T-Boneheads

In the you-gotta-shitting-me news of the week, the White House has asked a federal court to prevent meatpackers from testing for mad cow disease more often. Why? 'Cause if they found a case of mad cow that might turn people off of steaks.

The AP says:

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration on Friday urged a federal appeals court to stop meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease, but a skeptical judge questioned whether the government has that authority.

The government seeks to reverse a lower court ruling that allowed Arkansas City, Kan.-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef to conduct more comprehensive testing to satisfy demand from overseas customers in Japan and elsewhere.

So Creekstone wants to do extra testing on its own to reassure customers' concerns. And the government says no way, you cannot do that:

Less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows are currently tested for the disease under Agriculture Department guidelines. The agency argues that more widespread testing does not guarantee food safety and could result in a false positive that scares consumers.

"They want to create false assurances," Justice Department attorney Eric Flesig-Greene told a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

But Creekstone attorney Russell Frye contended the Agriculture Department's regulations covering the treatment of domestic animals contain no prohibition against an individual company testing for mad cow disease, since the test is conducted only after a cow is slaughtered. He said the agency has no authority to prevent companies from using the test to reassure customers.

"This is the government telling the consumers, `You're not entitled to this information,'" Frye said.

What's going on here? Well, it turns out that other meatpackers are afraid that Creekstone's testing could become the norm for the industry. So they are leaning on the government to stop it:

Larger meatpackers have opposed Creekstone's push to allow wider testing out of fear that consumer pressure would force them to begin testing all animals too. Increased testing would raise the price of meat by a few cents per pound.

This stinks like fresh cow patties for a variety of reasons. If a private business wants to adopt safety measures over and above the federal regs that's their own business. The government should only be involved in setting minimums, not regulating every single aspect of the industry. It's pretty sleazy too how the whole industry is able to lean on the government to do its dirty work and bully one company that refuses to get in line.

And finally, as somebody for whom cheeseburgers are a staple of my diet, I would like to know if the next one will give me a crippling brain disease. I think that is somewhat more important than worrying about what the public reaction might be if there was a "false positive". Hey, feds, worry more about an actual infected cow slipping through the net.

N-Word Rises From Its Grave, Seeks Revenge Against Mayor Kilpatrick

Remember when America's favorite scandal-ridden mayor; who along with the NAACP buried the N-word in the summer of '07, complete with a funeral and eulogies? I sure do. At the time I thought burying a word was quite possibly the stupidest idea ever, especially when young black males are actually being buried at a rate 4-5x higher than their white peers. That small fact might point to real issues that directly affect the black community and need to be addressed, instead of symbolically burying a word for the mere purpose of grabbing a few headlines.

Well, it would seem Mayor Kilpatrick didn't bury the word soon enough. According to sordid text messages between Detroit's Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his mistress, (aka Chief of Staff) back in 2002-2003 Kilpatrick used the word nigger in -- what I'm sure he would call -- an affectionate manner in reference to his mistress Christine Beatty. From CBS News, discussing the recent release of damaging text messages that are at the heart of multiple scandals that have plagued the mayor, and now led to his indictment on a whole list of offenses including perjury.

The sometimes graphic excerpts include the frequent use of the N-word, or derivatives of it, as a term of endearment.

On Sept. 15, 2002, Beatty described a sex act she wanted to perform on the mayor but said she didn't know how to ask him to let her do it. He replied: "Next time, just tell me to sit down, shut up and do your thing!"

Later that month, the pair appeared to arrange a sexual encounter in Beatty's office. On Sept. 19, 2002, Beatty wrote to Kilpatrick: "I have wanted to hold you so badly all day, but I was trying to stay focused on work. So, I promise, not to keep you longer than 15 minutes."

Kilpatrick replied: "Don't promise (N-word.)"

Beatty said: "I'm in my office. Do you want me to come to yours or you coming to mine?"

Kilpatrick said: "I'm coming down there ... LOL ditto. Freaky Chris!"

