Jujitsui Generis

NYT's New Business Model

As most other media outlets have moved toward distributing content over the web free of charge, the New York Times began charging around $50/year for online access to its op-ed columnists.  In related news, the NYT announced that it plans to layoff about 4% of its workforce.

Time's Almost Up

Here's Cindy Sheehan calling for the end of the 'occupation of New Orleans' and clutching at the last few seconds of her fifteen minutes.

Closer To The Brink II

Iran is threatening to resume uranium enrichment activities if the IAEA refers it to the UN Security Council.

"If they want to speak with Iran with the language of force, Iran will have no choice, in order to preserve its technological achievements, to get out of the framework of the NPT and the additional protocol and resume [uranium] enrichment," Larijani said at a news conference.

Which is exactly what Iran intends to do anyway.

Put Down That Doughnut

Obesity has become the latest target for public health officials.  But public service campaigns typically neglect private sector initiatives and veer from market solutions toward government regulation and publicly funded programs.  Stories like this, however, illustrate that obesity, when understood as a consequence of behavior, is best managed by the market.  Private employers, after all, are bearing the largest share of the excessive cost of obesity related illness.  There's no reason they should not be at the forefront in addressing the issue through the use of the targeted incentives, premium reductions, and by saddling the obese with the just desserts of their own behavior.

Talking Points Memo

Bill O'Reilly has been lobbying hard against price-gouging at the gas pumps.  Here he is again ignoring economic commonsense (actual transcript not yet posted) and the laws of supply and demand and shamelessly plugging into populist opinion.  I guess that's what makes him so popular.

Closer To The Brink

One of the Bush administration's biggest failures thus far (and no, I don't think it is the Katrina disaster) has been its failure to address the growing threat from Iran.  President Ahmadinejad is speaking in ever more defiant tones and is now arguing that Iran has the right to develop nuclear technology.  I've argued here before on the devastating effect a nuclear armed Iran would have on the entire region.

Admittedly, the Bush administration is not alone.  The EU has been (surprise) far too accommodating toward Iran's ambitions.  But for an administration implicitly committed to altering the middle east, the Bushies have displayed an alarming lack of urgency in facing the dangers posed by Iran.  At this point - given Iran's secret eighteen year program - it's doubtful that any one magic bullet will derail their program.  No promise of aid is going to lure them back from the brink.  But one would expect the administration to be employing their full arsenal of carrots and sticks, or to at least show recognition that a nuclear armed Iran will jeopardize everything we worked for in Iraq and throughout the region.  Instead, the administration seems hardly concerned at all.

Face/Off

The slightly unsettling idea of face transplants for those severely disfigured may be closer than you think (though, if successful, I doubt they are reserved solely for the disfigured for long).

Return From Vacation

For those wondering, Hurricane Ophelia ruined our chances for sun & fun last week.  The island where we were scheduled to vacation was placed under a mandatory evacuation.  Acting quickly, I decided to move inland, as far away from the coast as possible and was able to wrangle a last minute reservation at a wonderfully accommodating secluded mountain resort in western North Carolina.  Thankfully, cool mountain air, hiking, rafting, and fishing turned out to be a nice substitute for sun and surf.

Incidentally, I never go in for these sort of things, but I was only able to afford a sudden change in plans because I opted for travelers insurance on my originally scheduled beach trip.  Otherwise, I would not have received any refund and been unable to afford a second reservation.  A little voice in my head told me that scheduling a beach trip during hurricane season without any protection was liable to leave me disappointed.  For any thinking of scheduling a vacation, the insurance - depending on your circumstances - may be worth a look

Vacation Break

I'll be on vacation playing in the sun and surf for the next week.  I look forward to returing around September 19th.

The Private Sector Does It Better

Those in the corporate world know that Wal-Mart as long been lauded as a model of high efficiency, so it should come as no surprise that the effectiveness of Wal-Mart's hurricane relief efforts far outshined those orchestrated by the government:

At the time, Wal-Mart had pledged $2 million to the relief efforts. "Should it be $10 million?" Scott asked.

Over the next few days, Wal-Mart's response to Katrina was an unrivaled $17 million in cash, 1,500 truckloads of free merchandise, food for 100,000 meals and the promise of a job for every one of its displaced workers.

Those contributions turned the chain into an unexpected lifeline for much of the Southeast and earned it near-universal praise, even as the company is struggling to burnish its image.

State and federal officials have been harshly criticized for their handling of the storm's aftermath, while Wal-Mart is being held up as a model of logistical efficiency and nimble disaster planning for quickly delivering staples such as water, fuel and toilet paper to thousands of evacuees.

In Brookhaven, Miss., where Wal-Mart operates a vast distribution center, the company had 45 trucks full of goods loaded and ready to be delivered before Katrina made landfall. To keep operating near capacity, Wal-Mart secured a special line at a nearby gas station to ensure that its employees could make it to work.

Wal-Mart has much to gain through its conspicuous largesse -- it has hundreds of stores in Gulf Coast states and an image problem across the country -- but even those who criticized the company in the past are impressed.

During a tearful interview Sunday on "Meet the Press," Aaron F. Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish in the New Orleans suburbs, told host Tim Russert that if "the American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis."

Some prisons are now more efficiently run by private corporations.  Maybe FEMA should consider outsourcing its operations to Wal-Mart.