Nobrainer’s Think Tank

This one cracks me up: LUXURY EXECUTIVE RETREAT – SERENITY AT ITS FINEST.

This house is about a mile from my office. One of the country’s biggest malls is across the street from my office. A huge interstate is between my office and this house. The neighborhood this house is in is about 60 years old. Most of the homes are 60 years old. Most of them are nearly-identical little cottages that were 884 sq feet when they were brand new. I mean, look at the first picture. Nothing about this home evokes thoughts of “luxury”, “executive”, or “retreat.”

Says the first line of the ad, “At the end of a long day, come home to the tranquil splendor of country life in this newly renovated 900-square-foot New England style cottage.”

“Tranquil splendor of country life?” WTF!

This house has been on the market for over a month in an area where rental inventory is extremely low. The house is way over priced, and the owner is clearly crazy. I can’t believe he/she is having trouble finding tenants. But I do so hope they enjoy missing out on months of rent while they wait for the one big idiot who will pay them the $300/month over market price that they are asking.

I did not know this. Apparently 25% of the US population is from Maryland.

Seems suspicious

As a new parent, I’m particularly concerned with the prevalence of childhood asthma in our community. Childhood asthma is on the rise here in Astoria and across the country—and we know that bad air pollution days can trigger asthma attacks.

We must work to improve Astoria’s air quality to protect our children.

[...]

As someone who grew up in Astoria and has lived here my entire life, I remember that our air pollution was even worse in the past…

Think about that. The air is getting cleaner and asthma is getting worse. So we’ll “protect our children” by making the air even cleaner? Sure make the air cleaner, but maybe come up with a different justification becuse maybe, just maybe, something else is causing the rise in childhood asthma.

Perhaps that California cow campaign will now be put out to pasture.

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Stupid investors need to be protected from themselves, else they might lose their shirts investing in risky startups. Presumably the job of making losing investments in risky startups is work best left to government.

From Jacob Sullum at Reason

Last week Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said “the Obama administration believes that decisions about medical care should be made by a woman and her doctor, not a woman and her boss.” Yet her boss not only retained the market-distorting, price-inflating tax policies that create an artificial incentive for employer-provided health insurance; he made the connection between employment and medical coverage mandatory, then decreed exactly what it would include, thereby precipitating this whole controversy. If President Obama does not want employers involved in medical coverage, why is he forcing them to be?