The GOP biological problem

There has been much hubub about Arlen Specter's switch to the democrats, saying they're losing the "Moderate" wing. My theory: The GOP's primary impediment is not ideological, it's biological. They're stuck with their corrupt deadwood, made even more rotted by their brief period in control of the legislative and executive branch. They have no credible voice on the current spending orgy because they haven't been in the credibility business in any form for quite some time.

By getting rid of the old guard (albeit not intentionally) they would seem to be solving the problem.

Tuesday rapid fire

• Inventor's 2020 vision: to help 1bn of the world's poorest see better
• Bleeding Heart Tightwads - the right gives more to charity than the left
• Burger King launches beef-scented body spray
• The neurotypicals conspire against us with homeopathic remedies

Quick links

• Clever bailout commentary
• An interesting history of Shinseki
• Media entraps cops! -He might have opened up a mighty can of perjury worms. These scandals only seem to happen to the special teams, never to the regular copy.
  
• The Big Picture - photography
  

I hold my nose

I hold my nose, club my conscience, and smother my scruples and voted for Chambliss today. Barr's suggestion was important to me, enough to get me over my outrage at his campaign literature mentioning "Fiscal Responsibility".

Incidentally my polling place was deserted, which points to a substantial win for Chambliss.

Things I'm not thankful for

I'll have the list I'm thankful for later, but here's one that is obviously not in that category.
Federal deficit could hit $1 trillion this year

One Trillion Dollars!!!

Political annoyances

I've gotten three robocalls today; why would that make anyone favorably disposed to a candidate?

Something that goes unmentioned

Many people have mentioned that Palin has benefited from being an attractive woman, and Obama has benefited from being black. One thing that has not been mentioned is that Obama is a good looking black guy. If he were eight inches shorter, 80 pounds heavier, and sweated a lot, would anyone even remember him at this point, or would he be hanging out with Richardson on the short list for Secretary of State?

Thoughts on the debate - VP Edition

In random order

• Regarding Palin - If you can cram enough into 6 weeks to pull off an acceptable job at a debate, either the interview process is flawed or the job simply isn't that hard. The fact that McCain and Obama can not show up for work for two year periods would suggest the latter.
• While I don't think Palin won the debate (it wasn't set up to have a winner really) she clearly took and held the initiative the entire evening
• Biden looked like the knowledgeable guy he probably is, which is really all the veep should be.
• Should McCain lose this election - which it seems he will - Palin probably will be competing with Huckabee for the face of the Republican party, and winning. It certainly seems to going in a populist direction
  
• The deep love of Israel was particularly noxious on both parties. Granted, Palin is a tribal candidate, not an ideological one, but there seemed to be more love and affection for Israel from her than there was for America as a whole (small town America is a subset). Biden was just foppish on that matter.
• It's insulting to only mention Israel when talking about our allies, particularly when the UK and Australia have always stood buy us. Neither mentioned those members of the Anglosphere.
• The constant mentions of energy independence destroyed any ability for me to take either seriously.
• While I've seen several mentions of Palin winking at the camera, I haven't seen any mention of her refering to him as "Senator O'Biden" nor of Biden's reference to "Bosniaks".
  

Friday link clearing

Since these have been piling up in Firefox, here's what I've been reading

• Obama and the Born-Alive issue - ghoulish stuff. The controversy of abortion is where one draws the line on person vs potential person. Even the most ardent pro-choicers seem to draw it at birth, but it seems not everyone does.
• Via Will Wilkerson

  Obama terrifies me: an intelligent, thoughtful, well-prepared, capably extemporaneous man ascribing a future holocaust to some sort of non-existent, fantastical, steroidal Iran; talking about unsanctioned cross-border incursions into Pakistan because we found bin Laden, or some such, and must “take him out”; warbling around about “main street” while, in a lawerly, circumlocutory way signaling that he’s ultimately going to get behind hundred-billion-dollar cash bailouts to institutions that ought to be dismantled, destroyed, scattered to the wind. He wants GM to make electric cars. He wants the American people to know that he will appear before them to make extravagant xenophobic declarations in order to assuage their insecurity about the rise of other competing economies. He does this all in a calm, perfectly reasonable manner, with a convincing boardroom demeanor, and judging by the reactions of my liberal friends, with whom I listened, this was basically pleasing to them.

  McCain is of course out of his mind: forgetful, vicious, reactionary. And his ideas are even crazier than BO’s, but there’s a certain comfort in the fact that their insanity is laid so plainly and mercilessly bare by the grinning psychopath’s delivery. He provides no quarter for those who want to convince themselves that by Killing People for Their Own Good we are not actually killing them, or that by suborning corporate malfeasance we are combating it, or that by desperately seeking to maintain the geography of radial sprawl and the automobile we are seeking “energy independence.”

  I've had the thought lately regarding McCain, Bush, and bailouts - if we're going to have corporate socialism shouldn't we have a Democrat do it? At least they don't have the supposed association with the free market that Republicans do.
• David Friedman on the bailout

  The failure of a firm doesn't wipe out wealth, except to the extent that the firm itself—its firm culture, web of relationships and such—has some value. When a firm fails, that is at least some evidence that that value was negative, which is why nobody chose to buy out the firm and keep it going. The ordinary assets of the firm—its buildings, land, stocks, bonds, mortgages, and whatever it owns—don't vanish when the firm fails, they get sold to someone else.
  
  The bailout is not a way of preventing the loss of value. The loss (or transfer) of value occurred when people made bad mortgage loans. What happened more recently was the recognition of that loss. All the bailout can do is to shift the loss from some people to others, from the stockholders and creditors of firms that are now effectively bankrupt to the taxpayers.
  

Thoughts on the debate

On the whole, I think they both came out well. Obama is clearly not at his best in this forum, and does not think on his feet that well. His response to the economics questioning was stunted and halting, but largely came around during the foreign policy portion. McCain was consistent throughout. The real shocker (to me anyway) was Obama supporting Ukrainian and Georgian membership in NATO, which is truly a horrible idea. Of course, McCain seemed to support it too.

