Category: Government

I guess the automated e-mail service is down.

The Smoking Gun reports that the Super Bowl broadcast, namely Prince’s phallic silhouette and the Snickers commercial showing two guys kissing, generated “about 150 complaints to the Federal Communications Commission.” Wonderful. Who knows what the FCC will ultimately do, although by the absurdity of the complaints included in the Smoking Gun story must surely indicate to the FCC that it must do nothing.

The complaining viewer on the main Smoking Gun article believes decision on who televises the Super Bowl belongs to the FCC. There is also a very decent addition that Prince is “a scumbag.”

A few more choice letters fall into two basic themes. First, the FCC is should attempt to censor anything that might be objectionable. Second, they were “tricked into watching gay sex!”. Gotcha. But my favorite falls a bit out of that and into blanket paternalism.

“This violates our religious beliefs and exposes our children to obscene and disgusting material they are taught are wrong. I want something done about this!!”

Read this as slowly as possible to get my incredulous tone. If they are taught this type of behavior is wrong, how will they be corrupted by seeing it. Seeing it only confirms that it exists. It is not a judgment for or against. Presumably, parental teaching will apply the subjective interpretation. Are the parents so afraid of their own ineffectiveness that they expect the government to dictate to America what they teach their children? And if it’s so ineffective coming from them, why are they teaching their children anything? And why would it suddenly be more effective coming from the government?

My advice: stop watching the halftime show.

The government doesn’t stimulate competition.

Today’s Congressional hearings into the proposed Sirius-XM Merger will go well:

He can expect resistance. “What I’m concerned about now is whether we’re creating a monopolistic situation,” Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), who will chair the task force hearing, said in an interview yesterday. “I don’t think it will stimulate competition, and it could very well take away from the competition taking place now in the industry.”
…

With FCC hearings yet to be scheduled, the new Democratic-controlled Congress will get the first public whack at the debate. Conyers, a champion of liberal causes and a 42-year House veteran, called it “a great discussion, because it gets into the whole question of where the consumer comes in when these mergers take place. And too often recently, they’ve been taking place with too little concern for the people who are paying the freight.”

Of course. Business is all about screwing the little guy. Companies have unfettered control over customers. You and I are just pawns in the global game played by the few capitalist elites. Evidence to the contrary doesn’t matter. Because a situation might arise in which politicians customers could deem themselves harmed, we must prevent that slight chance from occurring. Guilty with no chance of proving innocence.

Such a champion of liberal causes is exactly the target audience for the guy I saw today wearing a “Say ‘No’ to a satellite radio monopoly” button. Simple enough to ignore facts.

It’s back? It was gone?

Does Rep. Greg Walden have a split personality?

Speaking to broadcasters yesterday, Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee said he could envision the Supreme Court taking away the FCC’s powers over indecency on the airwaves. The FCC’s recent decisions on indecency are being challenged in court by three of the major TV networks.

Walden says that he supports an increase in FCC fines and the Commission’s powers, but says that the vague nature of past indecency rulings could give the courts the opening they need. …

At the NAB-sponsored conference in Washington D.C., Walden also said to expect more government control over ad content and pressure on TV violence. “Keep your hand next to the panic button. Advertising is likely to get blamed for everything. Forget personal responsibility. Paternal government is back.”

The First Amendment gives the Supreme Court all the opening it should need to fight censors like Rep. Walden. That it ignores its duty is only a symptom of the larger problem with government. He warns broadcasters that they need to be more proactive against paternal government while seeking to expand the power of that paternal government. How complicated is “Congress shall make no law…“?

Via: Fark

The law must protect the outliers.

I missed this last week, but the Virginia General Assembly passed what should be a thought-provoking bill:

Virginia lawmakers passed a bill called “Abraham’s Law” yesterday after agreeing that 14 is the appropriate age for a teenager with a life-threatening condition to have a hand in making medical decisions.

