Out of Control

It looks like an all-out ban on incandescent light bulbs is off the table in California for the time being. AB 722, which would have banned sale of traditional light bulbs in the state by 2012, has been amended to require, instead, that the bulbs achieve a 50 lumens per watt efficiency (equivalent to the lower range of compact florescent bulbs) beginning in 2010 for 100-watt bulbs, phasing in through 2016 for 40-watt bulbs. Though not perfect, it is a substantially more elegant policy than the earlier proposal. According to the Assembly analysis of the proposed bill, "almost 2 percent" of the state's entire electricity consumption goes to power incandescent lights.

GE, don't fail me now!

Earlier posts on the topic here and here and here.

Also, for our general edification, a photo of AB 722 author, Assemblymember Lloyd Levine, proving (??) that the quality of light produced by florescent bulbs is nothing to be afraid of.

I busted my own post Friday in which I mused as to whether the Florida’s franchise reform bill, Consumer Choice Act of 2007 (HB 529), which was signed into law by Gov. Charlie Crist last week, killed franchise fees.

Turns out I was half-right. The bill prohibits any further imposition of franchise fees, but that’s because they were already dead. In another progressive move, Florida a few years back did away with franchise fees, telecom excise taxes and other such surcharges that over time, created a discriminatory tax regime where the same types telecom, video and data services were taxed differently depending on the company offering the service, i.e., telephone, cable or wireless.

My sources tell me that taxes were streamlined into a single general Communications Services Tax that was designed to be uniform across all service providers. Essentially this tax replaced local cable franchise fees.

The good news is that state legislators of Florida understand the convergence of the industry and service providers and that taxing one phone service from one company at one rate, and another at another rate, was not fair to consumers nor service providers. The bad news is that the legislature essentially leveled all taxes up, so consumers saw no tax savings. Indeed, in the new Heartland Institute report on telecom taxes, Jacksonville and Tallahassee came out one and two in terms of aggregate tax burden in a survey of 59 cities.

As for the Florida franchising reform bill, it ushers in video competition by all but voiding existing local franchising agreements. Incumbent cable and telephone companies may apply immediately for a statewide franchise once the law becomes effective July 1. The Florida franchise bill also contains no build-out requirements. The bill also calls for new entrants to provide the same number of public, educational and government (PEG) channels to a community as the incumbent, and a minimum of two if there are no PEG channels at present. The municipality, on the other hand, is obliged to fill each PEG channel with an average of 10 hours of programming per day.

The Texas legislature took long overdue steps to ease some of the tax burden on consumers, voting last week to end the Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund (TIF). The TIF repeal will save Texans $200 million a year, Bill Peacock, Director of the Center for Economic Freedom at the, told me. The only remaining point to be hammered out in a House-Senate conference is whether the tax will sunset this year or in 2008. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who supports the repeal, is expected to sign it.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation notes the history of the Texas TIF in a statement applauding the legislature’s action.

The TIF was created in 1995 as a 10-year project to extend high-speed Internet infrastructure to schools, libraries, and hospitals. The TIF’s funding came from a 1.25% tax on phone bills that was to automatically expire in 2005. In 2003, the Legislature determined that the TIF’s mission was complete, but rather than canceling the tax, it transferred the funds collected into a technology allotment for public education. In 2005, the Legislature extended the tax again, depositing the proceeds into the state’s general revenue account.

In a recent survey of 59 cities for which tax data was available, Dallas and Austin ranked third and fifth in terms of highest overall telecom tax burden, according to a new report from the Heartland Institute which I co-authored. Here’s hoping the TIF repeal may help knock both cities down a few places on this dubious honor roll.

I'm not one to bash ideals like zero emissions or zero waste--if the price was right, who wouldn't want a net zero energy home? It's when that key piece of information--price--is left out of the equation that enthusiasm for holistic systems thinking and energy efficiency innovations crosses over into scary "cult of zero" territory. For example, a statement like this:

"You can have more efficient cars and houses, but until we get to a point where people don't have to drive to do anything, from buying a loaf of bread to going to work, we won't be truly addressing climate change."

