NOOCYTE

NPR: Small Business Owners Really WANT to be Taxed, Of Course

2011-12-09T11:29:00.001-05:00

Culled from the viscous surface of my Facebook feed comes this little nugget from NPR, which (shockiest of shocks) maintains (or, rather implies) that small business owners --the people whom the GOP is striving to protect by opposing the imposition of "Millionaire Surcharge" taxes as part of a deal to extend the payroll tax cuts-- have not spoken up in opposition to those surtaxes...because they just don't care about this stuff.

In typically tendentious NPR fashion, the point is made that no small business owners were willing to step out and oppose the redistributive tax ideology of this Administration. Does this mean that they were unwilling to expose themselves to the protests, boycotts, and organized smear campaigns (or worse!) of outraged Leftists, which are the near-inevitable fate of individuals and businesses that make themselves too conspicuous in their embrace of free-market principles? Can it be that they are trying to protect their profits by not so exposing themselves?

No. Of course this means that there is no support for restraining tax rates in the interest of promoting growth, and that the GOP is merely being the obstructionist meanie that it always is, ever vigilant for ways to make this Administration fail...leaving it for the ever-reliable NPR commenters to fill in the inevitable "RACIST" blank, among other tedious canards.

And no need to look too closely at the fact that the only business owners who spoke up for this editorial --in support of the Administration's would-be policies-- were on record as contributors to Democrats. Why, that's just a coincidence, you mouth-breathing Capitalist troglodytes.

SIGH Clearly, not enough people are thinking deeply enough on these matters. If only there were some more accessible medium for clarifying the terms of the debate....

Ten Years Hence (unstructured musings)

2011-09-11T03:48:00.003-04:00

Osama bin Laden is dead. Al Qaeda is a scattered shadow of what it once was. A fragile but viable democracy hangs on in Iraq. There have been no successful mass-casualty attacks on soft targets in the US in ten years. Something is finally rising from the hole at Ground Zero. Afghanistan...well, it is just not what it used to be for aspiring Jihadists.

Despite the best efforts of Liberal Democrats, "Anti-War" Progressives, and their strange bedfellows on the Paleoconservative and Libertarian Right, things are unambiguously better now, Global Counterinsurgency-wise than they were ten years and one day ago, in a host of important ways.

But I still watch footage of that chilly Tuesday morning, a decade ago, and feel as though a dangerous fire is still smoldering under the wreckage, somewhere.

The other night, Nickelodeon was running a marathon of "Friends" episodes. After I got over the initial shock and dismay that the episode I watched (which I remember watching when it first aired) had been made 17 years ago (!!), I found myself, as I so often do, scanning the background of the establishing shots, and seeing those Towers on the skyline. I suppose there is something unhealthy about this. Just the sight of those marvelously stark rectangles, rising from a thicket of lesser buildings, is oddly restorative for me. It enables me, for just that moment, to position myself in a headspace in which vicious Jihadist murderers had not rammed a jagged dagger through the tender skin of my innocence and idealism.

But they did. Those Towers are gone. Forever. And thousands of lives have passed from infinite possibility to mere remembrance. And yet, as Mr Hengist ably laid out in today's post, there remains a growing cadre of dangerous fools who urge us to "just get over it, already."

No, dangerous fools. I will not. Not now. Not ever.

Because the next feeling I have when I look at the Towers in film and video, right after the warm and comfy one of a world in which my main concern was adjusting to marriage, and getting my Psychology license, and finding the best possible cappuccino, is rage. Smoldering, caustic rage. That the kind of atavistic hatred which moved the muscles of those 19 hyperempowered psychopaths was allowed to fester and to find a means of expression, such that it pierced so many lives, enrages me. That the full import of that abominable act still eludes so many, and that they can still --with all seriousness-- attribute it to something which is the "fault" of the open, pluralistic society whose very openness provided the means for that horrific spasm of bloodletting...enrages me.

As I said before, I loved those Towers. I loved the fact of them. I loved the aesthetic of them. I loved the meaning of them. I loved the commerce, and the clarity, and the sheer exuberant simplicity of them (even if these things were mostly hidden from the transnational progressive consciousness which lived in that much younger version of me at the time). My rage is the the fire which was ignited in me at the time, and it has not gone out. I hope it never does. That fire is the engine which keeps fresh in my mind the degree to which I cherish the very things which those cancerous zealots sought to extinguish, the very things which so many dangerous fools are still trying to aid them in extinguishing. The freedom to think and act and trade and (refrain from) worship(ping) as I choose, to view women and homosexuals and fellow agnostics and atheists and people of faith as equals, to differ with them in a spirited and open dialogue, to tilt a pint with them as I do so. To love them, even as I work with all my might to move this Nation in a direction which is altogether orthogonal to the vector along which they would steer it.

For the guidance system of those planes is still active. It is still aiming for the symbols and foundations of a civilization which it has never matched, and which it can only muster the wherewithal to destroy.

And I will be damned if I will let it.

(Edited to add link in last paragraph [evidence that Paul Krugman needs to find a nice, quiet place with a lot of mirrors, far away from decent people], and address an oversimplification)

ADDENDUM: Re-reading the above, it occurred to me that it might seem strange to see a psychologist speaking positively of rage. Fair point. To clarify, what I feel is the kind of rage that smolders, deep down, but is not altogether squandered in mere stewing. It is jacked into the power systems, its energy yoked to the motivational systems which feed such things as blogging, voting, campaigning, and maintaining situational awareness (both of the 'scanning a crowd for suspicious activity' sort and the 'keeping abreast of global events' sort).

So, I suppose there are really two fires smoldering here: the one which feeds the virulent fantasies and hatreds of the individuals and organizations which would like nothing more than to perpetrate an encore to the events of 9/11/01...and the one in me, and in others, to extinguish the first. They are both dangerous...but the latter is a hazard to those who, unlike the innocents on that horrid day, most assuredly have it coming.

Forget 9/11? Fuhgeddaboudit, Pal.

2011-09-09T21:11:00.002-04:00

[by Mr.Hengist]

Now, me, I’m not big on anniversaries, not even my own birthday. Just not caring, is all. When I was a kid I looked forward to my birthday, sure – presents! – but as I got older, for a variety of reasons, I grew out of it. There’s no day I set aside for celebration or remembrance of anything anymore, and that’s just me. I’m not against this kind of thing but it doesn’t resonate with me.

That’s why the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks has come and gone these blogging years without comment from me, although 9/11 marked perhaps the darkest days in my life and set in motion changes in me which were, for me, profound. It’s in the days leading up to the 9/11 anniversary that people reflect on that day and how we move forward. E.J. Dionne Jr. has phoned it in with his September 7th, 2011 column, “Time to leave 9/11 behind”.

As the title promises, the first line delivers:

“After we honor the 10th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we need to leave the day behind.”

It’s a familiar refrain, one I’ve read from Liberal pundits since, well, shortly after September 11, 2001. We shouldn’t use this as an excuse to make war, we’ve gone off-track, we need to understand that we were attacked because we’re hated, and with good reason, we need to make amends so the world will love us again and we’ll all live together in the world with harmony and respect for cultural diversity, and then unicorns will fart rainbows, blah blah blah, blah blah, blah.

Although the Liberal MSM never stopped airing the pictures and video of the planes hitting the towers (look, big explosion!), even in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 they wouldn't air the pictures or video of the jumpers. Those were the victims above the inferno in the towers who jumped to their certain death rather than stay and succumb to the smoke and flame. What hell that must have been for those office workers that the better option was to jump from the top floors of a skyscraper. Not a few, either; surviving rescue workers described having to be exceedingly cautious when entering or exiting the towers to avoid being crushed by a random person falling from the sky, and how unnerving it was to hear the bodies thumping on the sidewalk every couple of minutes. Why the media embargo? While not graphic, they were horrifying, and they angried up the blood. Americans were, by and large, ready to unleash our war machine, but already the imploring chorus of restraint was stirring from the anti-war left, who saw us as having gotten our just desserts - Blame America First.

It only took a half a year or so for the focus to shift, as the Lefties knew that this war business wasn't going to treat them well. Modern Liberal Democrats are not the leaders you want in charge in a time of war, and they knew it, so on the whole they thought this 9/11 thing was taking domestic and foreign policy in all kinds of wrong directions. Like hamsters running the wheel for hours on end, they get tired and rest for a spell but soon enough they're back at it. It's their hobby horse and they're not getting off it, because we can't change policy until you people get over the hurt. So, like, it's sad & all, but can't you just leave it in the past? Besides which, you deserved it.

“As a nation we have looked back for too long. We learned lessons from the attacks, but so many of them were wrong. The last decade was a detour that left our nation weaker, more divided and less certain of itself.”

I’ll refrain from rebutting the arguments that Dionne neglects to make himself, but suffice it to say, he’s wrong, wrong, wrong. We learned valuable lessons from 9/11, and perhaps not well enough, and our response has left us stronger, not weaker. Hey, if Dionne won’t make the case against, I’m don’t have to make the case for.

“Reflections on the meaning of the horror and the years that followed are inevitably inflected by our own political or philosophical leanings. It’s a critique that no doubt applies to my thoughts as well. We see what we choose to see and use the event as we want to use it.”

I suppose it would be unfair to point out that Dionne, perhaps tellingly, focuses on how we choose to “use the event as we want to use it”, because in essence, I agree with this paragraph. Let’s just say, for now, that E.J. Dionne and I disagree on all the particulars.

“This does nothing to honor those who died and those who sacrificed to prevent even more suffering. In the future, the anniversary will best be reserved as a simple day of remembrance in which all of us humbly offer our respect for the anguish and the heroism of those individuals and their families.”
“But if we continue to place 9/11 at the center of our national consciousness, we will keep making the same mistakes. Our nation’s future depended on far more than the outcome of a vaguely defined “war on terrorism,” and it still does. Al-Qaeda is a dangerous enemy. But our country and the world were never threatened by the caliphate of its mad fantasies.”

Long have the Liberal-Left fervently implored us not to take 9/11 so hard. Let me start hitting a couple of the specifics here:

First of all, it’s arguable whether we place 9/11 “at the center of our national consciousness”, but if that’s the case then it is so for reasons which are far beyond the ability of anyone to simply wish it away. 9/11 will gradually diminish in importance as time stretches the distance between the now and then, but what Dionne and his ilk have either never grasped or simply wanted to make not so, is that it was an event on the order of magnitude of Pearl Harbor. It is both tiresome and insulting to hear from Dionne et al that we should just get over it. Not happening, not anytime soon.

Then there’s the part where he acknowledges that “Al Qaeda is a dangerous enemy”, but “our country and the world were never threatened by the caliphate of its mad fantasies”. I don’t think it’s necessary to belabor the obvious contradiction here, as these two ideas are mutually exclusive. What Dionne means - but apparently lacks the skill to put clearly - is that Al Qaeda will never succeed in reestablishing a caliphate. It's either clumsiness or intentionally intimating that, in some sense, we are really threatened by Al Qaeda.

In the sense that Al Qaeda will never succeed in their mad fantasies of a worldwide caliphate, Dionne and I agree. I wouldn't be entirely sure of their chances for a regional caliphate, nor would I take off the table the possibility of various other states in the being absorbed into the orbit of this yet-to-be established caliphate. At any rate, I wouldn't want to establish odds, as I think they're pretty long on even the most modest of their goals.

This is an entirely separate question from whether Al Qaeda is an ongoing threat. They are. A diminished, less capable threat, not to be underestimated, but pursued to the ends of the Earth and exterminated wherever they are, no matter how long it takes. Further, Al Qaeda is but one organization of many that are like-minded and equally dastardly. The point I'm driving at is that what Dionne wants is for us to go back to 9/10, and I'm here to tell you this a mad fantasy of Liberal-Leftists. They've probably got a better chance of realizing their fantasy than Al Qaeda does for realizing theirs.

“We asked for great sacrifice over the past decade from the very small portion of our population who wear the country’s uniform, particularly the men and women of the Army and the Marine Corps. We should honor them, too. And, yes, we should pay tribute to those in the intelligence services, the FBI and our police forces who have done such painstaking work to thwart another attack.”

I presume Dionne is preferentially giving shout-outs to the Army and Marine Corps based on casualty figures, but really, all of our armed service members have borne an extraordinary burden. One of the lessons we should have learned from the military engagements of the last decade is that our military is inarguably too small to do this without having to resort to extended tours of combat duty. Whether you support the war(s) or not, the presumption that we have the ability to fight such wars can no longer be taken at face value - or be relied upon as a part of our defense posture. If the possibility of going to war to defend, say, Taiwan or South Korea, is off the table because it would outstrip our capacity to effectively prosecute that third front, then that’s an excellent argument for augmenting the size of our armed forces because weakness invites attack. That lesson was, alas, not learned.

Still, it’s worth noting that Dionne doesn’t go the route of infantilizing our armed forces by talking about them as if they were children forced to go to war, or as bloodthirsty killbot murderers leaving a wake of devastation and suffering. I wish more antiwar folks were as decent as Dionne is here.

Hey, I wish for a lot of things.

“It was often said that terrorism could not be dealt with through “police work,” as if the difficult and unheralded labor involved was not grand or bold enough to satisfy our longing for clarity in what was largely a struggle in the shadows.”

Here Dionne constructs a straw man but doesn’t even bother to knock it down. Let me set it on fire by pointing out that one of the problems with using law enforcement to prosecute a war is that law enforcement is, by varying degrees, reactive rather than proactive. Without probable cause, how to apprehend suspects? How to obtain sufficient evidence to obtain the issuance of arrest warrants, and under what standard of law do we operate – ours, or the laws of a foreign country? To what degree to we constrain and expose our law officers by working with a foreign government in the investigation? By way of example, let me point out that when it was determined that Osama bin Laden was in Afghanistan, the Bush Administration demanded he be turned over to us. The Taliban responded that, no, they would be doing no such thing, but they would consider extradition if we could present a case to an international court of law, and besides which, they had no idea where he was, although they would be happy to pass along any message we might wish to send him.

[Go back and read the rest of that last sentence now that you've stopped laughing at how the Taliban were demanding we persuade an international court of law.]

Further, law enforcement is subject to the legal constraints of a civil society rather than an effectively lawless badlands or an actual rootin’ tootin’ battlefield. In that kind of environment it is impractical to the point of being an impossibility to maintain the integrity of a chain of custody for physical evidence, and even the problematical nature of the reading of Miranda rights makes the notion of a legal battlespace, quite frankly, bizarre. Proverbially speaking, it’s bringing a knife to a gunfight, or in this case, an arrest warrant to a gunfight. OK, the FBI carries guns, but up against RPGs, AK-47s, IEDs and, well, you get the picture.

“Forgive me, but I find it hard to forget former president George W. Bush’s 2004 response to Sen. John Kerry’s comment that “the war on terror is less of a military operation and far more of an intelligence-gathering and law-enforcement operation.”
“Bush retorted: “I disagree — strongly disagree. . . . After the chaos and carnage of September the 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States of America, and war is what they got.” What The Washington Post called “an era of endless war” is what we got, too.”
“Bush, of course, understood the importance of “intelligence gathering” and “law enforcement.” His administration presided over a great deal of both, and his supporters spoke, with justice, of his success in staving off further acts of terror. Yet he could not resist the temptation to turn on Kerry’s statement of the obvious. Thus was an event that initially united the nation used, over and over, to aggravate our political disharmony. This is also why we must put it behind us.”

What is obvious to Dionne in Kerry’s statement is left unstated, and it deserves to be fleshed out. I won’t do his work for him, but I will point out that intelligence gathering and law enforcement operations do not preclude warfighting as a means of confronting enemy conspirators and combatants. For a couple hundred years now, the U.S. has used all of these tools in the prosecution of war.

The disconnect between these two ideas – those of Kerry and W – is that W was responding to the unstated premise in Kerry’s statement: that we can use intelligence gathering and law enforcement to mitigate the threat of Al Qaeda without waging war.

The political disharmony Dionne laments is a direct result of the disagreement between these two ideological camps over this question. What’s more, that disagreement was fueled by the political calculus of Democrats who parlayed an issue of national security in order to get more political power, which is simply unconscionable.

I’m sure Liberals will take exception to that statement, but let me preempt their howls by asking this question: how else do you explain the promises of candidate Obama, which were very much in alignment with the spirit of anti-war Liberals, to the actions of POTUS Obama? From the continuance of warrantless wiretaps, to the dramatic expansion of drone airstrikes, and the extension of the Patriot Act, to the Libyan war, and so on, it seems obvious that POTUS Obama has fallen far short of the standards he set for himself. I’m not trying to use these reversals as a cudgel against POTUS Obama, but rather, to point out that, in reality, as POTUS Obama either knew or learned, our country is not well-served by prosecuting a war as if it were a matter solely for intelligence gathering and law enforcement.

While I'm at it, let me also point out how disingenuous the Left has been over these past years. Yeah, yeah, when W was in office, the Constitution was shredded, he thought himself a king, the republic was doomed, and America as we knew it was being destroyed by the evil Republicans, damn those soulless ghouls. The Left marched by the tens of thousands, they did, to stop the wars and take back America! When they did take back America, or at least the government - which, surprisingly, still existed, and still somehow allowed free elections - Democrats won all three branches of government and those very same policies were met with... muted grumbling. Only the far left still seems to be waving their pitchforks, but mainstream Liberals have given their guy a pass.

“In the flood of anniversary commentary, notice how often the term “the lost decade” has been invoked. We know now, as we should have known all along, that American strength always depends first on our strength at home — on a vibrant, innovative and sensibly regulated economy, on levelheaded fiscal policies, on the ability of our citizens to find useful work, on the justice of our social arrangements.”

I’ll defer to Dionne that “the lost decade” is a phrase used with some frequency in Liberal circles, but that phrase has no currency on the Right. At any rate, American strength is not dependent on the false choice Dionne presents. Our economy must be strong in order to have a strong national defense, and our national defense can only be strong if our economy is strong. We can’t have one without the other, but regardless of economic circumstances in our national defense we must wage war on those who wage war against us. It always pays to destroy our enemies, even though it costs us.

“This is not “isolationism.” It is a common sense that was pushed aside by the talk of “glory” and “honor,” […]"

… aaaand let me stop Dionne right here and call out this BS. Glory and honor were never used by the Bush Administration to justify warmaking; this is a shameless manufacturing of a lie to serve Liberal dissent. We did not go to war in Afghanistan or Iraq for glory, period. We did not go to war against Afghanistan or Iraq for honor, either. We did not go to war against Afghanistan or Iraq for treasure either, but I digress. Dionne would like to portray hawks and neocons as warmongers seeking glory and honor, but Dionne forgets that these are the facile accusations of the Liberal-Left, now so ingrained as to be taken as self-evident truths. Recall what I said above, about how accusations against their political opposition are first taken as a possibility, then as probably true, and from there a certainty.

“[…] by utopian schemes to transform the world by abruptly reordering the Middle East — and by our fears.”

Here Dionne is alluding to the neocon ambition of upsetting the apple carts of the undemocratic Middle East dictatorships and facilitating the emergence of representative republics. It’s a shame that POTUS Bush largely gave up on that ambition in his second term, but it’s somewhat encouraging to see the possibility of that dream coming to fruition in some parts of the Middle East today as a part of what’s being called the Arab Spring. You might think that current events would have Dionne thinking twice about calling such a scheme utopian, but, well, apparently not.

“While we worried that we would be destroyed by terrorists, we ignored the larger danger of weakening ourselves by forgetting what made us great.”

And what made us great? Glory? Honor? I’d like to address this statement but as it stands I can’t make heads or tails of it and I’m not about to flesh out his argument that isn’t made so that I can rebut it.

“We have no alternative from now on but to look forward and not back.”

We can do both, unless you can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Of course, Dionne has been arguing that we shouldn’t look back, not that we can’t, so this statement is simply empty rhetoric, and it’s just so very lame, but it does set up his final paragraph:

“This does not dishonor the fallen heroes, and Lincoln explained why at Gettysburg. “We can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow this ground,” he said. “The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.” The best we could do, Lincoln declared, was to commit ourselves to “a new birth of freedom.” This is still our calling.”

It’s nice that Dionne concluded his piece with a quote from that venerated Republican Lincoln, whom we all hold dear to our hearts, but the conclusion of his piece ends up right where it began, with Dionne lazily waving his arms, chanting, “Forget, forget, forget.”

So let me sum up my fisking with this:

9/11: Never Forget.

On Walter Pincus and "Selective Recall"

2011-09-07T21:11:00.003-04:00

[by Mr.Hengist]

VPOTUS Dick Cheney has a new book out, and Liberal poindexters are using their column space to take their shots. It would be instructive for Liberals to go back over the blogposts and newspaper columns from the W years, as the sheer volume of unsubstantiated allegations and demonizing insinuations is staggering (ah, for the good old days of civil discourse, patriotic dissent, and speaking truth to power...).

As a general rule, in my observations, Liberals go through several stages to arrive at their buy-in to a conspiracy theory or belief that a Republican has committed a high crime. First, the speculation that the crime may have been committed. Having accepted that, it naturally follows that the crime probably was committed, and from there it also follows that it was committed – nay, it must have been committed, and so the buy-in is complete – and, remarkably, this process seems to take virtually no time at all, and requires no additional evidence beyond sheer speculation. From Enron to war-for-oil to the Plame leak, Liberals seem always to be ready and eager to believe the worst of their political opposition based on nothing more than speculation. Dissuading a Liberal of these delusions is a difficult, sometimes impossible chore; Liberal bloggers, columnists, pundits, and occasionally politicians, are often eager to embrace these slanders but loathe to set the record straight when their targets are exonerated. A debunked meme that damages their opposition is merely an inconvenience, like an opportunity lost, which may yet be salvageable given a grace period - one long enough for memories to fade, whereupon the smear is resuscitated.

If nothing else, Cheney's book should prompt the fools to apologize to Bush Administration officials and their fellow citizens for the BS they've propagated. It's too much to hope for, of course, but it's also interesting to scrutinize pieces like these to note which memes they've abandoned, versus those to which they still desperately cling - or hope to revive.

Walter Pincus takes a stab at Cheney ("Cheney’s recall is selective with ‘In My Time’", WaPo, Sep 05, 2011), and I have some observations to make.

"Take the former vice president’s version of the controversial trip that former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson took to Niger at the request of the CIA in February 2002 to check on allegations that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from that country. It eventually grew into a major event involving disclosure of Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, as a covert CIA operative and the questioning of 16 words in President George W. Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union speech."
“I wrote about it all at the time. I also was caught up in the leak investigation into the disclosure of Plame’s identity and the perjury trial of Cheney’s then-chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, where I testified that he was not the one who told me of her CIA employment.”

Let me start out by giving some credit to Pincus: he does mention that he testified that Libby wasn’t the one who outed Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. What he doesn’t mention here, or throughout the piece, is that Plame’s CIA employment was disclosed to Novak by Richard Armitage, the right-hand man of Colin Powell, something that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald learned at the very beginning of his investigation in December of 2003. Let me also note here that Fitzgerald nonetheless continued his investigation of the identity of the leaker, which he already knew, presumably as a fishing expedition to snag someone within the Bush Administration, presumably on some other charge. That's what Libby was prosecuted on - a charge of perjury, perjury committed during six hours of questioning, when he contradicted his prior testimony, during a deposition that should never have taken place. He wasn't the only one who perjured himself; several journalists did the same thing, but they weren't prosecuted - Libby was, because as an Administration staff member his scalp was the only one worth taking, after so many years of otherwise fruitless investigation. Also of note, and as an aside, Armitage only admitted to his disclosure after he was safe from prosecution and Novak had already made it public.

“In his book, Cheney wrote he began reading newspaper stories in late spring 2003 about an unnamed former U.S. ambassador who went to Africa in 2002 for the CIA to check on whether Iraq was buying, or trying to buy, uranium for its nuclear weapons program. The ambassador had returned, said the story was not true and thus appeared to contradict Bush’s speech when he said, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

Wilson’s lie appeared to contradict POTUS Bush’s 2003 SOTU 16 words? Prima facie it didn’t, did it? Joe Wilson could have reported back that he's found evidence directly refuting what British intelligence told us, but that wouldn't change the fact that British intelligence told us that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. That's because Wilson had only gone to Niger, and Niger isn't the only country in the continent of Africa that exports uranium (Hello, South Africa! Also, the Central African "Republic", the "Democratic Republic" of Congo, Gabon, and Zambia!), so nothing Wilson found in Niger would necessarily have bearing on the British intelligence report or the 16 words in POTUS Bush’s 2003 SOTU.

This is something that, even at the time, Liberals didn't quite seem to grasp. It's always been remarkable to me that this has been overlooked by Liberals since the beginning, and it's a matter of reading comprehension and simple logic. Joe Wilson did not refute the SOTU 16 words because he could not. I mean, really, how hard is this?

“One of the stories Cheney read — but did not note in the book — was a May 6, 2003, New York Times op-ed column by Nicholas Kristof, which said, “The vice president’s office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger.” Kristof had learned in a background conversation with Wilson days earlier that the CIA had sent Wilson to Niger to follow up on questions posed by Cheney at a morning briefing. Wilson, who interviewed present and former Niger officials, said he reported back that the uranium story was not true.”

Well, yes, Joe Wilson did say that. His public account of his mission to Niger was varied - no, wait, strike that - Joe Wilson simply lied. A different account Wilson relates in his book: he met with ministers of Niger and asked about whether Iraq had sought to buy uranium from them. He was told that indeed, an Iraqi envoy had come to inquire about increasing trade with Niger, and that was told that international scrutiny was too great after 9/11 and that any such trade deals would have to wait until things had cooled down. What Wilson failed to note was that Niger has only negligible exports aside from uranium (none of which (coal, animal hides, cowpeas, etc.) were forbidden from importing under U.N. sanctions against Iraq), and, oh, by the way, this Iraqi guy turns out to have been the Iraqi public envoy for nuclear matters.

Fact is, Joe Wilson lied about almost every important thing he said in relation to his mission to Niger, and about subsequent related events. He was not, as he strongly and repeatedly insinuated, sent there by VPOTUS Cheney. He did not report back that Iraq had not sought uranium from Niger. He did not review the forged Nigerian document for the CIA and inform them that it was a fake. It was not Dick Cheney who revealed his wife to be a CIA employee.

“On the broader point of the 16 words in Bush’s State of the Union speech, Cheney’s book discusses discusses [sic] the internal White House debate after Wilson’s July 6, 2003, public statements over whether an apology should be made for including the British report that Hussein had been seeking uranium from Africa. Over Cheney’s objection, the apology was eventually made by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
“Cheney writes that a later British inquiry into their statement declared their claim was “well founded.” The British inquiry concluded that it had different sources reporting that “Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999” where there were indications “this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium.”
"Left out of Cheney’s book is a CIA document — relevant to the 16 words — that was sent to his office in June 2003 but made public at Libby’s trial. It summarized previous reports, including one dated March 2002, that disclosed the information on the 1999 delegation came from a former Niger official who said only that he “believed Iraq was interested in discussing yellowcake [uranium].” But a later CIA report, dated Sept. 24, 2002, referred directly to the British information that was subsequently used in Bush’s speech. At that point, the CIA questioned the credibility of the British sources and said it had recommended the British withhold their report."

Yeah, the CIA says a lot of things. They often contradict themselves. They are large; they contain multitudes. In this case it seems churlish to selectively cite this doubt cast on their initial endorsement of the British report, as the subsequent British investigation into the matter has vindicated it. Pincus presents this to cast doubt on the wisdom of including the 16 words in the SOTU, but in hindsight, the British conclusion of the veracity of their own intelligence findings vindicates VPOTUS Cheney’s judgment in the matter.

"In 2004, Charles Duelfer, in his final report of the Iraq Survey Group which studied Hussein’s nuclear program after the U.S. invasion, said, “ISG has uncovered no information to support allegations of Iraqi pursuit of uranium from abroad in the post-Operation Desert Storm era,” meaning after 1991.
Perhaps Cheney has not read Duelfer’s report."

And again, whether the ISG found proof or not is irrelevant in light of the confirming evidence we've had since before the war began. In his piece Pincus is strongly implying that Iraq never sought uranium from Africa as was stated in the 2003 SOTU. Perhaps Pincus never read Wilson's book – or the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Pre-War Intelligence.

The importance of whether Iraq was trying to buy uranium cannot be understated. Iraq, as led by the Hussein dictatorship, was a nation with an extensive history of manufacturing and using WMDs, and an equally extensive history of anti-American and anti-Western hatred. As a nation without any means of using uranium for peaceful uses, there could be only one reason for acquiring uranium: weapons manufacture. In a post-9/11 world where a fanatical terrorist group could get their hands on such a weapon, this provided a critical piece in the justification for war on Iraq.

This is what Joe Wilson undermined with his lies, and with it he undermined the President during a time of war. In his piece, Pincus reissues a credibility Joe Wilson never deserved - and he has the nerve to accuse VPOTUS Cheney of selective recall.

"Recovery From Unusual Attitudes"

2011-08-15T13:01:00.002-04:00

This started out as a reply to Mr Hengist's most righteous fisking of WaPo's Eugene Robinson, but it really started to look like a post unto itself. So here we are.

Robinson's blatherings are, alas all-too characteristic of the desperate delirium tremens which beset the Left as the rivets are systematically popped from the wings of their world-view ('Hey, nothing happened when we lost the first few! Guess we can ditch a few more...Wait, what's that wobble?...'):

The European Super-Nanny is making like the Black Knight from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" ("'Tis but a flesh wound!!"). All the Keynesian stimulus spending here at home is having pretty much the effect you'd expect from applying a defibrillator to a patient slipping into a diabetic coma. The Tea Parties are maddeningly/bafflingly failing to go away, lose elections, or start lobbying en masse for racial purity or putting Jesus on Mt Rushmore.

I almost feel sorry for them...between attacks of chortles and guffaws.

