Columbus v. SCOTUS

Columbus is well represented at the Supreme Court this week. Today some students attempted to steal pieces of the building: link.

Tomorrow, Buckeye Check Cashing, Inc., a Dublin, OH company, will be defending its service contract and 300% interest loans: link.

I am so proud. <*sarcasm*>


What is SCOTUS?

The Tutoring Toy

My aunt and uncle own a toy store in Salt Lake City Utah called The Tutoring Toy and while we have not finished their website, I was analyzing traffic to their construction page when I stumbled across this review from KSL 1160 Radio from May that is available online: KSL Radio Small Business Resource Center.

It is a fantastic endorsement of their efforts to bring educational toys to children far and wide.

OSU & COTA conspire to take money from my wallet

I should have posted this a week ago. I finished my report and anlalysis of the OSU & COTA "partnership" which charges every student $9 per quarter in exchange for unlimited use of the COTA system. You can read the entire report here (PDF).

In summary, OSU has done a horrible job monitoring this contract. They put the task of monitoring performance in the hands of a loosely allied group of students and administrators. The group rarely meets and has difficulty reaching quorum at every meeting. Despite the University's vast resources in statistics, urban planning, economics and GIS it seems that none of these departments were tapped to take an honest look at COTA's performance of the contract. COTA has failed to attract sufficient student use to justify even on a basic utilitarian level the total expenditure. Despite being COTA's largest single customer, OSU is paying on average $1.29 per ride when the public fare is only $1.25 (though the public fare will rise next year). By purchasing in bulk OSU has significantly reduced the transaction costs for COTA but OSU is not benefiting from a reduction in fees.

This program should be ended. The 3,400 (< 10% of the population) or so students who use COTA can pay for their own bus services.

Checking it twice...

It has finally turned cold and we have seen our first snow here in Ohio, but on the island in Lost they seem to have begun preparing for Christmas on Wednesday. Consider this dialogue:

Goodwin (aka Mr. Claus): "Nathan was not a good person. That's why he wasn't on the list."
Anna (aka Mrs. Claus): "What about the kids?"

Then Mrs. Claus proceeds to kill Mr. Claus. That island is a strange place.

Ohio Election Roundup

Tomorrow is election day here in Ohio. Many important issues are on the ballot and it is YOUR responsibility to voice your opinion at the polls. Whether you agree or disagree with my position, I urge you to vote tomorrow. Do not let long lines, registration problems or the weather discourage you from being heard.

To help you sort out the issues here is some information about important issues on the ballot tomorrow in Central Ohio and around the state. Feel free to print this out and take it with you to the polls. This website does not receive any compensation and is not affiliated with any political party or candidate. The views expressed here are solely those of the author.
Official GOP Slate Cards

State Issues

• Issue 1: Third Frontier Bond Issue
  Recommend: Vote No!
  Why? In a state where our spending is already out of control, we do not need more state sponsored bonds that will go to fund special interest run businesses. Bob Taft wishes to gain more control over the state's businesses and money and direct which private industries get public funding. By reducing taxes and regulation the market will efficiently direct investment and education to the most efficient businesses.
  Results: Passed
  


• Issue 2: Broaden Absentee Voting Access
  Recommend: Vote No!
  Why?: This bill unnecessarily opens a 35 day window for the general public voting period. If a large number of voters take advantage of early voting, the resulting situation highly favors large political party candidates with the most funding who can afford to get their message out early and sustain the effort for more than a month before the election. You likely have only been intently interested in the issues for about a week. A great deal of information and opinion formation occurs just days or hours before an election, and lengthening the voting window to 35 days creates an impossible situation for less well known candidates.
  Result: Failed.
  



• Issue 3: Campaign contribution reform
  Recommend: Vote No!
  Why?: Just look at the length of the ballot text: 945 words!! If you can understand this amendment you are a better person than I. This makes campaign contributions very complicated and only candidates with a large staff will be able to handle the 24 hour turn around time for the mandatory reporting. This amendment does not favor democracy.
  Result: Failed.
  



• Issue 4: Congressional Redistricting
  Recommend: Vote No!
  Why?: Another complicated bill designed to keep the general public from understanding the legislative process. It does seem to me that it is a bad idea to put the redistricting powers in the hands of appointed individuals.
  Result: Failed.
  



• Issue 5: Elections Board
  Recommend: Vote No!
  Why?: See Issue 4. Today we each have an opportunity to vote for the Secretary of State and every 4 years the public can influence the policy of our state elections. Shifting this responsibility to an appointed board will remove the power from the people and hide the elections policy behind another layer of untouchable bureaucracy.
  Result: Failed.
  

Local Issues & Candidates - Franklin County

• Clerk of Courts
  Recommend: Mike Pirick.
  Why?: This Republican incumbent implemented many e-services while in office and customer service is his #1 issue.
  Result: Tyack.
  


• Municipal Court Judge

Recommend:


• Judge Mike Brandt


• Judge Amy Salerno


• Isabella Thomas


• Judge Dwayne Maynard



Why?: Because they are Republican. Absent any personal contact with these judges it is practically impossible to tell how they will serve and where they stand on any issues. So all I can do is hope the political party does the best job possible in picking great candidates.

