Top news of the week?

This week was awfully ridiculous in the amount of “normal” news. Aside from the fact that apparently Dumbledore became gay after the books have been written and the checks have been cashed, there’s also news that bidding will start at $100,000 for a lock of hair from infamous Communist murderer Che Guevara. So, in the spirit of ridiculous news reporting, here are my thoughts on two news pieces - Iowa moving the presidential primary elections to January 3rd, and Eliot Spitzer strikes again with lawsuits. Enjoy.



Iowa votes on January 3rd!

As if Election 2008 couldn’t come any later (does anyone really enjoy hearing about 24 different people talk about the same issue for a year, all while achieving nothing?...), Iowa has rescheduled its primary election to January 3rd, making it a good 11 months before the actual election and nine months before any actual nominating convention (the Democrats hold theirs in late August, and the Republicans will have theirs at the start of September).

Why is this happening? Essentially, this is happening because the states have all become even more selfish than they normally have been and desire the attention of a presidential campaign and the campaign promises that only lead to bigger, more expensive government, where everyone except government bureaucrats lose.

Not to mention the fact that Iowa has corn. This is bad for policy, especially farm and gas policy. Because Iowa has large amounts of corn, that means politicians have no cause for worry to promise large amounts of ethanol donation... I mean mandating the usage of ethanol and the ever-increasing and ever-less-efficient farm subsidies that just cannot be killed. Yay government!

Sadly, other states feel the need to also have primaries earlier and earlier (did you know there was a time when the first primaries were held in late February?) to garner attention, issues, and campaign money, making the primary season now a conglomeration of numerous “Super” election days, which is a detriment to the system of elections.

We should go back to the days when primaries were scattered through all of the first and second quarters of the election year and not have this everyone has their primary in January and February.



Eliot Spitzer sues again

Eliot Spitzer has proven that you don’t need to be an over-bearing, self-righteous Attorney General to take on side-issues to help push an agenda that you support.

California is leading the charge of a coalition of states of which New York is a member, suing the Environmental Protection Agency in hope to prod the Bush Administration to remove some obstacles that block attempts by more than a dozen states to impose more emissions regulations on cars and trucks.

This push is part of a plan among Northeastern states, which is known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (these initiatives always have the most unique names), where the states are attempting to move beyond federal regulators (yes, you read that right, beyond federal regulators) and increase the regulation on emissions for things like cars or power plants (which is amazing, looking at the regulation already in place...).

True, the EPA should probably be moving ahead and dealing with applications for permits, like the one California applied for in 2005 (they should either deny it or approve it, but then again, this is government bureaucrats we’re talking about here). But as Jennifer Wood, a spokeswoman for the EPA, said, “[The EPA is] interested in a good decision, not a good headline.” This is exactly the case, and the EPA should stick by it. Rushing off to fine power plants for pollution (oftentimes monopolized power plants that pass these fines to the average household) is not the proper way to deal with global warming or greenhouse gases. The proper way of doing this is to analyze what can be done and taking steps to reduce the consumption of pollution-causing materials.

But then again, Mr. Spitzer wouldn’t be able to have his name in the headlines again.