I had rather do and not promise
than promise and not do.
Arthur Warwick
NRA Shoots Itself In the Foot
I'm not going to embed the controversial NRA web ad here (you can find it elsewhere, e.g., here as of the date of this post). The basic idea behind the ad is that Obama is allegedly hypocritical and elitist: his daughters are protected by armed Secret Service agents: your own children don't have comparable protection.
This has to be one of the biggest, most incompetent public relations blunders I've ever seen. Show me a person unmoved by the ghastly murders of innocent first graders, and I'll show you a heartless person. I don't doubt for a second Obama sincerely cares about the security of the nation's schoolkids. I just don't think his approach is either effective or politically viable; I think the real issue here is a vulnerability in public safety policy failure which needs to be addressed by local/state government (which retains police power by the Constitution).
Launching a personal attack against a personally popular President and his photogenic all-American family may motivate the one-issue activist base which, to be honest, has never liked Barack Obama, but it tunes out the independents and moderates where public policy is decided. I argued during the fall campaign that it wasn't enough to run a campaign based on Obama's record, the issues, and Romney's own resume to resolve them: he also needed a positive, optimistic message, a vision building on traditional virtues, values, and institutions.
On the Ratings Front
Gallup shows Obama's weekend approval rating heading into his final inauguration actually dipping a bit under 50% (48%, net approval +3) and will likely end his first term average at 49%.. In contrast, the week of his first inauguration. Obama was at 69%. Why the dip? A boost of support after the tragedies of Hurricane Sandy and the Newtown Massacre beginning to fade? Has Obama's increasingly strident, inflexible tone and handling of the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling alienated independents and moderates? Did Obama overplay his hand on gun control and the beloved Second Amendment, one of the third rails of American politics? Could it be the slipping consumer confidence numbers, worst long-term unemployment since WWII or the lowest labor force participation rate in decades, more than 3 years into the Obama Recovery?
A Vindication for Scott Walker And Wisconsin Taxpayers:
THUMBS UP!
The Chicago Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday upheld in total Wisconsin's 2011 Act 10 (collective bargaining reform), reversing a Milwaukee federal judge's ruling.
A Violation of Student Privacy Rights
The Rutherford Institute is representing Andrea Hernandez, initially a San Antonio Jay High School student. I've touched about this case briefly in the past. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) involves a wireless technology using electromagnetic fields to track an tagged object; the tag includes a chip on which certain object-related information is stored. There are obvious applications in inventory control, asset management--even applications like electronic toll devices, luggage or shipment tracking.
I can understand how RFID applications can be useful, say, for example, in an emergency (fire or Newtown-like incident) parents want reassurance about their children's status. But the use of the technology can come across as invasive, Orwellian and/or dehumanizing, the equivalent of bureaucratic stalking. There is also a risk of the technology being intercepted by other parties if worn outside the school (e.g., pedophiles). At the very least, the school could provide an exemption for conscientious objectors or allow parental waivers.
Hernandez made appeals based on Texas religious law and the first/fourteenth amendments (the chip is interpreted in the context of Revelations' 'Mark of the Beast') and failed to win an injunction. Hence, the young lady has been expelled for failing to wear the new badge. Thumbs DOWN!
Busting Liberal Myths One at a Time
It is hardly surprising to me when higher-worth individuals transition from a tax-avoidance strategy (with historically lower bond gains to equities, when the government cuts high marginal investment taxes), they can do very well. This is not a zero-sum game but a win-win situation.
Larry Ellison of Oracle has one of the highest net worth of anyone in America, but I've made a decent living for nearly 2 decades working with Oracle software, many years better than the money I made as professor. I'm sure that I've worked as hard, if not harder than Ellison (DBA's often work holidays and evenings); I don't own a jet or a racing yacht, or import rocks from Japan to build a rock garden. I know, relatively speaking, Ellison has done much better than I have in my post-academic career (when I worked for Oracle directly, I did not get stock options but I did get a chance to buy a certain amount of stock at a discount, a no-brainer and profitable perk). I definitely wasn't an Oracle millionaire (I only worked there about a year--I was unhappy with a couple of project assignments). But Ellison's business success created opportunities to the point I've been offered gigs in multiple foreign countries (including Canada, Mexico, Brazil, England, Iraq and Saudi Arabia). I can honestly say I would be more of a Warren Buffett than Ellison billionaire. (Buffett has lived in the same plain house for decades and drove the same station wagon for years.) I would rather live in a simple townhouse and eat at Goode Company Barbeque in Houston (which I haven't done in years) or even a burger platter at Denny's followed by a hot fudge sundae vs. eat at a 5-star restaurant.
In any event, Horwitz points out the difference between relative and absolute statistics (but doesn't mention many of those classified as poor (nor all) have cell/Obama phones, air conditioning, food stamps, Medicaid, cable TV, televisions, etc.) He also points out that many of the studies used by progressives, are not longitudinal (following the same people over time) but based on summary statistics.
Political Humor
Joe Biden's Greatest
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Cars, "Just What I Needed"
