Life, Liberty, and Property

Moons Over Stoplights
I hate stop light cameras. If cops are going to give you a ticket, they might as well have the common decency to show up and do it in person. Though I admire a German man's inventiveness:

As the flash from the camera went off flashing of a different sort was happening in the car. When the film was examined officials found a perfect shot of the offender's bare bottom instead of his face.

Soccer Isn't My Favorite Sport
But it could be more interesting if they incorporated some of these changes.

Bowling for Albertson's
I can see the documentary now--Micheal Moore takes on the sword making industry. You can already hear the outcry from the sword control advocates--The only purpose of swords is to kill people! Ban Swords Now!

I don't mean to demean this tradegy, but to point out that the gun control people need to be consistent.

The Hate in America Today
You won't find more hate than on the left. The left likes to fancy themselves as inclusive people, but their words betray their hate and intolerance. Here is Mistress of Hate herself, Marueen Dowd.

What Maureen fails to see is that either the text of the Constitution means something, or it doesn't. And if the text does not mean what it did when it was written, when we don't have a Constitution. State legislatures should not banning gay sex, but that does not mean that they don't have the Constitutional right to do so.

The Constitution may be old-fashioned, but and old fashion Constitution means something, and a Post Modern Constitution means anything, and therefore it means nothing. To quote on the Bard's on the value of Maureen's columns, they are "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

California's $38 Billion Budget Shortfall
California is in deep trouble.

The nation's most populous state, home to one of the world's largest economies, has been staring in disbelief at the same dire predicament for months: a $38 billion deficit, the largest shortfall in its history and an extreme example of the budget woes afflicting many states. But now it has only hours left to solve the problem.

State lawmakers have until midnight to reach a compromise with Gov. Gray Davis (D) on a budget that would wipe out the enormous deficit, but the odds of that happening appear slim. And without a deal, the state will be bound by law to begin cutting off billions of dollars in payments to its agencies and its contractors in July -- and could run out of money by August.

This situation demands real political leadership, but Gray Davis is unable to do that. Here's what Gray Davis should do--slash everything program that is non-essential. Sure many people won't like him, but California's government is apparently $38 billion too big and something needs to be done about it.

De-Man Space Exploration
I admit to falling prey to the romanticism of space flight. However, human space exploration may be cost-prohibitive and unproductive:

Since the Mercury 7 pioneers, the astronaut corps has served one overriding
political and public relations purpose to sell the space program.

The idea of using the space shuttle as a scientific laboratory actually came
about after the shuttle's design was already in place. The shuttle program
was conceived in the waning days of the Apollo program as the best option to
continue a manned space program at the lowest cost. However, without a place
to shuttle to, and not nearly enough satellites that needed a shuttle to
launch or repair them, the shuttle program succeeded in doing little beyond
creating a human presence in space. The idea of the shuttle as an in-orbit
lab was used as a justification for investment in its future.
...
If NASA is not able to convince the public of the importance of science in
orbit without astronaut involvement, then so be it. At least America's
refusal to support science would be honest, would not needlessly endanger
human lives or compromise the integrity of science and scientists.

We will always need astronauts to assume certain risks to develop the
technology that allows for human exploration of space. The space shuttles
and space stations may be necessary to fulfill that mission. However, we
need to separate the goal of scientific experimentation from the desire for
space exploration. I hope that the unfortunate death of the Columbia
astronauts will forever sever the false link that has been created between
the two.

Astronauts do not risk their lives to perform scientific experiments in
space. They fly to fulfill a much more basic and human desire to
experience the vastness of space.

# posted by Daniel : 9:24 AM

Maybe Campaign Finance Report Isn't Such a Bad Thing
A recent story in the Post says:

The evidence is growing that Democrats shot themselves in the foot by
forcing passage of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law restricting what
had been unlimited "soft money" donations to political parties.

A report released yesterday by the Center for Responsive Politics, a
watchdog group, found that, contrary to common perceptions, Republicans have
a big advantage over Democrats in donations from small donors, while
Democrats are king among only the biggest.

I find it hard to believe that the Democrats would support this if it truly would reduce their ability to raise money. There is likley more to the story than meets the eye.

Christine Todd Whitman on Environmentalists
I really thought that Christine Todd Whitman was leaving EPA becuase she didn't like being told what to do by the White House. But this op-ed makes me wonder if what she really hated was being caught between the White House and the watermelon environments (Green on the outside, Red (poltically) in the center). Here's her op-ed from the Post:

If anyone doubts that the tone of the debate over environmental policy in this city is in serious need of improvement, he or she need only look at the reaction to the release this week of the Environmental Protection Agency's first-ever "Draft Report on the Environment."
...
To some, it doesn't seem to matter that our report uses sound, sophisticated scientific data to measure how far we've come and to suggest where we still have room to improve. The report looks at the actual health of our environment and helps us measure where our 30 years of effort have made a positive difference and where they have not met our expectations.

Some have condemned the report because it doesn't discuss global climate change. It doesn't, but the report does include dozens of science-based environmental indicators for air, water and land. The report shows us where we are, so we have a better idea of what we must do to get where we want to be.
...
One of the lessons I learned during my 29 months at the EPA is that until the tone of the debate over environmental policy changes, the next generation of environmental progress will be made more difficult than it should be. If environmental groups are truly interested in progress, not politics, they should let the facts speak for themselves and look for ways to support efforts to get to a cleaner environment.

Christine does not say why the waterlemons are so radid about pushing gloom and doom--it's money, it's their livihood. The only way they survive is on gloom and doom. They don't care that the environment has gotten a lot cleaner, they only care that donors will send them more money.

"I don't need Bush's tax cut. I have never worked a [bleeping] day in my life."
According to the Washington Post, that is what Rep. Patrick Kennedy said at a gathering of Young Democrats after he had a few drinks. What is beautiful about this quote is it is exactly the truth. The only people that don't benefit from tax cuts are people who don't work. Thank you Patrick Kennedy for the straight truth for once. It may have been a first for the Kennedy family.

What is also interesting is that Kennedy's spokesman didn't disuade the Post of the underlying truth that Kennedy has never worked, but it the spokesman did say, "He was energizing the crowd and got caught up in it and used an unfortunate word, which he regrets using. . . . And no one pulled him off the stage." In Patrick's behalf, at least when he got drunk he merely talked instead of trying a young lady off a bridge to her death like Teddy.

Today's Grammar Lesson: I.e. vs. E.g
Hopefully if I blog this, it will stick in my mind. From Dictionary.com:

I.e. is an abbreviation for Latin id est, "that is." E.g. is for exempli gratia, "for the sake of example." So you can say, "I like citrus fruits, e.g., oranges and lemons"; or, "I like citrus fruits, i.e. the juicy, edible fruits with leathery, aromatic rinds of any of numerous tropical, usually thorny shrubs or trees of the genus Citrus." In the first sentence you are simply giving an instance of a citrus fruit; in the second you giving an explanation. E.g. simply indicates an example; i.e. specifies, explains. Compare: She loves to read non-fiction, e.g., reference books and how-to books versus He had one obvious flaw, i.e. his laziness.

Winamp--the best media player, period
Cnet today has an article about Winamp. Winamp is by far my favorite program to play music. Unlike rivals Windows Media player, Real Audio, and Quicktime, Winamp is a simple program that does one thing, and one thing very well--play media files, especially mp3s. I hate the other programs because they are bloated, and keep trying to advertise to me. I don't want advertisements. When I want to listen to music on my computer, I don't want to wait while Windows Media Player takes forever to load and then tries to get me to "Go behind the scences of Clay's cover shoot for Rolling Stone magazine." When I want to listen to music, believe it or not, don't want to watch an animated Pam Anderson as Stripperella as Real Audio tries to get me to watch. I want a program that starts quickly, and then runs unobtrusively, allowing me to easily change songs when I want to. Why people use programs other than Winamp is beyond me.

Paul Krugman is Afraid Democrats are Idiots
If must be tough living with the world view that everyone that believes the same way as you do are idiots, but Paul Krugman seems to get along fine (other than the fact that the blathers a lot). Krugman believes that the GOP is creating a political machine. The easy answer is that of course they are trying to--and the democrats are trying to create one also. He doesn't say that the Left is a study of abject political incompetance and the the left's failure is their own fault. He writes:

In "Welcome to the Machine," Nicholas Confessore draws together stories usually reported in isolation from the drive to privatize Medicare, to the pro-tax-cut fliers General Motors and Verizon recently included with the dividend checks mailed to shareholders, to the pro-war rallies organized by Clear Channel radio stations. As he points out, these are symptoms of the emergence of an unprecedented national political machine, one that is well on track to establishing one-party rule in America.
...
Why isn't the ongoing transformation of U.S. politics which may well put an end to serious two-party competition getting more attention? Most pundits, to the extent they acknowledge that anything is happening, downplay its importance. For example, last year an article in Business Week titled "The GOP's Wacky War on Dem Lobbyists" dismissed the K Street Project as "silly and downright futile." In fact, the project is well on the way to achieving its goals.

Whatever the reason, there's a strange disconnect between most political commentary and the reality of the 2004 election. As in 2000, pundits focus mainly on images John Kerry's furrowed brow, Mr. Bush in a flight suit or on supposed personality traits. But it's the nexus of money and patronage that may well make the election a foregone conclusion.

There's another, non-nefarious explanation for why the 2004 election is a foregone conclusion. The Left is intellectually bankrupt and they do not have charismatic characters, such as Bill Clinton, to smooth over the fact that their ideas have failed time and time again. When candidates don't tell compelling stories, the media is left to report on images of Kerry's furrowed brow. Now if Krugman actually believed that regular Americans were intelligent, and that therefore they could see the coming conspiracy as well as he, I think he would feel that the nation wasn't in trouble. But since he apparently believes that the masses are assess, its doom and gloom.

Lap Dancing is a Fundamental Right
George Will lampoons the Supreme Court:

Eager to improve their town's moral tone, Los Angeles city councilors are considering an ordinance to improve decorum at strip clubs: no lap dances -- dancers are required to remain six feet from customers -- no direct tipping, no private VIP rooms in clubs with full nudity. Advocates of the ordinance say such goings-on lead to prostitution.

Opponents of the ordinance, including the dancers, deny that prostitution flourishes at the clubs. And they call the ordinance an unconstitutional abridgement of free artistic expression. But a federal appeals court upheld a law in Washington state requiring dancers to stay 10 feet from customers. Opponents should haul out the heavy constitutional artillery -- the privacy right.