--Jackalyne Pfannenstiel, Chair, California Energy Commission, as quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle

The Chronicle elaborates: "Speaking at a climate change conference in Santa Barbara in March, Pfannenstiel declared that the state needed a cultural revolution when it came to land-use planning." Pfannenstiel is an educated economist, so we can give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that these quotes are taken out of context. Policy that badly out of context is another issue...

Richard Martin at InformationWeek reviews some of the obvious reasons why network neutrality is a bad idea.
But what I liked best was his observation that some of the same regulators (FCC Commissioners Adelman and Copps come to mind) who insist marketplace rules of the supply and demand for Internet bandwidth shouldn’t apply are the same regulators relying on the law of supply and demand to net as much as $20 billion for the U.S. Treasury in the next radio spectrum auction.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that the companies who build and provision networks shouldn't be able to charge what the market will bear. Umm, last time I checked we still lived in a capitalistic society.

"From a philosophical standpoint, network neutrality is to be strongly valued, EFF chairman Brad Templeton has said. "It's what built the Internet and made it what it is."

This is nonsense. What made the Internet what it is was corporate America discovering it could make money on it, and ordinary people a) realizing that the Web could improve their lives, and b) being willing to pay for it. The demise of net neutrality wouldn't change that; it would just require heavy users to pay more. That's the American way.

In the real world, for now and for the next few years, bandwidth is if not scarce, at least not infinite. (This is especially true in the mobile world, where just watching a half-hour "Simpsons" episode sucks major RF capacity.) If the opposite were the case, how come the U.S. government expects to make between $15 billion and $20 billion in the upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction? I, for one, would rather the big carriers make their money charging premium prices to major-league bandwidth hogs instead of jacking up my monthly home DSL fee.

May 24th - an "expert panel" at the Institute of Medicine released a "blueprint" on further federal regulation and taxation of tobacco products, among other great ideas. This report was immediately seized upon by advocates supporting pending federal legislation on, what else, expanding government reach by providing FDA Regulation of tobacco products and federally funded healthcare (expanding a federal/state children's health care program called, "SCHIPS") via Federal tobacco Excise Tax increases!

According to the Research Accountability Project, a coalition of interests advocating transparency in federal expenditures, 6 members of the 14 "expert" IOM panel received $44,426,451.00 in government research grants specific to tobacco, alcohol, media influences and "children" (and over 200 other grants made to other panel members on non-tobacco topics), according to HHS databases, from 1992 to 2006. This is only the KNOWN amount of taxpayer funded research on a limited publicly available database. Some grants had no dollar amounts, so the actual number could be greater Dr. Tom Coburn's web site legislation, passed last year, will soon fill in the blanks on ALL federal expenditures.

Btw... Dr. Glantz quoted below is, according to RAP a recipient of $9.7 million in known federal tobacco research funding, and is one of John Stossel's perpetrators in his new book, Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity. Get out the Shovel- Why Everything You Know is Wrong, for his alarming early work on Environmental Tobacco Smoke.

All this government "expertise" and taxpayer funding assembled to release a "quasi government" report timed - perfectly- to affect government policy! As MasterCard might add, "Priceless", but it's not.

The "experts" cite declining public attention as a need for the report. What does that mean? I guess since most people might feel that the tobacco industry and downtrodden, declining, demoralized adult smokers have been picked on enough, so this group wants to "rally the troops" for more, bigger government resources dedicated to pick whatever flesh might remain on their bones after the $246 BILLION Master Settlement Agreement. Isn't it really interesting that this study was "funded" by a public advocacy group funded by the state settlement? The tobacco companies - read: smokers - pay for the settlement and the American Legacy Foundation and they, in turn, cherry pick taxpayer supported "experts" to heap further misery on them?

Aren't there better uses for this "expertise" and government expenditures than to continue, as Jacob Sullum recently coined in Reason magazine, the "Politics of Meddling"?

See the whole article on Forbes.com

As Dr. Coburn has reminded us time and time again of the millions of dollars spent on sending government employees to conferences in exotic locations, we see another opportunity to point out this waste of taxpayer dollars...