I see your LOL Mayor, and raise you a LMAO...

Kilpatrick allegedly has lied under oath, illegally fired police officers as part of the cover-up, and misused city dollars. So there are a lot of more important matters at stake here than just the simple hypocrisy over the use of nigger, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't pay any attention to yet one more example of what seems to be part of a every politician's oath: Do as I say, not as I do.

Full story here. Comprehensive archive of the Mayor's scandal here.

It's Good Being a Former Senator

The road to riches is paved with public service:(sub required)

Less than four months after he left office, former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) has already scored a major payday downtown. The firm he founded with former Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) earned at least $945,000 during its first quarter in business, according to House filings.

Nice post Senatorial gig. Via David Freddoso.

And what will be Lott's and Breaux's first job? To help push through the Delta-Northwest merger. Atlanta Journal Constitution:

Among those lined up are two of the best known former lawmakers in the lobbying world — Trent Lott of Mississippi, who until recently was the second highest-ranking Republican senator, and his new lobbying partner, former Democratic Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana.

That might bring in a dollar or two for the dynamic lobbying duo.

Who Knew?

From the Washington Post, we have a winner most unsuprising news of the day:

Federal employees used government credit cards to pay for lingerie, gambling, iPods, Internet dating services, and a $13,000 steak-and-liquor dinner, according to a new audit from the Government Accountability Office, which found widespread abuses in a purchasing program meant to improve bureaucratic efficiency.[...]

In another case at the State Department, cardholder spent $360 at the Seduccion Boutique in Ecuador to buy "women's underwear/lingerie for use during jungle training by trainees of a drug enforcement program." The report does not include further details, but it says a State Department official "agreed that the charge was questionable."

"Jungle training"...I did some jungle training in Latin America before. Only it was in Mexico and involved a hooker. In Mexico City. So it wasn't really in the jungle per say. Nor was I doing any training. But it did involve drugs. Lots of peyote. So I'm pretty sure me and the DEA agents are on the same page.

Full article here.

The Fed Job Gravy Train

If you live in DC like I do you know that your friends employed by the US government unlike you leave work promptly at 5, get amazing health benefits, can have every other Friday off if they work 10-hour days and are looking forward to generous pensions and lifetime health insurance at the young age of 52.

What you might not know is that they are also earning 50% more than the average private sector worker. Traditionally, government jobs paid poorly and made up for it with benefits and security. They still have the benefits and security, but are also making a ton of money at the expense of taxpayers who foot the bill to afford government employees a lifetime of security that most taxpayers do not have plus huge annual salaries to boot.

States and Cities "Cut" Budgets While Still Increasing Spending

George Orwell, in his dystopian novel 1984, created the word "doublethink." To quote Orwell, doublethink is,

To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient.

The concept of doublethink in Orwell's invention of it applied to governments and is relevant to the states and municpalities who are telling the people they are making "painful cuts" to government spending while they are actually increasing spending and the tax burden in a difficult time.

Exhibit #1 Maryland: Governor O'Malley raised taxes $1.4BN to address the "structural deficit" (another Orwellian term) and made $500MM of "cuts." Yet the MD budget is increasing 5.9% in 2008.

Exhibit #2 New York City: Mayor Bloomberg has "cut" the city budget. A NYT article headlined "Bloomberg Plans Cuts for City Agencies" reads,

With an already dim fiscal picture turning darker, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Thursday proposed a budget that would increase spending by 3.7 percent but cut money from every city department, from sanitation to schools

The big conclusion here is that they are indeed cutting back every department but still are spending more money each year despite the cuts in services. The reason: out of market promises to union workers in terms of wage increases and retirement and health benefits. If you didn't like the real estate bubble, wait till this one comes home to roost.

Are All DC Workers Corrupt? It is Certainly Looking Like That

The Georgetown DMV is the latest District government agency to be found to be completely corrupt:

Law enforcement officers raided the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles branch in Georgetown on Wednesday, arresting one city employee and four other suspects on charges they set up a scheme to sell fake District driver’s licenses.

