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So What Happened to the Anti-War Movement?

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Here’s the text accompanying the video:


Even as President Obama maintains close to 50,000 troops in Iraq and continues to escalate and expand the war in Afghanistan, the antiwar movement in America continues to shrink (PDF).

So, what happened?

Reason.tv visited two antiwar protests—one left-leaning, one libertarian—in an attempt to answer that question. Author and historian Thaddeus Russell and Reason Senior Editor Brian Doherty also weigh in.

War, it seems, is a bipartisan venture, which is reflected by the fact that Democrats have a favorable view of Obama’s foreign policy, despite its remarkable similarity to George W. Bush’s foreign policy. And though there have been rumblings of antiwar sentiment from some on the Right, Republicans remain strongly in favor of an interventionist foreign policy.

Although public sentiment is turning against the war in Afghanistan, the always-shifting withdrawal deadlines and the unwillingness to touch defense spending mean that this bipartisan war is likely to continue far into the future.

Approximately 7 minutes. Written and Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Senior Producer: Ted Balaker.

Innovation Center/Tech Park

The Innovation Center and the State of the Union

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There’s a lot of talk about marketing public projects in Whitewater, but the best marketing is sound policy. So sound, really, that it’s not marketing at all.

Yet, for all that talk, Whitewater’s bureaucrats stick to a simple script, repeating the same tenuous or dodgy claims.

Nonetheless, occasionally one finds something new, like this odd remark, from City Manager Brunner, about the relationship between Whitewater’s Innovation Center and Pres. Obama’s state of the union address:

This is what it’s all about,” Brunner said, referring to President Barack Obama’s call in his State of the Union speech Tuesday for business growth and innovation, “creating an environment with the support for small businesses to grow, and then have them go to other buildings in the park.

Oh, my. One can guess — correctly — that nothing but nothing about this slapdash project embodies Barack Obama’s vision for America. I’m a critic of much federal spending under the Obama administration (and that of George W. Bush, too), but never once have I thought that this boondoggle represents the federal administration’s idea of quality.

Here would have been the better course for Whitewater’s leading career bureaucrat:

Don’t take the money when you’ve no sound use for it, don’t issue public debt when you’ve no sound use for it, don’t exaggerate about the project to the point of absurdity, don’t try to pick winners (as you don’t know any), and concentrate instead on reducing taxes and regulations on existing, real businesses.

Comment Forum

Friday Comment Forum: Winter Survival Tips

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Here’s the Friday open comments post.

Today’s suggested topic — what do you do to make winter days more enjoyable? I like the cold, and so this time of year doesn’t bother me. I like it.

But, for those who don’t: what do you do to get by until spring?

The use of pseudonyms and anonymous postings is, of course, fine. Although the comments template has a space for a name, email address, and website, those who want to leave a field blank can do so. Comments will be moderated, against profanity or trolls.

Otherwise, have at it.

I’ll keep the post open through Sunday afternoon.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1-28-11

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Good morning,

Whitewater’s forecast calls for a snowy day, with little accumulation, and a high temperature of thirty degrees.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls a memorable day in Wisconsin’s and America’s history:

1959 – Lombardi Named Packers Coach

On this date Vince Lombardi was named head coach of the Packers. He had been the offensive backfield coach of the New York Giants for the previous five seasons. Lombardi went on to coach the Packers for nine years, winning five NFL Championships and victories in Super Bowls I and II. [Source: Packers.com]

July 24th may seem like an ordinary day, but that’s not true — July 24th, 2011 is the day for filming videos for the Life in a Day project:

Life In A Day is a historic global experiment to create the world’s largest user-generated feature film: a documentary, shot in a single day, by you. On July 24, you have 24 hours to capture a glimpse of your life on camera. The most compelling and distinctive footage will be edited into an experimental documentary film, executive produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Kevin Macdonald.

For more information, visit youtube.com/lifeinaday.



Government Spending

Reason.tv presents Citizens Against Government Waste’s Porkers of the Month for January 2011

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Here’s the text accompanying the video —


After the wasteful development work on the alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter was in danger of losing funding, these three urged the Pentagon to release even more taxpayer funds for redundant technology no one wants.

Congratulations Senators, you are Citizen’s Against Government Waste’s Porkers of the Month for January, 2011!

“Porker of the Month” is written and produced by Austin Bragg.

Approximately 1.5 minutes.

Free Markets, Laws/Regulations, Liberty

Institute for Justice Defends the Rights of Street Vendors

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The presence of a street vendor should be a welcome sign for a community, as evidence of a flourishing, diverse economy. More to the point — should government be used to discriminate against popular, efficient street vendors and in favor of less popular, less efficient brick-and-mortar retailers? Shouldn’t picking one over the other be a choice for customers, and not bureaucrats and politicians?

