January 2012

Afternoon Links: December 8, 2010

by Nicole Ciandella on December 8, 2010

in Zeitgeist

1. Pennsylvania Walmarts may start selling wine from self-serve vending machines that require an ID swipe and a breathalyzer test.

2. New Orleans cops are trying to get a potpourri product called “Cloud 9″ off the shelves. They say the product is being used as a hallucinogenic drug.

3. A Memphis middle school is combating the baggy pants trend by forcing students who break dress code to dress like Steve Urkel for the rest of the day.

4. Newsweek thinks that the internet “killed” civility, concentration, and facts.

5. Feminist activist (and Free State Project keynote speaker) Naomi Wolf is catching flack from fellow feminists for defending Julian Assange against rape allegations.

Photo Credit: Joe Shlabotnik’s Flickr Photostream

Small Brewers’ Big Mistake in Colorado

by Michelle Minton on December 8, 2010 · 1 comment

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Nanny State, Personal Liberty

In Colorado, the only place one can purchase alcoholic beverages over a strength of 3.2 percent alcohol by volume to take home is in a licensed liquor store. This is something that grocery store owners and beer lovers have campaigned for over the course of several years without any success. In February of this year, the latest attempt to allow full-strength beer in grocery stores died in committee. But proponents aren’t going away. The Colorado legislature is likely to take up the issue in the next session, in part due to public outcry.

After a bill that would allow full-strength beer in grocery stores died in committee, proponents of the bill were successful in amending a bill that would force the state to enforce the letter of the liquor law. That letter, as it turns out, means that light beers under 4 percent abv cannot be lawfully sold by bars and restaurants in the state. Colorado lawmakers will likely address the grocery store beer issue when they seek to amend the state law that has two definitions for beer depending on the alcohol content.

Opponents of full-strength beer in grocery stores

The most fervent opposition, unsurprisingly, has come from the liquor store owners who want to protect their monopoly on the sale of full-strength beer. What is surprising is that the loudest and perhaps, most effective opposition is coming from small brewers in the state. Colorado, which hosts the Great American Beer Festival, is thought of as one of the most vibrant craft brewery scenes in the nation. Small brewers fear that the “big beer” companies will strike deals with grocery and big-box stores, keeping craft bottles off the shelves. At the same time they worry that customers who purchase beer at grocery stores will no longer visit liquor stores, which in turn might drive the stores out of business for lack of customers, leaving small craft brewers with no place to sell their product.

Small craft brewers have it all wrong

First, allowing more places to sell beer will not result in disappearing shelf space; it will only increase the likelihood and opportunity for small breweries to get their products in front of new customers. Even if grocery stores do decide to exclusively stock mass-produced beers, liquor stores will become a haven for the ever growing craft beer market. If liquor stores decided to specialize their beer selection to local and craft beers, this would actually result in increased shelf-space for microbrews in the same establishments where they previously had to compete with the “big beers”.

Second, that Colorado has a vibrant craft brewery scene is undeniable. However, this variety is not due to the lack of availability of beer in grocery stores. Many states around the nation allow beer to be sold in grocery and convenience stores and they arguably have a more vibrant beer scene than Colorado.

One can use many characteristics to base a determination of what makes a good beer scene, but let’s just look at the distribution of breweries and brewpubs, large and small, in relation to states populations and their treatment of beer sales.

