A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

On Government Stupidity

by 4 Comments

I’ve been a pretty active critic of the frequently spouted notion that government can’t do anything right. That criticism may diminish a bit after my latest trip to the post office.

So, it’s Saturday night, and Amy mentions that she needs 50 post card stamps to notify folks of our impending move and is thinking about heading to the post office to see if the stamp vending machines sell them. I tell her I’m in need of some beer anyway and that I’ll swing by the post office
on the way. I head out, get a 6-pack of Guinness, and head into the post office. We’re in luck, they sell the post card stamps out of the machine. $2.40 per 10-pack of stamps, and I have $18 in my wallet. I throw a $10 bill in the machine. The stupid thing doesn’t let you choose multiple packs. So I shrug, type in “D-1,” and it spits out my 10-pack of 24 cent stamps along with ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, 7 of those dollar coins nobody ever uses.

No big deal, I’m just going to feed them back into the machine to get more stamps. But, as it turns out, the &$*#(&% machine doesn’t take dollar coins. The United States Post Office machine gives you change in a currency it will not accept itself. Just one of those little nuisances designed to raise your blood pressure a little bit. I’m just glad I was on a beer run at the time. 

Gas prices pop

by 7 Comments

The Lafayette Journal & Courier has a story on how gas prices have jumped in Lafayette, a subject near and dear to my heart since my present commute to work is about 25 miles. However, I’m moving to Lafayette in about 2 weeks which will cut my commute to about 3 miles. So each increase in gas prices make the enormous hassles of moving seem more worthwhile.

So, while I might find a short-lived and perverse sort of silver lining, on the statewide scale, it seems possible that the ever upward march of gas prices could tarnish the two brighter lights of Indiana’s economy in the news today: Toll Road privatization money and the new Honda plant. With increasing tolls and increased gas prices, driving on the Toll Road is a far more expensive proposition now than it was, say 6 or 7 years ago. Presumably increased gas prices will also reduce the demand for automobiles, even if the one’s produced by Honda in Greenville are comparatively more gas efficient.

With respect to these stories, mainly, I suppose, the cost of gasoline calls into question the wisdom of spending the Toll Road privatization money on more roads. I can’t say I know what the correct expenditure would be — I guess that’s where vision and leadership come in handy. (And judging from the quote in the toll road story, we’re not likely to get it from Pat Bauer any more than we’ve gotten it from Gov. Daniels. Bauer complains that, while we’re making interest on the privatization dollars, the foreigners are making a bunch more money. I don’t think foreign businesses making money is the problem — it’s the fact that Hoosiers are going to be paying an ever-increasing tab for the next 70 years. The two are related, of course, but I think it’s important to articulate what the real beef is. )

Tippecanoe Politics on Buyer and the Merchant Marines

by 10 Comments

There is a good discussion over at Tippecanoe Politics on the issue of Rep. Buyer and the Merchant Marines.

Go to Tippecanoe Politics and the Lafayette J&C story for more detail, but basically the issue is this: Merchant Mariners of World War II engaged in hazardous duty as part of the military effort — they transported bombs, gasoline, shells, ammunition, food, guns, and more and an estimated 9,497 died during the war —  but were not recognized as veterans until 1988. Because of the delay, they were not able to take advantage of such benefits as the G.I. Bill.

House Resolution 23, entitled “Belated Thank You to the Merchant Mariners of World War II Act of 2005,” currently has 258 sponsors and would provide to a merchant marine or surviving spouse a monthly benefit of $1,000. To qualify for the benefit, the merchant marine must have served 1) between December 7, 1941 and December 31, 1946; 2) on a vessel operated by the War Shipping Administration or the Office of Defense Transportation (or its agent); 3) in waters other than inland waters, the Great Lakes, or lakes, bays, or harbors of the U.S.; and 4) was a licensed crewmember of the vessel.

Presuming the 258 sponsors all voted for the Act, it would have enough votes for passage if the resolution was allowed to be taken to a vote. Unfortunately for the merchant marines, Rep. Steve Buyer, a former military lawyer, is the head of the House Veterans Affairs Committee where the resolution has been languishing since January 4, 2005.

By way of explanation (sort of), Buyer’s office had this to say:

A spokeswoman for Buyer praised the merchant mariners and acknowledged their service “played a fundamental part in the successes” of the Allies in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

But, said Buyer’s deputy chief of staff Laura J. Zuckerman, “These men were volunteers working for shipping companies, who could choose their voyage with the knowledge of potential risks and could end their service at any time.”

To me, this supports the case for the merchant marines rather than diminishing it. These guys criss-crossed a North Atlantic full of German subs and other dangers to keep our war machine functioning. They volunteered to do it. And they kept doing it even though they were free to leave.

Holiday weekend

by 3 Comments

Rep. Heim has an entry recapping the life of a candidate during the 4th of July weekend. I’m a little tired just reading it: parades, pancake breakfasts, ice cream socials, and, just to keep things busy, a family reunion.

That may be too much of a good thing. My family went to the Town of Wolcott’s 4th of July festival. That’s a pretty good time for a young family. As my wife has noticed, I have a real thing for “booth food.” I’m kind of a skinny guy for whom food is not necessarily a priority. But if I go to a fair or festival or something similar where they’re selling pork or rib-eye sandwiches, watch out. Anyway, Wolcott had the pork sandwiches and some of the little traveling carnival rides. My two year old boy *loved* the rides. My wife Amy thought maybe he’d be scared. That boy? No way. He has such a love of being spun and tumbled. The real problem was getting him off the ride. He doesn’t really understand the concept of “pay, ride a little while, get off.” You’ve never seen such sorrow. Aside from that, there was a live band and just a bunch of people enjoying the day. There is something about Indiana festivals I just love.

