Links for June 16th

InterAction MagazineKen and Roberta Williams provide PDFs of every issue of Sierra Newsletter / Sierra Magazine / InterAction, from June 1981–Spring 1999. Not that anybody much cares about them past 1992-ish. Wikipedia: Hundred twenty-eighth noteTurns out they're a thing. Beethoven used them, as did Mozart. Much like the entire skill of drumming, I imagine that …

State renting space in already-full prisons.

One of the ways that the state screws over localities, funding-wise, is keeping convicted criminals in local jails, shirking the state duty to pay for housing convicts. Which is why it’s so galling that Virginia is selling bed space in its prisons to neighboring states. Why? Because it pays, and that helps make up for …

On the merits of sales tax holidays.

Norm Leahy advances the theory that sales tax holidays are a goofy and ineffective gimmick. Jim Bacon figures that the hurricane supplies one is the best example of that. Most of these things appear to be brochure bills, a way for conservatives to tout their successes to the base, but without actually reducing state revenues, …

Spain’s fascinating lottery.

Spain’s Christmas lottery is fascinating. It began in 1812, and billions are given away each year. Unlike in the U.S., nobody walks away with the bulk of it. The number is only five digits long, so this year 1,850 people will receive a $430,000 share of the $3.1B pot. I find government lotteries both shameful …