The dynamic has been the same for so long, that any change can only be seen by Leftists as pathology: The hard Left has dragged the Democratic party further and further to port, while a squishy-center-Right GOP has had rather a flaccid foot on the starboard rudder pedal. What force there has been in that countervailing direction has been so confoundedly conflated with Social Con issues that it's been unable to gather as much traction with a population which was not sufficiently attentive to the fiscal/federalist issues to see past the clouds of brimstone. And so the ship of state has swept in a leftward spiral so comprehensive as to be undetectable to the vast majority of folks who don't pay really close attention to such things. It's a situation eerily akin to that which resulted in the death of JFK, Jr, as his small plane swept in a long descending curve --utterly unnoticed by the seat of his pants and his untrained middle ear-- toward the choppy seas off Martha's Vineyard (link is to a really interesting article, with more levels of meaning and relevance than I'd expected to find for purposes of illuminating this small point. Worth your time).

That has now changed. With the Tea Parties, the small-government, fiscal-restraint message has risen to the top, at just the time when the public was paying attention (and yes, reciprocal causation is surely in effect here). It has outshone (though by no means obliterated) the SoCon channel, and assumed a position of a firm, energized counterforce to the sinister slippage that's dragged us so far off-true.We begin to see evidence of the emergence of that dialectic I've been prattling on about for so long. And it's about time!

Are there excesses of ideological purity on the Right? Of course. "Go ahead and default! Make my day!" is not a tenable position (if for no other reason that it puts the decision of what obligations will be met squarely in the hands of a POTUS who can hardly be trusted not to make those spending decisions such that they'll deliver the maximum hurt to people who will be inclined to blame the GOP). But how different is this from the cacophony of Progressive fantacism from the other side ("Hey, what we really need is a bigger stimulus...and a Single-Payer healthcare system...and Big Cuts to the military...and to sign onto the Kyoto Protocol..."). The trouble, it seems, has been that the zealots on the Left have had a seat at the table, while those on the Right were mainly yelling from the foyer. 2010 changed that, with the predictable result that things have gotten...well...unpredictable.

It's this latter point which seems to have been at the heart of S&P's decision to downgrade the US' creditworthiness from "Superdoubleplus Excellent" to "Merely Superb." Of course there's going to be unpredictability as the American political trajectory realigns itself. You can't alter the course of such an immense vessel and not expect a fair bit cavitation and wake turbulence. What S&P did was to issue a traffic advisory for the vicinity of that vessel, and one can hardly blame them for it....that is, unless one's entire narrative is predicated on the notion that there has been no bias, and so no need for a course correction (except maybe [further] to the Left). For such folks, these Tea Party Freshmen are the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, gremlins with crowbars, grinning on the wings, or whatever other metaphor makes you twitchy enough. Just a bunch of troublemaking hooligans, holding the stately State hostage for...somethingorother.

Yes, things are like to get a mite messy for a while, and investors (and voters!) should take note, and take precautions. But messy is what freedom is supposed to be. This is especially true during periods of transition, which we are surely in. It is the apparent direction of that transition which has Leftists (at least those who are paying attention) so nervous. And so they are bound to make the agents of that change into villains, and to try and tar the messengers who see the writing on the wall as mere graffiti artists. All in the hopes of planting the memes deeply enough to escape notice, that Left is Straight, Center is Right, and Right is Down.

But, to the great (and deliciously Schadenfreudig) consternation of Eugene Robinson and his like, more and more folks appear to be learning to fly by their instruments.

Oh, and Put It On the Children's Tab

2011-08-09T21:11:00.007-04:00

[by Mr.Hengist]

Republicans are a bunch of terrorist hostage-taking criminals for trying to impose their ideological insanity upon the nation, according to the excitable and apoplectic Left. In actuality they failed to bring fiscal sanity to our budget process - caved - and the can has once again been kicked down the road. Europe is circling the fiscal drain, America is trying to catch up with them, and Eugene Robinson is mad at the GOP. Oh, and the sun rises in the East, and - there! - I'm done with trite clichés for the time being.

Let’s have a look at the talking points Robinson has regurgitated for us this time:

“The so-called analysts at Standard & Poor’s may not be the most reliable bunch, but there was one very good reason for them to downgrade U.S. debt: Republicans in Congress made a credible threat to force a default on our obligations.”

Well, no, they didn’t; that power rests solely with the POTUS. In the event that the Federal Government does not have enough money to pay all its bills, the POTUS has the legal authority and obligation to allocate what monies are available on a discretionary basis. In that context, Robinson’s statement could be taken to mean that he believes the POTUS would not have prioritized our debt obligations, but that would be giving him too much credit.

“This isn’t the rationale that S&P gave, but it’s the only one that makes sense.”

Like most Liberals, when their opposition states something which doesn’t gibe with their worldview, they discard what they’ve been told and substitute their own fantasies. I believe him when he says that S&P’s rationale doesn’t make sense to him, but the problem lies with Robinson, not S&P.

"Like a lucky college student who partied the night before an exam, the ratings agency used flawed logic and faulty arithmetic to somehow come up with the right answer."

In short, Robinson likes the result, but the reasoning is in conflict with his worldview, so he's openly discarding it but keeping the conclusion. The right answer, for Robinson, is that America should be downgraded because of the intransigence of the GOP, so long as that downgrade can be pinned on them. To the extent that S&P was critical of anything that might make the Left look bad - well, that's just crazy talk!

Take a moment to review the actual document issued by S&P. S&P’s rationale for the downgrade is that the deal won’t stabilize our fiscal situation, and with an additional $2.4T increase in debt, that’s correct. They also say that the differences between the parties are “contentious and fitful” and that the debt ceiling has become a political bargaining chip, and that’s also correct. As far as bridging the chasm between revenues and spending, S&P notes simply that the two sides can’t agree on spending cuts and/or tax increases. S&P does not take sides in that debate.

“And no, I can’t join the `we’re all at fault' chorus. Absent the threat of willful default, a downgrade would be unjustified and absurd. And history will note that it was House Republicans who issued that threat.”

Not exactly true, since the decision to default would lie with the POTUS. At any rate, history will also note that the POTUS threatened to veto any bill which did not extend the debt limit sufficiently to get us past the next election. To get him past the next election - and the Left has no problem with that.

“There is no plausible scenario under which the United States would be unable to service its debt.”

That's true - in medium term. Not servicing the debt would be a choice, not a necessity, and that choice lies with the POTUS.

“If political gridlock were to persist, our government would be able to pay bondholders with a combination of tax revenue and funds raised by selling more Treasury bills.”

Tax revenue alone would cover our debt obligations and avert default, albeit without enough left over to meet other obligations. Treasury bills could not be sold, however, unless they came from the Social Security “Trust Fund” in which case every T-note sold would lower our debt by equal measure, allowing for us to borrow that much more.

“And in the final analysis, as Alan Greenspan noted Sunday on `Meet the Press,’ the United States `can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that.’ I know this kind of talk is horrifying to Ron Paul and others who believe we should be walking around with our pockets full of doubloons, but most of us find paper money more convenient.”

... aaaaand, just like that, there it is. No apology, no regret, no pleading for the possibility of considering the necessity of doing the unthinkable. That last-ditch seawater-on-the-reactor cut-off-your-leg-to-save-your-life nuclear bomb of fiat currency mismanagement is casually put on the table with snide contempt.

Sure, the Treasury could simply create as much money as we owe and pay it off that way, and if it really were no big deal, why isn't Robinson wondering why we haven't done it already? $14T in the hole? Clickety-Clack, the Treasury can create that amount. Heck, why stop there? Why not turn that minus sign into a plus sign! Why not fill our coffers with $140T and fix this deficit problem for the foreseeable future?

The answer is this: “printing” our way out of this would rightfully be considered a default, both by the rating agencies and the rest of the world. It would literally destroy our economy, and, by the way, we’d never be able to borrow again. The result looks like Zimbabwe, and here, Robinson floats the idea as a viable alternative.

Eugene Robinson: charitably speaking, you are an idiot.

“What happened this summer is that Republicans in the House, using the Tea Party freshmen as a battering ram, threatened to compel a default.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Aside from the repetition of the false assertion that the Congress could force a default, Robinson has the dynamics of this completely inverted. The Republicans did not “use” the Tea Party freshmen; the Tea Party freshmen held firm and forced the Republicans to get a better debt deal. He writes in the WaPo, but does he even read it?

“More accurately, they demanded big budget cuts as the price of raising the debt ceiling. If the Senate and President Obama did not comply, the Treasury’s access to capital through borrowing would have been cut off.”

Well, one could have simply said so, but what’s a Liberal opinion piece without throwing up partisan hyperbole?

“The government’s cash flow would have been slashed by 40 percent, leaving not nearly enough to fund essential operations, pay entitlements and also service the debt. Somebody was going to get stiffed. Paying interest to bondholders could have been given priority over competing obligations such as salaries for our people in military service and Social Security checks for retirees. But for how long?”

OK, so did the House Republicans threaten to default or was default always an option of the POTUS? As Robinson admits here, it was always an option. Social Security, on the other hand, was never threatened; as I described above, the “trust fund” – which has in excess of $2T – is guaranteed convertible into U.S. dollars and allows for an equal amount to be borrowed through the sale of regular Treasury bills. Sure, it exchanges one IOU for another, but the SS recipients would get paid. In fact, we could do that and not touch tax revenues at all, for a while.

That, by the way, is the answer to, “But for how long?” For a while, until we can get more tax revenue and/or cut our spending. A better question would be, "How, by Crom, did we get to the point that 40% of our spending has to come from borrowing?" There's a reason this keeps getting called "unsustainable." It might be a debate worth having whether we should increase taxes or not, but when our elected officials keep finding new entitlements to grant (as noted below), it's easily demonstrable that no amount of taxation will ever sustain the nanny state they envision.

“S&P, however, gave a host of largely bogus reasons for its action. Why am I not surprised? This is a firm that aided and abetted the subprime crisis — and the devastating financial meltdown that ensued — by giving no-risk ratings to dodgy securities based on mortgages that should never have been written. The firm’s credibility is spent, as is that of the other ratings agencies, Moody’s and Fitch.”

The reasons S&P gave for the downgrade were far from bogus, but Robinson is correct in that the ratings agencies were complicit in the financial meltdown. However, the assertion that S&P’s “credibility is spent” is contradicted by the ensuing drop in the market. Obviously not, then, eh?

“Initially, S&P pinned the downgrade on the sheer size and weight of the mounting federal debt. Treasury officials noticed that S&P had made an error in its calculations, overstating the debt burden by a whopping $2 trillion. This discovery negated the ratings firm’s rationale — so it simply invented another.”

Reading this, you might be led to believe that those numbers alone formed the basis of S&P's rationale for a downgrade. Not so; Robinson is outright lying here. I've already linked to the original S&P report and it's worth reading. What's really more compelling here is that this “mistake” appears to be anything but a mistake. Here’s what appears to have happened: S&P used actual budgeting numbers vs. the Administration’s having used CBO numbers – and the CBO uses assumptions dictated by the WH, and those assumptions are completely implausible (The WH numbers assume that baseline expenditures grow with a nominal GDP increases of 5%/yr while inflation sits at 2.5%.) This is what Liberals are calling a “math error.” S&P revised that part of the budget analysis as the Feds implicitly threatened to strongarm S&P by holding hearings.

“Instead of basing its argument on economics, S&P made an ill-advised foray into political analysis. In its `revised base case scenario,’ the firm assumed that all the Bush tax cuts will remain in place past their scheduled expiration at the end of next year — even for households making more than $250,000 a year. But Obama vows not to let this happen, and S&P apparently fails to understand that after the election he will be in the strongest possible position to stand firm.”

It's amusing to read Robinson chastise S&P for making "an ill-advised foray into political analysis" when his own political analysis is so deeply flawed, and then to see that he in turn has no qualms in blundering about on his own ill-advised forays into economic analysis. You’ll recall that, the last time around, Democrats wanted to keep $298B of the $366B in “Bush” tax cuts. The Dems also promised to eliminate the Doc Fix as a part of the “savings” of Obamacare, but then reneged on that in a matter of months. Really, when you consider all the things POTUS Obama said he’d do, or not do, and then ended up doing the opposite – well, one can hardly blame S&P for a lack of faith. Heck, even in the midst of this Mexican hatdance around the fundamental problem of unsustainable entitlements the Obama Administration created a brand new entitlement.

“Obama should have made clear from the start that if necessary he would take unilateral action, based on the 14th Amendment, to ensure there could never be a default.”

Actually invoking the 14th Amendment for this purpose would have precipitated a constitutional crisis and, if his own party didn’t have control of the Senate, would surely and rightly have led to his impeachment. What’s more, the validity of any T-bills issued under such circumstances would have been of dubious authenticity and would therefore have commanded a high premium for the risk of their turning out to be worthless. Another excellent plan, Robinson.

Fracking Unbelievable

2011-06-02T03:00:00.000-04:00

Presented for your cringe-worthy reading...well..."pleasure" just doesn't seem to fit, as you will see.

Recently, a not-very-close relative (by marriage) whom I will refer to as "Moderate," (as she risibly refers to herself in her Facebook profile...though between pretty much her every position and that of the DNC there's not enough daylight to support the photosynthesis of a forest-floor fern) posted this NYT (Natch) story about hydraulic fracturing (and, the gods help me, I fear the day will never come when my BSG-loving soul will cease to chortle like Beavis when I hear the word, "Fracking," [huh-huh...see?!]). She commented thus:

"Moderate": Drill baby drill....our EPA Chief says there's no evidence of fracking threats to water. Anyway, who cares? It's Texas and no amount of scientific evidence will prevent them from drilling for black gold. Florida will even send over the Sweet Tea...just stay away from our Coasts. :-) [Gee, I wonder how she feels about Texans...and why...]

NOOCYTE: Billions of dollars of domestic revenues, thousands of American jobs, more supply on the global markets (and so less gelt for glorified Bedouins and socialist nut-jobs), and thus far no convincing evidence of environmental damage. What's the down-side? Am I missing something?

“Moderate”: It's in Texas and, acknowledging all the upsides, as you've enumerated, I'm all for it. Where we differ is I don't believe for one minute that fracking is not a hazard, regardless of Lisa Jackson's testimony. It took Medical gurus decades to determine Eggs are GOOD for us. Seemed a no brainer to me, which is why we've always eaten them. Have the opposite, no brainer instinct on fracking, where scientific analysis is in its infancy. As long as it's not happening off the Florida Coasts, and my drinking water isn't being piped in from Houston, I'm happy to support it. ;-) [heart-warmingly altruistic, innit?]

Occam's Stubble (“Moderate's” husband [Note: English is not his first language, so no fair judging on writing skills...no fair, and hardly necessary, as you will see...]): There are 1000 "secret" chemicals used in Fracking.

Noocyte: It's a fairly straightforward matter to test groundwater on an on-going basis. The proprietary nature of the chemicals involved in the activities of companies engaged in highly competitive extraction procedures does not change that. If impurities are found, then investigations will ensue, and countermeasures implemented. It's not like there is any shortage of watchful environmentalist eyes on this (informed by the aesthetic, "instinctive" aversion to industrial development which is their stock in trade). Given the lack of evidence of harm thus far, and the immense benefits of the technology, it seems only sensible and sane to proceed. And, for once, that sense and sanity appears to be winning the day.

Occam's Stubble: Lack of evidence? So why all the secrets? Its not a competitive issue that IP ["Intellectual Property] can not cover. As a Chemical Engineer, I understand the process and there is much harm. There is marketable value and benefits, but there is much harm to the extent the industry was made exempt legal action. See the documentary GasLand on HBO. [BWAAAA-hahahaha!!!]

Noocyte: Thousands of wells, years of data, sworn testimony of numerous experts (from across the whole political spectrum), and the lack of ONE case of demonstrable harm tied to the process itself (as opposed to localized mishandlings of safety procedures).....versus one widely-discredited piece of cinematic agitprop. I'll take Door #1, thanx.

Not all secrets are conspiracies; industrial espionage is a real threat viz an emerging technology where any slim advantage can score a company (which is investing $tens of billions) critical market share.

Random Drone: gasland explains it all. It is devestating [sic{k}]

“Moderate”: If a substantial number of GOP members on the Hill had their way, there would be no investigations of anything and the EPA wouldn't exist, so who/what would be conducting investigations? We should trust the gas industry to police itself? <...lol>

To reiterate, Texas is welcome to Frack away and let's give them massive tax subsidies to carry out their environmental hazards. I'll be happy to reap the benefits and none of the health risks. ;-) [After all, they're only Texans!]

Occam's Stubble: [NOOCYTE], you surprise me. Pulverizing, liquefying the underground with water, mud and tons of "secret" chemicals, poisoning aqueducts [citation?], gas leaking all over the place [ibid], into the water wells, the air, etc, etc, [ibid, ibid] there is harm [because I say so] . To say this is safe for the areas people around it, it is ludicrous. You probably also believe the Golf spill caused no harm as well [based on...]. No sea mammals dead. No pollution for years to come. Yes, when a secret group of oil, gas executive met with Cheney [I was WONDERING when he'd show up!] , hide their agenda, created new laws exclusive to them, bending existing laws, effectively making them exempt to the Clean Water Act and many other EPA mandates, then its corporate conspiracy to weigh the risk of benefits vs harm [HORRORS!]. To say, there is no harm is ludicrous [not necessarily...but then, I never did say that, did I?]. There is no corporate conspiracy, beside the fact IP is good enough, the land was divvy up even before they had the land deeds. And when it couldn't be taken for the cheap, they went in sideways underground to quicksand the earth [that is, there are fewer drill points, and a smaller above-ground footprint...and this is a BAD thing...]. There are clusters of environmental and health issues, and many close settlements. Hey, we live in the society and we all need the energy. But so suggest it is clean, no harm, you surprise me. Thought you were more smarter than that.

Noocyte: So, by way of arguing your point, you simply repeat your assertion, but include more adjectives, in order to make hydrofracturing sound more like rape (since everyone knows that the best way to make a scientific argument is to evoke an emotional/aesthetic reaction), and to throw in the perception of consensus/authority (technically known as the "C'mon! *EVERYBODY* knows this; whatsamaddawitchoo?!" mode of argumentation). And in a final flourish to make a logician leap with glee, you throw in the venerable "I thought you were smarter than this" variant of the "No smart people would disagree with me" argument. Real tour-de-force, there.

Let me try: These companies are engaged in a contest with each other to find the best formula for most effectively flushing the goopy black (and potentially explosive...can you *PROVE* that it's not a mortal danger down there?...) tarry stuff from between the layers of Mother Earth's otherwise pristine crystals, infusing these ingredients in such a way that spider-web-like filigrees of delicate fissures spread and grow to allow the toxins to flow out. What sensible and sensitive person would want to stand in the way of this cleansing ritual? It's perfectly *OBVIOUS* that this is so, regardless of what anyone (with questionable motives and uncertain moral fibre) might say to the contrary.

Better yet: Point me to a SINGLE conclusive bit of evidence that Fraccing has contaminated drinking water (hint: you won't find one), released levels of methane into the air and water that exceed what happens naturally (ditto), or had any other higher-than-error-variance effect on any natural system whatsoever (trifecta!). Talk to me about the results of the EPA study, when they come out in 3 months or so.

And please try to do better than "Gasbags" or whatever by way of supporting documents. If I had $100 for every documented falsehood and distortion in that sad waste of videotape, I could drill my own damn well.

Possibly Sensible Skeptic: [Noocyte].. ?: to what do you refer to to prove your point: an article, TV documentary, personal work experience or all of these? JA [Ed: “JA” = Just Asking”]

Noocyte: [Potentially Sensible Skeptic]: multiple sources. Can provide sample links later, but I'm on mobile at the pool, and wee keyboard is a PITA for such things. Suffice to say, I don't single-source anything, not even/especially not the things with which I agree. Multiple sources and layered vetting insulates me against...well...against things like Gasland.

Potentially Sensible Skeptic: [Noocyte]...Thx

“Moderate”: Science is not my strong suit [clearly] and I won't pretend to know this technology. That's why I married a chemical engineer. :-)) [Well, then....nah, I'll be good...] I'm convinced fracking is detrimental [what was that part about not pretending...?] but Texas is a state with a mindset that doesn't care about environmental hazards as evidenced by history. Let them frack away, and I'll be happy to be a recipient of more plentiful US Oil.

Noocyte: [Potentially Sensible Skeptic]: As promised, here is a slice of the sourcing I've done so far on this subject:

Scientific American article raises legitimate questions, debunks assorted “Gasland” myths, and indicates no evidence of groundwater contamination:

http://...www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=us-investigates-safety-of-natural

And here's a report from the Geological Society of London, drawing on both US and UK data, again showing no evidence of environmental harm from hydrofracturing:

http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/pid/9936;jsessionid=BB88DCFA6E9CB1D16C42E5438165C91C

Here's a link to an EPA study from 2004, which actually deemed fracking to be sufficiently low-risk as to merit no further study (which it's subsequently getting anyway, which is a GOOD thing...but which paints a picture of the history of the subject's treatment):

http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/uic/pdfs/cbmstudy_attach_uic_resp_to_comments.pdf

Finally this article from Popular Mechanics discusses a fracking-related accident in PA, showing that the contamination which resulted from that accident was related to specific hardware problems at the site, and NOT to the process itself:

http://m.popularmechanics.com/science/8521/full/

That should do for now, as I have no wish to SPAM this thread. But it's a fair sample of the sorts of vetting which needs to be done on...well, ANY subject, but especially on one which partakes of such strong emotions and connects with so many fundamental (and generally unspoken/unacknowledged)
assumptions.

Occam's Stubble: [Noocyte], you're wrong and there is plenty of evidence [which I will now proceed to NOT provide], but more importantly, for any scientist, its common sense [Funny, here I was thinking that science was one of the ways we protected ourselves from the "Common Sense" of "Authorities..." What a silly peon I've been. To the Camps with me, then!]. I think my credentials as a chemical engineering [Hey, I wonder if this guy might be a Chemical Engineer or something...] suggest I do know more about "pollution" than you do, so I won't bother wasting my time with such nonsense.[QED, GIGO]

Otherwise Smart Person: I have no comment on fracking; I simply don't know enough about the technology to say. *But* as for the downside, 4 words: burning more fossil fuels! In the short run, and for my lifetime...I'll be selfish and say let's do it and get off the Saudi, er, tit, as it were, and lower the fuel prices. However...in the (not so) long run, and I mean in another 50 years - after I'm gone hopefully - God help those on this planet who will be dealing with all the fallout from our ever worsening global warming scenario!...If we can plow $$$ into this, we can also plow money into alternative energies! The technology is there. ....and please don't ask me to provide sources for global warming due to burning of fossil fuels. That shipped sailed long ago. Basically 98% of the world climate scientists say so - that's good enough for me....!

[...]

Noocyte: [Otherwise Smart Person]: The fossil fuels are going to be burned anyway, within any reasonable time frame. The alternatives lack the reliability, energy density, and scalability to change that to any meaningful degree in the near term. The question, then, becomes: "who profits from them?" As you note, the Saudi udder leads back to a metabolism which adds nothing to the world but cultural and geopolitical flatulence. If instead that voluminous lucre were to flow into American coffers, it would serve to enrich a society which is unmatched for innovation and inventiveness. If *any* society stands a chance to take the increase in economic dynamism which such profits would provide, and leverage it toward the development of such things as core taps, tidal power, on-orbit solar generation, evolved fission (thorium and pebble-bed systems, as well as reprocessing+), and eventual fusion power, it's certainly NOT the Clown Princes of the dune states. And it's sure as shootin' not that basket-case Chavez and his sulfurous sludge (not to mention his oil).

+...and, alas, as I noted on another thread, we can scratch Germany from that pursuit!

Occam's Stubble: [Noocyte], Go visit a Petroleum Plant, geez, don't you smell that crap when you on 95 or near the airport [because everyone knows that nothing in nature smells bad, and everything that smells bad is a hazard]. This stuff is BAD and weighing it against the society gains/risk is a DIFFERENT matter altogether, but quit the bullshit that this stuff isn't harmful [ummm...No?]. You are talking to a Chemical Engineer and I've worked on Coal, Oil and Nuclear and the waste factor is the common problem and there is simply a long history of the cluster side effects. Pleezzzzz.

Occam's Stubble: And for the layman, Gas was also part of my work, including extractions from all known sources including COW MANURE! [Seriously, what could I possibly add at this juncture?!]

[Ah hell: So I threw in one more comment. What can I say: I'm a tinkerer...]

Noocyte: Final note: I'm dismayed to have to point out that, were one to re-read my posts on this thread, nowhere would one find me making the definitive assertion that hydraulic fracturing is *harmless.* The reason for that is that.... I. Don't. Know. What I *have* said is that scientific analysis had thus far quite failed to demonstrate harmfulness (that is, failed to disprove the null hypothesis), and, given this, it is sensible to proceed, with continued study and oversight, in light of the ENORMOUS benefits to our society of exploiting these PRODIGIOUS indigenous energy reserves.

But, if subsequent analysis were to show statistically significant evidence that fracking is as harmful as gargling plutonium at an outdoor Cher concert...without sunscreen, then I'd be first in line to demand substantial modification --or outright dumping-- of the procedure.

Funny thing about science: one of its chief benefits to our civilization is the degree to which it *protects* us against the "Common Sense" of those who cloak themselves in the mantle of one sort of Authority or another, and demand that we acquiesce to the "no-brainer" assertions which they deem themselves to be above having to support with such dreary minutiae as..you know...*evidence*.

Environmentalist Victory! One Step Closer to a Utopia of Stone Knives and Bear Skins!

2011-05-30T14:15:00.000-04:00

I am authentically pissed about this!

It reveals a level of information processing for which a central nervous system is altogether optional, a primitive tropism more suited to algea than anthropos. It is just the sort of unreflective herd-'thinking' which led me to cease --with extreme prejudice-- referring to myself as an "Environmentalist" a long time ago.

Yah, let's turn a net energy exporter into a land of rolling brownouts (when the wind dies down) and imported Russian gas (when you don't offend them), because of the great risk represented by all of those infamous German earthquakes and tsunamis....oh...wait...

Agent K: "A person is smart. People are dumb, dangerous, panicky animals, and you know it!"

In-fracking-deed. Alas, Dr. Crichton, you left us too soon!

Afghanistan: They'll Cut (a deal) and Run

2011-05-18T21:11:00.002-04:00

[by Mr.Hengist]

The initial reports had the casualties at 80 dead and 120 wounded in Charsadda, Pakistan, on May 13, 2011. The attack was loosely targeted at a training center for Pakistani security forces. One bomb killed cadets and, notably, bystanders at a nearby market. The second bomb, by design, killed first responders tending the victims of the first bomb. In this how the Taliban expressed their sympathy and anger, in deeds fitting their words, at the U.S. having sent ObL to sleep with the fishes. In deeds, how like ObL and Al Qaeda; their aims and methods make for a well-suited match. It's a timely and poignant reminder of why we unleashed our fury on them in the aftermath of 9/11, and a rebuke of our having let so many flee to safety. We should have done a better job of cutting off their escape routes and killed them in in far larger numbers.

POTUS Obama reluctantly fulfilled his campaign pledge by increasing our troop presence in Afghanistan by paltry numbers. Having done so, POTUS Obama is now once again looking for the exit. Instead of redoubling our efforts in response to Taliban atrocities, the Administration "has accelerated direct talks with the Taliban" and "U.S. officials say they hope [this] will enable President Obama to report progress toward a settlement of the Afghanistan war when he announces troop withdrawals in July." Let's hope the Taliban don't cut a deal until at least the next round of U.S. elections so that we can replace these Democrats before they can run away.

Two Shots and a Splash

2011-05-05T21:11:00.002-04:00

[by Mr.Hengist]

The news came late and I was already visiting the Land of Nod, during which all I could dream about was making stock. Vegetable & meat stock in my slow-cooker. All night long, dream after dream. I kept waking up and thinking, "Augh, another one - why can't I have better dreams?" I've been planning on making that dream come true this weekend when I'll use my slow-cooker for the first time to make vegetable/meat stock, and I've been sort-of looking forward to it, but spending a whole night dreaming about is kind of lame.

When I woke up and checked the news I learned that another dream had already come true. A desire, really, not a dream - an angry, blood-lust desire for death upon that POS ObL. I read the banner headline and, as is typical of me, I had no reaction but an unverbalized need to read more, to learn more, to put the headline into a context into which I could weigh its veracity. ObL dead, they say, but we know that many of Al Qaeda leadership have been declared killed many times, only to pop up alive again whack-a-mole style. The more I read the more certain I became that it was a believable claim, although I will admit that when I read that the body had been dumped at sea I had my first verbal thought, which was "How convenient." I'm a skeptic by nature. I guess it just takes time to sink in when the news is big; further reflection elevated the probability of the truth status of this news to high. OK, look, I hadn't had any coffee that early in the morning and, in retrospect, it probably would have helped things along. The news started to sink in when I got into the shower.

ObL is dead. Well, good.

Surprisingly, that's all it's amounted to for me, in terms of the emotional resonance it's had on me. Not triumphalism, not jubilation, not even satisfaction. Pity, that; I'd hoped to get more mileage out of it. Granted, I'm not one for celebrations in general, but I've gotten more jollies out of finding a stray sawbuck on the sidewalk. I'm not sure why. I still feel anger and sadness at 9/11 when I think about the horror of that day, and I still feel the hot anger and bloodlust well up when I think about the jihadists and their evildoings. I don't know and I'm not going to dwell on it because it's not important. ObL is dead and that's a good thing, even if that's all there is to it for me.

Kudos to our combined intelligence and military which carried out the mission, with well-deserved accolades to follow. Surely the kill-team need never buy their own drinks again. Kudos to the Obama Administration for following through with the pursuit and having the cojones to execute when the opportunity was established. Really, you have to hand it to POTUS Obama: candidate Obama said he would go into Pakistan to get high-value targets, and, by Crom, he has. He's long-since stepped up the missile attacks inside of Pakistan, and with this mission he's ordered a boots-on-the-ground assassination of a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, highest value target. May the Cambodianization of Pakistan continue until we've reached a satisfactory outcome.

