Oldies but Goodies

Apologies for being stingy with posts lately. Here are some fun tidbits from the last few days:

• From Albany Times Union article (HT: Fark headline):

"In one test, TSA inspectors hid the components of a fake bomb in carry-on luggage that also contained a bottle of water. Passengers are prohibited from carrying containers holding more than three ounces of liquids, gels or aerosols through airport checkpoints. The screeners at Albany International confiscated the water bottle but missed the bomb."

• From Anchorage Daily News article (via Club for Growth post):

"'When you are chairman of a committee, you represent the whole nation; you don't represent one district, which is in my case is one state,' [Congressman Don Young (R-AK)] said. 'Earmarks are good for the country and good for the people you represent. That is the role of a congressman. If you can't get money for your district, you shouldn't be in Congress,' he said."

• From Slate article (via a Greg Mankiw's blog post):

"Alumni with kids are 13 percentage points more likely than alumni without kids to give in any year. The tendency to give rises slowly—by three more percentage points total—through kids' early teens... And, indeed, while giving declines after age 14 among parents of kids who do not go on to apply, giving rises from about 18 to 25 percentage points (above the level of the childless alums) for those whose kids do apply a few years later. The timing is certainly suggestive."

• From a Reason article:

"In theory, redistribution of wealth is supposed to benefit the least fortunate. In practice, it doesn’t necessarily work out that way. In a new study, Matthew Ladner of the Goldwater Institute and Paul J. Gessig of the Rio Grande Foundation crunch census data for the 1990s and find that the poor did much better in states with low taxes and low spending than in states with higher taxes."

• From Club for Growth post:

"With alarming contempt toward the U.S. Constitution and American taxpayers, Representatives David Obey (D-WI) and Barney Frank (D-MA) have introduced new legislation clamping down on political speech by outlawing all private expenditures from general elections for the U.S. House of Representatives. Ironically named the Let the People Decide Clean Campaign Act, the Obey-Frank legislation will publicly fund all general election House races with taxpayer dollars."