Quote of the Day
I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating.
Sophocles
Blog Notes: June 2011
After starting off on a promising note, blog readership dropped dramatically after the first week, a record blog low over the past year, including record low daily totals. International readership was negligible; my German readers numbered well over my Danish runners up, but to provide context, my daily views a year ago from Denmark exceeded my monthly readership from Germany. I do not know what explains the readership drops; there could be process or content issues (say, more libertarian stances, increasing criticisms on Fox News or Palin and Bachmann). I will continue to provide unique commentaries, regardless of readership; sometimes I may challenge your point of view, other times you will find a different, concurring opinion.
Some features, like my Political Humor segment, will be published on a variable basis, depending on major stories or published late night jokes deserving an ad lib. I recently discontinued my regular Fukushima Daiichi nuclear incident update series; I will likely publish occasional updates and reserve the right to reestablish more regular publication as circumstances warrant. I also recently discontinued the daily publication of my Harmon Killebrew tribute series through the end of the season; I didn't find enough fresh material of suitable quality to sustain the series. Instead I will publish the tribute segment on an occasional basis.
The Glenn Beck Fox News Channel Show Done: Thumbs UP!
Anyone who has ever watched a Glenn Beck program knows that Beck is a little too full of himself. And that was part of the problem. We have entirely different styles. It is true that I integrate personal experiences into the blog which on surface looks similar in nature. But, at least at the current time, I don't earn a penny from this blog. I'm not selling books, website memberships, etc. I've never gotten a professional gig through this blog. I'm not singling out people, companies or clients--and part of the reason I'm doing that is because I'm far more interested in the global issue.
Earlier this week I described a failed ERP upgrade project almost 10 years ago at a City of Chicago agency. I was unfairly victimized and scapegoated under circumstances that would horrify anyone reading this post; people like me who are the best at what they do and deliver results will attract bitter, brutal opposition for whatever reason--fear of change, loss of influence, professional jealousy, etc. I am not going to use this space to vent at particular individuals. Let me go into a few more details here: A well-known computing company had outsourcing contracts with the City of Chicago and also at least one project through a separate consulting unit. I have dealt with a number of project managers over the years, the vast majority of which, despite earned credentials, were grossly incompetent--and I'm not venting here. I've taught system life cycles for years.
I'll give a couple of simply examples from my final project at Big Blue where I migrated the ERP system for a well-known tax service company. The subsidiary was based on a business model which assumed a cookie-cutter ERP system. The tax service company had previously engaged a well-known consulting company to maintain the system. This consulting company basically had what I would describe as a poison pill strategy--they have not implemented a single patch update, they were using unconventional (to Oracle) mountpoints, and they were using a proprietary cloning procedure (while our outsource DBA's in India could only handle Oracle's standard Rapid Clone methodology). My boss and his sales associates had never validated from get-go that the client's configuration for the cookie-cutter business model. My boss didn't want to accept the database until they did tons of patches; the client wanted me to do the patching (i.e., so IBM would assume the risk of changes to their production environment, a non-starter for my boss). We had separate system operations teams that did not correctly configure server storage under their own standard (the system crashed one day and was unavailable for another) and did not configure networking correctly between servers and tape drives (I had to clone across servers and I was seeing megabytes versus gigabytes). I initially had to wait for production server space in Phoenix, and during the 6-weeks I was working in the test environment, the PM never acquired the storage just before go-live. I found out almost by accident from conversations with the client that they used security software to do a single bank download every day that had to be implemented; totally unknown to the PM, the security software was not on Big Blue's standard server configuration, which meant that I had to push this special request through the bureaucracy. Then, to add icing to the cake, I worked around the clock to make the system available for my techno-functional colleague by noon on Saturday; it wasn't until then that he even tested to see if he could connect to the client system from off-site. He refused to call the client or go directly to work at the client facility to get access. I had personally asked this gentleman 2 or 3 times earlier that week if he had tested his connection and/or set up a backup plan to work at the facility. He decided "it can wait until Monday". WELCOME TO MY WORLD. I don't know what the devil the PM was doing other than generating fancy charts with no bearing to the reality of the project. I couldn't blackbox anything; I was the de facto project manager. Even when I told the PM, it wasn't getting done. If I didn't make the calls and jawbone the personnel, it didn't get done. Believe me, when you have to push these things at the last minute, you will get political pushback. It's not a matter of "what you said but how you said it"; it has to do with managers being caught not enforcing their own standards, not doing their jobs. There's no way to sugarcoat that.
Going back to that Chicago project, the client IT manager never once asked for my input. And I believe the city agency failed to hold their vendor accountable on big picture terms. Let me explain: there were several categories or stages of the upgrade process from Oracle--so you have 2 test upgrade cycles during the 12 weeks. Let's just say for simplification there were 7 categories and they all take the same time. By week 4 you have to have a database closed up for the upgrade and the upgrade process at least from a technology stack process ready to run upgrade application scripts on an higher-version database. If you are not running upgrade scripts by week 5, you are in trouble. In this case I described earlier, when I finally took over as lead project DBA, they had only gotten to category 2 (at most) after 6 weeks. They hadn't closed off the database for upgrade, they hadn't upgraded the database itself (a prerequisite to running the application scripts). As to why the client IT manager didn't know about the process. In the meanwhile, the PM is thinking he can do the two-cycle requirement concurrently during the last 6 weeks--at the same time he still hasn't procured auxiliary software to run payroll and he's refusing to put the staff DBA's around the clock to help me--I can't book more than 8 hours. Why the vendor consulting company wasn't holding the PM's feet to the fire, why the client wasn't doing the same, I don't know. The emperor is wearing no clothes.
Ultimately the failure of the project reflected incompetent leadership from the vendor consulting company and the city. The vendor consulting company, in fact, was hiring subcontractors and deliberately misleading the client about their employment status. I've got personal issues with this PM which I won't discuss here, but I will simply say I presented him with a 7-page, single-spaced memo of errors I had personally seen the head project DBA make--before he caused his own database to crash without possible recovery--and I wasn't working with this DBA more than an hour or two daily; God knows what mistakes he made I didn't know about. All I said was--check with the technical management of the consulting company; hire an independent DBA to evaluate what I wrote and to make recommendations. And he didn't do anything with it. I didn't have line authority to do anything.
So, when I look back at these circumstances, I'm really not venting over the fact I was scapegoated by both parties for circumstances they incompetently mismanaged. They have to think in terms of something I've been pointing out in general for government projects--you have to have appropriate milestones and deliverables so you can cut your losses early. Why the IT manager didn't realize there was such a thing as category 4 or category 5 and wasn't demanding a status on what has/hasn't been category 4 or 5--I don't know. I can tell you if I was the IT manager spending thousands of dollars on consultants on an upgrade project, I would know there was a category 4 or 5. I would not settle for garbage-out project plans devoid of any practical significance.
When I was dealing with that project, I wasn't thinking of the organizational political crap. Yes, the PM and his hired DBA subcontractors were grossly incompetent and should have been terminated for cause. What I'm thinking about is the lessons learned over and beyond the project staffing.
Going back to Glenn Beck, one point he made today is how he got a text during the Spiderman event inviting him backstage to meet U2 lead singer Bono. He sort of left it there. I thought maybe he was going to discuss something about aid to Africa or other global initiatives, but it came across to me like a teeny-bopper trying to impress her friends she personally met some singer named Justin Bieber. (I've never listened to this guy sing, but apparently some people think the kid is talented, so I'm just using him as an example.)
Now I have to say, the show was successful, and you can't argument with success. I will say if I had been in Beck's position, I would have gotten at least twice his ratings and 50 times the advertisers. It's the phony "it's not me; you're the one whom makes it happen", it's the constant apocalyptic warnings, it's the constant self-promotion and bragging about ACORN or other investigatory success stories, it's the constant "let's prove I said this or that', etc. Why does he have this compulsion to "prove" he is/was right? (I'm sure he's acting with integrity and showing all the predictions he got wrong... Yeah, right.)
I have a maternal uncle whom simply doesn't argue. He makes his point once. Beck, on the other hand, seems to have a compulsion to prove himself right, to remind other people how prescient he is. It doesn't add anything to the show--all it does is reflect a need for constant public approval, more of a personal defect. A legitimate leader like me doesn't need constant validation; true leaders don't need to take credit for other people, they don't feel a need to engage in personal destruction; they realize if they're doing something innovative, they'll deal with rejection.
Am I being hypocritical or judgmental in this commentary on Beck? I don't think so. I may disagree with him on a few things. I just thought he needed a good editor, tone things down, fewer extended monologues.
As for his subscription website, which apparently kicks off for real after 9/11, I have my doubts, and I will not be a customer. I think he will return to cable some day given his proven ratings.
Blagojevich: Guilty 1+17: Thumbs UP!
As a former Illinois resident who voted against Blagojevich before leaving the area in 2004, I intended to commentate on the long-overdue corruption convictions earlier this week, but I was working on a different project. Three words: RULE OF LAW. The "golden" nature of the Obama seat appointment was obviously a telltale sign of corruption. Blagojevich wanted everyone to know all he did was good old fashioned political dealmaking. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. The very fact that he pointed out that he could appoint himself to the seat--which would be in his self-interest--points out that he saw any deal as relevant to his own interest. Ironically, the self-appointment would have likely worked except for the fact that he was shopping the seat around. In one of the few times Harry Reid made a good decision, he made it clear Blago would not be seated if he did nominate himself; of course, by that time, the appointment was under a cloud of suspicion.
I give the Justice Department credit for taking the risk of a second trial after the holdout juror blocked all but one conviction. The interesting thing in the story cited above was how Blago tried to manipulate votes of the jurors by pandering to their individual tastes. Pathetic!
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "Feel". This will be the next to last song in my Chicago series. My next featured group will be ELO.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Miscellany: 6/29/11
Quote of the Day
From long familiarity, we know what honor is.
It is what enables the individual to do right in the face of complacency and cowardice.
It is what enables the soldier to die alone,
the political prisoner to resist,
the singer to sing her song, hardly appreciated, on a side street.
Mark Helprin
Congratulations to 'The Voice' Winner Javier Colon
In yesterday's post I announced my support for Javier.
On Gaffes
Maybe it's because I'm a grownup, but I really don't like the petty partisan food fights between the Democrats/progressives and the Republicans. I occasionally watch the nightly rebroadcast of Hannity, like last night when, with Glenn Beck's annoying habit of repeating the same video clip 3 or 4 times within an hour, he kept repeating time after time: the President's mispronunciation of 'corpsman' (i.e., the 's' is silent) and the famous '57 state' gaffe, not to mention other well-known Democrat politician gaffes (especially Joe Biden, e.g., asking a wheelchair-bound Missouri state senator to stand up). I myself have brought up the '57 state' gaffe a few times, but I've published over 900 posts to this blog, and it's when I think he's gotten a little too full of himself. And the same holds true on the other side: the endless recitation of former Veep Dan Quayle's misspelling of 'potatoe', former President Bush's notorious mispronunciation of 'nuclear'.
Unfortunately, Sean Hannity doesn''t have the background I have in human performance engineering not to mention having read literally thousands of research articles in applied or educational psychology. Very intelligent people make innocuous mistakes, and not all mistakes are equal in the sense Hannity and others are suggesting. Sometimes very bright people are thinking two steps ahead of themselves (of what they intend to say next) and they'll misspeak. Let me give some context: I don't know where the '57 states' came from but maybe he was thinking destinations and was clustering together some foreign states or American territories. That's different than asking Obama how many American states there are. This particular thing, moreover, is a simple question of fact, which ranks fairly low on any standard taxonomy of educational objectives. The same thing holds true of Dan Quayle's 'potatoe'; some English words ending in 'o' use 'es' as plurals, e.g., 'heroes' and 'potatoes', others use 's', e.g., photos. For a word ending in 'e', you form the plural by adding an 's'. It's possible he worked backwards from 'potatoes'. He was incorrect, of course, but to make an inference about his educational achievement based on a singular misapplication of a spelling rule is unreasonable. I myself find myself doing an occasional spoonerism which I find rather amusing--for example, I've caught myself just before emptying my sweetener packets into the trash instead of my coffee cup. The bottom line is that you need a preponderance of evidence, a consistent pattern of mistakes.
I think it's intellectually dishonest to exaggerate trivial mistakes out of context. And quite frankly, repetitious litanies of trivial mistakes are boring, and I think the fact that Hannity seemed obsessed with the pronunciation of 'corpsman' reflects his mediocrity of his mind and his contribution. This blog is unlike any libertarian-conservative blog on the Internet. I provide numerous original analyses and other original content like political humor, I often take contrarian points of view, and I explore an eclectic assortment of topics; I am not wishy-washy, and I loathe political spin and red meat politics. I don't spend a lot of time whining about the unfair liberal mass media.
What bothers me about Fox News and many of the conservative blogs is that they do not address some of the core issues and simply parrot, say, Michele Bachmann's talking points. I saw this freakish clip the other day where Bachmann is claiming that Barack Obama is running scared of her, she has a clear road to the nomination, etc. If I'm being charitable, she's engaging in unrealistic wishful thinking or lost-touch-with-reality self-promotional hype. There's no harm in a last-place team's manager saying they'll make the World Series this year, but if he really believes it, he is delusional.
A point here is that Fox News seems more interested in process than substance. For example, they are obsessed with the dubious talking point that conservative females are disproportionately being attacked. You have to wonder what "conservative women" are they talking about? The "conservative women" I've heard references are Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. I will continue that discussion below but let us review a couple of kerfuffles.
First, there was the kerfuffle about Sarah Palin's convoluted gaffe involving Paul Revere. This is no 'potatoe' or '57 state' kerfuffle. In elementary school I knew that Revere's ride was to warn the patriots about the approach of the British, not to warn the British. Then she was talking about the Second Amendment nearly 15 years before it was ratified. By any objective analysis, Palin was wrong (I decisively refuted this in a post several days back). What was amusing was seeing historians coming out of the woodwork for their 15 minutes of fame trying to rationalize Palin's incorrect revisionist history. Clearly, Palin isn't even qualified to teach history in K-12, never mind run a country. What really bothered me was that fact that instead of cutting her losses and saying she misspoke, she dug in her heels, insisting she was correct. I mean, for instance, Obama did not continue to insist there are 57 states and Quayle didn't continue spelling 'potatoe'. This is a key point Hannity and other Fox News contributors repeatedly ignored (or were too incompetent to realize) in discussing this issue: the inescapable conclusion is that Sarah Palin has a difficult time admitting when she is wrong. And that enough is reason enough to question her emotional fitness to be President.
Then there was this similarly bizarre revisionist discussion by Michele Bachmann about the role of the Founding Fathers in terms of abolition, making reference to slavery. In particular, she referenced John Quincy Adams, the son of the second President and whom served as President in the mid 1820's: 50 years after the Declaration of Independence. Adams did work towards abolition as a Congressman in the 1830's-1840's. Again, Bachmann simply should have cut her losses and admitted her mistake. The problem here is if you can't admit you were wrong on little things, how can we trust you with the big issues?
And for the main point: I think there are conservative women like Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), whom don't attract the same type of media attention. Palin and Bachmann are largely responsible because of their provocative red meat politics and personalities.
The Palin/Bachmann Resumes
You know, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. What bothers me among most of my fellow conservative bloggers is that they are more interested in process instead of substance. There are legitimate issues being raised by the other side, even though there's a lot of uncivility too.
I don't like hype in resumes or other claims. Let's briefly discuss the 2008 campaign. Palin was ludicrously saying that she had foreign relations experience between Alaska is between Russia and Canada. And she was referencing the Alaska National Guard and an Air Force Base in Alaska in citing military policy experience. This goes way beyond dubious political spin and hype. As for the "conservative" credentials, who is looking at Palin's state spending increases, her use of federal earmarks, her oil company tax hikes, etc.? And let's not forget we are talking about someone whom resigned two-thirds of the way through her first and only term as governor.