Lug Wrench Brewing Company Online did an analysis of the concentration of breweries in each state, compiled using the U.S. Census Bureau estimates for population in 2009.  Here we can see that Colorado is not even one of the nation’s top five states with the highest concentration of breweries:

  1. Vermont: Vermont, which allows for the sale of beer in grocery stores, had the highest concentration with 2.734 breweries per 100,000 residents. According to Beer100.com of the state’s 17 breweries, microbreweries number at 5.
  2. Oregon: Oregon also allows beer sales in grocery stores and has a concentration of 2.640 breweries per 100,000 residents. Of the state’s 101 breweries and brewpubs, 10 are microbreweries.
  3. Montana: Montana also allows the sale of all beers in grocery stores  (though it caps the alcohol to a max of 14 percent abv).   Montana has an average of 2.564 breweries per 100,000 residents. Of the 25 breweries and brewpubs 13 are microbreweries.
  4. Maine: Maine also allows the beer to be sold in grocery stores and has an average of 2.503 breweries per 100,000 residents. Of the state’s 33 breweries and brewpubs 9 are microbreweries.
  5. Alaska: Which also allows the sale of beer in grocery stores has an average of 2.148 breweries per 100,000 residents. Of its 15 breweries and brewpubs 7 are microbreweries

Colorado came in at #6 with an average of 2.070 breweries per 100,000 residents. Of the state’s 104 breweries, only 13 are microbreweries.

More shelf space for all

While there are many factors that play into the number of breweries in an area and microbreweries, limiting sales to liquor stores clearly does not correlate with a higher concentration in any given state. Allowing beer in grocery stores will simply open up more shelf space for small brewers in the state, not less.  Even if grocery stores choose to only stock the most popular beers, it will not erode the increasing contingent of craft beer lovers who will continue making trips to liquor stores. Smart liquor store owners will recognize the opportunity to capture the craft beer drinking market, and reduce their stock of popular beer and create more shelf space for craft beers. The result is cheaper popular beer in grocery stores and more opportunity for craft brewers in liquor stores. Small brewers should welcome the deregulation of liquor sales and fight for new avenues for liquor sales whether that is grocery stores, bars, or direct sales.

Vincent Vernuccio on the Federal Pay Freeze

by Marc Scribner on December 8, 2010

in Video

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxFOKkXFEAQ 285 234]

Does Wikileaks Have a First Amendment Case Against Joe Lieberman?

by Ryan Radia on December 8, 2010 · 6 comments

in Legal, Personal Liberty, Tech & Telecom

Amazon made headlines last week when it abruptly cut off service to Wikileaks, allegedly on the grounds that the site had violated Amazon’s terms of acceptable use. However, Amazon’s decision to terminate Wikileaks came less than 24 hours after Amazon received a phone call from Senate Homeland Security Committee staff (at the behest of Sen. Joe Lieberman) inquiring about the firm’s relationship with Wikileaks. According to a report in The Guardian, Amazon’s decision to terminate service to Wikileaks was a “reaction to heavy political pressure.”

That’s not all. Glenn Greenwald reported last week on Salon.com that another Internet company, Tableau Software, also decided to disable service to Wikileaks because of pressure from Joe Lieberman. Unlike Amazon, Tableau admitted that its decision was directly prompted by pressure from Lieberman. From Tableau’s statement:

Our decision to remove the data from our servers came in response to a public request by Senator Joe Lieberman, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, when he called for organizations hosting WikiLeaks to terminate their relationship with the website.

It’s difficult to see Joe Lieberman’s “public request” as anything but a thinly-veiled threat. Case in point: In addition to his staffers’ phone calls, Lieberman went on MSNBC last week, stating bluntly, “we’ve got to put pressure on any companies … which provide access to the Internet to Wikileaks.”

As Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Lieberman is in a uniquely powerful position to push for legislation that might harm private firms like Amazon. He can also hold Congressional hearings, which frequently turn into public spectacles and garner massive media coverage. A company’s CEO enduring a congressional grilling on Capitol Hill can significantly impact that firm’s public image — and, in some cases, its stock price as well. While no individual Senator has the power to enact laws, promulgate rules, or enforce regulations, a single crusading politician can arguably cause cognizable harm to any U.S. company that pushes back against “requests” to suppress unfavorable content.

How does this implicate the First Amendment? As EFF’s Rainey Reitman and Marcia Hofmann pointed out on the DeepLinks blog, “The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees freedom of expression against government encroachment — but that doesn’t help if the censorship doesn’t come from the government.”

