Boulder Election 2011

Given recent local election coverage, you'd think the only things we're voting on were municipalization and corporate rights. However, Boulder has no fewer than eight ballot issues this year.

Issue 2A allows the city to sell $49,000,000 in bonds for critical infrastructure needs, including maintaining streets, bridges, buildings, and recreation facilities; upgrading software, the main library, and police and fire equipment; and improving transportation connections and streetscapes. It's hard to argue with those priorities. The bonds will be paid back using existing revenue streams. Plus, the work will generate local jobs, helping the local economy.

Issue 2B allows the city to extend and increase the utility occupation tax levied on Xcel's customers to further investigate the feasibility of a municipal power utility. Question 2C authorizes the city council to create a power utility, if it proves it can do so in a cost-effective manner, with rates and reliability comparable to Xcel's and a plan for more renewable energy.

David Miller, in his guest commentary a week ago, rightly pointed out that there are many unanswered questions related to this proposal. We don't know how much it will cost, nor how much additional renewable energy will be feasible. However, we can't know these answers without approving both measures. So, the real question is whether we want to know, or whether we will continue to trust Xcel to work in Boulder's best interest.


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We're going about this thing all wrong

I'm talking, of course, about the economy. It's annoyingly broken, and for some reason just refuses to fix itself.

The tea party gang would have you believe it's as simple as spending less money and reducing the deficit. However, they can't actually believe that will work. Every economist and his brother-in-law tells us that cutting government spending will just send the economy further into the toilet. Economies in the toilet, as we've seen recently, tend to result in larger deficits.

Of course, Obama and the Democrats don't have a much better plan. They're banking on stimulus that's so tepid that Republicans might even vote for it if they hold their noses. Tepid stimulus leads to, you guessed it, tepid recovery.

I have a modest proposal.

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Take our Time with Energy Decision

Two weeks ago I wrote about Xcel's proposal to provide Boulder with lots of wind energy. I said that Xcel would be able to count that wind energy towards its legislated mandate to provide 30 percent of its Colorado electricity as renewable or recycled energy.

I received a couple of emails from folks who told me I was wrong. Xcel would sell the renewable energy credits associated with the new wind energy to Boulder, and Boulder would get the RECs.

However, the Colorado statute that mandates utilities to provide a minimum percentage via renewable and recycled energy doesn't mention RECs. It just says that the utility has to generate or cause to be generated the energy.

The Public Utility Commission rules that implemented that law say that a utility will use RECs to meet the mandate, but they don`t seem to say that RECs are the only way to meet the mandate.

Confused? According to Xcel, the interpretation of this requirement doesn't matter. They say that they`ve already gotten enough renewable energy lined up to meet the mandate without Boulder, and to meet it early. Whether or not they are allowed to count the Boulder wind toward the 30 percent, they are not planning on doing so.

They don't need us.


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Zero net carbons

Xcel Energy has finally outlined a proposal to City Council for a new franchise agreement that looks like it meets the goals for Boulder's energy future. I'm not convinced.

It's actually quite slick, a virtual game of three-card Monte. Who uses the renewable energy? Who pays for it? Who gets credit for it?

Xcel already provides renewable energy. They have to by law. Under their Boulder proposal, they won't have to provide a single kilowatt-hour more. Xcel claims that this wind power generation capacity will be built specifically for Boulder, but that is disingenuous. It will still count against Xcel's statewide renewable energy mandate.

They think they've found a mark for their con game. Boulder citizens want more renewable energy, and Xcel management is betting we'll willingly spend more to get it. They've also used the classic con strategy of telling us the deal is off the table if we don`t agree by November.

With Xcel's offer we'd be getting the same renewable energy that Xcel already has to generate, but we'll be on the hook to pay for it while everyone else in Colorado will get a price break.


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Fixing Health Care isn`t the Answer

Politicians of all stripes have solutions to our heath care crisis, whether it's giving everyone access or letting the free market rule.

