Free Market

Trent vs. Ken

2010-08-16T20:19:00.002-05:00

Trent Kittleman's website has a pretty good message of smallish government and fiscal responsibility. I liked it so much I made another video. Yay for the interwebs!

Fox vs. Beams

2010-08-12T19:01:00.003-05:00

I was messing around on the interweb and made a parody video of an encounter between Greg Fox and Zaneb Beams. It's just propaganda, not serious argument. But I can see how videos like this could be powerful tools in local elections.

Gov. Christie = awesome

2010-07-28T06:45:00.001-05:00

OMG look at all of this!

2010-07-25T16:17:00.028-05:00

I do most of my grocery shopping at the Food Lion in Lisbon. Food Lion is an adequate grocery store with great service. No one will go hungry with Food Lion in the neighborhood. However, I visited the Safeway in Ellicott City today and when comparing the selection of products between the two stores, Safeway makes Food Lion look like it's run by the government.

For every one brand that Food Lion carries, Safeway seems to carry at least five if not ten. One of my complaints about Food Lion even prior to my visit to Safeway is that Food Lion's selection of Ben and Jerry's ice cream is extremely limited. Not so at Safeway. I was in heaven.

Food Lion is in a much smaller building, so naturally the selection is limited by available space. With Safeway to the east and the Mount Airy SuperFresh to the west, it could be that the market does not support a larger store in between. Or it could be that zoning regulations limit the size of the grocery store allowed in Lisbon. Whatever the reason, I probably looked like someone from a third world country marveling at the vast selection of products available at Safeway.

fat and happy, anyway

2010-07-24T12:27:00.015-05:00

Both Wordbones and HoCoRising are down on a TPI spokesperson (Ken Aldrich) for referring to voters as "fat, dumb and happy".

That is a common expression that was probably made off the cuff so I don't think it should be over analyzed, but I'll ignore my own advice and over analyze it anyway. I think this is just a crude way of saying that voters are rationally ignorant. Therefore, the "dumb" part is not applicable to voters, because the emphasis on "rationally ignorant" should be placed on the "rational". When you have a complex system in which it is costly to learn about the issues and your influence on those issues is so small, it does not make sense to pay attention. As a result, if you are a voter the smart thing to do is be uninformed because the costs of being informed exceeded the benefits. This is one of the well known problems of democracy (I know, we live in a republic. But it still has democratic elements.)

So while Mr. Aldrich fails in the marketing department, I think his statement is reflective of voting reality.

Public sector unions

2010-07-21T18:35:00.004-05:00

The State of California must be in great fiscal condition. Firefighters there can make $200K a year, retire at age 50 and collect a pension of $180K. In Oakland recently there were 2,000 applicants for 23 firefighter positions. Here is a fascinating indictment of public sector labor unions. It's mostly focused on California, but obviously there are parallels with Howard County given the strength of local unions here. Oh, another parallel is that public pension plans are not fully funded, meaning there is a huge bill lying in wait for the next generation of taxpayers.

We're from the government, and we will make you safe

2010-07-20T19:17:00.010-05:00

Wordbones recently noted that he was interviewed by Dana Priest of the Washington Post for a piece called "Top Secret America".

I have not yet had a chance to check out the Washington Post piece, but the Atlantic Wire posted a summary of it and the some of the information is quite alarming if you are least bit concerned about your tax dollars being spent in a competent manner:

Why we should be concerned:

"When it comes to national security, all too often no expense is spared and few questions are asked - with the result an enterprise so massive that nobody in government has a full understanding of it. It is, as Dana Priest and William M. Arkin have found, ubiquitous, often inefficient and mostly invisible to the people it is meant to protect and who fund it. ... Within a responsible framework, our objective is to provide as much information as possible, so readers gain a real, granular understanding of the scale and breadth of the top-secret world we are describing."

This 'spy industry' is massive:

Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States. (2) An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances. (3) In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space. (4) Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks. (5) Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored."

It is far from clear as to how much safer we are as a result of all of this:

Underscoring the seriousness of these issues are the conclusions of retired Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who was asked last year to review the method for tracking the Defense Department's most sensitive programs. Vines, who once commanded 145,000 troops in Iraq and is familiar with complex problems, was stunned by what he discovered.
"I'm not aware of any agency with the authority, responsibility or a process in place to coordinate all these interagency and commercial activities," he said in an interview. "The complexity of this system defies description."
The result, he added, is that it's impossible to tell whether the country is safer because of all this spending and all these activities. "Because it lacks a synchronizing process, it inevitably results in message dissonance, reduced effectiveness and waste," Vines said. "We consequently can't effectively assess whether it is making us more safe."

The economy in Howard County greatly benefits from all of this spending (and I am sure this redistribution to our region played no small part in why Columbia/Ellicott City is the #2 place to live in the country), but for the rest of the nation, this is a very large expense. It's far from clear how the rest of the nation will benefit from all of this.

The Fair is coming

2010-07-18T12:54:00.004-05:00

This is the first year I can remember yard signs advertising the Howard County Fair, which is coming in August. I've seen quite a few of these around town. Given the over-regulated nature of Howard County I am sure these signs are illegal.

Inmate Rehab Program Ends

2010-07-15T17:57:00.016-05:00

Awhile ago there was an article in Explore Howard about a program at Days End Farm, a local horse rescue. The program enabled female inmates to work with rescued horses while gaining responsibility and other skills essential for re-entry into society as productive members.

This sounded like a win-win arrangement to me. The inmates were toward the end of their sentences but were nevertheless supervised by correctional officers at all times. Sadly, many neighbors were uncomfortable with female offenders in the area and the plug on program was pulled a week later.

State Del. Warren Miller, a Woodbine Republican who represents Lisbon, said he received between 10 and 20 complaints from the farm’s neighbors and parents of the children who volunteer there.

Many were upset that community input was not sought before the program began, Miller said.

Miller said he is not taking a position on whether the inmate program is a good one, but he is concerned that some of the women working on the farm have been convicted of crimes such as assault.

“That for me is different than someone serving time for a DUI or a white collar crime,” he said. “... I know they’re nearing their release from prison and they’ve done their time but that’s just not appropriate for a rural-residential area.”

Prisoners are out in the community performing work on road crews and other duties regularly, Binetti said.

“Every single day we have inmates who are in the pre-release system ... it’s part of the transition back into the community.”

Those selected to work on the farm were nearing the end of their sentence and committed to rehabilitation, he said.

I'd much rather have a program like this in my backyard than the Centennial North Skate Park with its inner-city graffiti. It's pretty sad that the neighbors couldn't have given the program a chance.

Beat and repeat

2010-07-15T17:28:00.005-05:00

It seems like there's not a week that goes by in which the Howard County Police don't shoot a family pet or wear someone's ass out. The latest is that an officer punched a 54 year old drunk lady unconscious. This sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. How much longer will it be before this comes back to bite taxpayers?

Beam me up

2010-07-06T18:21:00.019-05:00

HoCoRising gets the scoop that Greg Fox has Democratic challenger for his District 5 Council seat. His challenger is Dr. Zaneb Beams. This quote from Dr. Beams shows that she is quite the central planner, and she likes government as long as government is comprised of people who agree with her:

DR. ZANEB BEAMS: Government by the wrong people can be problematic. Government by the right people can be very well done.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: She's also willing to make less money if a public plan becomes reality.

DR. ZANEB BEAMS: A 10 percent reduction in most physicians' salaries, while it's difficult for a lot of us primary care physicians out here to make payroll at the end of every couple of weeks, a 10 percent reduction in our income is really not going to be that painful for us. And most of us, if you ask, most of us would be willing to make a teeny bit less in order to provide our patients with better care.

Since she has this health care thing all figured out, I'm sure she'll be able to organize our lives much better than we can ourselves. Of course, Greg Fox voted to mandate sprinklers in all new homes so I guess it's six in one, half a dozen in the other.

Dangers of vegetable gardening

2010-07-03T11:14:00.007-05:00

The Montgomery County School System has a ban on gardens on school property. I don't know how useful gardens are as an educational tool since most of the harvest occurs during the summer when school is out, but at any rate that is not the objection that the Montgomery County School System has to gardens. Their objection is that plants have blooms which attract insects that sting, and some people have food allergies. Wow.

Green means look both ways

2010-06-29T19:44:00.020-05:00

If recent auto-accident related news has confirmed anything, it's that green does not mean go, it means look both ways and then go. I know that's the first thing they teach you in drivers ed, but even the most experienced drivers can get pretty lazy about that rule.

In March of this year, someone ran a red light on Rt. 29 and hit someone else using the left exit on to Rt. 70. It seems likely that this was a case of the person with the green light paying attention to the lights rather than checking to make sure the people with the red light were actually going to stop.

Again this week, a garbage truck ran a red light at Rt. 97 and Rt. 144 and hit a minivan (the article isn't clear about who was at fault, but the garbage truck at fault scenario seems to best fit the fact pattern). From what I have heard, it was pretty bad. Again, this could have probably been avoided if the person with the green light would have checked to make sure people with the red light were actually stopping.

We have a slogan to go inside when it thunders, but not one to look both ways at traffic lights. Traffic lights are far more likely to kill you.

Take one for the team

2010-06-29T06:14:00.007-05:00

One of the women that Al Gore sexually harassed (and make no mistake, there will be others who come forward) went to some of her SWPL friends for advice. Get this- they told her to just deal with it or else the world will be destroyed by global warming. More here:

"He pleaded, grabbed me, engulfed me in embrace, tongue kissed me, massaged me, groped by breasts and painfully squeezed my nipples through my clothing, pressed his pelvis against mine, rubbed my buttocks with his hands and fingers and rubbed himself against my crotch, saying, 'You know you want to do it.'"

Finally she got away. Later, she talked to friends, liberals like herself, who advised against telling police. One asked her "to just suck it up; otherwise, the world's going to be destroyed from global warming."

Everybody's got their cup but they ain't chipped in

2010-06-28T17:46:00.027-05:00

(Sorry, the only Phish song I am familiar with is their bluegrass version of Gin and Juice). According to this article on Explore Howard, Howard County police stole, er, "seized" $10,000 in cash and three vehicles from folks out and about for the Phish concert. I know I seem to be in the minority on this, but it seems a little Gestapo to me to steal someone's car because they are selling drugs, especially harmless stuff like marijuana and shrooms. It's pretty dumb that drugs are illegal in the first place.

Historically, seized drug funds have been used to help people needing treatment for drug and alcohol abuse, but last March Ken Ulman publicly patted himself on the back for taking some of those funds away from people needing treatment for drugs and alcohol abuse and instead using those funds to pay for elaborate high school prom parties.

Anyway, my personal research project will be to learn about where the HoCo police are storing these cars and how they end up disposing of them. It should be pretty interesting to follow the life cycle of a seized asset through the disposition process. If anyone knows anything about this feel free to drop a comment.

Biggest unintended consequence ever

2010-06-22T19:57:00.013-05:00

I feel sorry for the Chinese. They are in the midst of a real estate bubble that may seem obvious to us but they are still irrationally exuberant about. It's a shame that many of the people buying at these prices are setting their lives up to be ruined (and of course the government is subsidizing prices which further fuels the fire):

Home prices in major cities including Beijing and Shanghai have easily doubled over the last year as families and investors rush to grab a piece of the Chinese dream. A typical 1,000-square-foot, two-bedroom, one-bath apartment in the capital now costs about $274,000. That's 22 times the average annual income of a Beijing resident.

Unlike in the United States, where home buying traditionally takes place after marriage, owning a place in China has recently become a prerequisite for tying the knot. Experts said securing an apartment in this market signals that a man is successful, family-oriented and able to weather challenging financial circumstances. Put succinctly, homeownership has become the ultimate symbol of virility in today's China.

The article goes on to point out that many women are requiring prospective husbands to own homes, which is creating an entire frustrated class of bachelors. What the article does not mention, is that there is a significant gender imbalance in China due to the one-child policy. Child-rearing couples have a significant bias toward male children, and since they can only have one child there are many more boys than girls. This is the direct result of China's social policy and is perhaps one of the most interesting and unfortunate cases of unintended consequences ever.

