Honoring Milton Friedman

Today is Milton Friedman's 99th birthday. To commemorate him, I am sharing an interview excerpt and a quote. The excerpt is a quick overview of all the problems with the Drug War and why it is counter-productive.


The quote is from Capitalism and Freedom, and succintly captures why I myself am often sceptical of aggressive government intrusion:

Government can never duplicate the variety and diversity of individual action. At any moment in time, by imposing uniform standards in housing, or nutrition, or clothing, government could undoubtedly improve the level of living of many individuals; by imposing uniform standards in schooling, road construction, or sanitation, central government could undoubtedly improve the level of performance in many local areas and perhaps even on the average of all communities. But in the process, government would replace progress by stagnation, it would substitue uniform mediocrity for the variety essential for that experimentation which can bring tomorrow's laggards above today's mean.

Denali Pictures

I finally got my pictures from the Denali trip organized and you can see them on the Picasa album:

On the way back I spent a couple of weeks in the Portland, Seattle and Bellingham area. Below is a shot from the pictureque Chuckanaut drive.

Happy Fourth

I am back from Alaska. Below is a picture from my Denali trip, the only one for now. It was our first view of the mountain itself, after three or four miles of climbing up the Kahiltna.



To honor America's Independence Day, here is a brief quote from the Declaration of Independence:

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.