“It’s unreal — the earth just wallered up,” says the mayor and fire chief of a Texas town about a large sinkhole.

Question: “Wallered”? Is this (a) a neologism, (b) regional dialect (c) a subtle swipe at Waller County, Texas, or (d) some other word misunderstood by the writer for The New York Times? (There might be an (e), but I can’t think of one at the mo.)

It was only a matter of time, really.

Oliver Stone is making a movie about President Bush. He promises a “fair, true portrait of the man.” It sure sounds that way! --

‘’Bush may turn out to be the worst president in history,’’ he declares. . . . ‘’I think history is going to be very tough on him. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t a great story. It’s almost Capra-esque, the story of a guy who had very limited talents in life, except for the ability to sell himself. The fact that he had to overcome the shadow of his father and the weight of his family name — you have to admire his tenacity. There’s almost an Andy Griffith quality to him, from ‘A Face in the Crowd’*. . . .”

Now, a fair and true portrait of a child molester would have to point out that he is, well, a child molester. So, if in fact Bush is an untalented loser and complete fraud, a fair and true portrait would depict him as such. But that’s sort of begging the question, isn’t it?

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* In case you haven’t seen “A Face in the Crowd,” here’s the IMDB summary: “An Arkansas hobo becomes an overnight media sensation. But as he becomes drunk with fame and power, will he ever be exposed as the fraud he has become?”

You’d better sit down for this one. According to a story in The Boston Globe, Massachusetts lawmakers are thinking about taxing private endowments worth more than $1 billion a year. That includes Harvard’s endowment.

Sound like good old-fashioned soak-the-rich tax policy from here. After all, what did Harvard really do to earn all that essentially inherited wealth?

But how does Harvard respond?

University leaders criticized the plan as a gimmick that would backfire by hurting institutions that are pivotal to the state.

“You’d be taxing success here,” said Kevin Casey, Harvard’s associate vice president for government, community, and public affairs. “Over time, this would put us at a real competitive disadvantage. . . .”

Do tell.

Maybe the administration should pass the word along to the faculty:

The Harvard Crimson reported that 86 percent of Harvard professors’ contributions went to Democrats.

P.S. -- Time for a rousing rendition of Tom Lehrer’s “Fight Fiercely, Harvard!”

If you ask a guy to borrow five bucks and he says he’s a little short himself, he might be telling the literal truth. According to The Economist:

The tallest quarter of the population earns 9-10% more than the shortest quarter, according to two recent studies. Nicola Persico and Andrew Postlewaite of the University of Pennsylvania and Dan Silverman of the University of Michigan think this is because height gives adolescents self-confidence and helps them learn valuable social skills. Anne Case and Christina Paxson of Princeton University, on the other hand, argue that people who grow to their full potential are smarter, on average. Both brains and build depend on the care and nourishment a child receives.

Height adds to income, income also adds to height. In countries languishing at a real income of $4,000 per head (in 1985 dollars), boys average less than 145cm. In places that are $6,000 a head richer, boys are 4cm taller, according to calculations by Richard Steckel of Ohio State University. Likewise, Angus Deaton of Princeton University reports that Indian men of 20 are about 1cm taller than 40-year olds, partly because the country was substantially richer when they were born. In India adults still look up to their parents. But only figuratively.

The relationship between dollars and inches is not, however, straightforward. Uganda, for example, is both poorer and taller than India, where almost half of children under five are stunted, according to United Nations figures. Americans born in the 1880s, as the country’s industrial revolution gathered pace, were both richer and shorter than their forebears.

What explains these enigmas? Height rises with prosperity, but at a diminishing rate. It traces an arc, not a straight line, as income increases.

Today’s column looks at incarceration figures, and some of the reasons behind them.

Kenyan mitumba market

Kenyan economist James Shikwati’s interview with Der Spiegel, quoted in my column on Tuesday, really ought to be required reading. Here’s another excerpt, about clothing donated to help underdeveloped nations:

Why do we get these mountains of clothes? No one is freezing here. Instead, our tailors lose their livlihoods. They’re in the same position as our farmers. No one in the low-wage world of Africa can be cost-efficient enough to keep pace with donated products. In 1997, 137,000 workers were employed in Nigeria’s textile industry. By 2003, the figure had dropped to 57,000. The results are the same in all other areas where overwhelming helpfulness and fragile African markets collide.

For a similar but more recent perspective, read novelist Uzodinma Iweala’s piece, Stop Trying to ‘Save’ Africa:

Such campaigns, however well intentioned, promote the stereotype of Africa as a black hole of disease and death. News reports constantly focus on the continent’s corrupt leaders, warlords, “tribal” conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like “Can Bono Save Africa?” or “Will Brangelina Save Africa?” The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and “civilization.”

There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one’s cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe. Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head—because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West’s fantasy of itself.

The Washington Post

Scientists have deciphered the DNA of the platypus:

The platypus genome offers an unprecedented glimpse of how evolution made its first stabs at producing mammals. It tells the tale of how early mammals learned to nurse their young; how they matched poisonous snakes at their venomous game; and how they struggled to build a system of fertilization and gestation that would eventually, through relatives that took a different tack, give rise to the first humans.

