Coyote Blog

I have written on a number of occasions that I thought it odd that the left (and women's groups in particular) don't see a contradiction between their support for government health care and their long-held abortion beliefs that people should be free of government coercion when it comes to decisions about their body and their health.  These views certainly don't seem compatible in England:

A cancer charity has today published research that shows doctors are keeping
  cancer patients in the dark about new treatments that could extend their lives.

Myeloma UK, which conducted the research, said a quarter of myeloma
  specialists questioned in a survey admitted hiding the facts about
  treatments that may be difficult to obtain on the NHS.

The main reason given was to avoid distressing or confusing patients.

Myeloma is a bone marrow cancer that affects around 3,800 people each year in
  the UK. Of these, 2,600 are likely to die from the disease.

Apparently, the 7th Harry Potter book will be split into two movies.  Great.  The second part will be killer, but the first will doom us to watching Harry run all over England camping. 

Clearly, all the major problems of the world have been solved, because Arlen Specter wants to focus the Senate's time on the New England Patriots' violation of NFL rules for which they were severely punished and which violations in no way tread on any law, just NFL rules.

In a telephone interview Thursday morning, Senator Arlen Specter,
Republican of Pennsylvania and ranking member of the committee, said
that Goodell would eventually be called before the committee to address
two issues: the league's antitrust exemption in relation to its
television contract and the destruction of the tapes that revealed
spying by the Patriots.

"That requires an explanation," Specter
said. "The N.F.L. has a very preferred status in our country with their
antitrust exemption. The American people are entitled to be sure about
the integrity of the game. It's analogous to the C.I.A. destruction of
tapes. Or any time you have records destroyed."

Please, to the friends of Arlen Specter:  It is time for an intervention, before the man hurts himself any more. 

Next Up:  Kay Bailey Hutchison calls Jerry Jones in front of Congress to explain why the Cowboys gave up on the running game in the fourth quarter of this year's playoff game against the Giants.

Get ready, because global warming will soon be an excuse for government micro-management of any number of everyday behaviors.  We have already seen California's attempt to have the government take control of your home thermostat.  In England, the target is patio heaters:

Britain's growing café culture and taste for alfresco drinking and
dining may be under threat from MEPs who want to ban the patio heater.

A
vote in Brussels today is expected to call on the European Commission
to abolish the heaters to help to tackle climate change. Such a move
could cost the pub and catering trade dear.

Pubs spent about £85
million on patio heaters after the smoking ban was introduced last
year. Besides forcing smokers into the cold there is concern that a ban
on patio heaters could bring a significant cash loss to pubs, cafés and
restaurants.

By the way, something not mentioned in the article, perhaps because it takes a knowledge of actual science and stuff, is that these heaters tend to burn LPG and propane, which due to their molecular structure produce far less CO2 per BTU than other fossil fuels.

One is left to wonder what pareto-style ranking of CO2 reduction opportunities put patio heaters at the top of the list.  In fact, there is no possible rational analysis that would make this a legislative priority.  It is a great illustration of two points about such technocratic endeavors:

1. Government cannot correct supposed market irrationalities because governments always act more irrational than private players in the market, no matter who is in charge.
2. Most legislation supposedly to fight global warming is using global warming as a fig leaf to hide the actual reason for the legislation.  My guess in this case is that the sponsors of this legislation have some other reason for wanting the ban, but dress it up as global warming.  This mirrors the larger issues, there socialists, unrepentant Ehrlich admirers,  and anti-globalization loonies have repackaged themselves as fighting global warming and then, surprise, proposed the same government actions they were pushing for pre-global-warming-hysteria.

Sixty-six years ago today, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, which turned out to be about as smart of a strategic move as taunting the New England Patriots just before the game.  During subsequent years, there was an inevitable investigation into why and how the US got caught so flat-footed, and who, if anyone, was to blame.

Decades later, revisionist historians reopened this debate.  In the 1970's, not coincidently in the time of Watergate and lingering questions about the Kennedy assassination and the Gulf of Tonkin, it was fairly popular to blame Pearl Harbor on ... FDR.  The logic was (and still is, among a number of historians) that FDR was anxious to bring the US into the war, but was having trouble doing so given the country's incredibly isolationist outlook during the 1920's and 1930's.  These historians argue that FDR knew about the Pearl Harbor attack but did nothing (or in the most aggressive theories, actually maneuvered to encourage the attack) in order to give FDR an excuse to bring America into the war.  The evidence is basically in three parts:

• The abjectly unprepared state of the Pearl Harbor base, when there were so many good reasons at the time to be on one's toes (after all, the Japanese were marching all over China, Germany was at the gates of Moscow, and France had fallen) could only be evidence of conspiracy.
• The most valuable fleet components, the carriers, had at the last minute been called away from Pearl Harbor.  Historians argue that they were moved to protect them from an attack known to be coming to Pearl.  They argue that FDR wanted Pearl to be attacked, but did not want to lose the carriers.
• Historians have found a number of captured Japanese signals and US intelligence warnings that should have been clear warming of a Pearl Harbor attack.

I have always been pretty skeptical of this theory, for several reasons:

• First, I always default to Coyote's Law, which says

When the same set of facts can be explained equally well by

1. A massive conspiracy coordinated without a single leak between hundreds or even thousands of people    -OR -
2. Sustained stupidity, confusion and/or incompetence

Assume stupidity.

I think it is more than consistent with human history to assume that if Pearl Harbor was stupidly unprepared, that the reason was in fact stupidity, and not a clever conspiracy

• The carrier argument is absurd, and is highly influenced by what we know now rather than what we knew in December of 1941.  We know now that the carriers were the most valuable fleet component, but no one really knew it then (except for a few mavericks).  Certainly, if FDR and his top brass knew about the attack, no one would have been of the mindset that the carriers were the most important fleet elements to save.
• I find it to be fairly unproductive to try to sort through intelligence warnings thirty years after the fact.  One can almost ALWAYS find that some warning or indicator existed for every such event in history.  The problem occurs in real-time, when such warnings are buried in the midst of hundreds of other indicators, and are preceded by years of false warnings of the same event.
• I don't really deny that FDR probably wanted an excuse to get the country in the war.  However, I have never understood why a wildly succesful Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was more necessary than, say, an attack met strongly at the beach.  I can understand why FDR might have allowed the attack to happen, but why would he leave the base undefended.  The country would have gotten wound up about the attack whether 5 ships or 10 were destroyed.