Then there's Bachmann's resume fluff: she repeatedly references 23 foster children. Let us remember, however laudable it might be to host another family's children, foster parents are paid for each child's expenses by the government. She is also dubiously hyping her educational credentials. Most people at the university level understand the difference between an academic doctorate (requiring original scholarship) and a professional doctor degree (e.g., medical or law). Her credentials are simply not comparable, say, to Romney's Harvard law degree and MBA. Much of her tax attorney experience has been with the IRS (and I've seen some sources suggest perhaps she was the beneficiary of affirmative action policies in qualifying for the gig). Her husband is a clinical therapist whom operates a clinic which I believe takes in government subsidized patients and there is also an inherited farm property which takes in government subsidy income.
Now some of the progressives discussing Bachmann's business dealings are uncivil, suggesting that Bachmann should be a patient in her husband's clinic. But it is legitimate to question her dubious business credentials, her overhyped academic credentials, her lack of executive experience and legislative accomplishments, and why an alleged principled Tea Party conservative has been unduly reliant on government money.
Now I'm not a voice for progressives, and I was looking for alternative conservative analyses that critically examined Bachmann's background versus simply reproduce Bachmann's public relations information. I'm not making any factual claims regarding the nature and extent of government-based income. I would like to see a more independent analysis from other bloggers whom have relevant evidence to bear. But when you claim to be a Tea Party spokesman, you should be held to a higher standard. And certainly Bachmann's support of the Patriot Act is not supported by many, if not most Tea Party members (including myself).
Political Humor
"President Barack Obama said Wednesday that if lawmakers can't reach a deal on raising the debt ceiling by the end of the week, they should consider canceling congressional vacations." - CNN, 6/29/11
Chris Wallace at Fox News asked Michele Bachmann if she is a flake. I think that’s an insult to the fine folks at Kellogg’s. - David Letterman
[Jeff Flake (R-AZ) says he is unaware of any family connection to Michele Bachmann.]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "Show Me A Sign"
From long familiarity, we know what honor is.
It is what enables the individual to do right in the face of complacency and cowardice.
It is what enables the soldier to die alone,
the political prisoner to resist,
the singer to sing her song, hardly appreciated, on a side street.
Mark Helprin
Congratulations to 'The Voice' Winner Javier Colon
In yesterday's post I announced my support for Javier.
On Gaffes
Maybe it's because I'm a grownup, but I really don't like the petty partisan food fights between the Democrats/progressives and the Republicans. I occasionally watch the nightly rebroadcast of Hannity, like last night when, with Glenn Beck's annoying habit of repeating the same video clip 3 or 4 times within an hour, he kept repeating time after time: the President's mispronunciation of 'corpsman' (i.e., the 's' is silent) and the famous '57 state' gaffe, not to mention other well-known Democrat politician gaffes (especially Joe Biden, e.g., asking a wheelchair-bound Missouri state senator to stand up). I myself have brought up the '57 state' gaffe a few times, but I've published over 900 posts to this blog, and it's when I think he's gotten a little too full of himself. And the same holds true on the other side: the endless recitation of former Veep Dan Quayle's misspelling of 'potatoe', former President Bush's notorious mispronunciation of 'nuclear'.
Unfortunately, Sean Hannity doesn''t have the background I have in human performance engineering not to mention having read literally thousands of research articles in applied or educational psychology. Very intelligent people make innocuous mistakes, and not all mistakes are equal in the sense Hannity and others are suggesting. Sometimes very bright people are thinking two steps ahead of themselves (of what they intend to say next) and they'll misspeak. Let me give some context: I don't know where the '57 states' came from but maybe he was thinking destinations and was clustering together some foreign states or American territories. That's different than asking Obama how many American states there are. This particular thing, moreover, is a simple question of fact, which ranks fairly low on any standard taxonomy of educational objectives. The same thing holds true of Dan Quayle's 'potatoe'; some English words ending in 'o' use 'es' as plurals, e.g., 'heroes' and 'potatoes', others use 's', e.g., photos. For a word ending in 'e', you form the plural by adding an 's'. It's possible he worked backwards from 'potatoes'. He was incorrect, of course, but to make an inference about his educational achievement based on a singular misapplication of a spelling rule is unreasonable. I myself find myself doing an occasional spoonerism which I find rather amusing--for example, I've caught myself just before emptying my sweetener packets into the trash instead of my coffee cup. The bottom line is that you need a preponderance of evidence, a consistent pattern of mistakes.
I think it's intellectually dishonest to exaggerate trivial mistakes out of context. And quite frankly, repetitious litanies of trivial mistakes are boring, and I think the fact that Hannity seemed obsessed with the pronunciation of 'corpsman' reflects his mediocrity of his mind and his contribution. This blog is unlike any libertarian-conservative blog on the Internet. I provide numerous original analyses and other original content like political humor, I often take contrarian points of view, and I explore an eclectic assortment of topics; I am not wishy-washy, and I loathe political spin and red meat politics. I don't spend a lot of time whining about the unfair liberal mass media.
What bothers me about Fox News and many of the conservative blogs is that they do not address some of the core issues and simply parrot, say, Michele Bachmann's talking points. I saw this freakish clip the other day where Bachmann is claiming that Barack Obama is running scared of her, she has a clear road to the nomination, etc. If I'm being charitable, she's engaging in unrealistic wishful thinking or lost-touch-with-reality self-promotional hype. There's no harm in a last-place team's manager saying they'll make the World Series this year, but if he really believes it, he is delusional.
A point here is that Fox News seems more interested in process than substance. For example, they are obsessed with the dubious talking point that conservative females are disproportionately being attacked. You have to wonder what "conservative women" are they talking about? The "conservative women" I've heard references are Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. I will continue that discussion below but let us review a couple of kerfuffles.
First, there was the kerfuffle about Sarah Palin's convoluted gaffe involving Paul Revere. This is no 'potatoe' or '57 state' kerfuffle. In elementary school I knew that Revere's ride was to warn the patriots about the approach of the British, not to warn the British. Then she was talking about the Second Amendment nearly 15 years before it was ratified. By any objective analysis, Palin was wrong (I decisively refuted this in a post several days back). What was amusing was seeing historians coming out of the woodwork for their 15 minutes of fame trying to rationalize Palin's incorrect revisionist history. Clearly, Palin isn't even qualified to teach history in K-12, never mind run a country. What really bothered me was that fact that instead of cutting her losses and saying she misspoke, she dug in her heels, insisting she was correct. I mean, for instance, Obama did not continue to insist there are 57 states and Quayle didn't continue spelling 'potatoe'. This is a key point Hannity and other Fox News contributors repeatedly ignored (or were too incompetent to realize) in discussing this issue: the inescapable conclusion is that Sarah Palin has a difficult time admitting when she is wrong. And that enough is reason enough to question her emotional fitness to be President.
Then there was this similarly bizarre revisionist discussion by Michele Bachmann about the role of the Founding Fathers in terms of abolition, making reference to slavery. In particular, she referenced John Quincy Adams, the son of the second President and whom served as President in the mid 1820's: 50 years after the Declaration of Independence. Adams did work towards abolition as a Congressman in the 1830's-1840's. Again, Bachmann simply should have cut her losses and admitted her mistake. The problem here is if you can't admit you were wrong on little things, how can we trust you with the big issues?
And for the main point: I think there are conservative women like Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), whom don't attract the same type of media attention. Palin and Bachmann are largely responsible because of their provocative red meat politics and personalities.
The Palin/Bachmann Resumes
You know, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. What bothers me among most of my fellow conservative bloggers is that they are more interested in process instead of substance. There are legitimate issues being raised by the other side, even though there's a lot of uncivility too.
I don't like hype in resumes or other claims. Let's briefly discuss the 2008 campaign. Palin was ludicrously saying that she had foreign relations experience between Alaska is between Russia and Canada. And she was referencing the Alaska National Guard and an Air Force Base in Alaska in citing military policy experience. This goes way beyond dubious political spin and hype. As for the "conservative" credentials, who is looking at Palin's state spending increases, her use of federal earmarks, her oil company tax hikes, etc.? And let's not forget we are talking about someone whom resigned two-thirds of the way through her first and only term as governor.
Then there's Bachmann's resume fluff: she repeatedly references 23 foster children. Let us remember, however laudable it might be to host another family's children, foster parents are paid for each child's expenses by the government. She is also dubiously hyping her educational credentials. Most people at the university level understand the difference between an academic doctorate (requiring original scholarship) and a professional doctor degree (e.g., medical or law). Her credentials are simply not comparable, say, to Romney's Harvard law degree and MBA. Much of her tax attorney experience has been with the IRS (and I've seen some sources suggest perhaps she was the beneficiary of affirmative action policies in qualifying for the gig). Her husband is a clinical therapist whom operates a clinic which I believe takes in government subsidized patients and there is also an inherited farm property which takes in government subsidy income.
Now some of the progressives discussing Bachmann's business dealings are uncivil, suggesting that Bachmann should be a patient in her husband's clinic. But it is legitimate to question her dubious business credentials, her overhyped academic credentials, her lack of executive experience and legislative accomplishments, and why an alleged principled Tea Party conservative has been unduly reliant on government money.
Now I'm not a voice for progressives, and I was looking for alternative conservative analyses that critically examined Bachmann's background versus simply reproduce Bachmann's public relations information. I'm not making any factual claims regarding the nature and extent of government-based income. I would like to see a more independent analysis from other bloggers whom have relevant evidence to bear. But when you claim to be a Tea Party spokesman, you should be held to a higher standard. And certainly Bachmann's support of the Patriot Act is not supported by many, if not most Tea Party members (including myself).
Political Humor
"President Barack Obama said Wednesday that if lawmakers can't reach a deal on raising the debt ceiling by the end of the week, they should consider canceling congressional vacations." - CNN, 6/29/11
[Instead of vacations, Congressional leaders will follow President Obama's example of playing golf and doing fundraisers during a crisis.]
Chris Wallace at Fox News asked Michele Bachmann if she is a flake. I think that’s an insult to the fine folks at Kellogg’s. - David Letterman
[Jeff Flake (R-AZ) says he is unaware of any family connection to Michele Bachmann.]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "Show Me A Sign"
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Miscellany: 6/28/11
Quote of the Day
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
Albert Einstein
My Choice for 'The Voice': Javier Colon
The Resume and Public Sector:
A Preliminary Discussion of Resumes and Hype
My professional resume contains no fluff, no spin, no hype. It's because I don't have to. Some of the most impressive things I've done technically don't even appear on my resume. I once worked for the American subsidiary of a Japanese chip-testing machine producer. Over 13 months, I won a record 3 CEO Awards (in fact, the CEO knew me by sight), but there were more impressive things I did which were not nominated: for example, I did a fix resulting from an unauthorized shortcut made years earlier in setting up Oracle's fixed assets application software. This shortcut involved setting up certain categories of assets; instead of taking 15 minutes of busy work Oracle wanted, the consultants thought they could short-circuit the process and do the setups directly. The accountants and developers never encountered the problem because they had been using an interface Oracle no longer supported. When I put pressure on the accountants to use the authorized interface and they encountered the problem (i.e., no assets were being pulled up to the new interface), they scapegoated my applying (totally unrelated) Oracle-required product patches and without discussing the matter with me directly contacted Oracle Support which tricked them into providing evidence that my company had done something unauthorized, violating the company's Oracle Support agreement. My boss got a price quote and proposal for an authorized fix that required $10,000 and 2 weeks of not being able to use the production database (not a viable option). The nature of the problem required a custom fix I designed, tested and implemented which required detailed knowledge of dozens of Oracle product tables and elaborate table updates. This one fix, which my CEO never knew about, easily paid a few months of my salary (factoring in opportunity costs of an unavailable production database).
I have done tech screens for DBA's. In one case I was the subcontractor production Oracle DBA for a Chicago local government entity. The same vendor had the operations and ERP upgrade project contracts. There was an unrealistically tight project deadline where the agency wanted the upgrade done by mid-November (i.e., before a final end-of-year close) and they started the project 3 months earlier. The project manager, allegedly another PhD, had a team of 3 to 5 DBA's, whom were grossly incompetent. The initial lead project DBA was replaced; the project manager hired a new DBA without having me qualify him. I was introduced to the guy via a cellphone on speaker over a work lunch. The project manager asked him what he would do first; he said, "I'll do an adclone (Oracle database cloning procedure) for creating a copy of the Oracle EBS 11.0.3 production database to a test server." As soon as the conversation, I had a frank conversation with the managers. "Look, this guy does not have the background he claims." There had been custom cloning processes--that I had created and used several times, roughly 3.5 hours long per refresh, but Oracle did not introduce adclone until EBS 11i (the target upgrade version). There was no need for this guy to do a clone at all; I had test and development databases that I constantly refreshed. Well, this new DBA insisted that he couldn't vouch for my cloning procedure but wanted to use an officially supported version. So he joins the project and literally spends the next 2 weeks, billing the client, first verifying the fact EBS 11.0.3 does not have an adclone procedure, then trying to get Oracle to backport adclone to EBS 11.0.3, and then trying to find some third-party Oracle-verified cloning tool. I'm pounding the table at morning status meetings, "The City still doesn't even have a requisition cut for a Microsoft C## compiler Oracle requires for running Vertex (i.e., payroll updates), and we're 2 months before go live." What is the project manager pushing? His DBA's don't like working in the air-conditioned server room; they are trying to get the city to buy software so they can work from the comfort of their cubicles. All of a sudden in my personal email account, I'm finding announcements from an Internet job board that is clearly defining my own subcontract position.
I go into my vendor manager's office and he's got an inches thick pile of DBA resumes on his desk (and I was making a very low subcontract rate). I told him, "Look, this project is failing. We are halfway through the project schedule; we are committed to 2 upgrade cycles for testing; and these guys haven't even gotten through the preinstallation steps of the upgrade for the first cycle. We need these guys running around the clock and the PM is having them all running the day shift. I heard them muttering the other day, and they can't figure out why their database won't go up. It was because they ignored a warning in boldface in the document, run this on a Windows server without a prior Oracle install on it. I can get their database to come up but I have to fix the Windows registry." The DBA somehow incoherently manages to convince my boss and the PM, that Oracle is self-contradictory in its boldface warning, and the reason he wasn't able to bring up the database after doing the install has nothing to do with the post-install Windows registry now pointing to an incompatible version of database software. My boss insists he won't believe me until Oracle Support verifies in writing what I think was said in the boldface warning; I'm pleading with Oracle Support (that's an entirely different bureaucracy to battle): please put down in writing what I believe the warning said; he's saying, "No. We already printed the warning and don't have a need to repeat ourselves. If they don't believe you, it's your problem, not ours. If the City of Chicago ignores our installation instructions, we simply won't provide any technical assistance for any resulting upgraded database because the City will have violated their support contract." Why are two grown men siding with the mentally ill, incompetent head project DBA over a plain English warning? It was all organizational politics.
This guy (the second head project DBA) was a piece of work. To give an example, we once went to a McDonald's for lunch and he went around collecting abandoned receipts for expense reimbursement. Now to be honest, I'm not a licensed psychologist. Maybe Dr. Phil McGraw would conclude this guy was perfectly normal and I was the one with the problem. One weekend I am finally asked to replace this guy; he caused his own database to crash in an unrecoverable state and didn't have a usable backup, losing 3 weeks worth of project work. In the single worst act of bad timing I've ever seen, the city agency IT manager finally took the initiative to crack down on the PM and refused to allow the vendor DBA's fly home. (The IT manager didn't ask me--what he didn't know is that I would literally have to spend a full third of my time over the next few weeks having to fend off political attacks by the PM and rogue DBA. I was restricted to working 8 hours a day--but the PM refused to have the other DBA's work past my shift and I had to catch the last early evening Metra train out of town. Oh, and I was still doing the production DBA work. The only good deal the city got out of this is they were getting two FTE's for the price of one. My boss, however, was upset, because he wanted some of my hours charged against the project budget.) The plan had been for the subcontractors to let Mr. Wonderful go as soon as he was home in Florida. (He showed up, I remember he argued vehemently over some arcane issue he was wrong about, and I ignored him, working with a third staff DBA.) By the time Monday came around and I made more progress in 2 days than 3 DBA's in 6 weeks, the PM refused to let Mr. Wonderful go because he didn't want to break in a new DBA for the rest of the project. He, of course, doesn't ask for my input. Yeah, that's all I needed working with me: a former lead DBA upset I've now taken over his role working on an upgrade whom I can't trust around a real database because he can't even do a simple backup. Isn't it wonderful what the city of Chicago was getting for its money? Anyway, we have an impromptu project team meeting with maybe a half-dozen techno-functional consultants. Since the guy didn't go home, he claimed he was unable to launder his business casual clothes. (I don't know; maybe Chicago hotels don't have washers and dryers or are unable to recommend a solution, Chicago dry cleaners or laundrymats aren't open on weekends, or he couldn't find a store that sold shirts open on a weekend. I'm sure he considered these options, because he's a really smart guy, a proven problem solver.) Anyway, he felt it necessary to point out to all his co-workers the status of his dress shirt, raising up his arms, pointing out his huge underarm sweat stains, and repeating, "Stinky! Stinky! Stinky!"; he repeated the stinky triplet about 5 times until Ms. tall blond functional consultant said, "That's enough, [Mr. Wonderful]!" I must live a sheltered life; I never knew pit stains were a spectator sport.
