Buy pot futures

Though illegal, marijuana is used by large segments of the population. For an average product of its type, cannabis would not have much impact in an economy: plenty of products are used regularly by a couple percentage points of the population and infrequently by most others. However, because of its near-universal prohibition, the costs of producing and selling the drug drive up costs and make the drug big business. At $10/gram, the drug is so expensive and widespread that it has become the Netherlands' third-largest export. Contrary to popular belief, smoking marijuana in the Netherlands is technically illegal but unenforced – however, growing marijuana is technically illegal and prosecuted if people are caught. This causes prices to be slightly cheaper than in America, but still hugely inflated compared to the prices of other plants which require similar amounts of energy to grow. (Complicating the comparison, only comparatively high-grade marijuana is available in the Netherlands, and it is much cheaper than in the US, though Americans smoke more low-quality weed.) And before you dismiss the fact that pot is big business in the Netherlands, consider this whopper that talking heads talking about farm policy never mention: marijuana is the America's most valuable crop.

Obama backpedals on ethanol

Barack Obama, this campaign season's über-champion of ethanol subsidies, is starting to retreat from his position:

With the world teetering on the edge of a full-blown food crisis, it may be time to cut back on biofuel, said Barack Obama yesterday.

In an interview on NBC's Meet the Press, the Democratic presidential candidate said "there's no doubt that biofuels may be contributing" to falling food supplies and rising prices.

Ya think!? This being politics, I know it's too much to ask, but it would be nice to hear an apology from Obama for almost single-handidly pushing ethanol to the forefront of the presidential campaign, inspiring a chorus of me-toos from Camp Hillary (though McCain's generally held the high ground, he too occasionally becomes intoxicated on the Iowa spirits).

Edit: Obama's been pretty quiet about the subject of ethanol subsidies since his almost mea culpa, but the NYT didn't give his change of heart any play in an A1 article it ran about his stance on ethanol in June 2008.

Homeland Security High

You can't make this stuff up – a high school, for Christ's sake! Via Unqualified Offerings:

The first high school dedicated to preparing students for the front lines in the Nation's homeland security has gone from theory to planning in Wilmington.

The Project Manager for the Delaware Academy for Public Safety and Security, New Castle Attorney Thomas Little, signed a contract with Innovative Schools, a professional firm which will coordinate the mechanics of preparing the school for its eventual opening.

The process to find and fund a site for as many as six-hundred young men and women in Wilmington's inner city is underway.

Curriculum choices for students, who are to be called Cadets, range from SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) through prison guard, water rescue, paramedic, fireman, professional demolition and emergency response operator, according to a Board statement.

Jailbreak!

The prison population has swelled in recent years – in the last six years, the proportion of Americans in jail has risen over 40%. The primary cost to society comes in the imprisoning of its citizens, depriving them of the opportunity for success later in life, with the costs compounding with each additional year behind bars. But, now that states are enacting radical plans to trim their prison populations, it isn't out of kindness but out of fiscal necessity. Corrected for inflication, prison spending by states has risen by 127% in the last twenty years. Even Mississippi's Republican governor, in a state not known for its humane justice system, is letting go:

In Mississippi, where the prison population has doubled during the past dozen years to 22,600, Gov. Haley Barbour (R) has signed into law two measures that will reduce it: One to let certain nonviolent offenders go free after serving 25 percent of their sentences, and the other to release some terminally ill inmates.

But like I said, the government is easing up, but it's got a long ways to come down: Michigan (home of #8 in enrollment Michigan State and research giant University of Michigan) spends more on jailing people ($2 billion) than it does on higher education ($1.9 billion). Unfortunately, I think that only marginal change can come about until America reconsiders its love affair with prohibition.

Active measures and the Right Reverend Wright

The Jeremiah Wright controversy has the potential to torpedo Obama's campaign, according to results of a poll published by the NYT. I find one of Wright's comments particularly interesting – that is, his belief that AIDS was/is a plot by the American government to decimate Africans and black Americans. Thanks to the Mitrokhin Archive and public acknowledgments by former Soviet officials, we can now say with some certainty that this conspiracy was deliberately propagated by Soviet secret services.  They were part of the broader strategy of active measures which the Soviets were quite fond of – contemporary FSB support of Chechen terrorists and al-Qaeda would fall under the same category. Anyway, I just found it incredible that Soviet active measures from decades ago are still working so well to stir up racial tension in America.

Run-away children and the Austrian house of horrors

Out of morbid curiosity I was reading an article in the Guardian about the latest Austrian dungeon horror story, and I came across this shocking bit in the middle of the pretty long article. I've read a few articles about this before, and I've near heard this mentioned.

Though domineering and despotic with all his children, Fritzl appeared to treat Elisabeth even more brutally than her siblings and Hoerer got the impression that 'he did not like her very much'. When she reached the age of 11, the abuse started. From then on Elisabeth would be raped by her father regularly: in his car, during forest walks, even in the same cellar that would become her prison.