It is interesting how so much of this parallels the logic of the 9/11 conspiracists.  And, in fact, I have the same answer for both:  I don't trust the government.  I don't put such actions and motivations past our leaders.  But I don't think the facts support either conspiracy.  And I don't think the government is capable of maintaining such a conspiracy for so long. 

I almost never ever post on politics and political races, but I had an interesting conversation the other day.  As a secular libertarian, I find no one (beyond Ron Paul) among the Republican candidates even the least bit interesting.  I trust none of them to pursue free market and small government principals, and several, including McCain, Giuliani, and Huckabee, have track records of large government intrusiveness.

What I found interesting was a conversation with a friend of mine who self-identifies as a Christian conservative  (yes, I know it is out of vogue, but it is perfectly possible to have quality friendships with people of different political stripes, particularly considering that I am married to a New England liberal Democrat).  My Christian conservative friend said he found no Republican he was really interested in voting for.

I find it interesting that the Republicans (again with the exception of Ron Paul, who I think they would like to disavow) unable to field a candidate that appeals to either of its traditional constituencies.  It strikes me the party is heading back to its roots in the 1970s in the Nixon-Rockefeller days.  Yuk.

Update:  Which isn't to necessarily say the Democrats have everything figured out.  For example, in response to a Republican President thought to be over-reaching, secretive, and overly fond of executive power, they seem ready to nominate Hillary Clinton, who may be one of the few people in the country more secretive and power-hungry.  Anyone remember how she conducted her infamous health care task force?  I seem to remember she pioneered many of the practices for which Democrats tried to impeach Dick Cheney this week.

I almost never ever post on politics and political races, but I had an interesting conversation the other day.  As a secular libertarian, I find no one (beyond Ron Paul) among the Republican candidates even the least bit interesting.  I trust none of them to pursue free market and small government principals, and several, including McCain, Giuliani, and Huckabee, have track records of large government intrusiveness.

What I found interesting was a conversation with a friend of mine who self-identifies as a Christian conservative  (yes, I know it is out of vogue, but it is perfectly possible to have quality friendships with people of different political stripes, particularly considering that I am married to a New England liberal Democrat).  My Christian conservative friend said he found no Republican he was really interested in voting for.

I find it interesting that the Republicans (again with the exception of Ron Paul, who I think they would like to disavow) unable to field a candidate that appeals to either of its traditional constituencies.  It strikes me the party is heading back to its roots in the 1970s in the Nixon-Rockefeller days.  Yuk.

Update:  Which isn't to necessarily say the Democrats have everything figured out.  For example, in response to a Republican President thought to be over-reaching, secretive, and overly fond of executive power, they seem ready to nominate Hillary Clinton, who may be one of the few people in the country more secretive and power-hungry.  Anyone remember how she conducted her infamous health care task force?  I seem to remember she pioneered many of the practices for which Democrats tried to impeach Dick Cheney this week.

Reader Robert Hammond, who always sends me good stuff, pointed out this article from the Evening Standard about proposed new health care rules in England.  Frequent readers will know that I have long argued that nationalized or single-payer health care is a Trojan Horse for fascism (and much more here) in the form of micro-management of individual decisions.  If your personal choices that in the past only put yourself at risk now cost other taxpayers money, then those other taxpayers are going to try to redirect your choices.

Failing to follow a healthy lifestyle could lead to free NHS treatment being denied under the Tory plans. 

Patients would be handed "NHS Health Miles Cards" allowing them to earn
reward points for losing weight, giving up smoking, receiving
immunisations or attending regular health screenings.

Like a
supermarket loyalty card, the points could be redeemed as discounts on
gym membership and fresh fruit and vegetables, or even give priority
for other public services - such as jumping the queue for council
housing.

But heavy smokers, the obese and binge drinkers who
were a drain on the NHS could be denied some routine treatments such as
hip replacements until they cleaned up their act.

Those who
abused the system - by calling an ambulance when a trip to the GP would
be sufficient, or telephoning out of hours with needless queries -
could also be penalised.

The report calls for a greater
emphasis on the "citizen's responsibility" to be healthy and says no
one should expect taxpayers to fund their unhealthy lifestyles.

Here is the real problem:  This is absolutely logical.  There is nothing at all incorrect about the last statement for example.  This is not an abuse or an excess.  This is a completely predictable result of single-payer health care.  Any single-payer is going to have these incentives, but when the single-payer is the government, they not only have the incentives but the full coercive power to do something about it.  I am exhausted with the statist defense against such outcomes that "well, its just the particular individuals in charge -- if we could get the right guys in there, it would work great."  No.  The right guys are never in there, despite technocrats' big dreams, in part because the incentives in place turn even the right guys into the wrong guys. 

One of the reasons we spend so much on health care today is because most of us can do so without any personal financial cost.  Few of us (I am an exception, with a very high deductible policy) actually have to make cost-benefit trade offs in each of our health care purchases like we do in contrast for ... absolutely everything else we buy except health care.   The results are predictable.  We get pissed off when our insurance company denies coverage on some procedure or cost, we is part of the base-level of discontent that health care "reformers" draw on.  But it is stunning to me that people who have discontent with their current insurer feel like things will be better with the government!

Hey, this sounds like a women's issue!

What this article really shows is that by going with a single-payer government system, each of us would be ceding the decisions about our health care, our bodies, and even lifestyle to the government.  So surely women's groups, who were at the forefront of fighting against government intrusion into our decisions about our bodies, is out there leading the fight against government health care.  WRONG!  Their privacy arguments stand out today as sham libertarian arguments that applied only narrowly to abortion.  It's clear that as long as they can get full access to abortion, women's groups are A-OK with government intrusion into people's decisions about their bodies.

So please, dedicated feminists are urged to comment.  How do I relate this T-shirt from the NOW web store:

With this button from the NOW home page:

And a bit of text from their site:

People need and deserve universal, continuous,
and accessible health coverage that is provided by a single payer and
does not require full-time employment and a beneficent employer.
Learn more with our action toolkit....

With the recent release of Michael Moore's new movie, "SiCKO", and the
introduction in Congress of a bill to provide health insurance to all
U.S. residents, the movement for universal single-payer health
insurance is gaining momentum. This toolkit is provided to help you
take action on this important issue....

Health care is a right, not a privilege.

"Consensus" is an absurd word to apply to science.  It is more accurate to say that we have a series of hypotheses about the universe with varying levels of confidence.  LuboÃ…¡ Motl has a post to get all you physics geeks arguing:  His estimate of the probability certain hypotheses about the universe are correct.  Some examples:

• 99.999% - String theory is a mathematically consistent theory
  including quantum gravity, even non-perturbatively, at least in some
  highly supersymmetric vacua
• 99.999% - General relativity
  correctly predicts phenomena such as frame dragging and classical
  gravitational waves in the real world
• 99.995% - Black holes exist  ...
• 60% - At very high energy scales, a GUT theory with unified gauge
  interactions becomes more natural zeroth approximation: GUT is correct
• 50% - Supersymmetry will be found at the LHC
• 40%
  - The Hartle-Hawking wavefunction or its generalization that will
  require the author(s) to cite Hartle and Hawking correctly predicts
  non-trivial features of the initial conditions of the Universe...
• 0.0001% - Loop quantum gravity, with the metric as the only and
  well-defined degree of freedom and with quantized area, is a correct
  description of gravity in the real world at the Planck scale
• 0.00001%
  - One of the ESP phenomena measured in the Princeton lab actually
  exists and can be measured again with a similar equipment

Many more here.

Here are some of my own:

• 95% - Probability that the Raiders, Browns, and Lions will all botch their first draft picks next weekend
• 85% - Probability someone will introduce legislation in Congress in the next 7 days in direct response to the Va Tech shooting rampage
• 80% - Probability that man-made CO2 is contributing a non-zero effect to global temperature
• 70% - Probability that Barry Bonds will break the home run record this season
• 60% - Probability that Prince Charles will ever serve as King of England
• 50% - Probability that all-electric vehicles will make up more than 10% of the auto market in the US in ten years
• 5% - Probability that man-made CO2 will contribute more than 2 degrees C warming in the next 50 years
• 5% - Probability of meaningful earmark reform getting passed in Congress
• 5% - Probability that ethanol or other bio fuels will make any measurable reduction in oil imports.
• 1% - Probability that the costs of CO2 reduction will be less than the benefits of CO2 reduction
• 1% - Probability that a true libertarian candidate will be elected president in the next 20 years

Expect the next Democratic presidential nominee to run strongly on single-payer (ie socialized) medicine.  Vodkapundit reminds us what this is like, with the latest from England:

Hospitals across the country are imposing minimum waiting times -
delaying the treatment of thousands of patients.

After years of Government targets pushing them to cut waiting lists, staff
are now being warned against "over-performing" by treating patients too quickly.
The Sunday Telegraph has learned that at least six trusts have imposed the
minimum times.

In March, Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Health, offered her
apparent blessing for the minimum waiting times by announcing they would be
"appropriate" in some cases. Amid fears about £1.27 billion of NHS debts, she
expressed concern that some hospitals were so productive "they actually got
ahead of what the NHS could afford".
...

The Sunday Telegraph has learned of five further minimum-waiting-time
directives. In May, Staffordshire Moorlands PCT, which funds services at two
hospitals and is more than £5 million in the red, introduced a 19-week minimum
wait for in-patients and 10 weeks for out-patients. A spokesman said: "These
were the least worst cuts we could make." In March, Eastbourne Downs PCT,
expected to overspend by £7 million this year, ordered a six-month minimum wait
for non-urgent operations. Also in March, it was revealed that Medway PCT, with
a deficit of £12.4 million, brought in a nine-week wait for out-patient
appointments and 20 weeks for non-urgent operations.

Doctors are also resigning. One gynæcologist said that he spent more time
doing sudoku puzzles than treating patients because of the measures. Since
January, West Hertfordshire NHS Trust, with a deficit of £41 million, has used a
10-week minimum wait for routine GP referrals to hospital. Watford and Three
Rivers PCT, £13.2 million in the red, has introduced "demand management": no
in-patient or day case is admitted before five months.

Note that this is not a bug with single-payer systems, it is a feature.  Any 3rd party payer system has to impose some sort of artificial rationing or bankruptcy will ensue.  Would you drive more if your gasoline costs were all covered by a single-payer system, such that you did not pay directly for gas.  Would your choice of cars be affected?

Along the same lines, from Marginal Revolution comes this story of new scholarship showing the enormous spike that occurs in health care demand under third party payer (e.g. insurance) systems.

In an earlier post, I observed that my audio CD of the bestselling book "Don't Know Much About History" struck me as extremely odd, focusing on only the lowest points in American history.  I can report after finishing the CD that it stayed on this path to the end.  After the Cuban Missile Crisis we had conspiracy theories of JFKs death, then the Mai Lai massacre, then Watergate, then Iran Contra, then Monica Lewinsky.  Yes, the last 40 years were summed up in total as Mai Lai - Watergate - Iran Contra - Lewinsky and essentially nothing else.  Wow, what a view of history!  As a libertarian, I am happy to showcase the foibles of government, but this seems like a crazy loss of perspective even to me.

In addition, bits of the history were just terrible.  For example, he said that the Puritans who came to America were much like a cult today and treated as such.  That is a lame simplification of history.  Sure, one can argue that today's religions were yesterday's cults, but it is silly to say that the Puritans were treated poorly in England for the same reasons a cult might be today.  This completely ignores the whole reality of having a state religion in England at the time of the Puritans.  A state religion trying to purge itself of dissent is a really different dynamic than a modern cult getting shunned by mainstream society  (except perhaps when Janet Reno controls some tanks).  This distinction is also important because avoiding state religions is an important foundation block of our government, and its prohibition is buried in that arcane and little discussed thing called, uh, the First Amendment. 

It's clear the author is not a big fan of capitalism, and I would generally not even comment on such a thing because it is so common in academia.  I managed to mostly ignore numerous off-the-cuff quips he makes about evil corporations and greed and the assumption that any action by a rich person had to be out of a desire to repress the masses rather than from principle.  However, his bias creates some really bad history in at least one instance.  In discussing Hoover and the depression, he really lays into Hoover for how block-headed and absurd Hoover was for not initiating massive government welfare programs earlier in his administration.  I mean, he absolutely hammers Hoover for being a total cretin, and the author laughs at various Laissez-Faire speeches by HH. 

