Friday, March 29, 2002

 
Arafat RIP

So my question is this:

How will the world react when Arafat is killed and Americans do not dance in the street laughing and handing out candy to children? Think anyone will notice? The anyone will get the difference?

Didn't think so.

posted by Marin Hot-Tubber 1:41 PM

Thursday, March 28, 2002

 
More local zoning goodness

There's a piece up at SFGate regarding zoning, parking, and landscaping...always a pleasant combination.

Seems the city isn't too happy about some residents paving over their front yards to create some parking goodness:

Shrub-loving neighbors are saying enough is enough, and this week persuaded Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval to call for a crackdown on the illegal loss of urban greenery. He wants to tighten requirements for property owners to landscape the front of their houses and keep cars out of the yard, and asked city officials to develop a plan.

uh oh...there going to "develop a plan"...maybe

let's hear what a local resident has to say

Simms, whose front yard on Ralston Street sports a couple of trees, bushes and ground cover, said the paving of her neighborhood lowers property values and is just plain ugly -- replacing soul-soothing flowers and greenery with cars.

notice this isn't a direct quote...so what's this about soul-soothing flowers and greenery? and what kinda car, exactly does Ms.Simms drive? now let's hear from a non-vehicularly-challenged citizen:

"I'm not about to spend my weekends mowing a lawn or tending roses," said the Ingleside resident, who would not give his name because he didn't want the city to come after him. "And so what if I get rid of my yard? Whose business is it, anyway?"

indeed.

posted by Marin Hot-Tubber 3:29 PM

 
One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State

Virgina Postrel has a great NYT article about how over-active planning affect housing pricing, while also bringing the "affordable housing" aspect into the fold.

The difference between the land prices is the implicit cost of all the local land-use controls, from zoning to the time it takes to get a permit. Some regulations simply raise the cost of building by slowing down the process. Others limit density, making it illegal to subdivide expensive land.

I wonder in anyone in Marin County is capable of understanding these cause-and-effect relationships?

posted by Marin Hot-Tubber 11:56 AM

 
The French Connection

ok, I just find this strange. Aventis Pasteur found a stash of Smallpox vaccine they didn't even know they had:

A pharmaceutical company has discovered 70 million to 90 million long- forgotten doses of smallpox vaccine in its freezers, instantly increasing the known U.S. inventory of the vaccine six-fold and ensuring the nation an adequate supply in the event of a bioterrorist attack, according to government sources familiar with the find.

I'm sure there a good set of linkages that a conspiracy theorist can use to construct something together. I'm still working on mine, though...it's not my particular forte.

posted by Marin Hot-Tubber 10:19 AM

 
I can't feel my face

I hope to put the whole drug thing behind, so I'll try to finish up with this:

In response (once again) to Megan McArdle's question

If we legalize drugs, do we allow money to flow into the inner city, by creating a more stable environment, or pull money out of the inner city, by removing idiot bankers dropping $500 on a whiff of cocaine?

Here's my take on how it plays out...Initially there's a big free for all party, with most of the idiot bankers dropping like flys...but that's OK, because they're probably the ones who pitched Enron antway, so karma's quick on the uptake.

The distribution channels are already in place, and if legalization did occur, there would probably be some be regulation rigormoral to get through, which only the big playas could get through. Initially things would still be sold in thier curent quantities/concentrations, and the end-point distribution would still be the street corners. At some point, some enterprising persona would decide to distribute too as many locales as possible...what you would see would be the appearance of the equivelant of caffine-doped mints, but using cocaine, and herbal tea made with marijuana.

The big compaies already in existance would stay out at first to try and maintain corporate reputation, until the "small" entrepreneurs proved market potential, and started to remove the stigmata.

I'm not sure how much of the raw cash gets dropped into the inner city right now, anyway, what with all the Gucci, Coach, Tommy Hillfiger purchases that are related to drug money as it is, but I would say with a production/distribution network of end-user products that's more out in the open, local factories warehouses would start to appear inside the local neighborhoods that the distributors already control, which could place more money into the system that currently exists.

On the flip side, legalized drug dealers missing their phat profit margins and tax exempt status could decide to just vacate productions to some tax haven, shipping in final product, in which case the inner cities would be a bit more peaceful, but still just as poor...except for the piece of the pie that Uncle Sam scraped of the top of $0.75/pack heroin gum and redistributed into social works programs.

