Out of Control

This advertisement from "Californians for Safe, Clean Drinking Water" has been gnawing at my peace of mind since I saw it earlier today, though initially I dismissed it as just your average PAC promotional nonsense. The ad appears to be aimed at creating opposition to a ballot bond initiative which would include plans for a peripheral canal, though the ad itself doesn't use the term "peripheral canal." Instead, the ad narrative says that the Governor is trying to "give away our water" to "a few wealthy Southern California corporations" who "want it all for themselves." Those greedy, thirsty corporations are at it again!

According to ACWA, the Association of California Water Agencies, "Californians for Safe, Clean Drinking Water" was formed to aid efforts led by Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata to defeat a proposed (now apparently defunct) California Chamber of Commerce-backed water bond for this year's ballot.

Never mind the fact that water is already sent from the Delta to points south. A peripheral canal, if built, is only an engineering fix to the current method of sending water south (which involves sucking it backwards, upstream, through the southern Delta with giant pumps, causing significant detriment to the environment). Also note the contrast with Perata's advertising in favor of the Proposition 1E levee bond in 2006, which characterized the Delta as "the backbone of the state’s water supply, the lifeblood of our economy" and warned "If this system fails, 25 million of us could lose our water supply." The same themes were hyped in the ad ACWA was running on television last fall--no mention of those mysterious over-thirsty corporations. The image of the two girls at the drinking fountain tops the whole thing off really, because they don't appear to be drinking the water at all, but rather sticking their tongues out and playing with it--which, one surmises, is what northern Californians would do with all their extra water if exports south were halted.

The major questions--how much water to store, where to store water, how much water to export south out of the Delta, how to export it, and who will pay for it all--should be addressed separately. Unfortunately, if this is a sample of what's to come, it looks like this campaign will be one of confusion rather than clarification.

Our colleague Joel Kotkin has an excellent analysis of how the economic messages of Barrack Obama and HIllary Clnton might play this Tuesday in Texas and Ohio. Writing for the web site Politico, Joel observes that the two states are economically polar oppositess--Ohio a stagnant rust belt economy and Texas a vibrant up and coming state that may well eclipse California's economy sooner rather than later.

These patterns suggest some surprises in store for the candidates. Generally speaking, Hillary Rodham Clinton has done best among downwardly mobile and older voters. In relatively healthy, economically diversified Wisconsin, this appeal proved largely ineffective. But Ohio, battered by industrial decline and too many ties to Detroit, could provide a more fertile ground for Clinton’s newfound populism.

Texas’ much stronger economy poses more of a challenge. There are some serious issues — for example, a very high percentage of uninsured people in the state — which Clinton could exploit. But anti-trade rhetoric, in which Barack Obama has also indulged, and promises to bail out distressed homeowners likely will have less appeal in Texas than in places such as Ohio, Michigan and, if it gets that far, Pennsylvania.

Interesting, Joel also points out that techies and CEOs seem to be attracted to Texas's low housing costs, free market business climate, and lack of an income tax. Ohio, on the other hand, has tried unsuccessfully to revitalize its economy through tax breaks and glitzy downtown development schemes.

For more on Ohio's continued dive into the economc policy abyss, see my commentary for The Buckeye Institute here.

Most of the debate over the subprime lending mess has focused on homeownership and foreclosure. Yet, the real estate bust is providing some hard-knock accountability as Fortune magazine recently highlighted.

In an article posted earlier this month, appropriately title "Reckoningn for a real estate mogul," reporters outline the career of NYC developer Harry Macklowe.

In February 2007 the developer bought seven Manhattan skyscrapers for $6.8 billion from the Blackstone Group. It was the peak of the market. There was plenty of easy money available. Macklowe put up only $50 million of his own cash, financing the rest of the acquisition with $7 billion in loans, due in February, from Deutsche Bank and Fortress Investments, a publicly traded hedge fund. That's a huge amount of short-term, high-risk debt. Once the subprime crisis unfolded, Macklowe couldn't refinance. Now he is handing the keys to those buildings back to Deutsche Bank and other lenders to which the bank has sold some of the debt. He is also trying to sell his precious General Motors Building to repay a $1.2 billion bridge loan that is controlled by Fortress.

The article is a good read about the highs and lows of one of New York's most industrious and ambitious real estate entrepreneurs as well as an insightful examination of how the commerical real estate industry works in the real world.