There was little I actually agreed with in most of the debates; both of them seemed to like the status quo of America the GloboCop, and neither seemed to have any meaningful problem with the Wall Street bailout, but it could have been a lot worse (for America). On the whole, it seemed like McCain was the honest authentic guy, and Obama was an honest authentic guy's attourney which is the usual pattern.

More thought later most likely.

Profiles in lameness

As Congress seems to be willing to give the Treasury secretary a check for 700 billion with no strings attached, where are our two main nominees? As far as I can tell they're not in the Senate doing the job they were actually elected to do. And we're expected to respect their "experience" and "judgment"?!?!

Marginal Revolution gets it right

With this photo.

One would think that it's obvious that the government doesn't get Big Looming Threats pegged too accurately, but apparently not. The fact that people still push for national health care in light of all recent evidence of government capabilities is amazing.

A bad sign for the Democrats

From this AJC article

The Democrats’ desire to put the vice presidential candidates behind podiums grew out of the 2000 and 2004 vice presidential debates, when the candidates sat close to each other behind the same table. Cheney had the upper hand in both debates, said several Democrats involved in the debate process, in part because the setting made it difficult if not impossible for Lieberman and Edwards to go after Cheney aggressively. Whether that was because of the setting or because the two Democrats wanted to avoid confrontation is a matter still disputed by participants.

If they're already grinding their excuses to that fine level of detail then they're already expecting bad things.

Random Thoughts:
The real question is - will McCain have the nerve to run a commercial saying "isn't it awesome when we have divided government? Do you really want Nancy Pelosi to have total control over everything?

Will the 527 groups have the nerve to run an ad like that? Come to think of it, where are the 527 groups this year?

An anaology I intend to steal

From this post about abortion on the primary feminist site; it captures my feelings on the political matter more or less

Not to beat this horse to death, but let’s use the 1st Amendment as an analogy. Everyone would agree it’s none of the government’s business if I choose to practice Islam. So what would you say if the government, while keeping it legal to practice Islam, nevertheless decided there were too many Muslims in this country and therefore decided to spend taxpayers’ dollars educating people on religions other than Islam. I assume you would find that completely unacceptable. I don’t see the difference between this and abortion. If it’s none of the government’s business whether women have abortion, then the government shouldn’t be in the business of discouraging abortions. What am I missing?

Palin the tethered goat

It seems to me that the McCain campaign is using Sarah Palin to draw out the worst of the democratic leaning population, which will cause the not that interested voter to associate the Obama campaign with the Move-On/Cindy Sheehan crowd, and hence be turned to Obama. Pretty clever.

On another note, isn't Palin a wonderful blank canvas on which people can project their hopes and desires? She's the equal of Obama in that regard.

Palin!

Via the Agitator - I bring you VPILF.com!

And I now coin the term "McCain's other trophy wife" which the Dems will start using in approximately fifteen minutes.

Col. Lang on the VeepStakes

On Joe Biden

His argumentation is logical, passionate and usually (unlike the occasion mentioned,) delivered behind a screen of civility spread across a vast hostility.

On David Petraeus

Petraeus is youthful, well spoken, handsome, intelligent, successful in the war in Iraq, youthful, and youthful. Petraeus has reached the top in his profession. There is no "up" in the Army from full general and theater commander. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Yawn... The professional politicians would probably not like to have Petraeus on the ticket, but his presence there would make victory inevitable.

My money's still on Meg Whitman as the veep choice.

The agitator brings the Biden pain

From this post

Biden’s record on other criminal justice and civil liberties issues is just as bad. Opponents of the federalization of crime might note that the 1994 crime bill he sponsored created several new federal capital offenses. Biden also wants to expand federal penalties for hate crimes. He supports a federal smoking ban. His position on the federal drinking age is, and I quote, “absolutely do not” lower it to 18. He believes “most violent crime is related to drugs” (if he had said “drug prohibition,” he’d be closer to the truth). Biden also has an almost perfect anti-gun voting record. He said last year he favors “universal national service,” either in the Peace Corps or the military. Sounds like conscription to me. He says he’s opposed to the PATRIOT Act, but he voted for both the original bill and its re-authorization in 2005.

Foreign policy? Biden voted for the war on Iraq. Yes, he’s opposed to it now (and I like the partition plan he pushed in the primaries). But he didn’t vote correctly when it counted most. Biden also voted to send troops into Darfur. He wants to enlarge NATO. He voted in favor of the air strikes in Kosovo. He voted to strengthen the trade embargo against Cuba. His seems to be a meddling, interventionist, Clinton-esque foreign policy. His first instinct seems to be that the U.S. military’s objective include some vague notion of “doing good in the world.” Never mind the disastrous consequences that notion has reaped over the years.

I obviously disagree with Biden on a host of economic and regulatory issues, too (though he does seem to be fairly decent on free trade). But that’s to be expected. My problem with Biden is that he’s not even good on the issues the left is supposed to be good on. He’s an overly ambitious, elitist, tunnel-visioned, Potomac-fevered Beltway dinosaur, with all the trappings. He may well have been the worst possible pick among congressional Democrats when it comes to the drug war and criminal justice.

Meg Whitman seems like a more obvious choice now.

Random insight from the ride back: Modern politics

The Bush administration has been like a movie version of a Jimmy Carter book, starring Steven Seagal, and lasting eight years.

Here's a first

I actually donated money to a political candidate for the first time in my life. Go Barr!bob

McCain's first wife

Check out this story about McCain's first wife. Oddly, the hero of the tale is Ross Perot; a crazy nut, but a classy guy.

The Libertarian candidates

CNN.com has a nice round up here.

The amazing McCain

According the the wonderful site, Electoral-Vote.com, Clinton (who won't be the nominee) beats McCain 280-241 in the electoral college, whereas Obama loses to McCain 237-290. Granted, it's quite early, but it's amazing nonetheless.

Helpful profane campaign slogans

Contains some profanity, which makes it not safe for work if you work in uptight places.

