MySpace Shouldn't Be Allowed In A School's Tubes

Congress seems to be great at passing bills that are all cost and no benefit. Ted Stevens, the wunderkid of magical tubes that deliver internets brings us a doozy.

By an overwhelming vote, the U.S. House has passed a bill that would require public schools and libraries to prevent minors from accessing “social networking sites” and “chat rooms.” Initially designed to apply to MySpace — that great evil — the bill is worded so vaguely that it may apply to sites like Amazon, LinkedIn and Slashdot. “(Social networking sites) have become a haven for online sexual predators who have made these corners of the Web their own virtual hunting ground,” said Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, one of the original sponsors of the “Deleting Online Predators Act” or DOPA.

Let’s begin by saying that it is impossible to block websites. I have made a career out of trying and it simply isn’t possible. As soon as you shut down one avenue, three more open up. And students, even more than corporate peons, have nothing but time on their hand and an incredible desire to break the rules. If China, a nation that wants to block everything can’t accomplish the feat – why are we expecting our schools to do the same?

So now that we have learned that Congress has attempt to legislate the impossible, what is going to be the result? Schools will spend millions in software and labor trying to play catch up with those ingenious little bastards. Of course some parents will find out that their son or daughter has been accessing MySpace, et al from school and lawsuits will ensue. Schools will then spend millions of dollars in lawyer’s fees defending themselves.

Lawyers get rich. Software companies get rich. Systems engineers will continue to be underpaid and under qualified. Schools will shift money from students to pointless causes.

Is it any wonder that our schools are in such miserable shape?

More thoughts at OutOfControl.

Improving Foreign Aid

Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee has a very interesting op-ed on how to improve foreign aid. My favorite point in his essay is this

It has been established that figuring out what works is not easy—a large body of literature documents the pitfalls of the intuitive approach to program evaluation. When we do something and things get better, it is tempting to think that it was because of what we did. But we have no way of knowing what would have happened in the absence of the intervention.

My own feelings probably lie closer to this, but if the developed world is going to be providing aid much more work should be done on making sure that it is effective.

Too often aid is given because it's the "right thing to do" but once the wallet has been opened there seems to be no regard for whether or not any good came of it.

HatTip: MarginalRevolution

Giant Sucking Sound

The anti-jobs Chicago City Council has passed regulations that would require “big-box” retailers to pay a so-called living wage.

Some think that labor had a hand in it.

An influential alderman accused organized labor on Tuesday of using political threats to muscle aldermen into supporting wage and benefit standards for Wal-Mart and other giant retailers.

Personally, I think that the alderman are just stupid and have absolutely zero understanding of basic economics.

Any person that can honestly contemplate forcing taxi drivers to wear matching socks is simply clueless.

Welcome to Dulac

Having solved the problems of crime, unemployment, housing, sickness, obesity, poverty, and corruption - the Chicago City Council is turning their omnipotent powers to lost pets.

Chicago aldermen have cracked down on foie gras, public smoking, noisy street musicians and drivers yakking on cell phones.

Now they want to microchip Fido.

A City Council ordinance likely to face a Wednesday vote would require dog owners to have a microchip implanted in the scruff of a pet’s neck for identification purposes.

Is there any activity that they aren’t willing to stick their nose into. Next they will be telling people what they can wear. Think I’m kidding?

They also have threatened to use their legislative might to improve living standards for elephants and require taxi drivers to wear crisp white shirts and matching pants and socks.

You can’t make this stuff up.

HatTip: IlliniPundit

Welcome Hit and Run readers! You can read more evidence that the Chicago City Council doesn't have enough to do here.

Seriously?

If you still think that climate change fanatics actually want to talk about the facts I offer the following:

In the message Hansen sent to reporters to explain his absence from yesterday’s hearing, the director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies said he had a conflicting doctor appointment to deal with a cold that interacts with his asthma to create a drip in his lungs. But he also indicated he would have adjusted his schedule if the witness list did not also include skeptical points of view.

Is Hansen so insecure with his point of view that he can’t even bring himself to participate in the same forum as the opposition? It’s not even like he is going to have to debate on the merits.

