FREE WHITEWATER

University

Astonishing: Oil Spill’s Damage Far Greater than Once Thought – CBS News

by  • 

Hard to believe, yet it’s probable, that the Gulf of Mexico spill may be worse than prior estimates suggest:

New numbers showing the amount of oil gushing from a well in the Gulf of Mexico may be double what was previously thought means the crude is likely to travel farther away, threatening more birds, fish and other wildlife that call the fragile waters their home, scientists said Friday.

The new figures could mean 42 million gallons to more than 100 million gallons of oil have already fouled the Gulf’s delicate ecosystem and are affecting people who live, work and play along the coast from Louisiana to Florida — and perhaps beyond.

This must be the worst purely environmental failure in the history of the federal government, despite a budget of billions for environmental policy, and a total annual federal budget of trillions.

See, Oil Spill’s Damage Far Greater than Once Thought – CBS News.

Economy

Robert Reich: Don’t Listen to the Cheerleaders, the Main Street Economy Isn’t Improving

by  • 

Over at the Huffington Post, a left-of-center economist is tells the truth about America’s economy: it’s not getting better for most people. See, Robert Reich: Don’t Listen to the Cheerleaders, the Main Street Economy Isn’t Improving.

Reich notes that

Today’s most important economic news: U.S. household debt fell for the seventh straight quarter in the first three months of 2010 as Americans continued to respond to the recession’s fallout.

But like all economic news, its significance depends on where you’re standing — whether you’re a typical American or someone at the top.

The common wisdom is that excessive debt-financed spending was one of the causes of the recent recession, so the news that household debt is dropping is being celebrated by business cheerleaders as reason to believe we’re on the mend.

Baloney. The reason so many Americans went into such deep debt was because their wages didn’t keep up. The median wage (adjusted for inflation) dropped between 2001 and 2007, the last so-called economic expansion. So the only way typical Americans could keep spending at the rate necessary to keep themselves — and the economy — going was to borrow, especially against the value of their homes. But that borrowing ended when the housing bubble burst.

So now Americans have no choice but to pare back their debt. That’s bad news because consumer spending is 70 percent of the economy.

Reich concludes — erroneously but predictably — that more government spending is the answer. That’s both wrong and nearly impossible — additional spending will drive debt to impossibly high, growth-killing levels.

Reich is right that the economy’s showing no improvement for ordinary people. No happy talk will turn this economy around. The solution, however, isn’t more of what got us here, but less of it. Only a massive reduction in government spending, and the return of the saved tax receipts to the productive people who earned them, can turn this economy around for ordinary Americans.

Locally, in Whitewater, where poverty is chronically high, every public works project under the sun has been tried, and each has failed to generate more than headlines and photo opportunities. Unless we’re spending millions to keep fawning reporters employed, we’re on the wrong path.

Reich is correct about our current malady, however: We’re struggling and there are no credible excuses or lies left to tell.

Uncategorized

Drunken (Washington State) Man Breaks into Bank to Sleep

by  • 

In Washington State, a drunk broke into a bank’s basement to sleep for the night. He apparently wasn’t looking for money, just sleep. Here’s a case of how alcohol impairs judgment in nonviolent ways.

No one from Whitewater, in town or on campus, was involved in this incident.

Motel 6 would have been a better, less risky choice. They would even have left the light on for him.

See, Drunken Washington State Man Breaks into Bank to Sleep.

Uncategorized

Reason.tv: Why America Will Still Lead the World in 2050

by  • 

Reason.tv offers a nine-minute interview with historian Joel Kotkin on Why America Will Still Lead the World in 2050.

I have no doubt that America can and will remain the envy of the world in the middle of this century. Our greatness lies in the freedom of our people, and the openness and fairness of our institutions. A continental republic committed to individual liberty, free markets, limited government, and peaceful relations with other countries is assured of good prospects.

I’d offer only two cautions about a broad demographic analysis. The first is that so very many public officials have drifted America’s fundamental ideals, as I have listed them, and the effort to preserve our freedom and prosperity is not yet won. Some of the hardest battles are at the sate and local level, where an entire generation of middling bureaucrats has come to see public finance as a playground for proud schemes and vanity projects.