Subprime lending serves an important and valuable purpose in a dynamic market. It also comes with risks. Those playing in the subprime sand box know the potential for boom and bust, and its not for the light hearted.

A new survey of high school students points to troubling trends in our nation's schools according to "Still at Risk: What Students Don't Know, Even Now" released by the American Enterprise Institute.

Among the discouraging statistics on history from the 1,200 students surveyed:

*just 43% correctly knew the Civil War was fought between 1850 and 1900;
*about half knew that communism was the focus of Joseph McCarthy's investigations in the 1950s;
*abotu half knew that Orwell classic 1984 was about dictatorship and collectivism.

Yet,

*97% knew Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote the "I Have a Dream Speech"
*88% knew Pearl Harbor prompted the US's entry into WWII

Perhaps most troubling is the following comment in the USA Today story reporting on the study:

In all, students earned a C in history and an F in literature, though the survey suggests students do well on topics schools cover.

Checker Finn, Jr. of the Fordham Foundation had the best summary when he told USA Today:

"School has emphasized Martin Luther King, and everybody teaches it, and people are learning it," says Chester Finn of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank. "What a better thing it would be if people also had the Civil War part and the civil rights part, and the Harriet Tubman part and the Uncle Tom's Cabin part."

Take the 6 question on-line test at AOL News.

Oklahoma is yet another state joining the knee-jerk backlash against leasing public roads to private companies. Once again, Republicans are leading the charge.

Oklahoma City state rep. Sally Kern is complaining about private companies requiring roads to pay their way. Toll road leases allow tolls to go up, usually at a moderate and highly regulated rate, so that the road can be upgraded and well maintained. Yet. Rep. Kern thinks taxpayers are better off funding the road:

House Bill 3182 states that the Turnpike Authority “shall not enter into any contract with a private company to sell, lease, sublease, or operate any turnpike or portion of a turnpike in this state.”

“Foreign companies have been buying turnpikes ... and when they do tolls immediately go up,” Kern said.

Len Gilroy and Bob Poole have written extensively about these myths. Check out their Frequently Asked Questions and Bob Poole's working paper on public private partnerships in Texas.

Fred Krupp, the President of Environmental Defense Fund, sits down with Wired magazine to chat about climate change and clean energy and throws out one of the best quotes of all time:

"...I know that capitalism works, that American entrepreneurialism works, and we can damn well expect that private capital — not government money — will actually solve this problem."

Personally, I'm not convinced we need to take coordinated action on 'climate change'. I do know, though, that if it really is a serious problem, the last thing we should do is to rely on government to fix it. Governments have an almost mystical ability to impose 'solutions' that not only fail to address the intended problem, but also create a host of new problems that no one had even imagined. (see Ethanol)

Here's hoping more adults like Krupp take over the environmental movement.

Hat tip to the always interesting Marginal Revolution.

So, a self-described "paleo-leftist" travels to Cuba to witness a "socialist paradise" and finds a Caribbean Hell. Better yet, he writes up an article on the experience that actually gets printed. (Of course, the piece appeared in a UK paper. As my colleague from reason Magazine, Michael Moynihan has noted, US media still has a soft spot for Fidel.)

Pull quote: "I've certainly witnessed squalor, but nothing prepared me for the backstreets of Havanna."

A black mark on US history is how we propped up Castro with our silly embargo. Anyone want to take the over/under on how long Castro would have lasted with a McDonald's in Havanna?

According to this recent study, red light traffic camers increase the number of traffic accidents. There are reductions in red-light intersection crashes, but the increase in rear-end crashes exceeded those gains.

This site has links to other studies with similar findings.

Last fall, the California Bureau of State Audits released a critique of the Department of Water Resources’ administration of flood protection bond monies, including $57 million approved in 2000 for flood corridor projects from Prop 13, and an additional $330 million in the pipe from Propositions 84 and 1E (the Safe Drinking Water, Water Quality and Supply, Flood Control, River and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2006 and the Disaster Preparedness and Flood Prevention Bond Act of 2006, respectively).

Among the findings of the state audit: even though DWR had developed a scoring tool to appraise the relative value of different projects considered for funding, they didn’t use it when actually awarding funds; even though regulations require that a hydrologic study demonstrating the flood protection value of each project is submitted with each proposal, the department approved funding without hydrologic studies; the department granted funds to projects even when the proposals did not provide evidence of affected property owners’ willingness to sell their property; the department did not establish a framework for overseeing the progress of funded projects, though they were required to; did not obtain complete progress reports, and did not regularly visit project sites to monitor progress—but made “progress payments” to grantees nevertheless.

