A Stitch in Haste

Thought Experiment #1:

Consider a hypothetical bank robber. He robs a bank, is caught, tried, convicted and sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison and 10 years probation.

He serves his time as a model prisoner, obeying all the rules, cooperating with prison guards and being generally compliant.

His 4 1/2 years pass and he is released, apparently rehabilitated, to serve the period of his probation.

Is it reasonable to hire him as a bank teller?

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Thought Experiment #2:

Suppose I owe you $500. Perhaps it was a loan; perhaps I lost a bet; perhaps I crashed your car into a skyscraper. I have owed you this money for 4 1/2 years, but it is not technically "delinquent" — we simply never set a deadline for payment.

Today I pay you the $500.

Is it reasonable to suggest that, since you now have $500 more than you did yesterday, and it was I who enriched you by $500, that you in turn now owe me $500?

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So much for this ridiculous "they are an ally in the War on Terror" gobbledygook. Every civilized nation owes us the debt of being "an ally in the War on Terror." The UAE even more than others, if anything. Paying that debt to us does not in turn make us indebted to them. It's preposterous.

It is neither Islamophobic nor isolationist to impose the most rudimentary standards on those governments with which our government considers doing business. It is not racist to insist that, no, 4 1/2 years is not long enough and that the UAE government is still on probation.

The port deal should be blocked, if for no other reason, then precisely because we want to foster incrementalist reform in our so-called "allies." You eat your vegetables first, then you get dessert, not the other way around. You do your chores, then you get your allowance, not the other way around.

"I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style. That's what happened in the -- after the 2000 election, I earned some capital. I've earned capital in this election -- and I'm going to spend it for what I told the people I'd spend it on..."
--President George W. Bush, November 4, 2004

"Mr. Bush's overall job rating has fallen to 34 percent, down from 42 percent last month. Fifty-nine percent disapprove of the job the president is doing. For the first time in this poll, most Americans say the president does not care much about people like themselves. Fifty-one percent now think he doesn't care, compared to 47 percent last fall."
--CBS News, February 27, 2006

Anyone who actually wants to be President should be automatically disqualified from the job.

I'm a featured "pundit" today over at WILLisms' "Pundit Roundtable."

The topic:

Where do you stand on the issue of letting a Dubai company run American ports? Has your view changed since you first heard about the story? What do you make of the fact that George W. Bush did not know about this deal until it broke in the news?

I of course took the opportunity to revise and extend my remarks from this post.

Thanks to WILLisms for the invitation.

If you believe in government-administered, single-payer, command-and-control, Paul Krugman style socialized medicine such as the "model" system used in Canada, then this is what you believe in:

The head of orthopedics at Santa Cabrini Hospital in Montreal is complaining the hospital is being punished for being too efficient.

The Health Department has ordered the hospital to stop doing hip and knee surgeries until the next fiscal year, which begins in April, according to Dr. Ethan Lichtblau.

The hospital in the Rosemont district has hit a government-set target number, and depleted its prosthesis budget for this year.

So for the next two months, this hospital is banned from providing healthcare.

A "model" single-payer healthcare system?

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who fully understand the phrase "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch" and those who don't.

And there is also no such thing as a free hip replacement. Somebody pays, either in terms of tax-and-spend redistributionism or in terms of rationing like this Montreal disgrace.

A "model" single-payer healthcare system?

Oh, and in case you think, "well, at least it's egalitarian," remember that the rich in Canada can simply hop a flight to New York or Minnesota and get their new hips there. Rationing only affects the poor.

A "model" single-payer healthcare system?

Give me a break (but not a broken hip).

(Via Kevin, M.D.)

The New York Times Magazine has yet another piece from some would-be central planners behavioral economists who lament their favorite invented crisis, the woe of "too many choices" --

As behavioral scientists, we have found that the people who frame freedom in terms of choice are usually the ones who get to make a lot of choices — that is, middle- and upper-class white Americans (most of our study participants are white; we can't make any claims about other racial and ethnic groups). The education, income and upbringing of these Americans grant them choices about how to live their lives and also encourage them to express their preferences and personalities through the choices they make. Most Americans, however, are not from the college-educated middle and upper classes. Working-class Americans often have fewer resources and experience greater uncertainty and insecurity.

Of course, the fact that the United States is the one place on earth where class matters least and is least likely to endure across generations is conveniently ignored.

A few sentences down:

Social class is difficult to measure — it's a complicated amalgam of education, income and occupational prestige — but in the U.S.'s quasi meritocracy, education has arguably become its most important facet.

Um, no. "Social class is difficult to measure" in America because it doesn't exist. People are upwardly-mobile; people are downwardly-mobile. Children in this country do not automatically inherit their parents' white or blue collars. To the extent that there is any problem with American "quasi meritocracy," it's with the "quasi" part, not the "meritocracy" part.

Anyway, you can see where the authors are going with this — since choice qua consumerism only matters, we are told, to "some" Americans (i.e., college-educated whites), public policy need not be tailored to it:

Empirical evidence suggests that we should be careful what we wish for. Americans are increasingly overwhelmed by all these choices. We feel less free now than when we had fewer choices, and we show it in our behavior.

Next step: even more highly progressive income taxation, the implementation of consumption taxation, and of course increasingly ubiquitous nanny-statism, all in the name of "saving us from too many choices."

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There is absolutely nothing new in this latest Times Magazine fluff piece. As evidence, I (re-)submit for your consideration this post from June 2005 entitled "Toothpaste Shock"?

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There is a group of economists and psychologists, a subset of the growing behavioral finance school, who make an astounding claim: That too many consumer choices can actually make people worse off, and perhaps downright unhappy.

These social scientists argue as follows: All economic decision-making is costly. You must expend time and mental effort evaluating competing alternatives. No one is born knowing "Coke or Pepsi," "sedan or SUV," "Leno or Letterman." You have to figure it out, and that requires an effort.

Now, as the number of additional choices increases, the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility may kick in at some point. Having a third choice of beer might be very useful, but is having a one-hundredth choice of beer equally useful?

The marginal cost of evaluating a new alternative, meanwhile, probably remains constant and possibly increases. So, the theory goes, at some point adding yet another choice results in the marginal cost of evaluating that choice exceeding the marginal utility of having that additional choice and the consumer is worse off.

Every so often a layperson "discovers" this (not very new) theory and decides to write a fluff piece about it. This time it's toothpaste:

A friend in Seattle...reports a full-scale identity crisis in the toothpaste aisle. There he stood, two coupons in hand. Was he ready to become a rejuvenating-effects, tartar-protection kind of guy, or was he wed to the fight against tobacco stains? And to think it all used to boil down to squeezing from the bottom.

The transformative power is dizzying. The pressure is on; the paralysis sets in. It's like a torture session with a demonic optometrist. If A is better than B, and 2 is better than 3, is A better than 2? How to choose among tartar-control and whitening and breath-enhancing?
...
Is there a name for what I'm experiencing? Of course there is, replies John Quelch, the Harvard Business School consumer marketing guru, who began laughing as soon as he heard the words "toothpaste aisle." He was quick to diagnose "analysis paralysis at the point of sale." Paco Underhill, perhaps our most diligent student of the science of shopping, terms it the "confusion index." And yes, it's growing. As are the fractures among us.

Okay, so that's the theory. Here's my competing theory:

People who can't pick a toothpaste are morons.

The key fallacy underlying this theory is the presumption that there are countless legions of people who suffer from this "analysis paralysis." But if it's such a common phenomenon, then why do we need fluff op-eds in the New York Times about it? As the saying goes: "Dog Bites Man" is not a headline; "Man Bites Dog" is.