Signs that democracy has run it's course

The candidates are appearing on wrestling shows.

Friday links

• Everybody kills Hitler - quite good
• Interesting bit by David Friedman on public education
• Bob Barr might be running for the LP nomination, that would be strange
• The best cartoon I've seen in quite some time, everybody check this out...
• The ocean is cooling... - Global warming enthusiasts are sounding more and more like defense lawyers.
  

Random insight not yet noticed by the media about Obama

Given his pastor's speeches coming to light, can anyone thing of a better way to convince people he's not a secret Muslim? I can't.

The internet says I agree with Ron Paul

Via Dan, check out Glassbooth, it's a decent political survey tool. I scored

Ron Paul - 81% - Huckabee - 68% - McCain 62%

Medical Marijuana and Drug Policy very similar
Trade and Economics very similar
Taxes and Budget very similar
Gun Control very similar
Civil Liberties and Domestic Security similar
Iraq and Foreign Policy very different

How about y'all?

This is no ordinary Tuesday

My predictions are Obama and Huckabee here in GA. On a related note, I met my first Ron Paul door to door guy on Saturday, he seemed very nice. He gave me a bumper sticker too.

Before I go vote, here are some links that caught my eye:

• Barstool Economics
• Leading denominations by location
• Your tax dollars by at work - Atlanta cop and Duluth cop in shoot out
  

Lost sleep and mixed blessings

So, my week continues to suffer, as I've been going on less than two hours a day of sleep for since Sunday. Work however goes very well. On the political front, both Guiliani and Edwards have dropped out of the race, and I got my first robocall from the Ron Paul campaign.

Quick New Hampshire predictions

They're not very earth shattering, but...

Democrats

1. Obama
2. Clinton (a close second)
3. Edwards (a distant third)
   

Republicans

1. McCain
2. Huckabee
3. Romney
4. Paul (somewhere over ten percent, but not much)
5. Thompson
6. Giuliani (happily low in the standings)
   

Who would have thought it?

Unmentioned by the commentariat thus far is that the primaries (so far anyway) concern only domestic politics. Who would have predicted that four years, or even four months ago? This is the best proof of the the surge being seen as working I suppose.

Wyoming

Here's a little known fact, Wyoming is holding it's caucus on Saturday.

Iowa picks based on gut feeling

Democrats -

1. Clinton
2. Obama
3. Edwards

Republican -

1. Huckabee (by a margin that will surprise everyone)
2. Romney
3. Paul - maybe wishful thinking, but all of this money and energy has to translate into something.

Clinton and Huckabee are hardly my preferred choices, but neither of them are Edwards or Giuliani, who (I think) would do America irreparable damage.

Tuesday links

• Iraq vets take lemons and make.... something.
• Delphine LaLurie - very creepy
• Time management
• I do believe I'll be building these bookshelves
• Ron Paul - comic book president
• Putting Bush on Mt Rushmore - be sure to read this one from Scott Adams
  

The next Reagan

Via Yglesias, comes this Mike Huckabee ad



I think I'm the first to point out that he's the first candidate to good natured and likable on the stump, which is quite a bit of a change from the rest of the crowd. Clever ad too.

A good example of why liberals scare me

Check out this diavlog with Paul Krugman and Mario Cuomo; it's a detailed explanation of how the government should run your life, from health care to your job, and most things in between.

Four changes if I were king of America

I've made them non-political, strictly symbolic. They are

1. The national anthem shall be changed to America the Beautiful; an accessible song with a solid melody and natural meter; and the Star Spangled Banner will be consigned to history, where it will be of much interest to our eventual tone-deaf robot overlords
2. Daylight Savings Time shall be abolished. Trying to fool the sun sets a bad example for children and weakens our moral fiber
3. Calvin Coolidge shall be worked into Presidents Day somehow. We're long overdue for rewarding people who do their job quietly, with no drama
4. We shall come up with a simple way to properly fold the US Flag that does not require two people

What would y'all do?

Three interesting things

• There are more World of Warcraft players than there are farmers (from Paul Krugman via MR)
• The reason the average car produces X many tons of CO2 (a figure I always found fishy) is due to the fact that the carbon bonds with oxygen already existing in the air, which never occurred to me until I read this article. The majority of the actual mass (the O2) comes mostly from the existing air.
• John Edwards, still not popular! It says good things about America, and the Democratic party that he's doing well. I suppose the Republican alternative to him is Tom Tancredo.
• From this BloggingHeads.tv - "John Kerry was a Democrat's idea of what the Republicans like". The Republicans seem to be making the same desperate mistake with Giuliani right now.
  

Obama gets interesting

Firstly he has stopped wearing American Flag pins. While to some degree the president serves a double role as chief executive and president of the fan club I think this is a good thing. There's nothing more hollow than a red Aids ribbon or the yellow "Live Strong" wristbands. It's good to have someone running that doesn't find meaning in 17 pieces of flair. That doesn't mean his ideas are any good, but there's more to loving America than wrapping oneself in internal marketing.

Secondly he apparently has a serious person as his chief economic adviser. All in all a good sign for him. Not that I'll be voting for him, but he's at least showing signs of being interesting, which he hasn't up to now.

Rep. Jack Kingston provides a stirring indictment

Of himself in this case. From the AJC

But Rep. Jack Kingston is making no apologies for being the House champion for Georgia when it comes to snagging federal dollars for his home state and his home district around Savannah.

In the current spending bills working their way through Congress for the new fiscal year, which begins next month, Kingston is sponsoring or co-sponsoring earmarks estimated at $83 million, more than any other Georgian in the House.

Despite being a conservative Republican, Kingston argues that snagging programs and projects is a time-honored tradition for Georgia lawmakers.

I suppose they're going to lose a few more rounds. It's always time for term limits.

Advice on seeming Reaganesque

Since all of the Republicans candidates for president are trying to be the next Ronald Reagan, why not run on his platform? Just cross out the parts about the Soviet Union, and presto! It's not like much of his domestic agenda got enacted. We still have the departments of Energy, Education and so on. Government is still the problem after all...

