Oregon's Plan to Banish Your Beer Belly
As much as Sarah Palin used to talk about her affinity with "Joe Six-Pack", the fact is that Alaska had the nation's highest beer tax. Until now.
[As an aside, my MIS students at the University of Houston had colorful ways of referencing my exams. One student complained that taking one of my exams was like having a lobotomy. But one of my favorites was when a group of students told me how they rated my exams: by how many beers it took to forget them.]
Oregon's Democrats have found a way to pay for the budget they raised by over 25% last year, according to the Wall Street Journal: they're considering raising the beer tax from under $3 to over $52/barrel. Now isn't that a fair way to balance a budget deficit--by hitting up the average joe stopping by the bar for a cold one on his way home from a hard day's work? But maybe those wily Democrats are onto something: the average joe is going to have to drink a lot of beers to forget that 1900% increase in tax.
Two Victories for Common Sense
Spain's Attorney General Candido Conde-Pumpido Thursday criticized and opposed the prosecution of former Bush Administration officials in Spain, based on a human rights group's filing under activist Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzon, widely known for his efforts to go after former Chilean dictator Pinochet. The attorney general said that this matter was best left to the American legal system and should focus on parties directly involved in alleged acts of torture. Whereas this does not necessarily put the matter to rest, it does rightly note the primacy of the American legal system in addressing this issue, and it does recognize the chilling effect such a prosecution would have on legal advisors giving candid advice to a chief executive.
I have previously expressed support for Obama's observation, in reaction to the Angry Left's demands that the Obama Administration criminalize political differences of opinion with the Bush Administration, that "nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past". Attorney General Holder made the right call in concluding that it's "unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department."
I do agree with former CIA director Hayden and Attorney General Mukasey, in Friday's Wall Street Journal column, that Obama was ill-advised to release various memoes and to tie the hands of interrogators to techniques discussed under the Army field manual: i.e., "the point of interrogation is intelligence, not confession." Let's put this in terms most Americans would understand: how many games of poker would you win if you showed everyone the hand you're playing, but your opponents continued to hide their own?
The Angry Left is going off the deep end, complaining Obama's measured decision undoes the good done by the Nuremberg trials. They have their priorities completely backwards. The persons best compared to Nazi war criminals are the international murderers whom targeted innocent civilians as in 9/11, not the patriots doing whatever it takes to get the intelligence on upcoming operations they need from high-value targets like Khalid Mohammed. We already know what people like Khalid Mohammed think about human rights and international treaties.
More on the Congress' Ill-Advised Lead Content Law
Dr. Beck commented on the Wall Street Journal's April 3 "Toys R Congress" editorial, which I cited in a previous post. (The lead content law has been enforced to eliminate several child-oriented goods, including motorbikes, from the marketplace.) "Our study [based on a US EPA model] found a child's intake of lead from riding an ATV or motorbike would be less than the typical intake of lead in food or drinking water, and would have no measurable impact on blood lead levels."
She continues, "The results of our study show the fundamental flaw with the product safety law passed by Congress last year. The law does not allow a risk-based approach to determine compliance or to support exclusions from the lead standard...If exposures to lead, or any other chemical, are very low, there will be no health effects. This point is particularly significant when applied to lead, because lead is naturally-occurring and can be found in air, water and soil, even in the absence of human activities."
Is it really a surprise that politicians and government regulators lack the scientific expertise to properly draft and enforce a risk-based approach to regulate lead-content in consumer goods? And the result of such badly drafted laws is a pointless reduction in consumer products and choices?