But this is a stunning loss of context for a historian.  While government handouts to people who are out of work may seem a no-brainer today, it was absolutely unprecedented at the time.  It had never been done.  And, nowhere in the Constitution, whose 10th Amendment specifically says that Congress only has the specific powers enumerated in the Constitution, does it say Congress has the power to tax one person and give the proceeds as a handout to another to relieve economic distress.  In fact, it was enough of a Constitutional question mark that the Supreme Court would later rule unconstitutional most of FDR's new deal, at least until FDR could repack the Court with his guys.  HH had good reason, beyond just his principles, to believe that he would be breaking the law and violating the Constitution to do as the author suggests.  But nothing of this context is mentioned.  The author only portrays Hoover as an idiot for not being interventionist enough. 

In fact, the author leaves out a point I would tend to make first -- that the Depression would have been much better off if Hoover had in fact been truly Laissez Faire.  Unfortunately, his tightening of money supply in the face of a depression and liquidity crisis via the relatively new Federal Reserve, his acquiescence to the Hawley Smoot tariffs, and his tax increases to close the budget deficit all contributed far more to sending the train off the rails than any intervention could have ameliorated.

Answer: Don't wear a helmet!(via Overlawyered)

Police refused to chase a thief who had stolen a moped because
the youth was not wearing a helmet, the victim said yesterday.

Max Foster, 18, said officers told him they feared being sued if
the thief fell off the moped and injured himself....

The Association of Chief Police Officers said: "There is no blanket ban on
calling off chases where a rider has no helmet, however most forces will adopt
similar stances."

Happy Birthday to the greatestn nation on earth.  I spend a lot of time criticizing our leaders and their policies, but there is no place else I would live.  The US Constitution is still, over two-hundred years after its creation, the greatest single document ever written.  Many other countries since have written constitutions and spilled tons of ink pontificating on theories of government, but none have had similar success in protecting individual rights while creating an environment where every individual can focus their productive energies in whatever direction they choose with generally minimal interference.

A while back I wrote about how wealth was created, and I pointed out that the great leaps we have made in human well-being over the last two hundred or so years stem from two effects:

Sure, our leaders, our military, and sometimes the nation as a whole screws up.  I and others are quick to point these screw-ups out and sometimes we find ourselves wallowing in them.  But at the end of the day, unlike in the majority of countries in the world, these screw-ups are treated as such, talked about and debated, and dealt with rather than treated as the norm. 

Take the US military in an occupying role in Iraq.  Out of 100,000 or so people, you are going to have some criminals who commit criminal acts, even in the military.  The US army, unlike nearly every occupying army in history, generally treats its soldiers' crimes as crimes, and not as the inherent right of victors to rape and pillage.  US soldiers who have committed crimes in Iraq will generally go to jail, while worse malefactors in most armies, even the holier-than-thou UN peacekeepers who seem to be engaging in rape and white slavery around the world, generally go unpunished.  For all the crap the US military takes around the world, I bet you that if you took an honest vote on the question of "Which world army would you choose to occupy your country if you lost a war" most people would answer the US.  If for no other reason because, despite all the charges of imperialism, our armies eventually leave rather than remain on as lingering masters.

So tomorrow, I will start dealing out more crap to our leaders, to the administration, to Congress, to the SCOTUS, and most especially to most every bureaucrat who thinks they can better manage my business or my property.  But today I will step back and see the forest rather than the trees, and observe I am dang lucky to be an American.

For further thoughts, I refer you to .  They tend to celebrate first the "right to vote", when in fact many people get to vote but few enjoy the freedoms we do.  The greatness of our country is in our protection of individual liberties and the rule of law.  And the great insight our country was founded with is that rights flow from the very fact of our humanity -- they are not granted to us by kings or Congress.  This last is perhaps most important, as I wrote:

At the end of the day, our freedoms in this country will only last so
long as we as a nation continue to hold to the principle that our
rights as individuals are our own, and the government's job is to
protect them, not to ration them.  Without this common belief, all the
other institutions we have discussed, from voting to the rule of law to
the Constitution, can be subverted in time

Now I am off to see Buckingham Palace.  If I see the Queen, would it be in bad taste to wish her a happy Fourth of July?

A while back Glenn Reynolds had a series of posts on European birth rates and the social costs of having children (I would link the articles but my timer on this computer in the library is running out and I don't have time to search). 

Our first few days here in the [English] countryside have really reinforced different cultural attitudes about children.  The first night here, we walked into a restaurant with our kids, and the whole place went silent, staring at us.  We were told children were not allowed.  In retrospect, it felt like that scene in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang when the townspeople are all staring at the family because in that town kids are illegal.  The next restaurant did not let kids in after 7.  The next saw us and said that they had a large group arrive and couldn't serve us (despite the fact the parking lot and restaurant were empty). 

We thought at first this might have something to do with liquor laws, since many local restaurants are also the pub.  But that first night when we finally found a restaurant that would serve our children, they said we could not sit in the restaurant but they could seat us in the bar!

Not sure I have a conclusion here, except to observe how different attitudes about children and families are here.  Kids here are also much quieter in public than American kids, perhaps because they have learned to keep a low profile in a society that doesn't always want them around.  It will be interesting to see if London is any different.

Bonus trivia question, answer below the fold:  The writer, producer and several of the actors in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang also were responsible for what other quite famous series of movies?

Update:  I left off that it was in the English countryside (near the border of England and Wales).  Sorry.  I am finally on a decent Internet connection and just caught onto the confusion.

Continue reading ‘Eek! Children!’ »

I have been in the English countryside this week, right on the border between England and Wales.  In fact, the house I am staying in has one of those great Welsh names that don't have enough vowels, something like Cwmmau or such.  Anyway, Internet access has turned out to be nearly impossible -- I finally found a library across from the Hereford Cathedral that lets me have access in 30 minute increments.  Hopefully I can blog more from London next week.

Congress is again on the verge of conferring new Constitutional rights to a narrow subset of American citizenry.  Already the recipient of speech rights that the rest of us don't enjoy, the major media organizations are also about to receive a special pass from cooperating with law enforcement and criminal investigations.  The reason for granting these new rights is in part because the media, with their business model in tatters, has learned a lesson from the steel and airline industry about running to Congress for help.

First there were special speech rights for the Press:  McCain-Feingold

This special treatment began with the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Act, which gave journalists unique speech rights during elections by taking away the speech rights of every other non-media-credentialed American in the 30-90 days prior to an election.  Of course, those of us who don't work for the NY Times or CBS were kind of confused about how we had somehow lost our constitutional right to political speech.  Reasonably, many of us in the blogosphere wanted our speech rights back, and campaigned to be called journalists (i.e. to get the media exemption from campaign speech restrictions).  As I wrote back in June:

These past few weeks, we have been debating whether this media
exemption from speech restrictions should be extended to bloggers.  At
first, I was in favor.  Then I was torn.
Now, I am pissed.  The more I think of it, it is insane that we are
creating a 2-tiered system of first amendment rights at all, and I
really don't care any more who is in which tier.  Given the wording of
the Constitution, how do I decide who gets speech and who doesn't - it
sounds like everyone is supposed to...