Environmentalism has become a religion; those that question the core tenants of warming, destruction and mass extinction are heretics that should be vilified and punished. Hansen and other scientists that participate in similar shenanigans should be embarrassed.

Science is about theory and counter theory. It is about data and evidence. Attempting to exclude arguments that do not meet your world view does a disservice to everyone involved.

HatTip: Prometheus

UPDATE: Michael Mann, of Hocky Stick fame, also refused to testify about his Hockey Stick study. You have to seriously question the work of scientists that refuse to defend their own work.

A Reply To Gabe

This started out as a response to a comment, but it got long enough I decided to post it on the front page.


Part of the reason exec compensation is high is that Congress has said that it is illegal for CEOs to make more than $1mil in direct wages. So now they get options, stocks, etc which are easier to manipulate and much harder for the median investor to understand.

Secondly, while wages for executives have increased quite rapidly, they are closely correlated to the market. (in agregate, that isn't to say that a CEOs performance is correlated with his companies success)

Lastly, how many of those 3million people in the top 1% are CEOs? 30,000? The vast majority have gained their wealth from the fruits of their own labors. Whether from investment, entertainment, business ownership or whatever. Its clever to paint the wealthy as the evil CEOs that run the country, but I don't think that accurately reflects who is really at the top.

UPDATE: Kip points out in the comments that wages over 1 million are not tax deductible. That creates incentives to not pay over $1 mil, so I think the point stands - at least in degree.

I also realized that 1% of the working population is not 3 million people, I don't know what the number is, but I'd guess its closer to 1.5.

Well, Ken Lay Is Dead...

I’m sure that some evil corporation is to blame, I’m just waiting for the media to tell me who is at fault.

Power companies worked to restore electricity to thousands of customers throughout California early Monday as a scorching heat wave threatened to push the state into a power emergency with the potential for more blackouts.

Authorities were looking into several deaths possibly related to the high temperatures, which hit the triple digits in some areas on Sunday.

With temperatures again expected to top 100 degrees, power demand was projected to reach an all-time high Monday and prompt some voluntary blackouts, in which some businesses agree to have their power shut off temporarily in exchange for lower rates, according to the Independent System Operator, California's power grid manager.

Those blackouts could become involuntary if customers don't conserve electricity, said ISO spokesman Gregg Fishman.

The fact that no one suggests that raising prices would resolve this crisis is very telling.

But Its Not A Race

Paul Krugman ($$) is concerned about income inequality. Without even considering the counter arguments here and here Paul fails to persuade me that I should be concerned.

in 2004 the real income of the richest 1 percent of Americans surged by almost 12.5 percent. Meanwhile, the average real income of the bottom 99 percent of the population rose only 1.5 percent. In other words, a relative handful of people received most of the benefits of growth.

First, it’s hardly surprising that the vast number of Americans that take no risk and have no scarcity power are not finding their wealth growing quickly. I’m not 100% certain who is contained in that top 1% , but my guess is that its entertainment stars, sports stars, doctors, lawyers, business owners and CEOs. Business owners and CEOs take great risks (especially in today’s world of Sarbanes Oxley), so are compensated in kind. And the other categories are scarce resources - as we all grow wealthier, there are more of us demanding their services.

Secondly, Krugman and his analogues seem to want everyone to enjoy the benefits of capitalism and share in none of its risk. How likely is it that Krugman would advocate a policy where everyone had to decrease their wealth in line with the top 1% when times are not so good? Maybe everyone should have gotten a 6% paycut from 2000-2004 to put them in line with how the top 1% faired during that time?

I, for one, don’t know how you can complain that everyone is winning, but some are winning more. How desperate do you have to be to find something to complain about when this is the best you can come up with?

Bush Is No Jefferson

President Bush cast the first veto of his 5 1/2-year presidency Wednesday, saying legislation easing limits on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research "crosses a moral boundary" and is wrong.

"This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others," Bush said at a White House event where he was surrounded by 18 families who "adopted" frozen embryos not used by other couples, and then used those leftover embryos to have children.

Its utterly frustrating to see Bush finally unwrap his veto pen to strike this particular law.