But this is what happens when the first instinct of government is to "fix it with policy". When your only tool is a hammer, every problem can be fixed with a nail.

They do that for everyone

2010-06-20T21:42:00.003-05:00

Does it make sense that top police commanders would respond to a bicycle theft in Baltimore? Because that's what happened when Jenna Bush Hager's bike was stolen from her Baltimore home:

Officers from the Southern District, along with detectives assigned to the Regional Auto Theft Task Force, have been put on the lookout for the bikes.

In addition, officers who monitor the CitiWatch camera surveillance system have been notified. Crime lab technicians went to the house to search for fingerprint evidence. Top police commanders, including the major in charge of the Southern District, also responded. Police released a heavily redacted offense report Saturday. [Emphasis mine]

Montgomery vs. Fairfax

2010-06-14T20:50:00.004-05:00

An interesting article contrasting the spending habits of Montgomery County and Fairfax County appears in the Washington Post. Montgomery County apparently has a deficit of $1 billion in a total budget of $4.3 billion. However, public school teachers are doing quite well in Montgomery County:

The results have been striking -- and strikingly unaffordable -- in a county where more than half of all spending goes to public schools. The average teacher salary in Montgomery today is $76,483, the highest in the region. Average pay for teachers is now almost 20 percent higher in Montgomery than in Fairfax and has increased much faster than in most local suburban school systems. Since 2000, salaries for Montgomery teachers, as for many other county employees, have nearly doubled, rising at almost triple the rate of inflation.

Teachers are pillars of any community, and Montgomery's are highly rated. But their compensation has outstripped the marketplace. Today, Montgomery schools spend about 20 percent more per pupil than Fairfax schools; they consume a greater share of the public spending than in any other locality in the region. The spending gap is not about classroom quality and student achievement; in those terms the two school systems are comparable. Rather, the difference is compensation, which accounts for 90 percent of Montgomery's education spending.

First they came...

2010-06-13T12:28:00.012-05:00

I complain a lot about government regulations surrounding drugs and gay marriage, which I guess is a little strange because I don't do drugs and I am not gay. But now it's personal because the long arm of government is coming for my iPhone:

Some industry representatives are coming to Apple's defense.

"The iPhone was just introduced three years ago, and all of a sudden (Apple is) being accused of being a monopolist? To me, it's absurd," said Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Association, in an interview. "They don't even have a dominant position in smart phones—that's Blackberry."

However, some antitrust enforcers say that if they wait until a tech company has cornered a market it may be too late. The technology sector has powerful "network effects" that, some say grant outsize advantages to first movers and make it particularly difficult for competitors to break in.

Based solely on this article in the WSJ, the federal case against Apple doesn't even make sense. I get the argument about network effects which favor the first movers in the market which make it difficult for competitors to break in. BUT THE FIRST MOVER IS BLACKBERRY. The iPhone may very well kill Blackberry, and that in itself undermines the entire basis of the argument against Apple. This smells to me like competitors of Apple using government to stifle competition.

Besides, the iPhone has plenty of worthy smart phone competitors besides Blackberry (the Droid, for example, not to mention the Palm Pre and tons of other cool smart phones.)

Update: Here is a link to Radio Shack catalogs from 1939 to 2005. Take a look at the crap in these catalogs from companies that you probably have never heard of and see how expensive it is and determine for yourself how strong the first mover advantages are. The 1985 catalog (page 172) has a Tandy 2000 computer for $4,250. It has a 10 megabyte hard disk.

Columbia Festival of the Arts

2010-06-13T12:20:00.006-05:00

I guess I am not very artsy, because nothing at the Columbia Festival of the Arts really jazzed me. I did like the following piece of artwork, which is apparently inspired by the TPI:

Teachers' union endorsements 2

2010-06-11T10:54:00.027-05:00

Explore Howard reports that the teachers' union, which recently supported all Democratic candidates, did not even send their questionnaire to the three Republican incumbents.

"It's hard to respond to a questionnaire you never received," said state Sen. Allan Kittleman, a District 9 Republican. He added that District 9 Republican incumbent Dels. Gail Bates and Warren Miller also did not receive questionnaires, nor did Republican candidates Kyle Lorton, in the District 13 Senate race, and Jeff Robinson, in the District 13 House of Delegates race.

DeLacy said the association didn't send questionnaires to incumbents Kittleman, Bates and Miller "because they have a very low percent voting record for educational issues." She called their support of education "abysmal."

I am not a supporter of Republicans nor public education, but even I am surprised that the teachers' union did not even send these three Republican incumbents questionnaires. They must have stopped caring about even appearing to be unbiased.

Ann DeLacy, the teachers' union president, went on to say that "our school and our library systems are probably the crown jewel of our county." This county would totally suck if that were actually true. The reason we can even afford to support the public libraries and public schools is the result of the private sector (although a large part of our local private sector involves catering to the Federal Leviathan in DC, but I digress).

Oh, and this comment from Greg Fox is interesting:

Fox, however, said he proposed only one cut to the education budget in the past four years, which was in the amount of $184,000 for the removal of three school system positions in 2007.

"I've actually proposed more increases to the Board of Education budget than any other council member," in those four years, he said.

I think the teachers' union would endorse a stuffed donkey.

Update: As I was typing this post, Allan Kittleman left the following comment on another post:

I wanted to respond to the people who criticized the Republican candidates for not returning the Howard County Teachers Union questionnaire.

If you read the Howard County Times article in yesterday's paper (June 10th), you will see that the Howard County Teachers Union intentionally did not send their candidate questionnaire to me or Delegates Bates and Miller. As I commented to the reporter, it is hard to respond to a questionnaire if you don't receive it.

Further, I have learned that the Teachers Union also did not send their questionnaire to other non-incumbent GOP candidates such as Kyle Lorton (Senate, District 13), Jeff Robinson (House, District 13) and Ed Priola (House, District 13). Mr. Robinson told me that he was looking forward to speaking with the Howard County Teachers Union because he had served as the student representative to the Anne Arundel County Board of Education when he was in high school.

How would the Teachers Union know the position of these challengers if they did not take the time to send them the questionnaire and arrange an interview?

Unfortunately, it is clear that the Teachers Union decided early on that they were only going to support Democrat candidates in the November election. The failure by the Teachers Union to solicit opinions from all the candidates does a disservice to all the teachers (and parents) in Howard County.

Numbers game

2010-06-08T17:38:00.026-05:00

A candidate for Howard County Board of Education, Robert Ballinger, has an interesting letter to the editor on this week's Explore Howard. Here's a snipet:

Once again I can not understand where the Board of Education priorities are and I wish that the Board of Education would have voted against the Howard County Board of Education FY 2011 budget.

The package included a reduction in the Board of Education's contribution to medical benefits from 90 to 87 percent for its current employees. The Board will contribute 85 percent for employees hired after June 30, 2011. These changes were necessary to offset the impact of escalating health care costs on the school system's budget stated Howard County

He goes on to agree with Allen Dyer- which is frightening enough in itself- who derides these changes (which Ballinger himself just described as "necessary") as "regressive 30 percent to 50 percent permanent increases in the employee's portion of the health care cost."

Reducing the B of E's contribution to medical benefits from 90% to 87% seems like a very reasonable measure in the face of the greatest recession in decades, and still provides an extremely generous employee benefit. Since employees currently only pay 10% of their medical expenses themselves, a 3% increase is 30% more than what they pay now. However, it is extraordinarily misleading to frame the change as 30% increase, as Ballinger has done. If anything, tell us how much this would cost the average employee. That would at least be a meaningful number.

Furthermore, since this change is so unsettling to Ballinger, I'd be curious to hear what he proposes instead.

No one who plays numbers games like this should be taken seriously as a candidate. If Ballinger believes that a necessary and insignificant measure like this is completely unpalatable, it frightens me to think what he might do and say if he were to actually get elected to anything.

TPI Referendum

2010-06-06T13:21:00.015-05:00

During a brief visit to Centennial Park for Healthy Howard Day, I spotted two people collecting signatures for the Taxpayer Protection Initiative. This is the first time I had seen anyone gathering signatures for this particular referendum.

I spoke with one of the signature collectors named David. He understood what the TPI was attempting to accomplish (requiring a super majority of council votes to raise taxes) and seemed to be a good ambassador for the idea. At no time did he say anything inaccurate or misleading about the TPI. He also understood the high rejection rate of signatures during the Board of Elections verification process.

If you don't think the average attendee at Healthy Howard Day would be particularly receptive to TPI, you are correct. At the time I spoke with the signature gatherer, he had collected only 4 signatures. I didn't sign (I lied and said I had already done so) but I am not opposed to this referendum and might sign it at some point in the future. Sure, it's an election year gimmick, but I believe that it should be more difficult to raise taxes than cut spending, especially when most of us pay such high taxes already. Therefore, I think the TPI puts a reasonable safeguard in place.

Teachers' union endorsements

2010-06-05T08:44:00.020-05:00

The Howard County Education Association (aka the teachers' union) has made public its list of candidates it is endorsing in the 2010 election. All of the candidates endorsed by the teachers' union are, surprise, Democrats.

Begin voucher rant:

I am not a Democrat nor a Republican, but I despise unions. The teachers' union is particularly bad. You can be in support of teachers or you can support education, but it's not very often you can support both at the same time. The teachers' union is very much opposed to school vouchers. Why? Certainly not because it would be a bad thing to give parents a choice in which school their children attend. The teachers' union opposes vouchers for the simple reason it would make their privileged members compete with the private sector. This is a benefit for public school teachers that comes at the expense of a higher quality education for students.

Public financing of education is (generally) supported by taxpayers because of the positive externalities associated with an educated populace. However, these exact same positive externalities occur regardless of whether or not the populace was educated in public schools or private schools. Therefore, the people who say "I don't want my tax dollars going to support private schools" make so sense whatsoever. I can at least understand their point if they are also opposed to their tax dollars going to public schools, but if you truly support education you shouldn't be concerned with whether the education is provided by public or private schools.

If anything, private schools create more positive externalities because they do a better job. Why else do you think that some Howard County parents shell out $15,000+ a year in private school tuition to send their children to private schools when they could send their kids to the best public schools in the country for free?

3rd Annual Healthy Howard Day

2010-06-01T21:00:00.005-05:00

We've waited all year and it's finally back! Healthy Howard Day. June 6th at Centennial Park from 10am to 3pm. Yay.

Ken's Solar Panels

2010-06-01T18:22:00.030-05:00

The nice sunny weather we have been having reminded me of the solar panels that were installed on the roof of the East Columbia branch library back in mid-2008. Ken Ulman was a driving force behind the panels and made a great deal in the media about them. The panels cost $45,000.

This website shows how much power the panels have been generating in real time. During the past year (June 2009-May 2010) the panels have generated 5,464 kWh of juice. According to BGE, the price per kWh is under 11 cents. This $45,000 "investment" in solar panels produced $600 worth of electricity last year, which is a return of 1.3%. At this rate, it will take about 75 years for the panels to pay for themselves.

Wow.

Solar panels absolutely, positively, do not make any economic sense but for the government subsidies given to those people who install them. This is why it's so amusing to see Ken Ulman and Martin O'Malley dressing themselves up like construction workers in order to promote solar panels and make it look like they are doing something for the environment. Being more concerned with perception rather than reality is in the job description of politicians.

Who was F. Leonard Dunn?

2010-05-29T11:27:00.015-05:00

Every time I jog around Centennial Lake, I always notice the F. Leonard Dunn Amphitheater and wonder who the person was that this amphitheater is named after (until I forget all about it 10 seconds later).

A quick Google search turned up nothing, so can anyone out there in the interwebs tell me who F. Leonard Dunn was (or is) and/or what he did?

Update June 2: FAIL. I am surprised there is no one who can or no one who is willing to shed light on this. A search of the Balt Sun archives suggests that maybe he was a council person in the 1970's? There is no historical list of HoCo council people (shows where they rate, I guess) so I will just be left to wonder.

