474 megapixels. This new version is 56,646 X 27,788 or 1.57 gigapixels.

To make the image, David clamped a Gigapan Epic Imager to the railing on the north media platform about six feet from his photo position. The Gigapan Epic is a robotic camera mount that allows him to take multiple images and stitch them together, creating a massive image file. It took more than six and a half hours for the Gigapan software to stitch together all of the images on David’s Macbook Pro, and the completed TIF file is almost 2 gigabytes.

Click on the image above, then use the controls to zoom and pan around the photo. You can also double click to zoom in and double click again to get even closer. If you zoom way in, you’ll note that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is not sleeping, President Bush is not sending a text message, and Oprah Winfrey is blocked by a camera tower. Look more closely and you’ll see Yo-Yo Ma taking a picture with his iPhone. David says he’s still looking for Waldo.

After years of liberal spending, the Golden State is on the brink of financial disaster. California lawmakers, responsible for getting us into this mess, are once again unable to pass a budget—Democrats want more taxes to keep their pet programs afloat, while Republicans insist spending be brought under control without further taxing already burdened citizens during tough financial times.

So California Senate leader Darrell Steinberg vowed yesterday to keep legislators locked up until he gets the one Republican vote Democrats need to “have it their way”. He’s “appalled” that Republicans disagree with ever higher taxes to pay for historic overspending.Dems like to claim they want to “reach across the aisle” in the spirit of bi-partisanship but, when they do, they expect Republicans to acquiesce. And that’s the way it’s gone for years. But now it’s come down to a fundamental difference in core values and basic philosophy—Democrats want to pay for past overindulgence by double dipping into taxpayers’ wallets, while Republicans want a budget that stays within the State’s means.

I’m waiting to see if the old “What have Republicans got against starving children and helpless old women” lament still works…

Mike sent a link to this interesting site. Just click the dot for any listed city in the world and view the newspaper’s front page for that city. Other views are available. (Requires Flash.)

Article removed by editor.

iPhone and iPod Touch users looking for something extra in the way of wallpapers to suit their style, personality and profession should find this useful. Smashing Magazine has compiled 100 beautiful iPhone wallpapers designed by some of the finest and most creative artists around.

The wallpapers are 320×480 pixels in resolution and cover typography, nature, retro and vintage, illustrations and artwork, Apple wallpapers, abstract and space. All are clickable and linked to their source.

According to this AP article, here’s how the economic stimulus plan will affect Americans. Worth a read.

This “important WINDOWS” update” showed up in my email in-basket Saturday and, based on the text, punctuation and the fact that the purported sender was “windows.com” instead of Microsoft, it’s a safe bet that it’s malware.

My recommendation? If it arrives in your email, ignore>delete.

Today is Presidents Day, at least in California. It falls, awkward and confusing, on the federal holiday designated by our federal government as Washington’s Birthday. It’s also a day off from work for many of us, so IM is closed today. I posted information about the holiday’s origin and history last year, so rather than my revisiting the subject, follow this link to that article. Have a wonderful holiday!