JayB

Yup. Number 187,926,340,879,127,489,217,498,072,134,798,012,374,897,213,89,742.

Jesus, Carl. Give it a rest.

This is why I'd tend to limit my support to such projects to cases where the infrastructure in question would not exist at all were it not for the private investment, and there are alternatives that prevent the establishment of a government sanctioned private monopoly. If the narrows bridge fell down and a private company wanted to build the replacement, then I'd oppose the project. If a private company wanted to build a second bridge somewhere else that would allow folks to choose between a free, grid-locked megacluster, and paying $10 for a faster alterative, then I'd support that. It's been a while since I lived there, but when I was living in Colorado and heading to points north of Denver during periods of high traffic, I liked having the choice of paying a few bucks to hop on 470 and drive around most of the mess. Having said all of that, I don't think that anyone who is familiar with the Big Dig could claim that corruption, avarice, etc have been wholly extinguished from public enterprise either. I also suspect that a private corporation would be viewed much less sympathetically than a public workforce, and that it would be quite a bit easier for the unions, politicians, etc to impose tolls at a threshold that would cause a revolt were they assessed by a private corporation. For some reason $5 tolls and $66K a year change-makers with 6 weeks vacation bother the average person less than $4 tolls that lead to private profits which are subject to taxation. I'd probably agree with folks who say that private monopolies combine the worst defects of both public and private enterprise into a single entity. When unchecked avarice and inefficiency meet in a single entity it's not pretty.

How is a privately financed and constructed road any more part of the public domain than a privately financed and constructed cell phone tower? If we are talking about a toll-road, the only rational consideration is which operator provides optimum utility while minimizing the costs to the public. The only thing that should matter to a logical person is the cost of the inputs (tolls) relative to the value of the outputs (speed, ease, safety of travel, etc), not who they are handing the change over to.

Incidence of Lyme Disease in the US, per 100,000 persons:

If your objective is to increase the tax yield or generate revenue for transportation infrastructure, there are much more efficient and cost effective means of doing so than the construction and operation of toll roads. I'd venture a guess that it's ultimately more economically efficient and the net tax yield is higher when the state simply taxes the revenues generated by a private toll road than when the state assumes the liability for the construction, operation, maintenance, and staffing of the same - so I wouldn't be so quick to assume that the "generated revenue" is actually any greater for the the state when you account for the true costs.

Seems to me like that at least when it comes to the question of continuing an activity from your youth in some fashion or another or abandoning it - conditioning is probably the least important factor of all. Old folks who are passionate about whatever it is that they do find a way to keep doing it - I've seen an old guy in a motorized wheelchair and an oxygen tank roll down to the bank of a river with a fly-rod and start casting away. The passion was still there, and he found a way to get himself to the shore, in spite of his physical limitations - not because he lacked them. I'm not sure I'll care too much how hard I'm climbing, skiing, or boating when I'm in my 60's or 70's if I'm fortunate enough to live that long I have no doubt that I'll be doing all of those things in some fashion or another.

As long as they have to meet certain standards for the operation of such that are defined and enforced by someone other than themselves, I don't find this any less objectionable than a toll road operated by a state. Word out here is that the debt for the MassPike was retired in 1981, the average change-maker is paid $55K, and fully 1/3 of the tolls go to maintaining the toll infrastructure - and I'd be amazed if this figure includes future liabilities for retirement and healthcare. Not sure a private enterprise which, by its very nature, is under constant public scrutiny could extract any more money from the public than the folks that operate this stretch of highway. The only objective advantage that public ownership of toll roads could have over the private ownership of toll roads or vice versa is efficiency. If one operator could make a convincing claim that their management will result in greater utility - shorter lines, lower fees, better maintenance - than another then I'd opt for whoever had the stronger claim. Given the extensive network of highways that's already in place, it's hard to see how awarding such franchises would necessarily lead to monopoly control over commuters unless the public highways that offered alternative routes to the same place were decommissioned. Another benefit of private versus public ownership of new transportation options is that they'll be more responsive to actual effective demand than those funded by the government. More people willing to pay a given price for a given mode of transportation between points A and B equals a higher probability of the said mode coming into being than those funded by tax revenue.

