One of the things I do once or twice a year (about once a year on average) is drive back home to visit my parents. For many people, this is no big deal.

For me, it's the 1200 mile journey from Houston to Milwaukee. But even with gas prices as high as they are, the cost compares favorably to flying, and I get a lot more cargo space to work with, as well as not having to rent or beg the use of a car while I'm there.

A few observations on the states traveled:
Texas - I live here. It's nice enough heading up TX-59, mostly. Watch out for the construction. Oh, and about the whole "Drive friendly" thing... someone needs to remind your average Texan about it.
Arkansas - One of the things scientists have discovered is that without any concrete detail or differentiating moments to latch on to, the human brain tends to compress a given long experience into about 8 seconds in terms of memory. Arkansas, therefore, takes 8 seconds to cross. In reality, it takes about 5 hours.
Missouri - BumpbumpbumpbumpBumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbumpBumpBump.....
Illinois - For most of the journey? "I hope that's the road, and not my alignment going." In Chicago? Hell beyond hell. At least in Texas when they have a toll road, they give you the (admittedly slightly slower) alternative of driving on a working feeder. In Chicago, if you want to get to Wisconsin, you either drive a full hour out of your way, or you pay about $6 worth of tolls. Your corrupt officials at work, folks.
Wisconsin - Ah, home sweet JESUS WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO THE TOWN?! (Let's just say my old hometown's grown a bit).

Also, a Google Maps exercise.
Take Google Maps driving directions generator, and map from Houston, TX to Milwaukee, WI. You'll see that the route given goes from Houston, to Marshall, over to Shreveport, back to Texarkana, over to West Memphis, up to St. Louis, and then finally to Chicago and then Milwaukee.

Now, map in series. Map from Houston to Texarkana (cuts Shreveport out of the equation). Map from Texarkana to Milwaukee and poof, St. Louis drops out as well - the route now correctly uses I-57, which goes straight diagonally right up Illinois.

Total time saved: approximately 4-5 hours drive. Google Guys, your driving direction algorithm needs some tuning up.

"Standardized test scores track wealth and poverty with frightening precision. Even the call for “equal” education spending misses the point. If this society wants to fulfill its stated ideals, it must provide disproportionate talent and spending in the earliest years for those students whose family environment does not foster college preparation." -Oakland Mayor -Jerry Brown

Memorial Day weekend we went to Kevin's annual Memorial Day float trip. Longtime readers and friends may recall that it was on one of these Memorial Day floats trips where Camille and I first met, so on top of being a fun trip, it's also a trip down memory lane and one of the most special trips that she and I can take with one another.

• We missed the last call for the flight out of Salt Lake by what must have been thirty seconds. It's frustrating to miss a flight, but so much more frustrating when it's by such a small margin. Though we didn't say much, I think we both recounted every lost second looking for a parking space, trying to find the kiosk, and on the road behind traffic.
• We got lost in Muskogee, Oklahoma. That takes talent.
• We arrived at the campground extremely late. We were a little worried about disturbing the campground. The campground, on the other hand, was not particularly worried about disturbing us. Luckily, we were too tired to care all that much.
• Eastern Oklahoma is a lot hotter when you're arriving from Idaho than when you're arriving from Houston.
• The sun was out the whole time. It's amazing how meticulous one can be with sunscreen and then completely forget about the nose (on one day) and then the forehead (on the other).
• They said that it was important that we got to the waiting point at or before 10:00. It was apparently important that we were there to wait for some three hours...
• Kevin and I found this trap on the river where people kept getting stuck. Someone had helped us get out when we got stuck, so we stuck around to help the next person. We ended up helping out dozens. We absolutely had a ball playing in the water and helping people get out of the jam. The water was a welcome relief from the heat and it was good kharma. We started to refer to this place as "Gratitude Point."
• Unfortunately, we didn't have time to stop in Gratitude Point the next day because our raft deflated and we had to wait a couple hours for a new one. Had a good time tossing around the football with Kevin, Callie, Chris, and Chris's wife Christy.
• If I were a single man, I would get a pug. Tom had a pug and the women were just crawling all over him to get to the dog. What do women find so attractive about pugs?
• I was really a bit of a fuddy-duddy throughout a lot of the trip. I was underrested when I got there and never really got caught up. Unfortunately I turned in somewhat early every night except the first (hard to turn in early when you get there at 1am!)
• Unfortunately, due to my late arrival I was unable to help Kevin muster up an audience to go to a Mike McClure show. Jason Boland also played in the area, though it's tought to motivate oneself to going out after floating down the river. There was a band at the campsite the second night there. They were... unimpressive.
• In addition to the bad music show, there was a bad drama show, too. The folks in the camera next to us were having quite the incident. Some girl was there with her boyfriend. Her brother turned out to be there. I can't even begin to figure out what all the fighting was about, except that it escalated to people throwing things (on to our campground) and then one dude jetting off in his pickup before security got there. We were not sorry when they were gone the next day.

All in all we had a really good time. Next year the trip from Austin will be easier than flying from Utah/Idaho and we're very much looking forward to it.

Tyler Cowen:

It's liability per se that isn't justified by libertarian standards. Under Lockean property rights theory, you own physical things, not the values of those things. It is for this reason that if you set up shop next to a competitor, you are not infringing his property rights, even if his business ends up being worth less. So let's say I steal your painting. Yes, you do deserve your painting back. It is yours. But say I steal your painting and lose it or wreck it. That should be the end of the story. You never owned the "value of that painting." You simply owned the physical painting. You are not due compensation. If you take my money as compensation for your loss, that is simply another theft.

So next time someone smashes in Tyler Cowen's window, let us remind him that he is due no compensation.

Have libertarians always been this eager to outlibertarianize everyone else? It's almost like with the advent of the blogosphere and the connections of libertarian cells nationwide therein, they have found their individuality encroached by too many people actually agreeing with them.

Wha tthe heck?

Under a bill passed by the Assembly, California would join an interstate compact in which states would agree to cast their electoral votes not for the winner in their jurisdictions but for the winner nationwide. Proponents say that would force candidates to broaden their reach to major population centers such as California.

The bill is part of a 3-month-old movement driven by a Bay Area lawyer and a Stanford computer science professor. The same 888-word bill is pending in four other states and is expected to be introduced in every state by January, its sponsors say. The legislation would not take effect until enough states passed such laws to make up a majority of the Electoral College votes — a minimum of 13 states, depending on population.

"This is a bill that would allow California to be able to play a role in presidential elections," said Barry Fadem, the Lafayette, Calif., lawyer spearheading the drive. Now, because the state is largely ignored, he said, "A vote in California is not equal to a vote in Ohio, and everyone would concede that."

Wow. What a monumentally stupid bill. If this goes through, a California vote has even less weight because a voter in Texas has as much weight for California's electoral votes as does a voter that actually lives in the state -- and the Texan's vote counts for Texas, too! If they're interested in empowering what are admittedly relatively unimportant votes in California, then go the Maine route where electoral votes are divided by district rather than the whole state. Or dole them out in proportion to the vote within the state.

I gotta give the legislature credit, though. This bill empowers Republicans (under this, Bush would have gotten California's electoral votes in 2004) but it was Democrats that pushed it through and Republicans that oppose it.