Specifically, I object to 2 things.

1) Limited service pregnancy centers are unjustly singled out.  Comprehensive centers should be held to the same standard of medical information and service disclosure as limited centers.  If centers that do not offer abortions or abortion referrals will be required to disclose that upon the first contact with a person seeking services, then centers that do not offer adoption assistance or referrals should be required to disclose that information immediately as well.

2) Section 2 constitutes an incredible cost burden to agencies that are for the most part non-profit, and are supported solely by charitable donations.  Requiring a 30 point font on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper, on the door of the office, inside the office, on the agency’s website, and in any promotional materials represents a significant cost for organizations that often times already hang by a thread.

A more balanced law would prohibit the dissemination of false or misleading information, rather than requiring obtrusive disclosure of information that is in all likelihood obvious to women seeking services.  Let’s face reality, when a woman goes to a crisis pregnancy center, she is almost certainly aware that they do not provide abortions.  Furthermore, if the woman seeks an abortion, it’s a simple question that such an agency would answer “no” to.  This law would place an additional, unnecessary and unjust burden on those agencies (which again, are largely non-profit, charitable organizations) providing limited services.  The bottom line is that this law is less about protecting women and more about directing women toward clinics that offer abortion, at the expense of clinics that do not, when both have an entirely valid place in our communities.

If HB 2837 or SB 6452 reach the floor of your respective chambers, I urge you to move to amend it such that it will not single out limited service facilities, by including all clinics that are not primary care facilities, such as hospitals and doctors’ offices (shouldn’t comprehensive facilities be held to the same standard of medical accuracy and information privacy?), and to be prohibitive of false or misleading information as opposed to actively requiring disclosure in an obtrusive way.  If such amendments are not made, I urge you to vote “no” on the bill should it reach the floor.

Thank you for your time, and your representation.

Here’s the thing, if the executives don’t act with the best interest of the company at heart, they open themselves up to a class action lawsuit from the shareholders for failing in their fiduciary duty.  So why does the government need to involve itself, and where does the federal government get off telling a company how much they can pay their workers??

It’s based on the notion that these 7 companies took federal money as part of the TARP program, so therefore, the government can control the company.  The problem is that these stipulations weren’t in the TARP program.  The government made an agreement, and has gone back at least twice now, to change it after the fact, because they either don’t like the result, or want to do more.

I find the specter of governmental control of wages repugnant.  You may call me paranoid, but if this doesn’t bother you, I’d say you’re not paranoid enough.

There has been a lot of talk over the last couple months, but not a whole lot of action, hence my silence.  There’s been a lot of talk about health care reform, but no cohesive legislation for one to comment on (and I’d like to point out, no proposed legislation from the White House – just empty rhetoric).  There have more recently been developments around missile defense.  And of course, there’s always chatter about the economy.  As was coined during the Clinton administration, “it’s the economy, stupid”, but that’s a big enough subject, I’ll leave it for another day (plus, my position is pretty clear, I would think, given my past articles).

What I want to touch on today, however is the National Endowment for the Arts.  The NEA is a federally funded agency “dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education.” [link]

According to CNSNews, some Republicans in the House have raised an eyebrow to the content of a conference call the White House, NEA and Corporation for National and Community Service held last month.  Apparently, during the call, Yosi Sergant, Director of Communications at the NEA said some thing which could be construed as coercive.  According to federal law, it is illegal for federal funds to be spent encouraging people to support or oppose political agenda items, so the raised eyebrow may not be unwarranted.

Here are some quotes:

…help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and the environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.

I would encourage you to pick something, whether it’s health care, education, the environment, you know, there’s four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service.

Take photos. Take videos. Post it on your blogs. Get the word out. Like I said, this is a community that knows how to make a stink.

Now, I may be reading too much into this, and I’m probably allowing my personal bias through, but I wonder how enthusiastically the NEA would support an artist who wanted a grant to make something that protested health care reform.  Sergant never explicitly encouraged artists to make things that support the White House’s agenda, but it’s not much of a stretch to pick out a bit of a subtext.

Based on the 3rd quote, it seems pretty clear that Sergant wants artists to “make a stink.”  The question comes down to whether or not he wants artists that do not support the White House’s agenda to make as much of a stink as those who do.

Given the demographics of those in the “art community”, it may be a reasonably fair comparison to compare Sergant’s statements to someone encouraging KKK members to “make a stink” about race relations.  You may not explicitly encourage them to go lynch people, but the reality is that plausible deniability only goes so far.

