Some of the TSA’s critics say the agency its own reductio ad absurdum. TSA’s latest action does nothing to improve security, but much to prove its critics correct. Snow globes are now banned from carry-on luggage (hat tip: Radley Balko).
This means one of two things: either grandmothers with snow globes in their carry-ons are the biggest terrorist threat facing the country, or the TSA is doing something wrong.
The way to prevent terrorism is to make terrorism difficult. Banning snow globes doesn’t…
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CEI’s champion of letter-writing, Alex Nowrasteh, has a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal today advocating removing the cap on H-1B visas to encourage more doctors to practice in the U.S. As Alex points out:
In 2005, a paltry 7,218 medical and health-care professionals earned H-1B visas, while many were denied. A cap on the number of doctors and medical professionals entering the U.S. discourages health-care access and raises costs. The H-1B visa cap should be removed along with…
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by Fred Smith
November 09, 2009 @ 6:31 pm
The Washington Times, “Greedy Autoworkers,” editorializes the overwhelming rejection of the UAW’s proposed labor agreement. Unlike GM and Chrysler, Ford elected to reject the bailout money and benefited from the consumer distrust of our newly nationalized auto sector. Yet, Ford actually went into the black this past quarter. GM and Chrysler, operating as GSEs, are safe from strikes because the government takeover agreement forbids the UAW to strike. Big Government is willing to discipline Big Labor. In the market, odds shift and…
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One advantage of hybrid cars is that they are quiet. Too quiet, some would say. Blind pedestrians may not hear a hybrid coming around the corner until it’s too late.
Car companies are responding to the concern by voluntarily outfitting their hybrid models with fake digital vrooms so pedestrians can hear them as well as conventional cars. There’s a reason car companies were so quick to respond to their customer’s wishes: it’s good for business. One more safety feature is one…
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Thanks to their union, bus drivers for Washington’s Metro system can be dangerously incompetent and still draw a government paycheck, avoiding discipline for repeated accidents. (Metro employees sometimes make more than $100,000 per year).
Yet the Obama administration wants airline security and Amtrak to become more like Washington’s inefficient Metro, by increasing the power of unions and making it harder to get rid of problem employees.
As Radley Balko notes at Reason magazine’s Web site,
“Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Area Transit Authority fired Metro bus driver Carla A. Proctor this week…
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Yesterday, I strongly criticized the taxicab medallion system proposed for the District of Columbia by council members Jim Graham and Muriel Bowser as protectionist, economically illiterate, and so incredibly stupid as to defy reason. Today, an explanation for this idiocy may be at hand — Graham’s chief of staff, Ted Loza, has been indicted on bribery charges relating to the taxicab legislation.
This cannot but help remind me of the happy conclusion of CEI’s dinner video this year, “It’s a Wonderful Institute.” To…
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If you’ve ever been to Brooklyn, you’ve almost certainly seen firsthand the shortage of taxis that has been created by New York City’s licensing restrictions, known as the “medallion” system. Under this system, only a limited number of licensed cabs are allowed to run in the city. You’ve probably also seen how the locals get around these restrictions: through the use of unlicensed taxis, known as “gypsy” cabs, and car services, which are technically limo services which you have to…
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One year after the Wall Street meltdown, President Obama is touting new regulations he says are urgent for preventing a crisis like this from ever happening again.
“Obama challenges Wall Street to support his regulations,” reads the headline of a story from McClatchy Newspapers on Obama’s Monday speech at Federal Hall, opposite the New York Stock Exchange. In the address, Obama asked the audience of Wall Street traders ”to embrace serious financial reform, not fight it.”
But “embracing” Obama’s planned regulation may be easier for the…
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Consumers have been buying a lot of tires made in China lately. Naturally, U.S.-based tire manufacturers are upset at their competitors’ success. Fortunately, there are two ways for the aggrieved American firms to ease their troubled minds:
1: Make better tires for less money. Give consumers a reason to buy American tires rather than Chinese. Compete, in other words.
2: Don’t compete. Too much hard work. Instead, persuade some politicians to place a 35 percent protective tariff on competitors’ tires. Price them…
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In the aftermath of 9/11, Congress foolishly shifted airline security screening to the inept Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which has failed to detect explosive ingredients and fake bombs, in performance tests.
Now the Obama Administration is making matters even worse by undermining both airline security and railroad safety. A study found that the TSA is more than twice as likely to fail to detect a bomb as the private security firms it replaced. And TSA’s failure rate is three or four times as…
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Over at CNN, John Feehery argues that it’s better not to heckle. I agree, but for different reasons.
Feehery’s line of thinking is that the office deserves respect. Holding one’s tongue is a matter of decorum. “The president is the commander-in-chief, the leader of the country, and in many unspoken ways treated as a king.”
Technically, the president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and of nothing else. The rest of his job consists of humbly executing the laws given him by…
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Tributes are pouring in for Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy, who lost his battle with brain cancer late Tuesday evening at the age of 77. Most tributes to the “Liberal Lion” focus on his accomplishments at expanding government spending and regulation. And indeed, those were the bulk of his achievements.
But for a brief, shining moment, in the mid to late 1970s, Kennedy viewed smaller government as the most compassionate answer in one area of economic life: transportation. Kennedy was the prime mover…
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Want to fly a plane? The FAA just published 72 pages worth of changes to its already extensive certification rules. 173 changes in all.
Don’t forget to list your current residential address when applying for a knowledge test.
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The Transportation Department announced today that it will wind down the Cash for Clunkers program, which the Obama administration promoted as a way to both help the economy and clean up the environment, by Monday. It was supposed to spur car sales while replacing older cars with more fuel-efficient models.
As I noted here in an earlier post, “The car buying site Edmunds.com compared car sales under Cash for Clunkers with typical car sales over a similar period as that of the program’s…
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Tawnya Benner, 38, would like to drive a truck for a living. She’s qualified to do it, holding a commercial class driver’s license from her home state of Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, she has diabetes, so it’s illegal. There is a federal “prohibition against persons with insulin-treated diabetes mellitus (ITDM) operating commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) in interstate commerce.”
Tawnya is one of 24 people applying for an exemption from the federal ban. Let us wish them all the best of luck as they…
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Lawyers for the U.S. government and the Swiss bank UBS AG have announced that they have reached a deal on releasing to the US the names of UBS account holders. No new details of the agreement have been released, other than what was previously speculated on a week ago.
I will be watching for and examining details that are released. Whatever deal is reached, the Obama administration’s conduct in the case, disregarding both privacy interests and the sovereignty of other nations, has…
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by Iain Murray
August 12, 2009 @ 12:07 pm
This picture accompanying this post is doing the rounds on the internet. The commentary normally reads:
Below is a photo of a wreck in Jefferson Parish, LA (near New Orleans ) between two
trucks and a Smart Car. Think Il (sic) pass on the Smart Car.
As with any email circular, especially ones with egregious spelling errors, you should always take it with a pinch of salt. The goldmine that is snopes.com says the following:
According to a reader who relayed information to us from the…
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Reason TV hits a home run:
Massive savings from your own pocket!
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The seventeenth in an occasional series that shines a bit of light on the regulatory state.
Today’s Regulation of the Day comes to us from the U.S. Department of Transportation ( $73 billion 2010 budget, 58,622 employees).
A new set of rules for sliding car doors will come into effect on September 1, 2010.
See pages 35,131-35,135 of the 2009 Federal Register for details.
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