Surfacing for a night

I am able to climb out of my cave just long enough to provide my loyal readers with a post to enjoy -- hopefully you will find these notes of interest.  I'll be back posting regularly after next weekend.  At that time, my work schedule will lighten up for a couple of weeks.  Until then, here are three things to ponder:

• Why doesn't government work better?  In answering that question there is frequent recourse to theories of human nature and human action (James Q. Wilson's book Bureaucracy is particularly helpful on this point), but nothing beats the study of an actual government agency to see government disfunction in action.  Professor Bainbridge links to just such an an investigation over at his self-named blog.  Well worth a read.  Skepticism toward government isn't just about theories of Locke and Jefferson and Aquinas.  It is a principle well-established by experience, which as Edmund Burke or any of our nation's Founding Father's would have told you, is the best ground for public policy. 

• Is big business conservative?  No, it isn't, as Ed Driscoll makes clear at this post over at Instapundit, linking to Dennis Prager.  I can think of two reasons why big business tends not to be conservative:  1) big business doesn't really care about local communities, traditions and customs as normative features of human life; 2) big business likes to work hand in hand with big government to set up barriers to entry to competitors (I tend to think a large chunk of government economic regulation serves this function, at least in part).  

• How can I get a better understanding of Justice Scalia's jurisprudence?  Well, this post by Edward Whelan over at the Imaginative Conservative would be a great place to start:  Scalia the Originalist.  It's a review of two new books out about the work of Justice Scalia.  Anybody interested in law and constitutional interpretation would do well to give Whelan's essay a read.

And here's this Saturday's culture moment, Suite No. 3 from Handel's Wassermusik, performed by the Music Academy of the West, conducted by Nicholas McGegan: