Out of Control

Another fire season has resulted in tragedy in Southern California and, once again, the federal, state, and local governments have shown that they still haven't learned how to deal with the threat. By now, you have probably heard about a lot of the bureaucratic bungling and red tape that impeded response efforts. As a San Diego resident, I had a front-row seat to the ineptitude. For example, despite the fact that the city is surrounded by three military bases, military assets went unutilized or underutilized. State rules require each federal helicopter to carry a licensed "fire spotter" from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). Unfortunately, Cal Fire didn't have spotters available, so nearly two dozen Marine, Navy, and California National Guard helicopters remained on the ground. In addition, two of the National Guard's C-130 cargo planes were unable to help because they still have not been fitted with tanks to carry thousands of gallons of water or fire retardant, despite promises to do so four years ago after the Cedar and Paradise fires ravaged the area. (For more details, see this Associated Press story.) Meanwhile, government officials from the president to the governor to the mayor to the County Board of Supervisors to spokesman from various government agencies constantly held press conferences where they stood around and congratulated each other on what a great job they were doing.

Some may say that the problems in responding to the fires in San Diego and elsewhere were just a matter of poor leadership. While this is true to some extent, I think there are problems with allowing government to handle such issues in the first place, problems that no change in leadership can fully address. The problem can be illustrated in the difference between public and private property and the different incentives of public land managers and private property owners. Government land management tends to be reactive, while private property management is proactive. Why is it that we never hear about the government clearing overgrown brush, creating fire breaks, or conducting controlled burns throughout the year, rather than responding only after there is a crisis and throwing money at the problem when it is too late?

Fire prevention is essentially about risk management and property protection, two of the things that free markets handle best! Author and columnist Lew Rockwell recently wrote an article on this issue. According to Rockwell,

Are we under the impression that private markets can't handle risk management? Private markets specialize in protection of property, particularly against natural risks. If the land were privately owned, it would be protected against burning through better management. If it had to be burned, the burning would be controlled. Unexpected events like droughts and winds would be calculated into management decisions.

What's more, there would be serious liability issues. Any owner of property who let fires rage would be directly responsible for imposing fires on others. This is the way markets work. If my bathtub overflows, floods my house, and then the waters flood my neighbor's house, I am responsible via my insurance policy. So, yes, there would be a price to pay for fires on your land that harm others' property.

What do we have today? We have fires that are no one's responsibility.

Perhaps it is time to rethink allowing government to manage our fire prevention efforts.

More from the media-creates-horndogs meme--this one focuses on the fear that all those celebritarts are turning young girls into slutty Paris Hilton clones:

“Role models” like amateur porn star Paris Hilton and her underwear-challenged cohorts Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan are prompting more and more young girls to “go wild,” but with negative consequences.

Mental health experts say more and more youngsters are being influenced by the “sexualization of girls,” a term coined in a report released earlier this year by the American Psychological Association.

The research analyzed the content and effects of virtually every form of media, including television, music videos, music lyrics, magazines, movies, video games and the Internet. It also examined recent advertising campaigns and merchandising of products aimed toward girls.

What they found was a sort of “Girls Gone Wild” effect in which young girls are succumbing to the pressure of sexualization by posting nude pictures of themselves on the Internet, allowing boyfriends to photograph them in the nude and making their own amateur porn videos.

“The consequences of the sexualization of girls in media today are very real and are likely to be a negative influence on girls’ healthy development,” said Eileen L. Zurbriggen, PhD, chairwoman of the APA Task Force and associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, earlier this year in reference to the report.

No doubt the naughty exploits of Brit, LiLo, Paris, Nicole, and company can have a corrupting influence on some girls, but stand back a bit and most seem surprisingly well-adjusted.

Here's Reason's Kerry Howley:

The Guttmacher Institute, which researches sexual health, reports that the teen pregnancy rate in 2002, the latest year for which data are available, was at its lowest level in three decades. Between 1998 and 2002 the teenage abortion rate dropped 50 percent. In 2002, 13 percent of girls had had sex by age 15, down from 19 percent in 1995. Women are 56 percent of college enrollees. Girls have made such strides that conservatives in search of a cause (and an excuse to target feminists) have dubbed the reverse gender gap the “War on Boys.”

Good news parents--your girls haven't gone wild. And they're less likely to be victimized:

Rape has plunged since the 1970s. The U.S. Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey estimated that 105,000 women were raped in 1973, compared with 30,000 in the latest survey. All indicators of sexual violence are down, and the decrease is most dramatic among younger women. In the last 12 years, according to the DOJ survey, sexual victimization rates have fallen 78 percent.

So many are convinced that our health care system is desperately ill, but perhaps mass myopia helps explain the sour mood.

Turns out we've come very far.

In 1836 Nathan Rothschild died from an infection on what was probably a boil. Historian David Landes notes Rothschild was probably the richest man in the world.

And so the man who could buy anything died, of a routine infection easily cured today for anyone who could find his way to a doctor or hospital, even a pharmacy.

There's another telling anecdote in Amity Shlaes' fascinating new book book, The Forgotten Man. In 1924 President Coolidge's son got a blister on his toe while playing tennis on White House grounds. Infection developed and he died. Penicillin would have saved his life.

The son of a US president died because he did not have access to something that is not only widely available today, but sometimes even free:

Publix supermarket chain said today it will make seven common prescription antibiotics available for free, joining other major retailers in trying to lure customers to their stores with cheap medications.

The oral antibiotics, representing the most commonly filled at the chain's pharmacies, will be available at no cost to anyone with a prescription as often as they need them, Publix CEO Charlie Jenkins Jr. said. Fourteen-day supplies of the seven drugs will be available at all 684 of the chain's pharmacies in five Southern states.

The prescription antibiotics available under the program are amoxicillin, cephalexin, penicillin VK, erythromycin, ampicillin, sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim, and ciprofoxacin.

More here.

Related: We're all supermen now

So many of them are illegal, so they've already shown that they have no respect for our laws. Plus they're
young, poor, and can barely read--you just know they're out their stealing stereos or worse.

We've heard that before, and it is true that being young, poor and uneducated is usually associated with higher levels of crime. But a new paper by Kristin Butcher and Anne Piehl finds that immigrants are actually much more law abiding than the native born:

We have shown that immigrants have substantially lower institutionalization rates than natives, and that this differential has grown over the timer period that institutionalization expanded. In 2000, male young adult immigrants are institutionalized at one-fifth the rate of comparable native-born Americans. Although immigrants continue to be much more likely than natives to have low levels of education, this has not caused institutionalization rates to rise. In fact, when we predict the institutionalization rate for immigrants based on the experience of natives, we find that the observed rate is one-tenth of the predicted one.

Bryan Caplan puts it like this: "[I]f immigrants acted like otherwise similar natives, they were be ten times as criminal as they actually are."

Free version of paper here; newer NBER version here.

Can we at least harangue immigrants for stealing our jobs and depressing our wages? A recent PPIC paper says no:

This issue of California Counts examines the effects of the arrival of immigrants between 1960 and 2004 on the employment, population, and wages of U.S. natives in California. Among the study’s principal findings: 1) There is no evidence that the influx of immigrants over the past four decades has worsened the employment opportunities of natives with similar education and experience, 2) There is no association between the influx of immigrants and the out-migration of natives within the same education and age group, 3) Immigration induced a 4 percent real wage increase for the average native worker between 1990 and 2004, 4) Recent immigrants did lower the wages of previous immigrants.

PPIC study available here.

Related: How immigration boosts wages

Related: Queueless on Immigration

Providing perhaps the definitive proof that legislatures could meet a little less often, this story details Massachusetts' lawmakers crusade to save America's teens from the newest health threat...tanning beds.

This Thursday, lawmakers on Beacon Hill (insert your own joke here) will consider legislation to ban teens under 16 from using tanning beds. Teens 16-17 would have to secure parental consent to frequent tanning dens.

As one of the bill sponsors, Sen. Pamela Resor, stressed, ”Let’s not make it so easy for young people to expose their skin to dangerous rays.”

Right. Maybe vulnerable youth should be kept indoors during daylight hours. Perhaps schools can add classes like, "SPF and You."

Sen. James Timilty adds this sage observation: "I think people get very anxious to be out in the sun. And some people also don’t realize you can be exposed to harmful rays even on a cloudy day. If you can see your shadow at all, you’re feeling some effects.”

