...or I shall taunt you a second time-uh!

If Joe Biden Ran My iPod

2009-05-03T13:48:00.001-05:00

In honor of the Vice President’s remarks about the H1N1 virus, “I would not be, at this point, if they had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway. So from my perspective, what it relates to is mitigation. If you’re out in the middle of a field and someone sneezes, that’s one thing. If you’re in a closed aircraft or a closed container, a closed car, a closed classroom, it’s a different thing,” here’s the playlist that might ensue if he took over iTunes on my PC.

#1 - John Denver - “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane” (‘Don’t Know When I’ll Be Back Again’)

#2 - Suzy Bogguss - “Outbound Plane” (‘Don’t wanna be standin’ here with this ticket for this outbound plane…’)

#3 - Petula Clark - “Don’t Sleep in the Subway”

#4 - The Police - “Don’t Stand so Close to Me”

#5 - Dwight Yoakam - “1000 Miles from Nowhere” (‘and there’s no place I’d rather be’)

#6 - REM - “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”

#7 - George Thorogood - “I Drink Alone” (‘I prefer to be by myself’)

#8 - The Ramones - “I Wanna Be Sedated” (‘nothin’ to do, nowhere to go-ho’)

How to demoralize an opposition party (in 6 easy steps!)

2009-04-28T21:58:00.016-05:00

Recent polling shows that the gap between those Americans who identify themselves as Democrats versus those who self-identify as Republicans is at its largest difference since 1983. Note that the link above refers to polling data taken throughout 2008; I'll bet you dollars to donuts that the gap would be even greater if the poll was conducted today. Why? Glad you asked.

President Obama's first 100 days have been a clinic in how to demoralize and deconstruct the GOP. Specifically, six news items since the beginning of the year strike me as particularly effective in doing so. Let's dive in.

1) The "Fairness Doctrine" - or whatever they're calling it now. True, President Obama has declared that he does not support the pre-Reagan era rule that required news outlets to give equal airtime to both sides of political news items, despite broad support for the plan among Congressional Democrats. However, in March, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) authored an amendment to a Senate bill that would force the FCC to “take actions to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership and to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has expressed support for the bill as well.

While Obama opposes the Fairness Doctrine, he does support "media-ownership caps, network neutrality, public broadcasting, as well as increasing minority ownership of broadcasting and print outlets," according to a press release sent during the presidential campaign. And, more alarming to the GOP, his chairman-designate Julius Genachowski's position on either policy is unknown, and senior advisor David Axelrod has stated that the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine (or, presumably, the Durbin amendment) is up to "Genachoski...and the president to discuss." Either policy would be catastrophic to the GOP, since talk radio is the only media outlet dominated by conservatives right now, and that's the only media outlet that will be affected by those policies. If political talk radio is redefined, then the GOP grassroots stands to lose the most effective tool for communication and organization that we currently have.

2) Homeland Security's "Rightwing Extremist" Memo. Nothing like being branded as extremists to de-motivate people who care about issues like 2nd Amendment rights, right-to-life issues, illegal immigration policy, expansion of domestic social programs, and out-of-control Congressional spending, not to mention veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan (who tend to lean toward the political right). While the memo purported to warn against the possibility of a resurgence of Timothy McVeigh-types, conservatives were outraged by the langauge of the memos, taking it to mean that the administration regards mainstream political activists as hostile and dangerous.

3) The "Torture Memos" and President Obama's about-face. On April 21st, President Obama declared that he "did not rule out action by the Justice Department against those who fashioned the legal rationale for [enhanced interrogation] techniques." This was only 2 days after his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, had said that legal analysts who provided opinions on the legality of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques would not be prosecuted. This about-face (I hate the term "flip-flop") has been branded a "witch hunt" by many on the right, and rightly so. Keep in mind that this isn't a decision to prosecute the people who gave the orders to waterboard prisoners, or even the people who carried out the orders. It's leaving the door open to prosecute people who offered a legal opinion on the interrogation techniques, after analyzing statutes and case law. Now, this doesn't affect the GOP per se, but it's important to remember that any lawyer can file amicus briefs with courts holding hearings on issues, and often lawyers who do so are merely politically active people who hold expertise on those issues and are offering their services pro bono in order to aid in pet causes. I'll give you 3 guesses as to how many lawyers will do this in the future if prosecutions on the so-called Torture Memos proceed.

4) The "Stimulus" bill and the ballooning national debt. Democrats and left-leaning people everywhere have a good point when they note the irony of the sudden urge of Republicans to behave in a fiscally responsible manner. Under President Bush, federal spending skyrocketed, and voters let the GOP know their disapproval of said spending in the 2006 and 2008 elections. Every Republican I've heard interviewed, when asked about the debacle of those two election cycles, offers some version of the "we lost our way" cliche, but the GOP couldn't (or wouldn't) muster the political moxie to reign in spending. Now, we've got bailout after bailout, a ridiculously large and ineffectual "stimulus" bill, and a budget proposal that's outside the range of most people's monetary comprehension. Even a billion dollars is beyond the grasp of us mere laypeople, and 3,670 billion is simply unfathomable. The Tea Party movement was a welcome sign of life in the grassroots, but I fear that a) it doesn't have political staying power without some central organization to keep it going, and b) the vast majority of the media coverage of the events was negative - even condescending - and people who don't follow politics closely will likely perceive the Tea Partyers as some minority fringe.

5) Recruit "moderate" Republicans to caucus with Democrats. Today, Senator Arlen Specter (PA) defected from the GOP to join the Democratic party. This move puts the Senate Democrats at the magic number of 60 that they needed in order to become filibuster-proof (assuming Al Franken holds his lead on Norm Coleman and is seated in the Senate - more on this in #6). I've read quite a few right-leaning bloggers' posts today, and many of them are wishing Sen. Specter good riddance. I don't disagree with that sentiment, except for the undeniable fact that contributions to the GOP and Republicans across the nation will undoubtedly see their contributions dry up, at least until the 2010 election cycle heats up. It was only a few hours after Sen. Specter's announcement that I received an email from GOP chairman Michael Steele, begging for a donation. My immediate reaction was to delete the email and ask myself "Donate? For what? More failure on the part of Republicans in Washington?" I'm reconsidering that reaction now, but I still haven't donated (and likely won't), and I'm relatively certain that I'm not alone.

6) Steal a Senatorial election (or two). And no, steal is not too strong a word. What the left did to former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens is deplorable. In case you missed it, before the November 2008 elections, Sen. Stevens was accused of corruption, and convicted just before election day. Then, Attorney General Eric Holder dropped all charges after voters ousted Stevens from office. Now, let's be fair: Stevens was convicted on the charges. But the trial was tainted with misdeeds by the prosecution, including violating discovery rules, witholding information vital to the defense, and springing information on Stevens' defense attorneys during court proceedings, rather than doing so prior to entering the courtroom. But of course, none of that mattered to the prosecution nor the presiding judge - who should have declared a mistrial before the conviction ever happened. I have no idea if the charges against Stevens should have stuck or not - maybe they should have. But to allow a conviction to proceed only to have the case completely thrown out on appeal is more than a little bit fishy. And now Minnesotans think that Norm Coleman should just bow out because they're tired of recounts, court decisions, and appeals, when laxer standards are being applied to ballots in Democrat-heavy voting districts than in GOP-leaning ones? Please.

But the longer the appeals have been drawn out, and the more Minnesota (once again) has become the political laughingstock of the nation, the more Coleman voters have grown weary of the appeals. The DFL in Minnesota (and the complicit Star-Tribune) have effectively branded Coleman as a sour-grapes loser, and that means fewer contributions to Coleman's legal defense fund, which makes his legal battle an even steeper one.

Taken individually, none of these 6 items could be construed as a major blow to the conservative movement. By themselves, they might even motivate the conservative grassroots to take action and fight back in order to dominate the 2010 cycle. But when you add them up, I'm afraid too many people who are inclined to become politically active are simply disincentivized from prolonging the Tea Party movement, running for office themselves, or giving time and/or money to upcoming election efforts. And non-active people who are merely receptive to the possibility of conservative governance are likely view the GOP as a flailing and ineffective organization, and could vote to give the Dems the chance at another 2 years to right the country's course. Here's to hoping that I'm wrong.

I'll be back in a few days to offer my prescription for what the GOP needs to do to get its mojo back. In the meantime, think about the 6 items I've outlined above and whether or not you believe they're helpful to America's future.

"Wait a minute, there's an animal loose..."

2008-04-25T09:22:00.002-05:00

Happy Rick Monday day!

I love the shot of Lasorda standing next to the two "animals" - no doubt letting loose on them as bad as he's ever let loose on a home-plate ump. How priceless would it be to overhear that conversation?

Death and to taxes! (and Congressional economic meddling)

2008-03-26T09:07:00.008-05:00

Remy's back with another seasonal video (although he came up with this one last tax season). My tax thoughts below...

For the first time since fatherofsonofasillyperson paid his accountant $45 to file a 1040-EZ (quite possibly the biggest ripoff since the income tax itself) for me, I eschewed the ol' pencil and paper method and downloaded TurboTax to aid my annual reminder of why I dropped my Income Tax course in college. I don't think there's any product in existence that can make tax filing pleasurable, but TT at least made it pain-free (well, the process of completing the forms, anyway).

What I really want to discuss today is the government's increasingly frequent exercises in stupidity that they do in the name of "fixing" the economy, namely, diddling with interest rates and the ludicrous "economic stimulus package". I blogged this bit over 15 months ago - well before the adjective "sub-prime" became tip-of-tongue for most lay economists, and it deserves (I think, anyway) re-reading now:

We've had artificially low interest rates for the better part of the last 10 years, and we've seen skyrocketing home prices and the advent of 125% equity loans as a result. But now that interest rates are on the rise again, monthly mortgage payments are going up (even with housing prices staying relatively flat), which means that more and more people are stuck in their homes, because they won't sell their home with their inflated second mortgage and wind up OWING money at closing rather than GETTING it. I'm no Nostradamus, but the future of mortgage foreclosures and student loan defaults should be relatively clear to most people. It's time for government to stop meddling with interest rates and just let the business cycle (boom and bust) run its course.

What's this got to do with paying my taxes, you ask? Plenty, mister, plenty. You already know that daughterinlawofasillyperson and I relocated last summer; you may not know that, due to the aforementioned mortgage foreclosures and the increased-by-900%-over-normal inventory of homes on the market, we were unable to sell our just-a-notch-above-modest home. Without the proceeds of a home sale to finance the down payment and closing costs of a new one, we turned to an emergency fire-sale of the stock options that my employer had granted me upon my hiring 6 years ago, and hired a property manager to find tenants for our Minneapolis house (though we stubbornly kept on trying to sell the house for 3 months more before doing so, but that's another story). Back to the fire sale...

Many of you may see where this is going: the entirety of the proceeds of the options sale went to the bank and/or closing company, so none was withheld for tax purposes. I'm not a live-paycheck-to-paycheck kind of guy, so we have our proverbial rainy-day fund to turn to in order to pay the bill, and as it just so happens, the "economic stimulus" check we're due to receive in a couple of months will just about perfectly replenish the rainy-day fund when all is said and done.

My epitomologically long-winded point is this: "Hey Uncle Sam: stop tinkering with the economy! You're not making any progress toward 'stabilizing' anything, and it's just causing more paperwork for the lot of us!" Not to mention creating a huge population of people that now have to rent houses instead of buying them, because their credit is ruined because of foreclosure! But hey, there's also a growing number of rental properties available because people like me refused to sell low when other alternatives were available.

You see how it all works out? Responsible people who make informed and reasonable choices end up right back where they were before the feds' interference. And uninformed people who make unreasonable choices get the shaft. When are the ego-maniacs in Washington (and Wall Street) going to realize that they can't conjure up a booming economy with spending bills (no matter what pretty names they put on them) and interest rate cuts? In our increasingly globalized world, the supply of US dollars (which is really what they're controlling by tweaking interest rates - if you don't understand that, get this book) holds less and less sway over the domestic economy. Sound tax policy (i.e., low personal and corporate rates) that make people and businesses want to live and operate in your jurisdiction is the way to revive the economy, not shaky fiscal policy. Is it a coincidence that more and more U.S. companies are ratcheting up operations in Europe and Southeast Asia at a time when U.S. tax rates are probably going to go up (thanks to Democrats) and every other advanced economy in the world is slashing tax rates?

It works like this: think for a moment on a purely domestic scale. How do states (like South Dakota and Nevada, for example) drive incredible growth in their economies? Mainly by providing a favorable tax structure vis-a-vis their neighbors. Sioux Falls, SD is witnessing amazing growth because of South Dakota's smart tax policies (i.e., low rates!) and good marketing. You don't listen to talk radio in Minneapolis very long before you hear spots touting South Dakota's favorable business environment; I know a guy considering moving his business from Minneapolis to Sioux Falls right now for one reason - lower taxes will help him keep his business afloat during this economic downturn. Nevada: same story.

Think even smaller-scale. How is it that deep discounters like Wal-Mart and Best Buy are some of the most financially successful business models out there, despite operating on a lower margin (that's profit-per-widget for you non-business types) than their competitors? By earning a smaller profit on a vastly increased volume of sales, that's how.

This is how cutting tax rates produces higher tax revenues (to a point, anyway - no one thinks cutting your tax rates to zero will produce higher revenues) - i.e., the Laffer curve. You rely on an increased number of transactions to produce greater profits, even if individual transactions result in lower profits. Much like a sale at Target. "Hmm, we're not making much money lately - how can we get more people into the store? I know! We'll have a sale! And advertise it! Brilliant!"

Go back to the international scale now. Somehow "outsourcing" has become a 4-letter word that Democrats love to throw around as an epithet, but only GOP stalwarts are putting forth tax policies that make outsourcing less desirable as an operating strategy, much less complete relocation of companies to overseas markets. Hillary and Barack have put forth suggestions that they'll penalize companies that do this, and reward companies who stay put. How do you suppose that will work out? Here's how: Companies who need to relocate or outsource to overseas markets in order to stay afloat will find a way to do so without paying this "relo-tax" - even if it means shutting down (temporarily). And companies who stay put will receive their incentives, only to have to re-invest those incentives in themselves in order to stay temporarily competitive with their rivals who are now located in a more economically-friendly place.

People, this isn't complicated. It takes a left-leaning Congress to make it complicated. Enough with the tinkering already. Let us take our lumps, economically speaking, and let markets work themselves out. Figure out how to cut tax rates beyond what other similar economies are doing (mainly by reducing government spending), and you'll be impressed with the results. Really.

Anonymous sources are ruining traditional media

2008-02-21T23:01:00.003-06:00

Three articles I've read in the last couple of days (I'll cite them in due time, relax) have me thinking about one of the major issues ruining the field of journalism: over-reliance on anonymous sources - or, as we often see it referenced today, "a source speaking on the condition of anonymity".

For starters, take the latest flap about John McCain and his "improper relationship" (hat tip to Rob at SayAnythingBlog) with a female lobbyist. As the author points out, "Normally, anonymity is used to protect somebody who would face retribution or violence for sharing certain information." The New York Times reporting of the relationship relies on information given by two anonymous advisers, which could be anything from handlers involved in his campaigns or Senate office - all the way down to people who shook his hand and told him their thoughts on any given policy point during a campaign stop.

Next comes a story from this week's issue of National Review (also available online here) concerning the recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran - you know, the one where all of a sudden, the CIA determines that "in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." That report was widely cited in mainstream media; the only problem is, in Senate hearings on February 5th, Director of National Intelligence Mike "McConnell testif[ied] that the Islamic Republic was working to master the enrichment of uranium." Did you hear about that one on the evening news? Me neither. McConnell continued, "We assess with high confidence that Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons. In our judgment, only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons--and such a decision is inherently reversible. [emphasis mine]" There's a big, big difference between abandoning a nuclear weapons program and a nuclear weapons ambition, given the fact that even uranium enriched by civilian power programs can be altered to produce weapons-grade material.

As Michal Rubin (author of the Weekly Standard article) points out:

The recourse of the disgruntled, bored, or politicized analyst is the leak--the bread and butter of any national security correspondent. Journalists who fulfill the leakers' objectives win ever more tantalizing scoops; those who maintain professional integrity and question the agenda behind any leak, find their access cut. The result is a situation in which journalists who might otherwise double-check sources, take a single intelligence analyst at his word, even if he is using them to fight a policy battle.

True, most presidential administrations will replace the senior leadership of agencies like the CIA, NSA, FBI, et al to more closely reflect their policy aims, but it would be both impossible and wholly counterproductive to remove the masses of analysts and intelligence officials that comprise the bulk of those agencies. Each of them will have their own policy preferences, party affiliations, professional axes to grind, and career aspirations that don't necessarily have anything to do with the administration's objectives.

Combine that with traditional media outlets driven by competition with online news sources to be the ones to "break" a story, and what you're left with is reporters who value speed over accuracy. Remember Dan Rather's downfall? In the interest of pushing a story that other news agencies were digging into also, he fell for ridiculous forgeries of documents that "proved" his story about President Bush getting preferential treatment back in the Air National Guard. If you dig into the fallout of that story, the supplier of the "fake, but accurate" (in Rather's unintelligible words) documents had his own agenda for bringing down Bush. Shortly put, Rather found an anonymous source who was willing to fake out a journalist who was pressed for time, and the rest is history.

Now take a minute to read Judith Miller's article from Opinion Journal today. Recall that she's the reporter who spent 85 days in jail on a contempt of court charge for refusing to divulge her sources. Given her ordeal, I'm tempted to cut her a bit of slack, but in this day and age of lives ruined by false or unsubstantiated media rumors, I have to resist that temptation. Here's her main argument:

There are many ways to intimidate or silence journalists. One depressing tactic in this country is to jail them for refusing to divulge the names of confidential sources who have provided sensitive information for articles, or to turn over telephone logs, emails, memos or notebooks identifying those informants to whom reporters have pledged confidentiality.

At the end of the piece, she points to legislation on the matter:

Last fall, the House of Representatives approved, by a veto-proof majority, a bill that would protect the identity of confidential sources -- unless the information is needed to prevent terrorism, imminent death or significant bodily harm, or involves certain trade secrets, health or financial information, or classified information whose release would cause "significant harm"... The Senate version of the bill would compel a reporter to identify a source in a civil lawsuit like Dr. Hatfill's only if the testimony or information being sought is "essential to the resolution of the matter."

Well, what happens when the "only" fallout is a failed presidential bid? Now, I have my doubts that the lobbyist bit is going to have any significant impact on November's election, and as it turns out, Rather's report didn't doom Bush's re-election campaign. But what if it did? Seems to me that something as important as the presidency should warrant double-checking sources, and getting those sources to go on record with their stories by affixing their names to their allegations. That used to be an obvious journalistic standard, and it's long been abandoned, for the ill of our country and our world.

What about the story from last fall about how our soldiers behaving like Mongols, wearing skulls of dead children and taunting a female officer who had been disfigured in an IED attack? Those turned out to be false reports gleaned from, you guessed it, sources shrouded in anonymity. A report like that wouldn't "prevent terrorism, imminent death or significant bodily harm, or involves certain trade secrets, health or financial information, or classified information" - but what if it became the tipping point for public opinion to finally make a less focused president pull our troops out of Afghanistan? Seems to me that Ms. Miller has been jaded by her (understandably difficult) jail experience.

Miller needs to take a moment and consider a paradigm change. Instead of reporters pledging confidentiality to their sources, why not require them to find sources willing to go on record? It's high time for a national conversation to be had about journalistic integrity and standards, and for us to insist on our trusted media sources holding fast to those standards. The last thing we need is for Congress to codify the rules of media operation - we need to vote with our feet, our letters to editors of offending media outlets, and press advertisers to insist on the same. Lives get ruined by garbage reporting like this (ask Scooter Libby, who took the fall for Richard Armitage's leak of "covert" agent Valerie Plame).

There's a word for newspapers that rely on unsubstantiated claims of anonymous sources: tabloids. Tabloids certainly have a place in the supermarket checkout line for those who can't get enough of Britney's photoshopped cellulite or Jacko's latest secret marriage. In a world where any story can get legs and be front and center on every media source's landing page in mere minutes (and any potential retraction can be buried deep in the online equivalent of a newspaper's page 13D), our news sources need to be more focused on accuracy.

The Origins of My Activism (and the malaise of impending political defeat)

2008-02-18T23:19:00.004-06:00

Quite obviously (and to the chagrin of motherofsonaofasillyperson - Mom, you can stop emailing me now), it's been a while since I've posted anything of real substance to this space.

Part of it is being overwhelmed by a major systems implementation at work that, most days, leaves me feeling like the fellas in this video.

Part of it is a case of the blahs caused by my candidate of choice, Mitt Romney, losing out to McCain (if you haven't watched his concession speech, do it now - you'll be hard-pressed to find a better summation of today's conservative principles, and you can do it in 22 minutes, or 19 if you skip to minute 3, when the actual speech begins). True, Mitt won the three states I have ties to (ND, MT, and MN), including the two I worked in to get people to the caucuses (ND and MN), but as I pointed out to motherofsonofasillyperson, moral victories are still losses - and any of you who know me well know that I'm a terrible loser, even in competitions as meaningless as fantasy baseball (in which I'm a perennial loser - but I keep playing, and hey, at least I beat Greg).

Part of it is frustration with many of my Republican colleagues falling for the garbage that "there isn't a dime's worth of difference between McCain, Obama, and Hillary." Any regular reader of this space knows that my differences with Senator McCain are many (documented here, here - kind of, here, and here). But as I heard recently on talk radio - can't remember which commentator, sorry - a 60% Republican is a heckuvalot better than a 100% Democrat. Disagree? Try these on for size: Associate Justice William Jefferson Clinton. Attorney General John Edwards. Good-bye.

Part of it is the perplexing rise of Obama to be the odds-on favorite to win in November. No doubt the man's brilliant. No doubt he's inspiring to listen to. And he's skilled when faced with hecklers. But that's about where my praise of him ends. I understand the longing for 'change' and 'unity' - but change toward what? Social programs that already total up to over $850 BILLION? That's nearly a 25% increase in the budget that Bush just submitted - and the Dems keep claiming that we're in a war we can't afford. And unity? His words in a New Hampshire speech (hat tip to the Weekly Standard) are instructive:

"You can talk to people who don't agree with you. And you do so not just because you think that you're always going to persuade them, but because people out in America, outside of Washington, are listening. And they want to see that we can--that we don't have to agree on everything to work on something. That we can disagree without being disagreeable. That's how we can attract independents [to the] change agenda. That's how we can attract some Republicans. That's how we build a working majority for change. . . . And you can afford to be courteous. And you can say, "Yes, sir." And "No, sir." "Yes, ma'am." "No, ma'am." But if you're going to be in the way of change, get out of the way--we're pushing you aside. Very politely of course. That's how we win elections."

I hope that if he does indeed get the nomination, Americans for once really tune in and pay attention to the issues in the debates. Because I have a feeling that McCain, less-than-inspiring though his speeches are, will hammer him on specifics of policy.

And the last thing that's stymied my confidence in today's political world is the crap Nancy Pelosi is pulling with regard to FISA renewal. Long story short: the legal authorization for our intelligence community to intercept communications that are suspected to be tied to known jihadist operatives expired last week, and now Congress is adjourned for at least a week. Pelosi ignored a bipartisan vote to bring the bill to extend and re-vamp FISA, which the Senate already passed by the way, to the floor for a vote. It was expected to pass.

This one hits a personal nerve with me. I've shared this with only a select few people, but it's high time I discussed it here. In the fall of 2005, my cell phone started receiving some strange text messages, and I recognized some of the phrases (such as assalamu alaykum, for example) to be Islamic in nature. The first couple of messages were pretty benign, mostly heckling one subscriber (I quickly presumed that my phone number was mistakenly added to an IM distribution list) for his collection of Michael Jackson albums. But they quickly took on a different tone, with the sender encouraging his subscribers to "keep practicing for Saturday" and hoping to "become martyrs, God willing, for his truth." I called the local sheriff's station, they escalated it to the FBI, and they in turn escalated it to an investigative arm of the Pentagon.

My point here is, as I told the small handful of people with whom I originally shared the incident, "if the feds aren't tracing calls and text messages to my phone, then they're not doing their job." I wanted my conversations tapped and recorded. And since I experimented once with posting to this blog via cell phone, I certainly hope someone in the DOD has an RSS feed for this blog, just to make sure. Now, with Pelosi's stunt, that's impossible to do. Well, admittedly not impossible, but illegal. And while I'm not green enough to trust the government wholly, I guarantee that the interception of communications deemed low risk (that would usually be searched only with data mining) is now suspended, and that's endangering us all.

Supposedly, Pelosi is holding out so that the bill can be altered to remove the provision that gives telecommunications companies immunity from lawsuits related to the data they give up at the government's request. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell don't want my cell phone company to be sued by some jihadist for giving up his name and address had the authorities been able to link him to the messages he routed to my phone. That's what Pelosi wants. Do you?

By the way, and I have no idea if my receipt and subsequent reporting of the texts had anything to do with it or not, but about a month after reporting the texts to the authorities, I read about a small cell of jihadists being arrested in Ohio. Again, I have no idea if the two are related - though I like to think they were, just for my own edification - but the possibility of finding a forensic link to terror cells when the jihadists slip up is too important to be relegated to a political stunt like Pelosi is pulling.

This incident woke me up to the need not just to educate myself - as I had been doing by listening to the likes of Dennis Prager and Hugh Hewitt on talk radio, reading book after book - including many written by people outside of my selected political realm, and just in general paying more attention to C-SPAN, FoxNews, and CNN than I did to ESPN and FoxSports. I needed to try to change minds about the political and ideological challenges facing our world today. Hence sonofasillyperson. I know I've had a tiny bit of success in doing that with my tiny readership (though I have work to do still with a couple of my regular readers!) - I hope to continue that.

And that brings me to my final point. True, I'm a bit dejected about the current political outlook, but I'm by no means giving up. I still remember the lessons I took from the '06 elections, and I've attempted to incorporate them into the more substantive posts I've done since then.

One thing that needs to change in the attitudes of people who are generally conservative is their reaction to the phrase "political activist". Like most conservatives, I used to cringe when I heard that term, because I invariably envisioned the nutcases who demonstrate across the street from the White House every day, or the Ron Paul freaks who stood on the Fargo Footbridge in sub-zero temps to try to get people to "honk their horns for liberty." Rather, "politically active" must be thought of in less connotative terms. All it really means is that you participate in something in addition to casting your ballot on election day. Blogging, writing letters to the editor, making phone calls for a local campaign, participating in a candidate's lit drop, all the way on up to running for office are all forms of activism, and it doesn't require you to take on the role of a wing-nut. If we Republicans are going to prevent an Obama (or Hillary) presidency, a veto-proof majority in the Senate, and the loss of state and local seats to Demcrats this fall, that new definition of activism is going to have to be adopted soon.

