Heartland President, Joe Bast, was featured on the editorial page of the Sun-Times this morning:

Democrat critics point to a section of the Medicare Modernization Act (1860D-11(i)) that reads, ''the Secretary may not interfere with the negotiations between drug manufacturers and pharmacies and PDP [prescription drug plan] sponsors.'' This, they say, is evidence the bill was written to protect drug companies instead of consumers.

Is it? The text immediately preceding the words quoted above reads: ''In order to promote competition under this part and in carrying out this part. . . .'' The provision, in other words, is intended to protect competition from government interference.

The bill relies on private drug benefit management firms to negotiate steeper price discounts than the government could if it negotiated directly with drug companies. When asked if the cost of the program would be less if direct negotiation were allowed, the Congressional Budget Office in a Jan. 23, 2004, letter to Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said the effect on federal spending would be ''negligible.''

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 05:29 PM | Permalink

I'm not trying to be insensitive to those who support laws mandating students be taught that evolution is merely scientific theory. Though, I thought these attempts would have ceased after the Dover case, but AP is reporting the Utah House has just killed another bill. I disagree with these kinds of laws and, like most libertarians, I feel they would be unnecessary in a voucher-ized school system. Be that as it may, I am not really all that troubled by the attempt to pass these laws.

What does trouble me is that American high school kids are apparently so lacking in scientific education they need a sticker on their textbooks to know that evolution is a "theory" and has not be "empirically proven".

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 08:48 AM | Permalink

While Illinois considers universal health care, Canada slowly dismantles theirs. Steve Verdon and Russell Roberts do a good job of covering all the bases.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 01:12 PM | Permalink

A Kansas-City Star report makes it sound as if Wal-Mart used its appearance before the National Governor's Associationg in Arkansas yesterday to point the finger at the employer based health system. Let's hope they did and let's hope someone actually reports it in detail ... though I'm sure no one will.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 12:51 PM | Permalink

Candidate Kerry was ruthlessly (and correctly) criticized for being on both sides of most issues. President Bush, instead of running that way, has arguably governed from both sides of the issues. For libertarians, his faux-Reagan patina tarnished early with the 'No Child Not a Federal Project Act'.

The pattern is clear enough that libertarians know better than to watch a Bush of the union message without an air sickness bag. Of course there is a bipolar character to these edge-of-the-seat yawns in which the forgotten proposal to privatize social security revealed a principled president with the temerity to challenge a reactionary constituency that can be stampeded in defense of the status quo (see, e.g. Hilarycare - this phenomenon works in both directions).

But this year's state of the union address was the largest rhetorical reversal for this President as he declared "America is addicted to oil".

It is probably hyperbolic to argue that this is a more quintessential about face than the President's love affair with nation building. Still, for a President who was quietly brave (some might argue cowardly outspoken) regarding the importance of eliminating regulatory production impediments as a way of allowing energy markets to function without government intervention -- while still serving the goal of reducing strategic tensions associated with the flow of energy -- this was a major major reversal.

Washington, DC has accomplished its lemming magical act once more, as a committed 'minarchist' vanishes from the national stage -- stepping into that black box on the Potomac and coming out as yet another government-knows-bester. This inveterate Texan energy supply-sider, frustrated at every turn by envrionmental lunatics, would be bull moosers amongst his own caucus, and his own ambivalance on government subsides for alternatives, has turned into a government hand on the scale, winner picking, demand management, market gaming, public choice stamped, cartelizing, hydrogen [or the flavor of the day] economy President -- generally speaking the antithesis of market management of supply and demand.

It can be fairly argued that this is but a rhetorical reversal, "but a flesh wound" as the Monty Python troop's black knight maintained after having all its limbs cut off. All Bush has proposed in the state of the union is more government subsidies for alternatives, the same strategy he has been offering as palliative to opponents of ramping up traditional US energy production from the get go. Like most of the President's programs, his opponents quickly accepted his olive branches and then cut down the tree. Domestic energy production remains in a strait jacket, while 'targeted tax cuts', such as the hybrid car credit that Bush lampooned while campaigning, are now the centerpiece of his energy policy. Remember this?

"'How many of you own hybrid electric gasoline engine vehicles? If you look under there, you'll see that's one of the criteria necessary to receive tax relief. So when he talks about targeted tax relief that's pretty darn targeted." Bush quoted in the Chicago Sun-Times 10/29/00.

Of course Bush is an easy target. Not only is his adminstration filled with the inconsistencies and vagaries of trying to please multiple incompatible constituencies (within his own coalition as much as within the nation as a whole), but the only principle maintained continuously by his adminstration is that governing is never having to say you're wrong. Thus his gaffes hang out there like comedic Swords of Damocles, easy targets for his critics of whatever political stripes.

But there are some fundamental conundrums in the libertarian ideal energy policy which ought to confronted. Steve MIlloy of junkscience.com, perhaps one of the most solid abstract thinkers on regulatory and tax policy in the energy markets has just such a libertarian deconstruction of energy subsidies currently posted at Fox News. But like many such undertakings, it tends to minimize economic benefits to individuals from conservation adoptions, and totally avoids consequentialist discussions of energy pricing as a whole related to demand. In a market where marginal prices fluctuate radically around a few percent of production above or below demand, it is difficult to limit discussion of the iterative qualities of demand management. Whether accplished through market signals or government intervention, lower demand not only lowers the quantity purchased but potentially the price of the commodity being purchased (Think chicken in Eygpt right at the moment).

This isn't to make out a case that government is the best mathematician to work out this equation, but how can we use economic consequentialist arguments as the linchpin of concern regarding the Kyoto protocol, and then sit idly by as the price of oil skyrockets and celebrate the market doing what it ought to do. If a 50% carbon tax on oil would cause dislocations in the economy, a 50% price increase has to do the same thing. As lousy a job as our government could be counted on to do with the 'btu taxes', many of the 'market btu taxes' (certainly a heretical oxymoron, but used for emphasis) are currently flowing to regimes that are funding the campaign to end western civilization, to snuff out liberalism.

Is the road to consequentialsim the slippery slope? After all, Friedman's favoring of vouchers, while better than the existing order of public schools implies an embrace of the consequentialist belief in public education. But isn't oil the fundamental example of where consequentialism ought to enter the libertarian philosophy: If market forces are funding those who would destroy the free market shouldn't such considerations guide our market behavoir?

In fact, such considerations do guide free participants in the market (think of the great bank BB&T that will not lend money for projects employing eminent domain). But should free market proponents encourage such consequentialist thinking, at least to the extent that it should be employed for the preservation of free markets?

