Quote of the Day
None but a fool worries about things he cannot influence.
Samuel Johnson
This is not exactly unexpected; it had been rumored for some time. The story broke a few days ago, but I wanted to wait until the budget crisis was resolved to comment.
I have been a critic of Beck on a consistent basis in this blog, but it's not a case of professional jealousy and I haven't been influenced by progressive critics. I have to admit I am impressed that he not only has a TV show, but a radio show, a subscription website, etc. I find it a challenge to attract readers to a free blog; he is building a multimedia empire and has written several bestsellers.
I will say that I have an instinctive distrust of political spin or populism in any form (liberal or conservative) and a scientist's curiosity, skepticism about assumptions, and passion for the evidence; I'm sure that some people might find my analyses tedious or boring, but for instance, I found it fascinating to look at FDR's political strategy in implementing social security as he did. I was curious how, unlike the majority of fellow college students, graduates and professors, I had come to question progressive groupthink.
I think what Beck did, at least in the early days of watching him, is white-box historical context, beyond the typical facts and figures you get in a conventional history class. He went beyond, say, Sean Hannity's usual laundry list of predictable pop conservatism talking points. But after a certain point, Beck has become repetitious: been there, done that. His viewership, although much higher than the competition, has decreased by a third or so, particularly in the prized young adult audience, and there are some 400 Fox advertisers which will not advertise on his show.
I had been a reasonably regular viewer for months, but it has gotten to the point I don't think I have watched his complete program for several weeks. There are a number of reasons: first, I think the monologue format doesn't work, on least on a daily basis; second, the tone is frequently angry, and it often escalates to shouting; I think that happens because he doesn't get immediate feedback on how he comes across. Third, I think he gets a little too intimate with his audience, talking about his kids, his wife, his past issues with alcohol, etc. I do sometimes relate some of my personal stories (I happen to think I have had some unusual, interesting experiences), but I don't get intimate to the same degree. Fourth, I believe that he has gotten too repetitious, predictable, and self-serving. Fifth, I don't like the gloom and doom stuff, ubiquitous conspiracies and an obvious obsession with George Soros and Saul Alinsky. (He has attempted to mock those whom call him on his conspiracies, but that's not an answer.) Finally, he comes across to me as too judgmental and condescending. For instance, I've heard him mention on multiple occasion how much he hates Woodrow Wilson. He never met President Wilson. I try to provide a more balanced, nuanced presentation of political adversaries, like Barack Obama. (I do have a mock award I called "Jackass of the Year" but it's not personal: it's focused on particularly egregious behavior.)
Roger Ailes, FNC President, has noted that Beck's show had run its course (i.e., had run out of new things to say) and is fine with others reading into the situation that Beck is leaving on his own or his show was cancelled. Their new agreement calls for an unspecified number of guest appearances and/or programming projects (e.g., cable specials). I wasn't necessarily looking for Beck to leave his show, but I thought he had to revamp his format; the one-man show has grown stale (yes, I know he's occasionally had guests, e.g., on his Founding Fathers' series), the pastry/snack food gimmicks a little trite. "Less is more": Beck with a toehold in the most prominent libertarian/conservative cable network is in a win-win relationship to promote his books, appearances, and other projects. As for Beck acquiring or building his own, competing cable network: quite frankly, I think the issues causing problems with Beck at Fox would follow him into his own ventures (never mind likely no-compete clauses in any FNC contract). I think I have probably one of the more unique libertarian-conservative blogs on the Internet, but the limited audience I once had has been declining for months (John 6:60-71).
What does Fox News do with the post-Beck 5PM timeslot? FNC is not soliciting my opinion, but I could easily envision a magazine-style show, sort of a cross between 60 Minutes and a late night talk show. Consider, for example, having Greg Gutfeld of the brilliant Red Eye host a political humor/monologue segment, a Wall Street Journal financial/editorial segment, maybe a spot featuring young conservative bloggers (e.g., SE Cuppe), audience participation polls, a "letter to the editor"/Youtube/Skype segment where Fox News viewers can submit questions to FNC contributors, extended feature interviews, news stories and/or rotating segments of Fox News contributors like John Stossel, Andrew Napolitano, and Karl Rove. I think variety is probably the best way to approach the young adult market: a different, more hip version of the O'Reilly Factor.