The Communications Director of a federally funded agency that gives monetary grants to artists encourages artists (who I would contend have a predilection toward more liberal viewpoints) to “get the word out” about one of the “key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service.”  It doesn’t take a paranoid mind to see through the veil.  If I were an artist, I could very reasonably think that if I create something that goes “get the word out,” that perhaps my chances of receiving a grant would increase.

Again, none of this was explicitly said in the conference call, but few things in politics are.  It’s all about being able to discern the subtext.  To read between the lines.  I’d love to know why Sergant has been removed from the position of Communications Director since then.  Perhaps to give the administration deniability?  No, politicians would never do that…would they?

I may be biased, but it sure looks to me like the NEA was trying to get people to make art about policy issues, knowing the demographically, most of them would create art that supports the White House’s agenda.  If that’s the case, it may well be illegal.

Of course, if I want to be fair, Occam’s Razor could apply.  It could be that Sergant has a personal bias, that he allowed to shine through during that conference call, and it could be that he was removed from his position for it, or for some completely unrelated reason. Both the White House and the NEA said that Sergant had acted improperly, after all.  However, I have to wonder if it’s case where they’re sorry it happened, or whether they’re just sorry he got caught.  There does come a point, when there are enough isolated incidents, enough circumstantial evidence, that discussing the tree is pointless in light of the forest before you.

I was on my way home this afternoon, on Lincoln Rd just outside Poulsbo, sitting behind a little hatchback that was moving slower than I would have liked. (map)

The road was straight, visibility was good, I had a dashed yellow line, and all the room in the world to pass the little hatchback.  I accelerated, signaled, moved into the oncoming lane, and began to overtake him.  As I was overtaking, a small SUV approached the road from the left.  He had a stop sign, which he more or less obeyed, then proceeded to turn right, directly into my path.  To avoid a nasty head on collision, I stomped on my brakes and quickly moved back into the right-hand lane, behind the hatchback, at which point the driver of the small SUV honked his horn and threw his arms up in the air, as if to say “what in the hell is wrong with you?!”

My response: LOOK BOTH WAYS!!

I saw the SUV driver quite clearly when he got to the stop sign.  His head never even faced my direction.

When turning right, you MUST look both ways.  For all you know, a pedestrian or bicyclist could be crossing the street on your right, or could be approaching from the right, to cross in front of you.  If you don’t look, you could run into them.  In this particular instance, by not looking both ways, the SUV driver positioned himself for a head-on collision.  On page 41, the Washington State Driver’s Guide says the following:

Drivers entering a road from a driveway, alley, parking lot, or roadside must yield to vehicles already on the main road.

This does not specifically mention drivers entering a road from a side-street, but the principle is the same.  On a two lane road, you have no idea if a driver to your right is overtaking a slower driver, and is therefore in your intended lane of travel.  As that vehicle is already on the main road, you, being the vehicle on the side-street must yield the right-of-way to vehicles already on the main road.

Overtaking on a two lane road is never completely safe, but I was in a legal passing zone, with plenty of lane space.  He’s the idiot that didn’t look both ways.  This SUV driver put us both in harm’s way, then acted as if I was the one who did something wrong.

Get a clue, buddy.

During her 18-minute speech, she bounced all over the place, which I can only assume was at least partially due to being visibly nervous about the announcement.

On the one hand, she talked about the vicious scrutiny with which many people looked at her family.  On the other, she was hitting all the touchstones as if she was trying to lay a foundation for a Presidential run.  The reality is this, if you quit your job for reasons that even look dubious, you’re going to have a hard time getting a new one.  What if Palin did run for President?  She’d lose in the primary when her Republican opponents would throw down the “you couldn’t even handle it during your first term as a Governnor; what makes you think you can handle the Presidency” card.  And they’d be right to do so.

The reality is that, right or wrong, when you’re a public figure, you are under scrutiny.  Now, my readers know what I think about how harsh the media was to Palin, while glossing over Obama’s faults, but that’s not really the point.  The point is that when you’re the Governor of a state, you will be subject to scrutiny.  If she runs for President, she’ll lose in the primaries.  If the Republican party chooses her to run against Obama, they will guarantee him a second term.

