“Say what you want about Bernie Sanders, but he?is using the Web correctly.? He has a great Web site dedicated to drug price reform.? Here is a comparison between US and Canadian prices on 50 commonly used drugs.? The upshot of a study his team put together is:”
… that the average prices that senior citizens in Vermont must pay are 81% higher than the average prices that Canadian consumers must pay and 112% higher than the average prices that Mexican consumers must pay.
From John Robb
Even as states retreat from participating in a controversial interstate antiterrorism database that holds billions of records of ordinary Americans’ activities, Wisconsin has decided to join the program.
The head of Wisconsin’s division of criminal investigation, James R. Warren, signed on to join the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, or Matrix, on Feb. 11, said Tom Berlinger, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which runs the program.
With access to the Matrix database, Wisconsin law enforcement officials can look up vast amounts of personal information culled from government and commercial databases. The information includes driver’s license pictures, addresses, professional licenses, names of neighbors and relatives, and even domain-name registration filings and hunting licenses.
Officers also get access to information derived from Seisint’s proprietary database, which includes voter rolls, property records, website registrations, civil and criminal court records, phone number directories and financial filings.
From Wired News…..
Learn more about Matrix: Google | Teoma | All the Web | Yahoo Search
Let Governor Doyle, your senators and representatives know how you feel about this initiative. You should also support the EFF.
Lee Sensenbrenner writes:
“The shortfall is caused by costs – mostly tied to staff contracts – that have increased faster than state law allows school districts to tax, officials said. It’s a phenomenon that’s been repeated since 1994, and assistant superintendent Roger Price predicted that the district will face $6 million to $7 million shortfalls every year.”
Great to see this article online; this morning’s Wisconsin State Journal interview with School Board Candidates Shwaw Vang & Sam Johnson is not…. [Ed: it’s 2004, is it not?]
This is a real opportunity for the board & community to start developing alternative sources of revenue – other than the property tax.
Learn more about the April 6, 2004 election & school board candidates here.
Vote!
Wisconsin Senate Bill 477 otherwise known as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, would cut the inflationary spending increase school districts are allowed under state-set revenue limits from $241 per pupil to $120 in the 2004-’05 school year and to $100 in subsequent years.
This article’s premise that spending more money increases quality does not always hold. My brief interactions with candidates, the board and interested observers indicates that state & federal mandates (not always fully funded), services beyond the core educational programs, along with rising administrative costs are driving spending increases.
Wisconsin, like other states, needs to consider additional sources of education dollars. Residents are largely tired of ever growing property taxes. [Editor: how about auto license fees or sales tax changes]
Wisconsin Property Tax Information: Teoma All the Web Yahoo Search Google
I’ve added several items to my site for the April 6, 2004 Madison School Board Election:
This initiative was inspired by Dave Winer, Glenn Reynolds, Doc Searls, Jeff Jarvis, Dan Gillmor, Jay Rosen and many others….
School lunch has been a hot topic for many Madison parents. Chez Panisse founder Alice Waters has another approach….
Alice Waters is taking her message of eating healthfully, organically and locally to middle schoolers in their lunchrooms. If she builds a better sloppy Joe, will they eat it? By PEGGY ORENSTEIN
The Personal Video Recorder (PVR) Tivo has garnered many fans (though it’s far from a runaway winner).
Some bloggers wonder why Tivo has not been a big hit. Doc Searls nails it…
Today’s windy/cold weather makes French Polynesia very tempting…. (Quicktime VR Tours)
(From Quicktime News)
NEW YORK, March 6 (Reuters) – Warren Buffett, the world’s second-richest person, wants to pay more taxes. And he wants the rest of corporate America to pay more too.
In his annual letter [196K PDF] to shareholders of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (nyse: BRKa – news – people) holding company, released on Saturday, the 73-year-old Buffett said Berkshire’s taxes rose more than eleven-fold to $3.3 billion from 1995 to 2003, as profits rose ten-fold to $8.15 billion.
During the same period, federal income taxes paid by all U.S. companies fell by 16 percent, to $132 billion.
“We hope our taxes continue to rise in the future — it will mean we are prospering — but we also hope that the rest of corporate America antes up along with us,” said Buffett, who has previously criticized Bush administration tax policy.
Visit Berkshire Hathaway’s site to view Buffett’s annual letters, from 1977 to 2003…..
Affendy Awalludin shares a very nice Quicktime VR Hot bath in a natural pool scene from Perpignan in the South of France. (650KB)