[click to continue…]

Supreme Court to Hear Wal-Mart v. Dukes

by Hans Bader on December 8, 2010

in Economy, Employment, Labor, Legal

The Supreme Court voted to hear Wal-Mart v. Dukes, granting Wal-Mart’s petition for certiorari.  The Supreme Court will decide whether a class-action rule designed to allow people to bring claims for injunctive relief based on a uniform policy by a defendant can be twisted into a weapon for demanding billions of dollars in damages over conduct at thousands of different Wal-Mart stores by thousands of different managers.

The Wall Street Journal earlier criticized the 6-to-5 ruling by the Ninth Circuit that the Supreme Court is reviewing. That controversial ruling, Dukes v. Wal-Mart, available here, allowed just six employees to bring a multibillion dollar class action lawsuit against Wal-Mart in the name of 1.5 million other Wal-Mart employees they had little in common with. As the dissenting opinion written by Judge Sandra Ikuta noted, the lawsuit was based on junk science that violated the Supreme Court’s Daubert decision, and let a few employees whose situation was anything but typical sue in the name of countless employees they shared nothing with but gender. The plaintiffs’ lawyers originally sought $450 billion.

The Ninth Circuit’s disingenuous ruling rubber-stamped a national class-action even though Wal-Mart’s hiring and promotions are decentralized and not done on a company-wide basis, and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 says that national class-actions are supposed to challenge a company-wide practice. The Ninth Circuit essentially treated the absence of a company policy (one limiting managers’ individual discretion) as itself being a company policy, twisting the language of the rule inside out.  Its ruling against Wal-Mart flouted longstanding legal rules and principles.

Although the lawsuit will affect employees across the country (and the ultimate verdict may reduce the value of your retirement plan, since the mutual funds in your 401(k) probably own Wal-Mart stock), a verdict will be rendered by a left-leaning jury drawn from the San Francisco Bay Area, since the plaintiffs sued Wal-Mart in one of the most anti-employer judicial districts in America, the Northern District of California.

The Ninth Circuit judges were split largely along ideological lines, with only hard-core liberal judges in the majority, and a dissent joined in by all the moderate and conservative judges (as well as one Democratic appointee, Judge Silverman).

Morning Media Summary

by Lee Doren on December 8, 2010

in Economy, Energy, Environment, International, Legal, Personal Liberty, Regulation, Trade

Tech:

Anonymous’ Operation : Payback campaign defends Wikileaks, downs MasterCard website:
“Online supporters of whistleblowing website Wikileaks are fighting back after news of Julian Assange’s arrest hit the wires.”

McNealy to Ellison: How to duck death by open source:
“Let’s forget the last few years ever happened — the last five, at least. Possibly 10. In the 1980s Sun Microsystems was on fire.”

Microsoft unveils ‘do not track’ option for IE9:
“Microsoft says it will offer a privacy setting in the next version of Internet Explorer that will make it easy for users to keep their browsing habits from being tracked by advertising networks and other third-party websites.”

Meet the FCC commissioner who wants to control the news:
“Copps has a long history of advocating for government control of media, dating to the beginning of his tenure. But it wasn’t until last week, after Copps spoke to the BBC and an audience at Columbia University, that Congress decided to look into the commissioner’s philosophy against private media companies.”

Global Warming / Environment / Energy:

Memo to Turner:
“Almost everyone except for the most radical elements of the Professional Left question the timing of Obama, Pelosi and Reid jamming ObamaCare down our throats in the middle of a horrendous recession. But as is his wont, Ted Turner puts a crazy new spin on their efforts:”

Insurance / Gambling:

Inland tribes back online gambling:
“Two Inland Southern California tribes with large casinos are pushing legislation to legalize Internet poker in the state, the opening bid in what could be an intense Capitol fight involving tribes who oppose the idea.”