The bill is named after Starchild Abraham Cherrix, 16, who won a court battle last summer to forgo chemotherapy and instead treat his lymphatic cancer with alternative medicine.

A judge had threatened to force Abraham to take conventional treatments and to take him away from his parents, who faced jail for allowing him to end chemotherapy and use alternative treatments. A compromise allowed Abraham to give up chemotherapy as long as he was treated by an oncologist who is board-certified in radiation therapy and interested in alternative treatment.

A 14-year-old is legally allowed to reject conventional medical treatment for a life-threatening illness. This is wholly appropriate, in my opinion, when viewed with the reality that minors are not automatically incompetent and the perspective of Mr. Cherrix’s battle last year. I’m glad to see the General Assembly acknowledging such rights.

Looking forward, if a 14-year-old can reject treatment in a life-threatening situation, how can we continue to assume that infants not facing a life threatening illness, or any illness at all to be more specific, should not be protected by default from circumcision? Essentially, the General Assembly seems to be saying that neither parents nor the state own the body of a minor. So what gives? Clearly parental “rights” have limits. Why is there a limit when there is a life-threatening illness but not when there is no illness?

Supporters of routine infant circumcision, or rather supporters of permitting parents to make their son’s decision for him, believe this issue rests on the child’s willingness and ability to consent. If the child is unable to consent, as would apparently be the case for a 13-year-old under this new legislation, the parents may make his decision they believe is in his best interest. But the standard focus should be on what a reasonable person would choose, if he could choose for himself. If nothing else, the existence of someone like Mr. Cherrix proves that common opinion does not mean universal. We could assume what he wants, but we’d be wrong. If individual liberty is to mean anything where the body is involved, it must be protected in all permanent medical decisions. This is particularly essential when the intervention is in no way medically indicated.

We can assume what an infant male would choose based on society, but there’s a significant chance we’d be wrong. The low incidence of adults choosing circumcision if they were spared as children should demonstrate that. Society was 100% wrong in my case. The law was wrong to allow it then. It is wrong to allow it today. It will be wrong to allow it tomorrow.

Source: Below the Beltway, via Kip

Like a Dog Chasing Its Tail

Do we get these comments because we’ve been busy looking where he isn’t or because it’s true?

The Army’s highest-ranking officer said Friday that he was unsure whether the U.S. military would capture or kill Osama bin Laden, adding, “I don’t know that it’s all that important, frankly.”

“So we get him, and then what?” asked Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the outgoing Army chief of staff, at a Rotary Club of Fort Worth luncheon. “There’s a temporary feeling of goodness, but in the long run, we may make him bigger than he is today.

“He’s hiding, and he knows we’re looking for him. We know he’s not particularly effective. I’m not sure there’s that great of a return” on capturing or killing bin Laden.

Does basic justice mean nothing? We don’t stop looking for one murderer because there will still be murders today. This speaks more to the lack of resources, which, given the Bush administration’s actions, implies a lack of will and/or interest. For example:

Schoomaker pointed to the capture of Saddam Hussein, the killings of his sons, Uday and Qusay, and the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as evidence that the capture or death of al-Qaeda’s leader would have little effect on threats to the United States.

Hmm, ignore those involved in the attacks of September 11, 2001, so that we can attack, capture, and kill people who had no involvement in those attacks. The result is little effect on threats to the United States. Shocking.

The general is probably correct that capturing bin Laden would do little to stop the threat, as we’ve seen since the death of al-Zarqawi. But he’s still part of the problem. He’s also directly responsible for the deaths of almost 3,000 human beings. That’s not enough?

It’s the 48th inning. Everyone’s exhausted. Keep playing!

Steven Pearlstein offers a few reasons why the government should block the proposed merger between Sirius and XM. Mostly, it’s boilerplate fear of big business and its assumed power to dominate people’s lives. I think I yawned once or twice while reading it. He wrote the perfect summation against his argument in his conclusion. It only takes a moment of looking beyond the words.