Having said all that, part of me is glad she’s stepping down, even if only for her family’s sake.  Hopefully, the Palins will just get left alone at this point…

As much as I want to think this is all part of some brilliant plan where Palin rises from the ashes like a phoenix, it’s just not feasible.  I’m sorry to say it, but her political career is over.  Time to make the rounds on the lecture circuit, maybe?  We already know she fills rooms more readily than Joe Biden, so maybe there’s an opportunity there?

I’d go see it.

This whole hyphenated-American nonsense has gone so far over the top, it’s laughable.  There have been numerous cases where, in their zeal for “political correctness,” media outlets have actually mis-reported the facts.

• In the 1980s, an interviewer asked British hurdler Kriss Akabusi “what does this mean to you as an African-American?”, to which he responded “I’m not African, I’m not American, I’m British.”  The interviewer couldn’t grasp what he meant.
• Another instance was recorded, where the leader of an African country was referred to as African-American
• Within the last few years, a newspaper article was published where a black British man was identified as African-American.

The media are so afraid of offending black people, that they don’t call them black.  They’re African-American, even if they’re not American at all.  The term African-American is such a sacred cow, that now, a white man, who is genuinely African-American (born in Mozambique, immigrated to the U.S.) gets harassed for stating facts about his ethnic and cultural background.

Paulo Serodio is more African-American than Jesse James, Al Sharpton, Barack Obama, or pretty much any other outspoken black person I can think of, and yet, he’s been ostracized for it, because according to the idiotic decree of political correctness, all black people are African-Americans, and all African-Americans are black.

Teddy Roosevelt said in 1915:

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all… The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic… There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

Woodrow Wilson said:

Any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready.

I’m not Irish-American, English-American, Scottish-American, Dutch-American, German-American, and French-American any more than most black people in this country are African-American, so why do hyphenated-Americans have such a hard time being simply “American”?  I understand wanting to hold onto your ancestors’ culture, and I do think that knowing about our ancestry is an important part of knowing ourselves, but if hyphenation makes someone feel “closer to their roots,” they have got to be one of the most superficial people on the face of the earth.

Get on board with THIS country, people.  You’re either 100% American, or you’re 0% American.  Make a decision.

What follows is my train of thought on this subject.  I’m particularly interested in my readers’ feedback on this one, so please email me with your comments at .

While I disapprove of discrimination based on any unlawful means, I’m not certain if I think this is a discrimination issue.  Simply put, the market for jobs is fundamentally the same as the market for any other good or service.  An individual places a certain value on their time and skills, and an employer places a certain value on having certain tasks completed.  While “equal pay for equal work” is a catchy slogan, if you believe in the efficiency of markets, then you can’t accept that idea.

Two people hired to do the same job only makes one side of the market equal between the people.  It means that the company is, in theory, willing to pay the same amount for each person.  There is still the other side of the equation to consider, however.  If one person is willing to do the work for less, then according to market principles, they can, should, and generally will be paid less.

While a company may be willing to pay $50,000 for an employee, if the employee is willing to accept $42,000, then the employer has no reason to pay the employee more.  There is a bit of a snag though.  If there is one available position, and two people with identical qualifications apply for it, and one is willing to accept less money, then in theory, the person willing to accept less money should be the one the company hires.  If that were actually the case, however, wages would tend to even out as people who value their time comparatively higher than their competition would be forced to lower their expectations in order to get hired.  So, how can the disparity be explained?

I call this explanation “implied quality”.  If two people with identical qualifications are hired to perform the same job, at the same time “equal pay for equal work” suggests that they should be paid the same amount, but at least some of the time, the more expensive employee will be hired over their less expensive counterpart.  If the market is operating efficiently, then the only explanation is that something differentiates the employees, besides their qualifications.

Consider this example: I’m at the store looking for a new webcam.  I see two webcams that display identical techncal specs on the box, but one is $25 and one is $50.  As a consumer, I’ll probably buy the $50 webcam, particularly if other webcams are also in the $50 range, because the question is worth asking, “why is this particular webcam being offered at a discount?”.

Likewise, when two employees vying for the same position are willing to sell their time to a company for different rates, there may be some tendency for an employer to favor a more expensive employee, based on an assumption that there are elements not “printed on the box” that make the more expensive employee worth more.

I don’t approve of unlawful discrimination, but I also don’t approve of only looking at one side of the labor market to decide that two employees should be paid the same amount.

What do you think?  Please email me at with your thoughts!

I agree with Rep. Tiahrt.  When guns are more difficult to legally acquire, law abiding citizens are more deterred from purchasing a gun than criminals.

