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Tuesday 06 September 2005 : Interesting New Orleans Story
Here is a first-person account of the aftermath of the New Orleans flooding that showed up today on the Daily Kos. I’m not sure how true it is; on DK they aren’t even sure of its provenance, so I’m taking it with a grain of salt for now. One of the writers credited has an unusual name, and to judge...
Monday 04 October 2004 : Racist Economic Development
The Washington Post writes:
Kwasi G. Holman, president of the Prince George's County Economic Development Corp., said he thinks African American entrepreneurs think they may have more opportunities in the black majority county. "The county executive places a priority on minority investors participating in the renaissance of the county," Holman said.
Of course, no federal investigation into this racist practice is forthcoming.
Tuesday 23 March 2004 : Your Tax Dollars At Work
The government is hard at work to see that you don’t work doing things they don’t like.
Monday 05 May 2003 : D.C. Goes On Shooting Itself In The Foot
While Mayor Tony Williams makes speeches about how he wants to attract 100,000 new residents to Washington, D.C., the rest of the city's government goes on giving people more reasons to not come into the city at all, even for a visit. Washington Post: The District government has begun issuing $100 tickets to vehicles with out-of-state license plates that are...
Wednesday 19 February 2003 : Caviar for Everyone!
Requiring that everyone lead a middle-class lifestyle leaves the poor worse off than if they were simply allowed to be poor.
Tuesday 18 February 2003 : CDC Propaganda Tip Sheets
On the CDC's website, there are 'tip sheets' for producers of movie and television shows, suggesting plots that will disseminate information the CDC wants disseminated. All these plots are clumsy, and some of them are hilarious.
Tuesday 01 October 2002 : Winona Ryder, Public Ememy #1
There's an interesting article on National Review Online about the Winona Ryder shoplifting case, scheduled for trial Real Soon Now. Particularly interesting is that it seems that the facts of the case are not much like anything the DA's office has been saying....
Monday 16 September 2002 : British Law Enforcement
I normally discount this sort of thing as a rare mistake or a story taken out-of-context. But stories like this (see here) seem to come out of the UK at least once a month....
Wednesday 10 July 2002 : Airport Security ‘Improvements’
There seems to be a lot of talk, following last week's shooting at LAX, about 'improving' airport security, and how much of a pain in the ass this is going to be. Airports will have to be totally reconfigured, the DOT is saying, and passengers will have to wait yet in yet more, and longer, lines. Yet taking any of...
Monday 20 May 2002 : Farm Bill Logic
In a story about the new U.S. farm subsidy bill on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday this weekend, we came across a stunning display of illogic. The story focuses on the fact that the majority of the subsidies -- 70% -- go to just 10% of farm owners, and that the primary beneficiaries of the subsidies are not small family farmers,...
Tuesday 14 May 2002 : Government Strategy
So this is how they're going to do it. Aha. (Warning: PDF)...
Thursday 11 April 2002 : Bush Calls For Cloning Ban
I cannot adequately express the incandescent stupidity of this. The BBC quotes Bush as saying: "As we seek to preserve human life, we must also preserve human dignity - and therefore we must prevent human cloning by stopping it before it starts." [...] The president said that anything short of a full ban would be unethical, and nearly impossible to...
Tuesday 02 April 2002 : Bush Clarifies ‘Terror Doctrine’
Everyone should read this article. Effectively it's about how the Bush administration is weaseling out of considering Yassir Arafat a 'terrorist'. Bush said Monday that the Palestinian leader's past as a peace negotiator exempts Arafat from the post-Sept. 11 U.S. policy that a country or entity that harbors terrorists will be dealt with as terrorists. Under the post-September-11 doctine, Arafat...
Friday 15 March 2002 : Atheism ‘Objectionable’ in Florida
The Florida DMV is attempting to recall a man’s personalized license plate — “ATHEIST” — on the ground that it is “obscene or objectionable”. Of course, they issued the thing in the first place, and have renewed it since 1986, so it can’t be too objectionable. Anyway, some people who disagree with the sentiment have sent a petition to the...
Sunday 10 March 2002 : Bully Another Kid, Go To Jail?
John Law is cracking down on bullying in at least one county in Minnesota. Prosecutor James Backstrom slides an edge of steel into his voice and lays out one of the toughest juvenile-justice policies in the nation: School bullies will go to jail. I have no problem with this, providing it’s carried out properly. I doubt that it will be,...