UPDATE: Lest you think I was truly depressed, a little levity. Here's the real reason for the ol' malaise, via BurlySports again:

More videos from the "Burly Sports Show" channel at Burlysports.com

Obligatory Super Bowl post

2008-02-01T11:14:00.000-06:00

I've purposely avoided ESPN for the past 2 weeks, primarily because I can't stand hearing about Tom Brady's ankle, the quest for perfection, the Giants getting no one's respect, and Eli's sibling-inspired inferiority complex ad nauseum.

But, if these two videos don't "get you in the mood" for the big game, the chess club is calling you (warning, if a website named BurlySports doesn't scream "locker room humor ahead", then I'll say it flat out: there's some adult themes in the below videos). You're welcome.

More videos from the "ryanparkersongs's channel" channel at Burlysports.com

More videos from the "Burly Sports Show" channel at Burlysports.com

Oh, by the way, sorry Dolphins fans - New England's going to win. 34-20.

OK, all you Evangelicals out there...*

2008-01-31T12:35:00.000-06:00

...break out the riot gear. This apostasy deserves its own "cartoon crusade" to rival the "cartoon jihad" of 2 years ago. Because, you know, Christian fundamentalists are as dangerous as Muslim fundamentalists,

*Quite obviously, this is sarcasm - don't report me for inciting violence, or for God's sake, even consider acting out violently over this - as if I needed to tell you that.

Religion in the bully pulpit

2008-01-15T10:56:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Rob at SayAnythingBlog for this snippet.

Rob says: "Now, I understand that Christians believe the word of God (as defined by the various denominations) is the ultimate truth. And I understand that Christians want to incorporate that truth as they see it in our laws. But what we need to remember is that while Christianity dominates America’s spiritual landscape not everyone in America is a Christian."

I'd add: most Christians also tend to recall during discussions like these the words from Matthew 22 (no Josh, I don't have it memorized, I searched at blueletterbible.org - haha): "Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's. When they had heard [these words], they marvelled, and left him, and went their way." Most conservative Christians acknowledge that this passage gives rise to the notion of the "wall of separation between church and state." Of course, Jefferson doesn't say "separation between religion and state", which some on the secular side would like to believe, but in the same sentence, Jefferson alludes to the 1st Amendment's Establisment and Free Exercise clauses, which read: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

I've also got to say this: I really hope that the Republican candidates for President get a clue and stop with all the religious jockeying. Whether it's Huckabee pleading for Christian fundamentalism to be installed in the Oval Office, or Guiliani quoting scripture to curry favor with the religious right, or whatever, it's getting tiring, and it's turning off voters. Romney's "Faith in America" speech pretty much summed up my thoughts (full disclosure, I am working in a small role for Romney's North Dakota campaign, and while I agree with most of his policy points, I don't claim to speak for him or his campaign): "There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith."

Another passage from that speech is "It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions. And where the affairs of our nation are concerned, it's usually a sound rule to focus on the latter – on the great moral principles that urge us all on a common course." Hear, hear. Let's focus on the values that the candidates are portraying in their policy stances, not how much scripture they can quote us.

Huckabee might well be the only GOP frontrunner that I would be adamantly opposed to voting for. What's really troubling to me is that the above video excerpt is hauntingly similar to the "Nightmare Scenario" in Tony Blankley's "The West's Last Chance" (my review here), where a hypothetical situation has McCain calling for sharia law in America. Huckabee's essentially calling for a Christian equivalent to it (though the Matthew verses pretty much assure us that Christians have no theological equivalent to sharia). Anyone who voted for him in previous primaries/cauci should be embarrassed when confronted with the above video, and anyone who votes for him after seeing it should be ashamed. The guy's as loony as Ron Paul...

Jesus and Lucifer brothers?

2007-12-12T11:48:00.000-06:00

A recent email exchange prompted me to do a bit of research on this matter, and I'll share my findings on what the LDS church teaches, but first, a little background...

If you're not following the GOP presidential nomination race right now, you may not now that upstart Mike Huckabee is going to have an article published (I believe in the Washington Post) about him this coming Sunday; one of the portions in the article reportedly has him asking a question (as an attempt to undermine Mitt Romney, who is a practicing Mormon) as to whether or not he believes Jesus and Satan are brothers. Huckabee, who is a Baptist minister, is attempting to use this commonly-believed assertion about Mormon theology to discredit Romney among Evangelical voters (and having some success in doing it, I sadly have to say).

Turns out (as is often the case), finding the answer wasn't terribly difficult, given equally meager portions of common sense, intellectual curiosity, and spelling know-how (oh, and a computer with an Internet connection). I simply went to LDS.org (I took an educated guess at the URL), looked to see whether or not it appeared to be the official site of the Mormon church (it did), and looked at the top of the site for a search feature (voila! it was there!). Then, I used my QWERTY-formatted peripheral device (keyboard) and typed in the word "Lucifer", and hit the "Enter" key. With me so far?

I skimmed the results, and found #9 promising. It was entitled "I Have a Question", and I thought to myself, "What a coinky! So do I!" The sub-text wasn't quite as related to my question as I had hoped, but I thought it was interesting, so I clicked on it, figuring I could use the convenient "Back" button, provided to me free of charge by Microsoft, to re-start my search for Jesus's family tree in a few minutes. By the way, the sub-text that I found mentally stimulating was: "Both Jesus and Lucifer were strong leaders with great knowledge and influence. Lucifer, on the other hand, sought power, honor, and glory only for himself." Here's some more from the linked page, which to my pleasant surprise, answered my original question anyway (if you click through, you'll notice that you have to scroll down a bit - it's not the first item on the page):

On first hearing, the doctrine that Lucifer and our Lord, Jesus Christ, are brothers may seem surprising to some—especially to those unacquainted with latter-day revelations. But both the scriptures and the prophets affirm that Jesus Christ and Lucifer are indeed offspring of our Heavenly Father and, therefore, spirit brothers. Jesus Christ was with the Father from the beginning. Lucifer, too, was an angel “who was in authority in the presence of God,” a “son of the morning.” (See Isa. 14:12; D&C 76:25–27.) Both Jesus and Lucifer were strong leaders with great knowledge and influence. But as the Firstborn of the Father, Jesus was Lucifer’s older brother. (See Col. 1:15; D&C 93:21.)

How could two such great spirits become so totally opposite? The answer lies in the principle of agency, which has existed from all eternity. (See D&C 93:30–31.) Of Lucifer, the scripture says that because of rebellion “he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies.” (Moses 4:4.) Note that he was not created evil, but became Satan by his own choice.

When our Father in Heaven presented his plan of salvation, Jesus sustained the plan and his part in it, giving the glory to God, to whom it properly belonged. Lucifer, on the other hand, sought power, honor, and glory only for himself. (See Isa. 14:13–14; Moses 4:1–2.) When his modification of the Father’s plan was rejected, he rebelled against God and was subsequently cast out of heaven with those who had sided with him. (See Rev. 12:7–9; D&C 29:36–37.)

That brothers would make dramatically different choices is not unusual. It has happened time and again, as the scriptures attest: Cain chose to serve Satan; Abel chose to serve God. (See Moses 5:16–18.) Esau “despised his birthright”; Jacob wanted to honor it. (Gen. 25:29–34.) Joseph’s brothers sought to kill him; he sought to preserve them. (Gen. 37:12–24; Gen. 45:3–11.)

It is ironic that the agency with which Lucifer rebelled is the very gift he tried to take from man. His proposal was that all be forced back into God’s presence. (See Moses 4:1, 3.) But the principle of agency is fundamental to the existence and progression of intelligent beings: as we make wise choices, we grow in light and truth. On the other hand, wrong choices—such as the one Satan made—stop progress and can even deny us blessings that we already have. (See D&C 93:30–36.)

In order for us to progress, therefore, we must have the opportunity to choose good or evil. Interestingly, Satan and his angels—those who opposed agency—have become that opposition. As the prophet Lehi taught, “Men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.” (2 Ne. 2:27.)

Although the Father has allowed Satan and his angels to tempt mankind, he has given each of us the ability to rise above temptation. (See 1 Cor. 10:13.) He has also given us the great gift of the Atonement.

If you're still with me, I have a couple of thoughts on this, then in typical sonofasillyperson fashion, I'll circle back to my original point.

First, if you ignore the references to "D&C", which I'd guess to be a book in the Book of Mormon that's not included in the conventional Christian bible, you'll be hard-pressed to find any teaching in the above that are in any way different than the lessons taught to us in Christian churches (well, at least those which still use the Bible as the basis for their teachings - SNAP!). The concept of evil stemming from the free-will choice to turn away from God's plan and serve the self or other lesser beings, the notion that serving God truthfully necessarily leads to a good (as in, the opposite of evil) life, and that we are all God's creations (including the angels - and even Christians believe that Satan is a fallen angel) - these are all in essence consistent with Christian teachings.

Second, if you believe that we're all God's creations (children), and that God instills His spirit in us all, then it's not a big stretch to put those two concepts together and purport that "All God's creations are siblings in spirit." Now, I haven't thought through all the potential theological implications of such a statement (Ben, have any input here?), but it's not that ridiculous an assertion, is it?

Third, I briefly dated a Mormon in college, and one of the things we did together was to go to her place of worship (it was close to campus, quiet, and well-furnished) to study for our college courses. One thing I noticed that was different from my own church experience was the way the Mormons greeted each other, and me: they called each other "Brother (or Sister) insert first name here". So, for example, I was greeted as "Brother Ryan", my date was greeted as "Sister Jaime", etc. At the time, I found it peculiar, but not threatening, and I quickly found it a fairly easy thing to simply shrug off. Now, in the context of "we're all God's children, and we emphasize that fact in many of our teachings," it makes a bit more sense. I'm probably not going to change my ways and start using that vernacular, but if it reminds Mormons to treat each other as brothers and sisters (much in the way that Christains are taught to "love your neighbors as yourselves"), then I don't feel particularly threatened.

Now, the notion that Satan is my spirit brother (as well as Jesus's) isn't as easily shrugged off, but I'll think out loud (my keyboard being the item making the noise) for a moment and consider the implications (again, any of you with more theological training - BEN! - feel free to weigh in). Hmmm... Let's see... What if my own sibling were the embodiment of evil and considered by nearly all - including those of other religious faiths - to be the antithesis of goodness?

That's tough to imagine, so how do I suppose I'd feel I was somehow related to Hitler or bin Laden? I'm guessing I'd feel a certain sense of shame, knowing that I could possibly be considered "guilty by association" by others. I'm guessing I'd feel a certain sense of vulnerability, wondering if the same evil-ness that inflicted my sibling was a threat to overtake my will to do good. I'd probably feel a sense of outrage, of the kind that might make me say "You b**t**d! How dare you shame our family like that!" I may even feel a sense of pity and hope for his ability to change his ways, atone for the wrongs he's done, and do what's possible to make things right again (obviously easier said than done for someone who murdered more than 6 million people, slaughtered thousands in the name of God, or used his powers and knowledge of the human condition to tempt people into committing every evil since Adam and Eve consumed the forbidden fruit). None of these potential ways of me viewing the shameful relative seems terrible to me - in fact, they seem like a good way to reinforce the hatred of evil while instilling a desire to do good things, knowing how vulnerable to do terrible things even those people whom we care for can be.

So now, what does this have to do with Romney? Everything. You see, every reason and example I came up with, and everything you can come up with as well, has more to do with the question of "What does your theology teach you to consider good and bad behavior, and how to address the real issue of evil in our midst?", especially when you consider it in the context of "But how will it affect his (potential) presidency?" We're not electing the head of our congregation, we're choosing the leader of our (secular) government. True (obviously!) that one's values affect the decisions that one makes, and one's theology affect one's values, but I challenge you to find a way to convince me that considering all people (and angels, for that matter) to be siblings is a certain means to becoming an immoral person.

It isn't, of course, and to oppose Romney's candidacy solely or primarily on the grounds of him being a Mormon is a travesty. The Mormon church is not a cult. True, they have doctrines and beliefs that I find kooky, and they have items in their church's history that no conscientous believer should ever be proud of. But explain to me how that's any different than the absolute belief in a virgin birth, the physical handing of stone tablets to Moses by God, or that God disguised himself as a cloud and created a walkway through the Red Sea. We Christians believe those things through faith - each of us coming up with our own theory as to how it happened, whether it was true divine intervention or that God enabled the scientific scenarios possible for it to happen "naturally". And guess what. We react with indignation when atheists (or others) tell us we're Luddites or yokels for our beliefs - as we should. But can someone please explain to me how calling Jesus and Lucifer "spirit brothers" is a different situation that not only excuses, but warrants such bigotry? Please?

I love this guy...

2007-12-06T13:51:00.000-06:00

GoRemy rules.

Best lines:

You need to get to the hospital
And don't be hasty.
You ate too many food,
Overdose on tasty.

We got one gallon of gas,
How we gettin' there mate?
Don't you worry homie,
Somethin' tells me we got eight.

Brilliant.

If you like that video, check out his "Channel" for his McDonalds: The Rap, Fantasy Football: The Rap, and TurboTax: The Rap videos. All you parents (or recent watchers of Sesame Street) and/or political junkies will also appreciate Live on the Moon: Campaign 2008.

Relocation, revisited...

2007-12-05T14:00:00.000-06:00

Uncle Ben, sage that he is, provided this commentary on my (re)Location, (re)Location, (re)Location post: "There was one category that you left off, weather. Let us know sometime in January." As it turns out, I can offer an update on Fargo weather right now: it blows.

Now, don't get all twitterpated by my seemingly vulgar description - I'm being quite literal: I don't think the wind has stopped blowing in this town since the pre-Cambrian era. And now, the wind has about 18 inches of dry, flaky, powder to blow around, so some mega-drifts are forthcoming, you can be certain. The mailbox in front of my house has about 4 inches of clearance over the wintery crest, and I'm beginning to re-think my stance against the excessive salting of roads that we had in Minneapolis.

Add to that the fact that I acquired my snowblower from a buddy who hails from Orange County, California, who didn't seem to grasp the concept that the little picture of an oil can on the gas cap wasn't a cleverly out-of-place reference to Frank Baum's Tin Man - it means YOU HAVE TO MIX OIL INTO THE GAS! Alas, while the ol' Toro didn't assist me in clearing my driveway or sidewalk, I'm sure it's helped my dexterity, since it now sits in my garage, providing my an obstacle over which to hurdle while carrying a 40-pound bag of Ice Melt, a shovel, and a giant chip on my shoulder... Fargo: 15 yard penalty for unnecessary coldness.

BTW: Check out Uncle Ben's latest post, and see if you can top my "geography IQ": I've done it twice, and scored a 108 and a 114.

Mama told you not to play with your food...

2007-11-19T09:57:00.000-06:00

...and here's why. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone - here's to hoping your bird was not bagged using this method.

http://view.break.com/401423 - Watch more free videos

Drive-by philosophizin'

2007-10-25T15:01:00.000-05:00

A recent comment to a post of mine brought back a mental nugget from a post/comment debate that I engaged in way back when. The relevant excerpts, first from Big Brother (my elder sibling, not the Orwellian spectre):

What one should attempt to remember is that the end goal of some in this country (and yes, they do have the right to think it, speak it, and to some extent, attempt it) is to end this country. Or at the very least re-create it so that it bears very little resemblance to what is was, and what it has become.

And next, from a left-of-center buddy of mine:

Certainly the rise of tran-national groups is a challenge to our existing definitions. Nationalism as a concept may be coming to an end (which may be a good thing on the whole, think of all the wars fought over national identity).

Bluefin was talking about the ideological struggle we're currently engaged in with radical Islam, and that's really relevant to the conversation we should be having regarding the clash of the worldviews of traditional Western political theory, the new Western ideal of trans-national governmental authority (think UN, EU, LOST, etc.), and the global caliphate which is the end-goal of Islamic fundamentalists. While we debate the micro-issues of the Iraq and Afghanistan fronts of the war on terror, immigration policy, influence of European law over American courts, etc., we should keep in mind the macro values we're really endorsing when we take a position on the above issues.

In regards to the Global War on Terror, I've seen it noted in many articles that on the surface, it seems ironic that unlike the American left, which endorses the position of treating the struggle with radical Islam as a criminal matter, American conservatives are adamant about treating it as a war, since by and large, Islamists view it as struggle to hold highest the principle of putting religious mores first. Again, on the surface, that seems ironic, but it's not. Conservatives view the American Republic as one of man-made laws ruling a nation that is "Under God", while Islamists want a God-driven law. It is NOT a distinction without a difference, as Brannon Howse explains thoroughly in his excellent book, One Nation Under Man?.

I'm just thinking with my keyboard here, and I welcome others' thoughts on this. Is the American Left's willingness to subvert American sovereignty to international elements linked to their desire to treat Islamic terror as a criminal matter? Is that in turn linked to Bluefin's view that the dissolution of national identity as a high value could be a good thing for the world? Maybe I'm completely off base on this, or maybe some of you think me dense for just now noticing these links. But I've never heard, read, nor seen it phrased quite in this way.

I'd submit (and again, I'd love to start a lively comment thread on this) that no matter what black marks against the United States' historical record you can come up with (and as Dennis Prager often argues on his radio show), America, by and large, has been the greatest force for moral good in the history of the world. From our willingness to oppose tyranny in wars, to our donation of trillions of dollars of foreign aid, to our robust economy that has "lifted many, many boats" in the world, I wholeheartedly agree with that idea. Because of this, I take umbrage with the notion that it's a good idea to just let national borders, values, and patriotism slowly fade away. What's the alternative to national identity? Of course wars have been "fought over national identity", but if the greater good is preserved or furthered, isn't that a good thing? Would it have been better to let Hitler run rampant over Europe, because the collective national identities of France, Britain, and the rest of Old Europe weren't worth preserving?

Another recent example I saw was in an email I saw referring to Columbus Day as "Columbus Day/Native American Day". The left has done a real number on people, convincing them that we should vilify Columbus because he brought the white man to the New World, and has undermined the place in history that Columbus used to occupy. I'm well aware of the ramifications that the arrival of Europeans to America had on the native peoples, but can you imagine a world today where America never existed? The ideals of individual liberty and equal protection under the law, combined with a free market economy have done immeasurable good in the world.

To me, it's a foregone conclusion that a society (and a worldview) like that is something worth preserving, even worth fighting for. To be sure, mistakes have been made along the way, but how many funerals have you attended where the person being remembered has all of their mistakes and sins recounted? The leftist view of American history (see The People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn) portrays America in that light - in what Prager refers to as "the proctologist's view of American history".

To come back to the quotes that got me started on this thought-train, I'm not saying that the American left is trying to "end this country" in the literal sense. But when Supreme Court justices invoke European law in their decisions, when our State Department works toward implementing the Law of the Sea Treaty (aptly abbreviated LOST), and when our Congress tries to dissolve the US/Mexican border, the end of our country as we once knew it is not far off. And you've all read my thoughts on the threat of Islamic jihad and the restoration of the caliphate. This three-pronged worldview war is heating up, and it's time we started discussing it at a fundamental level, not just on an issue-by-issue basis.

Making the most of your opportunities

2007-09-28T14:55:00.000-05:00

As my profile suggests, one of my favorite pastimes is playing poker. I have yet to blog on this semi-passion of mine, but here's a quick lesson for any of you who happen to enjoy the game or have an interest in it. I promise no allusions to politics or any other topic than actual poker tactics, so this will be a nice change of pace for this-here blog...

I have a group of 8 or 10 guys that I've been regularly playing with for the last 4 or 5 years (though my chances to play with the group will obviously be more infrequent now that I've relocated). We play low-stakes Texas Hold 'Em (25-cent/50-cent blinds - $20 buy-in - $80 will typically get you through even the worst of nights). My style is close to the one Doyle Brunson teaches in Super System, though I do see more flops than he recommends, partly out of impatience, partly because it's a cash game - not a tournament, and partly because I know that my opponents are doing the same, so my chances of having a better hand than them at "the river" are increased. When there's a person at the table that I don't know well, I tend to play them as though they're playing "by the book", until I pick up on a couple of their tells or tendencies.

Anyone can win at poker when they hit a "hot streak" - i.e., getting cards that match the community cards on the board, but when the cards go cold, a player who doesn't know how to maximize the pot when they DO have a winning hand will lose big. I played in a game on Wednesday night where 2 hands, back-to-back, offered a prime example of this.

We had 6 players at the table; I knew 4 players' habits very well, and one guy is fairly new to the table, so I'm not as keen on his tendencies. I was dealt a King/Queen of clubs, which is a good hand in a cash game, so I raised pre-flop (I was first to act, just left of the big blind). 3 guys followed me in, so the pot was pretty good before we saw any community cards. The flop was Q-Q-9, so I hit trips right away - the only hand possibly better than my K-Q was A-Q. The small blind checked, and the big blind (the semi-new guy) made a decent-sized bet. Since I don't know him well, I assumed that meant he either had a 9 to give him 2 pair, or a pocket pair. If he had A-Q, "the book" says that he should check and hope someone else has a decent hand, since he would be unbeatable at that point in time, and he'd want to maximize the pot.

The turn card was a 3, if I remember right, and now the board had one of each suit, which means that a flush was impossible and a straight was unlikely, so my hand was best unless someone else was holding A-Q. New Guy bets, big, so my original assumption of him having a pocket pair, a 9 for 2 pairs, or A-Q, stayed in tact (the 3 couldn't have possibly helped him, unless he was holding pocket 3's which would have given him a full house. Both of those scenarios were statistically improbable, so I called his bet, and the other 2 guys folded.

So now we're "heads up" (the only 2 guys left in the hand), and the river was the fourth Queen; I've got an unbeatable hand with 4 of a kind. New Guy bets big again, and I raise him enough to put him "all in". He calls, I show him the bad news, and begin raking in a $60 pot. Yay, me! He was holding pocket Kings, by the way, so I had his very good hand beat the whole way once the flop came out. A re-raise before the flop would have probably made me fold before the flop, since I'd have (correctly) assumed he had a big pocket pair, and he'd have won the hand with a nice full house.

VERY NEXT HAND: I had a fair hand (pocket 4's), but since I was the big blind and there was a medium-sized raise in front of me, I only called in hopes that I'd triple up on my pair. The flop was K-K-7, and New Guy (being first to act) bet a decent amount, so I folded, knowing that he probably had a pocket pair (which was in all likelihood bigger than mine, or he paired up on the 7 (with a good "kicker" like an Ace or a queen), which makes his 2 pair bigger than mine. One other guy called. The fourth community card was another rag (a 4, which would have given me a full house), new guy bet big, and the only other guy folded. New Guy angrily shows his pocket Kings - he hit 4 of a kind on the flop! The last other guy in the pot showed his pocket 10's, and the dealer showed us that the 5th card would have been a 10, which means that 2 full houses would have been up against New Guy's 4 of a Kind. Had New Guy waited a bit on his unbeatable hand, he probably would have raked a $100 pot; instead, he won about $7.

The bottom line: great hands show up rarely, and you've got to make the most of them when they do. When you've got "the nuts", show a bit of patience, let the other players' hands improve, and you'll wind up better off. Don't get too excited to build the pot, or you'll wind up raking in nothing but the blinds.

One last note on "22%"

2007-09-18T23:22:00.000-05:00

(Bear with me for a bit - I'll eventually get to the reason why this post has anything at all to do with my "22%" thread).

As most of you (all 6 of you!) who read this blog regularly know, I'm a bit of a book-nerd. As such, it should not surprise any of you that my latest undertaking is "Five Dialogues" by Plato. The first of those five dialogues is a conversation between the noted philosopher Socrates and a lawyer named Euthyphro, who finds himself in the awkward position of being the prosecutor in the murder trial of his father. Surprised at Euthyphro's willingness to accept such a role, Socrates begins to question him about what it means to fulfill one's moral duty, and how to define what is the right and moral thing to do. Also note that Socrates' indulgence of Euthyphro's dilemma is not purely for the sake of furthering his own wisdom; Socrates himself is awaiting his own trial for impious behavior, and through the dialogue with Euthyphro, is able to glean some insight that will help him see his own trial with more clarity.

Now, there are some cultural gaps to bridge, especially considering that the two Greeks are addressing Euthyphro's quandary in the context of "piety." Recall that much of the polytheistic Greeks' culture was consumed by striving toward behavior that was pleasing to the gods. So it should come as no surprise that the more contemporary notion of "the right and moral thing to do" is addressed by the Greeks as "the pious thing to do." With that in mind, consider this exchange:

Socrates: Tell me then, what is the pious, and what the impious, do you say?

Euthyphro: I say that the pious is to do what I am doing now, to prosecute the wrongdoer, be it about murder or temple robbery or anything else, whether the wrongdoer is your father or you mother or anyone else; not to prosecute is impious...I have already said to others that such actions are right not to favor the ungodly, whoever they are. These people themselves believe that Zeus is the best most just of the gods, yet they agree that he bound his father because he unjustly swallowed his sons... But they are angry with me because I am prosecuting my father for his wrongdoing. They contradict themselves...

...

Socrates: ...I did not bid you tell me one or two of the many pious actions but that form itself that makes all pious actions pious...

...

Euthyphros: Well then, what is dear to the gods is pious; what is not is impious.

So after all that, Euthyphros falls into the trap of essentially saying "The right thing to do is what is liked by the righteous; what is disliked by the righteous is the wrong thing to do." How is that a trap? Well, it seems correct, but it comes with an inherent problem, which Socrates then leads Euthyphros into discussing:

Socrates: An action or a man dear to the gods is pious, but an action or a man hated by the gods is impious... Is that not so?

Euthyphros: It is indeed.

Socrates: We have also stated that the gods are in a state of discord, that they are at odds with each other... Has that, too, been said?

Euthyphros: It has.

...

Socrates: But you say that the same things are considered just by some gods and unjust by others, and as they dispute aboutt hese things they are at odds and at war with each other. Is that not so?

Euthyphros: It is.

Socrates: The same things then are loved by the gods and hated by the gods, and would be both god-loved and god-hated...And the same things would be both pious and impious, according to this argument?

Euthyphros: I'm afraid so.

In other words, "the right thing to do" is not something that can always be agreed upon, because the arbiters of right and wrong often in disagreement. Even more simply, it is not agreed by the inhabitants of our world that there is any such thing as a moral absolute - moral relativism (i.e., what's right for you is not necessarily right for me) is dominant in contemporary society, as it was in the Greeks' time.

