Well, the preliminary results are in from the latest rise in the national minimum wage.  This is of course a hot button issue for many people who think they ought to be earning more.  It’s also a hot button for leftward leaning politicians who see the millions earned by individual CEOs and the like, who think the money ought to be spread out a little more among the workers.  The minimum wage is one of those tools that socialists and would-be socialists use to try to engineer the economy, to keep the rich from getting richer and the poor from getting poorer.

I submit to the court of public opinion (or at least my admittedly small pool of readers) the following article, published by CBS news.

http://cbs11tv.com/consumer/minimum.wage.economy.2.1099679.html

The article is surprising balanced between those who support minimum wages and those who suffer the effects–higher unemployment, fewer jobs created, reductions in hours worked…all the things that are specially prescribed to hasten the economic recovery, right?  Perhaps the most perceptive attitude is the one taken by the lady in the article who looks forward to getting a raise–if she actually gets to keep her job.

More puzzling, but less surprising, is the opinion expressed by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who asserts that the rise will amount to an extra $5.5 billion in consumer spending.  By whom?  The people who lose their jobs or don’t get jobs?  The people who are saving their newfound wealth for when they get laid off too?  This figure surely assumes that businesses have an extra couple of billion to spend on rising wages, and won’t cut spending in a recession.

And farther out on the political spectrum we have Holly Sklar, the senior policy advisor (fair enough; she’s clearly not much as an economic advisor) for something called Let Justice Roll, a group who wants to institute a $10 minimum wage by 2010.  “You can’t have an economy that’s based heavily on consumer purchasing power, and at the same time, not pay the consumer enough to live on,” she says, neatly tumbling into the economic fallacy that working with bigger numbers automatically translates into additional wealth.

But I digress.  The socialists say they want to reduce inequalities of income, to stop the “rich get richer, poor get poorer” cycle.  The thing is, as we see in the article, some people do see salary increases–whether that translates into greater wealth, of course, depends on whether that increase translates into general inflation.  But a lot of people end up losing their jobs, simply because their services aren’t worth $7.25 an hour–thus making the poorest of the poor poorer still by rendering them unemployable.  Considering that these are the people the socialists are supposedly trying to help, doesn’t this seem self-defeating?

By now most people have heard the latest story on police brutality.  It seems that Harvard lecturer and PBS presenter Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested for disorderly conduct in his Cambridge, MA, home and released on his own recognizance.  Later on, under public pressure, Cambridge dropped the charges and apologized.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/07/21/massachusetts.harvard.professor.arrested/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/us/21gates.html

Since then, the internet has been abuzz with stories about how we really aren’t making any progress at all on race relations, and how the police are corrupt and racist, and so forth.  Even President Obama has weighed in, condemning the Cambridge police.  http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25310.html

This is how riots get started.

First of all, let’s take a look at the facts of the case (as far as I can make them out from half a continent away).  It all started when Dr. Gates arrived home after a long trip to find his front door stuck in the closed position.  So he did what anyone would normally do–try to get in.  This evidently disturbed a lady who called the police to report it.  The police arrived to find Dr. Gates inside the home.

So far so good.  I’m not sure what the prevailing attitude is in Cambridge, MA, but I for one would appreciate it if a neighbor called police to report someone breaking into my house.  I would also hope that the police, upon finding someone in the house, would not simply take their word for it that they belonged in my house–and if they found me in the house (and confirmed that I belonged), instead of an intruder, it doesn’t seem surprising that they would be interested in the possibility that someone else might be in the house without my knowing.

And yet that seems to have been the nub of the problem, or at least that’s where the stories diverge.  According to Dr. Gates’ lawyer, he showed the police his proof of identity and became irritated by their continued questioning.  Eventually he insisted upon being given the police sergeant’s badge number.  According to police, Dr. Gates was almost immediately confrontational, accusing the police of racism and getting very worked up.

Whom do we believe in this case?  It’s hard to say from this distance.  On the other hand, it seems improbable that anything resembling racial profiling could occur in Cambridge.  After all, this is Cambridge–a place as liberal as any, where 80% of the residents have some amount of college education, and the home of Harvard University as well as the Car Talk guys.  This is not the stereotypical small town stuck in the sixties.  The case is further cast in doubt by the photo that accompanies the CNN story, in which Dr. Gates is clearly shouting in the direction of a police officer who is clearly non-white.  That’s hardly proof one way or the other, of course, but it is food for thought.  There is also the fact that both sides agree that Dr. Gates refused the police officer’s initial instruction to step out of the house, thus opening the door (so to speak) for further confrontation.