My assistant recently had a very hard time trying to renew my legitimate registration at that office. It entailed lots of phone calls, faxes and about three hours to get it done. I guess I should have just paid them off. In fact, the woman accused by the FBI was the woman who was my obstacle.

Mayor Adrian Fenty showed up for a news briefing at the scene. He deflected questions about whether the arrests were a further indication of widespread corruption among city employees. Instead, he said they were a sign that security safeguards were working.

DC employees are getting carted off in handcuffs in droves, stealing tax money and even funds dedicated to disabled children.

The DC city workforce might just be the most corrupt group of employees in a Western country.

How Hard is it to Get a Regular Mail Carrier?

USPS dysfunction can be shown by my personal experience. I routinely receive mail that does belong to me and sometimes find mail in my shrubs. In the past seven years I have had only one regular carrier for only a 9 month period.

The USPS is a total disaster. They literally cannot produce a mail carrier to do my route. The past several ones have been fired for not showing up or being late. I am getting used to having half of my mail being addressed to people who are not me and getting my mail at 6pm.

When I questioned the mail carrier who does the route once per week as to why we don't have a dedicated person for my route, the answer is: I could do this route, but if I do I make $2k less per year and that reduces my retirement benefit so why should I do this?

All of us who have no retirement benefits do not exactly love that comment. But it is real. So the mail of people who have no retirement benefits is getting screwed up by those who do.

Government Policies Caused the Mortgage Crisis. Do We Trust Them to Solve It?

The biggest factor that drove the housing bubble and subsequent mortgage industry collapse is the IRS code that allows for mortgage interest to be tax deductible. That policy also allows property owners to itemize deductions, which, without being a property owner, is a pretty hard thing to do.

So should we be surprised that so many Americans were trying desperately to be homeowners when the tax code puts renting at such an economic disadvantage? What is wrong with renting, anyway?

The Fed has proposed new tough laws on lending that will hurt consumers. I propose instead that mortgage brokers, who were the real bad players in this debacle, operate under a self-regulatory organization such as stock brokers do under NASD. Under NASD, brokers have a "suitability" requirement. I would prefer to see all options of loans available to the consumer with a bit more of responsibility on the part of the brokers.

Today's "Government Fails At Everything It Tries" Headline

From the Baltimore Sun's front page today:

Efforts to fix failing schools usually fail

Report on efforts of 3 Md. districts finds little improvement in decade of trying
--------

I had a good laugh with my morning coffee when I caught this headline....I'm guessing I was one of the few...

Story, aptly titled "Fixing schools usually fails", here.

Update: An editor friend at work points out to me that the Sun headline writer must have attended those very same failing Baltimore schools. "Fixing schools usually fails"? If they usually fail, then you haven't done much in the way of fixing them.

A Possible Change of Government in Myanmar

A New York Times story reports that protests against the authoritarian regime in Myanmar continue into the 8th day as Buddhist monks once again peacefully take to the streets. Why are their demonstrations succeeding? It’s the use of peaceful action. The government finds it to risky to brutally put down well organized pacifists, which could cause violent demonstrations by thousands more.

It is simple economics. The likelihood that an authoritarian regime will tolerate opposition increases as the costs of suppression increase. The cracks are beginning to form in Myanmar...

I Hope To the People is this Important

A spy in my humble opinion is a sign of status. You don’t matter if international spies aren’t monitoring your every move. This is one reason why I try not to leave my dark dwelling and constantly search my room or through my poo for surveillance bugs. So far nothing, but if I find something I will be sure to let everyone know.

The Washington Post reports that the Chinese government has employed 30,000 internet spies to censor electronic communications. Seems like you would need a billion people to effectively monitor that vastness of the internet, oh wait…

Pentagon Paid $998,798 to Ship Two 19-Cent Washers

That headline, from a Bloomberg.com article today, could be rephrased: "Four Average American Taxpayers' Life-time Income Tax Payments Will Fund the Shipping of Two 19-cent Washers."