But you can't solve health care without solving health. Otherwise the current cycle just continues.

That cycle, discussed in my previous column, is based on health fads, each promising to fix our health with new supplements and enhanced foods, and each fad in turn proving to be insignificant or counterproductive. Look for example at the now discredited low-fat craze still driving many diets.

Will today's fads (super fruits, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamin D) follow the same pattern?

It's taken us 10,000 years to adapt to dietary changes resulting from the invention of agriculture. Some of us still can't eat wheat and dairy. How can we thrive on foods invented in the past few decades or less?

Is an antioxidant really better than fruit? Refined flour better than whole grains? Factory-raised meat better than wild game? Pasteurized non-fat hormone-treated milk better than fresh whole milk? Vitamin water better than real water? "Natural flavor" better than any real food?


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Real Health Foods

Imagine that you are the owner of a health food store who is cryogenically frozen for 200 years. When you wake up, you are told that everything you sold at your store is actually bad for you, and all the stuff that was supposed to kill you is actually good for you.

That's what Woody Allen finds out in his science fiction movie, "Sleeper." But it may also be the key to America's health care crisis.

It turns out that the food industry in this country has been lying to us for decades. Every time they come out with a new product they say is supposed to be good for you, it most likely is just the opposite.

Industry has accomplished much positive. Food is now much cheaper, it transports more easily, it doesn't spoil as quickly and it is much more convenient. People that were starving before are much more likely to be able to afford food.

But this progress has come at a huge cost. Each bit of processing brings a food item one step further removed from the foods we evolved to eat.


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Flushing our Environment down the Toilet

I was looking at the plastic packaging from the Earth First toilet paper we recently purchased, trying to determine if the plastic was recyclable. Generally, recyclable plastic bags have a recycling symbol with a number that tells you exactly what it is, and which lets you know if it is one of the types taken locally. But all I saw was the symbol on the package saying 100% recyclable.

Did that refer to the package, or just to the contents?

Then I noticed on the package in small print something saying that the plastic was designed to be environmentally friendly, and would expire in 18 months.

I had no idea what that meant. Would I have to bring it back to he public library, or what?

So I called the number on the package. I thought about pretending I was Gene Weingarten, but decided to play it straight.

The operator I talked to listened to my question and was flummoxed, and she sent me to customer service. The customer service agent had also never heard the question before, and said she'd get back to me after talking to the factory.

Just about this point in the conversation, I finally saw it -- the number 4 recycling symbol on the plastic wrap. So, that was my answer. Recyclable after all! I decided to not tell the person on the phone what I'd seen, mostly out of embarrassment.

When the phone call came a hour or so later and the caller ID said "Royal Paper," I ignored it, thinking it was some kind of telemarketing call. But my wife picked it up, and it was my agent calling back to make sure she had the details of the query. What brand of toilet paper was it exactly I was looking at?

Well, it turns out that Earth First is the environmentally friendly brand used by Royal Paper, I guess to differentiate it from their eco-disaster brands, like Soft & Silky and Petalo.

And when they finally called back with the answer, we found that the bag was not a recyclable number 4 plastic, but a decomposable number 4. That means that the bag decomposes over a small number of months.

But decomposable doesn't mean compostable. It doesn't turn into organic material, so we can't put it into the compost. It's not regular plastic and can't be recycled. If it ends up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, it will turn into microscopic plastic bits that will make their way up the food chain. It has to go into the landfill.

Plus, the confusing packaging makes it likely that the bag will be thrown in with the rest of the plastic bags being turned into fleece or lumber, and may contaminate the entire load.

Royal Paper, how has your greenwashing (or greenwiping) helped anybody, except helping you market your green brand to gullible environmentalists?

Boulder City Council Election 2009

There are five open seats on council up for election. I'm not going to endorse five candidates, because I don't think there are five outstanding candidates.

The ballot tells us to vote for up to five candidates. I've asked several people who they are supporting, and usually they can rattle off two or three or four names. But they're not sure who they are going to add to make up their five choices.