Today, Hawaii's Lt. Governor James R. "Duke" Aiona and Acting US Surgeon Kenneth Moritsugu held a call to action meeting in Honolulu to cite stats on how widespread underage drinking in Hawaii is. According to the Lt. Governor's spokesperson, "in attendance were members of the research community, health care providers, Department of Health officials, policy makers, law enforcement personnel, educators, business representatives, members of the faith-based community, youth and parents.”

While they lounge in the sun and enjoy Hawaii's surf on my dime, I wonder how much it really costs the taxpayers... instead I would love it if those government employees would explain how it is that a 18 year old can fight and die protecting this country and they are not allowed to have a beer... and why millions of dollars continue to be wasted on prevention programs that have continually proven ineffective at stopping teenagers from drinking before they are of the legal age. Did they ever stop to think that teenagers might not drink underage so excessively if it wasn't a forbidden fruit, if they weren't prohibited like people their age in the rest of the world?

In a potentially strong form of public school choice and competition, Georgia has passed a new law allowing entire school districts to seek charter status. This law would allow districts to opt-out of work rules and credentialing mandates and state mandates like class-size reduction in exchange for fiscal and academic accountability.

A plan that could give Georgia school systems a wider range of freedom to educate students was signed into law by Gov. Sonny Perdue on Tuesday.

The bill, which was pushed through the Legislature by Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, would eventually allow school boards to apply for the same flexibility for their entire systems that are already granted to charter schools.

The plan creates a pilot program in which five systems would be allowed to pursue charter status as early as next year.

In the most glaring example of junk science this side of An Inconvenient Truth, a BBC documentary series called Panorama this week claimed a wireless-enabled laptop puts out three times as much electromagnetic radiation as a cell tower. The report prompted Sir William Stewart, head of the U.K.’s Health Protection Agency, to call for an inquiry into the use of wireless Internet networks in schools because of concerns they could be exposing children to the risk of cancer.

When I saw this report yesterday, I thought the notion that a laptop WiFi card could actually be pumping out the same RF power as a cell site antenna to be so ridiculous no one could take it seriously. Come on, if it were true, the moment you switched on the your laptop it would jam every wireless device in a 50-foot radius: cell phones, AM/FM radios, garage door openers, toys and so on. That level of output would also deplete your laptop battery in, oh, about ten minutes. But it goes to show how many people can be taken in by scientific sensationalism.

Turns out the producers distorted the data to create a headline, the Manchester Guardian reported. (Brit spellings retained below ). They measured the RF output of the WiFi card from 3 feet away and the RF output of the cell antenna from 300 feet away.

Paddy Regan, a physicist at the University of Surrey, criticized the experiment at the heart of Panorama's claims because the measurements of signal power had not been made at equal distances from the mobile phone mast and the Wi-Fi laptop. A spokesman for the programme told the Guardian that the "three times higher" comparison was based on measurements taken one metre away from the laptop and 100 metres away from the phone mast, although material sent to journalists promoting the programme did not make this clear. Dr Regan said: "It's a basic fundamental of science measurement, that if you are trying to compare things you have to take into account the so-called inverse square law." To make a fair comparison between two radiation sources the measurements should be taken at the same distance away. The levels measured by the Panorama investigation were 600 times lower than levels considered dangerous by the government. "It does sound like a scare story to me," said Dr Regan.

The programme's evidence was criticised as "grossly unscientific" by Malcolm Sperrin, director of medical physics and clinical engineering at Royal Berkshire hospital. "It's impossible to draw any sort of conclusion from the data as presented there."

Tune in to KFI AM 640 today from 4-5pm PST, where we (Drew Carey, Reason, and KFI hosts John & Ken) will launch the search for the poor sap with the most congested commute in Los Angeles.

The winner will be profiled in a short web documentary hosted by Drew Carey, and he/she also gets to skip the gridlock grind for a day and get chauffeured to and from work by helicopter.

At Cato Unbound, Dan Klein explores the distinction that is often at the core of classical liberal's world view, the distinction between voluntary and coercive action.

Liam Murphy, Edward Glaeser, and Richard Epstein respond, and then there's more from Klein.

