Odds & Ends

OPINION

MICHELLE NIJHUIS: “Should Scientists Be More Forthcoming About Their Flaws?”
“Scientists practice a form of ‘secret anarchy,’ [Michael Brooks] says, a label he insistently—and approvingly, for the most part—applies to everything from recreational drug use in the lab to outright scientific fraud, departmental power plays, and general jerkitude. Science is a creative process, and sure, creativity often leads to some rule-breaking. But not all misbehavior is creative, as Brooks would have us believe. While both Einstein and Galileo fudged the calculations that initially supported their theories, they were the lucky ones. If they’d been wrong, their so-called ‘anarchism’ could have misled science for years. (Consider the discredited British medical researcher Andrew Wakefield, who was so enthusiastic about his theory linking vaccines and autism that he distorted children’s medical histories in order to support it.)”

CONOR FRIEDERSDORF: “Yes, Obama is a Hawk”
“Obama may be worried about the perception that he is dove. He may need to respond to Republicans who say that he has ‘a fundamentally weak approach to rivals and rogue states like Iran, North Korea and Russia,’ as Baker puts it. But let’s not lose sight of his actual record. Obama isn’t straddling a line between hawk and dove. He is a hawk. It’s terrifying that isn’t clear to everyone, because it suggests the neoconservative desire for even more foreign wars is skewing the way that Americans conceive of hawkishness and dovishness. It suggests we’re defining ‘warmonger’ down.”

GLENN KESSLER: “Obama’s ‘Life of Julia’ Misleading on Social Security”
“Note how carefully the Obama campaign’s statement is worded. It says that, under Obama, Julia “receives monthly benefits that help her retire comfortably.” It does not promise that projected benefits will not be cut, but it certainly implies that. [...] This frame of the ‘Life of Julia’ series is fairly misleading. If Obama actually does something to improve the solvency of Social Security, benefits are likely to be cut in some fashion. If Obama — and future presidents — do nothing, benefits will also be cut.”

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OPINION

VIRGINIA POSTREL: “Recycling Eyeglasses Is a Feel-Good Waste of Money”
“Recycling old glasses makes people feel generous and thrifty. They believe they’re helping people and saving money. They think the glasses they donate are “free,” because they don’t consider all the hidden costs of sorting and shipping them. And they don’t realize just how cheap manufacturing new glasses has become. If they really wanted to help people see, they’d send money. Unlike leftovers, it’s guaranteed to fit. ”

DAVID SIROTA: “Who Owns the Cloud?”
“When you hear the phrase “property rights,” you probably think of farmers fighting environmental regulators and homeowners arguing with oil drillers. But in the Information Age, you should also be thinking about your computer – and asking, how much of you is really yours? It’s not a navel-gazing rumination from a college Intro to Existentialism class – it’s an increasingly pressing question in the brave new world of social networking and cloud computing.”

JAMES TARANTO: “The Lonely Life of Julia”
“Barack Obama has a new composite girlfriend, and her name is Julia. Her story is told in an interactive feature titled “The Life of Julia” on the Obama campaign website. Julia, who has no face, is depicted at various ages from 3 through 67, enjoying the benefits of various Obama-backed welfare-state programs.”

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OPINION

WINSLOW WHEELER: “The Jet That Ate the Pentagon”
“Claimed to be near invisible to radar and able to dominate any future battlefield, the F-35 will replace most of the air-combat aircraft in the inventories of the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and at least nine foreign allies, and it will be in those inventories for the next 55 years. It’s no secret, however, that the program — the most expensive in American history — is a calamity. This month, we learned that the Pentagon has increased the price tag for the F-35 by another $289 million — just the latest in a long string of cost increases — and that the program is expected to account for a whopping 38 percent of Pentagon procurement for defense programs[.]”

SACRAMENTO BEE EDITORIAL: “Mayor Should Lead the Way on Pension Reform”
“To close most of a projected $15.7 million deficit in the general fund, City Manager John Shirey is recommending that police officers, firefighters and other city workers pay their full employee share into the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.The focus is on public safety because now, the city pays both its employer share and the full employee contribution.”

CARRIE LUKAS: “Is America Up to Solving the Coming Financial Crisis”
“In 2011, Social Security needed $148 billion on top of payroll tax revenue to pay full benefits.  That increased our annual deficit, the national debt, and meant less was available for other programs.  To put that in perspective, total discretionary spending in 2011 was $1.35 trillion. So Social Security needed the equivalent of more than ten percent of all discretionary spending—in addition to all Social Security payroll tax revenue—to cover benefits.  Social Security’s demand on the general budget will only increase in the future, making it difficult for Congress to fund core functions.”

OPINION

ADAM COHEN: “Can Smokers Be Banned From Government Jobs?”
“If you are a smoker, you may want to rethink that plan to get a job with the city of Fort Worth, Texas. There are already private employers, including many medical centers, with policies against hiring workers who smoke. But Fort Worth may be about to become the first American city to say categorically that it will not hire anyone who smokes — on or off the job.”

PETER OSNOS: “Confused by the E-Book Lawsuit? So Is Everyone Else”
“In all that has been written about this case, nothing seems to have made a deeper impression than the image of the executives in a private room called “The Chef’s Wine Cellar” agreeing to challenge Amazon’s policy of deep discounts on e-books. Personally, I find the notion of an exclusive cabal among the bibulous publishers intent on joint action far-fetched, although experts say it probably would have been better to have a lawyer present to assure antitrust guidelines were being followed. All of the publishers, including the three that have settled — HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette — insist they have done nothing wrong.”

