Month: October 2005

Ignore the pink elephant in the room

The Washington Post has another story about ordinary citizens arrested in the District with a blood alcohol content below .08. The focus seems to be on this aspect of the article. Consider:

In March 1998, council member Carol Schwartz (R-At Large) introduced legislation to lower the legal limit for intoxication from .10 to .08.

On July 7 of that year, then-council member Sandy Allen tried to tack an amendment onto the open-container law to lower the level at which a driver could be considered intoxicated from .05 to .03 and below.

On July 13, according to the thick legislative record, Allen again brought up the amendment and asked that it be attached to Schwartz’s bill. There was no discussion. All three committee members — Allen, Sharon Ambrose and Harry Thomas — voted in favor.

Allen said in an interview yesterday that she does not remember proposing the legislation. An aide to Ambrose said that neither she nor Ambrose remembers the amendment. Thomas died in 1999.

“I think we were trying to minimize the number of alcohol-related fatalities in the region,” Allen said. “It was not my intention to have a zero tolerance policy. That was the police, using their own discretion in how they interpreted the law.”

There is clearly a lesson in unintended consequences there and how to better govern a city. This also suggests that citizen oversight is a pretty good idea. Lawmakers are in office through the vote of the people. Not challenging laws that the people find offensive, either through contacting the elected official or at the ballot box, constitutes acceptance. No one can complain 8 years later that no one knew. Ignorance is not an excuse.

But more importantly, I want to focus on the part of the article that’s being overlooked. Consider:

On the day the D.C. Council passed emergency legislation to relax the police department’s zero tolerance policy and the mayor asserted that officers are not “targeting drivers who have a drink at dinner,” Jackson Williams, a former drunken driving prosecutor, waited seven hours for a chance to defend himself in D.C. Superior Court.

He had been arrested in September 2004 under that policy for registering a .02 blood alcohol level after a fender bender with a taxi. He had told the officer he’d had two beers two hours before at the Old Ebbitt Grill.
…

When Williams was arrested, the D.C. Code said that drivers with a blood alcohol level of “less than .03” could be considered intoxicated and arrested if there is other evidence of impairment.

I obviously don’t know the facts of the case beyond what’s right there (emphasis added) and I know how bad taxi drivers can be, but there is no way I’m going to build sympathy for this case. It requires no leap of imagination for a police officer to link “fender bender” and “other evidence of impairment”. The courts are designed specifically to sort out these situations, which is why people arrested are still presumed innocent. You don’t want to have to deal with this? It’s simple, really. Drink or drive. So forgive me for not feeling the collective outrage pinballing around D.C. this week.

Why do you need to wreck this company?

I’ve jumped into the media bias argument before. Usually, I explain it with a rant about media being a business determined to make a profit. If there’s a slant, it’s because the business people within the media organization think they can make a profit from it. (Either that, or they’re bad business people. I leave that option open.) If you, as the consumer of that media bias, don’t like it, stop buying. Flip the channel, put your money in another newspaper box, whatever action makes you no longer a consumer of the bias you don’t like. It’s that simple, really. Especially in the age of the Internets, where there’s a web site for everything. It’s not complicated.

Yet, some still wish to pretend like it’s more. Consider this question from a college football chat hosted by The Washington Post:

Silver Spring, Md.: So since Virginia Tech fans alway [sic] come on here and whines [sic] about coverage in the paper, do you think they are happy with the number of stories in there the last few days while Maryland has received little coverage. And on that note, since Philadelphia and New York City are closer to D.C. then [sic] Blacksburg, I was wondering when the Post was going to start covering Delaware, Penn State, West Virginia, Pitt, Temple, Towson, St. Joe’s, Rutgers and St. Johns as hometown schools, too.

The individual has a point in the “MSM is biased” worldview. Unfortunately, the facts don’t hold up to scrutiny when scrubbed with that nonsense. I could offer my own analysis with wonderful wordplay, but I’ll just leave it to the reporter’s response. Enjoy:

Dan Steinberg: The Rutgers-UConn tilt will likely lead the sports section on Sunday.

No, actually, we’ve answered this before but are happy to answer it again. We cover Tech not because of their proximity to D.C. but because of the large and rabid fan base that lives in our readership area, which we judge in part by our readership surveys. For further evidence, check out the stands in Byrd on Thursday night. It’s unfortunate that people in Maryland might have to read Tech stories that don’t interest them, but it’s the challenge of putting out a paper in this market, and we try to be as diverse as possible based on reader interest. Tomorrow’s game preview story will be about the quarterbacks Ralph Friedgen and Charlie Taaffe have produced over the years.