There's snark and criticism to be had at the expense of the Obama Administration, yes, but it's mostly persnickety. I will add the following thoughts:

- Assassination mission against ObL, not "kill or capture": good. The potential for intelligence gleaned from interrogation has little promise in this case. Let's face it: there's nothing we could offer to coax it out, and this administration would probably not extract it by force. The fiasco of trying to apply the due process of a civil prosecution which we've already seen with the Gitmo detainees would go to 11 for ObL; better to avoid it altogether.

- Burial at sea: good. For exactly the reasons given for doing it, it's good. Granted, my first impulse was far more excessive even than Glenn Beck's ("wrapped in bacon"), so much so that I will not sully this blog with my dark and profane fantasies, but I've reconsidered the matter and the disposal of the corpse as it was done was the correct strategic decision, IMHO.

- The ever-changing details of the mission: sadly, it's to be expected. I've come to the point where I note with a mental "Asterisk of Doubt" all information we get in the opening days of crisis. Even seemingly unmistakable chunks of a story can later turn out to be altogether wrong.

- Not releasing the ObL kill-photo: my loss. I'd like to add it to my collection, as a trophy. At any rate, the era of photographic "proof" has passed for this kind of thing, as everybody knows that, given enough time and a motivated forger with good photoshop chops, one can fake such a thing. It reminds me of a podcast to which I'd listened of an event at the Heritage Foundation, "The Role of Psychological Operations in Strategic Communications" in which one of the speakers describes talking to Afghan villagers after 9/11 and how they didn't believe it happened, even after being shown video. Oh, they knew about airplanes, sure, because airplanes flew over the skies of Afghanistan, but skyscrapers? Why, everyone knows you can't build a building that high! They were convinced it was some kind of Hollywood trickery. At any rate, there is an accounting to be made amongst the Leftists who oppose the release of the ObL death-photo yet clamored for the release of Abu Ghraib photos - another time, surely.

Not surprisingly, there's a chorus from Liberals that the death of ObL means we should get out of Afghanistan. As if that was ever the point. Well, I'll give the hippy-dippy peaceniks credit for consistency on this: when things go well, they see that as a reason we can finally leave, and when things don't go well, they use that as an argument for why we should leave. They did that for Iraq just as they're now doing it for Afghanistan; it's sort-of an unfalsifiable assertion in that regard.

This is why it's important for the Obama Administration to make it clear that our fight wasn't just against Al Qaeda, but rather it is against the jihadists who seek to destroy the West and subjugate the world under Sharia Law. Sadly, of course, he won't do any such thing, as neither he nor Democrats in general seem to believe any such thing.

At the very least there must be a dear price to be paid by Pakistan for their complicity and aid to Al Qaeda, and the jihidists who fight us and our Allies in Afghanistan and India and elsewhere. Perhaps Obama has the temerity to cut off aid; I suppose it possible he might more closely ally the U.S. with India. I'm ready to be pleasantly surprised - but not hopeful.

Thoughts on the End of Osama

2011-05-02T02:18:00.000-04:00

I have just quaffed my last shot of Paddy's Irish whiskey, purchased in Ireland, which I've been saving (since 2002!) for this very occasion. It's been confirmed that Osama bin Laden has --at long last-- been removed from the equation.

Some of my friends have been expressing unease about the celebratory frame with which we greet the death of another person, however ghastly his acts in this life. This disquiet is to their credit, in a broad, humanistic sense...I suppose.

After all, we all begin as infants, seeking milk and warmth and comfort, innocent and without stain.

But those who grow to make it their life's work to deny these things to others have parted ways with the mass of humanity to whom very much empathy is owed. I am not unmindful of the loss at the heart of Osama's loss of heart. But nor am I inclined to shed a tear for the stilling of that cold, twisted organ.

The world is now a fractionally better place.

Some expressed discomfort with the 'eye-for-an-eye' quality of Osama's death, expressing a preference for a more New Testament approach to such things. Maybe it helps to think of this more as a "render unto Caesar" thing than an 'eye for an eye' thing. It is not mere vengeance nor even 'retributive justice' to end the life of one who actively and passionately strives to end the lives of others. As I said, a while back, whatever one's narrative of how it arises, the chilling subordination of essential human empathy to the merciless logic of ideology must be resisted with every sinew of our civilization, for the sake of civilization itself.

This was less an act of 'payback' than it was an immune response.

Some have voiced misgivings about the potential for retaliatory strikes, to avenge the death of 'the Emir.' This is not a concern which is lightly brushed aside. It is a very real possibility. However, one of the few things for which I all-but-unreservedly give credit to this Administration in its otherwise feckless and incoherent foreign policy is the blistering tempo of operations --via drone strikes, primarily-- against the command structure of al Qaeda within Afghanistan and (arguably more importantly) Pakistan. The capacity of that organization to mount operations has been very severely degraded compared to its past capacity to project force. By no means can the will of al Qaeda to inflict retributive damage be discounted. However, the logistical and command-and-control capacities of that organization have been scrambled quite devastatingly. This is not to say that the "franchise operations" which have come terrifyingly close to snuffing out countless lives in recent years will not land a blow, which they will attribute to revenge for their fallen leader. But can anyone seriously argue that such strikes would not have been in the offing in any case? If anything, timetables may be accelerated to seize the occasion, thus providing more opportunities for critical, actionable errors and breaches of OPSEC.

It's been a while since OBL could realistically be called the head of the snake. But this is one mortal coil about whose shuffling off I have no qualms in hailing most heartily.

The whiskey, after all, did age most deliciously!

Keynes/Hayek Throw Down

2011-05-01T01:30:00.001-04:00

(H/T to Mike-The-Lone-Reader-Of-The-'Cyte)

I am in awe at the sheer density of awesomeness in this vid. I'd seen it linked elsewhere, but was deterred by the 10-plus-minute runtime. Silly, silly 'Cyte. It's a pugilistic rap-battle, pitting the top-down, interventionist Keynesian model against the free-market, Classical Liberal position of F. A. Hayek. Hilarious and well-produced, and informative, and surprisingly balanced.

Worth. Your. Time.

Failure To Launch

2011-04-30T03:00:00.002-04:00

I was thinking today about how fitting it was for President Obama to be present at today's final launch of another Shuttle. After all, I thought, who better to preside over the end of an Endeavor? But I suppose this works, too.

Anyway, that scrubbed liftoff was very much on my mind as I read this piece from Investors about the Reagan Administration's recession recovery and that of 44 (H/T to Instapundit).

I remember in the 80s how righteous I felt as I poo-poohed "Trickle-Down Economics" (and isn't that just an infelicitous pairing of images!). The difference from then to now is akin to that from rocket fuel to corn-based ethanol.

We'll be lucky if we clear the gantry at this rate.

UPDATE: Bad link fixed.

Transparency

2011-04-30T01:38:00.004-04:00

To borrow a formulation from Glen Reynolds:

They told me that if I voted for John McCain, freedom of the press would be stifled. And they were right!

UPDATE: Well, if I'm gonna be scooped, it might as well be in as fitting a manner as this!

UPDATE: Grf! Fixed another bad link. Thanks to Mr H for alerting me to another installment of the Blogger Follies.

A Royal Flush

2011-04-29T02:05:00.000-04:00

(Adapted from a Facebook reply to a friend who wondered: "Not to offend anyone, but why should anyone on this side of the Atlantic give a rat's ass about the royal wedding?")

In a few hours, millions of people --an uncomfortable number of whom reside in the US-- will be rising early from their slumbers to witness the pomp and pageantry of the wedding of Prince what's-his-face with what's-her-name.

The best answer I can give to my friend's query is this: Because Americans have, right from the start, exhibited a deep (and, I submit, deeply unhealthy) obsession with the very sort of aristocracy which, I seem to recall, we kinda fought a war to shake off.

We're always trying to turn our celebrities and politicians and "Robber Barons" into a kind of royalty, while we look on, agog with admiration (and envy) from our serf-tilled fields. The tabloids and tell-all documentaries are our modern guillotines.

It's almost as though we've not ever quite recovered from the collective trauma of eliminating an hereditary gentry from our culture and society, and substituting a truly egalitarian, meritocratic system.

But there's really nothing quite as UN-AMERICAN as the very notion of an aristocracy. Personally, I find the whole thing nauseating in the extreme.

Needless to say, I won't be setting my alarm.

Progressive Standards of Civility - both of them

2011-04-21T21:11:00.007-04:00

[by Mr.Hengist]

Last night I was mulling over something VPOTUS Biden said regarding the current budget dispute: "The Republicans this time are totally, and I don't mean this in a pejorative sense, are out of the closet." It's an interesting use of that phrase. Biden did of course mean this in the pejorative; they are "out of the closet" in terms of their public plans for the Federal budget, and pejorative in the sense that Biden thinks they intend to do wrong and wishes to debate against their nefarious plans. Nevertheless, what struck me was that he would use that turn of phrase at all - and that Liberals have let it slide. Progressives see themselves as gay rights advocates and the defenders of gay dignity, so how is it that one of their own can use this turn of phrase in this way - referring to Republicans revealing their true and (supposedly) harmful intent? If he had said, "the monster's out from under the bed" it would have been a different matter, but "out of the closet" is strictly associated with homosexuals revealing their orientation, and it's considered a good thing. Using it to describe what Liberals consider to be evil Republican goals is oddly inappropriate.

What, I wondered, would be the Progressive response if Republicans had used this "out of the closet" phrase in a similar way but aimed at Democrats? If, say, VPOTUS Cheney had remarked that we now see the Democrats "totally out of the closet" in regards to their intent to dramatically cut DOD funding? I imagined the response would be swift and strongly condemning. As luck would have it, today we are treated to a real-life example - and even better, it's not just used by Republicans but it's also aimed at Republicans.

A college Republican group called upon conservatives in the student body to "come out of the closet." University of Iowa professor Ellen Lewin's response, in an email back to the students: "F--- you, Republicans."

Vulgar and uncivil, certainly, and weren't Liberals decrying the "incivility" of the Right only a few of months ago after the Giffords shooting (by a non-right-wing madman, no less)? In a NYTimes blogpost just last week the Nobel laureate NYTimes columnist Dr. Paul Krugman's mask drops, falls to the floor, and explodes (to lift a phrase from Steven Hayward at Power Line) when he informed us that "Civility is the Last Refuge of Scoundrels." This would be the same Paul Krugman who joined the Right-bashing party by blaming the Right for the Giffords shooting (see here, and here). Note well the double-standards to which Liberals hold themselves vs. their political opposition; they demand civility from the Right as they continue to fling poo at them.

Call it another example of The Pretext of Principles. If it weren't for situational principles, what principles would they have left? This one: What we do is good, what they do is bad - always, even when it's the same thing.

The Bare Cupboard of the EU Paper Tigers

2011-04-16T21:11:00.003-04:00

[by Mr.Hengist]

It's been pointed out by many (and so asserted by me during my ’04 conversation with Noocyte) that the European militaries have been pared back past the point of their being useful allies in any significant conflict. This harvest of shame is the fruit of their folly in the war of the Euroweenies versus the Arsenal of Kleptocracy. In an article in the April 16, 2011 WaPo, we learn this:

“Less than a month into the Libyan conflict, NATO is running short of precision bombs, highlighting the limitations of Britain, France and other European countries in sustaining even a relatively small military action over an extended period of time, according to senior NATO and U.S. officials.”

Good grief, but there’s more:

“[…] the current bombing rate by the participating nations is not sustainable. “The reason we need more capability isn’t because we aren’t hitting what we see — it’s so that we can sustain the ability to do so. One problem is flight time, the other is munitions,” said another official, one of several who were not authorized to discuss the issue on the record.”

The problem of flight time is a function of their having to traverse relatively long distances from Allied airbases to Libyan targets. This has multiple effects on the campaign, all of them bad:

- Large quantities of expensive fuel are consumed,
- Wear & tear are put on aircraft, leading to increased maintenance costs and overall downtime, as well as hastening the point at which the aircraft will have to undergo overhaul.
- Fewer sorties can be flown overall because the strike craft spend so much time in transit.
- Enemy weapons can inflict damage on their targets in the meantime.
- Intelligence can become stale, and enemy targets can move out of area or into a protected space, like a residential neighborhood.

Would that they had carrier groups to park offshore, but of course, they don’t.

“European arsenals of laser-guided bombs, the NATO weapon of choice in the Libyan campaign, have been quickly depleted, officials said. Although the United States has significant stockpiles, its munitions do not fit on the British- and French-made planes that have flown the bulk of the missions.”

European airframes not compatible with American weaponry. How very stupid. What’s next? “We can’t put boots on the ground – our dainty stiletto heels will sink into the sand! Help us, Uncle Sam!”

“Libya “has not been a very big war. If [the Europeans] would run out of these munitions this early in such a small operation, you have to wonder what kind of war they were planning on fighting,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense think tank. “Maybe they were just planning on using their air force for air shows.”

Perhaps a fresh salvo of strongly worded memos from the U.N. will do the trick, or it’s on to the big guns of U.N. binding resolutions!

Remember this the next time you hear a leftist indignantly whine about how U.S. military expenditures exceed those of our allies. Butterflies and rainbow unicorn farts do not win wars. It is our allies who have been underspending and are woefully unprepared.

On to Libya and Liberation

2011-03-22T21:11:00.008-04:00

[by Mr.Hengist]

Our Nobel Peace Prize winner of a POTUS has gotten us into another war in the Middle East, and I suppose I should weigh in. I'm agin' it, but by no means vociferously, and it was by no means an easy decision.

I'll grant that I've got a neocon streak a mile wide, depending on how we define "neocon", and freeing the oppressed people of Libya from QaDaffy by military force would be a good thing. Briefly, here are my reasons for opposing this military intervention, in no particular order despite their numeration:

1. We don't know who these rebels are or what they want. We've been asked by some of them, not clearly representative of the rebellion in whole or in part, to intervene on their behalf in the name of democracy. This does not speak to their makeup or goals per se; our enemies would gladly have us use our superior forces to smite their enemies for them. I had hoped that our government would have a better handle on who these rebels are and what they want, but from what I've read that doesn't seem to be the case.

2. The rebels are neither well-organized nor well-prepared. This seems to have been an opportunistic rebellion, and that does not bode well for success. If they can pull this off it will likely mean an ensuing power vacuum - in a nation and region known for strongmen. A ground presence and nation building would mitigate this problem, and the Afghanistan & Iraq experiences have demonstrated that it is unreasonable to expect a quick exit.

3. We're late. The time to intervene would have been weeks ago; now the rebellion is substantially degraded. The probability that they will not be able to regain momentum, and that this will result in outright failure, slowly or quickly, is now much higher, as is the probability that there will be a prolonged stalemate.

4. The Democrats are in charge, and Democrats are weak and indecisive in matters of war. I've been concerned that, should we engage the Libyan regime:

4a) The Rules of Engagement would be so restrictive and vague as to hamper our war effort. That fear has been borne out: our mission is to "protect civilians". How our pilots are supposed to discern this from the air will is left an open question. Erring on the side of caution at the cost of civilian lives is the only rational option allied pilots can make, lest they expose themselves to charges, justified or not, of exceeding their authorization and the boundaries of their Rules of Engagement. It's no way to run a war.

4b) Democrats are notorious for their weak-kneed capitulation when we run into setbacks, and setbacks are a part of war. Cutting and running will make us look weak to our enemies, and Democrats don't have the cojones they'd need to see it through. The clanging of POTUS W's brass balls once had KaDaffy on his back peeing himself (i.e., preemptively surrendering his WMD programs); POTUS Obama's finger-in-the-wind has been demonstratively less intimidating.

4c) POTUS Obama does not seem to be personally invested or interested in this military engagement. Since the passage of U.N. Resolution 1973 POTUS Obama has done a video with his NCAA bracket, gone to a Democrat fundraising gala, done a conference on childhood bullying, and gone off with family to vacation in Rio. Indeed, as the bombs began to fall in Libya our President was playing with children. At the very least these are bad optics; at worst they are indicative of his lack of interest.

4d) Democrats and their Liberal base seem somewhat divided over whether to support this course of action, and where they stand is important because they control the Senate and the White House. This division is not surprising given the lack of effort on the part of the White House to sell it to fellow Democrats, Liberals, or the nation. Will the kneejerk antiwar Libs mobilize in numbers and cause the Congress to follow suit, leading to the caving of the White House, or will the base coalesce into support for the POTUS with the Congress following suit? Domestic political winds could very well change the course of the war, unfortunately; again, the Dems, being a party heavily influenced on major policy decisions by polling data, are neither steady nor reliable when it comes to making war.

5. War is expensive and we're deeply in debt, and going into deeper debt at a rate that can only be described as "freefall." Our existing commitments are costing us dearly, and, as much as I'd like to free the peoples of the world, it's not in the budget and the money isn't there.

6. Libya has mostly kept to itself in recent years, and it no longer has WMD capability. Unlike some other hostile nations which have been actively causing trouble and/or waging war on us and our allies (Iran and North Korea spring to mind), regime change in Libya does not serve our national interests as well. Were our economy stronger or Libya more belligerent this consideration would be much less important.

That having been said, we're in it now, and so we must see it through. I sincerely wish success in the mission to our armed forces and to the Obama Administration. Let's acknowledge that there are two possible outcomes: the KwaDaffy regime is overthrown or the rebels lose and are crushed, with a prolonged stalemate only postponing one of these two outcomes. Let's let the natives duke it out and not commit ground troops; whether the rebels win or lose this one our ground forces are not sufficient for a third land war.

The way to help them win this is to clobber Libyan armed forces until they are crushed, clobber the regime structure from the top down as best we can, and let the rebels take care of the rest. It's been done before, in Afghanistan, although it's worth noting that the resulting power vacuum necessitated nation building in order to prevent the Taliban from retaking power. The circumstances here are different and we need not commit to the replacement of the GaDaffy regime with a democratic republic. If the rebels win, then good luck with that, we gave them the chance and they'll have to make the most of it. I am not supportive of committing ground troops, even if the alternative is that the rebels lose. If they lose, and QwaDaffy stays in power, then I'm prepared to take that loss and walk away.

This issue has prompted me to think over what I stand for, and what I want to see happen. I've been, for some years, in favor of using military power projection to overthrow oppressive regimes. The recent worldwide economic crises and our ballooning government budgets have also led me to reconsider my thinking on deficit spending; getting our economic situation rectified is now a priority for me. If it is in fact a priority then Libya has forced me to choose between goals. One conclusion to which I've come is that the bottom line, literally, is that we must get our financial house in order.

As an aside, this does not extend to our current commitments to Afghanistan and Iraq. In Iraq, we have been largely successful, we have met our commitments, and we are on a timetable to withdraw - an agreement hammered out between the Bush Administration and the government of Iraq, and continued without modification by the Obama Administration. Good enough.

I'm also not ready to quit on Afghanistan. I believe it's a winnable war but I don't believe POTUS Obama is committed to win it. The key to victory in Afghanistan is in establishing a reasonably strong government and armed forces, and the Karzai government is not making it happen. A priority for me here is not handing victory to the Taliban, which would be unacceptable. So, for Afghanistan, we must continue to expend blood and treasure-we-don't-have to keep that from happening.

At any rate, I've also had to doublecheck whether my opposition to POTUS Obama, Democrats, and Liberalism have skewed my thinking. I've had to ask myself how sure I am that I am not opposed to this Libyan action simply because it's Obama's war. I'm also aware that the optics on this blogpost aren't favorable to me either, what with my coming out against this just after my political opposition has gone and done it; it could be taken as a purely partisan positioning. I'm reasonably satisfied that I'm not fooling myself in this regard, and that my position is not partisan in nature. Your mileage may vary, but whatever you make of my motivations, I've tried to lay out my reasoning above.

Pawlenty Good Enough For Me

2011-03-21T13:21:00.000-04:00

CNN reports that Governor Tim Pawlenty will be announcing the formation of a Presidential Exploratory Committee today. Not surprised, but pleased to see it happening. Unfortunately, Romney's stock has taken what appears to be a terminal hit from "Romneycare." I say "unfortunately" because, on balance, my understanding is that, in its original form (that is, before it accrued the myriad barnacles which the deep-blue MA legislature affixed to it before passage), it was not altogether objectionable. And besides, the State level is where experiments like that should be run in a Federalist system: NOT a top-down, heavy-handed Transformation air-dropped on the entire Nation from the banks of the Potomac. But I'm not sanguine about the Mittens' ability to close that sale. I wouldn't write him off entirely...but the cap's off the pen.

But I digress.

There is much chatter about T-Paw's "boring" personality, which really itches me. On the issues, he's pretty much five-by-five. And we already know the true market value of political rock stars...

I think T-Paw’s Midwest civility will be a net positive, despite all the “boring” blather. Despite being a train-wreck of a POTUS, Obama is still widely liked, personally (I know. Go figure.). Someone who savages him in debates may find it a Pyrrhic victory. By contrast, Pawlenty’s smart and right-headed enough to be relentlessly correct on the issues, systematically deconstructing the Won’s fables without getting all wild-eyed about it.

T-Paw’s squeaky-clean, non-demagogic, slow-’n-steady demeanor may be just what we need to snare the napping hare. His presence as an even-tempered, humble, affable, but principled administrator strikes just the right tone for what the Tea Parties are *really* about, which is a government that knows its place and does not presume to overstep its bounds.

And wouldn’t it be TEH AWESOME if he could find a VPOTUS named Good(e)?

Modern Electronics Designed to Fail. Yay.

2011-03-01T21:11:00.003-05:00

[by Mr.Hengist]

Interesting: "It is by no means uncommon" for modern IC integration design engineers to assume the fast obsolescence of the end product, and therefore IC environmental protections are not incorporated. Such devices will therefore have short lifetimes by design, and while that's not a problem in market due to fast obsolescence, it means that you're SOL if you want to keep such a device for an extended period of time.

It reminds me of the story of Henry Ford, who perused junk yards for his cars. He asked the proprietors which parts lasted longest, and then instructed his engineers to make those parts more cheaply because, by his reasoning, they were overbuilt.

Anyways, here's the relevant quote:

The traditional functions of a semiconductor device package are to protect the die from degradation by the atmosphere and fan-out the electrical interconnects to the next level. Because of the benign environment in which most modern semiconductors are used coupled with short expected life through product obsolescence, the need for the package to provide environmental protection has virtually disappeared. It is by no means uncommon to see essentially package-less chips attached to circuit boards, with just a polymer covering over the exposed bond pads.

Milestone

2011-01-21T02:55:00.000-05:00

Apropos of nothing, I felt I would be remiss in failing to point out that today marks the point at which it will be exactly two years till the inauguration day of the next POTUS (as per the "Gone" counter in the sidebar, which shows 730 days, and counting...). As Dante began his journey through and out of the Underworld at the midpoint of his life ("Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita..."), so do we as a Nation find ourselves at the solstice of this Boschian Winter of an administration.

Here's hoping our own version of Vergil shows up ere long!

Glenn Greenwald Bites Into a Bitter Reality Sandwich

2011-01-20T21:11:00.002-05:00

[by Mr.Hengist]

Glenn Greenwald put out a piece on January 18th, 2011 which must have been as difficult for him to write as it was amusing for me to read. With a title that, well, coming from Greenwald, makes one suspect we're in for a massive treat of sarcastic jibes, "The vindication of Dick Cheney" is instead a diatribe lambasting the Obama Administration for continuing and even strengthening Bush Administration GWOT policies.

I have... comments.

"In the early months of Obama's presidency, the American Right did to him what they do to every Democratic politician: they accused him of being soft on defense (specifically "soft on Terror") and leaving the nation weak and vulnerable to attack."

Well, yes, but historically, post-Kennedy Democrat Presidents have an abysmal track record on Defense. Democrats in general have a shameful history of cutting our Defense budget, undercutting our allies, making nice with our enemies, and belatedly authorizing only weak and ineffectual military actions when they do resort to force.

Besides which, Obama promised so many things that would hurt National Defense like cutting the Defense budget, pulling out of Iraq as fast as possible, killing the missile defense program, and so on, that it would be reasonable to conclude that, should he follow through, he would, well, hurt National Defense.

Only his promise to expand the war in Afghanistan seemed contrary to that, but we got fooled, didn't we? If Bob Woodward's "Obama's Wars" is to be believed, POTUS Obama had no intention of fulfilling that promise, but the Pentagon would not accommodate his wishes. The surge he authorized was about a third of what the Pentagon wanted, and the results speak for themselves.

"But that tactic quickly became untenable as everyone (other than his hardest-core followers) was forced to acknowledge that Obama was embracing and even expanding -- rather than reversing -- the core Bush/Cheney approach to Terrorism."

With the high degree of hyperbole so common to the Left, Greenwald ignores the many criticisms the Right has made of Obama's GWOT policies. From the dismal slog in Afghanistan to the attempts to close Gitmo and try the detainees in U.S. courts, the record has been less than stellar. His overblown point is, nevertheless, well-taken: the Obama Administration has continued and/or strengthened many Bush-era GWOT policies.

"As a result, leading right-wing figures began lavishing Obama with praise -- and claiming vindication -- based on Obama's switch from harsh critic of those policies (as a candidate) to their leading advocate (once in power)."

Again, note the over-the-top hyperbole, "lavishing Obama with praise." I'd like to pause here for a moment to note that, if you think about it, across-the-aisle praise basically comes from one direction. When have you read of Democrats or Liberals giving straightforward praise to their political opposition for doing something good? I'm reminded of an article I read a few years ago - didn't save the link, sorry - in which the author was talking about AIDS in Africa, and he actually did praise W for dramatically increasing U.S. expenditures in fighting it over there. It was tepid praise, but fairly straightforward, and so unusual that I found it a little surprising - you know, that it was there at all. Then, immediately after that praising of W, the author went on to list a half-dozen things that W had done which the Left just hated - you know: the Enron, the Iraq war, the tax cuts, the this, the that - completely non sequitur in an article on AIDS in Africa. It was there so that the author could both remind the readers of how much they should hate W, and to insulate the author from criticism for committing the Liberal faux pas of praising the Right. Remember the response when Bono praised W for this? So do I.

VPOTUS Cheney and other leading figures of the Right are now praising POTUS Obama. They will not be denounced, hounded, or even roundly criticized for it, either. The Right doesn't have a problem when one their own praises the Left, when they finally get it right. It's worth noting.

Well, anyway, Greenwald further states that POTUS Obama has been the "leading advocate" of Bush/Cheney GWOT policies. This is just absurd; most of the announcements of his continuation of Bush/Cheney GWOT policies have been made quietly and with little comment from the White House.

Greenwald fills much of the middle of the piece with a litany of woes, rife with the canon of Liberal attacks on those policies (illegal-this, power-grab-that), after which he gets to the red meat of the article.

"First, it creates the impression that Republicans were right all along in the Bush-era War on Terror debates and Democratic critics were wrong. The same theme is constantly sounded by conservatives who point out Obama's continuation of these policies: that he criticized those policies as a candidate out of ignorance and partisan advantage, but once he became President, he realized they were right as a result of accessing the relevant classified information and needing to keep the country safe from the Terrorist threat."

Why, yes, it certainly does leave that impression, doesn't it? I didn't need to quote all that, but it paring it down would diminish the gladdening of my heart. I'd also add that it adds merit to the warning of Right that Obama is a lightweight. So, was he pandering to Liberal fantasies or is he a lightweight who learned real-world realities only after having been sworn in? Probably both.

"Second, Obama has single-handedly eliminated virtually all mainstream debate over these War on Terror policies."

Well, no, POTUS Obama has done no such thing, and I find it amusing that Greenwald would choose to credit him with this ability. No, Liberals shut down the debate, quenched the rage, and dialed down their hysteria to a quiet, occasional grumble. They did that because they've been fundamentally dishonest in these debates. Their double-standards are on full display as they grudgingly accept their Democrat POTUS doing what made them made them scream, shout, and stamp their little feet when the Republican POTUS did the same thing. They marched by the tens, hundreds of thousands back then. Now, not so much. Was it naked partisanship that made the difference, or are they just so easily manipulated that, absent their opinion-leaders telling them what to think, they don't much care about these things anymore? The cognitive dissonance must be unbearable.

"Third, Obama's embrace of these policies has completely rehabilitated the reputations and standing of the Bush officials responsible for them.
[...] But Obama's impact in this area extends far beyond that. Dick Cheney is not only free of ignominy, but can run around claiming vindication from Obama's actions because he's right. The American Right constantly said during the Bush years that any President who knew what Bush knew and was faced with the duty of keeping the country safe would do the same thing. Obama has provided the best possible evidence imaginable to prove those claims true."

That's really shiny! So, Glenn, you're going to reconsider your positions from the last ten years, then? You've been given "the best possible evidence imaginable to prove those claims true" - that pretty much demands from you, if you consider yourself to be a fair and objective person of reason, that you revisit both your facts and arguments and those of your political opposition. I'd suggest you start with the opposition since I'm doubtful you've given much time to them firsthand. The archives of National Review, Power Line, and Instapundit will be most illuminating, I'm sure.

On the other hand, maybe it's still hard for me to tell where Greenwald's genuine beliefs end and his proclivity to rant hyperbole begin. Hyperbole is a safe bet, so I'll go with that.

"If Obama has indeed changed his mind over the last two years as a result of all the Secret Scary Things he's seen as President, then I genuinely believe that he and the Democratic Party owe a heartfelt, public apology to Bush, Cheney and the GOP for all the harsh insults they spewed about them for years based on policies that they are now themselves aggressively continuing."

If we ever get this - and I'm assuming only a witnessed and notarized statement signed by Obama in his own blood will suffice - then we'll get to see whether Greenwald can own up to his own divisive dishonesty during the W years. At any rate, it's good to see someone from the Left even float the idea that an apology might - just might - be in order.

In truth, my sincere hope has been that Liberals will revisit those policies and the debates of the last decade with fresh eyes and an open mind. There are policy issues of relevance to our present and future which should not be sacrificed on the altar of partisan political gain. I'm afraid this will fall to the next generation as they look back at history, decades late.

Failing that, I'd settle for a collective change in the collectivist mind. Perhaps Liberals will, having been given motive and permission to change their beliefs, will do so for partisan gain or to toe the new party line. In any case, I am glad they haven't taken to the streets in protest - again - or made much of an issue at all about this. It would be ideologically and logically consistent of them to do so but, more importantly, it would be harmful to the country. Again.

