Category: The World

Yesterday morning, I heard a brief interview with 3 members of the United States Travel and Tourism Promotion Advisory Board. The purpose of this board is to come up with ways to encourage international travel to the United States. They have been given a $50 million marketing budget by the President. Members include the heads of regional convention and tourism boards, hotel company executives, airline executives, and Commerce Secretary Don Evans. Some of these men are also members of the World Travel and Tourism Council. Although it does not surprise me that I was not invited to join this prestigious committee, I would like to offer my ideas on the subject. As usual, free advice is often worth what you pay for it.

First, I’d like to point out to the esteemed gentlemen that the majority of travel and tourism in the United States is done by people who already live in the United States. Sure, maybe it doesn’t bring “new” money into the system when someone from Iowa makes a trip to Chicago, but that person does spend money on food, hotel, activities, and collectors spoons that they would not have spent in Iowa. Furthermore, the kinds of things that keep us Americans from traveling are exactly the kinds of things that keep international tourists away.

Next, get the Department of Homeland Security to stop issuing warnings that say nothing more than Look Out! Speaking as an American, I don’t mind legitimate warnings, but most of what we hear is nothing more than vague scary stuff. We don’t want to hear “Orange. That is all.” We want something we can think about and maybe act upon. The few times there have been specific warnings — for example, recent warnings that there might be another hijacking or airliner bomb, or 2002’s warning that banks in the Northeast might be targeted — were met with no change in the terror alert level. To further complicate matters, genuine threats were met with no change; why didn’t the Washington area get an orange or even red alert when they had sniper problems? In short, we need something to “Look Out!” for, even if it’s a little vague, and we need regional alerts. People in other countries really do look at the terror levels before buying plane tickets.

Another thing you could do to encourage tourism is to stop treating everyone at the airport as a potential terrorist. There, I have said it. I don’t think most of us mind going through the metal detector. However, a lot of us are beginning to think that some small minority of screeners like to deliberately humiliate us through invasive searches and gratuitous confiscations. It is apparent that the list of prohibited items for carry-on luggage varies by screener and airport, regardless of what the official Federal list may say. Furthermore, now that it is perfectly legal for the TSA to break into our luggage and search it, have they found so much as a single bomb or vial of anthrax? Guns and ammo don’t count; it’s legal to pack those in checked luggage. Have we done adequate screening of the screeners to make sure they aren’t using this golden opportunity to steal from honest passengers?

Prescreening has been widely sold as an idea that will prevent unnecessary searches and speed up the security line. Nothing could be further from the truth. As long as it is suspected that people will bring weapons onto aircraft, the security line will stay where it is, and everyone will have to go through it. Today, we find out that the proposed prescreening system will color code travelers — color coding worked so well for the DHS — and rate them according to perceived security risk. Green passengers may board immediately; 8% will be rated yellow and get further screening; 1% to 2% will be rated red and not allowed to fly, maybe even get arrested, and there is absolutely nothing they can do about it. Now think about that. A Boeing 747-400 can carry up to 568 passengers. If 1% of passengers are designated code red non-flyers, that is an average of 5 on every single flight. On a busy holiday weekend, Chicago’s O’Hare airport has over 1 million travelers. Do they have room for 10,000-20,000 detained code red non-flyers at the airport? A single terminal at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport accommodates 12.8 million flyers annually, an average of 37,000 every single day. That’s 370 code red non-flyers every single day from a single terminal. Double these numbers if you suspect the number of code red non-flyers will actually be closer to 2%.

That is just the practical consideration. Don’t forget the Civil Liberties considerations. Groups from the American Conservative Union to the ACLU are concerned. The TSA spokesman says “Not only should we keep passengers from sitting next to a terrorist, we should keep them from sitting next to wanted ax murderers.” The ACLU director replies “You could be falsely arrested. You could be delayed. You could lose your ability to travel.” What is the criteria for arrest anyway? Having an outstanding parking ticket? Having the same name as someone who is a criminal? Even victims of identity theft could find themselves spending their vacation not at a resort, but in jail. Is there the possibility this could be used in a politically expedient fashion? Yes.