Before the DBA caused his own database to crash, I was in deep political trouble. Since this is not an Oracle DBA blog per se, I won't go into all the technical details here, but it was something so awful and off the wall, it's milk-squirting-out-your-nose funny. There was a group of Chicago personnel coming in for training, so I was doing a routine final check, I found the database down and the application processes wouldn't come up (which meant some DBA incompetently brought down the database before the application processes); I had to clean up processes so the applications would run. So after I ensured the training could happen, I figured Mr. Wonderful brought down, without authorization, the training database (this alone was enough for termination for cause), but I didn't know Mr. Wonderful's motive; he explained he needed a copy of one of the training database files to replace a database file missing (due to his own fault) in his database. As I write this, there must be hundreds of Oracle DBA's around the world rolling on the floor laughing.
Before the relevant project database crashed, my boss was totally unsympathetic. I'm saying, "Check with any consultant of your choosing; call your company headquarters in Pennsylvania and talk to their tech group. Give them the facts: we have a real problem here." My boss is reading this all purely politically. He thinks I'm feeling threatened by having a team of other DBA's there. (It can't possibly have anything to do with the fact we are dealing with a multi-million dollar piece of software, and if and when these guys roll off the project, I'm the guy spending the next 6 months or more putting out production fires. I had done the same type upgrade at least a half dozen times on my own, never a problem.) If the project goes south, he doesn't care: it's not his neck on the line: it's the PM's. He's going to give the PM all the rope he needs to hang himself. He doesn't like the PM who is already pointing his finger at ME being the problem, which makes it my boss's political problem. My boss has ZERO problem with terminating me in a heartbeat.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "Here In My Heart"
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
Albert Einstein
My Choice for 'The Voice': Javier Colon
 |
| Courtesy of Poptower |
The Resume and Public Sector:
A Preliminary Discussion of Resumes and Hype
My professional resume contains no fluff, no spin, no hype. It's because I don't have to. Some of the most impressive things I've done technically don't even appear on my resume. I once worked for the American subsidiary of a Japanese chip-testing machine producer. Over 13 months, I won a record 3 CEO Awards (in fact, the CEO knew me by sight), but there were more impressive things I did which were not nominated: for example, I did a fix resulting from an unauthorized shortcut made years earlier in setting up Oracle's fixed assets application software. This shortcut involved setting up certain categories of assets; instead of taking 15 minutes of busy work Oracle wanted, the consultants thought they could short-circuit the process and do the setups directly. The accountants and developers never encountered the problem because they had been using an interface Oracle no longer supported. When I put pressure on the accountants to use the authorized interface and they encountered the problem (i.e., no assets were being pulled up to the new interface), they scapegoated my applying (totally unrelated) Oracle-required product patches and without discussing the matter with me directly contacted Oracle Support which tricked them into providing evidence that my company had done something unauthorized, violating the company's Oracle Support agreement. My boss got a price quote and proposal for an authorized fix that required $10,000 and 2 weeks of not being able to use the production database (not a viable option). The nature of the problem required a custom fix I designed, tested and implemented which required detailed knowledge of dozens of Oracle product tables and elaborate table updates. This one fix, which my CEO never knew about, easily paid a few months of my salary (factoring in opportunity costs of an unavailable production database).
I have done tech screens for DBA's. In one case I was the subcontractor production Oracle DBA for a Chicago local government entity. The same vendor had the operations and ERP upgrade project contracts. There was an unrealistically tight project deadline where the agency wanted the upgrade done by mid-November (i.e., before a final end-of-year close) and they started the project 3 months earlier. The project manager, allegedly another PhD, had a team of 3 to 5 DBA's, whom were grossly incompetent. The initial lead project DBA was replaced; the project manager hired a new DBA without having me qualify him. I was introduced to the guy via a cellphone on speaker over a work lunch. The project manager asked him what he would do first; he said, "I'll do an adclone (Oracle database cloning procedure) for creating a copy of the Oracle EBS 11.0.3 production database to a test server." As soon as the conversation, I had a frank conversation with the managers. "Look, this guy does not have the background he claims." There had been custom cloning processes--that I had created and used several times, roughly 3.5 hours long per refresh, but Oracle did not introduce adclone until EBS 11i (the target upgrade version). There was no need for this guy to do a clone at all; I had test and development databases that I constantly refreshed. Well, this new DBA insisted that he couldn't vouch for my cloning procedure but wanted to use an officially supported version. So he joins the project and literally spends the next 2 weeks, billing the client, first verifying the fact EBS 11.0.3 does not have an adclone procedure, then trying to get Oracle to backport adclone to EBS 11.0.3, and then trying to find some third-party Oracle-verified cloning tool. I'm pounding the table at morning status meetings, "The City still doesn't even have a requisition cut for a Microsoft C## compiler Oracle requires for running Vertex (i.e., payroll updates), and we're 2 months before go live." What is the project manager pushing? His DBA's don't like working in the air-conditioned server room; they are trying to get the city to buy software so they can work from the comfort of their cubicles. All of a sudden in my personal email account, I'm finding announcements from an Internet job board that is clearly defining my own subcontract position.
I go into my vendor manager's office and he's got an inches thick pile of DBA resumes on his desk (and I was making a very low subcontract rate). I told him, "Look, this project is failing. We are halfway through the project schedule; we are committed to 2 upgrade cycles for testing; and these guys haven't even gotten through the preinstallation steps of the upgrade for the first cycle. We need these guys running around the clock and the PM is having them all running the day shift. I heard them muttering the other day, and they can't figure out why their database won't go up. It was because they ignored a warning in boldface in the document, run this on a Windows server without a prior Oracle install on it. I can get their database to come up but I have to fix the Windows registry." The DBA somehow incoherently manages to convince my boss and the PM, that Oracle is self-contradictory in its boldface warning, and the reason he wasn't able to bring up the database after doing the install has nothing to do with the post-install Windows registry now pointing to an incompatible version of database software. My boss insists he won't believe me until Oracle Support verifies in writing what I think was said in the boldface warning; I'm pleading with Oracle Support (that's an entirely different bureaucracy to battle): please put down in writing what I believe the warning said; he's saying, "No. We already printed the warning and don't have a need to repeat ourselves. If they don't believe you, it's your problem, not ours. If the City of Chicago ignores our installation instructions, we simply won't provide any technical assistance for any resulting upgraded database because the City will have violated their support contract." Why are two grown men siding with the mentally ill, incompetent head project DBA over a plain English warning? It was all organizational politics.
This guy (the second head project DBA) was a piece of work. To give an example, we once went to a McDonald's for lunch and he went around collecting abandoned receipts for expense reimbursement. Now to be honest, I'm not a licensed psychologist. Maybe Dr. Phil McGraw would conclude this guy was perfectly normal and I was the one with the problem. One weekend I am finally asked to replace this guy; he caused his own database to crash in an unrecoverable state and didn't have a usable backup, losing 3 weeks worth of project work. In the single worst act of bad timing I've ever seen, the city agency IT manager finally took the initiative to crack down on the PM and refused to allow the vendor DBA's fly home. (The IT manager didn't ask me--what he didn't know is that I would literally have to spend a full third of my time over the next few weeks having to fend off political attacks by the PM and rogue DBA. I was restricted to working 8 hours a day--but the PM refused to have the other DBA's work past my shift and I had to catch the last early evening Metra train out of town. Oh, and I was still doing the production DBA work. The only good deal the city got out of this is they were getting two FTE's for the price of one. My boss, however, was upset, because he wanted some of my hours charged against the project budget.) The plan had been for the subcontractors to let Mr. Wonderful go as soon as he was home in Florida. (He showed up, I remember he argued vehemently over some arcane issue he was wrong about, and I ignored him, working with a third staff DBA.) By the time Monday came around and I made more progress in 2 days than 3 DBA's in 6 weeks, the PM refused to let Mr. Wonderful go because he didn't want to break in a new DBA for the rest of the project. He, of course, doesn't ask for my input. Yeah, that's all I needed working with me: a former lead DBA upset I've now taken over his role working on an upgrade whom I can't trust around a real database because he can't even do a simple backup. Isn't it wonderful what the city of Chicago was getting for its money? Anyway, we have an impromptu project team meeting with maybe a half-dozen techno-functional consultants. Since the guy didn't go home, he claimed he was unable to launder his business casual clothes. (I don't know; maybe Chicago hotels don't have washers and dryers or are unable to recommend a solution, Chicago dry cleaners or laundrymats aren't open on weekends, or he couldn't find a store that sold shirts open on a weekend. I'm sure he considered these options, because he's a really smart guy, a proven problem solver.) Anyway, he felt it necessary to point out to all his co-workers the status of his dress shirt, raising up his arms, pointing out his huge underarm sweat stains, and repeating, "Stinky! Stinky! Stinky!"; he repeated the stinky triplet about 5 times until Ms. tall blond functional consultant said, "That's enough, [Mr. Wonderful]!" I must live a sheltered life; I never knew pit stains were a spectator sport.
Before the DBA caused his own database to crash, I was in deep political trouble. Since this is not an Oracle DBA blog per se, I won't go into all the technical details here, but it was something so awful and off the wall, it's milk-squirting-out-your-nose funny. There was a group of Chicago personnel coming in for training, so I was doing a routine final check, I found the database down and the application processes wouldn't come up (which meant some DBA incompetently brought down the database before the application processes); I had to clean up processes so the applications would run. So after I ensured the training could happen, I figured Mr. Wonderful brought down, without authorization, the training database (this alone was enough for termination for cause), but I didn't know Mr. Wonderful's motive; he explained he needed a copy of one of the training database files to replace a database file missing (due to his own fault) in his database. As I write this, there must be hundreds of Oracle DBA's around the world rolling on the floor laughing.
Before the relevant project database crashed, my boss was totally unsympathetic. I'm saying, "Check with any consultant of your choosing; call your company headquarters in Pennsylvania and talk to their tech group. Give them the facts: we have a real problem here." My boss is reading this all purely politically. He thinks I'm feeling threatened by having a team of other DBA's there. (It can't possibly have anything to do with the fact we are dealing with a multi-million dollar piece of software, and if and when these guys roll off the project, I'm the guy spending the next 6 months or more putting out production fires. I had done the same type upgrade at least a half dozen times on my own, never a problem.) If the project goes south, he doesn't care: it's not his neck on the line: it's the PM's. He's going to give the PM all the rope he needs to hang himself. He doesn't like the PM who is already pointing his finger at ME being the problem, which makes it my boss's political problem. My boss has ZERO problem with terminating me in a heartbeat.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "Here In My Heart"
Monday, June 27, 2011
Miscellany: 6/27/11
Quote of the Day
Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.
John Adams
Michele Bachmann, Fox News/Sunday Coverage
It is rare for me to complain about bias on a story carried on Special Report (Fox News Channel's evening newscast), but the reporter covering Michele Bachmann's futile run for the GOP 2012 Presidential nomination was providing an absolutely ludicrous pro-Bachmann, lost-touch-with-reality slant leading news story tonight, all but designating Bachmann the "front runner" running a typical strategy, ignoring the other candidates including Romney. Roger Ailes needs to terminate whomever wrote that story. I mean, this story would be embarrassing for Bachmann to run as a campaign commercial.
I have regularly been reviewing polls for months. I have yet to see a single poll where (1) Bachmann has been ahead of Romney or (2) where Bachmann beats Obama.
In only one poll (I'm making reference to polls listed in the current RealClearPolitics, which Fox News is promoting as a "tie" or a even a quasi-victory, does Bachmann even come close to Romney: a Des Moines, IA poll in yesterday (Romney won 23%-22%). This is a single-point observation; to make this point clearer, Obama has several approval polls out there today: Gallup 43%, Rasmussen 49%, Democracy Corps 46%, and last Wednesday's AP had Obama at 52%. But, for instance, in an ARG Iowa poll back in April, Romney, second to Huckabee, led Bachmann 17%-9%
In a last Monday California GOP poll, Romney beat Bachmann 25%-4%. In a last Thursday Florida GOP poll, Romney beat Bachmann 27%-17%. In a week ago last Friday New Hampshire GOP poll Romney beat Bachmann 42%-10%. North Carolina GOP poll: Romney beat Bachmann 20%-5%. In the last Rasmussen general GOP poll a week ago last Thursday, Romney beat Bachmann 33%-19% while PPP had it Romney 22%-8%. In the last NBC/WSJ polls a week ago last Wednesday, Romney beat Bachmann 30%-3%.
In fact, RCP over June shows across polls, Romney beats Bachmann 25%-7.3%. The second-place active candidate is Herman Cain at 10.2%.
As I mentioned in a recent post, in a SurveyUSA poll in Minnesota (both Pawlenty and Bachmann's HOME STATE), Pawlenty ties Obama, but Obama beats Bachmann by 14%. On the other hand, Romney ROUTINELY outpolls other Republicans against Obama; for example, Democracy Corps in today's poll has Romney just 2% under Obama. In an more extensive PPP head-to-head a week ago last Wednesday also head Romney just 2% under Obama, AND EVERY OTHER CANDIDATE DOWN BY AT LEAST 10%.
Now Bachmann has gotten massive publicity and coverage over the last 2 weeks, and she may nudge out Romney on an occasional poll over the next week or two. But let's have a reality check here: Trump who was flirting with running for the GOP peaked in the mid-20's and quickly sank to single digits. I think there's a move here to consolidate the rest of the field to a single contender against Romney. But let's be clear: recent ten-point pickups in a couple of polls for Bachmann reflects more of a temporary honeymoon boost, an artifact of media coverage, which has a very short life.
Another misleading talking point being raised by disingenuous Fox News focuses on low-unfavorables--AMONG PARTISANS. There is no doubt red meat politics motivates the activists or media conservatives--the kind of people whom listen Rush Limbaugh. Keep in mind in essence Michele Bachmann is getting a Sarah Palin boost. The Republicans simply don't have a female Mitt Romney candidate; the two women being listed are manifestly unqualified to be President. The only reason they register in the polls is because they engage in red meat politics and are not serious policy wonks.
To give you an example there is a SurveyUSA Minnesota poll one month ago:
Michele Bachmann
Overall- 23% Favorable, 51% Unfavorable
Among Republicans- 44% Favorable, 22% Unfavorable
Among Independents- 20% Favorable, 54% Unfavorable
I shouldn't have to point out this is EXACTLY the type of thing that makes Sarah Palin unelectable. You have to be able to be able to win over moderates and independents to win the battleground states. I don't care whether the GOP base likes Bachmann because she is echoing predictable talking points. It's penny-wise, pound-foolish.
