FEDERALLY SANCTIONED PROCESS FOR PUERTO RICO'S SELF-DETERMINATION

FEDERALLY SANCTIONED PROCESS FOR PUERTO RICO'S SELF-DETERMINATION: "(a) First Plebiscite- The Government of Puerto Rico is authorized to conduct a plebiscite in Puerto Rico. The 2 options set forth on the ballot shall be preceded by the following statement: `Instructions: Mark one of the following 2 options:
`(1) Puerto Rico should continue to have its present form of political status. If you agree, mark here XX.
`(2) Puerto Rico should have a different political status. If you agree, mark here XX.'.
(b) Procedure if Majority in First Plebiscite Favors Option 1- If a majority of the ballots in the plebiscite are cast in favor of Option 1, the Government of Puerto Rico is authorized to conduct additional plebiscites under subsection (a) at intervals of every 8 years from the date that the results of the prior plebiscite are certified under section 3(d).
(c) Procedure if Majority in First Plebiscite Favors Option 2- If a majority of the ballots in a plebiscite conducted pursuant to subsection (a) or (b) are cast in favor of Option 2, the Government of Puerto Rico is authorized to conduct a plebiscite on the following 3 options:
(1) Independence: Puerto Rico should become fully independent from the United States. If you agree, mark here XX.
(2) Sovereignty in Association with the United States: Puerto Rico and the United States should form a political association between sovereign nations that will not be subject to the Territorial Clause of the United States Constitution. If you agree, mark here XX.
(3) Statehood: Puerto Rico should be admitted as a State of the Union. If you agree, mark here XX."

Why does the government want to force the people to choose between just those 3 choices? And they want them to keep voting until they make a choice that is acceptable. Also why can anyone born in Puerto Rico vote their with an absentee ballot even if they don't live there right now? This doesn't sound very democratic -- it sounds like they want them to "vote until they get it right".

The Coming Entitlement Tsunami | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Coming Entitlement Tsunami | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: "If we really wanted to pay for the amount of spending to come, we would have to raise both the corporate tax rate and top income tax rate from their current 35 percent to 88 percent, the current 25 percent tax rate for middle-income workers to 63 percent, and the 10 percent tax bracket for low-income workers to 25 percent."

That is amazing! But who wants to take the hit of cutting spending when it can be left for the next guy?

FOXNews.com - Chicago Lawmakers: Call In the National Guard

FOXNews.com - Chicago Lawmakers: Call In the National Guard: "Two lawmakers who believe violence has become so rampant in Chicago that the Illinois National Guard must be called in to help made a public plea to Gov. Pat Quinn on Sunday to deploy troops.

A recent surge in violent crime, including a night last week that saw seven people killed and 18 wounded -- mostly by gunfire -- prompted the request from Chicago Democratic Reps."

How is that gun ban working for you, Chicago?

FOXNews.com - Utah Sets Firing-Squad Execution for Killer on Death Row Since '85

FOXNews.com - Utah Sets Firing-Squad Execution for Killer on Death Row Since '85: "Ronnie Lee Gardner has been on Utah's death row for 25 years. After Reese said Gardner's avenues for appeal are exhausted and that he would sign the warrant, Gardner said 'I would like the firing squad, please.'

The 49-year-old Gardner would be the first death row inmate executed in Utah since Joseph Mitchell Parsons died by lethal injection in 1999."

Kitty Rhodes: April 23

April 23: "Raw Milk – On a bipartisan 60-35 vote, legislation that would allow the sale of raw milk passed the Assembly.� Although originally opposed to the bill, changes made in the Senate to protect consumers and address negligent farmers dramatically improved the legislation. I supported the bill."

Senator Russ Feingold: The Control Spending Now Act

Senator Russ Feingold: The Control Spending Now Act: "The IRS is permitted to charge taxpayers a fee for some of the services it performs, and is allowed to keep and spend that money even though its administrative functions are already funded by Congress. U.S. Senator Russ Feingold has proposed ending the slush fund"

FOXNews.com - Arizona House OKs Bill Requiring Presidential Candidates to Provide Birth Certificate

FOXNews.com - Arizona House OKs Bill Requiring Presidential Candidates to Provide Birth Certificate: "Supporters of the Arizona measure say it would help settle the controversy.

'I support this measure in order to remove this as any type of issue in the future,' said Rep. Cecil Ash, R-Mesa."

