It's Friday!

Mark your calendar: Register by August 10 for "Solving the Medical Mystery of Health Care Cost and Quality," the Foundation's Noon Policy Briefing Luncheon on Tuesday, August 14, at Atlanta's Commerce Club. The keynote speaker is Dr. John Goodman, the "Father of Health Savings Accounts" and president of the National Center for Policy Analysis. For information and to register, visit www.gppf.org/default.asp?pt=eventdescr&EI=41.

• There's currently a 4.8 cents-per-cigar tax cap, but under a bill in Congress that would increase tobacco taxes to pay for children's health insurance, taxes on "large cigars," (all but the tiny cigars sold in packs of 20 like cigarettes) would rise to 53 percent. A U.S. Senate version sets the maximum tax per cigar at $10. "I'm not sure in the history of man, since our forefathers founded the country in 1776, that there's ever been a tax increase of 20,000 percent," said Eric Newman, who runs a Tampa cigar shop. "They had the Boston Tea Party for less than this." Source: St. Petersburg Times 
• "A lot of ethanol plants are going up in the Midwest," notes Theodore Gray in "Make Your Own Ethanol" on Popular Science magazine's Web site, www.Popsci.com. "Will they save the environment? Probably not. Depending on who you believe, it may take more than a gallon of oil to farm and process the corn required to make a gallon of ethanol. Switching to plant cellulose may someday improve efficiency; worst case, we'll have a lot of whiskey factories ready to go." Source: Popsci.com 
• The State Children's' Health Insurance Program (PeachCare in Georgia) has a record in rearranging the problem of health-care coverage rather than expanding opportunity, and Congress should seek a different course, the Washington Times editorializes.  "It wants to create a government-run health system on the backs of children with higher taxes. Instead, it should expand tax breaks for health savings accounts and better insurance choices that promote portability and encourage prevention and disease management." Source: Washington Times 
• "If we're stuck in some particularly frustrating traffic jam, we might erupt in anger," notes Ted Balaker in "Why Mobility Matters to Personal Life." "But most of the time we just surrender a little bit more because we assume degraded mobility is the natural result of an increase in population and driving. Rarely do public officials seek to undo such feelings of surrender. Most planning agencies have decided they will not even attempt to reduce congestion - they only aim to reduce its growth. ... Imagine if our leaders told us that, in the future, our education system would get worse, there's nothing we can do about it, and that all they hope to do is make test scores fall more slowly." Source: Reason Foundation 
• Brain food for thought: Intellectual property in the United States is worth as much as $5.5 trillion, more than the gross domestic product of any other country, economists say. Pat Toole of IBM notes in "Getting Smart About Intellectual Property Is A No-Brainer," U.S. firms leave $1 trillion on the table every year by under-using their intellectual property, and only 15 percent of small firms that do business abroad know that U.S. patent protection doesn't extend overseas. Source: IndustryWeek.com 
• Today, a majority of all public school districts nationwide do not have a single school named after a president, the Manhattan Institute reports in "What's in a Name?" a seven-state study representing 20 percent of all public school students. Of almost 3,000 public schools in Florida, five honor George Washington, compared with 11 named after manatees. In Minnesota, just 3 percent of schools built in the last decade were named for a president. Source: Manhattan Institute 
• Thyme to update your spellcheck: "Irregardless" still hasn't made the list, but keeping up with the times, Webster's Collegiate Dictionary's newest edition adds 100 new words, including ginormous, IED, DVR and Bollywood. Smackdown and telenovela also made the list. For definitions, click on the link; the dictionary goes on sale in the fall. Source: Associated Press
• Visit www.gppf.org to read the Foundation's commentary, "The Great Mercury Medical Myth," by Harold Brown.

FRIDAY FACTS is made possible by the generous contributions of supporters of The Georgia Public Policy Foundation. If you enjoy the FRIDAY FACTS, please consider supporting the Foundation. For more information, visit our Web site at www.gppf.org. Have a great weekend.