Miscellany: 5/14/11

Quote of the Day 

Truth nevër hurts the teller.

Robert Browning

My Childhood Hero Is Dying

A statement Friday from Harmon Killebrew:

It is with profound sadness that I share with you that my continued battle with esophageal cancer is coming to an end. With the continued love and support of my wife, Nita, I have exhausted all options with respect to controlling this awful disease. My illness has progressed beyond my doctors’ expectation of cure. I have spent the past decade of my life promoting hospice care and educating people on its benefits. I am very comfortable taking this next step and experiencing the compassionate care that hospice provides. I am comforted by the fact that I am surrounded by my family and friends. I thank you for the outpouring of concern, prayers and encouragement that you have shown me. I look forward to spending my final days in comfort and peace with Nita by my side.

Harmon Killebrew first signed with the old Washington Senators as a "bonus baby" before I was born:

In the mid-1960s, it wasn't Hank Aaron or Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle but Harmon Killebrew who seemed to have the best shot at Babe Ruth's lifetime homer record. At the end of 1967, the 31-year-old Killer, a nickname that contradicted his gentle nature, had hit 380 home runs, more than Ruth had at the same age. But in 1968 he was out much of the year with an injury, and after 1970 his enormous power dissipated quickly. Killebrew finished fifth in HR all-time, and third in home run frequency, and left behind a legacy of pure power.

I should note after the above quote that Killebrew rebounded from his injury-prone 1968 season to have an MVP season (in 5 other seasons he placed among the top 4), with a career-high/tying 49 home runs and 140 RBI's. Harmon hit 40 or more home runs an impressive 8 times, over half of his full seasons. Unlike certain modern baseball players, Harmon Killebrew didn't rely on performance-enhancing substances for his legendary power, which included hitting a shot over old Tiger Stadium roof in left field (the first of only 4 batters) and hitting another 500-foot-plus home run in Minnesota that shattered two stadium seats. Fellow legendary American League slugger Reggie Jackson once said of him that "if Harmon Killebrew isn't the league's best player, I've never seen one. He's one of the greatest of all time."

Just as important, "Hammerin' Harmon" was the ultimate sportsman and role model: he didn't drink and never got thrown out of a game for misbehavior. He is a family man and a Mormon; he has 5 children from his first marriage, which unfortunately ended in 1989, 9 children from his current marriage, and 23 grandchildren. When asked what he did for fun, Killebrew replied, "Well, I like to wash dishes, I guess." Fellow star player Tony Oliva said of Harmon, "I tell everybody he's too nice to be a baseball player. He's a gentleman." When Twins' designated hitter Jim Thome last year passed Killebrew's career total of 573 home runs, Harmon said, "I speak very highly of Jim Thome. Not only is he a great player, but he's a great individual. I think he was a little apprehensive about passing me up. I said, 'Jim, I passed a lot of guys up myself along the way. I hope you hit 100 more.'"

For a better, more worthy tribute, I recommend David Hughes' column (David's experience is uncannily similar to mine, except he had the privilege of meeting Harmon Killebrew in person). We will always mourn that Hammerin' Harmon was unable to foul off that deadly disease, but we cheer his courage for keeping the faith in the batter's box and doing his best against the pitches delivered to him, good and bad. I want to respect his privacy during his remaining days with family and friends, but I trust that he realizes, as he acknowledges in his statement, that the rest of us celebrate a man among men, consider his a life well-lived, are inspired by his courage, grace, integrity and leadership, salute his distinguishing example as a superb athlete and a chivalrous man to a generation or more of young men, and admire his faith in God and family. He has touched the lives of young men he's never met and taught them to be better men. We keep him and his family in our thoughts and prayers always. 

Old days (Peter Cetera)

Good times I remember

Fun days

Filled with simple pleasures

Drive-in movies
Comic books and blue jeans
Howdy Doody

Courtesy of vintagecardprices.com

I used to imitate that stance--unsuccessfully

Baseball cards and birthdays
Take me back
To a world gone away

Memories

Seem like yesterday

Old days

Good times I remember

Gold days

Days I'll always treasure

Funny faces

Full of love and laughter

Funny places

Summer nights and streetcars

Take me back

To a world gone away

Boyhood memories
Seem like yesterday

Old days - in my mind and in my heart to stay

Old days - darkened dreams of good times gone away

Old days - days of love and feeling fancy free

Old days - days of magic still so close to me
Old days - in my mind and in my heart to stay

Old days - darkened dreams of good times gone away

Old days - days of love and feeling fancy free

Old days - days of magic still so close to me

Mitt Romney: There's A Distinction

Between Prudence and Principle

In a future post, I will discuss Friedrich Hayek's essay on why he's not a conservative: he's a liberal, but not in a sense most Americans use the term. I'm not thinking of the trite conventional talking point that Republicans and Democrats are all big spenders and that it's just a matter of degree. Rather, Hayek is referring to the point that, for example, that even Republicans don't object now to the concept of federal government meddling in retirement benefits--in fact, even Paul Ryan's most ambitious plans are merely more fiscally conservative reforms of entitlements than the Democrats' state of denial there are any fundamental problems. In my opinion, Hayek would say that Big Government is alive and well in Ryan's modest reforms.