But there's another problem with Euthyphros's argument (a few pages on):

Socrates: Consider this: Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods?

Euthyphros: I don't know what you mean, Socrates.

Socrates: I shall try to explain it more clearly: we speak of something carried and something carrying, of something led and something leading, of something seen and something seeing, and you understand that these things are all different from one another and how they differ?

Euthyphros: I think I do.

Socrates: So there is also something loved and - a different thing - something loving.

Euthyphros: Of course.

Socrates: Tell me then whether the thing carried is a carried thing because it is being carried, or for some other reason?

Euthyphros: No, that is the reason.

...

Socrates: [It is not] something being carried because it is something carried, but it is something carried because it is being carried... [D]o you not agree?

Euthyphros: I do.

...

Socrates: What then do we say about the pious... We agree that the pious is being loved for this reason, that it is pious, but it is not pious because it is being loved. Is that not so?

Euthyphros: Yes.

Socrates: And that the god-loved, on the other hand, is so because it is being loved by the gods, by the very fact of being loved, but it is not being loved because it is god-loved.

Euthyphros: True.

In other words, favored action (or legislation) is indeed favored because it is the right thing to do, but it is not the right thing to do because it is favored. And when you combine the two problems that Socrates posed with Euthyphros's supposition that prosecuting his father for murder was indeed the right thing to do, Socrates saw that it was impossible for Euthyphros to make that assertion, because in order to say that, he had to assume that the rest of the Greeks held the exact same values as he did - namely, in this case, justice over all other values.

But what of the person who might say that family unity is the primary value that must be maintained? Would that person say that going forth with the prosecution was the right thing to do? Of course not.

Now, to make good on my promise to make all this nerd-speak tie in to my "22%" thread, I was flat-out wrong to make my original argument the way I did. The bill was not the wrong thing to do because it was unpopular, and even stating that it was unpopular because it was the wrong thing to do is problematic, because I forgot to question the assumption that everyone who has an opinion on what immigration policy should be in the United States has the same end goal in mind. I was seeing the issue through my originalist-colored-glasses, and that is clearly not the only value system out there.

So, chalk this all up to my amateurish approach to blogging and this cyber-version of the art of rhetoric. I'll try to do a better job of building my argument's foundation in future posts.

(re)Location, (re)Location, (re)Location...

2007-09-18T22:43:00.000-05:00

For those of you who don't know me personally (i.e., those of you who landed here out of sheer curiosity when your google search gave you a result that made absolutely no sense), daughterinlawofasillyperson, myself, and the2granddaughtersofasillyperson have moved - to Fargo, ND. While I'll miss the sarcasm involved when professing my love for living as a constituent of Keith Ellison, Amy Klobuchar, and RT Rybak, I am looking forward to actually having a shot at getting an electoral win on any candidate or measure that I endorse on this site.

And, since fantasy football season is in full swing and as such I'm actually watching SportsCenter periodically now, a complete breakdown of Fargo v. Minneapolis seems to be in order. Enjoy.

Traffic: An obvious no-brainer in the Fargo column, but some clarification is necessary, since the contest is closer than you'd think. I've been here permanently for nearly a month, and have yet to feel the need to lay on the horn, mutter profanity at stupid drivers, or even give the 'friendly motorist salute' - amazing, I know. I do need to get used to the idea that courteous drivers occasionally require you to pay more attention than you'd think - case in point, the guy yesterday who apparently was so chivalrous that he decided to eschew his right of way to proceed straight through a green light (in a 40-mph zone) for the young lady who was turning left in front of him. [Correction: when I wrote "have yet to feel the need to lay on the horn...", that actually meant "much less frequently feel the need to lay on the horn..."]. Advantage: Fargo.

Neighbors: Being the introverted sort that I am, I came to find ironic solace in the bustle of the Cities, after I realized that it's possible to be alone even when surrounded by dozens and dozens of people - you just have to blend in and realize that no one's paying any attention to you anyway. So it was a bit of culture shock to move back to smaller-town life and have (a) wave after wave of neighbors stop by to introduce themselves, offering gifts of cupcakes, lawn-mowing duties, bread, and kitchen curios, and (b) some lady who calls nightly, insistent on talking with daughterinlawofasillyperson, who only identifies herself as "on the welcome committee." Advantage: (I really want to say Minneapolis, but that doesn't seem right) Push.

Job: I won't speak for the fetching Mrs., but since I was able to keep my job (I'm a telecommuter now) and my salary, and even finagle an office expense stipend while having the relative luxuries of a 30-second commute, a fair-weather-outdoor-"office", and the option to have the occasional cigar during fair-weather-outdoor-"office" sessions, this one's a no-brainer. Advantage: Fargo.

Red/Blue/Purple: Do I really need to go there? Advantage: Fargo.

Social Life: (a) The only cigar lounge in Fargo is also a young-20-something-frequented bar (it's also curious that in the 2 times I've been there, I haven't seen anyone else go in the walk-in humidor, much less smoke any "real" cigars - a couple of just-turned-21 gents were smoking some flavored Swishers last night [blasphemy]). (b) The most logical place where people meet people who have things in common is at their place of employment, and I now don't really need to open an exterior door in order to get to work. (c) I managed to grow a really, really good crop of reliable and close friends in Minneapolis over the 8 years I lived there - 'nuff said. Advantage: Minneapolis.

Family Life: While every town has its share of issues that parents have to deal with in rearing their kids, (speaking theoretically now since my eldest is not yet 4) it seems to me that smaller towns have fewer places to hide those issues. We're also closer to family (my in-laws are from Grand Forks and my family is in Montana), which makes holiday travel easier (not to mention the greater likelihood of pawning the kids off on the in-laws for a weekend at a time!). Plus, I already sense more of a feeling of local/community pride here in Fargo than I ever did in Minneapolis. Bottom line: maybe it's my roots in growing up in a town of way less than 1,000 people, but I have more optimism for raising my daughters here than in Minneapolis. Advantage: Fargo.

So, when you tally it up, I'm somewhat saddened to leave my adopted home and the life I put together there, but I'm looking forward to starting anew in a place that has a lot of advantages for someone with my personality traits (defects?) and familial situation...

Mmm, this crow tastes like chicken!

2007-08-21T20:33:00.000-05:00

I'll be the first to admit I should have foreseen this. Breaking news out of Minneapolis (I couldn't find any articles to link to that give any more info than what I'm going to write) is that, contrary to what I blogged last week, a loophole has been found that will allow federal funding of the bridge to replace the collapsed 35W one, despite the fact that it will include enhanced features that will allow a light rail line. Oh, those tricky appropriators!

That means, those of you creating dots on my blog map in DC, Montana, Seattle, California, Arkansas, Texas, Florida, and elsewhere across this fine U.S. of A., your tax dollars will be subsidizing efforts to relieve traffic congestion in Minneapolis. True, your dollars won't directly (cough, cough) be funding LRT here, but with the way the federal/local matching funds formulas work, you can be assured that Minnesota will find a way to squeeze more dollars out of the spongy federal budget.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still a patron of the Hiawatha line (for another week anyway - more to follow in a soon-to-come post), and other than the whole profitability angle, I'm not dreadfully opposed to light rail. But that's a big "other than". Few public transit systems in the US are self-supporting, and the MSP metro's sole line is no exception. Perhaps, one day in the far, far future, MSP will have a transit system that is truly a system, and perhaps on that day it will be cost-effective. But is it really the responsibility of San Franciscans and Arkansans and North Dakotans to be mortgaged for the purported easing of traffic congestion in the MSP metro? Just as my post opposing the MVST Amendment discussed how "rural Minnesotans will be getting less and less benefit from their tax dollars," Minneapolitans and St. Paulites are now riding the gravy train of federal highway system dollars, at the expense of all you Montanans and Texans.

See, I told you...

2007-08-13T16:48:00.000-05:00

I warned you.

News comes today that plans for the bridge being built to replace the failed 35W bridge must be compromised because of federal funding rules. There had been rumblings that space for a future light rail line would be included in the former replacement plans (set for circa 2015), but since we're beholden to the feds to bail us out for the 35W disaster, it ain't happening.

And not only has the DFL tied their hands on one of their favorite Minnesota topics, light rail funding (because of the moronic MVST Amendment), but now their official publication (the Star Tribune - SNAP!) is playing shell games with taxation information. On Saturday, the Strib published a news/opinion piece (you can hardly define the difference between the two in said rag) that had a sub-headline that read: "Minnesota's financial shortfall for road and bridge maintenance has been decades in the making, the result of complex political tensions, but the disaster may have changed the money picture at last."

So what's the grand solution that the Strib is lauding? Why, raising the gas tax, of course. There's a proposal on the legislature's table to raise the state gas tax by 5 cents per gallon. Seriously, the Strib's dum-dum editors seem to contradict themselves every time the put out an issue. Two easy examples: (1)The MVST Amendment was backed because it guaranteed funding for public transit projects. But of course, now that we have to rely on federal dollars to bail out the bridge, since we can no longer shuffle priorities thanks to the MVST Amendment, we can't even follow through with plans for expanding light rail into a system instead of just a line. (2) Taxes that disproportionately fall upon lower-income people are a disgrace (I actually agree there). But of course, the Strib is seemingly backing this plan (if you read between the lines of the above-linked article), and we all know that 5 cents for anyone and everyone affects low-income folks more than it does upper-income folks. Hence the Taxpayer's League's (a conservative organization) opposition to flat-rate gas taxes (not to mention Jesse "The Brain/Body" Ventura's flat-rate license tab renewal fee).

Part two of response to Joel

2007-08-06T12:54:00.000-05:00

I've already offered up a clarification of sorts to the comment on my post regarding the Senate immigration bill (which has since been oustered from the Senate's agenda). The first part of Joel's challenge required a clarification of my thought process; the second part, I thought, deserved a separate post.

The question on the table is, "If you were to write an immigration bill, how would you nuance the various components in a way that would allow the bill to ever get 'bleeding hearted' and 'Mexican-phobic' Senators to approve it?" Before getting into how I'd address the issue, though, I'd first like to address the word choice used in the question.

One of the problems I have with the usage of loaded terminology is that the writer/speaker has the convenience of either masking his/her accusations behind the cloak of clever verbiage and insinuating that the motives of others are suspect, or falling back on "how everyone else is phrasing it." I have no idea if Joel meant to imply that proponents of a border fence are racists ("Mexican-phobic"), or if people in support of a more open border policy simply do so because they're too weak-stomached to face down a problem. He also could have simply meant "hardcore Republicans" and "hardcore Democrats" - but it doesn't matter, because many in the media are representing both the accusatory and the matter-of-fact tone-of-voice, so I'll work my post in response to both.

First, the easy one. Questioning the motives of your debate opponent is always more efficient (and usually more entertaining to witness) than arguing on the merits. Labeling someone a racist (in the case of immigration reform or affirmative action), a bigot (in the case of same-sex marriage), or a fascist (in the case of abortion or wiretapping) is certainly easier than researching the facts, rebutting assertions, and formulating a cogent response. Those who are accusing proponents of a border fence of being "Mexi-phobic" have seemed to me incapable of doing any of the above three tasks of a good debater, and, quite frankly, have given blank stares when confronted with many of the problems that have been pointed out in the Senate bill. And I'm certainly not suggesting that there weren't people who were prejudiced against Hispanics prior to the controversial border bill, but it seems suspect to me that the term "Mexi-phobic" and its synonyms had never been heard in mainstream discussion prior to the bill debate.

Now, the tougher part. The comprehensive reform bill was a bad idea in its conception, precisely because it was an attempt at comprehensive reform, not a complete expungement of past law and a rebuilding of a new one, or more workably, a piecemeal approach to the many facets of the problem on America's borders (especially the Mexican border). "Throwing out the old laws" was never really a feasible way to address the issue, so let's forget that one, and consider a piecemeal approach. The major items you need to address in such a battery of reforms include (1) border security, (2) immigration regulation and visa/guest procedures/regulations, and (3) what to do with illegal immigrants already inside the border.

1. We need a secure fence, and we need more border patrol agents. It's that simple. If you're protecting a building (let's say your business), you do much the same thing. To illustrate using this analogy, imagine a business where you're not so much interested in attracting people to the building itself - people will come into the building no matter what the perimeter looked like. The easiest, cheapest method of providing the first step toward security would be to build a fence that was difficult to go over (razor wire), under (a deep foundation) or through (reinforced concrete, for example). A look at the details of the wall that Israel is building to keep Palestinian suicide bombers out of civilian area would be a good case study for our own border permeability. Start there.

Now, industrious folk who are willing to risk their lives to cross such a fence would need to be dealt with as well. So employing the use of motion sensors to detect those hooligans, and quickly-deployable law enforcement personnel would be the backup plan to the fence. Requiring local police departments and sheriff's offices in addition to border patrol and national guard personnel to participate in the arrest of wall-breachers would be a decent thing to consider too, since liberal state and local government units are currently being negligent in refusing not only to enforce border laws, but also refusing to cooperate with federal officials who are just trying to do their jobs. This is deplorable, and it needs to stop. City, county, and state officials who tell their underlings that they are not allowed to enforce certain laws should be prosecuted - period. Imagine if your local chief of police issued a decree that bank robbers could no longer be pursued by the local departments "because most of our city's banks are inter-state banks, so it's an issue for the feds, not us."

One final item on border security, and then I'll move on. The bill in question had a serious flaw in it, and that was that the sitting president could "certify" when the border was "secure", thus triggering further pieces of the comprehensive bill. Sounds OK on the surface, but neither "certified" nor "secured" was precisely defined in the bill. One of the founding principles of American democracy is that we live under the rule of law, not the rule of man. When one person is granted the authority to define unilaterally the pivotal words in a law, you're moving away from the system of checks and balances, and toward arbitrary rule by corruptible people. The fact that our legislators chose to hinge major triggers on such fluffy terminology shows either gross incompetence at best, and malicious scheming at worst.

2. Now, to continue the business analogy... With the first step out out of the way, your business building is largely secure from outside threats, but you HAVE to let people come in, so what do you do to ensure the safety of your employees, your inventory, and that of your customers themselves? The business analogy starts to fall apart in the details here, since you're not going to background checks on your customers before letting them come in to browse the widgets, but bear with me - it's still a decent, if not overly-elementary, analogy.

One of the places where liberals and conservatives heatedly disagree is in how the "war on terror" should be prosecuted. Conservatives largely agree that "taking the war to our enemies" and treating it as a military matter. Of course, liberals have largely taken the stand that the terrorist threat should be treated as a law enforcement matter when there's not a government entity that's directly accountable for attacks (which is why the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan is not as controversial as Iraq).

But the regulation of immigration shows a huge hypocrisy on the left-hand side of the argument. Liberals have no problems in preventing convicted felons and people with mental illness from purchasing handguns, but ask for deeper scrutiny of 18-25 year-old males with Muslim names from countries known to train terrorists, and they'll be screaming "You dirty rotten racist!" faster than you can say "profiling". So people with autism purchasing a .38 is a problem, but contacting Interpol to see if Ahmed has ever been known to visit a Taliban summer camp is the act of insensitive Islamophobes - makes perfect sense. If there was a place where Democrats should shine, it's here. But we get nothing but racially sensitive, fluffy platitudes on how Islam is "a religion of peace" (which, largely, of course, it is, other than the 1% to 10% who are fanatics) and that Vicente Fox has America's interests in mind when he's publishing brochures on how to best elude the US Border Patrol. Please. The Democrats have no plan to combat terrorism, other than to bash Bush on anything he does. God forbid they retake the White House and retain Congress in '08 - they've had 6 years to formulate a cogent anti-terrorism policy, and they've unveiled nothing. Bush may have prosecuted Iraq poorly, and his vision of a democratic Muslim nation in the heart of the Middle East may indeed prove to be misguided once we have the benefit of hindsight, but at least he's doing something that can be argued as appropriate, and making a dent in the terrorist population while he's at it.

Bottom line: we need to know who is coming into our country, and we need to lean on the UN to pressure governments to grant access to criminal records of those seeking to come into our nation (if ever there was a use for the UN, this may be it). If you want to keep your records off-limits and your record-keeping procedures non-transparent, fine - your citizens will not be granted student visas, and permanent immigration is out of the question (asylum rules would remain largely untouched). This is not racist, it's realist. If you have a rule that says customers must leave their backpacks at the customer service desk while browsing your wares, and a customer refuses to do so, you first ask him politely to go back to the parking lot and leave the backpack in his car, or you deny him access to your shop. Is that racist? Or a reasonable way to protect what's inside your store?

Now obviously, not all terrorists have criminal pasts, so a path to citizenship that includes a few contacts with immigration officials is reasonable (for crying out loud, it takes at least two transactions with government officials to license your new car and apply for a driver's license - why can't we require immigrants to check in a few times before being entrusted with permanent citizenship?). And periodic check-ins for people here on visas is certainly reasonable - the guy asking if you need help finding anything at your local Home Depot is as likely to be ensuring you're not pocketing a few nails as he is trying to be helpful - actually, at Home Depot, it's extremely UNlikely that he's trying to be helpful (SNAP!).

3. Finally, what do you do with illegals who are already here? First, as I mentioned previously, prosecuting local and state officials who decree that enforcing immigration law is off-limits is a must. We have many (liberal) municipalities in this nation whose mayors, police chiefs, and other officials have told their officers that they are not even allowed to ask people who they stop for traffic violations what their immigration status is. Again, Democrats say they think combating terrorism is a criminal problem; violating immigration law is truly a criminal matter, but the ultra-libs say that it's... well... no one's problem! (hmmm, maybe THAT'S what the military is for - tracking down migrant farmers - yeah, that's it!)

Second, you make it economically non-viable for businesses to knowingly hire illegal immigrants, thus reducing the supply, and increasing the incentive for illegals to pursue legal paths to citizenship. How do you make businesses comply? Well, let's see - have you ever started a job? What's the first thing they make you do when you show up on Monday morning? That's right, they make you show your Social Security card and your driver's license or state ID! Why would that be so difficult to make universal? It's not. But it does bring up the possibility (certainty?) of falsified SS cards. Personally, even if you take illegal immigration out of the picture, the fact that one of the main pieces of identification that our government relies upon is a 2-color, non-laminated piece of paper is ludicrous. I don't want to replace state licensing requirements with a federal driver's license, but why is it so difficult to require that a more tamper-proof Social Security card be implemented? I know, I know - you get your SSN at birth, and you have to sign the card, and babies' signatures are impossibly hard to read... I'll give each of you 7 readers of this post 5 seconds each to come up with your own solution to that problem... 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... How many did you come up with - I came up with three - let's get together for a beer and we'll tackle that issue. Seriously.

Now, I'm not a big expert on CURRENT immigration procedures, so I'd be remiss if I attempted to re-vamp the process for becoming a naturalized citizen. I'll leave that part to people who know more than me. The last piece of my plan would be to eliminate welfare, student loan, and Social Security benefits for illegal immigrants (not emergency health care - that's heartless - BUT, once you're back on your feet, the wheelchair doesn't take you to the front door to go merrily on your way - it takes you to a waiting squad car, which in turn takes you to INS, where you'll register, and then begin your process toward legal citizenship, or you'll be returned to your homeland - at your home government's expense). I'd also ensure that any state governments who decide to offer in-state tuition benefits to illegals have their federal higher education dollars magically disappear. Hey, they did that for schools who said military recruiters couldn't come to campus, they can do it for "undocumented student" harborers, too.

Again, you can label me a racist if you will - though I assure you I'm not (as if that means diddley-squat, right) - but if you want to ever solve any of these issues, quit with the ad hominem crapola and engage the ideas. I think the above are pretty common-sensical, but I'm open to change my mind if you can show otherwise. But I'll do nothing but become more rigid in my stance if you simply want to throw the "Islamophobe" or "Mexiphobe" moniker my way...

Shame on the Minnesota DFL

2007-08-05T21:39:00.000-05:00

While there are still people classified as "missing" (including a co-worker of mine) and the recovery efforts continue in the wake of the 35W bridge collapse here in Minneapolis, and since the investigation into the reasons behind the failure of the bridge is still in its infancy, I'll refrain from pointing fingers at who's to blame for this tragedy. But I do need to point out the hypocrisy of a handful of local elected officials, most notably Minnesota's freshman Senator Amy Klobuchar.

During her press conference and interviews regarding the bridge collapse, Klobuchar has taken potshots at President Bush for spending too much money on the Global War on Terror and other items deemed unworthy by the Democrats, unstifled by the fact that until the bridge fell, you heard nary a peep out of the left for any federal funding of anything but universal (read, government-mandated) health insurance coverage and expanded benefits for illegal immigrants. And, to top it off, any calls for funding transportation projects by the folks on the left-hand side of Capitol Hill are typically calls for increased funding for public transportation projects, not the highway system.

Case in point, the DFL (the Democratic-Farmer-Laborer party of Minnesota) pressed just last year for an amendment to Minnesota's Constitution that funneled all Minnesota Vehicle Sales Taxes (MVST) collected by the state toward transportation infrastructure, but a maximum of 60% of those taxes could go toward highway projects. The amendment passed, by the way, despite the opposition by many level-headed folks, including me. This very blog predicted dangerous entanglements in public transit projects that could leave "nothing going toward highway maintenance or improvement [emphasis added]." The 35W bridge disaster is just one such reason that tying the hands of state appropriators is a horrible idea, given that bridges on the federal interstate highway system are the responsibility of the STATE, not the feds.

Does Klobuchar think that nonsense like her railings against Bush exist only in a vacuum, free and clear of the historical record of her often-inane commentary and voting record? Apparently. But 9 months ago, I, and many others who have some semblance of fiscal responsibility, warned against the DFL's mandated transportation allocation, and now we're left with only the feds to bail out the Minneapolis freeway system, when a looser MVST allocation formula could have allowed the state legislature to replace the bridge with funds generated by tax dollars that were intended to go toward the state's transportation infrastructure. Klobuchar and other members of the Minnesota DFL that are now pointing fingers at Bush ought to take a hard look at the face in the mirror.

Mea culpa (kinda)

2007-08-05T21:04:00.000-05:00

For the second time in the history of Sonofasillyperson, baby brudda Joel has offered a critique worthy of me correcting/clarifying my stance on and/or wording of a post. In my ages-ago post on the since-deceased Senate immigration bill/debacle (reasons for the length of time between posts forthcoming in a later post), I used the percentage of Americans who approved of the bill as it stood as a reason (but not the basis) for my argument against it. Joel correctly pointed out that I had previously in this site praised John McCain for going against the tide of public opinion on the Iraq war and supporting the Bush/Petraeus "surge" (escalation) strategy.

While the semantics of my argument were indeed poor, I stand by everything I wrote, except for implying that the support of only 22% figure was a good indicator that the bill was wrong. What I should have emphasized is that a low approval rating (for a bill, a war, a president, or a Congress) is a good reason to dig deeper on the subject and truly strive to understand the merits and detractors of the topic at hand, but approval/disapproval ratings in an opinion poll are not reason enough to cause an elected official to vote against his/her conscience and values.

As I wrote in post where I complimented McCain, the role of an "elected official is not to sample the public opinion prior to voting on any given issue, it's to use his morals, leadership, and judgment to decide what his vote should be. Voting based on public opinion is better described as populism." We can argue about the justification of the Iraq War all you want, but with everything I've read regarding the history of al-Qaeda, the influence of Iran on world affairs (also here, counterinsurgency strategy, strategy for the global war on terror (also here), the history of Jewish/Islamic strife, the demographics of the Islamic threat, and the book I just started reading this afternoon, I remain convinced that an ouster of Saddam and a rebuilding of the government of Iraq remain the right things to do.

The same cannot be said of the now-defunct Senate immigration bill, which fortunately has been swept into the dustbin of history (that is, until Senate democrats go on a dumpster dive to revive it). A comprehensive immigration bill simply is not the way to go, especially if the only way to pass said bill is to bribe (let's call a spade a spade for crying out loud) fence-sitters to support the bill with promises of earmarks for their respective districts. There were so many problems with the bill that the bill's supporters resorted to the quid pro quo strategy for garnering support, and that's why 78% of the public smelt a rat.

I apologize (and take full responsibility) for not being clear the first time.

22%

2007-06-26T14:39:00.000-05:00

That's how many Americans (give or take the proverbial 3% margin of error) actually want the immigration bill as it's currently written to be passed, according to a Rasmussen poll published yesterday. More diligent people than I have pored over the text of the bill (though I've read a good deal of it, and the reviews of many who have read it all), and a quick Google search will take you through the many, many problems with the bill (including vaguery regarding "certification" of the security of the border, amnesty-by-another-name, ridiculously low thresholds for "proving" your identity and the length of time which you've spent in the US as an illegal immigrant, and many others). But when there's this tiny a sliver of the populace who support a bill as it's creeping through the initial stages of enactment, it takes an arrogant and disconnected Senate to pass it, as today's cloture passage pretty much assures.

John Quincy Adams sealed his fate as a one-term president when (quoting from the Required Reading book "America, the Last Best Hope" by Bill Bennett now)

"he proposed a national university, a naval academy, further explorations on the model of Lewis and Clark, and an extensive system of roads, canals, and harbors. He knew such an ambitious program would meet with resistance from taxpayers, but he urged members of Congress not to let the world see that America's government was 'palsied by the will of our constituents.'"

Have you ever gotten the feeling that your will is looked upon as a palsy? Today's Senate vote assures you that at least 64 pinheads in Washington, DC view it that way...

Time to become a Titans fan?

2007-06-22T11:23:00.000-05:00

Amen. As a man who has not watched an NBA game since a few days after the Pistons/Pacers melee a couple of seasons ago,* I think it's refreshing to see a young man who "gets it". Vince Young is as exciting a player to watch as I've ever seen, and his head is obviously on right, too. Grammar issues aside, when Young says of the legal-impaired Pacman Jones "we love him a whole lot, but we feel like he don't care about us right now," he's dead-on.

Young is showing leadership by calling out a player who's putting himself and his apparent aspirations for a penitentiary sentence above the needs of the team and the image of the game. It's cliche to say, but no player is bigger than the game, and the flip-side corrollary (and the one that drives the point home more) is that the game is bigger than every player. Sure, the game will probably live on no matter what the actions of any individual are, but it's critical to the financial health and fan-base-growth of the game that aberrant behavior be ostracized, not defended.

As for the health of the NFL versus the NBA, Peter King said it best:

There are approximately 113 million television households in the United States, and the average rating for the NBA Championship Series showed that 6.9 million of them watched the series between Cleveland and San Antonio.

