Big, Shocking Weekend Stories!!!!

Or not.....


1. Increased Government regulation of the medical insurance industry is going to pass. For many, this is going to be either cause for mass celebration or for wailing and gnashing of teeth. For me, it's more the signal that the 2010 November election season has officially started. IF this legislation fails and doesn't lower prices while adding to the deficit then the public will vote out those responsible and will vote in the opposite party to fix the mess. If it does work, then you can expect even more regulation (and an eventual government takeover of health insurance) to be in the offing. Either way expect it to be more sound than fury as the private sector will move faster than the government can legislate. (See: Credit Card reform for more.)


2. Mayor Parker has released her Metro Board appointees. The name creating the most buzz in the blogosphere is Christof Spieler, local blogger, member of the Citizen's Transportation Coalition and (most importantly) "Smart Growth" proponent. I would have liked to see Tory Gattis added to the board in order to bring a different perspective, but Parker's mandate is to get those LRT lines built and Tory would not have been a strong proponent of that. The interesting thing to see is whether or not this new board (and the new CEO they hire) will be anxious to continue putting social engineering above mobility needs and will continue to champion at-grade rail as a means to combat urban sprawl.


3. Another Heights arson this weekend. Officials hoped that the arrest in September, and conviction in February of a 30 year-old male would bring a stop to these fires. So far the prevailing idea has been that transients are causing the fires, I wonder if it's not something else?


4. The Conservationists join the debate. Pollution control, and not stopping climate change, should have been the driving force on our public policy debate for a while now. Instead we've been ran down the rabbit hole of enriching Al Gore's investors and continuing funding scientists based on studies and factually challenged movies made by the very people who have the most to lose. Let's CLEAN the environment not try and change it's natural temperature cycles.