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Saturday, July 26, 2003 :::

Sports: Strange but True

Today's proof that Americans aren't as obsessed with politics as the media assumes:

When it gets this close to the trading deadline almost everyone is caught up in the frenzy and becomes obsessed with who is getting whom. Even flight attendants can catch the trading bug.

On the Mets flight from Philadelphia to Montreal Tuesday night -- just hours after the Pirates had traded Kenny Lofton, Aramis Ramirez and Scott Sauerbeck -- there was an excited ruckus in the rear of the Mets charter.

One of the flight attendants came down and asked why they were so happy.

"We got Qusay and Uday," Al Leiter exclaimed.

"I'm sorry," the flight attendant responded, "I don't know baseball. Are they any good?"

The players broke up in laughter.

"It was hysterical," Mike Piazza said. "It spread through the plane in a nano-second."

Given the current state of the Mets, two dead ex-tyrants would actually improve the state of New York's bullpen. Heck, if either Qusay or Uday can pitch middle-relief left-handed, they'd be on a Major League roster already.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 9:36 PM | link | donate |

Sports: French Etiquette

Dan Lewis is puzzled by the media's rush to (positive) judgment at the Tour de Lance (er, France):

During this year's Tour de France, Lance Armstrong fell because some "fan" all but assaulted him. Jan Ullrich, Armstrong's #1 challenger, stopped and waited for Lance to remount his bike. Most commentators smiled at this exceptional display of sportsmanship.

But was it right? I'm not so sure. Armstrong was the victim here mainly because he's the leader and perhaps because he dons the red, white, and blue. But the rules are the rules (or, perhaps, the umpires are the rules?).

Imagine if moments after the Jeffrey Meier incident, while the umps are calling it a home run, Joe Torre calls out to Derek Jeter to "fix the injustice." Jeter knows what he means, and on the way around the basepaths, clearly -- and I mean runs across the pitcher's mound -- misses second base.

The reaction, at least in New York, would be of utter disgust. And probably rightfully so. But the reaction from Ullrich's concession is across-the-board positive. Why is that?

The answer to Lewis' query is that professional cycling, like most sports, has it own set of quirky "unwritten rules" that exempt athletes from the normal standards of competition. Baseball is perhaps the most notorious abuser of unwritten rules, such as the notion that a player doesn't steal second if his team is ahead by a certain number of runs, or the moronic practice of both benches emptying whenever a fight breaks out on the field. In this case, Ullrich seems to have heeded the customs of pro cycling's well known caste system, which dictates not showing up the race leader in unusual circumstances.

All the same, it's a good thing this didn't happen in the United States. The minute Ullrich finished the race, FTC lawyers no doubt would've slapped him with an "unfair competition" complaint for failing to compete vigorously.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 9:32 PM | link | donate |

Friday, July 25, 2003 :::

The Culture: NFL Clips Head Lion

While I'm a big fan of NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, he got it wrong on this one:

Detroit Lions president Matt Millen was fined $200,000 by the NFL on Friday for not interviewing any minority candidates before hiring coach Steve Mariucci.

Commissioner Paul Tagliabue sent a letter to Millen informing him of the fine.

After coach Marty Mornhinweg was fired by the Lions in January, Mariucci was the only person interviewed for the job. The team said five minority candidates turned down interviews because it appeared inevitable Mariucci would be hired.

"While certain of the difficulties that you encountered in seeking to schedule interviews with minority candidates were beyond your control, you did not take sufficient steps to satisfy the commitment that you had made,'' Tagliabue wrote.

Tagliabue also has said that future failures to interview minority candidates for a head coaching opening could lead to fines of $500,000 or higher as "conduct detrimental'' to the NFL.

To put this fine in context, three years ago Tagliabue fined Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis $250,000 after he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor obstruction of justice in a double-homicide case. Lewis' fine was an NFL record for a non-drug-offense, and Millen's fine may well be a record for an administrative fine. Yet most of us would not equate Millen's offense against political correctness with Lewis' illegal conduct.