Civil Discourse in "The New Republic"

2011-01-19T21:11:00.002-05:00

[by Mr.Hengist]

... aaaaand no sooner do I publish my previous blogpost (Their Uncivil Terms of Civil Discourse) than "The New Republic" comes out with this cover for their latest issue. Well, at least they didn't put in little soldiers firing artillery at the giant Republican elephants destroying D.C. So how's this for an example of the civil discourse of the Left, TNR-style:

Their Uncivil Terms of Civil Discourse

2011-01-18T21:11:00.012-05:00

[by Mr.Hengist]

On January 8th, 2011 in Tucson, Arizona, nineteen people were shot, six fatally, others grievously, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. It was an awful, unprovoked tragedy perpetrated by a lunatic. What happened afterward was an ugly smear campaign perpetrated by the Left against the Right.

It's always wise to be cautious about drawing conclusions in the midst of a national crisis. Facts are few and sketchy, frequently subject to subsequent revision as the fog of uncertainty lifts in the days that follow. Early reports are reliably wrong.

We saw no such caution from the Left. Before anything was known about the shooter we saw the Left shoot from the hip, targeting the Right - the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Sharon Angle, etc. In the days that followed, as facts began to emerge, we were told that it was the violent rhetoric and imagery of the Right which was to blame for inciting this act of violence.

Even as exculpatory facts entered the public sphere - friends saying the shooter was left-leaning, classmates and teachers concerned at his odd and disturbing behavior, etc. - the accusers did not recant, nor was the smear campaign tempered. We saw much the same thing play out last year when a guy flew his plane into an IRS building.

It's a deliberate and dishonest ploy by the Left delegitimize and silence the Right, just as when they've accused the Right of being a bunch of Nazis and racists, they've now added the charge of accessory to murder. We exclude violent extremists and haters from the discourse of politics, and the Left has been relentlessly trying to push the Right outside of that sphere.

After Sarah Palin put up a video addressing this on her Facebook page she was criticized for it, naturally. For making herself the center of attention. For using the term "blood libel." Really, for not admitting culpability.

On January 17th, 2011, the WaPo ran Eugene Robinson's column, "Palin's egocentric umbrage", which addresses these criticisms, and it deserves a fisking. I'm happy to do the honors. Let's begin!

"In the spirit of civil discourse, I'd like to humbly suggest that Sarah Palin please consider being quiet for a while. Perhaps a great while."

Just as I said: this is a ploy to silence the political opposition - "in the spirit of civil discourse", of course. Palin's video and statements have been nothing but civil; it's the content with which Robinson has a problem. She simply won't admit her guilt, and anything less is uncivil and warrants her preclusion from the public debate.

"At the risk of being bold, I might observe that her faux-presidential address [...]"

"Faux-presidential address"? Good grief. Sitting in front of a video camera with a neutral background, there she was, speaking quietly and earnestly. OK, you want to see what a "faux-presidential address" looks like? Have a look at then-candidate Barack Obama in his Invesco Field DNC acceptance speech, with the faux-columns and faux-presidential seal. That, Eugene, is faux-presidential, and I was really embarrassed for you guys back then. I suspect this swipe has more to do with Liberals speculating about a Palin presidential run next time around, although it's been hard to tell whether they're gleeful at the prospect the Republicans fielding her or worried about her chances of actually winning.

"[...] about the Tucson massacre seemed to fall somewhat flat, drawing comparisons to the least attractive public moments of such figures as Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew."

So Liberals didn't like her video, and in other news, the sun rose in the East. Here's another general rule from the Liberal playbook: never praise your opposition. It's different on the Right; Obama's speech at the Tucson memorial received widespread praise, along with some minor criticisms, which surprised me not at all.

"I could go so far as to observe that Palin almost seemed to portray herself as a collateral victim. Surely a former governor of Alaska - who served the better part of an entire term - would never seek to give the impression that she views any conceivable event, no matter how distant or tragic, as being All About Sarah."

This so ludicrous as to be risible, and childish to boot. It was the Left which pounded on the Right for days, and specifically on her. Palin was made a target of insinuation through no action of her own, and now they're turning it around and pretending that she's inserting herself into the story, apropos of nothing? What's more, her speech was about America and our national debate, not herself. I can't help but wonder whether Robinson even watched the video or picked up his talking points from the HuffPo instead.

"Yet this is the unfortunate impression that Palin's videotaped peroration seems to have left. I am at a loss to recommend any course of corrective action other than an extended period of abstinence from Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites."

In other words: Shut Up, Sarah. Shut up, shut up, shut up!

"Palin doubtless understands by now that characterizing her alleged persecution by journalists and commentators with the term "blood libel" was a semantic faux pas."

This seemed to be the other major criticism of her video from the Left: outraged indignation and/or derision at her use of the term "blood libel" to describe what the Left has been doing. I first became aware of the term during the Second Intifada, around 2000-2001, when it was used to describe a variety of contemporary violent libels against the Jews in present-day Israel. I remember thinking, "That's a marvelously descriptive term!" I've subsequently read it here and there, perhaps a dozen times, to describe violence-related libel of both Jews and others. Jim Geraghty of NRO has put up a brief list of some of these examples.

In the context of the Tucson massacre I first read it on Instapundit from Glen Reynolds. Indeed, Glen: blood libel is the perfect description of what the Left has been doing to the Right.

Of course, I don't know whether Sarah Palin was aware of the ancient historical roots of the term, or of its subsequent usage unrelated to that history, but I wouldn't be surprised if she was. Naturally, the Left would be very surprised if she was. Neither side has any evidence either way, but note how the Left has assumed that she was unaware. Naturally.

"One must question, however, not only the tone of her complaint but the content as well. Did she, indeed, have a legitimate grievance? I must be frank: The evidence suggests not."

Oh, yes, let's have it, Eugene.

"Days earlier, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat, had been shot while meeting with her constituents; six people were killed in the incident, including a federal judge, and more than a dozen others injured. It happens that Giffords' district, in southern Arizona, is passionately divided on just about every hot-button issue."

OK, so here's his first point: political passions run high in Arizona!

"It also turns out that before last November's election, Giffords gave a television interview expressing her concern about the bitterness and rancor of our political debate. In the interview, Giffords cited a graphic that Palin had posted on Facebook - a map identifying congressional districts being targeted for Republican gains. The districts, including that of Giffords, were highlighted with an unfortunate symbol: the cross hairs of a rifle scope."

Well, yes, but Rep. Giffords was hardly the first to voice that complaint. The Left has also been harrasing the Right for years on end about the tone of their political opposition. So here's his next point: Rep. Giffords was dismayed by the political rancor from the Right!

"One of Palin's aides must have been trying to lighten a dreary week with a bit of humor when she claimed that the cross hairs were actually those of a surveyor's scope."

Ah, no. I hotlinked his quote above as it was in his original column. Go ahead and clickthrough that link of his and you'll find that the Palin aide said they were surveyor's marks, as would appear on a map. The piece he links to even has a hotlink to a USGS website which has the very symbol in question.

"Perhaps the ruse would have been more effective if viewers of Palin's "reality" television show hadn't recently watched her use a high-powered rifle, not a theodolite, to fell a caribou."

... and your columns, Eugene, would greatly benefit if you actually read the things to which you link, assuming that your misrepresentation was due to sloppiness and not malice. Now, personally, when I first saw the those marks I thought they were target symbols. I still do, as the crosshairs of a scope are a more familiar symbol than the marks of a surveyor. Nevertheless, it's a far stretch that this is an incitement to murder, which is the implicit accusation that Robinson and the Left are making.

"Or, indeed, if Palin hadn't famously counseled fellow Republicans not to retreat but instead to "reload."

Well, let's take a look at that. The Republicans were not literally retreating. In order to reload, one has to have already discharged the loaded ammunition in a gun. Since neither applies in a literal sense, it is nonsensical to use this as an incitement to murder. The audience understood it as metaphor even as the Left pretended otherwise. Indeed, all of these military terms are understood as such in American politics, as evidence by the electorate. Right-wingers are neither taking up arms against the Left nor taking pot-shots at them, insofar as we can tell. There are the occasional gun-related incidents on the Left and the Right, but the assertion by the Left that this will incite the Right is provably wrong. What's more, military lingo and imagery have been used in conjunction with political campaigns since, well, forever. Further, one might reasonably expect the side which favors gun ownership to use gun-related imagery and words, which Republicans do; one would expect the opposite of the anti-gun Democrats, but their avoidance of these terms has been less than studious.

Of course, as the Left has long characterized the Right as a bunch of rootin' tootin' gun-totin' redneck yahoos, and have long since come to believe these catcalls and insults they've hurled, the incitement charge perhaps seems somewhat plausible to them. Well, no, not really. They know who to be genuinely afraid of: militant Islamic jihadists. If you piss off those guys they'll cut your head off, so Liberals don't dare provoke 'em. The Rightwing? Nah, not scary at all, which is why Liberals feel free to insult them.

"In her statement, Palin gave the impression of being appalled that journalists mentioned the cross-hairs graphic in the hours after the rampage in Tucson. She singled out reporters and pundits, not political activists who might bear partisan animus. Surely she must have anticipated that viewers who recall her course of collegiate study - journalism - would be baffled at this reaction."

Because reporters, as we all know, are strictly non-partisan and never, ever let their biases affect their reporting! Well, so they tell us. Reporters and editors of the dinosaur media by and large heavily lean Liberal/Left and often report in a dishonest, slanted way to either hurt their political opposition or help their side. Case in point: the Tucson shootings. Our national media, print and (so I'm told) video, have by-and-large jumped on the insinuation bandwagon, but only because that insinuation is directed at the Right. If they were unbiased then we should see them increasingly insinuate the culpability of the Left, as more evidence and indicators show that the Tucson shooter was left-leaning. Not happening, is it?

"In the days since, we have learned that the alleged gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, appears to be an unbalanced young man whose political views are confused and perhaps irrelevant. But at the time, nothing was known about the assailant or his motives."

Not so. MSNBC wasted no time in liking the shooting to the Tea Party and Sarah Palin on January 8th, the day of the shooting, even before we knew much of anything about the shooter (and, thus, before anyone could know anything about his politics or state of mind). The earliest reports on the shooter were that his political views were "confused."

Indeed, the state of mind of the shooter is of utmost importance. At the risk of committing libel myself, I think we can all agree that it appears the Loughner is certifiably crazy. Much like Sirhan Sirhan, who heard voices telling him to kill RFK, or Lee Harvey Oswald, who was a communist so bonkers that even the Soviet Union couldn't use him or keep him for propaganda when he defected to the USSR. To try to discern the politics of a lunatic is to try to superimpose a template of rational order on what is, by definition, disordered and irrational. We do not take seriously the political views of someone who believed that the government is using mind control on us through the use of grammar.

"I am confident that at least one of Palin's professors must have taught her that in reporting about a shooting, the fact that the principal target felt threatened is highly relevant information, as is the specific nature of that threat."

Actually, Eugene, you fool, it's completely irrelevant. Logic and law tell us that if the murderer is rational we need to establish a causal relationship between the alleged incitement and the act of murder, and if the perpetrator is irrational then it has little, if any, bearing. At this point the linkage appears nothing more than coincidental, at best, assuming that the alleged incitements could be interpreted as having an inciting effect, an assumption I have already challenged.

"It is also relevant that most of the violent political rhetoric that blights the public discourse is emanating from the far right - a constituency for which Palin speaks, often so colorfully."

Leaving aside the characterization of Sarah Palin as "far right" - objectively, like it or not, she is definitionally mainstream - this assertion is hogwashian balderdash. During the Bush years the worst sort of imagery and rhetoric came from the far Left, and was tolerated or applauded by Liberals. OK, one quick example: remember "Death of a President"? That British wish-fulfillment film about the assassination of then-sitting POTUS George W. Bush? How did the Liberal/Left react to that being shown nationwide in American movie theaters? With open arms. Such a thing was not, shall we say, out of bounds. Now, imagine the reaction if a similar film were to be released now about sitting POTUS Obama...

"In the 1960s and '70s, this was not the case; anti-government invective and unsettling talk of "revolution" came primarily from the far left."

In addition to openly advocating revolution and opposing the government in every form and in every way, they also carried out actual murders and bombings, but Robinson has whitewashed this from his accounting of Leftist sins past. Down the memory hole they go!

"Palin is perhaps too young to remember that era, but as a student of history she must have read about it - and must recognize the contrast between then and now."

I'm also too young to remember that, but even a cursory comparison between then and now shows the Leftists of that era to be utterly and completely beyond the bounds of civil discourse in ways which were unequivocally violent and treasonous. Nowadays the best the Left can muster is, "Hey, that map `targeting' Democrats has crosshairs on in - that means they want to kill Democrats!" and the like. By contrast, Leftists of the 60's and 70's openly advocated the violent overthrow of the United States, and occasionally acted on that threat in violent ways. They blew things up. They killed people.

"For her to take such umbrage, then, at the reporting of evident, pertinent and factual information deepened the impression that she is - and I must be frank - astoundingly thin-skinned and egocentric."

How dare the narcissistic bitch defend herself!

"[...] Palin portrayed herself as not only a popular champion but also a martyr [...]"

Oh, that's rich: she's made herself out to be a martyr. Get it? Those other people got shot, killed, and here Palin is making herself a martyr. Thing is, if you were to actually watch the video, she never speaks directly of the allegations made against her. Instead, she speaks in vague, third-person terms of a general nature, only alluding to the "target" map, for example.

"Or perhaps - solely in the interest of civil discourse - that there be no next address."

... because, in Liberal-land, the terms of "civil discourse" are that YOU WINGNUTS SHUT UP, got it?

At the Shores of the Sea of Stars

2010-12-16T01:02:00.000-05:00

From The Australian comes this update on the whereabouts of the Voyager spacecraft, at the very edge of the region in which the influence of the Sun is waning, the solar wind beginning to blow sideways, rather than outward from the primary.

I am awed to silence at the notion that an artifact of a certain species of naked ape is about to go interstellar.

Wow. Just wow.

Whittle Boils It Down, Part Six: Immigration, Assimilation, and the Rule of Law

2010-11-15T03:12:00.003-05:00

Here's the Sixth part in Bill Whittle's excellent "Firewall" series on the core ideas of the Tea Parties. Part Five dealt with gun rights, and was the usual cool, rational tour de force, and I do recommend it. But, in my view, it lies a bit to the side of the main thrust of the series, which is to shine a clear light on the dizzying succession of absurdities which are leveled at the Tea Parties by their determined, well-funded adversaries.

The Tea Parties are a heterogeneous assemblage of groups, still very much finding its voice and finding its feet. They contain a fair share of flakes and philosophers, psychos and statesmen. They differ broadly on methods and on messages. They engage in their fair shares of far-sightedness and folly. They are still evolving. As such, they are easy pickings for those who would "pick their target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it." It's easy enough to pick and decontextualize the dumbass things that are said and done within established political entities, with lobbyists and press handlers and a measure of message momentum. To take a stew like the Tea Parties, still in full rolling boil, and dip the fork of opposition research into it, one is bound to come up with more than one unsavory ingredient.

All of the abject nonsense about racism, xenophobia, theocratic aspirations, and domestic terrorism has either dropped into the pot from fringe elements who are broadly denounced from within the Tea Parties themselves...or have been slipped into it from without. I can only get up so much of a head of steam about the foolishness which comes out of the mouths of some Tea Party adherents. I could really live a whole lot better without the selective harvesting of these mal mots, and their use as cudgels, but if someone said 'em, there's no use hiding 'em. It's the introduction of slanders spun of whole cloth which really chaps my chalupas. One of the real biggies, the great, steaming, nitrate-rich piles of pure felgercarb, is this whole bit about racism.

One may, of course, differ with the small-government, free-market, decentralized politico-economic model of the Tea Parties (the one thing they all have in common). One can, of course, hold to a model of greater intervention in the economy by a more robust centralized government. But all of this non-sense about xenophobia is simply not in code of the Tea Party program. If anything, the meritocratic opportunity society which the Tea Parties envision is one which leaves zero room for the identity politics which form a far more fertile patch of soil for the undue emphasis on differences whose excessive extension leads into the rank recesses of racism.

It is to this last point that Whittle speaks in this latest vid. One of the recurring themes in the Tea Parties' discourse is one of push-back against illegal immigration, and against those government policies which --in effect or by intent-- abet it. Naturally, among Transnational Progressives, any mention of protecting National borders is at best distasteful...at worst, it is a kind of nativist provincialism which is treated as interchangeable with xenophobia. The cult of multiculturalism will not brook any talk of assimilation, treating it as some Borg-like attempt to erase the essence of the soul of the somethingorother. They would have us replace the "melting pot" with a very busy salad.

The problem is that all of this is beside the point. That point is that one of the chief functions of a Nation-State is to guard the borders which, in large part, define it. It is to reinforce the membrane around the organism of State, and thus to preserve the integrity of that entity with respect to its surround. A cell with an overly porous membrane (or none at all) simply melts into a patch of protoplasm, indistinct and quite dead. Say what you will about the Nation State as a concept (sigh, I guess that includes you, Mike), but so long as it exists, it must preserve a certain structural integrity, which includes the regulation of passage across its borders. Ethnicity has nothing to do with this, except inasmuch as given ethnic groups may (lamentably!) be statistically (though by no means essentially) associated with the sorts of failed and failing states from which people show a tendency to want to emigrate, with the US as a prime destination. But (and this is the central point) that ethnicity is wholly incidental to the question of whether their quite legitimate grievances with their countries of origin entitle them to carry with them some of the lawlessness that they strive to escape, and to import it into this Nation by the sheer act of slipping into it extra-legally.

There are whole shadow infrastructures which subtend the passage of illegal immigrants into this country, vast criminal enterprises which I would flatter by referring to them as merely amoral. Emotional appeals about poor families, hoping to make a better life must be held up against clear-eyed acknowledgments of the brutal, lawless cartels which pad their clandestine balance sheets by flouting the legal structures of this Nation and marching those families across the frontier in the dead of night. An insufficiently guarded border is like one big broken window in the neighborhood. It signals a laxity and decadence which invites exploitation like a wounded seal in a school of sharks. The national security implications of poor border enforcement are obvious (or should be!). But there are subtler issues afoot here, issues having to do with the level of order which a Nation can assure its citizens (not so great for the people of border states, who are urged to avoid certain areas so as not to run afoul of well-armed Coyote caravans), and with the value of labor (materially deflated by the presence of an entire underground economy of desperate people willing to take less than a pittance for jobs which would otherwise have to compete for workers in the full light of day).

The leaky bottom of the labor market, as far as I've been able to discern, is the main point of contention within the Tea Party ranks when it comes to illegal immigration. It speaks directly to the integrity of the marketplace as a mechanism for assigning value to economic activity, and the distortions of that marketplace where the value of labor is so unbalanced by a vast pool of undocumented workers, pulling that value artificially downward. Throw in the whole bit about the government failing to act on its Constitutionally-mandated charter to enforce the borders, and there's a whole lot of principled ground for the Tea Partiers to stand on with regard to this issue, and not a bit of it has to do with racism. Fancy that.

Now, I would be the first to be attacked from some quarters of the Tea Parties (and no, not because I am Hispanic. Sheesh!), in that I do support some kind of mechanism for bringing many of the diligent and law-abiding illegal immigrants in out of the cold...though not without penalty, and not in a way which disadvantages those who have striven mightily and waited long to secure legal residency or citizenship. But such measures would be meaningless in the absence of robust border enforcement, and a national will to expel those who game the system and/or commit crimes while they're here (aside from the one about being here in the first place, that is). If this way of thinking appears racist to some, then I submit that their definitions of that word cry out to be revisited.

Anyway, here's Bill's take on the matter:

Per Libertas Ad Astra

2010-11-12T02:52:00.001-05:00

In the course of my journey from Big Government Liberal to libertarian-esque Conservative, one of the hardest things for me to let go of has been my hitherto-unquestioned belief that it is the business of the Federal Government to shepherd humanity into space.

It had always been an article of faith for me that only an Apollo-like Project could midwife the hatching of our species, at long last, from its primordial creche at the bottom of the Earth's gravity well, and out into the cosmos, where it belongs. The maddeningly slow progress of that momentous trek, of course, had to be due to an infuriating lack of vision at the top: If only Nixon had not killed the versatile and muscular Apollo in favor of the nifty but limited and cash-hungry (and ultimately lethal) Shuttle (and if only that program had not itself become freighted with the 'all-things-to-all-constituencies' bloat which subverted its initial purpose as a cheap, fully re-usable space truck), we could have expanded Skylab into a proper orbital village. If only Vietnam had not squandered so much of this Nation's wealth on a vain and pointless struggle against somethingorother, we could at least have had a fracking Moon Base. If only the Luddite fetishes of the 70s-era environmentalists hadn't refocused NASA into an operation bent on going around in circles, gazing at its own navel, we would have made it to Mars (and, having been an Environmentalist myself, this last came with no small quantum of cognitive dissonance!). On and on, I gritted my teeth at the absence of a Mission for the agency in charge of our Government's sacred trust to lift us to the stars.

It was only long after I had transitioned from Liberalism to a succession of species of Conservative that I had what, in retrospect, was a rather embarrassingly-belated realization: Why the blazes should mere Government be expected to oversee --let alone monopolize-- the greatest adventure on which humanity would ever embark? Why should it be the (IRS-enforced) obligation of a grain farmer in Iowa, or a Burger King manager in Virginia...or a clinical psychologist in Philadelphia to bankroll our evolution into a spacefaring species? If humans are going to hoist themselves into free space and forge a destiny in its airless reaches, why on earth (pun intentional) must it be left to the grinding Rube-Goldberg mechanism of pork-laden appropriations to make it so?

In an editorial by Iain Murphy and Rand Simberg at The American Spectator, the authors tackle this very question, and articulate the answer in devastatingly clear terms: It shouldn't:

There's something about space policy that makes conservatives forget their principles. Just one mention of NASA, and conservatives are quite happy to check their small-government instincts at the door and vote in favor of massive government programs and harsh regulations that stifle private enterprise. It's time to abort that mission. [...]

It is time for conservatives to recognize that Apollo is over. We must recognize that Apollo was a centrally planned monopolistic government program for a few government employees, in the service of Cold War propaganda and was therefore itself an affront to American values. If we want to seriously explore, and potentially exploit space, we need to harness private enterprise, and push the technologies really needed to do so.

One of the few things that the Obama Administration has gotten resoundingly and unambiguously right was the shift of NASA's priorities from old-school, Manhattan Project thinking on space access, in favor of a less-centralized, free-market approach. I know...right? Here is one area in which the Administration's singular (and in so many other ways extraordinarily dangerous and misguided) focus on a domestic policy of Transforming America ^tm has happened to strike precisely the right note. Now, if this is simply a case of doing the correct things for the wrong reasons, then I'll take it just the same.

For, so long as this Administration shows its indifference and disdain for human spaceflight by refusing to bestow upon it a Big Government Project (which, in Obama's world, is the ultimate marker of value, after all), then that endeavor stands a chance of actually getting off the ground. On the one hand you have a set of fixed-funded, results-based benchmark incentives for competing private industries' achievements in developing a viable, human-rated commercial launch and orbital operations system (from which NASA can then purchase flights, while shouldering a relatively paltry share of the R&D costs). On the other, you have the usual cost-plus shenanigans of the usual suspects drawing the usual (voluminous) booty into the usual districts. The pace of the process might not be as gratifyingly brisk as you get when you unleash the jury-rigged juggernaut of State-Sponsored Will on a problem. At least not at first. But as markets are created and exploited through a ratcheting series of entrepreneurial beach-heads, the gains are apt to be more durable (as their funding streams will not be pegged to the American election cycle), and to ramp up more steeply once established (same reason).

So, it took Bigelow and Branson and Musk to make manifest what had previously only been obvious...so that, in the end, even I got it. I've been able to redirect my geek sensibilities in a direction more in keeping with my larger politico-economic explanatory system (and thus to discover that, even at my advanced age, I am still capable of changing my mind on important matters. Again.). And all this just in time for some most unexpectedly sensible legislation from the last Administration from which I would've seen it coming. Epic win!

And, in the end, once Bigelow builds his station, and clients (including NASA) start lining up, you start to introduce modest economies of scale, which bring down costs to orbit, which opens up new markets...and suddenly the landscape seems a mite more amenable than it ever would have been under NASA to the prospect of my not shuffling off before having seen the blue-white, gracefully-curved limb of the Earth, brightly sunlit under a black sky...

Will on the Limits of Predictability

2010-11-10T01:44:00.000-05:00

Here's a nice meditation by George Will in Newsweek, a glimpse of a glimpse of the fringes of the sheer complexity of the ever-shifting topology of the global economy. Commenting on the ideas of Robert Weissenstein, a chief investment officer in Credit Suisse Private Banking, Will highlights “the enormous iterative impact of everything we hold and do.” He points to the unanticipated consequences of seemingly unrelated innovations and how they create (and destroy) opportunities in a manner reminiscent of Burke's splendid series, "Connections." It sounds what could be a healthily cautionary note for zero-sum, fixed-"pie" static-model economic thinkers with a mind to tinker with the workings of the marketplace in an effort to control it.

The oft-cited example of this unpredictability is the devastating effect which the advent of the automobile had on the buggy whip industry ("Think of the jobs!!"). The point of the article is the non-linear, unpredictable downstream effects of events and innovations, driving new growth, even as they annihilate previous growth drivers. It's the global economy as a dynamic and evolving landscape, in which dynamic and evolving things live. And die.

It is no more predictable than were the consequences of increasing amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere, billions of years ago, which killed off virtually all of the primordial anaerobic life forms that made up the vast bulk of the Earth's biosphere. It was a Disaster! But, of course, aerobic life forms were able to utilize and dissipate energy far more effectively, leading to greater diversification and complexification, ultimately producing the spectacularly successful dinosaurs...

Complex systems like organisms and species and economies are like that: they are inherently unpredictable, dancing always on the edge of chaos. And that's where evolution happens, on the margins.

If we let it, such can be a profoundly humbling perspective on our efforts to predict and control, and on the hard limits with which those efforts will inevitably collide.

I suppose "that's why we have a Tea Party."

Whittle Boils It Down, Part Four: On Natural Law

2010-10-30T03:59:00.009-04:00

At last, the fourth in Whittle's superb series on the core concepts of Tea Party-style Conservatism. As usual, Bill states his case in a cool, rational, amiably non-confrontational manner, articulating these eminently sensible ideas in a gently persuasive style which befits their profound reasonableness. As with previous entries, it clocks in just under ten minutes, and is well worth every second:

Now, as someone well-steeped in Post-Modern academic thought, with its hermeneutic approach to texts (broadly defined), I'm disposed to be wary of appeals to "Natural Law." This is not a skepticism which I am inclined to repudiate fully. As a non-theist, it would be bad faith for me to posit some transcendent ontological status for even the most "self-evident" of epistemological constructs. If there is no Divine Firewall behind our concepts, they are, in the final analysis, all relative.

That being said, however, there are legitimate areas in which it is sensible to behave --as mindfully and humbly and self-critically as possible-- as though there were bedrock under our feet. For example, yes I am free to abandon my family and take off across the country to Find Myself. For me to sit here and say that I cannot do this would be bad faith. However, my liberty, my personal freedom as a choice-making agent is but one of the variables that enters into this decision. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that I don't want to do this (because I am deliriously happy with my family, and far luckier than I have any right to expect that I have it), the simple fact is that such an exercise of my freedom bumps up against the needs and feelings of others, and thus would bring about consequences which I deem adverse out of proportion to the advantages I might glean from such a self-serving journey of discovery. So, I choose to act as though this choice were not on the menu. Indeed, the very notion of contemplating such a step feels absurd. Although, in the strictest sense, this position is a conclusion, it is sensible to behave as though it were a premise.

Similarly, when Whittle makes reference to those "Truths" which we "hold to be self-evident," there is a part of me which cannot help but respond with a hearty "Who says?" After all, I don't fall into the "endowed by their Creator" camp. But let's look at a couple of the truths he is talking about: The rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," are construed as emanating not from the State, but from the intrinsic nature of humanity. Further, it is the role of the State to protect these rights, and not within the power of the State to bestow (or abridge) them. The right is similarly posited as being self-evident to freely enter into contracts, within the bounds of laws which protect the liberty and property of others, and without the fear that those contracts will be abnegated by political fiat. It is eminently sensible to depict these rights as transcendent and true, even though history is replete with examples (many still extant!) of the freedom of humans to behave otherwise. The advantages which derive from treating these "truths [as] self-evident" far outstrip those of leaving them on the deconstruction block.

The concept espoused by the Tea Parties that individuals are free to pursue their interests within a free-market system, and that the State's power to intervene in this marketplace should be robustly curtailed is frequently mischaracterized as "greed" and "selfishness." This could not be further from the truth. Indeed, it is the converse view (i.e., that it is within the power of the State to declare something --like, say, health care-- a "Right," and to forcibly extract the energy of the marketplace to fulfill that right) which smacks more of vampirism than altruism, however high-minded the intent behind it.

Whittle makes reference to the fact that corporations are currently sitting on immense cash reserves, rather than investing them and using them to create jobs. This is an observation which is not-infrequently used by critics of free-market capitalism to indict that system, and to posit the need for the State to step in and create and enforce mechanisms for the "equitable" distribution of those resources (e.g., via taxation). It's a fair-ish argument, but too narrow a view. For it would be very much in the interests of businesses to plow their cash reserves back into the operations of their enterprises, and to grow and add value to them (and, in effect, to the economy as a whole)...if they could be confident that their efforts would not stand to be thwarted by the operations of a State which could, by the exercise of political (that is, force-backed) power, act to tap into that value for the sake of the "Right" du jour (and de jure).