At least this 'externality' ought to be addressed by our literary libertarian lights, like Steve Milloy. For instance, the morals of commerce with China are tough but this debate is regularly joined in libertarian circles -- if generally resolved in favor of trade. But, if the notion in defense of such commerce is the very spread of liberalism (as well as the classic theory of furthering our own advantange), there seems no cogent argument that the longer history of sending oil money to the middle east will have any potentially enlightening effect, but in fact funds direct opposition to the liberal order(alright, another oxymoron) around the world.

What is a libertarian to do? I'll have much more to say on the subject, but I seriously ask you as well.

Posted by Brian Bishop at 06:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A short history of iProvo, the municipal fiber project in Provo, Utah.

From Provo Mayor Lewis Billings’ speech to the American Public Power Association Oct. 11, 2004:

I believe building our community broadband network is one of the most important things I will accomplish during my tenure as mayor. I’m convinced of this because ultra-broadband connectivity will encourage and enable exciting new and innovative technology applications that will bolster our economy and change the way we work, learn, and play.

Our businesses and residents … want fully interactive, full-motion video. They want advanced telemedicine services. They want fully interactive distance learning. They want state-of-the-art video-conferencing. They want to instantaneously transfer large graphic files and photos. They want web-based home security, multi-media email, and HDTV. They want to see and chat with an elderly parent or grandparent via a video phone. They want Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony that really works. They want to watch their children’s school productions and sports activities on a community network. Our city wants remote meter reading. We want traffic light synchronization. We want our dispatchers to use street cameras for more effective accident oversight and response. We want our Police and Fire stations to have state-of-the-art telecommunication functionality.

Mary DeLaMare-Schaefer, director of marketing and customer relations for Provo City Power, quoted in Network World Wide Area Networking Newsletter, Aug. 17, 2004:

“We expect to be cash-flow positive after three years on an operating basis.”

From the Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News, Feb. 20, 2006:

Mayor Lewis Billings, through his telecommunications staff, asked the City Council Tuesday to approve a transfer of nearly $1 million from Provo's electric utility reserve fund to the iProvo project….

Staffers laid most of the blame for lagging revenues at the feet of HomeNet, the first company to provide triple-play services — cable TV, telephone and high-speed Internet — over the iProvo infrastructure…

HomeNet essentially ceased operations in Provo by July, when only 30 new subscribers signed up for services and the project had 1,644 subscribers….

The problems were obvious last summer, when the Deseret Morning News reported that iProvo subscriber revenues for fiscal year 2005, which ended in June, were $298,000, well below the projected $562,000. HomeNet has since filed for bankruptcy and owes Provo $211,343, according to court documents...

Additional transfers will be necessary for fiscal year 2007 and likely for 2008.

Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcom, The Lost World: Jurassic Park 2:

“Oh! Ahhh! That's how it always starts. Then later there’s running and screaming.”

Posted by Steven Titch at 09:50 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

OK, it might not be fair to describe John Anderson and Birch Bayh as "pinko lefty hippies." But their recent proposal to overhaul presidential elections to better reflect the popular vote, combined with the proposal by James Carville and Paul Begala (both of whom I am VERY comfortable calling pinko lefties, although as they both appear to shower regularly, or at least more than the French, "hippy" is still probably not appropriate) to reform the campaign finance system, are both a welcome development from what we can reasonably call the center-left side of the political spectrum.

Anderson and Bayh want to get states representing at least 270 electoral votes (the minimum needed to win the Presidency) to pledge that their electoral votes will be given to whoever wins the national popular vote. They cite Gore losing the Presidency in 2000 despite winning the popular vote, along with the fact that Kerry would have been elected President had he won Ohio while still losing the popular vote nationally by nearly 3 million votes.

Carville and Begala's proposal is even more intriguing. It would allow non-incumbents to accept contributions of any size from individuals or political action committees. They would have to disclose electronically to the FEC within 24 hours all contributions. Incumbents, meanwhile, would be totally prohibited from fundraising. Their campaign funds would come from the taxpayer, an amount equal to what their challenger has raised minus some amount to account for the fundraising expenses the challenger incurred (they suggest 20%, a reasonable enough figure).

This system, Carville and Begala believe, will "Abromoff-proof" politics, by eliminating the opportunity for large contributions to sway the votes of elected officials.

Both ideas are, in my opinion, bad. Changing from our current system to what essentially is a national direct election for President would undermine one of the key checks and balances in our system. We are not living in a democracy (or at least we aren't supposed to be), but instead a democratic constitutional Republic.

A more sensible proposal would be to have electoral votes awarded by congressional district, with the statewide winner receiving the two additional votes that represent the U.S. Senate seats. This would bring candidates to more of the country (George Bush in upstate New York, John Kerry in Austin) while still preserving the importance of small states with fewer electoral votes.

The campaign finance proposal has more merit, but is still a bad idea. On principle, no good libertarian could ever support public financing of political campaigns. Beyond that, however, it overlooks the time spent fundraising. Candidates must spend an enormous amount of time asking for money. Incumbents would be freed from having to spend time raising money, meaning more time to campaign. Their challenger, meanwhile, would still have to spend hours upon hours "dialing for dollars" and attending fundraising events. So the incumbent advantage would still remain enormous.

So, if neiither proposal is particularly good, why am I welcoming them? Because they represent something that has been sorely lacking from the left for the past several years, if not decades: original, serious thinking and innovative policy proposals that actually seem intended to address a problem, rather than simply score political points or satisfy radicalized constituencies.

The left has relied for too long on simply bashing their opponents, shoveling money at interest groups, and trotting out stale solutions and rhetoric any time somebody asks what their proposal is. The debate over Social Security reform crystalizes this perfectly, to the point where House Democrat leader Pelosi was furious with one of her caucus members for actually daring to propose a solution.

So, I say to Anderson and Bayh, Carville and Begala, keep the ideas coming! And welcome to the world of serious policy discussion, where throwing bombs and paying off your pals don't qualify as real proposals.

Posted by Sean Parnell at 09:21 AM | Permalink

Better wine!

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 09:06 AM | Permalink

It's just a coincidence, I'm sure, but every major event that happens in the United States seems to be read as showing that we need more intervention from the federal government.

The Katrina disaster is an excellent case in point. As soon as it happened and people in the region had to put up with the consequences of having chosen to live in an area long known to be vulnerable to just such a catastrophe, the complaints rang through the press regarding the alleged slowness of the federal government in responding. Relatively little attention was paid to the disgracefully slow and inept response by the governments of New Orleans and Louisiana, and likewise to the fact that the federal government stepped in as soon as was legally permitted.

No, the federal government was responsible for everything, including the weather and the choice of people to live in places sure to be inundated at some point or other. And of course the blustering, handwring, and investigations followed. The White House report on the federal response to Katrina, released today, predictably calls for more federal control over such matters. As the New York Times reports:

The federal government, the report said, failed to sufficiently appreciate that there are certain types of disasters, like Hurricane Katrina, where local and state governments will be so overwhelmed that they will largely be unable to help themselves.