At 16, she twice attempted to run away from home, but each time was delivered back into her father's violent embrace by the local authorities. Three years later, there was no possibility of escape.

It's likely that she didn't tell them that her father had been raping her, but even so, shouldn't a 16-year-old girl be old enough to decide whether or not she wants to live with her parents?

Limousine liberals may be on to something

What do ya know – apparently those latte-sipping, gay-marryin', limousine liberals from San Francisco really aren't so hypocritical when it comes to energy consumption. According to the Mercury News, via Planetizen, the Bay Area is urbanizing after a period of suburban growth. The urban San Francisco has its highest population ever, 80% of new housing units in San Jose were in high-density buildings. Naturally, the "planners" didn't anticipate the trend:

Given the run of bad national and state economic news, "it surprised me a little bit," said Michael Bills, a senior planner in the San Jose planning division. "I figured it was going to start to taper off, and it certainly did not."

These urban areas are going to be served more by state-run mass transit versus the corporatized road/car model. While I'm generally against planning and government intervention, it's not really that much of a stretch to believe that moving from a bizarre hybrid system to a more completely nationalized system might be a step in the right direction, since the completely nationalized system appears to hew more closely to the style of living that would be dictated by a market allocation of land and transportation.

San Francisco also has some pretty interesting urban development plants. The Transbay develpment calls for a dozen skyscrapers (including two with 101 floors) in San Francisco proper. While these are great for the environment, geopolitics, and libertarian causes in general, a potentially more interesting project is the redevelopment of Treasure Island. The plans call for a couple of skyscrapers, along with a plot of farmland, solar panels and wind turbines, and a natural waste treatment ecosystem to make the 0.9 square-mile island virtually self-sufficient. Popular Science did a fascinating article in January covering the ecological and environmental aspect of the plan, but financial and logistical details are harder to come by. The SF Chronicle has an article that covers a few of the financial details, and unfortunately it looks like the project is receiving a fair amount of subsidies in city bonds and infrastructural development. This isn't surprising considering the competitive disadvantage that not taking state subsidies puts you at, but it does seem possible that in the future government plans will become so unsustainable that it can be economically viable to go without. As for cars on the island, while the emphasis will be on an unspecified "robust network of transportation choices" and pedestrian paths, it does appear that the island will have roads. Construction on the Transbay supertall towers is set to begin in 2009, and residents of the new Treasure Island developments are expected to be able to move in in 2013.

Iraq war costs

Some startling numbers from Talking Points Memo on the Iraq war costs and social security:

Now, an interesting point of comparison is the projected shortfall in the Social Security budget, which is on the contrary tabulated on highly pessimistic assumption. That number over 75 years is projected at $4.7 trillion.

Now I hasten to add, again, that the Iraq numbers are highly optimistic and the Social Security ones highly pessimistic. If we do a simple back of the envelope calculation we get the 75 year cost of Iraq would be $3 trillion.

Libertarians for statism

I was reading a blog I just found about/called Market Urbanism, and in it the author links to an article in Governing Magazine about the hypocrisy of libertarian think-tanks advocating tax dollars be spent on public roads. It's the first time I've ever seen something in print about this sort of vulgar libertarianism when it comes to transportation (something I've written about a few times). The author calls out the Reason Foundation and its founder Robert Poole for their especially egregious violations of free market principle, and this paragraph just about sums up my thoughts on why American so-called libertarians love socialized roads:

Many of the authors of these studies are a rotating castof writers who pop up again and again, including Randal O'Toole and Wendell Cox. They "extol the autonomy made possible by automobiles" wrote fellow libertarian and New York Times columnist John Tierney in a 2004 article on the subject. Tierney calls them, including himself, "the autonomists." That is, libertarians who have embraced highway spending, although they focus more on the individually-bought car, not the government-built road it requires.

The article isn't all good, though. Even though the author correctly recognizes that America's "automobile-based landscape of suburbs, single-family homes, office parks, mega churches and shopping malls" is a government machination, he still reminds us that "[o]ur national road system would never have been built if every street were required to pay for itself." Yeah, that's exactly the point! Our "national road system" is the problem, and the author's implication is that not only would there be no "national road system," but that roads are indeed synonymous with transportation. But just because we wouldn't have trillion-dollar pavement stretching across the continent doesn't mean we wouldn't be able to get across the continent – or, more importantly, wherever it is that we want to go.

RIP, Deborah Palfrey

Another victim in the war on prostitution. I guess all the embarrassment was for naught.

Edit: This is apparently not the first suicide to come out of the investigation and prosecution of this woman's escort service. Brandy Britton, one of the employees of Palfrey's escort service, hanged herself a few years ago after someone tipped the police off to what she was doing.