Remember the late-night Monday night opener on ESPN last year between Oakland and San Diego? Awful game. San Diego won, 27-0. It was pretty much over at the half, when the Chargers led 13-0 and the Raiders couldn't get out of their own way on offense. That game -- after a weekend that started with Thursday night football, went into Sunday afternoon football and Sunday night football, and had a Monday nighter before the second game on the West Coast -- started at 10:25 p.m. EST and ended at 1:14 a.m. Tuesday. And it was on cable TV, which gets a lower rating anyway because not every TV household in America is wired for cable.

The Raiders-Chargers debacle was seen by 7.9 million American TV households.

We all know football is king in this country, but if the best the NBA has to offer gets trounced by the worst the NFL has to offer ... well, the NBA is in more than a little trouble. [emphasis mine]

*It wasn't so much the fight itself that snuffed my appreciation for the game - though going into the stands was indeed abhorrent - it was the fact that even perennial nice-guy Kevin Garnett and legions of other players defended the actions of the players who went after the fans. Garnett even said something to the effect of "you gotta protect your manhood" - give me a break...

Back from the ranks of the missing...

2007-06-12T22:17:00.000-05:00

Wow, it's been a long time... No excuses (except for fishing opener, travels to Pierre, SD to visit the inlaws -and for fishing- and "Up North" - for more fishing); instead, let's just dive into what's been on my mind.

First, the direly important stuff: My fantasy baseball team is in the toilet. Two seasons ago, I was taunted for trading away Scott Rolen (even though I already had a better third baseman); this year, I had to drop him. I don't know if his shoulder injury from last year is still nagging him or what, but he's terrible this year. The Nats' Ryan Zimmerman is filling in nicely, however, including a 2-run dong tonight. Problem is, he was batting against one of my starting pitchers, Daniel Cabrera (BAL). That's the type of year it's been, and I'm mired in 10th place - out of 10 teams. Pathetic. When does football season start again?

Books I've read recently: America Alone by Mark Steyn - an important book if you want to understand how drastic changes in birthrates and other demographic factors in the populations of our allies (especially Europe) and how they'll impact the world order in the coming years. I don't know that it's good enough to add to my "Required Reading" list, but I highly recommend it to anyone interested in that kind of thing. An Army of Davids by Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds - sort of a free-marketer's answer to "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman. Reynolds analyzes some key industries and paradigms that are certain to change given the way that technology is empowering individuals through what he calls "lateral information transfer". Funny, I read an article from an "old media" crony that blasted the very type of thing that Reynolds celebrates (more on this later) just as I was finishing the book - basically, the article's author was decrying the proliferation of amateur book reviews and how "Criticism — and its humble cousin, reviewing — is not a democratic activity. It is, or should be, an elite enterprise, ideally undertaken by individuals who bring something to the party beyond their hasty, instinctive opinions of a book." Some people just don't get it - but again, more on this later. Competing on Analytics by Thomas Davenport and Jeanne Harris - I read this one because data analytics is my current profession, and I was curious to get the "academic's" vision of how much of a future I can plan on in that realm. As I expected, the authors were very optimistic about the future of data analysis, and go so far as to say that the level to which firms can utilize data is one area that is underutilized in gaining competitive advantage. From "Sabermetrics" to analyze a baseball player's potential to "marketing to the individual" to maximize sales in the service industry, there is a lot of growth to be seen over the next few years - Huzzah! And finally, The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright - a history of "Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11". This book is a must-read in order to understand the mindset and the intricacy of the terror organization, and the level to which it is organized and committed to our destruction. I'll be adding it to the "Required Reading" list very shortly...

Speaking of Data Analysis: This is absolutely cool. Go figure, a bookworm and data-geek like me is impressed by a guy who, in his spare time, wrote a computer program that puts dots on a map of the Earth to represent locations mentioned in books - even adding a time-series based on publication date that shows the westward expansion of the United States. Now, I've never done anything this intense in my work as a data analyst, but I've done related things (mapping customer and off-site-employee locations to determine the optimal places in which to hold seminars, for example). To echo the book-mapper's sentiments, "Wow, data is fun." And, wow, I'm really a nerd...

A cigar you should definitely try - if you're into that kind of thing... My Cigar of the Month Club recently sent me a 5 Vegas "Cask Strenth" - and I'll probably be partaking of another 1 or 5 shortly. I'll let you read the review to get all the bouquet/nose/finish/character tidbits, but I'd add that for a cigar that's a blend of Dominican, Nicaraguan, and Brazilian tobaccos, you'd expect some muddled flavors and a lack of consistency, but not this one. It built its flavor and body slowly throughout, and had a perfect finish, not to mention its near-perfect construction and burn. 5 Vegas (pronounced "Cinco-Vegas") has a good line in its "A" (thick Maduro) series - I can do without its flagship "Classic" blend - but the Cask Strength is top-notch. The $5 a stick that CI wants for this one is a good price, too. Try it.

Back to the book review snob: I'll concede that I'm a bit biased in my disdain for Mr. Schickel's tirade, since reviewing books that I've read is about the only unique niche that I've carved out in this-here blogspace. I'll even give him his due in that he's undoubtedly read more books than I have, and has been at the craft of reviewing them longer than I'll ever hope to be doing it as an amateur. But that's not even the point. The point is, reviewing books does not require "disciplined taste, historical and theoretical knowledge and a fairly deep sense of the author's (or filmmaker's or painter's) entire body of work, among other qualities," since bloggers' book reviews are not intended to chronicle the maturation process of authors. Bloggers like me (or any other amateur book reviewer) simply are utilizing a new forum "beyond the office water cooler" to discuss their latest reads. I've read 4 or 5 books by Robert Kaplan (Imperial Grunts - required reading), and while I respect his work and admire his background and experiences, I have no interest in analyzing whether or not "Balkan Ghosts" or "The Coming Anarchy" provided him a foundation from which to mature into when he wrote "Imperial Grunts" - I'll even venture to guess that the average schmoe who picks up a copy of any of Kaplan's works at Barnes and Noble or Amazon could care less as well. Non-professional readers simply don't care. They want an enjoyable read, an opportunity to learn about a subject that they are under-knowledged in, or the chance to spew out their thoughts when their book-club-that's-more-of-a-reason-to-get-together-and-toss-back-a-drink-or-three meets on the second Tuesday of the month. "New Media" like blogs or wiki-sites like Amazon that allow bumbling amateurs to reflect their thoughts, quite honestly, fill a larger market than Mr. Schickel can hope to attain, and I'm guessing he knows that, and it's probably the source of his animosity. Give it up, Schicky-old-boy, and enjoy the niche you have - it's probably seen its apex, and you'll be riding the downslope to obscurity unless you recognize the trend toward micro-markets and lateral knowledge transfer (see my above review of "An Army of Davids")!

Fred's in! I still haven't chosen my horse for the GOP presidential nominee, though I have narrowed in on the reason for my hold-out. My new co-worker, Barry of the now-defunct Watercooler Wisdom blog, and I talked about it the other day, and we seemed to agree that the mood of the electorate will hold sway over our votes. Romney is the best of the "Big 4" (Romney, Guiliani, McCain, and Fred) as far as conservative credentials plus an organized and established machine goes. Fred may have the best pure conservative credentials, but I haven't seen a true agenda or the extent to which he's got an organization behind him. McCain is going the way of the dodo - if he makes it past Labor Day as an official candidate, I'll be shocked. Rudy is the big question mark. His release today of his 12 Commitments agenda is a very good step. They're a little vague (vision statements generally are), but they do a lot at overcoming some of the problems he has with the proverbial base on his abortion stance and some of the social programs he headed as NYC's mayor.

I saw an interview of him (can't remember who it was - Hannity?) where some of the aggressive (read, expensive) social programming he spearheaded in NYC were a point of contention, and he kept stressing the "results, results, results". For the life of me, I can't understand why he hasn't added any points about the nature of federalism, and how social programming should be administered, when necessary, at the local level, and how the nation's executive wouldn't necessarily be as aggressive in engineering programs. It would do a lot to earn some points with the purists on the right, and still allow him to brag up his accomplishments in New York. Perhaps when the also-rans do themselves and their party a favor and bow out of the race, and we finally get down to the 4 (3?) candidates who matter, some better articulations of vision/agenda and debate on credentials/accomplishments can take place.

That's enough for now - here's to hoping that my next post won't be as delayed as this one...

Quick hit thoughts on the GOP debate

2007-05-03T20:46:00.000-05:00

Just got done watching the debate (or at least the portions I could watch in between putting the 1-year-old to sleep and quelling the 3 1/2-year old's tantrums) and the first few minutes of analysis from Keith Olbermann et al (congrats to Mr. Olbermann for seeming semi-rational on the topic of center-right politics, despite his thinly veiled efforts to get the candidates he interviewed to blast the administration's Iraq policy). Here are my thoughts on this first major step of the candidate nominating process:

WINNERS: I'll reluctantly admit that McCain looked very good. He is very polished, as he should be given his previous runs for the Executive office. Mitt Romney was decent, though I thought he was a bit on the dreamy side; I was reminded of Steve Forbes's wispy repetitions of "...the land of hope, growth, and opportunity...". Giuliani was his normal conversational self - not great, not bad. He basically held serve as the top seed going in.

LOSERS: Tom Tancredo. I agree with Hugh Hewitt's assessments that Tancredo took the immigration debate and created his own little private island (almost like Senator Norm Coleman did with his blasting of Kofi Annan - their fundamental positions may be correct, but their tactics are highly questionable). So Tancredo had some amends to make with the GOP base, and he failed miserably. He didn't seem prepared, trying to fit a 3-minute speech into the confines of a 30-second turn (at least twice that I saw), and he was not "presidential" at all. He may have his positions all neatly arranged in his mind, but he has no ability to communicate them in a rigid forum, which is crucial for a campaign. Mike Huckabee seemed a bit lost at times; Chris Matthews (the debate's primary moderator) seemed to take a fancy to becoming confrontational with him, and Huckabee appeared rattled by that. He was also backpedaling awkwardly when his words about Romney's Mormonism were stripped of context and used to bait a made-for-TV argument. Tommy Thompson played the role of the crotchety old-timer who can do nothing but criticize - either the Democrats or his fellow Republicans. He's going nowhere in this race with that attitude and his "also-ran" approach to the issues. And Doctor/Representative Ron Paul is the wingnut who holds the forum together. Don't get me wrong - it's nice to have a Libertarian who's seemingly got the Constitution memorized and is ready with a "Tut-tut, that's not authorized by the Constitution!" constantly at the ready (oh but to have him on the Supreme Court!), but seriously, he's got no following, no fund-raising machine, no name recognition, and no shot.

THE OTHERS: Duncan Hunter, Sam Brownback, and Jim Gilmore are kidding themselves. None of them were embarrassed tonight (which is really the main objective this early in the game), but none of them appeared to me to get in the differentiating sound-bites that will light a fire under their respective campaigns. None of them are household names, and none of them will be without a major push, either on the campaign trail or in another debate forum. If any of these three is to have any shot, they've got to kick it into high gear before the next candidate forum in order to energize a core base to their candidacies.

THE NOTABLE ABSENCES: I don't know what the ratings for tonight's debate (or the re-broadcast in about half an hour) will turn out to be, especially for the "not-a-political-junkie" demographic, but Fred Thompson needs to get in the race ASAP. He's a top-tier candidate the instant he declares and shows up in a debate forum alongside Romney, McCain, and Giuliani. I've seen and heard him lately on the Sunday morning talk shows, on talk radio, and in other various interview forums, and he's got the pragmatism, the polish, the comfort in a heated debate (I'd have said "poise", but the alliteration was getting to me) to shove himself into the mix, but he needs to show it to the public. Newt Gingrich didn't show either, but it didn't make sense for him to. He's doing a great job in stirring his noteworthy following to make a name for "Green Conservatism" - and kudos to him for doing so - but given the flame-worthy nature of the connotations associated with his name, unless he can command the topics of conversation, he's not going to change any minds about who he is as a person and/or a candidate. I give Newt a snowball's chance in Phoenix in July to even crack the 5% notch in any state caucus/primary poll or election, but I wish him well in his attempts to change the perception that Republicans don't care about the environment. Chuck Hagel is the other candidate who was a no-show, but he's kidding himself anyway.

OVERALL: I haven't picked my horse yet, and I'm not entirely sure what I'm waiting for. I have decided that I'll only kick money and/or volunteer efforts into the campaigns of Giuliani, Romney, and Fred Thompson, though I haven't done so in any form as of this writing. Should one of the lower-tier candidates pick up steam and impress the multitudes, maybe I'll contribute to the cause, but personally I don't see the potential for anyone but the three I mentioned plus McCain to earn the GOP nod come next summer. And as far as McCain goes, I'll vote for him (while holding my nose) if he's the nominee, but I'll do what I can to make sure that's not the case...

Disclaimer...(yada yada)...

2007-04-24T13:49:00.000-05:00

...I'll probably be adding this to the sidebar before too long, just to make sure it's not buried, but as of today, I need to inform my readership of this development...

On April 12th, I was installed as Treasurer of the Senate District 62 of the Republican Party of Minnesota. The State Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board has since received our BPOU's amended registration statement, which officially puts me in the Treasurer's position. As a member of the SD-62 executive committee, I must declare that (horribly inept legalese purely my own, and probably subject to intense criticism by anyone who specializes in campaign finance law)...

...the opinions put forth on this blog (or any off-line discussions pertaining to the materials herein) are purely my own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion(s) of the SD-62, CD-5, or State Republican Party organizations, their members, committees, or executive boards. If you've got a beef, you've got one with me and me alone.

A quick civics lesson

2007-04-21T23:56:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, a Minnesota politician got himself into a bit of a pickle when he not only made an outrageous, moronic, and ludicrous remark, but also revealed how little he understands about the way a representative republic is supposed to work. Keith Nelson is a St. Louis County Board member, and during a board meeting, uttered the following gem: "If the people in my district had voted for slavery, and if the vast majority had, and I was representing them, the answer is 'yes,' I would have voted for it."

The board was debating a county-wide smoking ban, which, according to which poll numbers you read, has between 45 and 70 percent support from St. Louis County residents. Later, of course, Nelson offered the proverbial 'if I offended anyone, I'm sorry' type of non-apology. Rev. Denita Williams, pastor of St. Mark's African Methodist Episcopal Church in Duluth, summed it up pretty well when she said, "He doesn't seem to understand, and for him to hold a public office and not understand that is offensive," Williams said. She said Nelson must offer a public, unqualified apology, "and he also needs to take a diversity class [emphasis mine]."

So what exactly doesn't Nelson understand? That his job as an elected official is not to sample the public opinion prior to voting on any given issue, it's to use his morals, leadership, and judgment to decide what his vote should be. Voting based on public opinion is better described as populism, and despite Lou Dobbs' rantings to the contrary, our Constitution (as well as any Constitution at any level of goverment in the Union) does not proscribe a populist form of government, it's a (say it with me) representative republic. (For a great, albeit dry, book on populism versus democracy versus representative republics, read "Democracy and Populism" by John Lukacs).

I first thought critically about the possibility of a pure democracy when I was in college (early 90's), and started using the Internet. At the time, I thought it was a fantastic application for it. Think about it - the whole nation (or state, or county, or whatever level you want to apply it to) can vote on any issue put before them, and majority rule will win out. Not only would it put power into the hands of the people, but if people felt they had a stake in decisions, participation would go up. Right?

Wrong. Well, not exactly wrong - those two things would arguably occur. Where the idea is wrong is in the wisdom of the notion. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people who see "Jay-walking" on the Leno show and think to myself "There should be an IQ minimum before someone can vote." Any dum-dum who's smart enough to avoid being in prison for committing a felony, fill out a voter registration card, make it to the polling place, and can read/fill out a ballot should retain the right to vote.

But public opinion is fickle. There's a reason that strong leaders rise to the head of companies, governments, and pretty much any other organization you can think of. Commitment to principle is (largely) viewed as necessary for leadership roles. Our Constitution even underscores this idea. George Washington famously likened the Senate to a "cooling saucer" which tones down the more fervent House's legislation. Six year terms, the representation of an entire state, and Senate rules on filibusters and super-majorities all contribute to this effect.

I think this is one of the primary reasons that President Bush is so deeply hated. Clinton was the pre-eminent master of "ruling by the polls", and (especially on the Iraq war) Bush holds fast to his decisions. While there's obviously a fine line between sticking to principle and being hopelessly stubborn (Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzalez, Michael Brown), a leader who changes course in order to appease the populace is no leader at all.

John McCain, who irks me more than just about any other Republican, understands the danger of populism well. Ironically, the same day the Star Tribune ran the Nelson story, Opinion Journal ran this column praising McCain on this topic. Check out this exchange between Scott Pelley, of "60 Minutes", and McCain:

Pelley: "at what point do you stop doing what you think is right and you start doing what the majority of the American people want?"

McCain: "I disagree with what the majority of the American people want. I still believe the majority of the American people, when asked, say if you can show them a path to success . . . then they'll support it." Later Mr. Pelley observed that Mr. McCain was betting his entire campaign on the success of the current "surge" strategy in Baghdad. The Senator replied that he'd "rather lose a campaign than lose a war."

As much as it pains me to praise John "Gang of 14 1" McCain for anything other than his military service, he's spot on regarding this topic. Part of being entrusted with public office is being laden with making tough, unpopular decisions. Keith Nelson obviously has never learned this lesson.

One of the best websites...ever

2007-04-10T15:42:00.000-05:00

Can't remember what blog I was reading in the last week or two that pointed me to LibraryThing.com, but suffice it to say that I now have it bookmarked, and I will be working on cataloguing/tagging/commenting on/reviewing/etc. my personal library over the next few weeks. In case you don't feel like exploring it on your own, it's basically a site where you can enter in the books you own, categorize (tag) them however you want, do your own book reviews, and - coolest of all - search other peoples' libraries based on their similarity to your own. It's also got community features like discussion boards/forums, and you can leave comments for other readers. You may also have noticed that it has a feature that allows you to put a "random 5 books" section in your blog, which I (obviously) have added.

FYI, for those of you in the Twin Cities metro area whom I know and semi-trust, feel free to peruse my library and make requests for loans (especially the "Required" ones)!

"Wisdom", HuffPo style

2007-04-03T14:38:00.000-05:00

Whilst the data servers are inching along this afternoon, I took a peek at HuffingtonPost, as I occasionally do, to see what the fever swamp is up to. One post in particular caught my attention and/or ire, so I thought I'd share....

The post in question is about Speaker Pelosi's trip to Syria to visit with President Bashar Assad. Besides being a terrible breach of diplomatic ethics (the 3 Repubs who went did so at the behest of the State Department - Pelosi went of her own accord, partly, I'm speculating, to embarrass the White House), it's a foolish thing to do, and it highlights much of the problem with leftist thought today.

Case in point, the author's insistence that "It's in Israel's interest to talk to Syria. Cooperation between these two countries is desperately needed and has the potential of changing the temperature between Israelis and Palestinians." Pray tell, exactly what good will it do for Israel to "talk" to Syria? As long as Syria continues to fund terrorist organizations (providing arms, providing training, providing payments to families of suicide bombers) behind the scenes while putting on a cordial front for the TV cameras, good faith negotiations between them and Israel is a contradiction in terms.

But the most telling passage is this one:

Oh, and God forbid Speaker Pelosi's visit made a difference. But wait a minute, she already has, because she's the Speaker of the House and when someone of this high stature goes to a country is legitimizes the leaders she's visiting. Respecting the leaders of other countries, even though we have strong disagreements and serious issues that remain unresolved. What a shocking way to woo the world.

There it is, folks, right there in black and white. According to the lefties of the U.S., "legitimizing" and "respecting" foreign leaders is an end in itself, regardless of whether that head of state is a supporter of lawlessness and terrorism or not.

Contrary to that line of garbage, all leaders are NOT equivalent, there ARE good ones and evil ones.

(Yes, lefty grasshopper, I know what you're thinking: 'Bush is a criminal - he's evil, too' - but alas, the Legislature approved his "illegal war" along strict Constitutional procedures, so "illegal" is hardly the term you should be using. "Poorly executed"? OK. "Short-sighted"? Maybe - though, maybe not. But "illegal"? Surely you jest.)

This is the same kind of thinking that led Bill Clinton to sign a peace deal with Yasser Arafat, to which Arafat expressed his gratitude by launching the second intifada. It's the same kind of thinking that led Neville Chamberlain to negotiate "peace in our time" with Hitler in the mid-30's. But at least Chamberlain belatedly recognized his error and fought back against the march of evil. The lefties in the U.S. have a terrible record when it comes to doing that.

So "legitimize" and "respect" Assad, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-Il, Nasrallah, and their ilk all you want - people who have elevated their cognition above the drivel of 'there's no evil, only differences to be worked out' can see the difference, and Pelosi is doing nothing but proving her immaturity and lack of clear thinking.

They're at it again...

2007-03-23T14:51:00.000-05:00

Read this.

I have neglected to post for a few days, in part because I was hoping to come up with something truly profound to say for my 100th post to this blog (yay me!). But alas, I ran across an item just a few minutes ago that I feel the need to pass along, in light of a post I made a few weeks ago, regarding the attempt by terrorists to assassinate VP Cheney, and the resultant nastiness from the left-wing-nuts at HuffingtonPost.com.

The same mad-libs are at it again today, this time in response to Tony Snow's announcement that he is having surgery to remove a growth in his abdomen. I've linked to Dean Barnett's post at HughHewitt.com since he's likely to add any updates and/or put up a screen-shot if HuffPo tries to re-write its own history, as it did with the Cheney story and comments.

Yes, folks, once again (and my apologies to those of you who vote Democrat but don't feel aptly represented by the nut-balls who think piling on to individuals' personal struggles is just 'politics') these are the people who are the financial base of the Democratic Party. And as the monetary base goes, so goes the party.

Contrast that with what one of the pre-eminent voices of the center of the Republican party had to say about yesterday's announcement about Elizabeth Edwards's recurrence of cancer. Sure, there are moron wing-nuts in the GOP - no one can deny that. But they're not providing the financial backing to the party, and thus, they're not leading their party to the fringe of their wing's ideology. Truly centrist Dems need to re-take control of their party - it starts with the ouster of Howard Dean as chair.

UPDATE: Wow, HuffPo is quick! I saw a few of the comments Dean quoted in his post, then went back a few minutes later and they're gone. Even with the truly nasty ones gone, compare the tone (and the generic vs. one-on-one rebukes) you see in the Snow post versus the Edwards one. I'm guessing they won't delete all posts, but even when the worst ones are deleted, there is a major difference between the consensus.

I've written before about the Law of Group Polarization, and there's some (but not much) slack to be given to the "netroots" at HuffPost because of this. HuffingtonPost was started a couple of years ago, with the original intent to be a "centrist" site. Not a "left-center" site, mind you - a truly centrist one. That the site has gone one way or another is not terribly surprising. Frankly, middle-of-the-road politics (or anything) is fairly boring, and a political website that tries to remain centrist is unlikely to survive in a competitive world. But becoming fanatical is not pre-ordained for any political site. As conservative as TownHall remains, it has been around a lot longer than HuffPo and DailyKos, and it's nowhere near as extreme, either in its published commentary or in its readers' comments. These sites represent the "base" that you always hear about when candidates are "courting their party's base". The fact that most Democratic activists read Kos or Huff, or that most Republican activists are avid readers of TownHall is an important concept to recognize when you're evaluating which party is more likely to remain in close proximity to your values...

'Nuff said.

300 reasons to read some non-fiction...

2007-03-17T12:12:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading the Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition, and was disappointed after my initial excitement when I had seen a headline for a review of the movie 300. As I have mentioned before, 300 is based on a "graphic novel" (i.e., a comic book for grown-ups), which is a chronicle of the battle of Thermopylae. I read a novel about the same battle, and when I heard several months ago that there was a movie being made about the story, I was excited.

Though I have not yet seen the movie (my buddy that wants to see it with me keeps cancelling), I have been highly disappointed in the negative reviews it has been receiving (while simultaneously being the top-grossing movie since its release - even setting a new all-time record for box office receipts for a movie released in March), including the review in the Wall Street Journal today. The reviewer notes the impressive technology used in production (all the backgrounds were filled in with computer imaging - the entire production was filmed on a sound stage) - and even compliments the workmanship shown in making it seem realistic.

But beyond that, the reviewer does nothing but lambaste the violence and gore in the movie. There is no mention of the historical significance of the battle, and what's more, there's not even a loose chronicling of the story line. Only a rueful account of the uncouth shown by the legions of people flocking to see such a brutal and bloody film.

So why am I so disappointed? Well, first, let me clarify exactly what I'm disappointed with. I'd summarize it by saying it's disheartening to know that so many people (reviewers and movie-goers alike) are so ignorant about the context in which the Battle of Thermopylae was fought. If you don't know already, the battle was a self-sacrifice of 300 Spartans and a couple thousand brave allies - sent to the "Hot Gates" (the pass of Thermopylae) to slow the advancement of the Persian armies of King Xerxes, numbering somewhere between 800,000 and 2 million. With thanks to their sacrifice, several Greek city-states were able to form a military and political coalition which eventually turned Xerxes back in defeat, saving the fate of democracy from a crude death at the hands of a tyrannical, brutish empire which demanded nothing more than subservience and tribute from its colonies.

Am I overstating the significance of Thermopylae? Emphatically, no. As you should know, Greek culture is absolutely critical to the formation of our own culture. From the philosophers who dreamed up the concept of "consent of the governed" to the practice of a federated, allied government system, Greek civilization was an embryonic version of our own American society. Failure to place a film about the battle of Thermopylae in such a context shows that the reviewer is doing a terrible, amateurish job.

Is that too harsh? Again, emphatically, no. Imagine this: you're listening to a radio broadcast for your home town's minor league baseball team in the early 1990's. The crowd noise in the background sounds much louder than usual, but other than that, there's nothing that distinguishes this broadcast from ones you've heard in years' past - the usual semi-familiar names, which fail to etch permanence in your brain because of the nomadic nature of minor-league players. But there's an added buzz whenever one certain player, number 45, is up to bat, and you can't for the life of you understand why because he's already struck out in every at-bat so far, the victim of 3 straight curve balls that he obviously has no propensity to even foul off, much less put in play.

Put that game into the context of the minor-league baseball career of one Michael Jordan, and you've got a formula for a radio voice who needs to list himself on Monster.com to find a new gig, because he was summarily fired for not knowing (or discussing) the importance of Michael Jordan not only to the basketball world, but to the world of sports in general. Now compare that story to a movie reviewer who fails to contextualize a film about an event with dire cultural significance, and you might understand my disappointment in the bulk of reviews I've seen about 300.

