NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about the latest conservative "reform" craze. C'mon guys, I had to read all those manifestos, the least you can do is look at the column.

UPDATE. Comments are busy, considering this was a longish, wonkish column. Well, that's the sort of bright boys and girls this lantern attracts! Regarding the Yglesias-Ayn Rand anti-licensing alliance, Derelict says, "Personally, I'm looking forward to eliminating the onerous licensing requirements for airline pilots. I've spent many hours on Microsoft Flight Sim, so handling that New York-Frankfort Airbus A-380 flight should be a no-brainer." "Sure, there will be a few crashes in the transition period," adds montag2, "but consumers will quickly get the hang of which flights have competent pilots and push the industry in the right directions." Freedom!

Several commenters are creeped out by the reformers' weird family-values theories -- e.g., that if you make it hard for paupers to afford non-family alternatives like day-care, they'll rely on relatives to watch the kids and thus become more tight-knit. "They want to return to the days when entire families did piecework in their homes," marvels Shakezulu. "That way the family can be together while it works." It's the reasoning behind their policies on entitlements, too.