Of course, history is replete with central planners who believed that they knew better than Colgate exactly how many brands of toothpaste an economy should provide. Nothing new there.

But there's actually a more insidious reason to tout the "too many choices" theory. Consider this publisher's description of a major work in the "too many choices" field, Luxury Fever, by Cornell professor Robert Frank (FULL DISCLOSURE: Frank was my graduate adviser at Cornell):

Ordinary, functional goods are no longer acceptable. Our cars have gotten larger, heavier, and far more expensive. As the super rich set the pace, everyone else spends furiously in a competitive echo of wastefulness. The costs are enormous: we spend more time at work, leaving less time for family and friends, less time for exercise. Most of us have been forced to save less and spend and borrow much more.

Forced? By whom exactly? By our neighbors? By ourselves?

To would-be central planners like Frank, "too many choices" may be a curious quirk at the toothpaste aisle, but when it migrates up to the appliance store, the car dealership or the travel agent, this "fundamental" human incompetence becomes more serious, not only to the individual miserable schmucks who — gasp! — work hard so they can buy stuff, but also to the economy, which degrades into "a competitive echo of wastefulness."

Frank's proposed solution? The same as every other central planner: social engineering, in his case taxing people "for their own good:"

To protect us from our greedier selves, Frank lobbies for a tax exemption for savings and a progressive consumption tax. If Americans spent less on luxury items, he writes, there would be more money available "to restore our long neglected public infrastructure and repair our tattered social safety net."

Exaggerating, or in some cases manufacturing, human defects is always an essential element of all calls for central planning: If people can't be trusted to make the "correct" decisions, then by definition the market, or the economy, also cannot be "correct." And the enlightened academics, politicians and bureaucrats — who of course never suffer from any defects of their own — call for controls, and always with themselves as the controller.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Some quick updates to past posts:

--Kevin Warsh, President Bush's underqualified but well-connected nominee to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, was confirmed by the Senate. Perhaps Bush will take this absurd appointment to the next level by "pulling a Roberts" and nominating Warsh to the newly vacant Vice-Chairman position.

--The Georgia House passed a bill that would require students to get their parents' permission before they could join any extra-curricular group or club. The sole purpose of the bill is to abolish so-called "gay-straight alliances," since students would be unable to join them unless they "came out" to their parents. A fundamental purpose of GSAs is precisely to provide a safe zone where kids can talk about sexual orientation without fear of reprisal. Bottom line: A 17-year old high school student in Georgia can drop out of school without his parents' consent but can't join the "fag club." Lovely. Remind me again how it's "all about the children"?

--The latest "sex offender mania" report comes from Mississippi, where hack bureaucrats have announced plans to plaster pictures of registered sex offenders on billboards along state highways. Because, again, "it's all about the children." (Via CrimProf.)

--The Supreme Court has declined to review the case Hosty v. Carter, No. 01-4155 (7th Cir,. 2005), which held that if a school funds a student newspaper, then the school's administrators are permitted to exercise editorial review of the paper's contents without violating the First Amendment. As I blogged previously, this is the correct holding — it's not "censorship" when you own the paper.

--Regarding the "War on Sniffles," the Minnesota Attorney General is planning to sue the makers of over-the-counter decongestants containing pseudoephedrine for "enabling" the meth crisis in America. Because, of course, decongestants serve no other purpose than to be used as an ingredient in meth labs, and because pursuing the meth lab operators would be too unprofitable difficult. I swear the single best thing we could for America would be to abolish the position of "state attorney general" entirely. PolicyGuy, To The People and Point of Law Forum all beat me to punch on this one.

--The country in which the entire "Motoon" debacle began, Denmark, has kowtowed to the world's Islamofascists and is, according to reports from the Muslim World League, preparing to criminalize the act of "insulting Islam." Lovely. Remind me again why I'm supposed to buy Danish goods in support of such a country? Meanwhile, "the world's largest (faux) democracy" is sitting back and doing nothing about a Sharia court's fatwa calling for the murder of the Danish cartoonist. With "democracies" like India, who needs China? (Via Jurist.)

--The Maryland hack politician who wants that state to issue special "DUI" license plates has introduced his bill into that state's legislature. As I blogged previously, my problem isn't so much with the "shame factor" element that such plates incur, but with the concurrent provision that police would be authorized to stop any car with a DUI plate at any time without probable cause. Warm fuzzy feelings should not trump basic civil liberties so casually. (Via Fark.)

--Speaking of local hack politicians, back in December I noted a flagrant violation by the city of Manassas, Virginia, of a Supreme Court precedent holding that zoning boards can't discriminate against unmarried couples in granting building permits. Here's a repeat in Missouri. Still unconstitutional, still obnoxious. (Via Fark.)

So let me get this straight:

Foreign Muslim terrorists destroy a foreign Islamic holy site and kill other foreign Muslims in an attempt to get still other foreign Muslims to destroy even more foreign Islamic holy sites and kill even more foreign Muslims.

All in the name of "making America look bad."

Explain to me again how Islam is a "Religion of Peace" and how we're not fundamentally superior to these barbarians?

A leading figure in gay New York politics has called "Shenanigans!" on Senator Hillary Clinton:

A gay-themed fund-raiser for Clinton is being planned for March 10, and her staffers have been asking well-to-do gays to host the event.

In a Feb. 10 e-mail to members of the board of the Empire State Pride Agenda, executive director Alan Van Capelle branded Clinton a "complete disappointment [who] does not deserve [a gay] fund-raiser." He's refusing to lend his name to sell tickets to the bash.

"This year, Eliot Spitzer, David Paterson, Alan Hevesi, Andrew Cuomo, Mark Green, Sean Maloney and others are running for statewide office and are in favor of marriage equality for gays and lesbians," he said.

"When our struggle is over, they will be recorded as being on the right side of history and, as of now, Hillary Clinton will not be with them."

Sounds about right. I would of course take it a step further. Since Clinton likes to pretend that she was some sort of "co-president" with her pervert husband, I think gays should demand a public apology for "her" Administration having signed federal DOMA into law, not to mention Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the Solomon Amendment. She should publicly apologize, publicly condemn her husband and demand that he publicly apologize.

Wishful thinking, I know.

Oh, and why the "sorta kinda" qualifier in the title of this post?

Despite his criticism, Van Capelle said he'll vote for Clinton.

Ah yes, gay Democrats -- the political equivalent of packing peanuts.

POST SCRIPT: For those keeping score, New York's other "gay rights hero," Democratic Senator Chuck E. Cheese Schumer, voted in favor of DOMA when he served in the House of Representatives. Like I said -- packing peanuts.

Mayor Bloomberg, so notorious for "running a tight ship" before he bought the mayor's office became a public servant, has no problem whatsoever playing fast and loose with payrolls when taxpayers foot the bill:

One of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's first acts on starting his second term was to write a letter to personnel officials asking that his correction commissioner, Martin F. Horn, be allowed to collect a pension along with his $178,200 salary.

But to accomplish that under a state retirement law that seeks to prevent such "double-dipping," Mr. Bloomberg had to make the case that Mr. Horn was singularly qualified for the job, and that no one else of his talents and skills could be found for it.

So Mr. Bloomberg essentially declared that Mr. Horn, who also oversees the Probation Department, was the greatest commissioner in the world, and would, he wrote, "bring qualifications to these positions which cannot be matched by any other individual."

This is, of course, utter nonsense. It's also unethical, fraudulent and potentially perjurious.