Given the Supreme Court's 6 to 3 ruling yesterday that Texas's anti-sodomy law violates the constitutional privacy right, lap dancing -- like prostitution, for that matter -- looks like a fundamental constitutional right.
...
The question is not whether states are wise to criminalize this or that sex act outside of marriage. Rather, the question is: Once the court has said that some such acts are constitutional rights, by what principle are any of the myriad possible permutations of consensual adult sexual activities denied the same standing?
...
If preferences are all that they are, if none are grounded in nature rather than mere conventions or appetites, then by what principle are they not all equal? And given that in a 1992 abortion ruling the privacy right was explained as "the right to physical autonomy," the question is not just whether there is a fundamental right to engage in sodomy. Why not the right to physical autonomy in using heroin?

Lap dancing as a fundamental right? That is, after yesterday, not a close constitutional call.

WMD and Missing Ears
In today's NYT, Nicholas Kristof writes:

Since I've been accusing the Bush administration of cooking the intelligence on Iraq, I should confess my intentions. Countless Iraqis warned me that they would turn to guerrilla warfare if U.S. troops overstay their welcome, so I thought I'd find an Iraqi who had had his tongue or ear amputated by Saddam's thugs and still raged about the U.S. That would powerfully convey what a snake pit we're in.

So I began asking for people with missing tongues or ears. I got a tip about a man in Basra who had had his tongue amputated for criticizing Saddam. He had moved away, but I found a friend of his, Abdel Karim Hassan.

"A thousand thanks to Bush!" he told me. "A thousand thanks to Bush's mother for giving birth to him!"

Hmmm. I hadn't expected a tribute to the Mother of all Bushes.
...
I'm suspicious of any answer that is too quick and too glib. But my fear is that the mistakes and poor planning that are now miring us in Iraq will unfairly discredit humanitarian intervention more broadly, even when saving people pleading to be liberated. That would be another terrible cost of Iraq.

# posted by Daniel : 9:25 AM

Note to Self
If anyone cares, the following is from a post on slashdot. It is apparently some settings to get the highest quality copies of MP3 when you copy a CD onto your computer:
You should use LAME 3.90.2 with --alt-preset standard (aka "APS", ~ 192kbps VBR) or possibly --alt-preset extreme ("APX", ~ 256kbps VBR) for trickier encodes (classical, jazz, rock, experimental). Those without space concerns still wishing to use mp3 can try --alt-preset insane ("API", 320kbps CBR).

The --alt-presets are optimisations for quality and have been very thoroughly tested by hydrogenaudio. They represent the current state-of-the-art in mp3 compression.

For a scale, quality (normally transparent up to lossless) and size (50-80MB up to 300-700MB) go roughly (Qx represents Vorbis 1.0 quality number): APS < Q6 < APX < Q7 < Q8 < API < Q9 < Q10 < FLAC

Rip with Exact Audio Copy 0.9b4 (secure mode, accurate stream, NO C2, no normalisation, no read or sync errors, only complete discs with no missing audio tracks, save a log file) and encode to MP3s (LAME 3.90.2 or 3.92), Oggs (Vorbis 1.0) or FLACs. Tag correctly - for mp3 ONLY use id3 v1.1 and id3 v2.3.0 - with year and ideally genre from allmusic name scheme "%A - %C\%A - %C - %N - %T" normal, various artists discs - name tracks "Artist / Title" and use name scheme "%C\%C - %N - %A - %T", add " (OST)" to album name for soundtracks. Move log into directory, rename to directory name + �.log, add an �.md5 md5sum for the log and audio files to complete the rip.

EU Feminists Move to Crush Free Speech and Freedom on Contract
A couple of principles a free society must be based on is freedom of speech and freedom on contract. Wihtout these freedoms we cannot say politcally unpopular things, and we can't decide how to use our labors. Feminists in the EU, however, don't think must of these basic freedoms. They want to ban ads that protray "images of men and women affecting human dignity and decency". Apparently they wan to end discrimination based on sex as well. Therefore, insurance rates would be the same for men and women. What this feminist don't understand is that price discrimination in insurance helps women in many cases. Car insurance for men is higher becuase he drive more dangerously, but these subtleties as loss on the feminists.

Here are two stories about these proposals: From theTelegraph and one from the Guardian

Advertisements that affront "human dignity" by demeaning women would be
prohibited under proposals being drafted by the European Commission.

Television programmes would also be censored to ensure there was no
promotion of gender stereotypes.

The plans, still in their infancy, are already provoking bitter dispute in
Brussels and were described by one commission official yesterday as
"lunatic".

The proposals, which need the approval of the college of 20 commissioners
before being put forward as a draft law, would force insurance companies to
offer the same rates for pension annuities and car insurance regardless of
gender, overriding the actuarial data used to calculate risk.

Tabloid newspaper "Page Three" pictures would also be threatened. Most forms
of gender discrimination - either for or against women - would become
illegal, affecting welfare benefits, education and health insurance. But
plans to ban London gentlemen's clubs have been abandoned as a step too far.

When Rival Special Interest Groups Suddendly Call a Truce, It Makes Me Worried
From today's Post:

The trucking industry, reaching a mutual lobbying pact with the railroads, agreed yesterday not to seek federal permission to run longer and heavier trucks on the country's highways for at least the next six years.

Rather than battle over the issue, the American Trucking Associations and the Association of American Railroads effectively called a truce in one of Washington's longest-running and most expensive lobbying battles. They will instead spend their lobbying time and effort to promote mutually beneficial freight industry issues.

I'm always leary when to rival groups call a truce. Usually the its the general public that gets squeezed when competitors start lobbying together.

# posted by Daniel : 10:13 AM

Baseball Should Come to DC, but Not on My Dime
Here's an editorial in the Post that I actually agree with:

Several questions cry out for answers, especially where the District is concerned. To finance a new ballpark and renovate RFK Stadium as a temporary home for a team, the city would have to impose new fees on the gross receipts of roughly 1,800 businesses, increase taxes on tickets and merchandise in the ballpark, and dedicate taxes on food, beverages and parking to the stadium. The city would contribute almost 75 percent of the cost of the new stadium but would be paid no rent or property taxes. The team would reap all the revenue generated by the District-owned ballpark, including money from naming rights, concessions, and sales of tickets, club seats and luxury boxes. So D.C. Council members are rightly asking how the city's financial interests will be protected in such a one-sided transaction -- one that, by the way, depends on the city having a winning team that generates enough revenue to cover the cost of building the ballpark. Virginia, with a different financing package, faces similar questions about the adequacy of projected sales tax revenue for a new Northern Virginia stadium.

So before either the District or Virginia shows Major League Baseball the money, baseball needs to show a firm commitment. That seems only fair.

Actually, I disagree with one thing: I don't believe taxpayers should pay for any of a new stadium. Baseball is a great sport, but I shouldn't be able to enjoy it at the expense of others.

Confused O'Connor
Richard Cohen writes in today's Post:

It is said of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor that she manages to mirror public opinion. She has done so on abortion and other matters, and in the Michigan affirmative action case, she has succeeded beyond all expectations. She is as confused as the public.

What she is not is either logical or clear. Her opinion, which a bare majority of the court joined, upheld the affirmative action program for the University of Michigan's law school. In a separate opinion, the court struck down the program for undergraduate admissions. The latter was a bit too obvious; the former a bit more subtle. That they both discriminated on the basis of race seemed not to matter to her.

To rationalize the irrational, O'Connor declared what amounts to a racial emergency. She has to do that to get around the Constitution's equal protection clause, which provides that no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
...
In some respects O'Connor has my sympathy, but not my respect. Her intention is to somehow find a constitutionally permissive way to compensate for generations of slavery followed by Jim Crow. In other words, she wants to do the right thing. But there is no getting around the fact that if blacks or Hispanics are favored on the basis of race or ethnicity, someone else is disfavored on the same basis. And this the Constitution -- not to mention simple fairness -- does not permit.

O'Connor's opinion is an intellectual mess. Given the nature and complexities of affirmative action, that's understandable. But the Supreme Court is supposed to clarify the very issues that befuddle the rest of us. O'Connor not only failed to do that, but she and her colleagues failed so spectacularly that maybe it is the high court that could use some affirmative action itself. Clear thinkers are underrepresented.

Speaking of Vacuity...Bob Herbert
There are few writers I can count on to write as much nonsense as Bob Herbert. Every column is fertile ground for criticism and today's article is no exception. Herbert writes:

On Monday, the same day that President Bush was raking in $4 million and touting his tax cuts at a Manhattan fund-raiser, the trustees of the City University of New York met to formally approve the largest tuition hike in the school's history.

This is how it is in the United States these days, massive tax cuts for the very wealthy at the same time that the poor and working classes are being clobbered by reduced services and myriad tax increases of one kind or another.

Give me a break Herbert. Why shouldn't people who make a lot of money be allowed to keep it? Why should the government steal it from them to spend it as you would like? If you want to help out the kids that go to CUNY, then do something about it. Donate your own money along with your leftist buddies. Don't complain that I'm not donating mine.

William Safire Continues To Blabber
William Safire needs to quit, or write intelligently. Currently, he merely blabbers. In today's article, he writes again about the FCC's recent decision to allow a media company to own up to 45 percent of media market in a city instead of the current level of 35 percent. He writes:

If allowed to stand, this surrender to media giantism would concentrate the power to decide what we read and see � in both entertainment and news � in the hands of an ever-shrinking establishment elite.

How is a increase from 35 to 45 percetn a "surrender to media giantism?" How will this limit what we see and hear. As HISTORY shows, he now have many, many more sources of news and media. But HISTORY doesn't matter much to William Safire, I guess he believes that history will teach us nothing.
Safire also writes:

The F.C.C. chairman, Michael Powell, mocked his opponents' efforts yesterday by saying they had used a wide variety of media "to get out their message that media consolidation doesn't allow them to get out their message." But our message is getting through to Congress only because his media consolidation has not yet taken effect to muffle debate.

A change from 35 percent ownership to 45 is going to "muffle debate?" What is he talking about? Does he have any examples? He cites 20/20, 60 minutes, etc.'s not covering this story as some kind of evidence that "Big Media" will quell debate, but that's no example. It is equally plausible they think the story is uninteresting.

Safire continues to disappoint. Apparently he has been sucked into the intellect sapping vortex that with his fellow vacuous NYT scribes, Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert.

# posted by Daniel : 9:55 AM

SARS Has Been Overblown by Purveyors of Panic
Michael Fumento on SARS:

SARS didn't merit mentions in more than 500 stories in The New York Times, nor 350 in The Washington Post. It had no business occupying the cover of all three major U.S. news magazines in the same week.

As a worldwide threat, SARS never amounted to more than a mite on a mammoth. As I write this, in the past half year there have been 8,460 SARS cases reported and 808 deaths. By comparison, malaria kills more people every 2.5 hours and tuberculosis more every three hours.

Here's the annual butcher's bill for true mass-killers that have no media cheerleading squad:

- diarrhea diseases: 2.2 million deaths;

- measles: 900,000 deaths;

- typhoid fever: 600,000 deaths;

- hepatitis B: 600,000 deaths;

- influenza: 250,000 to 500,000 deaths.