The conclusion/premise of the Tea Parties is that the energy which is currently being held off-line is trapped by an all-too rational fear of the overreaching expansion of the public sphere --via political power-- into the arena in which that energy might be liberated...if only the "Natural Law" of individual liberty and the relatively unfettered operation of the marketplace were allowed to hold sway. It is the unpredictability of political processes which creates an environment in which the most rational choice is to hoard capital, rather than unleash it. By contrast, it is the predictability of contract law and a constrained and frugal State which creates incentives to take financial risks for the sake of potentially rich rewards. In the final analysis, it is within the power of private enterprise to throw such caution to the winds, and take its chances that its investments will not be deemed low-hanging fruit for the fulfillment of the State's hunger for energy. They are free to do so, and it would be bad faith to say otherwise. But then they would have to look their stockholders in the face when their balance sheets were raided by those who deem them public property.

As Bill would say, "That's why we have a Tea Party."

Whittle Boils It Down, Part 3

2010-10-22T03:15:00.001-04:00

Here's the third in the excellent series by Bill Whittle on the fundamental ideas which animate the Tea Parties (note: neither race nor religion enter into it at all). This time, the subject is the nature of wealth and its creation. (see here for Part One, and here for Part Two).

Once again, this is nothing new for those who grasp even the most rudimentary concepts of free-market economics...and that's pretty much the point: there is nothing particularly novel or radical about the basic tenets of the Tea Parties, however hard a dedicated cadre of spin-sters may be working to paint it otherwise. The 'kernel' of the Tea Party code is as elementary and intuitive as the transaction between two trade partners, both of whom walk away from a voluntary exchange of value with the sense that they got the better of the deal. Wealth is created, Whittle calmly and amiably explains, by the creativity of producers, who add complexity (or information, or value) to the world through their inventiveness and industry...then proceed to multiply that value via free trade.

It is the removal --to the greatest extent feasible-- of Government interference in the operation of this immensely powerful engine of wealth creation which is the main animating principle of the Tea Parties. Government is understood as a necessary set of negative feedback loops in the vast cybernetic edifice of the economy, governing the operation of that system to prevent its collapse into chaos. But an excess of negative feedback will stall and stultify the operation of the system, gumming up the works and diverting its energy into a great bureaucratic heat sink.

This is the principle which is so strongly opposed by adherents of the Liberal, Keynesian model of strong public-sector involvement in the operation of the free market which they so profoundly distrust. Now, it's clear that I have some pretty strong opinions on the topic, but I will not sit here and arrogate to myself some God's-eye view of what is correct (my positions on these things, were you to drill down to specific policies, would probably engender a hefty dose of annoyance from both sides of the debate). But the beauty of the Tea Parties is that they have focused the attention of the GOP on these core questions, attention which it has been justly lambasted for allowing to be diverted by the K Street culture of irresponsible spending and creeping corruption. Despite the myriad distractions and smoke-screens which have been thrown up in the face of American voters with respect to these matters, the essence of the Tea Parties is the restoration to primacy of these elemental questions of where wealth comes from, to whom it belongs, and what is to be done with it. It really is as simple as that.

And, when you burn away the epiphenomena, when you tune your mind to the signal hiding in the noise, what emerges is a clear choice between incompatible visions of how an economy and a Nation should operate. Such clarity has been sorely lacking from this conversation for far too long, and far too many of the wrong people have been benefiting from its absence.

In that sense, the Tea Parties have already created considerable wealth for us all.

There But Not Back Again

2010-10-20T00:52:00.001-04:00

Over at MSNBC.com, the intriguing (though hardly new) idea of one-way Mars colonization is discussed. The idea does have a certain appeal, once you get past the vicarious dread at the notion of leaving behind the Good Earth for ever. Once you remove the reaction mass and logistical complications of a return trip, you could find yourself in the position to derive far bang per buck of mission cost. There is plenty on Mars for the establishment of a self-sustaining colony, if only the seed materials could be included in the outward-bound leg of the journey. Fuel and shielding and provisions alone would probably be a fair approximation of the mission mass for a greenhouse enclosure, where Mars' CO2-rich environment and roughly 24-hour days would make local food production (and air/waste recycling loops) eminently doable.

The main question in all this is: Who would do such a thing?

Let me go on record here and say, "No exclusively NASA (or any other government agency)-only colonization missions!" If government wants to lend a judiciously-limited hand (say, by results-based matching programs with industry, or by a prize structure, or somesuch), then that's shiny. But we can't afford some sort of Mayflower Project.

Besides, as many others have noted, NASA has proven conclusively that it is capable of rendering sterile and prosaic even the single greatest adventure on which the human species will ever embark. That such a dessicated, risk-averse bureaucratic entity should ever muster the testicular fortitude to send people on a one-way trip is simply incomprehensible. Which is a good thing! The aridity of a Government-controlled mission would rival that of the Martian atmosphere itself. The chances of true social evolution would run constantly afoul of the culture of meticulous regimentation which so characterizes NASA. Any such colony would have woven into its DNA an ethic of control which would put the most grandiose fantasies of Progressive Social Engineers to shame!

Much better would be a colony ship festooned with corporate logos, with ad revenues, reality show and documentary film rights (can you say "Planet Mars," in IMAX?), and the promise of hermetically contractually-protected mining claims (Mars has had some very significant vulcanism in its past, offering the promise of rich veins of precious and "rare earth" metals...to say nothing of the downstream value of helium-3 for fusion energy tech). Protocols would, of course, be in place, but they would stand a much better chance of being malleable in the face of local conditions than a military-style State-controlled regime. A society and an economy would arise from the exigencies of the survival situation.

In The Case For Mars, Bob Zubrin said that "the chief export of a Mars colony will be ideas." Now, you'd think that a die-hard Mars colony advocate like Zubrin would be some kind of social-engineering Utopian. In point of fact, he is refreshingly Conservative/libertarian in his thinking, and has some uncommonly intelligent things to say about our energy conundrum. He truly believes that Mars colonists will have to make hard choices with scarce resources, in ways that maximize the value of even more scarce human capital. The result will be a crucible of bold, fast-paced social and technical evolution of the sort which would make Thomas Paine weep with joy.

The kinds of people who would want to go on such a trip stand a very good chance of being precisely the sorts that we'd want on it: intrepid but not reckless, independent but aware of the importance of a chain of command...actually, now that I think of it, I'm not sure we can particularly spare them right now! But they would constitute the ultimate laboratory of what free people can do when their lives depend on it.

The ideas would shoot sunward at a pace which even the editors of high school textbooks would have a hard time buffering for censorship!

H/T to Hot Air for the headline.

Whittle Boils It Down, Part 2

2010-10-17T00:36:00.003-04:00

Shivering a bit in my hoodie. I'm going to miss this deck-blogging thing; sipping Jameson, a little Chopin over Pandora, and only the stars for proof-readers. Winter makes me feel like a night watchman for Nature.

I'm braving the chill, though, to bring you the anticipated 2nd in the series by commentator Bill Whittle on the core tenets of Tea Party-style Conservatism. As with the first part, Whittle makes the case with simplicity, humility, humor, and an easy aplomb which eschews any but the barest whiff of demagoguery. It is two for two in the area of dispelling the noxious fog of disinformation and spin which has so stubbornly attached itself (or rather willfully been attached) to the Tea Parties, and the beliefs of their supporters.

In addition to his characteristically clear elucidation of political principles, Whittle hits on themes of complexity and distributed, evolutionary processing which are near and dear to my heart.Whittle does indeed channel Hayek here (as pointed out by Ed over at Hot Air) on the prohibitive information barrier between Central Planning and the indescribably complex topology of something like even a relatively simple economy...let alone that of the US.

However, one need not take recourse in such dusty volumes to find the sense in this vid's point about the preferability of distributed, federalist, free-market decision-making over Central Planning. Mr.Hengist recently turned me on to Orbit At Home, which I plan to set into motion on my home machine tomorrow. Like SETI At Home, and a host of other distributed computing projects, Orbit uses the power of large numbers of processors, working snippets of a problem in massively parallel fashion to converge on solutions with a nimbleness and horsepower which leaves even the most powerful centralized supercomputer in the dust. In the case of Orbit, the task is the computation of the orbits (get it?) of large numbers of potentially Earth-impacting Solar System objects.

The US economy is obviously even more complex a problem than the dance of celestial billiard balls. More bodies in motion. In just over two weeks, the American end users will have some deep thinking to do about how they want to use their clock cycles.

Ego Ergo Sum

2010-10-13T02:25:00.000-04:00

Holy hand grenade! Over at the LAT, Jonah Goldberg drops a daisy cutter of a column on the...um..robust self-esteem of our current POTUS. To wit:

There's an irony to occupying the Oval Office. When presidents think they're bigger than the job they hold, they shrink in office. When they think they're smaller than the honor they've been temporarily bestowed, they grow into it. Obama has done nothing but shrink.

Ouch! Let me be perfectly clear: that's gonna leave a mark. Read the whole thing, if you dare.

Half-Koched

2010-10-12T01:45:00.007-04:00

For a while now, the blabosphere and Facebook status-klatches have been sporadically abuzz with the story of the wealthy, conservative Koch brothers. Supposedly they've been busily at work manipulating public disgruntlement by diligently, quietly seeding a little astroturf garden called the "Tea Parties." The story has never felt especially credible, given the 'epidemiological' patterns of the TP movement's efflorescence, from Santelli's rant, on outward. It just felt too organic for such claims to hold much water with me.

An amusing little editorial by Andrew Ferguson, in Commentary more or less echoes my initial reservations about the story, and provides more context. It deals with the style of meme-weaving which lends itself to the kind of conspiracism that's become such the stock in trade for this administration and its backers:

The story of the Koch brothers and their involvement in politics, unknown as it is to most readers, is undeniably worth telling. But mere interest isn’t the reaction that ThinkProgress and Mayer, who is as much a party apparatchik as a reporter, meant to provoke. This is five-alarm journalism. “In many places,” Mayer told Maddow in a back-scratching interview, the Tea Party movement “has been considered a spontaneous uprising that came from nowhere.” In fact, it is merely one of the Kochs’ “stealth attacks launched on the federal government, and on the Obama administration in particular.” Maddow summed up the theme of top-down manipulation: “Tea partiers who attended these rallies, particularly the early ones, were essentially instructed to rally against things like climate change by billionaire oil tycoons.”

Now, as the editorial points out, the Koch brothers have hardly been shy about their political positions: public financial records, not to mention public appearances...and even one run for VPOTUS on the Libertarian ticket are kinda hard to square with any attributions of attempted stealth! Nonetheless, the brothers' perfectly above-board contributions to a group which shared their clear political proclivities were reported by "Think Progress"as though they were late-night dead drops of envelopes stuffed with unmarked bills and coded instructions.

But such is the perfectly consistent belief system of the collectivist on proud display. The very notion of the spontaneous emergence of a political phenomenon is anathema for those who maintain that humanity can truly advance (or "progress") only through the deliberate action of duly-designated elites.

And, of course, the irony that the heavily Soros-backed Center for American Progress should be the source of this story is apt to be altogether lost on those who've hitched their wagons to the Statist star. Pretext of principles, indeed!

But Star Chambers and Secret Groves have always been the preferred provinces of those who harbor an unnerving skepticism about the capacity of people to come to their own conclusions without being managed from the shadows...or from the Capitol. Since the Tea Parties arose, they have been: catspaws for the GOP, fronts for racist organizations, and Trojan horses for social conservative groups. Now they're a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch Industries. Must be quite a challenge for the CAP "idea factory" to have to re-tool its assembly line so frequently!

Quoth Ferguson:

One mark of the paranoid style in American politics, Richard Hofstadter wrote in his famous essay, is its concern with “factuality,” a piling up of random details to create a coherence that reality itself can’t provide. Journalism of a certain sort becomes a convenient instrument of the paranoid partisan. “The paranoid’s interpretation of history,” Hofstadter wrote, “is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will,” an “amoral superman” who “manufactures the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way.

With the Kochs, the American left gets two amoral supermen in one. Mayer’s article, and the larger campaign it’s a part of, is meant not only to alarm its audience but to soothe it as well. Any Democrat unnerved by the rise of the Tea Party movement will find it comforting to learn that it’s a giant confidence trick. The belief requires both a deep cynicism about one’s fellow citizens and a touching credulity about the ease with which they can be manipulated. All those angry, badly dressed people shouting into megaphones on TV: they’re not evil, they’re just stupid. [Hofstadter link added]

A charitable characterization of Progressive thought is that it believes humanity can be remade, perfected by a benevolent and comprehensive manipulation of its environment in order to foster the development of its highest potentials. For one who holds such beliefs, the idea that such large numbers of people can be so thoroughly hoodwinked and herded must at some level be a hopeful one. After all, if they can be prodded over to the Dark Side so easily, then they can be just as easily coaxed back into the light, right?

This endless cavalcade of narratives which opponents --on the Right and Left-- have hatched to try and fathom the Tea Parties resembles nothing more than the twitchiness of a species in response to the appearance and adaptive mutation of a rival species. One might imagine the reactions of Neanderthals, perfectly comfy in their lush valleys, to the arrival of those bald, skinny Homo Sapiens with their silly big heads...

[Shamelessly and extensively edited 10/12/10, to correct grievous violations of proper syntax and other late-night crimes against the English language]

Late update (3/29/2011): Here is a lengthy, excellent account of the Koch brothers' history, and the evolution of the ginned-up, Outrageously Outraged campaign to smear and demonize them. Worth a read.

Bamster Bangs Into Facts, Walks it Back

2010-10-11T12:12:00.000-04:00

Not much time to post today; used up pretty much all of my available slack giving the 'Cyte a long-overdue facelift (like the light gray on dark gray, Mike?).

But I just had to comment on this article in the NYT (!!) on the richly-deserved blowback from the administration's desperate ploy to gin up outrage over the supposed (but as-yet unproved) "funneling of foreign money" into the political process on behalf of the GOP by the Chamber of Commerce. Well, that, and I couldn't resist throwing down that title (c'mon, tell me you don't hear James Brown in your head when you read it).

Anyway, it'd become clear even to Obama's people that this spaghetti just isn't sticking to the wall.

White House officials acknowledged Friday that they had no specific evidence to indicate that the chamber had used money from foreign entities to finance political attack ads

“The president was not suggesting any illegality,” Bob Bauer, the White House counsel, said. Instead, he said Mr. Obama’s reference to the chamber was meant to draw attention to the inadequacies of campaign disclosure laws in allowing groups to spend large amounts of money on politics without disclosing their donors.

White House officials called on the chamber to go beyond current disclosure laws and establish that no foreign money has been used in its political campaigns. “They can put this to rest,” said Joshua Earnest, a White House spokesman. “They have the keys to the file cabinet.”

Think about that for a minute. The White House levels charges which, if true, constitute a violation of campaign finance law (yes, even under "Citizens United." Fancy that...). When confronted with the fact that they have no evidence to support the charge, they backtrack, and then suggest that the accused should provide evidence of their innocence. Something smell funny about that to you? It certainly does to Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air:

This is an administration that apparently has never learned the difference between being a political campaign and serving in the government. In the former situation, this would constitute slander, which is bad enough. When it comes from the government, it’s a form of tyranny — an attempt to use the power of government to silence dissent.

Ed's not given to histrionics, so this graf rang out pretty powerfully to me, as it should to you. This administration is behaving like a cornered animal, and we need to be very watchful over the next 800-odd days...

Whittle Boils It Down

2010-10-10T23:50:00.003-04:00

In a soft-spoken, eminently reasonable tone, one of my favorite commentators, Bill Whittle, of ejectejecteject fame, lays out the fundamentals of the free-market, small-government philosophy which animates the Tea Party movement. Kinda old hat for those like myself who support that philosophy and movement. But the concision and lack of demagoguery with which he makes the case will make viewing the vid a very well-spent ten minutes or so, whether you are a supporter or --even moreso-- if you are one whose exposure to the Tea Parties' ideas is limited to the very deliberately and disingenuously promulgated narratives of "racism" and "greed."

It is unfortunate in the extreme (no pun intended) that candidates like Christine O'Donnell and Carl Paladino have lurched onto the scene and made it so easy to mischaracterize the Tea Party movement as a whole with their missteps, shenanigans, and outright wackiness (but, it should be noted, somehow the hopefully-soon-to-be-unemployed Alan Grayson has managed to not tar the entirety of Liberalism with his nauseating antics...).

Items like this vid are essential if the real terms of this conversation are going to have a chance to make their way out to an electorate with the clearest set of choices to make in altogether too long.

Rove Fires Back at Bamster's Blather

2010-10-10T15:48:00.000-04:00

Posting from the playground, on my ever-so-shiny HTC Evo, as the Li'l Cyte manages negotiations of dominance, imagination, and assorted rivalries and alliances.

While witnessing the proceedings, it seemed especially apt to read this.

The sooner these ill-bred children are deprived of dominion over the sand box, the better. "Stealing our democracy," indeed! What a bunch of whiney little drama queens!

I mean, if the GOP's "Shadow Organizations" are outspending the Donks' like seven to one, then whose fault is that? ("Dammit, Soros! I need more power!")

"No Pressure"

2010-10-03T23:59:00.000-04:00

This vid has been getting been getting a whole lot of play on the Interwebs lately, of a sort which is engendering a bit of consternation among its makers (though not nearly enough!). It is a perfectly horrid glimpse into what passes for humor in the dark depths of the apocalyptic "environmentalist" mind. Just under four minutes, but you really should not spare yourself. Just keep the kids away, and a tight rein on your lunch:

What can one say about the consciousnesses which hatched and executed this misbegotten bit of eco-snuff? What do you call it when the products of one’s vomitous projections induce projectile vomiting in their viewers? Regurgitation loop? Circle-hurl?

I suppose I could say “the mask has slipped,” if I could only stop giggling at the notion that there was ever a mask to begin with!

On the Limits of Knowledge and the Knowledge of Limits

2010-09-30T01:14:00.030-04:00

Via Hot Air (where a quite lively discussion did ensue!), comes this perfectly lovely article from The New Scientist. It is an eloquent essay on the approach of an honest, open-minded scientist to the needlessly limiting categories of "theism" and "atheism" with respect to the mind's on-going dialog with nature.

So while there are plenty of good books by scientist-atheists, they sometimes under-emphasise the main lesson from science: that our knowledge is vastly outstripped by our ignorance. For me, a life in science prompts awe and exploration over dogmatism.

Given these considerations, I do not call myself an atheist. I don't feel that I have enough data to firmly rule out other interesting possibilities. On the other hand, I do not subscribe to any religion. Traditional religious stories can be beautiful and often crystallise hard-won wisdom - but it is hardly a challenge to poke holes in them. Religious structures are built by humans and brim with all manner of strange human claims - they often reflect cults of personality, xenophobia or mental illness. The holy books of these religions were written millennia ago by people who never had the opportunity to know about DNA, other galaxies, information theory, electricity, the big bang, the big crunch, or even other cultures, literatures or landscapes.

So it seems we know too little to commit to strict atheism, and too much to commit to any religion. Given this, I am often surprised by the number of people who seem to possess total certainty about their position. I know a lot of atheists who seethe at the idea of religion, and religious followers who seethe at the idea of atheism - but neither group is bothering with more interesting ideas. They make their impassioned arguments as though the God versus no-God dichotomy were enough for a modern discussion.

Indeed! Over the years, I have developed a feeling for militant atheism which is akin to that which I feel about dogmatic theism. They both make me a bit sad.

I consider myself a functional atheist, but a technical agnostic. I simply cannot rule out that there is an Intelligence orchestrating the unfolding of the Great Cosmic Simulation (scale = 1:1). But nor can I reconcile my observations and studies with the premise that there must be such an Intelligence. I have absorbed enough from Chaos/Complexity theory to find highly satisfying comprehensiveness in the explanatory power of the concepts of self-organization in complex systems under far-from-equilibrium conditions. I simply do not see the need for a Cosmic Controller, any more than I need to posit a "Brain Bird," guiding and controlling the dynamics of a flock in flight.

But, when you come right down to it, what the hell do I know?

To make the leap from "What" questions to "Why" questions is to commit the fundamental(ist) error of both believers and non-believers. "What" questions are the proper domain of science: they deal with that which can be tested and observed (what are the proportions of ordinary matter to dark matter in the observable universe?). "Why" questions deal with ultimate issues (Why is there something instead of nothing?). Any effort to transplant one from the other is bound to bump against a hard metaphysical stop, and require what, for all intents and purposes must be considered a leap of faith. One of the most lovely treatments of this matter was the brilliant 1996 film, "Contact," in which a woman of science and a man of faith must find a way to reconcile their ostensibly antithetical world-views to questions of cosmic import. It is one of my very favorite films for the sheer poetry with which it addresses this matter which has so dominated the landscape of my thinking since childhood. The limits of knowledge need not represent the foreclosure of possibilities, but that we conjure they do.

This is why I call myself a "possibilian". Possibilianism emphasises the active exploration of new, unconsidered notions. A possibilian is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind and is not driven by the idea of fighting for a single, particular story. The key emphasis of possibilianism is to shine a flashlight around the possibility space. It is a plea not simply for open-mindedness, but for an active exploration of new ideas.

Is possibilianism compatible with a scientific career? Indeed, it represents the heart of science. Real science operates by holding limitless possibilities in mind and working to see which one is most supported by the data. Sometimes it is difficult or impossible to gather data that weighs in - and in those cases we simply retain the possibilities. We don't commit to a particular version of the story when there is no reason to.

Again, big bang-on. Now, he term “Possibilian” seems too precious by…well, a frack of a lot more than half. But the term “agnostic” has always rankled me something fierce. To live by the dictum that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence seems a mite…reduced by simply calling it “No-Knowledge.”

Sure, sure, saying you don’t know is supposed to be the beginning of wisdom and all that. But it feels a little like calling an American boy “Leslie.” It’s a fine name, but don’t expect him to thank you for it in middle school.

Nomenclature aside, though, it's a big 'Verse, with room for Grand Unifying Narratives aplenty. It seems to me that digging in our heels and shouting names at each other is a less than optimal use of the finite quanta of energy available to us before we flame out. This is one of the (many) reasons I find Bill Maher no less a nauseating homunculus of a man than Pat Robertson. Both pull for a zero-sum, annihilationist exclusivity which offers absolutely no quarter for the "other side."

To quote from another one of my favorite movies, "You have to see with better eyes than that."

The Tea's a-Brewin'

2010-09-21T00:39:00.001-04:00

Nice article in the WSJ, which articulates much of what I have been thinking about the influence of the Tea Parties on the American political landscape. Important graf:

Much will depend, of course, on which tea-party favorites actually win in the November general election, but a likely outcome of all this will be a Republican party more to the right, and a Democratic Party more to the left. "It's going to be a bipolar Congress," predicts Kenneth Duberstein, White House chief of staff for President Reagan.

At first glance, the notion of such bipolarity conjures images of gridlock and chaos. But thus does evolution work. It is a messy business, fraught with pain and turbulence and extinctions and dislocations.But it is a spectacularly effective engine for cobbling fitness from the staggering dance of environment/organism co-adaptation, the wrenching improvisational composition of blind variation and selective retention. The mess is the message.

As the Tea Parties impose selective pressures on the entrenched GOP establishment from the very soil below the grass roots, the elephant is forced, ponderously and reluctantly, to evolve or die, and with it, the whole of the political ecosystem through which it moves.

Much is made by the Democratic commentariat about the "Civil War" taking pace within the GOP. Fair enough, and we've certainly heard that language before, when Liberals want to sound a triumphalist note (and I'm not just talking about Iraq here). But just as important here is the internecine strife taking place within the Democratic party, as it faces what looks to be a sound drubbing, come November. As the factions of Dems who view the emerging Tea Party insurgency as a call to shift all the more shrilly to the Left have it out with those who see the need to let the Blue Dogs have their day, so is the donkey compelled to adapt, lest it become a mule.

All this excites me greatly. There are those who decry the retrenchments, Left and Right, and bemoan the "loss of the Center," lamenting that it is out of this center that "true" governance takes place. But they are missing a very crucial point: The "Center" cannot hold. When the poles of political thought become cross-contaminated by the efforts of our would-be leaders to be all things to all people, the result is an unhealthy loss of clarity. This brings about a blurring of the focus which animates the Centralizing/Federalizing dialectic which has held in its uneasy balance the very dynamism which has kept the Founders' grand experiment on the bleeding edge of civilizational evolution since its inception. The "center" is what emerges from the push-pull of competing visions for our Republic, the "big government, small citizen/small government, big citizen" tension out of which arises an ever-changing synthesis which is able to keep pace with shifting circumstances.

Before us today is the emergence of a purifying blast of clarity on both sides of this dialog. And, as they thrash it out, the promise of a properly divided government is, at long last arising. The "center" will wrench itself into being as the moribund, accommodationist oligarchies of both parties are forced to weather the withering blasts from the sharp, hungry purists on both sides of the political divide. They will be forced to ply the same waters, held to account by the voters should they fail to find a way to man the oars and get the ship of State back underway.

EDITED: 9/21/10 for typos.

Nine Years Down the Line

2010-09-11T03:14:00.000-04:00

This text field has been empty for quite some time now.

I'd been watching footage of that Terrible Tuesday, trying to move myself to generate some meaningful associations, to stir the psychic pot and see if some words would float to the top, and spill out onto this screen. But, like Kurtz, all I could come up with was "the horror."

The fact is, that I am tired. I feel as though I will never again have as clear an access to my feelings on the horror which reached from the darkness of those benighted hearts to strike at our civilization as I did on a late night, two years ago. I know I did not say all there is to be said. Far from it! But I just can't seem to find the words to yoke themselves to the thoughts and emotions which still swirl in me as I think back to that surreal morning, almost a decade ago (!!).

I can't help but feel that I am not alone in this. The fact that this Nation elected a president who, in his words and deeds, seems to live in the world of 9/10/01, the fact that somewhere around 1/3 the US population harbors some variant of the unutterably nauseating belief that it was actually our own government which had a hand in the atrocities of New York, Washington, DC, and Shanksville, PA, the fact that Iran inches, all-but unmolested, toward the capability to field nuclear weapons (!!!), or that, somewhere in this world, Osama bin Laden still draws breath, or that the very idea of constructing a mosque, mere steps from Ground Zero itself (!!!!) is felt to warrant serious consideration, or that the site itself is still a big fracking hole in the ground...It all just leaves me numb.

For all of the heartfelt and sincere statements of remembrance, the Facebook profile images replaced with pillars of light on the scarred NYC skyline, the earnest statements that we should "never forget..." too much has been forgotten. The terrible duties imposed by the horror which was visited on us are now routinely trivialized by fools who fail to grasp the enormity of what was done, and of what it demands.

I am tired. And I feel as though we are all just falling, falling.

Day of the Dove: A Modest Suggestion for Pastor Jones

2010-09-09T02:35:00.001-04:00

First, the obvious: The planned burning of some 200 Korans by Pastor Terry Jones, of the Gainesville FL Dove World Outreach Center is a stupid idea. I'm no fan of the absurd prostrations of multiculturalists before the barbarous and bigoted threats of retaliation for any perceived slights against Islam, but this is simply unnecessary, unwise, and threatens mayhem far out of proportion to any "message" the congregants of this church may believe they are sending. It is, to any reasoning being, an insensitive provocation.

It is also a Constitutionally protected form of political expression which, some niggling fire codes notwithstanding, there is no legal grounds to suppress.

But just because Pastor Jones has a right to do this, does not make it the right thing to do. And, if that phrase sounds familiar, it should. It is the phrase which is so frequently uttered with respect to the planned mosque and Islamic cultural center within steps of Ground Zero. There is broad agreement that Imam Rauf has every right to go forth with the construction of that center. Religious freedom and private property rights are crystal clear on the matter. But this inarguable fact does not in any way diminish the staggering insensitivity of constructing an Islamic center --however many nods to interconfessional amity may be incorporated into its plan-- well within the debris field of an horrific attack on the West by those who were motivated by the most virulent strains of Islamist ideology. No, it was not "Islam" which attacked us, and therefore it is unwarranted to generalize that Jihadist atrocity to the whole of Islam. Duh.

But if Rauf is really interested in promoting peaceable coexistence between the Islamic and non-Islamic worlds, then the very best thing he could do would be to recognize the overwhelming opposition to the Cordoba House, and exercise his rights to find an alternate location for the structure. I suppose it would be well within bounds for him to publicly lament that the rift between his stated ideals and the reality of the current zeitgeist is such that such a step would be necessary. I'm not even altogether sure that I would disagree.

Now, I have no idea if Pastor Jones would be interested in the following suggestion, but he has a real opportunity to perform a mitzvah here. Long about September 10th, say, he could grab one of the many microphones which are doubtless being shoved in his face on a daily basis, and say something along the lines of: "It is no secret that I consider Islam to be opposed to the most cherished tenets of my faith, and I had planned to make a statement about the dangers of this heathen religion to the very soul of Christendom. But, upon reflection and prayer, and mindful of the far-reaching consequences should I exercise my Constitutional right of free expression, I have chosen --and am directing my flock to follow me in this-- to forgo that right, and to cancel the planned burning of the Moslem Book. I am dismayed that my ability to express my faith and my protest has raised such opposition, but the ideals of charity and tolerance which are the very soul of Christianity must win out over my concern at the corrosive effects of the Moslem heresy."

OK, so I suspect we're not talking about someone with such an evolved capacity for verbal expression, but you get the general idea.

Now, were he to leave it to the punditry or make the statement himself, explicitly, the connection between Jones' possible actions and what one might hope Imam Rauf would choose could not be lost on those who struggle with their own feelings and ideals with respect to the Cordoba House. Justly or unjustly, book burnings evoke ugly images of orgiastic fascist exercises in thought control. Similarly, images of Victory Mosques simply cannot help but intrude on even the most sober discussion of what to do with the site of the former Burlington Coat Factory, which was struck by the landing gear of one of the hijacked planes.

Both of these men have a unique opportunity to teach a lesson on rights and Rights. I do hope they both choose to do the right thing.

Barack-ing Up is Hard to Do

2010-09-04T18:26:00.000-04:00

HEH!