So in a similar way, I want to analyze Mitt Romney's defiant refusal to back away from RomneyCare and distance himself from what he considers a chief bipartisan accomplishment during his gubernatorial tenure. He considers it a matter of principle. As someone who is favorably inclined towards Romney, I have to say that Romney is misjudging the issue, and he needs to rethink his strategy. He should distance himself, for example, from aspects passing over his vetoes; he needs to think in terms of a lessons learned: we now see longer wait times, increasing numbers of doctors not taking new patients; what, of the reforms listed co-opted from the GOP responses to ObamaCare, did he not apply in Massachusetts and why not (e.g., malpractice reform)?

This whole thing is a conceptual mess, and he needs to come up with a cleaner explanation. Let me give some salient examples of what I'm getting at. Part of the problem in Massachusetts, with some of the highest rates in the nation, are the special interests whom add to gold-plated coverages imposed on everyone else. Why didn't he reform benefits in order to allow bare-minimum high-deductible coverages? At the same time, he's arguing a Tenth Amendment, pro-federalism argument (state rights versus federal empire-building). He's saying he's fine with allowing insurance companies across state lines. But Democrats counter it's a race to the bottom by essentially forcing states to drop expensive mandates so vendors in their states could compete. Interstate competition would, in fact, undermine parochial state regulation. Now I'm in favor of relevant deregulation, but the issue is regulation itself. Similarly, the Republicans seem to be willing to use interstate commerce when it comes to marketing health care but only if regulation is limited in nature. The Republicans object when the Democrats super-size the very same regulatory authority. This, in my judgment, is the essence of the Hayek argument.

In both cases, the parties are agreeing to the essence of government interference in the marketplace. The very same thing is malpractice reform. Why should the federal government get involved in the first place? If union-shop states want to chase away businesses which can relocate to right-to-work states, let them learn their lessons the same way. If Massachusetts, unlike Texas, doesn't implement medical malpractice tort reform, and it's driving up costs, why didn't Romney make it a key element of reform?

So, even though I agree that the Republican patchwork of health care reforms is vastly more preferable to ObamaCare, we have some fundamental issues relevant to any relevant government solution; in practice, the GOP was trying to co-opt the Democrats just like Obama is trying to co-opt the GOP on domestic natural resource reform.

What Romney needs to do, fundamentally, is explain WHY Massachusetts needed a state solution for insurance coverage, if even insurance is necessary. After all, a hundred years ago, few Americans had health insurance. I can already anticipate what Mitch Daniels is going to say to Romney: look, when I took over, the Indiana DMV had long waiting times, and we managed to achieve better execution and throughput, low waiting times for transactions. You reform the Massachusetts health care sector, and instead of better access, you have worse access... How do you think that reflects better government? My message to Obama is he's going to take the same ineffectiveness and put it on steroids nationwide...

I want to repeat for the umpteenth time, the federal government should look at reinsuring insurance companies (or other mechanisms) so companies don't have to face the insolvency issue of unlimited liabilities for constrained premiums--the prime motivation for dropping coverage of paying customers; if states or the government wants guaranteed coverage, regardless of individual health risk, it should fully subsidize net costs to the private sector for that coverage. PERIOD. What the Democrats are trying to do (and have been doing for decades in terms of entitlements) is shift government risk to the private sector. That's fundamentally unethical: you cannot play kaleidoscope budgeting and smoke-and-mirrors accounting gimmicks. During the entire health care debate, I heard very little discussion of catastrophic costs or reforms of state/region high risk plans. I heard very little about going after individuals whom received "free" coverage.  Instead, deliberately deceptive political hacks like Nancy Pelosi were talking about free exams and doughnut fillings--as if there weren't real costs associated with those freebies--and as if government bureaucracy doesn't have overhead and there are no costs attributed to feeding the bureaucracy instead of treating sick people! I'm tired of how gullible most Americans are in putting up with this political spin nonsense!

Romney needs to do more than wave the Tenth Amendment and sign onto the GOP basket reforms. He needs to explain why he thought RomneyCare was a good idea, and it means more than begging the question by claiming benefits of "universal coverage".  The government bureaucracy can dictate prices, say, of gasoline at 25 cents a gallon--but nobody is going to sell gasoline at 25 cents a gallon. The only way you get gasoline to market under that system is for the government to make up the difference to market price. And where do you think the government gets the money to underwrite that cost?

Political Potpourri

I was wrong: Mike Huckabee is not running. I had speculated that he couldn't resist given the fact he's consistently placed in the top two and he might regret the road not taken years from now. I thought that coming from a traditional Democratic state, he had a story to tell about his bipartisan appeal. From a contextual standpoint, in a week where two candidates (Gingrich and Paul) announced for the nomination, I thought he, who had been saying he would make a decision this summer, felt a need to preempt others looking to get in the race or to reassure campaign contributors or volunteers. Also, Huckabee teased an appearance on Fox News Sunday, like Ron Paul whom announced this week; I didn't see why he would be promoting an appearance over an announcement of non-candidacy. 