But the purveyors of panic -- primarily the media, the World Health Organization, and to a lesser extent national health services such as the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- will offer no apologies or explanations beyond, "Well, it could have been huge."
...
To the consternation of many criers, there was no wolf.

In fact, referring to "a" SARS death rate is inherently disingenuous. In China it's long been nine per cent, whereas in Europe and the United States there hasn't been a single death. Obviously, as with most diseases, the death rate is dependent on the quality of health care.

Nobody pretends the death rate from TB in Africa or malaria in Thailand represents the whole world. Why was it done with SARS? For the same reason everything was hyped about the disease: It sold newspapers and magazines; it raised TV ratings; and it promised to increase the prestige and budget of the WHO

Howard Dean
Here's William Saletan on Howard Dean:
For months, I've been scratching my head over the Howard Dean problem. On domestic issues, Dean beats the rest of the presidential field hands down. He knows the nooks and crannies of all the policy debates. He's been an executive. He's principled where he ought to be principled and pragmatic where he ought to be pragmatic. He hurls fire and brimstone with the best of them. He isn't one of those wishy-washy liberals who inspire contempt on both the left and the right. And he states his views in a way that everyone can understand and most people can support.
...
I used to wonder why Dean's confidence deserted him when it came to defense and foreign policy. Two months ago, at a forum hosted by the Children's Defense Fund, Dean said of Saddam Hussein, "We've gotten rid of him, and I suppose that's a good thing, but there's going to be a long period where the United States is going to need to be maintained in Iraq, and that's going to cost American taxpayers a lot of money that could be spent on schools and kids." I was one of many viewers who choked on the words I suppose. How exactly was getting rid of Saddam not a good thing? Why the need for supposition?
...
That's Howard Dean. He claims to have questioned the war, when in fact he answered it pre-emptively with a categorical no. He faults his opponents for supporting the war without knowing the whole truth, though he opposed the war in equal ignorance. He says the facts proved him right, though he didn't have them beforehand. He rejects ideology but brags that he never equivocated. He's as certain as any hawk, and just as dangerous.

Oh My Goodness! Signs of Intelligence from the RIAA
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) was blindslided a couple years ago with the advent of Napster. Suddenly they found their copyrighted materials being copied all over the web. They have struggled to use digital music and the web to their advantage, but there is some sign of life:

Consumers will shy away from peer-to-peer services that have become polluted with pornography, viruses, data-mining software and incomplete files when they have safe, easy alternatives for buying digital music, said Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) President Cary Sherman.

On free P2P services, "You go for Britney Spears, you get porn. You go for Pokemon, you get porn," Sherman said. "When people are presented with a really good user experience at a reasonable price, they're going to use that."

While porn isn't as pervasive as Sherman claims, I think he is right--if you give people a good user experience at a reasonable price, people will use their webservices.

The US vs. EU Constitution
Marian Tupy and Patrick Basham on major differences between the US and EU Constitution:

The American Constitution is a product of the 18th-century Enlightenment. Its overriding concern is the relationship between individual freedom and coercive government power. Hence, the government's powers are delegated, enumerated, and thus limited. The authority that government enjoys is derived from the people, who can, in theory, reclaim that authority.
In contrast, the recently drafted EU constitution is a product of 20th-century welfare-state socialism. The official goal was to design a simpler, more efficient, more democratic Europe that is "closer to its citizens." However, the goal was never seriously pursued and, consequently, never achieved. As a result, the new constitution will have serious negative implications for liberal parliamentary democracy and the principles of self-government.
...
The EU's powers are supposedly limited in this document but there is an escape clause in case the Brussels-based bureaucracy ever feels boxed in by popular sentiment. The decisions in Brussels are final and EU laws supersede laws made by national parliaments.
...
The formal adoption of the EU constitution will result in one of two possible outcomes. Either the constitutional welfare provisions will be discretely ignored, because of their prohibitive cost and negative effect on European economic growth, or their enforcement will lead to even greater central government regulation of European social and economic life.

I'm Grudgingly Gaining Respect for Michael Kinsley
Here is a part of his current article in Slate:

Admission to a prestige institution like the University of Michigan or its law school is what computer types call a "binary" decision. It's yes or no. You're in, or you're out. There is no partial or halfway admission. The effect of any factor in that decision is also binary. It either changes the result or it doesn't. It makes all the difference, or it makes none at all. Those are the only possibilities.

For any individual, the process of turning factors into that yes-or-no decision doesn't matter. Any factor that changes the result has the same impact as if it were an absolute quota of one. It gets you in, or it keeps you out. And this is either right or it is wrong. The process of turning factors into a result doesn't matter here, either. In this sense, the moral question is binary, too.

For 25 years, since Justice Powell's opinion in the Bakke case, moderates on the Supreme Court and well-meaning people throughout the land have been pretending that it is possible to split a difference that cannot be split. This week's court ruling, in which Justice O'Connor contrasts the college and law-school admissions systems at Michigan and essentially reaffirms Bakke, shows how laughable that pretense has become.

Have you Ever Wondered Why Malpractice Insurance Is So High?
Attorney's dreaming up cute things like "wrongful life" suits doesn't help.

Boz on A Great Baseball Season
Thomas Boswell reports:

Welcome to fantasyland. Everybody in baseball is clueless and loving it.

At the moment, at least 15 teams are legitimate postseason contenders. Why,
somebody tell the commissioner that the modest-market Twins and Astros are
in first place. Just as important, rich franchises that were feared to be
prohibitively good, especially the New York Yankees, already have clear
problems. Say, is Joe Torre still managing up there in the Bronx?

Everywhere you look there's cheerful chaos. Last year's world champs, the
Angels, can't even stay above .500. The expensive Mets are a disaster while
the impoverished Kansas City Royals are a game out of first place. The
Dodgers and Giants, whose ancient feud was losing fire, are battling for
first. And the Chicago Cubs, not the Arizona Diamondbacks, have the leading
pair of strikeout artists in the game. Move aside aging Randy Johnson and
Curt Schilling. Make way for young Kerry Wood and Mark Prior.
...
In baseball, nothing succeeds like money. But brainpower still finishes a
pretty respectable runner-up. Feel free to say that Gillick's humble
rotation can't finish the season ahead of Roger Clemens, Mike Mussina, David
Wells, Andy Pettitte, Jose Contreras and Jeff Weaver. Guys like Meche,
Franklin and Piñeiro can't keep it up, right? But Jarrod Washburn, Ramon
Ortiz and John Lackey kept it up for the Angels all last season. They went
42-19. This season, they're 18-20, which is far closer to what you'd expect
after studying their career records if you exclude their magical '02 season.
But the Angels get to keep their Series rings all the same.

David Well is a Cy Young Candidate at 40
According to ESPN's Rob Neyer:

In 108 innings this season, David Wells has issued four walks.

Four.

Without running through the names, suffice to say that if Wells continues to
pitch like this, he's going to wind up at the top of just about every list
of control pitchers you'd care to construct. Wells turned 40 last month
and -- oh, by the way -- at 9-2 with a 3.26 ERA, he has to be taken
seriously as a Cy Young candidate.

Dumb Car Phone Experiment
News articles are reporting that "Talking on a mobile phone while driving your car is just as dangerous when using hands-free equipment as when holding the phone in your hand, according to a Swedish study published on Monday." The problem is that the design of the experiment cannot possibly show that mobile phone are dangerous. This is because the study did not compare talking on a cell phone, to merely talking to a passenger or driving alone. Examing the risks of driving alone, or driving while talking to a passenger, the study is worthless because it only shows that talking on a regular phone and talking while using hands-free equipment has the same degree of risk. This risk may be more or less than the risk of driving alone or driving while talking to a passenger. Which is it? Who knows, the study designers didn't care to craft an experiment that would provide any useful information.

Why Republicans Struggle on Environmental Issues
Below is the introduction to an action alert from the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Of course it is filled with lies and hyperbole, but it is a good example of good political rhetoric. It is powerful because it is emotive and affect the target audience of people with an emotional tie to the environment. Conservatives' messages on the environmental seldom contains anything as emotionally affecting as this:

We are currently bearing witness to what could quite possibly be the most
vicious attack on our most fundamental environmental protections ever waged
in this country. Instead of showing foresight and a vision for a healthier,
cleaner, more sustainable environment, like one might imagine our leadership
would be in the twenty-first century, we are seeing rollbacks and giant
leaps backward. In the face of this adversity, we must remain committed to
our passion for the wild places that are coming under fire from careless
administrative directives. Your voice makes a difference, but if we do not
fight to protect our natural heritage, no one will. Please take action
today to stave off the Bush administration's multiple assaults on Utah's
redrock wilderness.

The President is the Chief Executive Officer
The Washington Post has an article today about the EPA's Draft Report on the Environment. The New York Times last week was apoplectic that the White House had edited part of the document to reduce what was said about global warming. The New York Times and Washington Post need to remember that the President is the Chief Executive and as such, he is the head of EPA. Just because the Whitehouse wanted to edit the report does not suppose nefarious purposes, but rather the normal political process.

It reminds me of a report EPA released a couple years ago about air quality. In the Executive Summary, it said that "air quality was the best on record." This sounds to me to be a something the EPA should be shouting about--something they might want to up as the headline in the press release. They did no such thing. That sentence was on about page 5 of the Executive Summary and most of the Executive Summary complained about millions of Americans living in areas that violated clean air standards for a couple hours every year. The EPA wouldn't publicize something how the air has gotten cleaner, because they always want to be increasing their budget, and one way an agency increases its budget is to always have a problem to solve.

According to the Post, the EPA report says, "Sprawl is accelerating, however, with the rate of land development increasing by 150 percent between 1982 and 1997." I don't understand. Isn't it a good things that more people are achieving the American Dream of being able to afford their own home?

If you Have Been Living Under a Rock and Haven't Heard of Copyright Issue Caused by File Sharing...
...then here's a good history of the state of affairs.

Supreme Court Shouldn't Mirror Public Opinion
Because the Supreme Court has no means of carrying out its orders, other than if the Executive Branch decides to, they tend not to stray too far from public opinion. The Washington Post. The Washington Post reports this as a good thing, however, the Supreme Court is designed not to follow public opinion, but rather to be a countermajoritarian institution. It is supposed to correct the majoritarian impulses of the Executive and Congress. Public opinion should not matter to the Court, rather, they should strive to upholding the Constitution (though I doubt some of the Justices have read the Constitution lately).
Here is Clint Bolick's take on the Affirmative Action opinion.

A Lame Argument for Racism
A former president of the University of Michigan writes in today's Post:

by affirming the notion that race may be considered in an appropriate manner in the admissions process -- the court has helped ensure that public and private colleges and universities in the United States will remain accessible to all Americans of all backgrounds. And it has helped ensure that American higher education will continue to educate our youth for the increasingly diverse world they will inherit.