Also, I think you forgot to demand more Delaware State coverage.

It really is that simple. There are many Hokies in the D.C. metro area. They want to read about the Hokies. They have quarters. The Washington Post knows that Hokies will insert quarters into the coin slots of newspaper boxes throughout the region. The Washington Post has a preference for which newspaper boxes receive those quarters. So they cover Virginia Tech football. (As well as Maryland, Virginia, and Navy.) You say bias, I say economics.

Yes, I know I offered my own analysis with wonderful wordplay after I said I wouldn’t. So what? Go Hokies!

If you need a friend, get a dog.

Last week, The Washington Post ran an article about a woman arrested for DUI in D.C. The story indicates that she failed a field sobriety test according to the arresting officer, even though her blood alcohol content registered at .03. The District has a zero tolerance law, which gives police leeway to declare a driver impaired even below the .08 legal limit. The remaining details of the case aren’t the point I’m leading to, but an explanation might help. Kip at A Stitch in Haste had the most unique, and ultimately compelling, argument concerning the case. Consider:

But if your complaint is that DUI laws deprive you of your supposed constitutional right to have “just two beers” or “just one glass” and then hurl a multi-ton slab of metal down public roads at lethal speeds, then you have exceeded the threshold of logic and are no longer driving while libertarian.

Perhaps I’m biased because I don’t drink, but that makes sense to me. That doesn’t mean everyone who has one drink and then drives will (or should) be arrested, just that the person is altering the situation against himself. There are others on the road who are 0% impaired by alcohol. Don’t like it? Don’t drink and drive. So, I think Kip’s right, even though .03 is less than .08. But I digress.

My point is that some commenters jumped on Kip regarding his defense of the District. I posted this comment in response to some of the more incredulous individuals.

The article does go on to mention a side effect of the law. Ms. Bolton now spends her evenings out in Virginia. The experiment of zero tolerance is having a foreseeable effect. Should the residents of the District decide this is unacceptable, they can vote for officials who will change the laws.

It seems it didn’t even take that long for local government officials to act. Consider:

The D.C. Council yesterday overwhelmingly passed emergency legislation to clarify the city’s policy on drunken driving.

In a 9-3 vote, the council passed a bill stating that anyone with a blood alcohol level under .05 is not presumed to be under the influence. Those with a blood alcohol level between .05 and .08 are presumed to be neither drunk nor sober.

The bill now goes to Mayor Anthony A. Williams, who has criticized the legislation as being hastily written and potentially damaging to the District’s drunken-driving laws.

Mr. Williams said he will review the legislation over the next 10 days before deciding whether to sign or veto it.

“I wanted to keep our law so that people who want to come into D.C. to partake responsibly in the vitality of our city can do so,” said council member Carol Schwartz, the at-large Republican who introduced the bill.

You may applaud me now.

Seriously, this is how government works. I’m cynical about government like everyone else, but I’m not so cynical that I think it can’t change. We get the government we deserve when we don’t hold our elected officials accountable. Put pressure on them, whether through newspaper articles, telephone calls, or blogging, and disagreeable policies can change. I still don’t have a significant issue with the original law, but it’s encouraging to see that government isn’t a kingdom, unresponsive to the governed. Representative government works.

Even in D.C.

I don’t want him here. Put him in with Lassard’s academy.

Today Michelle Malkin wrote about her recent experience with an apparently agenda-driven Wall Street Journal reporter. Consider:

Several times, [Wall Street Journal media reporter Joe]Hagan asked leading questions about the blogosphere’s “conspiracy theories” regarding Joel Hinrichs. Several times, I stated clearly that I did not subscribe to any conspiracy theories–and that most of the blogs covering the story didn’t either. I explained that unlike the MSM, most of the blogs I have linked to were simply trying to find out the truth about the strange incident–and that meant keeping open the possibility that Hinrichs meant to commit murder and that he may have been swayed by extremist Islamic views.

There are a few folks out there who are absolutely convinced that Hinrichs was part of an organized terrorist plot. I made crystal-clear to Hagan I was not one of them. I don’t know what the truth is. I do know that Hinrichs tried to buy ammonium nitrate several days before the bombing, and that his bomb contained TATP, the same substance used by shoe bomber Richard Reid, and that the warrant used to execute a search of his apartment is sealed, and that the investigation of Hinrichs’ death is being led by the Joint Terrorism Task Force. I also know that an Oklahoma City television station reported that Hinrichs regularly attended a mosque, and that despite claims that the report is erroneous, the TV station is standing by its reporting.