So then, Secretary Evans, esteemed members of the Board, if you would like foreign tourists to come back to the United States, you had better do something about Americans traveling within our borders. They are not a captive audience.

Do you remember George Bush the First on the campaign trail in 92, expressing amazement at the technological marvel known as the supermarket scanner? His son’s administration is every bit as “in touch” with the American People as he was.

The War on Terror: This week we will pass the 2 year mark, and frankly the only real progress is being able to color code our semi-rational fears. We’ve arrested a bunch of people, browbeat some into plea bargains that are very likely of the “I can’t prove I didn’t do it, so can I at least go minimum security instead of Federal Asspounding Prison?” variety. We have consolidated a bunch of Federal agencies into a Medusan mess known as the Department of Homeland Security. We squandered the opportunity to meaningfully upgrade airport screening and instead gave them even more authority and even less accountability. Oh, was accountability only for school districts? Have no fear, we will know more tonight at 8:30 Eastern.

Afghanistan: We really took care of Osama there, didn’t we? Oh, right, we never found him. Well, we got rid of the Taliban. Sort of. We stood up for the human rights of women. In retrospect. But we did install a friendly government and Karzai is doing a great job. If he were the Mayor of Kabul, he would be doing a fabulous job. Unfortunately his grip on the rest of the nation is somewhere between tenuous and non-existent.

Iraq: Somewhere between the shifting reasons for being there and our shifting target for getting out lies Blood and Oil. Ironically, modern Iraq was created at the end of World War I when the British decided it would be bloody handy to carve out some nice oil producing region of the Ottoman Empire and install a nice friendly regime there. The Americans have arrived 85 years later with the same failed plan and are telling us how wonderfully it is working. Furthermore, if anything is going wrong, it is the fault of the pesky people who actually live there! Never mind the fact that almost everything they had 6 months ago is destroyed — except for the oil, and it turns out that won’t really be enough to pay for everything.

World Trade: The Administration wants free and fair trade, except when it comes to agricultural products, steel, and Iraq reconstruction. In those cases we will subsidize farmers for producing more than could possibly be needed, illegally tariff imported steel to protect long since closed uncompetitive steel mills, and award billions of dollars in contracts without any bidding and without any effort to involve the people already there. No, we’re too busy mucking about in Chinese monetary policy.

Civil Liberties: The PATRIOT Act has come under such fire that Ashcroft had to do an old fashioned road show. Several state and local governments have decided not to comply with PATRIOT. Some entities have decided that the easiest way to comply with potential search warrants under the act while still protecting the privacy of patrons is to keep as few records as possible. Congress has had to seriously reconsider some provisions and potential expansions. Ted Koppel has had enough.

The Economy: Oh yeah, the economy. The President himself says “We’ve got positive growth, which is good.” He goes on to assert that home ownership is good, it’s a shame there are so many people out of work, and kittens are cute. Just kidding, he said nothing about kittens. He does seem to be under the impression that somehow the changes in labor rules (there is still time to write your Congressman) which will reduce the number of people eligible for overtime and allow the insidious practice of “comp time” will result in more people getting overtime pay. I guess I’d have to get an MBA for that to make sense. The truth is that this country is losing jobs and this plan — like the tax cuts that were supposed to have already saved the economy — will make it worse. However, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao has good news for the 2.7 million people who permanently lost jobs in manufacturing: we will need 1 million new nurses in this country over the next 10 years. This figure, as announced on CNBC, will be of great comfort to their children.

No wonder the President’s approval rating is down.

I probably watched too much television as a kid.

There was an episode of Fantasy Island that I remember where a psychologist is trying to figure out what makes “bad girls” tick. The suave and slightly magical Mr. Roarke — whose perfectly pressed white suit had not yet been supplemented with post “Wrath of Khan” chest baring shirts — gives her a potion and admonishes her to only take 3 drops at a time. Her newly released Inner Bad Girl is such a hit that her Good Girl self is kidnapped by Bad Boys who decide that if a little of this potion makes her Bad, even more will make her even More Bad — in a Good way of course. At this point she becomes completely uncontrollable.