What we have here, folks, is a case of two money-losing companies locked in what has become ruinous competition, from which they hope to escape by merging. It may be that, given the economics of the business, there is room for only one to survive and prosper. But if satellite radio is such a “natural monopoly,” consumers will be better off if the companies are forced to duke it out until one prevails and the other dies. The antitrust laws were designed to foster competition, not to foreclose it by bailing out competitors that overpaid for talent, over-invested in plant and equipment or over-promised results to their investors.

How do we know consumers will be better off if the two companies continue to bloody each other? We can assume it, but it’s just an assumption. Sort of like the assumption that the FCC made that the public interest would be best served by allowing two, and only two, competitors to purchase a satellite radio license. How do we know what will be best in the future?

The explanation generally revolves around some imagined significant harm that will result from a monopoly. Only history doesn’t always show such harm. Would we have a viable, efficient economy with the same power if regulators had stopped steel or oil consolidation? Evidence suggests that those industries continually improved their manufacturing methods, increasing efficiency and lowering prices. We should not act in response to potential harm. If the merged company actually exhibits monopoly behavior, then intervention may be warranted. Until then, it’s wise to realize that the threat of intervention acts as an incentive against monopoly behavior.

More to the case at hand, perhaps it’s better to let one of the two surrender and preserve assets for productive use than to make them fight each other until one company is toast.

The FCC whiffs.

Even though any such action could benefit me, I’m against this out of principle:

The government is investigating a proposed deal between Major League Baseball and DirecTV Inc. that has had fans in a tizzy.

Remember that Senator John Kerry sent a complaint letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.

Martin, in reply, wrote Kerry: “I share your concerns regarding this proposed deal.”
…

“I am concerned whenever consumers cannot purchase the programming they want or are forced to purchase programming they don’t want,” Martin wrote.
…

Martin wrote that the agency has “contacted the parties and requested additional information about their proposed arrangement. Once we have this information, we will report to you on the deal’s implications for consumers and any recommended changes to the law to ameliorate any harms to consumers.”

As I stated before, the FCC shouldn’t involve itself in this. As stupid as I think it is, Major League Baseball should be free to be stupid. If they’re prevented from being stupid, the market won’t get the chance to teach them how to take care of customers. In the end, we’ll just have more madness from Bud Selig and Co. because there is no legitimate pressure put on them to signal what is and isn’t wise. I’d rather rip this band-aid off now and let the backlash finish it.

Or not, of course. I could be in the minority of fans negatively affected by this who cares enough to complain and not switch to DirecTV. Whatever the truth, let’s find out the right way.

What about music? Talking? Stray thoughts?

Virginia legislators want to implement a new public safety policy:

The Virginia House of Delegates approved a bill Wednesday that would prohibit teenagers from using their cellphones while driving, which safety advocates say would reduce accidents.
…

Under the bill, drivers ages 15, 16 and 17 would not be able to talk, send text messages or snap photos with a phone while on Virginia roads. The ban would also apply to hands-free devices but would allow teens to use a phone during an emergency.

If signed into law, the ban will be a secondary offense. That doesn’t make the logic more palatable. If the teen driver commits a primary offense, then he or she is driving badly. Isn’t that the proof that something is distracting? Where’s the study that demonstrates how often we can expect teen drivers committing the now-secondary offense commit a primary offense at the same time? I don’t see it mentioned here.

Beyond that, the obvious question is, if teens are distracted, wouldn’t adults also be distracted? Does experience somehow change the ability to multi-task? I suspect so, to a limited extent, but I’m guessing. I see no indication that the General Assembly is doing any more investigation than I’m not.

For example:

The proposal, sponsored by Sen. James K. “Jay” O’Brien Jr. (R-Fairfax), gained momentum after a spate of fatal accidents involving teenagers on Washington area highways.