Now another talking point in the Fox News "news" report--that Bachmann is running a "front runner" campaign. This is patently, knowingly false and misleading. Of course, Bachmann is bashing Obama. ALL THE GOP CANDIDATES are bashing Obama. That is NOT a front runner campaign. Who is running a front runner campaign? Mitt Romney. Hands down. Romney is focusing like a laser beam on the economy and pro-growth policies. In a matter of pure class, unlike Ms. Bachmann, Romney welcomed the shrill Ms. Bachmann, with no legislative accomplishments through this--just her THIRD term in Congress, into the race. She has no comparable business, executive or policy experience, having served professionally as a tax attorney. But let's put Fox News credibility to the test on Bachmann's ignore-the-GOP-field, focus-on-White-House front runner campaign; let's go to the videotape:
Now there is a ludicrous kerfuffle over Chris Wallace's interview in yesterday's Fox News Sunday where he sets the context by reciting a number of gaffes by Michele Bachmann and gives her a chance to what he says is currently being said about her: is she a flake? Just like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann then plays the victim card by totally--and conveniently--ignoring the setup for the question. It is clear to anyone with an IQ above an average turnip that Chris Wallace did not start the segment with "are you a flake?" But since Michele Bachmann decided to play the victim card, let's look at the following excerpt from Bachmann's Wikipedia article:
Now either you believe in the traditional state regulation of marriage (a tenth amendment argument) or you don't. But if you are restricting regulatory changes, a privilege of state legislatures, you aren't arguing (a US Constitution) tenth amendment. A new US Constitutional amendment necessarily restricts unenumerated states rights.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "You Come To My Senses"
Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.
John Adams
Michele Bachmann, Fox News/Sunday Coverage
It is rare for me to complain about bias on a story carried on Special Report (Fox News Channel's evening newscast), but the reporter covering Michele Bachmann's futile run for the GOP 2012 Presidential nomination was providing an absolutely ludicrous pro-Bachmann, lost-touch-with-reality slant leading news story tonight, all but designating Bachmann the "front runner" running a typical strategy, ignoring the other candidates including Romney. Roger Ailes needs to terminate whomever wrote that story. I mean, this story would be embarrassing for Bachmann to run as a campaign commercial.
I have regularly been reviewing polls for months. I have yet to see a single poll where (1) Bachmann has been ahead of Romney or (2) where Bachmann beats Obama.
In only one poll (I'm making reference to polls listed in the current RealClearPolitics, which Fox News is promoting as a "tie" or a even a quasi-victory, does Bachmann even come close to Romney: a Des Moines, IA poll in yesterday (Romney won 23%-22%). This is a single-point observation; to make this point clearer, Obama has several approval polls out there today: Gallup 43%, Rasmussen 49%, Democracy Corps 46%, and last Wednesday's AP had Obama at 52%. But, for instance, in an ARG Iowa poll back in April, Romney, second to Huckabee, led Bachmann 17%-9%
In a last Monday California GOP poll, Romney beat Bachmann 25%-4%. In a last Thursday Florida GOP poll, Romney beat Bachmann 27%-17%. In a week ago last Friday New Hampshire GOP poll Romney beat Bachmann 42%-10%. North Carolina GOP poll: Romney beat Bachmann 20%-5%. In the last Rasmussen general GOP poll a week ago last Thursday, Romney beat Bachmann 33%-19% while PPP had it Romney 22%-8%. In the last NBC/WSJ polls a week ago last Wednesday, Romney beat Bachmann 30%-3%.
In fact, RCP over June shows across polls, Romney beats Bachmann 25%-7.3%. The second-place active candidate is Herman Cain at 10.2%.
As I mentioned in a recent post, in a SurveyUSA poll in Minnesota (both Pawlenty and Bachmann's HOME STATE), Pawlenty ties Obama, but Obama beats Bachmann by 14%. On the other hand, Romney ROUTINELY outpolls other Republicans against Obama; for example, Democracy Corps in today's poll has Romney just 2% under Obama. In an more extensive PPP head-to-head a week ago last Wednesday also head Romney just 2% under Obama, AND EVERY OTHER CANDIDATE DOWN BY AT LEAST 10%.
Now Bachmann has gotten massive publicity and coverage over the last 2 weeks, and she may nudge out Romney on an occasional poll over the next week or two. But let's have a reality check here: Trump who was flirting with running for the GOP peaked in the mid-20's and quickly sank to single digits. I think there's a move here to consolidate the rest of the field to a single contender against Romney. But let's be clear: recent ten-point pickups in a couple of polls for Bachmann reflects more of a temporary honeymoon boost, an artifact of media coverage, which has a very short life.
Another misleading talking point being raised by disingenuous Fox News focuses on low-unfavorables--AMONG PARTISANS. There is no doubt red meat politics motivates the activists or media conservatives--the kind of people whom listen Rush Limbaugh. Keep in mind in essence Michele Bachmann is getting a Sarah Palin boost. The Republicans simply don't have a female Mitt Romney candidate; the two women being listed are manifestly unqualified to be President. The only reason they register in the polls is because they engage in red meat politics and are not serious policy wonks.
To give you an example there is a SurveyUSA Minnesota poll one month ago:
Michele Bachmann
Overall- 23% Favorable, 51% Unfavorable
Among Republicans- 44% Favorable, 22% Unfavorable
Among Independents- 20% Favorable, 54% Unfavorable
I shouldn't have to point out this is EXACTLY the type of thing that makes Sarah Palin unelectable. You have to be able to be able to win over moderates and independents to win the battleground states. I don't care whether the GOP base likes Bachmann because she is echoing predictable talking points. It's penny-wise, pound-foolish.
Now another talking point in the Fox News "news" report--that Bachmann is running a "front runner" campaign. This is patently, knowingly false and misleading. Of course, Bachmann is bashing Obama. ALL THE GOP CANDIDATES are bashing Obama. That is NOT a front runner campaign. Who is running a front runner campaign? Mitt Romney. Hands down. Romney is focusing like a laser beam on the economy and pro-growth policies. In a matter of pure class, unlike Ms. Bachmann, Romney welcomed the shrill Ms. Bachmann, with no legislative accomplishments through this--just her THIRD term in Congress, into the race. She has no comparable business, executive or policy experience, having served professionally as a tax attorney. But let's put Fox News credibility to the test on Bachmann's ignore-the-GOP-field, focus-on-White-House front runner campaign; let's go to the videotape:
“It is distressing that Governor Romney refuses to sign the SBA Pledge, even while claiming to be pro-life. The excuses for not signing clearly continue the doubts about his leadership and commitment to ending the practice of abortion – particularly for a candidate who ran as pro-choice for the Senate and Governorship of Massachusetts. Any Presidential candidate seeking our party’s nomination should sign the SBA Pledge and vow to protect life from conception to natural death. Governor Romney should reconsider his decision not to sign the Pledge just as he reconsidered his position on the life issue during the last campaign.”Why did Romney oppose the SBA pledge? He differed on a couple of points, not whole pledge, which, of course, Michele Bachmann knowingly ignores: (1) a litmus test to judicial nominees, which materially violates the concept of a judiciary as policy-independent; (2) the unintended consequences of stripping hospitals of federal funds going far beyond the Indiana restrictions on Planned Parenthood, which Romney supports. Romney had a preexisting published position, like any responsible politician, and did not believe it's responsible to surrender one's policy positions to arbitrary pledges by special-interest groups.
Now there is a ludicrous kerfuffle over Chris Wallace's interview in yesterday's Fox News Sunday where he sets the context by reciting a number of gaffes by Michele Bachmann and gives her a chance to what he says is currently being said about her: is she a flake? Just like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann then plays the victim card by totally--and conveniently--ignoring the setup for the question. It is clear to anyone with an IQ above an average turnip that Chris Wallace did not start the segment with "are you a flake?" But since Michele Bachmann decided to play the victim card, let's look at the following excerpt from Bachmann's Wikipedia article:
In April 2005, Bachmann was photographed crouching behind some bushes observing a gay rights rally at the state capitol and left when spotted. She said she wasn't hiding behind the bushes, but was resting feet sore from high heels. The following week, at a constituent forum in Scandia, Minnesota, when asked about gay marriage during a question and answer session, Bachmann left the meeting twenty minutes early. When two women asked Bachmann questions in the women's restroom, Bachmann screamed "Help! I'm being held against my will!" and fled in tears. She filed a police report but no charges were filed, with the county attorney concluding that the women "simply wanted to discuss certain issues further" with Bachmann.Finally, let's take a look at Michele Bachmann's convoluted position on "gay marriage". Let me address an earlier item, from the same Wikipedia article, which is highly relevant but others haven't mentioned in this context:
On November 20, 2003, Bachmann and Representative Mary Liz Holberg proposed a constitutional amendment that would bar the state from legally recognizing same-sex marriage.Recall the issue that was behind the Defense of Marriage Act was whether a state could unilaterally impose its standard of marriage on the federal government or on other state through reciprocity agreements. Until a Massachusetts Supreme Court a few years ago decided to overturn the traditional definition of marriage, all 50 states maintained the traditional definition of marriage (between a man and a woman). So the confusion is that Bachmann seems to be okay with New York's legislature with approving gay "marriage". But to be consistent what Bachmann tried to do in 2003 want to strip, say, the Minnesota legislature (or judicial system) from doing exactly what New York has just done. But then Bachmann is trying to argue, "Let's impose the traditional definition of marriage across the board (including the states) via the US Constitution."
Now either you believe in the traditional state regulation of marriage (a tenth amendment argument) or you don't. But if you are restricting regulatory changes, a privilege of state legislatures, you aren't arguing (a US Constitution) tenth amendment. A new US Constitutional amendment necessarily restricts unenumerated states rights.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "You Come To My Senses"
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Miscellany: 6/26/11
Quote of the Day
There is no sensual pleasure in the world comparable to the delight and satisfaction that a good man takes in doing good.
Tillotson
Sunday Talk Soup
Meet the Press had a classic interview with my favorite governor, Chris Christie (R-NJ) today. If you watch or read the interview, it's uncanny how we see some issues the same way and our direct, blunt styles complement each other. For example, he responded exactly the same as I did on the New York gay "marriage" law: civil unions yes, gay "marriage" no. I wish to comment on specific extracts:
Could we say that Christie's compromises are no different than, say, the President signing a 2009 stimulus bill with earmarks? No. First of all, the President signed a stimulus bill with an overwhelmingly partisan Democratic vote while Governor Christie had to deal with a legislative opposition. Second, President Obama's earmark pledge was patently a co-opting promise designed to marginalize John McCain's pledge. In fact, Obama has secured numerous earmarks before he became a Presidential candidate and suddenly had an epiphany on intrinsically corrupting earmarks. Third, earmarks were entirely consistent with Obama's advocacy of Keynesian economics, underlining the whole stimulus bill.
The fact of the matter is, by any objective standard, the President refuses to compromise; the only compromise Obama has really made was on a 2-year extension of the Bush tax cuts--less than a month before they expired. And it wasn't a compromise but a concession to simply extend existing tax policy. Obama insisted, with a $1.3T deficit, we couldn't afford extending up to $70B in higher-income tax cuts to those people paying most of the taxes--but we could afford spending almost 3 times as much in lower/middle-class tax cut extensions.
Other examples? Defying Congressional authority on the Libyan intervention; using the EPA to circumvent a failure in enacting climate change legislation; ignoring a federal judge's ruling involving permits already issued in the Gulf for offshore drilling.
But let's go into more detail on Obama's "leadership" in the budget wars. How serious is Obama on the budget? The national debt has increased by nearly $4T (roughly 40%) in less than 3 years of the Obama Presidency. How serious has Obama been on the budget? The Democrats never even drew up a final year budget last year. Obama has only made two extremely modest attempts to cut speeding--one $17B reduction, half of which came from defense (accounting from only 20% of the budget) and one $100M agency cut. And who can ever forget the fact that he wouldn't even back his own bipartisan deficit reduction committee which won majority support and the votes of all but one senator?
When has the President even suggested meaningful deficit cuts? He hasn't offered a dime of cuts in the 60% or so of entitlements; he's proposing increases for the 20% in defense. The only real thing he's suggesting is increasing tax receipts from the upper 2%.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Group
Chicago, "Chasin' the Wind"
There is no sensual pleasure in the world comparable to the delight and satisfaction that a good man takes in doing good.
Tillotson
Sunday Talk Soup
Meet the Press had a classic interview with my favorite governor, Chris Christie (R-NJ) today. If you watch or read the interview, it's uncanny how we see some issues the same way and our direct, blunt styles complement each other. For example, he responded exactly the same as I did on the New York gay "marriage" law: civil unions yes, gay "marriage" no. I wish to comment on specific extracts:
MR. GREGORY: How so? And where do you think the president has gone wrong, particularly in this fight over the debt and the deficit?I would have somewhat tweaked his response, and I think the point is more general than Governor Christie emphasized. This "lay back and let the Congress duke it out" is a pattern we've generally seen in other contexts, most notoriously the health care "reform" law. I am one of those "some people"--I think it's entirely political. I think Obama backs away from the process because of the risk of a perceived political loss, e.g., the President wants something in the bill, and it doesn't get in. There are some things where the White House has pushed for a few items, e.g., opposition to the notorious healthcare "public option", but that passed the House (initially). Then there are the notorious earmarks attached to the 2009 stimulus bill despite the President's opposition. The devil is in the details. I think the earmark pledge breakage is actually very significant, because Obama had promised to fight the "special interests". But, as I've repeatedly pointed out in this blog, Democratic special interests are "more equal".
GOV. CHRISTIE: Well, listen, here's what I did in New Jersey. I put out this pension and benefit plan first in September, and I did 30 town hall meetings across my state selling the plan, increasing the public pressure on the legislature that something needed to be done, and convincing the public that my approach was a reasonable one. Now, I compromised off my approach. But I think if you're the executive, you've got to be the guy who's out there pushing and leading. You can't lay back and wait for somebody else to do it. And I think if the president's made a mistake here, it's this laid-back kind of approach where he's waiting for someone else to solve the problem. Some people say it's a political strategy. No matter what it is, it's not effective in solving problems. I think what we did in New Jersey proves that's the effective way to do it. The executive needs to lead and then bring people to the table to forge compromise.
Could we say that Christie's compromises are no different than, say, the President signing a 2009 stimulus bill with earmarks? No. First of all, the President signed a stimulus bill with an overwhelmingly partisan Democratic vote while Governor Christie had to deal with a legislative opposition. Second, President Obama's earmark pledge was patently a co-opting promise designed to marginalize John McCain's pledge. In fact, Obama has secured numerous earmarks before he became a Presidential candidate and suddenly had an epiphany on intrinsically corrupting earmarks. Third, earmarks were entirely consistent with Obama's advocacy of Keynesian economics, underlining the whole stimulus bill.
The fact of the matter is, by any objective standard, the President refuses to compromise; the only compromise Obama has really made was on a 2-year extension of the Bush tax cuts--less than a month before they expired. And it wasn't a compromise but a concession to simply extend existing tax policy. Obama insisted, with a $1.3T deficit, we couldn't afford extending up to $70B in higher-income tax cuts to those people paying most of the taxes--but we could afford spending almost 3 times as much in lower/middle-class tax cut extensions.
Other examples? Defying Congressional authority on the Libyan intervention; using the EPA to circumvent a failure in enacting climate change legislation; ignoring a federal judge's ruling involving permits already issued in the Gulf for offshore drilling.
But let's go into more detail on Obama's "leadership" in the budget wars. How serious is Obama on the budget? The national debt has increased by nearly $4T (roughly 40%) in less than 3 years of the Obama Presidency. How serious has Obama been on the budget? The Democrats never even drew up a final year budget last year. Obama has only made two extremely modest attempts to cut speeding--one $17B reduction, half of which came from defense (accounting from only 20% of the budget) and one $100M agency cut. And who can ever forget the fact that he wouldn't even back his own bipartisan deficit reduction committee which won majority support and the votes of all but one senator?
When has the President even suggested meaningful deficit cuts? He hasn't offered a dime of cuts in the 60% or so of entitlements; he's proposing increases for the 20% in defense. The only real thing he's suggesting is increasing tax receipts from the upper 2%.