Canard Season: On the Economic Impact of Operation Iraqi Freedom

2010-08-29T02:43:00.000-04:00

Via QandO, comes this devastating deconstruction at The American Thinker of the oft-repeated meme that the Iraq War was responsible for the ballooning deficits under which our economy now labors. The general idea has been that Teh Eeevil Booosh had squandered our Nation's wealth on his Massive Boondoggle (for the enrichment of the Oil Companies, the Military-Industrial Complex, or any other of a host of popular bogeymen). And so, the 'reasoning' goes, it is hypocritical in the extreme for Conservatives to now decry the deficits which we now endure under our Democratic Administration and (for now!) Congress.

Bunk. Pure, unadulterated bunk. Have a peek at the chart, below.

Notice anything about the years? Specifically, recall which party was in charge of Congress from 2003 through 2007. Notice anything about the deficit trend lines during those years? How about right after?

The less I say here, the higher the probability that you will read the whole thing. And you should read the whole thing. The author cites the Government's own numbers (i.e., this isn't something cooked up at the Heritage Foundation or somesuch). It is a bit of much-needed perspective, particularly as we approach the time when we get to decide who writes the next set of budgets.

Dog Bites Man: Media Moguls' Dollars Skew Hard to Port

2010-08-28T02:49:00.000-04:00

From the files of the Utterly Unsurprising comes this report of the political contribution tendencies among the denizens of the MSM. Given the spectacle of leg-tingling hagiography to which The One was treated during the 2008 election cycle, this kind of falls in the "water is wet" category of reportage. If you'll pardon the expression, here's the money quote:

Senior executives, on-air personalities, producers, reporters, editors, writers and other self-identifying employees of ABC, CBS and NBC contributed more than $1 million to Democratic candidates and campaign committees in 2008, according to an analysis by The Examiner of data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Democratic total of $1,020,816 was given by 1,160 employees of the three major broadcast television networks, with an average contribution of $880.

By contrast, only 193 of the employees contributed to Republican candidates and campaign committees, for a total of $142,863. The average Republican contribution was $744.

And, lest one malign the source (the Washington Examiner is hardly Liberal-friendly), these stats were drawn from the Center For Responsive Politics, whose invaluable site opensecrets.org, is widely considered unimpeachable in its non-partisan objectivity.

Just a little food for thought, for the next time Fox News is raked over the coals for Rupert Murdoch's political contributions. That is, if one were inclined to be --dare I say-- Fair and Balanced.

Maliki Handed his Hat?

2010-08-02T13:43:00.001-04:00

From the WaPo comes this bit of bad news for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Back in March, you'll recall, Maliki's State of Law coalition fell just short of former PM Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya bloc in the national elections, and long weeks have dragged into months while the various groups have wrangled to work out who would get to form the new government. Now Maliki's State Of Law party appears to have lost the support of the Iraqi National Alliance, an (Iran-endorsed...) coalition of religious Shiite parties which had backed Maliki's claim to power.

Without INA backing, Maliki just doesn't have a chance, and he should recognize this. Allawi appears to have pretty much shed his previous stigma of "American Puppet" among Iraqis, and holds great promise in bringing Sunnis more actively and productively to the table. Necessary as they were overall (if at times heavy-handed in the execution), Maliki's aggressive de-Baathification steps have never been forgiven amid a large swathe of the Sunni population. Allawi's broadly secular, trans-sectarian appeal is as much the thing for today's Iraq as Maliki's nails in the Baath Party coffin were for the Iraq of four years ago. Allawi is also a very vocal and credible opponent of Iranian influence in Iraqi affairs (and, despite some recent brave noises along these lines, Maliki just hasn't been able to close that sale with the Iraqi people for whom Tehran is not popular). Kurdish former President Talabani is one of Allawi's closest friends, which appears likely to be reflected in relations between Arab and Kurdish blocs in an increasingly coalitionist government..

Maliki is being obdurate, and Iraq is suffering as a result. This is not to say that he does not have a legitimate case. He just might. That’s not the point. A true statesman would see that this protracted stalemate is the ultimate “broken window” in the neighborhood, and it’s signaling to the agents of chaos that they have their own window of opportunity.

After initially low expectations, Maliki has impressed me on more than one occasion with his tenacity and mettle. It is a shame to see him appearing to regress in what most observers agree is a strenuous and increasingly ignoble-seeming effort to cling to power, at the expense of the stability of his nation.

He should let Allawi have another turn at the tiller, soak up the goodwill from taking that high road, and use it to try again the next time around.

That’s what people do in a republic.

There's Just No Appeasing Some People

2010-07-31T11:40:00.000-04:00

Ran into this story in the CSM which, okay, I'll have to admit it, schaded my freude something fierce.

Remember those hapless American hikers who were scooped up last year on the Iraqi-Iranian border, and remain in Iranian custody on suspicion of espionage? Well, it seems the Iranians have a pretty shoddy way of treating their useful idiots:

In an ironic twist, Iran appears to have arrested a trio of passionate young Americans who espouse some of the same causes as Iran itself, particularly taking a stand against United States and Israeli aggression.

Mr. Bauer, an Arabic-speaking journalist, had previously exposed pitfalls in the US strategy in Iraq. His fiancée Sarah Shourd was teaching Iraqi refugee children in Syria, where an estimated 2 million Iraqis fled during the US-led war in their country. And their college friend Josh Fattal had fought to get military recruiters off United States campuses.

Kinda conjures images of scorpions and frogs, no?

Well, at least they'll be well-prepared for their captivity by all the time they've spent as political prisoners in the US for their...oh...wait.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of all this is the near-certainty that when these imbeciles finally are released, they will just turn around and blame it all on the Americo-Zionists' misdeeds making the wise and beneficent Iranians all crotchety.

Here's hoping the Iranians are not clever enough to be making use of this prison term for the purpose of turning mere addle-brained adolescents into actual operatives....

Nazi Smears Old & Busted? Whip Out the Race Card!

2010-07-23T21:11:00.002-04:00

[by Mr.Hengist]

Let me just start this off by saying that "race relations", as they used to be called when I was a boy, are of no interest to me. I was raised in a racially colorblind household, and, come to think of it, I can't recall ever having seen even mild racism in my nuclear or extended family. I attended colorblind schools with a variety of peoples of different races, and so forth. As a result of this upbringing I believe that racism is just wrong. This was an issue to press with my parents' generation, and my parents in particular, and press they did. As for me, well, waging eternal war against racism is just not my bag.

Here in America, the advocates of racial equality won, thankfully. I was born at a time when the first inter-racial kiss on Star Trek was a notable event, and what seemed generations away back then has, after a generation or two, come to pass: we have a black* POTUS, as well as black Congressmen, Governors, Mayors, CEOs, and so forth. America has come a long way, yadda yadda yadda. The color barrier has been broken and racism dare not show its face in polite society. However, I'm of the opinion that racism has not been and never will be eliminated; we waged a world war trying to eliminate the f'ing Nazis and yet there are still admirers of that abomination to this day; racism, likewise, will endure. It usually takes some generations to make societal changes like these. We should neither sanction racism by law nor countenance it personally. I don't make friends with bigots, and I keep myself from slapping them.

I find myself in good company on the American Right. In the midst of my political conversion during the Spring and Summer of 2003, I found myself visiting rightwing blogs for reasons wholly unrelated to politics and, to my surprise, I found paraphrased there the famous quotation of Martin Luther King Jr. from his "I Have a Dream" speech, to the effect that he wished for a nation that would judge people not on their skin color but the content of their character. I found it on several different rightwing blogs, actually, and it took a while before I came to believe that, rather than simply being than a cudgel with which to beat the hypocrisy out of their ideological enemies, it was indeed, as it appeared: an expression of genuine desire. After a couple of years of reading rightwing blogs, columns, and publications, I came to realize upon reflection that not only was racism absent from the places I visited on the Right, but also absent too was the soft bigotry of low expectations to which I had become accustomed in my previous life as a Liberal (not that I shared it at the time, but it's so pervasive on the Left that I'd come to hardly notice it).

Accusations of racism, however, are cudgel in the hands of Liberals. They're also big on calling us Nazis, notwithstanding the irony. Racists, like Nazis, have no legitimate currency in our realm, and no say in our national debate. That's why they demonize us by calling us these names; not because it's true, but because they would have their idological competition eliminated from the debate without having to address our arguments on merit. We end up having to defend ourselves from these scurrilous attacks which in turn reduces the time we can spend talking about the flawed policy and wrongdoings of our opponents and it taints our image in minds of the gullible and uninformed. It's a despicable political tactic.

You'll want proof, of course. By way of example I give you Rush Limbaugh, who was most recently pilloried when he tried to buy an ownership stake in a football team. The Left used one of Alinsky's tactics (see "Rules for Radicals"): "Pick the Target, Freeze It, Personalize It and Polarize It". The Left set their sights on Limbaugh and opened up with all guns blazing - blanks. The quotes used against him were either fabricated or decontextualized. That was the best they could do, and bear in mind that Limbaugh has been broadcasting for the last twenty-five years. That's an hour or two a day, five days a week, most of the year, year after year, and despite the vast wealth of material through which they are free to comb for examples to bolster their charge, again, this is the best they can do. If, like me, you think as serious an accusation as racism should be backed up by evidence, then that's not just weak tea, that's homeopathic tea, but then, Liberals neither require proof to make accusations against their political opponents, nor do they see this as being a problem.

All this brings me to my pet piñata of a dinosaur media columnist: Eugene Robinson of the WaPo, and his latest column, "Obama needs to stand up to 'reverse racism' ploy" (WaPo - July 22, 2010 - A19). Let's start with the title, which calls out the "reverse racism ploy" of the Right. "Reverse racism" is sort of like racism, but in reverse. It's when people of other ethnicities are accused of racism - other than white, of course. That is to say that racism, as defined by the Left, is when whites discriminate against people of other ethnicities, so the reverse of that would be when people of other ethnicities discriminate against whites (or, occasionally, ethnicities other than their own). Racism is, by their definition, exclusively the province of white people; racism, when exhibited by non-whites, is the reverse of that. "Reverse racism" is, therefore, a divisive and racist term itself (it's a racist term, in that they have a special term for wrongdoing by a particular racial group). Congratulations, Eugene! Right out of the gate, you've beclowned yourself.

Let's move on to the body of the text:

"After the Shirley Sherrod episode, there's no longer any need to mince words: A cynical right-wing propaganda machine is peddling the poisonous fiction that when African Americans or other minorities reach positions of power, they seek some kind of revenge against whites."

Leaving aside the false pretense that Robinson or Liberals have up until now been mincing words, the "right-wing propaganda machine" is what Leftists imagine to be the rightwing equivalent of their own propaganda machines. Like, say, JournoList, in which Liberal journalists and academicians colluded to coordinated smears of their political opposition and spike stories which made their side look bad. They imagine that since they work together in this way, their opposition must as well, and having imagined it to be possible, they suppose that it's probable, and having supposed that it's probable, they conclude that it must be true, and so with the speed of a caffeinated ferret they know to be true that which they've only imagined. Proof is no longer necessary for Leftists to delude themselves. At any rate, the target of Andrew Breitbart's posting of the clips of Sheley Sherrod was not her; it was aimed at the group to which she was speaking, the NAACP. The NAACP, which is working together openly with the openly racist "Nation of Islam". This was in response to the NAACP calling out racism in the Tea Party, citing now-debunked accusations of racism (see Power Line's "Don't leave it to Cleaver", parts 1 through 17).

This was not, however, an accusation that when "minories reach positions of power, they seek some kind of revenge against whites." What it illustrated was that the NAACP, which hosted the event, applauded and gave approval to Sherrod's recounting of her tale of when she racially discriminated against a white farmer, not doing all she could to help him (when she was working for a non-profit). She states that she was of the opinion that he should seek help from "one of his own kind." She went on to say that she had since come to believe that poor whites are also worthy of her help. Middle class and rich whites should still, presumably, be helped "by their own kind." (in her own semi-coherent words, "That’s when…it was revealed to me that it’s about poor versus those who have. And not so much about white — it is about white and black — but it’s not, you know…it opened my eyes." )

"A few of the purveyors of this bigoted nonsense might actually believe it. Most of them, however, are merely seeking political gain by inviting white voters to question the motives and good faith of the nation's first African American president. This is really about tearing Barack Obama down."

This had nothing to do with POTUS Obama. The fact that this Marxist racist worked for the USDA was something of an embarassment to the Obama Administration, and she was fired for it. Now they've apologized for that, since, I guessing, they're of the opinion that if you're a Marxist racist, and not just a plain old racist, that's OK.

"With the Obama presidency, though, has come a flurry of charges -- from the likes of Breitbart but also from more substantial conservative figures -- about alleged incidences of racial discrimination against whites by blacks and other minorities. Recall, for example, the way Obama's critics had a fit when he offered an opinion about the confrontation between Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and a white police officer. Remember the over-the-top reaction when it was learned that Justice Sonia Sotomayor had once talked about how being a "wise Latina" might affect her thinking."

Well, no, there haven't been a flurry of charges about incidents of racial discrimination against whites by blacks and other minorities. Robinsons WaPo readers are not expected to doubt this despite having little recollection of any such thing, but rather his assertion alone, in their minds, will make it so. He imagines it, and so he asserts it, and on that basis they believe. His examples?

There's the Gates/cops incident, in which Gates threw a tantrum, ranting and shouting about how he was being racially harassed when the police came to protect his home from burglars. They had asked him to step outside of the house, which is a standard police procedure which removes a person from any potential threat in a dwelling; even if a homeowner insists from within their own house that everything is OK, the police will ask them to step outside and say the same thing, just in case the homeowner is being coerced by, say, somebody behind the door, holding a gun on him. The problem with what POTUS Obama did was that, before any investigation, and before all the facts were known, Obama characterized the police as having acted "stupidly." This was unpresidential and possibly racially motivated, as Gates is black and the police were mostly white, but not provably so. That was the attitude, by and large, of the Right on this flap; it was Gates who was the primary object of scorn on the Right, for playing the race card, and POTUS Obama a distant second for inappropriately injecting his uninformed opinion on an issue of minor national significance - and, predictably, automatically siding with the black guy screaming "Racism!"

Then there's the then-nominee for the SCOTUS Sotomayor, who made an arguably racist statement in a 2001 speech to law students at the University of California at Berkeley: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." That remark was less about wise Latinas as it was about how white men are not as wise or fair as Latinas.

That should have disqualified her for the nomination to the Supreme Court. Don't think so? Fine, let's try a little thought experiment. Imagine the SCOTUS nominee of a Republican POTUS had said the following: "I would hope that a wise white man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina who hasn't lived that life." Kinda pops out at ya now, doesn't it?

Remember, these are Eugene Robinson's cited examples of false charges of racism by the Right against POTUS Obama.

He goes on:

"Before Sherrod, the cause celebre of the "You Must Fear Obama" campaign involved something called the New Black Panther Party. Never heard of it? That's because it's a tiny group that exists mainly in the fevered imaginations of its few members. Also in the alternate reality of Fox News: One of the network's hosts has devoted more than three hours of air time in recent weeks to the grave threat posed by the NBPP. Actually, I suspect that this excess is at least partly an attempt by a relatively obscure anchor to boost her own notoriety."

Robinson will not let his lack of comprehension of the arguments of his opponents stand in the way of his characterizing them as being frivolous or malevolent - a pitch-perfect Liberal. In this case, what has the Right outraged has less to do with the New Black Panther Party than the Department of Justice. The New Black Panther Party is, indeed, a tiny group of violent racists who are, on the whole, of little consequence. During the 2008 election two of them, one armed with a billy club, were stationed just outside a polling station, and were intimidating voters. It was a clear violation of law, and regardless of the merits of the case, the DOJ had the case won through a default judgement, had they but taken it. The New Black Panthers did not show up, nor did they send representative council, and so would have lost the civil suit filed against them by the DOJ had only the DOJ accepted it. Deliberately, they did not do so, and it is the contention of J. Christian Adams (and initially corroborated by two of his colleagues, now a third) that it is the internal policy of the DOJ that the voting rights laws will not be enforced in the defense of white voters. The Right has a problem with that. So should the Left, but they don't. Instead, they mischaracterize these allegations and their political opposition.

The last thing the Left wants is to have a serious discussion with their political opposition about the future of this country and Liberal vs. Conservative policies. Instead, as always, they seek to eject their opposition from the discussion by manufacturing accusations of racism against them. Granted, when your ideas are as bankrupt and divisive as theirs, it's understandable why they would like to avoid that debate, even if it means throwing serious accusations of evil around. It's understandable, and shamefully so.

Shame on Eugene Robinson, shame on the Left, and shame on you willing Liberal dupes who live in your Liberal bubbles. You will never understand your political opposition, or have a coherent political discussion with them, until you start to listen to what they have to say for themselves. When you let fools like Robinson (or the busted ThinkProgress) explain the Right to you instead of actually listening to the Right, you end up sounding incoherently disconnected from reality and dishonest.

* Regarding my usage of the word "black" instead of the more PC "African-American": yes, that's right, I still say "black". I know, I know, black people aren't actually black, they're brown, in the same way that I'm not white. As inaccurate as these hues are in describing our relative pigmentation, they are a more accurate description of the thing we're talking about than the term "African-American". There are lots of black people who are not from and have never been to Africa, just as there are lots of people who are fishbelly white who actually live there, and, perhaps just as confoundingly, black people who were born in, say, Canada are not, obviously, African-American. As far as our use of language goes, black beats colored beats negro beats darkie beats the-n-word-I-can't-say-because-I'm-white-even-if-I-do-so-in-contempt-of-it, but African-American is just silly and so I generally avoid it.

Vectors

2010-06-10T03:08:00.022-04:00

Care of the Belmont Club, comes this vid of a remotely-operated quad-rotor platform. Some truly impressive software enables it to execute maneuvers which are downright balletic in their nimbleness. Check it out.

This is some pretty extraordinary stuff, and begs the question of why the frack we don't have piloted vehicles with this sort of architecture. Their superiority over conventional high, open-rotor designs is obvious, in terms of maneuverability and range of safe operating environments. Four shrouded ducted fans could propel a vehicle, for example, through forest canopy in ways that would turn a conventional helo into a shrieking mass of falling metal and several high-velocity flying swords. Sure, you couldn't autorotate in the event of an engine failure, but you could probably compensate for the loss of one engine, and a ballistic parachute system would be simpler to implement than in a typical rotorcraft for catastrophic faults.

All that aside, the possibilities for reconnaissance and surveillance (not to mention kinetic urban engagements) are just as obvious. Armed with ordnance and/or cameras and sensors, one or ten of these little suckers would vastly increase the potential situational awareness of troops in complex areas of operation. They could scoot through windows or doors (or tunnel hatches), and scope out those pesky blind corners with the greatest of ease. Packing a grenade, they could be very effective in breaking the ice...

Of course, on that latter point, Richard Fernandez at the above-linked BC post has some things to say about the law of unintended consequences with respect to the current administration's efforts to close both prominent and clandestine facilities for the holding of captured baddies. In essence, by foreclosing on options for detention and interrogation of high-value targets, the emphasis has, perforce, moved decidedly in the direction of liquidation (everything must go!). Despite international hand-wringing on the "legality" of targeted assassinations via drone strike, there really is little alternative for dealing with those who draw breath all-but solely for the purpose of doing us harm.

Come hellfire or high-waterboarding, somebody is going to be offended by our efforts to defend ourselves against murderous miscreants. There is no simple solution to the dilemma. It is at least useful, however, to reflect on the distal implications of our decisions when it comes to fighting our foes.

After all, as the video so clearly shows, thrust in any given direction must be balanced by opposing counter-thrust. We really don't have all that much room to maneuver.

"Socialism vs. Capitalism" and the BP Mess

2010-05-29T21:11:00.004-04:00

[by Mr.Hengist]

One of my favorite columnist piñatas at the WaPo, E.J. Dionne Jr. (co-king with Eugene Robinson for that title), has written another column that could use a few whacks with the Mr.Hengist stick. Going by the promising title, “Gulf oil spill offers a lesson in capitalism vs. socialism” E.J. sounds a herald of trumpets for his fisk-worthy beclowning. Let’s have at it!

So who is in charge of stopping the oil spill, BP or the federal government?

Ooh! Ooh! I know! British Petroleum, unless and until the federal government takes over. OPA Section 4201 amended Section 311(c) of the Clean Water Act provides the POTUS (delegated to the USCG or EPA) with three options:

- Federalize the spill and perform an immediate cleanup.
- Direct the spiller's cleanup activities.
- Monitor the spiller's cleanup efforts.
Furthermore, the USG determines the level of cleanup required.
[PDF link & H/T Mark Levin]

See? That’ wasn’t so hard. E.J.’s not so sure, though:

The fact that the answer to this question seems as murky as the water around the exploded oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico suggests that this is an excellent moment to recognize that our arguments pitting capitalism against socialism and the government against the private sector muddle far more than they clarify.

That is to say that E.J. Dionne and his liberal readers are muddled because they are ignorant of the federal statutes relevant to this issue, but that's no impediment to their expressing the usual righteous indignation and outrage. In this case, E.J. seems to be suggesting a socialism vs. capitalism cage match. Don’t think his cheerleading of socialism makes it OK to call him a socialist, though. We know how socialists hate to be called socialists. Some kind of hate crime, or racism, or something.

E.J. continues:

Many tragic ironies are bubbling to the surface along with the oil. Consider the situation of Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a Republican conservative who devoutly opposes the exertions of big government.
"The strength of America is not found in our government," Jindal declared in his response to President Obama's February 2009 address to Congress. "It is found in the compassionate hearts and the enterprising spirit of our citizens."
But with his state facing an environmental disaster of unknown proportions, Jindal is looking for a little strength from Washington. His beef is that the federal government isn't doing enough to help. "It is clear we don't have the resources we need to protect our coast," he said this week, expressing his frustrations with "the disjointed effort to date that has too often meant too little, too late."
You can't blame Jindal for being mad. But will he ever acknowledge that "compassionate hearts" were not sufficient for coping with this catastrophe?

Here’s a pretty obvious strawman that E.J. offers because, well, he knows his readers are unlikely to spot it. Liberals, who crow about their unique appreciation of nuance, seem to think that the Conservatives are anarchists when they advocate “limited government,” as if to snidely say, “You want Federal disaster relief? Hypocrite wingnuts, whatever happened to ‘getting government off the backs of the people`?”

The quote from Gov. Jindal was hardly ironic, though; it was in response to POTUS Obama’s Feb 24th, 2009 address to Congress, noting that during the Katrina rescue efforts an un-named bureaucrat tried to prohibit a volunteer sea rescue effort for lack of insurance and registration. Sort of like how the EPA tried to block BP from using a dispersant it had already approved. BP was using a lot of it, you see, and the EPA was suddenly concerned that it was toxic, so they ordered BP to find another one. The EPA expressed no advice which one they had in mind, if any, or how to instantly procure it in large volumes. That is to say, the petulant and meddlesome EPA had no alternative to offer but they nevertheless ordered BP to instantly find and apply an alternative. In contrast, little girls only wish for ponies. Gov. Jindal and right-wingers only wish the government would step out of the way when they aren’t being constructive, which was the point he was making a year ago, and that point is just as relevant today.

Did he ever ask BP how prepared it was for something like this? Or was he just counting on the company's "enterprising spirit"?

Gov. Jindal probably didn’t ask BP how prepared it was for something like this because, after all, that was the responsibility of Federal agencies like the EPA and the MMS, which is to say that he had no authority in such matters. Federal authorities did not, of course, leave disaster response preparations entirely up to private corporations, or at least they weren’t supposed to do that, but the BP spill has revealed that both industry and government were woefully unprepared. Dionne would do well to ask, for example, why the Federal government had no fire booms on hand, despite a Federal plan dating back to 1994 that called for their immediate use when dealing with a major Gulf oil spill.

For its part, the Obama administration has not sent a consistent message. On Sunday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar proclaimed outside of BP's headquarters in Houston: "If we find they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, we'll push them out of the way appropriately."
Not according to Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander. Speaking the next day at the White House, Allen observed: "To push BP out of the way, it would raise a question: Replace them with what?"
Exactly. While Allen may not be a political philosopher, he spoke with the sophistication of one during an interview with CNN.

To say that the Obama administration “has not sent a consistent message” understates the revisionist history in which they’ve been engaged. The Federal government has been relying on the entirety of the oil industry to address this problem, not just BP.

"What makes this an unprecedented anomalous event," he said, "is access to the discharge site is controlled by the technology that was used for the drilling, which is owned by the private sector."
So there you have it: "Do something!" citizens shout to a government charged with protecting the environment in and around a Gulf of Mexico that is nobody's private property. Yet the government, it seems, can't do much of anything because the means of stopping the flow of oil are entirely in the hands of a private company. BP was trusted to know what it was doing with complicated equipment that, it would appear, it either didn't understand very well or was willing to use recklessly.

There is nothing to stop the Federal government from researching and developing drilling and disaster mitigation technologies. The Federal government relies on private industry because that’s where knowledge and expertise are to be found; or, to put it another way, we don’t rely on the Federal government to do much of anything because they don’t know what they’re doing. It’s not true to say that “the means of stopping the flow of oil are entirely in the hands of a private company” because it was not the means, but the responsibility, which was handed off to private industry. There are some early indications that this responsibility was mismanaged by BP, but I trust that the future investigations will shed more light on that.

The technology used is controlled by a private company because they've paid to own or lease it. If we had to rely on the Federal government to provide this technology we'd solve the problem of their not having access to it, but to what end? They don't have the expertise to utilize it in any meaningful way, and more than likely the problem would be moot because the technology simply wouldn't be available for use in the first place. Innovation is not a strong suit of government, to say the least.

Deep water drilling is a relatively new and not well-understood technology. Off-shore drilling is easier and has an excellent safety track record, and drilling on land is easier and safer still, but we are left with deep water drilling because, as Charles Krauthammer sums it up,

Environmental chic has driven us out there. As production from the shallower Gulf of Mexico wells declines, we go deep (1,000 feet and more) and ultra deep (5,000 feet and more), in part because environmentalists have succeeded in rendering the Pacific and nearly all the Atlantic coast off-limits to oil production. (President Obama's tentative, selective opening of some Atlantic and offshore Alaska sites is now dead.) And of course, in the safest of all places, on land, we’ve had a 30-year ban on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
So we go deep, ultra deep -- to such a technological frontier that no precedent exists for the April 20 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

We need energy, period. We get most of our energy from oil, unfortunately. Unfortunately, alternative “green” energy sources are technological toddlers requiring many more years of development to be practical on a large scale, if they can get there at all. That leaves us with oil.

There’s also nuclear power, which is now safe, efficient, and environmentally manageable. Environmental foolishness has kept us from building the nuclear power plants we’d need to dramatically reduce our reliance on oil, and one of the first acts of the Obama Administration was to kill the future American nuclear power generation by closing the best place to safely store the waste: Yucca Mountain.

In short, this environmental mess is the indirect result of environmentalist prohibitions that were supposed to protect the environment. Nice work, greenies!

E.J. goes on,

Belatedly, the Obama administration has realized that citizens can never accept the idea that their government is powerless.

It takes years of brown-nosed shilling for Democrats to be able to write a sentence like that without a trace of embarrassment. As for me, I just threw up a little in my mouth.

"Deregulation" is wonderful until we discover what happens when regulations aren't issued or enforced.

This is an excellent example of rhetorical disingenuousness. E.J. Dionne does not believe that deregulation is wonderful. What’s more, Dionne seems oblivious to the question of how to get effective enforcement of existing regulations. Certainly, it’s not enough just to have regulations, but when Dionne advocates ever more regulations it’s often the case that existing relevant regulations have had lax enforcement, and the solution to that is certainly not more regulations. Perhaps we should put this another way: when regulatory bodies fail, why do Liberals always insist on more regulation instead of questioning their own faith in the regulators?

Everyone is a capitalist until a private company blunders. Then everyone starts talking like a socialist, presuming that the government can put things right because they see it as being just as big and powerful as its Tea Party critics claim it is.

I’m charmed by this line in E.J.’s piece. Here’s a good example of what we call “The Liberal Bubble”. “Everyone starts talking like a socialist” as far as E.J. knows, and that’s a function of his ignorance of what his political opposition has to say. Furthermore, we who want a smaller government also believe that government competence is inversely proportional to its size. The Tea Partiers are right: our government is very powerful, and bigger than it ever has been, but it is neither particularly competent nor efficient.

In this BP debacle, only fools believe that our government can fix the problem, but believe they do and so they cry out for government to “do something.” The government has no solution, and the people with the best shot at fixing it, the oil industry, have pooled resources and are hard at work trying to come up with one. That’s why I don’t begrudge POTUS Obama going golfing and taking vacations while this operation is underway; it’s not as if he could personally do anything or exercise any of his authority in a way that would do any good. What I do resent is his mouthing of platitudes, as in, “We will not rest until this well is shut, the environment is repaired and the cleanup is complete,” because all it amounts to is, “blah, blah, blah.”

But the truth is that we have disempowered government and handed vast responsibilities over to a private sector that will never see protecting the public interest as its primary task. The sludge in the gulf is, finally, the product of our own contradictions.

When I read this kind of sloppiness I’m reminded of how often I think that Liberals live in a make-believe world of their own, dark fantasies. We haven’t “disempowered” government; in fact, government oversight and power has steadily been on the increase over the course of decades. There is no power that government needs which it does not already have which would speed the solution to this mess.

Disappointingly, Dione does not deliver on his “capitalism vs. socialism” promise so I won’t belabor the point, but hard-core socialist countries like the former Soviet Union and present-day China have environmental histories that are unqualified large-scale disasters. I’ll give Europe credit for having a good environmental record in general, generally on a par with our own, but need I remind E.J. Dionne that “BP” stands for British Petroleum?

Crucibles

2010-05-16T02:59:00.002-04:00

Via Instapundit, and the newly-bookmarked, likely to be frequently-visited H+ Magazine, I encountered this fascinating article on the role of Israel in the formation of our technological civilization, and in its future development. It begins thusly:

Imagine this sci-fi scenario: A small tribe with unique literature, customs and myths believes they’ve been “chosen” for a glorious destiny. But they’re driven out of their native land, forced to wander the globe for aeons, persecuted and annihilated, until they’re impelled by a utopian novel to return to their homeland. They name their new city after the inspirational book and their country becomes a technological powerhouse... but still, they’re surrounded by enemies. They wage eternal war, they hover between hope and apocalypse… their contributions to humanity are astounding but they continue to fear total extinction.

