N.C., Alabama, and Mississippi

I grew up in Georgia, where they have free-market, private-enterprise liquor stores. Then I moved to Alabama, where they have dull, bureaucratic, Soviet-style, state-owned liquor stores. Then I moved to Virginia, where the stores were also bleak and reminiscent of state-owned stores in the old Soviet bloc.

And finally I moved to North Carolina, which employs the same style of state-owned liquor retailing found in Alabama, Virginia and former Communist countries. Soon, though, Virginia will adopt the Georgia model, which offers competition among liquor stores, resulting in better prices, more choice, and more store ambiance

This will leave North Carolina in the company of Alabama and Mississippi as the only Southern states with state-run liquor stores.

How Will the President Describe the State of the Union?

Will President Obama acknowledge what is obvious to many — that the state of the union is awful, and that his policies have accelerated this country’s fiscal woes? Tomorrow night I will begin listening to his address with an open mind. However, if he launches into yet another attack on the country’s producers, there will be no reason to continue to listen. I suspect the same reaction from a financial advisor I know, who is still in search of the hope and change he voted for. Last week, this Obama supporter shook his head over the president’s bank tax proposal, which will have a devastating impact on the economy and the advisor’s prospects for earning a living.

Mr. President, are you ready to acknowledge that Keynesian economics is NOT the solution? Are you ready to embrace free markets?

Just Wait. Eventually This Will Be Blamed on Men.

From the LA Times:

Girls have long embraced the stereotype that they’re not supposed to be good at math. It seems they may be getting the idea from a surprising source — their female elementary school teachers.

First- and second-graders whose teachers were anxious about mathematics were more likely to believe that boys are hard-wired for math and that girls are better at reading, a new study has found. What’s more, the girls who bought into that notion scored significantly lower on math tests than their peers who didn’t.

The gap in test scores was not apparent in the fall when the kids were first tested, but emerged after spending a school year in the classrooms of teachers with math anxiety. That detail convinced researchers that the teachers — all of them women — were the culprits.