The interesting confab can be found here, and begins with this:

In 2006 there appeared a “raise the minimum wage” statement signed by 659 economists. I wanted to know why they favored the minimum wage, so I wrote up a questionnaire and sent it to them. But I also used the occasion to get their views on a very important matter: Did they view the minimum wage law as coercive?

Ninety-five graciously completed the survey. Very few of them simply accepted that the minimum wage law is coercive. More than half said the law is not coercive in any significant sense.

But the minimum wage law (and concomitant enforcement) threatens the initiation of physical aggression against employers who pay less than the minimum wage. It threatens physical aggression against people for engaging in certain kinds of voluntary exchange. To me, that is coercion. Just imagine if your neighbor decided that he would impose a minimum wage law on us. Wouldn’t we all agree that he was coercing us? If it is coercion when he does it, why isn’t it coercion when the government does it?

Not only was network neutrality never a doctrine of the Internet, neither was it a provision in any local franchise agreement.

That's not stopped opponents of franchise reform from subtly implying it has been. Lately they’ve been expressing indignation that statewide franchise reform legislation contains no provisions for network neutrality. A March 27 memo on the current Illinois franchise reform bill (HB 1500) from the Illinois Municipal League to Rep. Jim Brosnahan (D., Oak Lawn), the bill’s sponsor, provides the latest talking points.

Amid the list of usual protests over lack of funding for scads of redundant PEG channels, build-out guidelines as opposed to requirements, the general potential for lost tax revenues, the league tossed in “HB 1500 lacks any protections for net neutrality.” That statement introduced an off-topic screed demanding the state government regulate the Internet to ensure all services are treated uniformly, as if banning any sort of enhanced quality tier for video, gaming and other bandwidth-intensive, error-sensitive commercial applications would be a good thing at a time when aggegrate Internet traffic is approaching 1 billion gigabytes (1 billion billion bytes) a month (see Here Comes the Exaflood).

The coupling of network neutrality to franchise reform was first attempted in Michigan late last year. That effort, in the form of an amendment to the franchise reform bill, was defeated handily. But similar measures have arisen in California, Maine and Maryland. Let alone that states are on shaky legal ground when attempting to regulate Internet services, which Congress and the FCC have place under the umbrella of interstate commerce, unlike PEG and build-out clauses, net neutrality was never part of any past local franchise agreements. Net neutrality is not germane to the franchise debate. Legislators should not be taken in by assertions that neutrality is something that needs to be “restored” to the Internet. It was never there in the first place.

Justice is blind—but with a little help it can be used to single out and prosecute people who enjoy public sidewalks too much.

A brief search of municipal codes in the U.S. reveals at least a dozen laws against hand organs and hurdy-gurdies, a musical instrument that looks like a violin and sounds something like bagpipes. The City of Los Angeles municipal code states, "No person shall operate or play any hand organ or hurdy-gurdy in, upon or along any street or sidewalk.” (That’s in § 41.29, sandwiched, perhaps appropriately, between laws against public drunkenness and the building of “spite fences.”) Old Tappan, NJ takes it a step farther, stating nobody “shall have, keep, own, maintain or use within the limits of the borough” any hurdy-gurdy without a license.

Presumably, the hurdy-gurdy is the most maligned instrument in the U.S. municipal codes because, at one time, it was associated with street vendors, blind musicians, and—worst of all—dancing “hurdy-gurdy girls.”

That line of thinking might sound crazy, but then, so does this, from an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle today:

Berkeley figures it's found a way to get homeless people off the streets. Keep them from smoking there. As Mayor Tom Bates sees it, the alcoholics, meth addicts and the like who make up a good portion of the homeless population on Shattuck Avenue downtown and Telegraph Avenue on the south side of the UC Berkeley campus "almost always smoke." And because smoking bans are the hot ticket these days for California cities, why not meld the two as part of a "comprehensive package" for dealing with the street problem that Bates says "has gone over the top"?