Millen is no racist. His failing here was contacting numerous minority candidates for his coaching vacancy�as required by NFL policy�but then being turned down by these same candidates, who believed Millen had already made up his mind to hire Mariucci. This was likely true, but Millen did follow the letter of the NFL rule. He cannot be held responsible for the decisions of the minority candidates not to return his calls.

The $250,000 fine is also an indirect assault on the integrity of Mariucci, since the size of the fine leads an outside observer to believe there was no rational justification for hiring the coach. In fact, Mariucci was superbly qualified, having been (unjustly) fired by the San Francisco 49ers weeks before Millen decided to fire his own lesser-qualified coach, Marty Mornhinweg. It's also important to note that when Millen took over as Lions' president, it was widely reported that he wanted to lure Mariucci away from the 49ers, and that when that didn't pan out, he hired Mornhinweg, then a top Mariucci assistant. So it came as no great surprise than when Mariucci was finally available, Millen seized the opportunity.

The NFL, for its part, expected Millen to lie about his true intentions�hiring Mariucci on the spot�and parade at least one African-American coaching candidte through the Lions' offices. This does not reflect the NFL's commitment to "diversity," but rather the league's aversion to litigation. Tagliabue & Company are scared of a potential lawsuit from race-mongerers like Johnnie Cochran. Not that such a lawsuit would have merit, but there would be costs imposed, both in legal defense and public relations. It's far easier (and more cowardly) for the NFL to fine Millen now as a sacrifice to the Cochrans of the world.

UPDATE: It just struck me that the Lions play in Michigan (duh!) I guess this means John Dingell will be calling for Matt Millen to leve the state immediately.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 9:47 PM | link | donate |

Antitrust News: Antitrust Chief Says Clear Channel Probe Ongoing

Peter Kaplan of Reuters reports that DOJ antitrust chief Hewitt Pate told a House Judiciary Committee panel that the DOJ is continuing its probes into the largest radio broadcaster and concert promoter in the United States and has "undertaken significant efforts to find additional evidence."

"The Clear Channel matter is one of importance to us," Pate said at an antitrust oversight hearing. "We have an open investigation and we're going to continue to pursue that."

Pate's comments came in response to complaints by Rep. Howard Berman, a Democrat from California, who said attorneys at the department had failed to follow up on antitrust complaints he referred to them more than a year ago.

Antitrust investigations have a vaguely similar tone to the stories one would hear about how informants would operate in the old Communist block. I wonder how the actual thinking of those who request antitrust investigations goes. "I don't like Jones. He's doing to well for himself and I'm not. . . I think that's an antitrust violation. I'll make a call to the DOJ, that will show 'em."

One has to wonder.

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 11:26 AM | link | donate |

Rights and Reason: Lawyers scream about ice cream

The Washington Times reports George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf and and Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest has sent a warnings to six major ice cream producers this week criticizing ice cream's nutritional value and claiming the producers are in violation of the law.

They sent letters to Baskin-Robbins Inc., Ben & Jerry's Homemade Holdings Inc., Cold Stone Creamery, the Haagen-Dazs Shoppes Inc., TCBY and Friendly Ice Cream Corp., telling the chains to add healthier alternatives and put nutritional facts on their store menu boards or face potential litigation.

"Your failure to disclose such obviously material information as unusually large calorie and saturated-fat loads may violate state consumer-protection laws and/or your common-law duty to disclose material facts, and may invite lawsuits from concerned consumers, legal-action organizations, or even state officials," read one letter addressed to Haagen-Dazs President David Keil.

Beyond all the obvious free will implications, what I find amusing about this story is that Banzhaf hasn't directed his wrath toward his employer.

When I was an editor of a GW student newspaper, one of the beats I sent reports on was GW's food services committee, which listens to student requests about the quality and variety of the food the university offers. Students would always complain about menu options, and there even was a big battle over whether the university should offer Pepsi instead of Coca-Cola products.