Here's what I tell them: Don't do it. If you really like three candidates, vote just for those three. If you also vote for two candidates you think are okay but not great, those two votes are votes against the people you support. Your second tier candidates may win against your favorites because of your votes and the votes of others who also just included them to get up to five.


There are many specific issues on which to evaluate the candidates. But I don't think this is about specific issues. I think this is about principles, and about the kind of person.

Here are some of the things that I think are important for council, and candidates should be on top of these:

• Council needs to learn to run this city without micromanaging. Council meetings cannot go until 2:00 AM just because they can't get through all the issues.
• Council needs to set direction, and staff needs to be on board and held accountable. Today there are too many rogue departments and rogue department heads who are interested in turf building, rather than supporting the direction defined by our elected representatives.
• Council needs to lay down the law with the City Manager to make sure she is enforcing this principle with all departments.
• There is no real understanding of business principles in the council. As far as I can tell, some departments don't even understand which aspects of their programs make money and which ones lose money. Council can't make sound fiscal decisions without this kind of information, and nobody on council seems to have the background to understand what is necessary.
• Fitting in with the national mood, it seems to be common belief that you have to be either pro-environment or pro-business. Yet our leaders need to embrace both in order to properly represent our interests and serve us.
• The relationship with the county government is good, and the relationship with CU is improving. But the relationships with Boulder Valley School District and RTD are dismal. It is critical that the city be able to work well with these other government agencies.
• It is a PR nightmare when the city moves forward with big, unpopular capital projects while cutting back library services. The city needs to better figure out how to remain flexible in its budgets and responsive when needed.
• In fact, in general the city government needs to work on its PR. They makes lots of decisions that are controversial, and the reasoning behind the decisions is only evident to the people who stayed to 1:00 AM at the council meeting at which the topic was discussed. Currently, the public discussion is often controlled by the opponents to these decisions, who make their own one-sided emotional appeals. There's nothing wrong with one-sided appeals to the public, but the council needs to figure out how to get its story out too.
• Make it a high priority to make information available and to make it easy for people to actually find that information.
• Be willing to drop an idea if the public is obviously opposed. For example, whether or not council deserves a raise, they should have dropped the idea once the public voted it down the first time.

So, who am I endorsing?

I've known Barry Siff for several years, so perhaps I'm biased. But he is taking his council bid so seriously that it is impossible to ignore him.

When Barry started considering the run for council, he started going to every single council meeting, and he stayed until the bitter end. He even sold his booming business to be able to concentrate on this effort.

Barry has been in business for years and has business savvy. He understands all aspects of running a business, having been in senior management at a large company, as well as owning and running a small local business. He understands the bottom line, and he knows the value of having the best people working for him -- without that nothing can happen.

Barry is excited about changing the way council runs, stopping this crazy business of running meetings until the wee hours of the morning. After all, the way things are now, citizen participation is a joke.

Barry took a small local triathlon, and built it into a successful business that ran several races every year. So successful, in fact, that he had several suitors when he was ready to sell. He picked the buyer that would be best for the sport and best for Boulder -- Ironman is the biggest brand in the sport and is well-known outside the sport, and bringing that brand to Boulder without the city having to court them is a huge coup.

While running 5430 Sports, Barry did something he didn't have to. He turned his races into an environmental example for the entire multisport community around the country. It wasn't just having Eco-Cycle come in and collect recycling and compostables. It was actively pursuing what he called tri-sustainability. Using solar power at the races. Encouraging alternative transport. Even finding ways to recycle water bottles, bike parts, and energy bar wrappers. This shows that Barry is not just talk, that he can not only do the right thing, but also show the way to the rest of the world.

Everyone talks about having good relationships with other government entities. However, Barry called up Bruce Benson, the President of CU, made an appointment, and sat down with him. Our current council members are not doing that, much less the other candidates.

Barry has put a huge amount of effort into supporting low-income children in Boulder. He just doesn't talk about it, he does it.