Perhaps, but in this case the state and local governments were not competent and overwhelmed; they were overwhelmed because they were grotesquely inept, disorganized, and unprepared. The way for that to be handled is for the voters to replace their inept leaders with competent ones. If they refuse to do that, that's their choice, and they should have to accept the consequences.

The federal report proceeds from this faulty premise to the expected conclusion. The Times continues:

The Department of Defense, as was proposed by President Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, would play a more active role in major disasters, the report suggests, perhaps leading the federal response to help accelerate search and rescue, evacuation and the delivery of supplies.

The report does not detail exactly when such a takeover might be appropriate, or how it would happen, suggesting only that the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense study the matter and come up with a plan. But it does offer examples of the types of incidents that would merit such a step, including perhaps a nuclear attack or "multiple simultaneous terrorist attacks causing a breakdown in civil society."

The latter certainly merit a central role for the federal government, as they would come under that government's responsibility for protecting us from foreign threats. When it comes to natural disasters, however, it is decidedly unclear when the federal government would have to be the main responder and when states and local governments should. What makes a disaster "federal"?—we should have to ask. But we will not do that, you can be sure, because the answer is that what really makes a disaster federal is the reaction of the media.

What will most certainly happen, then, is that the federal government will become the default option for management of the response to any significant disasters, natural or otherwise, occurring within the U.S. borders. That, of course, will require a huge, permanent bureaucracy to be established at the Department of Homeland Security, a bureaucracy that will inevitably become much bigger and vastly more expensive over time, as is the norm for federal departments and programs.

Posted by Sam Karnick at 01:13 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A one-time fiscal conservative, Steve Laffey, is putting on his Roosevelt [pick either one] dancing shoes in a conservative populist (with apologies to co-blogger Randy Piper and his progressive conservatives) run for the Senate in RI against leftist Republican Lincoln Chafee. Ironically, while decrying government spending as a neo-Reaganite, Laffey, the budget-cutting no-nonsense Mayor of Cranston, serves up a bunch of bull about how government needs to protect citizens from big drug companies and big oil [the link to Laffey's criticism of big oil is down right now, but you will get the flavor from the opportunistic flagellation of the drug companies. What a shame that folks who want to shrink government think it should get bigger whenever there is a 'problem'. Reagan would have had the right solution, less regulation not more. Those claiming his mantle should practice what they preach.

More on my Reagan-esque ruminations in the follow, but if you want to hear a quality candidate -- with whom I disagree on some of these populist proposals -- Steve Laffey will be my guest on Rule Free Radio from 5:00 to 6:45 PM EST tomorrow (Friday, Feb. 24). You can Listen Live here.

It is not exactly a 'heartland' race up [or out] here in the northeast where politicians claw to the left of each other regularly, but Laffey is generally a quality thinker who strikes that delicate balance between bombastic politician and public intellectual. All the more reason that we should repeal the 17th amendment providing for direct election of Senators. He is not wrong that existing government regulatory systems and gerrymandering of the patent system represent a kind of agency capture. The whole point of the agency capture model is that any scheme the government comes up with can be gamed. A reduction of government responsibility, and thus inevitably arbitrary decisionmaking, is the only 'solution', it politically unpalatable.

Medicare drug benefit is going to cost too much. Easy solution, repeal it. Pouring government money [actually pouring government debt] into the market for prescription drugs is an enormous economic dislocation. It essentially eliminates a market element of downward pressure on drug pricing (I'm sorry but the possiblity that a modest number of private administrating concerns will negotiate with the drug companies to provide what is rhetorically understood to be an entitlement does not carry any kind of real price signal from consumers.

The effective patent life of a drug has gone from 8 to 15 years. Patents are supposed to be 20 years. So what is the big deal? Here Laffey urges a reasonable and more transparent solution that patents should run from when a drug hits the market, but various tools of extension and patent breaking ought to be limited. (This should however take into account strategic decisions to withhold a drug from the market vs. regulatory hurdles) - I concur that figuring this out violates my principle of opposing government involvement in the minutia of corporate decisionmaking. But this has to happen under a rubric that is applicable to all patents, not just drugs. Just patenting any innovation doesn't necessarily mean it is ready for market from scaled up manufacturing issues to promotion, etc. The patent laws shouldn't reward companies that are inefficient at bringing their inventions to market. The clock should start ticking when the government gets out of the way.

Speaking of tools of patent breaking, Laffey's euphemistic proposal of 'parallel trading' -- the polite way of saying stealing intellectual property -- hues to the populist cry for drugs from Canada. Here I think the 'free traders' have it as backwards as the populists since many economic liberals support the ban on importing drugs from Canada while the normally protectionist populists suddenly think 'free' trade is a wonderful thing. Of course cheap drugs from Canada are a mirage. But one has to open up the trade in order to prove this, otherwise the grass will look greener on the other side of the fence. Free traders [at least this one] believe that, if foreign governments are inappropriately subsidizing various commodities, we should buy as much as we can and if such practices are 'dumping' or otherwise economically unsustainable, they will collapse. If the import ban is eliminated it will be up to the drug companies to enforce their bizarre contracts with foreign governments. If they do so and Canada then carries through on threats to seize their intellectual property, by all means the civil and criminal legal system in the United States should respond. But currently we have a 'prior restraint' in place against a perceived evil that doesn't yet exist.

What about too many 'me too' drugs. Laffey wants to gerrymander the patent system in yet more arbitrary determinations of whether a drug is 'better' than its predecessor. The Regan style solution is simply to get the government out of the efficacy business altogether. There are arguably market ideas for getting government out of the 'safety' prong of the FDA mission as well, but you have to crawl before you can walk. This efficacy debate, that also devolves into silly wrangling about pharmaceutical advertising budgets, is the yin and yang of a user pays drug system. Without a significant price signal that translates on individual decisions about particular drugs, consumers have no incentive to send a signal regarding efficacy of drugs, be they me-too or me-three.

Posted by Brian Bishop at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (24) | TrackBacks (0)

State election officials in Maine ruled yesterday (Tuesday) that "supporters of an initiative to limit taxes and state and local government spending have submitted enough signatures to present the proposal to voters statewide" on November 7th.

Go get TABOR on the ballot 58,000 signatures were submitted and 51,611 were certified. This is over 10% of the votes cast for governor in the last Maine election.

To read more chlick here:

Posted by John Skorburg at 03:31 PM | Permalink

Two programming worms that specifically target the Apple OSX operating system have shaken the tight-knit world of Mcintosh users, who have long viewed their Macs as functionally superior to PCs running Microsoft Windows in every way.