That sounds like a good thing to do and a good reason to do it.

FOXNews.com - Toilet Paper Shortage: Good Raw Material Being Wiped Out

FOXNews.com - Toilet Paper Shortage: Good Raw Material Being Wiped Out: "Consumers once could fill up large bins with their recycled newspapers, magazines and print paper. But as electronic communication surges, these sources of recycled paper are becoming scarce."

That's a win for the "reduce" part of "reduce, reuse, recycle"!

FOXNews.com - Tea Partiers Seek 'Teachable Moment,' Not Oregon Teacher's Job

FOXNews.com - Tea Partiers Seek 'Teachable Moment,' Not Oregon Teacher's Job: "'We don't want to see Jason Levin fired, we want to see him helped,' said Oregon Tea Party founder Geoff Ludt. 'We want to reach out to him and we want to use his actions to create a teachable moment.'"

FOXNews.com - Report says school food making kids unfit to serve

FOXNews.com - Report says school food making kids unfit to serve: "National security is threatened by the sharp rise in obesity rates for young people over the last 15 years, the group Mission: Readiness contends. Weight problems are now the leading medical reason that recruits are rejected, the group says, and thus jeopardize the military's ability to fill its ranks."

Slight hyperbole?

FOXNews.com - VA Claims Office Takes SNAFU to a New Level

FOXNews.com - VA Claims Office Takes SNAFU to a New Level: "'If the VA does not actually recognize the request, they do not have to give the award,' he said. 'Sort of like a perverted form of 'See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil.' Most people just throw up their hands in frustration and walk away at this point. That is the VA's plan.'"

"Strickland says the problem at the root of letters like McBride's is a bonus structure paid out to VA claims employees.

'The more work, the better the bonus is,' he said. 'It's strictly volume, not quality driven. There is no accountability whatsoever.'"

FOXNews.com - Gunman Opens Fire at Tennessee Hospital, Killing Woman, Himself

FOXNews.com - Gunman Opens Fire at Tennessee Hospital, Killing Woman, Himself: "A gunman took a taxi to a hospital Monday and then opened fire, killing a woman and injuring two others before committing suicide, police said.

All the victims were female and current or former employees of Parkwest Medical Center, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV said. The attack happened about 4:30 p.m. outside the hospital's discharge area."

"'The hospital is safe and is being reopened with limitations,' Owen said."

Is it really safe? They would have called it safe right before the murderer attacked too!

FOXNews.com - Brussels Declares Vacation Time a Human Right

FOXNews.com - Brussels Declares Vacation Time a Human Right: "Now Brussels has declared that tourism is a human right and pensioners, youths and those too poor to afford it should have their travel subsidized by the taxpayer.

Under the scheme, British pensioners could be given cut-price trips to Spain, while Greek teenagers could be taken around disused mills in Manchester to experience the cultural diversity of Europe."

Feds hampered by incomplete MPAA piracy data | Media Maverick - CNET News

Feds hampered by incomplete MPAA piracy data | Media Maverick - CNET News: "Last week, the GAO issued the results of its year-long study. Researchers there found that many of the claims copyright owners have made about piracy's effects on their businesses were based on unreliable research. The findings sent shock waves through tech and media circles and may have damaged the credibility of the MPAA, the trade group of the six largest film studios as well as other copyright owners."

"But missing from the report was how LEK came to the dollar figures. The report did not detail the methodology or what assumptions LEK researchers made. Apparently, the GAO wasn't the first to ask to see the MPAA and LEK's details about its report. Ken Fisher, a reporter from the blog Ars Technica, noted in 2006 that the MPAA hadn't disclosed important background about the research."

"In 2008, more than 18 months later, the MPAA acknowledged that because of human error, the study had made erroneous statements. Instead of 44 percent, the films pirated by college students were responsible for only 15 percent of the film industry's revenue losses."

FOXNews.com - Administration to Tea Parties: We're on Your Side

FOXNews.com - Administration to Tea Parties: We're on Your Side: "And President Obama said at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser Thursday that Tea Party activists should 'be saying thank you' to him for the tax cuts passed by his administration."

What about the tax cuts he plans to let expire and the spending increases he has promoted? He may have done a few small good things, but that is outweighed by the many, large, bad things he did.

FOXNews.com - Iranian Cleric Says Promiscuous Women Are to Blame for Earthquakes

FOXNews.com - Iranian Cleric Says Promiscuous Women Are to Blame for Earthquakes: "A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes."