Health / Safety:

Children’s Hospitals Lose Some Drug Discounts:
“In an unintended consequence of the new health care law, drug companies have begun notifying children’s hospitals around the country that they no longer qualify for large discounts on drugs used to treat rare medical conditions.”

More Health Waivers:
“The Obama Administration has quietly granted even more waivers to one provision of the new federal health reform law, doubling the number in just the last three weeks to a new total of 222.”

Economics:

Obama facing tough sell in own party on tax deal:
“President Barack Obama still has work to do to sell fellow Democrats on the tax package he negotiated with Republicans.”

Suburban Chicago school district eliminates class rankings:
“West suburban Indian Prairie District 204 has become the latest in the Chicago area to eliminate high school class ranks.”

Down From the Pedestal:
“In the global race for jobs and economic prosperity, the United States is No. 2. And it is likely to remain there for some time. That’s the glum conclusion of most Americans surveyed in the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll. Henry Luce famously labeled the 20th century the “American Century.” This survey suggests that most Americans now doubt that this new century will bear that name.”

Legal:

WikiLeaks founder is jailed, secrets still flow:
“WikiLeaks published a new set of cables Wednesday, and in a defiant message posted online the secret-spilling website promised that the leaks would keep on flowing despite the arrest and jailing of its founder on sex allegations.”

The War on Cameras:
“Michael Allison, a 41-year-old backyard mechanic from southeastern Illinois, faces up to 75 years in prison for an act most people don’t realize is a crime: recording public officials. ”

Labor:

Walker looks at showdown with state employee unions:
“Governor-elect Scott Walker raised the possibility of essentially abolishing state employee unions on Tuesday as one option to control rising employee benefits costs and eliminate the state’s budget deficit.”

Racial Profiling of Taxi Passengers:
“Fernando Mateo, president of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, is telling cab drivers that for their own protection they should profile potential passengers who are black and Latino.”

Ex-L.A. labor leader Alejandro Stephens headed to prison:
“For 15 years, Alejandro Stephens cut an imposing figure as a pugnacious Los Angeles union leader at the crossroads of labor and politics. Today he’s headed to prison.”

SEIU Paints A Bull’s Eye On Fast Food Industry:
“It’s common for fast food workers in Canada, Germany, France and Australia to be represented by a union, but in America less than 2% of fast food workers are unionized – and most of them work in stores located on college campuses, in hospitals or in government buildings where labor unions are commonplace.”

Transportation/ Land Use:

Citizens offer opinions on high-speed rail:
“Hundreds of Madison residents packed into a jammed conference room on Madison’s east side Tuesday to voice their concerns and ideas about high-speed rail systems in Wisconsin.”

Wikileaks’ Assange to Australian Times: “I’m Not Sorry”

by Kathryn Ciano on December 7, 2010

in International, Personal Liberty, Privacy, Tech & Telecom, Zeitgeist

Julian Assange wrote an op-ed in the Australian Times today essentially saying, “I’m not sorry”:

I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully. The dark days of corruption in the Queensland government before the Fitzgerald inquiry are testimony to what happens when the politicians gag the media from reporting the truth.

These things have stayed with me. WikiLeaks was created around these core values. The idea, conceived in Australia, was to use internet technologies in new ways to report the truth.

Comparing himself to Rupert Murdoch, Assange quotes the media mogul: ”In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win.”

After British police arrested Assange today, the WikiLeaks mastermind hid behind huge glasses, bringing to mind another Australian popular celebrity in recent zeitgeist memory.

Life imitates life imitates art.

Image credit: Byeskille’s flickr photostream.

