Reuters:

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Using a new tracking tool, search engine giant Google said on Wednesday it saw a spike in searches for information about flu among people in Mexico last week even before news of the outbreak became widely known.

Google said it has put together a flu trends tracking system for Mexico based on the U.S. Google Flu tool launched last fall that is used by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to figure out where influenza is heating up.

It is based on Google’s observation that people who are sick with flu tend to search for the same types of information on the Internet, and these searches can be used to predict where an outbreak may be occurring.

“We have seen evidence in Mexico that Google users also search flu-related topics when they are experiencing flu-related symptoms,” Jeremy Ginsberg, lead engineer for Flu Trends at Google, said in a telephone briefing.

The Star:

Rep. Jerry Moran, who’s running for the Republican nomination for an open Senate seat next year, wants the Legislature to override the veto of a bill to build two coal-fired power plants.

Former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius vetoed the bill last month. It was the latest of several moves by her to thwart construction of the plants near Holcomb

Here’s what Moran said:

“I am deeply disappointed the governor vetoed legislation that would have authorized a facility that proposed to use cutting edge technology to reduce carbon emissions and would have been one of the most environmentally sound and efficient coal-fired plants in the country.

Prime Buzz:

Rep. Kevin Yoder, an Overland Park Republican and House Appropriations chair, said he tired of Sebelius’ my-way-or-the-highway attitude.

“She never excelled at reaching out and working for true compromise and solutions,” Yoder said. “It got worse as time went on.”

Even though he heads the committee that distributes the money, and even though the budget was job one in Topeka this year, Yoder never once met with the governor.

He has met several times with Parkinson.

House Speaker Mike O’Neal wasn’t naming names last week, but he appeared to be talking about Sebelius when he said he would rather butt heads with Parkinson than some past governors.

“Even when we disagree we can disagree without being disagreeable,” the Hutchinson Republican said. “That’s key and hasn’t always been the case.”

Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, an Independence Republican, was only slightly more forgiving, noting how difficult it was for Sebelius to be engaged in recent months as her nomination proceeded. “It was a distraction,” he said.

Kansas Liberty:

The University of Kansas made a Chronicle of Higher Education’s top ten list - but not in a way that most taxpayers would appreciate.

The Chronicle’s list is of “four-year institutions that have expanded the number of administrative and support positions the most relative to enrollment over the past decade.”

CW:

April 30, 2009 (Network World) There’s a lot of talk these days of the “Internet as public utility.” In fact, if you parse the language of the stimulus package, you definitely pick up that perspective as part of the motivation for investing US$7.2 billion in Internet infrastructure.

A couple years ago, I had a discussion with a friend, one of the few real experts in Internet traffic, who described the Internet as a public utility rather like public transportation systems — such as the New York City subway. The implication was that governments do a good job running subways — so why not the Internet?

NRO:

Maybe. According to USA Today, in the first three months of 2009, federal payouts have become the biggest source of revenue for states.

The sales tax had been the No. 1 source of state and local revenue since the mid-1970s, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Before that, property taxes were the primary source. That changed in the first three months of 2009.

Federal grants - early stimulus money plus conventional federal aid - soared 15% in the first quarter to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $437 billion, eclipsing sales taxes, which fell 2%.

The dominance of federal money is set to expand dramatically this year because tax collections are sinking while the bulk of federal stimulus aid is just starting to arrive. “This money isn’t manna from heaven. It comes with a price,” says Indiana state Sen. Jim Buck, a Republican. He worries that the federal money will leave states under greater federal control and burden future generations with debt.

Read the whole thing here.

USA Today:

WASHINGTON - Although President Obama has vowed that citizens will be able to track “every dime” of the $787 billion stimulus bill, a government website dedicated to the spending won’t have details on contracts and grants until October and may not be complete until next spring - halfway through the program, administration officials said.

Recovery.gov now lists programs being funded by the stimulus money, but provides no details on who received the grants and contracts. Agencies won’t report that data until Oct. 10, according to Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which manages the website.

