Bizzy’s Evening Links (021606)

Free Links:

• You want your Bridges to Nowhere, build ‘em yourself — Alaska is going to have a $1.2 billion budget surplus this year (HT NTU’s Government Bytes Blog). That’s over $1,900 for every man, woman, and child in the state. The governor is working overtime figuring out how to blow it. An equivalent surplus in Ohio based on population would be about $20 billion.
• No surprise, but encouraging anyway — “US Senate likely to reject future UN climate deal - Interview”: “A possible UN climate deal, even watered down, will never make it past the US Congress, a senior advisor to the Chairman of the Senate’s environment committee told EurActiv. He would rather see technology cooperation efforts instead.”
• Tom (”There’s Nowhere to Cut”) Delay, Call Your Office — Andrew K. Dart has a complete list of all government agencies on one web page. It’s, uh, real long. On a related note, Americans for Prosperity points to an American Conservative Union Foundation page that, in Point 10, itemizes the massive duplication of efforts in the government:
  

  * 342 economic development programs;
  * 130 programs serving the disabled;
  * 130 programs serving at-risk youth;
  * 90 early childhood development programs;
  * 75 programs funding international education, cultural, and training exchange activities;
  * 72 federal programs dedicated to assuring safe water;
  * 50 homeless assistance programs;
  * 45 federal agencies conducting federal crimi­nal investigations;
  * 40 separate employment and training pro­grams;
  * 28 rural development programs;
  * 27 teen pregnancy programs;
  * 26 small, extraneous K–12 school grant pro­grams;
  * 23 agencies providing aid to the former Soviet republics;
  * 19 programs fighting substance abuse;
  * 17 rural water and waste-water programs in eight agencies;
  * 17 trade agencies monitoring 400 interna­tional trade agreements;
  * 12 food safety agencies;
  * 11 principal statistics agencies; and
  * Four overlapping land management agencies.

Links Requiring Subscription:

• I got this in the teaser e-mail I received for Thursday’s Wall Street Journal:
  

  WORK & FAMILY, By Sue Shellenbarger
  As companies gear up to hire a new crop of college grads, they’re finding that today’s young people are demanding more assurances of security. In many cases, recruits are getting what they ask for.

  These young people may think they’re getting “security.” In my opinion, all they’re getting is fooled. I especially don’t like this have-it-all expectation in the article: “Grads seem to expect flexibility without the career sacrifices that usually come with it.” Kids, if you want that, you’re eventually going to figure out that you need to work for the person in the mirror.

• A story more important than a hunting accident (HT Kudlow) — The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the Senate, in a 53-47 vote, signaled clear support of a two-year extension of President Bush’s 15 percent rates on cap gains and dividends, and that there was another vote by same margin to patch up the AMT. Other reports from WORMs (Worn-Out Reactionary Media, known to most as the Mainstream Media) focus on the Senate votes as an afterthought, but those votes probably represent the best underlying explanation there is for the rising stock market of the past few days.