It was a bad day for NASDAQ, as there were major delays in everyone (including the author) wanting to get in on the action. After a day of trading, Facebook closed the day up a whopping $.23 per share. For me, I just wanted to buy one share. Then I worried (irrationally) that the stock price would go up by a jazillion percent, leaving me penniless at margin call. I think I have watched Trading Places one too many times in recent years.

So, I cancelled my order. Or so I thought. Around 5:30, Sharebuilder confirmed I got my share at $39.05. I mean, I wanted one share for the novelty of voting. I don’t have the liquid assets to by 2,345 shares like my friend Richard did. I don’t know if I’ll get to keep my one share or not, and I really don’t care.

But what strange future does the IPO of Facebook bring? Potentially a series of highly controversial shareholder initiatives. There are bad ways to respond to stupid proposals by, say, liberal Catholic nuns, and then there are awesome ways to respond. Insert T.J. Rodgers, who concluded his amazing smackdown to a snooty letter from a nun with:

Cypress stands for personal and economic freedom, for free minds and free markets, a position irrevocably in opposition to the immoral attempt by coercive utopians to mandate even more government control over America’s economy. With regard to our shareholders who exercise their right to vote according to a social agenda, we suggest that they reconsider whether or not their strategy will do net good — after all of the real costs are considered.

Google, while not a direct competitor of Facebook, has already faced some of the same problems — and come out, often times, on the losing end (China, anyone?). It is instructive to look at some of the shareholder proposals (which rarely succeed) Google has had to deal with. In 2007, shareholders of Google, including me, voted down an anti-censorship proposal that, as PCWorld describes, would “have stopped Google from engaging in self-censorship.”

Earlier this month, Bristol-Myers Squibb had a shareholder proposal from PETA supporters, that according to AP would require the company to “publicly report on its handling of laboratory animals and to seek other ways to test experimental drugs.” That proposal also failed.

Most do.

A 1995 paper by April Klein and John Klose, Shareholder Proposals and Corporate Governance, concluded that:

“We find the likelihood of a firm being the target of one or more corporate governance shareholders to be significantly related to firm performance, the size of the firm, and the likelihood that the firm’s board will be sympathetic to changes in shareholders’ rights…. We  hypothesize that the votes are determined by the costs and benefits to shareholders associated with voting for or against these proposals.”

Can you imagine Mark Zuckerberg, who has reportedly ruled Facebook with an iron fist, being receptive to conservative, liberal, and crazy groups using his company to make a point? Or absent a point, seriously trying to change the company he created?

For all intents and purposes, Mark Zuckerberg may not be like how he was portrayed in the 2010 film The Social Network. In fact, somebody I know who went to college with him once told me he’s not a terrible person. And she is actually friends with Zuckerburg on Facebook, so I believe her.

However, the potential for zany shareholder proposals, like the internet, is pretty broad. Bullied kid commits suicide? Let’s make Facebook do something. Hateful comments that make you oppose free speech? Let’s make Facebook do something. Trouble with free speech in <insert country in the news>? Let’s make Facebook do something.

You can see where I am going. These things will be dicey. A friend of mine in college set up a off color political group when Facebook was still exclusive to the Princeton Review’s top 300 colleges, and found himself (and his group)  banned from Facebook. Close friends of mine can guess which friend it is, but here’s a hint: his name rhymes with Knobby Pet Singer.

Infuriated that, while off color, the group didn’t actually do any real harm (it didn’t call for violence, or anything like that) he wrote Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg responded, and defended his actions. That friend is back on Facebook today, and since SLU didn’t use gmail then, the evidence — even though I saw it with my own eyes — is gone for good. That was many years ago, now.

Facebook has grown, just as the internet has, and with that growth so, too, has the list of complications also grown. For those who may/may not own a share of Facebook (or 2,345 shares) get ready for a dizzying array of shareholder proposals in the coming years. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and if you read all of them, you’ll kiss many hours goodbye. 

Tonight, I noticed a card in my mail box that encouraged me to keep my (nonexistent) pets at bay so they wouldn’t attack carriers, meter readers, newspaper delivery folks and, of course, neighbors’ children.