Result:



• Judge Dwayne Maynard


• Judge Amy Salerno


• Judge Michael Brandt


• Judge Andrea Peebles






• ADAMH Tax Levy Replacement
  Recommend: Vote No!
  Why?: As best I can tell, the county is not an efficient medical provider. The money would be better spent with a charity or private provider.
  Result: Passed
  

City of Dublin - Issues & Candidates

• City Council - Ward 2
  Recommend: Amy Salay
  Why?: A stay-at-home mom who helped implement the Traffic Enforcement Unit of the police. The challenger, Richard Gerber, favors raising taxes to increase the number of city services, increase green space and remove all of our remaining private property rights. (That last part was my interpretation reading between the lines.)
  Result: Elected
  



• Dublin School Board
  Recommend:
  
  
  • Bill Burton
  
  
  • Stuart Harris
  
  
  • Lisa Huang
  
  
  
  Why?: These candidates favor honors and AP classes and wish to raise the level of performance.
  Result:
  
  
  
  • Stu Harris
  
  
  • Gwen Callendar
  
  
  • Lynn May
  
  
  
  


• Washington Township Trustee
  Recommend:
  
  
  • Chuck Kranstuber
    Why?: Highly experienced and in favor of efficient, high quality services.
  
  
  • Denise King
    Why?: Incumbent and efficient. Helped install red light management for EMS vehicles.
  
  Result: Elected!
  
  
  
  

For more information please visit these websites:
Dublin Suburban News
Franklin County Board of Elections
Ohio Secretary of State
Ohio GOP - Arguments against Issues 2 - 5
Ohio Libertarian Party Analysis of Issues 1 - 5

"The torture continues..."

Thanks to the VC for the pointer to an interview with Justice Kennedy. Kennedy, thanks to decisions like Kelo, is not at the top of my list of legal heroes. He does, however, hold one of the nine most powerful legal seats in the world, and so I read the interview anyway.

If you wish to read about his childhood, start at page one, but otherwise the best stuff is starts on page 3. The best question, which revealed Kennedy's inspirations, was almost the last and is a staple of the Academy of Achievement,they asked, "What books would you read to your grandchildren? What are the important books to you?" Here is Justice Kennedy's response:

I think fiction is very important because it gets us into the mind of a person. Hamlet is a tremendous piece of literature. You know Hamlet better than you know most real people. Do you know the reason? Because you know what he's thinking. And this teaches you that every human has an integrity and an autonomy and a spirituality of his own, of her own, and great literature can teach you that. Billy Budd, Antigone, are very important works. Antigone is brilliant. You know, in literature, the woman is a symbol of mercy and of equity: Antigone, Portia -- Rosa Parks, to use a real person. That's why Justice is a woman, even though she has a sword sometimes. I don't know if that fits, but so: Antigone, The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Billy Budd, Nineteen Eighty-Four. You and I grew up with a great fear of the Soviet military might. Nineteen Eighty-Four has one of the brilliant scenes in literature. The protagonist is being tortured by his communist or totalitarian interrogators, and they want him to say that "Two and two is five." And finally he can't stand the torture anymore, he says, "Okay, two and two is five." But the torture continues. He said, "Why are you continuing?" They say, "The torture continues not until you just say it, but until you believe it." And this is a powerful reminder that governments want to plan your destiny. They want to plan what you think, and this must never happen. And so Nineteen Eighty-Four is a book of tremendous importance, I think, in that regard.

So Justice Kennedy believes the government should keep their dirty little paws off my destiny. I'm not sure how that jives with his liberal record of decisions, but he is absolutely right. I have not yet read 1984, but you can bet that is now on my short list and my froogle list. I hope to see Justice Kennedy use the "1984" judicial test for more of his decisions.

FOIA, Public Records & Sunshine

Over the past year I have given myself a crash course in public records law. First there was the SEI campaign to capture the information the University collects about instructor evaluation. I successfully collected the data, but it was in such an unusable format that I have not done anything with it. I think it is about time to make another request for the data for the last year.

A few weeks ago, I began requesting data necessary to evaluate the efficiency of OSU's COTA bus fee. Eventually I was able to get the ridership statistics and later today I should finally be able to get the financial details of all payments made from OSU to COTA.

I have learned a few things from this process.

1. Government emmployees want to keep their performance secret.


2. Government employees are completely unaware of the existence or substance of public records law


3. Common government tactics to avoid releasing records: feigning ignorance, forwarding to supervisors and other departments, delivering incorrect or incomplete records.


4. Persistence, persistence, persistence.


5. While you get more bees with honey, threatening a lawsuit improves the chances of being the squeaky wheel who gets the grease.

Outsourcing

Dan Drezner posted a brilliant summary on the benefits of outsourcing.

Does America benefit from outsorcing? Hell yes!

Is it difficult to tell your neighbor that he needs to lose his job because you don't want to pay $10 for a $2 hand-made corn broom? Yes. Is it worth $8 to avoid the conversation? No.