In any event, what makes this so obviously (to so many people) a case of racial profiling?  Shouldn’t the police have investigated a break-in?  Shouldn’t the police have ensured he was who he claimed to be?  After all, not everyone watches PBS.  If there was any racial profiling being done, it seems like it would have been the “white woman” who called in to report the theft–which raises the question of how they knew she was white if she only called in, but that’s beside the point. 

And is there any outside eyewitness testimony?  Who took the aforementioned photograph? 

Would Dr. Gates be willing to testify in court that the police report is a tissue of lies?

There is such a thing as racial profiling.  There is also such a thing as a self-inflicted wound.  As far as I’m concerned, the jury in this case is still out.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl349

Speaking recently on what would be done differently during the next hundred days of his administration, President Obama joked that he would try to get off the teleprompter more–and get Vice President Joe Biden on.

Well, there’s another promise broken.

Now, it seems, Mr. Biden has disclosed the location of the “undisclosed secret location” to which Vice Presidents flee in times of national emergency.

Or has he?  After a Newsweek reporter leaked the story ( http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/05/15/shining-light-on-cheney-s-hideaway.aspx), the Vice President’s office said that in fact Biden was talking about an entirely different location from the one reported, and no classified information had been revealed.

Hmmm.   Granted, Biden may have simply been trying to make a joke at former Vice President Cheney’s expense.  On the other hand, with Biden’s track record (and willingness to demonize Cheney at every opportunity), how do we know that he wasn’t telling the truth?  If it were just his own personal security that he (may have) compromised, there might be a touch of morbid humor to it; but this is, after all, the office of the Vice President. 

At any rate, the rebuttal would have been more convincing if the rebuttal had been:  “The Vice President was making a private joke; no such incident occurred” rather than to contradict an eyewitness account.

One is uncomfortably reminded of the early days of the Clinton administration, when so many of his political appointees kept running into problems with their security clearances.  It would be appalling to find out the hard way that sensitive information was being passed to someone who didn’t know when to shut up.

Of course, there’s also the press angle:  assuming the story as told is true, why did a member of the press think it advisable to reveal the “undisclosed location” to an interested world?  Did she think we wouldn’t be having any more security emergencies?  For that matter, why did Biden NOT think that something revealed to people whose job it is to blab wouldn’t get blabbed as well?

All of which goes to show how underappreciated plagiarism can be.  It was, after all, a bout with plagiarism that sank Biden’s presidential aspirations in 1988.  If not for that… well….

Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has introduced a bill to the U.S. Senate related to how federal gas taxes are doled back out to the states.  Specifically, her bill would allow states (or at least Texas) to opt out of the funding mechanism, such that gas taxes collected in the state, instead of being distributed by the usual formula, would all be returned to that state.  This would solve the problem of states that constantly received less money for their highways than what they collect in gas taxes–often called “donor states” since they essentially “donate” money to the road networks in other states.

This raises a couple of questions–first, whether Hutchison seriously expects this thing to pass in a Democrat-controlled Congress (never mind the Democrat-controlled White House) or whether it is just political posturing in preparation for her upcoming gubernatorial primary race against toll-road advocate Gov. Rick Perry. 

The second question is whether this is, in fact, a good idea.  It sounds like a really good idea–of course states should get back the money they send to Washington, right?

Well…we probably should ask why they don’t–in short, why we set up the current system.  The Highway Trust Fund, the repository for incoming gas taxes, was initially set up in order to build the Interstate system–that is, a national system of highways.  It was rather expected that the states with lots of area and smaller populations would not be able to cover construction costs.  It was also expected that the donor states–or at least the nation–would still benefit from the highways through the smaller states.  For example, Texans would benefit from roads in New Mexico due to trade with the West Coast, even if some Texans never traveled over them personally.

Of course in politics there’s usually a gap between the intent and the implementation.  As originally envisioned, the Interstates were supposed to provide national connectivity; in practice, where they impinged on cities, the Interstates developed into important (local) commuter routes.  Also, the role of the fund evolved from purely construction and maintenance of the Interstates to covering the larger federal highway network as well as (oddly) providing a certain amount of support for mass transit–again, a local concern.  

