Saturday, March 26, 2005

Free Trade vs Gambling

The Deseret News has a story on an ongoing “trade” dispute between the United States and the island nation of Antigua:

A WTO [World Trade Organization] dispute panel ruled this past November that the United States was in violation of its international trade obligations. In other words, Antigua can't be stopped by the United States. The WTO decision, in general terms, means that laws used by particular states to limit or forbid gambling are considered by the dispute panel as a violation of "market access" principles of the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).
The article states that Antigua is developing internet gaming as a replacement for its banana industry (ironically destroyed when the US and Latin American countries won a trade dispute against EU tariffs favoring former Caribbean colonies). Utah is one of two states (the other is Hawaii) were all gambling is illegal. Antigua’s grievance to the WTO focuses on Utah’s law prohibiting internet gaming. A search of the internet located this related story (cited from Business Week).

I am a free trade supporter and a backer of NAFTA but this dispute is problematic for two reasons. The first is it threatens to override the power of states to regulate gambling. The second is the ability of one country to use “trade” as a cover to change another country’s vice laws (though the US may have erred if it included gambling as a recognized “trade”). If the US loses its appeal at the WTO can Utah make a case in Federal court that the Federal government does not have the right to violate the States right in its treaty negotiations?

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Howitzer Round Lands in Backyard

KSL TV reports on an errant 105mm howitzer round landing in a suburban neighborhood in Utah County. Appears a Utah Department of Transportation avalanche abatement team accidentally shot this over the mountain they were aiming at. Probably can use some gun control here.

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Finally a commentary about the problem of obesity without calling for a Federal program.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Union Falls Yellowstone


Union Falls , Yellowstone, Jul 2004

Started using Bloggerbot to upload photos. This will probably be addicting... Photo of Union Falls taken during Boy Scout summer camp last year at Camp Loll, Wyoming. The camp is located between Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Park. By far the best run camp I've attended - One will have a tough time matching the excellent staff.

A trip to the falls requires an eight mile hike into the Yellowstone backcountry (16 Miles round trip). These are the second highest falls in the park. The troop did well on the hike due to practice hikes leading up to camp. About a half mile away is a creek with a pool warmed by a hot spring - the scouts enjoyed a brief swim.

Monday, March 14, 2005


Sunset on Francis Peak - Sometime in 2002/03
View from my backdoor.

Friday, March 11, 2005

CNN Misrepresents a photo

Found this by Mick Stockinger at Uncorrelated. I’m glad this stuff gets noticed.

Sunday, March 06, 2005

Free Tibet

Leave it to Mark Steyn to note the obvious that the rest of us have missed:

The other day I found myself, for the umpteenth time, driving in Vermont behind a Kerry/Edwards supporter whose vehicle also bore the slogan ‘FREE TIBET’. It must be great to be the guy with the printing contract for the ‘FREE TIBET’ stickers. Not so good to be the guy back in Tibet wondering when the freeing thereof will actually get under way. For a while, my otherwise not terribly political wife got extremely irritated by these stickers, demanding to know at a pancake breakfast at the local church what precisely some harmless hippy-dippy old neighbour of ours meant by the slogan he’d been proudly displaying decade in, decade out: ‘But what exactly are you doing to free Tibet?’ she demanded. ‘You’re not doing anything, are you?’ ‘Give the guy a break,’ I said back home. ‘He’s advertising his moral virtue, not calling for action. If Rumsfeld were to say, “Free Tibet? Jiminy, what a swell idea! The Third Infantry Division go in on Thursday”, the bumper-sticker crowd would be aghast.’

Friday, March 04, 2005

Hitler Comparisons

Working a Hitler/Nazi comparison to support your argument seems to be the fashion. Senator Byrd jumps on the bandwagon by making a comparison to Senate Republicans (via Hugh Hewitt). I thought it would be interesting to do a quick little study with Google. Who gets the most hits with Hitler?

Number of hits for name “Hitler” alone – 9,200,000

Number of hits for name “Hitler” combined with the following names:

Bush 1,480,000
Stalin 730,000
Jesus 718,000
Clinton 704,000
Saddam 703,000
Kennedy 551,000
Satan 501,000
Kerry 462,000
Reagan 437,000
Goebbels 233,000
Goering 101,000
Reid 87,500
Byrd 71,000
Dan Rather 53,800
Lewinsky 38,500
Daschle 37,600
Scalia 30,700
Glenn Reynolds 27,900
Pelosi 24,000

Of interest, I noticed that Bush-Satan hits beat Bush-Hitler by 730,000. A lot of intellectual discourse going on out there.