Most are incapable of change; America will have to wait for their retirement, and the criticism that the next generation will inevitably heap on their many failures.

The second is that although demographic trends may doom a nation, I’m not convinced that they assure success. I agree with Kotkin that America’s demographic future looks bright, especially compared with international competitors. There’s plenty of room for more Americans, and a population of four hundred million (up over ninety million from today), will be advantageous for America in so many ways.

I’d caution, however, that if demographics were destiny, Imperial Germany would have avoided the First World War, continued an upward trend of economic and population growth, and spared Europe catastrophe (twice). That’s not what happened, despite favorable economic and population trends — Germany ignored a positive path to peaceful greatness, and committed herself to the very opposite.

Of course, Kotkin knows this — he writes with the assumption, one we all hope to be true, that America will not squander her demographic good fortune.

I simply think that it will, overall, take lots of work to reap the full benefits of an encouraging demographic trend.

Here’s the video:

Link: Why America Will Still Lead the World in 2050. more >>

Law

Wired on “Spamming” a Judge

by  • 

There’s a story at the Wired website about a contempt citation for spamming a federal judge that the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently overturned. See, Spamming a Judge.

Infomercial king Kevin Trudeau had been sentenced to thirty days’ time for contempt of court, because he urged his followers to write to the federal judge presiding over his civil case, and tell they judge they supported Trudeau. Judge Robert Gettleman received so much email his Blackberry locked up. (In the underlying case, Trudeau was being sued by the Federal Trade Commission.) Judge Gettleman sentence Trudeau to contempt, pending appeal.

The Seventh Circuit, on appeal, overturned the contempt citation. The court concluded that criminal contempt was unavailable to the trial court judge, because the conduct occurred outside the judge’s presence, and did not stop proceedings in the case. (Locking up a Blackberry, for example, did not slow or obstruct Trudeau’s case.)

I think that’s the right decision — a contempt citation should be imposed only for in-court behavior, and only when it’s a signification impediment to proceedings.

This also isn’t a typical case of spamming, where someone sends hundreds or thousands of messages on his own; these messages came from third parties, motivated to express support for someone. That’s may be inconvenient and bothersome, but it’s not uncommon for celebrities (or even pitchmen like Trudeau) to have lost of fans. Asking them to write an email is hardly a criminal matter. It may irritate a judge, and wound his pride, but that’s no crime either.

The Wired story reveals that federal prosecutors are looking to see if any of the messages contained threats. If some of the people who sent messages threaded the judge, they should be prosecuted. Absent a showing that Trudeau’s request for email support was a call to threaten the judge, though, that’s not something for which Truda will or should be liable.

During the time that I have been writing, I have emailed officials with public records requests or simple questions. Anything else I’ve wanted to write, I have published at FREE WHITEWATER. It’s lawful to write to an official and express a non-threatening opinion, but it has never been of interest to me.

Many thin-skinned officials, by the way, are likely to interpret any critical email as a threat or risk. Some of these gentlemen walk around never hearing a peep from subordinates, and are stunned when someone expresses a contrary opinion. (They spur all the back and ankle biting in the world, but they seldom hear direct criticism from cowed employees or from residents too nervous to speak up.)

They see criticism as unlawful, even as a kind of transgression against the natural order of things. Self-important politicians and bureaucrats are quick to conflate criticism of their conduct with challenges to society, itself. Normal people can see that the two aren’t the same; it’s a consequence of officials’ confusion, self-importance, or ignorance that they can’t tell the difference.

Officials like this only end up looking foolish to normal people.

Development, Free Markets, Planning

The Wall Street Journal on Private Campaigns Against Walmart

by  • 

In prior posts, I’ve made clear the difference between competition between private merchants and local government’s endorsement of a campaign that expressly favors one kind of merchant over another. That’s not the place for government, either on principle (government should be limited) or prudently (government has a poor record of picking winners in the marketplace). Whitewater has a Buy Local campaign, but the City of Whitewater’s government has neither the business nor the business skill to endorse that campaign. See, Whitewater Local Government’s Favoritism of Some Local Businesses Over Others for prior commentary on the city’s role in the Buy Local campaign.