I
have come to the conclusion that arguing over who gets the media
exemption is like arguing about whether a Native American in 1960's
Alabama should use the white or the colored-only bathroom:  It is an
obscene discussion and is missing the whole point, that the facilities
shouldn't be segregated in the first place.

Now, Congress is Considering Enhanced "Shield" Laws

Now Congress is ready to take another step in the same direction of giving the media special enhanced platinum-level Constitutional rights with the proposed Federal Shield Law.  No doubt inspired by the whole Valerie Plame / Judith Miller mess, this is yet another example of Congress feeling like it has to "do something" with a half-assed solution to a non-problem that no one at this point, except perhaps Ms. Miller, even really understands.  The Federal Shield Law, named in typical Orwellian fashion the "Free Flow of Information Act", would make reporters the only citizens of the United States who can evade subpoenas and legally stand in contempt of court, a right we have determined that not even presidents have.

These shield laws, which I have criticized before, are often justified as necessary supports for the First Amendment.  Beyond the fact that the press in this country has functioned for centuries quite nicely without such shield laws, and have toppled President's without these extra rights, they are somehow now "necessary to help the United States regain its status as an 'exemplar' of press freedom", according to bill sponsor Richard Luger  (a statement made without explaining either why this was true or even how or when the US stopped being an 'exemplar' of press freedom).

Luger is not even shy about admitting that this law effectively creates two classes of citizen in the United States:

Lugar acknowledged that the legislation could amount to a "privilege" for reporters over other Americans.

"I think, very frankly, you can make a case that this is a special
boon for reporters, and certainly for their role in freedom of the
press," he said. "At the end of the day what we will come out with says
there is something privileged about being a reporter, and being able to
report on something without being thrown into jail."

Um, reporters can already report things without being thrown in jail.  Judith Miller, the explicit reason for the bill's existence, according to Luger, was thrown in jail not for her reporting, but her refusing to participate in an investigation.  An investigation that her employer the NY Times cheer-led the government into starting.  She was put in jail for refusing to testify about a source who had in fact already given her verbal permission before she went to jail to reveal his name.

Glenn Reynolds has a nice quote about the proposal:

ONE CHARACTERISTIC OF THE TITLED NOBILITY was its immunity from some
legal rules laid on the commoners; that's why such titles were an
important boon that the King could bestow on favorites. Reading this statement by Richard Lugar on the proposed journalists' shield law, which probably won't cover bloggers, I wonder if we're getting into the same territory

The Licensing Issue:  Who is a Journalist?

This new special privilege afforded to journalists, when combined with the special speech rights conferred in McCain-Feingold, increases the importance of the question "So who is a journalist and who qualifies for these unique privileges?" I predicted way back in February that I thought some type of official licensing program was going to be proposed for journalists.  Well, here it is in black and white in the aforementioned article on the new shield law:

A key reason some journalists oppose the popular federal shield
proposal is fear that giving Congress the power to define who is and
isn't a journalist could lead effectively to the licensing of
journalists.

Back in February, I predicted that the effort at licensing would fail, but now I have changed my mind.  After all, you can't have all of us unwashed folks who actually got good grades in math so we didn't have to default back to a journalism degree in college getting hold of these special privileges.  Only elite people who have proved themselves worth of being beyond legal accountability, folks like Dan Rather or the Katrina reporters, can be trusted with these extra rights and privileges.

Whenever the government by legislation gives a group of people special powers, it always leads to licensing.  It HAS to, else the courts would forever be bogged down with fights over who is in and who is out.  It is much easier to say "the only people who have the right to evade subpoenas are people with this piece of paper."  Using medicine as a parallel example, once you decide the average person can't be trusted to educate themselves enough to make their own medication decisions, you end up with a process where only licensed MD's can issue prescriptions.  The same will be true in journalism.

What is Really Going On Here

To understand what is really going on here, think "steel industry" or "airline industry".  When technology or markets or customers or competition changed in industries like steel, the last desperate defense of the US steel industry was to run to the government begging for import restrictions and price supports and subsidies and pension bailouts and god-knows what else.  Boy-oh-boy wouldn't the steel industry in the US love to have a law that says only licensed steel makers can sell steel in the US, and by the way, the current steel industry participants will control the licensing board.

Think that is a ridiculous exaggeration?  It can't be any more stupid than this form of licensing (or this one;  or this one).  Here are the various trade-specific licenses
you need here in Scottsdale - I would hate to see the list for some
place like Santa Monica.  My favorite is the one that says "An
additional license is required for those firms which are going out of
business."  Or for an exact parallel to my steel industry hypothetical, try this law from Ohio to liscence new auctioneers:

Besides costing $200 and posting a $50,000 bond,
the license requires a one-year apprenticeship to a licensed auctioneer, acting
as a bid-caller in 12 auctions, attending an approved auction school, passing a
written and oral exam. Failure to get a license could result in the seller being
fined up to $1,000 and jailed for a maximum of 90 days.

And my commentary on it:

Note that under this system, auctioneers
have an automatic veto over new competition, since all potential
competitors must find an existing auctioneer to take them on as an
apprentice.  Imagine the consumer electronics business - "I'm sorry,
you can't make or sell any DVD players until Sony or Toshiba have
agreed to take you on as an intern for a year".  Yeah, I bet we'd see a
lot of new electronics firms in that system - not.

This is exactly what is going on with the media.  The world, at least for the US media, is changing.  Subscriptions and ad revenues have been falling year after year after year.  People either giving up this media all-together or switching to new competitors, such as online media, in large numbers and there is no indication that this trend will stop.  As a result, the traditional media finds itself with its back against the wall.

What to do?  What every other industry has done - run to Congress!  Major media groups were extraordinarily strong supporters of McCain-Feingold, knowing that by limiting speech of everyone else, it added to its own influence and power come election time.  Over time, Congress will continue to add new privileges for the media, like the shield law, in part because it knows that it needs to stay in good with the only group of people who have full speech rights come election time.