Despite the well documented and large benefits of free trade, Clinton and Obama each answered a questionaire from the Wisconsin Fair Trade Association making pretty explicit their intent to put an end to free trade. (See Clinton's responses here, Obama's here)

Both candidates committed to unwind NAFTA and CAFTA and to pppose free trade agreements with South Korea and Panama.

Both waffle on DOHA and Fast Track.

Tellingly, the comments provided by Clinton's campaign focus more on broad economic and inustrial policy issues. Obama is much more populist in his arguments and more centrally focused on labor protections.

I can already envision the wealth melting away if they deliver on these promises. . . . .

A coalition of folks has organized to oppose Gov. Schwarzenegger's plan for a cap and trade program to address greenhouse gas emissions on "environmental justice" grounds.

They utterly reject the scale at which climate change occurs, objecting in principle that "Under a trading scheme, 11 power plants to be built around Los Angeles could offset emissions by extracting methane from coal seams in Utah or planting trees in Manitoba." So they don't care if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, they care where they are reduced. Maybe because the organizers are pollution fighting groups and they consider greenhouse gas emissions to be a pollutant, so feel compelled to fight their emission in low income areas. See, CO2 emission must be hurting those people living near power plants. You could not ask for a better example of how scientifically illiterate some of these environmental activist groups can be.

A recent article in the Columbus (OH) Dispatch was quite revealing about the high cost of urban living. Columbus is one of those rare Midwestern cities that has been growing. Apparently, so has the number and amount of the fees it charges its residents.

Want to have a block party? That'll be $40 to close the street.

Want to have a bonfire? Fork over $50 for the Bureau of Fire Prevention inspection.

Building a deck in the backyard will cost $75 for a permit.

But don't worry. Businesses are the ones that really get taken to the cleaners. A cable TV company will have to pay $75,000 for their license or 5% of their income.

Columbus even charges you if your going oiut of business--$30 or 0.3% of the value of your inventory.

Overall, fees levied by city hall generated $70 million in 2007. Fines levied against people that didn't pay them brought in another $21 million.

The federal government should "honor California law and respect state-sanctioned dispensaries so medical marijuana patients can treat their pain, pay their taxes, and live in peace," say Betty Yee, chair of the State Board of Equalization and State Senator Carole Migden.

Wait, pay their taxes?

In today's San Francisco Chronicle, Yee and Migden put some numbers on lost taxes and jobs as a result of DEA raids on state-sanctioned medical marijuana dispensaries:

[M]ost of the dispensary operators who have contacted the State Board of Equalization for information about how to obtain seller's permits for collecting and remitting sales taxes are not fugitives, but responsible persons willing to abide by the laws to conduct their businesses.

For example, the Compassion Center for Alameda County was licensed by Alameda County. It paid $3 million in sales taxes prior to being shut down by the DEA at the end of October. The center had employed about 50 workers who earned a living wage and were provided health benefits, unemployment insurance and workers' compensation coverage. Take another example. Nature's Medicinal in Bakersfield had been licensed by Kern County. It paid almost $1 million in taxes until its closure in 2007, including $203,000 in federal and state income taxes, $365,000 in payroll taxes and $427,000 in sales taxes. Nature's had 25 employees: eight were indicted, and the rest were left unemployed and without health insurance after the raid.

Multiply these examples by the 300 medical cannabis businesses of which the DEA has sent letters to landlords, and what do we get? Millions of dollars in lost tax revenue for the state and municipalities, thousands are well-paying jobs with benefits disappearing from our economy, and scores of dispensaries forced to close or move underground for unregulated operations.

More on the lost revenue to the state as a result of the DEA seizing dispensary bank accounts here. (Oddly enough, the article, bearing BoE member Yee's name as co-author, appears to quote directly from CA NORML's December press release on the same topic.)

I'm certainly not going to advocate that California look to close the budget gap by taxing medical marijuana patients, but state legislators should at least put a stop to state and local law enforcement participation in the federal raids. The paychecks they save could be their own.

Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) introduced yesterday what many say is a “watered down” version of his network neutrality legislation from last year. Apparently some of the more sweeping calls for regulation are toned down, but there is still a lot in the bill subject to interpretation.