Over at the Wall Street Journal, there’s a story about how some private businesses secretly fund campaigns against Walmart. See, Rival Chains Secretly Fund Opposition to Wal-Mart.

(Note: I am not suggesting that there’s secret funding of the Whitewater Buy Local campaign. There’s nothing secret, so far know, about that effort. Whitewater’s campaign is so public that it even has the backing of Whitewater’s city government, choosing some taxpaying businesses over others.)

Ann Zimmerman’s WSJ story reveals how hypocritical even a private anti-Walmart campaign can be: some anti-Walmart campaigns are funded by other retail chains. (In my Friday comments section from a few weks ago, The Phantom Stranger pointed out the irony of some chains opposing others.) Zimmerman writes that

Robert Brownson long believed that his proposed development here, with its 200,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter, was being held hostage by nearby homeowners.

He had seen them protesting at city hall, and they had filed a lawsuit to stop the project.

What he didn’t know was that the locals were getting a lot of help. A grocery chain with nine stores in the area had hired Saint Consulting Group to secretly run the antidevelopment campaign. Saint is a specialist at fighting proposed Wal-Marts, and it uses tactics it describes as “black arts.”

As Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has grown into the largest grocery seller in the U.S., similar battles have played out in hundreds of towns like Mundelein.

Local activists and union groups have been the public face of much of the resistance. But in scores of cases, large supermarket chains including Supervalu Inc., Safeway Inc. and Ahold NV have retained Saint Consulting to block Wal-Mart, according to hundreds of pages of Saint documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and interviews with former employees.

There’s hypocrisy in this sort of campaign, a cynical refusal to stand for something consistent. It’s much worse, though, when government embraces — in the name of all the public — these hypocritical tactics.

The City of Whitewater’s embrace of a private campaign against chain stores is both unprincipled and imprudent.

It’s unprincipled because Whitewater officials will tout an anti-chain store campaign all the while supporting for Walmart’s expansion in town. This is, I suppose, the idea of being a cheerleader for every idea that comes along. Someone who cheers for everything cheers for nothing. If Whitewater officials truly believe the anti-chain store rhetoric of the Buy Local campaign, then they should oppose Walmart’s expansion as bad for our local economy. The same is true with our local Chamber of Commerce — they’re listed as supporters of the Buy Local, anti-chain store effort, but are among first to welcome Maurice’s, part of a 700 store chain, to Whitewater.

There’s no likelihood that Whitewater’s city manager would truly want to stop Walmart’s expansion, thereby stopping the introduction of lower-priced groceries to Whitewater. It must seem convenient to back the Buy Local campaign of a group of merchants, but city manager Brunner must realize that thousands of consumers in Whitewater are hoping for additional offerings from Walmart. Here, the city manager takes both sides of an issue: cheerleading to pay lip-service to the Buy Local campaign, all the while assuring that Walmart will expand. If he took these issues seriously, he would pick one side or the other.

He won’t, of course.

(My own beliefs are clear, consistent, and easy to describe. I believe that Walmart’s expansion would be good for Whitewater, I oppose government’s siding with one kind of merchant over another, and I think that private anti-chain store rhetoric is legitimate and predictable, but misguided. I am convinced that local merchants who offer specialized products and exceptional services can flourish in a town with an expanded Walmart. Whitewater can and should welcome new merchants, including chains like Walmart and Maurices, without either preferential treatment or discriminatory regulations and rhetoric.)

It’s also imprudent of Whitewater’s municipal administration to become involved the marketplace competition, because this is a city bureaucracy that hasn’t picked well in the marketplace before. They’ll not be likely to do so now. We have a business park that’s half full, a pricey roundabout on the east side of town that leads nowhere, a tax incremental district that needs a respirator, and a multi-million dollar tech park and Innovation Center project that’s shaping up to be the wasteful boondoggle of the decade.

Millions for nothing.

Comment Forum

Friday Open Comments Forum

by  • 

Here’s the Friday open comments post, following reader responses to a recent poll.