The one thing I disagree with in the quote above about licensing is the notion that many in the press oppose it.  They are right to see the prospect as scary (see unintended consequences below) but once a licensing system is in place, I GUARANTEE that the licensed press will be huge supporters of licensing.  Just like lawyers and doctors, the press will find a way to take control of their own licensing and use it to keep out competitors they don't like.  Those pajama-clad bloggers irritating you - well, just make sure that they don't get licensed.  Come election time, they will all have to shut up, because only licensed journalists will have the media exemption in McC-F.  Milton Freedman described this process years ago:

The justification offered [for licensing] is always the same: to protect the consumer. However, the reason
is demonstrated by observing who lobbies at the state legislature for
the imposition or strengthening of licensure. The lobbyists are
invariably representatives of the occupation in question rather than of
the customers. True enough, plumbers presumably know better than anyone
else what their customers need to be protected against. However, it is
hard to regard altruistic concern for their customers as the primary
motive behind their determined efforts to get legal power to decide who
may be a plumber.

And as I said here:

Such credentialing can provide a powerful comeback for industry insiders under attack.  Teachers, for example, use it every chance they get to attack home schooling and private schools,
despite the fact that uncertified teachers in both these latter
environments do better than the average certified teacher (for example,
kids home schooled by moms who dropped out of high school performed at
the 83rd percentile).  So, next time the MSM is under attack from the blogosphere, rather than address the issues, they can say that that guy in Tennessee is just a college professor and isn't even a licensed journalist.

Hit and Run described how doctors use the licensing process, and even hazing of interns, to keep their numbers down and therefore their salaries (and their fees to us) up:

When Kevin Drum commented on the New England Journal
article, he said that the system's defenders "sound like nothing so
much as a bunch of 50s frat boys defending hazing after some freshman
has been found dead in an arroyo somewhere."

Hazing is the right metaphor. The system serves the same
purpose: It's a brutal initiation to a privileged club. Medical hazing
is part of the set of barriers that limit entry to the profession;
whatever other reasons there are for it, it's ultimately a byproduct of
occupational licensing.
Those long shifts don't just undermine public health. They drive away
qualified men and women, reducing the supply of doctors and allowing
those who survive the trial to charge more for their services.

Unintended consequences

Of course, all this has unintended consequences, as does any government meddling in individual decisions, limitations of rights, or attempts to pick industry winners. 

The first unintended consequence, or more accurately I guess I should call it the first irony because I am not sure that it is unintended, is that laws meant to keep the elite from having undue influence vs. the little guy in politics (via spending limits) have done just the opposite - concentrated political speech in a few elites in the media and squashed the one medium, blogging and the Internet, that hold the promise of giving individuals like myself new, inexpensive ways of influencing politics.

The second unintended and really scary consequence is that in attempting to remove a lever of government control over media - the subpoena power - Congress is potentially creating a larger one - that of licensing.  Of all the news-oriented media in the world, which is the most bland?  I would answer local TV and radio (by this I mean their local programming, not the syndicated stuff they air).  Why?  Because they are already subject to government licensing that to this point other media, such as newspapers, have not.  Local broadcast outlets are VERY self-conscious about protecting their license, and tend to keep their programming bland to avoid irritating some government bureaucrat.  Just look at how many rolled over immediately and dropped Howard Stern when the government started looking cross-eyed at Stern's raunchiness.  Do we really want all the media subject to this kind of pressure?

Technorati Tags:  Media

While I sometimes get grouped into economics blogs, I actually don't have a degree in the subject.  I have an MBA, some practical experience, some hobbyist reading, a few undergraduate courses, and, as my wife can attest, a willingness to pretend I know what I am talking about.  Unfortunately, that is not enough in this case.

Over the last 6 months, I have observed an interesting phenomena in the Phoenix area, one which I am sure I am not the first to discover, but I don't have enough background to put a name on it.  Here is what is going on:

Over the last year or two, the Phoenix real estate market has been red hot.  This has caused a lot of individual investors to make local real estate investments (I discussed more about this here).  The preferred type of investment seems to be to buy an old house on valuable land, tear it down, and sell the new house for a profit.

All fine and normal so far.  The interesting part comes when the investor chooses the style and appearance of the new home.  Remember that these are typically highly leveraged investments.  Investors take out a large mortgage, and that mortgage has to be paid every month that the investor cannot sell the home.  It is critical, then, that the investor build a home that is designed in a way to be most likely to sell.

Let's imagine that the pool of possible house buyers have the following preferences (I am making these numbers up):

1. Tuscan / Mediterranean style, 40%
2. Santa Fe style, 25%
3. Santa Barbara style, 20%
4. New England style, 10%
5. Ultra modern style, 5%

With only limited information on what is going on in the market around them (ie what others are planning to build) all of these investor-builders pick the most popular style on the list, thereby apparently maximizing their ability to sell the home.  As a result, every tear down / rebuild / remodel I see in our area is a new Tuscan home.  So, while 40% of buyers (or whatever the number is) want Tuscan, 100% of the supply is Tuscan.  By the way, the same thing apparently happened in the last big Phoenix real estate boom back in the 1980's, since nearly every house in our neighborhood that was built in the early eighties was built in what we call the "santa barbara" style.

This is obviously some type of market failure, but I don't know what it is called.  I might call it the "variety failure".  To a large extent, this dynamic is made possible by the fact that many of the investors in the real estate market are only entering the housing market for a single transaction, and are not well informed of the actions of other sellers in the market.  In most other industries, investors need to make money over multiple transactions over many years, which mutes this effect.  For example, there are always farmers who try to plant this year what was earning good money last year, but these players in the market are usually weeded out over time as last year's shortage leads to this year's glut and financial losses.  Also muting this failure nowadays are changes in manufacturing techniques, which allows low cost production of greater variety, as well as expansion of specialty retail space (e.g. category killers like Petsmart or Borders), which allows display of more product variations.

I have argued several times in the past that banning "hate speech" has been an entry point for limitations on free speech on college campuses all over the country.  Now, it appears that the British Parliament may use it as an excuse to put restrictions on speech of all all their countrymen:

MPs gave the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill a third reading by 301 votes to 229, a majority of 72.

Shadow minister Dominic Grieve said the bill would not improve race relations.

But Minister Paul Goggins said: "I believe we need to
take on the hate mongers, whether they are terrorists or whether they
are extremists."

The bill would create a new offence of incitement to
religious hatred and would apply to comments made in public or in the
media, as well as through written material.
The plans, which have failed to make it through
Parliament twice before, cover words or behaviour intended or likely to
stir up religious hatred. Jews and Sikhs are already covered by
race-hate laws.