Barry has more energy and enthusiasm than anyone I know. He's a former adventure racer, and so has unique qualifications to make it through marathon council meetings. He is also a huge Boulder booster.

Look at who is backing Barry. It's everyone from the most conservative to the most liberal. He doesn't have the biggest name recognition, but he is becoming well known all around town.

I say, when you make your city council selection(s) this year, include Barry Siff. I'm convinced he will make a huge contribution to the city. I don't agree with him on every issue, but on the guiding principles he is a perfect match.

Health-Care Reform that Just Might be Workable

It may turn out that major health-care reform isn't politically feasible now. But that shouldn't stop us from making significant improvements to our woefully inadequate system.

The biggest problems with cost and coverage come from the insurance industry. And the only way insurance companies will learn to play nice without competition from the government is with new regulation.

Insurance companies have become de facto monopolies. If the only health care you can afford is via insurance offered by your employer, the insurance company has no incentive to keep you happy.

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From Fat, Dumb and Happy to Healthy, Wealthy and Wise

Manufacturers use a tool called Pareto analysis to evaluate quality issues. They rank the problems and attack the biggest ones first.

I don't have to draw a Pareto chart to see where to start with health care costs. More than 75 percent of medical expenditures are for treating people with chronic diseases.

Chronic illnesses include cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease, and diabetes. A large percentage of cases are preventable, or can at least be managed less expensively.

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Strange Combinations

Last weekend I rode in the Bike MS fundraiser for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. It was a tough weekend, covering a total of 175 miles, and I raised over $500.

This got me thinking. What is the relationship between athletic events and charities, and why are they linked? It's not just the MS Society. Lots of bike rides, runs, walks, etc., are tied to fundraising efforts.

But there's nothing inherent with bike riding or any of these other activities that has anything to do with the causes they support. I would have been happy to ride 175 miles without the charity tie in. But they wouldn't let me ride without raising at least $300. I didn't have a problem doing it, as it is a good cause. I know people with MS, and anything I can do to help is worthwhile.

But I wonder about the people I asked for money. Did they contribute because they thought they were supporting me, even though I never even saw the money? Or would they have contributed anyway? Probably not. Something about me riding my bike 175 miles caused people I know to contribute $511 to a good cause, and I'm not sure what it was. I guess I have to go with guilt -- since I made a personal request it made it harder to say "no".

And that's what these charities are counting on: Someone like me to do their job of making people feel guilty enough to contribute money, in exchange for being able to participate in an athletic event.

This is kind of like the strange combination of health insurance and employment. If you think logically about it, it really doesn't make sense for people to get their health care through work.

I guess it probably started with companies trying to attract workers by offering something of value beyond wages. But pretty soon it became expected that they would provide this benefit to their employees. Employers have now gotten trapped in a cycle of increasing health care costs that are not directly related to doing business but which they can't cut back on without big ramifications. And employees are stuck with whatever insurance is (or isn't) provided by their employer, unable to afford their own insurance, and unable to leave a job if they have any significant health issue.

So, just like I have to suck up to everybody I know to guilt them into contributing to a worthy cause so I can participate in a bike ride, my employer has to provide insurance to all its employees so it can participate in the job market.

Kind of makes you want to scrap this system and just start over from scratch.

Ironman comes to Boulder

Today, I'm competing in the 5430 Sprint Triathlon. Barry and Jodee Siff, founders of the race and owners of 5430 Sports (named after Boulder's elevation) recently sold their company (and its eight races) to World Triathlon Corporation, which owns the Ironman brand and races around the globe.

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Obama's New Direction on Economy: Declare Success and Move On

The Obama administration is ready to announce a completely new direction in its attempts to rescue the economy, according to new information from Christina Romer, the head of the President's Council of Economic Advisors. In an interview with David Gregory, to be aired Sunday on Meet the Press, she discussed the idea, originally put forth by the President's newest advisor, Gunduz Caginalp. Caginalp is a mathematician from the University of Pittsburgh and past editor of the Journal of Behavioral Finance.