But to be honest (and I can't prove this because I didn't publish an interim post), I changed my mind today because of a few reasons: first, most people involved with his former candidate had subsequently suggested that he had not been in touch with them recently with a decision, something he himself said yesterday. It's always possible that nobody wanted to preempt Huckabee's announcement, but Huckabee is more of a straight shooter, not a misleading Obama-style politician. Second, one thing he said yesterday bothered me: he said that even the producer of his Saturday night show was unaware of the decision. For a variety of reasons, in particular, the equal time rule, there are complications with announcing a campaign for President, which meant he would have to consult with FNC and/or his show's producer. (This, in fact, is the primary reason Donald Trump has had to formally defer his decision to enter the race.) Now they would probably would canceled his show and replaced it with other programming--including political analysis on the announcement, but the point is he would have had to consult them. He would not have to consult them for a negative decision. Finally, a snap decision seemed to be out of context; you usually want to build some buzz to start up a campaign, not launch a surprise candidacy. In addition, he was pretty sure his family knew about his decision; there was something about how he phrased it that implied there wasn't a recent discussion, but if he had made a decision, there would have been more recent conversations, especially after leading everyone to believe an announcement would be in the future.

However, to be honest, whereas I could have supported Huckabee, I didn't think that he would be the nominee; his principal value would have been if Palin decided to enter the race since many social conservatives have an affinity for Palin. I think most Republicans don't want a rerun of the unsuccessful 2008 campaign. The reason Romney has retained appeal is because he is seen as a job creator, someone whom understands business. However, as I explained above, he may be misreading the Republicans here with how he's playing defense on RomneyCare.

My analysis? On paper, this is a big win for Romney--Palin, Gingrich, and Trump have too much negative baggage to run against Obama, and the bottom line is the reason McCain was nominated in 2008 was that he was seen as the most electable candidate in the GOP field. Romney is within striking distance.

There are two possible paths I see here: first, there is unlikely blockbuster candidate path: someone who is seen of transforming the race by his entry and causing immediate problems for Romney. There are three people I see right now falling in that category: former Florida Governor Jeb Bush; Gen. David Petraeus; and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Jeb Bush, who has strong support from media conservatives, could go a long way to reassuring conservative and moderate Latinos because he would be the one candidate that can deliver on immigration reform; his family is Latino, and he championed Marco Rubio. I don't think Petraeus has the economic credentials to challenge Romney, but he has compelling name recognition and popularity with the base and independents and moderates--and a particularly awkward challenge for Obama, whom has nominated him to 2 high-profile posts. Again, I stress all 3 of these potential candidates have ruled out a 2012 race, but if Romney doesn't catch on because of RomneyCare and sufficient definition apart from Obama, and nobody else fills the Huckabee void, we could see a reestablishment of an anti-Romney coalition, and this becomes a more viable possibility.

The second is that in my opinion, Huck's decision makes it an almost certain lock that Mitch Daniels enters the race and also opens up a possible surge for Tim Pawlenty from neighboring Minnesota to win the Iowa caucuses, which would immediately launch him to frontrunner status.

In the post-UBL Presidential approval rating, both Gallup and Rasmussen show Obama at 48%, with Gallup showing a further narrowing of net approval to +3, down from double-digits just a few days ago. Gallup is now only 2 points above his pre-UBL raid ratings. Translation: Obama is in deep trouble; he is now facing the quintessential problem with any President with high unemployment problems: what have you done for me lately?

Fukushima Nuclear Incident Update

Atomic Power Review notes:

• Saturday update: There is speculation about whether "corium" (melted fuel cell/boron (control rods) and/or concrete in containment) resulted in a hole developed in a reactor 1 Reactor Pressurized Vessel head and in fact resulted in a hole in primary containment; in part, recenting filling up primary containment with water was based on attenuating radiation in the RPV and/or primary containment. My understanding is that water levels in the building are increasing in a manner which cannot be explained by the coolant loop. (There are other hypotheses regarding corrosion of the pipes (in the coolant loop).) It's not clear they've located any holes, say, in primary containment, but some suggest that a hydrogen explosion early in the crisis after losing backup power post-tsunami is consistent with an RPV leak.

Political Humor

A few originals:

• Among the details uncovered during the recent Abbottabad raid was UBL's stash of avena sativa (wild oats). (Stallions eating wild oats exhibit greater sex drives, and the substance is regarded as an herbal aphrodesiac.) With at least six wives and 26 children, Osama bin Laden must have sown his wild oats.
• There was a stash of pornography, including movies, found at the compound (although it's not clear whether UBL personally viewed the material). Let's hope it didn't include that Middle Eastern classic, "Hump (the Magic Camel)".

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups

Chicago, "Make Me Smile" Kath's vocal performance is spectacular; the ultimate brassy love song.