The use of pseudonyms and anonymous postings will be fine.

Although the 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.

For this week, a suggestion for a topic: Should Raw Milk Sales be Legal in Wisconsin?

Laws/Regulations

The Economist Covers the Raw Milk Controversy

by  • 

I’ve written before about the irony of a dairy state banning nearly all sales of raw milk. The governor’s recent veto of a popular bill to allow a limited increase in raw milk sales was the latest example of Wisconsin as a dairyland nanny state. It was worse really, as the public health claims against raw milk are the trumped up and transparent attempts of big special interests to prevent competition from small farmers.

For prior FREE WHITEWATER coverage of the raw milk controversy, see these posts.

If the big dairy interests and their allies thought that the issue would go away with Governor Doyle’s veto, they were mistaken. The story has become a national one, with coverage at Reason, the Huffington Post, and now the Economist. The story is entitled, “Arguing over Unpasteurised Milk“, but the subtitle tells the tale: “Raw deal – The people v pasteurisation.”

Here’s a description of raw milk sales at a small dairy in Texas:

Susan Dyer of Dyer Dairy in Georgetown, Texas, explains that she and her husband both come from dairy-farming families well acquainted with the stresses of the industry. Her father, for example, struggled to compete with the big corporate operations. He eventually had to shut down his farm. For years, Mrs Dyer continues, she and her husband sold most of their milk to a co-op, with unpasteurised or “raw” milk as a sideline. But two years ago they decided they wanted to focus on running a small family farm. Today they have a raw-milk dairy with an attached shop selling cheese, honey and vegetables.

It is a cheerful place. One customer, sniffing a shallot, announced that if you rub garlic on your feet you can taste it in your mouth. But the main attraction is the raw milk, bottled fresh every day directly after Mr and Mrs Dyer have finished milking the cows.

Raw milk makes up a tiny part of the overall American milk market, perhaps half a percent. Industry watchers say that raw milk is becoming more popular as consumers take a greater interest in where their food has come from. Enthusiasts say that the unpasteurised stuff tastes better, and some of them even claim that raw milk is a sort of superfood, chock-full of nutrients and enzymes that the pasteurisation process, which involves a short burst of high heat, destroys.

The Economist story doesn’t compare the risks of raw milk to the risks of other foods, failing to note that all foods are “inherently risky” to those with allergies, etc. Many foods that are lawfully sold across sate lines carry the same risks that raw milk does; raw milk is banned for anti-competitive, not simply public health, reasons.

The story mentions Governor Doyle’s veto specifically, and notes that

His veto was something of a surprise. The bill had passed both houses of the state legislature by a healthy margin. Many lawmakers were moved by the idea that allowing raw-milk sales would help small farmers. Mr Doyle had indicated that he would sign the bill. But after lobbying by the dairy industry and public-health pressure groups, he changed his mind. One concern was that an outbreak caused by dodgy raw milk could damage the reputation of Wisconsin’s entire dairy industry. It is an emotive issue on both sides, and the debate will continue.

It is a debate that will, surely, continue.

This reverse for raw milk followed another last. I think that David Gumpert, whose work on raw milk I mentioned yesterday, will prove right about where this debate is heading. Raw milk opponents, using exaggerated public health claims to stifle competition, will prove unable to stop the legalization of raw milk sales.

We’ll then have more dairy products for sale in America’s Dairyland.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 6-11-10

by  • 

Good morning,

Today’s forecast for Whitewater calls for a day with an even chance of thunderstorms, and a high of eighty-seven.

Edgerton’s former police dog has a new, and apparently temporary, home. See, Edgerton Police Dog Gets New Home. If there’s really no problem with the dog, then what does that say about the abilities of his former handler, Edgerton Police Chief Klubertanz? Edgerton surely made the right decision to send the dog away. For prior posts on the dog’s history of biting, see these posts.