Obama was intrigued, according to Romer, by Caginalp's work, and by the idea that the economy is driven by human nature as much by "invisible" market forces. Within a month of entering the office, the President launched a behind-the-scenes project to see if psychology could be leveraged to help solve the current economic crisis.

If it works, it will certainly be a first in human history.

Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman, not a fan of the President's efforts so far to fix the economy, accused Obama of being nothing more than "an armchair psychologist". "There are real problems here," Krugman said, "problems that have been fueled by over two decades of bad policy. If the President thinks he can just click his heels together and wish the problem gone, he is indeed living in the land of Oz."

Romer, paving the way for the President's new plan, was definitely upbeat. "The American workers are sound," she said. "We have a good capital stock. We have good technology. We are just temporarily in a mess."

When asked how Obama's new plan would work, Romer would not give specifics, saying that the details would be given in a speech to the nation next week. But she did give Gregory an outline of some of the key points.

Obama intends to explain to the American people that the economy truly is sound. Nothing has changed since a year ago, when people weren't worried about their houses and jobs. The only thing that has changed, Obama will tell us, is that people got worried. They stopped spending, they stopped borrowing, they stopped hiring.

Romer would not tell Gregory exactly what the President's full message to the people would be. But she hinted that Obama would tell us that the future of the economy is not in the hands of Congress, it is not in the hands of Wall Street, it is not in the hands of the bankers. Any improvement in the economic situation will depend on the actions of all of the American public.

So, apparently, the President is going to tell us all to go out and spend, borrow, hire, invest, build, and pretend that this whole economic meltdown never happened.

"That's just crazy," Krugman said of the plan. People are hurting because of wishful thinking. And now the President of the United States, possibly the smartest man to hold that office in the past hundred years, is wishing on a star, crossing his fingers, and saying the magic words, hoping that we all won't notice what is happening behind the curtain."

Caginalp has not been available for interview by anyone. But one of his former colleagues, economist Vernon Smith, and like Krugman a Nobel laureate, said, "This is just crazy enough that it might work." But he added, "Of course, it would be nothing more than a smoke screen. If we were lucky, it could last to the end of Obama's term in office, and hs successor would be left with double the mess to clean up."

But Romer summed up what many people are privately thinking: "Let's wait to see what Obama has to say." We know he is a great salesman, and it may be that a great salesman is exactly what this country needs right now.

And so the country waits to see if the man behind the curtain can really give us a heart, a brain, and some courage.

AIG on their Faces

So, whose fault is it that AIG is using their bailout money to pay huge (by most people's standards) bonuses to the very people who made the bad decisions that brought them to where they needed the bailouts?

Well, clearly there is plenty of fault for Bush and the 110th Congress, as well as Obama and the 111th Congress. They tell us that these bonuses were required by contract and had to be paid.

But didn't the big automakers just get some bailout money, and wasn't one of the conditions that they had to renegotiate union contracts? Clearly it can be done.

Also, retention bonuses are paid to keep good employees on board. What's the worst that would have happened? These great employees would have left?

But I think a huge part of the blame falls to all of us, who seem to require quick action from our government in preference to correct action. We've seen it many times, and rarely do the legislators involved ever get called to task for responding to this primal fear.

It seems to me that the best time to enact protections against the things that contributed to the current economic crisis is when writing "emergency" legislation. Wouldn't it make sense to tie any stimulus or bailout money to regulations and protections against financial abuses, rather than spending the money and then going back later and trying to pass the new regulations when memories have dimmed?

The Only Way to Stop Global Warming?

I write quite a few essays about global warming. These include several ideas on how individuals can help address the problem. But I'm not naive enough to think that even a significant minority of well-intentioned consumers doing what they think is right will have a measurable impact.