Indeed, calls for legislation to mandate government purchase of open source software, often spurred by Mac and Linux users, routinely cite security flaws in Windows as a prime reason to seek alternatives. While Apple’s OSX is not open source, the operating system is based on Linux, is.

The “Leap” and “Ingtana” worms discovered last week are malicious code that exploits security “holes” in Apple’s Safari Web browser to infect the operating system. Windows regularly has been plagued by similar attacks that exploit security flaws in Explorer to infiltrate Windows.

While many IT programmers accept the reality that no system is invulnerable, Mac users tend to be fanatically attached to their systems, while at the same time dogmatically anti-Windows, which they view as monopolistic yet inferior. The first reaction of the Mac community was to go on the defensive when security and anti-virus companies, such as Sophos PLC and the SANS Internet Storm Center, issued warnings on the worms yesterday, according to eWeek.com.

OS X users are a passionate—at times evangelical—group who sometimes construe security warnings about their operating system as dark plots from Windows-backers to discredit the platform, [Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said].

“I think the problem is that people love Apple Macs. And they consider them superior to Windows. It’s a minority choice, but one [Mac users] want to defend,” he said.

Posted by Steven Titch at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Some ten years ago, Philip K. Howard, an attorney practicing law in Manhattan, wrote a powerful and long overdue book entitled “The Death of Common Sense.” Howard exposes the absurd, coercive and destructive lengths to which the development of law has taken in our society. His thesis is that beginning in the 1960’s, with our country’s new found interest in increased government involvement in private lives, there came an attendant increase in more laws with more proscriptions and more penalties.

This was the beginning of a decades long process that has continued to this day. The result is that we have produced a society in which we are attempting to legislate and regulate every area of life in such a way and to such an extent that there is no room for actions based on common sense. We are now at the point that the annual passage of laws by our Congress and state legislatures and the application of those laws by the courts and the numerous regulatory bodies that have sprung up over the decades to oversee them, has produced a citizenry that is no longer allowed to exercise common sense yet is not better able to understand the law nor what is required or expected of them in order to comply. No one can possibly understand all the rules and regulations that are required of the average citizen. It is a shocking situation in which we find ourselves and Howard is right in decrying it.

This death of common sense with respect to the enactment of law in our land got me thinking about how many other areas of life are experiencing a similar loss of common sense. It occurred to me that another book could be written today on the lack of common sense in the public square. Does it not seem that as we debate matters of public interest, it is increasingly difficult to find analysts, writers and commentators willing to put their recommendations for action before the bar of common sense? Aren’t we in danger of believing, just as we’ve done with the law, that the discussion of major social, economic, political and foreign policy issues facing us can be undertaken not by the average citizen exercising his or her judgment but by experts who have more facts, more knowledge and a set of assumptions which have to be followed in order to arrive at the “right” conclusion?

If you doubt that, let me offer you three issues on which there is considerable debate currently in our country but in all cases little or no exercise of common sense. The first is the issue of gay marriage. Actually gay marriage is not just one issue. It is a complex of issues. You have the question of how you view homosexuality versus heterosexuality. Is heterosexuality normal and homosexuality abnormal? Or is the distinction more like the difference between being left-handed rather than right-handed? You have the question of whether gays should be allowed to marry or just be joined in civil unions. Recently, there has been an increasing debate on whether gays should be allowed to adopt children. In this debate the age old, universally accepted, common sense principle that “children need a mom and dad” is no longer allowed. Columnist Kathleen Parker took note of this situation a few months ago in a column in which she properly chastised the Boston Globe for criticizing a speech by Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in which he calls for Americans to renew their support for this principle. But the Globe sees the promotion of the principle that children are best served in an environment in which they have a mother and a father as part of an anti-homosexual strategy and therefore to be rejected. But, of course, it isn’t. You can stand for this principle and still support gays adopting children or support abused children being taken from abusive homes. The latter examples have to do with the actions you might take to address certain practical problems in the real world. While the Governor was talking about principle: the ideal parental relationship in child-raising. Americans overwhelmingly understand this; it is a matter of common sense. It’s the media that can’t figure it out.

A second issue is the Iraq War. As with gay marriage above, the Iraq War is a complex of issues. Many of those issues can and should be broadly debated. Most recently, however, attention has been focused on the withdrawal of American troops. Just as with the Viet Nam war decades ago, many of the American elites, whether in Congress, the media, or in the halls of our universities, have begun to clamor either for an immediate withdrawal or for a date certain to be set for withdrawal. In either case the elites refuse to even acknowledge that their recommendations fly in the face of common sense let alone attempt to address that issue. But shouldn’t it be addressed? We all instinctively know that whether we are discussing the takeover of a failing company or a failing country—or even a failing marriage-- that once we’ve decided to take on the task and have identified our objectives, the worst thing we can do is withdraw too soon. It’s common sense. Why does that common sense understanding play no part in the discussion of withdrawal in this war? Perhaps it is because of the role the media plays in the shaping of the attitudes of the American public. That brings us to the third issue.

It is the loss of common sense in the polling of American attitudes. Nothing is done today by the established media with more enthusiasm and glee ---particularly in the reporting of negative results—than their polling of our changing attitudes in the public square. Typically, such polls are a follow-up to weeks and sometimes months of reporting by the media on the same issues. Given that fact, it seems a matter of common sense that the kind of reporting that Americans receive on the conduct of the Iraq War, for instance, will have a direct impact on the attitudes reflected in the follow-up polls on that issue. If the reporting on the war focuses disproportionately on the loss of American lives without any counter balanced reporting that shows victories achieved; enemies captured or slain, or other equally positive results from the war, then it should surprise no one when the follow-up polls show a waning support for the conflict. Almost no other reaction would seem reasonable. But, we never hear any real discussion about the need to have a balanced reporting on issues on which you are going to be regularly seeking the pulse of the American population. Again, it would seem to be common sense.

What does all of this mean? The lack of common sense in the public square will have a major impact on the conduct of public debate in which the media plays such a formidable role in producing a well informed citizenry. If, as Philip K. Howard has documented, the institution of law in our country has removed any hint of common sense in the creation and enforcement of our laws to our detriment, shouldn’t we all be seeing to it that the media as the institution in our society entrusted with the task of producing a well informed citizenry, does not follow the same path ? I think so.

Posted by Bill Higginson at 10:28 AM | Permalink

On February 16, Kenneth L. Johnson, Milwaukee School Board president, spoke at the Illinois School Choice Initiative’s second monthly Educational Choice Speaker Series luncheon. The event was held in the Michigan Room of the Metropolitan Club at the Sears Tower.

