Justin Katz
This gave at least a brief reprieve in a feeling of having company: WHATEVER YOU TAX — and excessive regulation may also be viewed as a tax, since it forces companies to shell out money that might better be spent elsewhere — disappears, including, in the long run, revenues collected by the tax. This is…
Just after headlines concerning the large American prison population and my slap-dash finding that Americans don’t like criminals and feel very safe comes an interesting editorial report from BBC North America Editor Justin Webb: What surprises the British tourists is that, in areas of the US that look and feel like suburban Britain, there is…
Bishop Thomas Tobin’s latest Without a Doubt column (still not yet online), which he frames as a Q&A on the Church’s teachings with respect to [illegal] immigration, avoids the questions in which Roman Catholics who disagree with the bishop are most interested. Indeed, the answers stop frustratingly short of the actual dispute, veering aside with…
John McDaid rightly tweaks me for my overly hasty reaction to Berkshire Advisors’ audit of the Portsmouth school district. The report is thorough, thoughtful, and likely enlightening for employees of the district… within its scope. In large part, my complaint still stands. Indeed, John begins a related post on his own blog thus: There is…
Pat Crowley’s complaints about a letter that Governor Carcieri apparently sent to Bob Walsh, Crowley’s NEA boss, are transparently two-faced in so many ways that I won’t enumerate them. Simply put, the idea that Walsh would respond otherwise than with the mind-numbing reply that Crowley publishes is laughable. It is, let’s just say, improbable that…
Surely, I’ve become too apt to be suspicious, but something in this labor rep’s reaction to the supplemental budget — in conjunction with the legislators’ “yelling and screaming” during debate of it — reminds me that this was merely the preface: “It’s devastating,” said Dennis Grilli, head of the largest state employees union, Council 94.…
URI professor Tom Mather is officially warning Rhode Islanders that Lyme disease–bearing ticks will be especially prominent this year: Based on his research of the tick population last year, University of Rhode Island professor Tom Mather predicts the number of ticks infected with Lyme disease will be unusually high this year, requiring extra caution from…
Here’s the laugh line from Jill Rodrigues’s Sakonnet Times story on the professional study that concluded — shockingly — that the Portsmouth school system needs more money: Although much of that money is spent on salaries and benefits, the consultants did not weigh in on contract provisions and their impacts on the district. Reading some…
There’s something very Rhode Island about this proposed legislation: A bill filed recently in the state Senate would forbid all vehicles with more than two axles from driving over the Sakonnet River (Route 24) and Pawtucket (I-95) bridges. While the 22-ton limit on both bridges would remain in effect, Senate bill S 2891 would ban…
Deroy Murdock is unremittingly critical of government subsidization and mandates related to ethanol: Poor Haitians rioted last week outside Port-au-Prince’s presidential palace, forcing Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis’s April 12 ouster. Haitians are sick and tired of food prices that are 40 percent higher than last summer’s. Some have resorted to eating cookies made of…