What about promiscuous men?!?

FOXNews.com - Poll: Trust in Big Government Near Historic Low

FOXNews.com - Poll: Trust in Big Government Near Historic Low: "The survey found that Obama's policies were partly to blame for a rise in distrustful, anti-government views. In his first year in office, the president orchestrated a government takeover of Detroit automakers, secured a $787 billion stimulus package and pushed to overhaul the health care system.

But the poll also identified a combination of factors that contributed to the electorate's hostility: the recession that Obama inherited from President George W. Bush; a dispirited public; and anger with Congress and politicians of all political leanings."

"'This should be a wake-up call. Both sides are guilty,' said Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. She pointed to 'nonsense' that goes on during campaigns that leads to 'promises made but not promises kept.' Still, she added: 'Distrust of government is an all-American activity. It's something we do as Americans and there's nothing wrong with it.'"

FOXNews.com - GM Pays Off Debt to U.S.

FOXNews.com - GM Pays Off Debt to U.S.: "GM still owes $45.3 billion to the U.S. and $8.1 billion to Canada, money it received in exchange for large stakes in the company. The U.S. government now owns 61 percent of the company and Canada owns roughly 12 percent. GM plans to repay both with a public stock offering, perhaps later this year."

The tooth fairy teaches... - The Quotations Page

Quote Details: David Richerby: The tooth fairy teaches... - The Quotations Page: "The tooth fairy teaches children that they can sell body parts for money.
-- David Richerby"

FOXNews.com - Tea Party Protesters Descend on D.C. With New 'Contract From America'

FOXNews.com - Tea Party Protesters Descend on D.C. With New 'Contract From America': "the top ten planks were:

(1) Require each bill to identify its constitutional authorization

(2) Defund, repeal, and replace government-run health care

(3) Demand a balanced budget

(4) End runaway government spending by imposing a statutory cap limiting growth in federal spending

(5) Enact fundamental reform to simplify and lower taxes

(6)Create a Blue Ribbon task force that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs

(7) Reject cap-and-trade

(8) Pass an “all of the above” energy policy

(9) Stop the 2011 tax hikes

(10) Stop the pork."

Meet Russian President Medvedev, Internet geek | Politics and Law - CNET News

Meet Russian President Medvedev, Internet geek | Politics and Law - CNET News: "During an appearance at the center-left Brookings Institution, the head of the Russian Federation suggested that he and President Obama should dispense with their legions of aides and chat on iPhones through text messaging instead.
'We don't e-mail each other (but) that would be the fastest possible way to talk to each other,' said Medvedev, according to a translation. 'In this case, we could just have a couple of iPhones and we could just exchange text messages or e-mails. I am quite familiar with that, as well as President Obama, as far as I understand.' (Obama has a BlackBerry.)"

That would save a lot of money, time, and environmental impact!

"Web sites let politicians go directly to the source of news articles, reports, or other information, Medvedev said. 'We don't need our aides that much today. We can immerse ourselves into information...The time has changed. Whatever I read or President Obama reads, we always have the possibility to go online and see what is happening in reality.'"

FOXNews.com - Taxpayers Foot State Department's Stiff Liquor Bill

FOXNews.com - Taxpayers Foot State Department's Stiff Liquor Bill: "Taxpayer watchdogs say while accounting for a small fraction of the State Department's overall budget, some of the liquor expenditures reflect larger concerns about stewardship of federal tax dollars at a time when many recession-weary Americans find themselves struggling to hold onto jobs and pay mortgages."

Our View: One vote can make a huge impact | Hudson Star-Observer | Hudson, Wisconsin

Our View: One vote can make a huge impact | Hudson Star-Observer | Hudson, Wisconsin: "Also, keep in mind that if you vote, it gives you right to complain when you are upset with government. We believe that voters who refuse to go to the polls give up the right to complain!"

Are You Dying for a Fix of Burger and Chips? | Patrick Basham and John Luik | Cato Institute: Commentary

Are You Dying for a Fix of Burger and Chips? | Patrick Basham and John Luik | Cato Institute: Commentary: "There are a number of problems with Johnson and Kenny's rat study.