Corrections Commissioner? Who does Bloomberg think he's kidding? In all of the country there is one and only one person capable of being New York City's chief jailor? Out of all the other corrections commissioners, wardens, criminology professors, police chiefs, sheriffs, etc., the only person who could possibly have been hired to run Rikers Island just happened to be a Bloomberg crony?

Ditto for another waiver:

Other recipients of a public sector pension and city paycheck include Joseph F. Bruno, a retired judge and fire commissioner, who Mr. Bloomberg said was "uniquely qualified" to become emergency management commissioner in 2004.

Again, a nation chock full of current and retired fire commisioners, emergency services administrators, police chiefs, military commanders and other candidates, and not a single one comes close to Mr. Bruno? He's so vital that he needs to collect both a paycheck and a pension?

Here's my favorite: the chief life guard at Coney Island received one of Bloomberg's "no pension" waivers — because there are simply no other lifeguards to be found anywhere in the country I guess.

Bloomberg didn't invent this practice, to be sure. But also to be sure, when he promised that he would not become "just another politician," that he would be "a different kind of mayor," and that it would no longer be "business as usual" in New York City politics, he lied.

"Politically tone deaf."

That's the best descriptor I've heard so far for the loopy decision by underlings at the White House to allow six American ports to be managed commercially by a company owned by the "government" of the United Arab Emirates (to call the UAE a "country" is somewhat akin to calling a toddler playing dress-up in mommy's closet a "fashion model").

But if there's one thing that this Administration is good at, it's paternalistic dictatorialism. So who among us has any right to be surprised?

In any event, I don't buy for a minute the argument that, from a homeland security perspective, this proposed sale is "no big deal." That assertion defies all logic -- even though the Coast Guard may continue to oversee "boots on the ground" security, the "purely commercial" information that Dubai Ports World would gain could also certainly be useful to would-be terrorists (i.e., which ships are carrying what from where).

As for the "racism" canard: it is not "racist" to point out that two of the 9/11 hijackers were from the UAE. It is not "racist" to point out that the UAE was the clearinghouse for laundering funds used to finance 9/11. It is not "racist" to point out that the UAE is hardly an "ally in the War on Terror" in the same way that Britain is.

Neither is it "racist" to point out the following:

--Fewer than 20% of the people who live in the UAE are citizens of the UAE.

--There is no clear border between the UAE and Saudi Arabia -- only a treaty that both countries refuse to make public.

--There are no elections of any kind in the UAE.

--There are no human rights organizations of any kind in the UAE.

--Despite a relentless propaganda campaign by the government, women have few rights in the UAE. Women may not leave the country without their husband's permission. Keeping multiple wives is legal in the UAE. Muslim women may not marry non-Muslim men. Citizenship of children born in the UAE is determined solely by citizenship of the father and not the mother. Women who become pregnant out of wedlock are subject to public flogging.

--The UAE government engages in both direct and indirect censorship of both news and cultural media. Brokeback Mountain is banned in the UAE.

--The UAE government controls all mosques, both Shia and Sunni. It is a crime in the UAE to try to convert a Muslim to another religion.

--Following a surge in heat-related illness and injuries at construction sites in July 2005, the UAE government directed construction companies to give workers an afternoon break during the months of July and August. However, a number of companies defied this order and publicly stated that they prefer to pay fines rather than comply.

--The UAE is a primary clearinghouse for Middle Eastern narcotics trafficking.

--The UAE is also a leading clearinghouse for Middle Eastern human trafficking, especially the kidnapping of young boys who are sold into slavery as camel jockeys.

--The UAE uses Sharia courts to enforce Islamic law.

--Gay sex is punishable by death in the UAE.

(Source: CIA World Factbook, U.S. State Department, Human Rights Watch).

I say again: it is not "racist" to point out that the UAE is hardly equivalent to Britain, either in the War on Terror or anything else.

Put the "national security" concerns aside for a moment -- what about the human rights concerns? The UAE is in no way a "model neighbor" that we should respect or reward. Why on Earth would we be doing business with these people in any context, let alone one deeply entwined with our national security?

Oh, right, I forgot -- oil. Same as the with our other "allies," the Saudi barbarians.

Federal, state and local politicians, both Democrat and Republican, are opposed to this transaction, or at least want further study.

And apparently they can all kiss George W. Bush's ass. (And remember, Bush didn't even know about the sale until after the deal was approved -- how well-thought-out could it have been?)

The port debacle gives new meaning to the term "business as usual" as it applies to the Bush White House.

I was tempted to write a lengthy blogpost about this morning's USA Today article on the supposed "New Backlash," namely the attempt in several states to summarily ban gays from adopting.

But then I remembered it was USA Today. If they can't be bothered to write complete pieces, then why should I?

I think the Booby Grand Prize has to go to Mississippi — where gay singles can adopt but gay couples can't. Think about that for a moment. I guess it's the official public policy of Mississippi that it's better for a child to have one parent instead of two. Lovely.

One other thing deserves mention:

Patrick Guerriero of Log Cabin Republicans, a gay political group opposed to marriage and adoption limits, calls the strategy the next step by conservatives.

I was very much hoping for a "but" or an "and" to go along with that sentence, such as "...but insists that not all Republicans agree with this radical conservative agenda of bigotry..." or "...and is apologizing for the hateful conduct of this fringe element of the party..." But alas, nothing more, just "the next step by conservatives."

Ah, yes, gay Republicans — the political equivalent of rodeo clowns. Where would we be without them?

Where would we be indeed...

Meanwhile, for a real article on gay adoption, see here.

Abortion is, for the obvious reasons, not a high-ranking issue on my personal or blogospheric agenda. But I will use the announcement today that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear an Administration request to review the constitutionality of the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (which has been ruled unconstitutional by three separate lower courts), to make a point that I have made as a commenter on other blogs but never here.

I have no opinion on the PBABA or its constitutionality, or on how the new composition of the Court affects either this case or the future of Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). All of that is secondary to a simple fact that is for the most part being overlooked: the PBABA is a federal law, and this is the first time -- ever -- that the Supreme Court will review a federal ban on an abortion procedure.

Fast-forward to some hypothetical scenario where indeed Roe v. Wade is overturned. Contrary to what many observers believe, that would not mean that abortion would be "left up to the states." Does anyone seriously doubt that, if Roe were overturned at 6pm in the evening, then conservatives would introduce a federal "Right to Life Act" in both chambers of Congress by 8am the next morning? And given the Court's current thinking regarding the scope of congressional powers (especially under the Commerce Clause), and federal pre-emption generally, there is no reason whatsoever to think that the Court would deem "regulating abortion" as beyond the reach of Congress. Roe is no longer (if it ever really was) about "leaving it up to the states;" it's about leaving it up to either the mother or to Congress. The states will never again be a significant part of the equation, with or without Roe.

The PBABA, while not in conflict with Roe's core holding, is a perfect example of how abortion is not a federalism issue: None of the three courts that ruled PBABA unconstitutional did so on federalism grounds. None of the activists praising or condemning the Court's decision to hear the case are doing so based on federalism arguments. The question here is not whether Congress crafted a law impermissibly in violation of the Tenth Amendment, but simply whether Congress crafted an impermissible law in violation of Roe. The difference is subtle but important.

It's perfectly reasonable to oppose the PBABA, or Roe on jurisprudential grounds, or on moral grounds. It is not reasonable to oppose them on federalism grounds. Given the current state of enumerated powers and Tenth Amendment jurisprudence, federalism has absolutely nothing to do with it, at least not anymore.

The case is Gonzales v . Carhart (05-380).

More thoughts at PoliBlog, California Yankee.