This leads to a reasonable question:  to what extent is the nation on the hook for local transportation needs?  Texans may benefit from a highway across Arizona, but should they pay to resolve local traffic jams in Tucson?  Should they be paying for Phoenix’s snazzy new mass transit system?  (I should note that the question of gas revenues paying for mass transit is a separate question that I may cover another time.  Meanwhile, I should also note that Arizona is in fact a donor state as well:  for a complete list of winners and losers as of FY2005, please see  http://www.heritage.org/research/smartGrowth/images/B2047_table_1-lg.gif)

So what would happen if the Hutchison bill passed?  Well, obviously:  all the donor states would opt out, leaving the recipient states dangling in the wind.  Now, this might not be quite as much of a disaster as it seems, depending on how much “pork” you assume to be in the lists of state transportation “needs.”  At the very least it would mean a great deal of prioritizing and soul-searching in the recipient states that may or may not be taking place now.

This would, of course, mean the end of the Federal Highway Administration as we know it:  power of the purse is the ultimate power in Washington.  If the taxes are just being collected and then returned intact, why should they be sent to Washington at all?  Just let the states collect them, keep them, and spend them as they see fit.  Keep a bit of FHWA going in order to set road design standards and a few other functions, perhaps, but take away the spending authority.  At least states would no longer have to send potential projects to Washington, providing sufficient support documentation, so that they can be evaluated and ranked by bureaucrats who, at the end of the day, have no way of knowing for certain whether Project A is really beter than Project B, or if its documentation has been tinkered to make it look that way.

Or is getting rid of the FHWA such a good idea?  Before we get rid of one bureaucracy, it’s good to know what we’d get in return.  The landlocked states, in particular, might think twice before they entrusted their connectivity to other states.  Do Carson City, Salt Lake City, and Phoenix really want to trust Sacramento with their access to the West Coast?  The end result might be a series of interstate compacts between, say, Oklahoma and Texas, or Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana, that address rights of passage, road design standards, and so forth.  It’s an interesting concept–but the possible permutations across 50 states (okay, make that 48) suggest it could mutate into the stuff that legal nightmares are made of. 

Would that be worth tossing the FHWA overboard for?  Perhaps not–but at least it’s nice to know that there are alternatives; that we could perhaps find a way to muddle through without bureaucracy–or at least without this one.  And it would be nice for the FHWA to know that there are, perhaps, other ways of doing transportation business.  It might start a conversation about what sorts of transportation benefits are the responsibility of the country to pay for, and which should be paid for locally.

Maybe that’s what the Hutchison bill is all about.

(Of course we already know of one other way of doing transportation business–unfortunately, it’s called “earmarks.”  More about that another time, perhaps.)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30497853/

Well, we all needed a laugh, and it was certainly amusing to watch the White House reaction to Vice President and ardent public transportation fan Joe Biden’s caution against using airplanes and subways until the swine flu “epidemic” has stabilized (which apparently it’s starting to do in Mexico:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30398682/ ).  I wonder if that includes the Amtrak train he says he regularly uses (or used, when he was only a Senator) to commute back to Delaware. 

It will be interesting to see if Biden’s remarks resurface when it comes time to debate the big transportation legislation coming up this year, which governs government spending on transportation…including airplanes and subways….

What’s strange about this is that Biden was supposed to be the “wisdom and experience” side of the Obama ticket (much like Cheney was the “gravitas” half of the Bush 43 ticket).  And now we see him make a rookie mistake like this–undercutting his President and contributing to the public panic?  Clearly, here’s yet another reason to pray for Obama’s continued health.

Another strange thing here is how quickly the gaffe fell off the headlines.  It’s still mentioned in articles, of course, but you have to look for it.  If Quayle (or Bush 43) had said this, it would have been in the headlines for days.

In C.S. Lewis’ book The Silver Chair a small group of people are called upon to make a long journey into the north.  After a few days, one of them mentions that she’s finding she enjoys adventures–to which someone else replies, “But we haven’t had any yet.”

As I observe the frantic press response of the so-called swine flu pandemic, I find myself wondering if the problem quite warrants the volume (in terms of both quantity and loudness) of coverage.  Certainly the illness is uncomfortable and potentially deadly, and nobody is eager to see a new flu virus emerge and start mutating from animals to humans.  A superbug may yet emerge–but I’m not sure this is it. 