Scary quote of the day

From the AJC article Clayton may seek records on all renters

"This is not to say Big Brother is watching," he insisted. "It says Big Brother is helping."

It's not the most intrusive thing that could happen, but bear in mind that in the past 10 years we (the Atlanta Metro Area) have had

• 1 Mayor in jailed on corruption charges
  
• 1 political assassination of a sheriff
  
• 1 ex-sheriff convicted of said assassination, along with several deputies
• 1 police shooting of an 87 year old woman based on a perjured warrant
• The creation of a "Tupac Shakur Arts Center" funded by the taxpayers
• Cynthia McKinney's entire political career

And we should give the government more power?

Quick Friday roundup

• E-Snailer - Write a letter on the internet
• High Trust Societies
• Fair and Balanced Radio - by Radley Balco
• Better and better car batteries. From Wired. We probably need at least one generation more of advancement before plug-in hybrids are feasible.
  

Finding humor in the little things

From CNN.com

Al Gore's son was arrested early Wednesday on suspicion of possessing marijuana and prescription drugs after deputies pulled him over for speeding, authorities say.

Al Gore III, 24, was driving a blue Toyota Prius about 100 mph on the San Diego Freeway when he was pulled over about 2:15 a.m., Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino said.

This isn't too surprising, he's been arrested for marijuana before IIRC, but he was dumb (and probably arrogant enough) enough to be going 100 miles an hour while while carrying an illegal drug and four(!) prescription drugs not prescribed to him. In a Prius, which makes it all much funnier.

The Scooter Libby commutation inspires a detached nausea in me

One of the main selling points of the rule of law is that everyone has to abide by the same ones. Or not...

Bush commutes Libby's prison sentence
President Bush commuted Monday the prison term of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, facing 30 months in prison after a federal court convicted him of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators.

Sure, the investigation seemed to be centered around something that wasn't a crime. Fine. But Libby had every opportunity to plead the fifth and he didn't. Instead he lied under oath.

I've long maintained that one of the great social blunders of my lifetime was not convicting Clinton for perjury in the Lewinsky case. Not that the crime itself was terribly notable, but setting a high, enforced standard of the rule of law would have changed subsequent presidents for the better.

John Edwards sinks to the challenge

It reminds me of the adage "he came to do good and wound up doing very well indeed."

From this NYT article

John Edwards ended 2004 with a problem: how to keep alive his public profile without the benefit of a presidential campaign that could finance his travels and pay for his political staff.

Mr. Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets of nearly $30 million, came up with a novel solution, creating a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty. The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and — unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students — the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Mr. Edwards himself, tax filings show.
...
The money paid Mr. Edwards’s expenses while he walked picket lines and met with Wall Street executives. He gave speeches, hired consultants, attacked the Bush administration and developed an online following. He led minimum-wage initiatives in five states, went frequently to Iowa, and appeared on television programs. He traveled to China, India, Brussels, Uganda and Russia, and met with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and his likely successor, Gordon Brown, at 10 Downing Street.

I suppose helping the poor isn't worth spending one's own money. Happily the Democrats seem to be preferring the more honest hacks of Clinton and Obama.

Videotaping police

Radley Balco, in a column on FoxNews.com has an interesting and scary article video taping police at work. Basically there have been a string of incidents recently where people videotaping police at work (in uniform, in public, performing their duties) have been charged with crimes.

It's ridiculous. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy for a private citizen in public view, which is why traffic cameras and the legion of private security cameras are legal (recording audio is considered different by the law). Why on earth would public servants (who are supposed to work for us mind you) be immune from this?

All this would change if we made all government agencies were funded from the public treasury and weren't self-supporting, but that's a topic for another time I suppose.

Wednesday link roundup

• An interesting post on autism and vaccines
  
• This post from EconLog

  Back in 1980, State correctional facilities had 9 violent criminals for every drug offender. By 2003, that ratio was 2.6:1.

• DOD Braces for a fight with Pelosi

  Pentagon officials are bracing for a fight with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) over her desire to allow lawmakers’ adult children to tag along on taxpayer-funded travel for free.
  
  Pelosi wants them to be able to fill the role of lawmakers’ spouses when the latter are unable to make a trip because of health issues or work commitments.

  The shameful part is that they can say all that with a straight face. "Fill the role of Lawmaker's spouses", ridiculous.

Ever more Ron Paul

A good performance by Dr Paul on the Colbert Report - Colbert did raise some of his less popular positions, which Paul endorsed with some gusto. Curiously no one has mentioned that he was the Libertarian Party nominee in 1988.

Thoughts on Ron Paul on the Daily Show

He came across better than usual for his usual presentation. They talked a little about domestic policy, nothing about drug legalization or gun control, mostly spending. Not bad though.

Ron Paul on the Daily Show tonight

Republican presidential candidate, former Libertarian Party nominee, current Texas representative, temporary darling of the trendy left and overall interesting guy will be on the Daily Show tonight. We'll see if they go into his foreign policy stance (popular to the Daily Show audience, so long as it's kept vague) and away from his views on abortion and national health care.

I bash John Edwards

Everyone should check out this Bob Schrum piece in Time Magazine (h.t. TDAXP).

Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he'd never told anyone else—that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he'd do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade's ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before—and with the same preface, that he'd never shared the memory with anyone else.

It's always sad when people are actually worse than you think they are. Then again, the Edwards' (sp) have run for president twice while they have young children, which should disqualify them in the first place.

Guiliani

As my libertarian and libertarian leaning friends have been bringing him up lately, here is a negative portrait of Rudy Guiliani.

And to expand on my bar rant of last night, he would make a great mayor (New Orleans needs one right now), and would probably make a great president if it were the year 1880. However, in our modern age presidents have far too much discretionary power, and pro-choice, thrice married, adulterous Catholics are far too good at living with contradictions to be trusted to keep their promises.