ALICIA MEADS: “EPA Moves Ahead on Implementing Ozone Air Quality Standards”
“Manufacturers continue to be extremely concerned about the EPA’s implementation of the current air quality standards and new standards for particulate matter (i.e. PM2.5) which are scheduled to be proposed in the next few months. As our nation’s job creators try to get our economy back on track, stringent air quality regulations and standards continually work to derail their progress.”

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OPINION

JO-ANN ARMAO: “The Big Easy’s School Revolution”
“Most of the buzz about the city’s reforms focuses on the banishment of organized labor and the proliferation of charter schools, which enroll nearly 80 percent of public school students, up from 1.5 percent pre-Katrina. But what really distinguishes New Orleans is how government has re­defined its role in education: stepping back from directly running schools and empowering educators to make the decisions about hours, curriculum and school culture that best drive student learning. Now, state and school-district officials mostly regulate and monitor — setting standards, ensuring equity and closing failing schools. Instead of a traditional school system, there is a system of schools in what officials liken to a fenced-in free market.”

VENKAT BALASUBRAMANI: “Facebook  ’Likes’ Aren’t Speech Protected by the First Amendment-Bland v. Roberts”
“Bland and his cohorts worked in the Hampton Sheriff’s Office, under B.J. Roberts. Roberts ran for re-election against Jim Adams, and the plaintiffs were lukewarm in their support of Roberts. In fact, three of the plaintiffs went so far as to “like” Adams’ Facebook page. Roberts won the election, and he decided to not retain the plaintiffs. He justified the terminations on cost-cutting and budgeting grounds, but plaintiffs argued that their termination violated their First Amendment rights.”

CONOR FRIEDERSDORF: “Paranoia About CISPA is Justified”
“The legislation is trying to strike a balance: to permit government access to potentially sensitive information without making citizens vulnerable to dangerous abuses. Before the Bush Administration’s illegal spying, it was easy to imagine that the legal penalties for exceeding the bounds of the law would be one check on government officials and corporate leaders tempted to abuse their access to data. We now know that when national security is invoked, these people are treated as if they’re above the law. If legal violations aren’t going to be punished after the fact, it’s prudent for concerned citizens to push for even more elaborate preemptive safeguards.”

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OPINION

HENRY BLODGET: “Don’t Mean To Be Clueless, But Why Does The U.S. Have A Law Against Bribing Foreign Governments?”
“Walmart’s in serious hot water because its executives allegedly paid $24 million in bribes to Mexican government officialsto facilitate store openings. [...] Why does the U.S. have a law against bribing foreign government officials? After all, in some countries, like China, giving ‘gifts’ to business partners is just the way business gets done. So why should giving gifts to Chinese business partners be illegal in the United States?”

CHRIS CHOCOLA: “Taxpayers Fund Crony Capitalism”
“We have always been a nation of free enterprise. It has set us apart from most others and allowed us to lead the world in innovation and entrepreneurialism. But today, those underpinnings of our success are under threat. Government has become a behemoth that is overtaking industries and distorting markets in such a way that competition and self-reliance as we know it are barely recognizable.”

GEORGE WILL: “Governments Deserve the Freedom to Fail”
“After trying to tax Illinois to governmental solvency and economic dynamism, Pat Quinn, a Democrat who has been governor since 2009, now says ‘our rendezvous with reality has arrived.’ Actually, Illinois is still reality-averse, so Americans may soon learn the importance of the freedom to fail in a system of competitive federalism.”

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OPINION

DAVID WEIGEL: “Inside the Worst Congress Ever”
“I was halfway through Do Not Ask What Good We Do when I felt moved to email Robert Draper. Another title for his book, a history of our current House of Representatives, might be Worst Congress Ever. [...] Draper finds the House Democrats in a jumpy, irritated, despondent mood. They were warned by pollster Stanley Greenberg, at their first Obama-era retreat, that many of them would fall in 2010. They panicked anyway. Former members like John Tanner (Tennessee) and Glenn Nye (Virginia) wail to Draper about how Nancy Pelosi ruined them by forcing tough votes, watching them lose, then running for leader again.”

LINDSEY BURKE: “College (Loan) Football: The Looming Interest Rate Hike”
“Over the weekend, President Obama urged Congress to prevent a pending interest rate hike on student loans. While he argued that failure to keep interest rates low would be a ‘tremendous blow‘ to students, he failed to note that federal overreach into the industry is largely to blame in the first place.”

KYLE SMITH: “California Crackup: LA’s Strange New Attack On Capitalism”
“In southern California’s most notorious hippie haven, though, one thing that can’t be allowed to be free is the marketplace. The patchouli brigades have been at war with an invading legion of salesmen hawking, in the coveted 205 spaces on the west side of the boardwalk, such mass-produced items as sunglasses and T-shirts. To lay claim to the valuable retail slots, vendors began hiring transients to squat on them overnight. Vendors who could not afford to pay this minimal level of quasi-rent were at a disadvantage. In other words: Those who were selling products people actually wanted to buy were pushing out those who weren’t. Viva the marketplace.”

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