Regulation and Deregulation are much the same way. A little is probably a good thing, but too much makes things uncontrollable. Most regulation happens because a clearly bad situation has arisen. For example, Texas has a state law saying landlords have to change locks between residents on their rental properties. A common sense thing that reputable landlords have always done had to be made into a law because some landlords weren’t doing the right thing. Whenever I see a particularly odd law, I remind myself that some legislative body thought it was important enough to draw up, vote on, and get somebody to sign.

This is in contrast to various laws that had unexpected consequences. For example, when the Social Security Number was invented, nobody thought it would be used as a universal identification number. In fact, the law prohibits using it in this way. By way of a more recent example, the No Child Left Behind Act states the lofty goal of improving performance in every sub-group of every school. Failure to do so has Federal implications. However, this does not allow much flexibility to the few truly excellent public schools, who must somehow surpass the extraordinary each year. By not providing a baseline performance other than “better,” they fail before they begin.

Regulations made by various government agencies are a slightly different animal. Since these agencies are not elected, and are often difficult to reign in, they sometimes seem to make rules just for the sake of making rules. Some of these rules will have clear valid reasons, others will be compromises between multiple points of view, some will be indirect political favors, and some will be nothing more than a wild hair. Some of these will indeed be so egregious that Legislators or the Courts will step in.

With many sources and years of regulation, it is easy to see how the rules can get very complicated and perhaps even contradictory. In addition, it can be expensive to figure out what the rules are and comply with them. The fundamental idea behind Deregulation is that by taking away unnecessary rules, it will be easier to do business. Theoretically this can even create jobs. The truth is that deregulation is just as prone to unintended consequence, abuse of authority, and political intrigue. Not only does deregulation tend to “throw the baby out with the bath-water,” it tends to rewrite rather than revise regulation.

Two prime examples are playing out in Washington as we speak. In the wake of August’s massive blackout, calls for reform are being answered with Bush’s original proposed Energy Policy, drilling in the Arctic and all. Congress is not amused. They asked specifically how drilling holes in the ground up in Alaska was going to keep power on in the lower 48 and as nearly as anyone can tell did not get an acceptable answer.

The other current example of bad deregulation deals with a law you may never have heard of called EMTALA. That’s the law that says (if I may oversimplify) that Emergency Rooms have to see anyone who comes in regardless of insurance, and that specialists have to be on call to help patients. The one main problem is a grey area: hospital owned clinics. Does a hospital’s off-site clinic fall under the same rules as the main campus? Rather than simply clarify this issue, the rules will be gutted. As a patient, you will risk becoming a human pinball if you have the wrong kind of insurance, or the wrong kind of injury, or simply come in at the wrong time of day. Because this is a “rule” amended by the Bush Administration, it will be very difficult to overrule, but not impossible.

Maybe you’d better not have a medical emergency after November 10, 2003.

In Iraq, we have over 280 dead American soldiers. At the current rate, we could be talking about the grizzly spectacle of a “300 Casualties Special” on whichever news show has the guts to be so tacky by the end of September. This figure does not include British casualties, the people killed in the UN blast, journalists, humanitarian aid workers, or Iraqi civilians. Things have gotten to the point that the United States has admitted that just maybe the time has come for the United Nations to get involved. We might even let France get involved.

We have $1.7 Billion (with a B) and counting in assorted Iraq related contracts to Halliburton. You remember Halliburton, right? That little oil services company Vice President Dick Cheney used to be the CEO of? Bechtel, a little engineering company Caspar Weinberger and George Shultz have been associated with, stands to earn another cool Billion in Iraq.

Speaking of money and Iraq, depending which source you like, it might cost $1 Billion a day to continue occupation of — oops, I mean rebuilding — Iraq. Or it might take $1 Billion a week, a figure that at least is close to Pentagon estimates of $4 Billion a month. Alternatively, the whole job might take another $11-15 Billion. People actually in Iraq seem to think this estimate is downright modest, suggesting it will take “tens of billions” to properly do the job. It seems like it might be more efficient to pick numbers out of a hat. The idea of making Iraq pay these expenses with oil proceeds is sounding more ludicrous by the day.

Both the Bush Administration and the Blair Administration in Britain are having to answer tough questions about how they got us into this mess. Both men may yet be punished in the voting booth.

