Today’s Links: August 31, 2012

OPINION

DONALD BOUDREAUX: “Inconceivable Complexity”
“A market economy is indescribably vast and complex—its success depends on so many intricate, changing details all somehow being made to work smoothly together that the “facts” that are essential to its thriving cannot be catalogued with anywhere near the completeness that can be achieved by a 21st-century scientist studying and cataloging the “facts” that enable sparrows to fly. A sparrow is complex compared, say, to a limestone rock. Compared to the modern market economy, however, a sparrow is extremely simple.”

MERCURY NEWS EDITORIAL: “Take loophole out, then pass pension bill”
“Gov. Jerry Brown made an honest effort to control public employee pension costs. Against a complex legal and political backdrop, he fought with legislative leaders for meaningful change. Unfortunately, the final package on which lawmakers will vote Friday falls far short.”

DAVID KRAVETS: “EFF Sues to Get Secret Court Rulings Showing Feds Violated Spy Law”
“The Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the government Thursday demanding a judge order the feds to release documents allegedly showing the National Security Agency unlawfully surveilled Americans’ e-mails and telephone calls. Specifically the EFF wants the government to make public a secret court ruling that found that the feds had broken a 2008 wiretapping law that was intended to legalize President George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program.”

NEWS

RNC – Republican Women Seek to Play Down Social Issues
“‘We don’t talk social issues,’ said Mary Ann Carter, policy director for the Young Guns Network, who manages the pavilion, as several young women from the convention milled about sipping coffee and shopping for souvenirs. ‘We talk about the economy. We talk about health care. We talk about energy.'”

RNC – ‘Eastwooding’ is born out of Clint Eastwood GOP speech
“Hollywood tough guy Clint Eastwood opened up for Mitt Romney Thursday night at the Republican National Convention, in a rambling, off-the-teleprompter speech that at one point had him addressing President Barack Obama — well, an invisible Obama represented by a chair on stage. At one point, he told the chair-Obama to ‘shut up.'”

WOMEN – Study: We Benefit From Seeing Strong Women on TV
“One hundred fifty male and female students at a university in the southern United States attended screenings of one of six television shows that included both sexuality and violent content within the same scenes. The Tudors and slasher-esque Masters of Horror were selected as exemplars of sexually violent shows with negative depictions of female characters; SVUand Buffy the Vampire Slayer depicted sexual violence but featured positive female ‘role models’; and7th Heaven and Gilmore Girls were used as the family-friendly controls.”