A Slightly Different Kind of Bike Race

Todd G. Buchholz

This is what Wikipedia has to say about the guy:

Todd G. Buchholz is an economist and has served as a White House director of economic policy and a managing director of the Tiger hedge fund. He was awarded the Allyn Young Teaching Prize by the Harvard University Department of Economics and was named “One of the Top 21 Speakers of the 21st Century” by Successful Meetings magazine. Businessweek and Bloomberg have reported that Buchholz is on the short-list for a White House appointment to the Federal Reserve Board.[1]

He says this in his celebrated book New Ideas From Dead Economists:

"Economists cannot hide in pure theory, but must look at the world and try to improve it with the tools they develop."

This is what is considered Keynesian economics in a nutshell, the antithesis of Austrian thought. He is putting economics in the same realm as engineering, where design and materials research enable the construction of long span bridges or medicine, where doctors conduct trials on medication. Rather than discover and describe the actions of voluntary participants in a free market, it is incumbent upon economists to "develop tools", eg. come up with coercive policies to improve "the world", that is follow some kind of Benthamite formula for maximizing benefits for a number of people at the expense of others. This guy has made a lot of money producing this crap.

Invisible Indians

The fire got turned up a notch under the Division I college hockey pressure cooker on Saturday afternoon as the no-nickname North Dakota skaters slid by Western Michigan's tough crew from Kalamazoo 3-1 and the Golden Gophers of Minnesota overwhelmed Boston University 7-3 in the West Regional of the NCAA playoffs in St. Paul. North Dakota, forbidden by the NCAA to wear its normal uniforms for reasons of political correctness, won its seventh consecutive game and ninth of its last ten with a disciplined and conservative effort against a strong Bronco squad. North Dakota has been led from the beginning of the season by the trio of Corban Knight, Brock Nelson and Danny Kristo, certainly one of the top lines in the country. But as the mild northern winter has turned into an early spring, others have come forward to contribute as well. Sr. captain Mario Lamoreux and relative newcomers Mitch MacMillan, Carter Rowney, Michael Parks and Stephane Pattyn have deepened the N.D. talent pool and kept the intensity level high for the entire game. The defense, anchored by the dangerous Ben Blood, has been solid all year.

Sunday afternoon the nameless North Dakotans will face the maroon and gold Gophers for one of the spots in the "Frozen Four" in the hockey hotbed of Tampa, FL. Yes, really. The swift, big and talented Minnesota team will have to play solid hockey for 60 minutes, something they haven't always been able to do. Last weekend, for instance, they blew a 3-0 lead against these same North Dakotans, giving up 6 unanswered goals and were eliminated in the WCHA tournament after having won the WCHA regular season championship. The Gophers have their most skilled team in years. Finn forward Erik Haula has developed from a playmaking center to an all-around scoring star. Sophomores Nick Bjugstad and Zach Budish are exactly what NHL teams are looking for, burly, mobile forwards that thrive on contact. Neither will be around campus when the U of M leaves the WCHA for the new Big Ten hockey program in 2013. Freshman Kyle Rau has a rare gift for being in the right spot at the right time. These fellows were more than a hard-working Terrier squad could handle, although the Gopher's final two goals were dumped into an empty net.

So a small but enthusiastic segment of the population of the northern Great Plains will gather on a spring Sunday afternoon to watch the last really meaningful amateur game of the year to be played in the land of hockey. An unknown is what effect the NCAA sanctions on UND, and the mandate that they wear new uniforms with no reference to their nicknames, will have on the game. Will this unite them in an "us against them" mentality or will it be meaningless once the puck is dropped at 4:30 p.m?

Where's PETA?

During the annual alcohol-fueled St. Patrick's Day antics on West Seventh St. in St. Paul, Minnesota a probably inebriated boob had the temerity to slap a police horse on the rump. This is a misdemeanor and the guy was arrested. It's a violation of the law to "assault a police horse". Anyway, about police mounts, and dogs, for that matter. Assaulting a police canine is now the legal equivalent of assaulting an actual human policeman. Horses and dogs are animals. They're unable to actually volunteer for law enforcement duty. For all we know, they might be real upset with crowd control and hunting down burglars in dark buildings. For sure, any normal horse is going to be a little nervous in a big crowd of drunks dressed in green in the middle of the night. There's always the possibility that a horse could get spooked and run off, trampling some innocent. Or seriously injure or even kill a bystander with a well-placed kick. It happens all the time around the race track and rodeo arena. There's the chance that the animal itself can be injured as well. The point is that the behavior of an animal is impossible to predict. While there's no shortage of concern for stray cats and orphan puppies, no one seems to care about animals put into harms way by law enforcement. How come?

This is what happens when you don't put your siding on the house.

In Burnsville, MN, siding on a house is no laughing matter.

R.N. Carew Hunt

This quote is from his book, The Theory and Practice of Communism, Penguin Books, 1963.

"In the West there has been a tendency to stress the political aspect of democracy rather than its economic aspect, and although at times this may have been carried too far, the fault is on the right side, seeing that a people which surrenders its political rights in return for promises of economic security will soon discover that it has made a bad bargain, as it is helpless if the promises are not kept."

How to Beat Fabian Cancellara in a 300 km Bike Race.

Fossil Fuel?

One-time Chicago Tribune ink-stained wretch

and presidential svengali David Axelrod explains that it's the government that determines how energy fits into the economy. No free market for this guy.

Youngster From Down Under Wins First European Sprint

SPARTACUS!

Swiss powerhouse Fabian Cancellara successfully makes a solo breakaway and finishes a minute ahead of his closest pursuers in the 2012 edition of the Strade Bianche, ending in the Piazza del Campo in Siena, Italy on March 2.