On the National front, we have a potpourri of interesting economic news. The United States buget deficit has reached such proportions that even the IMF is concerned, saying that the people in charge are too optimistic and don’t have a plan. Granted, the IMF is a big fan of “fiscal austerity,” high taxes, and devalued currencies, but the actual criticisms are valid and undenyable. Some armchair economists insist that we have to make a choice between deficit spending and job creation, yet somehow we managed to create lots of jobs and eliminate the budget deficit in the 90s. As if that isn’t bad enough, it turns out that most of the current actual growth in the American economy can be attributed to defense spending — and it isn’t resulting in job creation. Hmm, at least defense spending in the Cold War put people to work. Are we now selling $600 toilet seats to Iraq? Oh, but wait, one theory posits that the reason new jobs aren’t happening has nothing to do with manufacturing jobs moving to foreign nations (try saying that with a straight face while looking at this), but is rather because us darned Americans are so efficient.

If it weren’t for the lives and money at stake, it would be enough to make you give up trying to understand it.

Biographical Data:

Wendy Lee Gramm was born in Hawaii in 1945 and is of mixed ancestry, including Hawaiian and Korean heritage. She is considered by some to be an “Asian American Wonder Woman.”

Her BA is from Wellesley College (1966). Her PhD. in Economics was awarded by Northwestern University (1971). She met her husband, former Senator Phil Gramm, while being interviewed for a position at Texas A & M University, where he behaved in a questionable fashion.* She became his second wife a year later, in 1970. They have 2 sons, Marshall and Jeff.

Activities:

She taught at Texas A &;M for 8 years, and is currently on the Board of Regents, in addition to serving on several committees. Her stellar academic credentials include being a Distinguished Senior Fellow and Director of the Regulatory Studies Program of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in  Virginia.

During the Reagan Administration, she headed the FTC’s Division of Consumer Protection Economics Bureau, and was an advisor in the Office of Management and Budget (1985-1988). As a reward for fervent deregulation, Reagan made her the chairperson of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (1988-1993). She joined the Texas Public Policy Foundation in 2000.

She has been on the Board of Directors of several companies, including Enron, Iowa Beef Processors (IBP), Invesco Funds, Longitude, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, State Farm Insurance Companies and Independent Women’s Forum.

Her position at Enron came under scrutiny from the very beginning. Not only did she join the board 5 weeks after leaving the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, but this was soon after she had pushed through a “regulatory exemption” to Enron’s benefit. Furthermore, she made a great deal of money from her relationship with Enron, despite also claiming over a half million dollars in paper losses from accounts tied to the value of Enron Stock — the Gramms have avoided common stock since 1988, to avoid perceived conflicts of interest. Deepening the controversy is over $100,000 in contributions Enron made to Senator Gramm’s re-election campaigns. As the story of Enron continued to unfold, the Senator chose to retire, and not run for a 4th term. Since the Senator was a high profile proponent of reduced government oversight of energy trading and was against conflict of interest rules regarding accountants providing consulting services, it is reasonable to assume he at least considered the potential media frenzy over the roles he and his wife played at Enron. As an Enron director, she is named in lawsuits against the now bankrupt  company. Despite the high profile of the Enron disaster, Wendy Gramm is also on the board of the equally controversial IBP, a huge meat processing concern. It is the world’s largest butcher, the nations largest slaughterer of both beef (26%) and pork (12%). It also has a history of union busting, attempting to control wholesale cattle prices, using illegal labor, flouting workplace and food safety guidelines, and making deals with the mafia. IBP — now known as Tyson Fresh Meats since acquisition by Tyson Foods — is not surprisingly against more regulation and inspection. Their most recent 10K filed with the SEC lists 5 pages of legal proceedings, yet only 3 pages of “Selected Financial Data.” These myriad legal concerns are broken broadly into “Wage and Hour/Labor Matters,” “Environmental Matters,” “Securities Matters” (only 3 paragraphs), “IBP Stockholder and Merger Agreement Related Litigation,” and “General Matters.”