Smoking regulations tend to be one issue where progressives can reliably be found promoting regressive taxes and opting for reduced civil liberties. The city ordinances that prohibit smoking outdoors on sidewalks or at parks, bus stops, and private restaurant and bar patios are rarely enforced. When they are, it is typically a “secondary” enforcement where the first offense is being young, obnoxious, or otherwise uncouth (adjectives which might describe the majority of people who loiter along Berkeley’s Telegraph Ave.). The liberty of the young and/or poor ends where the better judgment of paternalistic lawmakers begins.

That paternalism becomes particularly noxious in the regulation of urban commons like sidewalks. Yes, these regulations often relate, at least tangentially, to real public health issues. Just as often, though, they’re intended to drive away people who use public areas disproportionately by criminalizing things they like to do, whether it is skateboarding, smoking or playing the hurdy-gurdy.

Check out this video from the Fiber-to-the-Home Council currently on YouTube.

You’ll learn more than 100 million YouTube videos are being downloaded every day and that, as they say, is not the half of it.

Video has become standard feature on most news sites, from CNN to the news page for your local network affiliate. Even small blogs carry video.

The video explosion has touched off discussion on how the nation’s collective network infrastructure will handle the “exaflood”—the near exponential growth of Internet traffic from year to year.

We are almost there. The term exaflood derives from exabyte, which equals 1 quintillion bytes, or 1 followed by 18 zeros. As of December 2006, the Internet was handling 700 million gigabytes of traffic a month, according to the University of Minnesota’s Digital Technology Center. A gigabyte is 1 billion bytes and 700 million billion bytes equals 700 quadrillion bytes, or 0.7 exabytes.

In and of itself, the exaflood does not necessarily present a crisis. Right now the global Internet has the capacity to handle the traffic. The question is, when the amount of Internet data truly begins to reach the capacity of the network, as it inevitably will, how will the industry be able to respond.

Pundits have designated either India or China as the heir apparent to the U.S.'s domination of the world economy. Both can make a good case--Indians have a time and economy tested track record for leading the IT economy. The multibillion dollar outsourcing giant Infosys is just the biggest player in an ever growing technology and services based world economy. India's problem is that it just hasn't gotten its act together economically. Millions of entrepreneurs are hamstrung by bureaucracy and red tape, and its political system refuses to open up its lumbering industrial sector to healthy domestic and international competition.

China, in contrast, has a vibrant and dynamic economy, plowing through its industrial revolution in less than half the time it took the US. China's biggest liability is its authoritarian political system, but even that systems influence appears to be on the wane in the everyday life of the Chinese.

After spending 10 days in China--visiting with officials and private entrepreneurs in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Xi'an--I would bet on China the global economic race. While the environmental and political hurdles facing this nation of 1.3 billion people are formidable, the on-the-ground can-do attitude is infectuous. Moreover, the national government--the People's Congress--is working on legislation to strengthen property rights and markets as a key part to the next "phase" of the nation's economic development. There appears to be very little Marxism in China's unique brand of Communism.

At the current pace of economic reform, investment, job creation, and wealth creation, China is not competing with India. Their bar is far higher. Their benchmarks are set by the United States. The question is whether we are willing to take the steps necessary to be competitive with the Chinese.

Yesterday the Montgomery County (MD) Council passed a unanimous ban on trans fat and the local restaurants will be the ones to suffer for the dramatic changes they will be forced to make.

The Council divided trans fat into two categories: fried foods and baked goods. The deadline for removal of fried foods is 2008 since a "suitable" replacement has already been found. Since no such substitute has been found for baked goods, the Council decided to allow an extra year for implementation of the ban.

In an additional layer, the Council is allowing restaurants who are unable to meet the initial deadline to apply for an extension until 2010 but, in the meantime they are required to place a sign in the window notifying the public that they are cooking with trans fat.

Montgomery County, MD Council member George Leventhal said, "“The sign will alert customers that what the place is selling could be injurious to their health. That’s not a great incentive to dine there.”

In a textbook case of how a politician can get caught up in the sizzle and hype of the Internet, Melissa Noriega, a city council candidate in Houston, declared Internet access was more important than a college degree.

“I think every family in Houston needs a computer. That’s really what the difference is now. It’s not a college degree. It’s not any of that. It’s whether you are wired, and whether you can get online and figure out your way,” Noriega told KRIV, the local Fox TV affiliate.

