And How About Federal Standards (Chickens)?

Understanding Government has a post on California chicken.  As they say, the animal rights people imposed tougher standards on CA chicken growers 2 years ago, over poultry opposition.  This year, animal rights and poultry people imposed the same tougher standards on eggs imported into CA.   One can see this in many ways.  I'd add to UG's discussion the  idea that liberals usually tend to support one nationwide standard for things, except when they don't, as here.  Again I go back to the idea of our weak government, due in part to federalism.  Political principle is easily discarded when the government structure makes it easy for you to win.

Housing Size

Ezra Klein has a post responding to a suggestion of mine--discussing the difference in housing size among the nations and cities. The US is sitting at something over 800 square feet per person (that's including all square footage in the house); European figures, which are "usable space", presumably just kitchens, living rooms, bed rooms, range from 300 for Estonia to about 550 for Denmark

US median housing size has gone from about 1500 in 1973 to 2500 in 2005, with the Northeast leading the way.

I doubt how much value the increased square footage adds to human happiness.  After all, it only takes 100-200 square feet to give each child a bedroom.

The Trials of the Bureaucrat

Census takers are bureaucrats. Via Chris Blattman, here's how the great American public deals with them.

Burke on Causes of the Revolution

Then, Sir, from these six capital sources; of descent; of form of government; of religion in the northern provinces; of manners in the southern; of education; of the remoteness of situation from the first mover of government; from all these causes a fierce spirit of liberty has grown up. It has grown with the growth of the people in your colonies, and increased with the increase of their wealth; a spirit, that unhappily meeting with an exercise of power in England, which, however lawful, is not reconcilable to any ideas of liberty, much less with theirs, has kindled this flame that is ready to consume us.

Funniest Sentence for Codgers Today

From Joel Achenbach at the Post, who's got a 50th birthday upcoming:

 It's a milestone when "nap" makes your daily To Do list.

A Lawyer Knows Soccer

David Post at Volokh Conspiracy made a bet at 23  to 1 odds that Spain and the Netherlands would be in the World Cup final.

Immigration and Housing Prices

I still have a bee in my bonnet about the relationship of immigration to housing prices, and the tightening of enforcement to price drops.  I found another bit of support in these paragraphs from a Calculated Risk post:

I can add a little to this story: I know of an individual investor (through a close friend) in the Phoenix area who has bought almost 100 homes over the last 18 months. The investor has shared with me his portfolio. He has only bought single family homes, no condos. His average purchase price was under $35,000 and most of the homes are 3 br / 2 ba.

He is renting the homes, many by the room. Yeah, they sound like flophouses! The investor is starting to have a vacancy problem that he attributes to the new Arizona immigration law that takes effect on July 29th.

 Incidentally the housing prices in Manassas Park are now about half what they used to be.

Questions on Reading "Revolutionaries"

I've started reading Jack Rakove's "Revolutionaries,  A New History of the Invention of America".  It's not doing well on Amazon's ratings, except when you look at the one-stars you find people complaining, not about the book but about the Kindle price. So far I'd recommend it--it reads easily. I'm reasonably familiar with the period but it has triggered a couple questions/observations so far. 

• I wasn't familiar with Edmund Burke's speech on conciliating the colonies--Rakove quotes enough that I've looked it up on line.
• I wonder why none of the Canadian provinces attended the "First Continental Congress".  I grew up reading Kenneth Roberts, whose historical fiction included the attack on Quebec/Montreal led by Benedict Arnold and Gen. Montgomery, which was an attempt to get those northern provinces to join the revolution.
• although Americans don't usually like having the national government exercise powers over individual citizens, that's exactly what the First CC did--establish local committees to enforce the boycott on British goods.

Obama Uses Poles for His Tomatoes

That's the takeaway I got from this Obamafoodorama post, which includes a photo of the President showing off the White House garden to Biden and Reid.  It's good to see Obama involved with the garden; look what my better half has done. Although, just to carp, I've yet to see any of the Obamas doing any actual work in the garden other than the first plantings and harvesting--who is doing the weeding, since they don't use mulch down the rows?

So Much for the Myth of the Loving Bonobos

Beneath the velvet glove lies an iron hand, according to this article in today's Times:

Once, while in the Congo, I witnessed Tatango, this young male bonobo, start to do what the chimps in Uganda regularly did: he went up to the alpha female, Mimi, and backhanded her across the face. She gave him the most withering look. Within seconds, five unrelated females chased him into the forest. Poor guy. They almost took his testicles off. After that, he never made another problem. Bonobo females seem to know that if they stick together, the males can’t dominate.