Miscellaneous:

In January 2002, she was named the Clean Air Trust’s “Clean Air Villain of the Month” in recognition of her activities at the Mercatus Center. Specifically, “Gramm’s Mercatus Center was responsible for no fewer than five of the eight EPA rules singled out by OMB for “high priority” treatment — including standards for arsenic in drinking water. Altogether, OMB noted, Mercatus had called for a re-assessment of no fewer than 44 federal regulations — including national public health standards for smog and soot, as well as standards for tailpipe pollution from cars and sport utility vehicles, low-sulfur gasoline, big diesel trucks and diesel fuel….”

She has also received the Financial Executive of the Year award from the Financial Management Association.

If you should happen to meet Wendy Gramm and have a few minutes of her time, ask a couple of questions for me: “Did deregulation of energy trading make the Great Northeast Blackout better or worse?” and “Why is it that you can eat raw beef in a third world nation like Ethiopia, but you have to cook it tasteless for it to be safe in America, one of the most advanced nations on Earth?”

*Saying “As a single member of the faculty, I’d be very interested in having you come to Texas A&M” to a job applicant these days is much more likely to get you sued than married. Maybe things were different in 1970.

By now you surely know there’s a big power outage back east. In fact, it’s the biggest power outage ever, effecting 2 countries, half a dozen states, a bunch of big cities, and millions of people. New York’s airports still appear to be closed at this writing, which will cause travel logistics problems through the weekend and according to one analyst cost each airline $10-15 million. Despite the fact that the lion’s share of the  financial markets are located in New York City, most opened for business today, some on generator power. Detroit is expected to be without power through the weekend, a fact which surprises no-one familiar with the their local infrastructure.

In the late afternoon and evening hours as the situation unfolded and people tried desperately to get from their dark offices to their dark homes, many theories developed about the cause of the massive outage: it was a fire in a Manhattan substation (which turned out to be steam and smoke from the rapid shut-down process); it was a problem at Niagra-Mohawk (they denied it); it was a lightning strike according to the Canadian Prime Minister; one commentator joked it could be UFOs; the latest theory is a problem in Ohio. Nobody knows for certain what happened, but the People In Charge assure us it is not terrorism. How can they claim that without knowing the cause? No crank calls from Osama Bin Laden?

President Bush, despite not bothering to make a public statement until 4 hours after the crisis began, is using this opportunity to call for an energy bill. Do not be shocked if it involves oil drilling in the ANWR. Don’t say nobody warned you that such a bill would make it much easier to ram through eminent domain and the construction of power plants despite the fact that all the experts said last night capacity was not the problem. Do not be surprised if it involves tax breaks for big oil services companies like Halliburton and big energy trading companies like Dynegy.

Oh right, the energy traders. The people who single handedly brought you the California Energy Crisis. In an echo of Enron I point out this paragraph, emphasis mine:

“The early confusion about the cause of the grid collapse reflects the bedeviling complexity woven into the North American electricity network. Strain on the system has increased with the boom in cross-border power energy trading, and the emergence of competitive energy markets where power is being traded across long distances.”

Yes, that’s right.This whole thing may be caused by our old friends, the energy traders. Energy trading is bad, alright? It drives costs up, it drives reliability down. The only thing that can be said in its favor is that it means people can afford to have a “Not In My Back Yard” attitude towards power generation.

If we really want to prevent this from happening in the future, we must make sure the grid has redundant, reliable, and modernized systems in place, just like when you played Sim City back in the day. We must encourage solar and wind energy, since these systems can be used in town without disturbing (or polluting) the neighbors. We must furthermore encourage the use of low power devices, such as compact fluorescent lights, LCD computer monitors and televisions, low power computer processors, and other energy efficient devices.

Drilling oil wells in the Arctic and subsidizing Dick Cheney’s cronies is not going to solve this problem.

In a move tantamount to shouting “Look out!” on a busy street corner, the Department of Homeland Security has “warned” law enforcement and airlines of the possibility that there may be an Al Quida Hijacking attempt sometime in the next few months. Unless of course there is not. This so vague as to be useless warning was released despite the spokesman’s statement that “We continue to investigate this information to determine its level of credibility.” The terror level remains unchanged at Yellow, leading one to believe that the credibility level is quite low. This clumsy move is such an obvious distraction that one must wonder what we are supposed to be distracted from.