Dear Mom and Dad, please send money

2010-05-28T12:18:00.013-05:00

Howard County will receive $610,000 from the feds to cover the cost of the December storm, and are hoping to get more to defray the cost of the February snowpacolypse.

Almost $610,000 in federal money is headed to Howard County to help cover costs of a December storm that dropped almost two feet of snow on the area.

County budget administrator Raymond Wacks said the money, part of nearly $4 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency relief funds earmarked for Maryland, will be applied to a $6 million shortfall in the fiscal 2010 budget caused by snow removal costs.

County officials are still waiting to find out how much money they will receive for the cleanup of two February blizzards that crippled the area within a week of each other, Wacks said.

If the Federal government is stupid enough to pay us, I guess we should take the money. However, this just shows how ridiculous the federal government has become. Hurricane Katrina was a disaster, a few feet of snow that inconvenienced us for four days is not. If local governments cannot take care of themselves after snowstorms, they should not get a bailout from the feds under the guise of "emergency relief". Instead, voters should either elect local people who can get the job done or recognize that they will have to pay higher taxes or receive few services somewhere else.

Suit against SWAT team dismissed

2010-05-26T19:26:00.020-05:00

Well, a judge dismissed a lawsuit against the Howard County Government and three SWAT team officers over a 2008 botched raid and dog shooting.

I am displeased that the suit was dismissed on the grounds that there is a discrepancy between which specific officers that the cops say shot the dog and/or roughed up the home's occupants as opposed to who the victims say shot the dog and/or roughed up the occupants. If the judge would have found that the police did nothing wrong and/or that their actions were warranted, I would be fine with that. But that is not what happened:

U.S. District Judge Marvin Garbis dismissed the suit with prejudice — meaning it cannot be refiled — after county attorneys argued that the members of the SWAT team had probable cause to search the home and that the officer accused of excessive force couldn’t have committed the acts because he wasn't there at the time.

This is a case in which justice has not been done.

Stepping back from all the violence that may or may not have occurred during this raid and the emotions raised over the shooting of a family pet, the raid was over marijuana. A small amount of marijuana and a pipe was all that this raid yielded in terms of evidence of wrongdoing against any of the home's occupants. A commenter on the Explore Howard article raised an excellent point in asking what probable cause was presented to the judge who signed the no-knock warrant, because it is unlikely such a warrant would be signed over a dime bag. This seems to point to the possibility of shoddy police work.

I wish I could say I am surprised by the way this all turned out, but I am not. My opinion of the Howard County Government and the Howard County Police Department in particular is already so low, that I almost expect this sort of thing.

There is still one more lawsuit to go. The Elkridge botched raid and dog shooting is next on the docket. I am hoping for justice to be done at least in that case, but we'll see.

Fix it with policy

2010-05-24T18:08:00.009-05:00

I read in a Washington Post article that Howard County has a law that prohibits discrimination based on looks:

We also have enough experience with prohibitions on appearance discrimination to challenge opponents' arguments. Already, one state (Michigan) and six local jurisdictions (the District of Columbia; Howard County, Md.; San Francisco; Santa Cruz, Calif.; Madison, Wis.; and Urbana, Ill.) have banned such discrimination. Some of these laws date back to the 1970s and 1980s, while some are more recent; some cover height and weight only, while others cover looks broadly; but all make exceptions for reasonable business needs. [Emphasis mine]

The actual law is here. Here's the gist:

Sec. 12.200. Public policy.
I. Equal Opportunity in Howard County. The Howard County Government shall foster and encourage the growth and development of Howard County so that all persons shall have an equal opportunity to pursue their lives free of discrimination.
II. Discriminatory Practices Contrary to Public Policy. Discrimination practices based upon:
Race,
Creed,
Religion,
Handicap,
Color,
Sex,
National origin,
Age,
Occupation,
Marital status,
Political opinion,
Sexual orientation,
Personal appearance,
Familial status, or
Source of income
are contrary to the public policy of Howard County.
III. Eliminating Discriminatory Practices. The Howard County Government shall direct its efforts and resources toward eliminating discriminatory practices within Howard County in:
(1) Housing,
(2) Employment,
(3) Law enforcement,
(4) Public accommodations,
(5) Financing, and
(6) Any other facets of the lives of its citizens where such practices may be found to exist.
IV. Encouragement of Voluntary Affirmative Action Programs. The Howard County Government shall encourage the adoption and maintenance of voluntary affirmative action programs.
(C.B. 2, 1983; C.B. 138, 1991; C.B. 68, 1992)

Value of a life

2010-05-20T21:09:00.020-05:00

During the hearing for the legislation requiring sprinklers in every new home, Mary Kay Sigaty made the argument that although the sprinkler mandate would force people to spend $4,000 on a sprinkler system that they may not want, the sprinklers may save lives and you can't place a value on a human life. Recently on HoCoRising's blog, someone else made a similar argument about the money spent on the Health Howard Access Plan with respect to the life HHAP may have saved.

Well, if you are reading this blog and you are not at the gym running on a treadmill, you have placed a value on your life. And according to some, you must not think much of yourself. The people making this sort of argument are heading down a road leading to absurdity.

The video below addresses this issue extremely well. The context is corporate responsibility rather than government programs, but the logic and principles are the same in either case.

Do something nice

2010-05-19T21:23:00.006-05:00

Explore Howard reports that Days End Farm Horse rescue has taken in 26 abused horses, bringing the total animals in their care to 80. I know what you're thinking: can't these horses be enrolled in Healthy Howard? Sadly, no, because they are from Garrett County.

So please consider throwing Days End Farm some money so that they can continue to do their charitable work. You can tell a lot about someone (and a society) by how they treat animals.

It HHAPpens

2010-05-19T17:10:00.026-05:00

An additional $500,000 was approved for HHAP with the approval of the 2011 operating budget. This means that taxpayers have paid and committed $1.5 million dollars to the program that has helped a few hundred people get access to health care over a three year period.

Greg Fox nicely summarizes HHAP:

“As we ask others to do more with less, Healthy Howard, Inc. continues to seek to do less with more,” Fox said during his closing remarks.

Health Officer Peter Bielenson provided interesting testimony to the Senate about HHAP(.pdf) in early 2009. He makes several claims, including that there would be 2,200 enrollees in the first year, the program would be extended to 15,000 enrollees if it works, and the program would be made "sustainable and self-sufficient". HHAP has been an epic failure on all three of these counts.

Obviously, at this point the HHAP is not about helping people so much as saving political face for Ken Ulman. Our tax dollars will keep this boondoggle afloat until federal regulations finally kill it in 2014, at which point it will be framed as successful stop gap health care measure instead of the failure it really is.

Loopholes

2010-05-16T15:38:00.014-05:00

This has nothing to do with anything local, but someone gave me a copy of the Lancaster Farming newspaper, and on the front was the photo below. Tradition and culture forbid the Amish to use tractors, but they have a horse-drawn contraption that has an engine and a PTO so they can run a modern round baler or other modern implements. I have also heard that some Amish sects can use modern tractors as long as they have steel wheels. So you might see a brand new John Deere combine with steel wheels on it, which is just bizarre to us outsiders.

Everyone is looking for a loophole. Often, one is found. This is why it is hard to fix social problems with policy.

The tax man cometh

2010-05-15T07:31:00.013-05:00

It's that time of year again for the Preakness Celebration Balloon Festival at Turf Valley. One of the companies participating, Friendship Hot Air Balloon Co., is based in Howard County.

I found this tidbit on their website interesting:

ANNOUNCEMENT:
Our long standing community service of providing donations and contributions(silent auctions,etc.) of Hot Air Balloon Flights is now ended. This is because Maryland Comptroller's Dept. is imposing and enforcing a state admissions and amusement tax (7.5-10%) on our business in direct violation of a federal law and a US Supreme Court ruling. Comptrollers refuses to recognize that 'States are preempted by federal statute from assessing any taxes on gross receipts of aircraft flying in 'air commerce'. Further, they do not want to realize that a hot air balloon is an aircraft regulated by the FAA.

To read about this illegal back tax and future tax on my hot air balloon company, please review www.BallooningUSA.com/taxmatter and give me your thoughts! A pending (and much delayed) date for my Tax Court pre-trial hearing was finally received. It was April 14 and a Merits hearing date has now been delayed until September. It goes on and on!!!

All other states in the country do not collect such a tax and are in compliance with federal law! Maryland is not in compliance with federal law. The full financial burden of legal fees is on me as I continue to pursue setting legal precedents and to prove that we are RIGHT in our fight!

I remember reading about this case a few years ago. The Maryland Comptroller is trying to collect a 7.5-10% amusement tax on gross receipts. Note that this is a tax on gross receipts, not net income. A tax on gross receipts is EXTREMELY regressive. Gross receipt taxes would hurt a grocery store with a thin profit margin much more than, say, a law firm with a high profit margin.

As the federal stimulus money runs out, state and local governments will probably make more of a nuisance of themselves as they try to loot the tax base to pay for the budget deficits.

Doggie style

2010-05-13T21:48:00.013-05:00

The Missouri dog shooting (I blogged about it here) has gone viral on the interwebs. The only thing unusual about it is that there was actually video showing how unnecessarily violent the police can be.

That same scenario has gone down twice in Howard County in the past three years. The Howard County Beta Police, of course, refuse to talk about it.

The Missouri Police Chief now hates the internet as a result of that video. If Chief McMahon says the same thing about me, I guess I'm doing my job. :-p

Strange investment for Al Gore

2010-05-13T18:46:00.020-05:00

Hmmm, it's interesting that Al Gore paid nearly $9 million for a villa bordering the Pacific Ocean in Montecito, California, a town in which the minimum elevation is at sea level. In Al Gore's book (page 196) he writes:

If Greenland melted or broke up and slipped into the sea- or if half of Greenland and half of Antarctica melted or broke up and slipped into the sea, sea levels worldwide would increase by between 18 and 20 feet.

He goes on to quote Sir David King as saying "the maps of the world will have to be redrawn."

I guess Gore thinks that scenario described in his book is pretty unlikely. Or maybe this is his way of sticking it to his insurance company (talk about moral hazard).

Btw, the house has six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine bathrooms. Say what you want about climate change, global warming, etc. Mr. Gore's actions seem to be incongruent with his dire predictions.

What's HHAPpening now?

2010-05-12T19:06:00.017-05:00

The Sun reports that HHAP is likely to get the $500,000 that Ulman put in the draft budget, although Fox may try and trim some of that back. Here is a re-cap of the stats:

According to figures presented to the council, the program has screened 6,089 people and found that 3,789 were eligible for existing insurance plans. Another 789 enrolled in Healthy Howard, but 178 dropped out for a variety of reasons including changes in income and the cost of the program. Participants pay from $50 to $85 a month for comprehensive medical services, though it is not insurance.

Since HHAP was unable to get any significant private funding, they are putting a limit of 750 patients in place. They currently have only 621 members. Recall that $50,000 was recently spent (paid for by a private grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation) to organize an advertising campaign for HHAP. This means that Annie E. Casey Foundation paid $50,000 to get HHAP at most 129 additional members:

Guy Moody of St. John United Methodist Presbyterian Church in Columbia said Beilenson helped arrange a $50,000 Annie E. Casey Foundation grant. The money is paying for the door-knocking campaign, including coordinator Jessica Jones, who is working toward a goal of knocking on 4,000 doors by Labor Day to find more people who may be eligible for Healthy Howard, but who don't know about the program.

And it's politics as usual in discussing HHAP at the council meetings:

Fox seized on early studies of the program's patients that showed they had no more serious health problems than the general insured public to mean the program hasn't added anything special. He contends the thousands who learned they qualify for existing insurance by applying to Healthy Howard could be served in other, cheaper ways.

But Terrasa and program officials rebuffed that idea, saying that the program is serving as a vital "portal" for those without insurance and who have limited incomes. Getting nearly 3,800 people insurance is exactly what the program should be doing and is a major success, they argued, not a liability.