Why Donald Trump Will Not Get My Vote
Before continuing, let me say, hands down, in the unlikely event Trump was to win the GOP nomination, I would vote for him over Barack Obama. I do believe that a job-creating businessman would bring a fresh, much-needed perspective to the Presidency. That being said, I have serious reservations about the Donald and would prefer a candidate from my top three: Mitt Romney, Mitch Daniels, and Tim Pawlenty.
I generally rule out rumored or actual candidates like Rick Santorum, whom recently won a key southern straw poll, Newt Gingrich, and Michele Bachmann for being too polarizing to win over key moderate and independent voters and lacking general administrative experience. I've written several posts against Sarah Palin as a viable candidate. Huckabee remains a viable, acceptable candidate, but I suspect that the GOP doesn't want to rerun the 2008 campaign. This would seem to rule out Romney (especially given the hit he's going to take on Massachusetts RomneyCare), but he has story to tell as both a successful business executive and governor; this plays very well against Obama's lack of business and administrative experience, and Romney can easily take the fight to Obama on his unpopular health care albatross.
The first thing I think about any celebrity like Donald Trump deciding that he wants to start out at the top of the political food chain is the hubris: he has zero experience with public service. Now there's nothing wrong with confidence, and Donald certainly is a master at self-promotion. But if Donald Trump thinks that dealing with the likes of Schumer, Boxer, Reid, and Durbin is no different than making a typical business deal or he can browbeat the Chinese government into changing currency policy, he's either naive or delusional. The salient point is that we are currently seeing the downside of someone whom clearly was unprepared for the office of the Presidency, and can we afford another 4 years of a government executive in training? I think we've just gone through another expert in the art of self-promotion, and I think the American people deserve better than 'all hat and no cattle'. We've just seen the Congress over the past 3 weeks go through massive trauma over a possible government shutdown, all over cutting less than $40B from over a $3.5T budget. Personally, I don't want someone telling me what they think I want to hear; I want to recognize that we are in a mess of unprecedented proportions, it's going to take strong leadership and historic sacrifice to fight our way out of it, but I've the character, ability, and diligence to see our way through it. The key point, though: bumper sticker politics won't get us there.
I do not know why Donald Trump is obsessed with international respect. We have a President whom for the first year of his Presidency went around apologizing and pandering to every foreigner, legitimizing any imaginary grievance against the United States and its past Presidents. This country is always going to attract international resentment, in part out of jealousy and fear of its powerful economy and military. Would I like the US to be respected more than it is? Of course. But to a large extent, this is beyond one's control. What we can do is scale back on activities like nation building and getting involved in disputes from other world regions.
However, I am uncomfortable with Donald Trump's odd obsession with Obama's birth certificate and, in particular, China bashing. Even Glenn Beck who is widely known for advancing conspiracy theories has dismissed the birther nonsense. It comes across as a rather penny-wise, pound-foolish; Trump has gotten a boost with the fringe right, already boosting him into the top 3 in some GOP preference polls. However, it's badly tarnished his credibility with mainstream Republicans, independents and moderates. Second, the China bashing borders on provocative irresponsible rhetoric and demonstrates profound ignorance of economics and international trade issues. For instance, the unemployment issue that Trump is blaming on China actually reflects on huge productivity increases in US companies, doubling in 2009 and again in 2010, versus declines in other countries. And international surveys show that the average person in (communist) China has more faith in the free market than the average American. What Trump should be doing is not pandering to mercantilists but making America a better place to do business.