And as most of us probably remember, either though our own experience or the experience of one of our roommates, a lot of people gain weight in college. Ever hear of the "freshman 15"? GW sells a lot of food that Banzhaf and his cronies would decry as evil. Yet I never heard anything about Banzhaf being a critic of GW food services, and he was a guy who would send me a press release if he had an itch up his nose.

So why no suit then against GW and other institutional food providers? Is that a little too close to home for our university-employed activist lawyer friend? I wonder.

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 10:51 AM | link | donate |

The Culture: All the Propaganda that's Fit to Print

Reuters loves feet of clay, especially if they are American. I remember reading this in a Reuters story earlier this week:

"Jessica Lynch, the wounded Army private whose ordeal in Iraq was hyped into a media fiction of U.S. heroism, was set for an emotional homecoming on Tuesday . . . Media critics say the TV cameras will not show the return of an injured soldier so much as a reality-TV drama co-produced by U.S. government propaganda and credulous reporters."

Thing is, the bylined reporter didn't write that in her story. Deanna Wrenn, a statehouse reporter for the Charleston Daily Mail, says the story she submitted to Reuters was vastly different.

I would like to make it abundantly clear that somebody at Reuters wrote the story, not me.

I may not be a member of the world's largest multi-media news agency, but I learned at West Virginia University how to report fairly, which is what I thought I was doing for Reuters last week.

Apparently, when Reuters asked me last week if they could use my byline, they weren't talking about the story I wrote for them last week. They were talking about a story I never wrote.

That was the misunderstanding.

By the way, I asked Reuters to remove my byline. They didn't.

Read the rest of Wrenn's column which included the story she actually reported to Reuters.

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 1:24 AM | link | donate |

Thursday, July 24, 2003 :::

Antitrust News: Michigan Attorney General Boasts Taxol Reimbursement Program

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox sent out a press release boasting about the settlement in drug manufacturer Bristol-Myers Squibb's antitrust suit.

"Patients who are battling cancer should not have to worry about whether they are paying a fair price for their medication," said Cox.

Attorneys General of 31 states, territories and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in federal district court in the District of Columbia against drug manufacturer Bristol-Myers Squibb Company alleging that Bristol-Myers Squibb fraudulently obtained patents on its cancer drug Taxol in order to delay the marketing of generic alternatives to Taxol. Bristol-Myers Squibb did the courageous thing and settled, and under the Settlement of the lawsuit, the Bristol-Myers Squibb will be required to provide Taxol free of charge to patients meeting certain financial need criteria, and has agreed to a court order that prohibits the type of conduct that the Attorneys General claim resulted in consumer harm.

What a bizarre case. Just how does patent holding become an antitrust violation? And how does providing Taxol free to poor people have anything to do with the question at hand.

Antitrust isn't about justice. It's about press releases from attorneys general seeking to be governors for providing something for nothing.

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 7:57 PM | link | donate |

Antitrust News: Microsoft Corp. Progressing in Settlement

Ted Bridis of the AP reports that U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is pleased with Microsoft's antitrust settlement compliance efforts.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly cautioned the software maker during a court hearing that she will continue to monitor its behavior under the agreement but acknowledged that Microsoft "most certainly has been responsive in many areas, and progress has been made." She set another court hearing for October.

"I am going to watch closely," the judge said.

[. . .]Kollar-Kotelly urged government lawyers to tell her if they believe Microsoft fails to comply with sanctions under the settlement. A Microsoft lawyer, Rick Rule, told the judge that the company has spent "an enormous commitment of resources" to abide by the agreement and that top executives believe compliance "is an important corporate goal."

I wonder how much of a "commitment of resources" it would take to secure the repeal of antitrust. I understand that Microsoft wants to put this case behind it, but speaking from a dollars and cents view, what strategy would have paid off the best for Microsoft--seek the abolition of antitrust, or pay rent to competitors?