In a speech addressing “Milwaukee Public School Reform: Rethinking of Parents as Our Customers,” Johnson made three main points:

School choice presented an opportunity for the Milwaukee Public School (MPS) system to change. MPS did not die. Public schools remain the primary educators of children in the urban school district, with the independent and religiously affiliated private schools existing alongside them. Milwaukee learned the schools can work together.

The public school system is not used to the word “customer.” But parents who are treated as customers will be more engaged in their children’s education and will demand that a school district perform better. A customer-driven education system forces the public schools to meet and try to exceed the standards of the choice schools.

School choice sparked a gradual transformation in the delivery of public education in Milwaukee. Public schools now have incentives to find ways to meet the needs of the students they serve. The school board empowered local schools to make decisions about how best to serve the students they enroll and their families.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 05:15 PM | Permalink

Contrary to popular assertions, the phone companies are no longer sitting on legacy copper-based circuit-switched networks Vendors have seen significant uptick in sales of Internet Protocol (IP) and packet networking gear to carriers, reports Telephony Online, citing a new report from Infonetics, a market research firm.

At Cisco Systems, the world’s leading manufacturer of IP routers, service provider sales increased $300 million last year, for a total of $2.6 million. Even so, Cisco lost market share to Juniper Networks, which also saw a heavy increase in service provider business. Huawei and Alcatel also saw gains.

Meanwhile, sales of multiservice switches, which support legacy networks, continued to tail off, dropping to $1.98 billion. This compares to their peak sales of $5 billion in 2000.

The report, among the first since wholesale price controls dictating terms of telco line sharing were relaxed, supports predictions from free-market analysts that telephone companies would increase broadband deployment once regulators ended restrictions that limited their return on investment.

Full story here.

Posted by Steven Titch at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In case you thought Bush and the Republicans had a monopoly on the distortion of language for political ends, Rahm Emmanuel and Ron Weyden give us this little gem: The Fair-Flat Tax Act of 2005. As you might suspect, the new tax plan is neither flat nor fair. In fact, it appears to be nothing but a net tax increase disguised as "reform". Among other things it would:

(1) reduce to three (15, 25, and 35%) the number of income tax brackets for married and single taxpayers (2) repeal tax rate reductions for capital gains and dividend income (3) increase the basic standard tax deduction (4) allow a refundable tax credit for state and local income, sales, and real and personal property taxes (5) revise the earned income and child tax credits for taxpayers with no children (6) repeal the alternative minimum tax; and (7) repeal certain tax credits, deductions, and exclusions after 2005

Notice how closely this plan resembles the Democrat's previous plan to roll back the Bush tax cuts, only now it has a name--one that curiously makes use of "flat" and "fair" in a perverted homage to popular tax reform plans put forward by Forbes and Bortz, respectively.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 05:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Will you be accosted by the federal Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) in 2006? More and more taxpayers are starting to feel its pinch, and not just the rich.

To read more, click here: AMT Bites More in 2006

Posted by John Skorburg at 03:32 PM | Permalink

I think we could make a general rule, when the federal government is big enough to have an official milk policy, it's way too big. The Fed's regulation of milk (and other nonsense like swiss cheese) is so much a part of our culture we forget about it altogether. Thankfully, The Chicago Tribune ran an article yesterday reminding me to be angry about it.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 01:56 PM | Permalink

From the New York Times:

Jeffrey Beatty, a security expert, paints a picture of a deadly plot: terrorists monitor a punctual school bus driver for weeks, then hijack his bus and load it with enough explosives to take down a building. But an alert driver could foil that plan, Mr. Beatty told a class of 250 drivers in Norfolk. After all, bus drivers cover millions of miles of roads. They know the towns, the children, the parents.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kevin Drum is freaking out over glacier melt in Greenland:

Not only is it happening, but every recent report I've seen indicates that it's happening faster and with more dire results than we've previously believed. It's really beyond belief that so many people are still burying their heads in the sand over this.

Sure, we can show that the glaciers in Greenland are melting faster. We can show that 2005 was a pretty warm year (though NASA fudged a little by calling it the warmest in a century). But apocolyptic predictions and the belief that man is the fundamental cause of the problem, and the subsequent assumption that we can somehow "fix" it, go beyond mere observation of the phenomenon. In fact, they border on complete anthropocentric arrogance. The complaint from the skeptic is not about the data, it is about the fear, anxiety, and politics that dominate the debate.

After all, glaciers are growing in the Himalayas. Some scientists, including Peter Doran at the University of Illinois-Chicago, think the Antartic could be cooling. Some even question whether or not we're properly measuring the earth's temperature. Temperature trends based on satellite data, rather than surface temps, undermine the catastrophic warming thesis.

Instead of casting aspersions and dismissing the skeptic, let's be open for real debate.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 09:24 AM | Permalink

Steven Titch, Heartland's telecom expert, was quoted in the Chicago Tribune this morning.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 08:56 AM | Permalink

Too often in America we idealize countries that provide so-called "universal" health care as regimes of compassion. Unfortunately, the reality could not be farther from compassionate. When the government is the only health care provider, life and death decisions are made with bureaucratic indifference. According to the Trib, an English woman lost a battle with the government yesterday over her right to access the cancer drug, Herceptin. What was the basis of the denial:

Lawyers for the health authority had argued that providing the drug in Rogers' case would be inappropriate because it wasn't licensed for early-stage breast cancer, and because the National Institute for Clinical Excellence had not yet determined if it was safe or effective.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 08:23 AM | Permalink

Of course there is still a debate going on about the science of global warming, but an interesting contribution might come from the anti-smoking lobby. Banning smoking pushes smokers outside and tends to induce restaurants to offer outdoor seating. Accompanying any outdoor seating, at least in cities with temperate weather, are those towering space heaters that emit, you guessed it, greenhouse gases. Thank the Brits for this one.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 10:21 AM | Permalink

From Environment and Climate News:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will be allowed to implement potentially counterproductive smog-prevention regulations after the U.S. Supreme Court on November 14 let stand a lower court decision that a legal technicality prevented the National Alternative Fuels Association (NAFA) from challenging the regulations.

Full Article

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 09:52 AM | Permalink

The left finally seems to be getting honest about their vision for America's health care system. The Chicago Tribune reports:

The Democratic proposals would bar insurance companies from eliminating drugs from patients' coverage once they had selected a specific plan and from raising the cost of the drugs in midyear. It would also set up a uniform process to tell beneficiaries when their drugs wouldn't be covered and it would mandate that Medicare guarantee payment for up to 60 days when the pharmacist can't verify whether a patient is enrolled in a plan.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 09:04 AM | Permalink

No, Seriously!

