Quote of the Day
In the 2005 Rob Reiner film Rumor Has It, Jennifer Aniston's character is troubled by the revelation that her mother had a fling just before marrying her father, given the fact she was born during the first year of her parents' marriage. She is desperately looking for things she has in common with her father, only noticing differences. She points out to her dad, for instance, that she drives fast while he drives slow. He gave the perfect dad response:
Earl: I only drive slow, sweetheart, because you're in the car ...
A Boorish Hollywood Starlet Pushes the Envelope
I usually tend to ignore deliberately provocative actions by mediocre performers, like 23-year-old actress Lindsay Lohan's ill-advised decision to emulate the image of the crucified Christ (above) on the cover of a French magazine. This image is considered blasphemous by any orthodox Christian, including myself. I realize that "there is no such thing as bad publicity", and to a certain degree I blame certain entertainers from my generation, especially the pop singer/actress Madonna, for setting a bad example, consciously using provocative behavior to promote their albums and concerts. As an individualist, I support the right of Ms. Lohan to market herself as she chooses, but it's generally not a good idea for a celebrity to alienate a large plurality of her target audience. After all, they make the decision of whether to view or purchase her movies, television appearances and music albums, and critics have panned some of her more recent projects. To me, Lohan's offensive behavior is a desperate cry for attention, and she needs an intervention from someone like TV psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw.
We Are the World 25: Haiti Relief
Artists appearing on the video/recording include: cameo clips of the song co-writer, the late Michael Jackson, and the recently updated song version featuring his sister Janet, Josh Groban, Tony Bennett, Pink, Lil Wayne, Jordin Sparks, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Kanye West, Jonas Brothers, Celine Dion, Robin Thicke, Wyclef Jean, Usher, Jennifer Hudson, Britney Spears, Keri Hilson, Jamie Foxx, Barbra Streisand, Jason Mraz, Bustaa Rhymes, Justin Beiber, Selena Gomez, Nicole Richie, Gladys Knight, Katharine McPhee, Enrique Inglesiais, Julianne Hough, Will.i.am, Jeff Bridges and Vince Vaughn. The charity organization website provides links for purchase/donations; iTunes charges $1.25 for the song download, $1.99 for its video download. Highly recommended. If you have not donated for Haiti relief, other recommended organizations include the former Presidents' relief fund, Catholic Relief Services, and the American Red Cross International Response Fund.
Miscellaneous Poll Review
- The Quinnipiac Feb. 11 poll showed both political parties in Congress with equally low approval rates (28%) with the Democrats having slightly higher (63 vs. 61%) disapproval ratings. There is some clear indication that voters want more bipartisan action. For example, the voters reject the Democratic Party Health Care Bill 53-35, but they don't want the Congress to drop health care reform 52-44. This seems to suggest a more focused set of reforms which minimizes the government footprint and costs. There is a clear lesson here for both parties; stunts like Senate Majority Leader Reid stripping Schumer-Hatch compromise jobs bill of Democratic concessions and then rigging the system so only Democrats can submit amendments will clearly alienate voters further. (I am sympathetic to liberal economists' gripes that since employers do hiring even during recessionary times, this plan is pushing on a string and that tax savings are not material to the hiring decision. In fact, I've made those arguments in pushing for a PERMANENT business tax cut. But as a political compromise, aggregate business tax cuts (and/or related items like accelerating depreciation schedules, extending R&D tax credits, etc.) help lower the cost of acquiring additional labor, certainly more directly than stretched-out politically favored infrastructure investments or modest stimulus tax installments. But Reid's decision to sabotage probably the first bipartisan measure in this Congress has me withdrawing my tentative endorsement of the measure.
- Obama has stabilized his drop in approval ratings at roughly 47%, with a net approval of roughly 1.5%. (Recall he was elected with 53% of the vote.) He seems to be bolstered by a nearly 90% approval rating among Democrats (so I don't expect him to approach Bush's whom left the Presidency in the lower 30's or so). It's another 9 months to the mid-terms, and he will benefit from any kind of good news, like higher-than-expected employment or GDP numbers (the administration is projecting soft economic/job growth through the balance of the year). The bad news for Obama and the Democrats is that their approvals are softer than their disapprovals, and I don't believe that rhetoric and giving legislation misleading names (e.g., making Stimulus III a "jobs" bill) will persuade independents and moderates. This doesn't mean that the GOP can simply win by default; they must present a bold, constructive solution to the table, be prepared to make difficult decisions (just like New Jersey Governor Chris "Mr. Freeze" Christie) that the American people expect, and underscore they have learned from their lessons from the past on the issue of bipartisan cooperation and large deficits.
Update on Polk County and iPods
In Friday's post, I mentioned the kerfuffle over Polk County in Florida using $350K in stimulus money to buy parents of disabled students iPod's as an incentive to complete a short survey online. The newspaper running the assertion that it was stimulus money printed a correction. It comes from operational federal government funding under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, reauthorized in 2004; conservatives have criticized this act for a variety of reasons (e.g., poor cost controls, a partially unfunded mandate for the state/local governments, and certain dysfunctional policies, such as the fact that government assumes most medical costs for children under the program, even if the family has private-sector health coverage.) However, one could still make the case that money is fungible and the 2009 so-called stimulus act included $12.2B in additional money for IDEA, stemming from an Obama campaign promise.
The arrogance of government bureaucrats is stunning; the county was rebuked by the state Department of Education, not because the idea of giving out iPod's was a bad idea--but funds had to be used on the children themselves, not the parents! [Oh, that's a whole lot better! You just know they are going to download 8GB worth of classroom lectures...] And the response by the county was essentially, "Well, we expected that the parents were going to give their new iPod Nano's to their kids..." And the superintendent (Ms. Woolcock) is still defending the idea of giving iPod's to the disabled kids and intends to issue them next school year...
Let me make myself clear: $350,000 can pay the salary of multiple teachers. Even if iPod's had a legitimate functional educational purpose specific to disabled versus other students (which is dubious), the whole concept of IDEA was to fund the incremental difference in costs over average pupil costs, e.g., the school requires every child to have an iPod Nano, and there are specialized accessories needed for use by disabled students, then you could make an argument for the accessories, not for the iPod itself. In effect, Woolcock is saying that she was going to let parents get something educationally necessary for their kids, but only if they completed one of her surveys...
Woolcock claims now that she is going to find other ways to spend that money (heaven forbid that she does the honest thing and returns the money as a down payment on the $12T national debt!); but we've already established the case--if there was a more valid use for the money than iPod's, she would have used it from the get-go. In my opinion, she's using this money as some sort of slush fund. It's precisely this kind of lack of oversight and federal controls that invites things like Medicare fraud. I guarantee in the fall elections, Obama and his crony Congressional Democratic leadership will be crowing about how they kept their promise to disabled kids, but it drives legitimate fiscal conservatives like me up the wall.
Political Cartoon
Dick Locher points out the hypocrisy of a President whom will bend over backwards not to offend Iran or North Korea but pays little more than lip service on Republican inputs to key national legislation.
Musical Interlude: Country Love Songs:
Happy Valentine's Day!
George Jones, "He Stopped Loving Her Today"
Randy Travis, "Forever and Ever, Amen"
Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, and Dolly Parton, "To Know Him Is To Love Him"