So why is racism appropriate? Why is it appropriate to discriminate against whites? Why is limiting the number of whites increasing the "accessibility to all Americans?" Are whites Americans too? I realize this argument is too logical for some.

Dick Gephardt on "Fixing" the Supreme Court
According to the Volokh Conspiracy, Dick Gephardt said, ""When I'm president, we'll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day." It would be interesting to see him try. As I noted in the post above this one, the Supreme Court cannot enforce its orders, however, in today's world, I think it would be political suicide for a president to blatantly disobey the Supreme Court.

What if Sex in Commercials Had to Be Related to the Product?
Apparently in New Zealand, if your ad has sex in it, the sex has to have something to do with the product, and therefore an ice cream ad needs more than 3 naked people. What would happen to all beer ads if the US had this same requirement?

Speaking of Advertising...
The Chicago Bears have apparently changed their name to "Bears football presented by Bank One." In consideration of this change, the Bank One paid the Bears about $50 million to be the "presenting partner" of the Bears for the next 12 years.

Note: This is an article from the San Jose Mercury, I believe, and the dateline is Philadelphia, so it seems a little fishy to me.

England Wants to Ban Spanking Children
Here's another example of government trying to control every aspect of people's lives. Some MPs in England want to ban spanking. I'm not condoning physical abuse, but spanking does not necessarily constitute physical abuse. If parents physically abuse their children, they can face criminal penalties. This is the way it should be, however, banning spanking is going too far. Worst of all, their main reason for doing this seems to be that spanking is against UN Human Rights rulings:

"The time has come for the Government to act upon ... the incompatibility of the defense of 'reasonable chastisement' with its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child," the committee said.

This is another example of why I don't care for the UN.

Nap 'as good as a full night's sleep'
According to a story from the BBC, a nap is as good as a full night's sleep. I wish that were the case for me.

It's About Time the Administration Talked about Problems in Africa
Personally, I think it was a good thing to get rid of Saddam. But if the Administration is going to be interventionist, they need to be more consistent. In this vein, its about time the Administration is talking about the horrors in Zimbabwe.

A Thought on Life and Impending Death
Ten years ago yesterday, Andrew Sullivan found out he was HIV positive. Check out what he has to say, it's a reminder that life can be fleeting.

Supreme Court Allows Racism to Continue at Colleges
The Supreme Court has allowed the University of Michigan to contiue racism in admissions. Again, it just goes to show that liberals and other leftists are the only ones promoting racism and discrimination in America today.

As Eugene Volokh points out on The Volokh Conspiracy:

Justice Kennedy's dissent makes it clear that he agrees with the majority on this general principle, though he would allow only a much smaller degree of this discrimination. "There is no constitutional objection to the goal of considering race as one modest factor among many others to achieve diversity."

Incidentally, though some defenders of race preferences dislike the use of the term "discrimination" in this context, that's exactly what it is. As the Supreme Court has held, City of Los Angeles Dep't of Water & Power v. Manhart, 435 U.S. 702, 711 (1978) (opinion of Justice Stevens, joined by, among others, Justice Marshall), the "simple test" for what "constitutes discrimination" is whether a program "treats a person in a manner which but for that person's sex would be different" (in the context of sex discrimination), and the same, it seems to me, is equally true for race, religion, national origin, and so on. And "considering race as" even "one modest factor" in decisionmaking necessarily treats some people "in a manner which but for that person's [race] would be different."

Why I Went to Law School
This story is outrageous. The reason I went to law school was to have the tools to fight these kind of abuses of government power. The mayor and the city council of Lakewood, Ohio want to raze

about 50 other houses and four apartment buildings, to make way for a $151 million shopping, movie and townhouse complex. If they get their way, a Wild Oats organic market will rise on the Saleet's bulldozed memories, and pay taxes that Lakewood desperately needs.

"No one wants to see people lose their homes, but this is absolutely necessary for our future," Cain said.

Thank goodness for groups like Institute for Justice that fight tyrannical cities.

I honestly don't understand Liberals and other leftists. They think of property rights as something that can be stolen if the government says so. Their arguments that "It's good the good of society" can be made equal well to justify slavery. What liberals never think through their arguments to realize that.

3.2 GHz Pentium 4 is Out
This is what HardOCP has to say about it:

Our buddy Scott Wasson at TechReport summed it up best in a couple of sentences.

I also reserve the right to mock you for paying $300 for an extra 200MHz.

...and

The Pentium 4 2.8GHz generally matches or outperforms the Athlon XP 3200+, and the P4 2.8GHz is selling for around $275, or over $160 less than the 3200+.

Considering you have a very good chance at seeing a 3.0GHz or better overclock out of a Pentium 4 2.4C on a Springdale or Canterwood board, things look even more promising.

Tom's Hardware as a good write up of the P4 3.2 GHz versus the Athlon 3200+. What is most interesting is the discussion of new products from Intel and AMD, namely the P5 and the Athlon 64. Something to consider when buying a new computer in the next year is that Intel will have a new socket for its P5s in Q2 2004 and AMD will should have a new socket for its processors also.

Many at the State Department Want to Embarass the President
This article argues that many people at the State Department want to embarass the President.

State wanted Baathists to remain as a significant part of the post-Saddam transitional authority in Iraq, in large part because Foggy Bottom officials believed that those Saddam loyalists were the only ones with the requisite knowledge and skill sets to effectively manage the country. Until new civilian administrator Paul Bremer issued a sweeping de-Baathification order last month banishing some 15,000 to 30,000 former high-ranking party members from holding any public office State was successful in installing Saddam loyalists into any number of key positions. One of the most vivid examples was State reinstating as president of Baghdad University Saddam Hussein's personal physician.

Proving that they are, in fact, exceedingly skillful bureaucrats, State officials managed to conceal for three weeks North Korea's March 31 admission to them that it was reprocessing plutonium, the first time Pyongyang had conceded that. Had State told the White House and the Pentagon, the talks with North Korea and China slated to start on April 23 in Beijing likely would have been canceled. But because of State's shielding of the information, the talks went off as planned.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds
I've been underwhelmed by William Safire's arguments lately. His latest article provides yet another example. His argument may be right, but he fails to lay the proper foundation for why he is correct:

With the world's fifth-largest economy and the world's fifth-largest oil exporter both in such a fix, a pundit should take a consistent stand. Thus:

Venezuelans should be given their right to oust their power-expanding president, because Chavez would then have the right to run in a subsequent race against the choice of the opposition. If that bunch cannot unite, they deserve their Castroite bully.

But Californians should suffer Gray Davis for three more years, voting like grown-ups not as penance for their mistake last year, but to uphold the principle that election results are final for a fixed term and officeholders should not be removed merely when ratings fall.

Why I Hate the NCAA
When I was in college I did a research project. As part of it, read "The Hundred Yard Lie: The Corruption of College Football and What We Can Do to Stop It" by Rick Telander. It changed the way I thought about the NCAA. This is what Amazon has to say about the book:

The crux of the problem, he argues, is hypocrisy--on the part of colleges, which claim they are producing "student athletes," when they are cheating players academically; coaches, who assert they are building character when, instead, they care only about winning; boosters, who help colleges "buy" the best talent; and the NCAA, which produces little but sanctimonious platitudes in defense of a corrupt system. Telander's plans to remedy matters include establishing professional teams of 18-to-22-year-old non-students, headquartered at colleges, with no undergraduates allowed on the teams. His righteous indignation is infectious and potent.

Kermit on Affirmative Action
When I was at Utah State, George Emert was the president. He spent an inordinate amount of time and money trying to improve USU's football team, all of which prove a disaster. Now Kermit Hall is the president of USU, and I don't know much about him, but at least he can think straight. Here's Kermit take on affirmative action and the current supreme court about affirmative action.

Supporters of the University of Michigan, which has been sued for using racial preferences in its undergraduate and law-school admissions programs, warn that not only will this highly selective campus lose its ability to fashion a diverse student body, but a negative decision by the justices will have a long-term chilling effect on building diversity in all of higher education. They also imply that by not attending selective institutions, minority and other students will have reduced life chances, and the nation's well-being - as measured by the number of talented minority graduates entering key leadership posts - will be diminished.
...
But the University of Michigan and other elite institutions that practice highly selective admissions hardly represent the world of American higher education.
...
To argue now that the diversification of American higher education will come to a screeching halt as a result of a negative decision in the Michigan cases seems strained, at best. The high court may decide against the University of Michigan, but such a ruling is unlikely to deflect the vast majority of institutions from their missions of opportunity.
...
We do not now, and never will, have to depend alone on a handful of highly selective institutions to produce our future leaders. A review of the 2003 Almanac of American Politics makes clear that the nation's political leaders most often receive their degrees from institutions that rely on broad-based admissions. More than 70 percent of the CEO's of America's top companies attended colleges that are best described as less selective in their admissions policies, according to Forbes magazine.
...
Better financial support for needy students, and for the work of the colleges that strive day in and day out to provide educational opportunities for all students, will make the real difference.

Adam Curry
I've wondered what has become of old VJs. Adam Curry has apparently been making a lot of money, and he has his own blog.

Scare Mongering On Media Ownership
In an article about a Senate Panel voting to overturn changed made by the FCC media ownership, Tom Shales writes, "The keystone of Powell's plan would have raised the limit on how many broadcast stations one corporation could own -- from coverage of 35 percent of U.S. households, the current limit, to a new and dangerous 45 percent maximum." A new and dangerous 45 percent? What's so dangerous about 45 percent that isn't dangerous at 35 percent? What are the criteria? This is a perfect example of what has ticked me off about this whole debate--unsubstantiated claims of "big media" taking over. SHOW ME ONE EXAMPLE!! That's all I ask, but quit making unsupportable claims like 45% is dangerous, but 35% isn't.

The Jury is Still Out on "James'" Ossuary
Apparently, there isn't agreement about whether or not the ossuary is a fake or not. Politics and a personal vendetta may be at play:

The lack of certainty about the inscription's authenticity might be as much due to politics as to the patina.

"There's a conflict among the geologists, and there's even more conflict among the paleographers," said Meinhardt. "This is a panel of respected scholars who have put out this statement, but I suspect there was disagreement within the panel."

Keall suggested that "a political agenda" might have motivated the IAA to release this statement. The authority has been in public squabbles with the owner of the ossuary, Oded Golan, since November, when Golan allowed the ossuary to leave Israel for the exhibit at the Toronto museum.

Mayor Anthony Williams and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton Have their Panties in a Twist
In a press conference Rumsfeld suggested that the homicide rate in Baghdad was less than in DC. Mayor Williams and Eleanor holds Norton went ballistic, over this comparision. Mayor Williams said, "Secretary Rumsfeld's comments regarding the District of Columbia were unfortunate, unappreciated and ill-advised." Williams continued, "Secretary Rumsfeld should demonstrate a greater level of sensitivity to the challenges being faced by U.S. mayors and governors."