To get lost in the gory, bloody details in discussing 300 my be understandable, but it's not forgivable. Just like a radio announcer who compartmentalizes Michael Jordan's venture into professional baseball as one of a mediocre fielder who can't hit a curve ball, a movie reviewer who only discusses the violence of the scenes and the technology used in the film's production has no business being a professional film critic.

I'm reminded of the scuttlebutt that went along with the release of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ: a deploration of cinematic violence without context surrounding the reason for the importance of accurately portraying that violence. In case you haven't read much of the Gospels, prior to his Crucifixion in his prayers at the garden of Gethsemane, Christ sweated blood. That's right, he was so stressed at the idea of subjecting his earthly form to the unimaginable torture involved in the process of death by cross-hanging (which includes extreme muscle fatigue, dislocated shoulder sockets, nails through the extremities, asphyxiation, and other lovely bodily discomforts), that his blood pressure rose to the point where his vasculature could not contain it. Think facial-flushing taken to its finite extreme - that's what Christ endured BEFORE he was subjected to brutal whip-lashing, stoning, beating, and other niceties on his way up to the peak of Calvary.

Like 300, it's critical in a review of a movie depicting scenes like those to ensure that the readership knows how much of a true martyr someone who knowingly subjects himself to such anguish should be treated as. Jesus knew what he was in for when he rode into the city in a veritable parade. Likewise, the Spartan coalition knew they were in for unthinkable deaths when they headed to the Hot Gates, buy knew if they could succeed, that something greater than themselves had a shot at survival.

That's the historical significance of the story behind 300, and if the movie fails to put it into that context, that may be a failure of the movie-makers, but it's an even greater failure of the reviewers who neglect to add the necessary details for audiences to understand fully how important that battle was.

The confession

2007-03-15T23:36:00.000-05:00

So Khalid Sheikh Mohommed has offered pretty much a full confession to everything we accused him of and more (thanks to Hugh Hewitt for the link). Read the whole transcript. If you want to be able to assess for yourself whether or not KSM was "coerced" into confessing, check out the tone of his arguments, the cooperation with which he spoke during the proceeding, and the attempt to explain the context of his actions. In any definition of "coerced confession" that I can fathom, this is not one.

Also, there's been some criticism surrounding the sheer number of operations that KSM claims "responsibility" for - one inane argument I heard today was that "one terrorist could not have possibly been involved in so many attacks". No kidding. When are surface-thinkers like these going to pull their heads out and start to realize that this isn't a bunch of rag-tag trouble-makers, but a formerly well-organized and highly hierarchical organization?

Please, please, start thinking in terms of things you can relate to, and the context of KSM's confession (as well as many other facets of al-Qaeda and the war on terror) will start to make sense. If you think of a high-level manager (executive level especially - which the 3rd in command of al-Qaeda could easily be called) in any corporation, you can begin to imagine the sheer number of projects that such an executive would be involved in (and list in his resume or curriculum vitae) over the course of 15+ years. A bulleted list of 31 projects/operations would certainly be within the reasonable scope of such a person's umbrella of projects.

It's high time for the useless rhetoric and emotion-strewn garbage to give way to real debate and action in this country that can lead us down the road to a workable solution to the Islamist crisis. Seriously, read pages 18 and 19 of the above-linked document - if more than 15 or so percent of KSM's projects had been successful (and who's to say that many of these are not still being actively planned and pursued), the 3,500-ish victims he's already claimed could easily double, triple, or worse.

My charge to everyone who reads this post is to stop relying on pundits as the sole source of your opinions, and start reading some source documents yourself and formulating some thoughts of your own (even if, like I did in this post, you rely on a trustworthy pundit to provide you links to said sources - note that in this case, Hewitt didn't even offer his own opinions, he just asked his readers to read the document, as I have done here. Sure, it's boring from time to time (witness the first 5 pages of the linked document in this post), and it's a bit more time-consuming. But at least you can later hold an intelligent conversation and/or debate about the issue in question, instead of being a parrot for Ann Coulter or Markos Moulitsas.

Need to read - 2/27/07

2007-02-27T10:39:00.000-06:00

These people are sick (read the comments below the actual story). Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is the "netroots" (a.k.a., the "NUTroots") who drive HuffingtonPost blog, the Daily Kos, MoveOn.org, and various other 'angry Left' organizations, which are the major money producers of the Democratic party, and the direct result of Howard Dean's "savviness" at using online forums to raise money for his campaign, which put him in the chairmanship of the DNC.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, if you're still voting for Democrats, it may be time to re-assess your political affiliations, or take the REALLY bold step of reforming your party.

UPDATE: Apparently, there's quite a flak about this post - Huffington Post has removed all remnants of the death-to-Cheney-well-wishers, and only mild and polite comments remain. Michelle Malkin's site supposedly has a .pdf screen capture of the nasty stuff (here), but apparently her servers are getting flooded; I can't get the page to open up. Guess I should have blockquoted it all...

2ND UPDATE: Here's a post that quoted a lot of the "mad-libs"...

"Proof that size DOES matter"

2007-02-17T01:31:00.000-06:00

Oh, and the shape of your orbital path, too...

Unfortunately, the fetching Mrs. Daughterinlawofasillyperson (happy now, mom? - didn't think so) fell ill tonight - ear infection, chest congestion, fever, chills, and just about every other winter malady that can strike a person on short notice), so she stayed home and a friend and I went to the show.

"Pluto..." wasn't the BNW's best effort I've seen, but I still laughed hard enough for tears to stream down my cheeks, so I'd surmise that it's not that bad. Perhaps I was disappointed in a sadistic kind of way - I actually missed their usual political satire (even though it often strikes straight at the heart of my political leanings, it's still witty and outright funny). There were some jabs at Dubya, of course, and the audience seemed particularly pleased at the mention of Al Franken's intention to run for Norm Coleman's Senate seat in 2008 (Mr. Franken is an alum of BNW).

Some of the jokes could be seen coming from a mile away ("you'll meet your demise at the hands of an 80's power ballad"), and they even missed a great opportunity for some chides at creationism vs. evolutionism in the classroom, when during a science lecture skit, the "teacher" shouted "Oh my God!" But despite a few comedic misses, the added creativity required to put together a bit more of an overall plot than is normally found in a Mainstage show was a winner. A couple of "huh?" moments before intermission suddenly made sense later on, and their theme of time travel gave them several opportunities for some "Who's on First"-type sketches. Plus, any show that can (in a sorta-good-taste-kind-of-way) depict Stephen Hawking as a sex-crazed inventor of sorts has got to have a high degree of laugh-potential.

Verdict: not the best I've seen from them, but still well, well worth the trip.

"Pluto, and other lies my teacher told me"

2007-02-16T15:37:00.000-06:00

So after blogging my way through the nail-biting episode of my wife's Valentine's Day bouquet (which, sadly, does need to be replaced after all* - it seems that sitting on the tarmac in Indianapolis during a blizzard can result in frozen water in the ol' xylem and phloem - not good), and given the pending nature of the so-called Fairness Doctine, I figured I'd better talk about daughterinlawofasillyperson's (sorry mom) Valentine's Day gift to me: we're going to Brave New Workshop's production of this blog entry's eponym later tonight (review possibly pending - or should that be possible review pending - take your pick).

I've chronicled BNW productions before, so I'll let their website and my previous review of "The Left, The Right, and The Ugly" tell you what you need to know about what we'll be seeing tonight, but I do want to share this: if you've got half an hour or so to spare (as I did the other night), check out the BNW's Artistic Director's blog: Tales of Adorable Danger. Caleb McEwen and I may not have much in common on our respective political platforms, but the man is out-and-out hilarious. If you're pressed for time, limit yourself to his recap of the Super Bowl broadcast. If your sense of humor is anything like mine, you'll bookmark his site and come back for more. Enjoy!

*But let me squeeze in another shameless plug for my new patron saintess of customer service excellence, Hannah from ProFlowers: the bouquet is being replaced free of charge, and they're throwing in another vase and expedited shipping too. Dang, should have said the chocolates were damaged somehow, too - ah well.

Need to Read: Time for another pledge drive?

2007-02-15T17:38:00.000-06:00

This time, the NRCC Pledge? As Hugh Hewitt laments in today's column, now it's the House Republicans who need a swift kick in their re-election coffers. Read the article, then come back for a serious-at-first dialog between myself and another commenter, which quickly turned into a French taunting when I realized he wasn't nearly the debate challenge I had originally sized him up to be.

Him (original comment, which was later misquoted in an attempted virtual thrashing by someone else):

Much of the conservative movement has lost its heads over what is fancifully tagged as the War on Terror. The War on Terror seems to be a replacement great cause to replace the war against communism, which has been happily won. It seems that a great many conservatives emotionally need a great Satan to battle and Islamic terrorism, however relatively impotent it is, has become the new dragon to slay.

Folks, we will never have small government if this country remains on permanent crusade to reform the world.

Him (later down, after someone accused him of calling terrorism imaginary - an unfair assertion):

I never wrote that Islamic terrorism is imaginary. But it is a weak force in comparison to the military of the USSR- 4 million man army, 50,000 artillery pieces, 30,000 nuclear warheads, 30,000 tanks, 10,000 modern aircraft, 700 ships, and an elaborate spy and intelligence apparatus.

Islamic terrorism, as despicable as it is, is not capable of destroying American society. Only Americans seem to be able to do that and we're doing a pretty good job. For instance, today more American unborn babies will be butchered than Americans killed on Sept. 11, 2001 or have been killed in Iraq since our invasion nearly four years ago. Americans are a much more lethal force against the American people than any Muslim will ever be.

Me:

"Islamic terrorism is...a weak force in comparison to the military of the USSR [and] is not capable of destroying American society."

With all due respect Derek, that's a highly naive outlook. It's precisely because Islamic terrorists do not drive tanks and warships or launch warheads, or employ an army of 4 million that they are indeed so dangerous. The element of surprise, as wrote Sun-Tzu, is the single greatest advantage any warrior can have. When radar doesn't pick up enemy aircraft or missiles, and when your enemy's uniforms consist of civilian attire, it only takes 19 men to completely disrupt a society's way of life and kill over 3,000 people.

Our military is the most lethal killing force ever assembled - I'll concede that. But you must understand that our military was designed to fight state-sponsored armies, not non-governmental entities like terrorists and insurgents (and yes, there is a difference). Rumsfeld began the transformation of the military to one that is more nimble and able to adapt to insurgency and "small wars" when he took over as SecDef, and the fact completely remaking one of the strongest organizational cultures in the world today took too long led directly to his ouster.

Yes, our military is supremely admirable and I thank each member personally every time I am introduced to one. But our military was not designed to solve every little skirmish all over the world, and that's the fault of a lot of high-ranking pig-heads who were too entrenched in "we've always done it this way" kind of thinking refusing to think outside the proverbial box. If you compare the progress made in the last 5 years of transforming the military culture to any Fortune 500 company which has completely redesigned its corporate culture, the military wins in nearly all respects. But it will take longer than 5 years for our forces to master the skills, tactics, and doctrine in order to become as deft at handling insurgency and small wars as it is at handling large wars.

Derek (and anyone who thinks like Derek), please, please read Imperial Grunts by Robert Kaplan and also Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife by John Nagl. These two books, more than any others that I've read, will open your eyes to a whole new way of looking at - and appreciating - the enormous tasks with which we entrust our armed forces.

Him:

Islam's military achievements are few in modern days. On Sept. 11 they took advantage of lax airline security and killed 3000 Americans. That method will likely never succeed again. They used bombs to blow up 200 in Spain and 70 in Britain. Although that method will almost certainly succeed again, life goes on in Spain and Britain. Tiny and surrounded Israel has pounded every Arab army it has faced and her major opponents- Egypt, Jordan and Syria (albeit grudgingly) have come to terms with the existance of Israel. The United States army has destroyed the army of Iraq twice in twelve years quite handily.

Islam will only succeed by outbreeding the nations of the West, especially those who are stupid enough to allow Islamics to settle in their nations, and not by military means. The lands of Islam are vital to us for its oil, nothing more. Therefore, I suggest that Islam should be quarantined to its region of the globe and the people of Islam who live in the West should be resettled in their orignial homelands. Intercourse between the West and Islam should be kept at a minimum.

Me (realizing that I've engaged an unarmed person in a battle of wits):

"Islam's military achievements are few in modern days." You've got to be kidding me. 2001 and later don't qualify as "modern days"? No wonder I was disappointed when Tito Jackson's rise to greatness wasn't covered in Paul Johnson's book of the same title.

Kidding aside, that's more naive than your first post. IED's that have specially engineered bits of copper alloys that melt at extremely specific high temperatures and re-form themselves in mid-air into an armor-piercing shape is not a significant military achievement?

"[L]ife goes on in Spain and Britain." Well, for all those who didn't die in the bomb blasts, yes - and thankfully, that was indeed the vast, vast majority of inhabitants. And life goes on in the U.S., too, although our quality of life gets eroded with every 'incident' whereupon would-be terrorists devise a new tactic. Bit by bit, unnoticeable at times, but happening nonetheless. Today, it's my cigar lighter being banned from the airlines; tomorrow, it's my Ice Blue Aqua Velva; pretty soon, only nudists will be flying the friendly skies, and considering the size of a lot of air-travelers these days, that's not quite as appealing as it might sound.

"Islam will only succeed by outbreeding the nations of the West, especially those who are stupid enough to allow Islamics to settle in their nations, and not by military means." Then America Alone by Mark Steyn needs to be added to your reading list, because that is already happening in just about every nation in Europe, and the U.S. is hovering at a birthrate that's approximately 2/3 of an eyelash above replacement rate. And the last time I checked, Europe was about the only locale of any semi-reliable (and I'm using that adjective very loosely) military ally that we've got left.

And the kicker: "I suggest that Islam should be quarantined to its region of the globe and the people of Islam who live in the West should be resettled in their orignial homelands. Intercourse between the West and Islam should be kept at a minimum." Well, perhaps my previous offerings to you were in vain; that kind of rhetoric doesn't solve anything, and does nothing but polarize peoples' perspectives and stifle debate. But hey, I harbor no hard feelings - perhaps the next time you and Cosmo Kramer are hanging out at a bigot convention, you can get his autograph for me?

Seriously - where do these people come from?

2/16 UPDATE: Wow. just when I thought the nitwit couldn't display a lower intellect, he surprised me. Check out his retort to my taunting of his bigotry:
Him:

By your last comment, I have deduced that you are a liberal.

Me:

No, moron, I simply don't judge people by their race or religion - I prefer to let their values and morals steer my opinions of them. If you think that the world should live in racial and religious segregation, you're the very definition of a bigot, and I cringe that you are implying that you're a good conservative.

This time he REALLY crossed the line...

2007-02-15T10:15:00.000-06:00

Keith Ellison's staff calls capitol police on Tom Tancredo for (legally) smoking a cigar in his office. As Bugs Bunny would say, "Of course you realize, this means war."

I'll be sending Representative Tancredo a small token of my esteem very shortly - a cigar sampler, from my personal humidor. For any of you out there who would like to do the same (and irk the heck out of Mr. Ellison - its own reward really), here's his office address:

Rep. Tom Tancredo
1130 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515-0606
202.225.7882

If you're not a regular cigar smoker but would like to contribute to this effort, here's a few resources that I recommend:

My local cigar shop: Tobacco Grove
My favorite online outlet: Cigars International
CI's Sister Site: CigarBid.com (an auction site)

"Guaranteed" delivery and snowstorms...

2007-02-15T09:30:00.000-06:00

UPDATE: Be sure to read the "real" updates at the bottom of the post!

ORIGINAL POST
Yesterday being Valentine's Day and all, I placed an order several days ago with a company that has always been easy and impressive to work with, ProFlowers.com. Being an important day for those of us in the 'married' category, I even opted to pay an extra $9.99 to guarantee 2/14 delivery. Enter Mother Nature...

The snowstorms in the Midwest prevented daughterinlawofasillyperson from receiving said order on said date, and as of right now, I have no more information on FedEx's shipment tracking page beyond "Departed Indianapolis: 6:22 AM this morning." Now, brilliant technological achivements of FedEx's distribution channel aside, quite frankly, this just wasn't enough information for me, so I went to my ProFlowers account information page, where I was greeted with the following update:

Certain parts of the country are experiencing extreme weather conditions. We know you are concerned about your flower deliveries.

Now, maybe I'm a bit on the overexpectant side, being an MBA and a former university instructor of Business Ethics (not to mention current peon - and formerly a customer-facing peon - in a corporate environment), but what's the point of a message like that, other than absolving the company of any responsibility? It can reasonably be interpreted as dismissive and condescending, and worst of all, it does absolutely nothing to tell me what in the world they're planning to do to rectify the situation.

Truth be told, I'm semi-occasionally a reasonable person, and I'd understand and probably not throw a big stink if they told me that they weren't refunding my $9.99 'on-time guarantee' surcharge because the weather is beyond their control and those of us in the Upper Midwest should probably be willing to expect a reasonable amount of risk of weather-related delays in mid-February. But put it on your web page for crying out loud!!!

Since they obviously did not, some poor fellow peon in their customer service department needs to deal with my original complaint last night, as well as my suggestion that their leadership team 'cowboy up' and make a public announcement as to what their rectification plan is for this - all during what would have otherwise already been one of their busiest days of the year. They don't need to refund my money (though I'd gladly accept it if they did), but my future as a ProFlowers customer is riding on their leadership's responsibility to make a decision, communicate that decision, and deliver any promises of said decision.

Since I know you're all biting your nails in anticipation of the outcome of this foofaraw, I'll keep you posted...

12:30 PM(ish) Update: For those of you who are just now reading this - first, where the heck have you been!?! Second, DO NOT neglect to read the comments that follow the post! An impressive reply from Hannah at ProFlowers was posted within hours of my initial entry. A company with a corporate conscience strong enough that its employees are actively seeking out Internet buzz regarding a workplace-semi-crisis is a company that deserves my business, and yours too.

2:00 PM(ish) Update: Hannah and I have exchanged a good-spirited volley of emails, and I can assure you that she is a wonderful ambassador for a company that clearly has the right attitude towards its customers. And, daughterinlawofasillyperson received her flowers about 45 minutes ago. Patience is indeed a virtue, as they say, and I've proven (as if there were any doubt) that I'm anything but virtuous... Ah well, I've got a story to tell in the University ranks anyway...

Iraq Resources

2007-02-13T22:03:00.000-06:00

In my book review of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, I said in my "verdict" that if you wanted a book that had more to do with the tactics and/or doctrine of the Iraq situation, there were better resources out there (though I still highly recommend LtESwaK for what its purpose is). Well, the Middle East Forum has compiled a list of books that does just that. I'm not recommending any of these books in particular, since I haven't read anything but excerpts and reviews of any of them, but it's a great resource from a trustworthy source...

I think my dictionary is out-dated

2007-02-09T11:16:00.000-06:00

For those of you who still see nothing but an occasionally-changing logo and a text box when you go to Google, you should try out their "personalized home". With it, you can add your favorite news, entertainment, and blog sites, so you can monitor them from one page instead of navigating to them individually. With that said, I think CNN.com is about to lose their space on my Google landing page...

While I'm certainly not celebrating the death of the mother of a very young girl, I'm not exactly going to be losing sleep over Anna Nicole Smith's passing, either. But I was intrigued when I saw the headline "Anna Nicole charmed us" in CNN's space on my personalized Google page, so I had to check out what bonehead journalist said that. Well, it turns out it was a quote from a collection of reader emails, and a quick perusal of their comments leads me to believe that I don't define a lot of words in the same way as some of these people do. Some of the head-scratchers:

"What will I remember? Her sadness, innocence..." Innocence? She was a flippin' Playmate and a stripper for crying out loud! "Innocence" doesn't really apply in any sense of the word I've ever considered...

"All she wanted was to be left alone..." Hmm. Posing nude, starring in her own reality show, becoming the spokesperson for diet products... How is that wanting to be left alone, exactly?

"Anna wasn't a dumb blonde..." This person apparently never actually watched even 1 minute of her show...

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing personal against Anna Nicole, and I think it's tragic that her daughter will now grow up without a mother, and the death of her son was tragic as well. But there's something missing from a society that thinks choices can be made in a vacuum - a thought that went through my head day before yesterday when I read online about a completely different topic, but one that relates to the above comments in a strange way...

If you haven't heard, one of the storylines for the 2008 presidential campaign trail is going to be that pretty much all serious candidates will have "campaign bloggers". John Edwards recently hired, then seemingly fired, then seemingly re-hired, a blogger with a, um, dicey past. Amanda Marcotte is a far-left blogger, and was brought on to the Edwards campaign last week. In her "blog life" prior to signing on with Edwards, she wrote some really foul stuff. I won't get into too many details of it - since a quick google on her name will produce ample reading if you are even remotely interested - but suffice it to say that she is highly irreverent. The most obvious example of this is in her rant about Catholic opposition to birth control, when she said something about the "hot, sticky, white goo" that the Holy Spirit impregnated the Virgin Mary with. Yeah, it's foul.

In any event, on the John Edwards campaign blog site, the "nutroots" gang is showing that their dictionaries and mine don't match up, either. In some of the comments to the Marcotte story on the site, they're saying things (regarding his apparent un-firing of Marcotte) like:

"I like that Senator Edwards intends to give his bloggers a fair shake" and "Thank you for giving these bloggers a chance." - Huh? Seems to me they had a chance to be reasonable BEFORE they got hired into a national campaign for our nation's highest office. I'm all for forgiveness and giving second chances, but these people apparently don't understand that peoples' reputations follow them (and rightly so). If blogging is to be your adopted profession, it stands to reason that your past blogs should be fair game in the evaluation of your skills and demeanor. It's like saying the "innocent" young ladies in the "Girls Gone Wild" videos should somehow be shocked when their applications for Big Brothers/Big Sisters get shot down.

"I noted on Amanda's MySpace page that she lists herself as an 'atheist'. I hope that she is being truthful that no harm was meant to persons of 'Faith'" - Again, huh? Whether she's an atheist or not is no big deal to me, but if she expects tolerance of her chosen belief construct from me, then I expect the same from her. Projecting porn images onto the immaculate conception doesn't exactly portray respect and tolerance for Christianity. That's like saying "Hey buddy, I meant no harm or disrespect when I called your mother a dirty prostitute. We're good, right?"

"Well done Senator! You have dealt with this issue in a measured, compassionate manner, while simultaneously highlighting the inappropriate and hysterical nature of the right wing generated criticism" - One final "huh?" on this one. "Inappropriate...nature of the...criticism." This one is beyond the pale. Yes it's true that Marcotte herself is not running for office, but she has chosen to become an active part of a candidate's campaign. Now I'm not saying that every donor to a campaign should have his/her past rooted through to see if there's any dirt, but bloggers inherently understand (or at least should inherently understand) that the Internet is accessible, easy to scan, and in some ways (cached Google pages, for example) permanent. It's like saying that if I, as a data miner, chose to publish my SQL scripts out to the Internet, attaching my name to them, and then applied for a job, touting my internet-shared scripts, but then was upset if someone criticized them, saying "It's inappropriate that you should use those things to judge me - they're in my past."

Seriously, when are we going to expect people to live with (and deal with) the choices they've made?

A beautiful day (to be a Redskins fan)

2007-02-09T09:08:00.000-06:00

I can't tell you how excited I am about the hiring of Wade Phillips in Dallas. The guy is not a terrible coach (45-38 as head coach of Denver and Buffalo), but considering Norv Turner and Bill Cowher were also available (yes, I realize Cowher just "retired" - but just watch, he'll be back in the coaching ranks within 2 or 3 seasons), Bum's kid was a fortunate hire for the Redskins' rival.

Why do I consider Norv Turner to be superior to Phillips, especially after the disaster of a season he had as head coach of the Raiders in 2005? I'll tell you. Where is Turner now? He's the offensive coordinator for the Niners. Ever hear of a guy named Frank Gore? As in, the guy no one outside of a fantasy football league had ever heard of who wound up leading the NFC in rushing - yeah that guy. How about Alex Smith, who nearly doubled his passer rating in 2006 compared to his debut 2005 season? Do I, as a 'Skins fan, really want him leading the development of Tony Romo and Marion Barber?

Good, glad to know we're in agreement now...

UPDATE: The folks at CNN/SI.com apparently agree with me on this one: The Norv Factor Photo Gallery.

Another brilliant observation...

2007-02-08T16:13:00.000-06:00

...this time, over lunch in the skyway downtown.

A couple of co-workers and I went to Subway for lunch today. I happened to be the last one to order out of our little group, and as the Sandwich Artist was preparing my meatball sub, the lady behind me in line blurts out, "Wow, that looks good enough to eat."

The sardonic butthead in me really wanted to make some kind of "jerk store" comment to her, but I begrudgingly bit my tongue and pretended like I didn't hear it (in part, admittedly, because I couldn't come up with any quick zingers). Please feel free to use the comments to suggest little beauties that you might have used had you been presented with that little comedic gem...

On a somewhat related note, an opportunity to use one of my favorite oxymorons presented itself the other day. I was playing Tonk at the cigar shop, and one guy was having a pretty amazing run of luck. An away-from-the-table observer asked him what his secret was, and the guy said "I always plays well when I'm smoking a Fuente."

Unable to resist the urge to throw out one of my favorite jokes, I deadpanned, "Superstitions are unlucky." I swear I heard crickets chirping. Am I the only one who thinks that's funny?

God bless the LRT

2007-02-01T17:00:00.000-06:00

OK, so the title of this post may seem to go against my incessant debasing of all things publicly-funded, but occasionally, a rare gem presents itself in the unlikeliest of places, and I just had to share...

For those of you who don't know me, I live in South Minneapolis, and I take the Hiawatha Light Rail Train to work in downtown Mpls most mornings. Usually, my fellow passengers don't affect my mood one way or the other, but when they do, (shocker!) it's usually not toward the positive side. From the rube wearing the trucker hat that read 'Hey F--- A--, Buy Me a Beer', to the ever-growing number of people who read silently to themselves with their lips forming each word, to the dastardly open-mouthed gum chewers, who inevitibly have had their annoying habit confounded by some dreadful snake/cow tongue-wagging curse - if they catch my attention, it's usually irksome.

But today was different. Maybe it's just me, and some of you may think my sense of humor head-shakingly twisted when you read this, but I'm still chuckling to myself now when I replay this scene in my head:

It was between 10 and 15 degrees with light snow falling and no appreciable wind when I left the office at around 4:30 today. Cold, granted, but not ridiculous by any means.

