Month: April 2008

Cato-at-liberty » The Helping Hand of Government . . .:

. . . strips away privacy before it goes to work.

Here’s a nice, discrete example: S. 2485, introduced in the U.S. Senate last week, would require asset verification of participants in State Medicaid programs, exposing the personal information held by financial institutions to government access.

This privacy loss is a natural outgrowth of entitlement programs. It’s nearly mandated by the simple and warranted effort to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse.

My 2004 Policy Analysis, “Understanding Privacy – and the Real Threats To It,” explored how entitlement programs almost always carry with them a significant privacy-cost:

To provide benefits and entitlements—and, of course, to tax—governments take personal information from citizens by the bushel. Nearly every new policy or program justifies new or expanded databases of information—and a shrunken sphere of personal privacy.

POSTED BY JIM HARPER ON 04.12.08 @ 5:13 PM

The Washington Monthly:

So why do we hear so much about the dire consequences of failing to pass a piddling bilateral trade deal with a ruthless Latin American regime but almost nothing about the dire consequences of the hideous $300 billion distortion caused by the latest round of farm subsidies — most of which goes to big agribusiness, not struggling family farms? How about a little more noise on the farm front?

Why don’t we hear more outrage about the ludicrousness that is are farm policy? For those on the left who decry “corporate welfare”, here is a great place to focus your opprobrium; for those on the right who are against big government programs, fire away; for those who are in favor of free trade, this is a no-brainer; for those who are protectionist, they are already too familiar with no-brainer.

[Update] Go ahead, nix the subsidies:

So by all means, eliminate farm supports and don’t stop there. I suspect that once all agricultural subsidies, including those for energy crops, are removed, the net effect on food prices will be a moderation.

Please, let this trend catch on.

New Orleans bicycle ride to help Red Cross:
Looking to repeat the success of the MS 150, the Greater Houston Area Red Cross will launch a Houston-to-New Orleans bicycle trek in October. Riders on the six-day, 538-mile Tour du Rouge will see bayous, maybe alligators and other wildlife ? and some of the devastation caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Moved to a new server, and took the opportunity to change the look up (took me a while to find another WordPress theme that related to driving). Via Anne’s advice, I’ve already lightened the text somewhat for readability. She’d prefer a non-black background, but the changes to the stylesheet to accomplish that are not as trivial.

So, do you like it? Hate it? Needs improvement? Want the old look back? Let me know in the comments.

[Update] Survey said: [X]. I’ve reverted to the former theme, but will keep looking for more eye-friendly ones.