I simply cannot fathom why an indeterminate number of lifeless cells (that are going to be destroyed anyway) is so freaking important that Bush had to break six years of inertia to actually exercise his Constitutional duty to veto bad laws.

His decision, as Kip points out, is wrong on nearly every level.

No lives would have been taken had this legislation passed – only embryos already slated for destruction would have been eligible.

How can the lives of massless lumps be more important than the lives and livelihoods of millions of people (including – gasp – children!) that suffer from diseases that stem cell research is supposed to help.

Kip is also correct in pointing out that government shouldn’t be funding medical research at all…

But - If my tax dollars are going to be used for medical research (and they are) then the process should be as far removed from politics as possible. The feds are already funding stem cell research – restricting that funding for stupid, meritless, political reasons is – to put it bluntly – crap.

A Glimpse of Sanity

Wal-Mart seems to be under a constant barrage of legislation that is intended to punish Wal-Mart (for selling stuff at Everyday Low Prices I guess). Many of the laws aimed at Wal-Mart don’t discriminate about who they harm – well, as long as they are large and successful anyway. Some are pretty creative in targeting Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart alone.

With as exasperated as I get about government it is refreshing to learn that they aren’t all crazy.

A federal judge on Wednesday overturned a Maryland law that would have required Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to spend more on employee health care, arguing the retail giant "faces threatened injury" from the law's spending requirement.

The state law would have required large employers to spend at least 8 percent of payroll on health care or pay the difference in taxes. Only Wal-Mart would have been affected by the law.

Forget for a moment the merits (or lack thereof) of what Maryland was attempting to do. It is ridiculous for any legislature at any level of government to craft a law so narrowly as to only effect a single business. And I don’t mean just to their detriment. If a policy is good it should affect everyone equally (isn’t that what the Equal Protection clause was supposed to accomplish?) whether its loopholes to avoid restrictive regulation or, as in this case, regulation that can only be applied to a single party.

I’m glad that someone has finally said enough is enough.

Masters of Illusion

Why do we trust the government to do anything?

While speaking to legislators and business leaders from both sides of the border at the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region's annual summit, Michael Chertoff said a "practical approach" is necessary.
"In particular, we will not be, for example, including in this set of regulations a requirement for passports for ferries or private watercraft, recognizing that this is a particular form of transportation that we don't want to interfere with," said Chertoff.

As Bruce noted, either passports are either required for security or are merely necessary to create the illusion of security. Creating what may otherwise be a reasonable policy and then destroying any potential gain with a loophole so large you could drive a 747 through it is the height of institutional stupidity.

The incentives for politicians and bureaucrats are so out of whack that government is barely able to function anymore. Politicians need to appear is if they are doing something about terrorism, but can’t afford to irritate any of the voters. The result? A policy with all of the costs and none of the benefits.

Beautiful.

Shit For Me, But Not For Thee

I’ve come to the conclusion that politics isn’t about principle anymore. (shocking, I know). It’s about little more than creating policies and regulations that directly or indirectly benefit your supporters or raise revenue without pissing off your core constituency; perhaps even please some of them, though that probably isn’t a requirement.

In its continuing crackdown on on-air profanity, the FCC has requested numerous tapes from broadcasters that might include vulgar remarks from unruly spectators, coaches and athletes at live sporting events, industry sources said.

Tapes requested by the commission include live broadcasts of football games and NASCAR races where the participants or the crowds let loose with an expletive. While commission officials refused to talk about its requests, one broadcast company executive said the commission had asked for 30 tapes of live sports and news programs.

So government bureaucrats are going to pore over footage so they can score a $325K payday by discovering an F-bomb shouted by some fan during a football game. Holding TV networks responsible for the behavior of millions of spectators – individuals that they have exactly zero authority over – is more than a little ridiculous.

How can the government demand that broadcasters ensure that a dirty word – perhaps one that is barely distinguishable – is never aired on the airwaves during the thousands of live events that take place very year when the Presidents can’t even seem to censor his own speech?

Some People Never Learn

The Chicago City Council could certainly use a hefty dose of reality.