My irritation with Terrasa's point about HHAP hooking up 3,800 people with health insurance is that the software to do that is already in place and already paid for. HHAP does not need $500,000 to continue to do that. It needs the $500,000 to pay for health coaches and other expenses unrelated to linking people up with health insurance. So when looking at the marginal benefit of throwing another $500,000 at HHAP, we should not consider their ability to hook people up with health insurance since that framework is already in place.

Someone said on HoCoRising's blog that "blogs are least likely venue for rational discourse of any sort." I don't think that statement is true. The least likely venue for rational discourse of any sort is in the County Council meeting room.

Take down the sign

2010-05-11T15:10:00.032-05:00

As you may recall, sometime last year the West Friendship Volunteer Fire Department moved a few miles down the road from their old location on Rt. 144 to a brand spanking new firehouse just off of Rt. 32 on Old Frederick. I'm not 100% sure, but I think the county ended up being the new owner of the old firehouse on Rt. 144.

This afternoon I drove past the former firehouse and I noticed that the old sign is still out front even though all the personnel and equipment have moved several miles north. I don't know why the good folks at WFVFD didn't take the sign down before they left, but given that they did not, it seems like the County (or whoever the new owner is) should definitely take down the sign now.

The last thing the county needs is to be sued because someone in need of urgent medical attention died in the parking lot of a vacant building thinking it was a firehouse instead of calling 911 on their cell phone. I know that scenario is fairly unlikely, but still reasonably possible. It just seems like a problem waiting to happen.

Video of police raid tactics

2010-05-06T18:50:00.008-05:00

Below is a video of a raid on a family in Columbia, MO (i.e. not in Maryland) in which a police SWAT team serves a warrant and shoots a family dog. Just for an extra nice touch, there were children present. Oh, and the raid was over marijuana.

These are the exact type of police tactics that the Howard County Police with the implied consent of County Executive Ken Ulman use on Howard County citizens. In fact, two family dogs were shot in this manner since Ken Ulman has been County Executive.

Obviously, I don't think Ken Ulman or anyone in the police department likes it when dogs get shot. In fact, I am quite sure that no one in the county government is pleased about this. However, by doing nothing about it, the message is that this sort of behavior during these raids is tolerated.

Know your customer

2010-05-01T10:33:00.023-05:00

The more I read about Healthy Howard, the more obvious it is that Ulman and Bielenson did not understand the market niche they were attempting to serve. They predicted 2,000 enrollees in the first year, and to their credit they did receive applications somewhere close to that magnitude. However, the vast majority of those applicants were eligible for actual health insurance through existing government programs. In fact, 3,000 people who have applied for HHAP over the last two years ended up qualifying for health insurance through existing programs (but I wonder if those applicants actually got this insurance? That would be an interesting analysis. Given all the innuendos coming out of the HHAP camp I would not just assume that the 3,000 applicants did get the insurance they qualified for.)

So the real lesson of Healthy Howard is that existing government programs do not do a good job of reaching the people who are eligible for them. If this is true in Howard County, it may be true across the entire country.

Now the problem, according to Beilenson, is that the people who are eligible for HHAP work two or three jobs and do not read the newspaper, so they don't know about the program:

Healthy Howard is not insurance, but offers comprehensive health care at low monthly rates, plus preventive care through the use of health coaches to county residents earning too much money for Medicaid but not enough to afford commercial insurance. Beilenson has said many people eligible for help work two or three jobs and don't read newspapers. They don't know about the program despite publicity, which is where PATH's volunteers come in.

It is interesting that Howard County was able to give away over 2,000 trees in a few days through a lightly advertised program, but they can't reach people who are supposedly eligible for HHAP despite advertising on TV, newspapers, internet, social media, and door to door campaigns. So again, I wonder: do the HHAP architects understand their target market?

I remember asking myself back when HHAP first started: "if this is such a good program, why has no one else done it?" The past two years of HHAP's operations has answered that question. The skeptic in me thinks that HHAP has become less about helping people and more about saving face.

10 percent is "enough"

2010-04-29T21:31:00.014-05:00

Hmmm, this is interesting:

The group, called People Acting Together in Howard, or PATH, has also won a promise from County Executive Ken Ulman to push for lower bank interest borrowing rates for consumers by moving public monies out of banks that charge high rates.

Maryland's ceiling for credit card interest is 24 percent, Ulman said, but the group said banks often raise interest to 30 percent, even on people who have never been late with a payment. PATH is aiming for a 10 percent maximum rate in a campaign called "10 percent is enough." The non-partisan group, made up of 16 congregations, is an affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation, the nation's oldest community organizing group founded by the late Saul Alinsky, and has been operating in the county for several years.

With all due respect to the folks promoting this well-intentioned campaign to lower consumer interest rates, I think that banks are far better equipped to determine what the market interest rates should be based on the supply and demand of capital and the credit worthiness of borrowers. If the folks at PATH think that 10% is "enough" of an interest rate, then I encourage them to put their money where their mouth is and start lending at a 10% rate to folks that real banks want to charge 30%.

If this campaign succeeds, and I can't imagine it will without a mandate from gov't, then the obvious result will be that high risk borrowers will not be able to get loans at all. So are those folks better off having access to capital at a high rate or not having access to capital at all?

I suppose another alternative is that banks will agree to cap interest rates to risky borrowers, but reduce the rate at which the county is paid on monies deposited with banks. In which case, taxpayers have essentially subsidized loans to high risk individuals. But I don't think any bad things will happen if we encourage folks with poor credit to borrow money. That seems perfectly normal to me.

LOL

2010-04-28T21:28:00.001-05:00

O'Malley pays a visit

2010-04-28T19:13:00.021-05:00

Well readers, I hope you locked up your wives and daughters today because Gov. O'Malley was in Town Center stumping for his re-election bid. Here is a shot of him amongst his supporters. It was a good idea on behalf of O'Malley's campaign to coral them into a small area so the media shots make it look more crowded that it was:

I think he arrived in this hybrid Tahoe with dark tinted windows. This must be the state government's attempt at a non-desrcript/low profile vehicle:

See Pete Lobby

2010-04-27T19:13:00.015-05:00

Peter Bielenson is lobbying for another $500,000 of our tax dollars to fund the Healthy Howard Access Plan for another year. The plan only has 614 members, so this would be a hand out of more than $800 per enrollee. That seems like too much of a subsidy for a single program. I don't think HHAP should get another penny, but the council is unlikely to cut them off entirely. Given this political reality, the council should at the very least cut the funding request in half. Either make HHAP raise their rates or cut their services.

The Sun reports that private charities are unwilling to give to HHAP because Howard County is too rich:

Fox was not mollified, however, asking Beilenson how much he has raised in private donations, which were originally touted as a major source of funding. Columbia's Horizon Foundation has contributed $650,000, and another $57,000 in grants have come along with $1 million in donated services, but Beilenson said other foundations have bluntly told him that "this is too wealthy a county to support this. It should come from government." Shirley Collier, a Horizon board members, testified in agreement, explaining why Horizon's newest grant is $150,000 after an initial seed grant of $500,000.

"Obviously, they're defensive about something," Fox said after the hearing. "I don't think there's a [predicted] number they've met. Everything is an excuse."

On a slightly separate note, I found this anecdote from the Sun article very interesting:

Deborah Mills, an entrepreneur selling custom clothes to business executives, saw her business fall off due to the recession and had to choose between her mortgage, utility bills and health insurance before she got into Healthy Howard. "What is happening in this county is history in the making," she said. Now she needn't worry that missing routine tests could be putting her health at risk.

It really sucks to have to choose between health insurance, paying your mortgage and paying your utilities. I guess that is the risk of being self employed, and of those three choices dumping the health insurance seems the least painful. But when the insurance reform provisions of Obamacare kick in during 2014, people in the same situation will be choosing between paying the mortgage and paying utilities, because health insurance will be required by law. I guess we'll have to see how the insurance subsidies impact that mandate.

Candidate for state senate

2010-04-27T19:00:00.014-05:00

This is the first public mention of a challenger to Allan Kittleman's state senate seat that I have seen:

Running for Kittleman’s Senate seat on the Democratic side is Jim Adams, of Ellicott City.

Adams, 68, a retired accountant, said he believes Kittleman has not taken advantage of opportunities to work with Democrats on issues such as the state budget.

Adams said he will focus on environmental issues, health care coverage and public education.

“I don’t have a specific issue,” he said. “I just know that the record in terms of environmental support with the current Republicans in poor.”

I like Jim Adams, I think he is a smart guy with interesting things to say. I think he would be a fine Senator. However, Allan Kittleman is the one local politician who I think should be cloned rather than be replaced. So I guess I just wish Jim was running against someone else.

...And I'm out in the nine-deuce Cad'

2010-04-26T19:57:00.022-05:00

We are approaching the six month anniversary of the infamous Halloween shooting which left one person dead and another paralyzed, and the Howard County Police have not been able to stick any charges to the shooter. Explore Howard reported today that the Feds have charged two people who were initially suspects in the shooting with gun and drug charges:

After the shooting at the Halloween house party in Columbia — which left one man dead and another paralyzed — Howard County police searched Schroyer’s trailer and found a shotgun and a handgun, ammunition, marijuana, scales and packaging material.

Based on that search, federal prosecutors allege that between August and the shooting, Schroyer and Dixon were engaged in drug dealing and were in possession of firearms during that activity.

The reason these guys are selling marijuana is because legitimate business people are unable to do so, yet intense consumer demand persists. They are chasing the extremely high profits that our misguided drug policies produce. Since the dealers can't rely on the police to protect them or their stash, they need to carry guns to provide their own protection.

The choice our political "leaders" have made with current drug policy is not to have a society free of drugs, but rather to have a society where gun toting outlaws sell drugs to anyone, including children. Additionally, the profits from the drug trade remain untaxed under our current system.

One alternative to the our current drug policy is to legalize drugs and regulate them like alcohol. The blood of people killed and resources wasted on the drug war is the fault of people who refuse to support this no-brainer of a policy improvement. Just so you know.

Operating budget released

2010-04-21T21:10:00.008-05:00

The proposed 2011 operating budget was released. I have not looked through it yet, but two interesting things right off the bat are that HHAP is set to get another $500K, and the rainy day fund will not be hit:

The plan also leaves funds for Healthy Howard, Ulman’s public health initiative, allocating $500,000.

“I am very pleased that Healthy Howard will be put out of business in 2014 by the federal (health care) bill,” the executive said.

He also allocated $232,000 for the Howard County Department of Citizen Services to dole out to agencies that will do the work of the now defunct Specialized Trauma Treatment and Recovery Center, which treated victims of psychological trauma and sexual assault until closing last year amid financial distress.

Ulman’s budget does not pull money from the county’s never-been-touched $48 million rainy day fund, which budget administrator Raymond Wacks previously speculated might be necessary to solve a $20 million shortfall in the current year’s budget.

I am not surprised by either of these two items. Tapping the rainy day fund, especially during an election year in a bad economic climate is dangerous business for someone who wants to be re-elected.

However, I will make one prediction with respect to the rainy day fund: that fund will be cleaned out by some future County Executive during an economic boom when money seems to be growing on trees and no one is paying attention to the budget. It will never be touched during a recession because doing so would make it appear that the CE does not have spending under control. That's just how the politics will work out.

It's the bees knees

2010-04-21T20:37:00.013-05:00

A few months ago I blogged about ZRA 117, which would reduce the required setback for beehives. Current zoning classifies bees as livestock, which means the setback is 200 feet. The implication of a setback that large is that most people are prohibited from legally keeping bees on their property. ZRA 117 would change the setback for beehives to 25 feet.

Someone has set up a website to promote bee friendly zoning in Howard County. It looks like there's also a related blog.

