David Rodeback's BlogLocal Politics and Culture, National Politics,
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Friday, September 9, 2005Post-Katrina Notes, Some LocalIt's been "all Katrina, all the time" here at the blog; I'm starting to feel like a cable news channel. Today's it's more Katrina, but with some local perspective. First, check out DaltonGirl's blog for today. She spent yesterday actually helping Katrina refugees at Camp Williams. DaltonGirl is a delightful, intelligent, good-hearted, quirky American Fork blogger who can flat-out write. She doesn't have a lot to say about politics, but politics isn't everything, right? Second, when I held forth last Thursday on price controls (a very bad idea that always comes up at times like this), I didn't realize that the Utah Legislature passed a law in its last session which appears to allow price controls to be applied to certain products in the state, if the Governor declares a state of emergency (which he did). Fortunately, it may not apply in this case. I don't remember hearing about this highly questionable legislative landmark at the time. Fortunately, the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune were paying better attention than I. Hawaii already has imposed price controls on gasoline; another popular proposal, enacted in at least one state so far, is temporarily repealing the state tax on gasoline. State Representative John Dougall, one of Utah County's best and most studious political bloggers, has a good piece on why that's a bad idea in Utah. See also The Arizona Republic, Steve Chapman, and, best of all, the Heritage Foundation's Ben Lieberman on price controls, gouging, and so forth, for another dose of economic good sense. (It would be political good sense, too, if most voters actually understood basic economics.) Third, one of the reasons George Will writes commentary for Newsweek and I don't is that he's better at it than I am. See his latest about Louisiana and beyond. Likewise, the reason George Krauthammer . . . well, you get the point. He lines up the responsible parties for the latest, high-profile, multi-level government debacle in a different order than I did Wednesday, but he basically nails it in this Washington Post piece. (There's a little bombshell right at the end of Krauthammer's article. Don't miss it.) Finally, here's a Mark Helprin piece on Iraq, the War on Terror, the US military, and so forth. I differ on some points and am not equipped to judge others; in any case, it's an interesting read. Note: I found many of the links used here at RealClearPolitics.com, and a few others with the help of Google News.
Copyright 2005 by David Rodeback. |
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