Some of my Libertarian-leaning friends say that the solution should be left to the free market. (At least they are mostly agreeing that the problem is real.) But here's the problem with that. Given enough time (say, 100,000 years), the free market will arrive at a solution. But in the meantime, lots of people and species will suffer, and most of them are not directly related to the companies and individuals causing the biggest impacts. You see, the flaw in this thinking is that spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is definitely impinging on others' rights, and the free market should not allow individuals or companies to infringe on the rights of others in the name of profit, even if those others are not yet even born.

One politically popular approach is cap and trade (carbon trading). Here, companies are issued the right to emit a certain amount of greenhouse gases. If they emit more, they have to purchase the right to do so from someone else. If they emit less (or if they remove carbon from the atmosphere), then they can sell the credits.

The problem with cap and trade is that it assumes people and companies have the inherent right to put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, impacting future generations around the globe. That would be like saying that, since there are 16,000 murders per year in this country, we are going to cap and trade permits to kill people. The permits will be issued proportionally to the number of murders you committed last year. If you kill more people next year, you will have to buy more permits from someone who came in under their cap. (Have no fear, each year we will cut the number of permits issued. By the year 2050 we will only be allowing 10,000 murders per year -- uh, subject to change based on input from organized crime's lobbyists.)

I've always thought that a carbon tax (actually a tax on any greenhouse gas emissions) is the ideologically best way to approach the problem. You charge a tax for any fossil fuel burned. It can be charged when the fossil fuels are mined, when they are burned, or any point along the supply line, but we would need to be consistent so they are charged exactly once.

You may ask, what about other countries? This will have no impact on China, India, or any other part of the world that may be contributing significantly to the problem.

I have two answers to that. First, we slap a tariff on all imported goods and services, proportional to the amount of greenhouse gases used to produce and ship to the U.S. If the producer can provide proof that they have an equivalent tax in their home country, this tariff will be waived. And second, if this program is successful, it can provide a model for other countries, and a useful tool in negotiating international agreements.

There's one more big problem with a carbon tax, and this is where I got stuck. Such a tax is highly regressive. The people who will suffer the most are those that already can't afford the gas to drive to work and the energy to heat their homes.

I pondered this last issue long and hard until I ran across this idea from Jim Hansen. Dr. James Hansen is none other than the scientist who first brought climate change to the attention of the U.S. Congress in the 1980s, and he continues to be active in the field.

Dr. Hansen suggests (actually demands) a carbon tax, but he adds a twist: 100% of the revenue of the tax is refunded immediately to the citizens. People would receive monthly direct deposits into their bank accounts. None of the received new tax money would be spent by the government. Instead the money would be divided equally among every man, woman and child.

How does that work? Say this new tax causes massive inflation (after all, the companies paying the tax will just pass it on to consumers). People might be paying $1,000 more per month for home heating, electricity, gasoline, and goods and services produced using these resources. But, the same people would be seeing the same $1,000 appear like magic, like clockwork every month.

If I'm a smart consumer, I'm going to figure out how to cut back on my energy usage and set aside some of that new money to make my home more energy efficient, or buy a plug-in hybrid, or any number of investments designed to allow me to live more efficiently and hence spend less money.

And, if I'm a smart business, I'm going to figure out how to get some of that new money. I'm going to start selling some of those energy-efficient products. And it won't be something goofy like carbon credits. Instead it will be something that will actually cause less greenhouse gas emission.

How much money are we talking about? Well, one estimate was that it would take an investment of about $100 per ton of carbon dioxide to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Each person in the U.S. emits about 22 tons of CO2 per year. So, we're talking about new taxes (and new dividend checks) of about $200 per month per person, or $800 for a family of four. Most of the cost for the typical family, I assume, would be in the form of higher prices for energy, and for good and services produced using fossil fuels. That cost would be offset by direct deposit of an approximately equal amount each month.

Of course, we'd need a scientific panel to determine the correct amount of the new tax for each product or service, as this should not be a political decision. And we would likely want to phase this tax in over a small number of years.