* First, there is the major problem about rat research in general, namely, it is rat research. It proceeds on the unargued-for assumption that conclusions about animal dependency are transferable to issues of human dependency and that any behavioural differences are trivial. But behavioural differences are not trivial. The dominant model of human beings proceeds on the assumption that they, in fact, can resist and, indeed, can act in defiance of compulsive drives. Altered brain circuitry is not destiny, as the empirical evidence about other addictions amply shows.
* The rat study makes the unfounded assumption that overweight and obesity are caused by overeating. The study fails to provide any evidence in support of this assumption and there is considerable evidence against it. One of the major problems about the war on fat is that there isn't much clear evidence about what exactly causes overweight and obesity. For example, studies have shown that obese people do not routinely eat more than the non-obese - something that calls into question the entire relevance of the addicted rat study to the obesity debate.
* The entire idea of addiction cannot be substantiated as a scientific theory since there is no way in which it can be independently established beyond the subjective claims of the addicted individual. Whatever a supposed food addict might claim, there is no scientific way in which his alleged inability to stop eating can be distinguished from the fact that he either does not wish to stop or has not tried hard enough to stop. Indeed, being unwilling to stop or failing in self-discipline to stop is as probable an explanation as being 'addicted'.
* Unlike smoking, where the addicting agent is nicotine, proponents of food addiction fail to specify which particular chemical or combination of chemicals or nutrients is actually addictive. Instead, they make the claim that what is addictive is an entire food category, that is, junk food, or specific nutrients like carbohydrates. The problem is that junk food contains an enormous number of chemicals, as well as proteins, fats and carbohydrates, making it impossible to specify either which individual ingredient or combination of ingredients is supposedly addictive. And this is true of other foods as well.
* There are additional problems with carbohydrates as the supposed source of food addiction. Human, as opposed to rat, studies have found that obese women prefer high carbohydrate and high fat foods while obese men prefer high protein foods. If the cravings — the driver of addiction — of the obese are for foods with carbohydrates, fat and protein, then it is difficult to believe that carbohydrates alone are the addictive substance. Moreover, addiction, rat or human, supposedly involves compulsive cravings, yet carbohydrate consumption does not involve craving. Several studies have shown that supposed carbohydrate addicts do not improve after a carbohydrate-laden meal, which they should do if they are in fact addicted.
* Pharmacological treatments for supposed food addiction do not work, whereas behavioural therapies do. If food addiction were in fact produced through some sort of opioid-like process in the brain, then we would expect that opioid antagonists, which are used to treat drug dependency, would work. But there is no evidence that opioid antagonists prevent food cravings or the desire to overeat.
If addiction is pharmacologically produced, as the authors of the rat study claim, then animals who have been genetically modified so that their neuro-reward networks cannot process an addictive drug should not display addictive behaviours. But a number of studies have shown that this is not the case, as dopamine deficient animals still display so-called addictive behaviours.
* Finally, Johnson and Kenny's claims about food addiction fall apart with their comparison of addiction to junk food to addiction to such drugs as heroin. That's because human beings, unlike rats, are regularly able to escape the so-called addictions to psychoactive substances. The scientific literature is full of studies in which drug users were able, despite their 'addiction', to stop using their drug of choice. For instance, a 1974 study of Vietnam veterans by Leen Robbins found that only 50 per cent of those who used drugs in Vietnam continued using them after returning to the US, and only 12.5 per cent of these became regular users. And in their study on heroin addiction, Gerry Stimson and Edna Oppenheimer found that users of heroin and other substances move through a cycle of addiction and recovery that is inconsistent with the model of pharmacological compulsion and brain circuitry that dictates behaviour."

The Inhumanity of War | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Inhumanity of War | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, recently made an astonishing admission of civilian deaths, so often euphemistically referred to as 'collateral damage.' At a meeting with U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal discussed the problem of shootings at checkpoints: 'We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force.' He added that he knew of no case when 'we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it.'"

Terrorism Isn't an 'Existential Threat' | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary

Terrorism Isn't an 'Existential Threat' | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary: "As the analysts at the Human Security Report Project explain, 'the overwhelming majority of terrorist campaigns fail to achieve their strategic objectives.' And, despite media sensationalism, fatalities from terrorism have actually declined by some 40 percent in recent years.

Terrorists bank on overreaction. As Osama bin Laden put it in 2004, 'All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses.'

Adam Gadahn, the U.S.-born al Qaeda spokesman, recently called for more 'lone-wolf' strikes, because 'even apparently unsuccessful attacks on Western mass transportation systems can bring major cities to a halt [and] cost the enemy billions.'"

