Miscellany: 1/14/10

Will Pat Robertson Please SHUT UP?


To quote Howard Beale in Network: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Do NOT blame the victims with crackpot theories about Haitian leaders historically making a pact with the devil, and this tragedy is the consequence. I just know that the Angry Left and atheists are going to present the embedded video as "proof" of the idiocy of modern conservatism and social conservatives in particular. Pat Robertson is like a crazy old uncle we put up with but whom doesn't speak for us.


(I guess I shouldn't use the phrase "crazy old uncle" given the fact I have 21 nephews and nieces whom may not agree with me either. At least a couple fell under the spell of The One, but given the overwhelming progressive domination of today's colleges and universities, that's not surprising.)


Let me make myself clear: The victims of Haiti are not responsible for this horrific tragedy; it was not a supernatural act. Do not add to their suffering with this pretentious, inflammatory nonsense. And while we're discussing religious urban legends, no, God did not create AIDS to punish homosexuality. We have enough to do as citizens living our faith without speculating about God's actions and thoughts, which I personally regard as intrinsically blasphemous.





The Hubris of Obamanomics

During the years I played organized baseball as a boy, I (a southpaw) played mainly outfield positions. (Normally left-handers play the outfield, first base or pitcher positions; it has to do with the fact that left-handers have to pivot for other infield position throws.) Towards the end of my last season, I made some spectacular catches, and my manager decided to put me at first base, saying he thought the other team might object that my new glove was "too big". I played close to the bag--but I remember in one of my last games, my teammates were throwing wildly to first base, several yards beyond the reach of my glove (above the bag or past the base). We had just the minimum number of players that game (9), and my coach started blasting me (not my misfiring fellow players) for letting the balls go by. He started threatening to pull me (effectively forfeiting the game), when I finally said, "Fine--if you want to do that, go ahead...", an answer he was not expecting. At that point, he stopped and actually gave me a piece of advice which changed my perspective of how to play the position. I'm paraphrasing: "Stop expecting the guys to throw the ball on target. Play the thrown ball like you would play a fly ball or line drive in the outfield--go for wherever the ball is thrown and then run for first base." It worked like a charm; we didn't win the game, but they didn't pad their lead. I'll never forget the opposing team manager's son slapping a line drive towards short infield gap in right field; I speared the ball and raced to first base for an unassisted double play. (They had been playing hit-and-run.) The opposing manager was livid, shouting out, "That was NOT a double-play ball! That was NOT a double-play ball!"

The obvious point to the story is how Obama looks at job creation and (small business) tax cuts: he's trying to thread the needle. His continuing to push for green jobs--most of which require funding of massive federal subsidies--is a particularly inefficient way of approaching job growth. Sometimes I think like I must be back in elementary school, with Obama taunting us, echoing GE CEO Jeff Immelt's warning that we are running behind the game in green energy technology, "the future". (You don't think Immelt's investment in wind turbines and other politically correct technology has anything to do with his grab for the federal teat, do you?) Earth to Obama: The vast number of American jobs in not in green energy, teaching, and other politically favored occupations. In most cases, you are going to find positions relevant to your training or experience. Recessionary effects on oil prices (down) also make green energy technology less competitive. And even if, say, other competitors win round 1, it doesn't mean America won't win round 2. (The cellphone industry is particularly prone to short hot product cycles.)

Let me give an example from information technology: most people don't remember that Microsoft didn't have a competitive application suite product in the late days of MS-DOS (towards the turn of the 1990's): You had Lotus 1-2-3 (spreadsheet), Word Perfect, and dBASE. Then came Windows 3, and Microsoft quickly released early versions of their Office Suite products, in particular, spreadsheet Excel. Early Windows versions of competitor products were delayed and often did little more that emulate the look and feel of their MS-DOS products. Microsoft took the early lead and never looked back.

You know, Obama, if you want to play like we're in elementary school, do I need to remind you that China and Brazil over the recent past have discovered vast offshore oilfields and foreign investors are drilling for oil near the Florida coast? Do you think if they hit oil first, some of the oil they may tap could come from the basin on our side of the offshore border? We have energy resources which are the envy of the world, but environmental activists, which support the Dems, force us to import most of our supplies--nearly $1 out of 5 imports is spent on foreign energy. How insane is that? Never mind that we could employ American workers using real-life technology and real-life skills today, not some speculative green energy pie-in-the-sky hype. Each new barrel we find and drill today or in the near future is one more barrel we don't have to buy (oil is fungible) from despots like Ahmadinejad and Chavez. You would think anti-war Dems would be pounding the table in favor of local oil and gas drilling--if for no other reason than to lower the dependence of the American economy on foreign energy supplies.... Instead, Obama is willing to make you pay the economic consequences for his reliance on the support of environmentalists.

So here's a HELL, NO to any new throwing money at green energy; companies like Intel and Microsoft were not the result of some state controlled planned economy, and I hardly expect an administration with less Cabinet members with private-sector business experience to have the slightest clue on how to grow the economy. What I do know is that Obama Administration spending of national debt money has been proven ineffective, and "Baby Stimulus" is being drawn by the same people with the same policies as the $787B parent. CUT BUSINESS PAYROLL TAXES PERMANENTLY. GET OUT OF THE WAY OF BUSINESS. STOP SPENDING LIKE A DRUNKEN SAILOR. STOP THREATENING NEW TAXES AND REGULATIONS. Got it, Obama? I swear to God; this is not rocket science!

A Post-Copenhagen Climate-Change Perspective

I decided to hold my tongue during the entire Copenhagen debacle. Did I expect the leaders to address the limitations of climate change modeling and the Climategate confirmations of alleged scientific fraud by Motley CRU? And when I heard them invite members of the League of Anti-American Despots (Iran's Ahmadinejad, Venezuela's Chavez, and Zimbabwe's Mugabe: where's a good missile or drone when you need them?), it became very clear that this conference would quickly degenerate into yet another UN session of America-bashing, reminding America that "it's good when you spread the wealth around?" (proving that they listen to Obama, particularly when he apologizes for American economic success). Hillary Clinton, proving she hasn't forgotten how, as a Dem, to spend money she doesn't have, tried to mollify nations, using the pretext of environmental concern, to pay off America's enemies. (By the way, did anyone notice the irony and audacity of the leaders of two oil exporting nations (Iraq and Venezuela) headlining a climate change conference?)

A Palin Side Note

Now that Sarah "I'm not a quitter" Palin is a paid commentator on "fair and balanced" Fox News, she can explain her flip-flop on climate change:

A few weeks before she mounted the national stage, in July of last year, then-Gov. Palin told her state:

"Alaska's climate is warming. While there have been warming and cooling trends before, climatologists tell us that the current rate of warming is unprecedented within the time of human civilization. Many experts predict that Alaska, along with our northern latitude neighbors, will warm at a faster pace than any other areas, and the warming will continue for decades."

The governor did what a forward-looking leader should do. She created a subcabinet group to look at "carbon-trading markets" and examine "the expanded use of alternative fuels, energy conservation, energy efficiency, renewable energy."

But in her recent missive urging Obama to boycott Copenhagen, Palin noticeably retreats from the "unprecedented" rhetoric, instead talking about "occurrence of these natural, cyclical environmental trends" (although she doesn't deny, whatever the source, "reality of some changes in climate.") Sarah spends most of the column insisting she had been consistently fighting radical environmentalists and her concern about the cost-benefit relationship of, e.g., cap-and-trade: how then does she justify the subsidies for alternative energy and related policies, and what constructive policies does she advocate for dealing with "reality of some changes in climate", whether man-made, natural or some combination? I agree with her position on the politically suicidal "cap-and-trade" measure pending in the Senate; I'm more concerned with the cost-effectiveness of government spending.