What I stressed to Hagan was that several freelance Islamists have committed acts of violence in the U.S.–the LAX El Al Muslim gunman Hesham Hadayet, for example, and the Beltway snipers–and the MSM has done a lousy job of exploring their Islamist influences.

She makes a compelling argument, and I sympathize, but she stumbles into the same agenda-driven intellectual hole occupied by Mr. Hagan with her strategy for dealing with Islamist terror. She does not spell it out in this entry, but in the entry that immediately follows, she offers this challenge to the nonsensical legislation put forth by Hawaii Senator Daniel Akaka, which clarifies “the political and legal relationship between Native Hawaiians and the United States.” Consider:

And I would add my observation about the “diversity” crowd’s unabashed support for racial profiling in every kind of domestic policy–housing, education, government contracting, etc.–except where homeland security is concerned.

Except where homeland security is concerned. That little exception holds the crux of the fallacy in trying to set a winning strategy in the war against Islamofascist terrorists. As I wrote previously, racial profiling may be useful, but it won’t catch every terrorist. In that entry I mentioned how racial profiling would’ve (likely) failed to stop Mr. Hinrichs, but in her examples today, Ms. Malkin mentions the Beltway snipers. I’m sure I don’t need to recite the basic facts of that case, but I remember it vividly, having lived in the D.C. area at the time. (Ms. Malkin lives in the D.C. area, so I’m sure she does, too.) The snipers may have identified as Muslims, but racial profiling, which invariably means young men of Middle Eastern descent, would not have snared those two, as both are black.

As further indication of the flaw in profiling, the snipers drove a blue sedan with a hole cut behind the rear license plate. In the beginning of the killing spree, eyewitness reports indicated a large, white truck was seen speeding from the scene of one of the murders. The national focus for the next three weeks became a large, white truck. No one looked for a blue sedan until competent police investigation and citizen tips in Tacoma, Washington led to the eventual capture of the snipers. But eyewitnesses also reported seeing the blue sedan leaving the scene of at least one of the early murders. How much quicker might the case have been solved had we not profiled the large, white truck?

Police and intelligence gatherers are trained to do a job. They generally do it very well. Relying on something so easily mistake-prone (racial profiling), one gets a false sense of security. That is not what we need in police work. I’d rather trust intelligence info, detective work, and the field instincts of a police offer dealing with suspicious activity. We’re going to win the domestic portion of the war against Islamofascist terrorism because we have those three capabilities. That’s the lesson we’d be wise to remember every time someone promotes racial profiling as essential to the war against Islamofascist terrorism.

Tom Brady Is Useless

Kip at A Stitch in Haste links to Time Magazine’s Top 100 English Language Novels (since 1923). He’s mystified that Time omitted The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, both by Ayn Rand. I haven’t read either, so I can’t comment on their exclusion, but I did answer his discussion question asking what novels should be added to the list. Here’s my comment:

Eight. My strong preference for spy fiction set in WWII [I wrote “WWII spy fiction” but edited it for clarity because I’m that annoying] has an opportunity cost, as well. The books I’ve read:

The Catcher in the Rye – school, reread by choice
The Grapes of Wrath – school
The Great Gatsby – school, reread by choice
Lord of the Flies – school
On the Road – school
Portnoy’s Complaint – choice
Slaughterhouse-Five – choice, several times (as well as the movie)
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold – choice

8 1/4 if I count The Sound and the Fury. The opening 75 pages of that make no sense. It’s amazing how effective punctuation and “he said” can be at aiding comprehension. But, if no one understands the book, it must be great. (Exhibit B: The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead.)

I’d add… The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (my favorite book), The Crimson Petal and the White, and Brave New World.

I know of at least one English major who can answer this, but I’m curious about everyone’s opinion on this list. What do you think? Personally, I think these lists are generally worthless, other than as a starting point for what everyone “should” read. As I mentioned in my comment to Kip’s entry, I’ve read the first 50 pages or so of The Sound and the Fury but haven’t finished it. Faulkner’s style turned me off immediately. I might finish it one day, but I feel no rush. The novel appearing on a Top 100 list doesn’t change that.

Or consider my Exhibit B, The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead. I anxiously read that because it received a lot of critical acclaim and the premise seemed interesting. When I read it, I wanted to throw the book so many times. I finished it but only because I didn’t not finish books at the time. That book probably forced me to abandon that irrational strategy.