Most rational people heed these general life tenets without a formal notice from the USPS. Though, I find this notice curious for a variety of reasons:

1. I live in a condominium. Nobody’s pets are untethered and running around attacking people.
2. As a former paper delivery boy, I can understand this being a legitimate worry. But it doesn’t apply to my building.
3. All of our meters are wireless. Nobody goes into units to check these things anymore.
4. It’s a condo building. Even when I received physical paper delivery, there was a 0.0000001% chance of dog mauling.
5. The notice says that there are “deaths” caused by animal attacks. While statistically possible, I highly doubt that many meter readers, newspaper delivery people and mail delivery folks face a probable likelihood of death by dog mauling at work. They’re more likely to die driving to and from places.
6. The card notes that “Each year, more than 4.5 million people — most of them children and the elderly — are bitten by dogs.” That sounds like a scary number, but it’s about 1.44% of the total U.S. population. I doubt many children and seniors are delivering mail and reading meters. I’d also posit that fewer children are delivering papers due to lower print news media demand. Most of these bites are probably from the dogs of their friends.

The U.S. Postal Service is in bad shape. Post Offices rightly need to be closed, and downsizing seems like an inevitability. Few people doubt the need for reform. But, these post cards? Really?

I doubt they were produced at an actuarially insignificant cost. Likewise, I also doubt people will get the cards and change their behavior at a level that will make a statistical impact that will change outcomes. “Oh, you mean leaving my Doberman out in the yard at night has risks? Who knew?”

I was attacked by a few dogs in my day delivering The Sun Press. I bought mace and that solved the problem. Postal delivery folks have had mace since 1995, at least in Cleveland.

My problem is that I have serious concerns as to whether these post cards were a cost effective decision. For starters, they were printed by the U.S. Postal Service. I have no idea the scope of the printing, but given that they were distributed in my building (with an infinitesimally small chance of mauling), I have good reason to believe that they weren’t distributed thoughtfully.

Aside from their direct costs, the labor costs of transporting, sorting, and delivering them to consumers probably made a pretty big dent in productivity. The stamp area says that they are “First Class Mail.” And that the “postage and fees” were paid by the USPS with Permit No. G-10.

I seriously doubt USPS paid themselves for mailing these. If they did, that’s stupid. If they didn’t, while the costs are imaginary, the costs of having postal carriers pointlessly deliver them to condominiums like mine are quite tangible. Given the budget woes of the USPS, don’t they have bigger fish to fry? That’s just me.

Photo by bryanta1

Boudreaux: Ptolemaic Economics…

Jonathan Macey: Losing Money Isn’t a Crime

Alphaville on Tumblr? Sweeeeeeeeeet

ClotureClub: A staffer discusses Capitol Tours (so true.)

Reason: Steve Chapman on the Implausibility of Nuclear Terrorism

Consumerist: Jam Band Fights The Ticketmaster Man By Scalping Its Own Tickets

Zerohedge: How JPM’s “Hedge” Blew Up In One Easy Chart

Danger Room: Face Down, Cash Up, Then Pakistan Lets in Our Trucks 

HotAir: Republicans’ Capitol Hill offices being burgled: An inside job?

Stossel: Making life fair

Jim Swifts in the news

AP: As Facebook grows, millions say, ‘no, thanks’

Ben Stein: Obama’s not very smart

The salaries of administrative agency federal employees for 2011

HuffPo: Horseshoe Casino, Cleveland Casino, Opens To The Public (Related: There is a GHOST BUSTERS SLOT MACHINE.)

Wonkette: Empress of Outer Space Orly Taitz Has New Senate Campaign Ad (VIDEO)

ESPN: Kings up 2-0 after Jeff Carter’s hat trick, Jonathan Quick’s shutout

Landsburg: The Economics of Teen Pregnancy

Your (somewhat daily) Krugman criticism

BBC: What if we limited gadgets to one photo per day?