End Call: Overall Money flow doesn't change, but a more peaceful environment occurs which allows a renaissance of inner-city culture to emerge, which may provide a new revenue stream that would allow rebuilding infrastructure and commerce over the long haul...which can only occur in a peaceful environment anyway (sound familiar?).

posted by Marin Hot-Tubber 12:30 AM

Wednesday, March 27, 2002

 
I really hate Indymedia (con't)

So, while perusing the lovely quotes that Damian Penny provided, I clicked on through to the other side and noticed the Indymedia now has a Palestinian site that is located at jerusalem.indymedia.org.

There is NO israel.indymedia.org, there is NO palestine.indymedia.org. WTF does the Indy part of Indymedia stand for again?

I'm pretty sure these cats are only pro-palestine becuase it's anti-american...5'll getcha 20 that if the U.S. switch and supported Palestine, they would switch right over to Israel in a New York minute.

What's the difference? Well, how about we wouldn't do that to Israel, and we don't extol the virtues of terrorist cowardice.

posted by Marin Hot-Tubber 9:24 PM

 
In the spirit of Libertarian Samizdata

The Marin County Hot-Tubber slogan of the day:

"Silly anarchist! Logic is for intellectuals."

--The Marin County Hot-Tubber

posted by Marin Hot-Tubber 8:08 PM

 
Ahhh….drugs

Seeing as this is from Oakland, I think I’ll go ahead and jump into it here. Megan McArdle has some posts relating to the Supremes upholding the statute that a tenant can be evicted if a family member or guest uses drugs. Her posting is along the lines that sans legalization, this is a good thing, and I agree with her.

The comments are deviating along another line, as well, so I figure I’ll hit them here with a biggo, humongous screed.

There are two options available at this point. One is the legalization of drugs and the other is enforcement of laws like these: Here’s my comment from her site regarding legalization:

Drugs are illegal, so I can't sell product on a Wal-Mart shelf. I, therefore, need to acquire my own distribution channel. The most widely available is the public streets. Problem is, my competition also wants the same lucrative outlet location. Seeing as it's a public street, property rights do not come into play...you can't go to the police or city council to help you with your...ummm..."dispute". Your competition has guns, so to compete you'll need some too. You'll also need a private, armed police force just like your competition has. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

To try to create an economy of scale, and not be too conspicuous, product needs to be delivered in small packages, mandating higher concentrations, which will throw most people over the bell-curve of addiction. The addicted person can't pay $4.75 for a pack of crack at the convenience store, as the price of the private police force has been rolled into the price of merchandise. To feed a high-level addiction, and artificially inflated market prices, general mayhem ensues (you know...mugging, armed robbery, B&E).

For historical perspective see Alcohol/Chicago circa 1927. Also see Nicotine/San Francisco circa 2027.

So legalization is the preferred route. But of course, that’s going to take a while to work through the system. In the mean time, there is the rule of law and the protection of innocent citizens to contend with. With the first paragraph above in mind, the way to accomplish this is to raise the cost of doing business in certain locations. If we can agree that innocent citizens should be afforded some level of protection, regardless of their class, then decisions like this are not only acceptable, but required according to the laws as they exist today. And according to the current state of affairs, the government and the community is basically saying that they will not let these projects become havens for illegal activities, but it’s mainly referring to the ensuing violence and other petty crime that comes along with the illegal drugs.

Everyone agrees that the illegal drug activity is the root cause of the violence. Some of us say “legalize drugs and the violence will go away” while others say “keep the drugs out and the violence will go away”. The only problem with option #2, is that it just moves the activity from one location to another, which drives up the value of locations to sell drugs from as it becomes scarce, which means that violence is likely to increase.

However, if the violence and other crimes associated with illegal drug activity can be confined to locales away from general living areas, by moving the "competition zones" to warehouse districts, allowing "product providers" to fight amongst themselves at night, then OB-LA-DI OB-LA-DA, life goes on.

Is it the best solution? No. But if the law must be the way it is right now, then let’s pick our battles. Drugs are illegal, and if anyone around you has them, or participates in violence associated with them, then be prepared to suffer the consequences. This ruling basically enforces the concept of “keep your backyard clean”. Everyone in the family must ensure that no one is involved in illegal drug activity and the activity that goes along with it WHILE YOU’RE LIVING IN GOVERNMENT SUPPORTED HOUSING, and unless you hold a pure Thoreauian moral philosophy, this should seem OK.

One must also wonder if someone is selling or involved in the distribution of drugs, which can be quite lucrative, what exactly they are doing in low-income housing.

