Quote of the Day
I am in earnest;
I will not equivocate;
I will not excuse;
I will not retreat a single inch;
and I will be heard.
William Lloyd Garrison
The Self-Esteem Movement and a Virginia High School
West Potomac High School in Fairfax County, Virginia has decided to issue I's (for "incompletes") versus F's (at least for a certain period of time). While I was a professor, I had to deal with poor preparation, bad attitudes, unrealistic expectations and inadequate work habits of many students. This policy does not prepare students for college or the real world.
In an unrelated story, Jim Grant of the well-known financial publication "Grant Interest Rate Observer" has given the Obama Administration a grade of F- "for their relentless meddling, for their pretense, for their unpredictability ... ignorance and patronizing dismissal of business activity". (Now, Mr. Grant, your analysis is spot on, but you've inflated Obama's grade.) No doubt the Obama Administration is seriously studying West Potomac's grading system and will argue in 2012 that the American people should give them a grade of Incomplete for the first term, and they need a second term to fix everything they broke in the first term....
Steven Rattner: Former Car Czar Cited
On the first day Government Motors returned to trading on the stock exchanges, former Obama Administration car czar Steven Rattner, a former co-founder/investment banker of Quadrangle, has been charged by State Attorney General/Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo for paying kickbacks to win $150M in state pension fund investments (Rattner supposedly refused 68 times to answer relevant questions). Rattner has also made a multi-million dollar settlement with the SEC while going around the country promoting his book regarding the auto bailout. The Obama Administration was well aware of Steven Rattner's legal problems when he was selected to the Administration last year... This was the change we've been waiting for?
Relevant Rant On Rattner and Other Income Redistributionists
Financial newsletter publisher Porter Stansberry does not suffer fools gladly. In response to a progressive reader's advocacy of income redistribution last May 28, Porter responded as possibly (which I'll paraphrase with embedded quotes):
I grew up learning certain truths: nothing in life is free, and life isn't fair. People work hard to produce goods or perform services to trade at a fair, market price. Some people have wealth or make more than others; that's none of my business. When others arbitrarily intervene to enforce below-market prices for selected people: "it's tyranny dressed up like charity. And the self-righteousness that always seems to [accompany these actions] nauseates." EXACTLY.
Congressman Ron Paul's Air Traveler Dignity Act:
Thumbs UP!
On a Side Note...
Unfortunately, on Neil Cavuto's Your World show today, after discussing the Air Travel Dignity Act, Ron Paul seemed to be stepping into the same quicksand that John Boehner did a few weeks back on Face the Nation, i.e., Ron Paul was willing to cave into the Democrats' class warfare attack on the Bush era tax cuts. (I hate the idea that Ron Paul is ready is willing to accept an even more progressive tax system when, in fact, he and other Republicans are on the record to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent.) Moreover, whatever incremental tax money is collected on the upper end will simply pay a fraction of the massive spending increases by the Democrats. Why should the well-to-do bail them out? Do you honestly believe Congress will pass a standalone measure later for the upper 2%? Let's call the Democrats' bluff: if they are willing to sell out the Bush middle class tax cut to prevent the upper 2% from maintaining their existing already high tax rates; fine--give them all the rope they need to hang themselves.
More Responses On the TSA/Privacy Thread
I don't intend to write daily about the TSA/privacy/dignity issue, but I want to respond to some points being raised by the opposition. This "whatever it takes to win a war/public safety" can be dysfunctional. Criticisms of the mismanaged Iraqi occupation were responded to by "keep the faith; stay the course". If we didn't show unconditional support of ineffectual manpower deployments, it would be interpreted as an abandonment of the troops. We need to support whatever the Defense Department/military command says. I absolutely disagree. Don't get me wrong: I don't believe that a President should micromanage a war, like LBJ planning bombing runs. But it is not the job of military commanders to make policy, and the President needs to manage key leaders and make policy, not give an unelected military command unaccountable authority.
A similar consideration comes into play when we are taking about airport security. A lot of people simply say "whatever is takes to make airplanes safer"--i.e., if I have to virtually strip in front of government bureaucrats in order to ensure safety, then I'm willing to do that. Gallup, shortly after the underwear bomber incident last Christmas, showed up to 78% of the American people willing to deal with nude-body yielding full-body scan technology in the pursuit of increased safety.
OK, reality check: THE EMPEROR IS WEARING NO CLOTHES. You get no extra safety by feeling up 80-year-old grandmothers or nuns, harassing business travelers, or families going on vacation. (Does anyone really believe that the mother of a newborn child wants that child to perish with her?) Look at the video of a poor little 3-year-old girl being patted down by two full-grown TSA women and/or taking her teddy bear away from her? (I believe that TSA may finally be backing off little kids, but what kind of policy making didn't exempt little kids from the get go?)
The op-ed column I'm citing is a fairly typical one (nothing special); I'm just citing it to make a couple of points. The author makes a wry observation, just like Ann Coulter (cited in yesterday's post): "we had better hope al-Qaida and its lunatic spin-offs don’t find some unwitting soul who thinks his road to paradise starts with allowing someone to shove explosives up his rectum." Yeah, America, what do you think of a mandatory enema or suppository? And there are other body cavities as well...
The op-ed writer makes a couple of points I want to briefly address: he essentially dismisses as unrealistic observations of former (Israeli) El Al security chief Isaac Yeffet, whom insists that America has too much reliance on the latest, greatest technology, at the expense of interrogation techniques. These are not easily gamed; there may be some nonverbal cues (e.g., nervous behavior). For example, most non-Islamic clergy or church groups, sports teams, couples on their honeymoon, senior citizens, young children, families, frequent travelers, etc., can easily be exempted.
Second, he says the following: "Flying is a privilege, not a right. I would rather be safe and made slightly uncomfortable by pre-flight scanning or patting than to be put in danger by some suicidal crank." I'm going to take strong exception to this. For many people, there are no real alternatives: I've taken trips for special occasions over weekends, I commuted 6 months from Chicago to Oakland on a project for Oracle Consulting (flying out Sunday afternoons, flying back Friday evenings), ...
Political Humor
"The day before Thanksgiving is National Opt-Out Day, where people are being asked to boycott the TSA's full-body scanners. Sponsors of the event say people shouldn't be made to feel embarrassed or uncomfortable while traveling. That's what Thanksgiving with your family is for." –Jimmy Fallon
[I want to assure you that TSA recruitment posters are NOT showing up in adult bookstores...]
"Now, to make it worse, the airlines are charging a $15 molestation fee." –Jay Leno
[It's the little comments that you get during or after the screening like, "I KNOW they're NOT real..." Or: "Is that because you're happy to see me?"]
Musical Interlude: Instrumentals/One-Hit Wonder
Mary Wells, "My Guy"
