A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice.
James Callaghan
A Pet Peeve About Fox News Channel
Have you ever noticed they seem to be start off a new shift with a Fox alert? The alert is more often than not simply one of their heavily rotated stories of the day... Has Roger Ailes ever heard about the boy who cried wolf? I find myself tuning out Fox alerts...
Congratulations To the 2011 NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks!
I must be one of the most fickle NBA fans around. In high school, for some odd reason, I took a liking to the New York Knicks, but when I attended OLL, I took advantage of a dirt-cheap group rate for the ABA San Anonio Spurs. (I still have fond memories of the red, white and blue basketball while the innovative 3-point shot was adopted by the NBA during the subsequent merger.) After I moved to Houston and was attending UH during the days of Phi Slama Jama. I naturally followed Akeem Olajuwon with the Rockets. I started following the Chicago Bulls after moving to Chicago in early 1993, but after Jordan's first retirement, I went back to the Rockets and cheered the Rockets to two consecutive championships, including while working in Brazil in 1995. I swung back to the Bulls during the remainder of Jordan's career there. I then went back to the San Antonio Spurs which I continue to follow. OK, so my fickle fan allegiance resulted in nearly half the championships of the 1990's and 2000's... No-brainer: which team would I favor in this championship series? (Hint: I lived in Irving before I moved to Chicago, and I'm a native Texan...)
The Pawlenty Economic Plan: A Qualified Thumbs UP!
Pawlenty has come up with a very strong plan that echoes some of my key talking points: tax simplification, especially eliminating all those crony capitalistic incentives that Obama loves which make for bad economic policy; sunsetting economic regulations; substantive privatization; significant cuts in investment and savings taxes; spending reductions to a more historical 18% or so of GDP; regulatory reform; and reform the Fed by demanding a strong dollar policy.
I think the devil is in the details when it comes to cutting down spending, and unlike Trump, I believe that the 60% of the budget spent on entitlements has to be addressed. I still think you need a more balanced tax policy (e.g., a national sales tax) with everybody vested in efficient federal spending (even the poor). I dislike using the tax system (which Pawlenty continues to favor) to subsidize home ownership and child care. I'm clearly in favor of fiscal discipline but I'm worried about the unintended consequences of a balanced budget amendment, which Pawlenty advocates. Among other things, I think we need to pay down some of the debt (e.g., through surpluses); I think politicians will do just enough cuts and/or tax increases to make this year's budget; I know we can get more through serious government streamlining, sharing personnel and other resources, consolidating functionality, eliminating redundancy across agencies, some sort of zero-based budgeting construct to reset the baseline, etc. I also want to hear more detail on his bottom-up approach, any symbiosis in terms of joint federal-state redistribution of responsibilities and resources, etc.
Your serve, Mr. Romney...
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 post: There was a discussion about how Japanese regulatory agencies had applied a cost-benefit analysis on NRC design considerations and deemed them unnecessary based on recorded earthquake and tsunami history. (Clearly the diesel generators should have had improved design as a level of redundancy.) There's some discussion of problems with the contaminated water filtering system, a discussion of spent fuel pool 4 with major damage to the current cooling system (along with debris issues) and how the spent fuel fires were the result of generators on deck, not diesels; the seawater decontamination processes is less efficient than hoped; burglary is up in the evacuated area (meaning criminals are not anti-nuke...); and all drinking water is safe to drink. On the Hiroshima Syndrome front, the blogger notes that unethical businesses are selling ineffectual junk designed to profit off anti-nuke hysteria.
"I feel bad for Sarah. She heard all the alarms and sirens [for giant fires in Arizona, where Palin just bought a second home] and she figured the British were coming [Paul Revere controversy]." –Bill Maher
[No, she figured the warning was for the benefit of British residents in Arizona...]
"Sarah Palin is going to London to try to meet with Margaret Thatcher, who's made it clear she won't meet with her. Palin went, 'Who told her I was coming? Was it Paul Revere again?'" –Jay Leno
[The British heard that Sarah Palin had repeatedly quoted the reconstituted Boston Tea Party's slogan "party like it's 1773". The British are still carrying a grudge...]
Killebrew Moment:
Pose With Last .400 Hitter
Probably Greatest Left-Handed Hitter
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| Ted Williams and Killebrew |
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago/Peter Cetera & Crystal Bernard, "Forever Tonight"