But I digress.

New fireworks law

by 16 Comments

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has an editorial asking readers how they think the more liberal fireworks law passed by the General Assembly is working in practice. Advance Indiana has a post mentioning a WTHR report about a 10 year old who lost his eye when he threw a bottle rocket in the air when it shot back and struck him in the eye.

There are certainly strong policy arguments in favor of stricter controls on fireworks. But I’m not sure there is a practical difference between the new law which is very permissive and the old law which was theoretically stricter but unenforced and unenforceable. I know I didn’t have a great deal of trouble obtaining and using bottle rockets as a youth. I recall riding my bike no-handed while lighting and throwing bottle rockets. That can’t be safe.

For me, Daylight Saving Time makes fireworks more of a problem than the new fireworks law, just because people are setting them off later than they used to. 4th of July fireworks going off at all hours don’t bother me — that’s just the nature of the day. It’s the 5th of July fireworks that are really annoying. The kids are in bed, I’m just settling into bed myself. BANG BANG BANG BANG down the street. The dogs start barking. Repeat periodically for the next hour or two. Grrr. But I suppose that’s as much a function of my evolution into a grumpy old man as anything else.

Yet another Internet political quiz

by 19 Comments

Courtesy of Fort Wayne Libertarian Mike Sylvester is the 2D Political Quiz. It rates me as “Moderate Libertarian.” My suspicion is that the quiz is designed such that most folks come out as libertarian — not surprising since the principles undergirding libertarianism (essentially the right to be let alone unless your actions hurt someone else) are fundamental American values. But, I think it probably glosses over stickier questions of communal rights and responsibilities such as how much the individual should be required to sacrifice to protect the country or what actions the community can take to mitigate the effects of an individual’s bad choices on others.

Indiana leading in dropouts

by 2 Comments

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette (and several other outlets) has a story on Indiana leading the nation in dropouts. Obviously this isn’t a statistic in which you want to lead the country, but how do you combat this sort of thing?

Indiana lawmakers recently passed legislation making it more difficult for students to drop out of school. Previously, students under the age of 18 could drop out of school with their parents’ permission.

Now, students under the age of 18 can only drop out for reasons of financial hardship, illness or with the consent of a judge.

I guess I don’t know if this is a good approach or a bad approach. The lawmaker’s hearts are obviously in the right place, but it seems to me that if you have a 16 year old who wants to drop out with a parent willing to let that happen, forcing them to stay in school is going to do more to diminish the quality of education of the rest of the students than it is going to help the would-be dropout.

Virginity or Death

by 19 Comments

My wife was kind enough to call my attention to a 2005 column in the Nation by Katha Pollit entitled “Virginity or Death.” She makes a compelling argument that what many conservative Christians are interested in is, not so much preventing abortion, but in keeping sex tied to reproduction and disease to make women afraid of sex.

A primary exhibit in this argument is the baffling opposition to the HPV vaccine. Merck and GlaxoSmithKline have developed vaccines that protect against the human papilloma virus, generally recognized as a sexually transmitted disease resulting in genital warts. However, its more serious consequences is as a leading cause of cervical cancer which is diagnosed in 10,000 women per year and kills 4,000.

So, vaccinate girls and get rid of cervical cancer. A no brainer, right? Well, not according to the Family Research Council:

“Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV,” says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group that has made much of the fact that, because it can spread by skin contact, condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are against other viruses such as HIV.

“Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex,” Maher claims, though it is arguable how many young women have even heard of the virus.

While HPV might not be a reason that girls are avoiding sex, it provides a pretext for the New Puritans to oppose condom education in schools since HPV is not preventable by condoms. “Why bother, you could just get HPV anyway.”

Ms. Pollit puts it this way:

Christian conservatives have a special reason to be less than thrilled about the HPV vaccine. Although not as famous as chlamydia or herpes, HPV has the distinction of not being preventable by condoms. It’s Exhibit A in those gory high school slide shows that try to scare kids away from sex, and it is also useful for undermining the case for rubbers generally–why bother when you could get HPV anyway? In 2000, Congressman (now Senator) Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who used to give gruesome lectures on HPV for young Congressional aides, even used HPV to propose warning labels on condoms. With HPV potentially eliminated, the antisex brigade will lose a card it has regarded as a trump unless it can persuade parents that vaccinating their daughters will turn them into tramps, and that sex today is worse than cancer tomorrow.

Ms. Pollit goes on to argue that this mentality goes along with the right wing opposition to reducing abortions by making birth control more widely available; they want to make it less available and to make abstinence the only viable option for avoiding pregnancy or disease.

While I’m sure actual reasons vary for the various stances of politically active New Puritans on restricting availability of birth control and medicines to prevent STDs, as a whole the stances seem to make the most sense if one views sex as evil and views disease and pregnancy as God’s punishment for promiscuity.

Happy Fourth of July

by 3 Comments

In honor of the nation’s 230th birthday:

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

CEO compensation/Minimum Wage Ratio

by 6 Comments

Charlie Averill has a post on the average CEO compensation to minimum wage ratio. According to the chart he posted, in 1966, the average compensation of a CEO was about 50 times the minimum wage. By 1978, it had increased to 78 times the minimum wage. But, between 1980 and 1992, CEOs hit the jackpot, making about 319 times the minimum wage by 1992. The dotcom years were also exceptionally good to CEOs and, as of 2005, the average CEO made 821 times the minimum wage.