You can't make this stuff up

2010-04-18T15:56:00.009-05:00

The federal government gives about $3 billion in subsidies to the 20,000 American cotton farmers each year. This subsidy hurts cotton farmers in other places like Brazil, so the Brazilian cotton farmers sued on the grounds that American cotton subsidies violate some sort of trade agreement. The WTO upheld the challenge.

So, what should the U.S. government do? The obvious answer is to stop subsidizing U.S. cotton farmers. But that's not the course of action that our beloved government has chosen. Instead, the U.S. government will subsidize Brazilian cotton growers in addition to American cotton growers.

The U.S. negotiators did agree to modify the complicated export-guarantee program to make it less of an export-subsidy program. They also agreed to ease restrictions on Brazilian beef that have been justified as an effort to protect Americans from foot-and-mouth disease — and criticized as an effort to protect U.S. cattlemen from competition. But the big-ticket item is the settlement's "technical assistance" fund of $147.3 million, prorated, for Brazilian cotton growers. That just happens to be the precise amount of the retaliation the WTO had approved for the improper cotton subsidies. According to the U.S. press release, the fund will be replenished every year "until passage of the next farm bill or a mutually agreed solution to the cotton dispute is reached." So the total cost will exceed the price tag of the infamous Alaskan bridge to nowhere, which was at least designed for Alaskans; the annual cost will far exceed the $100 million President Obama ordered his Cabinet to cut from the federal budget last year. [Emphasis mine]

Obamacare will make HHAP obsolete in 2014

2010-04-18T09:55:00.024-05:00

Awhile ago I had asked what the passage of Obamacare would mean for the Healthy Howard Access Plan. An article that appears in the Baltimore Sun today confirms that when Obamacare's health insurance reform provisions kick in (which will not happen until 2014), HHAP will be obsolete.

Beilenson hopes to morph HHAP into completely new entity which would operate as an insurance co-op. A co-op is a company that is owned by the members, so all the profits are rolled back into the business to benefit the members through lower premiums. I could be wrong, but I don't think there are a large number of insurance co-ops now, so I don't know why that would change with the passage of Obamacare. Also, if an insurance co-op was such a good idea, I don't know why Beilenson and Ulman didn't do that in the first place. The whole concept of insurance is based on risk pooling, so they would need many more members than they have been able to attract under the existing HHAP structure. Additionally, I suspect that Obamacare is a huge boon for insurance companies, so I bet the federal regulations will make it difficult to compete with existing insurance companies. Someone else seems to agree with that:

Edmund F. Haislmaier, a senior research fellow for health policy studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said although "it is conceivable that someone might want to do that [start an insurance co-op]," he's skeptical that the concept will remain attractive once the federal regulations are written. He believes that the regulations will promote a consolidation of insurance companies that will end with two or three large providers in Maryland. But others are more enthusiastic about the concept.

So, the bottom line is that Obamacare will put HHAP out of business by 2014. The local government spent $1 million tax dollars on HHAP to keep it afloat for two years, and it currently has 600 enrollees.

Healthy Howard has about 600 enrollees, Beilenson said. Another 180 received health care through it but have left the program as their circumstances have changed, he said. Enrollment is a far cry from predictions of 2,000 enrollees in the first year.

Outsource edition

2010-04-13T18:26:00.009-05:00

I get to outsource my blogging duties today by linking to this awesome post from Jessie X on Maryland's absurd new cell phone ban while driving, as well as this awesome post from HoCoRising on Ulman's genius plan to fix the $20 million revenue shortfall. Spoiler alert: it's so genius that Ulman hasn't quite figured out the details yet.

Influence, yer doin it wrong

2010-04-10T06:31:00.009-05:00

Wordbones points to this list of influential state representatives. HoCoRising makes some good observations about the list here.

As noted by Wordbones, Shane Pendergrass is number 15 on the list of most influential state delegates. Given her influence, she sure has a strange way of capitalizing on it. When she was offended that someone leading a prayer in the chamber on Good Friday mentioned Jesus, she "slammed down her desktop in protest." That seems to be the reaction one might expect from an angry schoolboy, not a state delegate. And then after she approached the colleague who had offended her, the only thing she was able to accomplish was to get suckered into a media pissing match.

Of course, given our current fiscal situation, having any measure of influence means you have ownership of the blame. No one said influence was necessarily a virtue.

Amazing disgrace

2010-04-07T18:40:00.013-05:00

"Your interpretation of the sky fairy is offensive to my interpretation of the sky fairy."

That seems to be what Del. Penergrass is saying to a delegate representing parts of Montgomery County. She was offended that a prayer he led on Good Friday mentioned Jesus Christ (Pendergrass is apparently Jewish, although I don't know if she is secular or not). I am an atheist, so I think it's a little silly to believe in spirits that live outside of our world of space and time, but the world is a big place sometimes you just have to be cool and let people swing their arms as long as they don't hit you in the nose. Getting bent out of shape because someone mentioned Jesus on Easter is a little bit bananas when there are serious issues to discuss like how to fix the budget mess.

If Pendergrass wants to make the argument that prayer should not be said during the delegation meetings, that would at least make some sense given that there is supposed to be a separation of church and state. But that's not the approach that Pendergrass is taking. I know that SWPL Columbia liberals love to be offended almost as much as they like farmers markets and free health care, but do me a favor and just try to get along with the Christians so you can get the budget problem fixed without taxing me to death.

Really?

2010-04-07T18:18:00.002-05:00

Really county government? We have had 90 degree days, bees are flying, flowers are blooming and yet the water fountains are still off at Centennial Park? Really? Really?

Columbia 2.propaganda

2010-04-05T20:18:00.014-05:00

I don't have enough interest in the future of Columbia to take a hard stand on CB 58 and 59. I pretty much think that Columbia as a whole is destined to be a larger version of the Wilde Lake Village Center, although most people I trust are generally supportive of the plan and are fairly optimistic about downtown Columbia's future. I live a half an hour or so west of Columbia so they'll have to let me know how it works out over the next few decades.

However, it is unfortunate that a group like Columbia 2.0 would botch an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to Columbia's future, and instead promote three videos that are propaganda rather than good argument. The middle video featuring quotes taken out of context from a HoCoMoJo interview with Alan Klein in order to misrepresent his views is as misleading as it is annoying. And I say that as someone who has not drank the CCD kool-aid. From an unbiased point of view, that video is just completely inaccurate.

These videos are Lame 2.0.

Profit Opportunity

2010-04-03T13:39:00.014-05:00

The Wall Street Journal points out a possible profit opportunity for anyone who trusts the Obama administration:

So the wave of corporate writedowns—led by AT&T's $1 billion—isn't caused by ObamaCare after all. The White House claims CEOs are reducing the value of their companies and returns for shareholders merely out of political pique.

A White House staffer told the American Spectator that "These are Republican CEOs who are trying to embarrass the President and Democrats in general. Where do you hear about this stuff? The Wall Street Journal editorial page and conservative Web sites. No one else picked up on this but you guys. It's BS." (We called the White House for elaboration but got no response.)

OK, if what the White House is saying is true, this is a great profit opportunity for anyone who is foolish enough to believe them. Recording these bogus write downs means that the stocks are undervalued. Obama and friends could purchase stock in these companies at a bargain price, and when the market finally figures out that the reduced profitability of these companies was bogus, the price will shoot up and Obama and his cohorts will profit from the evil Republican CEOs' trickery. What better way for Obama to expose the political trickery of his critics than to profit from attempts to embarrass his administration?

You're welcome, Mr. President.

Another example of Howard's nanny state

2010-04-01T18:29:00.057-05:00

Wow, this is the most ridiculous thing I have heard all week:

School concession stand workers in Howard County have been told they have to take a 16-hour training course, or stop selling hot food.

The county health department-mandated training, which begins in April and costs about $100 per school, means that county schools will have to stop offering French fries, pizza, hot dogs and other hot items at extracurricular activities, such as athletic events, until the training is complete -- perhaps until next school year.

Anyone who thinks that government regulation keeps people safe does not, in my opinion, fully grasp the incentives of business. What keeps people safe is the profit motive, not government regulators. And this is a good thing. I don't want someone to do the right thing because a law says that they should- I want people to do the right thing because it is in their best interest to do so. Brand names, repeat business, reputation, etc. mean higher profits. Part of cultivating these factors that increase profits means being careful not to harm your customer. None of the volunteers affiliated with these concession stands will knowingly serve tainted food or engage in unsanitary practices that will result in harm to their customers (who in this case are their neighbors) because this would kill the golden goose. Regulations just lead to higher prices for the customers and/or lower profits for the booster clubs.

Obviously people are fallible and mistakes will sometimes happen, like Toyota's unfortunate "gas pedal sticking" problem. You can rest assured that Toyota did not find that fiasco to be profitable, and will fix the bust in the production process that allowed it to occur. Simple regulation will not make us any safer in a cost effective way.

The Howard County Health Department is not nearly as useful as most people think they are.

Wegmans to open in December of this year!!

2010-04-01T06:52:00.004-05:00

Wegmans has pushed up the opening date of the Columbia store to December 2010. News is just trickling in on this, but the company released a statement that they have placed a "top priority" in serving key markets, and I guess Howard County is one of those markets that they aim to be serving by year end.

"I could not be happier" said Ken Ulman in a county press release. "This just goes to show what a great job my administration has done."

More details here.

If the bond rating agencies say it, it must be true

2010-03-28T09:03:00.037-05:00

One of the scandals of the current recession is that the bond rating agencies gave high (often AAA) ratings to mortgage backed securities that were collateralized by underlying real estate values that were becoming more and more absurd. People who invested their savings in these securities thought they were purchasing a safe and prudent investment, but obviously that proved to be false. The ratings were misleading, and the rating agencies did not effectively do their job.

That's why I chuckle when those same ratings agencies refer to Ken Ulman's "conservative management". Ulman's approach to fiscal prudence as well as his politics are big government-SWPL-Columbia liberal. His favorite tactic of late is spend money but claim that it does not count as spending because the funds entered the bank account through some means other than taxes. For example, he recently used drug money to pay for elaborate prom parties and used interest earned on another account to give a small number of people some trees. Remember that ALL government spending is taxation. Ulman's lack of fiscal prudence is why we have a $20 million budget deficit.

Also, Ken Ulman is so afraid the angering the police union that he let police SWAT teams shoot and kill two family dogs during two separate botched raids on innocent people. Also, note that Ulman was all over the Halloween shooting UNTIL the murder charges were dropped against the suspect. Then we did not hear another word from him about it.

Trent Kittleman smartly sees the problem with Ulman's lack of fiscal restraint:

Kittleman said Thursday that although the county's AAA bond rating is great, and federal and state governments spend more than the county does, "we have got to get out of that [spending] mentality." With huge liabilities looming for retiree health care and the possibility growing that the county will have to begin paying for a growing part of teacher pensions, Howard County is facing major fiscal challenges. Even the $24,000 in confiscated drug money Ulman used to help all 12 county high schools pay for after-prom parties is indicative of the impulse to spend, she said.

Legalize it

2010-03-27T08:01:00.016-05:00

The economic benefits of marijuana legalization are becoming too obvious for fiscally crunched states to ignore:

On Wednesday, the California secretary of state certified a November vote on a ballot measure that would legalize, tax and regulate marijuana, a plan that advocates say could raise $1.4 billion and save precious law enforcement and prison resources.

Indeed, unlike previous efforts at legalization — including a failed 1972 measure in California — the 2010 campaign will not dwell on assertions of marijuana’s harmlessness or its social acceptance, but rather on cold cash.

“We need the tax money,” said Richard Lee, founder of Oaksterdam University, a trade school for marijuana growers, in Oakland, who backed the ballot measure’s successful petition drive. “Second, we need the tax savings on police and law enforcement, and have that law enforcement directed towards real crime.”

I strongly support a more federalist approach to government, meaning that more power resides with local and state governments and not with the feds. This is how our country used to, prior to the Civil War. The information needed to make the right governing decisions is widely dispersed all over the country, so centralizing power in Washington is a recipe for disaster (as history has shown). I also find it hard to believe that the current mortgage crisis would have happened without a federal push for homeownership and if banks had to rely on state governments for their bailouts.

