I am always doing that which I cannot do,
in order that I may learn how to do it.
Pablo Picasso
Billionaire Nanny: Latest Episode
More Than 16 Ounces Sugary Drinks?
We're Cutting You Off! Thumbs DOWN!
I honestly can't remember the last time I drank any soda, diet or otherwise (several months at minimum--and years ago I rationed myself to a maximum of one serving of diet soda daily). I don't think I've even tasted an energy drink. I do drink LOTS of iced tea, sweetened with stevia. (My mom calls it a cocktail: I throw in bags of regular tea, decaffeinated tea, and green tea, occasionally one of the bags will be flavored. Probably a serving of V-8 daily. Guess what? I'm still overweight.)
I almost hate to waste valuable blog space writing about the latest misadventure of Big Nanny Michael Bloomberg. I honestly don't know why a successful media businessman entrepreneur decides to give it all up to channel his inner Big Nanny. (I don't know what it is about being mayor of NYC that brings out their softer side...) I can just see his final tombstone now: a no-Big Gulp symbol....
What's next? Getting ticketed for not saying "gesundheit" when the person next to you sneezes?
If I was mayor? Let's just say one of my campaign mottoes would be "canning a bureaucrat a day keeps the taxman away".... Zero-based budgeting, zero-based taxes, zero-based regulation.... Not frivolous, megalomaniac do-gooder crap like "give him some chicken soup--just not so much salt" or "sell him a sugary drink--but not too much".
His Nanny the Mayor is not even posing reasonable do-gooder nonsense: I would love to review the empirical literature that yields the results, you know, it isn't the first 16 ounces--it's the next 16 ounces; ever since 7/11 came out with their Big Gulp, their customers' belt sizes have exploded: pay no attention to what or how they eat, exercise, sleep, medicate and/or experience certain genetic or medical conditions (I have a legitimate thyroid issue, for instance). And no, what I just said should not be taken as a sign for His Nanny the Mayor to come up with even more rules and regulations of how to eat, when and where to exercise, how long to sleep, medicate or treat a genetic or medical condition. WE ARE ADULTS, NOT CHILDREN: START TREATING US LIKE ADULTS. Got it, Your Nanny?
You know, we need to privatize this stealth professional maternalism. My own mom will remind me not to go out without a sweater on--and she'll do it without spending precious tax revenues hiring full-time regulators and inspectors; I don't need Carter or Obama telling me when to wear sweaters.
If you're going hire professional Nannies to political leadership, may I suggest you check out the moms in Catholic or Mormon churches? For example, my mom raised 7 kids, and one of my sisters is still raising her 6 kids. Wouldn't you just love to see someone's momma slap the taste out of Senator Chuck Schumer's mouth the next time that he says something stupid? (That alone would be a full-time job...)
Personally, I consider sugary drinks a waste of money. But I'm not going to impose my standards of personal preferences on other individuals. People do all sorts of crazy things, like bet money on the ponies or vote for Democrats. (You get what your children will pay for...)
SCOTUS Gets It Wrong--AGAIN
Blueford v Arkansas: 6-3: Thumbs DOWN!
I really don't know how to explain how the conservative justices got this wrong. I suspect it has to do with what I consider a "law and order" bias. But the idea that a person's protection from double jeopardy is contingent on a judge's performance and due professional care is fundamentally unjust. The judge made an error in failing to register the not guilty of murder verdict; if he had acted competently, Blueford would not have to face a do-over. "There but for the grace of God..." This is a clear majoritarian abuse of power. Using my interpretation of words, the jury's finding of not guilty of murder is substantive, and the judge's faulty recording of it is incidental. Individual rights should not be trumped by incidental issues.
Obamanomics Smoke and Mirror Accounting
IBD has a very good editorial: "Obama Is a Spendthrift— And Here's the Proof". Barack Obama, the Snake Oil Salesman of neo-Keynesian Economics, has turned to voodoo statistics by one Rex Nutting in a patently misleading attempt to pose as a fiscal hawk; Nutting suggests "spending under Obama has risen by an average of just 1.4%" while "spending under Bush shot up 17.9% between 2008 and 2009" and "Obama cut spending 1.8% between 2009 and 2010".
Reality check here: what we know is that in less than 4 years of Obama, he's put more debt on the books than Bush did in 8 years. This despite the fact that the economy has been out of recession since June 2009--but Obama has spent more as a percentage of GDP except while we were in WWII.
I can only remember only trivial initiatives by Obama to cut the budget (I remember about $17B in cuts, half of them from defense, which by the way, makes up about 20% of the budget--Obama's version of "balanced approach") and another of about $100M. He basically refuses to cut the budget year over year last year during the debt ceiling crisis; his idea of spending cuts is the accounting gimmick of reducing PLANNED INCREASES--and staggered late in a 10-year plan, after a hypothetical second Obama term.
