2-18-12 Hodgepodge

Capitalism and Religious Freedom

When I'm in a hurry and find interesting content these days, I send the link to Instapaper, fetch it with calibre, and stick it on my ebook reader for later, since "later" often happens when I lack Internet access or don't have time to wait for downloads, such as underground on the subway. I did just this with an article I heard about some time ago on HBL -- an article about New York City that had appeared in Barron's.

From that article are the following examples of the paramount role religion played in the origins of one of the world's greatest cities:

So intent were the Dutch on money-making in their new colony, they didn't get around to building a church for 17 years.

People of any religion were welcome. When Governor Peter Stuyvesant, a staunch member of the Dutch Reform Church, tried to expel the Jews and the Quakers, they wrote to leaders in Amsterdam to complain.

Stuyvesant quickly received a stern letter from his homeland, telling him to mind his own business, so that the Jews and the Quakers could mind theirs.

I'm not sure which paragraph of this -- the first or the third -- I enjoyed reading more.

Weekend Reading

"Using 'love' as an excuse to control says that you don't think a person's capable of making their own decisions" -- Micheal Hurd, in "Love Is Not Control", at DrHurd.com

"The problem with imagining that 'they' control prices is that is falsely distracts us into conjuring up why a market is moving rather than focusing on what matters: how it's moving." -- Jonathan Hoenig, in "'They' Don't Move the Market", at SmartMoney

"Mr. Obama's overt religiosity was on full display at the 'National Prayer Breakfast' last week, and it's clear he hesitates not a bit in using religion to guide public policy, which may square with freedom of religion but unavoidably violates the equally important admonition that we enjoy a freedom from religion." -- Richard Salsman, in "Conservatives Eager to Unify Religion and Politics Have an Ally in Obama", at Forbes

"When exactly did ['personal responsibility'] come to mean 'obey orders,' or 'do what you are told or pay a fine -- or maybe go to jail, if you don't'?" -- Richard Ralston, in "Restore True Personal Responsibility to Health Care", at The Orange County Register

My Two Cents

Richard Ralston does a fantastic job in his column of demonstrating how it is a failure to take personal responsibility that motivates support for ObamaCare, and will come back to haunt its supporters -- and everyone else -- unless more people assume more actual personal responsibility.

My Next Smart Phone?

Maybe, maybe not.

I am quite happy with my Nexus S, but I have a carrier credit for a free upgrade that wll expire in a few months. (I'm not dead set on using the credit, but I don't want to waste it, if there really is something better out there.) The review excerpted below suggests that I may be better off standing pat with what I have than going for the Galaxy Nexus. But I'll keep my eye out for other reviews.

The Galaxy Nexus gets its larger display by being taller. That means that certain elements on the display are even further away from the user's thumb, forcing him to use his second hand. While it's possible to reach almost any point on the display with a single hand, it's definitely not comfortable to reach, say, the top-most section, and I’d recommend against it lest you lose your grip of the phone, resulting in a costly drop.

The phone is large. A friend owns one, and when I saw it, I immediately asked if I could put the phone into my pocket. I hadn't thought of other ways its larger screen size could come with a cost, though.

-- CAV