Noriega, who garnered 47 percent of the vote in Saturday’s municipal elections, qualified for a run-off against Roy Morales, who won 19 percent. The two are running for the council seat vacated by Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, who stepped down last fall to make an unsuccessful Congressional bid.

Noriega was speaking in support of a public-private municipal wireless project underway in Houston—which stands to rank second largest after LA. While it does not stand to be as big a risk to taxpayers as some other projects, the political motive here, as well as in other cities, tends to stem from misplaced panic that without a government-mandated program for cheap broadband, cities will be left behind. Admittedly, Noriega’s “chuck-school-and-get-online” is the most extreme example of the breathless hyperbole that has surrounded municipal broadband, but it shows how civic leaders have a tendency to mislay perspective the moment someone says “broadband.”

The Washington Post endorsed HOT lanes in Thursday's edition in an editorial:

Every projection suggests that the region's population growth will yield additional congestion that is likely to outstrip the road network's capacity to absorb it. The most that can be expected from planners -- and it is already a lot -- is that they embrace forward-thinking strategies to mitigate growth's impact.

By that measure, a proposal to build high-occupancy toll lanes along Interstates 95 and 395 in Virginia, along with a similar plan already in the works for a segment of the Capital Beltway in Virginia, makes sense. So-called HOT lanes, in use for more than a decade in California and elsewhere, use congestion pricing to prevent backups; electronic tolls on designated lanes would rise and fall according to demand, thereby ensuring that traffic keeps moving. Carpoolers, emergency vehicles, drivers badly pressed for time and, yes, the cost-is-no-object crowd would cruise. Everybody else would continue suffering what they suffer now -- stop-and-go rush hours.

The Post also notes that HOT lanes are not a panacea, but who claimed they were except opponents using rhetorical slight of hand to take them off the table?

CHENGDU, CHINA--The hydrolic works at Dujiangyan, a little more than an hour northwest of Chengdu are pretty breathtaking even by contemporary standards. The complex divides the Minjiang River, controlling flood levels as well as providing stable irrigation to the rich countryside leading to Chengdu and eventually to the Yangtze River. Li Bing, the governor of the Shu Prefecture of the Qin State, realized that perpetual flooding was strangling the economic life of his people. (The plain before the works were built was an octopus of rivers and creeks, making most of the farms vulnerable.)

Over the course of 17 years, Li Bing engaged thousands of workers, built a dike to divide the river, created two spillways that would regulate the water level using winch technolgoy, and broke through a mountain to create pass for the "outer" river. All this was accomplished in 250 BC. The works still operate, and are a dramatic testament to the scientific achievement of ancient Chinese culture.

Unfortunately, the technology and scientific know-how, while inscribed on the temples surrounding the works, never made it out of China. Surely, a freely functioning global trading system would have ensured that would have happened. The idea that something so innovative would today sit passively without notice by the rest of the world is virtually unheard of in a global economy knitted together by trade and competition.

But, the scientific advances of China didn't have much of a chance prior to the industrial revolution. Chinese emporers were so convinced of their culture's superiority, they closed the nation to the world, severing burgeoning trading routes and closing off the Silk Road. The result? China lost its cultural, economic, and scientific pre-eminence. In 1500, China claimed 6 of the world's top 20 cities, the most of any major region, according to Coming Full Circle: An Economic History of the Pacific Rim. India claimed title to 4 of the world's largest cities and Southeast Asia was home to another. In other word's, Asia ruled.

By the 1925, China could claim only one of the world's largest cities and India could claim only one. The U.S. had 5.

Of course, we all know that China began opening itseful up to trade and market-based development in 1979-1980. Since then, its economy has flourished. Now, according to the United Nations, China once again has three of the world's top twenty: Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzen, with several others growing rapidlly.

So the FCC is looking into regulating the level of violence on TV, including cable, although it admits that content edicts pose constitutional issues on when end as well as purely jurisdictional concerns as to whether the commission has the authority to regulate cable, service consumers pay for.

Violence makes an easier political target than sex, because these days liberals are in as high moral dudgeon about it as “family values” conservatives (See Jane Mayer’s tut-tutting on 24 in The New Yorker).