Political Cartoon

Larry Wright note that the Democratic leaders are willing to apologize to each other (or other countries), but not to the American people.

Musical Interlude: American Idol's Best Performance

Bo Bice, "In a Dream" 

Abbreviated 90-minute American Idol (Atlanta audition) last night. I liked Jermaine Sellers' soulful version of Joan Osborne's "One of Us" (one of my favorite music moments from the 1990's), police officer Bryan Walker (who reminds me a bit of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs) did a decent version of the Carpenters' "Superstar", and Mallorie Haley did a credible cover of Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart" (my favorite Joplin tune).

Vanessa Wolf, from a limited-income background, is trying to hitch a country music ride with Carrie Underwood and Kellie Pickler, desperately looking for a future outside the limited opportunities of her little town; granted, there's a great human interest story there, but she is a diamond in the rough (limited, if any voice training) and up against tough competition. I would not have sent her to Hollywood. Undoubtedly this year's nomination for the William Hung award (i.e., the biggest novelty singer) will be 62-year-old General Larry Pratt's "Pants on the Ground". (The Idol age cutoff is 28.) I was not amused, although any 62-year-old who attempts to do the splits on national TV has chutzpah.

I'm continuing my American Idol retrospective, celebrating the return of another season of American Idol on Fox TV. If you look at post-Idol success, there is no doubt that the selection of season 4 winner Carrie Underwood has been vindicated in comparison to runner-up Bo Bice, whom hasn't charted a single since the title track from his first post-Idol album (and whom I supported). I still consider him the most consistent vocal performer in the history of the show and am disappointed by his lack of follow-up commercial success. There are few pop singers whom can pull off a brilliant a cappella performance; Bo Bice not only had the confidence and ability to pull it off--he accomplished the unprecedented feat late in the competition, risking everything with an obscure rock track. With all due respect to more commercially successful Idol alumni like Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Daughtry, and others, they never gave a performance like this.

Miscellany: 1/13/10

Haiti Tragedy

President Obama released a statement last night pledging support (if asked) to the Haiti government after the massive earthquake (7.0 reading) a few miles from the capital, Port-au-Prince.  Mr. President, you have my full, unconditional support to use whatever resources America can provide, as quickly as possible, to rescue buried and/or injured victims and to address emergency food, shelter, utility, security and health needs of those affected. My prayers and good wishes to the victims of this horrific tragedy and their families.

For fellow Catholics (and other people of good will), I recommend a charity to which I have personally donated on multiple occasions, Catholic Relief Services. For those looking for alternative charities, a good list of links can be found here.


"Call Me Senator" Boxer and Climategate


"This is a crime. You call it 'Climate-gate.' I call it 'e-mail-theft-gate'." So IBD  last month quotes a senator, whom had previously introduced, with John Kerry, climate change legislation. Now you might expect someone, who found privacy or secrecy concerns didn't apply, say, in the context of the Pentagon Papers or the Watergate tapes, might be leading the cheers for those whistle-blowing scientific fraud swirling around Motley CRU propping up the politically correct "global warming" hypothesis. I don't recall Barbara Boxer leading the charge, demanding prosecution when former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's Yahoo account was hacked; however, when scientists, who by their very ideals should be transparent in any relevant discussions of scientific studies and publications, are caught in what appears to be a conspiracy to manipulate data and to control scientific journals to suppress opposing perspectives, well, Boxer finds email privacy to be the compelling, overriding principle. (I'm sure that if the guy who murdered abortionist Paul Tiller admitted to the act in an email, Barbara Boxer would be the first in line to have the evidence thrown out of court due to a violation of his right to privacy...)

But never underestimate a progressive politician's willingness to use any excuse, even if it's fundamentally based on scientific fraud, to tax, spend and regulate, regardless of its devastating effect on American economic growth and relevant good-paying jobs. And heaven help the watchdog which pulls back the curtain, exposing the Wizard of Climate Change for what he really is (not to mention the gullibility of those true believers in the Wizard...)

Just a reminder: this fall, California voters, you have the right to vote for change, for a legitimate Senator you can believe in,  and then you can just "call [her] former Senator" Boxer.


Political Cartoon

Pavel Constantin points out how our national debt, particularly driven up by the Dems, whom have roughly equaled the cumulative second-term Bush deficit in just one year, has implications, with servicing the cost of debt to major international holders, including China, an increasing portion of our national budget, potentially crowding out intrinsic expenses.

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Carrie Underwood Hit

"Jesus, Take the Wheel"

Did everyone watch the AI-Boston auditions last night? A few memorable moments: I liked Portuguese-American Katie Stevens, whom wants to win the contest while her grandmother (with Alzheimer's) still knows her. Very sweet, lovely young lady, and I give credit to any young person with the taste in music, confidence and pipes to handle the Etta James' classic, "At Last". Ditto for Leah Laurenti, from a strict religious family with little exposure to secular pop music, but you wouldn't know that  from her solid performance, a jazzy rendition of "Blue Skies", another American songbook standard which I love.

As I continue this week to celebrate the return of American Idol this week on Fox TV, this selection is from AI winner turned country superstar Carrie Underwood. The song reaffirms the importance of faith in coping with everyday life.

Miscellany: 1/12/10

Happy Birthday, Uncle Roger!  See my post last April 25.

McGwire Admits Using Steroids

McGwire at 6'5" was a legitimate home run threat, even without the use of steroids (in his first full season in 1987, he hit 49 home runs), and I stand by my conviction he belongs in baseball's Hall of Fame. (The fact that a fellow Oakland A's hitter Jose Canseco alleged that he had administered steroids to McGwire and McGwire's evasion of the issue in Congressional hearings were clearly damning.) What's truly astounding is his average of a home run in less than 10.7 at bats over his career. He admits that he did use steroids the season he broke Maris' long-time record of 61 home runs, but he implies that his use of steroids was sporadic, with no consistent performance benefit, motivated more by the belief they helped him recover faster from numerous injuries. He argues that his evasiveness in the Congressional hearings was primarily based on legal advice. Let's not forget this is a guy whom could have pulled in massive salary offers by leaving the Cardinals for a major market like New York and whom funded a foundation to combat child sexual abuse. This is not the case for Barry Bonds, whom went from a career high of 46 in seasons between 1986 to 1999, never even reaching 50 until 2001 when he set the current record of 73; this was clearly an outlier performance.


Sarah Palin Joins Fox News Channel


Oh, who could have predicted this? (I did.) I'm so shocked.... Could it be that one of my standard lines in blog posts over this past year has been Fox News has had a "slobbering love affair with all things Sarah Palin" (for example)? [This is a playful jab at Bernard Goldberg, a FNC contributor, whom wrote a similarly titled book on the liberal mass media fawning over Barack Obama.] That is, Bill O'Reilly has personally attacked McCain on multiple occasions for not refuting anonymous staff leaks on Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity and Greta van Susteren have given Palin softball interviews (and in fact Greta's husband was instrumental in helping set up a PAC for Sarah--and, in my view, Greta, in the interests of professional ethics, should have recused herself from the interviews). But I had been predicting for some time that Fox News would find a role for Sarah Palin (e.g., here). She will be a commentator (let me guess: anything Obama bad, Alaska energy good, budget deficits bad, God good,  terrorists bad, mother and apple pie good, Chevrolet as part of Government Motors bad).