I wager it would have paid for Microsoft to push for repeal. Long term, if Microsoft is successful, antitrust will continue to weigh heavily upon it. You just can't "put behind" legalized looting, no matter how good you are.

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 7:37 PM | link | donate |

Wednesday, July 23, 2003 :::

Antitrust News: More Hearings

The House Judiciary Committee's "Task Force on Antitrust" will hear testimony Thursday at 2 p.m. from DOJ antitrust chief Hewitt Pate and FTC Chairman Timothy Muris. I'm loathe to call this an oversight hearing, since Congress generally provides no oversight of either antitrust agency's activities. Indeed, a stated purpose of this hearing is to discuss the new regulations governing telecommunications mergers, which is odd since the agency that adopted those rules�the FCC�is not represented at this hearing.

Incidentally, I've seen reports that the Senate Judiciary Committee's chief counsel is leaving his present post to take a deputy's position at the DOJ's antitrust division. Yet more proof that Congress has no genuine interest in examining abuses by antitrust regulators.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 11:56 PM | link | donate |

The Culture: Funding Volunteerism

AmeriCorps wants more money to, er, fund volunteerism:

Supporters of AmeriCorps yesterday pleaded with Congress to provide the beleaguered program with an extra $100 million this year after House appropriators rejected a proposal to do so Monday.

The talk among lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, however, was that AmeriCorps will end up getting some of the extra money.

"That's what I hear," said Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, who sits on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees AmeriCorps. "I hear the White House is going to weigh in and put back some of the money."

You may be wondering why the government needs money to fund volunteers. Under AmeriCorps, a creation of the Clinton administration, one doesn't volunteer for altruistic reasons so much as for money down-the-road. Specifically, an AmeriCorps "volunteer" receives a stipend at the end of their service to be used for education. In other words, AmeriCorps is a glorified scholarship program, and the participants are as much "volunteers" as college football players are amateur "student-athletes."

What gets me about AmeriCorps is not the fact the government is paying people to volunteer, but the fact that people would actually "volunteer" for AmeriCorps programs. It seems morally contradictory. On the one hand, you're preaching to others on the value of "giving back to the community" and so forth, while your real motive is getting the stipend at the end. After all, if you just wanted to volunteer for the sake of volunteering, there are plenty of opportunities to do so without going through a government intermediary.

Then you have the spectacle of charity groups lining up to demand AmeriCorps "volunteers." This completely distorts the marketplace for charitable services. After all, CAC could definitely use some volunteers to assist in our work, but since we're not plugged in to AmeriCorps, we don't enjoy the benefit of obtaining government-recruited and paid "volunteers." We have to persuade people the old-fashioned way to join our cause. Doesn't seem quite fair to me.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 2:48 PM | link | donate |

Rights & Reason: Lawrence on Obscenity

In the aftermath of Lawrence v. Texas, a lawyer has asked an Ohio judge to strike down that state's prohibition on "pandering obscenity". The lawyer's client, Shawn Jenkins, was arrested in 2001 for selling a sexually explicit videotape at his Cincinnatti store:

"Practically all choices made by consenting adults regarding their own sexual practices [are] a matter of personal liberty and thus beyond the reach of state control," H. Louis Sirkin told Common Pleas Judge Richard A. Niehaus in Cincinnati in presenting his view of the Supreme Court's 6-3 June decision in Lawrence v. Texas.

Judge Niehaus reserved decision on Mr. Sirkin's 15-page motion and allowed the trial of Shawn Jenkins of Cincinnati to enter a second day yesterday.

The prosecutor, not surprisingly, takes a different view:

"It's our position that [the ruling] doesn't apply to the seller in obscenity prosecutions," Mr. Allen said. Mr. Jenkins, he said, runs a store that sells videos and is not a purchaser viewing them at home.

"I can't remember the last time in this county a person was prosecuted for owning an obscene videotape. It's the person who's selling or distributing, or pandering, if you will." This suggests that Mr. Sirkin is distorting the sodomy ruling.