But it glaringly obvious is what Williams did not say. He did not say that Rumsfeld was wrong, only that Rumsfeld was "insensitive." Again, its just another example of how liberals can't handle the truth.

Lame Washington Post Reporting
For the second day in a row, I read a Washington Post story that lacks the very information you would expect from the title of the article. In today's article, "Senate Approves Generic Drug Measure" you would expect that the article would explain the general gist of the changes. Instead, this is the sum total of the information about the changes:

The Senate adopted, 94 to 1, a proposal meant to make generic medicine more rapidly available as lawmakers continued debating whether to redesign Medicare. By changing federal patent law, the plan seeks to make lower-priced medicine more accessible to consumers of all ages and to the government.

Well, what are the changes to federal patent law? I don't think it is asking too much to quickly explain what they are, unless of course, the author doesn't know.

Yesterday, the Post ran a front page story entitled, "Stuck in Rinse Cycle, D.C. Region Tries to Cope." I would expect the article to say how much it has rained. Instead of a graph saying that it has "rained XX inches this month, and the XX inches this year. This is XX percent more rain than average," The story relies on anecdotes to say that it has rained a lot. The problem with anecdotes is that they prove no proof that it has rained a lot, and if indeed it has rained a lot, how different is that than more. Anecdotes are important to a good story, but the cold hard facts are the real story, not how Sarah Hammond, 33, feels "like I've been beaten down by [the rain]."

Whiteness
I find it interesting how much liberals obsess about the fact many of them were born white. Personally, I don't consider myself as white, but as an American. By promoting ridiculous things like "whiteness studies" these people are only perpetuating the very racism they purport to fight. What happened to the dream of one living in "a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character?"

"You looked behind you and became really uncomfortable," said Cairns, a 24-year-old junior who stood at the front of the classroom with other white students. Asian and black students she admired were near the back. "We all started together," she said, "and now were so separated."

The privilege walk was part of a course in whiteness studies, a controversial and relatively new academic field that seeks to change how white people think about race. The field is based on a left-leaning interpretation of history by scholars who say the concept of race was created by a rich white European and American elite, and has been used to deny property, power and status to nonwhite groups for two centuries.

Advocates of whiteness studies -- most of whom are white liberals who hope to dismantle notions of race -- believe that white Americans are so accustomed to being part of a privileged majority they do not see themselves as part of a race.
...
Winnie Chen, 22, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, said it pained her to deal with race every day when her white peers seemed to rarely think about it. She tried to discuss race with a white friend once, she said, but he felt ambushed.

"He said I was pulling a Pearl Harbor on him," she said. "It is so difficult for them to think there is another lens. He talked about Irish oppression. I asked, 'Have you ever considered why you're no longer oppressed here when Asians, blacks and Hispanics still are?' "

I find it very curious that the Asians, blacks, and Latinos, etc. are the ones that buy into the distinction between races and keep perpetuating the mental distinctions by constantly drawing attention to the face that people have different colored skin. It makes me want to become a "whiteness" scholar to research why other races believe that "whiteness" means something.

I have no doubt that discrimination still occurs, but getting whites to recognize that they are white will not help matters, if anything, I think it will make this worse. One reason that people identify themselves with a group, whether the group is racial, religious, etc, is to feel a sense of brotherhood in a larger world. Brotherhoods are exclusionary because they are designed to keep numbers small enough that people feel a part of a group. Whites, however, are a part of a very large group, and therefore identifying themselves as part of the majority group doesn't help make them feel brotherhood. Therefore, whites don't identify themselves as white, but with other sub-groups, such as religious groups. Viewed this way, it may be that non-white groups are the ones perpetuating their racial identification to feel brotherhood.

FAA Commissions Safety Study of In-Air Cell Phones
I have always thought that the airline's refusal to allow cellphone use after the cabin door was closed was an attempt to force people to use the expensive air phones. You would have thought that they would have studied the issue year ago, but apparently they haven't (or they don't want to release the results of earlier studies). Apparently they are going to study the issue now.

What is Really Going on with the SCO-IBM Lawsuit
For a while I have been wondering what is really going on with the Utah-based company, SCO, suing IBM and claiming that Linux incorporates copyrighted portions of Unix code. According to this Forbes article, SCO may be a terrible software company, but that doesn't matter, they make money by litigating:

SCO may not be very good at making a profit by selling software. (Last year the company lost $24.9 million on sales of $64.2 million.) But it is very good at getting what it wants from other companies. And it has a tight circle of friends.

In 1996, SCO's predecessor company, Caldera, bought the rights to a decrepit version of the DOS operating system and used it to sue Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ), eventually shaking a settlement out of the Redmond, Wash., software giant. In 1997, Darl McBride, now SCO's chief executive, sued his then employer, IKON Office Solutions (nyse: IKN - news - people ), and won a settlement that he says was worth multiple millions. (IKON acknowledges the settlement but disputes the amount.)

While Washington Times editorials are usually correct...
...today's editorial makes me question whether the editors have a clue about what free markets are really about. The editorial argues that "a prescription-drug law actually will be good for the market." The editorial can only make this claim becuase they confuse what is good for business as being what is good for the market. The editorial argues:

Currently, almost 50 percent of all Medicare recipients do not have adequate prescription-drug coverage that allows them to get the prescriptions they need. Once a prescription-drug law is passed, pharmaceutical companies will get more business as millions of Americans will be purchasing drugs they couldn't previously.

So how will these people be suddenly able to buy more drugs? There are three ways this could happen: (1) drug companies could lower their prices, (2) seniors could suddenly start paying more for drugs, or (3) John Q. Public, and the rest of America could subsidizes the cost of drugs. Because some pharmaceutical companies support this bill, it does not look like they will lower their prices and becuase seniors aren't going to be happy if their new drug "benefit" cost them more money. So we are left with the third, possibility--regular citizens will susidize drugs for seniors.

This prescription drug benefit may make things better for pharmaceutical companies and senios, but it comes at the expense of taxpayers. Subsidies are the antithesis of a free market and the Washington Times should know better than to think that was is good for companies is good of "the market."

Leningrad, Florida--Cops Shut Down 6-year-old's Lemonade Stand

A six-year-old girl was heartbroken when her small lemonade stand was put out of business because she didn’t have a temporary business permit. A neighbor called the police and her stand was shut down.

Actually, this story isn't as bad as it sounds. The city was allowed her to get a temporary business license for whenever she wants to ahve a lemonade stand, and the cops that shut her down bought some lemonade.

Stalingrad, Iowa--You can't expand that stand unless you put in a bathroom

A planned expansion of a gyro stand is on hold while city officials decide whether the mobile food vendor should build restrooms for customers.

The City of Ames has asked a judge to order the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals to specify whether vendor Matthew Goodman must provide an adequate number of approved toilets and hand washing facilities as required by Iowa law.

When a law seems absurd, check to see who is complaining about the law. While this law is absolutely absurd, it provides a useful example of why laws like this exist. They exist because they are a way to discriminate against certain types of businesses. As the article says, "Last November, the owner a [sic] sandwich shop asked the city to revoke Goodman's vending license because of a lack of bathrooms." This isn't a case of the city being especially exigent, but a competitor using the law to try to gain a business advantage.

Should Orrin Destory His Server?
According to the Amish Tech Support Blog, it looks like "The Songwriting Senator" may be violating copyright law with some Javascript code on his website. Better destory his server just "teach him a lesson."

Guns, Germs, and a Weak Argument
What is the common link between Haiti, Somalia, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, the Philippines and Indonesia? Jared Diamond claims that the common link is that they all have damaged their ecosystems and as a result you get a bad government. The question Diamond really needs to ask is "why has the environment been damged in these places?"

The problem in these countries is not a lack of environmental resources, but rather, a lack of property rights upon which people can build a system of exchange. When property rights are secure, people will not destroy their lands, becuase they need the long term productive use of that land.

A broader problem with Diamond's argument is that ultimately his argument is that environmental resources determines a country's fate. This does not explain the success of places like Hong Kong, which are very, very resource poor. The most important resources are human resources and the best way to promote those resources is allow people to be free to decide what niche they want to fill in society.

The Hulk
After watching The Incredible Hulk as a kid, I was looking forward to the movie, especially since it was directed by Ang Lee (the Director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). However, when I saw the first previews with the stupid-looking computer-generated cartoon Hulk, I was left longering for Lou Ferigno in green paint. Apparently, my instincts were correct. According to this review, the movie stinks.

The Case for Sweatshops
When I lived in Ecuador, I never met someone who wasn't happy to work any job. They were happy to be working because they were so poor. David Henderson has written a good article about people working in these so-called "Sweatshops":

Candida Rosa Lopez, an employee in a Nicaraguan garment factory, works long hours over a sewing machine at less than a dollar an hour. Interviewed recently by a Miami Herald reporter, Ms. Lopez has a message for people in the United States and other wealthy countries who are nervous about buying goods from "sweatshops": "I wish more people would buy the clothes we make."

Contrary to what you have heard, sweatshops in third-world countries are a good deal for the people who work in them. Why? Because work, other than slave labor, is an exchange. A worker chooses a particular job because she thinks herself better off in that job than at her next-best alternative. Most of us would regard a low-paying job in Nicaragua or Honduras as a lousy job. But we're not being asked to take those jobs. Those jobs are the best options those workers have, or else they would quit and work elsewhere. You don't make someone better off by taking away the best of a bunch of bad choices.

Small Form Factor Computer
My next computer will be a Small Form Factor Computer, something like this probably. However, I hope to wait until next year when AMD has finally released the Athlon 64 and Intel has released their new processors that use a different socket, and motheboards have PCI Express. It would be frustrating to upgrade before these changes. Then again, if I can't play Doom 3, I might have to upgrade sooner.

Jesus artefact 'a fake'
According to the BBC:

An ancient burial casket, claimed by its owner to contain the bones of Jesus' brother, has been declared a fake by Israeli antiquities experts.

Comrade General Wesley Clark
I don't know who Rachel Lucas is, but I sure like her. On her blog she says:

General Wesley Clark (D-USSR) is insane

I quote from his interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press this weekend:

"Secondly, the tax cuts weren’t fair. I mean, the people that need the money and deserve the money are the people who are paying less, not the people who are paying more. I thought this country was founded on a principle of progressive taxation."

Those. Words. Came. Out. Of. His. Mouth. He thought them and then he said them out loud. And for some ungodly reason, Russert didn't stare at him in disbelief, send someone for copies of the goddamn Communist Manifesto and the United States Constitution, and then proceed to strike Clark about the head and neck with those documents until Clark admitted on national television that he's an unmitigated idiot.

David Broder, Master of the Obvious
While Zamfir may be the master of the pan flute, David Broder is the Master (maybe even Grandmaster) of the Obvious. Nothing gets by this guy. When Broder concludes an article like this, you would assume that Grover Norquist really would have said something interesting:

For once Norquist may have underestimated himself. The amount of talk his essay has engendered makes it clear it was as much an alarm bell to the Democrats as a rallying cry for the Republicans.