Saturday 09 March 2002 : Another Copyright-ish Idiocy
This article in the Telegraph discusses why bureaucracy is resulting in the movement of a larger part of the art market out of the EU, but I think it misses the main point. At issue is the droit de suite, which basically establishes a statutory license fee on artwork. Every time a work of art is sold in some European...
Thursday 07 March 2002 : Police State!
The following two paragraphs show up in a Minneapolis Star-Tribune article about a visit G.W. Bush made to Minneapolis recently. While he was making a speech, protesters were gathered a couple of blocks away. The protests produced one odd piece of street theater. A few demonstrators tossed pretzels into the air, mocking Bush’s awkward encounter with one in January as...
Friday 01 March 2002 : Sin Tax on Coca-Cola proposed in California
Kids in America are fat, and they appear to be getting fatter. This isn’t because they’re not allowed to leave the house by themselves anymore. Oh, no, it’s because they’re drinking soda. Obviously, what’s needed is a tax on soda to decrease consumption. Diet drinks — full of strange chemicals that, of course, might themselves be dangerous, are exempted, as...
Wednesday 27 February 2002 : The First Step in Cutting Spending
I spent part of the afternoon today in a Virginia DMV office, and I can’t think of a better case-study in what’s wrong with government. The state of Virginia is currently in a financial crisis; the governor has already said that this crisis will mean, among other things, longer lines at the DMV. The ‘other things’ include, of course, increased...
Monday 04 February 2002 : If You Get High, You’re Funding Terrorists
The Drug Czar’s office spent millions of dollars of your tax money this weekend to run two anti-drug TV spots during the Superbowl. (You can see one of them here. Warning: Quicktime.) Of course, it’s a better bargain than that, because Fox is required to cough up additional ad time at some future date, but in any case the government...
Wednesday 30 January 2002 : FBI Misconduct to be Investigated After All
Despite efforts by the Administration to ignore the matter, some 30-year-old FBI misconduct will be investigated after all, albeit by Dan Burton. (See this entry for some background.) From the Boston Herald: The chairman of a congressional committee investigating FBI misconduct that led to the jailing of a Boston man for a murder he didn’t commit will move forward with...
Tuesday 29 January 2002 : You Know… For Kids!
At some point, someone in the U.S. government decided that the government had to be "accessible" to children online. Nearly every government agency has some kind of web presence for the under-13 set. In some cases, this makes sense; I'm sure that the Smithsonian's kid-targeted information is greedily snapped up by fingers sticky with jam and ennui. The CIA and...
Monday 28 January 2002 : Just What Is Cheney Up To?
Is there an attempt afoot to destroy OPEC?
Sunday 20 January 2002 : President Bush and the Sanctity of Life
The White House has released a proclamation that raises questions about the consistency of the GOP’s philosophy. Gosh.
Friday 18 January 2002 : Legislators Getting Rid of Enron-Related Donations
This article mentions numerous lawmakers who are returning or donating campaign contributions from Enron, Enron employees, Andersen, etc., because they don’t want to be seen as being in Enron’s pocket. But they’re still in the pockets of the rest of the Fortune 500, right? Not to mention foreign governments and corporations....
Friday 18 January 2002 : “Drug” War Gone Entirely Insane
One might say that the Drug War couldn’t get any worse, but it appears that it has. The Washington Post reported last Sunday that the DEA is ordering all foods containing any hemp products to be pulled from store shelves by early next month. Cosmetics and such can still be sold, provided that none of the hemp products in them...
Friday 18 January 2002 : Enron, the Government, Corporate Bribes, and You
That Ashcroft feels the need to step back from the Enron investigation because of their support of his Senate campaigns forces me to question the validity of his votes in the Senate on energy matters.
If taking large campaign contributions from corporate donors renders you unable to fully perform the job you’ve been hired to do, perhaps accepting those donations is cause to disqualify you from holding the position. That seems to be the Attorney General’s opinion, at least with regard to himself in this case.
Friday 18 January 2002 : Idiocy on the wane at FDNY — maybe
It appears that, after much outcry, the the New York Fire Department is reconsidering its insane plan to diversify the statue to be made of the three (white) firefighters raising the flag at the World Trade Center. However, if you read the Washington Post article carefully, you’ll note that the fire department does not say that they’re looking in...