Is this the best solution? I don't know. But it seems to me that we need to be thinking about radical ideas such as this, instead of relying on do-gooders, relying on the free market, or relying on the ability of politicians to solve this in a timely manner. Because a timely manner is the thing that is most important.

Survival of the Fittest

I hope that's me -- "the fittest", that is. Reporting from Ecuador this week, I've been enjoying swimming in the Pacific ocean. Actually, I probably swam further in the past week than any other previous week. The folks on the beach were looking at me funny when I climbed water-logged from the ocean after my marathon adventures.

It was near here, in the Galapagos Islands, where the Theory of Evolution got its first seeds. Also, that's where so much research has been done on that subject. Recently, scientists have been measuring the sizes of the beaks of every single finch every single year and proving that evolution really is happening.

We're heading to the Galapagos next week, and it got me thinking (what else to do while putting in the big swimming miles) about the whole idea of the survival of the fittest. Seems like lately folks are talking more than usual about the free market and business Darwinism. And the free market may indeed "work", but there are a couple of problems.

First, survival of the fittest is messy. You may end up with the most fit species/business at the particular time. But there is guaranteed to be lots of blood along the way. In nature, lots of individuals die so that the best among them can live. And in business it's the same way -- lots of economic turmoil so that the best businesses can survive.

When reading about the finches, I came upon a second "problem" with evolution. It seems that on one island a few cactus finches (about a dozen) came up with a bit of a shortcut to sipping their nectar. To make their lives easier, they were actually, with a simple snip of the beak, killing the cactus flower just to take a sip.

Now, these individual birds will never pay evolutionarily. They got their dinner. When things get tight later in the year, these may be the same birds who will be strong enough to get what little nectar remains. A tiny subset of the population is actually destroying the food source for all, and the only solution evolution may offer is extinction.

The logical comparison is the businesses that snip humanity's cactus flower. They may, for example, dump tons and tons of CO2 into our atmosphere. There is no incentive for them to stop or slow down, because it would just hurt their bottom lines. The only solution that the free market has to offer is to allow them to destroy the global economy, with the only consolation being that these rogue businesses will go down with the rest of us.

We are smarter than finches. We can see what we are doing, that the actions of a subset are harming the livelihoods of all. So, it seems like it is up to us to come up with a solution. Perhaps we just need to trim the beaks on these metaphorical finches a few millimeters and the problem will take care of itself.

How Did I Do? Better than the County Clerk!

Every year after the election I compare how I recommended and voted with how all of the ballot issues actually fared at the ballot box. This time, it took three days for the county to finish counting votes in Boulder County, the slowest in the entire state.

What went wrong? Well, apparently the folks doing the counting were paying attention and noticed some anomalies in the optical scanning that was picking up votes that weren't made. It took hand checking each ballot for paper dust and ink smudges, a very slow process. I guess no other jurisdictions were doing the same type of check, so they were able to finish faster. Please, nobody tell them that their vote counts may not be accurate.

Anyway, back to my own report card. First, I got 100% on the City of Boulder issues. That's right, the city voted with my recommendations on all seven of the questions on the ballot. Are that many people reading and agreeing with my blog, or are the people here just that much smarter? Basically, people agreed to continue funding the city at the current level, but not to give council more powers.

At the county level, I got one out of two. I recommended a NO vote on extending the Worthy Cause tax, and it passed with flying colors (which I could have predicted.) Oh, well. I don't think the money from this sales tax will go to any group that doesn't deserve it. I just wish people were trusted to make their own decisions on who to give to.

We did pass, in line with my recommendation, the new clean energy district, a novel way to fund, with no public expense, small renewable energy and efficiency projects. Boulder folks are smart AND generous.

On the state level, I didn't do as well. State voters ignored my recommendations on nine out of fourteen issues.