The Harry Reid Racial Reference Kerfuffle

When I look at controversial gaffes by Trent Lott, Joe Biden, and Harry Reid where the subject of race came up (in Lott's case, implicitly, by reference to Thurmond's 1948 Presidential bid on a segregationist platform), it just amazes me. For politicians whom lived through the civil rights era of the 1960's and have dealt with related issues over the past few decades, it's remarkable that they would even consider playing with fire.

I always thought that Lott's intent was simply to flatter the aging, now deceased lawmaker as a man whom could have made for a good President (not to endorse or promote his past segregationist views). (In fairness to Thurmond, his racial political views migrated considerably from the Dixiecrat days, voting to extend the Voting Rights Act and to make MLK Day a national holiday and appointing the first black aide from the region.) Lott should have realized, of course, that you can't separate a President Thurmond apart from his core divisive political views at the time.

Biden's 2007 remarks ("I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American [Barack Obama] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy...") were bizarre. For example,  Biden is making a judgment filtering out past African American candidates (e.g., Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton). Perhaps he was ineptly trying to say that here is the first "post-racial" African American candidate where we move past a core civil rights agenda. I personally don't see substantive policy differences among any of these black progressive leaders. I suspect that Biden was trying to articulate that Obama has more of a measured, low-key personal style in dealing with hot button issues like race. However, why should Biden single out Obama out or seem so surprised when, in fact, there are hundreds, if not thousands of similar African American leaders and millions of highly competent African American professionals and blue-collar workers? I considered the political rise of talented people of color inevitable; it was never a question of if but when.

Keep in mind that Biden spoke AFTER Colin Powell headed the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was Secretary of State and after Condoleezza Rice served high-level roles under George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. Colin Powell could have won the 1996 GOP Presidential nomination (I would have supported him); Condoleezza  Rice ruled out a VP candidacy. Colin Powell has traditional military discipline over his emotions and is highly articulate, as is Condoleezza Rice, a professor and a registered Democrat until 1982.

An upcoming book Game Change (by  Mark Halperin and John Heilemann) about the 2008 campaign includes the following mention of Senate Majority Harry "Let's Make a Deal" Reid:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada described in private then-Sen. Barack Obama as "light skinned" and "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

The question of  "light-skinned" is a contentious issue in the African American community; it deals with a perception that some African Americans' skin color is light enough to pass as being Caucasian and perhaps not being subject to the same morally reprehensible, dehumanizing mistreatment of people of color and/or turning their back on their African American roots. Why any white politician like Reid would want to open up this can of worms? (Reid's unspoken assertion is the fact that Obama's mother was white makes him more acceptable to white voters--not his speeches, policies or record.) The "no Negro dialect" remark is objectionable for a couple of reasons; first, many people of color see "Negro" as reflective of the times of Jim Crow laws and segregation and hence unacceptable; second, it suggests that Obama says one thing to black audiences and something else to others.

My reflection on all of this: Is Michael Steele, the chair of the RNC and himself a man of color, correct about a double standard being applied to Lott vs. Biden or Reid? Of course. I also don't like the atmosphere of political correctness; I don't really think any of the three men are racist; their voting patterns have been supportive of civil rights. I also think that Obama has shown more tolerance for the mistakes of his Democratic colleagues. But I think when people publicly apologize for their mistakes (which all three did), we should move on. If we spend time debating every stupid thing a legislator says, we'll never get anything done.

Schmidt's Love/Hate Standoff with Palin

I haven't seen yet what the new book cited above says about McCain bypassing Mitt Romney for the VP pick. Isn't it obvious, in the middle of the economic tsunami, that Romney by his very background was more literate on economic issues and would have perfectly complemented McCain? I do remember at the time I was concerned about Dems using earlier Romney soundbites against McCain, but then again, Reagan chose George H.W. Bush, whom famously had described Reagan's domestic policies "voodoo economics".  In hindsight, I think that McCain would have benefited by pointing out the fact that he chose his strongest rival, unlike Obama.

I do find it intriguing that Lieberman was McCain's first choice, but essentially backed off under party pressure. There certainly is precedent for a national unity ticket--in fact, Lincoln himself did that in 1864. I do think that Lieberman's choice would have caused problems for McCain, not on matters of defense, but his liberal domestic voting record. Bottom line: Lieberman, who has his own problems with his Democratic base, would not have helped McCain, whom had issues with the party base over some high-profile votes, in particular, against the first-term Bush tax cuts.

Schmidt on 60 Minutes once again refuted Sarah Palin on a number of points, a principal one being her disingenuous claim that the Troopergate investigation exonerated her. (Palin similarly continues to hold that any and all ethics charged against her were "frivolous".) Palin is all about political spin. There were other insights as well, regarding Palin's confusion over the partition of Korea and stubbornly believing there was a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.

But Schmidt is in his own state of denial. He asserts that Palin was more of a plus than a minus to the ticket and McCain would have lost by even more. That's just wrong on a number of grounds. First, the selection of Palin undermined McCain's experience argument against Obama. Second, there were polls showing McCain ahead of Obama before the Palin selection. Third, Sarah Palin had the highest unfavorable ratings of any recent national candidate and when you have the oldest first-term candidate in history heading the ticket, that's a problem, and there's no doubt it hurt McCain in swing states; it certainly was a key factor in Colin Powell's public endorsement of  Obama.

Schmidt may be thinking that there was very little McCain could have done  when the economic tsunami hit, but there were a number of things McCain had control of: (1) the decision of the VP candidate; (2) his decision to temporarily suspend his campaign unilaterally and his inability to formulate an alternative response to the TARP legislation, which drew public opposition; (3) his decision to stay with federal funding of the general campaign despite the evidence Obama had already broken his promise and had an overwhelming advantage in campaign funding; (4) his predictable campaign, a spartan domestic agenda, his inability to articulate his differences with Bush, on a leadership and policy basis, and the overemphasis on Bill Ayers (instead of the more credible Chicago political machine). The choice of a second-year governor whom couldn't articulate positions on state legislation during her 2006 campaign, had a blatantly unsatisfactory grasp of domestic and foreign relations issues, pursued earmarks while in public office, and was being investigated over Troopergate, with a report expected before the election, is a reckless gamble.

I'm not sure what Schmidt means by the vote would have been worse without Palin. Maybe Palin helped bring out more votes in red states already going for McCain--but she was a big problem with independent and moderate voters whom made the difference in swing states McCain lost, like Indiana, Florida and Virginia. Would Romney's pick have won the election for McCain? Maybe not in the sense the GOP was facing a double whammy of a change election and an economic tsunami. But Romney was well-vetted and had credible bipartisan experience as Massachusetts governor.

Political Cartoon


IBD Cartoonist Michael Ramirez points out a feature I didn't realize that the airport full-bodyscan technology has; it also seems to strip away political spin, leaving The One exposed, nothing but the bare truth. (No word if the child of a TSA employee observed this first.)

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Post-AI Original Hit

Kellie Pickler, "I Wonder"

Kellie Pickler is one of my personal favorites during the history of the show and is one of the few performers (not a top 5 finalist) to earn a gold album with her debut, Small Town Girl. She has a compelling life story; her father has been in and out of jail, and her mother left when  Kellie was 2 (and later returned for a couple of years before the court returned custody, by the time Kellie was 12, to her paternal grandparents). The autobiographical song, which Pickler co-wrote, "I Wonder", is particularly powerful.




