Apr
27
2006

URLs du Jour

27-Apr-2006

  • Penn State has backed down from its censorship attempt against Josh Stulman's art exhibit about terrorism. That's good news, although wouldn't you think that allegedly smart people would avoid such ham-handed stunts in the first place? David Bernstein at Volokh's comments here; Chris Perez at FIRE's Torch blog is here, and he makes the point that the underlying speech code used as a basis for the censorship is still in place.

  • And in another bit of good news, one of our state senate committees unanimously recommended passage of HB1582, disallowing New Hampshire from participating in the Federal "Real ID" program. Weekend Pundit, even though it's not the weekend, has a summary here with links to appropriate news stories.

  • If even one percent of the media attention given to gasoline prices was given to sugar prices instead, the outrage would be withering. Americans pay twice the world price for sugar; that money goes to a relative handful of sugar producers. Your Federal Government makes this possible. And it's not even an example of "unintended consequences" of a well-meaning program; that's the way it's supposed to work. If you feel in the mood to get outraged by yet another example of how efforts to protect (politically well-connected) people from "unbridled capitalism" work, check this article on the CEI Openmarket blog.

  • My own Senator Judd Gregg proposed that 3% of Iraq funds requested by Dubya be spent on border security instead. Joe Malchow thinks Judd is a genius; Jed Babbin thinks he's a stooge. Pun Salad … um … believes the truth is somewhere in between.

  • Except that Judd's vote for Trent Lott's Railroad to Nowhere is maybe pushing me more toward the "stooge" end of the spectrum. Our other Senator, John Sununu, voted Nay, so good on him.