A person’s willingness to pay for a gun is a function of two key variables:

1. Their desire to control a violent confrontation.
2. Their likelihood that they will find themselves in a violent confrontation.

I make the assumption that all people want to be in control of a hostile situation, so variable 1 is effectively constant for both criminals and potential victims.  As a criminal, I want to control the situation, so I can rob someone.  As a victim, I want to control the situation, to prevent my property from being stolen, and to protect myself from bodily harm.

That being the case, the variable to consider when evaluating a person’s desire to acquire a gun is their relative likelihood of being in a hostile encounter.  I argue that a criminal is more likely to be in a hostile encounter — they seek it out, in fact.  A potential victim is only as likely to find themselves in a hostile encounter as their local crime rate.

So if a criminal is more likely to be in a hostile encounter, then a gun is more valuable to a criminal.  The more value a person places on a gun, the higher price they are willing to pay to acquire one, and the greater hassle they are willing to endure.

Whenever the government imposes regulations, they inhibit that particular market from operating at optimal efficiency, which generally increases the cost of the end product.  More specifically, a mandatory 7-day waiting period to buy a gun, concealed weapons permit fees, and trigger lock laws increase the hassle that a law-abiding citizen must endure and the price they must pay in order to purchase, own, and carry a gun.  This causes less law-abiding citizens to be willing to go through the hassle, so less law-abiding citizens carry.

Criminals on the other hand place a higher value on the gun, so they are already more willing to endure higher prices and greater hassles.  Add to this that a criminal is less likely to buy their gun from a licensed seller, less likely to have a concealed weapons permit, and in general less likely to care about following gun control laws, and the result is that criminals are less likely to be impacted by government regulation, and will be impacted to a lesser degree than law-abiding citizens.

What this means is that increased government regulation of guns means that the scales are tipped further in favor of criminals.  The phrase “if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns” is to say that outlawing guns only stops people who follow the law from having them, so all that is accomplished is that the people who are armed are already predisposed to breaking the law.

Rather than trying to make us safer by making it harder for responsible people to have guns, I propose that we would be safer with less or no government regulation.  Specifically, consider the effect of repealing the law requiring citizens to carry a concealed weapons permit in order to carry a gun on their person.  If it is easier to carry a gun without breaking the law, more people will carry guns.  This means that when a criminal is selecting a victim, he is less certain that the would-be victim is unarmed, which makes the criminal less likely to engage the would-be victim.

Also when something happens like the Virginia Tech shootings, if students were allowed to carry their guns on campus, perhaps someone could have stopped the gunman before he had killed so many (or any) people.  There is a reason most criminals won’t try to rob a gun store full of customers in the same way that they’ll rob a bank while it’s full of people.  (by the way, in most states, it’s illegal to carry a gun into a bank, so it’s an easy target for a criminal)  Maybe I’m biased, but it seems to me that a room full of gun-toting people is a more effective deterrent to criminals than a room full of security cameras.

That’s one example of how decreased government regulation can make us safer, but anything that makes it easier to lawfully buy and carry a gun helps even the odds between criminals and potential victims.  If everyone is carrying, then everyone is on even footing, and no criminal in his right mind would try to attack someone.

That still leaves room for criminals that are crazy, but I’d prefer crazy criminals (who will exist regardless) to insane gun control policies.

H1N1 Flu Facts: http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/

• Confirmed cases of H1N1 Flu in the U.S.: 403 (as of 11:00 am ET, May 5, 2009)
• Deaths related to H1N1 Flu in the U.S.: 1 (as of 11:00 am ET, May 5, 2009)

Common Flu Facts: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/disease.htm

• Approximate cases of Flu in the U.S. each year: 5-20% of the population (15,000,000-60,000,000)
• Approximate Flu-related hospitalizations in the U.S. each year: 200,000
• Approximate Flu-related deaths in the U.S. each year: 36,000

That’s right, there are 98 times as many common flu deaths each year than there are H1N1 flu infections now.

I think it’s time the media stop making a big deal over this, because it’s not.

And neither was Avian Flu, West Nile Virus, SARS, or Mad Cow Disease.

Relax!

According to a press release from the Washington State Office of Financial Management (OFM), projected state revenue for the 2007-09 biennium is $27.89 billion.  The current revenue projection for the 2009-11 biennium is $27.95 billion.  The state forecasts increased revenue for the state in the upcoming budget period, over the current period, and yet, all we’ve been hearing is talk about deficits and shortfalls and the decreasing distance between the earth and the sky.