Meanwhile on the other side of the globe, things continue to go badly in the newly liberated Iraq. Essential services including water, sewer, and electricity are still spotty and crime is rampant, yet that appears to be the least of the problems. American forces are so desperate to complete the winning hand that they have stooped to the level of kidnapping women and children. From the Washington Post: “Col. David Hogg, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, said tougher methods are being used to gather the intelligence. On Wednesday night, he said, his troops picked up the wife and daughter of an Iraqi lieutenant general. They left a note: “If you want your family released, turn yourself in.” Such tactics are justified, he said, because, “It’s an intelligence operation with detainees, and these people have info.” They would have been released in due course, he added later. The tactic worked. On Friday, Hogg said, the lieutenant general appeared at the front gate of the U.S. base and surrendered.”

This is not good. First, this is behavior that would not be tolerated almost anywhere else in the world. Did anyone ever suggest kidnapping the family of, say, Milosevic? Second, did it not occur to anyone that if we knew where the wife and child were, the man of the house would at some point come home for dinner? Why exactly could American forces not simply put them under surveillance and waited? Finally there is the most disturbing issue of all: the fact that it worked. This demonstrates that the General in question honestly believed his family was not safe in American hands, that they would come to harm if he did not comply. Whatever we have done to cultivate such an image is unconscionable.

In other news from Iraq, British troops are being investigated for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, the ICC. The court is focusing on 22 incidents, documented in 74 press reports and 13 video tapes. You remember the ICC, don’t you? They are that big international court that the Bush Administration was so adamant the United States could not be part of. After all, American troops are involved in a lot of “peace keeping” missions, and could be brought up on charges in such a court! Although I refuse to believe that such a court would concern themselves with the perhaps ill-advised isolated actions of young soldiers, one must surely wonder if the court should be looking into the actions and orders of Col. Hogg. Indeed, it is a shame that Uday and Qusay Hussein are too dead to be brought before such a forum. A public trial would have gone a long way towards earning the trust of the Iraqi people and the world. That is, assuming “swift execution” and “justice” are not synonyms.

Finally, the Japanese have decided to send a team from the Self-Defense Force (SDF) to Iraq to determine what reconstruction assistance they can provide. There is still the possibility that the Japanese may determine that the best assistance they can provide is troops. This is notable and controversial. As the very title of the SDF suggests, their primary purpose is to defend Japan itself. It was set up during the post-WW2 reconstruction to specifically be an alternative to an Army. Indeed, Japanese troops “have not fired weapons in combat since the end of World War II….” Not even against Godzilla. The Japanese lawmaking body, the Diet, didn’t just have to approve troops, they had to change laws to be able to consider the possibility. Because they have a parliamentary system, Diet members risked incurring voter outrage and subsequent elections to make this change. This is a big deal.

As a postscript, a bit of news that has been almost ignored in the American media. The House of Representatives has voted to repeal the section of the PATRIOT Act which allows secret search warrants, which they call “sneak and peek” warrants. The Department of Justice has vowed to fight this, calling the move the “terrorist tip-off amendment.” Since such a change must still be approved by the Senate, I strongly urge you to tell your Senator what you think. Do it today.

I kept my mouth shut last week. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Seriously, how many elderly drivers have to injure or kill people in the course of just one month before we young whippersnappers do something? Please keep in mind, the month isn’t over yet. More carnage could be coming to a fruit market or street corner near you. Drivers who should not be on the road anymore are a danger not only to us, but also to themselves.

Now, please understand, I do not support simply having a maximum driving age. I do, however, think there needs to be some way to get dangerous drivers off the road. We have ways of getting drunk drivers off the road. We have had great success in reducing the accident rate among young drivers through better instruction and “graduated license” programs. In fact, both of the last two big teenager crashes I can think of involved young people in violation of their license limitations. There must be a way to make sure that elderly drivers are competent behind the wheel.