A wide variety of Democratic groups are gearing up for what they describe as "long-term strategies" for their party's comeback. Norquist clearly has told them that the Republicans already are well-advanced on such a plan.

When Anais sent me his I thought that Broder must quote Norquist as giving some grand unknown Republican strategy. Here is the sum total of what Broder wrote about Norquist:

He foresees Bush signing into law measures to abolish both the estate tax (or "death tax," as he calls it) and the capital gains tax. He also expects to see a statute that will make all savings accounts tax free. This is hardly speculative. Bush already has seen Congress pass a phaseout of estate taxes and a reduction in capital gains levies. The tax-free savings idea was floated by the Treasury last winter but temporarily set aside. With an increase in corporate deductions for capital investments and an end to the alternative minimum tax -- designed to catch those who would otherwise shelter all their income -- Norquist says the Bush era will eventually produce the conservatives' dream of a flat-rate income tax. When janitors and CEOs have to give the same share of their paychecks to Uncle Sam, Norquist foresees voters uniting in a continuing demand for ever-lower rates -- and no longer will Democrats be able to advocate tax hikes that target only the top brackets.

The consequence of this -- not spelled out in his essay but clearly in his mind -- is a massive rollback in federal revenue and what he regards as a desirable shrinkage of federal services and benefits. In short, the goal is a system of government wiped clean, on both the revenue and spending side, of almost a century's accumulation of social programs designed to provide a safety net beneath the private economy.

Well, what's the surprise here? I don't necessarily run in the highest Republican political circles, but it is no surprise that some Republicans want a flat tax and they want a lot less government spending. In fact, it seems downright obvious. If the Democrats haven't realized that before now, then I have been giving them too much credit.

Sadly, however, Norquist is wrong. Bush is not acting like he wants to cut spending. As Mark Levin pointed out on The Corner at NRO:

It appears that President Bush is not only a supply-sider who supports tax cuts, but he's a demand-sider who supports massive new government spending.

President Bush opposed, and then supported, expanding federal spending for agriculture subsidies. He opposed, and then supported, repeated extentions of unemployment insurance. He joined with Ted Kennedy in massively increasing federal spending for education. He opposed, and then supported, federalizing tens of thousands of airport security personnel. He supported billions in subsidies to the airline industry. He opposed, and then supported, the establishment of a huge and cumbersome new bureaucracy to oversee homeland security. He's pressuring Republican House leaders to support a $10 billion gift to non-taxpayers in the form of child-tax-credit increases. He opposed, and now supports, an expensive expansion of the soon-to-be bankrupt Medicare program to include prescription drug subsidies to all seniors, regardless of ability to pay. Meanwhile, Social Security continues to pile up tens of billions in obligations, and the president has yet to submit to Congress a long-promised privatization program--once a domestic priority.

Boy, this "compassionate conservatism" is getting mighty expensive.

If Bush cared about cutting the budget, you would think he would start doing it. Grandmaster of the Obvious, David Broder, gives Bush too much credit.

Thanks to Anais for sending me the article and thanks to Jeremy for the link to the Mark Levin quote.

Greedy Geezers
Paul Campos, the author of this piece, taught the first property class I took in law school. He was a funny guy, and as a bonus he apparently thinks correctly about a Medicare prescription drug benefit:

This bill is essentially a $400 billion bribe, designed to buy votes in next year's election. At a time when it has become more obvious than ever that the Medicare program is destined to bankrupt the federal treasury, this bill features no structural reforms, no real means testing, and no economic logic.

It is, in fact, the purest sort of political thievery, taking the wages of the working poor (Medicare is the most regressive tax program in the federal budget) and giving them to a politically powerful bloc of voters, without regard to who among those voters needs or deserves a piece of this spectacularly unjust giveaway.
...
Which brings me back to Homer and his far-out sports car. Why doesn't Homer [Campo's friend] stop lighting money on fire and instead save it for his retirement? I'll tell you why: Because he isn't a sucker. After all, he can be sure somebody else is going to pay for a solid chunk of his golden years, whether he needs help or not. It's the American way.

Note to Thomas Friedman: this is an example of moral hazard--then the government will bail you out, there is no incentive to save. If you missed by post about Friedman's lack of understand about microeconomics, here's the link.

Detriot is in Trouble
American automakers are in trouble, thanks in no part to Unions:

America's car industry is in a trap. It has one-fifth more capacity than it needs. Japan's big three (Toyota, Nissan and Honda) now make a full range of models in America, and manage to sell them without deep discounts. The reaction of any normal industry to such overcapacity would be to shrink, paying attention to profits not sales. But Detroit is not normal. Its labour contracts with the unions restrict its ability to close factories quickly. Jack Smith, a former chairman of GM, used to complain that he would have to wait until his workers retired to get numbers down and make factories more efficient.
...
Can Detroit escape the grim reaper a third time? The odds look poor. In the past seven years Detroit's share of the American market has slid from 73% to barely 63%. If SUVs, pick-ups and the like are excluded, the big three's share of the passenger-car market is already under half. The backlash against gas-guzzling vehicles can only be bad for Detroit. And the Japanese and German car companies have begun to produce models that compete head-on with such American icons as Ford's F-150 truck. If the Japanese repeat their success with smaller cars, the big three's last profitable redoubt will be overrun. The extinction of America's car giants is no longer just a bad dream: it is coming closer to reality

Another problem that this article does not touch on is that American cars are no longers stylish or cool. One example of this lack of cool can be found by looking at the cars used in "The Fast and the Furious" and its sequel. These carsploitation films don't feature American cars, but Japanese rice rockets.

If American car makers are losing the next generation, will they ever switch back to American cars? Personally I doubt it. I have no desire to drive an American car.

Dinesh D'Souza on How the West grew rich
In an article in the Washington Times, Dinesh D'Souza says:

The real cause of Western wealth and power is the dynamic interaction of science, capitalism and democracy. Working together, these institutions have created our commercial, technological, participatory society.

Robert Samuelson on Affirmative Action
I have never been very impressed with Robert Samuelson, but maybe he getting better. In this article he makes some good points, as well as some lame ones. He starts strong with a lame point:

Whatever niceties were skirted, the big-city machines advanced the promise of opportunity for all. People largely excluded from power and wealth got some of both. It is possible to see affirmative action as the latest chapter in this story. Racial preferences in college admissions -- policies such as those at the University of Michigan, which are now before the Supreme Court -- involve admitted discrimination. But they do open up "mainstream" institutions to outsiders.

No Robert, college admission is nothing like political machines. Political machines were attempts to gain power at the expense of others. Affirmative action is an attempt to gain power at the expense of others. Affirmative action is not best analogized as an attempt to fight political machines, affirmative action mimics the political machines.

In the end, I have to ask, what is wrong with Martin Luther's dream that we could live in "a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. " Government institutions should be colorblind, end of story. Pragmatism in this context must be seen for what it is--a promotion of discrimination.

Stop bleating about WMD and listen to how Nasir's mother was executed in a pit
While we need to figure out the story about Saddam's weapon's of mass destruction, we can't lose sight of what kind of leader Saddam was.

The UN could have gone on passing resolutions and sending in inspectors and rapporteurs for the next 50 years, but in the end there was no realistic alternative to war. Those who bleat about weapons of mass destruction or question the legality of war should talk to the Iraqi people. They are irritated. They ask, “Don’t they care about us? About mass graves? About torture?” Stand at the mass grave at al-Hillah where up to 15,000 people are buried, hands tied behind their backs, bullets through their brains. Examine the pitiful possessions found so far: a watch, a faded ID card, a comb, a ring, a clump of black hair. Watch the old woman in her black chador, tattoos on her gnarled hands, looking through the plastic bags on top of unidentified, reburied bodies, for something that will help her to find her son, who disappeared in 1991.
...
The killing fields of al-Hillah and Kirkuk look unremarkable. Shepherds graze their sheep, children play on bikes. But also here are some of the hundreds and thousands of the perhaps 800,000 of the dead of this country. Saddam’s victims: Shias, Kurds, Communists, the people of Iraq. Now the secrets of this evil and despotic regime are being revealed. How much more killing could there have been?

Gay Marriage
Canada has decided to legalize gay marriage. I have nothing against homosexuality and I have nothing against gays or lesbians living together, but I think gay marriage is a bad idea. I do not believe that gay marriage is a basic human right as this article argues. Marriage between a man and a woman should be promoted by the law because it produces important results for society. Namely it encourages men to stay with their lives and children, and if I remember correctly studies show that children do much better when they have a Mom and Dad at home.

I do not see any good results created by allowing same sex marriage. All people should be treated equally under the law, but that does not mean that the law should give special treatment in very special cases, such as traditional marriage.

This story also shows how some people fundamentally misconceive notions about the real meaning of freedom. Canadian Justice Minister Martin Cauchon said that "We're talking about essential freedoms here." Wrong, freedom is being free to make your own choices. Freedom is about being free from restrictions and oppression. In the context of hetro and homosexuality, real freedom is about being free to decide who you fall in love with.

Governments don't give people freedom, at best they provide institutions such as a police force and a legal system, which allows people to be free. Canada hasn't given anybody any new freedom, they have have only conferred an additional benefit.

Orrin Wants to Legalize Hacking
According to this article in the Post, Orrin Hatch wants to allow people to "remotely destroy the computers of peop who illegally download music."

"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can't.

"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."

Orrin probably thinks he has missed out on millions in royalties because people must be swapping his music on Kazaa.

Poor David Schwimmer
I don't care much for the TV show "Friends" and I especially do not like David Schwimmer's character. But poor David Schwimmer was a bit taken back when he gave a speach at Northwestern and all of the questions were as lame as his character on Friends. According to the Chicago Tribune

"I was so sad on my drive home," Schwimmer says a few days removed from his Northwestern appearance, sitting over a beer in the back room of Jack's tavern on Southport Avenue. "You would have thought they would have taken advantage of an opportunity like that. I was so disappointed in the level of stupidity of the questions. It was all like, 'Who's the best kisser?' "

The Council on Europe Doesn't Understand the Internet
In response to heaven knows what, the "Council on Europe, a quasi governmental body that drafts conventions and treaties" has a proposal for the Internet.

The all-but-final proposal draft says that Internet news organizations, individual Web sites, moderated mailing lists and even Web logs (or "blogs"), must offer a "right of reply" to those who have been criticized by a person or organization.

With clinical precision, the council's bureaucracy had decided exactly what would be required. Some excerpts from its proposal:

• "The reply should be made publicly available in a prominent place for a period of time (that) is at least equal to the period of time during which the contested information was publicly available, but, in any case, no less than for 24 hours."