There’s a story from the New York Times, entitled, “Surveillance Suspected as Spacecraft’s Main Role,” that describe the success of amateur astronomers in locating at tracking the military’s X-37B spacecraft. (If they can find it, astronomers from hostile countries can, too.) Here’s a summary of the amateurs’ findings:

Now, the amateur sky watchers have succeeded in tracking the stealthy object for the first time and uncovering clues that could back up the surveillance theory. Ted Molczan, a team member in Toronto, said the military spacecraft was passing over the same region on the ground once every four days, a pattern he called “a common feature of U.S. imaging reconnaissance satellites.”

In six sightings, the team has found that the craft orbits as far north as 40 degrees latitude, just below New York City. In theory, on a clear night, an observer in the suburbs might see the X-37B as a bright star moving across the southern sky.

“This looks very, very good,” Mr. Molczan said of the identification. “We got it.”

In moving from as far as 40 degrees north latitude to 40 degrees south latitude, the military spacecraft passes over many global trouble spots, including Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea.

Mr. Molczan said team members in Canada and South Africa made independent observations of the X-37B on Thursday and, as it turned out, caught an earlier glimpse of the orbiting spaceship late last month from the United States. Weeks of sky surveys paid off when the team members Kevin Fetter and Greg Roberts managed to observe the craft from Brockville, Ontario, and Cape Town.

Mr. Molczan said the X-37B was orbiting about 255 miles up — standard for a space shuttle — and circling the planet once every 90 minutes or so.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this date in 1935, Gene Wilder was born:

1935 – Gene Wilder Born

On this date Gene Wilder (aka Jerome Silberman) was born in Milwaukee. Wilder graduated from Washington High School in Milwaukee in 1951. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Iowa in 1955. and studied judo, fencing, gymnastics and voice at the Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, England. Wilder won the Clarence Derwent award for the Broadway play “The Complaisant Lover” in 1962.

He continued to perform on Broadway in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1963), Dynamite Tonight (1964), and The White House (1964). Wilder made his film debut in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), then earned an Oscar nomination the following year as the accountant Leo Bloom in The Producers, the first of three films he made for writer-director Mel Brooks. Wilder is known for his work in such films as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972), Blazing Saddles (1973), and Young Frankenstein (1974). After his second wife Gilda Radner died of ovarian cancer, Wilder co-founded Gilda’s Club, a support group to raise awareness of the disease. [Source: Wisconsin Film Office]

Wilder as Wonka
more >>

Economy, Free Markets

Tonight on Stossel: Milton Friedman and Prosperity (7 PM Central on Fox Business Channel)

by  • 

Tonight is sure to be a great episode of John Stossel’s program on the Fox Business Channel. Stossel will discuss the contribution of the late Milton Friedman to prosperity. His lifelong study of markets and monetary policy helped countless people around the world to freer, more prosperous ways of living.

Viewers can tune in tonight at 7 p.m. for the show. Tonight on Stossel: Milton Friedman and Prosperity (7 PM Central on Fox Business Channel)

Government Spending

The YouCut Choices This Week: How ’bout Selling Excess Federal Property?

by  • 

I’ve posted about YouCut before — it’s an initiative from U.S. representative Eric Cantor, to bring before the U.S. House spending cut proposals from among choices posted online. The most popular ideas go to a House vote. Cantor notes that “[o]ur nation’s debt grows by $4.9 billion every day.” A figure that high is hard to imagine, yet it’s a daily total, one that’s accumulating rapidly to weigh America down.

Last week, most of those expressing an online preference voted to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, reform that would have saved over thirty billion dollars. Unfortunately, that proposal was defeated in the House of Representatives, on a 230-180 vote. (I voted online to show my preference for reforming Fannie and Freddie from among the YouCut choices.)

Here are the five cuts from which one can select a preference this week:

  • Sell Excess Federal Property (Potential savings of up to $15 billion)
  • Terminate Duplicative Federal Bicycle and Walking Program (Saves $183 million a year or $1.8 billion over ten years)
  • Terminate New Federal Truck Parking Facilities Program (Saves $6.25 million a year, and $62.5 million over ten years)
  • Terminate Security Funding for Private Bus Companies (Saves $12 million a year, $120 million over ten years)
  • Terminate the Ready to Learn Television Program (Saves $27 million a year, $270 million over ten years)

Descriptions of each of these proposed cuts are available at the YouCut website.