Target Corp. is halting plans for new stores in Chicago in response to a proposed city law that would set minimum wage and benefit levels for employees of big-box retailers.

The decision by the Minneapolis-based discount chain represents a setback for at least two high-profile retail projects in the city that were to be anchored by a Target, one on the Wilson Yard site in Uptown and another next to Interstate 57 in Morgan Park. Target told the developers of both projects last week that it won’t open stores if the law passes.
A part of me hopes that the ordinance passes and big box retailers split. Target, Home Depot, Best Buy and the rest certainly couldn’t afford to increase their labor costs by 25% without either raising prices or simply skipping town.

However, the other – more rational – side of me knows who this is really going to hurt.

More than a dozen church and community leaders ratcheted up the rhetoric Monday over a proposed city wage ordinance for big-box retail stores, saying the measure would hurt economically depressed areas.

The group, made up of leaders from predominantly African-American communities, said the measure would scare big retailers away from the city because it sets a higher minimum wage than the federal minimum.

"Why aren't we doing all we can to attract businesses?" said Dr. Leon Finney of the Metropolitan Apostolic Community Church. "Many of these jobs in retail are starter jobs.... I'm more interested in having a job than a living wage."

When you are sitting in a comfortable home making more than the median wage it’s easy to decide that you would never work for a paltry $8/hour. You think that such a wage is a disgrace and no one should have to work for so little. What such a person doesn’t understand is that a job making $8/hour is much better than making no money at all.

Even more than that, Chicago neighborhoods have little, if any, options for shopping. So not only are workers suffering, so are the hard-working families that are looking for someplace to buy clothes, electronics and other things that we suburbanites take for granted.

HatTip: Catallarchy

The Big Dig Out

The Big Dig, often held up as example of a successful government project (despite the years of delays and millions of dollars of cost overruns – shrug, you figure it out) has had a partial collapse with 12 tons of debris falling on unsuspecting commuters.

It’s hardly surprising that a project run by the government would experience such a failure – after all it costs them nothing.  If the tunnel needs more repair they will just get more money, it’s as simple as telling taxpayers that they have to open their wallet.  There is no need to justify the expenditure to shareholders or need to show value – just do what you want.

Government bureaucracy has no incentive to do things the right way the first time.  The people (mostly) don’t intentionally create risk, they just have no need to take the extra step to avoid it.

You can call it confirmation bias, I’ll simply call it predictable.

Chavez is a Hack

Venezuela-owned Citgo Petroleum Corp. has decided to stop selling gasoline at some 1,800 stations in the United States following calls by President Hugo Chavez to nix contracts that benefit U.S. consumers more than Venezuelans....The states where Citgo will stop selling gasoline are: Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Dakota. A limited number of stations in Illinois, Texas, Arkansas and Iowa will also be affected.

So, it’s bad to sell gasoline to conservative Americans, but OK to subsidize gas for liberal Americans.  Seems pretty clear to me, Chavez will use his country’s oil wealth for political purposes that serve no good for his countrymen, this only confirms my belief.

Competition Works

It is encouraging when Democrats (OK, legislators of all stripes) recognize that competition drives prices down.

Blanco, a Democrat, becomes the first governor to veto video franchise reform, which so far has passed in the seven states, including Louisiana, where it has reached a full legistative vote. While Republicans in a number of states initiated the push for state franchising, bipartisan support has been growing, especially since rates immediately dropped when Verizon and SBC rolled out video service in Texas shortly after franchise reform passed there last year.

Louisiana was no different. Democrats in the legislature who were behind the reform push and were disappointed at the veto.

"The fact that Cox Cable just raised its rates $3.43 a month in Baton Rouge without any regulation shows they need some competition," said state Rep. Billy Montgomery, (D-Haughton) in the Lafayette Daily Advertiser. "The consumer was left out of the process. Helping the consumer was the main part of the bill."

I would certainly be nice if you didn’t have to convince them of this immutable fact for every product and service that comes along. Texas paved the way and provided empirical evidence to make support easy. It also helps that there aren’t many substitutes for cable, so the results are very easy to see.

I look forward to a day when they allow competition in energy markets, insurance markets and telcos – I just hope that I am still alive to see it.