• Hyperlinking to a reply is acceptable. "It may be considered sufficient to publish (the reply) or make available a link to it" from the spot of the original mention.

• "So long as the contested information is available online, the reply should be attached to it, for example through a clearly visible link."

• Long replies are fine. "There should be flexibility regarding the length of the reply, since there are (fewer) capacity limits for content than (there are) in off-line media."

Are they absolutely insane? How crazy is it provide a forum for any person who you many criticize. Instead of fostering free speech, this would retard it. But, then again, since when does Europe believe in free speech.

The Sun is Good for You
Life is fun of trade offs and apparently, being in the sun is no exception:

Can sunshine, now shunned by so many who fear skin cancer and wrinkles, save many more lives than it harms? Most definitely, says a leading expert in the field, Dr. Michael F. Holick, a professor of medicine, dermatology, physiology and biophysics at the Boston University School of Medicine.
...
He has concluded that relatively brief but unfettered exposure to sunshine or its equivalent several times a week can help to ward off a host of debilitating and sometimes deadly diseases, including osteoporosis, hypertension, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, depression and cancers of the colon, prostate and breast.

In other words, Dr. Holick says, sunshine is good medicine.

But like all medicines, the right dosage is critical to reaping the rewards that sunlight has to offer without suffering unwanted consequences.

Keyboard Use Does Not Pose a Major Risk for Carpal Tunnel
Despite the fact that my keyboard contains this warning, "Some experts believe that the use of any keyboard may cuase serious injury. Consult statement on back of this keyboard." The back of the keyboard contains a long description of to avoid injury. However, according to the largest study on the topic, " Frequent on-the-job use of a computer keyboard does not pose a major risk for carpal tunnel syndrome."

But what about all we were told in the 1980s and '90s about how too much time at the keyboard could harm us? Turns out none of that was backed up with science; it was all just common belief.

...

But while the Danish researchers may have exonerated the computer keyboard as a leading villain, the mouse remains suspect. According to the study, there was a small but significant association between use of a mouse device for more than 20 hours per week and a risk of carpal tunnel syndrome.

If You Think a Marathon is Just Child's Play
Then go run South Africa's Comrades Marathon. You have to run 54 miles in 12 hours to get a medal.

Another Good Terry Pratchett Book
I just finished "Night Watch" by Terry Pratchett. The book was quite enjoyable. It wasn't as funny as Pratchett's early books, but it was still witty and the story was engaging. It is the 18th Terry Pratchett book I have read and I have enjoyed every one.

Conservatives Loved to be Loved by Liberals
I wish that someone, anyone, would provide an argument of why the FCC's decision to ease some regulation is bad, or why it is a "big-media power grab." as William Safire seems to think it is. I want a concrete examples of how this will result in less choices. Since the media consolidation that followed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 large companies such as Clear Channel have purches thousands of radio stations, but what has been the effect of the purchases. If the FCC is so wrong, you would think that there would be some glaring examples. Since I haven't seen a single example, I doubt there are many or maybe even any.

Thank Goodness David Brower Chose Poorly
Today's Salt Lake Tribune reports:

Fifty years ago this month, David Brower fell in love with the Yampa, and the Green and the Colorado rivers downstream. In the years that followed, a time before the word "environmentalist" existed, the activist rallied the nation against two dams planned for canyons just below the Yampa, dams that would have forever changed the landscape into vast lakes.

This article doesn't say it, but David Brower and the Bureau of Reclamation made a deal--the Bureau wouldn't dam the Yampa and Colorado at Echo Park in Dinosaur National Monument, and in exchange the Sierra Club wouldn't fight Glen Canyon Dam. Thank goodness, since Lake Powell is a wonderful place.

On a side note, those of us who love wilderness need to keep in mind that wilderness is exclusionary and elitist. As the article also notes:

For instance, Denise Dion, a Maryland-based regulatory consultant and rafting enthusiast, agrees that motors should be restricted in the Grand Canyon, but not banned, because motorized rafts make the place much more accessible to the public.
"I want to go to pristine areas," she said. "But my aunt, she wants to see them, too. She's 70," and cannot get around easily without the help of paved paths and motorized conveyances.
Dion called the push for a motor ban "elitist."

Read My Lips, Thomas Friedman, Give More Money to Uncle Sam
Thomas Friedman, and others who believe that American don't pay enough taxes need to put their money where there mouths are and write donations to the IRS. In an opinion piece opinion piece in that great bastion of socialism, the New York Times, Friedman writes,

Whenever Mr. Bush says, "It's not the government's money, it's your money," Democrats should point out that what he is really saying is, "It's not the government's services, it's your services" — and thanks to the Bush tax cuts, soon you'll be paying for many of them yourself.

Friedman is a smart man. He should know better than to make these lame arguments.

If Friedman knew about microeconomics, which apparently he doesn't understand, he would realize that when a person values something, they pay for it. Personally, I value the services that Harris Teeter (my favorite grocery store) provides me. For that reason I shop most frequently at Harris Teeter. The federal government provides only a couple of services I would pay any money fo national defense, and the court system. That's it.

I have no ideas what the amorphous government "services" that Friedman thinks are going to be cut? Medicare? Medicaid? Social Security? Sorry Thomas, those aren't services for me, merely taxes.

One of the problems with Friedman's argument is that there is no way to draw a line at where government should stop. If taxes produce "services" and these "ervices" must obviously be worthwhile, then why not give all of our money to the federal government because they obviously know much better than I know which "services" I need.

Friedman needs to put up, or shut up. When he writes a check to the IRS for a sum much greater than his federal tax liability, I will listen to him.

Friedman should also know about a thing called "moral hazard." Moral hazard is about incentives. For example, in the context of insurance, moral hazard holds that if you have insurance, you will be more likely to take risks because you have an insurance safety net. If the government bails out everyone who make fiscal mistakes, you only give people the incentives to make mistakes. However, Friedman argues that less taxes will

in turn will shrink the federal government's ability to help out the already strapped states. Since most states have to run balanced budgets, that will mean less health care and kindergarten for children and the poor, higher state college tuition, smaller local school budgets and fewer state service workers. And Lord only knows how we'll finance Social Security.

Why should the United States bail out struggling states. States are big boys. They can make their own decisions and the federal government should not be in the business of bailing out state's poor choices. As for social security, earth to Friedman, social security is a Ponzi scheme and it will fail under its own weight. You can't save it.

Lastly, from the "what in the hell is he talking about department," Friedman opines

Everyone wants taxes to be cut, but no one wants services to be cut, which is why Democrats have to reframe the debate — and show President Bush for what he really is: a man who is not putting money into your pocket, but who is removing government services and safety nets from your life.

The last time I checked I actually got money back when taxes were cut last, but I'm hard pressed to figure out what these neat "services" are that the federal government gives to me.

"The Book of Mormon is also filled with liberal political teachings"
In an article in today's Deseret News, Ted Wilson, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah claims,

Utah's right wing has done an exceptional job of identifying religious teachings in the Book of Mormon that support their extreme political ideology, rarely drawing a distinction between religion and politics.
"But the Book of Mormon is also filled with liberal political teachings. Unfortunately, (those on the political left) have not done as good a job identifying those teachings," Wilson said.

What praytell would be the "liberal political teachings?" I assume that Ted it talking about teachings such as Mosiah 4:26 which reads,

And now, for the sake of these things which I have spoken unto you—that is, for the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may awalk guiltless before God—I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants.

While I'm not sure that Ted has this scripture (or others like it) in mind, this does not support leftist ideology. Leftists want government to give to the poor. That is a far cry from having individuals do it. Governments only get their money through taxes and the Book of Mormon isn’t kind to supports of high taxes. Mosiah 11 complains of taxes of a mere 20 percent.

What Ted and other leftists need to realize is that there is a big difference between taking from people to “help” the poor, and individuals helping the poor on their own accord. I don’t know of any teachings in the Book of Mormon that support leftist political teachings. But I welcome any rebuttal of my argument.

Thanks to Jeremy for the pointer and Nate for the email pointer.

New Harry Potter Book
I suppose I'm going to read the new Harry Potter book. I originally read all four during one week of my Christmas vacation after my second year of law school. A couple months ago I listed to the first two books again to remind myself why I liked them. They are fine books, but not brilliant. J.K. Rowling is very imaginative and has a great gift to create fun settings, but I wonder if she is running out of gas. One of the beauties of the first Harry Potter book was that it was a short, fun read. But that has all changed with the fourth book and now, the new book weighs in at 896 pages. The story had better be awfully engaging to wade through 900 pages.

Personally, I wish more people would read Terry Pratchett. Pratchett is wildly imaginative, funny, and amazingly prolific. He reminds me Douglas Adams, except that Pratchett is more consistenly funny. I would like to know what kids think about Pratchett's Bromeliad Trilogy, which he wrote for young adults.

Not Even the NRDC Could be This Stupid
I don't like the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC). I believe they are fear-mongers, who scare people just so they can fundraise and had cushy jobs promoting socialism. Sadly, they are quite effective fundraising entrepreneurs. And while I’m sure than many intelligent people work for NRDC, I doubt they actually spend time to think. But the author of this article must have screwed up, because not even the NRDC could be this dumb.

The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that bottled water is 240 times to 10,000 times more expensive than tap water. While consumers may pay a few dollars for every thousand gallons of tap water, they can pay almost $2 per gallon of some brands of bottled water.

The organization also says the booming bottled water industry could be draining aquifers and other water resources, contributing to pollution and producing energy inefficiencies.

There's "an immense waste of energy and plastic and resources if you consider the number of bottles that are made and transported and disposed of," says Erik Olson, a lawyer for the group.

Researchers are warning that if water use continues to increase at the current rate, the world will be in very short supply in 22 years.

Not even the NRDC could be so daft as to argue that bottle water is responsible for declining acquifers.

Silly Anti-Gun Activists
Oh, those silly anti-gun activists. Some of the families of the victims of the Washington Snipers are joining a lawsuit against Bushmaster, the maker of the gun used by the snipers.

The lawsuit alleges that, in addition to the suspects, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, "the gross negligence of the gun industry defendants caused the injuries and deaths that resulted from the sniper shootings."

What I want to know is whey have haven’t tried to join General Motors as a co-defendant for making the Chevy Caprice Classic the snipers used. Last time I checked, nearly anything can be deadly in the hands of someone who can use it—guns, cars, knives, computers, and maybe (in some alternative universe) fingernail clippers (or at least airport security thinks so).

Title IX
Among the things I find curious about this article is that apparently, the author believes that a full ride athletic scholarship to College of Eastern Utah is a good thing. I don't meant to take anything away from the woman featured in the article, but why would you want a scholarship to the College of Eastern Utah? But what do I know, maybe the College of Eastern Utah is actually good?