I guess after several long months enduring a New England winter, folks are probably a tad anxious to get out in the sun. When I was growing up, we called that Spring. Who knew it was fraught with such danger?

Over the decades, driving has been getting much safer (as measured by declining highway fatality rates). But how can we make roads safer still?

Teenagers, especially boys, are (big surprise) some of the most dangerous drivers. Maybe we could yank their keys? Or just mount some cameras?

There is a curve in the road near Alexander Mougin's house near Oxford, Iowa. The high-school senior used to like to take it hard and sharp -- but that was before his car was fitted with a camera capable of recording his driving habits.

Mr. Mougin, 18 years old, has been participating in a University of Iowa study to see whether the device and the data it provides can help improve teen driving. The camera, attached to the rear-view mirror, has one lens facing the road and another aimed at the driver. It runs constantly, and slips into recording mode if, for example, the car accelerates rapidly or brakes suddenly. It then preserves about 10 seconds before and after the event that triggered it.

"You don't want to set it off," Mr. Mougin says. After 10 months of taking part in the study, he says, "I know I'm a safer driver."

Starting tomorrow, American Family Mutual Insurance Co., the nation's 10th largest car insurer, will offer some of its customers the same system, known as DriveCam, in an effort to improve driving behavior among teens, a population that is particularly at risk on the roads. More teenagers die in car crashes than from any other single cause.

Customers with teenage children in Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin will be able to request that the system be installed in their cars, free of charge. Parents will receive regular reports on incidents that trigger a recording, which they can then review with their kids.

The system, made by DriveCam Inc., a privately held firm in San Diego, is the latest in a line of tools that can help parents track their teenagers' behavior.

The company says it won't watch the videos, but you can bet Mom and Dad will. And often that's often enough to provoke safer driving habits:

The Iowa study includes 25 teenagers who have driven 300,000 total miles in 10 months. The researchers first let the teens drive with the device, but hid the light that lets a driver know the recording has been triggered. After several weeks, they uncovered the light, and began sending results to parents.

Those most prone to trigger a recording during the preliminary period saw a 72% drop in safety-related events after using DriveCam for the next two months, says Daniel McGehee, director of the Human Factors & Vehicle Safety Research division of the university's Public Policy Center.

The self-interested reasons for offering the free service: It's a great way to lure customers, and:

If the program reduces the number of crashes, that could contribute to lower insurance payouts. In 2005, the last year for which data are available, nearly 5,700 16-to-20 year olds died on the roads, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, about 13% of all crash deaths. Another 53,000 suffered incapacitating injuries.

WSJ (subscription req'd) article here.

Related: Driving with Big Brother: Three, Two, One

Emboldened by the passage of cell phone bans for drivers in some communities, states are turning their attention to other things that drive motorists to distraction.

Vermont lawmakers are considering a measure that would ban eating, drinking, smoking, reading, writing, personal grooming, playing an instrument, "interacting with pets or cargo," talking on a cell phone or using any other personal communication device while driving. The punishment: a fine of up to $600.

Similar bills are under consideration in Maryland and Texas, and Connecticut has passed one that generically bans any activity that could interfere with the safe operation of a motor vehicle.
Emboldened by the passage of cell phone bans for drivers in some communities, states are turning their attention to other things that drive motorists to distraction.

Article here.

Related: Watch out for those unintended consequences

Related: Ban Wagon--distracted walking edition

If the issue is pedestrian safety, the tots are doing pretty well—quite a bit better than another demo:

A middle-aged male pedestrian is four times as likely, on any given trip, to be killed by a car as is an elementary school student, according to a new interactive [Carnegie Mellon—AAA] Web site that lets people compare travel risks.

The site allows users to assess the dangers of driving, walking, and riding a motorcycle or a bicycle, by season, region and personal characteristics of the traveler.

For example:

the risk of death for an 18-year-old male driver is about the same as that for an 80-year-old female driver, but both are safer than the operator of a motorcycle. And counterintuitively, risk is higher in the mountains in summer than in winter.

Article here; via Marginal Revolution.

A brief reprieve from the bleak march of smoking bans, discussed here just a couple of days ago: Three Chicago-area towns have suspended bans on smoking indoors at bars and restaurants until after the Super Bowl.

The Chicago Tribune reports:

The southwest suburbs took the emergency votes after bar owners complained bitterly that since the ordinance took effect Jan. 2, smokers were patronizing competitors in towns without bans to enjoy the playoffs. Several claimed business was off as much as 50 percent despite the Bears playoff run.

Public debates on smoking bans usually involve some confusing definition of terms—the first statewide smoking bans involved public schools, hospitals, administrative buildings, and the like. Then the definition of “public places” was re-written to include private restaurants and businesses, and finally, outdoor areas like sidewalks, parks, and restaurant patios where wafting smoke can cause offense. In many cases, local ordinances have become so nuanced smokers would be wise to carry a tape measure at all times to ensure that they are within the law. The city of Belmont, CA (pop. 25K) has finally clarified the definition of “public” with its newly proposed anti-smoking ordinance. The Alameda Times-Star reports today:

The council's request to ban smoking in all public places and multiunit dwellings is now in the hands of the city attorney, who will draft an ordinance that the council will be asked to approve. If passed, residents will be allowed to smoke only inside detached, single-unit homes. The ordinance is expected to become law in January or February, said City Councilman Dave Warden.
Belmont's move follows other city ordinances in California that tightly restrict smoking, including new laws in Dublin and Calabasas declaring smoking a public nuisance.

The nation’s most severe smoking ordinance now effectively defines apartments, townhouses, and other private residences “public places.” On the plus side, it is more convenient to cause a public nuisance from the comfort of your own home, anyway.

Laws that bar drivers from talking on cell phones may not cover the fastest-growing diversion: texting.

Punching in short text messages on a cell phone keypad is far more distracting and increasingly common. It's also much harder for authorities to catch.

Texters, for example, can hold phones in their laps and text rather than put them to their ears.

"It's difficult for police officers to see that," said Brooklyn Patrolman Richard Hovan, whose city has a ban on talking on cell phones while driving.

Text messaging is largely used by the often-connected professionals, who pledge allegiance to BlackBerry handhelds, and the very young.
…
More than a third of teen drivers consider sending text messages the most distracting thing they do while driving, according to a recent study by Liberty Mutual Insurance and Students Against Destructive Decisions, which campaigns against drunken driving. That's ahead of having friends in the car and talking on the phone.

What this article ignores is whether bans against using cell phones are doing more harm than good.

Flashback: Don Boudreaux spots an unintended consequence of a DC driving-while-phoning ban:

[My student Carol Shin] reports that, since DC’s prohibition went into effect this past summer, she and her friends -- when driving in DC -- in fact spend less time chatting with each other by cell phone, but spend more time text-messaging each other.

Maybe it would be better to let Carol and Ashley just talk on the phone:

Ashley Mabry, a 16-year-old who attends Midpark High School, said she texts on her phone more than she talks on it. She once texted a whole conversation while driving, while other times she responds with a simple "yes," "no" or "maybe."

Reminds me of an AEI-Brookings study which noted other unintended consequences: If drivers cannot call ahead and say they will be late, they may speed. If drivers cannot call for directions, they may choose to read a map while driving. If they cannot save time by calling and driving, they may save time by eating and driving.

Possibly related: Smarter Car Technology Being Ignored

Those “How’s my driving?” bumper stickers on commercial trucks and vans couldn’t possibly do more than make drivers feel like dopes, right?

According to Lior Strahilevitz they might actually make roads safer:

Although more rigorous study is warranted, the initial data is quite promising, suggesting that the use of “How’s My Driving?” placards in commercial trucks is associated with fleet accident reductions ranging from 20% to 53%.

Strahilevitz suggests fittin all cars with the placards. Feedback algorithms, like those used by eBay and other online operations, could help keep malicious intentions in check:

By delegating traffic regulation to the motorists themselves, the state might free up substantial law enforcement resources, police more effectively dangerous and annoying forms of driver misconduct that are rarely punished, reduce information asymmetries in the insurance market, improve the tort system, and alleviate road rage and driver frustration by providing drivers with opportunities to engage in measured expressions of displeasure.

Abstract here.

So begins the obnoxious PSA that warns drivers that we are again on the verge of Click it or Ticket season.

CIOT begins Monday and in the past it’s included a barrage of road-rage-inspiring radio spots, steep fines, special seat belt patrols, check points, even sting operations.