I never said that they were inherently bad, but there are certain hazards inherent granting the government the power to make such ex-post facto seizures. You may not mind if the government comes and seizes your neighbors glock. He may not mind if the government comes and seizes your books. You'd probably prefer it if it was illegal for them to come search your home for marijuana, much less seize it. Guns are different, but not necessarily different enough that you can dismiss all such concerns out of hand. The nature and scope of gun ownership in this country is such that seizing all handguns, semi-auto rifles, etc - will require legislative and law enforcement intitiatives at least as extensive as those undertaken in Prohibition/T.W.O.D. I also don't think that you can entirely dismiss the arguments concerning the rights of the small, weak, and/or vulnerable to safeguard their own rights against violation by other individuals by using handguns in situations where any protection offered by the government will be far too little too late. I think that these situations are far less frequent than the NRA and others suggest, but I don't think that they can be dismissed by anyone who sincerely believes in the principle that people should have the freedom to defend their lives/liberties/persons against violation by others.

Have you been following the powers given to the government for seizure of private property in the war on drugs? Or the difficulty retrieving that property? These same powers are now being deployed in the war on terror. I see no reason they couldn't be used in a war on guns. Are we talking about the Patriot Act or things that had their genesis during Prohibition? If we are talking about the threats posed to personal liberty by a government that can determine what mentally competent adults can or cannot imbibe, and the enforcement machinery necessary to uphold the laws intended to prevent the same, then I'd have to agree with you. Here's what one of your beloved Austrian economists had to say at the time (1920s): "As the [classical] liberal sees it, the task of the state consists solely and exclusively in guaranteeing the protection of life, health, liberty, and private property against violent attacks. Everything that goes beyond this is an evil. A government that, instead of fulfilling its task, sought to go so far as actually to infringe on personal security of life and health, freedom, and property would, of course, be altogether bad. Still, as Jacob Burckhardt says, power is evil in itself, no matter who exercises it. It tends to corrupt those who wield it and leads to abuse. Not only absolute sovereigns and aristocrats, but the masses also, in whose hands democracy entrusts the supreme power of government, are only too easily inclined to excesses. In the United States, the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages are prohibited. Other countries do not go so far, but nearly everywhere some restrictions are imposed on the sale of opium, cocaine, and similar narcotics. It is universally deemed one of the tasks of legislation and government to protect the individual from himself. Even those who otherwise generally have misgivings about extending the area of governmental activity consider it quite proper that the freedom of the individual should be curtailed in this respect, and they think that only a benighted doctrinairism could oppose such prohibitions. Indeed, so general is the acceptance of this kind of interference by the authorities in the life of the individual that those who, are opposed to liberalism on principle are prone to base their argument on the ostensibly undisputed acknowledgment of the necessity of such prohibitions and to draw from it the conclusion that complete freedom is an evil and that some measure of restriction must be imposed upon the freedom of the individual by the governmental authorities in their capacity as guardians of his welfare. The question cannot be whether the authorities ought to impose restrictions upon the freedom of the individual, but only how far they ought to go in this respect. No words need be wasted over the fact that all these narcotics are harmful. The question whether even a small quantity of alcohol is harmful or whether the harm results only from the abuse of alcoholic beverages is not at issue here. It is an established fact that alcoholism, cocainism, and morphinism are deadly enemies of life, of health, and of the capacity for work and enjoyment; and a utilitarian must therefore consider them as vices. But this is far from demonstrating that the authorities must interpose to suppress these vices by commercial prohibitions, nor is it by any means evident that such intervention on the part of the government is really capable of suppressing them or that, even if this end could be attained, it might not therewith open up a Pandora's box of other dangers, no less mischievous than alcoholism and morphinism. Whoever is convinced that indulgence or excessive indulgence in these poisons is pernicious is not hindered from living abstemiously or temperately. This question cannot be treated exclusively in reference to alcoholism, morphinism, cocainism, etc., which all reasonable men acknowledge to be evils. For if the majority of citizens is, in