MR. GREGORY: Do tax increases of some stripe have to be on the table in these national budget talks, whether they're revenue increases that don't come from changing tax rates, but some other way to increase revenue at the same time that you're cutting spending back?The reason I cite this is not for Governor Christie's response, which is consistent with the standard conservative reply of "the issue isn't with not enough taxes but too much spending". David Gregory is trying to trick Christie into admitting that tax cuts aren't self-sustaining. Hence, the GOP also lacks credibility on fiscal discipline. That's disingenuous. Right now the Democrats are insisting on "investing" in infrastructure projects again. Everything Democrats do involves spending more and more money. Has even a single Democrat suggested, at minimum, an across-the-board spending freeze? I'm willing to consider tax increases and/or eliminating various implicit or direct exemptions, tax credits, etc.,--if Democrats agree to a real budget cut across-the-board and a moratorium on new spending.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Group
Chicago, "Chasin' the Wind"
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Miscellany: 6/25/11
Quote of the Day
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Political Potpourri
I haven't written one of these recurring segments in a while. First, the Presidential job approval rating. What's become clear is the softening economy, stagnant job numbers, and Obama's inability to distance himself from a series of foreign interventions is keeping Obama near the 45 to 46% approval rating in the more reliable Gallup and Rasmussen polls. I am convinced this actually is overly optimistic from next year's electoral standpoint because the President's personal appeal artificially inflates his approval numbers.
Second, about the GOP nomination: it's clear that Bachmann has become the latest flavor of the month; the current Des Moines (IA) Register poll shows only two serious contenders with Romney narrowly edging Bachmann. The only other to reach double digits is Cain and barely that. Bachmann will get a slight boost from her official announcement early next week. What's surprising is that Pawlenty is barely polling at roughly a third of Bachmann's support. My analysis: Bachmann has no shot whatsoever. It is true that I've frequently criticized Bachmann's shrill, red meat populist politics, but let me explain with some objective numbers to make my point: SurveyUSA Thursday showed Pawlenty tying Obama in his home state of Minnesota; Bachmann is behind by 14. I have seen other polls as well that Bachmann is not even competitive for the soon-to-be-contested 2012 Senate race from Minnesota, her home state. Now one thing is for sure: short of another economic crisis or other disaster, Obama will hold traditional blue states and will be very competitive in the battleground states IF THE RED MEAT RHETORIC CONTINUES. The DeMints, Palins, and Bachmanns will absolutely lose chunks of moderates and independents whom would rather embrace a known evil whom pretends he is non-partisan versus the unintended consequences of polarizing politicians. All you get with these politicians are people whom are vehemently anti-Obama and have little bipartisan or legislative accomplishments in their records. Anti-Obama rhetoric is a cheap pop, i.e., cheap votes. The center of the country realizes that Obama is a failed leader. But after seeing the 111th Congress ram through partisan legislation on the financial market and healthcare, they don't want the GOP to embrace the same kind of polarizing politics. Given a choice of polarizing candidates, they will pick Obama's faux-centrism most of the time.
Romney would love the battle to be between himself against Bachmann or Palin. He wins because the only things sure is GOP voters want to beat Obama next year more than "being right" on a right-wing populist agenda. A populist agenda (e.g., anti-immigration, social conservative issues (e.g., abortion or gay "marriage"), etc.) just plays right into Obama's hands; it would not surprise me if Obama's backers would try to fund these campaigns because the more these media conservative favorites repeat polarizing rhetoric or let Obama turn attention away from economic issues where centrists are, the better Obama will be able to posture himself as the grownup in the room.
The ironic thing is that Pawlenty is not catching on, although I think from a policy perspective, he is, by far, the best candidate in the field. And I don't think it's because he was "too nice" of a guy to challenge Romney on ObamneyCare. I think what's interesting about Gingrich's failed candidacy--and I think Gingrich's comparisons to McCain's remarkable comeback in 2008 are sheer hubris--is how somebody who had gained widespread respect as an astute debater and a new conservative agenda spokesman found himself undone by David Gregory, a middling Sunday morning moderator. I mean, if you can get outmaneuvered by an insipid Gregory, how can you match up against Obama? And Gingrich has always had high unfavorables since the Clinton Administration to begin with and has not polled well in matchups against Obama.
I don't think challenges from the moderate wing of the GOP (e.g., Giuliani, Pataki, or Huntsman) will work. I don't think running a Reagan-style race will be effective either. What do I think will win? First of all, recognize that Mitch Daniels is absolutely correct: you need to call a truce on litmus-test issues; moderates and independents want to turn Obama out of office: litmus-test issues lose votes more than gain votes. My recommendation is to simply refuse stupid, unnecessary pledges on social issues and put up one point: "I will nominate judges whom know their place under the balance of powers in the Constitution--no back door policies usurping the legislative or executive branches." Second, I would force Obama to defend serve. For example, point out to Obama's own voter base in 2008 and ask them--did Obama's performance meet up to your expectations? Did he keep his promises? Why should they give him a second chance? Do they think he'll do any better against a likely unified GOP-controlled Congress? Third, be more creative and less predictable. Unless you have a fastball like Sandy Koufax, if you throw the ball down the middle of the plate, batters are going to kill you. Running on things like no-new-taxes sounds good in theory, but cutting $1.5T from a budget where 80% in entitlements and defense spending is off the table is just not going to work. What we want to point out is Obama's smoke and mirrors, e.g., Obama's ludicrous and mostly unanswered co-opted terms like "shared sacrifices" when the vast majority of the people he says have "sacrificed" are net recipients, not contributors to government overhead. Fourth, run the conservative version of a positive, inclusive campaign. Do voters really need to be reminded how bad a President Obama is? Let Obama run a nasty campaign; the only thing Obama has got going for himself is disingenuous personal approval. Play the grownup in the room. If you are going to run negative spots, use Obama's words against him, e.g., the post-partisan rhetoric to clips of partisan votes on healthcare and financial reform; the inclusiveness rhetoric to his on-the-record Bush bashing, his apology tours, etc. No need for polarizing voiceovers.
What would I do in Pawlenty's place? First, we have gone from a situation where the field was full of former governors to two former governors. He wants to point out he is the only reelected governor in the field; I would try to round up endorsements from other governors. He has a possible challenge from Texas Governor Rick Perry, but in contrast to Romney, Pawlenty can stress his more consistent policy record, his reelection in a purple state in a difficult year for Republicans, and his fresh face in the 2012 election cycle. Second, I think I would try to run a bottom-to-top (state-based) innovative public policy solutions person, e.g., a tenth amendment focusing on adopting winning solutions at the state level and apply them to the national goverment.. Third, I want to run a different kind of offense--distinguish yourself from the opposition; instead of running the ball up the middle, force the defense to cover all the field.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "What Kind of Man Would I Be?"
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Political Potpourri
I haven't written one of these recurring segments in a while. First, the Presidential job approval rating. What's become clear is the softening economy, stagnant job numbers, and Obama's inability to distance himself from a series of foreign interventions is keeping Obama near the 45 to 46% approval rating in the more reliable Gallup and Rasmussen polls. I am convinced this actually is overly optimistic from next year's electoral standpoint because the President's personal appeal artificially inflates his approval numbers.
Second, about the GOP nomination: it's clear that Bachmann has become the latest flavor of the month; the current Des Moines (IA) Register poll shows only two serious contenders with Romney narrowly edging Bachmann. The only other to reach double digits is Cain and barely that. Bachmann will get a slight boost from her official announcement early next week. What's surprising is that Pawlenty is barely polling at roughly a third of Bachmann's support. My analysis: Bachmann has no shot whatsoever. It is true that I've frequently criticized Bachmann's shrill, red meat populist politics, but let me explain with some objective numbers to make my point: SurveyUSA Thursday showed Pawlenty tying Obama in his home state of Minnesota; Bachmann is behind by 14. I have seen other polls as well that Bachmann is not even competitive for the soon-to-be-contested 2012 Senate race from Minnesota, her home state. Now one thing is for sure: short of another economic crisis or other disaster, Obama will hold traditional blue states and will be very competitive in the battleground states IF THE RED MEAT RHETORIC CONTINUES. The DeMints, Palins, and Bachmanns will absolutely lose chunks of moderates and independents whom would rather embrace a known evil whom pretends he is non-partisan versus the unintended consequences of polarizing politicians. All you get with these politicians are people whom are vehemently anti-Obama and have little bipartisan or legislative accomplishments in their records. Anti-Obama rhetoric is a cheap pop, i.e., cheap votes. The center of the country realizes that Obama is a failed leader. But after seeing the 111th Congress ram through partisan legislation on the financial market and healthcare, they don't want the GOP to embrace the same kind of polarizing politics. Given a choice of polarizing candidates, they will pick Obama's faux-centrism most of the time.
Romney would love the battle to be between himself against Bachmann or Palin. He wins because the only things sure is GOP voters want to beat Obama next year more than "being right" on a right-wing populist agenda. A populist agenda (e.g., anti-immigration, social conservative issues (e.g., abortion or gay "marriage"), etc.) just plays right into Obama's hands; it would not surprise me if Obama's backers would try to fund these campaigns because the more these media conservative favorites repeat polarizing rhetoric or let Obama turn attention away from economic issues where centrists are, the better Obama will be able to posture himself as the grownup in the room.
The ironic thing is that Pawlenty is not catching on, although I think from a policy perspective, he is, by far, the best candidate in the field. And I don't think it's because he was "too nice" of a guy to challenge Romney on ObamneyCare. I think what's interesting about Gingrich's failed candidacy--and I think Gingrich's comparisons to McCain's remarkable comeback in 2008 are sheer hubris--is how somebody who had gained widespread respect as an astute debater and a new conservative agenda spokesman found himself undone by David Gregory, a middling Sunday morning moderator. I mean, if you can get outmaneuvered by an insipid Gregory, how can you match up against Obama? And Gingrich has always had high unfavorables since the Clinton Administration to begin with and has not polled well in matchups against Obama.
I don't think challenges from the moderate wing of the GOP (e.g., Giuliani, Pataki, or Huntsman) will work. I don't think running a Reagan-style race will be effective either. What do I think will win? First of all, recognize that Mitch Daniels is absolutely correct: you need to call a truce on litmus-test issues; moderates and independents want to turn Obama out of office: litmus-test issues lose votes more than gain votes. My recommendation is to simply refuse stupid, unnecessary pledges on social issues and put up one point: "I will nominate judges whom know their place under the balance of powers in the Constitution--no back door policies usurping the legislative or executive branches." Second, I would force Obama to defend serve. For example, point out to Obama's own voter base in 2008 and ask them--did Obama's performance meet up to your expectations? Did he keep his promises? Why should they give him a second chance? Do they think he'll do any better against a likely unified GOP-controlled Congress? Third, be more creative and less predictable. Unless you have a fastball like Sandy Koufax, if you throw the ball down the middle of the plate, batters are going to kill you. Running on things like no-new-taxes sounds good in theory, but cutting $1.5T from a budget where 80% in entitlements and defense spending is off the table is just not going to work. What we want to point out is Obama's smoke and mirrors, e.g., Obama's ludicrous and mostly unanswered co-opted terms like "shared sacrifices" when the vast majority of the people he says have "sacrificed" are net recipients, not contributors to government overhead. Fourth, run the conservative version of a positive, inclusive campaign. Do voters really need to be reminded how bad a President Obama is? Let Obama run a nasty campaign; the only thing Obama has got going for himself is disingenuous personal approval. Play the grownup in the room. If you are going to run negative spots, use Obama's words against him, e.g., the post-partisan rhetoric to clips of partisan votes on healthcare and financial reform; the inclusiveness rhetoric to his on-the-record Bush bashing, his apology tours, etc. No need for polarizing voiceovers.
What would I do in Pawlenty's place? First, we have gone from a situation where the field was full of former governors to two former governors. He wants to point out he is the only reelected governor in the field; I would try to round up endorsements from other governors. He has a possible challenge from Texas Governor Rick Perry, but in contrast to Romney, Pawlenty can stress his more consistent policy record, his reelection in a purple state in a difficult year for Republicans, and his fresh face in the 2012 election cycle. Second, I think I would try to run a bottom-to-top (state-based) innovative public policy solutions person, e.g., a tenth amendment focusing on adopting winning solutions at the state level and apply them to the national goverment.. Third, I want to run a different kind of offense--distinguish yourself from the opposition; instead of running the ball up the middle, force the defense to cover all the field.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "What Kind of Man Would I Be?"
Friday, June 24, 2011
Miscellany: 6/24/11
Quote of the Day
The price of greatness is responsibility.
Sir Winston Churchill
Strategic Oil Release: A Cynical Opinion
Worldwide consumption of oil is roughly 90 million barrels a day. Slack capacity is roughly 4 million barrels a day. Libya produces, under normal conditions roughly 1.5 million barrels a day. The IEA, an organization of 24 oil importers are committed to maintaining a minimum of 90 days of reserve (they actually average about about 145) with the US maintaining roughly 700 million barrels. During a 30-day period, the US will contribute 1 of 2 million IEA barrels daily. Given recent price corrections due to perceived slowdowns in economic growth, it's fairly clear this was a temporary move meant to manipulate prices for a short period of time (say, the summer driving season). Gue has an interesting reflection that the very fact of the IEA action shows that the bogeyman of "oil speculators" is nonsense (i.e., the release is an implicit acknowledgment of the reality of oil supply and demand)..
Others have pointed out that the very fact of contango shows the futile nature of these manipulations. Effectively short-term price drops provide an incentive to sell at higher prices (i.e., the reality of tight supplies given any modest global GDP growth). This arbitrage is made possible due to artificially low storage costs (i.e., enabling purchasing at today's lower oil price and sell at future higher prices: without these speculative purchases, weaker oil demand would result in larger price drops). In essence, you could combat that by raising the costs of storage; McClelland points out the President could have effectuated the same short-term solution without touching oil by encouraging the Fed to defend the dollar and contain inflation with more historically responsible short-term interest rates. (The Fed has been unwilling to boost near-zero interest rates for fear of further dampening economic growth. But this is the stuff that erodes currency value with price implications for imports (including oil) and encourages many dysfunctional economic activities, including asset bubbles. One interesting side note to strengthening foreign currencies is an explosion of Miami area real estate/housing purchases by strong currency Brazilians and oil-rich Canadians and Venezuelans.)
New York Passes Same Gender "Marriage" Act:
Thumbs DOWN!
New York is the largest state approving same gender "marriage" with other states being Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington DC. The principal issue seemed to be ensuring religious organizations couldn't be prosecuted if, say, they would not rent out facilities to gay couples, a lifestyle not supported, e.g., by thousands of years of Judaic-Christian tradition, among other faiths and civilizations. (In theory, this should never be an issue under property rights and free association guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.) For me, the issue is one mostly of terminology. As I've written on this blog several times, I don't have a problem with gay couples having certain civil rights, say, through civil unions with hospital visitation and inheritance rights, but marriage has been a concept defined by thousands of years of social experience.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "We Can Last Forever"
The price of greatness is responsibility.
Sir Winston Churchill
Strategic Oil Release: A Cynical Opinion
Worldwide consumption of oil is roughly 90 million barrels a day. Slack capacity is roughly 4 million barrels a day. Libya produces, under normal conditions roughly 1.5 million barrels a day. The IEA, an organization of 24 oil importers are committed to maintaining a minimum of 90 days of reserve (they actually average about about 145) with the US maintaining roughly 700 million barrels. During a 30-day period, the US will contribute 1 of 2 million IEA barrels daily. Given recent price corrections due to perceived slowdowns in economic growth, it's fairly clear this was a temporary move meant to manipulate prices for a short period of time (say, the summer driving season). Gue has an interesting reflection that the very fact of the IEA action shows that the bogeyman of "oil speculators" is nonsense (i.e., the release is an implicit acknowledgment of the reality of oil supply and demand)..
Others have pointed out that the very fact of contango shows the futile nature of these manipulations. Effectively short-term price drops provide an incentive to sell at higher prices (i.e., the reality of tight supplies given any modest global GDP growth). This arbitrage is made possible due to artificially low storage costs (i.e., enabling purchasing at today's lower oil price and sell at future higher prices: without these speculative purchases, weaker oil demand would result in larger price drops). In essence, you could combat that by raising the costs of storage; McClelland points out the President could have effectuated the same short-term solution without touching oil by encouraging the Fed to defend the dollar and contain inflation with more historically responsible short-term interest rates. (The Fed has been unwilling to boost near-zero interest rates for fear of further dampening economic growth. But this is the stuff that erodes currency value with price implications for imports (including oil) and encourages many dysfunctional economic activities, including asset bubbles. One interesting side note to strengthening foreign currencies is an explosion of Miami area real estate/housing purchases by strong currency Brazilians and oil-rich Canadians and Venezuelans.)