Rasmussen:

Just 18% of Americans think the United Auto Workers union and the federal government will do a good job running Chrysler and General Motors, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Forty-seven percent (47%) believe the union and the government will do a bad job, while 35% are not sure.

Forty-six percent (46%) of adults now say it is at least somewhat likely that Chrysler and General Motors will become profitable again with the UAW and the government in charge. A week ago, before the new ownership arrangements were known, 54% of Americans said it was at least somewhat likely that Chrysler could again achieve profitability.

However, while 46% say profitability for the struggling auto firms is possible, only 14% say that positive outcome is Very Likely.

Politico:

Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels is urging Republican leaders in Washington to stop “whining” in order to mount a serious opposition to President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats.

“I hear Republicans whining about, you know, the Democrats not being bipartisan. You know, ‘We weren’t included in this, we weren’t at the table in that.’ Well, get over it, that’s the way those folks are,” Daniels said in an interview that ran Saturday in National Journal. “To me there’s not a lot of upside in whining.”

Daniels said Republican leaders have behaved “erratically” since the beginning of the Obama administration, frequently offering “process arguments” rather than competing policy prescriptions.

“What they should say instead is, ‘Well, here’s the way we would spread health insurance and not ration care and not take away your freedom in the process. If they’d let us in the room, this is what we’d suggest,’” Daniels said.

The Scorecard:

The latest Granite State poll contains good news for New Hampshire Republicans - and concerning results for Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.).

The poll found that Shea-Porter’s favorability rating is only at 38 percent, with 37 percent of likely voters viewing her unfavorably. That net favorability rating is the lowest it has been since the summer of 2008.

Manchester mayor Frank Guinta has filed paperwork to run against Shea-Porter, and Republicans view him as one of their leading recruits so far this election cycle.

Guinta is still largely unknown throughout the district, but has a high approval among those who are familiar with him. Guinta is viewed favorably by 30 percent of respondents, while only eight percent view him unfavorably. And 63 percent of districtwide voters are neutral or don’t know enough about him.

The poll also shows former GOP senator John Sununu leading Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.) in a hypothetical Senate matchup by five points, 46 to 41 percent. Sununu has not indicated he’s interested in running, but would have first dibs on the race if he wanted to re-enter the political arena.

Club for Growth:

Club for Growth Welcomes Rubio Announcement

Washington - Former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio officially threw his hat into Florida’s open-seat Senate race today.

Rubio, a young Cuban-American, highlighted his conservative record in a recent interview with the Club for Growth - including efforts to overhaul Florida’s tax system, reduce property taxes, and decrease the size of government.

“His fiscally responsible, pro- growth approach in the State Capitol stands in stark contrast with other elements of the state government, led by Charlie Crist” said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola.

Governor Charlie Crist, also a potential Republican Senate candidate, has come under fire recently for supporting President Obama’s reckless stimulus package.

“America faces the prospect of unsustainable spending under President Obama, making it all the more important to support candidates who will reduce the debt and lower the tax burden,” said Chocola. “Speaker Rubio’s announcement is good news for Florida’s families and businesses, and I welcome his entry in the race.”

Jon Henke at The Next Right:

Kudos to Senator DeMint (and his bipartisan co-signers) for getting the Senate to begin publishing votes in the more accessible XML format.  A simple thing to do, sure, and yet it really did take pressure from US Senators to make it happen.

As John Wonderlich writes, “This is what transparency reform looks like. Complicated, messy, confusing, often bipartisan, often initially unsuccessful, and helpfully spurred on through public involvement. If this case serves as any example at all, we should be very encouraged about future efforts.”

Ben Cunningham:

Link

Highly sensitive details of a US military missile air defence system were found on a second-hand hard drive bought on eBay.

The test launch procedures were found on a hard disk for the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) ground to air missile defence system, used to shoot down Scud missiles in Iraq.

The disk also contained security policies, blueprints of facilities and personal information on employees including social security numbers, belonging to technology company Lockheed Martin - who designed and built the system.

