Author: Redactor

The Uber Rebellion

Customers in Germany and elsewhere have flouted irrational attacks on the popular ride-sharing service Uber.

As I have explained before, Uber’s software lets passengers and drivers connect in a way that bypasses regularly regulated taxicabs. Cabbies don’t necessarily oppose the innovation. Many see Uber’s app as a nifty way to get customers. And, of course, many riders see it as a nifty way to get rides.

But taxi dispatchers? Well, that’s another story.

At least it is in Germany, where an organization for dispatchers called Taxi Deutschland has kvetched that the San Francisco company lacks the Necessary Permits to do electronic dispatching in Deutschland. Thanks to TD’s loud complaints, a German court issued a temporary injunction against Uber, prohibiting it from conjoining ride-seekers and ride-givers in happy synchrony.

Uber decided to keep operating in the country anyway, despite the threat of huge fines.

They’ve gotten lots of moral support. In response to the injunction, customers quietly but firmly told regulators “Laissez nous faire!” — a.k.a. “You’re not the boss of me!” — by doubling, tripling and even quintupling demand for Uber’s app. Matthew Feeney of Cato Institute points to jumps in signups in the days following the court’s order: in Frankfurt a 228 percent jump, Munich 329 percent, Hamburg 590 percent.

Last July, in the U.K., Brits surged their signups eight times over after protests against the company.

Keep up the good work, rebels.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags Germany, Great Britain, regulation, Uber

Thought

Yves Guyot

The interference of the State in matters of Economy by means of regulations, protective duties, monopolies, and imposts, rests on the old idea of the omnipotence and omniscience of the governor, and the incapacity and ignorance of the governed.

It is justified under a rule by divine right; it is inadmissible under a government by discussion.

It is always costly.

Thought

Yves Guyot

Government is rigid; it cannot accommodate itself to new wants and difficulties. In order to act with regularity, it has had to bind itself by fixed rules. It can only act in a given direction and in a given manner. The necessity for order has given the spirit of control the predominance of that of initiative.

When Government has once made a blunder, it perpetuates it indefinitely.

ideological culture media and media people

Goodbye, Kittens and Puppies

Post author By Redactor
Post date September 8, 2014
2 Comments on Goodbye, Kittens and Puppies

The global warming won’t kill us; we’ll be done in by the suffocating silliness of overheated alarmist “science.”

I’m provoked to this proposition by the advent of Harvard Prof Naomi Oreskes’s new book The Collapse of Western Civilization, in which she and Erik Conway “report,” from the vantage point of 400 years hence, that all Australians have gone gurgling into the climate-change whirlpool.

Also all kittens and puppies. Their extinction “occurred” in 2023:

The loss of pet cats and dogs garnered particular attention among wealthy Westerners, but what was anomalous in 2023 soon became the new normal. A shadow of ignorance and denial had fallen over people who considered themselves children of the Enlightenment.

I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, “Oh Paul! Science fiction writers project all kinds of wild dystopian scenarios. You can’t treat these as serious attempts at evidence-based, logic-based, purely plausible extrapolation! We don’t think time travel is plausible. Does that mean we shouldn’t read H.G. Wells? Come on!”

Yes but . . . it’s not me claiming that Oreskes’s claims are “all based on solid science.” She’s claiming this. She’s the one averring that the universal demise of cuddly pets is grounded in “scientific projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”

Hmm. Hold on. Perhaps Oreskes is indeed conceding that her tale is mere groundless fantasy, if the politicized mulch that is the IPCC’s annual report is what she considers unassailable support for her ludicrous scenario-spinning.

I stand corrected, Dear Reader.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags Naomi Oreskes, pets, The Collapse of Western Civilization

Thought

Yves Guyot

Government is naturally prodigal, for it spends other people’s money; and the more a department spends, the more important it is.

links

Townhall: The Latest Legislative Pay Raise

Post author By Redactor
Post date September 7, 2014
No Comments on Townhall: The Latest Legislative Pay Raise

Over at Townhall… how not to negotiate a pay hike. Click on over, then back here for more to think about.

Common Sense: The Forgotten Scandal by Paul Jacob
Washington Post: Hill Votes Pay, Ethics Package by Don Phillips
Orlando Sentinel: Too Little, Too Late to Defeat Gingrich by Mary Mcgrory
New York Times: Gingrich Barely Escapes by William E. Schmidt
Government Executive: House Approves Sixth Consecutive Congressional Pay Freeze by Kellie Lunney
USA Today: Obama rallies Wisconsin workers at Labor Day festival
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Poll — Majority of Americans back minimum wage hike by Michael A. Fletcher and Peyton M. Craighill
Forbes: The Minimum Wage Typifies Much That Is Wrong With Washington by Doug Bandow
Reason: The Washington Post Fact Checker Calls Out Obama by Jess Remington
Pittsburgh Post Gazette: Raise the minimum wage? by George F. Will

Thought

Henry George

Henry George The progress of civilization necessitates the giving of greater and greater attention and intelligence to public affairs.

by Paul Jacob video

Video: Why Guns?

A new video by Paul Jacob:

Thought

Henry George

Henry George Charity is false, futile, and poisonous when offered as a substitute for justice.

ideological culture

The Latest Sizzling Controversy

Post author By Redactor
Post date September 5, 2014
11 Comments on The Latest Sizzling Controversy

Friends and foes of bacon usually get along fine in this world. But a poster at Front Post Forum couldn’t abide a sidewalk sign posted by one Sneakers Bistro and Cafe that said “Yield for Sneakers Bacon.”

Did somebody say “bacon”?

“Given the large number of Muslim families in Winooski,” complained the complainer, “as well as many others who do not eat pork … it seems unnecessary for this insensitive business sign to be at the city’s main crosswalk.” Oy, the unnecessary insensitivity! Keep Calm and Carry On

Winooski, Vermont, cafe owner Marc Dysinger replied with mollifying courtesy and forthwith removed the sign. The unnecessary and insensitive cave-in failed to extricate him from controversy, though, provoking as it did a spattering backlash by those of pro-bacon, pro-toleration-of-bacon-promotion sensibility.

HotAir blogger Mary Ham suggests that such capitulation can only embolden unreasonable complainers eager to impose their tetchy sensibilities. “If the word bacon can be deemed offensive by one person — a single member of one’s community — and thus eliminated from the public discourse, there will be plenty of other formerly innocuous words deemed the same, and then exactly how free is your speech?”

As slippery slopes go, this one isn’t quite a toboggan slide. Not yet. But silly, trivial precedents can lead to slightly less innocuous precedents, and so on. Therefore, just to be on the safe side, all those in favor of bacon say: “Bacon!” Maybe even on a yard sign.

And don’t let anybody cow you into silence about it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags bacon, easily offended, touchiness, Vermont, Winooski