Telecom journalist Carol Wilson’s expresses some concerns at Telephony OnLine:

Finally, Markey wants to protect free speech and the “open marketplace of ideas” by “adopting and enforcing baseline protections to guard against unreasonable discriminatory favoritism for, or degradation of, content by network operators based upon its source, ownership, or destination on the Internet.”

Again, on the surface, this seems hard to protest -- unless offering a premium service is defined as discriminatory.

The fundamental freedom that network operators need to have going forward is the right to package and deliver their services in a way that meets market demands. We are all being bombarded by data that shows video traffic is driving up demand for bandwidth, a reality that will require both investment in infrastructure and a new service structure.

If what Markey is proposed can be used to prohibit network operators from offering premium services to both content delivery networks and to end users, then this latest Net neutrality push is no better than previous efforts. The difficulty for service providers is determining how best to interpret the “Mom and apple pie” nature of the bill’s language and how best to explain the technical challenges of their own future.

Government still tends to view the broadband usage problem in the U.S. as a paucity of infrastructure. The California Broadband Task Force (CBTF) blundered in the same policy direction in its recommendation last month that the state issue “broadband bonds” to fund infrastructure development in all parts of the state.

Writing for the Pacific Research Institute, Daniel R. Ballon immediately found the flaw:

According to the CBTF’s final report, a full 96 percent of households have access to high-speed Internet services, but only 56 percent opt to subscribe. This gap indicates a lack of broadband demand, not a lack of infrastructure. This demand correlates strongly with household income. Instead of increasing the affordability of available commercial services, "broadband bonds" will displace existing services with inefficient government-run versions.

This strategy would be akin to replacing grocery stores with a chain of state-run commissaries. Government bureaucrats cannot possibly micromanage a rapidly evolving technology such as high-speed Internet. Unlike roads and similar capital improvements, broadband networks require constant upgrades to serve the changing needs of consumers.

In the past four years, Verizon has built more than 7,000 miles of high-speed capable infrastructure in California. How does this compare to the government’s record of upgrading transportation infrastructure? More than a decade after the legislature introduced plans for a high-speed train system connecting San Diego and Sacramento, lawmakers have yet to finalize the 700-mile route, much less begin the projected 15-20 year construction process. The CBTF’s plan dwarfs this train proposal.

Technically, universal access exists in the U.S. Satellite service is available everywhere. Admittedly, it’s clunky, but terrestrial-based wireless alternatives are on the rise, that may not deliver 100 Mb/s, stand to deliver 30 to 40 Mb/s. And for the record, few U.S. households are using 100 Mb/s of bandwidth right now, even if they are among the 2 million that the Fiber-to-the-Home Council estimates are connected directly by fiber.

This may be heresy, but there is no “right” to fiber. Living in rural areas has trade-offs. Fresh air, cheap real estate and elbow room are great and I bet you can still get a good cup of coffee in town, it just may not be Starbucks or Seattle’s Best (and some think that’s a good idea). Companies like Zayo Bandwidth and Bend Broadband are showing that commercial carriers can reach rural customers. California should let them and others go for it rather than funnel subsidies to technologies that are costly and inefficient for the purpose.

A growing number of laptop seizures by U.S. Customs from U.S. citizens entering the U.S., predominantly at airports, has concerned enough companies that they are now requiring employees to wipe their hard drives before traveling abroad. At least two multinationals, one American, one Dutch, have told employees not to carry confidential information on laptops when they travel overseas, according to the Washington Post.

The fact that corporations are instituting policies to protect themselves should signal how abusive this practice has become.

It what could amount to a case of illegal search and seizure, Customs agents are ordering employees of U.S. companies, be they U.S. citizens or foreign nationals, predominantly of Asian and Middle Eastern backgrounds, to surrender cell phones, BlackBerry devices, iPods and laptop computers when re-entering the country.

Customs agents will then copy phonebooks and calling information from phones, and browser and email data from the laptops. The Post reports that border agents have demanded users provide passwords to open hard drives – the information of which is often confidential. (What the Post does not report is that, should the laptop contain confidential financial information about the company, the password disclosure itself could be a felony under Sarbanes-Oxley Act, so the hapless employee is stuck between being arrested for not cooperating with Customs agents or opening himself and his entire company’s executive management to jail time).

I’m encouraged by the growing number of independent (a.k.a. non-partisan, decline-to-state) voters in California, even if their political inclinations, when they vote, are a mixed bag (e.g. open primaries, term limits, the recall of Gov. Davis and election of Gov. Schwarzenegger).

Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute of California recently gave this description of the state’s independent streak:

[T]he California independent is a special breed, with views that span the political spectrum and reflect an overarching desire to reach for pragmatic, nonideological and nonpartisan solutions to problems. This voter group defines itself as politically moderate: Many have left the major parties and have no interest in ever joining a party. They often express a liberal perspective on social issues, seek action on environmental issues, and support a conservative approach on fiscal and law-and-order issues. They are also flexible in their policy and political allegiances, something that is rare in Democratic and Republican circles.

Voters registered without stating a party reached nearly 20% in yesterday's election, but was California’s purple-state trend evident in the results? PPIC polling indicated that only “1 in 5 independents said they would pick up Democratic ballots in the February primary, but this could all change if they believe their vote will count.” The high turnout suggests that a higher-than-average number of independents may have been lured to the polls. But how many decline-to-state voters in California knew that—with the Republican primary closed to unaffiliated voters—their only choice would be a Democratic ballot? And how many decline-to-state voters weren’t offered a Democratic ballot because they didn’t know they had to ask for one?

Decline-to-state registration is highest in San Francisco (29%) and also especially high in Santa Clara, Mono, Alameda, San Mateo and San Diego counties. Obama won half of those—San Francisco, Mono, and Alameda.

For what it’s worth, on the propositions, primary results matched the endorsements of the California Chamber of Commerce, but also nearly matched the Los Angeles Times and California Republican Party endorsements.

I’ll be looking for more clues as the vote tally progresses.

President Bush still spending. Mercatus Center's Veronique de Rugy tells the whole sad tale in today's LA Times.

If President Bush's budget for fiscal 2009 is approved in its current form, U.S. government spending will have increased by more than $1.2 trillion since President Clinton left office; adjusted for inflation, that's a 35% increase. Bush has increased spending at three times the rate Clinton did when he was president, and also has given us the biggest defense budget since World War II -- and that's regularly budgeted defense spending, not counting funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Well, the results are in from Super Tuesday, and liberty hasn't fared well. A complete breakdown of the results can be found in this easy to read chart at the New York Times.

Granted, we don't have the results from American Samoa in yet, but John McCain took a commanding lead in the Republican race and the Democrats will be choosing between Clinton and Obama. That's bad news for liberty any way you look at it.

Both Clinton and Obama are big spenders and traditional liberals based on their announced program. The National Taxpayers Union estimates that Clinton will pump up spending by $218 billion and Obama will prime the federal budget with $287 billion in extra money (taxes). Clinton is planning to spend $218 billion on health care (hello national health insurance) and homeland security/law enforcement. Obama, interestingly, is dumping most of his new spending ($105 billion) into economic growth, tansportation and infrastructure and health care ($99 billion). Sounds a lot like an updated New Deal.

McCain at least isn't planning to spend a lot more money--just $7 billion more spread out over defense, homeland security, health care, and education & research. So, at least fiscal conservatives can see him as a viable alternative to Clinton and Obama.

McCain's will be terrible on the regulatory side. We know that from McCain-Feingold. He's also big on foreign interventionism as our colleague Matt Welch exaplained in his engaging and candid book McCain: The Myth of a Maverick. Matt's book, by the way, is getting great reviews from readers and I was pleased to find it on the "politics best picks" display at major regional bookstore in my home town (Books & Co.).

Both Hillary and Obama list "universal preschool" as their number one education policy.

So if Hillary wins her education platform is universal preschool:

From her website:
Currently, less than 20 percent - only 800,000 out of four million - of four year olds and 120,000 three year olds are enrolled in state pre-K programs, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research. Hillary’s proposal would ensure that every child who needs pre-K would receive it by providing universal access to high quality pre-K for four year olds in five years through a federal-state partnership. Her proposal also provides flexibility to allow states to serve younger children once they have provided pre-K to all four year olds who need it.

Of course she only counts the 20 percent in state care, failing to mention that 80 percent of four year olds have been through some kind of pre-k. Those mom co-ops and Christian pre-schools don't count. Neither does the YMCA or that high-priced KinderCare...

If its not state-run it must not exist.

If Obama wins, he's also for, you guessed it, universal preschool.

From his website:

Zero to Five Plan: Obama's comprehensive "Zero to Five" plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents. Unlike other early childhood education plans, Obama's plan places key emphasis at early care and education for infants, which is essential for children to be ready to enter kindergarten. Obama will create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state "zero to five" efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school.

