You know something has hit the big time when it’s in the news every week. Take YouTube, the upstart website for home videos and video clip publication. Videos on the site make the news, as does the site itself.

And so of course some of the news is controversy.

Since lots of people upload copyrighted material, the site can’t help but be the source of much anxiety for the big publishers of popular music and other forms of entertainment. YouTube, first set up just 19 months ago in a California garage, could easily find itself suppressed by the courts, as Napster was.

As if on cue, Universal Music rattled its sabers, talking of suing YouTube. And then a few days later came the BIG news.

YouTube announced a deal with Warner Music. The website had developed software to track copyrighted material by Warner, figuring a percentage in each usage for Warner to share in the site’s ad revenue.

This is precisely the kind of thing you’d expect. Also expect Universal and other big entertainment outfits to jump on board. YouTube is about to become something much better than “the competition.” It’s about to become a new market.

Yes, folks, the Internet bubble of a few years ago is the old news. The new news is not about “irrational exuberance.”

It’s entirely rational to be exuberant about new markets meeting new demands.

And someday, maybe I’ll see you on YouTube.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tired of election analysis? Think there should be some kind of limit, rather than allowing it all to drone on and on and on.

Well, here’s some analysis you’ll like. It’s about a limit. An article by Andrew Cline, titled “Finally Term Limited,” recently ran in American Spectator .

Cline argues, “Republicans might have saved their majority by keeping a single signature promise from 1994. More than any other point in the Contract With America, the promise of term limits showed how serious these reformers were about changing the culture in Washington.” And he calls it a “fateful decision” that most Republican reps who came to Washington believing in limits, quote, “chose to stay put rather than step down.” End-quote.

Cline points to scandals that rocked the GOP congressional majority and concludes, “Term limits likely would have prevented each of these scandals.”

And he believes that, quote, “Term limits also would have prevented or mitigated other Republican apostasies, such as the massive expansion of Medicare, the federalization of public education, the gross abuse of the pork barrel process, and the irresponsibly large increases in non-defense discretionary spending.” End-quote.

Who am I to argue? I agree 100 percent. Cline gets it.

He writes, “Each of these violations of principle occurred for one reason: to maintain power. Yet the GOP went down to electoral defeat precisely because of the leadership’s decision to trade ideals for longevity.”

Amen.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Politicians and hot air: a natural mix. So the California law passed on the last day of August ain’t a shock. Aiming to decrease California’s C02 emissions by 25 percent — by the year 2020 — it stands out from most political hot air by being ABOUT a particular KIND of hot air, the heat from burnt fuel.

We’ll have more such: increasing numbers of scientists say that all our burnt fuel really does add up in the atmosphere.

I’m no scientist, so I usually keep my comments about such matters low key. But I do watch government, and I’ve noticed that regulations often go awry.

Take the once-ballyhooed Zero Emissions Mandate of California’s Air Resources Board (CARB). This 1990 reg required carmakers to sell in California increasing percentages of Zero-emissions Vehicles as the years flew by. The mandate even specified what those increased percentages would be.

At the time, General Motors was experimenting with a Zero Emissions Vehicle, an electric car . . . but was hesitant. GM, initially anxious to stay ahead of other companies in all-electric tech, was not interested in going broke to prove a car that had never shown a profit. The more GM thought about CARB’s mandate, the less it liked it. Better sacrifice one division than the whole company. The EV1 was scrapped.

That wasn’t what CARB wanted. That’s what CARB got.

Who knows what will happen because of the new law, by 2020, other than that it, too, will go up in smoke?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

There’s this old joke. A customer walks up to a grocer and says, “Hey Mister, your eggs are twice the price of the store across the street!”

The grocer shrugs, and replies, “So?”

“Well,” says the angry customer, “You should reduce your price!”

“Why don’t you just go across the street and buy your eggs there?”

The customer mumbles, “They’re out!”

“Well, there you go,” says the grocer. “The price for non-existent eggs is one thing; eggs you don’t have to wait for, a bit more.”

It’s not a very funny joke, but it explains something about markets.

How does a socialized health care system, like Canada’s, keep costs under some sort of control? By making health care a bit like those non-existent eggs. That is, by making you wait for treatment. Canadians could trek across the border to the U.S., getting treatment almost immediately . . . as long as they pay for the services. Or they can stay in Canada and wait for the supposedly “free” service to become available.

The Fraser Institute has released its 16th annual survey called “Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada.” It’s an eye opener.

The waiting lines got even longer this year. The survey computed data from twelve specialties and ten provinces. The average wait went from 17.7 weeks to 17.8 weeks.

Things are by no means perfect in the U.S. But compared to Canada, well, we get pretty fast service, don’t we?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Those mean folks at Wal-Mart, what will they think of next?!

Have you heard about their new employee policies? Wal-Mart’s critics were quick to blast the company. Chris Kofinis, spokesman for Wake-Up-Wal-Mart said the new policy “just sends another terrible message that this company looks at its workers as a commodity.”

In a segment on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Christianne Klein tells viewers, “To most people, ten minutes is barely enough time to boil an egg or fill up your tank. But to the nation’s largest retailer, those ten minutes could cost you your job.”

Have you heard the dreadful, dire, draconian details on Wal-Mart’s new dastardly decree?!

Employees have to show up for work. Almost on time. Yeah, repeatedly being more than 10 minutes late can be grounds for dismissal. If employees are sick, they have to call in and say they won’t be showing up for work. Imagine that?

If they don’t, if employees decide to show up whenever they feel like it, well then, after three absences, they can be let go. Blow off your job without so much as a phone call and the company–run by these meanies–might just fire you.

Oh, what has this Wal-Mart-dominated world come to?!!

But — wait a second — what would happen to you or me if we didn’t show up for work and never even bothered to call in sick? Or we were forever 15 or 30 minutes late?

Gee whiz, yeah . . . we might get fired.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.