Mark Hayward reports in the Union Leader that the University of New Hampshire is spending $100,000 to have a New York company to redesign the UNH logo.
Jamie Burnett, and numerous other online commentators, suggest that UNH could have gotten a better product by simply holding a contest to design a new logo to all UNH students, and awarding a prize well under $100,000 to the winner.
Prize-based research often yields superior results at lower costs. It essentially crowd-sources the grunt work, forces people to excel, and only ends up paying for the best ideas. If you subsidize research, you get lots of research, but if you subsidize results, you actually get results. UNH would have been better served to pay for results, but efficient use of resources is hardly a hallmark of the Durham campus.
Congressman John Tierney wants Q Branch to make America safer. The Massachusetts Democrat is turning to James Bond gadgets for his latest gun control proposal, according to The Hill.
“In the most recent James Bond film, Bond escapes death when his handgun, which is equipped with technology that recognizes him as its owner, becomes inoperable when it gets into the wrong hands,” Tierney’s office said in a statement introducing the bill. “This technology, however, isn’t just for the movies — it’s a reality.”
Tierney said his Personalized Handgun Safety Act, H.R. 2005, would help prevent accidental deaths, like the case in New Jersey last month when a six-year old accidentally shot and killed a four-year-old child.
Tierney isn’t speculating about a time in the near future where sci-fi gizmos will make handguns safer. He wants to mandate iffy and expensive ID scanners on all new guns within two years, and retrofit all old guns sold after three years. Maybe tomorrow, Tierney and his loony colleagues will introduce the Invisible Car Act of 2013. And we’re long overdue for federal regulations on exploding pens.
Kevin Landrigan reports in the Nashua Telegraph that the Auto Dealer Bailout bill, which would let local auto dealers tear up their contracts with the factory, has easily cleared a House Committee and looks to pass the full House next week.
This morning, Kevin Landrigan reported in the Nashua Telegraph on the recent report on the Medicaid Enhancement Tax, Meet the MET.
The report of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy issued Monday clearly sided with State Senate budget writers in concluding Hassan and House budget writers were too optimistic in their future forecast for MET payments.
Bob Sanders reports in New Hampshire Business Review that the New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration has decided that tips received by restaurant employees must now be included as wages in calculating the Business Enterprise Tax.
Reflecting on the legacy of collage Sen. Max Baucus in today’s Boston Globe, former Sen. John Sununu outlines how Baucus is protecting the Senate’s tradition and process in the debate over the Internet Sales Tax.
The Portsmouth Herald family of newspapers runs a editorial this morning at Seacoast Online urging support for SB 126, an expansion of the Auto Dealers Bill of Rights that would let local car dealers ignore parts of their contracts with auto manufacturers. What’s striking this editorial is not the usual complaints that the contracts are unduly onerous, but the notion that state government should provide preferential treatment for one class of business simply because we like them more than their business partners.
It’s Earth Day, the environmental movement’s annual celebration of top-down environmental restrictions and reduced standards of living in the name of sustainability. A rather newer annual tradition is my post reminding you that free markets are a better, cheaper, faster way to clean up the environment, reduce future pollution, and protect endangered species than command and control methods. Here’s a snippet from last year’s Earth Day column, Mother Nature needs more markets.
My first thought was “Not again.” Then horror. Then anger. Then sadness.
I simply don’t understand the nature of evil. This happened because someone wanted it to happen this way. They are surely disappointed that several other bombs did not explode, and that more people didn’t die. I can understand violence that stems from anger, revenge, or greed. I can’t understand thinking that bombing children watching their parents finish the Boston Marathon will forward any political agenda.
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