As I was boarding the train, a cutish 20-something woman with a male co-worker close behind her got into the train as well. With as much melodrama as she could muster, the young lady acted out her best 'hypothermia' charade, and gasped, "I can't feel my lungs!"

Amazing scoop by CNN! [/sarcasm]

2007-01-26T13:18:00.000-06:00

Wow. The brilliant journalists at CNN.com are right on top of things, as usual. One of their top stories yesterday was about Muslim taxi drivers at Minneapolis/St. Paul airport refusing to transport customers carrying alcohol. If this story sounds vaguely familiar to you, that's because I posted about it here, almost three and a half months ago.

The NRSC Pledge

2007-01-26T12:32:00.000-06:00

I've taken the pledge. Dean Barnett over at Hugh Hewitt's blog says it better than I could anyway, so I won't elaborate too much. But, in a nutshell, this petition is an attempt to encourage wavering Republican senators (including mine, Senator Norm Coleman) not to support the Biden or Warner Resolutions opposing "the surge".

Note that I, myself, have expressed some doubt about the efficacy of the surge, but it's the best plan to come out of Washington yet, and that's not what this pledge is about anyway. This pledge is about telling the GOP that if they're going to abandon principle, the grassroots money is going to dry up. The war in Iraq was the defining issue of the 2006 elections, and it likely will be the defining issue of the 2008 elections as well. Political ass-covering has no place anywhere near this issue. If you vote for either resolution, fine - that's your stance. I'll be sending no money to your campaign. If you vote against them, then you're on the record supporting the President's strategy, saying you hope it will work, as I have.

Political doubletalk is, in my opinion, what caused the losses in the '06 elections. Senator Coleman, don't play that game.

(BTW, I'm #18247!)

UPDATE: A fellow petition signer puts it very, very well:

The Senate Foreign Relations committee voted near-unanimously in approving General Petraeus as head of the Iraq operations. He was very clear in his support for Bush’s plan of sending 20,000 additional troops; that the resolutions under consideration to the contrary would harm troop efforts and emboldened the enemy. In other words, more were likely to die if either the Biden or Warner resolutions were past...The Senators voted in favor of Petraeus.

Then they ignored everything he told them.

This is the political doubletalk I'm referring to...

The proposal no one's talking about...

2007-01-24T11:54:00.000-06:00

OK, so despite my low expectations of the SOTU address (which were wholly met, by the way), I watched, listened, analyzed, and thought about what was said. First, some general commentary - Bush was his usual self in the speech: relaxed, seemingly candid, generally uninspiring, and thoroughly lacking in his explanation of the dire need for victory in Iraq (for a great summation, go here).

Also, while most of the media coverage talked about the "cool" reception to the President, it sure took a long time for him to walk up to the podium and out of the chambers afterwards, didn't it? And I particularly liked Dennis "as far left as they come" Kucinich sidling for face time with W on both the in- and the out-trip.

Remember the good old days when the guests of honor were actually worked INTO the speech? Clinton was a master of this, as was Reagan (who started the tradition, by the way). Bush simply went through his speech, then in a "oh, yeah" kind of way, introduced the guests. Strange. The choice of guests was very good, and easily could have been worked into the body of the speech. Mutombo could have been honored during the points on combating AIDS and malaria in Africa. The Baby Einstein lady would have fit perfectly after the sentence, "This economy is on the move - and our job is to keep it that way, not with more government but with more enterprise."

The president's speechwriters need to understand that when you have someone who's as lacking in speech-giving-charisma as Bush is, little points like this matter, and they're not good at it. One more example (I've given many in this space) of the GOP being poor marketers of their messages.

In between data pulls at work this morning, I've been perusing the commentary on the speech, and while it's predictable that most of the pundits are discussing Iraq, I find it interesting that I've seen NOTHING on the Civilian Reserve Corps proposal.

"A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. And it would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time."

If something like this were to come to fruition, I'd SERIOUSLY consider signing up. I've given fleeting thought to joining the traditional armed forces, but my, um, gratuitous midsection and my 32 years make me an undesirable candidate, and I'd be hard-pressed to leave my young daughters for combat (which, by the way, gives me even more admiration for those people who DO sign up, even with young families). But a civilian corps? I'm in. That is, if they have need for a data analyst/metrics designer/report writer/data miner.

I don't think this idea is being touted as much as it should be. For starters, there are a lot of jobs in the military (especially the logistical ones) that don't really require military training to accomplish, and arguably, can be done better by people with corporate experience. Witness Katrina: what organization was the first one in with trucks carrying water, food, clothing, and medical supplies? Not the Red Cross. Not the National Guard. Wal-Mart.

Plus, given the challenges that the Army has faced in meeting recruiting targets (not an emergency, but with a call for almost 100,000 more? that's a big challenge - and as an aside, why are the other branches meeting targets? the Army needs to re-think its recent marketing messages), easing the burden by "outsourcing" non-combat positions to civilians is a great way to draw people like me, who have desire to contribute but aren't good candidates for combat, into the mix.

Here's to hoping more details on this proposal come to light during the annual 'post-SOTU road trip'...

UPDATE: I had meant to talk a bit more on the Civilian Reserve Corps, but my job interrupted me (hate it when that happens!). At any rate, another benefit that such a Corps would provide to the military is a desperately needed injection of minds and bodies who haven't been brought up through the ranks. Almost by definition, all top-ranking military leaders began in the lowest levels of their respective branches (or at a military academy), so the military culture is embedded deep within them by the time they rise through the ranks. This is not bad on its face, as a strong organizational culture is one crucial factor to an organization achieving its goals. However, there is something to be said for the injection of fresh ideas in the organizational Rolodex, and while the military reserves system provides some of that, it's probably not sufficient, especially given that a lot of reservists are former enlistees themselves.

For example, as a former grad-school recruiter, I used to work with a lot of ex-GI's who were looking to cash in on their GI Bill education benefits. When we'd work on filing all the necessary paperwork, I became quite familiar with the term "Army Standard Time". Definition: if any semi-smoothly-running corporation could process a similar item in, say, a week, you could pretty much count on no less than 12 weeks for the Army to do a corresponding function. Corporate-types tend to be very good at recognizing inefficiencies and streamlining processes to reduce turnaround time. An injection of that kind of thinking could do the military a lot of good...

It's been a while, I know...

2007-01-23T09:02:00.000-06:00

I guess I've been proverbially "busy"...

Here's a quick need to read - shocking, I didn't see anything about this on any news channel, and I'll wager that I won't. 600 Sadr troops captured

Quick thoughts on the last month's world events:

- Missouri kidnappings. OK, so I usually avoid any "news" stories that have the potential to appear on Greta Van Susteren or any Geraldo-related show, but why in the world does anyone sit in wonderment about why the Devlin boy "didn't try to escape". Fortunately, I've never been in a situation that even remotely resembles what he went through, but 2 reasons come to mind with relatively little preponderance: fear (no doubt the kidnapper gave him grisly details about what would happen to him and his family should he try to escape) and shame (a teenage boy who being sexually abused by a man is bad enough, considering that most victims of sex-based crimes need years of therapy to stop blaming themselves, but on top of that, who knows what kind of compromising video or photos the kidnapper took and threatened to post all over the internet). Seriously, what is hard to understand about that?

- The "surge". Can we call it what it is? An escalation? Seriously, this word-gaming crap has got to stop. Pre-owned (used) cars. Climate change (global warming, global cooling, el Nino, etc.). Redeployment (troop withdrawal). Just call it what it is and move on. If your best justification for your stance is to come up with a descriptor that doesn't carry connotational baggage, then you'd probably better shore up your talking points.

As for the surge itself, I'm not sure it's going to work. I DO like the strategy change - in its essence, it's the one advocated by John Nagl in "Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife". Obviously, the tactics need to adjust to meet the challenges posed by different weaponry, different terrain, different culture, IED's, etc., but "separating the fish from the water" and then keeping them separate was a common theme in the book. The strategy outlined by Bush is strikingly similar. I'm just not sure if 20,000 or so troops will be enough to do it. It takes a lot of manpower to hold and maintain security over cleared areas...

Given the former operational strategy (conducting search-and-destroy missions, and responding to specific security breaches), the troop levels were very adequate. From the analysis I've read, to effectively carry out the current strategy would require around 80,000 more, not 20. I know that 80,000 would be completely unpalatable to an already-reluctant (if not downright hostile) domestic electorate, but you can't go in half-assed (or quarter-assed, as the math seems to work out in this instance). Obviously, I'm hoping it works and the end goal of a self-sustaining, secure Iraq is the result, but I'm concerned that the political arguments were made more loudly than the tactical ones. Time will tell, I guess...

- The first 100 hours. Nothing terribly unexpected here - I'm predicting that the bulk of what got passed will stall in Senate (or Senatorial committees), and if they do happen to make it through, Bush might actually pull his veto pen out of whatever orifice he's had it stuck up for the last 6 years.

One piece of legislation that needs to be talked about more in the national discussion, though, is the slashing of student loan interest rates. They currently sit between 6 and 7 percent - a pretty cheap loan - but Pelosi and Company voted to cut it to 3.4 percent (of course, banks wouldn't offer the loans at such a ridiculously low sum, so federal loan guarantees and subsidization dollars come along with the legislation, meaning that you and I are footing more of the bill for anyone and everyone who takes a Stafford loan). Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want to see the Stafford loan program axed completely, but such a ridiculously cheap loan is not the answer.

Besides the "spreading the burden on John Q. Taxpayer" issue, simple economics makes this a dangerous and short-sighted policy. If you don't know how supply and demand works yet, get "Applied Economics" or even "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell. If you do understand, then consider that excessive subsidiziation is, in effect, a lowering of the price of a product. That leads to increased demand, which leads to higher prices. What happens? Colleges and universities (especially the for-profit ones - full disclosure: I work in this industry) will raise tuition - because they can. And the net effect is that, long-term, Congress won't help the low-income students who "wouldn't be able to go to college otherwise." What they will do is put people into higher-risk situations than they otherwise would have been willing to take on (isn't that what interest rates on borrowed money are all about?).

This is no different than the so-called "housing bubble". We've had artificially low interest rates for the better part of the last 10 years, and we've seen skyrocketing home prices and the advent of 125% equity loans as a result. But now that interest rates are on the rise again, monthly mortgage payments are going up (even with housing prices staying relatively flat), which means that more and more people are stuck in their homes, because they won't sell their home with their inflated second mortgage and wind up OWING money at closing rather than GETTING it. I'm no Nostradamus, but the future of mortgage foreclosures and student loan defaults should be relatively clear to most people. It's time for government to stop meddling with interest rates and just let the business cycle (boom and bust) run its course. Americans (myself included) could use the wake-up call of a tough economy to remind them of how good they've really got it...

- State of the Union. Probably nothing new in this - the media all seem to get an almost-final draft of the speech a day or two ahead of time anyway, which means the pundits have already started analyzing it. The surge, yada yada. Calls for bipartisanship, yada yada. Threatening vetoes (although I'll guarantee he won't actually use the "v" word), yada yada...

I'm a big traditions guy, but might it be time to stop with all the pomp of the SOTU address? Other than watching the "eye-rolling-as-dissent" and "nope-I'm-not-going-to-stand-and-clap-for-that-sentence" childishness, there's really been nothing new revealed in any SOTU speech that I can recall.

- Super Bowl XLI. I can't tell you how thankful I am that the Patriots didn't win. Not that I don't like watching Brady or that I don't respect Belichick's coaching genius. I just don't think I could stomach 2 blaring weeks of "the '85 Bears vs. Patriots rematch".

Granted, I like the 1-Sunday layoff between the Championship Games and the Super Bowl that allows the little bumps and bruises to heal, but the "Jerome Bettis Homecoming" storyline from last year might have snapped a neuron or two in me. I can't handle what the extra week of coverage does for the media's tunnel vision on such a mundane theme. Of course, we're already seeing the "can Peyton win the big one" question becoming the recurring theme of this year's game, but at least that's game-related. Does the fact that Jerome Bettis had 100 family members in the stands really matter to anyone but Jerome? Does a game played 21 years ago really have an emotional effect on the players today? No. So can we get back to our regular routine of cliche-ridden analysis and talk about "Peyton playing within himself" or "Rex just not making enough mistakes to lose" please? Thanks.

One other note and then I'll shut up. Bill Belichick is absolutely slovenly. Now, this is coming from a guy who breaks his company's dress code almost daily by wearing jeans instead of khakis or slacks, but BB's appearance on the sideline is a disgrace. I wish I'd have had tickets to the game this past weekend, because I'll guarantee I'd have made a sign that the CBS cameras would have shown at least once. My sign would have read:

Can't
Belichick wear a
Suit?

What I'm reading - December '06 part 1

2006-12-27T21:45:00.000-06:00

As you may have noticed, I've neglected miserably this portion of my blog, and since the cigar shop closed at 9, the lovely ladies of casa de sillyperson are out of town for the week, and the mid-weekly installment of the Mo-Facky Poker Club was pre-empted by the host's attendance of a gig for his son's buddy's band, I guess I'll dust off the ol' keyboard and do a small handful of book reviews.

The first is one I picked up after reading a book I consider required, Imperial Grunts by Robert Kaplan (review here). Kaplan often referenced "Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malay and Vietnam" by John A. Nagl in "Grunts", and given the current situation in Iraq, I figured a primer on counterinsurgency would be a useful volume to grab and read. I was right.

Published in 2002, the book is an edited-for-general-consumption version of Nagl's doctoral thesis at Oxford (Lieutenant Colonel Nagl is a Military Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, a West Point grad, and a Rhodes Scholar - he also led a tank platoon in the 1st Cavalry Division in Desert Storm and was Operations Officer of Task Force 1-34 Armor during the current Iraq war), and while you can sense the roots of an academic paper, it's actually quite readable (one of the great things about well-written academic papers - especially doctoral ones - is that they start with the very foundations of the theories they're working from and build from there). Nagl uses two differing but similar constructs of what defines a "learning organization" in the corporate/organizational world, and marries them into his own model to deconstruct the US's experience in Vietnam and Britain's experience in their own counterinsurgency (CI) ops in Malaya in the 1950's. The model essentially boils down to two sets of five questions - the second, and to me, more useful set is:

1. Did the [CI] doctrine adopted achieve national goals in the conflict?
2. Did the army contribute to the setting of realistic national goals in the conflict?
3. Did the military accept subordination to political objectives?
4. Did the military use the minimum amount of force necessary to accomplish the mission?
5. Did the military structure itself in an appropriate manner to deal with the threat at hand?

Nagl's deconstruction makes a case that the Brits could answer 'yes' to all five questions (on both models) by the end of their (successful) CI campaign; the US in Vietnam would answer 'no' to all. The only qualified exception is #4 above - but the problem, as Nagl puts it, was that the overuse of heavy firepower in Vietnam instead of a more unified approach with the South Vietnam resistance was counterproductive, both politically AND militarily. And that's essentially the issue that's leading to the bleak outlook in Iraq today: our military was designed for nation-to-nation, army-to-army combat, and was (and largely is) led by generals who see warfare only in those terms. The political infighting between Rumsfeld/Bush and the joint chiefs like Peter Schoomaker (who, incidentally, wrote the foreword to the paperback version of Learning to Eat Soup...), is a microcosm of the issues the US military is confronting in trying to change the organizational culture of our military to lead successful military campaigns against non-state actors, which, Iran and North Korea aside, is the type of operation the US will likely be faced with in the coming years.

I'll leave the details of the history, tactics, and conclusions out here, because there is no way to do justice in such a small space. There are, however, two passages that I want to pass along that stood out as particularly relevant to today's CI struggles in Iraq and Afghanistan (and brewing elsewhere, too). The first is a quote from an anonymous (no!) senior US Army officer circa 1968, as the US was realizing that their efforts in Vietnam were less than fruitful: "I'll be damned if I permit the United States Army, its institutions, its doctrine, and its traditions to be destroyed just to win this lousy war." Read that quote again. This pigheaded man helped shape policy that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of our troops, but was unbending in his unwillingness to cede operational and political authority to platoon leaders and/or South Vietnamese leaders in order to accomplish the country's stated goals.

Now, those of you left-of-center-type readers, I know what you're thinking. You want to draw comparisons to the "stay the course" politico-babble of Bush and Rummy. But get real. There have been numerous instances of top leadership changing tactics and policies to adapt to the political climate. My take: the problem is, they're adapting their stances to the domestic political climate, not the Iraqi socio-military-political climate, which ultimately is what needs to be done (in the interest of time and my blood pressure, I won't get into the more publicized recommendations from the Iraq Study Group here).

The other highly memorable passage from the book actually comes from the preface (which was written in 2005 and speaks directly to the book's application to the Iraq situation), and is gloomy when you apply it to the domestic socio-political climate we see daily in mainstream media:

The 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review specifically evaluates the ability of the Department of Defense to prevail in irregular warfare. However, the fight to create a secure, democratic Iraq that does not provide a safe haven for terror is not primarily a military task. Counterinsurgency requires the integration of all elements of national power - diplomacy, information operations, intelligence, financial, and military - to achieve the predominantly political objectives of establishing a stable national government that can secure itself against internal and external threats.

Let's dissect those 5 elements of national power and the impact on them that the political left and the mainstream media (MSM) has had recently:

Diplomacy: John Kerry gives a speech to already-fiery imams in Saudi Arabia where he (unfoundedly) accuses troops of "terrorizing" Iraqi women and children by ransacking their homes in the dead of night. The Iraq Study Group asserts that Iran and Syria are our partners in being committed to building a stable Iraq, and their interests in that regard supercede their hatred of America (which, lest ye forget, Ahmadinejad still refers to as "the great Satan"). You can boast the "bi-partisanship" of the ISG all you want, but regarding all cultures as equal, even when one culture has every-Friday pep rallies in which "Death to America!" is the cheer du jour, is largely a leftist belief.

Information Operations: The only information the MSM seems to have an interest in disseminating are our own tactics at executing the Global War on Terror, whose primary front is currently in Iraq, like it or not (pace the disclosure of the financial transaction monitoring program, the disclosure of domestic wiretapping of international calls, and the disclosure of call-pattern data mining by our domestic intelligence services). When do we get the scoop on enemy information ops? Oh yeah, when our journalists are actually allowed to (a) see something other than the balconies of their hotels, (b) tag along with troops other than coalition forces, or (c) do some investigative journalism of enemy info-ops that aren't spoon-fed by the local regimes or government-controlled media outlets of those countries.

Intelligence: There are hundreds of boxes of untranslated documents seized from the Hussein regime's catacombs, and the government's response is to have their appalingly low number of translators skim them to see if there's anything really juicy in them, and if there's not, they post them on the web for the world to see, and for good-hearted Arab-speaking volunteers to translate them for us. I won't pin this shortcoming entirely on the political left, but Reagan and Bush I were largely pre-occupied with Communism-containment, not the Arab threat. Clinton, what were you pre-occupied with? Never mind. Again, being pre-occupied with one obvious threat is no excuse for the failure of Reagan/Bush to foresee the rising Islamist threat (which, for all intents and purposes, began with Khomeni's rise to power in the late 70's), but the Clintonian slashing of defense and intelligence budgets prevented us from making up for lost time in training a few hundred people in the fine art of translating the language of our smoldering enemies (note to self: learn Chinese, Arabic, Korean, and the Venezuelan dialect of Spanish).

Financial: See information ops, above. Also think about the fact that some of the loudest rhetoric you hear about energy policy is the failure of the Bush Administration and Attorney General Gonzalez to prosecute and/or investigate price-gouging at the pumps. Then think about the Dem-led kibosh of drilling for our own oil in ANWR. Now consider the fact that we've pumped trillions upon trillions of dollars (that's trillion, with a t) into the Saudi economy for their oil, because we're too worried about inconveniencing caribou to realize that the primary source of all our Islamo-fascist problems is really the Saudi-funded Wahabbi sect of Islam, whose radicalism is Saudi Arabia's true chief export - their export of oil merely bankrolls the radicalism.

Military: It remains to be seen how committed Robert Gates is to the re-vamping of our military to be better at fighting so-called "small" wars, as Rumsfeld was. The other thing Gates should probably keep in mind is that the Department of State should be viewed as a partner in small and/or long wars, not a rival. As Nagl's book illustrates (and as Kaplan pointed out often in Imperial Grunts), too often, the State Department is viewed as having goals that conflict with the military's goals, but ultimately that's a fallacious and dangerous chip to have on a nation's metaphorical shoulder. The goal is to assist in the building of a stable Iraq, to the larger end of providing a Muslim anchor to a more stable Middle East (Israel is stable, but obviously unable to assert much will over its religio-socio-economic enemies). The Departments of State AND Defense are mere tools on the way to that end, not ends in themselves. This, also, is not a left- or a right-problem, but tying the hands of the military and forcing the State Department to pursue meaningless cease fires all in the name of "troop withdrawal deadlines" and "exit strategies" is a left-of-center push.

So 3 of the 5 elements are largely being undermined by the political left, and the other 2 have underpinnings of leftist undermine...ment. And all 5 are equally critical to successful counterinsurgency operations... Stalin had a phrase to describe this phenomenon we're seeing from America's and Europe's political left: "useful idiots".

Verdict: good book, and certainly an interesting read. If you're interested in improving your grasp of America's military history in Vietnam, and/or want to begin an understanding of a small component of British military , it's a fantastic place to start. If you're interested in more modern application of military history to the Iraq problem, this is a great addition, but it's hardly the place to start.

OK, so I have 3 more installments of "what I'm reading - December" to do, but it's 11:30 now, this post is way, way longer than I ever intended it to be, and I need to sleep. More in the next few days...

The good, the bad, and the flippin' hilarious

2006-12-20T22:05:00.000-06:00

I tend to avoid watching my late local news, mainly because of the fact that no matter what cataclysmic event happened in the world that day, the local stations always seem to think next week's weather potentialities should nonetheless receive top billing. Or the feature stories about the elementary school class that built a birdhouse for a nursing home (of course, nothing like that ever happens locally, but apparently po-dunk towns in rural Pennsylvania have an overflow of budding aviary carpenters).

But I happened to watch Fox9News tonight, and two stories in particular caught my attention (plus, I added a third - the good - just so I wouldn't seem like a complete scrooge in this post, and because my sleep-deprived self couldn't come up with anything more clever than the title I settled on, so I needed one more).

First, the good. Brad Radke's retirement. No, the fact that he's retiring isn't particularly good - he is. What a class guy. You almost never heard him speak to reporters, but when you did, it was positive, humble, and intelligent. He was pretty inconsistent over the past couple of seasons, battling a variety of injuries, but he was a solid clubhouse presence, and a few seasons ago he was a great anchor for an inexperienced starting rotation. He slunk into the shadows of Johann and Liriano these past couple of seasons, but he gave solid innings, and no doubt passed along a lot of veteran knowledge. MLB, and pro sports in general, could use more guys like him in their ranks.

Now the bad. One of the feature stories tonight was about a local organization donating a bunch of money and dog food to a local chapter of Meals On Wheels. No, that's not bad in itself, but hang on. It seems that there was a bit of a murmur around the Cities that a lot of M.O.W. recipients had reported still being hungry, despite receiving their donated meals. The problem? They weren't eating their food - they were feeding it to their pets. Now, I don't have a problem with that per se, but it just seems to me that if you're passing on feeding yourself in order to give a meal to Ol' Roy, you just flat ain't that hungry, and I'm guessing there are probably more than a few local families who would have gladly taken it and fed it to human mouths. Again, don't get me wrong, I don't want to see Sparky starve, I just think more than a handful of M.O.W. donors might feel a bit disconcerted that their donations were being eaten by animals, not humans. Am I missing something?

OK - best for last. In the midst of all the hullabaloo about the War on Christmas and the degeneration of society, comes a semi-harmless prank that's original, creative, and downright gut-splittingly funny. If you can't find the humor in this, no matter what your take on the War on Christmas, you need to loosen up.

It seems that 2 days before Christmas, 2005, a Buffalo, New York family's baby Jesus statue went missing. The statue-nappers left a note saying that it would be returned in 3 days, only it wasn't. Days, weeks, then months went by, and still no statue. But then in August, the statue reappeared on the family's front porch, complete with a photo album entitled "The Baby Jesus Chronicles." The pranksters had taken pictures of the statue in a multitude of locations: on the Rip Van Winkle Bridge in upstate New York, in front of a mental institution, in someone's kitchen - posing like he was stirring brownie batter, and in a camp chair in front of a campfire - complete with a Dixie cup of some lovely beverage in the armrest. The statue-nappers left a letter along with the album, noting that, "we are simply a group of young adults who wished to show the baby Jesus a better life than he would have seen cooped up in an attic crawl space. He has traveled over counties and states, met people and animals alike. We have done our best to show the baby Jesus the many glorious aspects of our world."

I don't care who you are - that's funny stuff. I would have preferred that they wait until the day after Christmas before taking it, but minus the angst that the family felt for a few months, all's well that ends well, and this family has got a story that tops just about anyone's at cocktail parties for a lifetime.

Merry Christmas.

Need to read (in a way)

2006-12-12T16:44:00.000-06:00

I could care less if you read the following linked article or not, but I just wanted to make a quick point regarding it. The article is from CNN.com, and its title is Blood diamonds: Miners risk lives for chance at riches. It was listed as a top story on CNN.com on 12/12/06 - no doubt an attempt to cash in on the hubbub surrounding Leonardo DiCaprio's new movie "Blood Diamond".

What's my point? The diamond trade is by no means a new industry, and the practice of exploiting poor Africans to mine and/or pan for the gems is also not new. But now, because of a Hollywood feature, it's suddenly front-page news to CNN (and, presumably, many other news outlets).

Think about that the next time you see an item on the "news" that seems a bit out of place. Hollywood's ability to influence the public's conversation is extraordinary, and like any decent politician knows: the ability to steer the debate toward topics you favor is a key asset in winning hearts and minds...

Disclaimer: this is not in any way a slam on CNN - all news outlets do this (how else would Greta van Susteren have her own 1-hour primetime show?). My point is: would this article have been considered by any major news agency as 'front-page-worthy' were it not for the DiCaprio flick?

Prager update

2006-12-05T01:00:00.000-06:00

UPDATE:Prager wrote his own response to critics - it's only fair to include it here, before my commentary (written before I saw the linked article.