This week, I voted for selling excess federal property. The federal government owns too much, and others could make better, more productive, use of federal property.

Free Markets, Laws/Regulations, Liberty

Huffington Post: Making the Business Case for Dairy Farmer Civil Disobedience

by  • 

The war against raw milk sales in a dairy state, a war whose generals are big business interests, is underway in Wisconsin. I’ve written about previously about Governor Doyle’s veto of a bill allowing modest raw milk sales, and about regulatory badgering of dairies that offer raw milk for sale. (Some raw milk may be sold even now, and Doyle vetoed a bill that would have allowed just a bit more.)

Over at the Huffington Post, David Gumpert, author of The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Struggle Over Food Rights, has an essay explaining that money, and not safety concerns, motivates the war against raw milk sellers. See, Making the Business Case for Dairy Farmer Civil Disobedience.

Gumpert describes the situation in Wisconsin, one that’s favorable to raw milk sellers, all things considered:

Well, the big thing the raw dairies have going for them is that so-called “primary demand” for unprocessed foods is growing. Increasing numbers of people are learning about the dangers of processed foods and foods produced with antibiotics and pesticides. They want real milk, meat, and eggs produced locally by pastured cows and chickens, without the antibiotics, hormones and pesticides of the commodity segment. Similarly, they want organic fruits and veggies.

Also pushing primary demand is that more consumers are coming to understand that the commodity producers and their supporters rig the system. Big Dairy uses its pull to get the governor of a major dairy state (WI) to veto small-potatoes legislation that would open a tiny window of business opportunity for the little guys. The public health officials of a large urban state (MA) push for a crackdown on raw milk delivery services even though there’s not been a public health case in over a decade. A Big Dairy commodity producer thought to be friendly to farmers and consumers (Organic Valley) tries to squash raw milk producers that are grabbing more market share.

The result? Ever more interest and sympathy for the small producers. Stronger primary demand for raw milk and other such unprocessed products.

Gumpert contends that the claims of raw milk health risks that regulators and special interests make are wildly exaggerated, and are scare tactics, not sound public health policy. There are many similar regulatory efforts that are little more than government schemes to generate money through fines and penalties.

There will be a great many twists and turns in the months ahead, but I think that Gumpert’s right that raw milk dairies are likely to prevail, even against the powerful political forces arrayed against them.

Uncategorized

Culinary Freedom, Part 2: The Case Against Jamie Oliver and His “Food Revolution.”

by  • 

Here’s the second of two videos about culinary freedom. This shorter video presents “The Case Against Jamie Oliver: Why the Naked Chef Should Take His “Food Revolution” Back Home.” No one doubts that some diets are more healthful than others. Choosing what to eat is a decision that people should make on their own, without government prohibitions, and without the false claims that food hysterics like Oliver make as a matter of routine.

Link: The Case Against Jamie Oliver.

In February, celebrity British chef Jamie Oliver scooped up the prestigious TED Prize, awarded for his crusade “against obesity and other diet related diseases” and for having “pressured the UK government to invest $1 billion to overhaul school lunches to improve nutrition.” Upon receiving the award, he warned America that it was committing national suicide through food. In an attempt to recreate his British school lunch campaign in the United States, Oliver is launching Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, a reality show that attempts to overhaul the school lunch regimen in America’s unhealthiest city.

But while food nags like Oliver and First Lady Michelle Obama are surely right that Americans need to eat better, is he right that our eating habits are killing us? And do we need a massive budget increase to introduce fresh foods and food education to our schools?

Reason.tv’s Michael C. Moynihan talked to food blogger and journalist Ed Bruske and Reason senior editor Katherine Mangu-Ward about school lunch reform, whether more government money could slim student waistlines, the United States Department of Agriculture’s role in making kids fat, and whether young American really are, as Oliver claims, living shorter lives their parents and grandparents.

Approximately 7 minutes. Written by Moynihan. Shot and edited by Dan Hayes. Production assistant, Joshua Swain. more >>