Michael Moore the inverted prophet

He did Bowling for Columbine, and the Democratic party changed positions on gun control, he did Fahrenheit 911 and Bush got re-elected, and now he has a new movie coming out on health care. Does that mean health care is going to be deregulated?

Monday link roundup

• A useful post from CodingHorror.com on interface friction
• Al Gore, like Ann Coulter, seems to be a mac person
• A blog for women! And one of the editors might be someone I went to high school with.
• Kuler! The Adobe web color harmony tool - via this site
• Co-Mapping (mind mapping software) looks cool
• Properly bashing ethanol
• HiddenUnities and PurposeSlog have posts on the Wire and 24. I helpfully added the Shield in the comments. All excellent programs, though 24 is basically a commercial for the cell phone industry, not torture.
  

We live in scary times when Bill Maher is right about something

Check out this post from The Agitator. The whole "They hate us for our freedom" bit sounds nice, and is partly true, but it is the most useless adage ever created. If we're going to reduce the number of terrorists to zero (the goal) we're going to need to do more than just proclaim our greatness and ignore all specifics. Sigh.

Wars in the Middle East are officially a vested interest

I read this article on CNN.com

White House taps general for 'war czar' post
President Bush has chosen Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the Pentagon's director of operations, to oversee the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan as a "war czar" after a long search for new leadership, administration officials said Tuesday.

In the newly created position, Lute would serve as an assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser, and would also maintain his military status and rank as a three-star general, according to a Pentagon official.

and was reminded of this Albert Jay Nock quote:

Experience has made it clear beyond doubt or peradventure that prohibition in the United States is not a moral issue; it is not essentially, even, a political issue; it is a vested interest.

and this H.L. Mencken quote:

The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace.

We have this horrible tendency in our culture to see the means (a big new bureaucracy) as an end in itself, nay, an achievement. What endeavor has failed because there are too few managers? The right managers, sure, lots of failures due to a lack of them. But too few?

Plus an additional bureaucracy just creates it's own principal-agent and knowledge problems.

Functionally Lute will probably serve as a dedicated adviser, but why the title Czar? All of the Russian Czars were an odd combination of stagnant, incompetent and murderous. Why is that some role model.

Sigh.

Today's quote of the day goes to...

Cokie Roberts who characterized Barack Obama as "the candidate from Whole Foods".

Manhattan project for energy independence

Some ideas never go away; to wit, in what way does the statement, said by many "we need a Manhattan project for energy independence differ from Soviet industrial policy? It's quite different from the original Manhattan project in that it's quite wide in scope and chases an ill defined goal, whereas the original Manhattan project was quite specific in both method and destination.

Benchmarks of seriousness

I was taking an advanced economic history class during the Republican "Revolution" of 94. Someone asked the professor if there was any historical precedent for radical change following a big party switch in Congress alone. He cited many near examples I don't remember but then said "We'll know if they're serious about cutting spending if they get rid of farm subsidies.". It's now more than twelve years later and farm subsidies are going strong.

I was reading this interview with George Schulz and he, talking about oil dependence, had the line

I won’t believe we’re serious about it until we’re willing to remove the tariff on import of ethanol. And take quotas off sugar and a few things like that.

which is a fine benchmark to tell if anyone really cares about oil dependence. Support for nuclear power is a good one too.

For some technical background; American ethanol production is one of the least efficient efforts in the world, largely because we make it from corn (which we have a lot of) which is a poor source material. Sugar (of which we grow very little) is a far better source material. The American climate is not well suited to grow sugar, but it is well suited to grow corn. Both the corn and sugar lobbies are well organized and powerful and benefit greatly from subsidies and tariffs.

The Japanese seem to be outdoing us in crazy

Check out the speech below. It takes a certain amount of gravitas to be against majority rule and run for office on the explicit platform of destroying the county, but you just can't hold back street musicians.

The funniest thing I read today

It comes from the blog of Anderson Cooper, which graces us with

Cameras followed the governor as he shopped for groceries. All he had was $21.00 to spend on food for an entire week. That's the average amount of money allotted to a food stamp recipient. He had to say "no" to organic bananas and Swiss cheese.

Does anyone expect food stamps to be more than just barely adequate (if that)? Is there anyone laboring under the idea that life on food stamps is an excess of luxury, filled with store bought organic foods?

One of the more annoying human tendencies is that everyone would think like we do if only they had access to the same collection of facts. Thomas Sowell put it best with

Facts do not 'speak for themselves.' They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theories or visions are mere isolated curiosities.

If you don't convince someone of the flaw in the theory, all of the "awareness" in the world probably one reinforces one's original worldview.

And on the awareness stunts, nothing beats death row inmates going on a hunger strike to protest conditions. How can anyone top that?

Bold new insight

Barack Obama is a lot like Lenny Kravitz. Both have a well defined personal story which makes for an easy story for critics and pundits. They both sound just like vague rehashes of the Kennedy era so they seem familiar to those in the pundit demographic. Both were barely born then, so the talking heads can proclaim them to be "new". Both are of mixed race ancestry so people can feel good about themselves for saying they like them. Both have problems with "authenticity".

Where's my CNN.com column?

Qualifications for president

Perhaps it's me, but is the incidence of presidential candidates having young children higher than normal? Obama, Edwards, IIRC McCain as well, and I'm sure I'm leaving a few out. Personally I think we should raise (via constitutional amendment) the minimum age for president to at least 55. Why would anyone want to subject their children to life in the public eye?

Thoughts on Scooter Libby

I haven't paid much attention to the Libby trial. Joe Wilson always seemed like too much of a pompous blowhard, and Libby too much of a devoted apparachik, to care much. However, like tax cuts, impeachments and special prosecutors are always good.

Two surprising things

• Fitzgerald convicted Libby on essentially technical grounds, which struck me as odd, as he's a rather talented lawyer. IIRC he was Clinton pardonee Marc Rich's lawyer.
• No one has brought up this reason for the animus towards Wilson; to wit: Cheney's office is filled with 45-65 year old true believers who all work 60-80 hours a week. Along comes some guy who retired in his late 40s who tries to tell them their business (and not too well either). That has to some sort of huge insult in the late middle aged workaholic society.
  

