Monthly Archives: November 2006

Milton Friedman, RIP

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are promising “transparency and open government.” They want the people to believe that things will be different and that they’ll provide greater accountability.

Sorry, we don’t believe it.

* We expect big unread bills.
* We anticipate just as much logrolling.
* We think there will be several “last minute surprises.”

BUT WE’D LOVE TO BE PROVEN WRONG.

Flashback: September . . . Congress was headed out of town for the campaigns and elections break. We fought, alongside more than a dozen organizations, to prevent a particular vote from occurring in the Senate. The subject? Warrantless surveillance of Americans. Our goal was simple: Keep that vote from occurring until after the elections.

We succeeded.

But the work is not done. The fight continues as Congress returns TODAY for a “lame-duck” session. Are you ready to fight for your rights?

Should a warrantless spying bill pass, it will

Impeachment? That was the primary topic and we lit up the phones on this episode of the Downsize DC Conference Call on the Genesis Communications Network. We had seven emails and six callers, and turned two more away — in this less than one hour show! You can listen to this “smokin” episode, available in mp3, and attached to this blog post. The show is sponsored by Gun Owners of America, the Marijuana Policy Project, and DownsizeDC.org.

On Sunday, a human being registered to use our website, sent a message to Congress, and then “ran a script” on our system to generate nearly 50,000 pieces of spam through our server.

As a result, America Online has temporarily blacklisted us. AOL users probably won’t get this message.

We discovered the problem this morning. The offending registration has been deleted and the problem has been patched so the script will not work again. Our database was never compromised or at risk of being compromised.

Blacklisting means we cannot get emails through Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who recognize the problem and take action to block their customers from getting spam. There is a risk that others will blacklist us even today, but since the problem is now solved, with each passing hour that risk diminishes. We’re told the AOL blacklist will expire in roughly 24 hours.

Was this individual attacking us for our views?

Today’s Downsizer-Dispatch . . .::::::The question? To impeach or not impeach? ::::::The number? 1-800-259-9231. ::::::It’s been weeks since we ran a live episode of the Downsize DC Conference Call (a call-in radio show heard on the Genesis Communications Network). There’s been a time-change. The show now airs one hour earlier — at 4 PM Eastern — and will do so for the rest of 2006. ::::::But I’m back behind the microphone today. And you can listen live by going to GCNLive.com/listen{LINK}::::::And I want to hear from you: ::::::Should President Bush be impeached? …or censured? If so, why? If not, why not? ::::::The call in number is 1-800-259-9231. ::::::Priority is given to callers, but you can email your comment or question to the show — call AT downsizedc DOT org (this address is only used for the show). ::::::Of course, I’ll talk about the election results. ::::::And you’ll hear from sponsors Gun Owners of America and the Marijuana Policy Project. Both organizations have news and analysis about this recent election, and opinions about the future.::::::The show is on Sunday afternoon at 4 PM Eastern (3 PM Central, 2 PM Mountain, and 1 PM Pacific). ::::::I hope many of you will listen. But we call the show a “conference call” because we want to hear from you. So let me know where you stand. ::::::Jim Babka:::Host:::The Downsize DC Conference Call

Economist David Friedman writes in his blog::::

I recently heard a talk, accompanied by a video, by James Tooley, who has been studying private schools in poor countries—not private schools for the rich but private schools for the poor.::::::The results sound extraordinary. In slum areas of countries such as Nigeria it appears that a majority of poor children are being educated in private schools, charging on the order of five dollars a month. Parents are willing to pay that because they believe they are getting, in various ways, a better education for their children than in the free public schools. Tooley tested a random sample of both private and public school children, and confirmed that opinion; the children going to the (inexpensive, slum) private schools consistently tested higher than the children going to the public schools.

In this election, liberals exploited stem cell research the way conservatives exploit gay marriage amendments . . .

Warning: Congress coming back in session

Today’s Downsizer-Dispatch . . .::::::We’ve been quiet lately, working behind the scenes on future projects. We’ve been waiting for the latest bi-annual game of partisan musical chairs to exhaust itself. And so it has. Yet again. And what is the result?::::::Republicans are out. Democrats are in. Will this downsize government? No. Big Government’s speed of growth may slow because control is now divided between two parties, but the growth will continue as always. ::::::Play this game ten more times and imagine the outcome. Look down the road twenty years and calculate the size of the government you will leave to your children after playing partisan musical chairs ten more times. Do you like what you see? Is it a vision of what you want?::::::Now look at the results for the minor parties. You will see mostly single digits, only two or three tiny victories, and a mere handful of results in double digits, mostly in races with only two candidates. Some of the best-funded campaigns had among the poorest results. Look back twenty years and you will see the same thing. Then look forward twenty years. Is there any reason to expect the results will ever be different?::::::How much money and time must be invested doing the same thing over and over again, with always the same failed results, before the experiment of trying to change things through the game of partisan musical chairs can be judged to have rendered its conclusive result? ::::::Is the partisan political game moving things in a downsizing direction? No. Were downsizing ideas part of the political debate? No. Did anything about yesterday’s election send a message that Americans want to Downsize DC? No. And yet we know from a multitude of public opinion polls that there is a broad consensus in favor of smaller government. Why the disconnect?::::::Could it be that the partisan political game is rigged against downsizing ideas? Yes. Can we change that by continuing to play that rigged game? No. The history of the last twenty years makes the verdict clear. So isn’t it time to play a new game with new rules?