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 08:59 AM | Permalink

The Ventura County Star is running an op-ed by Heartland Senior Fellow and blog contributor, Wendell Cox, discussing urban sprawl and mass transit.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 10:12 AM | Permalink

I guess this is what happens to you if you believe what you read in the Washington Post. I didn't believe that FISA could have such a giant hole in it, so I downloaded the statute (50 USC 36). I like my dry reading like the next policy wonk, but be fairly warned, reading this law will make your eyes bleed. Shakespeare definitely anticipated Congress when speaking about weaving tangled webs.

It turns out that the Washington Post comment was right in an isolated sense. But it leaves the impression that the President must seek a warrant based on probable cause against the domestic participant in an international conversation and thus is confounded in a mechanism for secretly intercepting communication of foreign nationals in or into this country. This is incorrect. See generally, US v Verdugo. If the government suspects the foreign caller then the 4th amendment doesn't apply, nor does it apply to the domestic party incidentally intercepted.

Thanks to Bruce Fein in another serious column for alerting me that there my original interpretation was based on a false assumption.

So now what do I think...

Parsing this issue as a question of citizenship leads me to the same question of relativism that always ensues in such discussions. If, as I believe, human rights are natural rights, then our compact would endow anyone, citizen or not with such rights. Further, our government would respect these rights regardless of the locus of its operations.

No, I don't think we can be expected to vindicate rights of foreigners vis-a-vis other foreign actors, running about the world like Santa Claus passing out rights (and bringing down governments that disregard them). But this doesn't give us the freedom to disregard our framework of rights when dealing with foreigners who don't necessarily enjoy the same expectations from their own government. But this means, if there is an inherent power in the presidency related to national security that would limit an expectation of privacy, it shouldn't -- as a matter of priniciple -- operate differently for foreign persons and US persons.

As a matter of law, as best I can tell although research proceeds, the courts in Verdugo and earlier in US v US District Court rely upon this very distinction to cabin a recognized executive power.

If the President has an inherent national security power to wiretap without a warrant, then it is questionable whether Congress has the legislative power to alter it. Nor, by their approval of specific exceptions to warrant requirements in FISA for limited times, for instance, could the Congress abrogate the Constitution any more than the President could on his own. Rather it remains up to the courts to define the line, and currently the line appears, more or less, to have been set between citizenship and geography, i.e. legal residence or presence in the US, and humanity. This may be a practical defensive perimeter, but I remain unsatisfied.

This is a serious and difficult question. I can't place myself in either camp that suggests the answer is obvious. I'll get back to you in the next inning.

Posted by Brian Bishop at 03:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is 100,000 the new 42?

42, of course, was the answer to "Life, the Universe and Everything" by Douglas Adams. While it may be to much of a stretch to say that 100,000 is the answer to Life and the Universe, it may just be the answer to Everything that ails the U.S.

This thought struck me yesterday when I read Nancy Pelosi's op-ed in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. As part of what the Democrats are calling their "Innovation Agenda" she called for the educating of an additional 100,000 scientists, engineers, and mathematicians.

This proposal seems to be just the most recent in a long line of policy proposals that center around a single idea: whatever the problem, do 100,000 of something, anything, and you will solve the problem (or at least get polticial credit for trying to solve the problem).

It started with Bill Clinton. Class sizes too big? Add 100,000 teachers. Voters worried about crime? Add 100,000 cops. Government too big? Cut 100,000 federal bureaucrats.

Since then, his imitators have tried to tap into this powerful number. In addition to Pelosi's call for 100,000 new scientists, engineers, and mathematicians, Senator Evan Bayh has called for 100,000 new troops in the army. Senator John Kerry called for America to hire 100,000 new firefighters to bolster homeland security. And that's just what a quick google search turns up, I'm sure I've missed scores more (probably at least 42) of proposals to add or subtract 100,000 somethings or somebodys to address some problem.

100,000 may not be the answer to "Life, the Universe and Everything" but it does seem to be the answer to the question "What are you going to do about (fill in the blank)" when asked to an elected official. Amazing, isn't it? It almost makes me want to abandon my study of phrenology and take up numerology.

Posted by Sean Parnell at 01:47 PM | Permalink

A little more politics this morning ... I'm sorry, but this is just plain fascinating. Will Wilkinson, who is studying "happiness" at the Cato Institute, is blogging a Pew Center poll that appears to show a correlation between being a republican and being happy. The chart below shows the percentage of respondents who claim they are "very happy" at different income brackets.

Well, it certainly appears that money has something to do with happiness; it also appears that somehow ... so does being a Republican.

Now, as Will points out, it is hardly the case that simply being Republican contributes to happiness. Rather, there is some other variable that is connected both to happiness and party affiliation. So it is incumbent upon us, in light of such an intriguing statistic, to speculate about what that variable could be.

There are several possibilities that I think we should consider, which I will try for fun I guess, to associate with different political thinkers. Disclaimer: there are a number of questionable assumptions in each explanation.

1) The Randian Explanation: It's self-esteem stupid. As people become more confident in themselves their values change; they no longer feel guilt about the way the world is, their anxieties about death and uncertainly stop influencing their politics, and the value they place on liberty increases. In rhetoric at least, the Republican party is the party of liberty. Ergo, the correlation.

2) The Jeffersonian Explanation: Jefferson wrote something to the effect that there are two distinct personalities governing political affiliation. One personality tends to trust and admire "the people" and the other tends to disdain them. If one does not trust "the people" then living in a democratic and free country has to be a frightening thing. The left is more apt to want government to intrude upon the affairs of people, and so they also are likely to be frightened to death of what the people might do if left to their own devices, which in turn puts a strain on overall quality of life.

3) The Hayekian Explanation: If we imagine Democrats as Hayekian social planners, we might conclude that believing the social world needs a certain "plan" creates an entire anxious existence. For every action one takes to make the world better, one necessarily creates unintended consequences that bring their own imperative for action. For the social planner, the more government does the more it has to do. The more they "fix" the more the world seems to fall apart.

4) Alternate Hayekian Explanation: Hayek once insinuated that planners overvalue their own intelligence. They, therefore, carry a natural resentment over the fact that the world at large doesn't seem to value their intelligence as much as they do.

5) Neo-Freudian Explanation: The left, in their unabashed secularism, have not actually overcome the neurotic sense of helplessness that lead mankind to religion in the first place. In place of god they have the state. It is the state that is responsible for Katrina! It is the state that is responsible for poverty! It is the state that is causing global warming! The omnipotence of childhood is thus projected out onto a world that makes them feel helpless. The state mitigates this helplessness and allows them to get through life without actually addressing their fears. The right has, ironically, adapted better to the uncertainty and fear, despite the reliance on the illusion of an omnipotent god.

6) Foucault: The power structure of right-wing ideologies, whether religious or secular, requires justification of the status quo. They, therefore, convince people they are happy so that they willingly participate in domination and exploitation.