We see so many stories about the government wasting taxpayer money that we get inured to what that really means in terms of our own individual contribution to the government's waste and inefficiency.

The Wa Post today had an article that detailed how the State Department's $5 billion in spending to remodel US embassies and build a new one in Iraq is a total disaster with tons of money spent on systems that don't work.

Q:How many taxpayers' lifetime income taxes does it take to fund a troubled $5 billion embassy building/rebuilding program?
A: 19,590.
Q: How about the Baghdad embassy alone?
A: 2,319.

Quant note and sources: The average US individual tax payment is $6,381 per year. I assumed 40 years of paying that amount to calculate the life-time earnings of an average taxpayer.

Government to Law-Abiding Citizens: Get Out

This weekend, the town of Stratford, Connecticut evicted residents of its Long Beach neighborhood. Long Beach is a skinny peninsula of land (originally an island, but connected to the mainland after the 1938 hurricane or, depending on the source, a storm in the 1960s) which juts westward along Long Island Sound into the adjacent city of Bridgeport. For decades the town had leased land on Long Beach to summer residents, who built and maintained cottages on the lots.

In June 1996, a fire destroyed the only man-made bridge leading from the mainland to Long Beach, limiting land access to a narrow, mile-long trail through the sugar sand of the dunes or along a rocky beach choked with huge drifts of seashells. Expressing an unwillingness to extend emergency services to what is effectively an island, the town refused to renew any of the leases and demanded the summer residents vacate. The residents fought the order, and for eleven years, kept returning every summer without paying rent or taxes:

After an 11-year legal battle with the town, the Bolicks and a dozen other families have been ordered to vacate their cottages by this weekend as the town takes possession of the 35-acre Long Beach peninsula.

The families — there were 60 at one time — held out hope for a last-minute reprieve from the courts, but that reprieve never came. After numerous legal appeals, the state Supreme Court affirmed the town's right to evict the cottage owners.

…

A month ago, eviction orders were issued for the remaining families still using cottages. They are expected to leave Friday and Saturday as their furniture and other belongings are loaded onto moving trucks being brought to the island by a military-type landing craft.

…

Several years ago, the federal government offered $3.9 million for the land. The cottage owners offered $5.8 million for the property, plus an additional $500,000 for purchase of emergency vehicles to be located on the peninsula.

But the Town Council decided at the time to hold onto the land and keep fighting in court.

Source here. More recent article and photos here.

All of this was a revelation for me since for years I've spotted the western end of Long Beach from I-95 and wondered what it was and how you got there. This morning my youngest research assistant and I took a walk through the dune grass and wild petunias to the cottages, where we had a look around and chatted up a few stragglers.

Both beach and trail are impassable to anything greater than a jog stroller or the most thick-thighed mountain biker; boats are the only practical way to bring in groceries. The neighborhood itself consists of 44 cottages, some well maintained, many possessing what could be termed "rustic charm," and several that appeared ready to collapse if I stared too hard. Most were boarded up and deserted; the rest were in the process thereof. Lines hanging from teetering poles supply electricity year-round, while a resident told me water was piped in from April 15 to October 15 (neither were cut during the legal battle). Propane and electricity powered the stoves and the occasional air-conditioner.

A nice breeze blew off the Sound. Piping plovers skittered on the beach and big fat cottontails munched beside the cracked, half-buried asphalt of the only street. Jolly Rogers hung from several flagpoles. Music boomed from within one boarded-up cottage and I couldn't decide if there was someone still inside or if the owner had pranked the Stratford government by sealing the building with a radio volume dialed to eleven.

There are signs everywhere stating the neighborhood is surveilled electronically but according to three Long Beachers I spoke to, local cops had been there the day before and were amazed — they didn't know it existed. The community never had police presence, the three said, and they supplied their own fire hoses and pumps.