"When the enemy's best recent shot involves lighting his pants on fire, we shouldn't torture ourselves with nightmarish visions of weapons of mass destruction. Such weapons are exceedingly hard to come by.

As political scientist John Mueller notes in his recent book Atomic Obsession, 'no state has ever given another state — even a close ally, much less a terrorist group — a nuclear weapon (or chemical, biological, or radiological one either).' And home-grown WMD tend to be ineffective.

The Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo had roughly a billion dollars devoted to developing chemical and biological weapons, the most sophisticated such program in the history of terrorism. But when it released sarin gas on the Tokyo subway in 1995, it only managed to kill 12 people."

"The low risk of terrorist WMD doesn't make guarding against it a waste of time. It makes sense, for example, to boost funding for international efforts to prevent nuclear smuggling, as the Obama administration has done. But when we overreact, we're doing terrorists' job for them.

Conservatives understand that exaggerated fears of environmental threats make government grow and liberty shrink. They'd do well to recognize that the same dynamic applies to homeland security."

Morality and the IRS | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary

Morality and the IRS | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary: "It is unambiguously true that the tax code and IRS are creatures of Congress, with all of its self-dealing, corruption, ignorance and incompetence. But it also is true, and was made explicit at the Nuremberg trials, that those who carry out orders that they know to be wrong or should know to be wrong are not absolved of personal responsibility."

"The French political and economic philosopher Frederic Bastiat correctly said, 'No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree, but the safest way to make them respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality are in contradiction to each other, the citizen finds himself in the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense, or of losing his respect for the law.'"

The Iraq War: Still a Massive Mistake | Malou Innocent | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Iraq War: Still a Massive Mistake | Malou Innocent | Cato Institute: Commentary: "The broad consensus is that the war has cost the US economy well over $700 billion – with the meter still running. The Iraq war has also left nearly 4,400 American troops dead, more than 31,000 physically disabled, and countless more psychologically traumatized.

According to most estimates, more than 100,000 Iraqis have been killed since the invasion. More than 2 million displaced Iraqi Sunnis, who fled into neighboring Jordan and Syria, are adding instability to an already politically precarious region of the world.

The war also upset the regional balance of power, as it substantially strengthened Iran's influence in Iraq and severely limited US policy options toward Tehran's clerical regime."

The Problem with Alliances: Britain and the Falklands | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Problem with Alliances: Britain and the Falklands | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: "The appropriate question for Washington is: what does this have to do with the U.S.? Alas, both Argentina and Britain want America's support. And out of London has come the plaintive plea: aren't we allies?

The U.S. has no discernible interest in the controversy. England controls the islands, but that doesn't mean its control is legitimate: Washington's position has been to support British administration, not sovereignty. Obviously, the dispute should be handled peacefully."

"the U.S. should back London when the latter is in the right."

Eritrea Doubly Evil | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

Eritrea Doubly Evil | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: "The U.S. also should welcome refugees seeking to escape a countrywide prison camp. We know what happens when asylum applicants are sent back to Eritrea: Amnesty International has reported on cases of asylum-seekers from other nations who were forcibly returned and who then disappeared from public view, apparently arrested on their return. Torture and lengthy imprisonment likely followed.

Finally, the rest of us should seek to discomfit Eritrean officials and protest Eritrean policies. We should help refugees fleeing repression of all kinds and back groups which support religious liberty. And we should pray for the martyrs of faith today. People around the world continue to pay the ultimate price for freedoms which we in America take for granted."

Russ Feingold: In the News - Press Releases

Russ Feingold: In the News - Press Releases: "“From the day that I learned about the warrantless wiretapping program in 2005, I have been convinced that it was illegal."

Well Obama is continuing that program so do you still object to it?

FOXNews.com - Watchdog: Obama Foreclosure Aid Leaves Many Out

FOXNews.com - Watchdog: Obama Foreclosure Aid Leaves Many Out: "The Congressional Oversight Panel says in a report released Wednesday that the administration projects only one million families will end up with lower monthly payments as a result of the program. The report says six million families are more than two months behind with their payments, and 200,000 more families receive foreclosure notices each month.

A year and a half after launching the program, 'Treasury is still fighting to get its foreclosure programs off the ground,' Elizabeth Warren, who heads the independent panel set up by Congress, told reporters Tuesday.

Warren warned that borrowers who have their monthly payments lowered as a result of the program still could lose their homes because the payments remain high and many Americans are facing new financial strains.