Seems like every year the efforts to crack down on seat belt holdouts (only 18 percent of us) get a tad more severe. How will this year top previous “mobilizations”? Satellite tracking of drivers? Lie detector tests? Stay tuned.

Some of my previous work on this:

Buckle Boondoggle: "Click It Or Ticket" wastes time, diverts resources, helps nobody

Strapped: Unbuckling seat belt laws

Suburbia?

Litigation and hyper-cautious safety-pushers aren’t helping:

Is there real danger on the modern playground?

Safety advocates say yes and want to eliminate it.

Their first target: swing sets.

They've convinced Portland Public Schools to remove all swings from elementary schools playgrounds.
But even a playground inspector finds the removal of swing sets a little over the top.

He says that swinging creates motion and is an important part of childhood development.

But the safety advocates don't stop there.

Portland Public Schools have also rejected merry go rounds, tube slides, track rides, arch climbers, and teeter totters.

At Grant Park in Northeast Portland, some parents embrace a new plastic enclosed play area, noting that the construction of the play equipment does not have sharp corners, and soft surfaces are used in many areas.

And there will be no running on playgrounds in Broward County, Florida. A new rule forbids it.

Not dodge ball or tether ball, that's still too dangerous. And in Beaverton, at Barnes Elementary School, rules there forbid the game of tag.

In Salem, an elementary education director says "we don't encourage the game of tag because it encourages fights."

But hey, kids still have plenty of fun ways to stay in shape: squat thrusts, jog in place, stand up straight and rotate arms in a circular motion.

Meanwhile, at the local death trap:

But at Catlin Gabel, a private school, there's an entirely different philosophy at work on the playground. One where monkey bars, slides and other playground favorites are used daily by a roiling mass of youngsters, some who come away with skinned knees or other minor boo-boos.

Kids there are taking chances, even jumping from swings, and it's all encouraged.

Whole piece here.

Driver inattention is the leading factor in most crashes and near-crashes, according to a landmark research report released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI).

Nearly 80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes involved some form of driver inattention within three seconds before the event. Primary causes of driver inattention are distracting activities, such as cell phone use, and drowsiness.

...

Reaching for a moving object increased the risk of a crash or near-crash by 9 times; looking at an external object by 3.7 times; reading by 3 times; applying makeup by 3 times; dialing a hand-held device (typically a cell phone) by almost 3 times; and talking or listening on a hand-held device by 1.3 times.

Press release here.

Study here.

Related: Blame Cell Phones or Drivers?

Related: Less Calling, More Texting?

On the road, the tunnel vision and delayed reactions of each person behind the wheel bring whole highways to a halt. When a car in front does something unusual, drivers often respond by hitting the brakes. That in turn makes the next driver brake. Soon, a wave of commuters are flashing red brake lights. Humans typically take 3/4 of a second to slam on the brake pedal. Talking on a cell phone can slow response time even more. The delayed reaction creates instability in an otherwise steady stream of traffic.

That's when cars end up bumper to bumper.

"The slow reaction time means people brake more than they should have to," Davis said. "Unnecessary braking—too much slowing down—causes the jam to form in some instances."

Article here.

The author suggests that adaptive cruise control responds to changing traffic conditions faster than humans. I’ve heard plenty of good stuff about ACC, but I’ve also heard that it actually doesn’t beat human reaction time.

Related: Why you should just drive straight

After three years of fighting, there are 180,000 dead in the Darfur region of Sudan. And yet the world’s leaders continue to dawdle:

The government in Khartoum has scuttled the UN's plans to take control of the troubled peacekeeping operations currently being led by the African Union, and NATO recently stated publicly that a force of its own in Darfur is ''out of the question." Meanwhile, refugee camps and humanitarian aid workers continue to be attacked, and the 7,000 African Union troops remain overstretched and ineffective.

But according to J. Cofer Black, vice chairman of the private security firm Blackwater, there is another option that ought to be on the table: an organization that could commit significant resources and expertise to bolster the African Union peacekeepers and provide emergency support to their flagging mission.

A few weeks ago, at an international special forces conference in Jordan, Black announced that his company could deploy a small rapid-response force to conflicts like the one in Sudan. ''We're low cost and fast," Black said, ''the question is, who's going to let us play on their team?"

Private security companies like Blackwater have thrived in Iraq, where the US military has relied on them for everything from guarding convoys to securing the Green Zone. But these companies recognize that the demand for their services in Iraq will eventually diminish, and Blackwater, for one, is looking for new markets.

Apparently Blackwater has no interest in offensive missions:

Today, private military companies are offering defensive services-they propose to secure refugee camps and vulnerable villages, guard humanitarian aid agencies and NGOs, or, depending on the requirements of the contract, assist peacekeepers like the African Union troops in Darfur.

Article here.

Related: My 2003 interview with Blackwater president Gary Jackson

According to a new study, many obese people don’t consider themselves obese:

The study included 104 white and black men and women, ages 45 to 64, who were asked to report their weight in pounds; categorize themselves as either underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese; and estimate how much they would need to weigh in order to be considered obese.

Based on the participants' body mass index (BMI), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers found there were 31 normal weight people, 40 overweight people and 33 obese people in the study group.

About 90 percent of the normal weight people and 85 percent of the overweight and obese people accurately self-reported their own weight and height, the researchers reported Tuesday at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology meeting in San Francisco.

However, just 15 percent of obese people correctly considered themselves to be obese, compared with the 71 percent of normal-weight individuals and 73 percent of overweight people who classified themselves correctly.

Article here.

In related news:

Many young children are too heavy for standard car-safety seats, and manufacturers are starting to make heftier models to accommodate them, according to [a Johns Hopkins study] on the obesity epidemic’s widening impact.

And in Las Vegas ambulance companies have responded to an increase in calls to transport morbidly obese patients by buying special ambulances capable of carrying patients that weight over 500 lbs.

[American Medical Response] recently put into service a $250,000 bariatric ambulance, which looks like its other 80 ambulances, but is extra-wide and has a larger gurney, a winch and ramps capable of loading up to 1,600 pounds.

Jacob Sullum has done a good job of pointing out that obesity-related deaths have been overstated, but I’m still inclined to think that obesity (and throw related things—inactivity, bad diet, etc.—into the mix) is a big problem. But is it as big a threat as, say, terrorism?

In this TCS Daily piece I chided the Surgeon General for mentioning obesity in the same breadth as terrorism. A reader responded, insisting that obesity is indeed a bigger threat. He noted that far more Americans die from obesity than from terrorism.

True of course, but for me the big issue is control. Except in extremely rare circumstances, you have control over whether or not you’re fat. You don’t have much control over whether a guy straps on a bomb, skulks over to you, and blows himself up. Moreover, terrorism has the potential to unleash large-scale death and even if obesity is an “epidemic” it’s one that each “victim” has chosen to contribute to.

They’ve generated nearly $3 million, but

Red light cameras in Anne Arundel County, Maryland failed to reduce accidents in five years of use. A set of five cameras were set up in the communities of Arnold, Pasadena, Parole, and Crofton in 2000, but a comparison of accident statistics five years before and five years after their installation shows accidents have increased beyond the ten percent increase in traffic volume.

Upon installation, the cameras caused an immediate 40 percent increase in rear-end collisions from 53 in 1999 to 74 in 2000. Overall accidents were up between 25 percent and 41 percent from 107 in 1999 to 134 in 2001 and 151 in 2002.

According to this piece from The Newspaper, Virginia and West Virginia have recently ended the practice of photo-ticketing.

For a round-up of red light camera studies, go here.

For more on regulating for revenue/government greed, go here, here, and here (note: parking cops are “revenue enhancers,” not “congestion cutters,” “pollution reducers,” or anything that has to do with the efficient use of curb space for shoppers, residents, etc.)

In other highway news, an Ohio lawmaker introduced a bill that would stiffen fines for “urine bombs.” The bill comes in response to an Ohio DOT study that found that each year nearly 1 million containers of urine are dumped along roads.

Article here; via Fark.

Otis White notes that homicides are on the rise in Oakland and Boston and he predicts this will prompt more mayors to adopt “broken window” approaches to crime control. This approach is often credited with New York’s dramatic drop in crime.