Here in Whitewater, we recently had much fuss over a single hot dog cart, and we may yet have a kerfuffle over another.

We’re not alone. The City of El Paso is trying to push street vendors out of that city, through fines and other restrictions, all to help less popular brick-and-mortar retailers.

Restrictions on street vendors punish hard work and ingenuity, and deny consumers a plentiful choice of fare.

Fortunately, the Institute of Justice has begun a National Street Vendor Initiative, to defend the economic rights of street vendors. They’ve also filed a lawsuit against the City of El Paso’s discriminatory, anti-competitive conduct.

First, here’s a video from the IJ explaining what’s at stake.



Over at the Daily Caller, the IJ has a post up about the National Street Vendor Imitative, entitled, Today, we begin our fight for the food vendors.

More about the federal lawsuit, Castaneda v. City of El Paso, is available at an online backgrounder entitled, Mean Streets: El Paso Mobile Food Vendors Challenge City’s Effort to Run Them Out of Town.

I’ll be sure to follow the case.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1-27-11

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Good morning,

Whitewater’s forecast calls for about an inch of snow throughout the day, with a high temperature in the high twenties.

It’s Market Day at the high school today.

There’s a story over at Wired about the design of plants that can detect explosives.  Spencer Ackerman, in a post entitled, Grow Your Own Security: Prof Breeds Bomb-Spotting Plants, writes that

The next hydrangea you grow could literally save your life. With the help of the Department of Defense, a biologist at the University of Colorado has taught plant proteins how to detect explosives. Never let it be said that horticulture can’t fight terrorism.

Picture this at an airport, perhaps in as soon as four years: A terrorist rolls through the sliding doors of a terminal with a bomb packed into his luggage (or his underwear). All of a sudden, the leafy, verdant gardenscape ringing the gates goes white as a sheet. That’s the proteins inside the plants telling authorities that they’ve picked up the chemical trace of the guy’s arsenal.

Here’s a video about Dr. June Medford’s research:



(Wired includes a link to Medford’s paper on the discovery for the technically inclined: Programmable Ligand Detection System in Plants through a Synthetic Signal Transduction Pathway.)

City, Development, Planning

Spoken and Unspoken

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A man returns from a fishing tournament, and his acquaintances ask him how he did.

“Great! Phenomenal! Spectacular! Amazingly, astoundingly well!” he declares. “I caught three fish,” he says.

Someone standing nearby is familiar with the tournament, and asks a question.

“Weren’t you that one contestant who had help to catch his fish, and besides, wasn’t the winning amount actually twenty fish?”

To which the man replies, “Oh, yeah. there’s that, too.”

Spoken:

CDA Assists D.R. Plastics with Whitewater Expansion and New Jobs

The Whitewater Community Development Authority (CDA) is pleased to announce that D. R. Plastics, a recycler of plastic products located at 814 E. Commercial Avenue in the Whitewater Business Park, is expanding and is the recipient of a $150,000 business loan from the CDA. The CDA loan will be used by D.R. Plastics to acquire new machinery that will allow for the creation and maintenance of eight new jobs at the firm’s Whitewater location. “We are pleased that we are able to expand our Whitewater operations with the financial assistance of the Whitewater Community Development Authority” stated Russ Blakeley, D.R. Plastics President. “This loan has allowed our firm to purchase new machinery and equipment to not only add employees but also to improve our market position. Whitewater is a good place to do business.” The Whitewater Community Development Authority operates a business development low interest loan fund that can assist Whitewater companies meet facility, machinery and equipment needs. Businesses must agree to create and maintain jobs for a certain period of time in order to qualify for these loans.

See, City Manager’s Weekly Report, 1.21.11

Unspoken:

The concern that receives a one-hundred fifty thousand dollar Whitewater Community Development Authority loan is reported — twice — as being connected to a million-dollar Delavan deal. See, Whitewater developer pays $1 million for Delavan Industrial Park properties and Premier Pays $1M for Delavan Industrial.

Here’s a question: Are those stories wrong?

See, also, Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions records on Premier and D.R. Plastics.

A few additional remarks:

Favorable Terms Over the Market?

Why wouldn’t a business looking for a loan avail itself of a lender from the private market? Presumably there’s something preferable about a public loan. One typically goes where one finds easier terms. That’s good for the borrower, but bad for the public, as it means they’re subsidizing a borrower who takes preferable-over-market terms.