Back in July I blogged about an atrocious plan by New York City's hack bureaucrats to require medical labs to submit blood test results to the city to track what has apparently become the latest public health crisis — diabetes.

Never mind that the sole past justification for tracking people, against their will, via their health records, was the threat of transmission — especially sexually transmitted diseases and double-especially AIDS. You can't catch diabetes from another person, so that excuse to violate privacy rights falls flat on its face in this situation.

So now we have a new justification: diabetes is "expensive." The city spends a lot on public health care related to diabetes. So the city has a "right," we are told, to track diabetics — who have committed no crime and pose no threat to anyone or anything except the city budget.

The program was quietly initiated on January 15. Which means that people are starting to find out about it. And which also means that the apologists are hard at work:

Maintaining medical privacy has become more and more expensive, both to individuals and to the public. The emerging question is whether medical privacy is a basic right or something more akin to a privilege for which those who want it should pay, rather than shifting the cost to others.

If this is the question that is "emerging," then the debate is "submerging" into a muck of illogical and un-American gobbledygook.

So now, we are told, it's not a question of physical or medical externalities, but of supposed "fiscal externalities" -- why should I be expected to pay for your medical privacy?

But this anti-privacy sophistry is built upon a contradiction. I'm not paying for your privacy and you're not paying for mine. We're all paying, through Medicare and other taxes, for our own medical privacy, and for everything else. Some pay more, granted, and some pay less. Some are net recipients of public health dollars, some are net contributors. But in the end, everybody pays for everything in our increasingly socialistic health care state, and it is therfore not legitimate for health care bureaucrats to start cherry-picking flows of funds by seeing only "diabetes money" or "obesity money" or "second-hand smoke money" or any other particular public health issue. There's just one giant ocean of taxpayer money that comes from millions of sources and goes to millions of uses.

And if that leviathan is somehow unfair or inefficient or expensive, then the answer is to rein it in, not to give it more tentacles.

And of course, if the government has a right to your blood sugar levels, can mandatory reporting of cholesterol levels be far behind? After all, statins are expensive too.

In a time when it seems as if we lose another bit of privacy with each passing day, do we really need to be embracing absurdities such as "medical privacy is too expensive"?

Privacy is a bargain at any price.

Having the day off on Monday, I put my Sunday evening to the best possible use: I accidentally fell asleep.

When I woke up circa 10:15pm, I was astounded to find that my default radio station was playing something called "Radio With a Twist," which is two hours of gay-themed music (e.g., "Is there anything more gay than playing Madonna?") (answer: yes) and discussion (e.g., "Should the kid who got early admission to Harvard come out to his religious fanatic Pakistani parents before he graduates?") (answer: no).

I won't become a regular listener, especially not Sunday nights from 10-12 and especially not given the political slant of the station (e.g., "Isn't Chuck Schumer wonderful?") (answer: no).

My point is simply to express my disappointment with the station for not advertising the show at all during the week. It also wasn't easy to find on their website. Which invites the question: What's the point of having "gay radio" if you're not going to tell anybody about it? They certainly go out of their way to tell you what's on Saturday nights.

This radio station is also part of the group that Disney just sold to Citadel Communications. Disney was a notoriously gay-friendly company — will the new owners keep the show?

Stay tuned...

(Cross-posted at Spectrum Bloggers.)

Voltaire:

"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

RoP:


Remind me again why this is a "Religion of Peace" and how we're not superior to these barbarians?

While the warrantless wiretap scandal continues to hog the headlines, here is a hat trick of lesser but still maddening tales of how the War on Terror is becoming the Hysteria on Terror:

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ITEM: Houston's chief of police wants to recruit more people into law enforcement, starting with your landord --

Houston's police chief Wednesday proposed placing surveillance cameras in apartment complexes, downtown streets, shopping malls and even private homes to fight crime during a shortage of police officers.

"I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?" Chief Harold Hurtt told reporters Wednesday at a regular briefing.
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Building permits should require malls and large apartment complexes to install surveillance cameras, Hurtt said.

MY TAKE: According to Grits for Breakfast, Hurtt is proposing that the surveillance cameras actually have a direct feed to police, although the media reports are unclear on this. I hope that's not the case. One can make an argument, although not a very libertarian argument, that simply requiring security cameras is not a significant intrusion on privacy or property rights, comparable to requiring buildings to have fire escapes. But Houston's unwillingness to pay a sufficiently high salary to recruit enough police officers (it was the shortage that prompted Hurtt's proposal) is no excuse to conscript landlords into the War on Terror. There's a big difference between "If you see something, say something..." and "We can't afford to see everything, so we're going to force you to do it..." (Via CrimProf.)

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ITEM: Another group being drafted into the War on Terror: school bus drivers --

School bus drivers around the country are being trained to watch for potential terrorists, in a program financed by the Homeland Security Department. Designers of the program, called School Bus Watch, want to turn 600,000 drivers into an army of observers.
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In Virginia, bus drivers were taught how to identify and evaluate unusual activity. What drew your attention to this person in the first place? Is someone unfamiliar taking photographs or drawing sketches of the area? Is the person asking a lot of questions about the bus route?

MY TAKE: It seems that the best way to protect children on school buses is by having school bus drivers focusing on driving rather than watching out for people taking pictures and drawing sketches terrorists. And as one critic of the program noted, if we turn school bus drivers into security guards, then who's next? Postal workers? Paper boys? I say again, "If you see something, say something..." is not the same as "It is now part of your job description to look for something..."

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ITEM: You've probably already seen reports of the two county-level [sic] homeland security employees in Bethesda, Maryland, who decided to declare themselves the Porn Police and raid a public library, unconstitutionally seizing a web-surfing patron in the process. "If you see something, say something..." does not mean "If you see something smutty, arrest someone..." I'll just suggest circling back and re-evaluating the first two stories against the backdrop of this one. These county-level [sic] homeland security employees are, um, homeland security employees. One would hope that they are specially trained in homeland security issues, including some basic constitutional law. Now if the bona fide "Warriors on Terror" can't stick to the playbook and limit themselves to "legitimate" surveillance activities, then why should we think that landlords and school bus drivers can and will?

I blogged a few days ago about how FEMA has, finally, cut off direct funding for Katrina victims to stay in hotels.

Well, at least one hack New York politician (and I ask again — why are displaced people from Louisiana and Mississippi staying in hotels in New York?) has decided that these guests in our city might not be mere "guests" after all:

Charlie King, a lawyer and a Democratic candidate for New York State attorney general, said the evacuees in New York City would be protected by city and state housing laws and could not be thrown out without a formal eviction proceeding, which could take months.

This is, of course, utter nonsense.

Hotels are not "housing" and hotel guests are not "tenants" and housing laws cannot reasonably be deemed to apply to them.

And how exactly would this hack politician propose enforcing these housing laws? By suing FEMA? By suing the hotels? Or by simply forcing New York City or New York State to start picking up the tab as federal money dries up?

Here we have yet another example of the danger of arguing reductio ad absurdum, namely that your opponent may end up embracing the absurdity. This is an especially likely outcome when dealing with politicians, bureaucrats and special interest "advocates."

Keep in perspective exactly what King is suggesting. These people may be "victims." They may not be (wholly) responsible for their plight. But that doesn't change the fact that they are on the dole. They are receiving taxpayer-subsized handouts that are now stretching into their sixth month.

And yet, we are told, these people not only have "rights," but that have more rights than regular hotel guests who actually pay their way (do you really believe that you are a "tenant" protected by housing laws when you go on vacation and stay in a hotel?).

Using taxpayer money to aid disaster victims is one thing. Elevating victims above taxpayers is something else entirely. And entirely illegitimate.