Yet:

Several sets of academics have looked again at broken windows, and they're not convinced that it's the cure-all Bratton says it is. Latest to weigh in: Bernard Harcourt, a University of Chicago law professor, and Jens Ludwig, a public policy professor at Georgetown. In an article scheduled for publication soon, they write that crime in New York was destined to fall. Reason: The precincts where broken-windows strategies appeared to have the greatest impact were places that were suffering in the 1980s from the crack cocaine epidemic. For reasons unconnected with police strategies, they write, the crack epidemic eased in the 1990s. Bottom line: Bratton arrived as the enemy was beginning its retreat and promptly declared victory. (To download an early version of Harcourt and Ludwig's paper, click here.)

What caused the crack epidemic to ease? The price came down, and dealers were less inclined to risk their lives battling over it, Harcourt and Ludwig say.

More evidence that drugs aren’t as dangerous as drug prohibition.

Writing in Crack in America, Goldstein et al point out that the “vast bulk of crack-related homicides occurred between dealers or between dealers and users.”

Back to White:

[Harcourt and Ludwig] point to another study that seems to contradict the idea that orderly neighborhoods are an antidote to crime. It was a study of public-housing residents who were relocated from their high-crime high-rises to more affluent, orderly neighborhoods. The result: little change in the crime rates among the transplanted families. "...Moving people to communities with less social or physical disorder - the key intervening factor in the original Wilson and Kelling broken-windows hypothesis—on balance does not lead to reductions in their criminal behavior," Harcourt and Ludwig write.

Want to improve your chances of surviving a car accident? Then get a bit flabby.

A new study finds that men with some flab are more likely to survive accidents than men who are very fat or very thin:

The results suggest that a moderate layer of fat -- such as that found in overweight but not obese people -- provides a "cushioning" effect during a crash, [said lead author Dr. Shankuan Zhu, an assistant professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin.]

But the cushion effect may vanish in males who are obese because their medical problems -- such as cardiovascular diseases and high-blood pressure -- could make them more vulnerable to dying from the effects of a crash, said Zhu.

The same might be true for thin males, who may have medical problems that exacerbate their ability to survive a crash, said Dr. Saman Arbabi, director of trauma surgery research at the University of Michigan. He co-authored a similar study that found nearly identical results.

Yet for women researchers found no safety benefits of flab. Why?

Arbabi suggested that it may have something to do with the physics of car accidents and the way that fat appears on the body. Overweight men tend to look like apples, with weight around their bellies, while overweight women look like pears, with fat around their hips and buttocks.

Article here.

More on highway safety here.

Canadian auto regulators are testing a system that would enforce speed limits by making it harder to push down the car's gas pedal once the speed limit is passed …

More here.

Thanks to Chris Thompson for the link.

More seat belt law nonsense:

Washington State troopers have been posing as panhandlers (who skirt entrapment laws by allegedly neither asking for nor accepting money) in order to sidle up to the cars of unsuspecting motorists as part of an elaborate scheme to spy whether the operator is wearing a seatbelt. Those who aren't are then busted by another cop radioed by the "panhandler" -- who sometimes holds a "happy holidays" sign -- and given a ticket for $101 or worse. Some of the ticketed motorists have been so kind as to offer the "panhandler" money (which the officer -- again allegedly -- rejects).

More here; via Nick.

My take on seat belt laws here.

During disasters, Wal-Mart puts its own nationwide response center in motion, with sophisticated communications and a state-of-the-art shipping network.

The system is so efficient that after Hurricane Katrina, Wal-Mart sometimes arrived with much-needed food and supplies before the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA was widely criticized for its slow response to those in need after Katrina hit.

But Wal-Mart's response was faster and, in one case, the company even provided stranded police officers with clothes and ammunition. Now, in areas hit by Rita, Wal-Mart has already shipped donated clothes and supplies. It has even reopened stores in places with no electricity.

"If this place wouldn't be open, we wouldn't have nothing right now," said one resident of Lake Charles, La., where Rita wiped out electricity, phone service and running water."This has been a lifesaving place."

Now some are suggesting that the government should study how it is that Wal-Mart, as well as other companies like Home Depot, Lowe's Home Improvement, and the Waffle House, were able to provide disaster relief so quickly.

Article here.

It’s one thing if a completely unexpected disaster strikes and officials are caught with their pants around their ankles.

Then there’s Katrina:

Computer models developed at Louisiana State University and other institutions made detailed projections of what would happen if water flowed over the levees protecting the city or if they failed.

In July 2004, more than 40 federal, state, local and volunteer organizations practiced this very scenario in a five-day simulation code-named "Hurricane Pam," where they had to deal with an imaginary storm that destroyed over half a million buildings in New Orleans and forced the evacuation of a million residents.

At the end of the exercise, Ron Castleman, regional director for the Federal Emergency Management Agency declared: "We made great progress this week in our preparedness efforts …”

Mr. Castleman may have uttered the most troubling Katrina related words. Then again …

In comments on Thursday, President Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

But Louisiana State University engineer Joseph Suhayda and others have warned for years that defenses could fail. In 2002, the New Orleans Times-Picayune published a five-part series on "The Big One," examining what might happen if they did.

It predicted that 200,000 people or more would be unwilling or unable to heed evacuation orders and that thousands would die. It also predicted that people would be housed in the Superdome, that aid workers would find it difficult to gain access to the city as roads became impassable, as well as many other of the consequences that actually unfolded after Katrina hit this week.

Whole depressing thing here.

As the post Katrina clean up progresses and the finger pointing intensifies, it’s likely that most of the back-and-forth will be Dems vs. Reps.

The Feds should have done more!

The local govt should have done more!

But there’s another position. Maybe individual governments aren’t so much the problem. Maybe government itself just doesn’t have the right incentives to prepare for and respond to disasters.

Jesse Walker points to a couple links that explode into a bunch of useful resources.

First, Lew Rockwell:

It was the failure of the public infrastructure and the response to it that brought down civilization.

The levees that failed and caused New Orleans to be flooded, bringing a humanitarian crisis not seen in our country in modern times, were owned and maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers. The original levees surrounding this city below sea level were erected in 1718, and have been variously expanded since.

But who knew that a direct hit by a hurricane would cause them to break? Many people, it turns out. Ivor van Heerden of Louisiana State University, reports Newsday, "who has developed flooding models for New Orleans, was among those issuing dire predictions as Katrina approached, warnings that turned out to be grimly accurate …”

Only the public sector can preside over a situation this precarious and display utter and complete inertia. What do these people have to lose? They are not real owners. There are no profits or losses at stake. They do not have to answer to risk-obsessed insurance companies who insist on premiums matching even the most remote contingencies.

Whole article here.

Although he doesn’t seem to hold this position, Tyler Cowen offers some arguments in favor of privatizing levees.

Here are parts of three of them:

1.We rely too much on unreliable levees, and privatization/non-subsidization would reveal their true social costs and induce people to move elsewhere.

4. A private levee authority would invest in water safety out of fear of being sued.

5. A private levee authority would be forced by its insurance company to build good protection and also hold huge capital reserves. Their cost of capital and costs of production would remain lower than the government's.

Here’s an interesting look at the response to the Chicago Fire:

In 1871, one-third of the city of Chicago—including the entire downtown and surrounding neighborhoods—burned to the ground. While it may seem startling to Americans today, the government did almost nothing in response. But within two years, Chicago’s burned district had been almost completely rebuilt through private initiative.

Here's the scoop:

* Total: $286.4 billion over 2004-2009, up from $218 billion in the 1998-2003 highway act.

* Includes more than $50 billion for bus, train and other transit programs and $6 billion for transportation safety programs.

* Ensures that by 2008 every state will get at least 92 percent return in federal grants for contributions made, through the federal gasoline tax, to the Highway Trust Fund.

* Guarantees that every state will see a minimum increase of 19 percent over its 1998-2003 funding level.

Critics questioned the merits of many projects. The bill will pay for more than 6,000 favored projects that are valued at $24 billion in the districts of nearly every member of Congress, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. It will pay for new highways and bridges, for rail and bus facilities, for bike paths and recreational trails.


The distribution of the money for these projects "is based far more on political clout than on transportation need," said Keith Ashdown, vice president of policy for the group.

For example, Alaska, the third-least populated state, got the fourth-most money for special projects – $941 million – thanks largely to the work of its lone representative, House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young. That included $231 million for a bridge near Anchorage to be named "Don Young's Way" in honor of the Republican.

Article here.