Are there any progressives on the Community Development Authority?

It’s not simply a rhetorical question.

For progressives: do you really think that $150,000 for a few jobs from this business is the best expenditure for Whitewater’s development? Could it even be the third, fifth, or tenth best option? No matter how many conditions that you place on those hoped-for jobs, there are a hundred greater needs in Whitewater’s business community, a hundred greater needs for her workers.

Using a similar lending cure for all of Whitewater’s unemployment would cost taxpayers millions to replace the jobs we’ve recently lost.

The CDA has already spent huge sums, and all it got for it was a (soon-to-be) distressed tax incremental district.

Are there any conservatives on the Community Development Authority?

It’s not simply a rhetorical question.

For conservatives: is it all public project after public project, for you? That’s hardly conservatism; it’s a reactionary mercantilism. It does afford this advantage, for the loss of principle: One gets to be a small-town squire, a big fish in a small pond, doling money that others earned, by consequence making oneself important.

Be clear — in private life, relying only on voluntary transactions, many municipal projects would certainly have been rejected, rightly, as foolish.

Situational ethics?

Are all the dodgy stats, jumbled claims, and misleading arguments of a career bureaucrat made legitimate because he declares himself acting for the good of all?

I’m quite sure the answer is, simply, ‘no.’

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1-26-11

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Good morning,

Whitewater’s forecast calls for a chance of flurries, with a high temperature of twenty-two degrees.

In the City of Whitewater, there’s a meeting of the Community Development Authority’s Housing Task Force (and it feels like, say, the 9,234th task force created since 2004)  from 5 to 6 p.m.  The agenda is available online.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this day in 1925,

1925 – Fire Destroys Whitewater Hospital On this date a fire destroyed the Whitewater Hospital. Monetary losses were estimated at $20,000, but no deaths were reported. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Charity, Laws/Regulations, Poverty

Terrorists in the Soup Kitchen

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Reason magazine posts on a request from the United Way of Central Maryland  that a local soup kitchen certify that they were in compliance with anti-terrorism laws:

Baltimore’s Viva House soup kitchen and food pantry has been feeding the poor since 1968, and for many years, it has gotten funds from the local United Way. But officials were surprised recently when they got a letter from United Way telling them they had to sign a form confirming they were “in compliance with all applicable anti-terrorism financing and asset control laws, statutes and executive orders” or the agency would not provide them with any funds, even those pledged to the soup kitchen. United Way says the PATRIOT Act requires them to have this form on file before releasing any money to any agency it helps.

Via Terrorists in the Soup Kitchen – Daily Brickbats : Reason Magazine.

For more on the story, see Anti-Terrorism Begins at Home: Viva House refuses to sign United Way “loyalty oath.”

Are you part of a charity that’s been asked by United Way — or any other funding agency — to sign a pledge like this?

I’d be interested to hear your story.

Drop me a line at  adams@freewhitewater.com.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1-25-11

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Good morning,

Whitewater’s forecast calls for a cloudy day, with a high temperature of twenty-eight degrees.

Today is the anniversary of a extraordinary accomplishment of ingenuity and invention: on this day in 1915, the first transcontinental telephone call took place. The New York Times recalls the achievement:

On October 9, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson talked by telephone to each other over a two-mile wire stretched between Cambridge and Boston. It was the first wire conversation ever held. Yesterday afternoon the same two men talked by telephone to each other over a 3,400-mile wire between New York and San Francisco. Dr. Bell, the veteran inventor of the telephone, was in New York, and Mr. Watson, his former associate, was on the other side of the continent. They heard each other much more distinctly than they did in their first talk thirty-eight years ago.

AT&T’s website gives additional background on the accomplishment.

Liberty

Using Cameras to Fight Human Rights Abuses: Yvette Alberdingk Thijm of WITNESS

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In 1988, musician and activist Peter Gabriel traveled the world with Amnesty International’s “Human Rights Now!” tour. He brought a big, bulky camcorder with him and used it to interview victims of human rights abuses. Gabriel realized that capturing those stories made it harder for them to be forgotten, and that’s what spurred him to found WITNESS, a Brooklyn-based human rights organization.

“The aim is always to turn a personal story of abuse into a powerful tool for justice,” says Executive Director Yvette Alberdingk Thijm, who sat down with Reason.tv to discuss how WITNESS uses the power of video to fight human rights abuses around the world.

Approximately 6 minutes.

Interviewed by Hawk Jensen who also edited. Shot by Jim Epstein.

Additional footage provided by: WITNESS.ORG. Photo Credit: Kate Glicksberg