I can't think of anything more dangerous than placing any such restrictions on speech, especially when the standards against which speech will be judged are so ambiguous and open to interpretation.  As someone who often utters statements and supports concepts that many consider "extreme" (and here), it is very worrisome to see politicians attempting to ban "extreme" speech.

There are so many ironies in this I can hardly count them, but here is one:  The left typically are primary supporters of these prohibitions on hate speech.  Under the British law, half the management of organizations such as Planned Parenthood who often criticize the religious right and religious organizations could probably be heaved in jail.

Update:  Can't happen in the US? Check out this article on allowing native Hawaiians to secede.

Politicians seem to love the movie business, or so I infer from the rash of proposals of late to subsidize the movie business. 

New York City seems to have been first out of the blocks, with this program to provide tax rebates and free advertising for shooting movies in NYC.  The article tells us this is the only industry being so targeted at this point by NY.  Why?  Why are movie jobs and movie makers somehow better than every other kind?  Maybe its because they think the movies provide good advertising for NYC, like the great light they cast on the city in movies like this and this.

Anyway, the trend got my attention when our own Arizona governor lamented that Arizona is no longer home to as many movie shoots as it once was decades ago.  Far be it for me to suggest that this is probably more of an issue of westerns going in and out of style (since about a majority of movies shot in Arizona were westerns).  Nevertheless, Napolitano is pushing ahead with her plan to improve the net income line of Hollywood studios by subsidizing production in Arizona.

Finally, via Reason, we see that Hollywood is worried that it is being left out of the subsidy competition, by actually paying companies to film in LA:

Mayor James K. Hahn on Thursday announced a plan he hopes will keep Hollywood in
Hollywood "” by paying film production companies to shoot in Los Angeles.

Hahn's proposal, which was inspired by a program that New York City
adopted in December, would use as much as $15 million in public funds to
reimburse companies that make a movie in Los Angeles, paying them 5% of their
production costs or up to $625,000.

OK, so one would think that all these locations have struggling media and production industries.  But in fact, just the opposite is true.  In New York:

But Wylde thinks film is just the tip of the iceberg. The city's entire media sector is growing explosively, she notes. From Time Warner to Hearst to Bloomberg LLP, media firms account for $13 billion in city wages, 50% more than tourism.

And, in LA:

Last year, however, film, video and television production in Los Angeles
actually reached record highs. Entertainment Industry Development Corp. issued
permits for 52,707 location production days "” one day representing a single day
of work on a single project "” a 19% increase over 2003.

Doesn't sound like they are in much trouble.  Their film and media businesses are already growing explosively to record highs.  So why do they need a subsidy?  Doesn't exactly sound like the New England textile business.

Look, at the end of the day, this is about politicians handing taxpayer money to powerful media people, people who have the ability to disproportionately influence public opinions and things like ... elections!  This is a barely disguised campaign expenditure, except for the fact that taxpayers pay the bill.

I wrote more about the idiocy of subsidizing corporate relocations to one's state or city here.

Update:  Match Welch has more

Socialists and "progressives" of various stripes always want to argue that the distribution of wealth among nations is basically due to luck, in large part related to the distribution of natural resources.

This is disprovable in about 2 seconds:  Russia (via Cafe Hayek) and the Netherlands.   Russia, resource-wise, is perhaps the richest country in the world.  It is, our could be, among the largest producers of any number of natural resources, from diamonds and gold to oil and uranium.  But its economy is a disaster.  The Netherlands, resource wise, has about nothing.  There are few third world economic hell-holes that don't begin with infinitely more resources than the Dutch, but the Dutch are among the richest nations in the world. 

Wealth comes not from labor or capital or resources - wealth comes from the mind, and as such requires a rule of law where the mind is free not only to imagine new ideas but to pursue and reap the fruits of these ideas.  As I said in this article:

From the year 1000 to the year 1700, the world's wealth, measured as GDP per capita, was virtually unchanged.
Since 1700, the GDP per capita in places like the US has risen, in real
terms, over 40 fold.  This is a real increase in total wealth - it is
not money stolen or looted or exploited.  Wealthy nations like the US
didn't "take" the wealth from somewhere else - it never even existed
before.  It was created by the minds of human beings.

How?  What changed? 

1. There was a philosophical and intellectual
   change where questioning established beliefs and social patterns went
   from being heresy and unthinkable to being acceptable, and even in
   vogue.  In other words, men, at first just the elite but soon everyone,
   were urged to use their mind rather than just relying on established
   beliefs
2. There were social and political changes that greatly increased
   the number of people capable of entrepreneurship.  Before this time,
   the vast vast majority of people were locked into social positions that
   allowed them no flexibility to act on a good idea, even if they had
   one.  By starting to create a large and free middle class, first in the
   Netherlands and England and then in the US, more people had the ability
   to use their mind to create new wealth.  Whereas before, perhaps 1% or
   less of any population really had the freedom to truly act on their
   ideas, after 1700 many more people began to have this freedom. 

So today's wealth, and everything that goes with it (from shorter
work hours to longer life spans) is the result of more people using
their minds more freely.

Last week, there were several comments in Carnival of the Capitalists that people would like to see more articles highlighting the benefits of capitalism.  This got me thinking about a conversation I had years ago at the beach:

Hanging out at the beach one day with a distant family member, we got into a discussion about capitalism and socialism.  In particular, we were arguing about whether brute labor, as socialism teaches, is the source of all wealth (which, socialism further argues, is in turn stolen by the capitalist masters).  The young woman, as were most people her age, was taught mainly by the socialists who dominate college academia nowadays.  I was trying to find a way to connect with her, to get her to question her assumptions, but was struggling because she really had not been taught many of the fundamental building blocks of either philosophy or economics, but rather a mish-mash of politically correct points of view that seem to substitute nowadays for both.

One of the reasons I took up writing a blog is that I have never been as snappy or witty in real-time discussions as I would like to be, and I generally think of the perfect comeback or argument minutes or hours too late.  I have always done better with writing, where I have time to think.  However, on this day, I had inspiration from a half-remembered story I had heard before.  I am sure I stole the following argument from someone, but to this day I still can't remember from whom.

I picked up a handful of sand, and said "this is almost pure silicon, virtually identical to what powers a computer.  Take as much labor as you want, and build me a computer with it -- the only limitation is you can only have true manual laborers - no engineers or managers or other capitalist lackeys".