"I Wonder"

Sometimes I think about you
Wonder if you're out there somewhere thinking bout me
And would you even recognize
The woman that your little girl has grown up to be
Cause I look in the mirror and all I see
Are your brown eyes looking back at me
They're the only thing you ever gave to me at all

Oh, I hear the weather's nice in California
There's sunny skies as far I can see
If you ever come back home to Carolina
I wonder what you'd say to me

I think about how it ain't fair
That you weren't there to braid my hair
Like mothers do
You weren't around to cheer me on
Help me dress for my high school prom
Like mothers do
Did you think I didn't need you here
To hold my hand
To dry my tears
Did you even miss me through the years at all

Oh, I hear the weather's nice in California
There's sunny skies as far I can see
If you ever come back home to Carolina
I wonder what you'd say to me

Forgiveness is such a simple word
But it's so hard to do when you've been hurt

Oh, I hear the weather's nice in California
And just in case you're wondering about me
From now on I won't be in Carolina
Your little girl is off
Your little girl is off
Your little girl is off to Tennessee

Miscellany: 1/11/10

Myth-Busters

Imagine Ray Parker Jr.'s Ghostbusters theme running in the background; I'm only selecting a few items here with just enough discussion to make my point:

• Infrastructure Spending is Economic Miracle-Gro. First, I want to acknowledge there is a legitimate issue in infrastructure maintenance; failures in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the more recent Minnesota bridge collapse have made that clear. We've also had breakdowns in terms of rolling brownouts via the national grid. Certainly there are a number of issues, particularly as roads and bridges, where capacity is being strained. In part, though, these are ongoing periodic expenses, routine maintenance, etc. Short shrift of maintenance is penny-wise, pound-foolish. There are a couple of things, though, I think we need to discuss in infrastructure, beyond a long-range plan to revitalize our existing infrastructure (including things like replacing 75-year-old water pipes). First, we need to insist on the business case for infrastructure. In the early years of the Republic, it was easy to make the case for building roads, canals, etc., as we expanded westward; if you create a new town or city, you need to invest in utility infrastructure (e.g., water, power, telecommunications, etc.) It's not quite as easy to make the same case today with cities across the US, from coast to coast, a well-developed highway system, etc. There are some cases where you could make a case for specialized needs; for example, many ethanol producers require expensive storage trucks to carry the fuels. They cannot utilize existing oil/gas pipelines. Whereas we still need to decide the issue of capacity and the tradeoff between food and fuel, hooking up distilleries to some pipeline system to gas refineries or other distribution outlets is an example of infrastructure enhancement with a clear business case. On the other hand, as I listened to Gov. Schwarzenegger on Meet the Press this Sunday, I heard him specifically discuss in passing high-speed rail; a pet project of Majority Leader Harry Reid is to connect Las Vegas with Los Angeles. I'm less sure about the business case, and in particular, I'm mindful of the perennial money-losing ways of Amtrak. Regardless of  how cool the technology may be,  faster is better than slower and how everybody else's government has built one, show me the business case, e.g., if high-speed rail will more than pay for itself due to much lower operating costs than alternative approaches and/or higher fare costs and sufficient traffic and/or existing railways, planes, and highways between regions are already at capacity. It's easier to make the case for high-speed rail in a smaller country like Japan than a large country with a dispersed population, e.g.,  hundreds of miles between San Antonio or Dallas to El Paso. Second, we need to explicitly address lessons learned. For example, Japan during the 1990's did almost exactly what  US progressives have been prescribing: tons of infrastructure spending. Japan has now been in an economic funk for nearly 20 years since their own real estate bubble burst. Even if we disregard the fact that the bulk of the stimulus is not in infrastructure, where were the centrist Democrats coming out and saying, "Wait a minute: What lessons have we learned from the Japan experience and investing in infrastructure?"
• The Stimulus Bill Was a Stimulus Bill. The political spin that the Democrats have used to justify the $787B stimulus is absolutely mind-blowing. The attempt to describe state bailouts as "stimulative" is deliberately misleading. If hiring (or retaining) government employees is a stimulus, why not make everyone a government employee? Employees are costs. Governments are costs. Who pays those costs? The private sector. Why is saving a government worker's job inherently more stimulative than a private sector job? What would be "truly stimulative", in my view? How about an environment where I didn't have a manic progressive government trying to dictate how I pay my people, where instead of giving me back more of my money so I can spend it on my own business and people than being forced to pay for some ineffectual progressive agenda, not to mention likely higher energy and health care costs? How about cutting my tax rate to 24%, so I can be more competitive on the global market? How about massive federal spending not competing with my attempts to secure a business loan? How about negotiating free trade agreements to open up new markets to my goods and services? How about a permanent cut to my payroll tax burden, which lowers my cost of hiring a new worker? But what do you expect of an administration where a record low of less than 10% of Cabinet members have private sector experience, according to IBD?
• The Government Should Pick Winners and Losers in the Investment Arena. Obama still has a problem grasping the concept of the rule of law: he doesn't trust big business with an investment tax cut, but he will give tax cuts to smaller companies under a convoluted system of rules and regulations. Does he honestly believe he is helping smaller companies sell goods and services to big companies? Smaller companies expand when their actual and prospective customers are doing well and they have a stable environment. Applying class warfare to business is just as counterproductive as class warfare on the individual level. Obama needs to learn an engineering maxim--the KISS principle. ("Keep it Simple [and] Stupid!") Rough translation in a political context: Don't devise tax breaks that require the expertise of a lawyer or accountant to understand--and by limiting the number of companies that qualify, you also limit the benefits of tax reduction. Also, in many cases, e.g., startups, drug companies, etc., you may operate at a net loss for years, meaning you don't pay taxes anyway. 

Fuzzy Search Failure: The Failure to Connect the Dots on the Christmas Terror Plot

Apparently there was a typo in taking down information from the Nigerian terrorist's father and hence the computerized system didn't make a match. I have had extensive experience working with computer databases, so I know the general context of the problem. This is not exactly a new technical problem with queries against databases; software companies have marketed related software for decades. Sometimes it is referred to as merge/purge; a sample vendor a former employer used to work with was Group 1 Software, now a subsidiary of Pitney Bowes.

One of the things my former employer, now a subsidiary of Equifax, used to do is referred to as householding. The company, among other things, promised to save money by collapsing the number of mailings going to a particular residence or identifying customers across separate businesses (e.g., when I managed corporate databases for SBC in the year prior to deregulation) for cross-promotions (e.g., a landline customer who was not a wireless customer or a brokerage client whom doesn't have an IRA account).  You might have one account (e.g., landline) under a husband's name and a separate account (say, wireless) under the wife's name. And then there are several permutations of a name--for example, mailing lists might have alternate spellings of my surname (e.g., "Guilmet":, "Guillmette", etc.), use my given name or initials, and various combinations of the street address (e.g., an apartment number).

Traditional relational database software systems (e.g., Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server, DB2, etc.) use an IBM-originated language, called Structured Query Language (SQL). For example, you might have a query like this:

select suspect_id, location_street, location_city, location_country
from master_suspect_table
where suspect_name like '%MUTALLAB%'
and home_country='NIGERIA';

Suppose there was exactly one match, say, suspect_id=13501. Then you might do something like this:

update master_suspect_table
set no_fly_status='Y'
where suspect_id=13501;
commit;

Now perhaps what they are saying is something like the name in the query, a typo made in Nigeria, actually was: "where suspect_name like '%MUTALAB%;" and so there was no match. (Or you could have the reverse problem where the stored surname is misspelled.) There are a variety of strategies (which can be programmed) to expand the number of possible record hits, e.g., combinations of up to the number of unique consonants in a surname interspersed with wildcards.