principle, conceded the right to impose its way of life upon a minority, it is impossible to stop at prohibitions against indulgence in alcohol, morphine, cocaine, and similar poisons. Why should not what is valid for these poisons be valid also for nicotine, caffeine, and the like? Why should not the state generally prescribe which foods may be indulged in and which must be avoided because they are injurious? In sports too, many people are prone to carry their indulgence further than their strength will allow. Why should not the state interfere here as well? Few men know how to be temperate in their sexual life, and it seems especially difficult for aging persons to understand that they should cease entirely to indulge in such pleasures or, at least, do so in moderation. Should not the state intervene here too? More harmful still than all these pleasures, many will say, is the reading of evil literature. Should a press pandering to the lowest instincts of man be allowed to corrupt the soul? Should not the exhibition of pornographic pictures, of obscene plays, in short, of all allurements to immorality, be prohibited? And is not the dissemination of false sociological doctrines just as injurious to men and nations? Should men be permitted to incite others to civil war and to wars against foreign countries? And should scurrilous lampoons and blasphemous diatribes be allowed to undermine respect for God and the Church? We see that as soon as we surrender the principle that the state should not interfere in any questions touching on the individual's mode of life, we end by regulating and restricting the latter down to the smallest detail. The personal freedom of the individual is abrogated. He becomes a slave of the community, bound to obey the dictates of the majority. It is hardly necessary to expatiate on the ways in which such powers could be abused by malevolent persons in authority. The wielding, of powers of this kind even by men imbued with the best of intentions must needs reduce the world to a graveyard of the spirit. All mankind's progress has been achieved as a result of the initiative of a small minority that began to deviate from the ideas and customs of the majority until their example finally moved the others to accept the innovation themselves. To give the majority the right to dictate to the minority what it is to think, to read, and to do is to put a stop to progress once and for all. Let no one object that the struggle against morphinism and the struggle against "evil" literature are two quite different things. The only difference between them is that some of the same people who favor the prohibition of the former will not agree to the prohibition of the latter. In the United States, the Methodists and Fundamentalists, right after the passage of the law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, took up the struggle for the suppression of the theory of evolution, and they have already succeeded in ousting Darwinism from the schools in a number of states. In Soviet Russia, every free expression of opinion is suppressed. Whether or not permission is granted for a book to be published depends on the discretion of a number of uneducated and uncultivated fanatics who have been placed in charge of the arm of the government empowered to concern itself with such matters. The propensity of our contemporaries to demand authoritarian prohibition as soon as something does not please them, and their readiness to submit to such prohibitions even when what is prohibited is quite agreeable to them shows how deeply ingrained the spirit of servility still remains within them. It will require many long years of self-education until the subject can turn himself into the citizen. A free man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and live otherwise than he considers proper. He must free himself from the habit, just as soon as something does not please him, of calling for the police."

I'm not sure those favoring greater restrictions on personal weaponry are calling for "broad new powers to search private homes," and the imposition of ANY new law restricting possession of guns, dangerous drugs, chemicals that harm the environment, an explosive hazard that endangers the neighbors, or maybe ban hog farms in a residential neighborhood is an "ex-post-facto declarations that what was once legally held private property is now subject to seizure by the state, etc." I think you can do better than that, Jay. Your argument could be applied against ANY public safety or public welfare law on private property: is that really what you mean? Some are calling for such things, some aren't. The point was that in all such cases you have to balance the competing perogatives of preserving personal freedom and maintaining public safety - and that's an especially difficult task when it comes to personal firearms in general, and the scores of millions of guns that are already in private hands in particular. I don't personally own any guns and in many ways I envy those societies that haven't inherited this particular conundrum from their pasts, and if given the power to push a magic button and make everything but single-action rifles and shotguns disappear from the country - I might be tempted to push it, but that's not the way the world is.