Yeah, I know what you're thinking - beach sand is not pure silicon - it is actually silicon dioxide, SiO2, but if she didn't take any economics she certainly didn't take any chemistry or geology.

She replied that my request was BS, that it took a lot of money to build an electronics plant, and her group of laborers didn't have any and bankers would never lend them any.

All too many defenders of capitalism would have stopped here, and said aha!  So you admit you need more than labor - you need capital too.  But Marx would not have disagreed - he would have said it was the separation of labor and capital that was bad - only when laborers owned the capital, rather than being slaves to the ruling class that now controls the capital, would the world reach nirvana.  So I offered her just that:

I told her - assume for our discussion that I have tons of money, and I will give you and your laborers as much as you need.  The only restriction I put on it is that you may only buy raw materials - steel, land, silicon - in their crudest forms.  It is up to you to assemble these raw materials, with your laborers, to build the factory and make me my computer.

She thought for a few seconds, and responded "but I can't - I don't know how.  I need someone to tell me how to do it"

And that is the heart of socialism's failure.  For the true source of wealth is not brute labor, or even what you might call brute capital, but the mind.  The mind creates new technologies, new products, new business models, new productivity enhancements, in short, everything that creates wealth.  Labor or capital without a mind behind it is useless.

From the year 1000 to the year 1700, the world's wealth, measured as GDP per capita, was virtually unchanged.  Since 1700, the GDP per capita in places like the US has risen, in real terms, over 40 fold.  This is a real increase in total wealth - it is not money stolen or looted or exploited.  Wealthy nations like the US didn't "take" the wealth from somewhere else - it never even existed before.  It was created by the minds of human beings.

How?  What changed?  Historians who really study this stuff would probably point to a jillion things, but in my mind two are important:

1. There was a philosophical and intellectual change where questioning established beliefs and social patterns went from being heresy and unthinkable to being acceptable, and even in vogue.  In other words, men, at first just the elite but soon everyone, were urged to use their mind rather than just relying on established beliefs
2. There were social and political changes that greatly increased the number of people capable of entrepreneurship.  Before this time, the vast vast majority of people were locked into social positions that allowed them no flexibility to act on a good idea, even if they had one.  By starting to create a large and free middle class, first in the Netherlands and England and then in the US, more people had the ability to use their mind to create new wealth.  Whereas before, perhaps 1% or less of any population really had the freedom to truly act on their ideas, after 1700 many more people began to have this freedom. 

So today's wealth, and everything that goes with it (from shorter work hours to longer life spans) is the result of more people using their minds more freely.

Look around the world - for any country, ask yourself if the average person in that country has the open intellectual climate that encourages people to think for themselves, and the open political and economic climate that allows people to act on the insights their minds provide and to keep the fruits of their effort.  Where you can answer yes to both, you will find wealth and growth.  Where you answer no to both, you will find poverty and misery. 

UPDATE

While it is not exactly a direct follow-on to this article, see my post Progressives are too Conservative to Like Capitalism for an analysis of some of capitalism's detractors.  For yet another way to explain capitalism, at least libertarian philosophy, here is a new-agy approach that is actually pretty good.  Finally, Spontaneous Order has an interesting post comparing religious creationism in the physical world with progressives' statism in the economic/social realms.

Update #2:  Here is my more recent statement covering similar ground, focusing on the mistaken assumption that economics are all zero-sum.

Previously, I explained why I like Football Outsiders here. Their week 10 statistical rankings of teams is here.

Despite the win last week, our Arizona Cardinals have finally returned to their usual stomping grounds -- in the bottom 5 teams, along with Miami, Oakland and San Francisco.  Hard to argue about these teams being the worst.  Perhaps the biggest surprise is the team fifth from the bottom - Dallas.  Cowboy haters rejoice.  Parcel's record of second year improvement seems to be in serious trouble.  If the season ended today, San Francisco would set the record for the worst statistical performance since these guys started keeping the stats, beating the second worst team, the 2002 Cardinals and the third worst team, the 2003 Cardinals, but just shy of the 2002 performance of the expansion Texans.  (Gotta love our Cards).

The top three, unsurprisingly, are New England, Philly and Pittsburgh.  New England has taken the top spot, which is where I think they belong.  For a while, Philly's special teams rank was carrying them, but history in these rankings has shown that special teams ranks are very volatile and tend to regress to the mean.  Philly's soft defense may well spell another playoff disappointment for the Eagles.

Previously, I explained why I like Football Outsiders here. Their week 9 statistical rankings of teams is here.

Miami still can't nail down that bottom spot. San Francisco and the Raiders both have fallen below the Fish (so much for Bay Area football). Miami has the worst offense in the league by a HUGE margin, but its defense keeps it off the bottom, as it probably should:  A good defense will win you a few games, no matter how bad the offense is.  My Arizona Cardinals continue to fall, down to their rightful place in the bottom quartile, despite having a pretty good defense. At the top, Pittsburgh, New England and Philly are threatening to run away and hide, which just goes to show that every once in a while, BCS notwithstanding, computers and common sense can converge.

Yesterday, Florida apparently passed a new minimum wage $1.00 higher than the Federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour.

This is actually an oddity - a red state with a higher minimum wage. Before the election, this Department of Labor map, showing the states with minimum wages higher than the Federal rate (shown in green) looked a lot like the presidential election map. With the exception of Alaska (which has price and wage levels so different from the lower 48 that it should have its own currency) all the states with higher than federal minimum wages are also strong Kerry states (e.g. Left Coast, New England and Illinois).

This is going to have huge implications for us. Camping is a low margin business, and most hosts are paid minimum wage. In fact, many of our hosts, who are retired, don't want to get paid at all, so they don't mess with their social security, but that of course is not possible. The total increase in wages will be higher than what we make in Florida, so we are going to be spending a lot of time evaluating price increases vs. cutting back on labor somehow.

UPDATE

I see from our logs we are getting a lot of hits on this post from search engines.  For those of you looking for more information on the implementation of this increase, we still have not seen any enabling regulation to go along with it.  Will it have the same exemptions as the Federal law?  Anyway, the go-live date is apparently 6 months from approval, which I presume equates to early April, 2005.

Previously, I explained why I like Football Outsiders here. Their new weekly statistical rankings are up.

Unsurprisingly, Philadelphia is number 1 (by a huge margin) and New England is number 2. The real surprise is that Miami is NOT last - storied Green Bay is.

Also, this week's Tuesday Morning Quarterback is up.