 I'm disappointed that matching procedures can be sidetracked by something as predictable a human error as a typo. (I would have also thought that the father would have brought a photo of his son which could be matched against a relevant image database.)

Political Cartoon

Lisa Benson--you didn't capture the suspect's response: "Aren't I entitled to a phone call to my personal physician?"

Musical Interlude: My Favorite American Idol Finale Song

Taylor Hicks, "Do I Make You Proud?"

As American Idol 2010 starts up this week (the opening episodes are especially entertaining because of the infamous train wreck vignettes), I've thought about the past several seasons. Season 5 is probably better remembered for the people whom didn't make it: particularly Chris Daughtry, whom probably has competed with Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood for the most post-Idol success (although Jennifer Hudson's Academy Award also merits a mention), and my favorite, Kellie Pickler, the adorable country girl whom notoriously doesn't like calamari and is baffled anyone would even consider eating it, has found some success on the country charts and does some occasional celebrity interviewing vignettes for Jay Leno and others. Taylor Hicks was dropped from Arista Records (the principal prize to AI is a record contract) just over a year after the release of his first album, the weakest selling of AI winners.

American Idol finale original tunes tend to be syrupy, including this one, but the song touches the heart of anyone whom sought validation of his or her efforts through a parent's approval: Did I grow up to be someone on his own whom you can respect and are proud to acknowledge? Too many people go through life desperately seeking approval from parents miserly with dispensing words of meaningful praise. It's difficult to verbalize the concept, but for example if I had a son whom was a journalist, I might keep a scrapbook of his columns, without his knowing I was following what he was doing, or send him a copy highlighting some salient insights, ask some follow-up questions, etc. I don't have issues with my parents (I've been blessed), but I hope that other parents will let their children know, in unexpected ways, they are proud of  and respect the adults they've grown up to become. Life is too short to leave this earth without letting the one person whom needs to know how proud you are of him or her.

Miscellany: 1/10/10

Palin Headlining the Tea Party Convention?

Any regular reader knows that I've been a critic of Sarah Palin; it's not a case of so-called "Palin Derangement Syndrome", but has more to do with my problem solving approach, my primary focus on competent, constructive, responsible, accountable, long-term policymaking, and a fundamental aversion to political spin, surface-level, short-term accomplishments, and bumper sticker politics. Don't get me wrong; I'm not a political agnostic: I have fundamental conservative principles. I do not believe in a dictatorship by the meritocracy or the elite. I am naturally wary about the law of unintended consequences and moral hazards implicit in any activist progressive agenda on economic liberty. On the federal level, I want to see maximum leverage and multiplier effects on the deployment of national revenues and assets, the national revenue burden should be limited to an as-needed basis, regulations should be focused on issues of fair competition and public safety (not in meddling with personal and business decision-making), the government should be manageable, and any social welfare net should be temporary, focused and limited in nature and augment, but not control, private sector philanthropy and charitable organizations.

There are implications for public policy positions I take; for example, I am seriously concerned about the risks to our standard of living by easy monetary policy, grotesquely large, immoral national deficits, and energy supply imports. The reason I strongly support deregulating oil and gas exploration deals with the fact there is a limited supply of foreign oil exports and growing international demand. We have an out-of-control trade deficit and energy imports are a principal factor; and progressive policies actually aggravate the problem by increasing the amount of oil imported (due to maturing domestic production), over-regulating one of our key export categories (the financial global services sector), and saturating the demand for international investors for Treasury bills to service ineffectual massive national deficits. The result is almost inevitably inflation, particularly cruel to lower-income Americans, sticky high unemployment, and a zero-sum game for domestic spending by the need to service the national debt to bondholders.

If Sarah Palin can draw attention to the oil import problem by leading a chant of  "drill, baby, drill!", she makes for a useful idiot. I don't believe we can drill ourselves to energy independence--but we can stop the trend of increasing reliance on foreign supplies, and every barrel we produce is a barrel we don't have to import by bidding up the price for a barrel of oil.  The progressives are right that we have to have a long-term alternative solution, but starving the economy of energy supplies over the short term is not a viable solution.

I do think that the Angry Left to a large extent is responsible for creating the Sarah Palin phenomenon with harsh personal attacks on Palin and her family, and the GOP right-wing chivalrously rallied to her defense, i.e., "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". In addition, Sarah Palin's decision to choose life for her Down syndrome baby over eugenic abortion also lit up support to the campaign from social conservatives. I think many people in the lower 48 also have been enchanted by her personal style and her unconventional background. I myself am convinced this bumper stick populism was an accidental development; she noticed that she was drawing large crowds, even bigger than her running mate (not exactly surprising in the sense that John McCain has been in elected office since 1982).

But Sarah Palin's penchant for bumper sticker politics, e.g., "palling around with terrorists", "Joe Six-Pack", "drill, baby, drill", death panels, etc.), her own defensiveness, stubbornness (e.g., repeating a debunked sound bite over her alleged opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere), state of denial and blame-shifting regarding her own performance in interviews and the VP debate, her hopelessly convoluted responses to questions and obviously poor preparation on substantive issues (e.g, "I'll get back to you" regarding McCain's views on regulation?), her vindictive behavior (by going after a former brother-in-law while governor and McCain staffers in her recent best-seller), and political spin (e.g., her pretentious claims to being more qualified than any of the national candidates because of her less than 2 years of experience as governor in a lightly-populated state and her politically correct acceptance of Letterman's joke-related apology, etc.) have further turned me off as a conservative. I think she is playing right into the hands of the Angry Left, such as this well-known production by taxpayer-supported NPR (notice this condescending,"post-partisan" cartoon explicitly attacks prominent Congressional Republicans):



The thing that really annoys me, more than anything else, is this fantasy that McCain represents Republican centrists and Palin Republican principled conservatives (cf, for example, IBD's October editorial; I usually agree with most IBD editorials, but this one is sheer nonsense, and I will address it in a subsequent post). Sarah Palin is hardly a principled conservative, and it's a matter of public record: she was pursuing Congressional earmarks as Wasilla mayor, she supported construction of the Bridge to Nowhere when running as governor, she socked energy companies in the state with a tax increase, and she threw money at alternative energy.

I think McCain saw in her a kindred spirit as a government reformer and a bipartisan politician. I myself am a reformer, and I don't see reform as a litmus test issue; Obama and other progressives (as in the above NPR-produced propaganda piece) will attempt to suggest that corporate or lobbyist support of a conservative candidate is inherently corrupt; there are a lot of good reasons to support conservative candidates, including protection from unnecessary, anti-growth government meddling in the sector or at least mitigating the damage from costly progressive intervention.

Conservatives, on the other hand, see government expansion as inherently corruptible. A classic example was the real estate bubble, which was largely aided by easy money and relaxed mortgage standards, to a large extent reflecting progressive pressure on extending home ownership to lower-income households without a significant down payment. Obama and other progressives pressured mortgage lenders to extend or guarantee such loans, and then after the bubble burst, sought to scapegoat bank "greed"; this was intentionally misleading and disingenuous. Notice the only parties Obama and his cronies failed to blame were bank regulators and federal legislators themselves.