how would it be so invasive? the law would say you'd have to turn over any semi-automatic weapon - it could be connected to an incentive (a buyback program w/ a decreasing price over time to get them back sooner rather than later) - perhaps an exemption for folks w/ a family heirlom (the weapon must be rendered permanently inoperable, verified as such, and then be kept at home) - after the grace period's over, if you're arrested w/ an illegal gun, then the penalty would be assesed. existing records of gun ownership let you knock on doors or call or write for due diligence in informing the public. how would the enforcement of this law be different from any other? seems like a problem w/ previous gun laws though is they have often been shoddily enforced The key difference is that the objects are already in private hands, and enforcing limits on things that folks already own is quite a bit different from restricting the sale or distribution of the same. What would you do with the substantial minority of gun owners who failed to comply with one or any of the provisions? Hard to see how this could be enforced without granting the government fairly wide powers to search for and seize the now-illegal weapons still in the hands of folks who haven't complied with the law - or result in a state where a the new legislation is both widely ignored and ineffectual for lack of vigorous enforcement. It may be possible construct and enforce these laws in such a way that renders these concerns groundless, but I don't think that you can dismiss them out of hand either.

Uh JayB the Patriot Act already gave them those powers What provisions of the Act are you referring to? I don't think that your assertion here is correct with regards to the personal ownership of firearms. If you oppose some of the provisions of the Patriot Act on the grounds that the extent to which they erode personal freedoms constitutes a harm that exceeds any benefit to society, that's fine - but you have to frame your gun-control wish-list a bit more carefully as the search/seizure/enforcement provisions of any such legislation could easily equal or exceed anything contained within the Patriot Act. I personally think that the country took a big step down the slippery slope when the notion that the state had the right to regulate which substances it was legal for mentally competent adults to consume during Prohibition, and things haven't improved substantially on that count since then. The case of guns is a more complex one, but I don't think that you can simultaneously wish for a massive gun-law enforcement bureaucracy with broad new powers to search private homes, issue ex-post-facto declarations that what was once legally held private property is now subject to seizure by the state, etc - and make broad complaints about the provisions in the Patriot Act at the same time.

Even if you accept that the link between private gun ownership and the maintenance of personal freedoms is a mighty loose one, there's still the matter of what impact granting the government broad new search/seizure/enforcement powers necessary to stuff this particular genie back into the bottle might have. When people were debating the merits of prohibition, criminalizing drugs way back in the day(you could still buy heroin through the Sears and Robucks catalog around the turn of the century), etc - there were a few folks that argued that the benefits that would arise from making these substances illegal would be dwarfed by the negative consequences they'd have - foremost amongst them being their effects on personal freedoms. Not exactly an apples to apples comparison, but worth thinking about IMO.

1. Ride bike too-from work 5X a week (20 min each way). 2. Lift 0-4 X. Hit whatever is next on the list, if I can remember. 3. Run 0-1 X. 4. Kayak, ski, or climb 1-2X. 5. Boulder/Climb 1X per week if there's a facility close enough. Try to get enough to eat, get enough sleep.

Yes, Greenpeace is where I'd go for an objective assessment of this one. -the carotene-yield figures are way out of date and strains have been produced in which the yields are roughly twenty-fold higher than those referenced in your quip. -There are also no published studies showing that the human body can't convert the beta-carotene in golden rice to Vitamin-A either. The argument here is essentially that we should assume that beta carotene from golden rice has mystical properties that render the body unable to absorb or convert it to vitamin A in the same way that it does from all other plant sources. -The notion that the strains would have to contribute 100% of the adult RDA to be beneficial is especially idiotic. If you are suffering from an extreme deficiency of any particular nutrient, even a moderate augmentation of whatever it is that you are missing in your diet is likely to be extremely beneficial and alleviate the most severe symptoms. What makes more sense and is more likely to succeed? Trying to convince hundreds of millions of people to fundamentally alter their diet and agricultural practices and the consumer preferences in markets in which they sell them - or to give them seeds that let them grow the same staple crops that they already grow and rely on that contain an essential nutrient that they need to help stave off blindness, infection, and death?

