Short Takes
Can the government make up its mind about global warming?
Last week the Associated
Press reported the Clinton administration will propose $4 billion in spending
and tax breaks to fight global warming. You know the routine — we’ve
all got to stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere or the temperature ill
keep rising and the world will be reduced to a desert wasteland.
But the same week the Clinton
administration requested new funding to stop the desertification of the
world, the Bruce Babbitt’s Interior Department took possession of 10,000
acres of California desert promising to protect it from evil developers
who (gasp) wanted to build houses, hotels and maybe even a road or two
thorough the desert.
So which is it? Are deserts
national treasures to be protected from greedy capitalists or are they
an apocalypse worth spending $4 billion to prevent?
Institute for Justice sues to overturn CFTS censorship
Browsing through the Institute
for Justice web site the other day I realized I’ve been committing a series
of ongoing felonies over the past several years simply by publishing a
web site. You see I run a site called Overpopulation.Com which debunks
claims by environmental extremists that the world is overpopulated. A
lot of the information I put on the site has to do with past, present
and likely future prices of commodities (for example, I’ve predicted numerous
times that oil futures will likely remain low and are a bad investment).
By doings so it turns out
I am committing a felony punishable by five year sin prison and a $500,000
fine courtesy of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The Institute
for Justice is suing to overturn a CFTC ruling that requires anyone who
even links to web sites that contain information about commodities to
register with the CFTC (and undergo the requisite finger pointing, background
check, financial audit and large fee for the pleasure of doing business
with the CFTC).
Do I also need a license to tell
the CFTC to go to hell?