However, I am uncomfortable with Donald Trump's odd obsession with Obama's birth certificate and, in particular, China bashing. Even Glenn Beck who is widely known for advancing conspiracy theories has dismissed the birther nonsense. It comes across as a rather penny-wise, pound-foolish; Trump has gotten a boost with the fringe right, already boosting him into the top 3 in some GOP preference polls. However, it's badly tarnished his credibility with mainstream Republicans, independents and moderates. Second, the China bashing borders on provocative irresponsible rhetoric and demonstrates profound ignorance of economics and international trade issues. For instance, the unemployment issue that Trump is blaming on China actually reflects on huge productivity increases in US companies, doubling in 2009 and again in 2010, versus declines in other countries. And international surveys show that the average person in (communist) China has more faith in the free market than the average American. What Trump should be doing is not pandering to mercantilists but making America a better place to do business.
Fukushima Nuclear Incident Update
A tip from the NEI blog led me to a new wordpress blog which maintains, on relevant tabs, interesting plots on critical Fukushima Daiichi reactor parameters and certain Japanese ambient radiation level trends. NOTE: The reactor 1 pressure readings may be somewhat unreliable because of suspected instrumentation issues.
Atomic Power Review notes:
- morning: Within a day it is expected that reactor 2 turbine basement water will be pumped to a storage tank in the rad waste building while pipe tunnel water is being pumped into the reactor's (daisy-chained emptied) main condenser.
- afternoon: Debris related to earthquake and/or earlier hydrogen explosions is being cleared away. Reactor 1 pressure (recall the ongoing injections of nitrogen in primary containment to control for hydrogen buildup) continues to build slowly as well as contaminated water in the reactor 2 pipe tunnel.
- evening: Water transfers from reactor 1 and reactor 2 main condensers have completed; we should see dewatering of tunnels and basements shortly.
NEI notes:
- daily: Steel sheets and silt barrier are in process of installation at intake structure for reactor 2 to minimize release of contaminated water. Reactor 1 through 3 reactor pressurized vessel coolant injections continue as well as-needed spraying of spent fuel pools of reactors 1 through 4.
IAEA notes:
- daily: There are some modest increases of iodine and cesium in seawater sampling, presumably related to recent dumping of low-contaminated water. (We should see the decreasing trend of levels as dumping activities continues.) The dewatering of some 60,000 tons of contaminated water in basements and trenches will require more than storage made available by transfers to suppression pools and/or other tanks and so portable storage tanks are on order. Gamma dose rates continue to decrease in all prefectures.
The Hiroshima Syndrome blogger notes that the remaining 200 tons of low-contaminated water were due to be released at sea. He points out a couple of instances of Hiroshima Syndrome, including Chinese bans of food imports from Tokyo (far from Daiichi) and difficulties of foreign reporters in finding Hiroshima residents with Hiroshima Syndrome. He also discusses some post-audit issues: for example, did TEPCO fail to provide the same design considerations to the Daiichi site as the Daini site for penny-wise, pound-foolish reasons?
Political Humor
One of the best conservative satirists, Andrew Klavan, publishes a biweekly video, and I have embedded some of his videos on my blog. I will likely be featuring more of his work on future posts, but for those interested watching more of his work, consider a worthwhile visit to PJTV.
A few originals:
- President Obama just got his first setback of his reelection campaign--an unwanted endorsement from Libyan dictator Qaddafi, whom accuses him of supporting an Al Qaeda takeover of Libya. And Barack thought he had enough of a birther challenge from Donald Trump: Qaddafi addresses him as "Our Dear Son, Excellency, Baraka Hussein Abu Oumama". Of course, the spelling bee of the dictator's surname continues: he signs his surname "Qaddaffi".
- Mayor Bloomberg is suggesting that New Yorkers ease off on air conditioning this summer to cut down on high utility bills. And now about those high water bills... You just might want to avoid New York cabs this summer...
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
ABBA, "When I Kissed the Teacher". When I was a UT teaching assistant, I was teaching calculus, not geometry. I never had a hot Swedish blonde in any of my classes (including my 8 years of teaching MIS courses). And certainly no current/former coed in any of my classes has ever kissed me or dated me (no doubt they had their reputations to maintain...) But I find the song utterly charming and like to wonder what it would have been like for Agnetha to crush on me...