Random assortment of links

• Frank Miller is going to be on G4 on Sunday.
• A 96 year old mobster has his day in court. His mob name is "The Old Man" which is rather unimaginative. His record goes back to 1932.
• Stand-in mistress sought to take wife’s abuse
• Your tax dollars at work, in hovering cloud of smoke form.
• Underground coal fires.
• A horrible abuse of language from the junior senator from Massachusetts. "

  Might I ask you what your opinion is with respect to the state of American politics as regards the politics of personal destruction?

  He has the perfectly descriptive term, slander, to use and yet he came up with that. He makes Bush seem downright articulate sometimes.
• A lot of interesting talk on Gore, and specifically his carbon offsetting program from Marginal Revolution and The Economist. FYI - he seems to be a part owner of the offsetting company.
  

Quick tab clearing roundup

• The Sunni-Shia Quiz - I got a 100!
• Private solutions to Global Warming
• Ron Paul is running for president! Finally a good republican.
• Engineering Quotes
• Woman Fired For Writing About Avoiding Work
  

Quote of the moment

Paraphrased from Brink Lindsay:

Conservatives and liberals both want to return to the 50s. Liberals want to work there and conservatives want to live there.

Quote of the moment

Stephen Chapman

the GOP has morphed from a party that reveres limited government to a party that is girlishly infatuated with executive authority.

via Althouse

The ongoing Beltline scam

Atlanta functions as a collective conspiracy of real estate developers, but even so , this is a bit much

Beltline park plan a mystery
..
Fulton County Commissioner Emma Darnell, who represents the area, said her constituents repeatedly ask for updates on the park. She's at a loss to offer specific information, even though she serves on the boards of the city's development arm, Atlanta Development Authority, and the city's entity that's overseeing Beltline planning, Atlanta Beltline Inc.

"The No. 1 interest of folks in the area near and around the quarry is what's going on," Darnell said. "That's the big concern right now. Talk to anyone at random in those neighborhoods and they don't have a clue as to what's going on. The city of Atlanta should be able to answer all those questions."

Truth is, all that's certain at this point is that the park is supposed to become a regional attraction, much like Piedmont Park, Atlantic Station and Centennial Olympic Park. Most of the Beltline will be paid for with a projected $1.7 billion in future property taxes collected by three local entities — Atlanta City Council, the Atlanta school board and Fulton County's Board of Commissioners.

Somehow we knew in 2006 how people will want to live 2026, even though in 2007 we don't know what's going on. We also know that they'll want to pay for it then too. Why on earth do people think something that complex and far off is knowable (answer, because they're not spending their own money). It's the real estate version of Iraq really. At least that dealt with present day people.

Infuriating comments

From this CNN.com article

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, for example, is a sponsor of a bill that would call for troops to come home in 180 days and allow for a minimum number of forces to be left behind to hunt down terrorists and train Iraqi security forces.

"Read the Constitution," Boxer told her colleagues last week. "The Congress has the power to declare war. And on multiple occasions, we used our power to end conflicts."

This idea is coming to her now? It's nauseating how we elect these people. There are countless acts of courage and kindness that happen when the cameras aren't running, but as soon as they start everyone puts their head down and genuflects to the conventional wisdom. Congress gives war making authority to the president, who of course was only enforcing UN resolutions. All to avoid criticism or losing a job, which very few of them need.

That's an odd thing about American; risk taking is private. That's good I suppose.

An odd parallel

Has anyone noticed that the descriptions of Barack Obama are similar to the descriptions of George Bush in 1999 and early 2000? The whole people-person, good listener, polite meme that's been going around the Blogsphere lately was said about Bush as well.

Maybe we're better off with massive egos who care far too much about their legacy (and Newt's running in 08!). Food for thought.

Government temerity

From this CNN article

The bill would bar companies from future lease sales unless they agree to renegotiate flawed leases issued in 1998-99 for deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Because of a government error, the current leases do not contain a trigger for royalties if prices soared, as they have in recent years. As a result, the companies have avoided paying $1 billion in royalties so far and stand to avoid an additional $9 billion over the life of the leases, the Interior Department says.

Isn't that why one signs a lease, to lock in a price? All government contracting is shady, but to pretend that anyone is owed anything is ridiculous. All the more reason to auction off the drilling rights and be done with it.

Perfectly put

Don Boudreaux put it very well in his open letter to Lou Dobbs. Why he's taken more seriously than Bill O'Reilly or Cynthia McKinney I'll never know.

More on the Libertarian Party

A very well written post on the LP over at the Volokh Conspiracy, to wit:

Some LP defenders argue that even if the Party doesn't have any chance of winning, it can at least help educate the public about libertarian ideas. However, there is little if any evidence that the LP has actually had any success in this task over its 35 year history. Those libertarians who have succeeded in spreading libertarian ideas - people like Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, and the Cato Institute - have done so without any LP affiliations, and indeed have tried hard to work with the two major parties. Whether fairly or not, the mainstream media and academic world are not going to pay much attention to ideas emanating from a tiny third party that has no chance of winning any elections; therefore, the LP's educative potential is unlikely to be much greater than its electoral potential.

If we had a proportional representation electoral system, like many European countries and Israel, a separate libertarian party would make excellent strategic sense. The party (if better run than the dysfunctional LP) could command 10-15% of the vote, thereby winning roughly that percentage of legislative seats, and would be a potential part of a ruling political coalition. A libertarian party might also make sense if one of the major political parties were on the brink of collapses and the libertarian party stood a chance of taking its place (as the Republican Party displaced the Whig Party in the 1850s). However, in the real world, the US is unlikely to move toward proportional representation and neither major political party is likely to collapse anytime soon. Therefore, the cause of libertarianism will be better off without a separate Libertarian Party.

Thoughts

As it seems Allen is going to concede (in an unexpectedly classy move for him) it would seem that I was wrong on both counts in my predictions.