Reason:  Why We’re Entering the Age of Ron Paul

Dingbats: Man Claims He Found A Gun On The Job & Was Fired For Turning It In (Michigan didn’t give him the upper hand…)

Weekly Standard: Conservative Insurgent Fischer Wins Senate GOP Nomination in Nebraska

Alan Simpson: Paul Krugman near ‘hysteria’

Only on the Hill: When I see Rep. Paul Ryan

Heaton: Dealing with hecklers 

Grover: Why Romney should tap Jindal

Adler: When Is an Earmark not an Earmark?

Daily Caller: Senate spokesman vs. TheDC [VIDEO]

NYTimes: The Purpose of Spectacular Wealth, According to a Spectacularly Wealthy Guy (Conard is a great writer, and his book is GREAT. Please excuse the NY Times bias.)

NYTimes: Last Ones Left in a Toxic Kansas Town

Post Dispatch: Provelology: The study of a made-up cheese with a made-up name

bomble.net: California’s Two-Hundred-and-Fifty-Thousandaires

And they [television news] treat every story with the same level of importance. They’ll be like “Pachoo! Are your kids having sex at the mall?” I don’t even have kids, but I’m like, Are they? I gotta make sure they’re not having sex at the mall. Like fun are they having sex at the mall! And then the next story will be like, “Pachoo! Terrorists blow up bus.” And I’m like, Wow, that really puts the mall sex in perspective. That is much worse.

- Mike Birbiglia, Sleepwalk with me

Tonight, after watching some hockey and Diners, Drive ins and Dives, I decided to watch the local news. Until I was about 17, I cared about the local news on television. But only because my high school was dominating Cleveland sports and I wanted to revel in the replays.

Because I was flipping channels, I was attracted to tonight’s WUSA9 report because they (read: Gannett) used FOIA to publish the payroll of administrative agencies. Apparently, bureaucrats aren’t happy about that. As a former Hill staffer, whose salary history is public, I think they should go fly a kite.

As an adult, I think local television news is mostly just reactionary craziness. Thus, the appropriate Mike Birbiglia lede.

If I want local news that’s reported seriously, I’ll tune into WTOP and listen to Neal Augenstein. That guy is a serious reporter, and his tweets are quite good. We’ve even become semi-frequent twitter pals. Neal’s level headed, the kind of guy you’d chill with at a dive-y watering hole. Among DC radio journalists, he has the most distinctive voice, hands down.

Back to the point: After the well-reported story on federal salaries and bonuses, they flipped to the following story: Police Sting: Teens Order Alcohol Through Hotel Room Service. WUSA teamed up with the Montgomery County (MD) police department to get a 17 and 19 year old to order wine at hotels in Maryland. If the server didn’t ask for ID, the cops came out from the closet and gave them a citation. At one hotel, the woman took the ID to her manager, but left the wine in the room. That hotel got their third citation in four years.

To that, I say big deal. College bars knowingly serve underage people every night. It doesn’t make it right, but 3 citations in 4 years isn’t a terrible record. Special note: To admit my blatant hypocrisy, I drank underage, and later served as a bouncer (yes, you read that correctly) who denied underage drinkers. Personally, I think States should be able to set drinking ages without fear of losing highway funding (thanks, fellow Republicans!). Either way, the law’s the law.

I do have a serious problem, though, with WUSA9′s reporting: They tried tying the report to the Prom season, and suggested that tons of high schoolers will rent out a room and will get drunk because of the hotel. This is unlikely, but we’ll get to that later. Unless their parents don’t mind potential criminal charges, hotel parties are likely to happen. However, the story’s point was to suggest that post-Prom, high schoolers would pile into a room and order a bunch of alcohol and get drunk. Even their story’s lede opens with:

This prom and graduation season, 9 Wants You To Know about yet another way teenagers are sneaking alcohol into their celebrations

This is disingenuous, and it’s poor reporting.

At my all-boys Catholic High School in Cleveland, there was a receiving line you had to introduce your date to. It included the President of the School (priest), the Principal and his wife, the Dean of Students and his wife, and a few other administrators. The goal was to catch drunks.