This is an interesting admission: It's illegal to sell obscenity, but not to possess it. What other type of commercial item is this reasoning applied to? Prohibition generally applies equally to the producer and consumer, as is the case with narcotics. And if it is acceptable to possess obscenity, why is the consumer not entitled to take the necessary steps to obtain it? A right is meaningless if it's legally impossible to exercise.

Finally, the standard in Ohio for judging guilt under the obscenity law is whether the questioned material "violates community standards of decency," a standard that is wholly within the jury's discretion to decide. In other words, whether a seller breaks the law comes down to the particular tolerance levels of 12 randomly chosen jurors. This is hardly objective law, and it is unreasonable to expect the jury to carry out a vague (and selectively enforced) government mandate.

Now as to the question of whether Lawrence affects the Ohio law, I'm forced to partially agree with prosecutors because there's nothing in Justice Kennedy's majority opinion that leads me to believe the Supreme Court amended its holdings on pornography regulation in the context of strking down the Texas sodomy ban. The conduct questioned in Lawrence was private, non-commercial conduct; here the question deals with the scope of Ohio's power to regulate commercial transactions. While I believe the Ohio ban is almost certainly unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds (and probably Fourteenth Amendment due process grounds as well), Lawrence does nothing to affect disposition of the Jenkins case one way or the other.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 2:38 PM | link | donate |

Antitrust News: European Aggression

A priority of U.S. antitrust chiefs Hewitt Pate and Timothy Muris is to expand antitrust's international reach to make their thinking the worldwide standard. For once, Europe is obliging U.S. demands:

July 23 (Bloomberg) -- The European Commission's handling of mergers hasn't been ``too tough,'' even after vetoing deals worth more than $200 billion in four years, the commission's newly appointed chief competition economist said in an interview.

Berlin university professor Lars-Hendrik Roeller, who takes up the newly created post Sept. 1, also cast doubt on cost savings claimed by companies to justify mergers and said a greater voice should be given to consumers.

``You can't say that European competition authorities have been too tough,'' Roeller said in a televised interview with Bloomberg News in Berlin. ``It's less a matter of changing course than of using economic arguments to underpin decisions in individual cases.''

Competition Commissioner Mario Monti created the post as part of an antitrust revamp amid criticism that the European Union's regulatory arm abused its powers in vetoing mergers including General Electric Co.'s $47 billion bid for Honeywell International Inc., the first time the EU killed a U.S.-approved takeover.

Roeller's appointment comes amid a pickup in merger activity worldwide, including aluminum producer Alcan Inc.'s hostile 3.4 billion-euro ($3.9 billion) bid for Pechiney SA -- an attempt to revive a takeover that regulators scuttled in 2000.

It's telling that the EU's response to being charged with abuse of power is to take a position that will encourage greater abuse of power in the future. Only now the EU will hide behind the time-tested U.S. excuse that "we're only violating the rights of companies to 'protect' the consumer." It's also noteworthy that the EU named a professor�a member of Europe's leftist elite�to decide what business practices are acceptable under the antitrust laws. This also mirrors current U.S. thinking, where President Bush named Muris, a George Mason University professor, to head the FTC. There is an unwritten rule that individuals with actual business experience should never assume regulatory positions over business, at least in antitrust.

Roeller's appointment is designed to full people into thinking that decisions will now be made by professional economists rather than trial lawyers. The Muris FTC uses this tactic to great advantage, claiming that every antitrust decision is motivated by "empirical" economic evidence and not political concerns. This is never true, since antitrust only exists for political purposes, and no rational free-market economist could support such policies.

Indeed, the EU's new antitrust economist will focus on a decidedly political goal�forcing "efficiencies" on the market:

Nevertheless, Roeller said the acceptance by the commission of the need to assess so-called ``efficiencies'' in mergers brings the EU merger-review model closer to the U.S.

``The job of the new chief economist is to make this concrete,'' said Roeller. ``The goal of the reform is to focus more on efficiency gains.''