We can start by making a driving road test mandatory to receive or renew a handicapped parking tag. Every time I see some Mercury or Buick parked badly more or less “in” a handicapped parking spot, I think to myself “Here is someone who couldn’t even wedge their vehicle between the extra wide lines of a handicapped spot at less than 5 mph. How on earth do they manage to keep between the lines of the road at 35 mph, let alone higher speeds?” What about people who need the tag because they drive for a handicapped relative? Let them go to the DMV in person and fill out an affidavit to that affect. It will be up to the professionals at the DMV to determine whether a driving test is necessary. These professionals, by the way, should keep several newspaper pictures of crashes posted prominently in their workspace, as a reminder of what can happen should rules be bent.

Perhaps we should also have regular road tests for drivers over, say, 75. While we are at it, we could say that drivers with certain types and quantities of traffic tickets should get road tests when they renew. I am not talking about a new test every year. Maybe once every 3 to 5 years. And yes, states are going to have to spend some money on testing. They could recoup some losses by having a “retest fee” on any driver who takes a driving test more than once in the course of a month, regardless of age. Such a fee would certainly make marginal drivers rethink their test date. It might make them think twice about retesting at all.

Now lets take a few minutes to examine the criticism to doing much of anything about this problem:

It’s discriminatory! Yes, and so are senior citizen discounts. For that matter, so are retirement villages. You are grown-ups. Deal with it. Life is not always fair.

How are they supposed to get to the grocery store and to Doctor’s appointments? Let me get this straight, we are supposed to allow dangerous drivers to be a menace to people, property, and themselves so they can get to the Doctor’s office? The idea that people whose licenses are revoked will be stranded is certainly a problem, but not so big a problem that we should allow people to drive who are proven to be unsafe behind the wheel. The wonderful thing about a market economy is that I can say without fear of contradiction that someone will come up with a safe and sane solution to this problem.

The driver isn’t always to blame. Often older people drive older cars, which are more prone to mechanical problems such as sudden acceleration, stuck throttles, and failing brakes. If this is valid, then we should also be hearing about a lot more cases of people between 20 and 50 having mechanical failure induced wrecks, shouldn’t we? In the old days, many states had safety inspections, and some still do. Perhaps mores states should have such tests. Often conducted by your friendly neighborhood (but state certified) mechanic, he would among other things they make sure the brakes worked, the the horn was loud enough, and that all the lights worked. These tests were a big pain, but they did make sure unsafe vehicles got fixed or taken off the road. Unfortunately, these tests had the side effect of making cars too expensive to maintain for some poor people, some of whom also happened to be elderly. Of course, this does not address the issue that most “sudden acceleration” is in fact “user error” and that some “failed brakes” may simply be legs too frail to properly depress the pedal in an emergency braking situation.

No matter what you say, elderly drivers still have fewer accidents than teenagers! Yes, that’s true. It doesn’t take into account that elderly drivers drive less. It doesn’t account for the fact that elderly drivers are usually more experienced drivers who should “know better.” And it doesn’t account for the 27% rise in elderly people killed in car wrecks in a decade where total auto fatalities dropped. Besides which, many states now restrict teen driving. They do it because they care, and want their kids to stay alive. Oh, and not kill anybody else either.

You are blaming everyone for a few bad apples. No, we’d just like to get the bad apples off the road to keep all of us safe, even you.

So what if elderly drivers are going a bit more slowly? What’s the problem? What’s your hurry? If all these drivers were doing was going a bit slow, I don’t believe anyone would have a problem. But look at the 10 links to accidents in the first paragraph! How many of those wrecks were caused by “going too slow”? The slow driving is unfortunately often a compensation for slower reaction times and poorer eyesight — both of which cause crashes.

This is an excuse to herd old people into concentration camps! Putting all of us into one place is the only way you can make sure we have “transportation,” and when we are too expensive to take care of you will euthanize us! Do you really think the AARP will allow that to happen?

Driving tests are a bad idea because the test will make Seniors nervous. That almost guarantees they will fail. If they are getting nervous and messing up in a driving test, then they are getting nervous and messing up in traffic emergencies too. Like when that pedestrian steps in front of them. Or the light all of a sudden turns red. Or when the “accelerator sticks.” Or when they see those emergency vehicles in the rear view mirror. Or when that young fool behind them starts beeping because the light turned green a whole second ago. Or when they get cut off in traffic. You can at least study and practice for a test. You can’t study and practice for a traffic emergency.