Check the history of Europe pre-1945 and compare with the post WWII period. Was it the gun laws that changed? How does the history of Euroland compare with that of Swizterland* on the stable democracy front? *"The gun policy in Switzerland is unique in Europe. The personal weapon of militia personnel is kept at home as part of the military obligations. This, in addition to liberal gun laws and strong shooting traditions, has led to a very high gun count per capita."

In most cases, the said product wouldn't exist without the profit motive providing the impetus for the research and development costs required for its development, and the resources that went into it would have been allocated to other ventures that offered a greater potential return. In the case that a private company develops a lifesaving product, and the public wants to insure that everyone who needs the product gets it, then the public should fork over the money necessary to pay for it and send it to those who need it. Doctors do life-saving work, but no one argues that they should work for free. Insisting on that would be a wonderful way to dramatically reduce the number of people who are willing to work as doctors, though. You could probably benefit society tremendously by resigning from your job and providing all of the skills that you are paid for on a volunteer basis to all of those who need them instead of selling them to your employer. Why not do that?

I don't find the "farmers are dumb and don't know how to evaluate crop strains or make informed judgments concerning how to operate their businesses as well as I do" argument much more persuasive than the "gun to the head" argument. As far as altruism is concerned, whether a company develops a technology out of avarice, greed, malice, or any other motive is considerably less important than the objective benefits of the said technology or innovation. If you had an otherwise incurable disease and someone developed a drug for the sole reason that they wanted to make money, would you refuse it on principle? I know a few doctors that do lifesaving work, yet were at least partly attracted to the field because of the money. Are their contributions to society less valuable as a result of their motivations for entering into the field?

The lab work may well be innocuous, but this issue is not confined to the lab; on this point you sound naive. My concerns are not about devious mad scientists in lab coats devising the latest diabolical threat to mankind, but about manipulative business practices that corporate giants are using to secure increases in profit share at the expense of family farmers, public health, and the diminishment of future food-group bio-diversity. Again - is someone putting a gun to farmer's heads and forcing them to grow these crops, or are they making a choice to plant them based on the expectation that increased yields will more than offset the increased prices they pay? Is there any credible evidence - or rather, evidence that people who are have the scientific expertise necessary to evaluate these claims broadly agree upon - that public health is threatened by transgenic crops? More seed choices with a wider variety of characteristics will reduce food-group biodiversity?