And in California the signing of the bill means single occupant hybrids get access to carpool lanes:

Only three hybrid models – Toyota's Prius and Honda's hybrid Civic and Insight – will be allowed in the lanes. They are the only models that meet the eligibility standards of at least 45 miles per gallon and almost no smog-causing emissions.

But hybrids' actual mileage is often lower than advertised. Consider Honda's Civic hybrid. The EPA says it gets 48 mpg. But when Consumer Reports tested it in real world driving conditions it got only 36 mpg.

More on misguided hybrid love here.

The Prez says that “this is more than just a highway bill; it's a safety bill.� For example it establishes a safety belt incentive grant program.

Notice that the incentive is for greater seat belt use, not, for example, lower fatality rates. So states, like Massachusetts and New Hampshire, that have very low seat belt use rates and very low highway fatality rates are out of luck.

More on that here.

Transcripts of W.’s speech here.

More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of a cell of Al Qaeda operating in the United States, according to a former defense intelligence official and a Republican member of Congress.

In the summer of 2000, the military team, known as Able Danger, prepared a chart that included visa photographs of the four men and recommended to the military's Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the congressman, Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, and the former intelligence official said Monday.

The recommendation was rejected and the information was not shared, they said, apparently at least in part because Mr. Atta, and the others were in the United States on valid entry visas. Under American law, United States citizens and green-card holders may not be singled out in intelligence-collection operations by the military or intelligence agencies. That protection does not extend to visa holders, but Mr. Weldon and the former intelligence official said it might have reinforced a sense of discomfort common before Sept. 11 about sharing intelligence information with a law enforcement agency.

More here.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors may hand over Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center to a private company after nearly two years of failed attempts to correct patient care lapses and mismanagement at the beleaguered public hospital.

County supervisors, who ordered a study of the idea last month, now are giving it new urgency after yet another federal government inspection found medical errors, misconduct and a troubling death at the 33-year-old hospital south of Watts. A vote could take place as early as August, and at least three of the five supervisors — Mike Antonovich, Don Knabe and Zev Yaroslavsky — express some support for the idea.

Sadly, examples like these are rather common at King/Drew:

In the latest inspection, which was completed Friday, federal officials cited several major medical errors, including a patient who waited to be seen in King/Drew's emergency room for more than 13 hours in January without a medical screening. He later died of a dissecting aneurysm — a tear in a weakened blood vessel.

The aneurysm had been visible on an X-ray taken by King/Drew staff two years ago, but it was never diagnosed by them, according to a memo to supervisors from Fred Leaf, the health department's chief operating officer.

The Times obtained a copy of the memo.

The inspectors also faulted two nurses who gave a narcotic by epidural to a 9-month-old baby. Not only were the nurses not allowed to perform such a procedure, which is typically performed by an anesthesiologist or specially trained nurse, but they never obtained consent to do it and falsified patient records, Leaf's memo said.

The nurses were removed in May. The hospital's pediatric intensive care unit was closed after the incident because King/Drew could not find other qualified nurses to step in, health department officials said.

In addition, the inspectors found there were "still too many pharmacy errors and too many cases of drugs being administered late," Leaf's memo said. Those same problems have been noted in several previous reports from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Whole story is here.

For more on the troubles at King/Drew, go here.

And for more on why more public hospitals are turning private, see this recent Privatization Watch cover story.

Another Click It or Ticket season has passed. Check out my reason.com article on the matter.

I note that law enforcement is really going overboard with this. We're talking checkpoints, sting operations, $200 fines for seatbelt law violators?

My colleague Jeff Taylor tipped me off to the sad fact that the overkill doesn't stop there:

A piece of electronic equipment that's often used by military personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq is now being used by police in Maryland to catch seat belt violators.

Wednesday night at a seat-belt enforcement checkpoint, police from several Maryland agencies started using night-vision goggles to see if motorists were buckled up.

After a briefing at the Maryland State Police barracks in Rockville, where strategy was discussed, officers hit the streets in search of violators.

Authorities said 40 percent of drivers are less likely to wear their seat belts at night and that could be deadly. Maryland State Police Cpl. Kevin Sherwood said the night-vision goggles are an effective way to catch those drivers.

"Often times you can see inside, but other times you can't because the light is directly ahead," Sherwood said. "What this does is amplifies the ambient light inside the vehicle so you can actually see inside the car and see whether they actually have their seat belt on."

Police said officers will continue using the night goggles.

Seems like each year CIOT enforcement gets more severe. Kind of scary to think about what law enforcement has cooking for next season.

It’s troubling how quick public figures are to expand the definition of “disease.”

We’ve heard that obesity is a disease for a while. Here’s the latest declaration:

Obesity, which already affects more than 300 million people and an alarming number of children, must be recognized and treated as a disease with deadly complications, a leading expert said on Wednesday …

"Obesity is not an aesthetic problem. It is a very complex problem tightly connected to diabetes, atherosclerosis (blocked arteries) and other major health problems and causes of death," Professor Constantine Tsigos, chairman of the 14th European Congress on Obesity, told Reuters ahead of the meeting …

"The emphasis has been put on the complications to increase the awareness of obesity as a disease and a serious condition with many risks associated with it," said Tsigos.

And now the seat belt isn't just a strip of fabric, it's a "vaccine" that protects you from the “disease” of highway death:

Transportation Secretary Mineta Calls Highway Fatalities an Epidemic, Nation Should Prevent Traffic Deaths Like Any Other Disease U.S.

Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta today called the problem of highway traffic deaths a "national epidemic" and encouraged Americans to view wearing safety belts as a form of preventative medicine …

"We are in the midst of a national epidemic", said Secretary Mineta. "If this many people were to die from any one disease in a single year, Americans would demand a vaccine. The irony is we already have the best vaccine available to reduce the death toll on our highways – safety belts".

For a different view of disease, check out the Szasz Blog.

It’s illegal to erect billboards in Vermont, but it’s Click It or Ticket time and state officials want to warn drivers that they’ll get a ticket if they don’t buckle up.

What to do?

Put up billboards in other states:

[T]he Governor's Highway Safety Program in that state took its seat-belt safety campaign to New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

A sign on Interstate 293 in central New Hampshire at least 70 miles away from the Vermont state line tells drivers, "Buckle-up in Vermont. It's the law." It's part of the state's "Click it or Ticket" campaign.

"We bought billboards in New Hampshire and Massachusetts as close to the Vermont border as we can get," said Charles Satterfield, public information officer for the Governor's Highway Safety Program in Vermont. "The reason we did it is because Vermont's lowest belt use is (along) the New Hampshire and Massachusetts borders. Those two states have among the lowest seat belt use rates in the country, and they affect the belt use rates in Vermont."

Another reason: In New Hampshire, there's no seat belt law for adults.

And Massachusetts has a secondary enforcement law, which from a safety-pusher’s point of view is better than having no adult seat belt law, but still nowhere near as good as having primary enforcement, where cops need no other reason than an unused seat belt to pull you over.

For example, this Massachusetts paper wants the tougher law.

Here's the justification:

As a result of increased awareness and police enforcement, the overall national seat belt use in 2004 was 80 percent, an all-time high. While seat-belt use in Massachusetts has been on a steady climb, the commonwealth is not setting any speed records. Only 63 percent of Massachusetts residents wear a seat belt when driving or riding in a vehicle.

Yes it’s smart to buckle up, but too much talk about seat belt use rates can obscure the bigger picture. CIOT supporters tell us again and again that this effort isn’t about writing tickets, it’s about saving lives.

But based on that measure, seat belt rebels like Massachusetts and New Hampshire are doing very well. Massachusetts has the second-lowest highway fatality rate in the nation and New Hampshire has the fourth-lowest. Vermont, which does not have primary enforcement either, enjoys the nation’s safest roads.

Click It or Ticket, the annual exercise in highway nanny-statism, is back.

``It's not about writing tickets. It's about saving lives,'' said a law enforcement rep from Florida.

That’s one of the talking points, but does CIOT save lives?

Go here and here for some of my takes on this.

The next Privatization Watch, which will be online soon, focuses on health care.

Speaking of which, from the Charlotte Observer:

A private company will begin providing health care for Union County Jail inmates April 1, saving the county about $140,000 and bringing increased services and staff hours to the jail.

County commissioners Monday unanimously approved a contract with Tennessee-based Prison Health Services (PHS), one of three firms vying for the job.

The company is the nation's largest private provider of inmate health services and serves jails in Mecklenburg and Gaston counties. But PHS has been under fire for some of its dealings in other states, where critics have accused it of providing subpar care.