New York Passes Same Gender "Marriage" Act:
Thumbs DOWN!
New York is the largest state approving same gender "marriage" with other states being Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington DC. The principal issue seemed to be ensuring religious organizations couldn't be prosecuted if, say, they would not rent out facilities to gay couples, a lifestyle not supported, e.g., by thousands of years of Judaic-Christian tradition, among other faiths and civilizations. (In theory, this should never be an issue under property rights and free association guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.) For me, the issue is one mostly of terminology. As I've written on this blog several times, I don't have a problem with gay couples having certain civil rights, say, through civil unions with hospital visitation and inheritance rights, but marriage has been a concept defined by thousands of years of social experience.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "We Can Last Forever"
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Miscellany: 6/23/11
Quote of the Day
The wisest mind has something yet to learn.
George Santayana
Christie (R-NJ) Wins Major Public Sector Union Reform:
Thumbs UP!
A coalition of Republicans and senior/conservative Democrats, mostly those with local/county financial responsibilities facing deteriorating finances, have passed a series of long overdue reforms including significant increases in contributions to health insurance and pension benefits, reforms to collective bargaining, capping arbitration awards, freezing cost-of-living adjustments, and raising the retirement age. This is estimated to save roughly $4.4B a year as the reforms are phased in over the next 3 decades. We have the usual union entitlement thuggery tactics. I am so sick and tired of the standard progressive doubletalk nonsense: "oh, of course, we understand that everybody needs to sacrifice"; "it's not paying our fair share of benefit costs--it's about collective bargaining", etc. Let us be clear: collective bargaining all boils down to costs. By any standard of professional ethics, Democratic officeholders who accept anything of value from a public union, whether direct funding or its fungible equivalence, e.g., phone banks or other volunteer campaign services, must recuse themselves from any public union-relevant decision. Any or all collective bargaining claims in the public sector are intrinsically suspect: first, the public sector is monopolistic, not competitive; second, if the government is not fairly compensating workers, the worker can join the private sector.
We would know of abusive management practices through existing civil service defined grievance or other processes, legislator complaints, conventional whistleblowing, and/or distinctive patterns of worker attrition. We could also tell from available comparative statistics, including between states without relevant collective bargaining rights. Here's the key point: as usual, unions put a posturing public face acting as if collective bargaining is nothing more than a standard civil service grievance. But work rules and other targets of collective bargaining are little more than negotiating chips for unions to get the maximum payoff at the expense of the taxpayer. Union negotiators are not paid to represent the interests of the American taxpayer. Let me give an example: even if a teacher is alleged to have participated in an inappropriate sexual relationship, there may be paid suspensions and legal costs incurred while a second teacher must be hired and paid. There are high barriers to exit.
Is the agreement perfect? No. Among other things we see a typical legislative matter where some public sector workers (e.g., public safety personnel, teachers, etc.) are considered more equal than others. I think phase-in periods and any relevant grandfathering clauses are inefficient from the standpoint of saving the government money. The devil is in the details; for instance, are there any teaching reform measures (e.g., tenure) in this bill or are those discussions deferred? Caps to pension distributions? What happens to the unfunded liabilities? Has the state made up for past missing contributions to the pension lockbox, and how will these be funded?
The "Seven in Heaven Way" Kerfuffle
I saw this story getting heavy rotation on Fox News the other day, although the story had received prior coverage in the New York City area. Earlier this week I discussed my position on the use of religious language and symbols in public areas: generally speaking, I think that "fair use" or limited and/or inclusive or more general context (e.g., a prayer to God versus a specific reference to Jesus Christ) is constitutionally acceptable. On the other hand, I feel more parochial religious speech, e.g., a reborn Christian testifying to his relationship to Jesus Christ, is inappropriate at a public event, particularly if there are majoritarian restrictions, say, non-Christians expressing their own point of view at a public event, in the sense of allowing only one doctrinal point of view would constitute a de facto endorsement.
A lot of contentious issues are resolved in the context of my view; for example, it is obvious to any reasonable person that things like a Nativity scene, a desert cross, or display of the Ten Commandments do not constitute an endorsement of a particular religious perspective but reflect certain Judaic-Christian symbols relevant to our religious heritage. It's difficult to argue that display of the Ten Commandments is the establishment of a religion. Which religion? Are citizens required to attest to the Ten Commandments?
In NYC, an atheist group is upset because a street has been named "Seven in Heaven Way", a tribute to 7 brave firefighters whom were lost on 9/11. They suggest that the use of the name 'heaven' makes the name offensive to atheists and the de facto establishment of a state religion.
This is dubious in several requests. First, the concept of 'heaven', like 'God', spans across several religions. Second, I would argue that 'heaven' is used in an honorific, not substantive sense. For example, in the Christian doctrine, heaven is awarded only upon the result of a Final Judgment made specifically by God. We have no way of knowing whether a particular person is in heaven. Third, I would argue that it makes no more sense to argue that "Seven in Heaven" constitutes the establishment of religion any more than, say, St. Paul, MN; St. Louis, MO; or Los Angeles, CA.
Bottom line: the atheists have no case. Singling out a word does not constitute a religion; there are multiple definitions, e.g., Galileo surveyed the heavens; Bryan Adams sings when he's with his girl, he's in heaven; when I taste Blue Bell ice cream, I'm in heaven. Just because you don't like a particular word or name doesn't entitle you to censor it.
Political Humor
"President Obama announced this week that he is going to start sending out his own messages personally on Twitter. And today Anthony Weiner said, “It’s a trap, don’t do it!” But President Obama’s tweets are a little different than Anthony Weiner’s. When Obama sends out pictures of something obscene, it’s the unemployment numbers." - Jay Leno
[Yeah, right: Obama limit himself to 140 characters per message? Have you heard him talk? I think he doesn't understand: he probably thinks the first character is Nancy Pelosi, the second character is Harry Reid...]
"Bristol Palin released her much-anticipated memoir called “Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far.” Bristol said that Levi Johnston cheated on her but then made it up to her by buying designer rain boots. Things are different up there, I guess." - Jimmy Kimmel
[Isn't it a little late for Levi Johnston to suddenly think about rubbers?]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "You're Not Alone"
The wisest mind has something yet to learn.
George Santayana
Christie (R-NJ) Wins Major Public Sector Union Reform:
Thumbs UP!
A coalition of Republicans and senior/conservative Democrats, mostly those with local/county financial responsibilities facing deteriorating finances, have passed a series of long overdue reforms including significant increases in contributions to health insurance and pension benefits, reforms to collective bargaining, capping arbitration awards, freezing cost-of-living adjustments, and raising the retirement age. This is estimated to save roughly $4.4B a year as the reforms are phased in over the next 3 decades. We have the usual union entitlement thuggery tactics. I am so sick and tired of the standard progressive doubletalk nonsense: "oh, of course, we understand that everybody needs to sacrifice"; "it's not paying our fair share of benefit costs--it's about collective bargaining", etc. Let us be clear: collective bargaining all boils down to costs. By any standard of professional ethics, Democratic officeholders who accept anything of value from a public union, whether direct funding or its fungible equivalence, e.g., phone banks or other volunteer campaign services, must recuse themselves from any public union-relevant decision. Any or all collective bargaining claims in the public sector are intrinsically suspect: first, the public sector is monopolistic, not competitive; second, if the government is not fairly compensating workers, the worker can join the private sector.
We would know of abusive management practices through existing civil service defined grievance or other processes, legislator complaints, conventional whistleblowing, and/or distinctive patterns of worker attrition. We could also tell from available comparative statistics, including between states without relevant collective bargaining rights. Here's the key point: as usual, unions put a posturing public face acting as if collective bargaining is nothing more than a standard civil service grievance. But work rules and other targets of collective bargaining are little more than negotiating chips for unions to get the maximum payoff at the expense of the taxpayer. Union negotiators are not paid to represent the interests of the American taxpayer. Let me give an example: even if a teacher is alleged to have participated in an inappropriate sexual relationship, there may be paid suspensions and legal costs incurred while a second teacher must be hired and paid. There are high barriers to exit.
Is the agreement perfect? No. Among other things we see a typical legislative matter where some public sector workers (e.g., public safety personnel, teachers, etc.) are considered more equal than others. I think phase-in periods and any relevant grandfathering clauses are inefficient from the standpoint of saving the government money. The devil is in the details; for instance, are there any teaching reform measures (e.g., tenure) in this bill or are those discussions deferred? Caps to pension distributions? What happens to the unfunded liabilities? Has the state made up for past missing contributions to the pension lockbox, and how will these be funded?
The "Seven in Heaven Way" Kerfuffle
I saw this story getting heavy rotation on Fox News the other day, although the story had received prior coverage in the New York City area. Earlier this week I discussed my position on the use of religious language and symbols in public areas: generally speaking, I think that "fair use" or limited and/or inclusive or more general context (e.g., a prayer to God versus a specific reference to Jesus Christ) is constitutionally acceptable. On the other hand, I feel more parochial religious speech, e.g., a reborn Christian testifying to his relationship to Jesus Christ, is inappropriate at a public event, particularly if there are majoritarian restrictions, say, non-Christians expressing their own point of view at a public event, in the sense of allowing only one doctrinal point of view would constitute a de facto endorsement.
A lot of contentious issues are resolved in the context of my view; for example, it is obvious to any reasonable person that things like a Nativity scene, a desert cross, or display of the Ten Commandments do not constitute an endorsement of a particular religious perspective but reflect certain Judaic-Christian symbols relevant to our religious heritage. It's difficult to argue that display of the Ten Commandments is the establishment of a religion. Which religion? Are citizens required to attest to the Ten Commandments?
In NYC, an atheist group is upset because a street has been named "Seven in Heaven Way", a tribute to 7 brave firefighters whom were lost on 9/11. They suggest that the use of the name 'heaven' makes the name offensive to atheists and the de facto establishment of a state religion.
This is dubious in several requests. First, the concept of 'heaven', like 'God', spans across several religions. Second, I would argue that 'heaven' is used in an honorific, not substantive sense. For example, in the Christian doctrine, heaven is awarded only upon the result of a Final Judgment made specifically by God. We have no way of knowing whether a particular person is in heaven. Third, I would argue that it makes no more sense to argue that "Seven in Heaven" constitutes the establishment of religion any more than, say, St. Paul, MN; St. Louis, MO; or Los Angeles, CA.
Bottom line: the atheists have no case. Singling out a word does not constitute a religion; there are multiple definitions, e.g., Galileo surveyed the heavens; Bryan Adams sings when he's with his girl, he's in heaven; when I taste Blue Bell ice cream, I'm in heaven. Just because you don't like a particular word or name doesn't entitle you to censor it.
Political Humor
"President Obama announced this week that he is going to start sending out his own messages personally on Twitter. And today Anthony Weiner said, “It’s a trap, don’t do it!” But President Obama’s tweets are a little different than Anthony Weiner’s. When Obama sends out pictures of something obscene, it’s the unemployment numbers." - Jay Leno
[Yeah, right: Obama limit himself to 140 characters per message? Have you heard him talk? I think he doesn't understand: he probably thinks the first character is Nancy Pelosi, the second character is Harry Reid...]
"Bristol Palin released her much-anticipated memoir called “Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far.” Bristol said that Levi Johnston cheated on her but then made it up to her by buying designer rain boots. Things are different up there, I guess." - Jimmy Kimmel
[Isn't it a little late for Levi Johnston to suddenly think about rubbers?]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "You're Not Alone"
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Miscellany: 6/22/11
Quote of the Day
One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
Marie Curie
Sloppy Thinking, Stupid Politicians, And Special Interests
I must admit to getting more intolerant and impatient with staggering stupidity. In 1992, one of the most famous campaign mottoes of all was "it's the economy, stupid". I feel like I'm the boy noticing the emperor is wearing no clothes. Let me give a simple example: the Fed has been flooding the economy with cheap dollars. We FINALLY see the Fed suggest that it might defer any future quantitative easing (while retaining a ludicrous, below-historical-norm near-zero interest rates). De facto, the Fed has essentially been monetizing massive federal deficits: I know how economists are going to quibble about inflation given ambivalent consumer spending in a tough economy and slack global demand, but we know that the moral hazard of the Fed backing the federal budget, i.e., the "Big Government Spending Bubble", is not going to end any better than earlier Fed easing resulting in the stock market (particularly high tech) bubble and the subsequent real estate bubble. It was blatantly obvious during the Internet craze that bidding unprofitable companies sky-high was not going to end well; the same was true of housing prices increasing over the rate of real wage growth. As to the Big Government bubble, when we are raising only $2.1T in government revenue and we are stubbornly spending north of $3.5T and we have $50T in unfunded entitlement liabilities, there is no way this ends well. It's no longer a matter of 'if' but 'when'.
I mean, take into account the morally reprehensible AARP ad rejecting any shared sacrifice for entitlement spending, pulling a deliberate misleading bait-and-switch by pretending that a few thousands or millions dollars (including the infamous shrimp-on-a-treadmill study) should be the target for reducing a $1.6T deficit, not the almost 60% of the $3.6T spending budget. Why is the AARP worried about literally less than 2 cents on the dollar? Very easy: it's political catnip. It's a distraction. We've been there, done that. The Democrats tried to sell de facto nationalization of health care based on a few million people, many of whom prefer to self-insure for minor health care expenses. We see no compelling evidence that self-insuring individuals are responsible for health care inflation (the emperor is wearing no clothes), we have no evidence that the federal government can do better than the states in regulating as traditionally health insurance and in fact the very necessity of federal government involvement. We don't see the Democrats seriously looking at the cost of gold-plated special interest mandates or morally hazardous policies, e.g., requiring coverage of preexisting conditions, which violates the very heart of insurance. You are basically forcing private sector companies to write insurance at a loss from day one; that's essentially unconstitutional. Do we hear, for instance, the federal government garnishing wages for anyone having the costs assumed by the federal government? Of course not. Instead of guaranteeing coverage of catastrophic expenses within, say, some Medicaid-like concept, we have a takeover of over 17% of our economy.
But going back to the 2008 general election campaign, even if it wasn't widely recognized by others, I was disappointed by McCain's debate performances. I don't think Obama won them, but McCain was so predictable, it was literally like watching a tennis match were the opponent comes to the net too soon, and the opponent would easily drill the ball past a flat-footed McCain. McCain constantly harped on earmarks. Obama responded in predictable ways: he decided to co-opt McCain's earmark pledge by making one of his own while he focused on the relatively trivial percentage of earmarks as part of the federal government. The general impression was that McCain was more interested in symbolic fiscal conservatism versus, say, a Christie type, seeking to cut the budget in real terms. In one sense I understand McCain's reasoning: voters' eyes would probably glaze in the details of cost-plus, fixed-cost outlays, zero-based budgeting, business process engineering, etc. What he needed to talk about were big numbers, e.g. the costs of regulation, and the relative increase in the business regulation burden. He needed to talk about "use-it-or-lose-it" dysfunctional budget processes, the high costs of redundancies of military bases or federal office complexes. He needed to discuss ongoing and early project cost reviews, reducing federal headcounts, bonuses or increases (particularly for compensation packages beyond the national mean). But here's the key point: most of McCain's cuts come from a very small percentage of federal spending (just like Obama's). You aren't going to get there by only finding cuts on a puny fraction of the federal budget.
I will leave it to reader to review Glenn Kessler's compelling critique of the AARP ad. Personally, I would be more pointed: AARP is suggesting any cuts to well-to-do retirees benefits are unacceptable from the get-go but it's more acceptable to cut, say, military or domestic federal programs (many of which benefit lower-income Americans). What we are not hearing from the AARP folks is how retaining an unsustainable cost structure at present--which is their current position--is in the best long-term interest.
Let me hint where I think we eventually have to go: consolidating lower-income safety nets on a consistent basis across the American people, not separate ones for older people.