Previously written entry:

I heard a half-hour or so of the re-broadcast of today's Dennis Prager radio show, and also caught the spot of him on Hannity and Colmes last week. Here's what's been transpiring in the Prager flap since my last post on this topic:

First, he (and I!) were mistaken; the oath of office is taken en masse, with all the other incoming freshman Congresspeople, so one's hand is actually not on any book during the swearing in itself. Rather, individual legislators have a photo-op afterwards where they strike the oath-pose, and it's during that symbolic photo-op where they place their hands on a holy book. This is where Ellison is talking about using a Koran instead of a bible.

When this was pointed out by a caller to his show today, Prager took the stance of (paraphrasing here), "Well, because it's symbolic and not a strict religious ritual, that's why it's important for him to follow the symbol that's been established in Congressional tradition." When the caller retorted that if that's the case, they should place their hand on a copy of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or even the Magna Carta, Prager did make a reasonable point: (again paraphrasing) "those three documents didn't create the Judeo-Christian tradition present in our culture at the time of our nation's founding, they reflected it; the Bible is [and this point is pretty air-tight - see below] the true source document for our system of government and the founders notion of the nature of human rights.

Second (and in a rare moment of brilliant segue on my part), there's been a lot of talk by people opposed to Prager's opinion on this matter (on both the left and the right), and it's for the most part been healthy. However, for (mostly leftist) people to say that our founders were secular deists is complete fallacy. Before you swallow this tripe wholesale, let's break apart those words.

Secular: adj. of or pertaining to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred.

Deist: n. one who practices deism (deism: n. The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation).

So, essentially a "secular deist" is someone who subscribes to Neitzsche's statement that "God is dead." OK. So explain to me how a secular deist could give this speech, which contains the following passages:

"it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour"

"acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God"

"unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence"

"beseech Him to...increase [the knowledge] of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best."

Or explain to me how a bunch of secular deists would sign a founding document that contained such passages as:

"appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions"

"with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence"

So all this 'secular deists' talk is crap - plain and simple. Even Ben Franklin, widely considered to be the least religious of the founding fathers, spoke and wrote of a God who is actively interested in His creation. So the people who are trying to say "religion doesn't belong in the political arena - period - because our founders weren't even religious" is a bunch of hooey and anyone with Internet access and the spelling wherewithal to type "google.com" should know better.

But back to the point - Prager seems to be softening his stance an eency-weency, teeny-tiny bit, going from (once again paraphrasing) "we'll decide what book you can and should use" to "this is the book we use by tradition, I'm urging you to stick with our tradition". Either he's aware that his initial stance was flawed, or he was extremely unclear in his article that caused the flap in the first place (and as I said with John Kerry's comments, no one but he himself can know for sure which it is, so any person who claims to know exactly what his intent was is not truthful). Either way, Prager is still wrong on this issue, in my opinion. However, being wrong in opinion doesn't give people license to put forth wrong ideas and assert them as fact - to me, holding a wrong opinion is much less damaging and dangerous to society at large than putting forth fallacies and holding them out to be fact.

Not to beat a dead horse, but evaluate for yourself which comment causes more lasting and widespread harm:

"I don't think he should use a Koran at his swearing-in ceremony, here's my reasoning, and I hope he'll adopt my point of view."

"The founders believed that God abandoned us long ago, so we should ensure that religion has no place in the public forum now."

One thing that got Dennis in trouble on this issue is the fact that (and he often points this out on his show) he doesn't always talk every topic into the ground - he leaves it to his listeners (and, presumably, his readers, if he takes the same attitude into his writings as he does with his radio show) to think through to the implications of what he's saying. And on this issue, I'm finding that he's only giving full context to his comments now that he's been (correctly, in my opinion) called to the carpet for them. As much as I hate it when pundits and politicos take the "you're taking it out of context" alibi, now that he's adding context, Dennis shouldn't be in quite as big a hole as he's found himself in now. But it's still his own fault for not giving some of that context in his article. If he couldn't fit it in given his word limits, he should have chosen a different topic.

I wish Dennis would just acknowledge that he was misguided/wrong/choose-your-own-adjective, but knowing the way he thinks (and how carefully he formulates his words before speaking them), I don't think he will.

That said, one thing that's applicable here is something Dennis often speaks of on his show: the concept of a "moral bank account". This Prager-ism essentially means that, barring an egregious injury to someone (such as murder or other grave injustice), peoples' actions and words should buy them a certain amount of forgiveness when something comes around where they don't behave or speak so admirably. The wisdom and clarity that Dennis normally brings to the conversation should be remembered here. The calls for him to be banished from the US Holocaust Memorial Board are knee-jerk opportunism at its worst - someone who has devoted his life to advocating for the Jewish community, bridging religious and racial gaps in our society, and in general speaking wisely on grave moral issues, should have plenty left in his account even after such a poor choice of moral stances to take.

So help me God, I rest my case.

One year (almost)...

2006-12-05T00:14:00.000-06:00

Well, it's been one year less 2 days since I started this adventure into blogdom; since I can't guarantee that I'll have time to write anything on Thursday (happy hour for a co-worker who just got a new gig inside the company), I'll do my anniversary celebration/soliloquy now. So what have I accomplished in 78 posts and probably around 550 "hits"?

Well, for starters, I've thoroughly identified 2 of my best friends as my political antitheses, and yet somehow we're still on amiable speaking terms. Those of you who know me well know that that in and of itself is quite an accomplishment - probably ought to chalk it up to the tolerance of Josh and Matt rather than to my Boltonesque diplomacy skills.

Second, I've discovered (thanks to my Bozeman-bound brother) that I'm no religious scholar. Shocking, I know.

I've thrown my digital pen and my opinions into the political arena, and used that as a jumping off point to full-fledged grass-roots activism in the form of voluntarily attending my local BPOU (Basic Political Organization Unit) caucus, then getting elected to and attending my State Senate District Convention and my US Congressional District Convention. I convinced the CD delegation to adopt exactly zero of my 2 proposed platform amendment resolutions, though I did get them advanced through my BPOU and SD Caucuses. And we all know what happened to the political candidates I endorsed. It's a start, I guess, but not terribly brag-worthy...

I've made several pretty funny jokes. What? You don't remember any? Shh. Let me have my moment...

I've demonstrated my prowess at making hopelessly run-on sentences at least grammatical-device-ly semi-correct with my unabashed use of commas, parentheses, brackets, and hyphens (not to mention coining several new - and much-needed - adjectives, with the same hyphen-tool). Take that, Professor Stewart (my contemporary short stories professor from freshman year, who told me my writing skills were suspect and that I should re-take COMP 101, though I actually eked out an A in that course - she gave me a B when all was said, written, and done)!

I've inspired a select few of my dozen or so devoted readers to pick up one of my recommended books - and forced a few more on them as Christmas gifts.

On that note, I've increased my readership from about 5 to around 12 through nepotism (thanks Mom!), some pin-point self-promotion, and through my use of the "Vote for Alan Fine" logo, which, had you followed the link, you'd have seen my blog address prominently displayed in rank #4 (of 4).

I've, at least in part, inspired two people to start their own blogs.

Finally, and most importantly, I've found an outlet that lets me continue honing my writing skills in a mostly-positive, educational (for me anyway!), creative sort of way. After completing my MBA in an online setting, then writing an update/news blog/journal when my first daughter was born premature and spent a month in the hospital (and repeating that scenario with my second daughter half-way through my inaugural blog-year), I'm glad to have a forum to continue writing. It's been highly therapeutic for me to put my musings out there in an arena where, even though I'm harder on myself than anyone else could ever be, other people have a chance to read, consider, and critique my thoughts.

Thanks to everyone who's contributed with comments via the blog page, email, or face-to-face - or just read and kept quiet. Here's to another year of 'sonofasillyperson' [clink]...

Jottings...

2006-12-04T14:17:00.000-06:00

I'm working with a big, bulky Excel file today, and with every change I make, I need to wait for the thing to re-calculate before moving on to the next step (yes, I have automatic re-calc turned off - I need the results before I move on), so in the 10 or 15 minutes I have during each re-calc, I'm going to jot some roving, though mostly sports-related, thoughts that are spinning through my head...

- Way to go Griz! Though the hectic holiday season has prevented me from catching a single down of Griz playoff football (ditto for the Cat/Griz game), since their next game is a Friday evening game (6:30 Central time), I should be able to catch it.

- There are too many bowls. Case in point, the PetroSun Independence Bowl, which will feature the breathtaking matchup of 6-6 Alabama versus 6-6 Oklahoma State. Only in the NFC will a .500 record get you a post-season berth...

- Speaking of the NFL playoff picture... 7 of the 8 divisions are all but sewn up. Short of a major collapse by one of the leaders (and ironically, the only team that currently seems capable of that - Chicago - is the only team to have mathematically clinched a berth), only the wild card picture yet to come into focus. If Philadelphia can pull off a mini-upset tonight against Carolina, all 8 division winners are relatively certain. Tell me off the top of your head the last time that's been the case in Week 13, and I promise never to play you in NTN Sports Trivia...

- Not that many of you care, but... the St. Kate's Wildcats are 4-0. For those of you who don't know me well, I've been taking game-time stats for the St. Kate's basketball team since the 2001-02 season. If you're not familiar with Wildcat basketball lore, let me assure you that even though I'm not a team historian, I can say comfortably that I'm confident this has never happened. Unfortunately, my "in" with the team, former head coach Tim Kjar, left after last season wrapped up when his wife got a job in San Francisco. His longtime assistant, Gary Rufsvold, took the helm this year. Though Gary has a much calmer demeanor on the sideline than Tim did, Coach K can look back with pride that the foundation he laid seems to be paying some dividends. And especially given that their recruiting class this year was large enough to enable them to field a JV squad for the first time ever*, which means that their Varsity players are all returning from last season, you've got to give a bunch of the credit for this season's start to Coach Kjar. They've got a good chance to move to 5-0 tonight, as they host the Augsburg Auggies, who had a "rebuilding" season last year. This Saturday they host Concordia-Moorhead, a perennial post-season participant - that game should give us the first real indicator of how good they'll be this year.

- File this under 'no wonder'... Until Friday night, I had never heard of the limoncello shooter. I had my first one at Buca on Friday night, and then I read today that Danny DeVito is blaming last week's drunken fiasco on "The View" on the previous night's binge with George Clooney. I only had one, but I can see how you could get carried away with it, and I can also see how you'd still be drunk the next morning if you did...

- It took a while, but I finally got to it... In my introductory post to this blog, I indicated that I may do a cigar review or two when the mood struck my fancy - after a buddy pointed out that my blog has been relatively one-track, I suppose I ought to expand the ol' horizons, lest someone who stumbles upon the site think me really narrow (or focused!). Here goes...

Pueblo Dominicana Ambassador: Here's a cigar that's beautiful to look at - it's 7 1/2 inches long and has a nice, deep-dark-brown oily sun-grown wrapper. It's a little veiny, which is normally something the aficionados scoff at, but I like 'em a bit rugged. It's wrapped a bit too tight, which explains why one of my buddies jokingly cursed me out after I gave him one this summer, but most of the ones I've smoked have drawn reasonably well. After light-up, though, this is one of the most unique tasting and smelling cigars you'll ever smoke. The smoke is spicy, has a black pepper-like quality to it, and slowly builds as you smoke to the end. If your cigar palate is reasonably well-tuned, you'll be able to tell when someone in the room is smoking one - it's that unique. Don't know that I can recommend CI's $80 per box of 10 price, but CigarBid.com usually has the exact same box of 10 for around $30. Especially now that PD has put out their Series II, you should be able to get the Series I for a reasonable price.

Alright - that's about all my brain has in it right now - more later...

- Thursday night football on NFL Network Cris Collinsworth is one of the best football minds on the TV. That said, he needs to hold back a bit while the rest of us catch up to his analysis. He's got such a grasp of the game, the players, and the schemes (on both sides of the ball) that while the rest of us are still analyzing his analysis from the last play, he's moved on to more analysis of the current play. Maybe I'm just so used to analysts/color commentators being absolutely inane that I've got to re-train my football brain to keep pace... On the flip side - Bryant Gumbel has got to go. If it weren't for Collinsworth, I'd have watched the game with the mute feature enabled. His little falsetto-sounding voice is even more annoying than Phil Simms', but at least Simms sounds like he's called a game before. Gumbel sounds like he's doing the highlights for a local newscast (as a fill-in for the normal weekend guy), complete with the seemingly-question-asking-tone-of-voice and the awkward pauses between sentences. Irritating.

- No wonder everyone's buying artificial... Dropped $23 bucks for a 4 1/2 foot tall Christmas tree on Friday. They wanted almost $50 for the normal-sized ones, and around $75 for the species whose name I purposely blocked out of my mind. Well, at least the yard guy didn't call it "the Cadillac of Christmas trees" like the guy did a couple of years ago. The new Democratic majority should add an investigation of Christmas - er - Holiday Tree price gouging to their agenda. Now you knew I couldn't stay completely away from political commentary, didn't you?

* Tim left after wrapping up the recruiting season - and to his credit, informed all the recruits that he was leaving.

Mark your calendars...

2006-11-29T14:34:00.000-06:00

Today, I vehemently disagree with Dennis Prager.

You all know how much I admire and respect Dennis Prager. His analysis and teachings can probably be credited with my becoming active in politics more than any other individual. But his latest column reeks of the hubris that conservative bloggers, columnists, and radio hosts often seem to carry, which, as I wrote before, is at least partially responsible for the GOP's trouncing in the mid-term elections. You've all read my many rantings on Keith Ellison's election to Congress despite his dubious political dealings and campaign fund sources, but the Prager column, "America, Not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on" crosses the line between reasonable political debate and sour-grapes nit-picking, not to mention being a hypocritical stance on a moral and religious issue (which Mr. Prager is normally astute and sagacious on).

The crux of the article is that Ellison, a Muslim, has decided that when he's sworn in as a US Congressman, he'll take the oath of office with his hand on a Koran rather than on a Bible. Prager takes umbrage with that, writing:

"What Ellison and his Muslim and leftist supporters are saying is that it is of no consequence what America holds as its holiest book; all that matters is what any individual holds to be his holiest book. Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison's favorite book is. Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress. In your personal life, we will fight for your right to prefer any other book. We will even fight for your right to publish cartoons mocking our Bible. But, Mr. Ellison, America, not you, decides on what book its public servants take their oath."

The problem is not so much in what Prager writes (although it's uncharacteristically accusatory and arrogant), but in what he doesn't bother to analyze at all: the very reason for placing one's hand on a holy book in the first place. As is customary in my oft-incoherent ramblings on this site, let me take a wide circle before coming back to make my point...

Back in college, my circle of buddies had an interesting, though I'm certain not terribly unique, custom of "putting it on something" when someone thought we were BS-ing them. For example, a conversation might have been:
"Brandon, I got 4 phone numbers at Trendz last night!"
"Dude, you're lying."
"No, I swear."
"Put that on something."
"I put that on my mom's grave."
"You hate your mom that much?!?"
"Fine, then I put it on God."
[fading laughter as the other party to the conversation runs down the hallway to avoid the vengeful lightning bolt from their recently-blasphemed God]

OK, it was a short circle - back to my point. In terms of the process of carrying out the ritual, which book is present is not terribly important. The oath is not written in the Bible, and our Constitution and our laws make no proscription for the use of the Bible in the ritual. Politicians place their hand on a holy book in part out of humility and penitence to that being which is purportedly behind said book, and in part as a symbolic gesture as to the nature of our Constitutional holdings, i.e., that we are endowed with inalienable rights by our Creator, not granted rights by a semi-benevolent king. The very mention of a Creator at all in our founding documents is purposely done in order to remind the elected officials that despite holding some of the more powerful positions in our society, they still have to answer to a higher power - one to which even their electorally-earned power pales in comparison. And it's worth noting that our founding documents do not name a particular religion or religion's artifacts that are to be used in government rituals. As context-removed as most peoples' citations of Jefferson's "wall of separation between church and state" are, proscribing a Congressman-elect to partake in a ritual that implies belief in one religion's God is almost certainly in violation of his 1st Amendment rights, and undoubtedly compromises that wall of separation.

Personally, I'd rather have Keith Ellison swearing on a Koran than a Bible. One, for a person who has denounced the Judeo-Christian God in favor of Allah, it would be blasphemy and a mockery of the God of Abraham to take the oath on a Bible. Two, here's to hoping that Ellison is devout enough that taking an oath while placing his hand upon the book that he personally believes to be of divine origin will be a powerful conscience-prodder when his CAIR pals come looking to come even on their campaign contributions. Three, and by far most importantly, it's absolute hypocrisy for us to say that despite your personal beliefs in the religion of Islam, we're going to force you to partake in a ritual that invokes the Christian God, just because that's our tradition. Isn't that the bizarro version of how the dhimmi (non-Muslims living in a second-class status in Muslim society) would be treated under sharia?

Another argument Prager makes is the proverbial slippery-slope:

"Would they allow him to choose Hitler's "Mein Kampf," the Nazis' bible, for his oath? And if not, why not? On what grounds will those defending Ellison's right to choose his favorite book deny that same right to a racist who is elected to public office?... But for all of American history, Jews elected to public office have taken their oath on the Bible, even though they do not believe in the New Testament, and the many secular elected officials have not believed in the Old Testament either. Yet those secular officials did not demand to take their oaths of office on, say, the collected works of Voltaire or on a volume of New York Times editorials, writings far more significant to some liberal members of Congress than the Bible."

There's a difference here, and it's important. First of all, it's the book that he considers to be holy, not his "favorite" book. I'm a Christian, and I believe the Bible to be holy, so I'd take an oath on the Bible, not on Bill Bennett's "America" or Natan Sharansky's "The Case for Democracy" or even "Animal Farm" by George Orwell. An argument like this belittles Muslim belief in the divine origin of the Koran, and is intellectually lacking.

Plus, it's not like secular officials prostrate themselves in front of the collected works of Voltaire, or neo-Nazis pray to the ghost of Hitler. OK, maybe some of the kooks do, but it's not like an organized religion of Hitler-worshippers is out there deifying him as their personal lord and savior and invoking him in public displays of religious ritual. Back to reality for a minute - a secular humanist, being of the belief that a human's conscience is the primary source of moral law, would possibly eschew taking an oath on a Bible and instead place his hand over his own heart. Would anyone object then? Since most of us don't carry around a pocket Bible, many of us place our right hands over our hearts during the Pledge of Allegiance and the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner. Does anyone complain?

There's a bigger point here, and it's one of the nuggets that's been stuck in my craw since the 5th District GOP Caucus that I got involved in this past spring. In preparation for the caucus, one of the assignments for delegates was to evaluate the party's platform and write any suggested changes down, submit them, and be prepared to debate them in preparation for voting them up or down - the up-voted ones would then be advanced to the next level for consideration for adoption into the platform.

One of the planks on the platform that I believe needs to be changed currently reads, "[w]e advocate protecting charities, school (sic), and hosptitals run by religious organizations from being compelled to provide services or information in conflict with their beliefs and teachings." My personal take on this is that the plank should have all reference to "religious organizations" removed, and should be re-written to state "...protecting all organizations from being compelled to provide services, information, membership, or products that conflict with their beliefs". My reasoning is that the protection of civil liberties and property rights is made stronger when Wal-Mart is not forced to stock its shelves with Penthouse or its pharmacies with RU-486. The Boy Scouts express their political and religious speech when they can impose their own qualifications and standards, not those standards which are deemed politically correct by the judiciary, for their members and volunteers.

Despite my pleadings with the delegates, my resolution was voted down when someone asserted, in essence, that "if you do that, then we'll be dealing with a double-edged sword, and when we want to impose our will on someone, we'll be beaten by our own platform." This is what frustrated me about the caucus system: by definition, it's run by people who are passionate enough in their views to sacrifice a few evenings and weekends to attend meetings, and a sizeable handful of hours along the way to study the issues and the platform, and to develop ideas and arguments to be used in the conventions. In other words, by definition, it's largely run by wing-nuts who put political ideology before common sense and principle.

To me, this is what is troubling about Prager's column. It takes what could be a meaningful debate about religious freedoms in our society and turns it into an "us vs. them" battle. And the main problem is, the moral stance he's advocating is exactly what he's morally opposed to in Taliban Afghanistan or Iran under the Ayatollah. I'll agree that there are traditions that must be upheld in our society, and many of those traditions are even religious in nature. But asking a man to actively partake in a ritual that clearly implies his belief in a God to which he does not profess his faith is immoral, unjustifiable, and probably unconstitutional.

And if this entire line of reasoning doesn't convince you, how about going to the source. Article VI: "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States (emphasis mine)."

I have come to expect more from Mr. Prager.

My role in the thumpin'

2006-11-16T14:18:00.000-06:00

Yes, I've been curiously absent from the blogger-seat for the last 8 days. And no, I'm not moping about, cursing the left-wing conspiracy, or studying up on the intracacies of Diebold technology in hopes of filing a lawsuit that will reverse a dozen-and-a-half-or-so elections nationwide. I've been thinking. And reading. And listening.

Listening to the talking heads on talk radio and cable news and acquaintances who have any sort of interest in politics. Reading online commentary, news items, books (yes, I know I'm due for a "what I'm reading" post or two), email, and whatever else presents itself to me. And thinking about what I'm to think of it all, and what I'm to do about it for the proverbial "next time".

Turns out, there's a lot of blame to be put on people just like me, who read commentary from lots of different sources, compile it up there in the ol' gray matter, and then churn out a synthesized and nuanced version of everyone else's take. But it can be summed up on one little catch-phrase that, no, I didn't happen to use, but plenty of other like me did, and I did nothing about it. That catch-phrase? "San Francisco values."

What does that phrase mean? Well, to people like me who actually enjoy political commentary (how twisted is that, by the way?), it means City Supervisors who go on the record as saying the US doesn't need a military, and therefore a WWII warship has no business being docked in the Bay Area to serve as a floating museum to that war. It means having open space laws on the books that are so penal and arbitrary that the cost of a humble home often exceeds one million dollars (and the taxable base for the local governments go through the ceiling), and low income workers are subject to longer and longer commutes and shorter and shorter off-work hours to spend with their families because they can't afford to live closer to their inner-city jobs. It means an intelligentsia that rely on Berkely scholars for "proof" to back their opinions, conveniently ignoring that even sound research methods can be tainted at worst, and driven at best, by selfish and self-promoting aims. It means the home of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that is so out of touch with reality that 15 of their 18 decisions last term had to be overturned by the Supreme Court.

And it means a whole lot of other things that only political junkies who have legislative and judicial matters delivered to them via RSS feeds would know anything about, that I won't bore you with here. But for the people who have other things to do with their time, it often means one thing: Republicans are homophobes - San Franscisco is known to be the home to a lot of gay people, so "San Francisco values" is an implication that "we don't want our country run by a bunch of gay people", right? Well... No! That's not what we meant! But it doesn't matter - that's what people heard, and by crikey, they were probably pretty justified in taking it that way.

I've read through a lot of my past entries over the last week, and I've seen something that embarrasses me a bit. I often allude to items that I'm intimately familiar with, but many people haven't heard of, or are only tangentially aware of, because I'm... well... a dork. And when I allude to said items, they are often stripped of context necessary to bring their full meaning to the front, and to a large extent, a lot of commentators on TV, talk radio, and the Internet are guilty of exactly the same thing, and that leads to a lot of people taking away a different meaning than what was intended.

Switching subject matter momentarily, but a forthcoming circle-back to make the point... I can't get inside John Kerry's head, and I don't realistically have any idea if he intended to insult enlisted military members or Dubya. And any pundit who claims to know what he truly intended is a flat-out liar. But you can't help but be fascinated by how convinced people are of their own interpretations as the right one, without even suggesting that they might be mistaken. To people on the right, they hear John Kerry and they think 1971 Congressional hearings on Vietnam atrocities" and "American soldiers shouldn't be breaking into Iraqi homes and terrorizing women and children". That frame of reference led them automatically to assume that given Kerry's history of talking less-than-admirably of the US military, he must have meant "soldiers are dumb." To people on the left, they hear John Kerry and think noted Dubya critic and Bush v. Kerry '04, and logically conclude that, as usual, he was talking about the one subject he always seems to be talking about: "Dubya is dumb."

I'm reasonably sure that Kerry will never write a book about "I didn't insult the troops, but if I did, here's how I'd have done it" (that's an O.J. Simpson reference, for those of you living in a bubble), so we'll never know "the real target of the botched joke" - but it doesn't matter. Just like O.J., there are those who thought he did it from day 1 and never wavered from that opinion, and there are people who will go on thinking he's innocent even after his book is released. And in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really make a difference, because people's perceptions are already colored by the hubbub surrounding it.

It doesn't really make a difference, but it does matter. It matters because in this age of "everyone has his own version of the truth", there really is a singular truth out there that we're just not ambitious enough to go and find, or worse: we're too likely to see political opportunity in our own version of that truth so we seize that opportunity and ride it for all she's worth. Both sides are guilty, and people see through the B.S., and are sick and tired of hearing it.

Now, I realize that with this revelation, I'm not exactly re-inventing the space shuttle, but hopefully this seminal moment for me will lead to some more focused thought on this blog. I wish I could say that the frequency of my posts would remain consistent or even improve, but I'm more realistic than that. I've come to the realization that while I still believe in the things I've blogged about, and still think I'm correct in my stances, I haven't done a very good job actually convincing people to adopt my opinions - rather, I'm just another voice in the echo chamber. My aim is to move this blog toward a bit more persuasive and foundational posts, with less of the "hey, I don't have a lot of creativity in me today, so go and read what this guy wrote." Whether or not I'll succeed, who knows. But my goal is published now, so I've got at least 8 loyal readers to keep me honest...

Enough with the sour grapes already!

2006-11-08T09:06:00.000-06:00

I've been flipping between 3 different talk radio stations (2 conservative, 1 centrist), and I've heard at least 5 different callers talking about "just a bunch of uninformed voters" or bemoaning "media bias". Whether or not that's the case, shut up! Sitting around whining about it doesn't help anything - cut the crap and get involved for 2008.

Like my friend said to me last night at the GOP "victory" party: it's hypocrisy for someone to whine about the result of the election if they didn't vote. So too is it hypocrisy for anyone who didn't get involved in some way to whine about how the chips were stacked against them.

Plus, it's just bitterness showing through and if that doesn't serve to alienate even more people from truly getting involved, it just makes you look like a loser.

If you win, act like you've been there before. If you lose, act like you'll win some other day. Sure, all of us on the right are disappointed in the result, but self-examination is a whole lot more fruitful than blaming outside factors, albeit a lot more painful and difficult.

UPDATE: Sour grapes cases in point:

Amateur blogger sour grapes
Semi-pro blogger sour grapes
Pro blogger sour grapes

Pfffffffffffftttttt...