Commissioners and County Manager Mike Shalati expressed confidence in the Union plan, however, and praised Sheriff Eddie Cathey for taking steps to save the county money.

The jail infirmary serves a vital need in often-difficult circumstances, Cathey said, noting that he has no problems with the way the current staff has performed.

But costs there have increased $295,000 -- 102 percent -- since July 2002, Cathey said.

Even as the jail's average daily population has fallen -- from 254 in 2003 to 226 in 2004 -- per-inmate health costs rose 20 percent.

Red light cameras, though they’re justified on public safety grounds, are often installed for different reasons.

Here’s Radley Balko:

[T]he most troubling thing about traffic cameras is the way city governments grow dependent on the revenue they generate. Bethesda, Md., was caught shortening a yellow light at the city's most lucrative red-light camera, in an effort to squeeze more cash out of its motorists. When tickets dropped off from existing speed cameras in Washington, the City Council simply installed more, and raised the fines. Sacramento now charges motorists $351 for a single red-light violation.

Flashback: DC’s Mayor Williams really likes those traffic cameras that help officials fine drivers:

"There is an urgent need for the approval of this contract to ensure the continued processing of District tickets and the collection of District revenues," Mr. Williams wrote in a Dec. 16 letter to D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp.

In the letter, Mr. Williams was seeking support for the District's $14.6 million contract with ACS State and Local Solutions, which the council later approved. ACS, a private company, handles fines for the city's automated traffic-enforcement program.

While the mayor made it clear that he has an urgent need to grab revenue, he didn’t express much urgency about improving public safety. In fact, he didn’t even mention public safety. Oops:

A spokeswoman for Mr. Williams yesterday said that the mayor's views about red light and speed cameras haven't changed and that he probably should have included "an extra sentence about public safety" in his letter to Mrs. Cropp.

"The mayor has always felt that with the red-light cameras and the other equipment we use to catch people who are speeding, safety is our foremost goal," said Sharon Gang, spokeswoman for Mr. Williams.

And if the cameras are positioned to maximize safety, not revenue, it’s still not clear they make streets safer:

[S]everal studies in recent years--in places like San Diego, Charlotte, N.C., and Australia ... have shown that the reduction in side-angle collisions at the intersections has been wholly or largely offset by an increase in rear-end accidents ...

Sure crime rates are going down, but one of the most unsettling things around is our nation’s startlingly low clearance rate for violent crimes. In most cases (53 percent) no one is even arrested, let alone convicted. The clearance rate for property crimes is even more pitiful.

And yet marijuana arrests shot up by 165 percent between 1991 and 2003 (from 287,850 to 755,000).

This, according to a lengthy report by NORML (via Jacob Sullum). And the huge increase in arrests:

was not associated with an increase in marijuana's price or a reduction in marijuana use, availability, potency, treatment admissions, or emergency room mentions.

The states with the highest per capita marijuana arrests were Nebraska, Louisiana, Wyoming, Kentucky, and Illinois.

How much does it cost state and local governments to enforce their marijuana laws? About $7.6 billion per year or $10,400 per arrest.

Perhaps that money could be better spent rounding up some more rapists and robbers.

A recent ad campaign tried to scare L.A. voters into supporting a tax hike to pay for more cops. The ads were slimy, even by big city politicking standards.

The tax hike campaign failed, but, what do you know, turns out there was already enough money for more cops:

Barely more than two weeks after losing his police-tax fight, Mayor James Hahn declared Tuesday that he has found money to hire about 370 more cops in next year's budget without raising taxes.

The announcement came just a week before the primary election in which Hahn is locked in a close battle with former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, who is surging in the polls, and City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who has been widely regarded as the front-runner for weeks.

It's almost enough to make a voter suspect that politicos who claim raising taxes is the only way just aren’t too interested in looking into alternatives.

A recent ad campaign tried to scare L.A. voters into supporting a tax hike to pay for more cops. The ads were slimy, even by big city politicking standards.

The tax hike campaign failed, but, what do you know, turns out there was already enough money for more cops:

Barely more than two weeks after losing his police-tax fight, Mayor James Hahn declared Tuesday that he has found money to hire about 370 more cops in next year's budget without raising taxes.

The announcement came just a week before the primary election in which Hahn is locked in a close battle with former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, who is surging in the polls, and City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who has been widely regarded as the front-runner for weeks.

It's almost enough to make a voter suspect that politicos who claim raising taxes is the only way just aren’t too interested in looking into alternatives.

A recent ad campaign tried to scare L.A. voters into supporting a tax hike to pay for more cops. The ads were slimy, even by big city politicking standards.

The tax hike campaign failed, but, what do you know, turns out there was already enough money for more cops:

Barely more than two weeks after losing his police-tax fight, Mayor James Hahn declared Tuesday that he has found money to hire about 370 more cops in next year's budget without raising taxes.

The announcement came just a week before the primary election in which Hahn is locked in a close battle with former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, who is surging in the polls, and City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who has been widely regarded as the front-runner for weeks.

It's almost enough to make a voter suspect that politicos who claim raising taxes is the only way just aren’t too interested in looking into alternatives.

A recent ad campaign tried to scare L.A. voters into supporting a tax hike to pay for more cops. The ads were slimy, even by big city politicking standards.

The tax hike campaign failed, but, what do you know, turns out there was already enough money for more cops:

Barely more than two weeks after losing his police-tax fight, Mayor James Hahn declared Tuesday that he has found money to hire about 370 more cops in next year's budget without raising taxes.

The announcement came just a week before the primary election in which Hahn is locked in a close battle with former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, who is surging in the polls, and City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who has been widely regarded as the front-runner for weeks.

It's almost enough to make a voter suspect that politicos who claim raising taxes is the only way just aren’t too interested in looking into alternatives.

A recent ad campaign tried to scare L.A. voters into supporting a tax hike to pay for more cops. The ads were slimy, even by big city politicking standards.

The tax hike campaign failed, but, what do you know, turns out there was already enough money for more cops:

Barely more than two weeks after losing his police-tax fight, Mayor James Hahn declared Tuesday that he has found money to hire about 370 more cops in next year's budget without raising taxes.

The announcement came just a week before the primary election in which Hahn is locked in a close battle with former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, who is surging in the polls, and City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who has been widely regarded as the front-runner for weeks.

It's almost enough to make a voter suspect that politicos who claim raising taxes is the only way just aren’t too interested in looking into alternatives.

A recent ad campaign tried to scare L.A. voters into supporting a tax hike to pay for more cops. The ads were slimy, even by big city politicking standards.

The tax hike campaign failed, but, what do you know, turns out there was already enough money for more cops:

Barely more than two weeks after losing his police-tax fight, Mayor James Hahn declared Tuesday that he has found money to hire about 370 more cops in next year's budget without raising taxes.

The announcement came just a week before the primary election in which Hahn is locked in a close battle with former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, who is surging in the polls, and City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who has been widely regarded as the front-runner for weeks.

It's almost enough to make a voter suspect that politicos who claim raising taxes is the only way just aren’t too interested in looking into alternatives.

A recent ad campaign tried to scare L.A. voters into supporting a tax hike to pay for more cops. The ads were slimy, even by big city politicking standards.

The tax hike campaign failed, but, what do you know, turns out there was already enough money for more cops:

Barely more than two weeks after losing his police-tax fight, Mayor James Hahn declared Tuesday that he has found money to hire about 370 more cops in next year's budget without raising taxes.

The announcement came just a week before the primary election in which Hahn is locked in a close battle with former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, who is surging in the polls, and City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who has been widely regarded as the front-runner for weeks.

It's almost enough to make a voter suspect that politicos who claim raising taxes is the only way just aren’t too interested in looking into alternatives.

A recent ad campaign tried to scare L.A. voters into supporting a tax hike to pay for more cops. The ads were slimy, even by big city politicking standards.

The tax hike campaign failed, but, what do you know, turns out there was already enough money for more cops:

Barely more than two weeks after losing his police-tax fight, Mayor James Hahn declared Tuesday that he has found money to hire about 370 more cops in next year's budget without raising taxes.

The announcement came just a week before the primary election in which Hahn is locked in a close battle with former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, who is surging in the polls, and City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who has been widely regarded as the front-runner for weeks.

It's almost enough to make a voter suspect that politicos who claim raising taxes is the only way just aren’t too interested in looking into alternatives.