Though the accidents were not necessarily caused by teens talking on cellphones, they spurred a regionwide debate about teen driving safety. Maryland passed a series of teen driving bills two years ago. The District requires all drivers to use hands-free devices to talk on the phone. O’Brien resisted efforts in Virginia to make exceptions for teenagers using hands-free devices.

“It doesn’t matter if the phone is in their hands or hands-free,” O’Brien said. “The distraction for the teen is the same. They’re taking their concentration off the road and giving it to a conversation during a period when they have zero driving experience.“

So we’re taking a action to resolve a potentially unrelated problem, and applying untested assumptions to that solution. It’s hard to say this will cause specific harm, but will it help? It doesn’t matter. As long as we assume parents won’t have to bury their child, then it’s good policy. We’re doing something “for the children.” But, again, are adults with experience any better at driving while on the phone?

Really, though, this is just a good way to raise teens who a complacent while legislatures restrict liberty further.

“I think it’s pretty reasonable, because we do have a tendency to talk on our phones a lot, and a lot of accidents happen,” [17-year-old Pape] Diop said. “Even if I’m in the car with an adult, I see it distracts them.”

Teens have a “tendency”. That’s enough. Notice, of course, the anecdotal evidence that it also distracts adults. If this law is justified, wouldn’t it be as wise to ban adults from using cell phones? Then we could prevent a distracted adult from killing a now-undistracted, non-cell phone using teen driver.

This is not an endorsement for the opposite opinion. I’m only suggesting that, if the General Assembly is warranted in taking action, there should be some common sense behind it. Instead, we get a feel-good proposal to take action against a group who can’t vote. We’re supposed to accept it because it’s for their own good. Nope. Good, reasonable public policy requires more than that.

There’s no free pass for noble intentions.

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley penned an essay in today’s Washington Post on his opposition to the death penalty. I like and agree with much of it. The state should not be in the business of killing people when a less troublesome solution is available. I see no reason that life without parole can’t guarantee the same benefit to society. That, and I don’t want people killing in my name any more than necessary.

However, his essay is not perfect.

And what of the tremendous cost of pursuing capital punishment? In 2002, Judge Dale Cathell of the Maryland Court of Appeals wrote that, according to his research, processing and imprisoning a death penalty defendant “costs $400,000 over and above . . . a prisoner serving a life sentence.” Given that 56 people have been sentenced to death in Maryland since 1978, our state has spent about $22.4 million more than the cost of life imprisonment. That’s nearly $4.5 million “extra” for each of the five executions carried out. And so long as every American is presumed innocent until proven guilty, the cost of due process will not go down.

If, however, we were to replace the death penalty with life without parole, that $22.4 million could pay for 500 additional police officers or provide drug treatment for 10,000 of our addicted neighbors. Unlike the death penalty, these are investments that save lives and prevent violent crime. If we knew we could spare a member of our family from becoming a victim of violent crime by making this policy change, would we do it?

Why not stop at stating that Maryland has spent an estimated $22.4 million more than necessary to achieve the same result? That’s money that Marylanders do not need to pay to the state to receive effective government. But I get his point. He’s advocating an argument that Maryland can be even safer if the money is better spent. It’s a pleasant argument without guaranteed results. It’ll market his solution to a few more people. Still, it’s extraneous fluff not central to the topic of what government should do to convicted murderers.

Gov. O’Malley’s second suggestion irks me more. Of course we should save those millions, because then we can fight the War on Drugs treat drug addicts. Drugs are bad, mmmkay. This isn’t even a pleasant argument. It’s marketing to the basest understanding of where morality and public policy should meet. I can think of only one way for Gov. O’Malley to make his suggestions worse: propose using that $22.4 million for 500 additional police officers to arrest 10,000 drug addicted Marylanders. I’m actually surprised he didn’t.

For what it’s worth, note that Gov. O’Malley suggests using money saved over 28 years to pay for 500 officers for 1 year. Talked about an unfunded mandate based on feel-good marketing.