Alt at Bench Memos:

You’ve heard it said too many times to mention from the Left and the Right that elections have consequences, and that this has particular relevance with regard to the president’s prerogative in picking judges. Getting beyond that mere aphorism, however, these consequential presidential prerogatives are not unbounded by political realities. President Bush, for example, made selecting judges in the mold of Justices Scalia and Thomas a major feature of his campaign. This bore political fruit both in terms of politically energizing those concerned with the direction of the Court and similarly in terms of promoting midterm Republican gains in Congress. This shouldn’t be surprising given that polling suggests that the constitutionalist conservative vision for the courts resonates with the general public much more than the freewheeling liberal vision. For example, a November 2008 nationwide survey of actual voters conducted by the polling company for the Federalist Society found that 70% want judges who “will interpret and apply the law as it is written and not take into account their own viewpoints and experiences” over judges who “will go beyond interpreting and applying the law as written and take into account their own viewpoints and experiences.”

Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China’s build-up of sea and air military power funded by a strong economy appears aimed at the United States, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Monday.

Admiral Michael Mullen said China had the right to meet its security needs, but the build-up would require the United States to work with its Pacific allies to respond to increasing Chinese military capabilities.

“They are developing capabilities that are very maritime focused, maritime and air focused, and in many ways, very much focused on us,” he told a conference of the Navy League, a nonprofit seamen’s support group, in Washington.

“They seem very focused on the United States Navy and our bases that are in that part of the world.”

China in March unveiled its official military budget for 2009 of $70.24 billion, the latest in nearly two decades of double-digit rises in declared defense spending.

Sacbee.com:

As California struggles to find cash, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday it’s time to study whether to legalize and tax marijuana for recreational use.

The Republican governor did not support legalization - and the federal government still bans marijuana use - but advocates hailed the fact that Schwarzenegger endorsed studying a once-taboo political subject.

“Well, I think it’s not time for (legalization), but I think it’s time for a debate,” Schwarzenegger said. “I think all of those ideas of creating extra revenues, I’m always for an open debate on it. And I think we ought to study very carefully what other countries are doing that have legalized marijuana and other drugs, what effect did it have on those countries?”

AFP:

NATO kicked off controversial military exercises in ex-Soviet Georgia on Wednesday as tensions spiked in relations with neighbouring Russia over Moscow’s expulsion of two alliance diplomats.

Launched a day after Georgia accused Russia of backing a brief military mutiny that allegedly included a plot to assassinate President Mikheil Saakashvili, the exercises have strained ties between the Cold War-era rivals.

Mike Hendricks evidently is an Al Gore loyalist and considers the use of fossil fuels to be a “conservative” issue:

After caving on the coal plant issue, Kansas’ new governor, Mark Parkinson, promises even more surprises in the days ahead.

Boy howdy! Can hardly wait to see what’s coming!

Evolution back up for debate? Don’t tell me: Phill Kline is getting a Cabinet post?

Going too far? Suppose you’re right. But if those surprises are anything like Monday’s reversal of the Sebelius administration’s two-year blockade of the Western Kansas power plants, then we’re in for one heckuva sellout.

Principles drastically reduced!

Political backbone, half off!

And here I used to deride Republican Bill Graves as Governor Get-Along for being overly willing to bend to the conservatives in his party.

This Parkinson guy, himself a former moderate Republican, could be even more of a noodle. Within days of taking over for fellow Democrat Kathleen Sebelius, he signals the GOP that he’s only too happy to turn over the governor’s mansion two years ahead of schedule.

“Today, Kansas took a big step backwards,” the Sierra Club said after Parkinson announced that he’d approved one coal plant rather than two.

Link:

Regardless, the two Republicans who have already announced they’re running for governor say they’re not budging from the race.

Watts, a former Oklahoma congressman, said he has been talking with Republicans from across the state, and “I think Republicans are not satisfied with the (gubernatorial) choices.”

“I’ve obviously been encouraged to take a look at it by … a lot of my supporters and a lot of donors,” said Watts, who still is planning to launch a television news network targeted at a black audience. “It’s a lot to think about.”