Afternoon Links: December 7, 2010

by Nicole Ciandella on December 7, 2010

in Zeitgeist

1. San Francisco’s favorite Santa was fired for cracking “inappropriate” jokes.

2. An online vendor arrested for harassing customers says Google’s search algorithm gave him incentive to do it.

3. DIY: A Trekkie converts an ordinary household door into a sliding spaceship door.

4. A casket manufacturer boosts profits by imitating Toyota’s manufacturing process.

5. The United States of America, according to Google’s autocomplete.

Photo Credit: Kevin Dooley’s Flickr Photostream

People Do What You Pay Them to Do

by Kathryn Ciano on December 7, 2010

in Healthcare, Regulation

This seems like an obvious statement. But Big Government is shocked — shocked! – when it pays doctors to perform surgeries instead of taking time for careful diagnosis and doctors respond by performing surgeries instead of taking time for careful diagnosis.

I wrote in today’s Examiner:

When a health-care providing government pays doctors according to how many procedures they perform, rather than by the effectiveness or their treatments, it makes sense that doctors will perform many more procedures.

Not all of these procedures are necessary. Or proper, for that matter. But since when does Big Government ask what is necessary or proper?

Doctors paid to think long and hard about whether a stent is necessary may be less eager surgeons.

Incentives count, it turns out. People will do what they are paid to do. Doctors paid to implant stents will implant stents.

As incentives attached to single-payer, government-run health care attach to doctors’ paychecks in the coming years, sadly we will see many more stories like this.

Deal to Explode Deficits by $900 Billion Will Burden States and Employers With More Unemployment Costs

by Hans Bader on December 7, 2010 · 4 comments

in Bailout Watch, Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment, Stimulus to Nowhere

President Obama and Republican leaders reached a deal to extend the Bush tax cuts for two years — and temporarily reduce social security payroll taxes — while extending unemployment benefits, in a deal that will add $900 billion to the deficit over the next two years.  Many liberals in Congress and the blogosphere are angry, because they wanted even more wasteful government spending increases (they also wanted to block an extension of the tax cuts for upper-income households, which include most of the small businesses that create jobs), or more massive bailouts at taxpayer expense, rather than tax cuts.

As economists have noted, extending unemployment benefits will not stimulate the economy, but will cost taxpayers and businesses a lot. (It will also cost the federal government $56 billion through next year.) Michelle Malkin has explained how the extension of unemployment benefits  has burdened employers by jacking up their unemployment insurance rates.  Yesterday, she called the agreement between Obama and Republican leaders a“deal with the devil,” noting that between 30-40 state unemployment funds are already bankrupt or teetering on the edge, thanks to past federal extensions of unemployment benefits. That may mean increased state taxes.

Earlier, she described how generous unemployment benefits discourage people from taking lower-paying jobs, and how people are gaming the system.  Giving people unemployment benefits for years on end, without scaling down those benefits, encourages people not to relocate in search of work, and not to take productive jobs that they think are beneath them, even if those jobs are the only jobs that they will realistically find once their jobless benefits come to an end, because of the disappearance of the type of job they once performed.

As the Heritage Foundation notes, “The consequences of extended unemployment benefits are some of the most conclusively established results in labor economic research. Extending either the amount or the duration of UI benefits increases the length of time that workers remain unemployed.  UI benefits subsidize unemployment. They reduce the incentive unemployed workers have to search for new work and to make difficult choices–such as moving or switching industries–to begin a new job.”

The deficit is so huge that we can really only afford to extend those cuts in tax rates that actually pay for themselves through increased revenue.  That includes the 2003 capital gains tax cuts, which should be extended (because they increased economic growth and tax revenue), but not the much-larger Bush income tax cuts of 2001, which increased economic growth slightly, but also drove up the deficit a lot.

Defenders of this deal will doubtless point out that liberals in Congress wanted even more costly measures that would have exploded the deficit even more (the $800 billion stimulus package crafted by liberal congressional leaders turned out to be a counterproductive waste that actually destroyed American jobs), but that’s still no excuse for this deal, which America’s finances just can’t afford.

As commentators have noted, the temporary nature of the tax cut extensions will largely cancel out any stimulus they would otherwise provide.  Tax cuts are best done either permanently, or not at all.

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