Roeller wants to see a greater focus on consumers when assessing mergers. That's in line with Monti's plans to give special access to consumer groups to antitrust reviews.

``We're not setting policy for companies, we're setting it for consumers,'' he said. ``Mergers only make sense if the consumer benefits, and that only occurs if there are synergies.''

In order to facilitate implementation of new rules governing agreements between companies that fall short of full mergers, the commission will later today issue six new guidelines on economic analysis, the scope of application of the rules and relations with other regulatory bodies.

The commission is also planning to make it easier for consumers to lodge complaints and provide information on suspected cartels. The commission will then have 40 days to inform the complainant of its decision and decide whether to open an investigation.

Once again, this is a case of Europe following the U.S. lead into greater socialism, an unusual twist. Antitrust is certainly consistent with the European belief that individual rights is a convenience subject to the social needs of the state. What's remarkable is that Americans allowed this belief to seep into their culture, even when the FTC and Justice Department openly abuse power in pursuit of "consumer rights."

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 10:41 AM | link | donate |

Foreign Policy: America Versus Americans

Andrew Sullivan makes the following observation:

The more I read emails or talk to anti-war types, I get a sense that 9/11 never really happened. Or if it happened, it meant nothing more than a discrete crime with discrete criminals who alone deserved justice. The notion that it meant that we were and are actually at war with a series of terrorist entities and the tyrannies that support them never truly took hold on the far left (or right). As the months have passed, their complacency and denial have undoubtedly metastasized among others as 9/11 recedes from our collective consciousness and its emotional wound begins to heal. These people, it's worth remembering, believe that the exercise of American military power is almost always more morally problematic than any foreign tyranny or even a serious security threat to the homeland.

Sounds a lot like Leonard Peikoff at his Ford Hall Forum lecture this spring. Except Peikoff levied his charge against most of America.

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 5:41 AM | link | donate |

Tuesday, July 22, 2003 :::

Rights and Reason: We don't want your kind around here

This in from Erin O'Connor at Critical Mass. In a letter dated July, 9th, Michigan Congressman John Dingell has told Ward Connerly, University of California Regent and black anti-affirmative action activist, that he is not welcome in Michigan.

Here is the text of the letter:

Congress of the United States
House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515-2215
July 9, 2003

Mr. Ward Connerly
American Civil Rights Coalition
P.O. Box 188350
Sacramento, CA 95818

Mr. Connerly:

The people of Michigan have a simple message to you: go home and stay there. We do not need you stirring up trouble where none exists.

Michiganders do not take kindly to your ignorant meddling in our affairs. We have no need for itinerant publicity seekers, non-resident troublemakers or self-aggrandizing out-of-state agitators. You have created enough mischief in your own state to last a lifetime.

We reject your �black vs. white� politics that were long ago discarded to the ash heap of history. Your brand of divisive racial politics has no place in Michigan, or in our society. So Mr. Connerly, take your message of hate and fear, division and destruction and leave. Go home and stay there, you�re not welcome here.

With every good wish,

Sincerely yours,

S/

John D. Dingell
Member of Congress

Creepy. Dingell even has the audacity to post the letter on his website. (PDF). Dingell's letterhead has a statement at the bottom saying that his letter was "prepared, published, and mailed at taxpayer expense." I'm sure the taxpayers appreciate that vague threats are being issued on their dime.

While it is commonly held that affirmative action promotes racial diversity, it's plain to see that one of its leading proponents cares little for intellectual diversity.

UPDATE: Here's Ward Connerly's reply

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 6:42 PM | link | donate |

Rights and Reason: Music Industry Wins Approval of Subpoenas

Ted Bridis of the AP reports on the Recording Industry Association of America's efforts to defend against online music piracy.

The music industry has issued at least 871 federal subpoenas against computer users this month suspected of illegally sharing music files on the Internet, with roughly 75 new subpoenas being approved each day, U.S. court officials said Friday.