None of these explanations is wholly accurate of course, but it's an interesting question to think about. I think the most important point to make is that your politics are very likely to be deepy connected to your personality in ways that may or may not be purely rational. It may be that we don't pick our politics so much as they follow naturally from who we are.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 09:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I hate to spend much time on politics, but I have a feeling by the end of the week the conspiracy theorists (perhaps even the MSM) will have Bush pulling the trigger and Cheney playing patsy.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 09:03 AM | Permalink

Reading yesterday's Chicago Tribune, I saw that Governor Blagojevich wants to take the state of Illinois down the path towards universal pre-K schooling. Two items jumped out at me from the article:

1. The purpose of the expansion was to ensure that more children arrived in kindergarten ready to learn, including having skills like recognizing the shapes and sounds of letters of the alphabet.

2. The article noted that the expansion would require the hiring of hundreds more certified pre-K teachers with bachelors degrees.

Once upon a time, I was taught the shapes and sounds of the alphabet. It did not, as I recall, require a "certified" teacher with a bachelors degree. In fact, all it required was a 10-year old girl, more specifically my older sister, to teach me these skills.

For what a 10-year old child can do, the state needs to hire hundreds (more likely thousands, as government entitlements do have a way of growing a little faster than expected) of unionized teachers? And people wonder why education costs so much.

Posted by Sean Parnell at 01:51 PM | Permalink

Reading a little Hayek this weekend, I stumbled across an interesting suggestion. Libertarians are no strangers to the natural tension between liberty and democracy, specifically the fact that there is no intrinsic relationship between the two concepts. Libertarians are also no strangers to concerns that our society has come to worship democracy as an end in itself, rather than as a tool for the maintenance of liberty.

These concerns regularly lead to politically incorrect, though important, discussions about whether there are ways to limit democracy so as to better protect liberty. These discussions usually revolve around literacy testing, poll taxing, education requirements and the like, each of which have their own problems. Who is to say the illiterate cannot think? Wouldn't such requirements inevitably open the door to political factions manipulating them for special advantage?

But Hayek makes an interesting suggestion, I had not before considered, that may or may not suffer these weaknesses. He suggests "It is ... possible for reasonable people to argue that the ideals of democracy would be better served if, say, all the servants of government or all recipients of public charity were excluded from the vote." [Constitution of Liberty, 105]

Americans are increasingly concerned about conflicts of interest in our political system, but isn't this the ultimate conflict of interest. If we assume that people should vote based on what they think is best for the country, isn't it problematic to allow those who directly benefit from the outcome of the election the same franchise. Is it fair to allow teachers to vote in school board elections? I can't vote on my boss!

Should we go so far as to say union members, employed by the state should not be allowed to vote in elections that affect their contract? I'm just playing devils advocate here. Ultimately, such regulations are dangerous given the difficulties we might have defining the limits of "direct benefit" versus "indirect benefit". But the curious thought here is whether or not democracy can ultimately survive if people are, by-and-large, voting on their immediate self-interest.

Any thoughts?

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A massive $4.2 million award of non-ecomic damages to a Wisconsin woman confirms "the worst fears" of Wisconsin doctors after Gov. Doyle's veto of a bill capping non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases.

Posted by Maureen Martin at 11:01 AM | Permalink

The NASA press aide accused of trying to silence Jim Hansen is defending himself.

Here's a good article on the economics and science of ethanol ... but this one's better!

The New York Post is editorializing on a education union battle taking shape in New York that could have reverberations throughout the country.

Whatever happened to Susan Lindauer?

Cook county raises taxes on smokers ... again!

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 08:58 AM | Permalink

Seems like a reasonable time to take a privacy detour into the NSA. I had to read to the very last paragraph (in the 'follow' of course) of the Washington Post article on Gonzales's testimony on the controversial NSA program to get to the nub of the matter:

"Before granting a warrant, a FISA judge must find probable cause to believe that the American targeted for surveillance -- not the overseas party -- is an agent of a foreign power or terrorist organization. Bush's program has no such requirement. "

This makes it clear that the FISA tempest is not in a procedural teapot, but is substantive. It is no surprise that the Washington Post would bury the legitmate question at the end of the story. But the administration has done itself, and thus its efforts on terrorism, no favors with its typically flatfooted, one-note defense that completely misses the broad side of the barn. They have failed to explain what in particular is vexing about the FISA process, retreating to partisan palliatives and jaundiced generalities.

Bruce Fein, a capable constitutional commentator and perhaps the 'swing vote' on the Washington Times commentary page between libertarian and conservative constitutional orientation, begins to tease the substance out in a typically thoughtful column .

The fundamental question raised by the law is: who is being spied on. The FISA law currently presumes it is the person at the domestic end of the call. This is silly. Because the warrant is issued for probable cause against only one party to the conversation, wiretapping warrants presume that innocent Americans will be overheard but they are not the target of the spying. As any reading of transcripts from wiretaps of mobsters indicates, a majority of phone traffic is innocent, almost comically mundane, conversation.

By requiring probable cause with regards to the domestic participant in an international conversation, the FISA law becomes entirely one sided. So if Osama Bin Laden is calling someone in America we can't listen to the conversation unless we already have probable cause that the person he is calling is involved in terrorism.

Of course this is circular because being called by Osama Bin Laden could conceivably be probable cause on its face, since he doesn't get his laundry done over here.

But the real question is what is the 'reasonable belief' standard applied to the foreign participant in the conversation since it is usually somebody calling 'for Osama'. Shouldn't this be what the FISA court is interested in?

This is complicated by the half-law enforcement, half-military nature of this undertaking. I think few people would be offended by the idea that the president listened to phone calls from suspected NAZI agents during World War II without obtaining a warrant detailing suspicion of the person receiving the call. Maybe, as a war power, without a warrant detailing suspicion of the agent making the call.

One could duck this whole mess, as Fein points out, by simply making arrangements to intercept these calls outside the United States. But it is probably better that the adminstration hasn't pulled the Guantanomo defense here and that we have this discussion.

Why ought not a FISA warrant be based on suspicion of either party to the conversation? This still leaves open discussion of whether this should turn on probable cause, or some lesser standard or showing, given the nature of the President's powers in this arena. Perhaps it is open discussion of how suspicion is established that the President wishes to avoid. Then he should just say so instead of obfuscating. He could be circumspect while still successfully sheparding legislation in this regard.