A favorite pet peeve among many libertarians, myself included, is the silly (and lethal) proscription against selling one's organs. It's "degrading" and "dehumanizing," we are told. It "exploits" the poor, who would get "cheated" by the medical equivalent of loan sharks, in the same way that they are "exploited" by credit card companies and check-cashing offices and H&R Block. It would spawn a new era of medical mercantilism, as we "harvested" organ "resources" from third-world countries only to resell value-added services back to them.

While people around the world, often children, suffer and die. This is somehow a "principled" practice?

At least organ donation is still voluntary, although there is a perpetual shaming moral suasion campaign by the medical community (and the government) to pressure educate people about the desperate need for body parts and tissues (and again, why exactly is the need so desperate?).

Oops, did I say "still voluntary"?

A private member's bill proposing presumed consent for all organ donations is churning up debate in Ontario.

New Democrat Peter Kormos ... says he wants to make it so organs are automatically donated for transplant unless the patient specifies otherwise.

He says the bill is necessary because too many people die while awaiting transplants.

Response to the idea by both legislative members and the public is mixed.

I'd like to propose a compromise: Allow a switch from opt-in to opt-out organ donation, but with a payment. If you die without having gone through the bureaucratic hoops of refusing consent, then yes indeed the government could harvest your body parts, but only after paying your estate some reasonable amount -- say $25,000.

That should cover all the bases. Organ donation skyrockets, the right to one's post-mortem bodily integrity is preserved, no one is "exploited" and no one is allowed to "cheapen themselves" by selling their organs while still alive.

That might be a good first step toward eroding this obsolete, Victorian worldview that refuses to accept organ donation for what it is -- a market.

That's my ruling -- any dissents?

The United States Government now owns 23.4% of United Airlines.

That's on top of the 7% of USAir that the government owned as of a few months ago.

The reason we are descending into old-fashioned socialism is the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the guarantor of failed private pension plans. When a company files for bankruptcy protection, the PBGC steps in and assumes the assets and liabilities of the company's pension pan, thereby becoming a creditor, often the dominant creditor, of the firm. If the company reorganizes (as opposed to liquidates), then the creditors become stockholders, including the PBGC (which will itself soon be a failed program).

I warned against this practice previously, and my position is unchanged — the PBGC should be required by law to sell the equity holdings it received in bankruptcy reorganizations as quickly as possible without causing a liquidity shock in the security. If the PBGC or any other part of the government wants to gain equity exposure (i.e., "play the stock market"), then it should be limited to passively-managed index funds. The government should never, ever, be a direct stockholder. The potential conflicts of interest are simply too great.

And it deserves repeating: the great heavy industries of a past era — steel, autos and now airlines — that are now the crippled foster children of the PBGC, were also the great unionized industries, as were other now dead or dying sectors such as textiles and mining.

Ironic, isn't it? The socialists, who wanted government ownership of industry but had to settle for collective bargaining laws, wound up getting exactly what they wanted, if not quite in the way they wanted it.

Anyone still care to argue that unions have been — over time — good for American blue-collar workers?

And anyone still care to argue that the Social Security crisis isn't the exact same phenomenon doomed to the exact same outcome for the exact same reasons?

The city of Calabasas, California, has banned outdoor smoking:

"The California Air Resources Board, which is the agency which regulates air quality in California, has adopted a regulation to treat secondhand smoke as a toxic pollutant of the air, like the kinds of things that come out of petroleum smoke stacks and out of the tailpipes of cars,” said Michael Colantuono, Calabasas city attorney.

Which invites the question: Why doesn't Calabasas ban cars and their "toxic pollutant" tailpipes?

More:

The city said it would relax the ban at times when non-smokers aren’t present in a public area.

Huh? How would that work?

Still more:

Business owners will be responsible for ensuring that all employees and patrons comply with the new law.

Of course, businesses will also be responsible for not doing business in Calabasas, California if they decide that it's not worth it anymore (or, if they must do business there, then they will be responsible for passing on the cost of compliance to others in the form of higher prices, lower wages or lower profits).

A local government certainly has the authority to ban smoking inside its own buildings, as well as in parks and playgrounds and other public property. But I think sidewalks are a stretch, and outdoor businesses are way over the line — he who pays the property taxes should call the tune.

Still, the celebration of all rights other than property rights is the trend these days, so expect more hack politicians across the country to follow Calabasas' lead.

I want to follow up quickly on my previous post regarding the "War on Wal-Mart" in order to make a slight cognitive leap.

The Wall Street Journal ($) has an editorial today on the lawsuits in Maryland and Suffolk County, New York, by a retailer trade association, challenging laws that single out Wal-Mart by requiring it and it alone to spend a minimum amount on health care benefits for its employees --

It's unfortunate that so many companies now feel compelled to go to court, although it's hard to see any alternative when politicians enact punitive laws designed expressly to make companies less profitable and competitive. The Suffolk County Legislature was warned in a public hearing that its mandate likely violated federal laws; it passed it anyway, 17-1. Maryland legislators appear to have written their law in a cagey attempt to evade Erisa rules. Supporters argue that since employers have a "choice" between providing the new benefits or paying the state a fine, the law is not really a health-care mandate. The courts may question how much of a "choice" that really is.

I of course agree completely with the Journal in this instance. I just find it astounding — and annoying — that this same editorial board has no compunction whatsoever opposing "activist courts" and praising "federalism" and "legislative supremacy" when it comes to gay marriage. Retailers get to sue, in defiance of "the will of the majority," for fair and equal treatment, but gays don't? How does that work? If the Journal is going to have a double-standard, then they could at least try to be a bit more subtle about it.

Judicial review is either a valid endeavor or it isn't. Courts are either "co-equal" or they're not. Federalism is either checked by the Fourteenth Amendment or it isn't. Unbridled majoritarianism is either an illegitimate political worldview or it isn't. Minorities either have fundamental rights that transcend the will of the majority or they don't. One believes in the system as a whole or one doesn't.

"Judicial activism for me but not for thee" is hardly a coherent (or, I might add, a conservative) political viewpoint. One would expect more from the Journal.

... criminals, drunks and drug addicts ...

Struggling to boost it ranks in wartime, the Army has sharply increased the number of recruits who would normally be barred because of criminal misconduct or alcohol and illegal drug problems, again raising concerns that the Army is lowering its standards to make recruiting goals.

Last year, almost 1 in 6 Army recruits had a problem in their background that would have disqualified them from military service.
...
Despite the increase in the proportion of those accepted with problems in their background, the Army failed to meet its recruiting target.

... and Mohammad caricatures ...

Russian Muslims can stage violent mass protests if gays and lesbians attempt to hold a pride parade in Moscow this spring, [the] Chief Russian Mufti told Interfax Tuesday.

"Muslims' protests can be even worse than these notorious rallies abroad over the scandalous cartoons," Chief Mufti of Russia's Central Spiritual Governance for Muslims Talgat Tajuddin said.

Tajuddin said the protest actions could bear physical threat to homosexuals. "The parade should not be allowed, and if they still come out into the streets, then they should be bashed."

... just ask the Jews ...

Three days after Russia's top Islamic leader called for violent protests against this spring's planned gay pride march in Moscow the country's Chief Rabbi has joined him in denouncing gays.
...
Rabbi [Berl] Lazar on Thursday said that anything promoting what he called "sexual perversions" does not have the right to exist.

...well, look on the bright side: Radical Christians, Jews and Muslims have finally found something they can agree on.

Oh, and don't forget the ("godless") ex-communists:

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the city of Moscow said a parade permit would not be granted to the LGBT rights groups.

