At around 42:40, the President makes a terrible comparison.

“How can a private company compete against the government? My answer is that if the private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining, meaning that taxpayers aren’t subsidizing it, but it has to run on charging premiums and providing good services, and a good network of doctors, just like private insurers do, then I think private insurers should be able to compete.

“They do it all the time. If you think about it, UPS and Fed-Ex are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems…. there is nothing inevitable about this somehow destroying the private marketplace. As long as it is not set up where the government is being subsidized by the taxpayers so that even if they are providing a good deal, we keep having to pony up more and more money.”

First of all, the taxpayers ARE subsidizing the post office.

Secondly, the Post Office isn’t competing with FEDEX, UPS, or anyone.  In fact, if you try to compete with them, you’ll break the law:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/39/usc_sup_01_39_10_I.html

Thirdly, an excerpt from the July 2009 GAO report:

“GAO is adding the US Postal Service’s (USPS) financial condition to the list of <b>high-risk areas</b> needing attention by Congress and the executive branch to achieve broad-based transformation.
This year, USPS expects to increase its year-end debt to $10.2 billion, and incur a cash shortfall of about $1 billion.”

“This year, USPS expects to increase its year-end debt to $10.2 billion, and incur a cash shortfall of about $1 billion.”

point made?

“…That’s why my administration has begun to reshape the standards that apply to ensure that they are in line with the rule of law. We must have clear, defensible, and lawful standards for those who fall into this category.  We must have fair procedures so that we don’t make mistakes.  We must have a thorough process of periodic review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and justified…If and when we determine that the United States must hold individuals to keep them from carrying out an act of war, we will do so within a system that involves judicial and congressional oversight.  And so, going forward, my administration will work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime so that our efforts are consistent with our values and our Constitution.”

You know what’s ironic?  In his speech, the president blasts the Bush administration for creating an ad hoc legal structure to ligitimize their gross violations of constitutional and international law.  Rachel Maddow tears Obama apart on her MSNBC show:

I’ve said it before.  It’s my opinion that the foreign policy of Obama is not very different from that of Bush’s or McCain’s.  I haven’t really been proven wrong on any significant level yet, but I hope that changes.

It’s interesting though, that democrats are starting to dislike Obama, and republicans already dislike him.  It seems like this ‘bipartisan’ discontent is shining a light on libertarian ideas and the people who represent them.  Maybe that’s why Fox news is considering putting “Freedom watch” on television, and maybe thats why Ron Paul’s HR 1207 bill has well over 150 cosponsors, many of them democrats.

Dear President Obama, please keep making stupid decisions (seriously, how can you talk about Constitutional credibility and indefinite detention of potential criminals, in the same speech?)

Full Story

Open source advocate and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Scott McNealy, has apparently been asked to prepare a paper on the subject of open source software for the new administration.

From McNealy:

“It’s intuitively obvious open source is more cost effective and productive than proprietary software…[t]he government ought to mandate open source products based on open source reference implementations to improve security, get higher quality software, lower costs, higher reliability - all the benefits that come with open software.”

If the Obama administration is considering a move toward using open source software across all departments of government, that would serve as a paradigm for open government, which the president has called for on several occasions.  Exciting news this is.