A recent ad campaign tried to scare L.A. voters into supporting a tax hike to pay for more cops. The ads were slimy, even by big city politicking standards.

The tax hike campaign failed, but, what do you know, turns out there was already enough money for more cops:

Barely more than two weeks after losing his police-tax fight, Mayor James Hahn declared Tuesday that he has found money to hire about 370 more cops in next year's budget without raising taxes.

The announcement came just a week before the primary election in which Hahn is locked in a close battle with former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, who is surging in the polls, and City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who has been widely regarded as the front-runner for weeks.

It's almost enough to make a voter suspect that politicos who claim raising taxes is the only way just aren’t too interested in looking into alternatives.

LA’s King/Drew medical center has lots of problems. Earlier I noted how they might lose $200 million in federal reimbursement funds.

Turns out this particular crisis has been averted:

Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center passed a crucial inspection Tuesday, eliminating for now the threat that $200 million in federal money would be cut off.

The inspection came three days before the deadline the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had set to pull its funding from the troubled Los Angeles County-owned hospital …

The warning came after regulators found that King/Drew staff had relied too heavily on police officers to shoot aggressive mental patients with Taser stun guns instead of first trying less extreme methods to calm them.

The federal government's threat to cut off money was the third in less than a year. The prior incidents involved medication errors and inappropriate use of Tasers. Those threats were similarly lifted after the hospital demonstrated that it had corrected the problems.

LA’s King/Drew medical center has lots of problems. Earlier I noted how they might lose $200 million in federal reimbursement funds.

Turns out this particular crisis has been averted:

Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center passed a crucial inspection Tuesday, eliminating for now the threat that $200 million in federal money would be cut off.

The inspection came three days before the deadline the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had set to pull its funding from the troubled Los Angeles County-owned hospital …

The warning came after regulators found that King/Drew staff had relied too heavily on police officers to shoot aggressive mental patients with Taser stun guns instead of first trying less extreme methods to calm them.

The federal government's threat to cut off money was the third in less than a year. The prior incidents involved medication errors and inappropriate use of Tasers. Those threats were similarly lifted after the hospital demonstrated that it had corrected the problems.

LA’s King/Drew medical center has lots of problems. Earlier I noted how they might lose $200 million in federal reimbursement funds.

Turns out this particular crisis has been averted:

Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center passed a crucial inspection Tuesday, eliminating for now the threat that $200 million in federal money would be cut off.

The inspection came three days before the deadline the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had set to pull its funding from the troubled Los Angeles County-owned hospital …

The warning came after regulators found that King/Drew staff had relied too heavily on police officers to shoot aggressive mental patients with Taser stun guns instead of first trying less extreme methods to calm them.

The federal government's threat to cut off money was the third in less than a year. The prior incidents involved medication errors and inappropriate use of Tasers. Those threats were similarly lifted after the hospital demonstrated that it had corrected the problems.

LA’s King/Drew medical center has lots of problems. Earlier I noted how they might lose $200 million in federal reimbursement funds.

Turns out this particular crisis has been averted:

Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center passed a crucial inspection Tuesday, eliminating for now the threat that $200 million in federal money would be cut off.

The inspection came three days before the deadline the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had set to pull its funding from the troubled Los Angeles County-owned hospital …

The warning came after regulators found that King/Drew staff had relied too heavily on police officers to shoot aggressive mental patients with Taser stun guns instead of first trying less extreme methods to calm them.

The federal government's threat to cut off money was the third in less than a year. The prior incidents involved medication errors and inappropriate use of Tasers. Those threats were similarly lifted after the hospital demonstrated that it had corrected the problems.

LA’s King/Drew medical center has lots of problems. Earlier I noted how they might lose $200 million in federal reimbursement funds.

Turns out this particular crisis has been averted:

Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center passed a crucial inspection Tuesday, eliminating for now the threat that $200 million in federal money would be cut off.

The inspection came three days before the deadline the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had set to pull its funding from the troubled Los Angeles County-owned hospital …

The warning came after regulators found that King/Drew staff had relied too heavily on police officers to shoot aggressive mental patients with Taser stun guns instead of first trying less extreme methods to calm them.

The federal government's threat to cut off money was the third in less than a year. The prior incidents involved medication errors and inappropriate use of Tasers. Those threats were similarly lifted after the hospital demonstrated that it had corrected the problems.

LA’s King/Drew medical center has lots of problems. Earlier I noted how they might lose $200 million in federal reimbursement funds.

Turns out this particular crisis has been averted:

Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center passed a crucial inspection Tuesday, eliminating for now the threat that $200 million in federal money would be cut off.

The inspection came three days before the deadline the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had set to pull its funding from the troubled Los Angeles County-owned hospital …

The warning came after regulators found that King/Drew staff had relied too heavily on police officers to shoot aggressive mental patients with Taser stun guns instead of first trying less extreme methods to calm them.

The federal government's threat to cut off money was the third in less than a year. The prior incidents involved medication errors and inappropriate use of Tasers. Those threats were similarly lifted after the hospital demonstrated that it had corrected the problems.

LA’s King/Drew medical center has lots of problems. Earlier I noted how they might lose $200 million in federal reimbursement funds.

Turns out this particular crisis has been averted:

Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center passed a crucial inspection Tuesday, eliminating for now the threat that $200 million in federal money would be cut off.

The inspection came three days before the deadline the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had set to pull its funding from the troubled Los Angeles County-owned hospital …

The warning came after regulators found that King/Drew staff had relied too heavily on police officers to shoot aggressive mental patients with Taser stun guns instead of first trying less extreme methods to calm them.

The federal government's threat to cut off money was the third in less than a year. The prior incidents involved medication errors and inappropriate use of Tasers. Those threats were similarly lifted after the hospital demonstrated that it had corrected the problems.

LA’s King/Drew medical center has lots of problems. Earlier I noted how they might lose $200 million in federal reimbursement funds.

Turns out this particular crisis has been averted:

Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center passed a crucial inspection Tuesday, eliminating for now the threat that $200 million in federal money would be cut off.

The inspection came three days before the deadline the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had set to pull its funding from the troubled Los Angeles County-owned hospital …

The warning came after regulators found that King/Drew staff had relied too heavily on police officers to shoot aggressive mental patients with Taser stun guns instead of first trying less extreme methods to calm them.

The federal government's threat to cut off money was the third in less than a year. The prior incidents involved medication errors and inappropriate use of Tasers. Those threats were similarly lifted after the hospital demonstrated that it had corrected the problems.

LA’s King/Drew medical center has lots of problems. Earlier I noted how they might lose $200 million in federal reimbursement funds.

Turns out this particular crisis has been averted:

Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center passed a crucial inspection Tuesday, eliminating for now the threat that $200 million in federal money would be cut off.

The inspection came three days before the deadline the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had set to pull its funding from the troubled Los Angeles County-owned hospital …

The warning came after regulators found that King/Drew staff had relied too heavily on police officers to shoot aggressive mental patients with Taser stun guns instead of first trying less extreme methods to calm them.

The federal government's threat to cut off money was the third in less than a year. The prior incidents involved medication errors and inappropriate use of Tasers. Those threats were similarly lifted after the hospital demonstrated that it had corrected the problems.

The feds say two-thirds of us are:

1. overweight or obese, and
2. not exercising regularly.

So what are we to make of this survey, from the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, which finds:

Seventy percent of respondents said they were completely or somewhat satisfied with their physical health and 66 percent said the same about their physical appearance …

And just over half (52 percent) of the more than 1,400 people polled last September said they were generally satisfied with the amount of exercise they get.

Still, Bill Howland, IHRSA’s research director, is perplexed: people don’t exercise enough even though nearly 90 percent of respondents said they believe exercise plays a major role in health.

But it’s not big news that—even when armed with all the facts—people still choose activities that don’t optimize physical health. Maybe someday nags will realize that those who don’t behave the way they want them to cannot be “fixed” with more education.

And who among us doesn’t live with (struggle with?) some sort of contradiction between what we want and what we actually do?

This comment from Howland seems to represent what a lot of government busybodies believe their role to be:

“We’ve got to get the behavior to match the beliefs,” he says.

For more on this, see Jacob Sullum’s recent Reason cover story: The War on Fat: Is the size of your butt the government’s business?

The feds say two-thirds of us are:

1. overweight or obese, and
2. not exercising regularly.