I'm sure that most of the audience would agree with your assertion that using a Britta water filter completely negates a person's ability to put forth an opinion an just about anything scientific. And I'm sure your putting forth THAT opinion enhances your scientific standing among that very same audience. This argument is not about science as boogeyman, as you've erroneous (and uniquely) framed it. It's about very large companies, with non-altruistic motives, pushing an agricultural agenda that benefits their bottom line; not farmers, not consumers, not poor little Bagladeshis, and certainly not the environment. This agenda flourished (or is it fluorished?) during a time of plentiful rainfall, huge water projects, and lots and lots of irrigation, a lower population, lots of unused land, and very cheap fossil fuels; your so called "Green Revolution"; all of which are fast becoming things of the past. Eating local and organic is a must for a sustainable future, whether you're an African dirt farmer or a Belltown yuppie. It also just happens to result in a healthier diet and greater profits and self determination for farmers and local communities. The Green Revolution world we've built is an unsustainable, short term, environmentally damaging solution developed during a time of plenty that is fast drawing to a close. I realize that this kind of dynamic thinking is difficult to swallow when put forth by a water filtering cretin such as myself, but there you have it. Dude. You were arguing that fluoride in drinking water has adverse health consequences. This is completely at odds with the evidence and the scientific consensus. The fact that you opted for unsanctioned paranoia over evidence in this case is an indicator of the manner in which you assess scientific evidence and form opinions based on the same. "It's about very large companies, with non-altruistic motives, pushing an agricultural agenda that benefits their bottom line; not farmers, not consumers, not poor little Bagladeshis, and certainly not the environment. This agenda flourished (or is it fluorished?) during a time of plentiful rainfall, huge water projects, and lots and lots of irrigation, a lower population, lots of unused land, and very cheap fossil fuels; your so called "Green Revolution"; all of which are fast becoming things of the past. Yes - disease, drought, and pest-resistant crops with higher yields and are clearly of no benefit to anyone, certainly not the hundreds of millions of people who have *literally* been spared misery and starvation as a direct result of them. Unsustainable? Unsustainable in that millions of people will face starvation if yields reverted back to the levels that they were at prior to their introduction? Take away the yields and what happens to large sectors of the world that depend on these crops today? "Take comfort - your death brings us one-step closer to sustainability." Here's a scary biotech crop that should be nipped in the bud, pronto: http://www.goldenrice.org/ "Dietary micronutrient deficiencies, eg lack of vitamin A, iodine, iron or zinc, are a major source of morbidity (increased susceptibility to disease) and mortality worldwide. These deficiencies affect particularly children, impairing their immune systems and normal development, causing disease and ultimately death. In Golden Rice two genes have been inserted into the rice genome by genetic engineering, to account for the turned-off genes, thereby leading to the production and accumulation of beta-carotene in the grains. The intensity of the golden colour is an indicator of the concentration of beta-carotene in the endosperm. According to the World Health Organization, dietary vitamin A deficiency (VAD) causes some 250,000 to 500,000 children to go blind each year. Blindness and corneal afflictions are but indicators of more severe underlying health problems: more than half the children who lose their sight die within a year of becoming blind. VAD compromises the immune systems of approximately 40 percent of children under the age of five in the developing world, greatly increasing the risk of severe illnesses from common childhood infections." Better start chanting outside the labs before this one gets too out of hand, lest those gains against childhood immunodeficiency and night-blindness get out of control. Way more important to stoke our overfed and unscientific eco-narcissism. Jesus.

"genetic modification has nothing to do with improving life or even improving production." Why would farmers buy a seed that, in addition to having no tangible benefits over the myriad alternatives, must be repurchased as seed from the vendor year after year? Are they being forcibly compelled to grow the crops, or are they assessing the costs and benefits of the various choices at their disposal and electing to grow them? If the "control" that Monsanto or any other agribusiness exerts over the food supply is contingent upon farmers choosing to plant with their seeds, then this is a rather tenuous form of control.

Yes - but you were also holding forth at some length about the dire consequences in store for those who imbibe tap water which it, which says quite a bit about your capacity to evaluate scientific evidence and render rational judgments of the same. My own little humdrum example is quite relevant in that it demonstrates just how easy it would be to for someone to use scary sounding generalities in order transmogrify some wholly innocuous, and potentially useful/beneficial work into something that the average person will be both needlessly afraid of and diametrically opposed to. Take any particular GMO crop, and ask the team of scientists who developed it to explain their research and I'm betting that the average person would get a much more accurate and nuanced view of the potential risks and benefits than the folks orbiting research labs with their megaphones or their fellow travelers elsewhere are able to impart. One day I hope to find a diabetic who's dependent upon recombinant insulin out there ranting on about the dire consequences that genetic engineering has for (the rest of) mankind.

This from the guy who is gravely concerned about the health-effects of fluoridation. I'll stick with the consensus judgment of people who are qualified to persist in the conversation - crop scientists, plant geneticists, etc. Thanks. Mercifully, it looks as though marker assisted breeding will provide a different means to the same end as transgenic crops and does so in a manner that will be harder to chant repetitively. "No crops with desirable traits selected by classical breeding massively accelerated through the use of genetic markers!!!" BTW - in the time that's elapsed since my last post I just finished splicing HIV DNA into another chunk of DNA that will confer antibiotic resistance on the bacteria that I transfer the said chunk into. "OMG! The next superbug!!!! Sound the alarm bells - somebody stop this madman before we're all wiped out."* *Won't alarm anyone with a basic knowledge of subcloning and the expression/purification of fusion proteins in bacteria, could conceivably alarm those without.