The federal ban on marijuana is one of the most obvious policy blunders of government since alcohol prohibition. If this legislation passes in California, the federal response will be immensely interesting. If the feds just take a passive approach and let states do what they want, many states may choose to ignore other federal mandates like Obamacare. And if the feds strong arm California into maintaining a ban on marijuana, I can't even imagine the legal and political fireworks such a move would produce. Therefore, the feds may finally realize it's time to legalize.

Ummmmm

2010-03-26T07:08:00.007-05:00

Why is Healthy Howard using their twitter account to promote a diet plan that claims to let you lose 37 pounds in 10 days without diet or exercise?

Health care reform

2010-03-23T17:34:00.039-05:00

Peter Bielenson was on the radio yesterday talking about what HCR means for Howard County. According to Bielenson there are three main things that HCR does:

1. Insurance reform. This means that Insurance companies will not be able to turn anyone down for pre-existing conditions, they will not be able to drop coverage, and there are no more lifetime caps on what the insurance company has to pay out per person. The latter two take effect this year.

2. Expand eligibility to Medicaid. People making 133% of poverty or less than $29K per year can now become eligible for Medicade. Insurance subsidies will be available for those making more than $29K per year.

3. Cost controls. This includes two pilot programs that move from fee for service to bundled care, and having some organization look at cost effective health care as far as what is paid for and what is not. I have no idea what this even means, and it seems to be in direct opposition to the other two.

Bielenson said that out of the 20K uninsured in Howard County, this reform would mean that 15K-16K thousand of them could be insured either through the Medicaid expansion or through the insurance subsidies. This would make HoCo 98% insured.

The fines for not having health insurance don't start until 2014, and the tax on Cadillac plans does not begin until 2018. Basically, the consequences (both the good and the bad) of this plan will not be felt for a couple of years.

Governments seem to have an amazing ability to provide goods and services now while sticking the bill with future generations and future politicians. The mandated ponzi scheme that is Social Security is a great example of that. Social Security is no different than what Bernie Madoff was doing, except that participation in Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme was not mandatory. I was shocked to read this pro HCR op-ed in the Baltimore Sun which spoke of Social Security as if it were something great that the government has done for us.

I fear that this bill will actually prove to be a boon for insurance companies, who realizing how "to important to fail" that they are will push their costs into the future and pray for an insurance industry bailout. I also predict this is will be much more expensive than projected, leave us with a mountain of debt, weak dollar, and impending economic collapse. It would be a riot if this all occurred at the same time Social Security becomes bankrupt. And of course, the "unregulated market" will be blamed for all of this as the politicians frame themselves as our saviors. I certainly hope to be wrong, but I doubt I will be.

2010 trees in 2010

2010-03-22T22:12:00.007-05:00

Get two free* trees from the county government! They come in 5 gallon containers, so they are not seedlings. If only there was a place to plant trees somewhere around here...

* you paid for them

LOL

2010-03-22T19:34:00.003-05:00

First I received a letter from the Census Bureau telling me that I should expect to receive the 2010 census, then I actually received the 2010 census, and now I just received a postcard letting me that I should have already received the 2010 census!

Carrs Mill Park

2010-03-22T18:13:00.020-05:00

Last Sunday, I visited Carrs Mill Park. I was curious about it because every time I drove by, the gate was locked. I finally decided to venture in and see what was up. After walking up a short paved driveway through some trees, I reached the main park area. The park consists of an open field. That's it.

It appears it is "limited use" and you need a permit to use it:

There are several of these "campsites":

This is essentially what the park looks like:

Great use of tax dollars!

Health care legislation vs. HHAP

2010-03-22T10:47:00.001-05:00

I am wondering what the health care legislation will mean for the
Healthy Howard Access Plan? I assume it is a death sentence but I
guess we'll see. This could be the perfect excuse for Ulman to pull
the plug while at the same time framing HHAP as a successful stop gap
program. Taxpayers have committed $1 million to HHAP and the lastest
enrollment figures I have heard is 700ish participants.

Hear Dick ramble

2010-03-21T08:46:00.025-05:00

What would you think of a biologist who advocates inbreeding? That's about what I think of a self proclaimed economic guru who advocates buying local.

After listening to the most recent podcast of "And Then There's That..." with guest Dick Story, a great budget cut occurred to me. Cut all grants to the Howard County Economic Development Authority. The Howard County EDA is at best a completely useless organization, and at worst they foster crony capitalism. I have blogged before about how absurd I think the HCEDA is.

I wish the hosts of ATTT would have asked Story about what benefits if any were achieved from the 2008 taxpayer funded trip to India, but unfortunately they didn't.

Trent's on Twitter

2010-03-17T21:20:00.002-05:00

I can't really stand politicians so don't take this as an endorsement, but Trent Kittleman is on Twitter. It looks like her tweet volume is pretty low but I suspect that will heat up pretty soon. Ken Ulman can do two things well: spend money like it grows on trees and promote himself via social media. We'll see if Kittleman can surpass him on the latter.

I received my census form. Yay.

2010-03-17T18:34:00.019-05:00

According to the map on the census website, last time Howard County had an 82% participation rate in the census. This compares to 73% for Maryland and 72% for the nation overall.

According to this FAQ, there is a $100 fine for not answering their questions. I guess that is either not enforced or they made lots of money in fines. I am betting on the former.

Title 13

Sec. 221. Refusal or neglect to answer questions; false answers

(a) Whoever, being over eighteen years of age refuses or willfully neglects, when requested by the Secretary, or by any other authorized officer or employee of the Department of Commerce or bureau or agency thereof acting under the instructions of the Secretary or authorized officer, to answer, to the best of his knowledge, any of the questions on any schedule submitted to him in connection with any census or survey provided for by subchapters I, II, IV, and V of chapter 5 of this title, applying to himself or to the family to which he belongs or is related, or to the farm or farms of which he or his family is the occupant, shall be fined not more than $100.

(b) Whoever, when answering questions described in subsection (a) of this section, and under the conditions or circumstances described in such subsection, willfully gives any answer that is false, shall be fined not more than $500. (c) Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, no person shall be compelled to disclose information relative to his religious beliefs or to membership in a religious body.

Count me out

2010-03-13T10:23:00.009-05:00

I received this silly letter in the mail this week:

The fact that the feds are distributing money to pay for services that local governments or private businesses should be providing is abhorrent to me. Furthermore, the data obtained from this census may be used to rationalize more government intervention in the economy. This letter, along with the census itself, will go into the recycle bin.

And then there's that interview with Greg Hamm

2010-03-13T08:35:00.009-05:00

Be sure to check out the latest podcast of "And Then There's That...". The tagline is porn, proms and sprinklers, but many people will find the most interesting part to be Greg Hamm speaking about the issues being raised by the group "Taxpayers Against Giveaways". This starts at about the 14:00 mark and goes for more than 10 minutes. Hamm speaks about the amenities that GGP will be providing ($100 million dollars worth), and makes the point that traffic through Columbia will increase regardless of what development occurs because of BRAC.

If Columbia interests you, this full interview is a must listen.

Suck it, people needing treatment for drug and alcohol addiction

2010-03-13T05:32:00.005-05:00

In economics, there is a concept called Pareto efficiency which simply means that no one can be made better off without making someone else worse off. For example, if you have a banana and I have an apple, but you would prefer to eat an apple and I would prefer to eat a banana, it would be a Pareto improvement for us to trade. If there is only one orange that I have and we both want, me giving you the half of the orange is not a Pareto improvement because I was made worse off by the transaction.

I bring this up because many people seem to be talking about funding drug free prom parties with money taken from drug dealers as a Pareto improvement. Hey, let's use this free money which basically fell from the sky and didn't come from taxpayers to pay for drug free prom parties which keep kids safe, right?

On the Kojo Nnmandi show that was recorded yesterday, Ken Ulman mentioned that those funds are earmarked to be used for drug and alcohol treatment and related programs. So basically, those prom parties were paid for by cutting resources available to help drug addicts and alcoholics recover. Taking that money away from people who need some help to return to society as productive members and giving it to rich kids who just spent hundreds of dollars on dresses, tuxedos and limos (which they probably got drunk/stoned and had sex in on the way to the prom hehe) is not the best use of those funds in my opinion. But parents are a concentrated interest with a great deal of political power, so they get the resources and not the drug addicts who need some help to get back on their feet.

Taking from the poor and giving to the rich. Ken Ulman, you are certainly not Robin Hood.

OK, the second most ironic thing I read today

2010-03-10T20:23:00.014-05:00

Money that cops confiscated from drug dealers is being used to pay for "sober" after prom parties. The county guvmint is distributing $2,000 to each high school from a slush fund that was funded with confiscated drug money.

"That is an extremely generous contribution that is going to be greatly appreciated," said school system spokeswoman Patti Caplan. "I know how much time and effort the PTAs put into raising money for the post-prom parties. This is a very positive use for those funds."

Ummm, no, it's not a generous contribution. The cops took the money from drug dealers, and now Ulman is distributing it to high schools. There is no generosity at work here. You can't be generous with money that was never really yours to begin with.

The most ironic thing I read today

2010-03-10T20:02:00.011-05:00

School Board Member Allen Dyer on Doughoregan Manor:

i consider the historic significance of doughoregan manor beyond dispute and that significance should guide discussion of how best to deal with the FUTURE of doughoregan. in light of its historic value, the "private property" aspect of doughoregan is a sham issue. the question is whether the american public is going to sit by, in ignorance, while an irreplacable american historic site is destroyed piecemeal.

howard county local politics is much too small a forum for planning the destruction (or preservation) of doughoregan manor.

allen dyer

Yes, private property rights are a "sham issue" when dealing with the history of a nation founded out of respect for private property rights and individual freedoms as opposed to collectivist government intervention.

Oh, snap!

2010-03-07T15:54:00.025-05:00

Awesome quote from H.L. Mencken:

"The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic."

Very true, and this cuts both ways. Most people would like this quote when it supports their own position on an issue. If you are like me and you advocate for the legalization of drugs, for example, it would be fun to throw this quote in the face of someone who supports continuing the government bans on drugs. But this also means we should not legislate ideas that most of us support. I am sure we can all agree that discrimination based on gender, race, religion, etc. is bad, but that does not mean that we should pass laws to ban such types of discrimination. Legislation does not stop or reduce discrimination. People like Martin Luther King Jr., Jim Rouse, Susan B. Anthony, etc. who worked to change minds are what reduces discrimination. In that regard, legislation is little more than a lagging indicator of public opinion or an indicator of the direction in which the political winds are blowing.

Why does a salad cost more than a Big Mac?

2010-03-06T08:29:00.007-05:00

It's the government subsidies, natch.

Here.

Green to red

2010-03-04T19:26:00.014-05:00

In July of 2008, the mother of a motorcyclist who was killed by a negligent driver in an SUV successfully lobbied to get a traffic light installed at the left exit of Rt. 29 to I-70. Personally, I liked the left exit before the light was installed, but I have found this new traffic light to be so inconvenient that I have been using the right exit from Rt. 29 to I-70 when I travel in that area.

Regardless, a 92 year old woman was recently killed at that same intersection, this time with the traffic light installed. The driver on Rt. 29 failed to stop for a red light and hit a car crossing Rt. 29 to I-70 with a green light. It seems pretty likely that this was a case when people were watching the traffic lights rather than traffic. I know I'm making a contrary to fact hypothesis here (which is dangerous business) but it seems highly probable to me that this accident would not have occurred if the yield sign was in place rather than the new traffic light.

It would not surprise me if studies show that traffic lights are more dangerous than stop signs or yield signs in certain situations because the latter two devices require to people to rely on their judgement rather than waiting for the light to turn green so they can floor it. This is one of those contrarian ideas that is probably supported by evidence.

Interestingly, a common element between both of these accidents is that the drivers at fault were both over 70 years old.

This will go down on your permanent record...

