Werthless wrote: Acknowledgment and acceptance by our highest public figure (Obama) of this conclusion, that some laws can be broken, is terrible policy BECAUSE of the consequences it will produce in the citizenry's mental accounting. With each law that the government agrees to ignore, the larger the logic behind "I'm an American citizen, and it is moral to obey the law because the law is just" is eroded.

kruker wrote:Bjorn Lomborg Op-Ed: "Don’t Waste Time Cutting Emissions"

I love Lomborg.

The Copenhagen agreement should instead call for every country to spend one-twentieth of a percent of its gross domestic product on low-carbon energy research and development. That would increase the amount of such spending 15-fold to $30 billion, yet the total cost would be only a sixth of the estimated $180 billion worth of lost growth that would result from the Kyoto restrictions.

Economic estimates that assign value to the long-term benefits that would come from reducing warming — things like fewer deaths from heat and less flooding — show that every dollar invested in quickly making low-carbon energy cheaper can do $16 worth of good.

The action is intended to combat child obesity by reducing the number of shops selling unhealthy fast food near schools and parks.
...
'They told us that it's because we are too near a school, but this street is full of takeaways selling fish and chips and burgers.
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'But all we are doing is selling good food. It's not even unhealthy. We sell Jamaican-style rice and peas, and jerk chicken.

Werthless wrote:Fast food police: Caribbean takeaway closed down for opening too close to schools

The action is intended to combat child obesity by reducing the number of shops selling unhealthy fast food near schools and parks.
...
'They told us that it's because we are too near a school, but this street is full of takeaways selling fish and chips and burgers.
...
'But all we are doing is selling good food. It's not even unhealthy. We sell Jamaican-style rice and peas, and jerk chicken.

Not my work:

At 10am eight police officers, some in anti-stab vests, joined three council employees on the doorstep of the Bamboo Joint takeaway.
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The Metropolitan Police was unable to explain why it had such a strong presence in the raid.

dajafi wrote:This was interesting:

McCain's first hundred days

Seems pretty on the nose to me.

We demand that the government strive to provide citizens with adequate opportunity for employment and earning a living. The activities of the individual must not be allowed to clash with the interests of the community, but must take place within its confines and be for the good of all.

Therefore, we demand an end to the power of the financial interests. We demand profit sharing in big business. We demand a broad extension of care for the aged. We demand the greatest possible consideration of small business in the purchases of national, state, and municipal governments.

In order to make possible to every capable and industrious [citizen] the attainment of higher education and thus the achievement of a post of leadership, the government must provide an all-around enlargement of our entire system of public education. We demand the education at government expense of gifted children of poor parents. The government must undertake the improvement of public health - by protecting mother and child, by prohibiting child labor, by the greatest possible support for all clubs concerned with the physical education of youth.

We combat the materialistic spirit within and without us, and are convinced that a permanent recovery of our country can only proceed from within on the foundation of the common good before the individual good.

In November 2008, less than one week after winning the votes of city dwellers by a margin of 28 points, President-elect Barack Obama announced he would reward them by creating the first-ever “White House Office of Urban Policy.” Like other new aspects of Obama’s executive branch, appointing a city czar was intended to fast-track communications among city governments, federal agencies and the White House. With great fanfare, Obama dispatched his friend and fellow Chicagoan Valerie Jarrett to tell America that he was making good on his campaign pledge to “stop seeing cities as the problem and start seeing them as the solution.”
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But celebrations about the potential triumph of urban policy may be premature. In recent weeks, the Obama administration has begun referring to the office as “urban affairs,” rather than “urban policy,” a small but notable downgrade. And while other offices and Cabinet agencies have been staffing up—the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships has representation in 12 government agencies—100 days in, urban affairs has announced only two senior staffers: Derek Douglas, who was special adviser to New York Gov. David Paterson, and former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, Jr., who faces allegations of mismanaging campaign donations and development projects in New York City.
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But while Urban Affairs has grand ambitions, it is operating as part of a complex bureaucracy that makes its real influence hard to observe. Douglas has an appointment in the Domestic Policy Council, but the office itself is not part of the council. Carrion works outside of the policy shop, under Jarrett, but primarily as a liaison to local governments. The office’s key issues span nearly a dozen agencies—among them, Transportation, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Environmental Protection, even Homeland Security—agencies already hard at work on the problems facing urban America. The faith office is connecting [6] many urban communities of color with resources. The Domestic Policy Council’s Office of Mobility deals with poverty, and its Office of Opportunity and Social Innovation deals with private-sector investment. Moreover, Obama’s Cabinet is full of city dwellers with big ideas of their own, from Education Secretary Arne Duncan, to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, to Nancy Sutley, former deputy mayor of Los Angeles and head of the Council on Environmental Quality. So while the mandate of Urban Affairs includes “breaking down the traditional jurisdictional boundaries,” according to Douglas, its regulatory authority appears as limited as its challenges are great.