We already know there's a demonstrable difference in fiscal conservatism between McCain and Palin (Alaska also leads the nation in percentage magnitude of net dollars received versus dollars given.) In fact, if we look at the ACU's ratings of national legislators, McCain's voting record has been significantly more conservative than his Alaskan colleagues. Most of the anti-McCain rhetoric is based on his bipartisan initiatives and a handful of votes, including protest votes against the Bush first-term tax cuts (McCain sponsored SMALLER tax cuts, in part because of his concerns about the deficit; the real backlash from other conservatives dealt with his ill-considered class warfare rhetoric)

In any event, as the heading points out, the first Tea Party convention is allegedly paying Sarah Palin a $100K speaking fee to be keynote speaker at the Tea Party convention next month. This is not exactly the "change" I had in mind when I named Rick Santelli my Man of the Year. It is true with state coffers overflowing with oil bubble revenues, Palin increased payouts to Alaska residents (whom, by the way, do not pay a state income tax). (Of course, she didn't refund the US Treasury for Alaskan earmarks as she implied...)

The Tea Party movement, if it wants to be influential, needs to maintain the same nonpartisan stance it had last year, when it refused to let GOP chairman Steele to address its rallies. Perhaps the movement is a little cocky over a recent Rasmussen poll showing a generic advantage of the Tea Party supporters over Republicans at the ballot box. Allowing Democrats to divide-and-conquer a fractured conservative base like Perot's entry into the 1992 Presidential race or the recent loss of NY-23, a district held by Republicans for over 150 years, is not in the best interest of the Tea Party. Nominating a failed politician who quit her only term as governor and earned the lowest ratings of any VP candidate in recent history is counter-productive. In marketing studies, we refer to this as tarnishing your brand image; why would you want to taint your movement with Sarah Palin's polarizing presence? You don't need the drama.

I do understand the movement's desire to go beyond protests. But you have to be very careful. Reagan, for instance, famously wanted to get rid of the Education Department. Twenty years later, Reaganite President George W. Bush not only vastly added to Education Department funding, but he added prescription drug coverage for Medicare (without sufficient funding, of course). What you really need is to go beyond symbolic steps like retiring Minnesota Governor Pawlenty's discussion of a spending freeze (remember how well that worked in the standoff between Clinton and Gingrich, which ended with Gingrich's blinking?) The progressive Democrats are so predictable, it's almost laughable. You know, just as soon as they pass the Democratic Party Health Care bill into law, any attempt to whack costs out of new program is not going to focus on things like process reengineering and eliminating unnecessary layers of bureaucracy and management, but pictures of someone's dying relative, unable to get medical treatment. I suggest that the Tea Party movement consider a new metaphor: a 2011 spring cleaning, decluttering convoluted and obsolete federal regulations and functional redundancy.




Bonus Video: Conservative Art on Display







New Roles for the Governator and America's Mayor?


I suspect that Schwarzenegger is politically radioactive given a suffering California economy and seemingly unending budget crises; still, almost any Republican would be an improvement on Barbara Boxer in this fall's Senate election. (Currently former HP CEO Carly Fiorina is the leading GOP candidate.) What's particularly interesting is that in a blue state, prospective gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown and Senator Boxer hold single-digit leads over their likely competition, political novices.

As I'm thinking of how the GOP could provide an imaginative challenge to the Dems this fall (Newt Gingrich is suggesting, of course, a new Contract with America), one thing that intrigues me is an adaptation of the British concept of a shadow cabinet: the Republicans could name their own spokesmen and czars. The focus would be to provide more effective, cheaper alternative public policies that minimize the government footprint.

I would also like to see special attention paid to out-of-control spending and government process re-engineering, more emphasis on state experimentation of policy solutions and post-audits, etc. Republicans need fresh ideas and to confront critical problems like deficit spending and entitlement solvency head on.

I could see a role for Arnold Schwarzenegger in tackling fiscal fitness; could you imagine him saying something like, "I have seen your future, and it's California: Progressives have made promises to government workers that we can't afford; there was no rainy day fund. We have to have the same accountability and fiscal discipline at the federal level than we have to have at the state level. I am here to pump the economy up, get the federal government on a fiscal diet, cutting out government fat and waste and all that stuff. I'm going to be the Government Terminator--I'm going to hand out pink slips and cap and defer retirement benefits; if the private sector and state and local governments have to layoff workers and cut operating hours, so does the federal government. (The true class warfare is the government employee have's and the private sector have not's.)  I'm going to shutter government programs that don't work, I'm going to insist on a spending and hiring freeze except for essential services, I'm going to flatten the government hierarchy, with more of a matrix cross-agency resource sharing approach, I'm going to consolidate locations, and I'm going to insist on higher federal worker productivity. This doesn't mean concentrating resources in Washington DC. We should think more of reorganizing various government functions across the US, which would lessen the vulnerability of our national economy and government."

Rudy Giuliani could also leverage his cost-cutting expertise as New York mayor, although I think his effective leadership in renovating a decaying Times Square and various city neighborhoods could also lend a hand at how we can revitalize dysfunctional cities (e.g., Detroit).

I am disappointed that the Republicans were not more imaginative and proactive during the Bush years, and they are now paying a stiff price. The Democrats, of course, are well aware of the 1994 election and will do the best they can to avoid a repeat. Whereas we should rightly target the Democrats for squandering their super-majorities on ineffective overspending and badly chosen priorities, we cannot run on unrealistic expectations of rolling back Obama's programs given his possession of the veto, and we cannot rerun the same old same old (the Bush tax cuts, school vouchers, partial privitization of social security, etc.)

If I was the RNC (do you hear me, Michael Steele?), I would take an entirely different approach. For example:

• Taking the lead from the Tea Party process, launch a listening tour. Yes, I know every progressive under the sun does a listening tour. But unlike these sham listening tours, the Republicans need to make it clear, unlike the Democrats, they really are listening, and their fall agenda will reflect inputs from the people, not an ideological agenda of pushing on a string, like the Democratic initiatives on climate change and health care.
• The primary emphasis for the fall campaign should be on a pro-growth economic agenda and dealing with the deficit.
• I would run a series of spots with an empty chair and a name plate for President Obama  in a Republican meeting room. Emphasize the fact that the GOP is ready to talk to Obama anytime, any place without preconditions, and remind voters of his broken promise of a post-partisan Washington.
• I would run spots that focus on misleading Dem characterizations that the GOP legislators did not come to this Congressional session with alternative ideas, e.g., scroll down lists of bills and amendments and emphasize the one that went down by party line votes, without serious consideration.
• Run spots emphasizing that Republicans want the President to succeed in terms of improving the economy and protecting the country, because the country benefits when he succeeds. We are the loyal opposition: we will criticize him when we feel he is wrong, but we will do so respectfully and constructively.

Senator Dodd's Seat Just Became a Tough Pickup for the GOP

Richard Blumenthal, the popular Connecticut attorney general since 1991, announced as the likely Democratic nominee for Dodd's seat, open since Dodd will retire under party pressure. In fact, Blumenthal was a likely successor for Lieberman's seat if Gore had been elected in 2000.

It should not be a surprise what a conservative like me thinks about Blumenthal's candidacy; in a 2007 post, Hans Bader of libertarian CEI listed Blumental as the worst state attorney general in the United States (which is something, considering the fact that Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former NY governor, and Illinois'  Lisa Madigan also made the bottom 10):

Criteria for AG Ratings

1. Dubious Dealings: Using campaign contributors to bring lawsuits. Using the attorney general’soffice to promote personal gain or enrich cronies or relatives. Favoritism towards campaign donors and other uneven or unpredictable application of the law. Ethical breaches.