So if the neighbors were willing to buy the land, pay taxes, and endure the difficulties of the place — including the lack of outside emergency service — why would the town lose money, I asked, by not renewing the leases or selling?

One of the three blamed Republicans; another thought some of the council members were jealous of their lifestyle. I shared my suspicion that a sort of Kelo v. New London was at work, with the rickety cottages to be swept away by beachfront condos and connected to the mainland by a new bridge built not by Bridgeport or Stratford but by the developer. They disagreed. During storms, the waters in the Sound and the inlet sometimes meet (all of the cottages are on pilings) and the town, they said, wouldn't dare endanger the bird sanctuary in the dunes. I remain unconvinced; the peninsula broadens at its western end, perfect for a cluster of high-revenue-yielding towers.

Long Beach is a ghost town for no discernible reason. As a lover of all photos ruinous, I'll take a trip back after a few more nor'easters have torn through, the grass has gone unmowed for a couple of summers, and the teenagers have had their run of the place.

Next Up: How To Use a Touch-Tone Phone

I don't know what's more disturbing. That the Washington Post actually dedicated space anywhere on their website for this story, or that these politicians that make substantive decisions for over 100,000 people can't figure out how to adjust the ringer on their Blackberry.

The Charles County commissioners this week boldly went where no commissioners have gone before: They learned how to use their new BlackBerrys.

[...]

Finally came the troubleshooting questions:

"I have a terrible time getting the ringer set right," Commissioners President Wayne Cooper (D-At Large) said. "In the holster, it vibrates twice and rings once."

That's an easy fix, Aldridge's staff assured him.

"My BlackBerry tends to have a mind of its own," Commissioner Edith J. Patterson (D-Pomfret) said. When it's in her purse, she explained, "It will call people! Is there a shield or something?"

[...]

Bocaner asked if any other commissioners -- the other four are men -- needed a purse cover.

"Only if it comes with a Coach purse," Commissioner Samuel N. Graves Jr. (D-La Plata) chimed in, saying he would give the handbag to his wife or one of his two daughters.

Wow. I should say I don't really have anything against any of this, the more time these jackasses spend in Blackberry classes the less time they have to raise property taxes or enact bans, pass laws, etc. Full story here.

The Elite of 2020: Public Sector Employees

At some point in the not-so-distant future, there will be social unrest when the first private sector generation without pensions starts to retire and realizes that they cannot afford to support via property and income taxes the sweet deals that governments made to public sector employees, who have generous pensions and lifetime health insurance benefits. To kill the argument that public sector employees make less money than their private sector peers, public sector employees make twice in total comp than they do, according to Cato's Chris Edwards.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis released data this month showing that the average compensation for the 1.8 million federal civilian workers in 2005 was $106,579 -- exactly twice the average compensation paid in the U.S. private sector: $53,289. If you consider wages without benefits, the average federal civilian worker earned $71,114, 62 percent more than the average private-sector worker, who made $43,917.

Some recent news examples of excess government largess that we do or will have to fund include:

-- Federal workers get a $105 per month public transit allowance. Some of them don't use the benefit and instead sell it in eBay for cash.

--Federal employees also often get free parking. In DC, a reserved downtown parking space on average costs $360 per month. The sting on the workers selling their Metrocards on eBay also found that many of those employees also had free parking.

-- Metro workers' pensions are based on their three highest-paying years, including overtime. Not surprisingly, they book a ton of overtime. The result:

Overtime has a significant impact on long-term costs because pensions are based on the total number of hours worked. As a result, some retirees receive pension checks bigger than the base pay they received while working.

One could go from municipality to state around this country and find that all jurisdictions are dealing with the issue of how to fund union contracts that guarantee benefits that are basically a redistribution of wealth from private sector employees, who have no pensions or health insurance, to public servants.

Unless this bomb is defused, taxes of all types will have to go up, way up, to fund unprecedented public sector benefits, just as the first generation of people without any benefits hits retirement.