Richard Rider Rant

1. Al Gore Wins Nobel Peace Prize (gag!).
2. San Diego Union-Tribune Screws Up Latest Mike Aguirre Expose. Big Time.
3. U-T Misses REAL Scandal on Political Contributions.
4. Update on San Diego Area Housing Price Drops.
5. U-T Now Wants to End the Drug War?
6. Rider's Thoughts on Drug Legalization.
7. Rider TV Comments on SD City Water Main Breaks.
8. Unemployment Training (The Ideology of Non-Work Learned in Urban Schools).
9. Using Google to Watch for Superheroes (or Whatever).
10. Ethanol Production Draining Midwest Water Supply.

1. Al Gore Wins Nobel Peace Prize (gag!).

RIDER COMMENT: As Chris Reed and others predicted, Al Gore just won the politically charged Nobel Peace Prize. Now wait for the other shoe to drop –- Al Gore announcing his run for President.

2. San Diego Union-Tribune Screws Up Latest Mike Aguirre Expose. Big Time.

RIDER COMMENT: "Ready, fire, aim." Perhaps that best describes the SD U-T's breathless expose' of City Attorney Mike Aguirre receiving "illegal" campaign contributions from subordinates, and the ill-advised Bob Kittle editorial excoriating Aguirre on the issue.

It turns out that, at the very least, it is a gray area which has probably never been enforced. Further research is showing that it is fairly common for city staffers to contribute to their boss's political campaigns. So far quick investigations have shown at least three current city council critters are "guilty" of the same transgression -– Democrats Tony Young and Donna Frye, plus GOP standard bearer Jim Madaffer.

SHOULD such contributions be illegal? Probably so, though it's a debatable issue. The truth is, their contributions are peanuts compared to the free labor such subordinates are expected to deliver, helping their bosses get elected and reelected.

But the U-T's eagerness to nail loose cannon Aguirre got the better of them. TV stations that ran with the story were similarly premature in rushing to judgment.

Below is a more reasoned story on the topic from the plucky little Voice of San Diego, with links to the unwise writings of the U-T.

Newspaper's Editorial Sparks, Sizzles, Then Fizzles
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2007/10/11/news/01aguirre101107....

3. U-T Misses REAL Scandal on Political Contributions.

RIDER COMMENT: Much has been made of the political contributions to Mike Aguirre's political campaign by some of his subordinates. What HASN'T been covered (except by the Voice of San Diego) are the political contributions to San Diego County Supervisors from "nonprofit" political beneficiaries of the $2 million annual slush fund giveaway by each Supervisor.

See the remarkable story below. Sometimes the contributions are made within 24 hours of the giveaway.

What is little understood is that such government grants indirectly increase the salaries and benefits for the honchos of the nonprofits, as such grants free up other donations and "nonprofit" revenue for disbursal to the group’s employees – especially management. So the implicit understanding is clear to nonprofit executives -– give political contributions in exchange for taxpayer grants.

In Fundraising, Supervisor Has Help from Her Friends
By ROB DAVIS Voice Staff Writer
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2007/08/20/news/01donations08200...

4. Update on San Diego Area Housing Price Drops.

RIDER COMMENT: No jarring news here -– San Diego area home prices are dropping. But, as this story explains, it's dropping faster than the press is reporting. I prefer the "median sale price per square foot" index discussed and graphed in the article linked below, as this presents a more accurate (and, in recent times, deeper) price drop than the standard median price index.

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/toscano/

5. U-T Now Wants to End the Drug War?

RIDER COMMENT: Unfortunately not. But below is an articulate blog entry from the SD U-T's libertarian editorial page writer Chris Reed favoring such an option. It is probably by far his longest blog entry -– confirming Reed's distain for the endless, fruitless, immoral, harmful War on Drugs.

I recommend you read it. Too bad it won't make it into the paper as an editorial -– it is strongly at odds with the nanny mentality of the paper.

Below Reed's link you'll find an old piece I wrote on the topic -– which still seems to apply today.

Drug czar: Milton Friedman's drug-war critique 'demonstrably untrue'
http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/afb/archives/015076.html

6. Richard Rider's Thoughts on Drug Legalization. (Revised 10/1/2007)

Some people feel that the solution to the drug problem is to become like Iran and other totalitarian countries -- crack down hard on drugs (and porn and deviant sex habits and on and on). Institute a death penalty for users and sellers, and repeal the Bill of Rights where drug violations might be involved.

Perhaps they are partially right -- kill a few hundred thousand people, institute a police state, and perhaps we can significantly reduce drug use in our society. But the country will not be the America that our Founding Fathers envisioned in 1776.

Furthermore, I doubt that we can put the genie back in the bottle -- drugs are here as we have far too many users out there already. Malaysia has the drug death penalty and still has over 300,000 addicts getting their product. After all, if we can't keep drugs out of our prisons, how do we ever plan to keep drugs out of the whole country?

But even if it would work, I would oppose such an approach. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, those who are willing to sacrifice freedom for security will end up with neither.

As a parent of boys who grew up in today's society, I had the same concerns that all thinking parents have for their children and the temptation of drugs. I know that my children have been approached by drug dealers in school. But I also know that no one sidled up to my kids and tried to get them to buy a pack of Marlboros, or a fifth of Jack Daniels. Why? Because there is no excess profit in dealing in legal drugs, even though they are illegal for minors to use.

The key to understanding the drug problem is to realize that the huge profits (a 12,000% markup in cocaine, for example) are the direct result of prohibition. Most of the problems we ascribe to the "drug problem" are really the problem of drug prohibition. A $1 a day drug habit becomes under prohibition a $100 a day habit, and crime will inevitably result on both the buyers' and sellers' part.