The office faces challenges aside from Beltway bureaucracy—namely coordination on a national scale. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has lobbied repeatedly—and “unsuccessfully,” he said last week—for Recovery Act funding to bypass governors and statehouses and go directly to city officials better attuned to constituent needs. Twenty-five mayors, including Bloomberg, have sent a letter to the president asking for a federal “Urban Innovation Fund” that would strategically invest and rigorously evaluate outcomes when it comes to urban policy. But there has been no indication that the White House or the office will lobby for more city-friendly appropriations; in fact, Recovery Act negotiations stripped $40 billion in aid that would have directly helped city budgets. And, when asked about the mayors’ letter, Douglas said that the two-person leadership team “is tossing around” a similar idea but is not working with the group.

Another part of the problem, some suspect, may be the experience level of Carrion, the director of the office. A former teacher with a record of general success in the Bronx—including a commitment to green building in low-income neighborhoods—Carrion is still essentially a local politician, now tasked with a massive nationwide renovation. While his deputy worked on federal policy for Paterson, this is Carrion’s first foray into national administration. “[He] doesn’t have a lot of experience in dealing with federal policy,” says Lind. “How could you give somebody like Adolfo Carrion control over, say the transportation laws in Milwaukee? It’s a hard leap to make.” Despite the campaign funding allegations (the White House declined to comment on the controversy, and requests to interview Carrion for this article were denied), Carrion beat out other, higher-profile officials whose names were floated for the position, including Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin; L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; and Brookings Institution scholar Bruce Katz, who is now working as a senior adviser to HUD. Picking a “celebrity” to run the office might have inspired more confidence that it will make a difference to urban America.

Werthless wrote:What do people think of this as a platform for reform?

We demand that the government strive to provide citizens with adequate opportunity for employment and earning a living. The activities of the individual must not be allowed to clash with the interests of the community, but must take place within its confines and be for the good of all.

Therefore, we demand an end to the power of the financial interests. We demand profit sharing in big business. We demand a broad extension of care for the aged. We demand the greatest possible consideration of small business in the purchases of national, state, and municipal governments.

In order to make possible to every capable and industrious [citizen] the attainment of higher education and thus the achievement of a post of leadership, the government must provide an all-around enlargement of our entire system of public education. We demand the education at government expense of gifted children of poor parents. The government must undertake the improvement of public health - by protecting mother and child, by prohibiting child labor, by the greatest possible support for all clubs concerned with the physical education of youth.

We combat the materialistic spirit within and without us, and are convinced that a permanent recovery of our country can only proceed from within on the foundation of the common good before the individual good.

Werthless wrote:What do people think of this as a platform for reform?

We demand that the government strive to provide citizens with adequate opportunity for employment and earning a living. The activities of the individual must not be allowed to clash with the interests of the community, but must take place within its confines and be for the good of all.

Therefore, we demand an end to the power of the financial interests. We demand profit sharing in big business. We demand a broad extension of care for the aged. We demand the greatest possible consideration of small business in the purchases of national, state, and municipal governments.

In order to make possible to every capable and industrious [citizen] the attainment of higher education and thus the achievement of a post of leadership, the government must provide an all-around enlargement of our entire system of public education. We demand the education at government expense of gifted children of poor parents. The government must undertake the improvement of public health - by protecting mother and child, by prohibiting child labor, by the greatest possible support for all clubs concerned with the physical education of youth.