Hitting the gas instead of the brake can happen to anybody. And when was the last time you heard of this happening to anyone who was not either elderly or inexperienced?

The AARP is going to lobby hard against any change to the status quo. They have to; their membership demands it. However, they are going to have to come up with a better solution than checklists and voluntary driving refresher classes.

It seems like not a day goes by without a headline to the effect of “Bad Thing Happens in Iraq.” Soldiers killed or injured. Suicide bomber. Weapons cache found in graveyard, leaving occupying forces to either desecrate graves, or expect an attack. A mosque is blown up. Infrastructure at risk. Police cadets killed. Journalist killed. Political unrest. And Saddam himself has joined Osama Bin Laden as an Arabic Elvis, despite a large bounty on his head, and despite the fact that everyone was sure he was dead a month ago. According to the Washington Post, American Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez reports an average of 13 attacks on American and/or British forces each day for the last 6 weeks. In the face of this opposition which is not supposed to exist, the President of the United States says “Bring them on!” With this daring taunt, he places American military forces in harm’s way — men and women with families who miss them as they serve their country. Furthermore, he endangers the innocent Iraqis they were supposed to be helping.

This is to say nothing of the ongoing problems of destroyed infrastructure. Ordinary citizens have serious problems getting clean, safe food and water. Roads and electrical service are spotty. Inasmuch as “liberating” forces have taken out the Iraqi government, it is not unlike waking up and discovering that anything with “Federal” in the title was damaged or destroyed. In many cases, even local government is tenuous. Make no mistake, the Hussein regime was not a bunch of nice friendly guys dedicated to the betterment of its subjects. However, there is no evidence that liberating forces have improved the situation in the short run.

Even so, don’t say “the Q word” — quagmire — in front of Donald Rumsfeld. Like the former Iraqi Information Minister proclaiming that all is well and there are no approaching armies and a curse on whomever dares to say otherwise, Rumsfeld insists this is nothing to be alarmed about. Everything is coming along, things are getting better every day, give us some more time, and we’ll pack up and leave as soon as we can. This might be more convincing if we hadn’t heard the same thing about Afghanistan. The new administration, while philosophically a huge improvement over the Taliban regime, has yet to bring law, order, and government services much beyond metropolitan Kabul.

However questionable the reason American and British forces are involved in the first place, the current problems cannot be solved by packing up our tanks and going home. That tactic will breed a generation or two of anti-western militants who grew up in harsh conditions and crushing poverty. However, somebody needs to have a Plan with more depth than awarding some construction contracts and installing a governor. Not only does there need to be a Plan, it needs to be culturally sensitive to avoid faux-pas such as imposing western banking when Islamic law strictly speaking forbids both paying and receiving interest — why not give away ham and beer in the humanitarian aid packages, sheesh! Beyond this, the Plan has to have buy-in from the people we are supposedly there to help. Failure to cooperate with people there, who aren’t necessarily fond of us, will result in failure of the Plan. And failure of the Plan will mean having to go back and crush a dozen Osamas and Saddams in a decade or two.

This morning, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) came out with a bevy of opinions. This stuff is important, and I strongly encourage you to care.

For one thing, they decided that it is none of the Government’s business what two consenting adults do in their bedroom. Specifically, they struck a Texas law prohibiting “deviant sex.” Although this has been portrayed as a “gay sex ban,” it banned a number of activities enjoyed by otherwise law-abiding heterosexuals.

They also ruled that California could not arbitrarily and retroactively extend the statute of limitations, not even on Really Bad Stuff. Specifically this case involved prosecuting a child molester for actions of 50 years ago. Make no mistake, what he did is bad! No question about it! But if the government can decide that the statute of limitations does not matter on this crime, they can decide it doesn’t matter on almost any crime. Unless your youth was completely free of indiscretion, that idea should scare you.

Furthermore, they ruled that defendants have a right to competent legal counsel, particularly in death penalty cases. At issue is the case of a man who, had the jury known what an awful childhood he had, might have ruled that life in prison was adequate punishment. Since his lawyers never bothered to present the information, the jury never heard it, and sentenced him to death. Now, he gets a new sentencing hearing, not a new trial.

Important stuff. Check it out.