"Moscow authorities will not allow the conduct of gay pride in any form," Sergei Tsoi said on Thursday.
...
The right to meetings, marches and demonstrations is guaranteed by the Russian Constitution to every citizen of Russia including gays and lesbians, [a march organizer] said. If necessary the organizers will go all the way to the European Court of human rights in Strasbourg.

Yeah right — "constitutional protections for gays" — good luck with that.

(Cross-posted at Spectrum Bloggers.)

Many conservatives, and I suppose libertarians, get rather indignant when they see silly, and ignorant, young people wearing the frighteningly popular Che Guevara t-shirts.

Fair enough. Guevara was a terrorist and an all-around evil and despicable man. But to me the far more outrageous idiot fashion statement are the jackasses who wear "CCCP" clothing.

The only thing worse than a jackass wearing CCCP clothing is an American jackass wearing CCCP clothing.

And the only thing worse than an American jackass wearing CCCP clothing is an American jackass wearing CCCP clothing at the Olympics:

Johnny Weir, winner of three consecutive U.S. figure skating titles, was sporting a throwback warmup jacket from the old Soviet Union after his Olympic practice session Thursday.

"CCCP,'' the Russian acronym for the Soviet Union, was lettered across the chest of the red, zippered jacket. On the left sleeve of the jersey he wore in practice, "Johnny" was spelled out in Russian letters.

"It's not that I'm anti-American or anything like that ... I just admire Russian culture and Russian skaters for their strength and their perseverance through everything they go through," said Weir ... "It would be the same as someone wearing a Madonna T-shirt."

Good grief, was the Cold War really so long ago? Do we really need to have a remedial history and geography lesson?

So be it: The USSR (i.e., "CCCP") was not "Russia." The USSR was "Russia" and the 14 sovereign nations that Russia (often with the help of collaborator Communists) invaded, conquered and assimilated:

Armenia
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Estonia
Georgia
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Latvia
Lithuania
Moldova
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Ukraine
Uzbekistan

The citizens of these nations never were and are not now "Russians." And to wear a "CCCP" jacket is an insult not only to the people of these nations today, but also to the legacy of the tens of millions of (non-Russian) people from these (non-Russian) nations whom the "CCCP" condemned to decades of misery (and, all too often, to wholesale slaughter). To wear "CCCP" is not a celebration of "Russian culture," but an endorsement of the most brutal, most murderous regime ever to reign on Earth.

When you are an "ambassador of goodwill," as Olympic athletes are purported to be, one should not be flippant in displaying one of the two symbols most antonymic to goodwill (the other being of course the swastika).

Stated differently, with the privilege of competing in the Olympics comes the obligation not to be a complete moron.

Shame on Weir, who owes every single person in those 14 nations an apology and deserves to be expelled from the Games.

A Stitch in Haste recommends the following report from the Congressional Research Service:

The Federal Government Debt:
Its Size and Economic Significance
An excerpt:

In the short run, growth in the public debt affects the composition of economic output. Federal government borrowing adds to total credit demand and tends to push up interest rates. Higher interest rates increase the cost of financing new investment in plant and equipment and thus may tend to reduce the stock of productive capital below what it might otherwise have been.

In the long run, the relationship between the growth rate of the federal debt and the overall rate of economic growth is critical to financial stability. As long as the debt grows more rapidly than output, the ratio of debt to gross domestic product (GDP) will rise. Perpetual debt growth in excess of economic growth is an inherently unstable situation. Whether or not the debt-to-GDP ratio is on such a path depends on the budget deficit, the rate of interest, and the rate of growth in GDP.

The debt-to-GDP ratio is currently rising — and this "inherently unstable situation" is occurring in a "Goldilocks economy" where inflation and unemployment are relatively low and general economic conditions are optimal. If the economy slows down, let alone goes into recession, the debt-to-GDP ratio will almost certainly skyrocket and then things will really become "inherently unstable."

Also, the report explains the difference between "total federal debt" and "public holdings of federal debt." The different is, for the most part, the fraudulent Social Security "trust fund." That "trust fund" — the "debt not held by the public" — will most likely simply metastasize into "debt held by the public" starting around 2017 when Social Security ceases to run a surplus and goes into deficit. The government will simply issue public debt to "pay off" the non-public debt owed to Social Security (either that, or the government must drastically raise taxes or drastically cut promised benefits — neither of which are likely). So it's actually disingenuous not to treat the "total federal debt" as the "true debt," for it will indisputably become the "true debt" soon enough.

The 15-page report discusses this fact and provides other interesting information, such who exactly among "the public" holds all that "federal debt held by the public," including a breakdown of foreign holdings of our national debt. A good primer.

Previous CRS Recommendations:
Restricting Video Game Sales to Minors
Warrantless Wiretapping
Foreign Holdings of Public Debt
China's Internet Censorship
Summary of Rumsfeld v. FAIR

A few days ago, in this post, I asked a pop quiz:

Who remarked, regarding the presidency: "If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve."?

No one got it right. Two people said Lyndon Johnson, which was close; he said, "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president."

The correct answer is here. For an explanation of the title of this post, see here and here.

Some dispatches from the gay marriage front:

--The ruling by a federal judge that Nebraska's constitutional ban on recognition of any form of same-sex relationship (not just marriage) has made its way to the Circuit Court of Appeals. I blogged about the ruling previously. This case is particularly important because it is one of the few cases in federal court (as opposed to state court) based on claims under the federal Constitution (as opposed to a state constitution). It is also noteworthy because the challenge is not an attempt to require Nebraska to offer same-sex marriage, but simply to allow gays to lobby for the possibility of gay marriage or civil union legislation in the future. The case is being argued by the heroes of Lambda Legal, who are very careful in selecting which challenges to make; they don't sue from the hip. Court documents available here.

--The New Jersey Supreme Court, historically one of the most pro-gay courts in the country (e.g., Boy Scouts v. Dale), is hearing oral arguments on Wednesday in a same-sex marriage case, Lewis v. Harris. I'm embarrassed to admit that this case has not been on my radar screen. I do know that this case is, unlike the Nebraska case, based solely on the state's constitution and not the federal Constitution, so the decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court will be final. Lambda Legal is also the sponsor of this litigation. Here's a fun fact: the named gay plaintiff, Mark Lewis, is an Episcopalian pastor, as is his partner. The plaintiffs lost, 2-1, at the intermediate appellate level. More thoughts at Concurring Opinions.

--Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has announced his intention to hold a vote on the Marriage Protection Amendment, a/k/a the Federal Marriage Amendment, in June (i.e., just in time to make it an election issue). I think that's wonderful. I want senators to go on the record, forever, on the issue of same-sex marriage. I want to see Republicans forced to stand up and declare, openly and unequivocally, that yes, they do think constitutionalizing bigotry is a good idea. I want to see Democrats forced to stand up and stop selling gays out and, for once, vote they way they keep promising to vote. Maybe some of them will even apologize for passing DOMA, ratifying Don't Ask, Don't Tell and passing the Solomon Amendment. This is just the kind of pox both their houses deserve. (And keep in mind that the vote is doomed to fail anyway, so there is no cause to fear — for a summary of the gay-marriage arithmetic, see my previous post.) More thoughts at Where the Dolphins Play.

(Cross-posted at Spectrum Bloggers.)

When the Maryland legislature prepared to override a veto by the governor of an obnoxious bill to require Wal-Mart — and only Wal-Mart — to devote at least 8% of its compensation expense to healthcare, I blogged, tongue-in-cheek, that Wal-Mart should simply threaten to pack up and leave the state if the bill became law.