'Redefault signals the single worst form of failure' by the Treasury Department, said Warren, who is a professor at Harvard Law School. 'Billions of taxpayer dollars will be spent and families will nonetheless lose their homes.'"

"The executives told lawmakers on Tuesday they are reducing the amount that troubled borrowers owe on their home loans only in limited cases. That's because consumers who are paying their mortgages on time are likely to see such reductions as unfair, they said."

Escalante Stood and Delivered. It's Our Turn. | Andrew J. Coulson | Cato Institute: Commentary

Escalante Stood and Delivered. It's Our Turn. | Andrew J. Coulson | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Jaime Escalante, the brilliant public school teacher immortalized in the 1988 film, Stand and Deliver, died this week at the age of 79. With the help of a few dedicated colleagues at Garfield High in East Los Angeles, he shattered the myth that poor inner-city kids couldn't handle advanced math. At the peak of its success, Garfield produced more students who passed Advanced Placement calculus than Beverly Hills High.

In any other field, his methods would have been widely copied. Instead, Escalante's success was resented. And while the teachers union contract limited class sizes to 35, Escalante could not bring himself to turn students away, packing 50 or more into a room and still helping them to excel. This weakened the union's bargaining position, so it complained.

By 1990, Escalante was stripped of his chairmanship of the math department he'd painstakingly built up over a decade. Exasperated, he left in 1991, eventually returning to his native Bolivia. Garfield's math program went into a decline from which it has never recovered. The best tribute America can offer Jaime Escalante is to understand why our education system destroyed rather than amplified his success — and then fix it."

"Despite a century-and-a-half of expansion and centralization, this approach, too, has failed. Without systematic incentives rewarding officials for wise decisions and penalizing them for bad ones, public schooling became a ferris wheel of faddism rather than a propagator of excellence."

"Thanks to profit sharing and Web broadcasting of their lectures, top teachers in Korea's tutoring sector earn big salaries and have virtual class sizes in the scores of thousands. The combination of high technology and market incentives not only allows but compels tutoring firms to recognize and make the most of their top teachers."

"Unleash the freedoms and incentives of the marketplace, so teachers like Escalante become the Steve jobs or Bill Gates of education, profiting from their exceptional ability to serve our children."

McCain Channeling Dick Cheney | Nat Hentoff | Cato Institute: Commentary

McCain Channeling Dick Cheney | Nat Hentoff | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Obama hasn't quite gone that far, but he has seriously proposed permanent detention for terrorism suspects who can't be tried because alleged evidence against them has been obtained by torture."

How much "change" is that? I don't think it is much compared to what people expected of him.

China Trade and American Jobs | Daniel J. Ikenson | Cato Institute: Commentary

China Trade and American Jobs | Daniel J. Ikenson | Cato Institute: Commentary: "according to the results from a growing field of research, only a fraction of the value of U.S. imports from China represents the cost of Chinese labor, materials and overhead. Most of the value of those imports comes from components and raw materials produced in other countries, including the U.S.

In a 2006 paper, Stanford University economist Lawrence Lau found that Chinese value-added accounted for about 37% of the total value of U.S. imports from China. In 2008, using a different methodology, U.S. International Trade Commission economist Robert Koopman, along with economists Zhi Wang and Shang-jin Wei, found the figure to be closer to 50%. In other words, despite all the hand-wringing about the value of imports from China, one-half to nearly two thirds of that value is not even Chinese. Instead, it reflects the efforts of workers and capital in other countries, including the U.S. In overstating Chinese value by 100% to 200%, the official U.S. import statistics are a poor proxy for job loss."

"According to a widely cited 2007 study by Greg Linden, Kenneth L. Kraemer and Jason Dedrick of the University of California, Irvine, each Apple iPod costs $150 to produce. But only about $4 of that cost is Chinese value-added. Most of the value comes from components made in other countries, including the U.S. Yet when those iPods are imported from China, where they are snapped together, the full $150 is counted as an import from China, adding to the trade deficit and inflating EPI's job-loss figures.

In reality, those imported iPods support thousands of U.S. jobs up the value chain — in engineering, design, finance, manufacturing, marketing, distribution, retail and elsewhere. A 25% tariff on imports from China would penalize the non-Chinese companies and workers who create most of the iPod's value."