Let alone that there is more information than ever available for parents about TV, movies, games and other media, the FCC would have us believe that today’s parents are helpless doofuses overwhelmed by a media onslaught.

The California Industrial Hemp Farming Act, AB 684, was approved in the State Assembly yesterday on a 41–29 vote. Nearly identical legislation, AB 1147, was vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger last year, evidently in order to appease law enforcement concerns that hemp would be used as a screen for marijuana. That legislation was approved in the Assembly by a slightly wider margin, 44–29. In his veto statement last year, Gov. Schwarzenegger said, “I am very concerned that this bill would give legitimate growers a false sense of security and a belief that production of ‘industrial hemp’ is somehow a legal activity under federal law.”

In fact, production of industrial hemp is “somehow” a legal activity under federal law, albeit one subject to a DEA permit, as Gov. Schwarzenegger went on to say in his veto message: “Any person in the United States that wishes to grow cannabis plants for any purpose, including industrial purposes, must first obtain permission and register with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).” The Governor’s conclusion: “As a result, it would be improper to approve a measure that directly conflicts with current federal statutes and court decisions. This only serves to cause confusion and reduce public confidence in our government system.”

Is Gov. Schwarzenegger’s fear for the peace of mind of California farmers and businesses warranted? The Assembly analysis reports that California businesses already import tens of thousands of acres’ worth of hemp fiber, seed and oil every year. Presumably, these folks are not confused about the law—it is evident every time they calculate their bottom line. A Zogby poll commissioned this February by hemp industry group Vote Hemp, found that 71 percent (+/- 3.5 percent) of Californians support changing the state laws to allow farmers to grow hemp. And as far as public confidence and our sense of security with respect to Cannabis sativa goes, 74 percent (+/- 4.5) of registered voters in California support the state’s medical marijuana laws, which run contrary to the same federal drug statutes as hemp, according to a 2004 Field Poll.

More here.

Check out this witty commentary from London's 18 Doughty Street.com. Taxes are taxes, no matter what side of the Channel you are on.

Proposed Internet regulations would deprive consumers of $69 billion in potential benefits over the next 10 years by barring voluntary commercial agreements necessary to bring some new applications and services to the Internet, estimates the American Consumer Institute in a new study by Stephen Pociask.

The report represents the first effort to put a price tag on network neutrality, a proposal to regulate the quality of service options Internet service providers can offer Internet applications providers.

“Despite proponents’ best intentions, net neutrality proposals would be a twofold problem for consumers,” study author Stephen Pociask said. “Innovations that require a guaranteed level of service won't come to market, and consumers would have to pay more for the services they receive.”

Among other things, network neutrality would prohibit multi-sided pricing, a common practice in other industries. For example, newspaper publishers charge both readers and advertisers, but revenues from advertisers go a long way to reducing the cost for readers. Likewise, Internet service providers aim to keep consumer broadband costs low by charging large content and applications providers like Google, Amazon.com and Sony for prioritization and quality guarantees, especially for handling error-sensitive apps such as video and massive multi-layer gaming.

The study estimates that multi-sided pricing allows content providers to absorb a portion of network upgrade costs and would provide consumers $69 billion in benefits over the next 10 years. Such an arrangement also would benefit content providers and online advertisers by stimulating a 40 percent increase in broadband subscribers, which would increase advertising revenues by $6 billion per year.

The study also finds that net neutrality restrictions would raise consumer prices and trigger a sharp dip in the number of Americans who subscribe to broadband services, particularly lower income consumers. "Given the national commitment to universal broadband service, Internet regulations would drive millions of lower-income Americans offline, which is last thing we should do," Pociask said.

Full study is available here.

Via the Los Angeles Times, more news on why Steve Barr and Green Dot public schools has single-handedly brought more choices to Los Angeles children:

Challenging the balance of power in the city's public school system, a leading charter school organization is poised to wrest control of a failing high school from the elected Los Angeles Board of Education. ...

More than half of the school's 73 tenured teachers signed petitions this week expressing interest in converting Locke into Green Dot charters. Once verified, the petitions — copies of which were obtained by The Times and checked against a roster of the Locke faculty — would legally allow Green Dot to petition the board for control of the school. Many un-tenured teachers also signed the petitions.

