Jonathan's blog

From an article in the NY Times by Robert H. Frank titled "A Way to Cut Fuel Consumption That Everyone Likes, Except the Politicians", an interesting proposal for how to reduce fuel consumption:

SUPPOSE a politician promised to reveal the details of a simple proposal that would, if adopted, produce hundreds of billions of dollars in savings for American consumers, significant reductions in traffic congestion, major improvements in urban air quality, large reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and substantially reduced dependence on Middle East oil. The politician also promised that the plan would require no net cash outlays from American families, no additional regulations and no expansion of the bureaucracy. As economists often remind their students, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. So this politician's announcement would almost surely be greeted skeptically. Yet a policy that would deliver precisely the outcomes described could be enacted by Congress tomorrow - namely, a $2-a-gallon tax on gasoline whose proceeds were refunded to American families in reduced payroll taxes.

From an article in the Economist, an unconventional view on the abortion debate in the U.S.:

Most rich countries other than the United States have solved the abortion problem by consulting the electorate - either through the legislature or through referendums. This led to vigorous debates and, broadly, the triumph of abortion rights. Because abortion was legalised democratically, pro-lifers accepted the fact that they had lost and abortion became a settled right. By contrast, in America, abortion is a fundamental right of privacy protected by a 1973 Supreme Court judgment - Roe v Wade. Few objective outsiders - if it is possible to be such a thing on abortion - would argue that relying on judges rather than popular will has helped American politics: no other comparable country has such destructive culture wars. Roe left a large chunk of the country feeling disenfranchised by the court; it also established a cycle of attack and counter-attack that has debased everything that it has touched, especially the judiciary. A prime example is the Roe-obsessed confirmation process for Supreme Court nominees. Samuel Alito, Mr Bush's new candidate, claims that the fact that he once advised the Reagan administration on how to overturn Roe will have no bearing on his behaviour on the court. No less disingenuously, liberal senators pretend they are trying to gauge Mr Alito's legal philosophy when they are trying to catch him out on Roe. All this is bad for America; but, in political terms, Roe has been particularly disastrous for the Democrats. The Republicans have generally had the better of the abortion wars (something most liberals admit as long as nobody from NARAL Pro-Choice America is in the room). Roe has proved a lightning-rod for conservatives; and many moderates dislike the Democrats'Roe-driven defence of partial-birth abortions. So consider a heretical proposition: why on earth don't Democrats disown Roe?

Today was Grandpa B's birthday, so we went down to the Bridges' house to celebrate.

According to an article in the Midland Daily News, 5300 Midlanders were still without power as of Saturday night. It's Sunday night now, and we're glad to see that our neighbors across the street have had their power restored.

It's Saturday night, 48 hours after the ice storm, and I just realized that our neighbors across the street must be without power because they're running a generator. The current temperature is 8 F.