And End To Philly's 'Blogger Tax'?

Maybe so. Councilman Bill Green has introduced a bill that would put an end to it:

"Although there was no actual city effort to make bloggers pay up, technically anyone generating income is supposed to pay for a business-privilege license - a onetime fee of $300 or $50 annually - as well as any relevant taxes.

Green plans to introduce legislation next week to change that. His bill would exempt from the fee anyone making less than $3,000 annually through activites deemed hobbies under federal law.

'The main purpose of this bill is to require people not to get a business-privilege license for income that is hobbyist or incidental,' Green said."

Speaking as a blogger who, as of this moment, is owed roughly $7 by the Google AdSense program, I applaud Bill Green!

Sarah Palin Never Backs Down

She went ahead and more or less re-endorsed Alaska's Joe Miller for Senate, lauding his military service, even though he's beenrecent, uncontested ethics charges on his record:

"It was the first time Ms. Palin had appeared at a campaign rally with Mr. Miller and it followed a string of damaging developments for the candidate. Personnel records released this week under court order showed that Mr. Miller had been disciplined in 2008 for using government computers for political purposes, and then lying about it, when he worked as a part-time lawyer for the Fairbanks North Star Borough."

Palin's backing of Miller and Christine O'Donnell is just more evidence of her own ill fitness for high office. Which, in turn, is proof that America was right to reject John McCain in 2008. She's his legacy to American politics.

A Little More About Bullying

Ben and I take on the bullies in our Scripps Howard column this week. My take:

Let me tell you about the most important teacher I ever had: Terry Hill.

Hill was a social studies and P.E. teacher at the middle school in the mid-Kansas town where my family moved in the 1980s. Adolescence is never easy, and transitioning to a new school complicates the level of difficulty: I didn't immediately fit in -- and found myself on the wrong end of confrontations with my fellow students. I was miserable. And then Mr. Hill stepped in.

I'm told he had a few words with my classmates; I wasn't there for that. What I do remember is that he called me out of class one day and sat with me in a school stairwell, asking me questions and listening to my pained answers for the better part of an hour. And for the next few years, he gave me encouragement, even handing me books he thought would entertain and enrich me. Middle school didn't become perfect, but it did become bearable.

Can the feds end bullying in our schools? No. They probably can't even make a dent in it. The attitudes and actions of bureaucrats in Washington D.C. will have precious little influence during the precarious school hallway moments that can shape a young person's life. Ben is right: the problem is in our homes and schools and communities, and that's where it must be addressed.

That means cracking down on bullies, yes, but it also means shining a light on adults who enable bullying behavior -- like the Arkansas school official under fire this week for a homophobic Facebook post. And it means following the examples of teachers like Terry Hill who listen to, encourage and empower students in need of a lifeline. Thanks, Mr. Hill, wherever you are.

AIDS and HIV in Philadelphia

Sobering news from a Wednesday hearing at City Hall:

"The commissioner presented a series of statistics to illustrate the epidemic:

New HIV infections are striking Philadelphians at a rate of 114 per 100,000 people, five times the national average.

Individuals between ages 13 and 24 make up 15 percent of the newly infected.

African Americans accounted for 66 percent of new HIV cases in 2009.

A bright spot: Schwarz said that from 2005 to 2009, the city saw a 64.6"

The most frustrating part of the story: The best services for AIDS and HIV treatment and prevention are in Center City. But for the most part, that's not actually where the problem is in Philadelphia.

Why I'm Not Worried About the Awesome Chinese Supercomputer

About halfway into the New York Times' story about how the Chinese now have the world's fastest supercomputer is a paragraph that demonstrates why I'm not worried about it as a long-term problem:

"“What is scary about this is that the U.S. dominance in high-performance computing is at risk,” said Wu-chun Feng, a supercomputing expert and professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. “One could argue that this hits the foundation of our economic future.”"

Now: Maybe there's a supercomputing expert who goes by the name of "Johnny Appleseed" in China. But I doubt it. We're in a, um, xenophobic moment right now in the United States -- but our country seems, even now, far more open to educating, employing (and, most important) making citizens out of the best and brightest people from other countries. Now: That's not a given that will always be the case, and it's not a given that people will always want to come here. (The Great Recession has apparently lowered illegal immigration rates, for example.) But for now, I think it gives the U.S. a long-term edge in keeping our economy and technology dynamic.

America's Algae-Fueled Military

The U.S. Navy has successfully tested an algae-fueled boat, the first step in its plan to power its fleet with up to 50 percent green and nuclear fuels by 2020:

"Fuels made from algae oil burn more cleanly than fossil fuel, but preventing climate change is not a major factor in the Pentagon's calculations. 'Our programme to go green is about combat capability, first and foremost,' Cullom said. 'We no longer want to be held hostage by one form of energy such as petroleum.'

Over the last year, the Pentagon has become increasingly vocal about the burden of running oil convoys in battle zones. Fossil fuel is the number one import to US troops in Afghanistan, and the slow and lumbering convoys of oil tankers are an obvious target for enemy combatants.

Fossil fuels are also horrendously expensive. By the time it reaches a war zone, the true cost of a gallon of petrol is well over $400."

The good news for the rest of us is that this kind of innovation often pushes its way into the civilian marketplace, and at a cheap price made possible by the military's economies of scale. Hegemony can be environmentally sound!

More to the point, there's not much direct incentive for most Americans to change their lifestyles because of climate change: They're not the ones feeling the pain. So alternative energies are probably going to have to be developed as a plausibly inexpensive alternative to fossil fuels to get the world sincere about kicking the oil habit. The military is willing to pay $400 a gallon to get its oil to Afghanistan; it would rather find a cheaper way. That's the opportunity that should be seized.

Jonah Goldberg: Philly Isn't 'Real America'

Jonah Goldberg mocks an upcoming Katie Couric travel itinerary:

"James’ post is great as it is, but might I just add that the places Katie Couric has been visiting aren’t really in the middle of the country. With the exception of Chicago, which is at least the gateway to the Midwest, Philly, Boston, and New Brunswick (!?!) are all part of the Bos-Wash corridor, accessible by the Acela. As someone who has crisscrossed the entire country by car numerous times, let me suggest that you haven’t seen much of the “middle” of this country — washed or unwashed — going by that itinerary. I mean, who says, “I’ve got to break out of my New York cocoon and see some of real America. Let’s go check out Philly and Boston.”"

For what it's worth, the Northeast Corridor contains roughly one-sixth of America's population. The middle of the country -- where "real" Americans live -- doesn't actually have that many Americans. Couric might want to expand her travels a bit, but a Philadelphian might actually be a more "typical" American than, say, somebody living in South Dakota.