Well, the executives at Wal-Mart are a bit more level-headed than I am:

If we closed our doors in Maryland, a lot of things would happen, and none of them would be good for the working families of this state. Seventeen thousand associates work for us in Maryland. Every one of them — both full-time and part-time — can become eligible for health coverage that costs as little as $23 per month. Our stores here collect $112 million in sales taxes and generate $13 million more in tax revenue for state and local governments. We buy $678 million worth of goods and services from 667 Maryland suppliers. Thanks to our foundation and good works in our stores, we donate $3.7 million to local charities in Maryland. And when it comes to our customers, we save the average household more than $2,300 per year by offering the products people want at affordable prices in one convenient place.

Of course, Wal-Mart should not have to justify its existence, to Maryland's hack politicians or to anyone else. So long as Wal-Mart wasn't breaking any laws — any legitimate laws, that is — then they should have been left alone.

Meanwhile, retailers that are big, but not quite as big as Wal-Mart, have seen the writing on the wall and realize that "10,000 employees" can easily be lowered to "5,000 employees" or "1,000 employees" or even "100 employees" and are fighting the good fight, with or without Wal-Mart:

The suit was announced in Arlington, Va., by the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which represents companies that operate more than 100,000 stores with more than $1.4 trillion in annual sales.

The association, which also filed a lawsuit challenging a health care law passed in Suffolk County, N.Y., said the two laws illegally mandate specific health care expenditures and threaten to take away flexibility businesses need to deal with their employees.

"We all agree that access to health care is vital, but these spending mandates will drive away business and discourage job creation," Brad Anderson, chairman of the association and vice chairman and CEO of Best Buy Co. Inc., said in a written statement.

The association also said the two laws are invalid because they violate the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

This post is not the forum to review ERISA, the Supremacy Clause or the so-called "pre-emption doctrine." Suffice it to say that the retailers' case is viable but not certain. More thoughts from W$J Blog, Workplace Prof Blog.

One of the measures of a good law is whether it is overinclusive (e.g., banning too many activities in an attempt to prevent the truly "bad" ones) or underinclusive (e.g., penalizing only some, but not all, those who do "bad" things). Among other fields, criminal law, First Amendment law, and especially tax policy are subject to "inclusiveness" analysis.

If a law is neither overinclusive nor underinclusive, that's good. If a law is either overinclusive or underinclusive, that's bad.

If a law is both overinclusive and underinclusive at the same time, then that just plain sucks:

Oakland officials have decided to force fast-food restaurants, convenience stores and other businesses to help pay for cleaning up street trash.

Under a tax approved Tuesday night by the City Council, businesses will be assessed between $230 and $3,815 annually, depending on their size. More than three-quarters of the affected businesses would pay only the minimum fee, which amounts to 63 cents a day.

"I don't think that's too much to ask so neighbors don't have to keep picking up trash from their doorways," said Councilwoman Jane Brunner, who proposed the measure.
...
The California Restaurant Association said it is considering a lawsuit to keep the tax from taking effect.

So let's review: Not all fast food wrappers become litter, so the "litter tax" is overinclusive. And not all litter is fast food wrappers, so the litter tax is also underinclusive.

While this "litter tax" may not be especially onerous (yet), it is bad statecraft by bad politicians. It is another (particularly brazen) example of the Politics of the Warm Fuzzy Feeling: The politicians "did something." The fact that it was something idiotic and unfair is irrelevant to them.

Overinclusive, underinclusive. Two strikes and you're out — this law sucks.

Of course, "sucks" is not the same as "is unconstitutional," although a strong case can be made that this litter tax is so extreme in its over- and underinclusiveness that it fails the "rational relation" test to which such laws are typically subjected. Stay tuned.

More thoughts at Truth on the Market, Coyote Blog.

Label me cruel and inhumane, but I think five and a half months is enough and the Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita "hotel people" should be persuaded to come up with alternatives.

FEMA and a federal judge agree:

A judge let the federal government Monday drop some 12,000 families made homeless by last year's hurricanes from a program that has put them up at hotels nationwide.

FEMA has promised the evacuees from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that they will still receive federal assistance that they can use toward hotel stays or fixing their ruined homes, although the agency will no longer pay for the hotels directly.

Attorneys for the evacuees tried to get U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval to issue a temporary restraining order, saying the forthcoming money from FEMA won't be enough for reasonable living accommodations or for hotel stays.
...
In Louisiana, officials offered shelters to those leaving the hotels, but according to FEMA, only one family needed sheltering.

Keep in mind that this ruling was not about cutting off victims' aid entirely or about evicting them from the hotels. FEMA simply wants to stop direct payments to the hotels -- hotels not just in the area but across the country, including here in New York City. And still some advocates and activists are upset.

Clearly at some point this money has to dry up and this program wind down. Personally I think 30 days would have been sufficiently generous; 90 days would have been erring on the side of benevolent caution.

But almost six months? Skyscrapers can be built in less time, but temporary dormitories can't be? That's not disaster relief, it's bureaucratic inertia.

Those who owned their homes should have received their insurance checks by now. Those who are simply going to walk away from it all and start over somewhere else have had adequate time to make plans, or at least to "make plans to make plans." And the remainder can be surely be housed somewhere other than a New York City hotel.

We should not be at the end of the beginning, or even the beginning of the end. This should be the end of the end. As heartless as it may sound, enough is enough.

And while we're on the subject -- where's New York City's disaster money for our recent blizzard?

More thoughts from The Phalanx.

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Back in October, I blogged the following:

Expect a GAO report, followed by a lot of political huff-and-puff, followed by a Congressional investigation, followed by more huff-and-puff, followed by ... absolutely nothing.

Well, here's the first part:

The GAO report found that up to 900,000 of the 2.5 million applicants who received aid under the emergency cash assistance program -- which included the debit cards given to evacuees -- based their requests on duplicate or invalid Social Security numbers, or false addresses and names.

In other instances, recipients improperly used their debit cards intended for food and shelter for $400 massages, a $450 tattoo, a $1,100 diamond engagement ring and $150 worth of products at "Condoms to Go."

See also this previous post.

Of course, "guilt by association" is not a valid reason to criticize the hotel program -- these people needed shelter. But note the past tense -- "needed." It's time to move on and clean up the fiscal wreckage from Katrina and Rita as well as the tangible wreckage.

All Related Posts (on one page) | Some Related Posts:

1. Ladies and Gentlemen, Malibu is Burning...
2. FEMA to Taxpayers: Drop Dead
3. What Price Perfection?...
5. Do the Katrina Hotel People Have "Tenant Rights"?
6. Check-Out Time for Hurricane "Hotel People"
7. Spending Like a Drunken Bureaucrat...
14. "It's the Most Blunderful Time of the Year..."
15. FEMA Based Payouts on Weather Maps, Not Actual Damage
16. We're from the Government and We're Here to Help

Because I am not willing to condemn zero-tolerance DUI laws (i.e., I do not recognize a right to "just two beers"), I'm occasionally accused of, for lack of a better term, "being soft on being soft on DUI" (i.e., not being sufficiently libertarian in opposing "draconian" DUI laws).

Not so. I just think it's hard to be a hyper-anarcho-libertarian when you're talking about hurling a multi-ton slab of metal down public roads at potentially lethal speeds.

But when you're not talking about hurling a multi-ton slab of metal down public roads at potentially lethal speeds, I'm as indignant as any libertarian:

A teenager was arrested for drink driving when he hopped onto a child's buggy for a prank.

Anthony Ware, 19, [of Wales, U.K.] only drove the yellow electric dune buggy a few yards before it toppled over on top of him. But police were watching his drunken antics and breathalysed him on the spot.