This is my favorite part:

And Green Dot is proposing a clean break.

Indeed, the plan promises to escalate the long-running power struggle that has pitted the fast growing Green Dot against the school board and the union, United Teachers Los Angeles — both of which have much to lose.

Green Dot illustrates how school choice and competition offer relief and better conditions for both teachers and students. Green Dot is exhibit A in the case against the idea that competition will somehow have a negative impact on teachers.

BEIJING, 9 MAY 2007--Leave it to Communist China to take a distinctly capitalist approach to addressing traffic congestion. The Beijing Transportatin Information Center, a municipal government agency, has developed an innovative GPS system for tracking traffic congestion and then letting traveling consumers decide what they want to do about it!

GPS chips have been put in 10,000 taxis throughout the city. Every five seconds, real time traffic information is uploaded to the internet. Travelers can see if their route is congested. Then, they can input their point of origin and point of destination, and the web site will calculate their fastest and most alternative efficient route! In other words, they are trying to facilitate automobility rather than impede it!

The BTIC is now looking for private partners to apply the technology broadly by getting it to every cell phone user in the city. In other words, they recognize the role the private sector plays in effectively deploying the technology and ensuring it has the best chance to work.

Are metal baseball bats more dangerous than wooden ones? The New York City Council thinks so. In fact, the council recently decided to do what more and more pols are doing when they face most any kind of perceived threat--ban it. A new city law bans the use of metal bats in high school games.

Proponents of the new law -- set to take effect in September -- say metal bats increase the risk of injury because they cause balls to move faster, giving young players less time to react. But an American Legion Baseball study in 2005 found no substantial scientific proof that wooden bats are safer than metal bats.

Even if metal bats do increase danger on the diamond, and even if they should be banned, why should government do the banning?

In this age when banning things seems almost as American as baseball, the mayor's take sounds almost quaint:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg vetoed the bat ban last month, saying it was an issue for those who run youth leagues, not the government. The City Council then overwhelmingly overrode the veto.

More here.

Related: Other Big Apple Bans

Poker players, whether they play online or in brick-and-mortar casinos and card rooms, agree that winning consistently depends largely on skill, even though an element of luck comes into play with the turn of the cards.

The “luck or skill” question could factor heavily in a judgment on whether a ban on Internet gambling—particularly poker—is legally justifiable. Under U.S. common law, games that are predominantly chance are considered gambling, while those that are mainly skill are not.

Case law has cut both ways. In 1989, a California circuit-court judge found poker to be a game of skill. The decision kept the state’s card rooms open. In 2005, however, a North Carolina state judge called poker a game of chance, allowing local authorities to shut down a card room. Debate is likely to intensify now that Barney Frank has introduced a bill to reverse the ban on online wagering passed by Congress last year.

There’s a strong case to be made for poker as a game of skill. In games of chance, like lotteries, slots or roulette, every player has the same odds of winning. In roulette, for example, a bet on any one number pays 35:1. The payoff is the same no matter who’s putting out the bet. In a game of skill like No Limit Texas Hold ’Em, however, the outcome of the exact same hand, dealt under the exact same conditions with the same opponents, can differ vastly depending on who’s playing the cards.

Cable TV, wireline and wireless phone calls on average are taxed at twice the rate of other goods and services, according to a research report released today by the Heartland Institute.

The high tax rates on telecom services no doubt come as no surprise to anyone who has signed up for a $49.99 calling plan only to see it morph into a $56 to $65 bill come month’s end.

The report, Taxes and Fees on Communication Services, written by David Tuerck and Paul Bachman of the Beacon Hill Institute of Suffolk University; and financial analyst John Rutledge and myself, finds that nationally, the average rate of federal, state and local taxes, surcharges and fees on telecom amounts to 13.52 percent, more than two times the average sales tax of 6.5 percent Americans pay. That translates to an average telecom tax of $250 a year from every household, compared to $124 paid in retail sales taxes. All told, telecom taxes soak up $37 billion from the economy every year.