“You see yourself as some sort of humanitarian, don’t you?”¹

Now that I’ve had a day or so to digest the proposed Sirius–XM merger, I have a few more coherent thoughts about it. As a Sirius investor, I think this is ultimately the right deal. I know that CEO Mel Karmazin is offering the usual talk of synergies and cost savings. This is standard fare for such transactions. I have no doubt a combined company will realize some of that, but I’m not silly enough to assume it’ll be grandiose or immediate. Any significant benefit from this is years away, at least. I’m okay with that because I’ve invested for the long term. Most of the time I only know the general Sirius share price. When my shareholder ballot arrives, I’ll check “yes” with realistic expectations.

As a customer, I’m thrilled by this deal. As I mentioned, the ability to receive Howard Stern and Major League Baseball on one subscription is irresistible. I find Sirius’ radio programming better (particularly the original MTV VJs on The Big ’80s), and I’m a devoted Howard Stern fan. Those two items are year-round. That’s why I subscribe to Sirius. But the absence of Major League Baseball broadcasts is a huge frustration. This merger would solve that, even if the combined company offers a “cafeteria-style” selection of programming, as I’ve read. I can live with that. I don’t really care to have Oprah, Bob Dylan, Opie and Anthony, Nascar, or Martha Stewart. Give me Howard Stern and the Phillies for a reasonable price, and I’ll be a subscriber. To get me, it’s that simple.

However, the information announced so far is insufficient. The FCC and Department of Justice will have questions. First, Sirius and XM must convince the government that their market is not satellite radio, but audio entertainment. (I’d cite a reference for the term audio entertainment, but I don’t remember where I read it. I’ll give credit if I stumble upon it again.)

My audio choices at work are a perfect example. During a typical day, I’ll listen to Stern in the morning through my Sirius subscription. When that’s done, I’ll move on to my iPod and whatever music appeals to me at the time. Or maybe an audiobook. Then I might switch over to an internet radio station. On my commute home, I usually listen to terrestrial radio. When I get home, I have cable television, Netflix, and Xbox 360.

Every one of these things competes for my time and money. I can afford various subscriptions for those that require one, but if the programming on any one of them becomes stale or the price exceeds what I think it’s worth, I’ll cancel it. That’s the fate that HBO faces from my household as soon as The Sopranos is done. It’s barely $10 per month, but it isn’t worth it to me. I’m capable of making the decision better than the federal government, regardless of the implied public trust built into the artificial market created by government satellite licensing.

The short-term implications of this deal are also apparent, both as an investor and a subscriber. Sirius and XM work on separate signals, so each company’s hardware is incompatible with the other. I’ve been thinking about upgrading my Sirius receiver since the unit I have is several years out-of-date. But I don’t want to spend $300+ on a new receiver with all the features I want if I’ll have to dump it in a year when (if) the merger wraps up. I’ve seen no concrete answers on this, only that the companies are working this out. That’s wonderful, but current subscribers are left out in the interim if they want to upgrade.

As for potential subscribers, what incentive will they have to sign up now? The rational decision is obviously to wait this out until the executives offer answers. That will hurt both companies financially until they decide. That makes me nervous realistic about any short-term bump in the share price from this deal. The downward pressure on revenue and subscriber growth, which is what this industry needs least right now, is evident. The only responsible choice is for customers and potential customers to get answers soon. Essentially, I want the Heroes approach to answering questions, not the Lost approach.

I understand the hurdles this merger will face. In the end I think the government should get out of the way let it proceed. It will benefit customers when viewed with the correct understanding of the combined company’s market competition. I applaud the deal with guarded enthusiasm.

Full disclosure: Several times in the past, I subscribed to XM. For a brief time, I owned XM shares. For what it’s worth.

¹ The title of this entry is a quote from Heroes. Sylar said it to Mr. Bennett. I think we might be able to ask the same thing of the federal government as it reviews this deal.