2. Fabricating Law: Advocating that courts, in effect, rewrite statutes or stretch constitutional norms in order to make new law—for example, seeking judicial imposition of new taxes or regulations, or restrictions on private citizens’ freedom to contract.

3. AG Imperialism /Usurping Legislative Powers: Bringing lawsuits that usurp regulatory powers granted to the federal government or other state entities, or that are untethered to any specific statutory or constitutional grant of authority.

4. Predatory Practices: Seeking to regulate conduct occurring wholly in other states—for example, preying on out-of-state businesses that have not violated state law and have no remedy at the polls.

Report Card Subject:                1. 2. 3. 4.

Attorney General:

Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut: F F F F

I also reviewed a couple of other more recent posts, including a (libertarian) Glenn Beck program last March when Blumenthal tries to spin why he didn't go after AIG payments to Senator Dodd but he did go after payment of politically unpopular AIG bonuses, paid under valid legal contracts that were known to and accepted by the government at the time of the bailout. (Beck also explains the misleading nature of the term "bonuses", which in many cases were in lieu of versus an add-on to salary.) I've read enough about this guy that I am thoroughly disgusted, but in fact I bet my Connecticut relatives have voted for him.

I do not underestimate the difficulty that the Republican candidates will have in defeating a well-known opponent whom has, by one report, a 79% approval rating and won roughly two-thirds of the votes in his last 3 reelection battles.The first Rasmussen polls on the race show Blumenthal up by over 20% (although other sources indicate a margin of over 30%).

I am not a political consultant, but first of all, early polling can be deceiving, with a political honeymoon effect. Examples of politicians with sky-high approval ratings who saw them fall to earth include George H.W. Bush (after the first Gulf War), George W. Bush (after 9/11), Sarah Palin, whose ratings had fallen, I believe, to 54% by the time she resigned, and, of course, Obama, whom has fallen from 70% or above to under 50%. I think Dems and independents, who were worried that Dodd wouldn't step down, are rallying behind Blumenthal (not unlike how support for Gerald Ford rallied in the aftermath of the Nixon resignation).

But running for Attorney General is different from running for the Senate. Blumenthal is just another progressive Democrat and will serve as a proxy for public discontent for massive federal deficits and an Obama administration whose stimulus bill is seen as ineffectual, whose handling of the underwear bomber case is being scrutinized, and whose priorities (climate change and health care reform) are increasingly challenged. The Connecticut GOP candidates would be well-served by observing Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown's startling success against the Democratic front-runner, the state attorney general Coakley; the latest poll I've seen on RCP shows Brown with a 1-point lead in a notoriously blue state. This suggests that independents are heavily breaking for Brown (although I would caution that a single poll with a 1-point lead is within the margin of error). Brown is running a shrewd campaign, showing a streak of Yankee independence, avoiding polarizing stands, and putting Massachusetts interests first; Coakley decided to run a prevent defense, deliberately avoiding a one-on-one with Brown to marginalize him. The special election is a week from Tuesday; you still have to respect the Democratic political machine, and turnouts are notoriously poor in special elections (which would favor Coakley), never mind one in the middle of winter.

Musical Interlude: Backstreet Boys, "Incomplete"

Miscellany: 1/09/10

Barack "Lip Service" Obama and the C-SPAN Health Care Negotiation Kerfuffle

Barack Obama's decision to allow one hour of coverage of a clearly staged event at the White House is yet another in a series of gimmicky moves (remember his trivial budget cuts--mostly at the expense of the Defense Department, of course) which shows just committed Obama is to the idea of genuine transparency. You have disparate House and Senate bills, as long as 2500 pages or so, with widely varying approaches, e.g., public option, financing (House-"tax-job-creators" vs Senate "cap-health-care-tax-exemption") and abortion funding. Do you honestly believe that the White House Propaganda New Media Office would allow broadcast of a food fight among top Democrats?

Actually, that brings to mind a new idea for mocking progressive Democrats: At the end of the hour on C-SPAN we see the following promo: "This video has been a free preview. For full access to our exclusive content, including a tour of Democratic back offices, we have multiple options, starting with our popular basic 5-hour package, available for only $25, made payable to the Committee to Reelect Barack Obama, and you also get a free copy of a previously unreleased photo of our Chief Executive giving a speech on health care. The best value is our popular Lobbyist Package for $5000, which gets you unrestricted access to all health care negotiations; select this option, and you are automatically entered into our "Meet the Democratic Power Brokers" sweepstakes. Finally, for the discriminating viewer, we offer the Deluxe Lobbyist Package for a mere $50,000 donation, which comes with the innovative "create-your-own-health-care-exemption" feature and a complimentary ticket to a "meet-and-greet" with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and a cameo appearance by The One."

Feinstein and I Agree on Something?

Perhaps the Artic freeze gripping the nation has also frozen hell over: Feinstein actually said something with which I agree (cf my Thursday comments on the Governator):

It sounds like the Governor is looking for someone else to blame for California's budget. California's budget crisis was created in Sacramento, not Washington. These problems are not going away until there is wholesale reform of the state's budget process. California is facing a $20 billion deficit now, whether or not national healthcare reform is passed.

But, methinks the senator is not a born-again conservative:

Senator Boxer and I fought for -- and achieved -- a $165 million a year addition to the bill to save California's public hospitals. We also got three years of full federal funding for the Medicaid expansion...I will continue to work as hard as I can for the best possible bill for California.

For those who can't translate progressive spin to plain English, what she is saying here is "I do a very good job on my own sucking from the federal teat; I don't need advice from an actor on how to suck at my job." Do you think someone responsible for helping spend the federal deficit to nearly $2T last year should be lecturing Schwarzenegger over his $20B deficit? Or hypocritically discussing the need for wholesale budgetary reform in California, when the federal government has been spending like a drunken sailor?

Political Cartoon

Cam Cardow notes the ick factor that physically attractive young women may experience due to intrusive scanning technologies at airports. This reminds me of the old joke or cartoon known as the "lost quarter": "Where did you lose the quarter?" "Over there..." "Then why are you looking here?" "Because the light is better over here..." We need to guarantee that intrusive images (especially of young women and children) are never accessible to pornographers...

Musical Interlude: Celine Dion (with Taro Hakase), "To Love You More"

Combine the songwriting genius of David Foster and Junior Miles, the power vocals of French-Canadian diva Celine Dion and the sweet violin of Taro Hakase, and you have one of the greatest pop singles ever. I remember hearing this song from a Japanese bootleg played on an adult contemporary station in the Chicago area and loved it instantly--we had to wait for Celine to officially release the song stateside...