Quote of the moment, via Instapundit:

The Republicans lost and the Democrats won for the same reason -- they distanced themselves from their base.

I think we'll like divided government. And the anti-Kelo measure passed, which is an unalloyed boon to America.

Just got back from voting

It wasn't crowded at all. One thing that surprised me was the Kelo inspired eminent domain constitutional amendment, I hadn't heard anything about that.

The statue above was outside the polling place.

Cynical quotes about democracy

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
H.L. Mencken

Better a third-rate fireman than a first rate arsonist.
Thomas Sowell

Ah, elections, our biannual parade of tired whores.
Steve French

My predictions - with no confidence

I'm honestly not sure of the outcome. Were I betting, I would say the consensus opinion is wrong, and the Republicans hold on to both houses by a tiny margin. If I remember correctly, the polls usually underestimate the effects of the Republican ground game. Also, widely held opinions on the future are usually wrong, most lately the 2006 hurricane season. The chattering classes have seen a gathering destiny over the Democratic party that I don't think is there.

On another note, I am still quite please by the direction of the Dems this time around. Still very wrong with all the economic populism of course, but the baby boomer narcissism seems to be on it's way out.

Speaking of that, John Kerry's bit last week was (even if taken at face value) NOT insulting to the troops, it was condescending, which is why it had resonance as a criticism of him in particular and the Dems in general.

Giving credit where credit is due

After the 2004 election I was quite vocal about wanting a viable second party. I will say the Democrats have come quite a long way since then. If you take the new blood on the scene in Jim Webb and Harold Ford you will find very little of the baby-boomer narcissism and navel gazing that affected most of the 2004 candidates.

There is starting to be a concensus plan on Iraq among Democrats as well, in the form of partition. I think that is the option we will take (along with looking the other way on ethnic cleansing) once all the others are exhausted, which should be in around 10 months or so.

All that being said, none of them are any closer to me ideologically (except for the partition, which I do like) than the Republicans but new blood will probably not be as talented at corruption as the current folks.

Not that I think the dems will take the House or Senate, but I do think they will take some seats.

This took a while....

Air America Radio Files for Chapter 11

Very well put

From Matt Yglesias

It's not as if the opposition party has nothing to work with here. One might note the fiasco in Iraq, for example. Or OBL's still-at-large status. Our bizarre herky-jerky stumbling into wider regional conflicts that will further take the focus off of al-Qaeda and others directly trying to kill Americans. This isn't brain surgery.

On the other hand, it's not so easy that voters are going to believe it if Democrats don't even try to make the case. What's more, ducking security fights looks weak. It looks weak because it is weak. It demonstrates a lack of confidence in the party's own ideas and people. It re-enforces everything the GOP is trying to say. Democrats need to knock this off and engage with what's pretty clearly the central issue of our time.

I think this is a good example of the Dems being more centralized (having a smaller collective brain if you will) than the Reps. Rather than picking on any of the weak points in the Republican platform, they charge groin first into the capable fists of the Republican party.

I've said this before, the Democrats have situated themselves so that they don't have to win elections to make money.

Quick rapid fire

• A company that makes secret passageways
• Electoral-Vote.com is back!
• Slate has an interesting article on survival in emergencies
• This is a very cool OSX simulator
• The American Scene is quite interesting sometimes
• Ultramarathoners
  

Cynthia sings!

On video no less.

It begins already

McKinney alleges voting irregularities

...

Shortly after the polls opened on Tuesday, allegations of voting irregularities began appearing on U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney'’s campaign Web site.

I had no wait when I voted this afternoon. There were McKinney people waving signs outside the polling place though. I waved, they waved back.

Getting out the vote

I'm off to go vote in the McKinney - Johnson race. It's an open primary, so anyone (who is registered) can vote.

More Info Here

It's a small world

McKinney opponent Hank Johnson appears on Winds of Change, a very good blog I read periodically. I will be voting for him in the runoff. I wonder if this guest blogging thing will be the new craze.

Update on local democracy

Nick is correct on the primary system. From the AJC

Anyone registered to vote as of June 19 may cast a ballot in the Aug. 8 runoff, regardless of whether they voted in the primary. But those who voted Tuesday in the Republican primary may vote only in Republican runoffs, and those who voted in the Democratic primary may vote only in the Democratic runoff.

Unrelated quote of the moment

"When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice."
- Marquis de la Grange

Democracy working, somehow

Ralph Reed goes down to defeat, and Cynthia McKinney is in a runoff against a guy with no huge party support and didn't seem to spend much money. How cool.

Does anyone know if you can vote in the runoff if you didn't vote in the primary?

A perfect one-sentence description

Of the current political situation anyway, from Winds of Change:

as poor a hand as it may be, you can't beat a pair of twos with nothing.

That sums it up pretty well I think. The dems wouldn't even have to try that hard at this point. Instead they'll probably lose a house seat or two and then return to their default position of navel gazing. Perhaps it's all a big plot by the Clinton faction to set the stage for Hillary in 2008.

Saturday round up

• Magnificent photography from Afghanistan
• A guide to chopping foods
• Race, Advertising and the Sony Playstation.
• Big Brother mixes with the cast of Friends to create Dodgeball
• An insightful post on Energy from the Winds of Change; it starts

  An optimist says the glass is half full, the pessimist says the glass is half empty and the engineer says the glass is the wrong size.

  Read the whole thing.
  
• Some quite impressive numbers you're not likely to hear about.

  In less than three years, the U.S. economic pie has expanded by $2.2 trillion, an output add-on that is roughly the same size as the total Chinese economy, and much larger than the total economic size of nations like India, Mexico, Ireland, and Belgium.

  I think Iraq is keeping the political class occupied, much like the Clinton scandals did in the late 90s, and saving us from grand new ideas.

This happened without me

Rally for national sales tax draws overflow crowd
About 4,500 raucous tax protesters packed the Gwinnett Convention Center on Wednesday night to hear politicians, musicians and talk show celebrities call for the end of the federal income tax and the creation of a 23 percent national sales tax to replace it.

