Awhile back I commented that Star Wars had been making headlines lately. I somehow managed to contribute to this situation when a slightly humorous blog post I wrote on a Friday afternoon ended up causing a media firestorm (The Atlantic Wirehas a couple good roundups of the debate). It all started when my colleague Peter Jaworski over at the Western Standard gathered some statistics on the number of Canadians who claimed to be Jedi Knights on the 2001 census and compared those numbers to other countries:
According to the 2001 census, 21,000 Canadians listed "Jedi knight" as their religion.…
According to 2001 census reports from the English-speaking world, England and Wales led the world in absolute terms, with over 390,000 (0.8%) Jedis. "The 2001 census reveals that 390,000 people across England and Wales are devoted followers of the Jedi 'faith,'" the BBC reported in 2003.
England also has the distinction of having elected a Jedi Member of Parliament. Jamie Reed, then-newly-elected Labour Party MP, commented on the proposed Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill by saying, "as the first Jedi Member of this place, I look forward to the protection under the law that will be provided to me by the Bill."
Canada also lagged behind Australia, with over 70,000 (0.37%) Jedis in 2001. In May of 2001, the Australian Board of Statistics released a press release to the media on the topic of Jedis. "If your belief system is "Jedi" then answer as such on the census form. But if you would normally answer Anglican or Jewish or Buddhist or something else to the question "what is your religion?" and for the census you answer "Jedi" then this may impact on social services provision if enough people do the same," read the press release.
The honour of most Jedis on a per capita basis goes to New Zealand, with over 53,000 adherents, making up 1.5 per cent of the population, second only to "Christian" at 58.9 per cent ("No Religion" accounted for 28.9 per cent, with 6.9 per cent objecting to the question).
I followed up on this with a post on Reason's Hit & Run blog integrating Canada's long-form census controversy with news that someone had robbed a bank in a Darth Vader costume. An off-the-cuff comment I made about the political leanings of the Jedi ended up causing waves across the blogosphere:
Although the Jedis did assist the Rebel Alliance in overthrowing a tyrannical emperor, it's clear that the Knights were originally set up to enforce the Galactic Senate's big government agenda.
Dan Drezner over at Foreign Policy took issue with this statement and argued that we really don't know enough about the history of the Galactic Senate to come to any firm conclusions. He does, however, have a few thoughts of his own about the ideological leanings of the Jedi:
Are the Jedi big government advocates? That's unclear. I think it would be more accurate to describe them as cartelistic -- they refuse to permit a free market in learning the ways of the Force. After all, the Jedi Council's initial inclination is not to train Anakin Skywalker despite his obvious talents, using some BS about fear as a cover. Only when Qui-Gon threatens to go rogue do they relent. The Council does not inform the Senate that their ability to detect the force has been compromised. They're reluctant to expand their assigned tasks -- they're keepers of the peace, not soldiers. Just as clearly, their anti-competitive policies weakened their own productivity, given the fact that they were unable to detect a Sith Lord walking around right under their noses for over a decade.
So, were the Jedi perfect agents of liberty? No, probably not. But neither were they handmaidens to the greatest concentration of state power in galactic history.
Blogger Jonathan Bernstein followed up on this by looking at the institutional structure of the Galactic Republic:
North Korea's football team has been shamed in a six-hour public inquisition and the team's coach has been accused of "betraying" the reclusive leader's heir apparent following their failure at the World Cup, according to reports.…
The team's coach, Kim Jong-hun, was reportedly forced to become a builder and has been expelled from the Workers' Party of Korea.…
The country, in its first World Cup since 1966, lost all three group games — including a 7-0 defeat to Portugal.
The broadcast of live games had been banned to avoid national embarrassment, but after the spirited 2-1 defeat to Brazil, state television made the Portugal game its first live sports broadcast ever.
Following ideological criticism, the players were then allegedly forced to blame the coach for their defeats.…
However, media in South Korea said the players got off lightly by North Korean standards.
"In the past, North Korean athletes and coaches who performed badly were sent to prison camps," a South Korean intelligence source told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed a bill that would have mandated overtime pay for agricultural workers who are on the job for more than eight hours in a day. California is already the only state to provide overtime pay to employees working over 10 hours; this bill would have gone significantly further. According to the Los Angeles Times:
Saying he didn't want to damage California's agricultural economy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday vetoed a first-in-the-nation bill that would have given farmworkers the same rights to overtime pay enjoyed by all other hourly workers in California.
Applying the eight-hour day to agriculture would be burdensome to business and reverse longstanding labor practices, Schwarzenegger wrote in a veto message.
If the bill had been signed into law, it would have constituted a significant expense for farm owners and could have resulted in reduced take-home pay for many workers:
Small businesses have accounted for approximately 65 percent of new private sector jobs over the past 15 years, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. Owning a small business is often seen as a challenging, but rewarding experience, sentiments that are confirmed by a new poll conducted by Environics Research for TD Bank. According to the press release:
A remarkable 69 percent of American small business owners polled for the TD Small Business Happiness Index would describe themselves as "very happy," with 61 percent believing they are happier than their peers. Furthermore, the pressures of the recent recession have not deterred small business owners from entrepreneurship, as 87 percent say that five years from now, they're likely to still be running their own business.