Then there's Michele Bachmann, whom I think was at least a tolerable populist, unlike the intellectually vapid Sarah Palin. But in a preposterous red meat speech, she pointed out the black and Latino voters how the Obama Administration has failed them. (Yes, we know: Bachmann is not really aiming her message to minorities: she's simply preaching to the choir, i.e., "you know, Obama's policies are hypocritical in effect".) It's not a good idea to lecture ethnic groups they aren't smart enough to know whom to vote for. It is true that President Obama's policies have been devastatingly bad for lower-income Americans in general, not simple black or Latino. Pro-growth policies rise all boats, but Obama deliberately tries to thread a nuanced path so companies he thinks have unduly profited get zero breaks: you might as well just go ahead and shoot yourself in the foot. In short, he's running on ideology, not economics.
Why not bring up Clinton, whom simply lucked in serving during a time when we got a windfall benefit of a defunct Cold War while benefiting from an American high tech revolution and unsustainable capital gains income. So Clinton came up with a suggested game plan for Obama in Newsweek; I have not read Clinton's plan yet, but here's what we know: most of the same "sharp-minded" top economists serving under Clinton have also worked Obama. Do we honestly believe that Clinton has proposed something like his own advisers didn't already suggest? The emperor is wearing no clothes (and no, I'm not talking about former Congressman Weiner).
Obama's 6/22/11 Afghanistan Address:
Selective Comments:
Thumbs DOWN!
This is really an extension of my rant above. It's a typical Obama speech: very little substance, same old same old rhetoric. We had to be in Afghanistan to get UBL (oh, by the way, in case you didn't know, we got UBL a few weeks back). He does some implicit Bush bashing by pointing out far fewer casualties in Afghanistan than Iraq (the facts that we don't have three major sectarian rivalries in a mostly tribal Afghanistan and our ground troops really weren't involved in the downfall of the Taliban government are inconvenient to Obama's points, of course). And we have our usual dose of Obama's hubris:
Political Humor
A few originals:
Chicago, "Look Away". The last Chicago #1 hit and the only one not written by Cetera (up to now)
One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
Marie Curie
Sloppy Thinking, Stupid Politicians, And Special Interests
I must admit to getting more intolerant and impatient with staggering stupidity. In 1992, one of the most famous campaign mottoes of all was "it's the economy, stupid". I feel like I'm the boy noticing the emperor is wearing no clothes. Let me give a simple example: the Fed has been flooding the economy with cheap dollars. We FINALLY see the Fed suggest that it might defer any future quantitative easing (while retaining a ludicrous, below-historical-norm near-zero interest rates). De facto, the Fed has essentially been monetizing massive federal deficits: I know how economists are going to quibble about inflation given ambivalent consumer spending in a tough economy and slack global demand, but we know that the moral hazard of the Fed backing the federal budget, i.e., the "Big Government Spending Bubble", is not going to end any better than earlier Fed easing resulting in the stock market (particularly high tech) bubble and the subsequent real estate bubble. It was blatantly obvious during the Internet craze that bidding unprofitable companies sky-high was not going to end well; the same was true of housing prices increasing over the rate of real wage growth. As to the Big Government bubble, when we are raising only $2.1T in government revenue and we are stubbornly spending north of $3.5T and we have $50T in unfunded entitlement liabilities, there is no way this ends well. It's no longer a matter of 'if' but 'when'.
I mean, take into account the morally reprehensible AARP ad rejecting any shared sacrifice for entitlement spending, pulling a deliberate misleading bait-and-switch by pretending that a few thousands or millions dollars (including the infamous shrimp-on-a-treadmill study) should be the target for reducing a $1.6T deficit, not the almost 60% of the $3.6T spending budget. Why is the AARP worried about literally less than 2 cents on the dollar? Very easy: it's political catnip. It's a distraction. We've been there, done that. The Democrats tried to sell de facto nationalization of health care based on a few million people, many of whom prefer to self-insure for minor health care expenses. We see no compelling evidence that self-insuring individuals are responsible for health care inflation (the emperor is wearing no clothes), we have no evidence that the federal government can do better than the states in regulating as traditionally health insurance and in fact the very necessity of federal government involvement. We don't see the Democrats seriously looking at the cost of gold-plated special interest mandates or morally hazardous policies, e.g., requiring coverage of preexisting conditions, which violates the very heart of insurance. You are basically forcing private sector companies to write insurance at a loss from day one; that's essentially unconstitutional. Do we hear, for instance, the federal government garnishing wages for anyone having the costs assumed by the federal government? Of course not. Instead of guaranteeing coverage of catastrophic expenses within, say, some Medicaid-like concept, we have a takeover of over 17% of our economy.
But going back to the 2008 general election campaign, even if it wasn't widely recognized by others, I was disappointed by McCain's debate performances. I don't think Obama won them, but McCain was so predictable, it was literally like watching a tennis match were the opponent comes to the net too soon, and the opponent would easily drill the ball past a flat-footed McCain. McCain constantly harped on earmarks. Obama responded in predictable ways: he decided to co-opt McCain's earmark pledge by making one of his own while he focused on the relatively trivial percentage of earmarks as part of the federal government. The general impression was that McCain was more interested in symbolic fiscal conservatism versus, say, a Christie type, seeking to cut the budget in real terms. In one sense I understand McCain's reasoning: voters' eyes would probably glaze in the details of cost-plus, fixed-cost outlays, zero-based budgeting, business process engineering, etc. What he needed to talk about were big numbers, e.g. the costs of regulation, and the relative increase in the business regulation burden. He needed to talk about "use-it-or-lose-it" dysfunctional budget processes, the high costs of redundancies of military bases or federal office complexes. He needed to discuss ongoing and early project cost reviews, reducing federal headcounts, bonuses or increases (particularly for compensation packages beyond the national mean). But here's the key point: most of McCain's cuts come from a very small percentage of federal spending (just like Obama's). You aren't going to get there by only finding cuts on a puny fraction of the federal budget.
I will leave it to reader to review Glenn Kessler's compelling critique of the AARP ad. Personally, I would be more pointed: AARP is suggesting any cuts to well-to-do retirees benefits are unacceptable from the get-go but it's more acceptable to cut, say, military or domestic federal programs (many of which benefit lower-income Americans). What we are not hearing from the AARP folks is how retaining an unsustainable cost structure at present--which is their current position--is in the best long-term interest.
Let me hint where I think we eventually have to go: consolidating lower-income safety nets on a consistent basis across the American people, not separate ones for older people.
Then there's Michele Bachmann, whom I think was at least a tolerable populist, unlike the intellectually vapid Sarah Palin. But in a preposterous red meat speech, she pointed out the black and Latino voters how the Obama Administration has failed them. (Yes, we know: Bachmann is not really aiming her message to minorities: she's simply preaching to the choir, i.e., "you know, Obama's policies are hypocritical in effect".) It's not a good idea to lecture ethnic groups they aren't smart enough to know whom to vote for. It is true that President Obama's policies have been devastatingly bad for lower-income Americans in general, not simple black or Latino. Pro-growth policies rise all boats, but Obama deliberately tries to thread a nuanced path so companies he thinks have unduly profited get zero breaks: you might as well just go ahead and shoot yourself in the foot. In short, he's running on ideology, not economics.
Why not bring up Clinton, whom simply lucked in serving during a time when we got a windfall benefit of a defunct Cold War while benefiting from an American high tech revolution and unsustainable capital gains income. So Clinton came up with a suggested game plan for Obama in Newsweek; I have not read Clinton's plan yet, but here's what we know: most of the same "sharp-minded" top economists serving under Clinton have also worked Obama. Do we honestly believe that Clinton has proposed something like his own advisers didn't already suggest? The emperor is wearing no clothes (and no, I'm not talking about former Congressman Weiner).
Obama's 6/22/11 Afghanistan Address:
Selective Comments:
Thumbs DOWN!
This is really an extension of my rant above. It's a typical Obama speech: very little substance, same old same old rhetoric. We had to be in Afghanistan to get UBL (oh, by the way, in case you didn't know, we got UBL a few weeks back). He does some implicit Bush bashing by pointing out far fewer casualties in Afghanistan than Iraq (the facts that we don't have three major sectarian rivalries in a mostly tribal Afghanistan and our ground troops really weren't involved in the downfall of the Taliban government are inconvenient to Obama's points, of course). And we have our usual dose of Obama's hubris:
Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times. Now, we must invest in America’s greatest resource – our people. We must unleash innovation that creates new jobs and industry, while living within our means. We must rebuild our infrastructure and find new and clean sources of energy. And most of all, after a decade of passionate debate, we must recapture the common purpose that we shared at the beginning of this time of war. For our nation draws strength from our differences, and when our union is strong no hill is too steep and no horizon is beyond our reach.Here, his purpose is to show, unconvincingly as usual, there is a zero-sum relationship between defense spending and his special interest domestic policy agenda. This is, of course, nonsense. Roughly $700B of our $3.7T or so budget, roughly 20%, involves defense. I don't know whom he thinks he's fooling by discussing a figure, say, $1T, over a decade, e.g., $100B or so a year, when he himself had added over $4T in 3 years to the national debt. Let's say, we are "underinvesting" because the $300B or so of Iraq/Afghan involvement over 3 years (out of nearly $10T in spending). NO, WE DON'T NEED TO FLUSH GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD THROUGH COST SAVINGS IN THE GULF REGION BY WRITING CHECKS TO DEMOCRATIC SPECIAL-INTEREST CONSTITUENCY PROGRAMS; WE NEED TO PARE DOWN THE $4T PORTION OBAMA HAS ALREADY ADDED TO THE NATIONAL DEBT.
Political Humor
A few originals:
- Mike Rawlings, a former Pizza Hut CEO, just won the mayoral race in Dallas. When asked why he has done so much better than former Godfather's CEO Herman Cain's recent stagnating ratings in the GOP Presidential nomination after his own CNN debate, Rawlings points out in his debate he chose thin-crust (versus deep dish) pizza.
- As a way of demonstrating the effectiveness of Obama's Keynesian economics, Obama proudly notes the way that the American investment of blood and treasure in the nation building of Afghanistan over the past decade has enabled Afghanistan to firmly establish its growing global production dominance in opiates and hashish.
Chicago, "Look Away". The last Chicago #1 hit and the only one not written by Cetera (up to now)
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Miscellany: 6/21/11
Quote of the Day
A great pilot can sail even when his canvas is torn.
Seneca
Christie, Budget Cuts, Gail:
"None of Your Business": Thumbs UP!
I think Christie needs to be more specific. For example, he goes from talking about cuts to saying "the decisions that I make are to try to improve the educational opportunities". He needs to be clearer on what exactly he's saying here. For example, he could be saying "current funding is intrinsically unsustainable; if we going to have sustainable funding, we aren't going to get there with unsustainable anti-business growth tax and regulatory policies. We aren't going to be able to do that by subsidizing bloated school administrations or teaching staffs, by postponing the inevitable, e.g., school closures, etc. There are also points where he could be sharper. "Cuts" by themselves are not "unfair". We already know many of our international competitors have lower teacher to student ratios but show higher achievement. If and when we agree higher achievement is our properly measured outcome, it's clear that teacher headcount is not an efficient reform. In addition, the "fairness" criterion, in my judgment, spans the whole expanse of the state budget, not a single parochial interest, like education; what's fair is the state budget cuts being spread as equally as possible. Finally, there's a question of a competitive education market. The very existence of private schools provides a check on public education, forcing it to shed costs and streamline programs to become more competitive. (Governor Christie could have also raised issues involving security challenges for his kids in the public education system or the fact that President Obama also enrolls his children in private schools.)
John McCain: For Shame!
I have written quite a few commentaries on McCain and Palin. My patience is getting thinner with both. But first, one of the things that really annoys me is the unaccomplished "prodigious progeny" (say, for instance, Ron Reagan), whom leverage their famous parents' fame. Bristol Palin, the oldest daughter of Sarah Palin, is writing a memoir at the ripe old age of 20, and she seems to be taking shots at Meghan McCain and her mother. Bristol Palin's claim to fame, of course, was the achievement of being pregnant and unmarried during the campaign with an irresponsible hockey player and giving motivational speeches on teen abstinence. Ms. McCain graduated from the same Ivy League school as Barack Obama, is a nationally syndicated columnist. There was some speculation on a Today Show interview whether McCain might make a second try in 2012, which he rejected. I haven't seen any relevant recent polls, but I don''t think the party wants to rerun the same failed candidacy that mostly failed on economic issues.
I did want to focus on a couple of other points: first, there was McCain's totally unsubstantiated and unduly provocative claim that unauthorized aliens are responsible for current wildfire blazes in Arizona. It's not just these allegations fundamentally are prejudicial against Latinos and reflect, in my judgment, intrinsically anti-Christian values. We libertarian-conservatives really constitute the backbone of the Tea Party movement; we do not recognize undue interference by the government telling us how to run our businesses (including whom we hire). It's utterly PATHETIC that the hypocritical media conservatives--the Sean Hannity's, the Rush Limbaugh's, the Mark Levin's, the Ann Coulter's, the Laura Ingraham's, etc.-- and their so-called Republican allies claim to support free market principles when they want to prescribe every possible state or federal restriction aimed primarily at a single ethnic group, Latinos. It's morally reprehensible. I'm getting sick and tired of demagogues trying to scapegoat immigrants for the job situation, safety net spending, etc. It's mean-spirited, unfair, and, at its core, anti-Christian. I'm getting tired of hearing all these states trying to usurp federal prerogatives and responsibilities of immigration policy. I have my own issues with the Democrats, but the idiot activists trying to co-opt the Tea Party with a fundamental anti-Tea Party agenda of government intrusion into the private sector are doing everything possible to try to push Latinos to reelect Barack Obama: How STUPID are these media conservatives? "If Ann Coulter Had Any Brains", she would be lashing out against the anti-immigrants doing their best to throw the election to Obama next year. It's not the immigrants--it's counterproductive, punitive Obama tax and regulatory measures that have slowed the recovery by creating unprecedented uncertainly in business 5-year plans.
Second, there is the recent charge by McCain that the GOP is becoming more isolationist. No, but we cannot overextend ourselves, we have to understand the expensive mistakes that were made, and we need to choose our battles better. NO MORE BLANK CHECKS, NO MORE INITIATIVES OF DUBIOUS STRATEGIC NATIONAL INTEREST.
Killebrew Fact
"The team of Obama and Boehner beat the team of Vice President Joe Biden and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. When they tallied up the score, they were 14 trillion over par." - Jay Leno
[Obama kept hitting the ball into sand traps: Iraq, Libya, ... He never could quite chip out and took the penalty. Then the President's shots off the tee constantly hit the rough. Boehner nicknamed it "the Economy". Then there was the greens fee--Obama took all the green in Boehner's wallet.]
"The prize money for the U.S. Open had to be borrowed from the Chinese Open." - David Letterman
[Rory McIlroy, a 22-year-old golfer from Northern Ireland, won the US Open. I'm not saying that the Obama Administration spin machine is working overtime, but they pointed all the Americans outscored the Northern Irishman in an international competition.]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "I Don't Want To Live Without Your Love"
A great pilot can sail even when his canvas is torn.
Seneca
Christie, Budget Cuts, Gail:
"None of Your Business": Thumbs UP!
Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) last night, in New Jersey on public TV, "Christie on the Line." This is why people like the guy. In a prerecorded videotaped question, a woman named "Gail" says (sniveling), "You don't send your kids to public schools, you send 'em to private schools. So I was wondering, Governor, why do you think it's fair to be cutting school funding to public schools?"
CHRISTIE: Hey, Gail? You know what? First off: It's none of your business. I don't ask you where you send your kids to school; don't bother me about where I send mine. Secondly: I pay $38,000 a year in property taxes for a public school predominantly in Mendham that my wife and I don't choose to utilize because we believe -- we've decided -- as parents that we believe a religious education should be part of our children's everyday education. So we send our children to parochial school. Third: I, as governor, am responsible for every child in this state, not just my own, and the decisions that I make are to try to improve the educational opportunities of every child in this state. So with all due respect, Gail, it's none of your business.I just want to provide some alternative commentary here, although I think clearly Chris Christie is exactly right in what he's saying. I heard some Democrat on a Hannity panel argue that he objected to Christie's tone to the constituent. The question, in fact, at its heart a personal attack: it's suggesting that cuts are intrinsically unfair, the reason Christie allows an injustice occur is because he isn't vested in public education, i.e., "let them eat cake". There's also an implicit judgment that the reason Chris Christie doesn't care about education is because he is "rich enough" not to have to worry about other kids whom don't have parents whom can pay for private education.