“As we learn more about things like platypuses,” Wilson said, “we also learn more about ourselves and where we came from and how we work.”

Of course, we all know evolution is a bunch of secular-humanist rot invented by the Devil—so, um, never mind.

No matter what Vermont says.

The New York Times

The New York Times has a fun feature on steampunk.

There is something romantic about the early industrial era that later eras (e.g., the 50s) seem to lack. Maybe it’s the combination of Victorian sensibility with brute power. Or maybe it’s the sheer tactile delight of solid metal, natural fibers, and leather. Or maybe—well, you ponder the appeal, if you find any in it.

There are several angles to come at today’s story about the raid on illegal immigrants working on a federal courthouse.

(1) Like illegal immigration or hate it, you gotta admit it takes cojones to work construction as an illegal on federal property. Talk about sticking it to the man!

(2) Well, at least they’re working, instead of sucking up taxpayer dollars through federal handouts.

(3) Oh, wait, they are getting federal dollars. But at least they’re working for them!

(4) Anybody think federal immigration officials could possibly work just a little harder to keep egg off their faces? Just a teensy?

(5) Well, it’s tough to do that in an era when border patrol agents can be ordered not to arrest illegal aliens along the section of the Arizona border. . .

Underscoring a point in yesterday’s column:

I cannot tell you how spot on you were with this piece! I was raised in Kenya many years ago and have been back often, taking people on safari and visiting family and friends. I have a cousin who lives and farms on the shores of Lake Naivasha. The group I had on safari, a couple of years ago, stayed at the farm and one of the group said to my cousin “If there was one thing that you would say to the US, what would that be?” His reply was “stop dumping all your subsidized crops in Kenya, we are perfectly able to feed ourselves if you would leave us alone!”. AMEN.
How do you get stupid politicians to listen to people who know?!

www.flogos.net

A clever fellow has figured out a way to create clouds in the shape of corporate logos. He calls them flogos.

Brit Simon Robinson posts about yesterday’s column on the world food crisis and biofuel’s role in it:

Barton Hinkle’s piece makes the link between food aid, the ability of biofuel to lift the rural poor in developing nations out of subsistence farming and on the corruption that accompanies much food aid.

Worth reading if only because the US could gain a lot of credit overseas if it were to start promoting biofuel cash crops in the developing world. These could help elevate the poor out of poverty, and build mutual need between the rich north and the poor south.

But imagine Congress trying to promote the creation of a biofuels program among indigenous farmers abroad. Archer Daniels Midland and other agribusiness interests here in the U.S. would scream bloody murder about Washington undercutting domestic companies. Subsidies are for rich corporate interests, not starving furriners!

Business Groups Seek Tax Increases for Roads.

N.B. some of the organizations listed: the Associated General Contractors of Virginia, the Virginia Association of Realtors, and the Virginia Education Association. The first two have obvious economic interests at stake. And the VEA? It probably just doesn’t want to miss any opportunity to go on record in favor of a tax hike, no matter the cause.

Advocates of economic and social liberty might wish to consider entering the IPN’s contest for the Bastiat Prize for Journalism, an annual award given to scriveners “whose published works promote the institutions of a free society: limited government, rule of law brokered by an independent judiciary, protection of private property, free markets, free speech, and sound science.”

Times-Dispatch readers otherwise unfamiliar with Bastiat might recall his mention in an editorial about the recent tornadoes:

After a tornado or similar disaster, some people occasionally try to find a silver lining: At least, they speculate, the event will provide jobs for construction crews, window companies, auto-body shops, and so on. Those beneficiaries will then spend their new income with other businesses, and everybody will gain.

The assumption is a common one—and a mistaken one, as the French political economist Frederic Bastiat explained in an 1850 essay.

In “That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Unseen,” Bastiat writes of a shopkeeper whose window is broken. While onlookers see the benefit to the man who repairs the window, they do not see the hidden costs: Buying a new window costs the shopkeeper the opportunity to buy something else: “If he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.”

Then he would have had both a window and a new pair of shoes or a new book, instead of just a window. Likewise, the person whose car has been wrecked by a tornado will spend several thousand dollars to fix it, and eventually have a working car again. But without the tornado he could have spent the money on a semester at college or new bedroom furniture. Then he would have had both a working car and college credits or new furniture.

For clarity of insight and elegance in elucidation, there aren’t many who can hold a candle to Bastiat.

Two backgrounder pieces today offer a stark contrast between the health-care plans of Barack Obama and John McCain.

If you don’t want to read the links*, they boil down to this:

Obama = Mandates
McCain = Choice.

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* Believe it or not, some people prefer to go into a firefight without ammunition. . . .

The Richmond School Board will meet with representatives from the Patrick Henry Charter School Initiative on May 15 at 5 p.m..

Today’s column explores how U.S. policy is soaking taxpayers and starving the world.

Why aren’t there enough organs for transplantation? Because of sentiments such as this:

“It is inappropriate for the Australian medical system to consider, and is counter to the Australian culture which promises an equitable approach in all things,” KHA medical director Tim Mathew told The Associated Press. “The commercial trade in organs is not something we can support.”

Better just to let people die, evidently.

from RVA News.