To Love You More


Take me back in the arms I love
Need me like you did before
Touch me once again
And remember when
There was no one that you wanted more

Don't go you know you will break my heart
She won't love you like I will
I'm the one who'll stay
When she walks away
And you know I'll be standing here still

I'll be waiting for you
Here inside my heart
I'm the one who wants to love you more
You will see I can give you
Everything you need
Let me be the one to love you more

See me as if you never knew
Hold me so you can't let go
Just believe in me
I will make you see
All the things that your heart needs to know

I'll be waiting for you
Here inside my heart
I'm the one who wants to love you more
You will see I can give you
Everything you need
Let me be the one to love you more

And some way all the love that we had can be saved
Whatever it takes we'll find a way

I'll be waiting for you
Here inside my heart
I'm the one who wants to love you more
You will see I can give you
Everything you need
Let me be the one to love you more

Miscellany: 1/08/10

Congratulations to the NCAA Football Champions, the Alabama Crimson Tide


As an alumnus of the University of Texas, it is with a heavy heart that I acknowledge last night's 37-21 victory. The score is somewhat misleading because Alabama ultimately scored touchdowns off two turnovers by backupTexas quarterback Garrett Gilbert in the final two minutes of the game. Texas also inexplicably gave away a touchdown in the closing seconds of the first half off a bobbled shovel pass deep in Texas territory.

I am proud of the Texas Longhorns whom lost their most valuable player, Colt McCoy, the winningest quarterback in college history, 5 Longhorn plays into the game on a shoulder injury. The Longhorns had the first 2 scores in the game, but Garrett Gilbert, with little playing time this season, was facing one of the nation's top defenses and was ineffective for the remainder of the half, including giving up the freak interception touchdown when almost everyone (including me) thought Texas would run off the remainder of the clock and regroup at halftime. (There was also a scare at one point when Gilbert was shaken up, and Texas was facing a nightmare scenario of trying to win a national championship with a third-string quarterback.) Gilbert finally got his bearings in the second half with two brilliant touchdown passes and a two-point conversion to close within 3 points. The momentum was with Texas, and there seemed to be a legitimate shot of realizing a backup quarterback's Cinderella dream of winning an improbable national championship.

Heavily favored Alabama earned their victory, and I congratulate them. But the game was closer than the score indicates, and when you knock out the best college football quarterback and player early in the game, Alabama should have put away the game early. In fact, Texas gained more offensive yards than Alabama; I do not think a single viewer of the game would have predicted that after McCoy was injured in the first quarter. I think that Gilbert is going to be a worthy successor to McCoy next season.

New Jersey Senate Reaffirms the Traditional Definition of Marriage

The New Jersey Senate yesterday turned back a "gay marriage" bill 20-14, building on a recent trend of blue state victories defending the traditional institution of marriage (e.g., Maine and New York). Lame duck Governor Corzine had promised to sign the bill if it passed.

Another Little-Noticed Democratic Scandal

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley's successor as Baltimore City Mayor, Sheila Dixon, resigned in an Alford plea deal which concedes (without admission of guilt) a count of perjury on the nondisclosure of gifts, essentially wipes last month's conviction off her record, avoids jail time, and allows her to once again seek public office in 2 years and to retain an $83,000 annual pension. Dixon was convicted in December on a misdemeanor charge of embezzling gift cards, targeted for the poor, to make purchases of electronics. Dixon, twice divorced and unattached, while city council president had solicited charitable donations from a developer, whom had the cards delivered to her office. Dixon claims that she thought that the over $500 in gift cards, which were delivered anonymously to her office, were a romantic gesture from another developer, her married lover.


Thomas Sowell on Health Care Reform.


IBD has been running a series on health-care columns adapted from a chapter in one of Thomas Sowell's books, Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One. (I am largely paraphrasing Sowell's discussion, using my own examples below.) There are a couple of relevant takeaways from a related podcast dealing with the obfuscation of third parties in health care decisions that I want to focus on.

First, there is the well-known insanity of flexible spending accounts, which perfectly encapsulates how government regulations muck up health care utilization. There is a well-known  "use-it-or-lose-it" provision. You estimate within certain restrictions how much you can put of your salary tax-free for expected relevant expenditures. Not only that, but the government has lax restrictions on what exactly can be purchased using flexible spending dollars (e.g., all it may require if your medical provider's signature), including consumables such as artificial birth control and eyeglasses (Sowell's examples).

What happens, as Sowell points out, is that you run into end of fiscal/calendar year spending spree we've traditionally seen in government or corporate settings; managers are worried that their next budgets may get a below-average boost or even frozen or cut--if they turn out to have been "too efficient" in their spending. (There are, of course, legitimate reasons why they go below budget, e.g., a key position has not been filled.) So you may see a blip in fiscal year spending. The same type thing occurs with the "use-it-or-lose-it" regulation. Sowell wears glasses, so he uses the example of suggestions of employees with slack in their flexible spending plans buying new glasses, not because they need new glasses, but why not update the style versus lose your money in the plan. (I have never been able to understand why there wasn't an automatic rollover; some years might have more out-of-pocket expenses than other years. You should have an incentive to save--not an incentive to make frivolous purchases of medical products and services.)

Second, Thomas Sowell points out the progressives' myopic claims having to do with controlling costs is really a reference to capping individual share of the cost burden; you simply don't contain health care costs by throwing more dollars and patients in a limited-capacity health care system. There's no such thing as a free lunch; do the Democrats really think they can overrule supply and demand? If the individual does not have a meaningful stake or incentive to take positive preventive action for his or her own health--e.g., an addicted smoker or drug abuser, diabetics whom refuse to follow their diet, etc., long-term costs will, of course, escalate.  Well, of course, the progressives know that--if they can't explicitly ban an obese person from eating a Twinkie, Big Nanny will attempt to tax and regulate it, scapegoat your doctor, etc. What is an alternative conservative approach? Use incentives, e.g., credits for joining fitness or diet programs, documenting daily physical activity, controlling one's weight, getting periodic health checks, using less expensive health facilities (e.g., clinics vs. emergency rooms), etc.

When progressives talk about health care insurance, they are talking of a perversion of insurance. We are not talking simply about coverage for high-cost genetic defects, devastating catastrophic illnesses (cancer, MS, ALS, etc.) Zero wait periods, an approach favored by progressives, makes about as much sense as allowing homeowners to enroll in flood insurance during a hurricane watch; it introduces moral hazard by forcing prudent policyholders or owners to subsidize people whom choose, until that point, not to pay for insurance.

Conservatives have a more pragmatic approach: legitimate reform. For example, you eliminate an incentive for insurers to dump high-risk patients by providing reinsurance to insurers. You address guaranteed issue by shoring up subsidized state/regional high-risk pools and spreading the costs. You provide fairness by flattening government subsidies (vs. allowing the current tax bias in favor of union-negotiated gold-plated plans and no tax subsidy for those whom pay for their own insurance with after-tax dollars) and allowing smaller businesses to join together, self-insure and be exempt from state-specific expensive mandates. You increase competition by doing things like allowing insurers to market a no-frills basic health coverage across states. You address the high costs of defensive medicine and provider availability by enacting comprehensive medical malpractice tort reform.

What is NOT transparent--or in accordance with the rule of law--is some convoluted, lengthy piece of legislation which is secretly negotiated by a select number of elite Democratic leaders, whom then will arm-twist rank-and-file Democratic legislators to give Obama a win for the State of the Union

Political Cartoon

IBD cartoonist Michael Ramirez notes that Democrats are more concerned with privacy of back room deal making on the Democratic Party Health Care Bill than the privacy of travelers at airports. As for Speaker Pelosi, I think she misunderstood the question: it wasn't a question about transparency of her and other Dems' excuses for secrecy in negotiating a deficit-spending trillion-dollar health care bill. (CAUTION: If you see this sausage being made, you may actually get disgusted by how the progressives inefficiently spend other people's money and become a CONSERVATIVE!):

Bonus Video: Obama's Credibility on Health Care Bill Transparency




Musical Interlude: BBMak's "The Ghost of You and Me"

(