Posted by Brian Bishop at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Bill Bradford, of Liberty Magazine fame, died last month. To no surprise, this month's issue is full of tribute. [hat tip: Sciabarra ]

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 09:00 AM | Permalink

The Times is reporting that the American Association of Petroleum Geologists has given its annual journalism award to Michael Crichton for his fictional work, State of Fear. You don't have to have read the book to know that Crichton's done something right because the reporter basically quotes a few "leading" climatologists engaging in rather pedestrian name calling. From the Times:

That is not the way leading climate scientists see it. When the book was published in 2004, climate experts condemned it as dangerously divorced from reality. Most of these scientists believe human activity, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels, is changing the atmosphere's chemistry in ways that threaten unpredictable, potentially damaging effects.

The book is "demonstrably garbage," Stephen H. Schneider, a Stanford climatologist, said in an interview yesterday. Petroleum geologists may like it, he said, but only because "they are ideologically connected to their product, which fills up the gas tanks of Hummers."

Daniel P. Schrag, a geochemist who directs the Harvard University Center for the Environment, called the award "a total embarrassment" that he said "reflects the politics of the oil industry and a lack of professionalism" on the association's part.

As for the book, he added, "I think it is unfortunate when somebody who has the audience that Crichton has shows such profound ignorance."

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 08:44 AM | Permalink

According to a recent AP story, state tax burdens have jumped over 40% in 10 years.

“State taxpayer burdens increased by an average of 41 percent from 1994 to 2004, according to newly released data from the Census Bureau. Only one state, Alaska, saw the amount it collects per person decline,” writes STEPHEN OHLEMACHER.

And even when the numbers are adjusted for inflation, “The individual tax burdens increase in 43 states.”

Check out the entire article by clicking on the author’s name above.

Posted by John Skorburg at 02:56 PM | Permalink

How is it that we can be so outraged both by booming deficits and any attempt by Congress to reign in spending? We should either support spending or oppose spending, right? This is, in a nutshell, is Don Boudreaux's question. I think Don intends to point us toward our growing political dysfunctions. No matter how bad we hate government spending, no one can seem to stop it.

But I think this is curious as a psychological question. I simultaneously hate my credit card bill, but love the plasma tv I bought with it. The decision may feel good even though it’s the "wrong" thing to do ... and vice versa. The same thing seems to happen at the political level, people seem to want government, even though they begrudge having to pay for it.

The only difference is that in Washington it really doesn’t matter if it’s the right thing to do, you still have one side that will go to great lengths to exploit the negative affects resulting from any policy decision. The result is a country that complains about everything single thing it does with neurotic compulsion!

The real question is how we get people NOT to want government?

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 10:31 AM | Permalink

New York Governor, George Pataki, is proposing the state increase the number of charter schools it allows.

Meanwhile, the city of Boston is taking a shot at municipal Wi-Fi.

The San Francisco Chronicle is worried about floral rights and regulations. Those flowers you buy for your valentine are not green enough, "Flower plantations are like sweatshops ... "

Some evangelical leaders are jumping on the global warming train, "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors."

American media is remaining remarkably quiet on the cartoon clash. The Times supports the american media's refusal to show the cartoons, and the Chicago Tribune goes so far as to criticize the European papers for being to in-your-face about the whole thing.

Meanwhile, Tom Bevan is still waiting for the moderate muslims to speak up.

And, on cue, it appears they are.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 08:38 AM | Permalink

Instead of posting a series of entries, each linking to one particular story, I am going to attempt to have one entry a day that will consolidate links to various articles I read throughout that day. This feature will, by no means, be a comprehensive listing of all that's worthy of reading. Rather, consider one man's calisthenic routine.

Interesting philosophical question: what is the libertarian position on noise pollution?

Two excellent editorials in the Tribune, one our so-called "jobless recovery" and the other on Illinois' still-looming financial crisis.

Harry Reid violated the church/state seperation doctrine by once again implying that the budget is a moral document. Speaking about the President's proposed budget cuts, Reid commented, "When it comes to protecting those who need it most, America has always had a moral compas ... For the past six years, President Bush has read it upside down."

I finally got around to reading Cathy Young's latest column on blogs. It's good.

More to come.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 08:59 AM | Permalink

As the battle over municipal Wi-Fi heats up, we're likely to publish many such exchanges. Joe Bast's outstanding op-ed on the failures of municipal broadband programs across the country (which appeared in Sunday's Ft. Worth Star-Telegram) lead to a fairly predictable response on Glenn Fleishman's blog. Mr. Fleishman apparently submitted a letter to the editor, so naturally we felt obligated to follow suit. Hopefully, the Star-Telegram will decide to print both. Check out Glenn's critique and then Joe's letter:

Dear Editor:

Over the weekend, Glenn Fleishman posted on “Wi-Fi Network News” a letter to the editor he apparently submitted to you in response to my opinion-editorial, “Municipalities should stay out of this,” which you very kindly ran in your Sunday edition.

In case you are tempted to print Fleishman’s article, or (worse) allow him to persuade you that perhaps you erred in letting me appear on your pages, I thought I should write a quick response to the claims he makes.

Fleishman’s Web site is ad-supported by Tropos Networks, a big player in municipal wireless, and not surprisingly he writes frequently as an advocate of municipal broadband. He’s not a neutral observer. I am paid by The Heartland Institute, a nonprofit organization with an annual budget approaching $3 million, to discover and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. Heartland addresses a wide range of issues, receives funding from some 1,500 donors, and receives no more than 5 percent of its budget from any one corporate donor.

Fleishman tries to discredit my organization by connecting it with a publication produced by the New Millennium Research Council (NMRC), which in turn he ties to a PR firm, which he says has telecommunications firms among its clients. I think this is bizarre.

Heartland has no relationship at all with the NMRC. We didn’t “produce” the report in question and didn’t help release it. One of Heartland’s senior fellows contributed, without being paid, a chapter to a report released by NMRC. That’s the entire extent of the relationship. I know nothing more about NMRC than what I’ve read in Fleishman’s columns. And I don’t refer to or rely on that report in my op-ed.

Fleishman says my examples of failed municipal communications networks are all fiber optic networks, which are expensive to build. New proposals, he says, use cheaper Wi-Fi technology and are more likely to succeed. This is bizarre, too, since until a few months ago, every municipal communications network in the country and virtually all of the proposals on the table were fiber optic systems. What systems could we have studied?

Fleishman says Dr. Ron Rizzuto, Steven Titch, and I use “outdated financial information,” don’t use generally accepted accounting principles, and look at only selected communities. All of this is wrong and rebutted in our research papers. We invariably cite the latest financial reports from the largest and longest-lived municipal communications networks in the country, and we provide readers with several measures of financial performance and let them decide which one provides the most useful snapshot of the utilities’ financial conditions.

The entrance of Wi-Fi to the broadband arena does, as Fleishman writes, change the debate over municipal broadband. Rizzuto, Titch, and I have reported the dramatic difference in cost and changes to business plans that the technology is causing. While municipal Wi-Fi costs less and is therefore a less risk