Nutting is playing disingenuous games with the highly unusual nature of TARP which as the editorial points out is treated in federal accounting like period expenses. What Nutting is really do is trying to stick as much federal spending into FY2009, which he attributes to Bush, but Bush was only President for roughly 30% of the fiscal year and the Democrats were working around Bush with continuing resolutions on much spending because Obama would allow greater funding, not less. So what's going on under this smoke and mirrors is that repayments on TARP loans offset spending and TARP expenses are frontloaded and treated as an operational program winding down.
A Different Side of Romney
I have never been a fan of political exploitation of heroic experiences, including John McCain's years as a Vietnamese POW. (But if you go back to McCain's acceptance speech back in 2008, you'll hear him admit to breaking under the experience, an uncommon mark of integrity and character you will never find in Barack Obama, whom rates his own performance in office as "above-average" and routinely takes credit for things he has had nothing to do with, e.g., increased domestic oil production (cf. above segment on how he's trying to disingenuously take credit for being a "fiscal hawk" by exploiting federal accounting eccentricities).
Those of us in the Christian tradition are aware of Matthew 6:5: "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full."
I was not aware of the Melissa Gay story until someone recently forwarded me a copy of a relevant email. The article I'm referencing here does not come from some conservative website: it's from the Huffington Post.
I do not routinely post Mitt Romney campaign/other videos. I endorsed him months ago, but I've also been critical of a number of things. This campaign ad doesn't really do more than the Huffington Post piece. I think this has become a legitimate issue because Obama has been attacking Romney for his involvement with Bain Capital and demonizing those involved in private equity, trying to make "profits" a dirty word. To say that Mitt Romney is just another greedy capitalist is ludicrous.
Romney doesn't need me to defend him, but let me point out that Romney has routinely tithed his income as part of his Mormon Church membership, he never took a penny of income during his term as Massachusetts governor, he never took a penny of income for rescuing the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics (in fact, he donated some of his own money), he rescued his parent company (Bain & Company), working for token compensation of $1, and he gave away his inheritance to BYU for a scholarship fund for needy students seeking a career in public administration. He gave up a lucrative position that earned him a small fortune to run for public office. (In contrast, Clinton and Obama have earned their small fortunes exploiting their notoriety and involvement in politics.) You say you never knew any of this: you can be sure a lesser man like Barack Obama would be promoting the same every campaign appearance.
Before proceeding with the core story here, let me point out that Romney has never promoted his involvement in this case and has rarely discussed it publicly:
As Romney, now a Republican presidential candidate, explained it, his decision [on the Melissa Gay matter] at Bain was what anyone would have done. His recounting at the campaign event was one of the few times has spoken publicly about the matter.One of Romney's subordinates at Bain Capital in 1996 was Robert Gay. His 14-year-old daughter Melissa had taken off on her own from their Connecticut home to attend a rave party (notorious for Ecstasy drug usage). At some point she got separated from the people she went to the party with.
Gay was not getting any closure from NYC police in locating his daughter:
But the Boston Globe reported that Robert Gay had kept the ordeal to himself, confiding only in Romney. And it was Romney, the Globe stated, who told the other 11 managing directors and they decided that a missing girl came before their firm.
In an article in 2002, the Globe quoted Robert Gay as crediting Romney with organizing the search for his daughter.
"It was the most amazing thing, and I'll never forget this to the day I die," Gay told the Globe. "What he did was literally close down an entire business. He basically galvanized an entire industry that just doesn't do this, and got them all on the streets for 48 hours."Melissa Gay was eventually traced to a NJ residence of a guy whom had taken her in without knowledge of his parents; he had apparently called about a reward referenced in one of the televised ads. Some accounts suggest that Melissa Gay was found in bad shape dealing with a massive Ecstasy withdrawal problem, possibly with her life at risk.
More details are available in the cited links, but here's the key point: this was not about making money. Romney made this young woman's welfare a corporate priority, and the Bain people called in favors from clients, vendors, etc.
My favorite takeaway from the Snopes article cited above is the one about the runaway girl whom asked why the searchers were doing all this to find Melissa; they told her because her parents miss her, and the girl wistfully said that she wished that her parents missed her like that. I really think they do. I seriously doubt that runaway kids read this obscure political blog, but if they did, I encourage them to phone home or call a hotline. Never underestimate a parent's love. Every child is a gift from God. A parent's heart can never be made whole while a piece of it is lost in the world.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Rolling Stones, "Out of Tears". This is my last selection in this Rolling Stones series. My next post will start a short series on the Kinks.