I think Christie needs to be more specific. For example, he goes from talking about cuts to saying "the decisions that I make are to try to improve the educational opportunities". He needs to be clearer on what exactly he's saying here. For example, he could be saying "current funding is intrinsically unsustainable; if we going to have sustainable funding, we aren't going to get there with unsustainable anti-business growth tax and regulatory policies. We aren't going to be able to do that by subsidizing bloated school administrations or teaching staffs, by postponing the inevitable, e.g., school closures, etc. There are also points where he could be sharper. "Cuts" by themselves are not "unfair". We already know many of our international competitors have lower teacher to student ratios but show higher achievement. If and when we agree higher achievement is our properly measured outcome, it's clear that teacher headcount is not an efficient reform. In addition, the "fairness" criterion, in my judgment, spans the whole expanse of the state budget, not a single parochial interest, like education; what's fair is the state budget cuts being spread as equally as possible. Finally, there's a question of a competitive education market. The very existence of private schools provides a check on public education, forcing it to shed costs and streamline programs to become more competitive. (Governor Christie could have also raised issues involving security challenges for his kids in the public education system or the fact that President Obama also enrolls his children in private schools.)
John McCain: For Shame!
I have written quite a few commentaries on McCain and Palin. My patience is getting thinner with both. But first, one of the things that really annoys me is the unaccomplished "prodigious progeny" (say, for instance, Ron Reagan), whom leverage their famous parents' fame. Bristol Palin, the oldest daughter of Sarah Palin, is writing a memoir at the ripe old age of 20, and she seems to be taking shots at Meghan McCain and her mother. Bristol Palin's claim to fame, of course, was the achievement of being pregnant and unmarried during the campaign with an irresponsible hockey player and giving motivational speeches on teen abstinence. Ms. McCain graduated from the same Ivy League school as Barack Obama, is a nationally syndicated columnist. There was some speculation on a Today Show interview whether McCain might make a second try in 2012, which he rejected. I haven't seen any relevant recent polls, but I don''t think the party wants to rerun the same failed candidacy that mostly failed on economic issues.
I did want to focus on a couple of other points: first, there was McCain's totally unsubstantiated and unduly provocative claim that unauthorized aliens are responsible for current wildfire blazes in Arizona. It's not just these allegations fundamentally are prejudicial against Latinos and reflect, in my judgment, intrinsically anti-Christian values. We libertarian-conservatives really constitute the backbone of the Tea Party movement; we do not recognize undue interference by the government telling us how to run our businesses (including whom we hire). It's utterly PATHETIC that the hypocritical media conservatives--the Sean Hannity's, the Rush Limbaugh's, the Mark Levin's, the Ann Coulter's, the Laura Ingraham's, etc.-- and their so-called Republican allies claim to support free market principles when they want to prescribe every possible state or federal restriction aimed primarily at a single ethnic group, Latinos. It's morally reprehensible. I'm getting sick and tired of demagogues trying to scapegoat immigrants for the job situation, safety net spending, etc. It's mean-spirited, unfair, and, at its core, anti-Christian. I'm getting tired of hearing all these states trying to usurp federal prerogatives and responsibilities of immigration policy. I have my own issues with the Democrats, but the idiot activists trying to co-opt the Tea Party with a fundamental anti-Tea Party agenda of government intrusion into the private sector are doing everything possible to try to push Latinos to reelect Barack Obama: How STUPID are these media conservatives? "If Ann Coulter Had Any Brains", she would be lashing out against the anti-immigrants doing their best to throw the election to Obama next year. It's not the immigrants--it's counterproductive, punitive Obama tax and regulatory measures that have slowed the recovery by creating unprecedented uncertainly in business 5-year plans.
Second, there is the recent charge by McCain that the GOP is becoming more isolationist. No, but we cannot overextend ourselves, we have to understand the expensive mistakes that were made, and we need to choose our battles better. NO MORE BLANK CHECKS, NO MORE INITIATIVES OF DUBIOUS STRATEGIC NATIONAL INTEREST.
Killebrew Fact
June 4, 1969: Rod Carew and Cesar Tovar both steal home in one plate appearance—a Killebrew plate appearance. Carew stole second, third, and home in that one at-bat.Political Humor
"The team of Obama and Boehner beat the team of Vice President Joe Biden and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. When they tallied up the score, they were 14 trillion over par." - Jay Leno
[Obama kept hitting the ball into sand traps: Iraq, Libya, ... He never could quite chip out and took the penalty. Then the President's shots off the tee constantly hit the rough. Boehner nicknamed it "the Economy". Then there was the greens fee--Obama took all the green in Boehner's wallet.]
"The prize money for the U.S. Open had to be borrowed from the Chinese Open." - David Letterman
[Rory McIlroy, a 22-year-old golfer from Northern Ireland, won the US Open. I'm not saying that the Obama Administration spin machine is working overtime, but they pointed all the Americans outscored the Northern Irishman in an international competition.]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "I Don't Want To Live Without Your Love"
Monday, June 20, 2011
Miscellany: 6/20/11
Quote of the Day
No one forgives with more grace and love than a child.
Real Live Preacher
The US Open Pledge of Allegiance Kerfuffle:
A Contrary Opinion
This is one of those issues where I'll disagree with my mother and almost all relatives. I've mentioned one of them in a past post. I attended a public high school graduation about 5 years back for one of my nieces which took place on the premises of the Air Force Academy in Colorado. One of the female graduation speakers decided to give testimony to Jesus Christ and His importance in her life, for a few minutes in duration. My position might be regarded by some as nuanced, but I think is clear: at public events, expressions of religious speech should be limited and general or inclusive (versus parochial) in concept. If there is parochial speech, it must not be exclusive. For example, I don't mind a fleeting reference to Jesus Christ (an analogous concept to fair use of the copyrighted property of others). On the other hand, if you are going to allow someone several minutes of testimony meant to influence the behavior of others, you have to allow some variation of alternative parochial views. The reason is fairly obvious: for instance, if one promotes a belief in Christianity but none other, it constitutes a de facto official endorsement of a particular religion. This is a majoritarian abuse of power. Thus, I prefer to make the content of public event speech as general as possible, e.g., limit explicit mention of certain religious figures like Jesus Christ or the Buddha, versus use of "God", which is common factor among multiple religions.
At the same time, I oppose government-sponsored censorship of limited or general religious speech or symbols on government property; I see those as robust symbols of our traditional heritage of religious liberty. For example, I don't mind an occasional cross, Menorah, display of the Ten Commandments, etc.
Now I have to admit I did not watch the US Open coverage this weekend, but I've seen heavy rotation of the Pledge kerfuffle all over Fox News coverage today--probably close to a dozen times, which is absolutely absurd. For those who are not aware of the kerfuffle, there was a video montage of kids saying the Pledge of Allegiance; there are intermittent pauses in the pledge, often involving service member activities. The controversy is that certain words are missing towards the end of the recitation: "[one nation], under God, indivisible [with liberty and justice for all]."
You will not hear this opinion from other conservative commentators, but for one thing I actually LIKE the montage. First of all, there is no reason for using the Pledge of Allegiance at all for the golf tournament. Second, what we have is an edited version of the Pledge; who the heck is authorized to go around as the Pledge police? I mean, do we argue we can't use sporting event highlights unless we show the entire games? Third, the Pledge itself has changed over the years. Some people forget that the author of the Pledge was a Baptist minister whom never even included "under God" in the Pledge itself. It took until 1954, more than 20 years after Bellamy's death, before the words "under God" were ADDED to the original Pledge. Now these Fox News-sponsored Pledge censors seem to have a problem more faithful to the original Pledge. Under what kind of Alice in Wonderland thinking is this? The Pledge is "defective" in its original form?
Personally--and I'm sure I'll get pushback from so-called patriotic Americans--I find the requirement to say a pledge to be rather quaint, jingoistic and fundamentally un-American in the sense that liberty necessarily requires the right NOT to say the Pledge--in any variation, in full or abbreviated form. I personally like to say the Pledge as is, but for a majority to decide in 1954 they wanted to change the Pledge and go ballistic that some people are criticized for using their unalienable right to express their version of the Pledge: by their own framing of the issue, they violate the very essence of our Bill of Rights; the violation of the minority's right of self-expression is, at its core, unconstitutional. For these majoritarian authoritarians, I simply say: GET A LIFE.
The US Supreme Court: Unanimous Verdict Against
Class Action Lawsuit Abuse and the Wal-Mart Case:
Thumbs WAY, WAY UP!
This was blatantly an obvious attempt by lawyers to try to cherry-pick their way (on less than a handful of allegations) into a flimsy wide-ranging conspiracy across literally thousands of employees, one that would seriously open Pandora's box of class action lawsuit abuse and hold corporations up for extortion on a massive scale. It is morally unacceptable. The court rightly said that if any individual female employee has a LEGITIMATE case of gender bias based on her own experience, not a nonsensical, thinly-substantiated conspiracy theory, that employee can present a case based on intrinsic merit; you couldn't steal the property of shareholders by being added to a lawsuit without ever being subjected to an act of discrimination. I argued for this court's decision in an earlier post.
Fukushima Nuclear Incident Update. This segment is a thrice-weekly, more readable summary of some key blogs covering the the recovery of Fukushima Daiichi shutdown but damaged nuclear reactors 1-3 and relevant spent fuel pools, whose critical cooling systems failed as the result of power failure following a record earthquake/tsunami.
The Hiroshima Syndrome blog notes:
"Rush Limbaugh has a new iced tea and the label has a picture of him dressed as Paul Revere. How confusing is this going to be for Sarah Palin?" - Jay Leno
[The Paul Revere label got photoshopped by the same people whom did Anthony Weiner's Congressional gym shot: they were both larger than life.]
"I just read that more companies are bringing back jobs to the U.S. that have been outsourced to other countries for years. So the next time you call tech support, you might actually get someone who speaks perfect English — and knows nothing about computers." - Jimmy Fallon
[To minimize customer confusion, the companies will be routing calls to your local 7-11.]
Killebrew Fact
Chicago,"If She Would Have Been Faithful"
No one forgives with more grace and love than a child.
Real Live Preacher
The US Open Pledge of Allegiance Kerfuffle:
A Contrary Opinion
This is one of those issues where I'll disagree with my mother and almost all relatives. I've mentioned one of them in a past post. I attended a public high school graduation about 5 years back for one of my nieces which took place on the premises of the Air Force Academy in Colorado. One of the female graduation speakers decided to give testimony to Jesus Christ and His importance in her life, for a few minutes in duration. My position might be regarded by some as nuanced, but I think is clear: at public events, expressions of religious speech should be limited and general or inclusive (versus parochial) in concept. If there is parochial speech, it must not be exclusive. For example, I don't mind a fleeting reference to Jesus Christ (an analogous concept to fair use of the copyrighted property of others). On the other hand, if you are going to allow someone several minutes of testimony meant to influence the behavior of others, you have to allow some variation of alternative parochial views. The reason is fairly obvious: for instance, if one promotes a belief in Christianity but none other, it constitutes a de facto official endorsement of a particular religion. This is a majoritarian abuse of power. Thus, I prefer to make the content of public event speech as general as possible, e.g., limit explicit mention of certain religious figures like Jesus Christ or the Buddha, versus use of "God", which is common factor among multiple religions.
At the same time, I oppose government-sponsored censorship of limited or general religious speech or symbols on government property; I see those as robust symbols of our traditional heritage of religious liberty. For example, I don't mind an occasional cross, Menorah, display of the Ten Commandments, etc.
Now I have to admit I did not watch the US Open coverage this weekend, but I've seen heavy rotation of the Pledge kerfuffle all over Fox News coverage today--probably close to a dozen times, which is absolutely absurd. For those who are not aware of the kerfuffle, there was a video montage of kids saying the Pledge of Allegiance; there are intermittent pauses in the pledge, often involving service member activities. The controversy is that certain words are missing towards the end of the recitation: "[one nation], under God, indivisible [with liberty and justice for all]."
You will not hear this opinion from other conservative commentators, but for one thing I actually LIKE the montage. First of all, there is no reason for using the Pledge of Allegiance at all for the golf tournament. Second, what we have is an edited version of the Pledge; who the heck is authorized to go around as the Pledge police? I mean, do we argue we can't use sporting event highlights unless we show the entire games? Third, the Pledge itself has changed over the years. Some people forget that the author of the Pledge was a Baptist minister whom never even included "under God" in the Pledge itself. It took until 1954, more than 20 years after Bellamy's death, before the words "under God" were ADDED to the original Pledge. Now these Fox News-sponsored Pledge censors seem to have a problem more faithful to the original Pledge. Under what kind of Alice in Wonderland thinking is this? The Pledge is "defective" in its original form?
Personally--and I'm sure I'll get pushback from so-called patriotic Americans--I find the requirement to say a pledge to be rather quaint, jingoistic and fundamentally un-American in the sense that liberty necessarily requires the right NOT to say the Pledge--in any variation, in full or abbreviated form. I personally like to say the Pledge as is, but for a majority to decide in 1954 they wanted to change the Pledge and go ballistic that some people are criticized for using their unalienable right to express their version of the Pledge: by their own framing of the issue, they violate the very essence of our Bill of Rights; the violation of the minority's right of self-expression is, at its core, unconstitutional. For these majoritarian authoritarians, I simply say: GET A LIFE.
The US Supreme Court: Unanimous Verdict Against
Class Action Lawsuit Abuse and the Wal-Mart Case:
Thumbs WAY, WAY UP!
This was blatantly an obvious attempt by lawyers to try to cherry-pick their way (on less than a handful of allegations) into a flimsy wide-ranging conspiracy across literally thousands of employees, one that would seriously open Pandora's box of class action lawsuit abuse and hold corporations up for extortion on a massive scale. It is morally unacceptable. The court rightly said that if any individual female employee has a LEGITIMATE case of gender bias based on her own experience, not a nonsensical, thinly-substantiated conspiracy theory, that employee can present a case based on intrinsic merit; you couldn't steal the property of shareholders by being added to a lawsuit without ever being subjected to an act of discrimination. I argued for this court's decision in an earlier post.
Fukushima Nuclear Incident Update. This segment is a thrice-weekly, more readable summary of some key blogs covering the the recovery of Fukushima Daiichi shutdown but damaged nuclear reactors 1-3 and relevant spent fuel pools, whose critical cooling systems failed as the result of power failure following a record earthquake/tsunami.
The Hiroshima Syndrome blog notes:
- Monday update: The blogger references certain post-audits of the incidents and describes some glaring omissions and issues: for example, it looks like venting decisions were too little, too late tied up in bureaucracy instead of being empowered locally and probably contributed to the explosion. He also points out missing details like why reactor 2 had water added but others didn't. The blogger points out other things like the spent fuel cooling units are working far better than expected and waste water decontamination processes are working slower than expected. He notes some Japanese nuclear plants want to start up again, but are still facing local bureaucratic problems. He also once again criticizes Health Physics policy enforcement at TEPCO.
"Rush Limbaugh has a new iced tea and the label has a picture of him dressed as Paul Revere. How confusing is this going to be for Sarah Palin?" - Jay Leno
[The Paul Revere label got photoshopped by the same people whom did Anthony Weiner's Congressional gym shot: they were both larger than life.]
"I just read that more companies are bringing back jobs to the U.S. that have been outsourced to other countries for years. So the next time you call tech support, you might actually get someone who speaks perfect English — and knows nothing about computers." - Jimmy Fallon
[To minimize customer confusion, the companies will be routing calls to your local 7-11.]
Killebrew Fact
June 24, 1954: Still just 17 years old, Harmon Killebrew hits his first home runMusical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago,"If She Would Have Been Faithful"
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