After all, tens of thousands of people die every year during normal flu outbreaks.   So far, we’ve had a couple hundred, world-wide.

It certainly didn’t help the press’s credibility on this story when they tracked down the first known person to be struck down by the swine flu–and found him recovering at home and feeling much better, thank you very much.

The course of this disease could still take a nasty turn; but meanwhile, scientists are working to develop a vaccine and incorporate it into the standard flu shot.  Governments are deploying their Tamiflu stocks–just in case–which they might as well do, as the stuff would otherwise decay in storage. 

It’s all very well to throw around words like “pandemic,” but doing so isn’t especially helpful (except to the ratings-dependent).  It says nothing about the severity of the illness.  A pandemic just means it’s all over the place.  The common cold is “pandemic,” but it’s not a big deal.  An ebola pandemic would truly be a nightmare. 

The swine flu could still theoretically mutate and start doing serious damage to untold numbers of people.  It hasn’t yet.  Does the subject need to be covered in the news?  It’s just as well to mention it, yes, to keep people informed that it’s out there.   Do we need blow-by-blow accounts (or nose-blow by nose-blow accounts) of the crisis? 

Maybe–if we actually had a crisis.

When President Musharraf of Pakistan was pushed out of office in favor of a “democratic” government, there was much rejoicing in certain quarters.

Certainly Musharraf was a corrupt autocrat who deserved to be booted; but he was also a corrupt autocrat who was able to keep a lid, more or less, on the Taliban.

Now that he’s gone…well…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30361451/

How will we get out of this one?  Maybe President Obama will arrange multilateral discussions with the Taliban regarding their intentions toward Pakistan’s nukes.

I’m no Gordon Brown fan, but…ouch!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4953523/Barack-Obama-too-tired-to-give-proper-welcome-to-Gordon-Brown.html

Granted, it’s never easy to be president, especially now–but other presidents have managed to maintain the “auld alliance” in difficult times….

At a high profile (or at least well-attended) energy conference in Denver this week, leaders, former leaders, would-be leaders, and possibly a misleader or two have been mulling over how to connect potential new sources of clean energy (for example, solar power in Arizona and Nevada) to customers in California and elsewhere.  There was much fretting over the state of the national grid, and further angst over the possibility that local politicians pursuing their own interests might wish to block or reroute the development of new transmission lines across their states.  There was a general feeling that the federal government needed the authority to overrule local governments on this.

With dignitaries including former President Clinton, former Veep Al Gore, and Conference participant and so many other luminaries in attendence at the so-called National Clean Energy Project, the competition to provide memorable sound bites was undoubtedly stiff.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), offering to introduce legislation to advance federal authority on this subject,  provided this little gem:

We cannot let 231 state regulators [on public utility commissions]hold up progress….  there may come a time when the federal government will have to step in.

 So…if Reid is now in favor of trumping state wishes when it comes to important energy projects,  can it be that he’s going to start supporting (or at least stop blocking) the important but locally unpopular Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in his home state?

Stay tuned…

…and for the full story, please see the following:

http://www.star-telegram.com/190/story/1219541.html

Athens—The Ancient Greek Environmental Defense Administration (AGEnDA) today reported that it had levied a fine against Hercules for environmental violations related to his attempts to clean the stables of Augeas, the king of Elis and former Argonaut. Hercules had taken on this job as part of a twelve-step program to reclaim his honor.

In order to clean the stables, AGEnDA claims Hercules diverted two rivers to flow through the stables, thereby removing several years’ worth of agricultural waste.

“We’re talking about major environmental impacts here,” said an AGEnDA representative who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution. “Even if such waterway diversions were permissible, we have found no evidence that Hercules even attempted to consult with us, or with the Corps of Engineers, which has jurisdiction over inland waterways. And don’t even get me started on the issue of degradation of downstream water quality.”

When asked to comment on his failure to obtain the appropriate environmental clearances, Hercules said, “Now that would have been a Herculean effort.”

In a related action, Augeas himself was cited for inhumane treatment of animals for keeping his livestock in unsanitary conditions. Augeas was unavailable for comment, having been murdered by Hercules in a quarrel over payment for services rendered.