If you were paying attention back in November you answered $401 billion as approved in the Defense Authorization Bill.
Robert Higgs would like us to think a little more inclusively. He argues that the true cost for fiscal year 2004 is closer to $754 billion.
Via Damn Foreigner.
More often then not folks renting cars are in a hurry. For instance, your plane just landed and your luggage is waiting, etc., so you do not read all that fine print in the contract and, of course, the fine customer service rep working with you has likely been trained to only say things that might maximize revenue. What happens next?
Well, Dan Gillmor tells us
about a man who was charged more than $3,000 for a car rental because he took the car out of state without realizing that would violate his contract. How did Payless, the rental company, know? It was using satellite-assisted tracking equipment to spy on the customer.
The original article is here.
The charge of $1/mile for driving outside the state of origin is surely excessive. I do not even understand the logic of the charge. And it is not nationally common. Example, fly into Cincinnati I mean Kentucky to go to Cincinnati. I have done this quite a few times and not been charged anything extra.
Sure, the guy should have read the contract. But I argue that failure to disclose and explain potential extra charges in big print on the front page may be deceptive given the context of the typical rental transaction.
And, the Oregon proposal (mentioned in the comments) to use GPS to calculate your driving miles as a basis for taxes is just broken before it gets out the door.
Number 5 on Alternet’s list of the Top Ten Drug Stories of 2003 is this:
5) The FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report reveals that police arrested an estimated 697,082 persons for marijuana violations in 2002, or nearly half of all drug arrests in the United States. This amounts to one marijuana-related arrest every 45 seconds.
The total number of marijuana arrests far exceeded the total number of arrests for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
Hmmm, I know this math isn’t perfect but with a swag: decriminalize marijuana use and sales and then lay off 1/3 of local, state and federal law enforcement employees.
Or, put them to work doing something that actually helps to protect our lives and property.
Additional fringe benefits: reduced load in judicial system and increased housing available in the prison system.
Skimble quotes generously from this WSJ article and I give you just this little bit:
The program is supposed to encourage employers to retain prescription-drug coverage.
But companies are entitled to the subsidy regardless of how much of the cost they pick up themselves. As a result, it does nothing to halt the current rush by some employers to shift more costs to retirees.
In fact, benefits consultants are designing employer-sponsored prescription plans to save companies more money by unloading costs on their former workers without losing out on the new subsidy.
It makes me feel just so good to know that whatever part of my taxes is not going to support a Nevada swimming pool is going to help the bottom line of some government supported corporation.
Via Sisyphus Shrugged.
In Calgary, drug money is at the heart of gang violence:
Greed and infighting between members of a large Asian street gang over drug money splintered the group, leading to a spate of Calgary shootings, stabbings and at least two murders in the past 13 months.
I wonder if these street gangs and their counterparts in the US have lobbyists working to stiffen existing drug laws?
Via The Media Awareness Project.