Someone asked for more local stuff. Jason has posted about the two new CUMTD Boad applicants and the County Board races after slating. Mark had an educating post about the City of Champaign & Champaign Township issues. The smoking ban has been discussed to death, and there's no doubt it will pass in Urbana. What else would you like? Today's Roundup:
- The Governor's office is now claiming the clout list is fake. As Rich Miller points out, last week they said there was nothing wrong with keeping such a list.
- Speaker Hastert, as much as I like him, must have lost his mind. The warrant was approved by a court, after all.
- Jim Dey (EDIT: kinda sorta) agrees that smoking ban busibodies aren't really motivated by public health, saying that the issue is like "religion."
- Kiyoshi plays around with Google trends for CU.
- Cal Skinner gives a history lesson about the Illinois Lottery.
- With the NG not updating their improved online site until 2 PM every day, I think I might actually be missing the Daily Illini.
- More evidence of the mainstream media's absolute failure in reporting accurately about Katrina. "Here's another one: Do you remember the dramatic TV footage of National Guard helicopters landing at the Superdome as soon as Katrina passed, dropping off tens of thousands saved from certain death? The corpsmen running with stretchers, in an echo of M*A*S*H, carrying the survivors to ambulances and the medical center? About how the operation, which also included the Coast Guard, regular military units, and local first responders, continued for more than a week? Me neither." Of course, the MSM's primary motivation isn't accuracy - it's making Republicans look bad. Jonah Goldberg has more here.
Dey's article did not attack the non-smokers pubic health argument. Actually, it conceded the obvious by pointing out that the public health argument is the most persuasive basis for the ban. What Dey dismissed as disingenuous is the proposition offered by non-smokers that bar business will increase due to the ban. While Dey properly dismissed this, he did not refute the public health rationale.
I do not have a strong position on this issue either way, but I am somewhat amused by the business/market elements that have been brought into this argument. If the issue is really public health, what does the free market have to do with it? If the free market alone was the barometer, prostitution would be legal and strip clubs could be constructed without limitation, bars could stay open 24 hours, and Sunday closing laws and restrictions would be non-existant. Obviously other societal interests, usually morals or health related, trump market demand in certain cases. Why is the smoking ban any different?
Perhaps I worded it poorly - to me, Dey was clearly stating that he didn't think that public health was the primary motivation behind the smoking ban for most of the proponents, but rather an individual-based anti-smoking zealotry. Re-reading it, I may have read too much into it.
"I do not have a strong position on this issue either way, but I am somewhat amused by the business/market elements that have been brought into this argument. If the issue is really public health, what does the free market have to do with it? If the free market alone was the barometer, prostitution would be legal and strip clubs could be constructed without limitation, bars could stay open 24 hours, and Sunday closing laws and restrictions would be non-existant. Obviously other societal interests, usually morals or health related, trump market demand in certain cases. Why is the smoking ban any different?"
Because this was a problem the free market could and would have easily addressed on its own, and that individual consumers could have exercised their own choices about which types of businesses to patronize. It's government by busibody, legislating away one person's annoyance because they're too lazy/stupid/careless to avoid smoke on the their own, and insist on rewarding businesses that don't give them what they want.
But I'm also tired of re-hashing the same arguements on a settled issue.
I keep saying this: People cannot rely on the media any more. All of their bad policies and bad hiring and ignorance of the facts have come home to roost.
The Katrina coverage was just as flawed as the miner coverage and the coverage of the last two presidential elections. The media are out of touch and have no mechanism to get back into touch. Their sole driving force is to cut the budget and put out an increasingly declining product. The only way to stop it is to do what I've suggested: Stop buying it. Stop advertising in it. And then call the higher-ups and tell them what you are doing and why.
Also, referring to Editor & Publisher as a watchdog is quite humorous. That publication has been blissfully ignorant of what's been happening for some time.
New poll done by Survey USA for channel 5 in St. Louis:
Blagojevich 43%
Judy Baar 37%
Oops! You already have a post on that.
That's OK, Justin. I'm interested in your thoughts over in that thread, if you'd like to share them.
FYI to Gordy and anyone else: The Daily Illini returns on June 12th. I'm sure people are thrilled to know this. :)
Hastert and Newt are both wrong on this one. It's really disappointing too. If the FBI can't investigate this stuff...who's going to. It's makes me sick. Their loyalties seem to lie with their cronies more than with the law. Duke Cunningham and now this scoundral from Louisiana...how about public hangings?
Interesting, if true...
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/federal_officia.html
What happened to the GOP?
Excuse me...make that with a nonpartisan rope. And lets not for get Ryan and any other elected offical that can be bought by the highest bidder...do I hear Blago?
Interesting to see how Congress is working with Justice to create very specific rules for search and seizure in Congress...wonder if those special rules will ever apply to the rest of us peon citizens?
Just imagine if a warrantless seach and seizure had been conducted on Congress...then we might see some interest in defending the Constitution and 4th Amendment.