FOXNews.com - Obama, Medvedev Sign Treaty to Cut Nuclear Arms

FOXNews.com - Obama, Medvedev Sign Treaty to Cut Nuclear Arms: "The new treaty will shrink the limit of nuclear warheads to 1,550 per country over seven years. That still allows for mutual destruction several times over. But it is intended to send a strong signal that Russia and the U.S. -- which between them own more than 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons -- are serious about disarmament."

Does it really matter if you can completely destroy the enemy several times or 100 times? I don't see how this is significant or shows seriousness about disarmament.

Sheriff wants inmates to pedal for TV rights | Green Tech - CNET News

Sheriff wants inmates to pedal for TV rights | Green Tech - CNET News: "Arpaio installed an energy-generating stationary bike (PDF) attached to a TV when he found that 50 percent of the inmates were overweight, many morbidly so. As long as an inmate is pedaling, the bike will produce 12 volts of energy--just enough to power a 19-inch tube TV. But if an inmate stops pedaling at a moderate speed, the TV shuts off."

Court: FCC has no power to regulate Net neutrality | Politics and Law - CNET News

Court: FCC has no power to regulate Net neutrality | Politics and Law - CNET News: "The Federal Communications Commission does not have the legal authority to slap Net neutrality regulations on Internet providers, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday."

This is a win for the Internet. Federal regulation of the Internet might look good at first but it will almost certainly morph into something bad.

FOXNews.com - Federal Government Jobs Far Outpace Private Sector Counterparts in Pay, Benefits

FOXNews.com - Federal Government Jobs Far Outpace Private Sector Counterparts in Pay, Benefits: "According to information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, federal jobs outpay their private sector counterparts 83 percent of the time."

Learning from What Works | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary

Learning from What Works | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Economists, political scientists, reporters and pundits spend too much of their time looking at dysfunctional societies and trying to explain why there are poverty, joblessness and hopelessness. In many ways, Haiti is easy to explain - no rule of law and 200 years of corrupt and incompetent governments. Switzerland is the polar opposite. It has almost no corruption and has the rule of law with honest, competent judges and government administrators. The question should be, 'What can we learn from the Switzerlands of the world about how to do things right' rather than, 'What is wrong with the Haitis of the world?' Switzerland manages to run a smaller government as a share of gross domestic product than the United States and most other countries while providing a higher level of service, security, prosperity and freedom. How does it do that?"

"Health care insurance is subsidized, and everyone has access regardless of income, but there is no 'public option.'"

"In the U.S., roughly two-thirds of government is at the federal level, and one third is at the state and local level. Switzerland is just the opposite, with roughly two-thirds of government being at the state (canton) and local level."

Get Rid of Vague Laws | Timothy Sandefur | Cato Institute: Commentary

Get Rid of Vague Laws | Timothy Sandefur | Cato Institute: Commentary: "There's probably nothing more dangerous to individual rights than vaguely written laws. They give prosecutors and judges undue power to decide whether or not to punish conduct that people did not know was illegal at the time. Vagueness turns the law into a sword dangling over citizens' heads — and because government officials can choose when and how to enforce their own interpretations of the law, vagueness gives them power to make their decisions from unfair or discriminatory motives."

"Last year Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out that if taken literally the honest services law would make it a crime to call in sick to work and go to a ball game instead. Other federal courts have tried to improvise: In 2003 a team of seven judges wrote a long decision patching together a complicated test for determining whether a person is in violation. But six judges on that same court dissented. How can average Americans be expected to understand the law if even federal appellate judges are divided on its meaning?"

FOXNews.com - GOP: End Public Lifeline for Large Financial Institutions

FOXNews.com - GOP: End Public Lifeline for Large Financial Institutions: "End the public lifeline for large financial institutions, Republicans are demanding as they push back against Democratic efforts to set new rules for the financial industry."

Maybe the Republicans shouldn't have started the bailouts if they didn't what the Democrats to continue them.

Report: More Than 70 Million Doses of H1N1 Vaccine May Have to Be Discarded - H1N1 - FOXNews.com

Report: More Than 70 Million Doses of H1N1 Vaccine May Have to Be Discarded - H1N1 - FOXNews.com: "According to a report in the Washington Post, less than half of the 229 million doses of the vaccine the government bought to fight the virus have been administered, which leaves an estimated 71.5 million doses that will have to be discarded if they are not used before they expire.

Still, government officials said they are “satisfied with the effort.”"

Only the government would be satisfied with 31% waste.