Essentially, this requires being a realist. Sans the government legalizing drugs, exactly how would you deal with removing crime from these low-income neighborhoods?

posted by Marin Hot-Tubber 10:19 AM

Tuesday, March 26, 2002

 
Update to planning issues

So, as an update to my previous post on city planning comes not only this intruiging piece from Libertarian Samizdata.

It seems as though David is mainly speaking of indivisual building codes and HOA type rule sets, in which case I agree with him completely. However, from the stand point of a city or a county, useually some high level direction is needed (very subtle direction, I might add). Cities are comprised of different section, some of which include habitat, some of which include commerce. The biggest problem alsways comes into "how do you get people from "home-to-work" or "home-to-store" or "work-to-store"? Sans Hummer, you'll probably need a road, and roads are funded by the overall community. Some may say that roads should be taken over by private enterprise, but I don't agree with that completly. I don't mind private enterprise providing auxillary infrstructure, but in all reality our current Interstate road system would not be in existance today if it weren't for a few well places works projects, and they've been a mojor boon for the overall commerce. Anyway, rant over.

But also, the main update mainly comes from the MarinIJ, who unmasks the private citizen who purchased that swath of land that got the mayor in a major tizzy...and guess what? He plans to maily leave it alone, maybe build a soccer field for kids. You know why? Well, seems he's a coach for his daughters soccer team.

Once again, private individuals trump City Hall when it comes to land use.

posted by Marin Hot-Tubber 8:55 PM

Sunday, March 24, 2002

 
Twofur from MarinIJ

The two leading artices at MarinIJ:

Film shines light on mental patients' plight
Marin woman reclaimed life after battling illness

Neither one specifically mention Andrea Yates, but of course, "bias by omission is more difficult to catch".

posted by Marin Hot-Tubber 5:28 PM

 
The Rise and Fall of Western Leftism

Andrew Sullivan has a little blurb up regard gay involvment in conservative-libertarian politics.

MY feeling on this is that it's going to be a continuing treand from a lot of other groups. The Democrats have consistently casted themselves as that party who are not Republicans. And this has been fine for a while, especially during the civil rights movement. But it starts to lose weight as the economy picks up and becomes stronger.

Escentially, Democrates need a weak economy to be in power...or at least a small percentage of the population to be sucessful. It's in the Democrats best interest to have strong class divisions, so a small percentage of the population is earning dollars that can be taxed at a disproportionate rate, will the larger part of the population is barely scraping by, dependant on the governement programs advocated by Democrats.

As more and more individual liberties get begrudginly passes along to past "fringe groups" (like gays, for instance), and the fringe groups get rolled into the folds of larger society, those groups will start to reevaluate what it is they want next in the world, and will see that the Democrats are not providing it. Once the rights have been granted, and can't be taken away, the tradeoffs that at one point seemed OK in the past will begin to suddenly seem not OK anymore. Once a group that has been previously unitlized "identity politics" ceases to have an identity all that decernable from the nation as a whole, the strategy of identity politics loses it's efficacy.

The same can be seen in the current goings on in the realm of granting amensty to current Mexican illigal immigrants. Right now, the current presumption is that Mexican-Americans are socially conservative while being economically progressive But as the Americanization process takes it's effect over the course of a few generations, and the grandchildren become rolled into successful American society, and the distinction between a Mexican-American and an American become blurred, the identity politics losses it's weight.

All this really points to is as more and more "identities" get woven into the fabric of this society, it errods at the base of the Democrates platform, and all they'll be left with are the core socialist types.

Also add that with a new wave of networking technologies over the Internet - the ability for "identity groups" to connect over large geographic areas and assert their voice, the need for a party that tries to encompass all their POV's will lose weight as well. That's why, for better or worse, I like sites like GlobalExchange and FreeRepublic. These site allow people who hold a certain idea to coordinate and lobby elected officials effectivly.

The transition is from "identity politics" to "issue politics", but it will take some time, a strong economy, and folks like Andrew Sullivan to help isolate "this is my identity" from "these are my politics". The only thing the Republicans need to do is separate themselves from the fringe ultra right Christian Coalition types, and they will see a big insurgance from the center, as Professor Reynolds has argued recently.

So you'll see a growing trend of the Democrates getting hit from the left by the Greens, and the Republicans move more to the center and hit them on the right, while giviing up a little on the far right to the Pat Buchanan crew, but overall taking a net gain, while the Democrats take a net loss. But this will probably take another 10 years for the effects to be truly seen, but the new CFR bill will probably help hasent it along, on the Unconstitutional parts of it are struck down.

anyway, that's enough screed from me right now, I'm nursing a hangover at this point.

posted by Marin Hot-Tubber 1:00 PM