Pretty much, it was the Catholic version of a field sobriety test for teenagers. For the most part, teenagers are stupid and easy to catch. Breathalyzers were on hand, but they were seldom used. Why? Our brothers and friends’ brothers told us about it. The tactics weren’t very reactive. As a result, the parties happened afterwards, an unintended consequence of a smart tactic to catch drunk promgoers. But it did deter pre-prom drunkery.

Why I think WUSA9′s reporting on this story is poor because of the following:

1. There is all the difference in the world comparing two 17 and 19 year old girls ordering one bottle of wine in daylight, and a room of well dressed teens ordering massive amounts of alcohol at midnight. They aren’t comparable.
2. Even the most aloof of hotel employees might go, “Oh, room 818 ordered 10 bottles of wine, 60 bottles of beer, and 5 bottles of alcohol and a few two liters of pop. That’s strange.” I highly doubt they’d just oblige and serve the party, especially after opening the door and seeing a bunch of teenagers.
3. If teens are going to drink after prom, they are going to get alcohol from one of three sources: a.) their parents b.) siblings c.) friend’s parents or siblings. Getting it from a legitimate purveyor of alcohol, even with a fake ID, is far riskier than a, b, or c.

Am I concerned about local hotels serving minors? Sure. But does WUSA’s reporting lead me to believe that after prom parties are crazy binge drinking fests fueled by unconcerned hoteliers? No. Not at all. It’s about making a non-story into a story. It’s about ratings.

As I learned earlier in the program, some federal employees are getting $60,000 bonuses. To paraphrase Birbigs, “Wow, that really puts the underage drinking of one bottle of wine in perspective. The big bonuses are much worse.”

I must confess that these stickers (pictured above) in my mail room are beginning to annoy me. For full disclosure, I actually kind of like junk mail — if only for the entertaining advertisements. This is odd, because I am not a lonely senior in dire need of contact from the outside world.

Why, then, do these stickers bother me? They’re ineffective or encourage undesirable and probably illegal behavior. That’s why.

In a condominium like mine, only two people have access to these mailboxes — tenants and the postman. Unlike houses in suburbia or crowded mailboxes in older cities, people can’t walk up and stuff your box with tripe. To get into your mailbox, at least at Midtown Alexandria, you need to mail something there, buy a condo, or get a job at the USPS.

These stickers should read “Please hasten the demise of the U.S. Postal Service” or “I’d prefer to pay more for stamps.”

Here’s why these stickers are pointless:

• According to the Consumer Postal Council: “Businesses and institutions that mail in bulk, which account for 85 percent of USPS revenue, receive discounts from the First Class rate.” Junk mail makes up a decent amount of bulk rate mail. Eliminating or reducing that makes the operations of the U.S. Postal Service more expensive, and you can guess what that will do to stamp prices and delivery schedules.
• Clearly, the USPS understands the value of this advertising, as they use it is a marketing tool. What rational person is going to believe that postal carriers are going to act in irrational ways that could potentially harm their employment?
• I haven’t double checked the law, but I am fairly sure that postal carriers aren’t given the discretionary authority to determine what mail to deliver or not. I am also pretty sure it is illegal for them to interfere with mail delivery.
• Encouraging mail carriers to do anything other than deliver addressed mail sets a bad precedent. Because what is junk mail? Are you giving the carrier license to destroy any mail that looks like junk? What if he or she mistakes your much needed replacement credit card or other important document as junk mail? While I’m not a lawyer, it seems like if you sued for damages, they’d have a pretty solid defense. After all, you asked for that screening without stipulating concrete procedures or boundaries. Better to keep the law that all addressed mail gets delivered.
• Unlike telemarketers, there is no “opt-out” or “do not mail list.” It would be infeasible and costly to administer if we forced USPS to do that. I don’t know if you’ve seen the news, they’re not flush with cash right now.
• Last, but not least, the private sector already offers a fairly comprehensive opt-out feature. After all, it’s not in the best interest of bulk mailers and advertisers to waste their money.

