Now here‘s an interesting bit of legislation.

The Problem: The cost of providing Medicaid is growing
The Solution: Impose a fee on drug stores for every non-Medicaid perscription they fill, to help subsidize the cost of Medicate perscriptions.
The Catch: Drug stores can’t pass this cost along to the consumers.

Most pharmacies immediately added the charge onto customers’ bills, sparking citizen outrage that quickly made its way to the ears of legislators. Lawmakers lashed out at the pharmacies, arguing that they had never intended to tax citizens.

What the hell is that all about? Where the hell did the lawmakers expect the money to come from? Where do the drug stores get their money from? Do lawmakers have even a fundamental understanding of economics before dishing out policy?

Of course it’s clear what they intended. They decide the state needs money, and are simply going to take it away from businesses. The difference between a law like this and outright stealing isn’t clear to me. The profit margins of a business are no longer up to them – they’re up to the state. Hey, imagine if a drug store (in competing with other stores) offered a product with only a $1 markup. This rule would mean that such a store would be required to lose money on every sale. Of course, it’s not like we actually have a free market in medicine anyhow, so the odds of us getting drugs at reasonable prices are fairly slim to begin with (which is what caused this problem in the first place – thanks Uncle Sam).

During the trip to Florida I was able to get some reading in and finally finished Capitalism and Freedom. All in all, it was quite good and very interesting. Nearer to the end, he actually had a section where he talked about the dividend tax. I thought this was pretty interesting considering the book was written in 1962, and this particular topic is pretty popular today. The excerpt is from page 130, and is included below.
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Earlier this month Madonna canceled the release of the anti-war imagery-laden “American Life” clip to video outlets. She said in a statement that she did not want to risk offending anyone and did not want the video to be misinterpreted.

This is total bullshit. Madonna? Worried about offending people? Are you kidding me?

This is a woman who made her career by smashing stereotypes and shocking audiences. If it wasn’t for offending people, she wouldn’t be the cultural icon that she is today.

Maybe, just maybe, Madonna is really just concerned about herself. Maybe someone clued her in to the fact that Americans generally support the war. Is it possible that perhaps Madonna isn’t worried about being “misinterpreted” but really she’s worried about being interpreted accurately and being thought of less favorably? If she really has strong feelings – express them! Let them all out! Release that video and take what comes.

Now on the other hand if she really doesn’t have strong anti-war feelings and just created a video so she could appear controversial, or if she had weak anti-war feelings based on a summary of the circumstances rather than a full comprehension of the facts, maybe it’s for the best if she slinks back and puts that video back on her shelf.

Although probably harmless reading to most people, it’s articles like this that really piss me off. A “war on video game violence.” Fucking ridiculous.

It amazes me that modern liberals can sit back and claim they want the government to keep their nose out of our private lives. They want government to keep their noses out of abortion, and they cry foul when things like the Patriot Act are created because it makes them nervous that the government is monitoring our personal business… and I’m with them! But then it comes to entertainment, and employment, and health care, and all of a sudden the government is great? “More government!” they say. I want them telling me what to do, and I want them paying for everything! What? I was with you guys for a while there, and then you all went looney. To be fair, it’s typically conservatives who love to crack down on entertainment (Brownback is mentioned in the article) and they also have their own slew of inconsistent views on the government’s role in our lives.

Someone explain to me why Joe Lieberman is using my money to pay for a study on video games. Explain it. Explain why it’s the role of government to do this. There are thousands of educational institutions and non-profit organizations conducting tons of studies and authoring plenty of papers on every subject known to man. Parents can give their money to non-profit groups to conduct this research if parents really care about this.

“Lieberman said in the statement that the game links violence with sex and rewards players for degrading and killing women. ‘This is sick and indefensible…'”

So there are two possible outcomes: 1) they find this “sick and indefensible” material is harmful to children, or 2) they don’t. Well, my guess is they’re going to find #1. Even if the study doesn’t find #1, they’ll keep doing studies until they come to that conclusion. That’s fine. We already have a ratings system in place. Just get it over with. Make it illegal for kids to buy mature video games. Make it illegal for kids to buy all video games. It doesn’t matter, kids have limited constitutional rights as it is. Just remember two things: 1) Game manufacturers should be able to produce whatever games they please, and 2) Adults should be able to purchase whatever games they please. This is a “war” we don’t need to start.

Based on the round-the-clock war coverage and discussion we’re all privy to in the US, there are a few arguments I’d like everyone to stop making, because they’re old and by making them we don’t get anywhere:

“War is bad” – Hey listen buddy, everyone agrees with you. No need to continue describing all the different ways war is bad and how many people die. We get it. We all agree. This is not a sufficient anti-war argument (unless you are a complete pacifist).

“Saddam is bad” – We all agree on this one too. Both sides. Stop making this argument. We all know he’s a brutal dictator. This is not a sufficient pro-war argument (unless you feel we should invade every country with a dictator and overthrow them).

If we can move past those discussions – all agree on them – and move on, I think the discussion would be much more fruitful.

Personally I think it’s misleading that we named this “Operation Iraqi Freedom” because it only causes more and more people to use the above arguments, and miss the real reason we should be going to war (and the real topic that we should be debating) – Saddam’s weapons and their potential threat to us.

This is a great story of a woman who set up a porta-potty in her front yard and charged money to St. Patrick’s Day drunkards to use it.

The awful part is the cops shutting her down at the end. Ridiculous. She can’t charge money for this, but it would be fine if she set it up for free and had drunk bastards crawling around her yard?

This interesting article from Salon.com talks about how radio technology could be different. Currently we ration out frequencies (to the highest bidder) as if they are a scarce resource. From a technological perspective, they really aren’t.

I’ve gotten into a lot of discussions with people about the Iraq situation, so I figured I’d put all of my thoughts online for anyone who is interested (for some reason). It’s pretty simple, and not surprisingly consistent with the Libertarian philosophy.
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There is an interesting article here on the inneffectiveness of the DARE program. Can’t say the results are too surprising. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t look like DARE costs that much money, but it doesn’t seem like it’s worth a dime… and these days every million bucks counts.

The recent tragedy at the nightclub in Rhode Island is sure to have people up in arms, and demand more stringent safety requirements in buildings. This bothers me.

It already appears that the club was violating established requirements when they ignited fireworks. It doesn’t matter if you have 50 laws or 500 laws… if they’re all going to be ignored, then you can chalk up the additional 450 laws as a waste of time.

The silver lining to this tragedy, as with most tragedys, is that people learn from it. Patrons are going to take a better look around when they go into a club – make sure they know how to get out. If they find it getting crowded, people may decide to start leaving voluntarily. On the flip side, keep an eye on what happens to these club owners. When they get sued for all they’re worth, or charged criminally, watch the lesson learned by other club owners. Want to go to jail like those guys?

As awful as it is for something like this to happen, it will serve to educate, and if society learns their lesson it will not happen again. Additional laws do not make this problem go away.