We combat the materialistic spirit within and without us, and are convinced that a permanent recovery of our country can only proceed from within on the foundation of the common good before the individual good.

dajafi wrote:

Werthless wrote:What do people think of this as a platform for reform?

We demand that the government strive to provide citizens with adequate opportunity for employment and earning a living. The activities of the individual must not be allowed to clash with the interests of the community, but must take place within its confines and be for the good of all.

Therefore, we demand an end to the power of the financial interests. We demand profit sharing in big business. We demand a broad extension of care for the aged. We demand the greatest possible consideration of small business in the purchases of national, state, and municipal governments.

In order to make possible to every capable and industrious [citizen] the attainment of higher education and thus the achievement of a post of leadership, the government must provide an all-around enlargement of our entire system of public education. We demand the education at government expense of gifted children of poor parents. The government must undertake the improvement of public health - by protecting mother and child, by prohibiting child labor, by the greatest possible support for all clubs concerned with the physical education of youth.

We combat the materialistic spirit within and without us, and are convinced that a permanent recovery of our country can only proceed from within on the foundation of the common good before the individual good.

Tonally it reminds me of the college socialists I liked to make fun of 15 years ago. It's so self-righteous and proudly ignorant of or oblivious to societal norms (if poor parents of gifted children don't want them "educated at government expense," should the state forcibly seize them?) that whoever wrote this presumably explodes upon contact with reality.

It's almost difficult to take this seriously ("the materialistic spirit"? really?), but if I'm trying to do so, I guess the response is that the flavor of reform I prefer gets us closer to equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. To me that means primarily getting public education right, an endeavor in which we all have a stake regardless of partisan or ideological leanings. Problem is that those considerations often weigh so heavily on which specific reforms one prefers.

I do like the little note about "the greatest possible consideration of small business in the purchases of national, state, and municipal governments." (Though I'm not at all sure I'd agree in every case--some small businesses are inept, or run by crooks, or simply inclined to bid at an absurdly high number.) Government procurement is something I've had to learn a bit about recently for a project, and it's pretty important though largely overlooked subject.

An Air Force One lookalike, the backup plane for the one regularly used by the president, flew low over parts of New York and New Jersey on Monday morning, accompanied by two F-16 fighters, so Air Force photographers could take pictures high above the New York harbor.
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Unaware of the planned exercise, scores of office workers flooded out of buildings, worried about the prospect of terrorism.

“People came pouring out of the buildings, the American Express Building, all the buildings in the financial district by the water,” said Edward Acker, a photographer who was at the building, 3 World Financial Center. “And even the construction guys over by 100 North End Avenue area, they all got out of their buildings. Nobody knew about it. Finally some guy showed up with a little megaphone to tell everyone it was a test, but the people were not happy. The people who were here 9/11 were not happy.”

Mr. Acker added: “New York City police were standing right there and they had no knowledge of it. The evacuations were spontaneous. Guys from the floor came out, and one guy I talked to was just shaking.”

Werthless wrote:Oops

An Air Force One lookalike, the backup plane for the one regularly used by the president, flew low over parts of New York and New Jersey on Monday morning, accompanied by two F-16 fighters, so Air Force photographers could take pictures high above the New York harbor.
...
Unaware of the planned exercise, scores of office workers flooded out of buildings, worried about the prospect of terrorism.

“People came pouring out of the buildings, the American Express Building, all the buildings in the financial district by the water,” said Edward Acker, a photographer who was at the building, 3 World Financial Center. “And even the construction guys over by 100 North End Avenue area, they all got out of their buildings. Nobody knew about it. Finally some guy showed up with a little megaphone to tell everyone it was a test, but the people were not happy. The people who were here 9/11 were not happy.”

Mr. Acker added: “New York City police were standing right there and they had no knowledge of it. The evacuations were spontaneous. Guys from the floor came out, and one guy I talked to was just shaking.”

This seems like a bad idea for a photo op.

Even if I weren't a conservative, today's NYC low-flying plane fiasco would remind me of all of government's flaws - something unnecessary (a photo op) executed incompetently (no one informed the public) with an unbelievably blind eye to obvious issues (potential panic from a low-flying jetliner, trailed by an F-16, flying over lower Manhattan). Now all I need to hear is that the exercise went over budget.