LA Times:

Although it has been widely - and wildly - speculated that the show’s producers would use this season’s addition of the fourth judge, Kara DioGuardi, to squeeze out Abdul, sources close to Abdul and the network confirmed that Fox has begun negotiations to renew her contract and seem hopeful an agreement can be reached?before it expires at season’s end.

Fox had no official comment for this story, saying it does not speak about contract negotiations, but the network has publicly expressed hope that Abdul will be back for the show’s ninth season.
If there is a hangup, it is likely to be the reportedly vast  disparity in the stars’ salaries.  Last year, former “Idol” executive producer Nigel Lythgoe told Australia’s Courier Mail that the show’s trademark tough judge, Simon Cowell, earns $36 million each season (not including income from his involvement with “Idol” grads’ records). Cowell’s contract expires after next season, and he has been making noise that he might move on.

Sources close to the show say Abdul earns a fraction of Cowell’s figure, pegging it at around $2 million.

CNN video, from RCP:

AP:

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. - The founder of the popular online advertising site Craigslist on Sunday joined the effort to honor a 24-year-old Minnesota woman who died in 2007 after responding to a phony ad for a baby sitter.

Craig Newmark made a personal contribution to the Katherine Ann Olson fund on Sunday at a concert organized to raise money for a scholarship in her name.

“Despite the billions of times well-meaning people have helped each other through Craigslist, it’s been devastating to see that it can also be used by bad people to take cruel advantage of others,” Newmark said as he stood with Olson’s family on stage at a church in a Minneapolis suburb.

Newmark reminded the crowd of more than 1,200 people to take precautions when using the Internet, and he praised the family’s efforts to help their daughter and sister’s legacy live on.

Prime Buzz:

President Obama today called off-shore tax evasion “the largest tax scam in the world” and unveiled a plan to crack down on it.

The Missouri GOP piped right up, saying  freshman Sen. Claire McCaskill has one of those deals.

“For years, she has covered up the existence of her tax shelter and obstructed efforts to determine whether she is paying her fair share of taxes,” said Missouri GOP executive director Lloyd Smith. “Until McCaskill shuts down her tax shelter, she will have to answer questions every time this issue is raised.”

WSJ:

Hillary Clinton dropped out of the presidential election last June, but her campaign committee continued to raise millions of dollars this year by selling access to a valuable asset: Mrs. Clinton’s vast list of political supporters.

In the first three months of 2009, Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign brought in $4.5 million by selling or renting out the list, which has contact information for more than a million people. Among the 21 customers for the list were political entities closely connected with Mrs. Clinton, according to first quarter filings with the Federal Election Commission. They included her political action committee, her Senate campaign committee and her husband Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation, which together paid more than $3.5 million to use the list, the FEC filing showed.

The Times Online:

The media may portray evangelicals, such as Ned Flanders, as losers, but US-style Christianity has gone global

CQ Politics:

Sen. Arlen Specter ’s relationship with Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell dates back almost as far as his 43-year fling with the Republican Party.

It was in 1968 that Specter hired Rendell to work under him in the Philadelphia district attorney’s office.

They moved into houses on the same street in the East Falls neighborhood of Philadelphia, where Princess Grace of Monaco was raised.

And, in 1998, Rendell, who was then mayor of Philadelphia, heaped praise on Specter at a public event so Specter’s campaign staff could get tape of what amounted to an unofficial endorsement.

It has long been Rendell’s wish that Specter join the Democratic fold.

So, it must have come as a great relief - if a bit of a surprise - when President Obama called Rendell Tuesday morning to tell him that Specter had decided to switch parties.

Ben Cunningham:

Link
The documents that Ronald Sims’ office was found to have kept from the public when he served as King County executive included information about cheaper alternatives to the $430 million Seattle Seahawks stadium, which was built in 2002, according to a Washington Times review of the court records.

Washington’s highest court ruled in January that the withheld documents would have allowed voters in a referendum to challenge “the veracity” of King County’s request for $300 million in public bonds for the project. The justices found the actions of Mr. Sims’ office to be so “egregious” that they scrapped a lower court’s order of a $123,780 fine - the largest ever assessed in a public records case - and recommended that the penalty be increased to as much as $825,000.