H/T Tony Hagman

Democrat and Chronicle: Did you know? Kodak Park had a nuclear reactor

ZH: When an Airline Buys an Oil Refinery

WSJ: Please Be a Little More Quiet When Shouting at Your Customers | Brown Says More Cuts Needed in California

Leaders with Ginni Thomas: Jonah Goldberg

Daily Caller: Barney Frank loses composure in ‘This Week’ appearance [VIDEO]

The Atlantic: The economics of HBO

AdAge: Yahoo CEO Thompson Steps Down Over Resume Flap as Levinsohn Takes Reins

Human Events: Congress Looks to Rewrite Act That Led to Gibson Guitar Raid 

RollCall: Campus Notebook: Bikeshare Plans Accelerate on Hill

I have come to terms with the fact that Seth MacFarlane is pretty much a liberal. Just like liberals can enjoy libertarian-leaning episodes of South Park, so too, can I enjoy Family Guy.

However, tonight’s newest episode “Peter Joins the Tea Party” sadly missed the mark and ventured into the extremes of ad hominem and reducto ad absurdum attacks on people with legitimate political views.

Normally, I respect Seth MacFarlane and his usally transparent liberal views. That’s fine. Unlike CNN and MSNBC, Fox hosts a bunch of shows critical to its news reporting. For that, they are to be commended. Just tonight, The Simpsons opened with a helicopter dragging a banner that said something to the effect of:

Dear Fox News: We don’t hate you, we just like CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and CBS more.

Most people would think that is a fireable offense, or depending on how the contract is written, a breach of contract. Either way, I am sure Fox is laughing all the way to the bank in good humor. I don’t think Fox should stop carrying Family Guy because of one really bad episode.

So, how did Seth miss the mark in tonight’s episode, you ask? In short, he painted the Tea Party this way:

• It’s not run by regular people, it’s run by big business in an effort to screw people over.
• It supports eliminating all government.
• It’s violent.

I wouldn’t consider myself first and foremost to be a “Tea Partier.” This isn’t because I disagree with them on many things, I am largely in agreement. I do disagree with them on term limits, government retirement for elected officials, and their pay. I think many people who are elected to Congress are severely underpaid. However, there is not an easy or simple way to pay elected officials what they are worth. Some are grossly overpaid, and others are making less than my high school classmates who are neophyte lawyers. Many of these members should command far greater payment than that.

It’s just that I am a Tea Party hipster — I was for it before the Tea Party existed.

First off, while I do concede that there is corporate influence in the Tea Party, it’s no different than unions having influence in Democratic politics. It’s a tale as old as time, to quote Beauty and the Beast. To be sure, some members of the Tea Party support crony capitalism, which is no different than Occupiers and liberal Democrats supporting crony capitalism for the causes they believe in.

However, the distinctive difference is that most Tea Party members, at least in my experience, are opposed to having government pick winners and losers. That is where MacFarlane gets it so wrong.

Second, only anarcho-libertarians on the right and anarchists on the left support total elimination of government.  The combined mass of both groups represents an infinitesimal percentage of the electorate. Many members of the Tea Party advocate significantly fewer regulations, and much smaller government, but that is not to say they support no government at all. My back of the napkin estimate is that less than 1% of all voters would push for that.

Suggesting that Tea Partiers are all no government zealots is both disingenuous and and reckless. Supporting less government and fewer government interventions in the economy is far from saying government has no place at all.

Lastly, MacFarlane portrays the Tea Party as violent. Early in its infancy, many in the mainstream media sought to portray them as such, but with little success. Any serious look at the record will show the Tea Party as an almost exclusively non-violent movement. The same cannot be said for Occupy Wall Street.

Here is a .gif image of how MacFarlane portrays the Tea Party:

Somebody calling for “A Little Bit of Government” gets beaten to a pulp with signs. Hardly the record of the Tea Party.

As next Sunday night comes around, of course, I will watch The Simpsons and Family Guy. However, I’d hope that Seth MacFarlane takes note and doesn’t completely distort a very clear record of truth to viewers who might not know better. We deserve better.