The tiny nation of Israel has had a disproportionately huge impact on the states of an astonishing variety of extremely cutting-edge technologies practically since its inception. It is still the world standard on water treatment (its drip irrigation techniques were revolutionary, and allowed it to make the desert bloom in a way which would have made Frank Herbert's mouth...well...). Its contributions to renewable energy technologies, robotics, medical tech, and a host of other highly advanced fields of knowledge have made this nation, though smaller than New Jersey, into a little laboratory for the future. Consider these data:

The first cell phones were developed at the Israeli branch of Motorola. The majority of Windows NT and XP operating systems were developed by Microsoft Israel. Pentium MMX chip technology was designed at the Israeli Intel. Both the Pentium 4 and Centrino processors were designed by Israelis. Dov Moran, an Israeli, invented the flash disk. Voice mail technology? Israel. AOL Instant Messenger? Israel. Highest percentage of home computers in the world? Israel. Highest ratio of university degrees? Israel. Highest per capita number of scientists and technicians in the workplace? Israel. (145 per 10,000 — second is USA with 85). Techno-progressive President Shimon Peres recently declared, “the future is in nanotechnology.” Israeli universities advance research in cutting edge fields like cognitive neuroscience, cellomics, telomerase, etc. etc.

Long ago, I read a short story by Theodore Sturgeon, called A Microcosmic God, in which a scientist creates a species of tiny, intelligent, short-lived organisms, and presents them with problems which they must solve, often for the sake of their own survival (for example, he introduces a mechanism which will crush them unless they come up with an impenetrable force field...so they do. After all, they see him as a kind of God figure). In the conclusion of his H+ article, author Hank Hyena links the embattled state of Israel to other fast-growing, innovative societies of the past, stating that:

In my opinion, Israel (like South Korea) will be a tiny giant in the world of the future. Both nations have risen triumphantly from near-nothingness in the last sixty years. Although Israel is miniscule and threatened by opposition, it has used this challenge as motivation for advancement. Israel’s diminutive size and gargantuan progress is reminiscent of the small vibrant city states of history, such as classical Athens (rivaled by Sparta, Thebes and Corinth), medieval Florence (opposed by Venice, Milan, Genoa, Pisa and Siena), the Warring States of China (forward leaps in philosophy, metallurgy, government, law and military strategy), Swahili seaports (Mombasa, Malindi, Kilwa, Sofala, Zanzibar, and Mogadishu competed economically as their cosmopolitan cultures blossomed), plus myriad other mighty dwarfs that performed phenomenally under pressure.

A central tenet of evolutionary dynamics (at various scales, including genetic algorithms within computers) is the importance of selective pressures to guide the process of blind variation and selective retention which makes evolution such an immensely powerful problem-solving engine. Given such pressures, evolving systems sample the problem space in massively parallel fashion, trying and discarding myriad potential solutions before zeroing in on the one which is nearest-to-optimal.

In the case of Israel, one would be hard-pressed to envision a more demanding problem space in which to sink or swim. Of course, adversity does not invariably lead to brilliance, and the author cites some other factors (e.g., an early influx of highly-educated immigrants from Russia and Europe) which have propelled Israel to its current prominence in the advancement of human civilization. But the fact is that Israel has had to innovate at a breakneck pace in order to preserve its very existence. Operating under relentless existential threats, and with very few allies (at least initially: the US was not a significant supporter till after 1973 or so), the nation of Israel has functioned as a sort of crucible for the emergence of novel approaches to a wide variety of problems.

Say what you will about the primordial standoff between Israel and its neighbors. But this is an indispensable nation with untolled gifts for the future of humanity. Amid all the hue and cry, it is useful to remember this from time to time.

Please do read the whole thing.

Standards and Practices

2010-05-15T15:58:00.000-04:00

Andrew Klavan (who, as it turns out, wrote the screenplay to one of my favorite movies that no one has heard about: A Shock to the System), posted an editorial over at the City Journal, in which he talks about the Left's particular genius in demonizing its opposition. The way he lays it out is quite pithy in a way that will make leftists fume and squirm, and conservatives shrug and say "yeah? And?"

Leftists will blacklist you—and then if you complain, they’ll attack you for whining. They will call you a racist and compare your leaders to Hitler—and then if you return the insult, they’ll scream about the decline of civility. They will do everything in their power to cut you off from media and artistic outlets—and then when you create outlets of your own, they will savage them for their bias. Like the mobster in a Raymond Chandler novel, they will beat your teeth out, then kick you in the stomach for mumbling.

The sheer slipperiness of the Left's confiscation of the public discourse would be admirable in its Machiavellian efficiency...if the health of the Republic were not so badly endangered by it. Still, you kind of have to give it to the gifted con man who is able to frame the situation in such a way that no responses outside that frame appear as reasonable or even possible. That is, till you realize that you have just signed away your life's savings.

Nowhere is the dominance of the Left's meme tampering more evident than in the entertainment business, where Conservatives like Jon Voight, Adam Baldwin, Dennis Hopper (!), Janine Turner (!!), Kelsey Grammer, and a smattering of others perform a careful dance, like operatives behind enemy lines, operating by multiple reports athwart plausibly-deniable blacklists (Klavan claims to have the goods on those, but won't spill, because it would violate trusts and pretty much annihilate his ability to make a living. Take his statements accordingly...but do take note of the status of the above-mentioned careers...). At the viewer level, the product is a ceaseless slurry of Liberal blue food, as ideologically diverse as a Womyn's Studies course at Bryn Mawr:

More than a dozen movies attacking the war on terror without shading or nuance, but not one film that said simply “We’re heroically right and they are villainously wrong.” Not one film exposing the lies and excesses of environmentalism. Not one in which, say, a brave radio talker battles the mainstream media on behalf of white boys wrongly accused of raping a black girl. There are some narratives—evil corporations, American military abuse, desperate housewives, victimized minorities—that are acceptable and others—the glories of capitalism, America’s defense of liberty, fulfilled homemakers, race-baiting con men—that are not, despite their truth and the fact that the majority of the audience approves them.

Klavan's prescription is a wise one: Don't wait around for Liberal Hollywood and the Left-leaning MSM to catch an attack of fairness. To quote Malcolm Reynolds, that's a long wait for a train that never comes. Rather, let the Right and Center-Right...hell let the actual center place a much greater emphasis on the pursuit of a presence in the cultural landscape for their own ideas. Let films and books and TV shows get produced and discussed which reflect something other than the "America's bad, m'kay?" attitude which so pervades the pap leaking from the Hollywood Hills. Don't ape the tactics of the Left by huffing and puffing about their product, but strive to compete in an open marketplace (gods know, the movies could scarcely do more poorly at the box office than pretty much all of the the GWOT-bashing flicks coming out of Hollyweird in the last few years!). Use the free market to promote the free market, in other words!

But, as Klavan entreats, "it would be nice, for purposes of discussion, if we could all begin by acknowledging the obvious."

Sauce: Goose, Gander

2010-04-22T01:07:00.009-04:00

Just sat through 11 minutes of video (posted and duly re-posted on the Facebook walls of some friends) in which an Obama-supporting chap interviewed a succession of Tea Partiers, highlighting a certain lack of resolution in their data. Pause for popcorn:

Sorta like if Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segments were produced at MSNBC, right? Not the most stellar performances of wonkery from the lumpen non-wonkers.

But it reminded me of something. Let's see....

Oh yeah! That was it.

So, what's the take-away from this little exercise in compare-and-contrast? Well, that would kinda depend on your chosen set of goggles, now wouldn't it? Is it an indication of how much more [insidiously] effective Right-Wing media outlets are in promoting a set of talking points? Is it a sign of the Left-Wing Media's emphasis on emotionally salient but factually-unfurnished memes? Is it a simple matter of (Camera One) Tea partiers' brainwashed vacuity? (Camera Two) Obama supporters' blinkered adherence to the cult of their Dear Leader's personality?

Is it an indication of how the granularity of much-needed data gets sand-blasted in an environment of entrenched partisanship, such that individuals on both sides (not to mention all the other possible "sides") are deprived of the means (or even the vague sense that there is a need) to flesh out their wafer-thin comprehension of Very Important Stuff?

And where in this process might we situate the act of promulgating one of these clips in the absence of the other?

Two In The Hand

2010-04-20T01:34:00.001-04:00

I've sat on this report all day, watching updates and waiting for confirmation ("fool me once...").

By now, I'm reasonably satisfied that this is legit. Bill Roggio over at the Long War Journal reports:

Iraq's Prime Minister and the US military confirmed that al Qaeda in Iraq's top two leaders have been killed during a raid in a remote region in the western province of Anbar.

"Abu Ayyub al Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al Muhajir, Abu Omar al Baghdadi and a number of al Qaeda leaders in Iraq were killed during a security operation in al Thar Thar region in Anbar," Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki told reporters at a press conference in Baghdad, according to Voices of Iraq.

US Forces Iraq, the US military command in Baghdad, confirmed the report in a press release.

"A series of Iraqi led joint operations conducted over the last week resulted in the Iraqi Forces with US support executing a nighttime raid on the AQI [al Qaeda in Iraq] leaders’ safehouse," the press release stated. "The joint security team identified both AQI members, and the terrorists were killed after engaging the security team. Additionally, Masri’s assistant along with the son of al-Baghdadi who were also involved in terrorist activities were killed."

During the operation, one US soldier was killed in a helicopter crash, and 16 al Qaeda associates were detained. (emph. added)

My heart goes out to the buddies and family of the helo pilot who lost his life in this highly significant raid. It was surely not lost in vain, as this is otherwise all kinds of good news. First of all, it was predominantly Iraqi security forces, with support from US forces, that executed the raid, which again underscores the success the COIN portion of OIF has enjoyed in training and fielding an increasingly effective and professional Iraqi military (to say nothing of the assets among the indigenous population which it was able to utilize in obtaining the intel that guided the strike, intel which a cowed and cynical pre-Surge population would never have dreamed of providing).

Second, this strike has essentially decapitated AQI, demonstrating that even the highest of the high in that organization is vulnerable. The psychological impact of such a blow cannot be overestimated. You can say "Whack-a-Mole" till you're blue in the face...but it doesn't change the fact that these miscreants' prospective replacements, in addition to being less experienced and possessing less street cred, will slink about with the full expectation that the slightest misstep will leave them...well...blue in the face.

Which brings me to the last point (see bolded text above): Those "16 al Qaeda associates [who] were detained" were sufficiently high in the food chain that they were kicking it in the same safe-house as the two Top (mangy, flea-bitten) Dogs in the AQI hierarchy. The degree of detailed operational and organizational intelligence which can be wrung from these "associates" represents a veritable treasure trove of actionable information which will ripple outward to the lowliest torture chambers and bomb-making shacks. Even in the unlikely event that they are not singing like canaries inside of a Mosul Minute, the mere possibility that they'll make like a Muezzin will force every Talib, Da'ud, and Hanif to scramble for new procedures to throw off the Pimp Hand of Justice. They'll get panicky. They'll get sloppy. And more and more of their thermal signatures will fade to ambient.

And, lest all this talk of strategic significance obscure it, two Very Bad Dudes have been shuffled off before they had a chance to wreak more bloody mayhem on the poor mother's sons and daughters who would have been shredded in the demonic dervish-dance of their demented demolitions.

High Fives all around for our brave and competent forces and their stalwart Iraqi allies.

Man Bites Dog: Honest Reporting From WaPo on Tea Parties

2010-04-19T12:15:00.000-04:00

And the title is where the snark will end. It was refreshing in the extreme to see this editorial by the Washington Post's Robert McCartney on his personal investigation of a Tea Party rally.

I went to the "tea party" rally at the Washington Monument on Thursday to check out just how reactionary and potentially violent the movement truly was.

Answer: Not very.

Based on what I saw and heard, tea party members are not seething, ready-to-explode racists, as some liberal commentators have caricatured them.

Some are extremists and bigots, sure. The crowd was almost entirely white. I differ strenuously with the protesters on about 95 percent of the issues.

Nevertheless, on the whole, they struck me as passionate conservatives dedicated to working within the system rather than dangerous militia types or a revival of the Ku Klux Klan.

Although shrinking government is their primary goal, many conceded that the country should keep Medicare and even Social Security. None was clamoring for civil disobedience, much less armed revolt.

Clearly, the author has differences with the Tea Partiers. This is not a problem; dialog on the issues does not require complete agreement (that's why they call it 'dialog!'). What is most edifying about this piece is how it openly looks at the degree to which the worst stereotypes put forth about the movement hold up to scrutiny. McCartney shows the ability to disagree with the Tea Partiers on the issues without the need to marginalize and misrepresent them. Instead, he went and found out for himself. He talked to people. He questioned them on the issues, but he also soaked up their vibe. Then he reported honestly on what he found, without shady selective emphases or narrative-supporting innuendo.

Not much more to say on this: it was just nice to see a journalist in the MSM do his job with the integrity and forthrightness which enables his readers to engage in genuinely critical thinking. He does not take it upon himself to villanize or slander, in order to preemptively foreclose on people's access to the variables which will guide their thinking on the matter, just because he might not like some of the conclusions to which they might come. We could do with quite a bit more of this. Please do read the whole thing.

David Emerges

2010-04-18T03:16:00.008-04:00

Check out this article about a 5-axis milling rig which uses sophisticated 3-D design software to carve a helmet out of a solid block of aluminum.

Information technology meets precision robotics, and achieves something resembling kinetic poetry. Form emerges from brute matter in a gleaming spray of metal shavings, a marriage of genius and machinery which would make Michaelangelo weep (with joy? with grief?).

Don't miss the extraordinary video.

Belated H/T to Mr. Hengist who, I now recall, sent me the vid months ago.

NYTimes on Microlenders: Slaking a Thirst for Profit with the Blood of the Poor!

2010-04-16T21:11:00.002-04:00

[by Mr.Hengist]

A couple of days ago the NYTimes published an article by Neil MacFarquhar (“Banks Making Big Profits From Tiny Loans”, 2010-04-14) on microloans in undeveloped countries.

It’s written in the typical NYTimes style of understated indignation and offence at what he characterizes as exploitation of the poor. Microloans, you see, were supposed to be “the long elusive formula to propel even the most destitute into better lives.” That’s the setup, anyway, but let’s face it: Liberals don’t actually think that business lending is the solution to poverty, but they do believe that anything that puts more money into the hands of the poor at least has that going for it.

MacFarquhar lets Nobel Peace Price winner Muhammad Yunis, “the economist who pioneered the practice”, state the thrust of the piece:

“We created microcredit to fight the loan sharks; we didn’t create microcredit to encourage new loan sharks,” Mr. Yunus recently said at a gathering of financial officials at the United Nations. “Microcredit should be seen as an opportunity to help people get out of poverty in a business way, but not as an opportunity to make money out of poor people.”

… and by that same token I guess you could say that the printing press was invented for making bibles, yet look how the NYTimes has debased it by publishing fishwrap. Having “created” the idea of making very small loans to very small businesses (not quite the Nobel Prizeworthy breakthrough, that), Yunus apparently believes he owns the idea and how it should be used. How dare other people use his unique idea in ways he hasn’t approved! The nerve of some people.

Some banks and financial institutions, ace reporter MacFarquhar informs us, have been charging interest rates of up to 100% - or more! Some of them! Up to 100%! And some of them more than that! … and some of them less than that. The article doesn’t actually provide much by way of numbers, but it does provide a breadcrumb trail by way of reference to the Microfinance Information Exchange (“The Mix”) and in doing so provided what’s probably the most salient piece of information in the whole article. It's contained in a single sentence, orphaned in the middle of the article, and in it is a key fact which is succinctly provided and subsequently completely ignored:

“Adrian Gonzalez, lead researcher at the Mix […] found that much of the money from interest rates was used to cover operating expenses, and argued that tackling costs, as opposed to profits, could prove the most efficient way to lower interest rates.”

It’s a forehead slapping revelation which undercuts the whole thrust of the article. The interest rates charged are irrelevant so long as the microloan enterprise is to be considered a self-sustaining business, as opposed to a money-losing charity. Charities can and do throw money at social problems with the expectation that their outlays will not be repaid, whereas for a business to continue as a going concern the balance sheet can’t stay negative for long before it goes tits-up.

The interest rate charged is therefore irrelevant because banks and financial institutions are not charities and can’t expect donors to replenish the institution as they bleed red ink. If progressives are going to ride their hobby horse of outraged indignation over greed in this business sector then the relevant metric is the profit margin, not the interest rate. As revealed in this quote, while the interest rates are high, so are the expenses.

That’s to be expected in a business of this nature. The low interest rates to which we’re accustomed in the developed world are possible in part because of our business environment. For example, we have the infrastructure to make informational contact and money transfers between parties simple and quick. Lenders can phone, send letters, or even dispatch a representative if necessary, and vice versa for borrowers – although, for microloans, the very nature of the small loans makes for small profits to begin with, and every added expense therefore will loom disproportionately large; it's cheaper to make one loan of $10K versus a thousand loans of $100.

Furthermore, we can also rely on our judicial institutions for recourse in the event of a dispute, whereas in the developing world judicial recourse is often not an option. Considering that the risk is borne by the lender. The lack of a venue in which to sue the borrower in the event of default makes it easy for a scammer to simply take the money and run.

That would be the worst-case scenario for the lender, but even excluding those whose sole object is thievery, the majority of the target-market of lenders are going to be poorly-educated and unable to make even simple business calculations. Consider the example provided in the article of Maria Vargas of Mexico City, who “has borrowed larger and larger amounts from Compartamos over 20 years to expand her T-shirt factory to 25 sewing machines from 5. She is hazy about what interest rate she actually pays, though she considers it high.” She considers it high, but the truth is that if there were a more competitive rate she would have taken it. In a competitive market the invisible hand will find the true rate, and it's higher for borrowers like Ms.Vargas than for better credit risks in a market backed by an effective judiciary. Note that it’s her factory, and she’s borrowing the money, but she doesn’t quite know what it’s costing her. I’m not blaming her for her poor education, but consider that she’s probably a typical borrower. She simply does not know how to figure out the costs of this business transaction, so the prospects of her paying back the money she’s borrowed are considerably diminished when neither she nor her bank can say for sure whether the transaction makes business-sense in the first place.

The Mix has a detailed Excel spreadsheet for Y’08 which has some interesting information. Since I’m not a financial analyst it’s a bit difficult for me to make heads or tails of the wealth of information provided in it, but the profit margin for For-Profit lenders had a median of 7.3%, whereas the “profit” for Not-For-Profit lenders was 3.3%. So much for the outrageousness coin these loan sharks are skimming from the poor, eh?

The article also has a cautionary tale for progressives:

"In Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega, outraged that interest rates there were hovering around 35 percent in 2008, announced that he would back a microfinance institution that would charge 8 to 10 percent, using Venezuelan money.
"There were scattered episodes of setting aflame microfinance branches before a national “We’re not paying” campaign erupted, which was widely believed to be mounted secretly by the Sandinista government. After the courts stopped forcing small borrowers to repay, making international financial institutions hesitant to work with Nicaragua, the campaign evaporated.”

That’s right: when the Leftists encouraged default the private capital took flight. With losses all but guaranteed, no sane businessperson would do that kind of business there. Profits are what motivate people to invest. No profit, no money from private enterprise. One way or another it’s got to pay off or they’ll take a hike and put their money to work elsewhere. Just as importantly, the rewards must be commensurate with the risks or capital will seek equally low returns on investments of comparably lower risk. This isn't opinion: this is basic economics and it's completely lost on these Socialists.

Socialists and charities are free to make low-interest loans to poor credit risks but they’ll require a regular influx of capital to replace their inevitable losses. When these social engineers create an untenable business environment, free capital walks – the lenders won’t profit, and (pay attention, you progressives) the entrepreneurial poor don’t get loans. Nobody wins – happy now?

The article continues with this threat:

“The fracas over preserving the field’s saintly aura centers on the question of how much interest and profit is acceptable, and what constitutes exploitation. The noisy interest rate fight has even attracted Congressional scrutiny, with the House Financial Services Committee holding hearings this year focused in part on whether some microcredit institutions are scamming the poor.”

Oh, yay! Congress will hold hearings. This will surely end well.

… and finally, the article closes with this:

“You can make money from the poorest people in the world — is that a bad thing, or is that just a business?” asked Mr. Waterfield of mftransparency.org. “At what point do we say we have gone too far?”

Answer: Since it’s not your money that’s being loaned out you have no business asking.

Leaker Plugged? UPDATED

2010-04-15T16:54:00.003-04:00

Via Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air, comes this WaPo story on what appears to be the identification and indictment of an NSA staffer who may have been a source of the leaks which enabled certain unnamed major news outlets (cough--NewYorkTimes--cough) to blow the cover of two successful tools for the monitoring of terrorist activities against the US. Quoth Ed:

The indictment doesn’t name the paper or identify the subject matter, but it also doesn’t appear too difficult to connect dots in this case. The Times produced most of the original reporting on these secret programs, including the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) that eventually got retroactive cover in a rewriting of FISA laws. They also exposed the secret bank-tracking program Swift that turned out to be both completely legal and extraordinarily effective — before the Times blew its cover.

This is another one of those issues which, in even a reasonably sane political climate, should transcend partisan politics. This staffer was sworn to protect this Nation from all threats, both foreign and domestic. If he had a problem with the Administration's use of its Constitutionally delineated powers, then the course of action was to seek redress within the scope of his role as a defender of that Constitution. The fact that he (i.e., the leaker, whether or not this particular individual turns out to be guilty) felt that he was empowered to sabotage the mechanism of National Security by going to the fracking press with classified programs (leaving aside what I feel about the NYT for running the stories...might generate content warnings if I let myself go there) makes him an enemy of the state, an outlaw in the most literal sense. Similarly we as citizens need to look at this sort of behavior as wholly unacceptable, whether we agree with its motivations or not. It is yet another subversion of the processes of rule-of-law governance by arrogant individuals with a greater regard for their own feelings than for the consequences of their little tantrums on the safety of their fellow citizens.

Kudos to the Obama DOJ for going after this. I don't care what side of the political spectrum you live on; this kind of vindictive political vigilantism endangers us all, and constitutes the skinny end of a wedge toward anarchy.

UPDATE: Powerline's John Hinderaker appears to have read the article more closely than I, finding (in plain sight) that:

Unfortunately, Drake's leaks don't appear to be the ones that threatened national security. Rather, they put NSA's bureaucracy in an unflattering light:
Gorman's coverage of NSA often placed an unflattering focus on NSA administrators. An August 2006 story quoted intelligence officials as showing that the NSA eavesdropping facilities in Fort Meade were at risk of paralysis because of electrical overload and potential failure of the power supply.

Dang. Still, though far less critical than finding the wanker(s) who spilled the beans on the specific programs whose beans were spilled, this is nonetheless not entirely insignificant an indictment. Not only does this guy's alleged misbehavior violate the lawful processes by which such things ought to be handled, but it did reveal potential sources of vulnerability in the infrastructure which subtends our intelligence-gathering operations. One can easily imagine some inventive enemies were looking very carefully at ways to overtax certain electrical sub-grids...

Still a generous helping of just desserts, even if it's not the top banana split I would've liked.

Up, Up and Away!

2010-04-14T22:30:00.000-04:00

In the annals of Kool, this thing is cleared for some considerable altitude. Have a look:

Ever since the Solotrek company went belly-up in 2003, I'd been sadly resigned to the demise of the personal flying vehicle (though there may yet be some life in the old girl). Naturally, I was plenty stoked to see this mentioned in the comments of a long-forgotten tech-blog post.

The recon and Special Forces insertion possibilities of this thing are obvious, the civilian uses (beyond the Just Plain Rad factor, of course) are rather less so.

But it's the kind of thing I just feel a little cooler for sharing a world with, anyway.

The Shape of Things to Come?

2010-04-14T21:26:00.000-04:00

It's been said (I'm looking at you, Mike) that there is no material difference between the Demoblicans and the Republicrats, and that they were both pushing the Republic (or Democracy. Whatever) toward the abyss, albeit at fractionally different paces.

It's hard to argue that there's been as much of a clear difference between the parties as one would like, or as would be healthy for a national dialectic out of which a healthy set of workable compromises could emerge. There hasn't. So the calamitous deficits and debts being raked up by the Democrats is harder for the GOP to attack without getting chuckles, given the less-calamitous-but-still horrid free-spending days of their own turn at the tiller...and the till.

Then along comes someone like the new NJ governor, Chris Christie, whose avowed purpose is to trim, or, rather, carve the fat from the bloated budget of New Jersey (and, yes, the irony is not lost on me...unlike Christie's navel. Har-har). Contrary to the most cynical projections of what would happen when he took office, he seems hell-bent on doing just that, going after some of the most ornery and entrenched interest groups in the Garden State like a fiscal weed-whacker. He is not making a lot of friends in the corridors of power...but he appears to be genuinely thick-skinned about it (somebody please stop me!). Here, in the Examiner, and here in the WSJ Christie is presented as someone who has made it his job to speak to the voters as adults, who are called upon to make hard choices for the health of their State. Imagine that!

I can't help but see the hand of the Tea Parties in the electoral victory of someone like this, and in polls like those in the primary race between the centrist Charlie Crist and the Tea Party Anointed and genuinely impressive-seeming Marco Rubio. Even the stunningly unexpectedly successful new MA Senator Scott Brown --hardly a TP type-- caught some of the energy of a wave which, for the time being at least seems to be surging higher every day. Even the establishment GOP has been forced (albeit not always in an above-board manner) to adopt language which is in line with the TP's insistence on adherence to fiscal restraint, federalist decentralization of small, responsive government, and free-market solutions over Beeg Goverrnment Prrograms (/Boris and Natasha).

And if nothing else the Tea Partiers are practical: they won't be fielding Tea Party candidates where a credible GOP contender walks the proper talk (they remember Ross Perot). More to the point, they don't have to. As their message disseminates to a wider and wider swathe of an increasingly disenchanted electorate, the GOP is going to feel quite acutely the need to align themselves with that zeitgeist. And, contrary to the gleefully histrionic ululations of the Left about how such "Purity Tests" signal the imminent Balkanization and demise of Conservatism in America, this is a good thing. The Tea Partiers are becoming the king-makers, without aspiring to the throne.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, the imposing figure of Chris Christie, with sharp humor and considerable momentum, continues to work to clean up the immense mess left behind by decades of Democratic profligacy. And he really doesn't care what stands in the way of doing the job for which he was hired:

As Christie puts it: "It should've been dealt with years ago. It wasn't. ... If people don't like it after four years, they can send me home."

More like this, please.

Indeed.

Crashing

2010-04-14T02:26:00.005-04:00

In a sadly predictable development, adversaries of the Tea Party movement have hatched a scheme to "infiltrate" Tea Party events, and deliberately disseminate and perpetuate their carefully-nurtured stereotypes of those groups. Specifically, they aim to "Propagate [the Tea Parties'] propensity for paranoia and suspicion...we have already sat quietly in their meetings and observed their rallies." UPDATE: The page is gone, leaving only an appeal to buy a tee shirt to support the "Crashers" founder. Yah. I'll get right on that.

Side question: if you actually have enemies sitting in your midst, posing as friends while collecting intel for an attack against you, do you still qualify as 'paranoid?'

Anyway, they go on:

"Whenever possible we will act on behalf of the Tea Parties in ways which exaggerate their most unappealing qualities (misspelled protest signs, wild claims in TV interviews, etc.) to further distance them from mainstream America and damage the public's opinion of them. We will also use the inside information that we have gained in order to disrupt and derail their plans."

Well, it's certainly inspiring to see people who are so confident in their arguments and in their own ability to persuade others to see things their way. I mean, seriously? This is the most constructive use for these people's time? This is the political equivalent of kicking over another guy's sand castle because yours came out lame...and everyone knows it.

Bob Owens, over at Pajamas Media executes a proper take-down of this misbegotten tactic (and of its not-entirely un-pathetic creator):

Smears and deception have been part of politics from the beginning, but the proud, brazen nature of those who embrace this sort of activity is a direct affront to the sort of civic involvement we need to have in a healthy republic. These are vile tactics by any moral standard, championed by individuals and groups that care not for debate and dissent, but instead thrive on creating a climate of mistrust and fear. Perhaps this is the kind of world they desire to live in, providing they have the power in that world.

One has to question the character of individuals involved in such an effort, and their trustworthiness in any endeavor. They create stereotypes and perpetuate them for media consumption in order to demonize and alienate their fellow Americans from one another. And to what end?

The crashtheteaparty.org website exists for one reason and one reason only: to stifle the voices of those with whom they disagree and to render mute a rising chorus of dissatisfaction with a government that is acting in ways that deeply distress a growing majority. It is a censorship plot. It is an attempt to stoke anger and distrust, and it is as insidious and distasteful to the hearts of free men as any book-burning or pogrom.

Emphasis added to shine a light on the crucial factor here: the misguided souls who engage in these sorts of eliminationist antics believe, like the Operative in Serenity, that they are tasked with creating a Better World. Toward that noble end, they believe, even such wanton acts of subversion of the national dialog are justified. After all, if you feel that you have a pretty good bead on how the world ought to be, and the only thing standing in your way is a noisy rabble of fly-over denizens in bright tee shirts and tri-cornered hats, then no holds are barred. Goes to show even the most noble aspirations are not immune to the blight of arrogance, and the bullying which it spawns.

One can grant that there are pure intentions behind their opposition to the Tea Party vision of small, accountable, fiscally responsible and federalistically decentralized government. But even if they start out with a good-faith vision of a government which takes upon itself the duty to provide for its citizens and to oversee the distribution of this Nation's wealth in a just and equitable fashion, even if they truly feel that theirs is the more humane and responsible course for this Republic, these particular individuals have ended up in a far darker place. The moment they arrogate to themselves the right to deceptively discredit their political opponents (rather than engage them in issue-oriented, constructive and informative debate), they have ceded not just the high ground and the low ground, but the upper levels of the sewer system to boot. They have declared, in effect, that they have too weak a case to risk making it forthrightly...or that the American public is too stupid to comprehend it and make the "right" choice if they did...which is not an especially promising indicator of their faith in the democratic process or in the citizens for whose welfare they purport to stand. Standard Scenario: Imagine if a group of Tea Partiers had created a web site promoting plans to attend Coffee Parties with the intent of covertly discrediting them [Sidebar: I'd just as surely be slamming them if they pulled this nonsense]...it is worth reflecting for a moment on the fact that this has not occurred.

