Funniest Take on Legislators Today

"Generally this ["rational basis" test] is an easy hurdle to clear, because the court is very deferential; if it weren’t for bad ideas about what they want to do, and how they want to do it, many legislators wouldn’t have any ideas at all"  From John Holbo at Crooked Timber on the Walker decision on Prop 8.

Chinese Trash

Early in the week there were some stories (WSJ here, with slide show) about trash on the Yangtze river threatening the operation of the Three Rivers Dam in China.

That's a reminder of how far and fast China has come--even in the western interior of the country their citizens have become wealthy enough to have trash.  I remember when they were so poor and so thrifty they recycled everything.

Michelle and Jackie as Marie Antoinette?

Michelle Obama is catching flack, even from Ms. Dowd in the Times, about her vacation trip.  Reminds me of when Jackie Kennedy and Caroline took a long trip to Italy, I think.  (May have been some hobnobbing with nouveau riche like Onassis and royalty.)

Should Government Be Wrong Half the Time?

Post at Google Operating System on their failures (e.g., they just dropped Wave).

Google's Peter Norvig has a more detailed explanation for this attitude:

"If you're a politician, admitting you're wrong is a weakness, but if you're an engineer, you essentially want to be wrong half the time. If you do experiments and you're always right, then you aren't getting enough information out of those experiments. You want your experiment to be like the flip of a coin: You have no idea if it is going to come up heads or tails. You want to not know what the results are going to be."

Makes sense to me, although I must admit as a supervisor I wasn't happy about any failures. The distinction is between learning and executing; it's good to fail while learning, but when you say you have the answer, you'd better have the answer.  That may also tie into the free market--it's good for learning, but government can compete when the learning is done.

[I know, some anti-government wiseacre thought to herself when she read my title: if the government was wrong only half the time, it would be an improvement.]

The Not-So-Efficient Free Market System: Alcohol in VA

Our new Virginia governor won office last year based on a campaign of, among other promises, privatizing the system of ABC stores for selling liquor and using the proceeds for transportation.  The Post yesterday had an interesting article on the problems in implementing the promise, including a comparison with the systems in DC and MD.  Turns out VA gets more than 50 percent of the price of a bottle of Jack Daniels, while the other jurisdictions get less than 10 percent. Prices aren't that different, at least at the low and middle end.  So how does the gov get an equivalent yearly return from a private sales system?  Doesn't look as if it's possible.

Of course Virginians are used to Republican politicians making promises they can't fulfill.  (Not that Dems are immune from the syndrome.)

The side-by-side comparison shows IMHO the free market system is not necessarily the best.  Of course, alcohol has special characteristics: most of the products are time-tested.  I suspect if you looked at the Virginia ABC stores they don't do well at keeping up with the fads (like wine coolers, or special vodkas).  But as a child of someone who firmly believed in the merits of Prohibition, I'm not mourning this particular lack in Virginian society.

Clayton Weighs in on the Emanuel Disaster Program, and Pigford

Chris Clayton relates the possible disaster program to make Lincoln happy to the failure to appropriate funds for the Pigford II case.

A Fairfax Green at the Recycle Dropoff

This morning my wife and I drove to the local dropoff point for recyclables, part of our Friday routine which also includes grocery shopping.  The place is set up as an "Y", with the bins for paper products on one arm, the bins for glass and plastic on the other arm, and the junction point is just wide enough for cars to come in, park, reverse, and go out.

When we arrived a young slender woman in a white car had backed up to the paper bins and was disposing of her paper. I parked further in; my wife dumped the paper and I dumped the bottles.  As I glanced in the mirror before backing to turn around, I saw the woman had now backed her car up to the glass/plastic bin and was disposing of her bottles.

The walking distance between her two parking places was no more than 25 yards.

The car was a Prius.

Fructose and Cancer

Respectful Insolence has much more than you'd ever want to know about biochemistry and fructose. He says the recent study on fructose, glucose and cancer cells is interesting, but should have no policy implications as of today.

Lincoln and Disaster

Farm Policy reports others share my doubts over the feasibility and legality of the adminstrative disaster payments proposed by Sen. Lincoln. 

Yesterday’s update added that, “Lincoln responded that it is not unusual for the executive branch to distribute such disaster aid without congressional action. ‘It’s been done before,’ she said. However, House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., told the press this week his staff is skeptical that USDA has a mechanism to fund the program.”

I think she's wrong and Peterson is right.  The only approach I can think of is to use the Commodity Credit Corporation approach, which is probably what Lincoln is thinking of, but it would be a big stretch to use it for Lincoln's proposal. But then, the lawyers in OGC (office of general counsel) have performed miracles before.

Obama In Trouble?

You know you're in political trouble when bureaucrats start worrying about your initiatives in case you're going to lose.

If Open Gov becomes too associated with Obama and he loses 2 years from now, Open Gov may suffer a serious setback. In fact, Open Gov could suffer as soon as the Congressional Midterms.

So what're you going to do about it? Well, it's time you starting thinking about Open Gov Backup Plans.