Key difference, Obama would fund those kiddos sooner...

Also, he still likes Head Start as the main provider. Forget those state-run programs, let's go for the federal-run programs instead.

Broadband doesn’t get much play out on the campaign trail, but just about every other issue in the headlines – health care, immigration, the war on terror, education, environment – have a broadband, or at very least an IT, component.
How well the telecom and IT sector is able to respond depends on the degree of freedom it is given to innovate and invest. As to be expected, the Republican candidates are more amenable than Democrats to allowing market forces to work.

Still, the GOP frontrunners have not been shy about proposing federal government solutions in areas where the market seems to be doing quite well on its own. Republicans in general, beginning with President George W. Bush, over two years.seem enamored with a centrally-planned, centrally-operated health information system – a government-run repository for the health records of all citizens. Sure, it will make portability of records easier, but the government will know everything about your medical history. Private sector solutions are emerging that stand to be more private and directly under control of the consumer.

Both John McCain and Mitt Romney have made proposals that follow Bush’s lines, which that National Taxpayers Union pegs at $169 million in its first year. Mike Huckabee also has an extensive health IT proposal, which the NTU pegs at $234 million in the first year.

None of the Republicans propose grandiose infrastructure funding in competition with the private sector. But oddly enough it’s Romney, the so-called conservative, who is talking about boosting spending on dubious government IT programs. For example, Romney wants to mandate an employment verification system relying on biometric ID cards that the NTU estimates will cost $150 million a year for five years. The former Massachusetts governor also envisions a nanny state role for the government in PC distribution, ensuring no machine is sold without Internet filtering software. It’s not clear whether he use taxpayer money in this effort or foist this cost on manufacturers and retailers, but his proposed program to involved the government in education about Internet parental controls will cost $10 million

See the Justice League debate wheter or not to admit "Super Tuesday" as its newest member to the super hero, crime fighting league. Super makes a weak case for admission, but the Batman lines are all great. Also makes the only funny hanging chad joke I have heard in years.

An “open network” is the hallmark of net neutrality movement and you find it in the talking points of nearly all the candidates, to one degree of another.

The essence of their positions will come down to how they stand on network management – the willingness to allow service providers to set performance parameters for the networks they themselves own. It would be welcome to see candidates like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton acknowledge that certain technologies, such as the BitTorrent protocol, are designed to use as much bandwidth the network has available. They don’t have to get technical, all they have to say the network neutrality can’t be ensured with the push of a button and allowing carriers the freedom to prioritize and apportion traffic, benefit a much greater number of users.

There is also the national security issue, something that only the now-defunct Giuliani campaign has been willing to talk about – the vulnerability of the U.S. network to attack. Jules Polonetsky, policy advisor to Rudy Giuliani, noted that the principal challenge is that information security is largely a private sector policy and, although he was not speaking in the context of net neutrality, said that country needs to be able to cultivate the tools to protect itself from information warfare.

To be bipartisan, one of the few lawmakers who also seems to grasp the nature of the threat is Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT). While I find most of Leahy’s policy ideas unpalatable, he is right when he says, as he did last week at the State of the Net’s Technology Policy Exhibition on Capitol Hill, that the U.S. needs to confront formidable cyberwarfare development underway in countries like China. In addition, he correctly attributed much of the Internet fraud and identity theft to international organized crime, as opposed to the pimply teenage hacker.

All the rhetoric about open networks and protocols aside, the next president is going to have to address the reality that unfriendly nations already are testing network security at power plants, banks and other institutions that, by and large, rely on the global Internet for communications and operations. And that’s going to mean allowing carriers and end-users greater flexibility in terms of network management, packet inspection and, if necessary, blocking.

Who said telecom isn't a glam issue? A D.C. pundit just told Bill O'Reilly on Fox News that Barack Obama is the iPhone, as in the hot new thing. Hillary Clinton, she said, was AOL. Ouch!

Quick--name one Obama accomplishment!

Having trouble? So did a Luntz-picked group of the senator's supporters.

I cross-blogged the video at reason.tv; go here to see it.

Ignorance among the Obamaites; confusion among the McCainiacs:

[T]here's a bizarre disconnect in the warm embrace between McCain and the electorate's mavericks. They hate the Iraq war, while he's willing to fight it for another century. The most pro-war presidential candidate in a decade is winning the 2008 GOP nomination thanks to the antiwar vote.