By Pete Lucas, a contributing author:

Libertarian ideals often intersect with conservative beliefs. As someone who considers himself a Reagan conservative, I actually find myself aligned with the Libertarian philosophy more often than not.

Here in Kansas just a few months ago, we faced a budget crisis that nearly shut down our state. We ended up averting the crisis by borrowing money from ourselves… a temporary fix at best. The problem during this recession is a shrinking tax base due to property value depreciation, unemployed Kansans, and uncertainty about how much the federal government intends to help.

I believe that a true conservative - one dedicated to limited government - has to be wary of the federal intervention at every level. Take for example a long-standing intervention in the public school system. The federal government has no mandate to provide public education. This is a state and local issue. However, through incentives (blackmail), the feds have managed to take a huge role in education.

Thus, we Kansans should be skeptical of any federal bailout money. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and the price we’ll end up paying is huge, and could be catastrophic.

However, the states that have threatened to refuse bailout money have come under fire for being short-sighted and silly. They don’t have a means to make up the funds without the bailout money because unlike the federal government, states can’t just fire up the presses and print more cash.

This is precisely why we as conservatives need to embrace wide scale legalization of “vices” that are currently illegal. Marijuana is only the start. All illegal narcotics should be legalized, regulated and taxed. Prostitution should be legalized, regulated and taxed. The government does not have a mandate nor does it have the right to interfere with what people do in their personal lives.

We learned nearly a century ago that prohibition only creates a violent black market. It doesn’t stop people from engaging in whatever their vice happens to be. Criminals facilitate the market of drugs and prostitution because they have an opportunity to get rich quick. Most of the crime in America is related to drugs and prostitution. Our prisons are full of pot smokers. We parole violent criminals to make room in prison for new pot smokers.

Certainly, using addictive, dangerous narcotics is foolhardy, but so is drinking to excess. At least in a legal environment, we can regulate the quality of drugs, introduce corporate competition, and tax the daylights out of it. The same is true of prostitution. A regulated, legal brothel is far less dangerous than women who meet Johns through a pimp or through an online site.

Since I also believe in personal responsibility, I believe that people who use dangerous substances (including alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, etc.) should have any related illnesses excluded from insurance coverage. If you smoke 4 packs a day and get lung cancer, that’s a shame, but it should not qualify for coverage because then everyone has to pay for that bad decision.

Obviously, there have to be consequences for people who use drugs and harm another person (for example DUI). Our drunk driving laws are completely inadequate. We need to shore up these laws and enforce them strictly. No one would drive drunk if we had and automatic 25 year sentence (life if you hurt or killed someone). The same would be true with drugs. You can’t play games with it. I’ve lost loved ones to drunk drivers, and as such I’m in favor of any punishment that acts as a true deterrent.

People say that if drugs and prostitution were legal, society would come undone. I disagree strongly. Most of us would not engage in either behavior. I have no interest in narcotics or prostitutes whether they are legal or not. Cigarettes and alcohol are legal and I don’t use either. I’m sure most of you feel the same way. Illegality is not a deterrent for the people who really want to engage in a behavior.

We can create a safer society with less people in prison, generate more tax revenue, and enjoy freedom like our founding fathers intended.

Reuters:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - EBay plans to spin off its Skype unit, acknowledging that the Web telephone service does not fit with the rest of the company, in an indictment of former CEO Meg Whitman’s acquisition strategy.

EBay, whose shares rose 3 percent in after-hours trade, said on Tuesday it was planning an initial public offering for Skype by the first half of 2010, a move widely seen as putting a ‘for sale’ sign on the unit to fetch potential buyers.

Two people familiar with eBay’s thinking said the online auction company could seek substantially more than $2 billion for Skype. But some analysts doubted that it could fetch so much in current markets.

Environmental Capital:

How bad is the downturn? Ask ExxonMobil.

The biggest publicly-traded oil firm reported first-quarter net income of $4.55 billion, a 58% drop from the first quarter of last year and its lowest quarterly profit level since the third quarter of 2003. Revenue of $64 billion was also the lowest since that same quarter.

