The only significant statistic, for purposes of this discussion, is how many work-related infections are occurring in the industry. Unfortunately, Tracy's post gives no indication as to whether or not the 16 previously undisclosed cases recently revealed were work-related.

Assuming that they weren't, the implications of these 16 new cases would be confined to the individuals themselves, and would not constitute a reflection on the safety of porn industry work in general. It may be taken as an indication of the behavioral patterns of porn workers, but the fact is that, statistically speaking, that is something separate and separable from the safety of the work itself.

Roosevelt was a deficit hawk. He balanced the budget every year, up until America's entry into World War II.

Hoover, by contrast, ran up quite big deficits. One of Roosevelt's main critiques of him in 1932 had to do with just that.

You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts.

Andrew, didn't you learn anything from the 90's, when Bill Clinton got the deficit under control and created one of the biggest economic booms in recent memory? I think it is that, and not Republican talking points, that is fresh in everyone's mind.

Just checked Wikipedia. OK. I am willing to admit when I am wrong. According to what I read, he did balance the "regular" budget, but the "emergency" budget was financed through debt. It appears that, after rising quite rapidly under Hoover, the deficit held largely steady under Roosevelt until WWII. However, there was, in fact, a deficit. Thus, I was mistaken. Mea culpa.

I believe the State of Oregon has a health plan that is, or at least can be, Milton Friedman friendly. The way it works, if I recall correctly, is the Governor compiles a list that ranks and prioritized all medical procedures, and an annual pricetag for each of the procedures on the list. The Legislature then allocates a certain amount of money to healthcare, and that lump sum is applied to the Governor's list. Whatever that lump sum covers is then covered by the state for the next budget cycle. Everything else is either paid for out of pocket or covered by private plans.

Back in the 90s - when I was in college - the plan was pretty much hailed as a success. Not sure if public opinion has shifted since then.

Two words: term limits. These horrible, anti-democratic laws not only require California to systematically purge its government of all its institutional wisdom and experience every 8 years or so, but they have also destroyed the networks of trust and friendship that any organization needs to reach compromise and move forward. Thanks to them, California has consigned itself to be governed by just the kind of amateurish warring factions that never can, and never could, make the concessions necessary to get anything done. Our legislators don't know each other, don't care about each other, and have no incentive to look out for each other in the brief time that they are allotted to make their mark - which, of course, is every politician's first priority. Prop 13 may have put some difficult limits on government, but it was term limits that made it impossible for California to accomodate those limits and make ends meet.

Government by amateurs - that's what term limits amounts to. And every state that has enacted them can look forward to a fate similar to ours.

....and I am saying it again, because Gary Kamiya didn't even mention it in his essay:

Term limits is what caused this mess. Its because of them that we are being governed by a bunch of amateurs who don't have anything but their own self-interested ambition to consider.

About 25 years ago, the city of Los Angeles approved plans to build an extensive, citywide public transportation systems. The backbone of this plan was a subway line down Wilshire, off of which other subway lines would branch - including a branch that would have gone under the mountains and into the San Fernando Valley. Had it come to fruition, Los Angelenos could have been riding the subway to work for the past 20 years, instead of spending 45 minutes to drive nine miles every morning.

Henry Waxman was the roadblock. He is the one who enacted a federal law to prevent this from happening. It is because of him that our public transportation system is still a joke, and we consistently have some of the worst traffic in the country. Whatever else he may have done regarding global warming, one must also take this into account. However much CO2 a subway could have saved the city of Los Angeles over the past 20 years should be properly attributed to him.

The explosion happened not during subway excavation, It happened during basement excavation at a Ross Dress-For-Less on Wilshire. Tunnelling hadn't even begun when it happened.

The presence of natural gas was not something that construction workers were unfamiliar with in the mid 80s, and there were precautions and routine procedures at the time to deal with it. It needn't, and shouldn't, have stopped the project. The explosion wasn't the real reason Waxman so zealously opposed the subway. It was just the handy excuse he used to hide the fact that he was, as you said, caving in to the less noble demands of his constituents.