Ahh, democracy.

More from our guy, Welch.

A few months back, advocates for protecting medical use of marijuana joked that Sen. John McCain had the best position on the issue: not only did he oppose federal arrests of sick and dying people, he said "that's not the kind of society we live in, and I would strongly disapprove of it" and "I would do everything in my power to stop it," AND he went the extra mile by trying to change history, claiming that no such case had ever occurred. McCain said "I've never heard of such a case, nor does anyone that I know of know of such a case, so it must be a very well-kept secret." That was Sept. 30. Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana dogged the presidential candidates as they campaigned across New Hampshire and beyond, asking each of them about their positions on medical marijuana and sharing the answers on YouTube. The tactic clearly irritated some of the candidates, but it also worked. On Nov. 18, McCain's attitude couldn't have been more changed.

"Change" is evidently the theme of this presidential campaign, although retroactively changing history or repeatedly changing positions on an issue probably isn't what voters had in mind.

Sen. Barack Obama, while solidly against federal raids on medical marijuana patients, has wavered on the issue of broader marijuana decriminalization. Steve Chapman wrote a great piece on Obama's apparent change of mind on decriminalization:

In the political realm, a strangely disjointed view of drugs prevails. Past use is forgivable. Both George W. Bush and Bill Clinton admitted to smoking marijuana, as did Al Gore and John Kerry. Obama has admitted doing the same.

At the same time, no major party presidential nominee has advocated decriminalization (much less legalization) since Jimmy Carter did so in 1976. It would be considered political suicide. So we are now in a bizarre position: A candidate who spent his college days flouting our marijuana laws can be elected president, but an abstemious, button-downed candidate who proposes to change those laws has no hope.

Had we enforced our statutes more vigorously, of course, Bush, Clinton and the others would never have been elected anything, because they would be ex-convicts. Yet Bush, Clinton and the others were happy to put people behind bars for crimes they themselves committed.

Reading the initial reports in the Washington Times, I wondered if part of the problem for politicians defining a position on decriminalization is that the term itself is not well defined. Some journalists so freely interchange "decriminalization" with "legalization" that even if Obama knows the difference, he might not trust reporters and voters to understand it.

Though we can't expect the major parties' nominees this year to make much progress on drug policy, at least this has been a good election season for educating candidates and voters alike on what is really happening and what the options are. Those wanting a refresher course (preferably before their next YouTube appearance) might want to check out Rolling Stone's "How America Lost the War on Drugs" and National Public Radio's "The Forgotten War on Drugs", two of the excellent reports on the issue this year.

With Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama predicting a “split decision” as voting began today in 24 state primaries and caucuses, it is noteworthy, and perhaps not all that surprising, that of the remaining candidates, the Illinois senator has talked most about technology policy.

In November, Obama visited Google headquarters where he outlined his support for such regulation as network neutrality, a Google policy favorite because such regulation would serve the company’s business plan very well. I’ll grant the candidate some slack because Google is an important employer in an important state, but I would caution him against getting to gushy about the search engine giant. During a panel discussion on the candidates’ positions at last week’s State of the Net conference, Julius Genachowski, Obama’s policy advisor for technology, mentioned Google no less than three times in a five-minute overview. Google’s apparently politically hip enough that Democratic candidates and their staff can toss its name around with such abandon (unlike other multi-billion-dollar corporations such as AT&T, Microsoft or Comcast).

Considering that Obama has promised “to step up review of merger activity and take
effective action to stop or restructure those mergers that are likely to harm consumer welfare, while quickly clearing those that do not,” it won’t help to get too palsy with Google, which faced its own antitrust questions with DoubleClick and now appears to be running interference to “help” its primary search engine competitor, Yahoo, push back on Microsoft’s buyout offer. So far, Google seems content to play within the boundaries of the market. It would be disappointing to see them turn to the government in an attempt to protect their market position.

Obama and his campaign staff should put the company at arms length.

Smoke-filled backroom politics apparently gave Huckabee the win in the GOP context in West Virginia--and the Paulistas were in the thick of it. The folks at Hit & Run have the dirty details and inside scoop.

Well, if there was ever any doubt that Barack Obama could unite the nation, even the world, it must have been erased when the surviving members of the Grateful Dead decided the should re-unite to support his campaign.