Specifically, I hated the way Mr. Whitehead shifted his narration with no warning. I’d read along and suddenly find myself in the middle of a long, long passage that derailed the story’s flow. Even today, I can’t decide if his literary device was a sign of a writer not talented enough to explain his point clearly (not that I’d missed it with the story itself) or a writer too talented to think that he only needed simple sentences that moved the story along. It may have been hailed as …the freshest racial allegory since Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye…. by Walter Kirn, but within the first one hundred pages, I was thinking “Yeah, ok, I get it. We’re a racist society. So what?” I hated it.

As I wrote here, the message as the foundation doesn’t work in literature, whether it’s books, movies, or television. It’s fine to have a message. Some of the best literature will reveal a moral, but the message must evolve out of the story. Above all else, I want to be entertained. A book isn’t great just because it’s complicated and doesn’t make sense. If that’s the case, the writer most likely failed.

That doesn’t have much to do with anything, of course. I’m just rambling because I like books, but I don’t like bad books. And I loathe bad “good” books. So I’d shake up Time’s list. Rather than ramble on anymore, I’ll just ask the same question Kip asked. What novels would you include on the list? And if you want to include a count of the books from the Top 100 that you’ve read (with titles, even), post that, as well.

Do the chickens have large talons?

Here’s an interesting story about a Napoleon Dynamite pen that’s causing some anger stupidity. It makes me wish I could go back in time. I’d take state. Consider:

Melissa Hart is angry about new pens that her children and others may be offended by when they return to the classroom next week.

The Wethersfield mother of three, who has a 3-year-old with Down syndrome, recently learned about pens from the popular film “Napoleon Dynamite,” which has a recording that says, “You guys are retarded.”

I’m certainly guilty of thinking Napoleon Dynamite is hilarious. I even laughed at the “you guys are retarded” line. Might as well do somethin’ while I’m doing nothin’. No doubt that adds to the evidence that I’m a bad person, as I’ve contended for years. I even accept that I’m probably going to Hell, most notably thanks to my hatred for all things Wal-Mart and my consecutive votes against George W. Bush. But this is ridiculous. It’s a toy that can shade upper lips. That doesn’t justify one sensitive parent and equally stupid school officials who believe that the purpose of education is to “convey the message that it is not OK to marginalize students with intellectual disabilities.” Perhaps I find the wrong sort of comedy funny, and perhaps I’m missing some distinction that tells me using the word “retarded” is never funny. Perhaps I’m just a dunce. I contend that I’m not, though. Consider this language from the online petition started by Melissa Hart in response to this toy.

Second, reconsider your standards in respect to human rights.

I don’t understand a word you just said. Human rights? There’s no right to not be offended or mocked. And why is this nonsense being passed along to Connecticut’s Attorney General? Is he Pedro’s cousin with all the sweet hook-ups, who you think can make this illegal? Gosh! Stop ruining everybody’s lives and eating all our steak. Go tame a wild honeymoon stallion, instead.

Hat tip: Radley Balko

Gently used iPod for sale

I’m not mad at Apple for announcing the new video iPod yesterday. I’d read the rumors before I purchased mine, but I was impatient. I’m also realistic to understand that I only want the video iPod to have the latest toy. I’m not going to download the latest episodes of Lost to watch on a 2.5″ screen when I have a 50″ screen in my living room. I’ll get over my “poor” decision.

What I don’t like about the iPod universe is iTunes. The software is perfectly usable and is stable, a feature I haven’t found in other music software I’ve used. And it’s free. The music store even has a broad selection of music. I can find random b-sides and live songs that I’ve never seen anywhere else. The service could be great, but this article from Australia explains why it’s anti-consumer. Consider:

Unfortunately for Australian consumers, the shows are available only through Apple’s iTunes online store in the US, for which you need a credit card registered to a US address.

The iTunes store is not yet available in Australia, and Apple is not saying when – or even if – it might open here.

I don’t live in Australia, but I do like British music. The U.K. iTunes store has singles from bands that I want but can’t buy because I don’t have a credit card with a British address. I know this is probably not Apple’s fault, with blame resting on the recording industry and its 1980’s view of music copyright and consumer use, but I don’t care. I want British music. With the Internets making the marketplace global, there is no reason why they should impose this limitation. Do I need to stress that I want to give them money? This strategy is one more reason I feel zero sympathy for the recording industry when it cries poverty. Any third-grader could tell them this is stupid business.

