On the Web

Jason Kuznicki writes about the “success” of the Cash for Clunkers program, which has effected a wealth transfer from the relatively poor to the relatively rich.

Despite recent setbacks, from a longer a perspective liberaltarianism has had some remarkable successes.

From the mouths of monopolists: Louisiana funeral directors offer embarrassingly bad defenses of the licensing laws that protect them from competition.

Ecco Caffe founder Andrew Barnett is now blogging for the San Francisco Chronicle and gets off to a promising start calling out restaurants for their poor approach to coffee.

Starbucks is putting out a new “reserve” line of coffees to appeal to coffee geeks. Unmentioned anywhere in the article is a word about roast dates.

Local search guru David Mihm handicaps the market as Facebook Places enters the fray. My first impression is that FB Places is very annoying since it doesn’t filter by city, a feature integrated into Foursquare.

If you are on Foursquare, WeePlaces generates a cool map of your check-ins. I’m glad to know that the place I visit most remains a coffee shop, not a bar.

Michael Bloomberg seeks to cap his nanny state career with a smoking ban at NYC parks and beaches.

If this was blog was based in Philadelphia, I’d owe the city about 300 times as much as I make off of it.

New York Times trend pieces are often ripe for mockery, but this one is right on: You should be drinking mezcal right now.

This high-pressure infusion technique looks like it could be very useful.

About that withdrawal from Iraq…

An economically sensible take on local food on the NYT op/ed page? It’s true. Stephen Budiansky suggests that the energy used in transporting food should be the least of our worries.

Conor Friedersdorf loses faith that conservatives will ever do anything to meaningfully shrink government, feels more at home with the pragmatic libertarianism of Reason and Cato.

Steven Pearlstein does some back-of-the-envelope math to show that privatizing liquor could make fiscal sense for Virginia.

More smoking ban regret: 42% of Michigan restaurants report reduced sales since the statewide ban took effect.

Cigar smokers are finding new enclaves in London. British Airways tells you where to light up in luxury.

A poem written by a bear.

Adam Ozimek makes a strong case for why liberals should be skeptical of occupational licensing.

This essay made me miss my barista days, describing perfectly those early morning hours listening to good music and prepping the shop, and taking the morning subways with the workers who get the city ready for later-rising professionals:

On the streets, and in the subway station, there are only a few other people around. As I see it, there is an unspoken code. Some kind of mutual 5 a.m. understanding: we are invisible. There is no eye contact, no acknowledgment of one other. Some of the subway riders are still out from the night before, and some are heading off to work (mostly fast food and construction jobs, some nurses). You can tell the difference by their fresh-from-the-shower wet hair versus just-partied sweaty hair, and sad eyes longing to get back into bed versus expectant eyes longing to get into bed.

In Virginia, two bartenders have been charged with felonies for doing fire tricks. It’s an absurd overreaction, but these tricks can go very, very wrong.

This Freakonomics profile of Randal O’Toole is specifically about rail transit, but this point about cognitive bias has more general application:

So why would rail lovers at home be rail detractors at work? O’Toole’s reasoning: “I don’t expect taxpayers to subsidize these preferences any more than if I liked hot-air balloons or midget submarines.” [...]

Is supporting policies that go completely counter to one’s own personal preferences to be admired or abhorred? Some might find it eccentric, and it certainly is a minority trait. My experience has been that most people in this world assume that others share their likes, and if they don’t, they will do so with just a little persuasion. In some cases this may be true. But regardless, this is certainly a convenient outlook because it means there is a happy coincidence: the best path to doing selfless good for others just happens to be promoting public policies that cater to one’s own self-interest.

One virtue of economics is that it encourages one to see markets as a discovery process for revealing people’s actual preferences, rather than allowing one to assume that one’s own are superior are widely held.

Can we date? A handy flowchart.

Josh Barro has an excellent post explaining why conservative outrage about the Cordoba House (a.k.a. the “Ground Zero Mosque”) is completely without merit. But you know this, right?

Jonah Lehrer discusses the psychology of power.

Ryan Young looks at the latest attempt to force parents to buy airlines seats for young children and why such a regulation would cost lives.

Mark Prince of Coffee Geek discusses the state of espresso in 2010, with thoughts on single origin espresso, pressure and temperature profiling, the disconnect between home and pro baristas, and more. Part one and part two.

It’s good to be Smirnoff.

Note to reporters: Stop by writing about civet coffee. Just stop. That said, the Panama Esmeralda that should have been the focus of this article can be very good and is worth trying.

Remember the little Oregon girl whose lemonade stand was shut down by authorities? Thanks to help from local businesses, she’s made $1,800 and is headed to Disneyland.

Katherine Mangu-Ward on the two possible reactions to liquor privatization proposals:

1) Oh no! Virginia state revenues may be negatively impacted by privatization! (Or not! Depending on how we set tax levels and account for pension obligations!) or 2) Why is the state of Virginia getting $13 every time I buy a bottle of Jack?

Like Katherine, I think the second is the more relevant concern.

Style notes from Simon Heffer at the Daily Telegraph.

A photo of Lutetia, the largest asteroid yet visited by human spacecraft.

At the Examiner, Jeremy Skog notes that the health care reform law will soon make HSA’s less valuable, eliminating their use for over-the-counter medications.

Islay Scotch distillery Bruichladdich is making a new gin with local botanicals! This just shot up my list of spirits I want to try. More info here.

Nigeria is a big market for Guinness, despite the efforts of veiled sharia enforcers

Something I’ll have to try: Norwegian egg coffee. Related: This blog’s earlier experiments with clarifying coffee.

Cultural confusion over the meaning of “excuse me”

I wish that I could write half as well on a good day as Christopher Hitchens does on chemo. Here’s hoping he lives on to fight many more battles.

I’m not likely to buy an iPad, but the Flipboard app is exactly the kind of thing I’d want a tablet computer for.

In Seattle, a battle brews to let bands drink brews while they play in bars.

The Devil Sends the Cook explains what not to do in a restaurant.

If you’re going to put sugar in your coffee, what kind should you use? An interesting article.

Caleb Brown pithily illustrates the different ways of thinking of doctors and economists.

Food science expert Harold McGee explores how diluting coffee, spirits, and wine with water can help bring out different flavors.

Jacob Sullum notes that while Americans may be drinking more, we have a long way to go before we catch up with the Founders.

Is the UK set to ban e-cigarettes? The answer appears to be yes, and the ban will likely drive many vapers back onto vastly more dangerous real cigarettes.

The nanny state is nothing new. Baylen Linnekin finds that as late as 1960, outdoor dining was forbidden in DC on the grounds that “windblown foreign matter” could contaminate diners’ food.

I just noticed on my WordPress dashboard that I had a draft saved as Links for 4/17/09. I don’t know what happened here, but somehow last Friday’s links never published and not all of the links saved (user error, no doubt). No point letting these go to waste though, so here’s some bonus linkage for you. I’m really curious to know how the party in the last link is going to go.

A nation of subsidies

The case against the FDA tobacco bill

Why local government isn’t always better government

SBUX retrenches, seeks new markets

“i am looking for a few clowns to roam around my party and make people feel uncomfortable”