I have yet to hear the logic of what gets taxed and what doesn't, and why the IRS doesn't morph into some national enforcement arm, but it's a good trend.

Funny line

I was reading part of the transcript of Rumsfeld vs the heckler (who's a moderately well known anti-Bush activist, I've heard him on Democracy Now before) here in Atlanta last week. I came across this gem:

CHILD: Mom, do you have an Altoid?
MOM: Yes, I think so. Look in my purse.
CHILD: I don'’t see any.
MOM: Oh, I thought I had some.
CHILD: LYING BLOODTHIRSTY MONSTER!

I've always wondered how is it possible that people can believe the government, particularly this one, is more capable of a grand conspiracy than a grand failure.

Quick zinger roundup

• "George W. -- We will be forever in his debt." (Bumper sticker quoted on Andrew Sullivan's site)
• "If he was shot in the head by the front, that is good marksmanship, if he was shot in the head by the back, that is good judgement." (from the WikiPedia entry on the outlaw and gunfighter John Wesley Hardin)
• "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and run over with a car"
  
  and
  
  "like how you'd sound if you drank a quart of bourbon, smoked a pack of cigarettes and swallowed a pack of razor blades... Late at night. After not sleeping for three days"
  
  (people describing the singing voice of Tom Waits)
  

This says it properly

In convenient book form no less.

The last time I saw him, he was more annoying than Al Franken, which is no mean feat.

HT: Instapundit

Interesting poll numbers

Bush hits 33% approval or so says Fox, and the affection isn't going anywhere else. Why isn't everyone happier about this? America is essentially having a libertarian perception of it's government (similar to the mid 90's actually). I'm thrilled, but the rest of the libertarian blogsphere seems to not notice this at all. It's odd.

Amazing

Cynthia McKinney actually manages to top her "Negro Tolerance Level" quote with her most recent escapade.

Although nothing is as strange as:

Three Men Charged in 'Dungeon' Castration
Three men have been arrested on charges of performing castrations on apparently willing participants in a sadomasochistic "dungeon" in a rural house, authorities said Friday.

"It's extremely bizarre," District Attorney Michael Bonfoey said in a telephone interview. "It's incredible the amount of ways that people can find to run afoul of the law."

Sheriff's investigators said Richard Sciara, 61, Danny Reeves, 49, and Michael Mendez, 60, admitted performing at least eight surgeries, including castrations and testicle replacements, on six consenting clients over the past year. None of the three is licensed to practice medicine, officials said.

...

Each man faces 10 felony counts — five each of castration without malice and conspiracy to commit castration without malice — as well as eight misdemeanor counts of performing medical acts without a license. Each felony carries a maximum three years and three months in prison, Bonfoey said.

Stranger still is that there was already a law against this sort of thing. How often does this sort of thing happen?

Quick round up

• Blogs to Riches - a good article on the major blog players. I'm not mentioned for some reason.
• Signs That the United States is About to Bomb Iran - it's more of what the signs would be more than an indicator of occurrence.
• Bikers roll to military funerals to oppose anti-gay protests
  

  They call themselves the Patriot Guard Riders, and they are more than 5,000 strong, forming to counter anti-gay protests held by the Rev. Fred Phelps at military funerals.

  Phelps believes American deaths in Iraq are divine punishment for a country that he says harbors homosexuals. His protesters carry signs thanking God for so-called IEDs -- explosives that are a major killer of soldiers in Iraq.

  A good article on some fairly spontaneous action against Phelps and his loathsome cadre. Supposedly their intention is to provoke either the police or the military into assault to they can sue.
• In the footnotes of this post, Jane Galt puts it very well with

  My favorite moment in the debates came at the "town hall" style one, where Kerry told a pro-life questioner that while he personally agreed with her that abortion was murder, he couldn't legislate his morality. Pro-choice readers should substitute the words "lynching" for "abortion" and see if this position would overcome their reluctance to vote for a Dixiecrat

  That was what turned me off of Kerry too. At that time I was somewhat open to voting for him. Since the course in Iraq is set, I think the president and congress fighting all the time and getting nothing done would be a wonderful thing. Then he said that.
  
  I would imagine his actual position on abortion is more in the middle, most likely mirroring my own strong disapproval, but that statement lost me forever. My original thought on that debate was a bit different. He prefaced that comment with a statement of his Catholicism. My thought was "that's like saying you're a vegetarian that eats veal". But Jane's remark was much better.
  

Thought and line of the moment

An interesting thought from Jesse Walker at Reason's Hit and Run

But is there anyone in the country who wouldn't be delighted to learn that the forces behind 9/11 are based in Washington, D.C.? That the enemy is not some exotic conspiracy of mysteriously motivated foreigners who speak impenetrable languages and fade easily into an alien landscape, but a familiar group of Republicans with Middle American accents who would be ousted the moment their cabal came to light? The Bush-did-it theory lends itself to a tidy movie ending, a conclusion far preferable to the endless bloody soap opera we've landed in instead.

There are many reasons I don't believe the president plotted 9/11. The biggest is that I'm just not optimistic enough to think the problem could be eliminated that easily.

But the real winner is in the comments (they're quite snarky over there these days) with

... and I think we've 'turned the corner' again, too. Considering how many times we've turned the corner in Iraq, I suspect that the country is shaped like a gigantic four-dimensional dodecahedron.

I think 50 years from now all of this will be seen as a negative function of technology and communications more than anything else.

Extremely well put

Instapundit on Wal-Mart

You know, to me Wal-Mart is a lot like George W. Bush. It's not that I'm that big a fan in the abstract, really, it's just that the viciousness and stupidity revealed in its enemies tends to make me view it more favorably than I otherwise would.

Which says it exactly right. For someone I didn't vote for and for a place I rarely go (and when I do, it's usually because of the hours, and not the price) I've spent a fair amount of time defending both. Ditto for the pro-lifers. Hmmm.