A court heard the buggy is a children's toy, but it is classified as a vehicle because it has an electric motor. Prosecutor Andrew Smith told how police saw the plastic dune buggy zig-zagging down the road at 10.45pm.
...
The buggy — which has a top speed of 18mph — was a £400 Christmas present bought for one of Ware's friend's children.

I mean really now, come on, you can't be serious. Even MADD should oppose this frivolous prosecution.

When it comes to DUI laws It's either about public safety or it's about something else (e.g., collecting fines). And prosecutorial harassment of a teenager over horseplay with a kid's toy is not about public safety. Cut the guy some slack, maybe slap him with a ticket for public intoxication (as opposed to DUI) and cut him loose.

(Via Fark.)

You might have seen the story by now of the Indiana town that mistakenly entered a $400 million assessment value for a house that had previously been assessed at $121,900.

The story is noteworthy not just because of the usual comical bureaucratic snafu angle, but also because the local hack bureaucrats and politicians now find themselves in a not-so-comical fiscal bind:

Most local officials did not learn about the mistake until Tuesday, when 18 government taxing units were asked to return a total of $3.1 million of tax money. The city of Valparaiso and the Valparaiso Community School Corp. were asked to return $2.7 million. As a result, the school system has a $200,000 budget shortfall, and the city loses $900,000.

Talk about the housing bubble bursting.

This is a perfect opportunity for me to repeat my call for real, as opposed to imputed property tax assessments. Now when I use the term "real," I don't mean "adjusted for inflation." I mean real as in real, as in physically existing. Assess the property based on what it is, not on what it sold for (or, worse, what the house down the street sold for).

Instead of assigning nominal dollar to property assessments, the taxing authority could use a point system. So, for instance, an empty plot that is twice as big as the adjacent empty lot would receive twice as many assessment points. A three-bedroom house would, all else equal, be assessed 50% more points than an a two-bedroom house. A brick chimney would be worth a pre-determined number of points, or a paved driveway or an inground swimming pool or whatever. Fixed, dollarless assesments based on a reasonable and rational (and fixed) formula where more or better property gets more assessment points. The housing market would have nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with it.

Then, and only then, does the government figure out how much it's going to spend, divide that by the total number of assessment points in the jurisdiction, and — presto — you get a tax rate and a tax bill based on your points and therefore based on your property rather than on the housing market. Purchases and sales are completely removed from the equation — entirely as it should be.

Here's a real-world example of the same process in action: housing co-operatives. For those unfamiliar with the concept of co-ops, I technically don't "own" my apartment; I own 932 shares of the corporation that owns my building (with a proprietary lease that is attached to my specific apartment). The apartment directly below me has four fewer shares than mine, and the apartment above has four more shares, because (all else equal) a higher apartment is a more valuable apartment. Studios have fewer shares than one-bedrooms, and two-bedrooms have more shares. The penthouses have still more shares because they have terraces.

So when the building needs money to pay for our staff and taxes and such, we simply divide the total expenses by the total number of shares and — presto — each owner pays based on his number of shares.

This is not rocket science. And it's fair and it works and nothing changes simply because people buy and sell apartments or because of any housing bubble.

Property taxes should work exactly the same way. Tax the property, not the market and certainly not the bubble.

More thoughts from The Unrepentant Individual, Newmark's Door.

Four very different developments in the ongoing hysteria against sex offenders:

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STEP FORWARD: A New York judge has reiterated her view that Governor George Pataki broke the law by denying due process to several convicted sex offenders whom he ordered confined to mental hospitals after their sentences were up --

[Justice Jacqueline] Silbermann ordered hearings within 20 days on whether the offenders need continued confinement. She said that unless Kirby [Forensic Psychiatric Center] produces the inmates, they will be "discharged from the custody of (Kirby) and from further detention."

The judge in November found that 12 sex offenders — known as "John Does" — were held illegally after their sentences ended for crimes including sodomizing and raping children. To date, none has been released because a judge stayed the order after Pataki objected.

MY TAKE: I have no problem with confining the criminally insane — for their protection as well as for ours. But even the most dangerous or deranged convicts are still entitled to due process. These people are locked up for years, so you would think that the state can find the time to evaluate them and initiate the mandatory — and humane — process to continue their confinement where necessary. Merely blathering "It's always necessary..." is not an option.

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STEP BACK: One of the municipalities that started it all, Miami Beach, Florida, decided that it likes its own version of redlining better than the surrounding county's law, because — of course — the city law is harsher:

"It's ironic that when we started, we thought other municipalities would say this ordinance is too strong," [Mayor David] Dermer said.

Still, Dermer said, the law is working. Since the inception of the ordinance, he said, the number of sexual predators living in the city has gone down from 33 to 23.

Note that the mayor did not say that the number of sexual offenses has gone down, only the number of sexual "predators" (is that the official, legal term?). Well, at least he's honest about his real motives.

Meanwhile, another Miami Beach hack politician is crafting a new city ordinance to cherry-pick the elements of the county law that are more harsh than the city law. Because, of course, the law can never be too harsh.

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STEP FORWARD: Iowa prosecutors are inching back from the precipice, denouncing that state's 2002 redlining law, issuing a five-page document calling for alternative approaches. Perhaps the most damning point made by the prosecutors is that 80-90% of child molesters preyed on their own children or other relatives. Redlining is utterly useless against these predators. The letter has much, much more. You know a law is bad when even prosecutors want it changed. (Via Sentencing Law and Policy; see also Concurring Opinions.)

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STEP BACK: Camden, New Jersey is borrowing a page from the Miami Beach playbook --

Despite warnings from critics that the law might be unconstitutional and unenforceable, City Council yesterday adopted an ordinance to limit where convicted sex offenders can live in Camden.
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The ordinance bars convicted sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of any public or private school, park, playground, public library or day-care center in Camden's eight square miles.
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Just the overlapping circles around the more than 30 public schools would bar Megan's Law registrants from living anywhere in the city, [an opponent of the law] said.
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Council President Angel Fuentes said the ordinance was worth the risk of a legal challenge.

MY TAKE: Note that last line. This is increasingly becoming the new statecraft — pass whatever law feels good and worry about legal challenges (and "activist judges") later. Whatever happened to the idea that hack politicians — who tend to be lawyers — asking their hack counsels --who are always lawyers — to review, a priori, the constitutionality of a bill before it is passed into law? Since when is passing constitutionally suspect laws "all about the children"?

I like to vacation in Europe, but somehow I've never gotten around to visiting London. Too much like New York, methinks -- more exotic alternatives on the Continent have always been more appealing to me.

Well, if this idea becomes ubiquitous in Britain, odds are I'll never go:

Revellers will give their fingerprint before buying a pint in a scheme to tackle drunken yobs.

Clubbers and pub-goers will be asked for their name, address, date of birth and a photograph which will be logged on a personal file.

These details, along with the fingerprint from their right index finger, will then be stored on computer.

Each time a person enters a pub or club, they will have their print scanned and staff can call up their personal details before letting them in.

Oh yes, that's a brilliant idea: letting innkeepers, bartenders and bouncers -- hardly the top of the employment ladder -- have access to people's background data. Even the companies that are in the personal information business can't safeguard their data -- now we want bars to have it?

I've stopped buying beer in one supermarket because they insist on entering your birth date into the computer (which already stores your credit card number). Anyone care to wager whether I'm going to provide my entire pedigree, plus a photograph and a fingerprint to a pub in England?

If this program becomes mandatory, then I will never set foot in the U.K., at least not on vacation.