Swapping the deck in the house of cards

I’ve tried to avoid getting too upset about the Tax Advisory Panel’s preliminary recommendations. All indications are that they’re still deliberating possible reform ideas. I’m about 0.4% optimistic that their deadline isn’t until November, but it’s still something. Reducing the mortgage interest deduction and capping the healthcare exemption can’t be all they’re proposing. I know there’s the idea of extending the charitable deduction to non-itemizers and the (commendable) proposal to scrap the Alternative Minimum Tax, but there has to be more. Otherwise, and this not rhetorical, why bother? Why?

Instead, I’ll play around with this article explaining some of the recommendations. Consider:

At its last meeting, in July, the commission agreed to recommend abolishing the alternative minimum tax for individuals, a step that would cost the federal government $1.2 trillion in lost revenue over 10 years.

With a mandate to develop a proposal for changing the tax system that is revenue neutral – meaning it neither raises nor lowers total tax receipts – the commission must find enough revenue to offset the amount now generated by the alternative minimum tax.

That is mainly what led to an examination of ways to modify the deductions for mortgage interest and health insurance, two of the largest tax breaks now available to individuals. Together, the two deductions will cost the treasury about $250 billion this year.

Is this where the cynic in me reminds you that I said the panel started with a flawed mission from President Bush? The proposal must be revenue neutral. So, the panel recommends eliminating the AMT, but must find another revenue source to offset the loss of that abomination. How is that reform, exactly? As the final paragraph highlights, the recommendation does little more than shift the tax burden from one method to another (and indicates that deductions cost the government rather than benefit taxpayers). With this nonsense, the government still plays in the central planning sandbox. It just decides to use sand from a different beach. Brilliant.

Reading other responses on the Internets, I enjoyed this response to the panel’s announcement:

… And note, this is not in service of real reform of the tax code, like losing all preferences and replacing the current code with a flat tax.

No, it is merely scratching around for money to “offset” the cost of repealing the absurd alternative minimum tax. That is exactly backwards. Junk the rest of the code and keep the AMT and call it a flat tax. There is also nothing radical about proposing to use ability-to-pay standards to soak the “rich” in search of more government revenue. Wow, that’s a new one.

This is a horrible idea and needs to be taken out behind the barn and dispatched as quickly and as painlessly as possible before real and lasting damage is done. The Bush spending spree followed by the Bush tax hikes. Like night follows day, people.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t highlight this wonderful insight on why we should be thankful to the panel. Consider:

“We’ve got to make bold recommendations without regard to the politics of them,” said John Breaux, the panel’s vice chairman and a former Democratic senator from Louisiana. “The politics will be debated for a long time.”

The politics will be debated for a long time because the panel hasn’t eliminated them, or even changed them. It’s still the same scheme of preferences to soak the rich and offer handouts to the poor. Our elected officials, and the people they appoint to carry out tasks, should be able to lead. If they can’t lead, they shouldn’t be involved. Freakin’ idiots!

I do, in fact, know that I’m living in a fantasy land.

What Would Jefferson Do?

I’m a little behind on commenting about this but of course they are:

Leading House Republicans signaled Friday that they will try to weaken a Senate effort to limit interrogation techniques that U.S. service members can use on terrorism suspects.

Their remarks made clear that the language in the Senate-passed military spending bill faces uncertain prospects in bargaining between the Senate and House. The Senate approved the $445 billion bill 97-0 on Friday.

The detainee provision, which has drawn a veto threat from the Bush administration, was sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., himself a prisoner of war in Vietnam. It was omitted from the bill passed by the House and could spark embarrassing internal battling among Republicans.

This makes no sense. Only the most hardened anti-American would aim to harm U.S. soldiers or smile at the danger they face every day, but it’s entirely appropriate to reinforce long-established limits on their conduct with prisoners of war. The fight over prisoner abuse is not about elevating those we hold prisoner to saints. Honestly, fuck them. I don’t care what they think about much of anything. Beyond the basic need to prove that they’re guilty of their alleged crimes, having them rot in a cell doesn’t concern me. But this isn’t about them. It’s about our moral standard. They may be garbage, but we’re not. So forgive me if I don’t appreciate the fine intellect in statements such as this:

“We’re not going to be delivering a bill to the president’s desk that is veto bait,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

Rep. Lewis seems to forget that the House, as a chamber of Congress, is entitled to check the unfettered will and actions of the Executive. It is not responsible for passing along only those bills the president enjoys. Why bother to have a free government if you wish to bow to the whims of a dictator, however benevolent he may appear? If you have any principles, you’ll understand that allowing, and worse, condoning, torture is immoral. This president doesn’t get that. You must.