The effort represents early steps in the music industry's contentious plan to file civil lawsuits aimed at crippling online piracy.

I've heard some people argue that the RIAA's efforts are heavy handed. I don't think so. Part of preserving a property right is the willingness to protect that right from encroachment. The threat against RIAA's members is real. It's high time those who steal be held accountable for their actions.

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 11:58 AM | link | donate |

Monday, July 21, 2003 :::

The Culture: More NCAA Lies

The Bowl Championship Series appears satisfied with the status quo:

Forget about a college football playoff for now.

The committee overseeing changes to the Bowl Championship Series won't consider using a tournament to determine the national champion despite pleas to open up the postseason to more schools.

The BCS Presidential Oversight Committee on Monday directed the six conference commissioners to come up with proposals for changing the BCS without a playoff.

"I'm skeptical a national champion could be determined in a playoff without infringing on a student athlete's welfare," said Penn State president Graham Spanier, a member of the committee.

Spanier's argument is either ignorant or dishonest. The non-revenue football divisions of the NCAA (there are three) all conduct playoffs without any proven adverse effects on the "student-athletes." This arugment was discredited long ago, yet NCAA apologists continue to use it in the vain hope the non-college-administrator world will spontaneously deny logic.

At the same time, a major-college football playoff is a bad idea under the current system. Such a playoff would only stregnthen the NCAA and its morally corrupt principle of "amateurism." As I've said before, the football schools need to take their programs out of the NCAA entirely and form a new for-profit entity that treats the players like the professionals they are. Anything short of that would be capitulation to the NCAA and its feudal masters.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 9:49 PM | link | donate |

Antitrust News: "Prestige" Price-Fixing

In a victory for middle- and upper-class women, numerous defendants settled a lawsuit alleging price-fixing in the brand-name cosmetics industry:

Estee Lauder, maker of Clinique and Bobbi Brown cosmetics, said it and 13 other companies including Chanel and retailers including Federated and Neiman Marcus agreed to settle a price-fixing lawsuit.
In the settlement, the defendants agreed to provide $175 million in free products to some cosmetics users and as much as $24 million for the plaintiffs' legal costs, Estee Lauder said.

Estee Lauder's portion was $13.5 million, or 6 cents a share, the company said in a regulatory filing.

A source close to one defendant said the free give-away to consumers will take place at retail stores.

Plaintiffs' lawyers filed suit based on their claim that department stores did not vigorously compete in the price of what "prestige" cosmetics. The lawyers inferred price-fixing based on the fact almost all stores charged the same for designer cosmetics. A more rational reading of the market, however, is that brand-name cosmetics are a luxury item with constant demand, making price stability more common than for basic commodities. There are no major legal barriers to entry in the cosmetics market, and plenty of "generics" available to willing consumers. In this case, however, you have privileged customers seeking special treatment via the courts. They want the benefits of "prestige" cosmetics without having to pay the market price.

And note the $24 million in "legal costs" included in this settlement. As usual, the trial bar is the only true beneficiary of antitrust and "competition" laws.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 9:38 PM | link | donate |

Congress: More Hearings

On Wednesday the Senate's Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee will hold a hearing on "public interest and localism." What does that mean? According to the Committee's description, "Members will hear testimony on the public interest obligations of local broadcasters and the role of broadcasters in the delivery of local news and public affairs programming." In other words, we're in for another round of senators telling broadcasters what they should and should not be airing. I'm so glad the Framers put that First Amendment in the Constitution. Imagine what these hearings would look like without even the facade of protecting the individual right to free speech.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 10:05 AM | link | donate |

Rights & Reason: Class(room) Warfare

Nothing California's political elite thinks up should surprise us, yet this managed to catch me off-guard:

California's premier university system is considering charging rich students more tuition to offset deep funding cuts resulting from the state's $38 billion budget deficit.

The Board of Regents of the University of California examined a proposal for a surcharge on wealthy students at a meeting Thursday. The university would be the first in the country to target wealthy students with a surcharge.