There are only three ways you as a drug addicts can afford to pay the high price for illegal drugs:

A. You can sell your body. The major cause of prostitution -- male and female, teenage and adult -- is drug addiction.

B. You can steal from others. When I debated County Supervisor George Bailey on the Roger Hedgecock radio show (about the jail sales tax), Mr. Bailey said that 80% of all property crime (mugging, robbery, burglary and car theft) in San Diego is committed by drug addicts trying to get money for drugs. The lowest figure mentioned by law enforcement agencies is 40%, and 60% is normal for urban areas.

C. This third method is perhaps the most harmful of all -- become a member of a perverse version of a multilevel drug marketing system. Become a dealer, sell to your friends and expand the drug problem.

We should end this madness. Let's legalize drugs and eliminate such problems. We will still have the very real medical and social problem of drug abuse. Utopia is not an option But look at the benefits of drug legalization:

1. Drastically reduce property crime (burglaries, auto thefts, muggings and commercial robberies). Estimates start at 40%.

2. Greatly reduce the corruption of our law enforcement people.

3. Relieve our overburdened court system.

4. Relieve the overcrowding in our jails. Our country now provides the highest per capita incarceration of any country in the world, passing the 2,000,000 prisoner level in early 2000.

5. End the routine drug shootings of dealers and bystanders over turf wars and drug deal rip-offs. You don't see 7-11 owners shooting it out with AM/PM shareholders over who gets to sell alcohol at an intersection.

6. Destroy the multilevel marketing scheme that fills our schools and playgrounds with children selling drugs.

7. Destroy the power of the hoodlum gangs and drug lords.

8. Reduce the desperate acts of prostitution to acquire overpriced drugs.

9. Greatly reduce the overdoses from ingesting unknown purities cut with unknown materials. An estimated 80% of the nation’s 3,500 annual illegal drug "overdose" deaths are caused by these two factors.

10. Reduce the spread of AIDS and other diseases from sharing scarce prohibited needles.

11. Return to a respect for the Bill of Rights with its support for the 2nd Amendment, due process and privacy in one’s personal life. Gun owners are starting to understand that perhaps the greatest danger to their right to keep and bear arms is the hysteria connected with the drug war.

12. End government's Big Brother monitoring of our e-mails, our travels and our financial transactions under the guise of seeking "drug money."

13. Reduce our international balance of payments problem.

14. End the onerous action of asset forfeiture -- the confiscation of property from suspected drug users and dealers (i.e. minorities with a lot of cash) without even charging them with a crime, let alone convicting them.

15. End our inadvertent funding of the communist movements in Latin America (our drug money is used to buy protection for the drug lords and farmers in South America).

16. End our meddling in other countries' affairs in our vain attempt to curtail drug imports to the U.S. Significant savings to future military budgets should result, not to mention avoiding casualties from such conflicts and the increasing risk of a nuclear, biological or chemical warfare reprisal against our cities.

17. Allow companies to design safer, less potent drugs. Note the drop in potency in the "legal" harmful drugs -- alcohol and tobacco. Illegal drugs, however, become even more potent since a more compact product is easier to smuggle and carries no greater penalty if caught.

18. Stop persecuting people for private actions that, while they may harm themselves, do not directly harm others.

Understand, with this freedom will come increased responsibility for one's actions. We Libertarians come down hard on drunk drivers and others who first harm others and then claim diminished capacity. No “Twinkie defense” would be allowed. One would face both criminal penalties and restitution responsibilities if one harmed others.

7. Rider TV Comments on SD City Water Main Breaks.

RIDER COMMENT: Here's a news segment on SD city water main breaks, using me for two sound bites.

Not included in the video was the following quote -- which is in the station's print version of the story -– commenting on the city’s reassurances that this time they'll make sure the increased water and sewer fees are spent correctly:

"It reminds me of the old Peanuts cartoon where Lucy is holding the football and once again we trust her to hold the football when we kick it, and once again the ball is pulled away," said Rider.

http://www.fox6.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoid=366920@video.fox6.com

8. Unemployment Training (The Ideology of Non-Work Learned in Urban Schools).

RIDER COMMENT: Here is an insightful article by an education professor of some repute. The commentary’s title pretty much says it all: Unemployment Training (The Ideology of Non-Work Learned in Urban Schools). Well, at least such urban public schools are successful at teaching something! The comments following the story are also of interest -– some from teachers.

BTW, if you just can't find enough web sites on which to wile away the hours, this one is a superb source of education information. If you have an interest in education politics, it should be on your reading list.

http://www.ednews.org/articles/10474/1/Unemployment-Training-The-Ideolog...

9. Using Google to Watch for Superheroes (or Whatever).

RIDER COMMENT: I use a free search tool from Google that may interest you. You put in your key words -– for me, it's "Richard Rider" (you can have more than one search topic) -– and it sends me "Google Alerts" when my name pops up on the Internet. Though this service, I find stories I didn't know about.

BTW, most of my Googled "Richard Rider" stories confirm what many of you already suspected: I'm the defender of the universe. Turns out that "Richard Rider" is the name of the teenager who morphs into "Nova," an incredibly powerful Marvel Comics superhero who saves the day against intergalactic villains.

To use the Google Alert service to your own purposes, simply go to:
http://www.google.com/alerts

10. Ethanol Production Draining Midwest Water Supply.

RIDER COMMENT: ou all should know by now that I find the ethanol subsidy a totally useless, incredibly expensive gesture at saving the planet, with unintended consequences abounding. Well, here's yet another unintended consequence –- one that should be near and dear to Californians (even though we don’t grow corn).

Water Supplies Affected by Ethanol Production
USA Today
http://tinyurl.com/2279ef