I have one question: If you make the same income this year as you did last, then how is it possible for you to have a budget shortfall?

Answer: When you want to spend more money than you receive.

In mid-November, the number reported by the Seattle PI for the projected budget deficit for the 2009-11 biennium was $5.1 billion.  But if the projected income between this budget cycle and the next is basically the same, then the only way to have a deficit of $5.1 billion is if the state wants to spend more than they’re projected to take in.  A lot more.

According to a story on Crosscut.com, the state auditor made specific recommendations that, if implemented, would save the state $4.1 billion in costs over the next 5 years.  Assuming that savings is accrued uniformly over those 5 years, then the state could save $1.64 billion in the 2009-11 budget cycle.

The Washington Policy Center blog has a transcript of State Auditor Brian Sonntag’s tesimony before the Senate Ways and Means Committe, which I will quote here:

Certainly, this budget period is extraordinarily difficult. I respect and value the responsibilities you have and the tough decisions you must make.

I recognize that our Office along with every other state agency must share in the pain of those decisions.

But the budget you have proposed goes beyond funding reductions or a one-time sweep of our cash balance. To take more than half of the revenue that voters permanently designated for performance audits and use it to fund other programs undercuts the performance audit authority that citizens directly gave to their independent State Auditor.

That change contained in Section 927 of the budget and the precedent it sets is absolutely unacceptable.

It is unacceptable to me. It is unacceptable to citizens who in such a time as this look to us more than ever to ensure that government is accountable and transparent. They recognize this Office is uniquely positioned to be part of the reform the governance change that everybody talks about and wants.

According to the blog entry, the committee had no questions for Mr. Sonntag.  Also, according to Mr. Sonntag’s testimony, the ratio of savings that the auditor’s office recommendations would realize vs the cost to perform the audits is ten to one.  That’s an incredible margin.  Deep cuts into the auditor’s office seems a bit like cutting the high school football program before the swimming team.  (generally the football program is the only athletic program at a school that generates positive net revenue)

Also in the Crosscut.com story linked above, it’s reported that when California performed the same kind of state performance review that Sonntag has been commissioned by the Governor to perform, the recommendations would save $32 billion over 5 years, which I’ll wager is significantly more than the California auditor’s budget.  The point is that it doesn’t make sense to reduce the ability of the auditor’s office to make recommendations that would save more than the office’s entire budget.

The state budget isn’t so much a belt-tightening, as Olympia would love for us to think.  It’s more a lack of belt-loosening.  I get that some costs increase year after year, regardless of income.  Providing medical insurance to state employees gets more and more expensive every year, and the state has no control over that.  However, there are all kinds of ways to cut costs without hurting things like schools.

To go on a little tangent here, a not insignificant portion of the proposed 2009-11 budget includes capital improvements, and a good deal of those capital improvements are in public schools.  While I support the idea that we need modern schools, I wonder if it really makes sense to build and renovate more schools while laying off the teachers that would work in them.

I don’t envy our legislatures on this one, because if I agree with Chris Gregoire on anything, it’s when she wrote the following in the introduction to her budget:

A wise man once told me that I needed to love my budget since I was going to be spending so much time on it. There is no way I can love this budget. We have to give up or shrink too much. There is something for everyone to not like in this budget.

I’m not entirely certain what the right answer is on this one, here are some thoughts:

• Implement the auditor’s recommendations (and don’t slash his budget!)
• Cut subsidies for in-home care in favor of institutionalizing folks, where it’s less expensive to care for them
• Get tougher with welfare benefits which, without proper enforcement, provides an incentive to do nothing
• Offer parents a voucher for a portion of the per pupil cost of public school to help defray the cost of sending their kids to private school, thereby decreasing education costs for the state, which would ultimately result in more money being available to public schools, so that maybe we wouldn’t have to lay off teachers.  (At the risk of being seen as pandering to a specific audience, shouldn’t any layoffs be based on merit/performance, rather than seniority?)

All in all, I admit it’s a bad situation, but it’s not nearly as bad as Olympia wants us to believe, and there are real solutions that for one reason or another, the legislature refuses to implement.  If government expenditure is to grow, it needs to grow at a sustainable rate, rather than grossly outpacing revenue growth.  The State of Washington can’t print money like the Feds can, so we have to budget wisely, and in the good years, we need to plan for the bad.  When we emerge from this rough patch, I hope we learn from our mistakes.

^Z