What Kind of Religious Bias at the Salt Lake Tribune?
Following in the wake of the Tribune Reporters that sold a salacious story to the National Enquirer about Elizabeth Smart's family, and the subsequent sacking of the former editor, James Shelledy, the Trib writes:

The Salt Lake Tribune's newsroom was fractious and operated under ambiguous guidelines, according to an investigation initiated after an April ethics scandal rocked the newspaper.
The report on the investigation by the Poynter Institute also hints at "signs of sexism, favoritism and religious bias" in the newsroom led by former editor James E. Shelledy.

This begs the question--What kind of religious bias--pro-Mormon or anti-Mormon?

What Is the Point of Freedom—Political Expression or Economic Freedom?
Michael Kinsley of Slate writes a good article about the Patriot Act and freedom and wonders if we would miss our freedoms. While the article is a good article overall, it shows an interesting glimpse into what leftists consider freedom. He writes:

On August 15, 1971, more or less out of the blue, President Nixon declared a freeze on wages and prices. Legislation authorizing this had passed Congress the year before, with little controversy. The freeze evolved into a system of formulas about who could get paid what, requirements about filing forms with the government and keeping records and posting notices, all enforced by a growing bureaucracy of wage and price cops. The controls lasted a couple of years at full strength and then faded away over the next couple.

The notion that the government could tell everyone from General Motors to a baby-sitting teenager what they could charge—and did so—seems shocking in retrospect, at least to me. There was no real national emergency. It was part of a cynical re-election strategy to gun the economy while holding inflation temporarily in check. But at the time, controls were not just accepted but popular. When they disappeared, even those (like me) who had opposed them found it strange and, at first, unnatural. You mean, anyone can just charge whatever they want? How does that work? The analogy isn't perfect. The right to set your own price isn't as profound as the right to express your own political opinion. But it is, if anything, even more a part of every citizen's daily life. And yet when they took it away, we freedom-loving Americans didn't even miss it.

My question is, why isn't "the right to set your own price" "as profound as the righ tot express your own political thought"? Personally, I think Kinsley has it backwards—the right to set your own price is more profound. What good is freedom of polticial expression if you are otherwise a slave?

As I understand this type of leftist thought, what matters most is that people have their say. As long as you are allowed to speak, then the rest of society, through the government, can otherwise strip you of all of your economic freedoms. That seems to be the logical extension of Kinsley's statement.

Personally, give me the economic liberty, or give me death. I don't want to be a free-speaking slave. I want to live truly free.

Big Brother Bloomberg
Oh to live in New York. Two barbers thought they would comply with the law by stepping outside to smoke instead of illegally smoking inside. While lighting up outside, a friendly police officer stops and gives them tickets for loitering. Thank goodness New York has a mayor that thinks he knows better than to allow people to smoke indoors.

Will someone please tell me why it is bad to allow smoking indoors? In this case, if you don't like cigarette smoke, you can go to another barbershop. Why is it Mayor Bloomberg's business whether or not people smoke in their businesses?

If Abe Lincoln Had Powerpoint

Why I Don't Truck With Mike Leavitt
I don't truck with people think that people need to pay more taxes. I especially don't truck with people who actively work to increase those taxes. Therefore, I don't truck with Mike Leavitt, Democratic governor from Utah. A story in today's Deseret News says,

On the other side of the success coin, Leavitt sees his ongoing effort of getting out-of-state firms, such as Amazon.com, to collect state and local sales taxes from Internet and catalog purchases as a crowning achievement.
He goes so far as to say if he hadn't led the effort, then Congress would have had the Internal Revenue Service collecting such taxes, and the revenue would have gone to the federal government instead of to states.

I haven't even heard that Congress ever contemplated having IRS collect such taxes.

Because I believe in freedom, I can't support someone who, like Mike Leavitt, thinks that you aren't paying enough of your hard earned money to the government.

In the same article, Mike Leavitt claims to be a fan of federalism, but what he doesn't realize is that federalism is supposed to be a "double protection" (see Federalist 51) to protect citizens against the government usurpation of their rights. Federalism should not be a form of "double slavery" by forcing people to give more and more of their productive effort to the government.

A Lack of Trust In Salt Lake
One of the things that frustrates me about my government solutions to percieved problems is the the "solution" is always a top-down solution that does not address the underlying dynamics of the situation. A perfect example is a Salt Lake Tribune commentary on new water controls in the unincorporated areas of Salt Lake County. The Trib argues:

The common-sense limits include such things as not watering lawns more than three days a week, and not between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.; covering swimming pools when not in use; letting fleets of government or company cars get dirty for at least a week; and not serving water to restaurant customers unless they ask.
If drought conditions get worse, the process will be for the county to declare, after a public hearing, that it's worse. The suggestions then become requirements, and violating them can carry a fine -- $25 for a first offense, up to $250 for repeat water-wasters.

This policy is correct in that it imposes higher costs on people who use more water, but it goes about it the wrong way. I believe in a simple principle attributed to Joseph Smith. He said, "teach people correct principles and let them govern themselves." The correct principles here should be to price water correctly, and then let people decide how much water they want to pay for. My approach would promote liberty by allowing people to make decisions for themselves. All the County has to do is increase the price of water until they get the amount of conservation they need. But the County, like true bureaucrats, don't trust individuals.

Instead, Salt Lake County thinks that it knows better than individuals how to conserve water. It imposes top-down controls that limit the amount of innovation that individuals will devise to save water. These controls tell people, "use all the water you want, but don't leave the cover off your pool and don't water more than 3 days a week and not between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m."

What will be the outcome? I believe, unless Utah gets a lot of rain, that the County will be "forced" to require these regulations. This will be even worse because it will turn neighbors into snitches to tattle-tell to the county about people violating the watering regulations. How else will the county know if someone is watering more than 3 times a week unless their neighbor is keeping track. Why a county would want to create incentives for neighbors to snitch on each other is beyond me.

Shame on Salt Lake County for not giving the people the correct information and incentives to let them decide for themselves. For this move, I give Salt Lake County my first "Big Brother Is Watching Award."

The Astros no-hit the Yankees last night. Amazinginly, they used six different pitchers to do it.

A Little "Reason" on drug Benefits for Seniors
Personally I wish the elderly would care about their children and grandchildren. Instead, they saddle us with their lack of financial preparation for their elder-hood:

There are two parties in Congress, runs the old joke: the Stupid Party and the Evil Party, runs. When the Stupid Party in the ascendancy it passes stupid laws, and when the Evil Party is on top, it passes evil laws. But sometimes they get together and pass law that are both stupid and evil. This is called bipartisanship.

In just such spirit of bipartisanhip, Republicans and Democrats have gotten together in the Senate to push for a Medicare prescription drug coverage benefit for seniors.

...Given the speed with which this plan is flying through Congress, one might think that millions of seniors are keeling over from lack of drugs. But is there really a crisis? It turns out the average senior citizen spends just about $650 a year on prescription drugs. Also, fewer than 10 percent of seniors spend more than $2,000 a year and seventy-five percent already have some kind of prescription drug coverage. In fact, most seniors spend more on entertainment than they do on pharmaceuticals.

More from Reason.

HRC's New Book
Hillary Clinton's new book as been flying off the shelves. I belive Hillary's purpose in writing this book is to promote herself and position herself for a Presidential bid in 2008. However, contrary to what I would have thought, the book isn't helping people think more favorably of her:

Of those polled by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, 67 percent said “Living History” makes no difference in their opinion of the former first lady while 8 percent of voters said it made them view her more favorably. Eighteen percent said their view of Clinton was less favorable as a result of the book.

More from the NY Daily News

We Can't Get Enough of the Star Wars Kid
This video is a perfect example of why I love the Internet. This is the 4th or 5th version of this video I had seen and people keep making it better. Here is a website with all of the different versions of the Star Wars Kid video.

The L.A. Times has published an article about the kid in the video and the campaign webmasters have started to buy him a ipod and other electronics to make up for given netizens so many laughs.

Environmentalists and the Truth
I just wish environmentalists would tell the truth. Instead, they rely on hyperbole to make their points. Maybe it's because the truth does not support their position so instead they rely on lies. Here is a part of an article in the Environmental News Service:

"We are now forced to step in to defend the Clean Water Act," said NRDC attorney Daniel Rosenberg, "because the sad truth is we can not trust the Bush administration to protect our waters from polluters."

The precedent of a settlement could have far reaching implications, added Jennifer Kefer, an attorney with Earthjustice, as other polluting industries would likely seek similar relief from complying with the law.

"If that argument wins the day, either in court or under the administration's proposal, Americans can say goodbye to their favorite swimming holes and fishing spots, and start worrying about their drinking water," Kefer said.

This argument is ridiculous. Okay enviros, show me where water quality is decreasing.

That quote was from a news article about congressional hearings on the interpretation of "navigable waters" in the Clean Water Act. If you want to know how to properly interpret "navigable waters" in the Clean Water Act, please see the brilliant exposition of this definition in "Comment on the Definition of “Navigable Waters� in light of SWANCC" by a guy named Daniel Simmons.

I admit that I'm a Yankees fan and I have been one since I was 3 or 4. I've been a big fan of Joe Torre, but I don't think he has done a good job using his bullpen this year. I was under the assumption that the Yankees' bullpen have been pitching poorly, but other than Acevedo (who has been released) that is not the case.

The Yanks have 3 relievers with ERAs below 3. Osuna--2.25, Rivera--2.35, Hitchcock--2.63, Hammand 2.81. However, Torre blows Clemens chance for 300 in that last game by bringing in Acevedo (ERA 7.71) to pitch to Eric Karros. What was he thinking?

I think 3 set up men and the best closer in the game ought to be good enough. The Yanks might not have the best bullpen in baseball, but they have a pretty good one.

Another reason I wanted to start a blog was to rant about politics. Today's news provides a lot of ammunition:

• First, there's a story in toda's Post that shows that governments has never met a human endeavor that they didn't want to tax. In this case, it's the Internet and e-commerce. Even though Congress passed a bill that forbade states from taxing Internet sales, instead of applying their minds to figuring out productive things to do for society, government officials use their creative minds to figure out creative ways to tax people. Here's the article


• Second, the poem written from inscription on the Statute of Liberty reads, "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she / With silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me; / I lift my lamp beside the golden door." So why do we permit kids in Mexico to be malnourished instead of allowing their parents to come to the States and work? Here's a story in today's Post about malnourished kids in Mexico.
  
  
  # posted by Daniel : 11:31 AM

Another reason I wanted to start a blog is to post articles like this from Rob Neyer at Espn.com "Jays go the unconventional route: A four-man rotation"

It would have been an interesting experiment, but alas, the Blue Jays have decided to go with a more conventional rotation.

One reason I wanted to create a blog is to post websites that I want to remember. For example, here’s a website about overclocking the Athlon 2500+.

“Using air cooling we were able to reach 2319MHz and run at that speed perfectly stable, this is 120MHz faster then a XP3200+ that right now can be bought for something like ~$450.”