Maybe this is just me coming out as a raging liberal who hates the president. It certainly would be easy to dismiss me that way, wouldn’t it? But let me offer a quick reminder. Today is the fifth anniversary of the USS Cole bombing. The news is filled with stories like this today, whether it’s in New York, Iraq, Bali, Madrid, or London. We’re fighting to stop events like that, but the mentality that causes individuals to attack a ship, and others to cheer it from the coast, will persist as long as this world exists. That does not give us permission to act like every grade-school kid who thinks he can be the bully just because he’s bigger than the other kids.

We may be expanding freedom, but the danger isn’t going away. Reading the news from Iraq, I see near-daily reports of more American deaths. Sometimes it hits the Army, sometimes the Marines. On other rare occasions, it hits the Air Force. Those deaths affect me the same way they affect most Americans. I don’t like it, but I hope their deaths won’t be in vain. I also hope that more won’t have to die because we don’t heed the lessons. And what we’re seeing is that we’re not. When the President of the United States expects permission to treat any prisoner of war as he deems necessary, by the circumstances in the field, we’ve lost touch with reality. Torturing prisoners leads to more terrorism, not less. As I’ve heard it said, the innocent men we’ve tortured around the world (yes, it has happened) aren’t terrorists when entering our detainee centers, but they are terrorists when they leave. That’s stupid. We might as well bomb ourselves.

But I have a more selfish reason for wanting America to do this correctly than sheer patriotism. My younger brother, just shy of 22-years-old, is in the Navy. He’s currently in training in the United States, but I’m waiting for the inevitable day when he’s shipped off to some dangerous corner of the world. Maybe it’ll be the Persian Gulf, maybe it’ll be off the coast of North Korea. Regardless, it will not be a vacation. The Navy hasn’t suffered any more attacks like the one on the USS Cole in the last five years. I want that streak to continue forever. With this stupid policy of condoned torture, we seem determined to encourage another attack. There are enough crazy people around the world seeking to attack us for some assumed insult to their religion. I don’t want us providing that final “justification” to someone previously unwilling to attack us just because we think terrorists are scum. They are scum, but I don’t want my brother coming home in a body bag because we think it’s fine to torture a prisoner into a body bag.

Let the president veto that provision. History will judge him for it, should he brazenly pursue that to the end. The House, though, must follow the Senate’s lead and act like a branch of government independent from the White House, beholden to nothing more than the Constitution and the principles we supposedly embody.

Send dollars, and include the tax code as kindling

More federal response to Hurricane Katrina. Consider:

Democratic lawmakers are urging the Bush administration to increase funding for a $2 billion energy program to help the poor pay heating bills expected to increase about 47 percent this winter.

The energy assistance program helps low-income families, primarily the elderly and disabled, pay utility bills – about one-third of the total bill, on average. The money is disbursed through block grants to the states.

I don’t know much about this, but here’s a suggestion: let the states determine their needs and tax their citizens accordingly (with their consent through representation, of course). It’s brilliant! Maybe I can win $100,000.

But without federal intervention, millions will freeze to death this winter. You know, because stuff like this never happens anywhere else in America without federal intervention:

Stephen Nocilla, director of Catholic Social Services in Scranton, Pa., said he’s worried about the impact of higher energy prices on poor families in Northeast Pennsylvania. He’s making plans with local officials to open up more emergency shelters this winter.

“This is a life-and-death situation,” Nocilla said. “People are going to have to make some very difficult choices.”

If people like Senator Kerry and others care so much about helping poor families heat their homes this winter, and in the future, wouldn’t it make more sense to allow states and localities to determine who needs help? If nothing else, sending the money from taxpayer to state/local government to needy families/utilities is more efficient than sending the money from taxpayer to IRS to Department of Energy to State/local government to needy families/utilities. That would heat the same number of homes for fewer dollars. I’m just saying, I think our founding fathers were on to something.

Post Script: Like the last entry, this in no way endorses the idea that government intervention is the best way to handle this essential task. It may or may not be, and given the very real possibility of a significant number of deaths in colder areas, there is a benefit potentially sufficient to justify it. But if government should pay, which government is the question. But you figured that out already, so no more disclaimer stuff.