That’s mainly a reflection of the “slowdown in the global marketplace and sharply lower commodity prices,” Exxon chief executive Rex Tillerson said in a statement. Thanks to share buybacks worth $7 billion in the quarter, shareholders were partially insulated from that fall in net income: Per-share earnings fell only 54%, to 92 cents a share.

Environmental Capital blog at WSJ:

But the renewable standard won’t dramatically reshape the way electricity is generated. In the EIA’s business-as-usual scenario, wind power accounts for 207 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity generation in 2025; with a federal renewable mandate, wind would account for between 207 billion and 248 billion kilowatt hours. Solar and geothermal power would stay marginal.

One technology that would hugely benefit is biomass-the burning of waste matter to generate electricity. In the base case, biomass would provide just 39 billion kilowatt hours in 2025; with a federal mandate, that would zoom to between 359 billion and 460 billion kilowatt hours.

Surprisingly, since renewable energy is more expensive than coal- and gas-fired power plants, electricity bills would hardly budge, the EIA says: Prices would be 9.5 cents a kilowatt hour in the base case, compared with 9.7 or 9.8 cents under a mandate.

That’s probably because even with federal mandates, renewable energy would be just one small slice of the power pie. Which also explains why the environmental impact of the renewable-energy standard would be so modest. Meeting the federal targets would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from the electricity sector between 2% and 6% below 2007 levels by 2025, the EIA found.

Environmental Capital blog:

“Fiat can build clean, fuel-efficient cars of the future,” Mr. Obama said. What’s more, they can “transfer billions of dollars worth of cutting-edge technology” to Chrysler, he said.

Going through bankruptcy will just make that wedding work more smoothly, by “clearing away” obligations that could slow down Chysler’s transformation.

Of course, that still leaves a couple of questions. Just what will those new, fuel-efficient cars be? And whatever they are, will that be enough to make Chrysler viable again?

Mark Perry:

After a 15% collective pay cut in 2007, chief executives of the 500 biggest companies in the U.S. (as measured by a composite ranking of sales, profits, assets and market value) took another reduction in total compensation, 11%, for 2008. The last time the big bosses took a pay hit for two consecutive years was in 2001 and 2002.

In total, these 500 executives earned $5.7 billion in 2008, which averages out to $11.4 million apiece and computes to less than 1% of total revenues and 3% of total profits of their companies.

~FORBES

Mark Perry:

What feature do 15 out of the top 16 states for economic outlook have in common?…

To find out, check this map here.

The Source:

It seems as if Kansas City Councilwomen Jan Marcason and Cathy Jolly are on a crusade to justify their vote to cut the police department budget, yet at the same time wage a PR campaign blaming everyone else but themselves for the cuts. At a time when one of the top priorities in Kansas City should be to cut down on crime, Marcason and Jolly are playing politics with public safety dollars.

The Sunday Times:

Internet users face regular “brownouts” that will freeze their computers as capacity runs out in cyberspace, according to research to be published later this year.

Experts predict that consumer demand, already growing at 60 percent a year, will start to exceed supply as early as 2010 because of more people working online and the soaring popularity of bandwidth-hungry Web sites such as YouTube and services such as the BBC’s iPlayer.

It will initially lead to computers being disrupted and going offline for several minutes at a time. Beginning in 2012, however, PCs and laptops are likely to operate at a much reduced speed, rendering the Internet an “unreliable toy.”

John Tamny of RealClearMarkets:

“Starvation, pauperism, and insufficient supply can only be removed from the masses by increasing the quantity to be divided among the masses.”Anti-Corn Law League, “A Plea for the Total and Immediate Repeal of the Corn Laws,” 1841.

When trade is considered by economists and commentators, too often the discussion centers on countries. This evolves from the misbegotten notion that countries, rather than individuals, trade.

Thanks to a facile approach to what is a very basic concept, we’re as a result bombarded with strange notions of trade “surpluses” and “deficits” as though free exchange could be anything but a positive. Happily, as former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has reminded us, for “the world as a whole, of course, exports must equal imports, and the world consolidated current account balance is always zero.”