Do Congressmen Even Know How To Read?

Hit and Run lists blurb after blurb of Congresmen and varies and sundry other politicos that carry the Constitution in their pocket.

For Sens. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Mark Pryor (D-AR), their pocket copy of the Constitution signed by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) on 5/25/05 is "the ultimate sign of their new status as the chamber's lead Democratic dealmakers."
…
"There was not a single day of his professional life," said Seton Hall law school dean Patrick E. Hobbs, "when [Rep. Peter W. Rodino Jr.] didn't carry a copy of the Constitution in his pocket."
…
Senator Byrd, who keeps a copy of the Constitution in his pocket...

Now if only they would read it.

Happiness, Shmappiness

Time and time again we are told that wealth doesn’t make us happier, and that is usually justification for some statist regulation or another.  My response is always the same – “So What?”

Why would you want to peg policy or societal success on something as fleeting as happiness?  Nothing that makes us happy makes us happy for long.  My best friend visited me last week from Cincinnati – that made me happy.  He didn’t stay for long, but I can assure you that if he had it would have quickly made me unhappy.

Happiness can only occur when our lot improves, but once it has improved then that becomes the norm – our new baseline for what happiness should be.  I will be the first to admit that I am probably not much happier now than I was 15 years ago even though my net worth has increased by a factor of 10.  I can also tell you that if you forced me to live like I did 15 years ago I would be very unhappy.

So does that mean that nothing I have accomplished over the last 15 years has been for naught?  Ludicrous.  Along the way I have achieved little bits of happiness here and there.  The happiness comes from success, but with each success the baseline changes.  Even though I was not unhappy 15 years ago and I am not happier today in absolute terms, if I had remained at the status quo I would never have experienced happiness beyond my friends and family.  And if nothing else in my life had changed, how happy would that have been?  I can imagine not very.

Absolute changes in quality of life – life expectancy, leisure time, etc – are far better measures of society and wealth than some relative measurement of happiness.  I think that if liberals really wanted to look into the issue – as opposed to just using it as justification to be anti-wealth – they would find that government interventions do more to make us unhappy than money fails to make us happy.

Incentives Matter

I spend quite a bit of time on this blog railing against one government program or another. Its not that I don’t think the government should help people, I don’t think that the government should help people in ways that destroy incentives.

The Journal’s Jonathan Eig reports on a poverty program in Chicago that uses an incentive program to give low-income people the chance to earn rewards like high-income people who rack up frequent-flier miles or bank points. “For the past year,” Eig writes, “residents in a low-income neighborhood here have been earning rewards for paying their rent, getting their children to school every day and seeking work. At one rewards banquet, more than 150 people gathered in a church basement to celebrate and cash in points for prizes. ... ‘It’s like American Idol,’ said Evette Clark, a 39-year-old mother of eight who signed up her whole family for the rewards program.”

The program is run by an outfit called Project Match, which has dispensed $19,000 in cash and prizes in a year and a half. This reminds me of a long-ago Bronx schoolteacher I heard about recently, who paid her students nickels and dimes as they learned to read better; even small prizes had a huge effect.

When the government (or anyone for that matter) just give away money it changes peoples’ behavior as they try to collect that free money. So if you give everyone that makes under $10,000/year a check for $500 people that make $10,400/year will find ways to make a little less money to cash in.

Reasonable people can disagree about which activities should be subsidized and what the thresholds should be to receive that subsidy, but if there are not incentives in place the programs are doomed to create more problems than they are intended to solve, leaving the needy in want of more need.

Yet Another Case for Limited Government

Why do we let men like this make decisions? Important decision that effect the everyday lives of, not only every American, but very nearly every person in the world?

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

The Poster Child For Limited Government

Some blog posts just write themselves.