I derive no small comfort from the ease with which this puerile plot was pulled into the purifying sunshine (owing, in large measure, to the amateurishness and sloppiness of its founder). It's a twofer, really: not only will it very likely fail (no doubt despite the best efforts of a host of friendly media outlets to slather the airwaves with decontextualized 'reporting' of these schmucks' shenanigans), but it will expose the sheer intellectual and moral bankruptcy of these Teabag-slamming agents provocateurs.

It would be a delicious irony and a fitting cautionary tale if it should come to pass that the very public Epic Fail which all-but certainly awaits this bunch of juvenile party-crashers should play a part in the crashing of their Party.

"Don't Let Politics Ruin Your Relationships"

2010-04-12T01:13:00.001-04:00

The following is a wee editorial I just threw together for the local weekly in which I advertise my practice. I don't know if this is the final form which will survive the editorial process, but I rather like it. I can only hope that it makes it to print, and that it helps to drain some of the toxins from at least a few political conversations here and there...

Don't Let Politics Ruin Your Relationships

[Noocyte], Psy.D.

Many of my clients in private practice occupy that strange phase of life known as the late teens. One of the first things I do when they turn 18 is to hand them a brochure for Project Vote Smart (www.votesmart.org). It's an organization which provides unbiased and thorough information on candidates' and sitting politicians' positions on a wide variety of issues. Usually, my clients just give me a funny look. After all, on your average 18 year-old's “To Do” list, politics comes in just south of “start flossing.”

But these are highly charged times, politically. I have seen more than one relationship slam hard into a brick wall of opposing political views, and there doesn't seem to be a proper air bag in sight. Take Health Care (please!). If you support the current Health Care Reform, be prepared for someone to accuse you of being a Socialist who wants to mortgage your grandchildren's future. If you oppose it, someone will accuse you of wanting poor people to die. Tends to make rather awkward affairs of family dinners!

But it doesn't have to be that way. One of the things I do as a psychologist is to understand, from the inside, how people put their worlds together, how they make sense of things, and how that sense leads them to make the choices they do. This is not a magical ability which only therapists possess. Much of it is a simple matter of asking questions.

The next time someone endorses a political position with which you disagree, take a moment and catch yourself in the act of assuming things about that position...or, worse, about that someone as a human being. Note the flood of images and adjectives which rush into your head (“Greedy Fascist;” “Fuzzy-Headed Hippie;” “Just A Kid...”). You know what I'm talking about.

Stop yourself. Ask them to help you understand their reasons for believing what they do. Listen as they lay those reasons out. Don't interrupt, even if you have the Perfect Argument for why they're Dead Wrong. Take the time to summarize what they've said, and wait to see if you've got it right. Then summarize your position, and politely ask that they extend you the same courtesy. Don't expect to change their mind, and try not to be defensive if they seem to be out to change yours.

Remember the overall context of your relationship with the person. Ask yourself if the fact that you sit on opposite sides of a given fence is a good enough reason to torch both properties. When all else fails, be prepared to Agree To Disagree.

After all, we're all alone behind that voting-booth curtain. No sense being just as lonely everywhere else!

Pig Escapes Poke, Flips Bird

2010-03-29T21:11:00.005-04:00

[by Mr.Hengist]

I’ve been reluctant to weigh in on the Obamacare debate for a variety of reasons. For one thing, healthcare as a topic is dull and complex; almost entirely outside what I find interesting and important. My interests in the sciences do not generally include biology, and I am much more interested in geopolitics, as opposed to domestic political issues.

For another, it seemed too far into the realm of the hypothetical to weigh in on a debate in which the substance, that is, the proposed legislation, was in a constant state of flux. Those in favor of the bill(s) argued for the merits of provisions that ultimately might or might not have been included in the final version, and the same may have been said of the arguments of those in opposition. Now that the bill has been finalized, passed, and signed into law, the uncertainties have been largely resolved, and it is at least possible to discuss the concrete reality of what has been done. The pig is out of the poke for all to behold.

My research has been repeatedly confounded between the legalese text of the law – which is virtually incomprehensible to a layman such as myself – and the partisan bogosity salesmanship of the Left (and, to some degree, the angry obfuscations of the Right). The Left has a point when they mock the Right for complaining that legislators haven’t read a bill before they voted to pass it. Just pick any spot, try to make heads or tails of it, and you’ll concede the point. What the Right means to say, and should say, is that the legislators don’t know what’s in the bill before they vote for it, and that’s a valid criticism. Complex legislation needs to be fixed and unchanging for a period of time to allow for it to be subjected to public scrutiny. For this reason candidate Obama made a promise to allow five days of sunlight on a bill before he would sign it into law (and we now know he lied about that – no two ways about it, Liberals: he lied like a rug and you were the rubes who believed him).

On the snake-oil salesmanship side, I found claptrap like this [PDF] on the Senate website under “Quality, Affordable Health Care for All Americans”

"Provides Americans with better coverage and the information they need to make informed decisions about their health insurance."
"Provides better chronic care, with doctors collaborating to provide patient-centered care for the 80 percent of older Americans who have at least one chronic medical condition like high blood pressure or diabetes."

Bereft of specifics these cheerleading summaries have no value.

On the other hand, we have spin from the right, such as the catchy “death panels” term from Sarah Palin. The actual criticism she was making was in reference to the state-mandated consultations with elderly patients about their “end-of-life” options in a bill that was intended to cut medical costs. She connected the dots and came up with a hangman, which made for some pretty weak tea (and those were some mangled metaphors, but let’s not dwell on that).

Other pundits of the Right have pointed out that, inasmuch as the examples we’ve seen of government health care in such places as Canada and the United Kingdom do indeed ration their care, and/or put their patients on waiting lists for diagnosis and treatment that can last months, even years, we should expect the same from a single-payer system. That’s true enough, but absent the ability to buy health care insurance independently, as much as you can afford, rationing is another term for limited coverage. Limited policies don’t cover everything, which is what makes them more affordable – nothing new here.

At any rate, the best summary I’ve found to-date is here.

It is therefore with varying degrees of certainty that I can share my thoughts and opinions. While that would usually preclude my sharing them publicly, this is different because, as VPOTUS Joe Biden so eloquently put it, "This is a big f’ing deal.” (Stay classy, Joe.) Without further preamble, here are some of my thoughts on what was proposed during the past year.

Pre-Existing Conditions
The “pre-existing condition” requirement bars insurance companies from “discriminating” on the basis of pre-existing or current health status. Insurance companies are not “discriminating” when they decline to foot the bill for people who walk in the door and declare, “I have cancer – fix it!” Nothing has so clearly illustrated the abject foolish ignorance of Liberals in this debate than their insistence that the free-market insurance industry cover pre-existing medical conditions without exception, and at rates comparable to those given the healthy. In my readings of the national discussion on the left and right I have been left slack-jawed in amazement at the Left.

This is not terribly complicated. The insurance industry business model is predicated on risk-pooling. Your rate is determined by your risk of disease or injury. Insurance companies use actuarial tables (i.e., historical data from their past experience) and disclosed risk factors (as in, “do you smoke?”, or “do you work with dangerous chemicals?” and the like) to determine your rate.

People with pre-existing conditions are no longer at risk of their condition: they already have it. Insurance provides for financial protection against the possibility of misfortune, but it will not provide compensation for misfortune that has already befallen you, so you can’t, for example, insure yourself against a house fire after your house has burned down. In reality, the money for treatment must come from somewhere, and in the health insurance industry business model those funds come from long years of premiums from healthy people. The insured can get treatment in excess of their premiums if they have the misfortune of being stricken, but only because the rest of the healthy pool is paying for it. The risk the insurance companies take is that you’ll do exactly that, whereas the risk the insured take is that they’ll have paid premiums for years and ultimately realize no benefit.

What Liberals are demanding reflects their Marxist, or perhaps, child-like understanding of the insurance industry. Insurance companies are not like Santa Clause. They have balance sheets. The money that comes in must cover the money that goes out or the company ceases to exist. There are no elves working in a North Pole workshop to fashion drugs and crutches for the needy.

Insurance policies are business transactions based on the risks inherent in a mutually unknown future. To demand that the insurance companies pay for pre-existing conditions without reflecting those increased costs in premiums is to demand that they finance an entitlement program, and as such it is completely unreasonable, but makes perfect sense if the aim is to destroy the health insurance industry. To term their legislation as a means by which to “bar discrimination” is just an effort to piggyback on the popular and moral support of anti-discrimination laws against racism and discrimination based on religion or sexual preference.

In order for this phrasing to work we also saw the introduction of the concept that health care is a right. Somehow, and never mind how. Liberals declaring that health care is a right does not make it so, any more than the declaration of little girls that it’s their right to have a pony, no matter how much they really, really want one. Even if it were a right, it does not follow that it is the obligation of insurance companies to foot the bill for pre-existing conditions.

The Public Option
The Public Option has been presented as a means of introducing competition to the market. I’d like to pause here to say that hearing Liberals speak in praise of free market competition is simultaneously amusing and infuriating. When the Left adopts the language of capitalism their words often reflect their misunderstandings and ignorance – or, perhaps equally likely, an attempt to mislead. Although it’s true that states limit the competition between insurance companies and thus limit the choices of consumers, this is clearly an issue of the states’ choice that can be resolved on a state-level basis. Resolving it on a national level would be a simple and not altogether unpalatable fix, and it would have the benefit of being easy and simple. If what they really wanted was more competition then that would be the way to go, and that’s why they didn’t go that way.

The Public Option is neither simple nor easy but it does provide the means by which the private industry can be destroyed by tilting the playing field in favor of the Public Option. Private companies have balance sheets, but the Public Option would be effectively exempt from that necessity. It’s easy enough to illustrate: imagine the premiums charged by the Public Option are insufficient to cover the expense of the program: will Liberals demand that we cover the shortfall with tax dollars? Of course. They might also raise premiums, but it’s the tax subsidy that is a dagger in the gut of private enterprise. By freeing the Public Option from the balance sheets the playing field is tilted against the private sector and can be the means by which the government can and would kill off private enterprise in this sector. The Public Option can outspend private enterprise by virtue of the bottomless pockets of the government which supports it.

Would they do such a thing? Considering the naked hostility Liberals have shown towards the health insurance industry, I’m guessing the answer is: Yes.

Yes they would.

Single Payer
This is the Monopsony Option, which polls very well amongst Liberals. The folks who tout the benefits of “competition” in the insurance market also prefer the stranglehold of a single buyer in that market. This, from the folks who decry the buying power of Wal-Mart; they want that power for the government to wield against the healthcare industry.

With the power to dictate – yes, dictate – price, the government would, as they have promised, extract the lowest possible prices from industry that they can. With less revenue the healthcare industries would be unable to funnel funds into research and development or hire the best employees. The best-case scenario of Single Payer would have the effect of stifling innovation by nearly eliminating the resources necessary for R&D and staffing their positions with people who will work for peanuts.

The worst-case scenario is that it would go further than that and kill off private enterprise in this sector by paying unsustainably low prices for goods and services. Metaphorically, it would be as if the government pushed them right to the edge of a cliff, and with the slightest misfortune of a breeze in the wrong direction, over the cliff they’d go, leaving a statist Liberal government and their supporters tsk-tsk’ing and saying, “Well, that’s just too bad – I guess we’ll have to rely on the government to provide those goods or services, too.”

The rebuttal is that Single Payer would drive down costs by reducing overhead and eliminating profit. Reducing overhead is a something our government is not motivated to do, so they don’t. Inefficiency is almost the inevitable result of government spending. Remember, POTUS Obama has said that the government will reap efficiencies by going after “waste, fraud, and abuse” in existing programs. If the government were motivated to do that, it would have done so already. The fact that there is waste, fraud, and abuse on a massive scale in those programs should act as a valuable object lesson in why we shouldn’t have these kinds of programs in the first place. Leave it to Liberals to draw exactly the wrong conclusion.

As for eliminating profit, it is not surprising that, at the same time that Liberals and Democrats have touted their support of free enterprise and the private sector, they have made plain their abhorrence of profit. I have been struck by the indignation of Liberals, never so plain as in the last few years, that these – or any - corporations make profit. As an industry, and at this time, the insurance business is only modestly profitable, taking in an average of 3.3%, which makes it only the 86th most profitable industry in America. This puts the lie to the assertion from the Left that taking the profit out of the health insurance industry would bring down costs. As an investment, insurance companies have a return on investment worse than some Rewards checking accounts. To define this as excessive greed, as gouging, is to declare that profits are inherently bad on the whole, which is why I say that theirs is a Marxist argument. If the modest profits of the insurance industry are under attack for being excessive then no business is safe from these Marxists.

Taken altogether, it is for the above reasons that I have been opposed to the Democrat “reform” proposals – they were all aimed at one ultimate goal: government takeover of the healthcare industry. But don’t take it from me – take it from Democrats.

Take it from candidate Obama in this longer excerpt.

Knowing that this is their goal, there’s no reason for me to be in favor of whatever incremental gains they can make towards achieving it.

The “47 Million” Deception
Add to that the inflated numbers of how many people would be “helped.” Remember the “47 million” POTUS Obama said were uninsured? Let’s not dwell on the logical chasm that Liberal pundits leapt with a single bound to extend that assertion to mean that 47 million people were without health care. Do you remember when that number magically shrank down to 30 million? Liberals, weren’t you the least bit concerned that, without explanation, POTUS Obama lowered this figure, and that Democrats followed suit? What happened?

Lay it at the feet of Mark Levin, who single-handedly – look, no help from the dogged investigative reporters of the MSM! – broke down the numbers from the Census and revealed the truth: the Democrats were lying.

“About 9.5 million were not United States citizens. Another 17 million lived in households with incomes exceeding $50,000 a year and could, presumably, purchase their own health care coverage. Eighteen million of the 46.6 million uninsured were between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four, most of whom were in good health and not necessarily in need of health-care coverage or chose not to purchase it. Moreover, only 30 percent of the nonelderly population who became uninsured in a given year remained uninsured for more than twelve months. Almost 50 percent regained their health coverage within four months.”
“Liberty and Tyranny”, by Mark Levin, p107.

The right accused the Democrats of planning to cover illegal aliens, and they were – of course – but they denied it at the same time they counted them in. One can only imagine that the lie became simply untenable as Obama mysteriously lowered the count to 30 million, a number that is still overinflated.

Many of the people Democrats claim to be “helping” are healthy young adults who have good reason for not spending their money on health insurance. The individual mandate will require them to do just that, so let’s reframe this for what it is: a massive and involuntary transfer of wealth. As candidate Obama told Joe the Plumber, he was going to “spread the wealth around.”

This healthcare giveaway to the poor will have to be paid for by someone, and it’s looking like it’s going to come from taxpayers, cuts in care to seniors, and young people who neither need, nor want, nor can afford insurance, but will have to buy it anyway. Ironically, young people were overwhelmingly supportive of him when he was running for the presidency. So, how do you like your redistributionist Marxist president now, kids?

The Individual Mandate
Is it within the constitutional powers of our federal government to compel the citizenry to buy goods or services from a private enterprise? I honestly don’t know, although it’s true to say that it’s never been done before. The examples given by the Left don’t seem to apply: for example, auto insurance is state-mandated, and besides which it protects others from the damage and injury that might be caused by you, as opposed to the health insurance mandate which protects you from, well, your own financial circumstances. FICA is a compulsory insurance program but it’s not run by private enterprise.

The mandate is necessary to help finance the plan – all those too young or rich to want to buy insurance will be compelled to do so and thus subsidize via premiums the expense outlay of health care for the poor and middle class. Yet, amazingly, although there is a mandate, the IRS can’t do a damn thing if you don’t pay it:

“The penalty applies to any period the individual does not maintain minimum essential coverage and is determined monthly. The penalty is assessed through the Code and accounted for as an additional amount of Federal tax owed. However, it is not subject to the enforcement provisions of subtitle F of the Code. The use of liens and seizures otherwise authorized for collection of taxes does not apply to the collection of this penalty. Non-compliance with the personal responsibility requirement to have health coverage is not subject to criminal or civil penalties under the Code and interest does not accrue for failure to pay such assessments in a timely manner.”

As is pointed out in the blog post to which I linked, the effect will be to encourage people to buy insurance only when they get sick or injured. This reinforces the argument that this legislation is specifically intended to put the insurance companies out of business. We’ll know if this was an oversight if that loophole gets patched up.
[Update 2010-03-31: OTOH the above might be a misinterpretation, as opinions differ. So it seems the IRS will be able to enforce the mandate. Less debt, more tax collection. Yay.]

Massive new spending and a massive expansion of government
It was bad enough that no sooner had the Congress passed Pay-Go – the requirement that new non-discretionary funding be offset by increased taxes or budget reallocation – than they immediately turned around and exempted an extension to unemployment benefits and COBRA benefits. Let’s grant the debatable merits of the proposal – we’ll let Krugman debate himself on that issue – and focus on the process at work. How can we not assume the worst; that, given the opportunity, power, and desire to simply exempt their handouts from the constraints of a limited budget, they won’t simply do the same, with any program, at any time? Think Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, etc. More specifically, and pressingly, will Obamacare be any different? Put another way, should their budget projections prove to be in error, will there be any going back? Can you imagine the Democrats saying, “We thought it would save us money, but it turns out it’s much more expensive than we thought and it’s going to put us even deeper into debt, so let’s go back to the system we had”?

Nonsense. Never. For Liberals, entitlements programs once enacted are forever. For Congress, trust funds are for raiding, spending limitations are for breaking, and hyperoptimistic budget projections are for suckers, i.e., you.

Let’s be clear: Our country is deeply in debt, and has been for quite some time. The Democrats, from top to bottom, are planning to double that debt over the next ten years. That’s not a prediction, that’s their plan. That’s the plan, based on a best-case scenario, based on their fantasy numbers of a vibrant, growing economy, predictions that have already fallen short of reality. That’s the plan, come hell or high water, and no budget shortfalls will prove sufficient impetus to curtail that plan.

The Democrats have given us a new ginormous monster of an entitlement program. Where will the money come from? Where could it possible come from? Current chair of the Federal Reserve, Bob Bernanke, says the Fed won’t print the dollars to cover the shortfall. I suspect that if he won’t, he’ll be replaced with someone who will. Aside from that they could try to borrow the money, but already the AAA rating of the United States is teetering as the cost of borrowing that money goes up. They can’t possibly cut the budget sufficiently to make up for the shortfall, even if they slashed the DOD down to puny helpless European levels (which is, of course, what the Europeans did to afford their own universal healthcare programs). They could raise taxes – and they will – but the Laffer Curve can only be pushed so far before increases in the tax rate will result in decreases in tax revenues.

Do they care? Does it matter, given that the most optimistic interpretation of their actions is that they’re trying their best to help the economy? That is to say, if their intentions really are good, and this is the best they can do, does it matter whether they really do care? And does anyone remember when the Democrats were outraged at the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush Administration, now dwarfed in comparison to our present Democrat-controlled government?

Or is it their intention to destroy the economy in order to remake it? They could do our economy more harm than they have, and my guess is that they will.

Our present disaster will apparently be eclipsed by a catastrophe. By design, however you look at it, even if you take them at their word that their intentions are as stated and benign. Liberal fantasies of “free” healthcare for everyone, unaffordable in the best of times, crammed down our throats at the worst possible time, in their willful fantasy-world disconnection from fiscal reality, have already sent us skidding into the depths of ruin.

What is to be done?
The Tea Party activists must make their influence felt, starting from the bottom up. The Republicans must stand together on principled financial conservativism and to hell with the social conservatives, and that is admittedly easier said than done. It’s a question, at this early stage, whether the Republicans will capitulate. It’s a real possibility that right-wing constituencies must make clear is unacceptable by any measure.

What I’d like to see happen is for a crushing defeat to the Democrats this November, and the November after that. What I’d like for them to do is to dismantle the socialist state that’s been built up over decades, to crush it. That’s not blustering hyperbole; I really mean it. One of the first acts of POTUS Obama on taking office was to cut off the funding for the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, giving them only enough money to wind it down. Note that he didn’t cut the program – he killed it. Let’s do the same to the cherished social welfare projects of the Left. Repeal Obamacare? Certainly, but we can’t stop there.

We can do the same to such fancies as the NEA. Wind them down and sell off the assets, from the buildings right down the stationary, and to their state employees we’ll give an apple and a roadmap as we send them on their way.

Let the Liberal-Left scream and shout, stamp their little feet, and hold their breath until they’re blue in the face. I don’t care. I want to leave them with nothing, so that if and when they regain power they’ll have to start all over again. From scratch.

Careless With The Health of the Republic

2010-03-22T21:12:00.014-04:00

Well, they went and did it.

Last night the Democratic party, after demonstrating beyond the shadow of any lingering doubt which might have remained that no principle lacks a price tag, no constituency's wishes are too important to simply ignore, no Constitutionally-delineated procedure is too crucial to subvert, by hook and by crook (and even then, by the narrowest of margins)...they went and did it. And today, my Facebook is flooded with my Liberal friends' rhapsodies on the glory days to come, the alleviation of anxieties, the freedom to strike off in unconventional directions and create, etc. (not to mention one "middle finger" to Republicans. Gracious, that).

All I see is a Nation that just got force-fed the chance to become just a little bit more infantilized. Well, that, and a series of Power Point presentations by Beijing bankers to a conference room packed with representatives from Tehran, Caracas, Damascus, Moscow, et. al.

Today, I am simply too dejected and crestfallen (and not from a particularly high crest, either) to go on at length. Fortunately, there is Doctor Zero for just these moments.

The call of freedom requires you to turn away easy solutions offered by corrupt politicians. It’s not a “solution” anyway – just the gateway to another, heavier imposition on your liberty down the line. If its authors believed otherwise, why would they use tricks and lies to chisel out a “deficit-neutral” ten-year forecast from the Congressional Budget Office? A free man dismisses such deception with contempt, and demands to know what happens in Year Eleven. A free woman looks at a “crisis” in a heavily regulated market and commands government to remove itself to undo the damage it has already caused. What is the final form of a State that is rewarded for its failures with more power? We already know that name, don’t we?

Tonight, the Democrat Party declares war on the American middle class. They are gambling on the forced creation of an entitlement we’ll be too exhausted and weary to reject – no matter how poor its quality, corrupt its inception, or unbearable its cost. We do have one last chance to strike this down. There is no reason any Democrat up for re-election in 2010 or 2012 needs to retain their seats. They don’t own those seats, any more than the Kennedys owned Massachussetts. There’s no reason the Democrats need to exist as a viable political party after 2012. Obama can be their last President.

Once the fog lifts, I intend to start working as hard as I can to bring that about.

Ordinarily, I am very much a divided government guy, and the very concept of all-but eradicating a political party makes me itchy. The need to hash out compromises with the other side keeps the radicals on both sides at bay (in theory), and keep our senators and congressfolk responsive to their constituents (when they are inclined to act rationally).

But the Democrats very simply have not acted in a way which merits our trust to continue working in the People's House. They have arrogated to themselves the role of societal architects, trampling on the manifest will of the people to seize what they have deemed the people to need. They need to be punished for this deplorable travesty. Then, perhaps, duly chastened and with a renewed respect for the wishes of the voters they swear to serve, they can restore balance to the Hill...but in rather the same way that Anakin Skywalker restored balance to the Force, but with ballots, not blasters.

It won't be pretty. It will temporarily leave the GOP with the kind of monobloc power which they so shamefully squandered between 1994 and the routs of '06 and '08. That must not be allowed to happen again, but this is where the Tea Partiers come in. The Republican Party already shows signs of the focusing of the mind which defeat and dissent can bring, when everything lines up just right. By branding themselves as the party of hope and liberty and opportunity, by bringing a clear and articulate message, by heeding the admonishments of the Tea Parties, the GOP can turn the victories -- whose margins I intend to work to widen in whatever meager ways I can bring to bear -- into a moment of clarity for a Nation grown sclerotic under the fanatical and unaccountable engineering of the Democrat party.

This beast can be slowed by amendments and court challenges (and plenty of them!). It can be illuminated for all to see, in all its monstrous perversity. Its final implementation can be delayed well into mid-term election season. But in order for it to be brought down for good and all, in order to pave the way toward common-sense, incremental, truly deficit-neutral (or deficit-negative), market-based approaches to the provision of health coverage, the work is going to be slow and messy...until the point that a real electoral mandate allows Obamacare to be put down with a swift, sure stroke.

Until then, it will be a work of excruciating inches. But the very definition of what it means to be an American is at stake: are we a mob of dependents and "consumers," or a vibrant society of creators and problem-solvers? Is the health of this Nation to be measured in boons bestowed or in prizes won? Will we be so conditioned to seek Centrally Planned solutions to life's vicissitudes that we we forget our National legacy in the echoes of a long frontier, its emphasis on ingenuity and industriousness reflected in entrepreneurship and industriousness and social mobility/meritocracy, yoked to what persists in being (rightly) called "The American Dream?" Not if I can do anything about it!

The health care delivery system in this country is indeed shot to hell. But one must be very careful when addressing those shortcomings in delivery to preserve the incentives built into capitalism which have made such an enviable edifice of that which is delivered. I believe that such deliberate measures can be achieved, and that it is well within the capabilities of the American people to achieve them. But, as Chris Muir depicts in today's "Day By Day," we need to forget whatever it is we feel we may deserve, and prepare for one hum-dinger of a fight.

Iraqis Go to The Polls

2010-03-08T00:47:00.002-05:00

Once again, it appears, the indefatigable people of Iraq have braved the threats of extremists and cowards (and by that I don't just mean the Western media), and ventured out, dressed in their finest, and in large numbers, to cast their votes in this latest, crucial round of elections. Bill Ardolino of the Threat Matrix blog over at the Long War journal, quotes the NYT:

Insurgents here vowed to disrupt the election, and the concerted wave of attacks — as many as 100 thunderous blasts in the capital alone starting just before the polls opened — did frighten voters away, but only initially. The shrugging response of voters could signal a fundamental weakening of the insurgency’s potency.

At least 38 people were killed in Baghdad. But at the end of the day, turnout was reported to be higher than expected, and certainly higher than in the last parliamentary election in 2005, marred by a similar level of violence.

And lo, there must have been no small wailing and gnashing of teeth in the editorial catacombs of the Gray lady over this development. Indeed, in numbers too great to link, the predictions have come fast and furious that the Iraqi people, weary of "deteriorating" security (still orders of magnitude more secure than during the much-vaunted Civil War that never quite was...), and growing sectarian strife (amid mounting evidence that Iraqis retain their hard-won nationalism, and persist in identifying themselves as Iraqi to a greater degree than ever before), would stay away from the polls in droves. This was supposed to be a lukewarm turnout, dripping with cynicism and despair, while various sectarian and ethnic groups kept their powder dry against the day when it all came crashing down and those primordial affiliations would rise again.

Once again, the Iraqis appear to have raised a thicket of purple fingers in the faces of the would-be authors of their national obituary. As one Iraqi observer noted, "We have experienced three wars before, so it was just the play of children that we heard.”

But that's not all. Again, quoting the Times:

Despite a long delay, disputes over candidates’ qualifications, arrests, assassinations and finally an all-out assault by insurgents on Sunday morning, the election took place with only a few reports of irregularities. And by Sunday night, something rare was emerging in a region dominated by authoritarian governments: an election cliffhanger.

Official results are not expected for days, but after the polls closed at 5 p.m., party leaders said two coalitions seem to have fared best: the one led by Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al Maliki, who has campaigned for a second time on improved security in Iraq, and another led by the former interim leader, Ayad Allawi, who has promised to overcome Iraq’s sectarian divides.

Despite a previous boycott, and the ill-considered (and fortunately reversed) decision to bar hundreds of Sunni candidates due to purported Baathist affiliations, Sunni voters turned out in large numbers. This further cemented the legitimacy of an election which, when the dust settles, could result in a government in which rival parties are forced to form coalitions and partnerships. A government in which Maliki and Allawi are compelled to find common cause and reconcile their constituencies would be a rare and precious thing in a region in which politics has tended to be a blood-soaked, Manichean affair at best. Where bargaining takes the place of ballistics, and bloodshed becomes more metaphorical than literal, one may legitimately speak of real hope.

Throw in the still-unrealized potential of very significant oil and natural gas deposits, discovered under Sunni lands a couple of years ago (and the associated mitigation of one of the chief obstacles to the ratification of an oil revenue sharing law, given the previous near-monopoly on hydrocarbon deposits by Shiites and Kurds), and you've got some serious seeds, on very fertile soil, for something approaching political normalization and widespread prosperity. Foreign investment in oil development has been quite robust (though, in contrast with some tediously-cherished narratives, not a lot of it has been American. Which is just stupid).

Corruption is still a problem. It's a Big Problem. And everybody knows it...which, given a demonstrably energized and engaged electorate with very little patience, may work to the Iraqi Republic's advantage. The Iraqis are starting to get a lot less shy about voting to "throw the bums out." You know, now that they are starting to Get It that their vote won't earn them a kicked in door and a midnight ride in the back of a van. It's not unreasonable to suppose that a lot of these guys (and gals!) currently on the take might soon have cause, as they reach for their bags of booty, to look over their shoulders...at a lot of very pissed-off eyes.

Voting for me is a matter of putting on a suit (one of the few times I ever have to plaster myself in one of those silly things), and driving two minutes to the local firehouse to wait in a short line (nothing a quick pass through The Federalist Papers [thank you, Sony Reader!!] doesn't make go by in a blink). I am floored and awed by the sheer moxie of the Iraqi voters, who risk life and limb and even family (!) to dip their digits in the ink of Liberty.

We could learn a thing or two!

UPDATE: Some typically on-target words from Victor Davis Hanson on this and related subjects.