2010-03-03T20:14:00.007-05:00

Ken Ulman is super tough on crime. Note that if you shoot and kill someone, the police will completely fail to gather enough evidence to charge you with any crime, but the homeowners where the shooting occurred will be harassed with zoning violations and other nonsense.

The notices and letters included the following:

• The Howard County Department of Inspections, Licenses and Permits wrote in a letter to the homeowners that they had violated the county building code by hosting “parties open to the general public,” such as “nightclubs and dance halls” do. Since the home is zoned for residential use, the homeowners would need to apply for a permit to change its zoning to “assembly use,” wrote department director Robert Frances.
If the homeowners host parties there in the future, county officials will “immediately post the structure as unsafe, vacate the premises and issue a civil citation,” Frances wrote. Civil citations can result in fines of up to $500 per day, he added.

• The Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning ordered the homeowners to “cease use of the property as a commercial nightclub/dance hall” or face fines of up to $500, court injunctions or other penalties.

• The county Fire Department charged that the homeowners created a “hazardous condition” when they held the alleged party and could face fines of up to $500 if they hold such events in the future.

• The Health Department wrote in a letter to the homeowners that they had violated the county health code by serving food at a “public event” without consulting health officials and that they must not hold any future parties without doing so.

Also, the cover charge was $5 for girls and $10 for guys, so I fully expect the county to bring a gender discrimination suit as well.

Yee-haw, sheriff Ulman is in town!

Sprinkler mandate approved

2010-03-02T19:14:00.018-05:00

Adam Smith once wrote about a conceited theorist who "seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board."

The Howard County Council is a collection of conceited theorists who believe that people are too stupid to make their own decisions about residential sprinkler systems, therefore the Council has mandated that all new single family homes must have residential sprinkler systems.

Guess what, County Council? People are not inanimate objects that you can arrange. Unlike chess pieces, people have their own desires, talents, responsibility and resources. They certainly don't need pencil pushing bureaucrats who have no unique skills or insights (other than an ability to win a popularity contest called an election) to make decisions for them. People have numerous competing desires on which they spend their resources. One of those desires is to stay alive. Therefore, people will carefully measure the costs and benefits of a residential sprinkler system without some arrogant guvmint official making the choice for them.

This silly sprinkler mandate comes at the expense of safer cars, better medical care, college savings and numerous other worthy things on which people can choose to allocate their limited resources.

Vote all five of these County Council morons out of office.

Jury voting

2010-02-25T20:56:00.004-05:00

I love to hear alternatives to our system of voting and/or our system of government. There are so many good ideas out there that are unlikely to happen just because we are so set in our way of doing things. Substantial improvements could occur in the governing process if there was a way to experiment with some of these ideas. I like this idea that I read about today: jury voting.

I wish there was a way to test ideas like this and see how they would work in the real world.

Love this quote:

Modern politics is just as you should expect it to be when votes are cast by ignorant people taking advantage of a low-cost source of emotional gratification.

That seems to describe both the average voter and average political figure fairly well under the current framework.

Budgets according to Allen Dyer

2010-02-24T19:48:00.013-05:00

Ordinarily, I like people with contrarian ideas. Often, contrarian ideas are shocking at first but are actually supported by science (like the notion that running shoes are bad for your feet).

However, some people are just contrarian and have ideas that are less than intelligent. Allen Dyer, for example, loves to be different even though his contrarian positions are absurd. He was the lone dissenting vote on the school board budget. His major (and only stated) objection to the budget is that public funds are used to bus kids to private schools (I explain why I think this is dumb, here). Dyer instead wants the $537,000 that it costs to bus private school kids used instead to teach kindergarten kids a foreign language. And, at least according to Dyer, the $537,000 is enough to cover the costs of kindergarten kids learning a foreign language. The problem comes when those kids move onto 1st grade. Now we need to come up with ANOTHER $500,000. But wait, there's more. When those kids move onto 2nd grade, we need to come up with ANOTHER $500,000. And so on for several more years. This is essentially how Allen Dyer himself described the situation.

So Dyer essentially wants to put the school budget another $500,000 in the hole every year for the next nine years or so.

Luckily, the other school board members are able to see how nuts Dyer is:

Ellen Flynn Giles, board chairwoman, and several other board members objected to Dyer's plan. "These are not the types of things that you discuss when you approve the budget," she said. "[His proposal] was not supported with a plan for how those funds would be used."

I hope Dyer enjoys using his school board position as his contrarian soapbox. I have a feeling this term will be his last.

Welcome to the nanny state

2010-02-23T18:22:00.025-05:00

It appears as though the arrogant and paternalistic County Council is set to mandate residential sprinkler systems in new construction.

Sprinklers obviously don't pay for themselves through lower insurance rates, otherwise everyone would be putting them into their new homes without a mandate to do so. What sense does it make for the County Council to force people to spend money on something that does not balance increased safety with increased costs? Every one of us can make ourselves safer at some cost. We could purchase a safer car. We could eat a healthier diet. Only through extreme arrogance and self-righteousness could pencil-pushing County Council members think they can make effective decisions for us given all of our alternatives.

Also, if sprinklers are such an obviously good decision that people are somehow not smart enough to make on their own, why not require them in existing homes as well? Are the lives of people in existing homes less valuable than the lives of people in new homes, Mary Kay Sigaty? Are you equating the extra cost of installing sprinklers in existing homes to the cost of a human life, Mary Kay Sigaty?

Another concern of mine is that I watched the "debate" on this issue on the county government channel. I believe the debate regarding sprinklers occurred on February 17 (just a few days ago). There is no way that the Council was able to do anything besides wink and nod at each other since then, and yet they appear to be on the cusp of approving this mandate. During the debate I saw, there was mass confusion among those providing testimony as to how much sprinklers even cost!

If this mandate is approved, the County Council will have proven themselves to be a paternalistic body that is easily wooed by anecdotes from special interest groups.

Yo, County Council members. I mandate that each of you resign your seat so you can go to the gym and workout three nights a week. It's for your own good. What's that? I don't have the moral authority to tell you what to do? Hmmm, funny you should mention that...

Get your fermentation on

2010-02-21T19:59:00.007-05:00

I'm not the biggest fan of public libraries, but I did notice that the Glenwood Branch has a "Science of Homebrew" class coming up on March 8th. You have to register for it in advance. I make beer and wine from time to time, and it's a lot of fun (also a lot of work cleaning bottles, pots, etc.) This might be a good class for a newbie to see if it's something worth trying.

Shout out

2010-02-20T10:15:00.013-05:00

Shout out to HoCoMoJo for putting up video coverage of Trent Kittleman's formal announcement as a candidate for County Executive, as well as their video coverage of Liz Bobo's legislative update. HoCoMoJo is on the only place I have seen to have video coverage of these events. With election season upon us, it's nice to have them out there videotaping stuff that the other information outlets (like Explore Howard and the Baltimore Sun) seem to ignore. HoCoMoJo has also been prolific in their snow related twitter updates. I'm also a fan of the "And Then There's That" podcast they produce with Wordbones as a co-host. There still seems to be a lot of potential from that site that remains untapped, but things appear to be moving in the right direction.

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire

2010-02-20T05:48:00.002-05:00

I am still irritated at the County Council over the bill that could mandate sprinkler systems in new homes. Watching the “debate” about this bill on television confirmed many of my personal biases about our dysfunctional government. The only people that offered testimony were special interests: several fire department personnel spoke in favor of the bill, and one spokesperson for a home builders group (who actually had a good argument but was perhaps the most inarticulate person to walk the face of the Earth) spoke against the bill.

I should offer a response to a question that Mary Kay Sigaty raised, because although I find it to be completely absurd, it may appear to be legitimate to people who don't watch Milton Friedman debates on YouTube for fun. After the hack for the home builder group smartly said that the decision to put a sprinkler in your home should be a personal choice and not one that's mandated by the government, Mary Kay asked him this question: “Do firefighters have the personal choice to go into a burning building?”

The home building hack lamely replied something like, “No, they don't have that choice.”

The only problem is that this response is not actually true.

Obviously firefighters have the personal choice to enter into the firefighting profession, but that's not the substantive response to MKS's question. Much more importantly, the incident commander who is on the scene and in charge of the firefighters needs to make a decision: do the risks of the task at hand exceed the rewards? In other words, is going into this burning building an acceptable risk? If the building is fully involved in flames and no one is trapped inside, obviously it makes perfect sense to let the home burn. Be sure to spray some water on it at a safe distance from the outside- burn it down with grace so the pictures in the newspaper show that you're doing something. The insurance company will replace the destroyed home with a brand new one.

If the building is fully involved and someone is trapped, it probably still makes sense to let the home burn and not go inside. The likelihood of a successful rescue must be measured against the chance of sending a crew of firefighters on a suicide mission. As I recall from my firefighting days, the problem an incident commander faces in such a situation is not a lack of firefighters willing to take the risk, it's actually the opposite problem. Many firefighters will volunteer to take unacceptable risks- particularly if one of their own becomes trapped.

In other situations, people may be trapped in dangerous scenarios, but thanks to proper training and good equipment, a successful rescue can reasonably be expected. This is why Howard County provides financial resources to the fire department and why firefighters are considered heroes.

Mandating that people put sprinklers in their homes is not a good idea. I would venture to say that $150 worth of smoke detectors and a home evacuation plan (which costs nothing but some time to develop and practice) makes you FAR safer than just having a $4,000 home sprinkler system. I doubt that anyone from the fire department would suggest that a sprinkler system takes the place of smoke detectors and an evacuation plan. And I am not suggesting that smoke detectors be mandated. The government should not be mandating anything. Personal responsibility and consequences cause people to make the best decisions.

Might I suggest that if you don't have enough smoke detectors, you make a trip to Home Depot and pick some up. No need to end up like this dude.

I need to get the hell away from these people

2010-02-17T21:04:00.029-05:00

I just spent a half an hour watching a county council session where Council Bill 5 was discussed. CB 5 is a bill that could require sprinkler systems in single family homes. According to one of the fire department spokespeople, sprinklers add about $1.60 per square foot to the cost of a home. I'll take that as an accurate figure, even though it seems absurdly low for a home not on public water (which would require a pump and tank to allow the sprinklers to work). So let's say you have a 2,500 square foot home (pretty modest for HoCo), you are looking at an additional expense of $4,000.

Is it right to require a prospective homeowner to pay for a $4,000 sprinkler system in their new home? Maybe that person would rather be extra careful not to burn their house down and spend that money on something else. That $4,000 could be put to a range of other uses. Perhaps the homeowner would prefer to put that money into a safer car (since there is much greater chance of being killed in a car accident than a house fire). Perhaps the homeowner would prefer to put that $4,000 into a home gym to keep themselves in physical shape. Or maybe they would rather have granite counter tops. Whatever. The point is that a sprinkler system is not necessarily what the prospective home builder would want to spend their money on. It is extremely arrogant for the county council to think they have the moral authority to spend our money for us.

Mary Kay Sigaty asked the one person who expressed concern about the price of sprinklers something like "how can you put a value on human life?" Guess what, Mary Kay? By spending your evenings with your fellow council members instead of working out a the gym, you are putting a value on your own life.

And of course, all the fire department spokespeople where there to make the case in support of this bill. Interestingly, not one of them suggested that fewer firefighters would be needed if sprinklers were mandated in new homes. It's funny how that works, huh? Many of the fire department representatives were not even from Howard County. Despite that, one fire department union guy from Ohio gave a shout out to the Local 2000, which is the Howard County fire department union. Unions are out to benefit themselves, not the public. The Local 2000 makes that case very nicely. I used to be a volunteer firefighter in HoCo, and it was well known among volunteers that if the Local 2000 officials could snap their fingers and make us all go away, they'd do it in a second. Why did they want to do away with volunteers? To make the public safer? Uh, no. To create more jobs for themselves, natch.

Seriously, County Council. Mind your own freaking business.

Update: A statement about the hypocrisy of an unnamed council member and related comments have been removed, since that appears to have begun generating more interest than the merits of the argument I am making.