The proposed fee would force undergraduate students with family incomes exceeding $90,000 to pay as much as $3,000 more to attend one of the university's nine campuses. It is expected to affect 58,194 of the university's 160,000 undergraduate students.

This is yet another byproduct of endorsing "diversity" as a compelling state interest. The supporters of this "surcharge"�in reality, a tax�claim that the state must ensure access to UC for poorer families. This in turn justifies ignoring the federal constitutional rights of wealthier families to be free of arbitrary and harmful government classifications. For those of you unschooled in constitutional niceties�which I take includes anyone at UC�the surcharge proposal runs afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause as well as the Privileges and Immunities Clause of that same amendment.

Even from a "diversity" standpoint, this is bad policy. After all, does UC really want to teach students the best way for different groups of people to get along is for one group to openly steal from another? Okay, maybe that is a message the school wants to send, but they shouldn't be allowed to do it under color of government power.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 9:48 AM | link | donate |

Sunday, July 20, 2003 :::

Antitrust News: BCS Politics

This was inevitable:

U.S. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner says he will schedule a congressional hearing to explore the application of antitrust laws to college sports, including the role of the Bowl Championship Series.

The Wisconsin Republican is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. A committee spokesman said Friday that Sensenbrenner will hold a hearing after the August congressional recess.

Sensenbrenner also has the support of U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the committee. In a letter to Sensenbrenner, Conyers said he wanted an investigation into the Bowl Championship Series, and "recent actions by the Atlantic Coast Conference inducing the University of Miami and Virginia Tech to depart the Big East.

Conyers said that, since the founding of the BCS in 1998, "the vast majority of the proceeds and power has been concentrated among 63 schools in six major conferences. Indeed, in the 2002-`03 season, only $5 million of a total BCS revenue of $109 million went to non-BCS colleges.

"This aggregation of power would appear to create a system that favors BCS schools in the six major conferences and largely eliminates the opportunity for other universities to participate in major post-season bowl games and the lucrative pay-out packages . . ."

Conyers added in his letter that the system has left some non-BCS schools with deficits and lower athletic budgets.

"There are also concerns that the disparities created in allocating sports revenues can have a significant, negative impact on Title IX opportunities in college athletics," he said.

Since there is no legislative proposal before Congress on this issue, the Judiciary committee hearing will be nothing more than a political opportunity for whim-worshipping congressmen to join the national sports media's attacks on University of Miami President Donna Shalala and ACC officials. The hearing will not produce anything of substance, since the antitrust laws would have done nothing to prevent or improve the Big East-ACC dispute. Antitrust would only create an additional layer of bureaucracy--the antitrust lawyers--to second-guess the decisions of college administrators. No doubt members of Congress and the media would like this additional bureaucracy, since it would provide an opportunity to impose their will upon college athletics. That does not, however, make it sound public policy.

And as I've noted before, Miami had every contractual right to jump ship from the Big East. This entire public fiasco could have been avoided if Big East members insisted on a stronger exit clause in their organization's constitution. It has always been understood in college sports that a school can switch conferences at-will in the absence of express language in the conference's governing documents. The Big East, however, wants the media (and the courts) to exempt the conference from upholding its contractual duties.

Finally, Rep. Conyers' invocation of Title IX is a red herring. In fact, both the creation of the BCS and Miami's move to the ACC were largely predicated on the need for more revenue to meet existing Title IX requirements. So if anything, Title IX is a cause of the current mess in college football, not a victim.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 8:48 PM | link | donate |

The Good Life: Aviation Pioneers Gather for Hall Event

James Hannah of the AP quotes actor Harrison Ford who was master of ceremonies at this weekend's National Aviation Hall of Fame homecoming.

"The freedoms that have accrued to mankind, the adventure that has unfolded based on the capacity that powered flight has provided is a very significant event, not just for aviators, but for our civilization, for the planet," Ford told the Dayton Daily News.

Yes, indeed.

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 11:19 AM | link | donate |

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