Bob Weir, Phil Lesh & Mickey Hart hadn't see each other in years, but could find common ground with Obama.

Sitting under a sign with the familiar skull and lightning bolt emblem that read "Deadheads for Obama '08," the three living Dead all agreed the Illinois Democrat was their man. They said the fourth member, drummer Bill Kreutzmann, also was an Obama supporter and would have joined the party except for a previous engagement in Hawaii.

"We knew instinctively, intuitively that we were all together on this. We came together, and we're doing it," said guitarist Weir, who wore an Obama button pinned to the lapel of his sport coat.

Obama has the Grateful Dead music on his ipod, but reportedly hasn't attended a concert--or, he's smart enough not to commit political suicide by admitting it! Of course, he could always say he didn't inhale.

Those voting in the primaries will be interested in this tidbit of analysis put together by the National Taxpayers Union. Analysts at NTU have looked at all the programs and tallied up the cost to taxpayers.

Who's the best? Ron Paul--his proposals would reduce federal spending by $150.1 billion. No one else comes close. Rudy Guiliani, who dropped out of the race, would have reduced spending by $1.4 billion. Everyone else--that's everyone else--will be boosting spending.

The biggest spender, believe it or not, is not Hillary Clinton--It's Barack Obama. Apparently, his brand of change inside the beltway will cost us all an additional $287 billion. Mrs. Establishment (Clinton) would boost spending by just $218.2 billion.

At least the remaining Republicans don't break the $100 billion increase mark, and John McCain's proposals add up to $6.9 billion.

Considering California already has a $14.5 billion deficit (and counting) now does not seem to be the time to tie up even larger portions of the state budget with constitutional guarantees.

One of the state initiatives with the most significant impact on the state budget in California is proposition 93. If passed this proposition would create a mandatory funding minimum for California community colleges similar to the K12 mandatory funding-- proposition 98.

This is another example of ballot box budgeting where special interests lock in funding guaranteed by the state constitution. This is a trend that gives legislators less control over the state budget and contributes to future deficits as the legislature cannot reduce spending on constitutionally-guaranteed programs.

The community college initiative would also limit the amount of fees that could be charged to community college students to $15 per unit (less than a new CD or DVD!) and limits future fee increases. California already charges some of the lowest fees in the nation for community college courses.

To see our analysis of why proposition 98, which guarantees 40 percent of the budget to education, is a disaster go here.

Boston.com reports on Super Tuesday pork, listing just a few of the projects being sought for states where primaries are happening today. Included are national "imperatives" such as:
• Alaska: $487,000 to the Galena City School District for a boarding school for low performing native students from remote villages across Western Alaska.
• Arkansas: $679,150 to the Criminal Justice Institute of Little Rock for a law enforcement education and training program.
• Delaware: $390,000 to the Delaware Education Department for the Starting Stronger Early Learning initiative.
• Idaho: $292,000 to the Lee Pesky Learning Center in Boise to provide educational materials for literacy programs.
• Massachusetts: $235,000 for a weather buoy for Nantucket Sound.
• New Jersey: $624,000 to Rutgers University Law School in Camden for student scholarships and loan repayment, internships and public interest programming (because New Jersey doesn't tax its citizens enough!).
• New York: $243,000 to the Onondaga County Public Library in Syracuse for technology upgrades.
• Tennessee: $4,875,000 to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville for the Baker Center for Public Policy.

Via Center for Education Reform

After waking up to the news of Microsoft’s $44.6-billion bid for Yahoo!, our morning cappuccino had barely cooled when Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) announced the Senate Antitrust Committee he chairs would scrutinize the proposed buy.

Regulator interest is to be expected. And while any undue government interference in the deal would be unwelcome, I think we’re due for a debate about which companies, in 2008, are the most influential players in the digital economy and what their relative strengths and weaknesses might be.

The first fact that will rock many in the government regulatory establishment is that, unlike the past, Microsoft approaches the deal from a position of weakness. However strong the Redmond, Wash., giant might be in PC operating systems, this deal is an attempt to shore up its sagging on-line and search engine businesses, which are second to Google. Yahoo, its target, ranks third.

I am hopeful that, as the merger proceeds over the course of the next few months, lawmakers and public gets a better understanding of the changes the search engine industry is bringing to media, advertising and what in the past has been called audience research, but now involves crunching data correlating Internet usage, search keywords, online purchases and downloads.

For starters, see Adam Thierer’s research at Technology Liberation Front.