I got a mailer today from “The Team for Democratic Voters,” suggesting I vote for the slate including Jerry Brown, Barbara Boxer, and so forth — and also for Prop 16, a PG&E initiative to keep away competition from public utility companies like SMUD.  (I pay less than half the electricity rate through SMUD than many in neighboring cities using PG&E.)

I checked the official California Democratic Party web site, and they endorse voting No on 16.

When I check the fine print, it says, “This document was prepared by Democratic Voters Choice, not an official party organization.  Appearance is paid for and authorized by each candidate and ballot measure designated by an *.”

There were stars by Props 14, 15, and 16 — and the suggested votes for these propositions are exactly the opposite suggested by the Democratic Party.

There are stars by a couple of candidates’ names, too, but only one (Dave Jones for Insurance Commissioner) who has an actual endorsement from the party.

It’s clear that this mailer is pure fraud, designed to mislead voters into thinking these propositions have endorsements from the people whose picture is on the flyer, when nothing could be farther from the truth.

And by making this arrive the evening before the election, they reduce chances of anybody mounting a campaigning pointing out their deceptive, slimy tactics.

I suspect this ain’t illegal, but it’s clearly wrong.

Looks like Obama may be reading my blog.  Sweet.

The US was the one country in the world that refused to sign a “no first strike” agreement for nuclear weapons, because back in the Soviet Union days our nuclear deterrent was what we believed kept them from overrunning Western Europe with massively superior conventional forces.

I believe we should unilaterally agree to refrain from nuclear first strikes against any country that has not developed nuclear weapons. This implicitly suggests that we will consider first strikes against any country that has developed them.

The bonus: It gives an automatic disincentive for every country considering a nuclear program.  Currently, countries like Iran or North Korea believe that holding a nuclear stockpile will help protect them from belligerent Americans.  I say we make the threat of belligerence much more severe if they have nukes than if they don’t.

Seems obvious, doesn’t it?

Hey!  Your dollar coins look like quarters!  They feel like quarters. Nobody likes them.  We never have. Changing the color or putting a different person on the face doesn’t make them less like a quarter.

Every other country on the planet manages to make coins you can tell from each other.  We used to.  Remember the silver dollar?  Good coin.  Why did you stop making that, again?

I paid my property taxes today.  (About $2000.)  There was an option to pay it online.  Convenient!

Alas, after going through all the steps (but before actually paying), they note that there will be a “convenience fee” of $56.  They must think licking a stamp is pretty darned inconvenient.  I aborted and paid the $0.44.

Here’s a thing I wrote in 1990, and used to put in all our manuals:

Our Stand on Copy-Protection
We at Delta Tao think that copy-protection is an evil thing that could damage the growth of the software industry and the computer industry as a whole. We hope you’ll boycott all copy-protected products. Here’s why.

We believe people have a certain amount of money to spend on software. After they blow their software budget, they still want more software. If copy-protection is preeminent, they are out of luck. The software they buy is the only software they have. They find their Macintosh less useful, and don’t encourage their friends to buy one. The hardware and software industries dwindle and die.

On the other hand, if things aren’t copy-protected, people pirate software once they’ve blown their software budget. They learn what programs are good and useful first hand. The next year they will make informed decisions about what software to purchase. In the meantime, they find their computer more useful and friendly. They recommend it to their friends, who go on to become software purchasers.

There are two problems. Number one, in a world where some programs are copy-protected and others aren’t, people may buy copy-protected software (since that’s the only way they can get it) and pirate the unprotected software. This rewards the businesses who are damaging the industry, and punishes those who help it along.

Number two, publishers without copy-protection can’t sell bad software with massive advertising. Since people tend to try software before they purchase it, companies only sell their products to people who find it useful. This means companies with inferior products, but big budgets, should like copy-protection.

We don’t mind problem number two so much, but the first problem scares us. The solution: boycott copy protection. Make sure it isn’t profitable to copy-protect software.

Before the Software Publisher’s Association has us lynched (they claim that “billions of dollars of revenue are lost every year to piracy”) we’ll invent at least a little bit of evidence for our theory. Remember back when the cassette tape was invented? People could now copy records indiscriminately, and there was nothing the record company could do about it. “We’re doomed!” they shouted. “Now we’ll only sell one of each record!” What really happened? The music industry took off to previously unimaginable levels, generating more profits for more artists than ever before.

When VCRs were first available, people could copy movies indiscriminately, and there was little the movie companies could do about it. “We’re doomed!” they cried. “Now we’ll never sell another movie!” What happened? The movie industry took off to previously unimaginable levels, generating more profits for more people than ever before.

Pay for software based on its quality, not its advertising, packaging, and copy protection.

In my opinion, premature.  I love Obama, and hope he does, indeed, promote peace in the future, but I don’t think he’s done much so far.  That said, it’s not as surprising as, say, Henry Kissinger or Yasir Arafat.

It is pleasing how quickly his election has led to a huge improvement of opinion of America and Americans on the world stage, though.

I think this prize is more of a criticism of G.W. Bush than anything else.  Stopping the advance of the neocons is, in itself, a pretty major achievement, I guess.

Insurocorp!

The biggest danger to a free market is monopolies.  In most cases, when there are at least six competitors for some business, they’re each forced to provide excellent services at low prices, and still eke out a reasonable profit.  However, left to their own devices, they’ll buy each other until there are only a couple, and then collude to provide barely adequate services at high prices, and eke out a gigantic profit.

Ironically, a free market requires considerable regulation to keep it free.

Gay marriage opponents say that gay marriage would hurt the economy by creating new beneficiary spouses, presumably getting unfair health insurance.

It’s hard for me to get excited about stopping anybody from getting health insurance.

Supporters say that if gay marriage were legalized, it would add $16 billion to the economy by increasing the demand for cakes and invitations.

If everybody went out and bashed in their windshield with a sledgehammer, it would add $60 billion to the economy.  Hooray.

I’m all for gay marriage (or, alternately, for treating straight marriage as a civil union in the eyes of the government), but it’s really not an economics issue.

So a few weeks ago, my car flunked its smog test, despite having very low emissions, by having the “check engine” idiot light burnt out.  This annoyed me because I’d have to pay for a retest after changing a light bulb.

Fortunately, in its Infinite Wisdom, California enrolled me in a program to get a free repair and retest, as long as I used one of their authorized repair places.  So I did.  They changed my idiot light (and did a couple of other minor things, like replacing my old vacuum hoses and futzing with the ignition timing), and retested the car.  It passed again, easily, though oddly the emissions were about double what they were in the earlier test.  And they billed the state almost $500.

I guess I should be happy, since I didn’t have to take apart my dashboard and I saved $60, but I can’t help but think perhaps my tax dollars could be better spent.

I wonder why the state has a budget crisis.