My successes: Luckily, Amendment 48, which redefines "person" in parts of the state bill of rights went down narrowly. Amendment 52 also failed -- it would have taken money from water projects, pine beetle mitigation, and other priorities that will be getting more urgent with global warming, and spent it on getting more people in their cars to ski resorts. Two out of three of the attempts by business to cripple unions also failed. Less critically, voters agreed with me that 21-year-olds are not old enough to run for state legislature.

Big losses: Referendum O would have protected our state constitution against the continued onslaught of amendments, but failed because too many people were convinced (incorrectly) that it would decrease their ability to write initiatives. Amendment 50 won, giving state casinos the right to not only stay open all night and increase bet limits, but also prevent their own taxes from going up. Two measures that would have helped with education funding went down -- Amendments 58 and 59. Amendment 51, a sales tax to help people with developmental disabilities failed; I guess Coloradans as a whole are not as generous with their sales tax dollars as Boulderites. Amendment 54 passed. Like Amendment 41 in a previous election, it takes a semi-reasonable idea (in this case preventing undue influence by government contractors) and pushes it way beyond reasonable, probably way beyond constitutional.

Mixed blessings: Also failing was Amendment 46, which would have ended affirmative action in the state. No doubt it is still useful, but symbolically it still grates. And Referenda M and N also passed contrary to my recommendation. These remove so-called obsolete clauses from the state constitution, although I wasn't convince in either case that we had the whole story.

Yes, this Insomniac is out of touch with the Colorado voter, and proudly so!

Seven at One Blow -- Colorado 2008 Amendments 47, 49, 53, 54, 55, 56, and 57

I can't believe my good fortune today. Business and labor leaders, who were publicly feuding via the ballot box, have reached an agreement which means that I don't have to read seven Colorado ballot initiatives!

It all started when business leaders put one, two, then three measures on the ballot this year. Amendment 47 would have prevented unions from collecting mandatory dues. Amendment 49 would have prevented public employers from using payroll deductions to fund private organizations. And Amendment 54 would have banned some unions from making campaign contributions.

In retaliation, labor leaders came up with no less than four measures to use as leverage against the business measures. Amendment 53 would have allowed corporate executives to be prosecuted for corporate crimes. Amendment 55 would have required companies to show cause when firing employees. Amendment 56 would have required most employers to provide health insurance. Amendment 57 would have allowed employees to sue their employers in workers comp cases.

I say "would have", because now all of these measures are irrelevant. Business and labor were using the ballot as part of their negotiations, playing a big game of chicken, using all of us as pawns in that game. And now the two sides have reached an agreement and we are once more irrelevant.

At the eleventh hour, literally hours before the state deadline, the two sides blinked. Neither side was willing to risk the chance that the opposition's measures would pass. So, in exchange for labor withdrawing all four of its measures, business has agreed to campaign against its own measures.

Kind of makes you sick, doesn't it?

So, the four labor measures will be pulled from the ballot. Since ballots are already printed, they will still appear, but the results won't be counted. And business leaders have committed to spending $3 million to the campaign against their own measures.

If there ever was a tiny chance that I would vote for any of these, it is surely gone now. If you resent being played with this way as much as I do:

Vote NO on Amendment 47
Vote NO on Amendment 49
Vote NO on Amendment 53
Vote NO on Amendment 54
Vote NO on Amendment 55
Vote NO on Amendment 56
Vote NO on Amendment 57

The Good Deal -- A Parable

They Say It's Your Earth Day

I was going to write about Earth Day a few days ago, but got distracted when the earth decided to take things into its own hands.

I noticed that lots of companies are really focusing on cashing in on the green thing. Earth Day sales were very popular this year.

So which of the following do you think is a joke:

• A super market chain offered free reusable shopping bags if you bought a case of single-serving bottled water
• Another company is holding an Earth Day drawing in which the prize is a (hybrid) SUV and an all-expense-paid airline trip to Yellowstone National Park
• For this Earth Day, an appliance store is having a special on side-by-side refrigerators

The answer, of course, is that they are all jokes, but they are all true.

You've got to have a sense of humor if you want to survive in this world. Unfortunately, the joke is on all of us.