October 15, 2007

Internecine conflict on the Left Coast

Posted by Hal Young at 6:01 PM

An environmental organization is suing Apple because Greenpeace says the $600 iPhone has a chemical in the earphone wires that is unsafe for use in toys sold in San Francisco. So says PC World today.

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S-CHIP vs the market

Posted by Joseph Coletti at 4:14 PM

John Goodman, the policy doctor not the actor, suggests a way to move beyond the S-CHIP debate in a way that will really help children and their families. It has to do with tax credits for health insurance. I have some quibbles, but it's a start. I wonder whether our friends on the left really care about kids enough to debate it. They didn't address other ideas. But then, they think Medicaid is terrific.

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Al Gore's Nobel

Posted by George Leef at 3:09 PM

Steven Hayward regards it as more evidence of the degraded, politically driven process of picking winners for the Peace Prize. Read his assessment here.

It's funny that someone should receive a Nobel Prize for work that serious scholars have repeatedly shown to be error-filled alarmism.

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Give two cheers for globalization

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 2:47 PM

The benefits of globalization far outweigh its costs, according to Doug Bandow of the group Policy for Citizen Outreach.

Bandow offered his defense of globalization during today's meeting of the John Locke Foundation's Shaftesbury Society.

He offers two cheers — rather than three — because he recognizes that a changing economy will cause some pain.

• As he points out in this video clip, the pain generated by a dynamic economy is tied to the growth that benefits all of society.

4:50 p.m. update: Watch the entire speech here.

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Reason.tv and Drew Carey

Posted by Daren Bakst at 11:16 AM

The Reason Foundation has launched a new project called Reason.tv, which is hosted by Drew Carey.  The first installment is on traffic congestion and privatizing roads.

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Truth in a typo

Posted by Jon Sanders at 09:59 AM

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[Lt. Gov. Bev] Perdue is serving her second term as Lt. Governor and has had the opportunity to break a tie in the Senate only once, but it was a doozy. Perdue's vote essentially created the state lottery.

Today, the lottery is not performing up to expectations and has already helped send a couple folks to jail.

So, in hindsight, does she regret her vote?

Perdue started her answer talking about education, but eventually got to, "...I've never regretted it at all." She pledged to watch how the lottery funds are used and make sure they didn't supplant tax dollars.

"The more money that we have to unsure that every child in this state has a chance to be somebody is good money," she continued later.

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Tax Battle in Catawba County

Posted by Michael Moore at 09:43 AM

In Catawba County, according the Newton Observer News Enterprise the Sheriff, David Huffman is leading the charge for the tax increase.  The John Locke Foundation has just recently looked into tax situation in Catawba County.    

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Re: HSers Apply to College: One Reason Why

Posted by Hal Young at 09:30 AM

The individualized attention and focus home-schooled students receive allow them to perform well academically, said Gerald Unks, a professor in the School of Education at UNC Chapel Hill.

“Home-schooled students outperform school-schooled students,” he said. “That is to say that they learn more of the subject. They learn more history. They learn more biology. They learn more Spanish. They learn more of whatever they are learning.”

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Growth in Cary

Posted by Joseph Coletti at 08:39 AM

Rob Christensen gets it right on the anti-growthers in Cary.

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If the Cary Town Council limits growth, that won't stop the economic engine of the Research Triangle Park. It would just push more of the development into Apex, Holly Springs and Clayton -- which means more cars traveling farther in their daily commute to RTP.

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Which reminds me, people on the left and in the press are now explicitly saying they really think the alternative to "smart growth" is "dumb growth." We've used the term before to question how governments can have better infrastructure by pushing the tax base into other areas.

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