Ulman wants you to pay for services you don't receive

2010-02-14T09:04:00.021-05:00

A tax break failed to pass the Maryland General Assembly that would give a tax credit to those who pay for sewer service but do not receive sewer service. This makes sense to me, but some people like Ken Ulman and Guy Guzzone believe that people should have to pay for services that they don't receive:

State Sen. Allan H. Kittleman's third annual attempt to get Howard County's General Assembly delegation to approve a utility tax break bill failed Wednesday, with only the county's three Republican legislators backing it. The bill would have given county government the ability to grant the break to people who get public water but not sewer service.

Ulman administration officials have said that carving out a tax break for one group of people would set a precedent for similar tax breaks for other groups who do not directly benefit from a particular tax.

I love this indirect quote from Budget Director Raymond Wacks:

Budget director Raymond S. Wacks has suggested that if the tax break were to be approved, people without children in county schools, for example, might want to pay less taxes than those who do.

Why is he saying that like it's a bad thing? Doesn't it, like, make perfect sense that parents who use public schools should pay more in taxes than people who do not use public schools? Did Mr. Whacks fall out of the illogical tree and hit every branch on the way down? Using that stupid logic, why not just charge everyone in the county for water and sewer, even people with wells?

Happy Valentine's Weekend

2010-02-13T08:27:00.005-05:00

From Graphjam.

Thanks, snow crews!

2010-02-11T20:24:00.014-05:00

The roads are in pretty good shape. Thanks to all the county employees and private contractors who were operating plows and other equipment, you earned your overtime. Sadly, the government will take a large portion of your pay to waste it on nonsense. Oh, and if you are a county employee, they will be furloughing you later this year. But even though the administration does not appreciate you, I certainly do.

This county has plenty of money to spend on nonsense like the Healthy Howard Access Plan, recycle bins, tanning regulations and other absurdities, so I don't want to hear one peep from any of them about not being able to pay for stuff that government actually has legitimate cause to do, like snow removal:

The cost of cleanup from the storm has yet to be seen, but Watson says she expects it will be at least double the $350,000 spent following a Jan. 30 storm.

Prior to last weekend’s storm the county was already $1.3 million in the hole for snow removal this season.
Watson said the county will find the money to cover the debt, most of which will come from a contingency fund.

“If you can’t rely on your government now, then when can you?” Watson asked.

Indeed.

Master of thievery

2010-02-10T11:04:00.010-05:00

Like everyone else, I am sure that the late Senator John Murtha had some admirable personal qualities. But being the "King of Pork" and a "master of pork barrel politics" is something that he should be ashamed of:

Elected to Congress in 1974 from a southwestern Pennsylvania district that has been economically devastated by the decline of the nation's coal-mining and steel industries, the gruff and jowly Murtha was beloved by his constituents for tapping billions of dollars in federal money to seed new industries there.

He was revered among Democrats -- and even some Republicans -- for his skill in using the power of the federal purse to make kings and deals. A right-hand man of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), he was considered one of the most influential lawmakers on Capitol Hill and credited with her ascension.

Critics dubbed Murtha, the chairman of the powerful subcommittee that controls Pentagon spending, the "King of Pork" for the volume of taxpayer money he could direct to the area around his home town of Johnstown. Most of the largess came in defense and military research contracts he steered to companies based in his district or with small offices there. (Emphasis mine)

If Senator Murtha was a con-artist who traveled the country stealing from others and bringing the money back to his hometown to share with the town folk, he would be a hated as a criminal. He would even be jailed. But because he, along with other Senatorial scumbags, are able to pass their thievery off as "public service", Senator Murtha is instead viewed as a hero. With all due respect to the dead, good riddance.

Mattracks = Awesome

2010-02-10T02:38:00.002-05:00

Who wouldn't love to have some Mattracks on their 4x4 this week in HoCo?

Oh snow you didn't

2010-02-09T20:51:00.006-05:00

Oh snow you did!

So far, the state and county road crews have done a great job getting the roads cleaned up, all things considered. But it sounds like the road situation will deteriorate:

The governor told reporters today that unlike the weekend storm where state highway crews were able to clear the interstates and major highways to bare pavement, crews will only make interstates and major roads passable.

He says highway crews cannot put snow on the shoulders of the interstates, because they are already covered with two feet of snow from the weekend storm.

E-mail from Ulman

2010-02-08T17:48:00.002-05:00

I'm just passing the following info along...

Dear Neighbors,

In the aftermath of the largest snowstorm in recorded history for Howard County, we have been working around the clock to clear our streets and return things to normal as soon as possible. We have called in all resources across the County to help and we are making good progress toward our goal of plowing all roads by tonight.

As another potential snowstorm looms on the horizon, I am writing today to ask for your assistance. All around us, our friends and neighbors are working just as hard as County crews to keep up with the demands of snow removal. However, because of the extreme nature of this storm, many residents are physically unable to shovel their homes and cars out from the snow.

I have already heard many great stories of residents working together to clear snow for neighbors who cannot do so on their own. This is the spirit of community and cooperation that help make Howard County so great, and I am hopeful that we can continue this effort as we brace for another storm.

If you have a neighbor in need of assistance, please lend a helping hand. It is time for us all to be proactive as good neighbors. Check in on your neighbors to make sure they're alright. If there is a house on your street that hasn't been shoveled out, see if that neighbor needs your help. Now more than ever, we need to pull together as a community and help each other through this storm as well as the next.

Also, please take a moment to share this message with your friends, family and neighbors.

If you have an urgent situation, you can call our hotline at 410-313-2900, and if there's a life safety emergency, dial 911.

Ken

Don't worry, bee happy

2010-02-07T11:39:00.017-05:00

The Planning Board is not a fan of ZRA 117, which is the legislation to reduce the required setback for beehives. The Sun reports that the Planning Board has recommended that the Council reject the ZRA. I've mentioned this ZRA before.

Bees are now in the same zoning category as farm animals in Howard, which means the hives must be at least 200 feet from an adjoining property, a rule so restrictive it prompted an outpouring of support in November from beekeepers across the Baltimore area advocating for a change. They insist that honeybees are harmless and haven't caused any problem if not disturbed, even in urban neighborhoods in Baltimore.

But board members were leery of having bees close to other homes, especially in heavily populated areas such as Columbia.

"It's best to leave it out of New Town," board chairwoman Linda Dombrowski said during a discussion before the 4-0 vote.

"The idea of having beehives in the back of town houses just doesn't make sense," agreed Tammy Citaramanis.

The Planning Board has shown themselves to be quite ignorant about honeybees, which is something that I know a little bit about. Honeybees are actually the most harmless when they are swarming, because they have no hive or honey stores to defend. This is the only time in which they could possibly congregate in large numbers on someone else's property. I have actually had swarming bees crawl up my pants leg and not sting me. When not swarming (on average, honeybees swarm only once a year but management techniques by the beekeeper can reduce this), honeybees are working. They are taking nectar and pollen from flowers, or doing chores around the hive. They have no time or incentive to attack children and the elderly, despite what uninformed people may assume. In my opinion, dogs are actually more dangerous than honeybees.

I seriously doubt that anyone on the Planning Board could articulate the difference between wasps and bees. In fact, wasps, hornets and yellow jackets are NOT BEES AT ALL. Hopefully the County Council will prove that they are a bit more informed than the Planning Board.

State of Emergency

2010-02-06T19:15:00.008-05:00

The snow has apparently created a "State of Emergency" in Howard County. One of the things this does is extends the ability of certain police powers:

This declaration serves several functions including making more state resources available to the County's Emergency Management Division, extending the availability of certain police powers, and better positioning the County to receive federal reimbursement for resources used during this historic snowfall.

I wonder what that means? It's a little scary that the HCPD is clearly in the more alpha position than the County Executive in Howard County. In fact, the HCPD does not take the County Executive or executive staff members seriously. The police union has essentially purchased the CE. So it's just great the PD has been given more powers.

Well said

2010-02-06T12:49:00.008-05:00

The way to solve problems is not by electing the right people, rather it is to make sure the wrong people have incentives to do the right thing. Sadly, this is something that Democracy (and our Republic) is not able to do thanks to rational ignorance and numerous other problems.

Even more sadly, meta-solutions that may fix the process are unlikely to take place.

This is why I believe that efforts to unseat incumbents are doomed from the start. I'd be thrilled if I were proven wrong, but I won't be. :-(

Idea from outer space

2010-02-05T15:30:00.019-05:00

I think the Howard Astronomical League is really awesome. I love science related stuff, so this club sounds like something that is right up my alley. However, it is really annoying when clubs like HAL put their hand out and start begging for tax dollars.

HAL is restoring an antique telescope, and they have been unable to raise enough private donations to complete the restoration. Therefore, HAL members have convinced our "generous" legislators to give them in excess of $25,000 in tax dollars to fund this restoration. Fix it with subsidy, right? Of course, they use all the buzzwords like "education" and "public-private partnership" to rationalize this expenditure that they are unwilling to spend their own money on. It seems shockingly stupid to me to fund a project like this with public funds, especially during economic times like these.

Given a recent letter to the editor from a HAL club member, it is apparent that some of the HAL club members do not understand the difference between public and private:

This so-called pet project is not a private endeavor. The Observatory Project is a partnership between the men, women and children who make up our not-for-profit educational organization, and the county to further public education, science education in particular.

Ummm, yeah. That does not mean that your project is not a private endeavor. What's more, Howard County already spends more than half of the total budget on education (without any required economics courses, interestingly. I think that's how they manage to keep most people fat, dumb and happy.)

You want to steal my tax dollars to refurbish your telescope? I'm sorry HAL, I'm afraid I can't do that.

However, if you'd like to make a donation to this interesting project, do so here.

New drinking game

2010-02-01T21:31:00.004-05:00

I watched two minutes of the County Council meeting tonight, and I swear Courtney Watson must have said "amendment 1 to 21" ten times during that period.

That got me thinking, what County Council keyword would make the best drinking game?

Meanwhile, Wordbones is now on a twitter frenzy.

Good editorial from Ulman/Beilenson

2010-01-31T17:06:00.018-05:00

Ken Ulman and Peter Beilenson almost- but not quite- begin to make sense in their op-ed piece in the Baltimore Sun today. They essentially concede that the federal guvmint is dysfunctional:

Whatever reform of America's broken health care system can be accomplished in Washington over the next few weeks is likely to be meager. We can't allow the failure of comprehensive health care reform at the national level to be the endgame. We can't wait another 15 or 20 years for another grand national campaign to fix the remaining problems. That is not fair to the tens of millions who suffer without any or adequate insurance; nor can our challenged economy sustain the current growth rate of health care expenses.

What they propose is that states attempt to solve health care problems on their own, trying different approaches and seeing what works. Where Ulman and Beilenson screw the pooch is that they want the federal guvmint to subsidize state efforts, which just seems really stupid to me. They also want the feds to essentially regulate the end goals of the state plans (they insist that states must strive to bend the cost curve and have the intent of achieving universal coverage), which is also dumb.

I believe that knowledge needed to reform healthcare is concentrated far outside of Washington, and having a central planner in a country this large is a recipe for disaster. Would GM have gotten in such bad shape if the taxpayers in Michigan were responsible for a bailout? Probably not. Would Fannie and Freddie have caused such havoc in mortgage markets if individual states had to foot the bill for mortgage bailouts? Unlikely.

Allowing states and counties to be in control of what their policies are just makes a lot more sense than the one size fits all "solutions" coming from Washington. In fact, don't just limit this Federalist approach to health care, let the states do everything for themselves (save for perhaps national defense).

While I advocate for a free society, I do not assert that it is right for everyone. Many people like subsidized housing, government regulations, government intervention in health care and so forth. Let those folks live in their Socialist utopia- and let them pay for it themselves. Meanwhile, I'll choose to live in a freer society.

Anyway, with the exception of a few warts the editorial was a refreshing change from the normal B.S. coming from political "leaders". Every blind squirrel can sometimes find a nut.