So what are we to make of this survey, from the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, which finds:

Seventy percent of respondents said they were completely or somewhat satisfied with their physical health and 66 percent said the same about their physical appearance …

And just over half (52 percent) of the more than 1,400 people polled last September said they were generally satisfied with the amount of exercise they get.

Still, Bill Howland, IHRSA’s research director, is perplexed: people don’t exercise enough even though nearly 90 percent of respondents said they believe exercise plays a major role in health.

But it’s not big news that—even when armed with all the facts—people still choose activities that don’t optimize physical health. Maybe someday nags will realize that those who don’t behave the way they want them to cannot be “fixed” with more education.

And who among us doesn’t live with (struggle with?) some sort of contradiction between what we want and what we actually do?

This comment from Howland seems to represent what a lot of government busybodies believe their role to be:

“We’ve got to get the behavior to match the beliefs,” he says.

For more on this, see Jacob Sullum’s recent Reason cover story: The War on Fat: Is the size of your butt the government’s business?

The feds say two-thirds of us are:

1. overweight or obese, and
2. not exercising regularly.

So what are we to make of this survey, from the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, which finds:

Seventy percent of respondents said they were completely or somewhat satisfied with their physical health and 66 percent said the same about their physical appearance …

And just over half (52 percent) of the more than 1,400 people polled last September said they were generally satisfied with the amount of exercise they get.

Still, Bill Howland, IHRSA’s research director, is perplexed: people don’t exercise enough even though nearly 90 percent of respondents said they believe exercise plays a major role in health.

But it’s not big news that—even when armed with all the facts—people still choose activities that don’t optimize physical health. Maybe someday nags will realize that those who don’t behave the way they want them to cannot be “fixed” with more education.

And who among us doesn’t live with (struggle with?) some sort of contradiction between what we want and what we actually do?

This comment from Howland seems to represent what a lot of government busybodies believe their role to be:

“We’ve got to get the behavior to match the beliefs,” he says.

For more on this, see Jacob Sullum’s recent Reason cover story: The War on Fat: Is the size of your butt the government’s business?

The feds say two-thirds of us are:

1. overweight or obese, and
2. not exercising regularly.

So what are we to make of this survey, from the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, which finds:

Seventy percent of respondents said they were completely or somewhat satisfied with their physical health and 66 percent said the same about their physical appearance …

And just over half (52 percent) of the more than 1,400 people polled last September said they were generally satisfied with the amount of exercise they get.

Still, Bill Howland, IHRSA’s research director, is perplexed: people don’t exercise enough even though nearly 90 percent of respondents said they believe exercise plays a major role in health.

But it’s not big news that—even when armed with all the facts—people still choose activities that don’t optimize physical health. Maybe someday nags will realize that those who don’t behave the way they want them to cannot be “fixed” with more education.

And who among us doesn’t live with (struggle with?) some sort of contradiction between what we want and what we actually do?

This comment from Howland seems to represent what a lot of government busybodies believe their role to be:

“We’ve got to get the behavior to match the beliefs,” he says.

For more on this, see Jacob Sullum’s recent Reason cover story: The War on Fat: Is the size of your butt the government’s business?

The feds say two-thirds of us are:

1. overweight or obese, and
2. not exercising regularly.

So what are we to make of this survey, from the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, which finds:

Seventy percent of respondents said they were completely or somewhat satisfied with their physical health and 66 percent said the same about their physical appearance …

And just over half (52 percent) of the more than 1,400 people polled last September said they were generally satisfied with the amount of exercise they get.

Still, Bill Howland, IHRSA’s research director, is perplexed: people don’t exercise enough even though nearly 90 percent of respondents said they believe exercise plays a major role in health.

But it’s not big news that—even when armed with all the facts—people still choose activities that don’t optimize physical health. Maybe someday nags will realize that those who don’t behave the way they want them to cannot be “fixed” with more education.

And who among us doesn’t live with (struggle with?) some sort of contradiction between what we want and what we actually do?

This comment from Howland seems to represent what a lot of government busybodies believe their role to be:

“We’ve got to get the behavior to match the beliefs,” he says.

For more on this, see Jacob Sullum’s recent Reason cover story: The War on Fat: Is the size of your butt the government’s business?

The feds say two-thirds of us are:

1. overweight or obese, and
2. not exercising regularly.

So what are we to make of this survey, from the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, which finds:

Seventy percent of respondents said they were completely or somewhat satisfied with their physical health and 66 percent said the same about their physical appearance …

And just over half (52 percent) of the more than 1,400 people polled last September said they were generally satisfied with the amount of exercise they get.

Still, Bill Howland, IHRSA’s research director, is perplexed: people don’t exercise enough even though nearly 90 percent of respondents said they believe exercise plays a major role in health.

But it’s not big news that—even when armed with all the facts—people still choose activities that don’t optimize physical health. Maybe someday nags will realize that those who don’t behave the way they want them to cannot be “fixed” with more education.

And who among us doesn’t live with (struggle with?) some sort of contradiction between what we want and what we actually do?

This comment from Howland seems to represent what a lot of government busybodies believe their role to be:

“We’ve got to get the behavior to match the beliefs,” he says.

For more on this, see Jacob Sullum’s recent Reason cover story: The War on Fat: Is the size of your butt the government’s business?

The feds say two-thirds of us are:

1. overweight or obese, and
2. not exercising regularly.

So what are we to make of this survey, from the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, which finds:

Seventy percent of respondents said they were completely or somewhat satisfied with their physical health and 66 percent said the same about their physical appearance …

And just over half (52 percent) of the more than 1,400 people polled last September said they were generally satisfied with the amount of exercise they get.

Still, Bill Howland, IHRSA’s research director, is perplexed: people don’t exercise enough even though nearly 90 percent of respondents said they believe exercise plays a major role in health.

But it’s not big news that—even when armed with all the facts—people still choose activities that don’t optimize physical health. Maybe someday nags will realize that those who don’t behave the way they want them to cannot be “fixed” with more education.

And who among us doesn’t live with (struggle with?) some sort of contradiction between what we want and what we actually do?

This comment from Howland seems to represent what a lot of government busybodies believe their role to be:

“We’ve got to get the behavior to match the beliefs,” he says.

For more on this, see Jacob Sullum’s recent Reason cover story: The War on Fat: Is the size of your butt the government’s business?

The feds say two-thirds of us are:

1. overweight or obese, and
2. not exercising regularly.

So what are we to make of this survey, from the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, which finds:

Seventy percent of respondents said they were completely or somewhat satisfied with their physical health and 66 percent said the same about their physical appearance …

And just over half (52 percent) of the more than 1,400 people polled last September said they were generally satisfied with the amount of exercise they get.

Still, Bill Howland, IHRSA’s research director, is perplexed: people don’t exercise enough even though nearly 90 percent of respondents said they believe exercise plays a major role in health.

But it’s not big news that—even when armed with all the facts—people still choose activities that don’t optimize physical health. Maybe someday nags will realize that those who don’t behave the way they want them to cannot be “fixed” with more education.

And who among us doesn’t live with (struggle with?) some sort of contradiction between what we want and what we actually do?

This comment from Howland seems to represent what a lot of government busybodies believe their role to be:

“We’ve got to get the behavior to match the beliefs,” he says.

For more on this, see Jacob Sullum’s recent Reason cover story: The War on Fat: Is the size of your butt the government’s business?

The feds say two-thirds of us are:

1. overweight or obese, and
2. not exercising regularly.

So what are we to make of this survey, from the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, which finds:

Seventy percent of respondents said they were completely or somewhat satisfied with their physical health and 66 percent said the same about their physical appearance …

And just over half (52 percent) of the more than 1,400 people polled last September said they were generally satisfied with the amount of exercise they get.

Still, Bill Howland, IHRSA’s research director, is perplexed: people don’t exercise enough even though nearly 90 percent of respondents said they believe exercise plays a major role in health.

But it’s not big news that—even when armed with all the facts—people still choose activities that don’t optimize physical health. Maybe someday nags will realize that those who don’t behave the way they want them to cannot be “fixed” with more education.

And who among us doesn’t live with (struggle with?) some sort of contradiction between what we want and what we actually do?

This comment from Howland seems to represent what a lot of government busybodies believe their role to be:

“We’ve got to get the behavior to match the beliefs,” he says.

For more on this, see Jacob Sullum’s recent Reason cover story: The War on Fat: Is the size of your butt the government’s business?