Ray Nagin does it again Do you remember New Orleans 'Katrina' mayor Ray Nagin? The one that tried to teach 1,200 buses to swim while his citizen's drowned? Once again, he has demonstrated his ability to deal with hard realities. According to The New Orleans Times Picayune there were 50,000 vehicles ruined in Katrina and abandoned by their owners. The largest auto crusher east of the Rockies, K&L Auto Crushers of Tyler, Texas offered to pay the City of New Orleans $100.00 per vehicle, 'as is, where is', an estimated $5 million net to the city. They agreed to bring in 5 to 10 portable crushers, work 6 days per week and complete the job in 15 weeks. Of course, mayor Nagin knew better how to do the job and refused the offer saying the city would do the job themselves. It seems that now it will cost the City $23 million to complete the job. The vehicles are still there today instead of being cleaned out 5 Months ago. Now, lets see if I have this correct. By doing it J&L's way the City of New Orleans would net $5 million. Doing it mayor Nagin's way costs the city $23 million for a net cost to the City of New Orleans of $28,000,000. This is the same mayor that wants The United States taxpayers to give $50 billion to New Orleans and let him rebuild a "Chocolate City" his way without any oversight or any control.

Kerry Krap

Sometimes, I just don’t understand politicians.

Kerry also decried the panel's rejection of language that would have required new video providers like the Bell telephone companies to offer service throughout the regions where they decide to build infrastructure. "Why are United States senators afraid to say that companies should be expected to foster growth by building out their broadband networks to increase access?" he said.

What about forcing companies to incur outrageous capital investments fosters growth? Forcing companies to take on low profit customers destroys growth and innovation. Who, exactly is this supposed to help?

Well, I guess it serves as protection for existing providers and destroys competition. Perhaps politicians aren’t so difficult to understand after all.

End the Monopoly

Do you want a slam dunk example of why public school monopolies need to end?

Here you go:

MAHOPAC — The Mahopac Board of Education last night stuck to its guns and adopted a $95.8 million contingency budget that does not fund sports or extracurricular clubs.
The board also eliminated 13.5 positions from its initial $98.6 million proposal to keep the spending increase under 4 percent, as mandated by state education law.

An estimated 500 people crowded the auditorium of Lakeview Elementary School to learn of the final plan and to hear what a community coalition formed after the budget defeat would do next.

One parent, 47-year-old Monica Wyka, said it was a sad day for the children.
"The taxes here are huge," said Wyka, a sales representative and caterer. "But you know what? If you want a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence for your child, then you have to pay."
The eliminated positions include 3.8 administrators, 4.4 high school teachers, one elementary school teacher, 2.3 special-education positions, a library aide and a secretary.
…
Instead of cutting an academic team at the middle school — which had initially been proposed — school officials trimmed spending on repairs, supplies, equipment and other noninstructional expenditures.

Savings also resulted from eliminating adult education, cutting back on books and supplies for the library and reducing the amount for computer hardware.

Also, the district will not send students to the Walkabout alternative education program.
"The first priority is to maintain the integrity of our instructional program," Superintendent Robert Reidy said before presenting his plan. "Sports and clubs are absolutely critical for youth development. But they're not the core of the mission that we have."

A community coalition has been working on a strategy to keep clubs and sports in the schools — for a price. The coalition must raise a little more than $1 million to maintain all extracurricular activities.

At a meeting Wednesday, coalition leaders presented the school board with a preliminary plan that would call for charging varsity athletes $432 per sport, while junior varsity, freshman and middle-school athletes would pay $144.

Members of high school clubs — such as the yearbook, newspaper, drama and debate — would pay $169 to participate in each club.

Even parents of younger children may have to pay a surcharge of $25 to participate in the Mahopac Sports Association, according to the proposal.

This is as irresponsible as it is possible to get. A business that even discussed opening of such a tactic would lose so much business its head would spin. Yet these parents have no recourse, no way to punish the school for such reckless disregard of their duty to educate the children.

It is not unreasonable for citizens to decide that they do not need to pay more for education – to respond by throwing a tantrum and, essentially, gutting the school to “teach the tax payers a lesson” is simply obscene.

Now imagine a world where parents didn’t have to wait for the next election to try to throw the bums out, which isn’t even a guarantee. If parents had a voucher for their education funding the school would simply raise the cost of education – no threats of reprisals necessary – if the parents didn’t like it they would simply take their money elsewhere and students wouldn’t have to suffer the tantrums of spoiled brats.

It is time to time end the monopoly on education.