TD Bank's survey — which explored the attitudes and behaviors of North American small business owners in a dozen metropolitan areas across the United States and Canada — further revealed that nearly 9 in 10 American small business owners are happier owning and running their own business as compared with working for someone else. However, the sense of pride and accomplishment they derive as small business owners is paired with a deep commitment to the office, as the majority work 50 or more hours each week, with 39 percent saying they work 60 hours or more.…
There are several reasons for small business owners' high satisfaction levels. American small business owners say that owning a small business gives them a sense of pride and accomplishment (97 percent) plus a strong personal connection to their employees (94 percent) and their customers (88 percent). In addition, 82 percent say that owning a small business gives them the opportunity to volunteer their time or make donations to charities, sports teams and events.
While the U.S. deals with the Gulf oil spill, an overhaul of financial regulations, and overbearing immigration laws, the big summer controversy in Canada is whether the government should stop coercing people into handing over detailed personal information to big brother.
Much like in this country, Canadians are required to fill out a census form every five years. A randomly selected group of people, however, are given a long-form census with invasive questions about personal relationships, work and migration histories, and family background, among other things. While I wouldn't have thought that making such questions voluntary would be all that controversial, a surprising number of people are up in arms over the proposal.
Many groups are worried that a voluntary census would hamper the government's ability to collect reliable data, which is then acquired by these groups at prices far below market value. Yet, considering that in 2001, 21,000 Canadians listed their religion as Jedi Knight, it would appear as though collecting information under the threat of coercion doesn't work very well either. Census data from other countries also shows that the world's Jedi population is growing. But as many European countries move to eliminate the census altogether, Canadian Jedis are up in arms.
Here are some of the stories I've been following today:
Hollywood shrugged
Written in 1957, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged was an instant classic that continues to be a best seller (it reached #33 on Amazon.com's best sellers list in January 2009 and is currently ranked at #118). Despite being a screenwriter herself, Rand wasn't able to finish a screenplay for the epic novel before she died in 1982. I looked into the latest developments in the quest to adapt this classic novel for the silver screen over at Hit & run:
While numerous big name producers and actors have, in the past, expressed interest in adapting Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged for the big screen, nothing has ever materialized. Shortly before his rights to the film were set to expire, however, producer John Aglialoro began filming the first in a trilogy of movies based on the epic novel. The crew wrapped up the principal photography phase of production yesterday. Yet, with a budget of only $5 million and a relatively inexperienced cast and crew, there are questions about whether they can produce a quality adaptation. It appears as though Hollywood has shrugged, once again.…
So will the film live up to expectations despite limited resources? *Shrugs* Who is John Galt?
Don't discriminate against cheerleaders
Earlier today I blogged about a judge who ruled on whether or not cheerleading is a sport:
A Connecticut judge has ruled that Quinnipiac University cannot replace its volleyball team with a cheerleading squad without violating Title IX of The Education Amendments of 1972—which requires schools receiving federal funding to provide equal resources for male and female sports—because cheerleading is not a sport.
Personally, I see no reason why we can't combine the two sports and let the cheerleaders bounce around on the beach.
The financial crisis appears to have awoken a host of Bolsheviks from their post-cold war slumber. Free markets and deregulation have been blamed for everything from the housing bubble to the Gulf oil spill.
This is, of course, nothing new. Check out the December 1975 issue of Reason, where Charles G. Koch wrote: "Anti-capitalist feelings in the United States are probably more virulent today than ever before." But there's mounting evidence that free markets aren't just more efficient than more controlled economies, they're fairer too.
In March, Reason's Ronald Bailey wrote about a study from the University of British Columbia, which shows a direct correlation between market institutions and how fairly people treat one another.
Now, a new study from Purdue University suggests that free markets may also produce fairer wages:
On Friday, a judge dismissed all charges in the case against John Stagliano, who was being prosecuted under federal obscenity laws in Washington, DC for producing and distributing pornography videos (I discussed this case earlier in the week).
While this is a big win for free speech, the obscenity laws he was charged with are still on the books and the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force is still operating within the Department of Justice. As we all know, government bureaucracies are constantly trying to find ways to prove their usefulness and American politicians have shown little interest in this issue, so I suspect we will see similar prosecutions in the future.
News of the decision came through via intrepid reporter Richard Abowitz's Twitter feed late Friday afternoon. The hard working Reason.tv crew quickly rushed out of the office to capture Stagliano's reaction to the verdict:
Ever since America got rid of those pansy Englishmen by throwing their tea in the harbor and officially switching to coffee, the country has striven for a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Apparently, however, the government doesn't actually talk to the people.
Reason is one of the few media outlets that has been providing extensive coverage of the trial of John Stagliano, who was—until the case was thrown out late this afternoon—facing obscenity charges for producing and distributing porn videos. And what better way to improve our coverage than to put us lowly interns in a room and have us call the offices of every Senator in the land and ask them for their opinion on some of the issues involved in the trial?
We began this journey early yesterday morning, as we arrived in the office bleary-eyed and full of naive optimism. But it didn't take us long to figure out what game these wily press secretaries were playing. In case you've ever considered a career in messing around with journalists and ensuring the public never finds out who your politician is screwing, here a few general pointers.
At a federal courthouse in Washington, DC, 14 jurors adjust their earphones and set their gaze upon television screens that are carefully placed so as to be out of sight from most of the journalists and concerned citizens sitting in the courtroom. They watch as a milkman delivers his product to a house that's inhabited by scantily-clad women. Smiles appear on their faces and soft giggles can be heard as the milkman proceeds to engage in hardcore sex acts with the young ladies.
This was the scene at the trial of John Stagliano, a porn mogul who is currently being tried on federal obscenity charges over the films Milk Nymphos, Storm Squirters 2: Target Practice, and a trailer for a third video that was available on his company's website. If you haven't heard of this case before, Reason.tv just released a great video that will bring you up to speed:
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