Thursday 17 January 2002 : ‘Justice’ Follies & The Death Penalty
This tale explains pretty well why I am strongly opposed to capital punishment in nearly all cases. The New York Times reports that the Supreme Court overturned a death sentence in South Carolina recently because the defendant was not allowed to inform the jurors that there was no chance that he would ever be released if sentenced to life in...
Monday 14 January 2002 : DOI Web Services Still MIA
If you go to the main U.S. National Park Service website at http://www.nps.gov, you’ll find a notice to the effect that the website is shut down until further notice. If you go to the main Department of the Interior website — the Park Service is part of the DOI — you’ll find a little more information, including a link to...
Monday 07 January 2002 : Flight 587 Information
Witnesses ask how the NTSB could possibly have “known” so soon that the crash of AA flight 587 was an “accident”.
Saturday 15 December 2001 : Strange Doings in Washington
Most news outlets report today, in deeply-buried items — the Washington Post’s article is on page A43 — on a White House move to refuse a subpoena from Congress for documents relating to a Boston mob case of 30 years ago and the one or other of the Clinton finance probes. I can sort of see the refusal to cough...
Friday 30 November 2001 : EU to outlaw racism?
The EU have proposals under consideration that would, among other things, criminalize “xenophobic” speech. The define “xenophobia” as aversion to individuals based on “race, colour, descent, religion or belief, national or ethnic origin”. Does this mean that it would be illegal for Euro politicians and activist groups to put forth their complaints about American “imperialism”, “hegemony”, etc., which are based...
Thursday 29 November 2001 : The need to Grow Up
I came across two interesting articles in The Guardian today, written by a Brit living in Montgomery County, Maryland. The first is about the requirement, for prospective driver’s licensees in Maryland, to attend a drugs-and-alcohol education course. The second is about Montgomery County’s attempts to regulate smoking in private homes. Both are interesting, and illustrative of why I won’t live...
Monday 26 November 2001 : Dope and Federalism
There is an article in The National Review Online that echoes a lot of the things I said a couple of weeks ago about federalism. A short quote: In August, Mr. [Drug-Czar designate Asa] Hutchinson told the Washington Post he would enforce the federal ban because he wanted to “send the right signal” on medical marijuana. In other words, the...
Monday 26 November 2001 : ‘Cheekiness’ predicts criminality
Oh, this is just priceless. As reported in an article in the Telegraph, there is a proposal to place children in eleven London boroughs under surveillance by the police, if they’re thought to be ‘at risk’ of committing a crime. How do you tell who’s at risk? Acording to the article, “children involved in cheekiness, minor vandalism and causing nuisances”...
Monday 26 November 2001 : It’s a wonder the driving age isn’t 35 now
The other night, Nicole and I were talking about some of the dumber things that are being done these days to "protect" "children". I remembered an article I'd seen in the Post some time ago, about changes in drivers' education. Here it is. Some of the changes make sense: they point out to students that they shouldn't pump the brake...
Monday 19 November 2001 : VDOT: Convenience and Cost Savings ‘Not Useful’
In a recent Dr. Gridlock column in the Wasington post, Bruce Williams, a spokesman for the corrupt organization that runs Virginia’s transportation system, defended Virginia’s use of an electronic toll-paying system (‘Smart Tag’) that’s incompatible with the system used by all states from the Virginia state line north to Boston (‘EZ-Pass’). Because the systems are electronically compatible, Virginia wouldn’t have...
Monday 19 November 2001 : Tommy Thompson On Top of Things
HHS chief: Anthrax letters likely domestic terror — or so says the CNN headline. Problem is, that isn’t what the article says. In the article, HHS honcho Tommy Thompson is quoted as saying that they believe that the Anthrax letters are the work of “an individual in America, or individuals.” Which, of course, you can tell by the postmarks on...
Monday 12 March 2001 : The War on Some Drugs
Vintage Tino! The government is in the law-enforcement business, and the War On Drugs is a marketing campaign.
Wednesday 17 January 2001 : The Second Amendment
Vintage Tino! A rather obvious recitation of what's wrong with gun-control laws: criminals by definition don't care whether something is illegal or not.
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