2006-11-08T01:48:00.000-06:00

That was the onomatopoeia inside the MN GOP's "victory" party as news came on the big screen that incumbent Gil Gutknecht had lost to DFL challenger Tim Walz. As Rick "turn a memorial service for Wellstone into a political rally" Kahn introduced (at length) the victorious Walz, the growing hush of reality biting the Republicans in the ass made the previously tolerable noise level of the PA system blare in everyone's ears. My co-attendee and I didn't hang out much longer after that - we even bolted before the only remaining major Minnesota GOP candidate, Mr. Pawlenty himself, made his way to the stage...

As I'm writing this, Hatch/Pawlenty is still undecided (though it's starting look like T-Paw gets the proverbial 4 more), and the US Senate is down to a recount in Virginia and slow manual counts back in the home country, Montana (Mom, is that you holding up the show? Git r done, so I can go to bed!) [aside] My mother has been an election ballot counter for as long as I can remember...[/aside] While every other candidate whose campaigns I involved myself in this year, either via donations, volunteering, blogging, or endorsing (Fine, Mathias, Kennedy, and even the MVST amendment proposal and the IRV initiative) has crashed and burned, Conrad's my last shot at retaining some activist dignity in this, my rookie election cycle. Guess I picked a pretty bad year to go active, eh? Or maybe I'm that little black raincloud that followed the Pink Panther everywhere he went (come on - you remember the cartoon).... Yep, it's all my fault. Sorry Alan. Sorry Mark. Sorry Dan. Sorry MVST/IRV.

Let's go Conrad!

OK, even I'm holding my nose in support of Senator Burns. I emailed a bunch of family and friends several weeks ago imploring them to support his campaign, even though I knew how painful it is to support such an undesirable candidate, because on analyzing which Senate seats were logically in play, it seemed like if he retained his seat, there wasn't much of a case for a Dem-controlled Senate. That's turning out to be exactly the case. My only regret is that I chose to email my thoughts, as opposed to blogging it for posterity - I guess you'll all just have to trust that I saw it that way weeks ago (admittedly with a little help from the pundits and pollsters doing a good portion of the legwork).

So what now?

Major Garrett on FoxNews made a pretty good point a half hour or so ago. He said something to the effect of "with the dissatisfaction with the handling of Iraq, and the fallout from Katrina, all the Dems needed to do was recruit reasonable candidates and run on 'change' rather than a true agenda to take the requisite number of seats". Keith Ellison aside, that two-pronged approach seems to have worked well. My gut right now is telling me that a focused, visionary Democratic agenda will need to emerge very soon (especially if the Senate indeed goes to the Dems) or 2008 will be a much more cheerful election night for the GOP.

In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy the unfolding drama of Tester v. Burns being in the national spotlight. And I'm looking forward to ridiculing Pelosi for the next 2 years. Maybe Reid, too. [sigh]

At long last!

2006-11-07T16:31:00.000-06:00

(Taking a short break from election day issues...)

At long last, something good finally came out of Montana State! (apologies to my family members who attend/have attended/cheer for the school that is home to the Bobcats - Go Griz!). While I personally recommend Thomas Sowell's "Applied Economics" and have heard equally good things about his "Basic Economics", I will probably get this book at some point in the not-too-distant future just because of the Montana connection.

Election Day need to read

2006-11-07T10:10:00.000-06:00

Ahh, the joys of living in Minnesota's 5th Congressional District...

One Final Pre-Election "Need to Read"

2006-11-06T14:30:00.000-06:00

You absolutely MUST read and ponder this article from National Review Online before you vote tomorrow.

Instant Runoff Voting

2006-11-06T12:24:00.000-06:00

For anyone reading this whose home is the city of Minneapolis, you'll have a question on your ballot tomorrow regarding a proposed change to the way that mayoral and city council voting will work. Basically, the proposal would eliminate primary elections for those offices, as well as Park Board, Library Board, and Board of Estimate and Taxation, and replace it with IRV, aka Ranked Choice Voting or Single Transferable Vote.

In a nutshell, it means that instead of using a primary election to weed out the also-rans, and then holding a "non-partisan" election for the above-named offices, each ballot will allow you to "rank" your choices for those offices, i.e., 1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice, etc., etc. If no candidate wins a majority of 1st-place votes, then the lowest ranked candidate is eliminated, and any ballot that had that candidate listed as their first choice would then be re-evaluated, and that ballot's 2nd choice would then be considered. The process repeats itself until one candidate has a "50% plus 1 vote" majority. It's worth noting that in our current status, each of these offices could be elected via a plurality in a race with many equally-strong (or weak!) candidates.

Before I offer my opinion on this, a quick word about "non-partisan" elections. The use of the modifier "non-partisan" in describing an election DOES NOT mean that political parties don't get involved. It simply means that a candidate's political party affiliation is not disclosed on the ballot, because parties do not select a single candidate for endorsement and for its sole spot on the ballot. Thusly, in a non-partisan election, the top however-many candidates that emerge from the primary could feasibly all belong to the same political party, meaning that you've got a handful of semi-interchangeable candidates to vote for when the general election rolls around. See the last several Minneapolis elections for more info on that...

Based on the above comments, you might ascertain that I'm a proponent of IRV, just so there's at least an outside chance of getting a bit of electoral diversity on the general election ballot. I've got to say that I'm torn. After reading the cons of IRV, the democratic purist in me shudders at the thought of it. However, knowing that the primary/general system is anything but perfect, and that primary election results are largely controlled by political junkies like me, and in Minneapolis, there are few political junkies who are even centrist, much less center-right like me, which means we get nothing but DFL and Green party endorsed candidates on our general election ballots in the "non-partisan" elections, the realist in me thinks the pros of IRV might not be such a bad idea. After all, if there's any shot at a Republican actually having a legitimate shot at taking one of the aforementioned seats, they've got to get on the ballot, and in the current state, it's just not happening. IRV might hold the only shot at getting a GOP-favored candidate into office.

But, much like my opinion offered on the MVST Amendment proposal, amending a Constitution (or in this case, a City Charter) should only happen in instances where it's a matter of deeply-seated belief by a large majority of the population, not just where it might save a buck or two here and there. I'm voting no on IRV (though I have a hunch my vote will be in vain) for several reasons:

1) any voting practice that's only used in about 3 municipalities nationwide, and 2 of which are San Franscisco and Burlington, VT - 2 absolute bastions of leftist thought - can't be one that I'd ever get behind whole-heartedly.

2) any amendment to a city charter or Constitution that's not widely well-understood by the voting public is not good, just in principle. True, even our own Constitution was probably not widely understood back in the 1780's, but at least those who were interested could educate themselves via "The Federalist" and "The Anti-Federalist" writings - I had to search and scour to find the info I did on IRV and the MVST proposals.

3) when you get right down to it, IRV deprives average citizens of one more piece of the democratic process - all in the name of pragmatism (i.e., "Well, we only average around 15% turnout for the primaries, so what's the point? Let's just get rid of them."). Much like the push for non-partisan elections eroded away civil responsibilities, so too will IRV. Just because a growing majority of people don't take advantage of their right to participate in the democratic process doesn't mean that it's OK to take that privilege away - lawmakers should always assume that people are holding that right in reserve. The problem is, by the time the straw breaks the camel's back and the bulk of our liberties have been stripped away, it's going to be too late.

Vote no.

Vote for Alan!

2006-11-03T15:17:00.000-06:00

I'll admit, despite endorsing Alan Fine at the CD-5 convention and my admiration for his bravery for running an "I can actually win, not just display a token Republican effort" campaign, I was, until today, seriously considering voting for the Independence Party candidate, Tammy Lee. But some pretty astute analysis by Jerry Plagge over at SD63.info has me back in the Fine camp. Tell anyone you know in District 5 to read the linked article - and don't waste their votes.

Transportation Amendment - yes or no?

2006-11-03T12:33:00.000-06:00

"Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to dedicate revenue from a tax on the sale of new and used motor vehicles over a five-year period, so that after June 30, 2011, all of the revenue is dedicated at least 40 percent for public transit assistance and not more than 60 percent for highway purposes?"

That's the question that's being asked on Minnesota's ballots for a proposed constitutional amendment. One of my readers asked me to give my thoughts on this, so here goes.

What does this proposed amendment mean, and is it a good idea?

In 1981, the Minnesota Vehicle Sales Tax (MVST) was implemented - its intention was to be a permanent source of revenue for maintaining and improving the state's transportation infrastructure. Since that time, though, dedicating the revenues to transit-specific projects has predictably eroded, and today, only about 54% ($296 million) of the MVST proceeds actually go toward transit. The other 46% goes to the General Fund, where it is used for a variety of projects, including pork projects. Of the 54% that's actually used for transit projects, there is a current split of about 60% highways, 40% public transit (hence, I suppose, the reason for the apparent 60/40 split in the proposed amendment). A ballot with this question left blank, by the way, is deemed to be a "no" vote. A "yes" response on at least 50% of all ballots cast is required to carry the proposal.

So is it a good idea? On the surface, absolutely. To implement a tax solely to fund specific projects isn't a terrible idea in theory, but the cynic in me knows that the focus of such taxes can't last forever. Hence only 54% of the "dedicated" money being spent in the proscribed manner today. By the way, did you know that until August 1, 2006, there was a communications tax on your phone bill that was implemented by Congress in 1898 to fund the Spanish-American war? Just saying. So to strengthen the "focus" of the tax by disallowing legislators from raiding the "MVST Lockbox" by way of a constitutional amendment - I'm all for it.

HOWEVER! "...by way of a constitutional amendment", yes. By way of this constitutional amendment, NO! Why not? Well, let's look at the wording of the proposed amendment again.

"...after June 30, 2011, all of the revenue is dedicated at least 40 percent for public transit assistance and not more than 60 percent for highway purposes..."

At least 40% for public transit assistance. Not more than 60% for highway purposes. This is a cash-grab by proponents of public transit proponents, and it's making rigid (a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT) a policy that's popular right now.

Now, for the record, I LOVE the Hiawatha Light Rail Line. I ride it to work almost every day, and I haven't paid for parking at a Twins or Vikings game since the line became operational. Business is picking up all along the Hiawatha corridor (a formerly near-blighted area). Dangerous crime has been reduced due to an increase in respectable traffic (I realize that petty crime - bike theft, car break-ins, etc. has increased due to a corresponding increase in nonrespectable traffic). And there's nothing I'd like more than to see the Northstar and the Downtowns projects come to fruition.

The problem is, though, that under the amendment, it's possible, legal, and feasible that 100% of the MVST could be allocated to public transit assistance. We could potentially have all MVST money going toward transit projects, and nothing going toward highway maintenance or improvement. Think that's impossible? How much money is the Northstar Line estimated to cost? See? This also means that as the percentage of money allocated to transit projects increases, rural Minnesotans will be getting less and less benefit from their tax dollars. Sure, it's good for me as a Twin Cities dweller, but how fair is it? The bottom line is that it's not, and they're talking about working it into our Constitution, which is difficult to amend by definition. So when rural Minnesotans and disenfranchised Twin Citians raise enough stink to start considering repealing the amendment in 15 or 20 years, it's only going to be that much harder to undo.

Another issue I have is: what exactly does "public transit assistance" mean? Does that mean 'assisting with projects that enhance the infrastructure of the public transit system'? Or does it include programs that give free transit fares to specific components of the population? Does it include funding for the "Hop On" advertising program? I don't necessarily have a beef with any of these programs, but these questions aren't answered, which leads me to the assumption that at some point some crafty legislator will attempt to redirect funds toward projects that are only tangential to what the amendment is currently understood to encompass. And actually, given that the language is thoroughly ambiguous, said legislator wouldn't even need to be terribly crafty to get away with such a thing...

And finally, the amendment doesn't even attempt to define where the money is going to come from to fill the void once the raids on the MVST Lockbox are ended. Sure, some of the pork-barrel projects would optimistically be foregone (hold on, let me finish laughing uncontrollably), but some of the money is used for legit purposes: public schools, public safety, etc. Where is that money going to come from? Increased property taxes most likely. Or increased state income taxes (already among the top 10 in the nation, by the way).

Speaking of taxes: one of the websites I got my information from is the Taxpayers League of Minnesota (linked below). One thing that's burned in my retina is the bevy of billboards that the TPL sponsored during construction along the Hiawatha Line - all of them ending in something like "this project brought to you by Big Government." But for some mysterious reason, the TPL is now taking "no official position on dedicating MVST". The cynical side of me jumps to the completely unfounded but semi-logical assumption that they're not taking a position because that position would almost definitely be anti, yet Governor Pawlenty (who is endorsed by the TPL) has voiced support for the amendment.

So does this mean I don't trust the state legislature? Well... In the words of Ronald Reagan, "trust, but verify". A better-written amendment would garner my support. If the amendment were to read something like "between 40 and 55% be dedicated to public transit projects, and the balance dedicated to highway projects" - well, then I might be more inclined to support it. I can't support this one.

Vote no (or just leave it blank).

Sources:
Taxpayers League
Vote Yes MN
Vote No
Stop MVST

Message from Alan Fine

2006-10-31T14:31:00.000-06:00

This is from an email blast sent by the Fine campaign, entitled, "Please Read and Pass on to Others." While there is no earth-shaking policy revelations in it (see his website - www.fineforcongress.org - for that), it's a good message from a very good candidate who is seeing a shred of hope in what was once considered a hopeless cause: a Republican winning in the MN 5th District. With the controversy surrounding Keith Ellison, and the emergence of Independence Party candidate Tammy Lee, it's still a longshot, but at least there's SOME kind of shot. If you know someone in the 5th district, ask them to read this and consider it carefully.
Fine's words:

My fellow Republicans,

When I accepted the endorsement for U.S. Congress, I looked forward to the challenge. I realized, that when you enter the political fray, that you are taking risks. But, I have never been afraid to take risks when it comes to standing up for the public good. I am a person of good conscience who truly cares about our country and every citizen in it and that feeling will not change. Through this process, I have gained great clarity and strength. More importantly, I have found good people who share my concerns and I am proud to have been chosen as your advocate in this regard.

My fellow Republicans, we are a party, a community of people, who cares about this country. We want to live in peace with security. We are patriotic. We have faith in God. Family values are important and the sanctity of human life is paramount. We are a party of freedom with responsibility, not freedom from responsibility. We are a party that believes that government should use our tax dollars wisely. We are a party that recognizes that the United States of America has been a blessing to all of humankind. Thank you for allowing me to represent you in this great cause.

At this moment, I am doing everything in my power to win this race. But, now more than ever, I need your help. This is not the time to look away, but the time to stand up and be heard. Talk to your friends, carry a sign, call and/or door knock. One can reach five, five can reach 25, 25 can reach 125 and exponentially we can reach the entire district. Don't wait for someone to call you to actively do something about this election. Your voice can make a difference. Talk about our common values and spread the Republican message. Go out and tell people why you are proud to be a Republican. Tell people about this race and the other races within our district and our state. Tell people what is at stake. It is time to stand up and be counted.

There is an ancient Jewish teaching that states that the Red Sea would not part until the Israelites walked into it up to their necks and believed that it would part. In essence, a miracle does not happen without faith, prayer and devoted efforts towards that end. I mentioned this story at the endorsing convention in May. If we hope to carry this district and this state, now is the time to walk into the sea of the 5th District and stand in it up to our necks believing that it will part. My fellow Republicans, if we can do that, it will part.

Best wishes and looking forward to victory in November,

Alan Fine

What I'm Reading - Nov. 06 - part 2

2006-10-30T23:17:00.000-06:00

I'm in the middle of a book right now that is an interesting read - it's How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill. I bought it because I read another one of Cahill's books - The Gifts of the Jews - and found his grasp of history and his ability to share it to be highly enlightening.

"How the Irish Saved Civilization" is about the little-known importance of a none-too-trivial aspect of Irish history. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the barbaric wars that followed, along with their looting, sacking, and burning of pretty much every major city and town in the defunct empire, threatened to destroy all vestiges of history to that point. Books were burned, artifacts destroyed, scrolls pulverized - and were it not for Celtic priests, much of what we know today about ancient history would be unknowable. Plato, Augustine, Socrates, Aristotle... Almost everything we know about Greco-Roman culture nearly faded away, and it was the Irish - whose recognized contributions to world history are usually limited to Guiness and corned beef (not that there's anything wrong with that!) - who saved those remnants from certain demolition.

Cahill's style is part history, part philosophy, part theology, part literature, and part anthropology - which doesn't sound terribly appealing, even to a dorky bookworm like me. But it works, and even if you don't pick up on every detail he shares or follow even half of the literary and historic references he makes, you'll no doubt pick up on a few things that will stick - indeed, with that variety of information and styles, there's GOT to be something that will interest you. But the trick is to be interested enough in the topic to actually make it through the book. I was just about to give up on it and move on to a different book (a terrible habit of mine that I need to work on), until he moved into the story of a Roman slave-boy named Patricius, who, after escaping from his miserable shepherd/slave existence, became educated in grammar and theology, and came to be known as Patrick - later to be canonized as St. Patrick.

Contrary to popular belief, St. Patrick didn't rid Ireland of any snakes, unless of course you're using the word "snakes" metaphorically. He served as one of the world's first missionaries, and through his gifts of charm, bravery, common sense, and wisdom, helped to pacify the tribal thievery and feuds that characterized much of Ireland at that time. The feudal lord system was deconstructed largely in credit to the work that St. Patrick did to bring the Irish people to Christianity.

I'm only halfway through the chapter that starts discussing St. Patrick at length (about 2/3 of the way through the book), so I'm sure there are going to be many other items that I'll pick up on - and if that's enough to help me appreciate and celebrate St. Patrick's day with a bit more festivity than I usually muster, than I guess that's enough.

Verdict: if you're at all interested, why not? (not the most ringing endorsement, I know - I can think of only one of my readers who will probably fall into the "interested" category - that reader happens to share the same last name as the author)...

What I'm reading - Nov. 06

2006-10-30T22:43:00.000-06:00

Yes, I realize October's not quite over yet, but it's close enough. If you don't like it, get your own blog.

I recently finished a book that I'm adding to my "Required Reading" sidebar - the book is What's So Great About America by Dinesh D'Souza. D'Souza immigrated (legally!) from India in the late 1970's, and became a US citizen in 1991. He served as a domestic policy advisor to Ronald Reagan - there's an interesting anecdote in the book: he didn't apply for the advisor position; a Reagan staffer read some OpEd pieces that he wrote, and the administration brought him on board based almost solely off his opinion articles. He is quite an accomplished writer (see the Amazon page for some of the other books he's written), and it's easy to understand why: this book is extremely readable and engaging, and he's got a very unique perspective to offer.

As the Amazon review points out, it's important to recognize that there is NO question mark in the title of the book. Indeed, if there's any punctuation necessary, there should be a colon after it, because the entire book is D'Souza's argument for why America is, despite her many faults (which he approaches in the book boldly and with no hesitation), the greatest nation ever assembled. Whether it's refuting the notion that America owes reparations to descendants of slaves, clarifying the anti-slavery foundation of the Three-Fifths Compromise (as I did in a previous post), or discussing the correctness of the policy (if not the tactics) of treating the struggle against Islamic terror as a war instead of a criminal matter, D'Souza is unapologetic in declaring his undeniable patriotism for his adopted country.

So what if you did treat the title as a question - what IS so great about America? As D'Souza systematically, articulately, and cogently argues, what's so great about America is that the very nature of the freedom of its citizens to criticize her leads to a sort of civic self-examination that does not exist (at least to the extent that the USA does) in any other nation in history. No other Constitution or government charter defines (and protects!) the right to practice religion freely, the right of an unencumbered press, etc., etc., the way that our Constitution and our system of 3 governmental branches with competing interests. And when you combine those rights, you enable monumental changes in global paradigms that has led to the success story that is our country. Religious freedom, the effective ending of the institution of slavery, moral clarity regarding Islamic terror, appreciation for (if not a complete defense of) the good that came out of American and European colonialism - no controversial topic is off-limits in this book, and he doesn't dance around counterpoints either. He attacks them head-on, and with a clarity and wholeness that is refreshing to read in this age of unbacked rhetoric and half-truths.

Whether you're a 'blame-America-first'-er, or a talking-points-spouting jingoist, or anywhere in the middle of that continuum, you WILL learn something from this book, and I'm fully confident that you'll come away from it with a less polarized, more reasonable, more appreciative view of the USA than you had before you started reading.

Verdict: REQUIRED!

Need to Read - 10-30-06

2006-10-30T15:55:00.000-06:00

Mark Steyn has another great, albeit sobering, article out this week regarding the politics of the Iraq front of the global war on terror. Some key excerpts:

It's not a question of whether you're "for" or "against" a war. Once you're in it, the choice is to win it or lose it. And, if you're arguing for what will look to most of the world like the latter option, you better understand what the consequences are. In this case, it would, in effect, end the American moment...

But suppose the ''Anyone But Bush'' bumper-sticker set got their way; suppose he and Cheney and Rummy and all the minor supporting warmongers down to yours truly were suddenly vaporized in 20 seconds' time. What then? Nothing, that's what. The jihad's still there. Kim Jong Il's still there. The Iranian nukes are still there. The slyer Islamist subversion from south-east Asia to the Balkans to northern England goes on, day after day after day.

and

Bush said something, en passant, that I brooded on all the way home. Asked about poll numbers, he said that 25 percent of the population are always against the war — any war. That sounds about right. And it's a bit disturbing...

That war-is-never-the-answer 25 percent are in essence saying that there's nothing about America worth fighting for, and that, ultimately, the continuation of their society is a bet on the kindness of strangers — on the goodnaturedness of Kim Jong Il and the mullahs and al-Qaida... Some of us don't reckon that's a good bet, and think America's arms-are-for-hugging crowd need to get real.

The Left, The Right, and the Ugly...

2006-10-27T14:26:00.000-05:00

The fetching Mrs. and I went the Brave New Workshop this past weekend to see their latest offering, "'The Left, The Right, and the Ugly' or 'Blue State Blues'." This is the 3rd or 4th show of theirs that we've gone to see, and it's flipping hilarious, as always.

For those of you not familiar with the BNW, it's a sketch comedy troupe that is locally renowned for its political satire. Some of the past titles we've seen include "Martha Stewart is a Prison Vixen" and "Bushwhacked: One Nation Under Stress." The titles tell you pretty much all you need to know about the level of reverence to be found in their shows, but I'm telling you, if you've never gone to one of their shows, try it out - it's always worth the money.

The only video I could find of their latest show is not even close to being the best skit that they did in the show, but you'll get the gist. The linked skit is pretty low-brow (which some of their skits inevitably are), but there are a lot of other ones that require a little bit more thought than the potty humor you'll see in that link.

All in all, it was an extremely funny show - highly recommended.

Need to Read - 10-20-06

2006-10-20T13:28:00.000-05:00

This article about gasoline prices was forwarded to me yesterday - it's by a Libertarian think-tank called the Cato Institute. It's a bit out of date, obviously, now that gas prices are a few eyelashes away from being back to $2 a gallon, but I just wanted to toot my own horn a bit and point out that I published this post on May 30th, 2006, and the Cato Institute published their article on June 21st - three weeks later...

Haha! Now [employing my best outrageous French accent] 'go away or I shall taunt you a second time!'

It's so nice being shown to be right...

Need to read - 10-17-06

2006-10-17T09:42:00.000-05:00

Rosie O'Donnell's inane equating of "fundamentalist Christians" and "radical Islamists" notwithstanding, Dennis Prager, as usual, is the reasonable voice of moral clarity surrounding this issue. In case you haven't heard (because you only pay attention to mainstream media), right here in Minneapolis there is a big problem with Muslim taxi drivers refusing to transport people who are carrying alcohol (such as a bottle of duty-free Scotch, or a case of wine brought home from Napa). And in Europe, there is a big problem with Muslim taxi drivers refusing to transport blind people who are accompanied by seeing-eye dogs.

As Prager writes: "The appropriate analogy to Muslim taxi drivers refusing to take passengers accompanied by a dog or carrying a bottle of wine would be religious Jewish taxi drivers refusing to take passengers eating a ham sandwich...".

Read the article. Pragers distinction between ritual prohibition and moral prohibition is cogent and sound. And most importantly, it's correct.

This is not just a case of inconvenience to air travelers and left-in-the-cold blind people, it's a glimpse into what a world under sharia would be like (but of course, you'd need to add in all the "honor killings" for rape victims and public stoning, too). Think about that the next time you hear someone equate Christian fundamentalists with Muslim ones, and let me know if you have any examples of Christian fundamentalists imposing their views in this fashion.

What I'm reading - Oct. 2006 - Part 4

2006-10-16T23:52:00.000-05:00

After finishing Imperial Grunts, I've found myself unable to find a book that holds my interest. I started Tides of War, by the author of a previous book I profiled, Gates of Fire, but it hasn't captured my interest the way Gates of Fire did.

I started re-reading Bill Bennett's America: the Last Best Hope, so that I could profile it as "Required Reading", but given that I've already read it, I'm having trouble staying focused on it.

So I picked up a book that was given to me as a Christmas gift last year (I know, I know: how timely!), 1776, by David MacCullough. This one's got some promise. If you're not familiar with David MacCullough's brand of history, you should be. He's got some great work out there, from a biography of Teddy Roosevelt (which I've read), to the story of the building of the Panama Canal (which I have NOT read - yet - though I've read excerpts and heard interviews on), to many others, he's got a great way of presenting history in a way that's interesting and attention-holding.

He essentially tells history as it might have been seen through the eyes of one or more of the people living through the time he's depicting. And the beauty is that it's truth, not historical fiction. In my mind, this is the way to learn history if you're not absolutely ga-ga over learning history just for learning's sake. I'm less than 1/2 of the way through 1776, but so far I'm hooked.

If I have to tell you what "1776" is about - perhaps I can recommend a "Dummies" history book for you...

VERDICT: Recommended - and if I were further through it, I'd guess I'd recommend it highly.

What I'm reading - Oct. 2006 - Part 3

2006-10-16T22:58:00.000-05:00

Listen up. You NEED to read this book. This book was the reason I decided to add the "Required Reading" sidebar on my blog. The book is Imperial Grunts by Robert Kaplan, a columnist for The Atlantic Monthly and one of the most pre-eminent military journalists in the world today. He's neither right- nor left-wing, from what I can gather. Indeed, at least in this book, he's an equal-opportunity basher of politicians from both sides of the aisle. Granted, he does little political analysis of his own - instead, he leaves that job to the "grunts" with whom he's embedded. The analysis he does provide is more along the lines of drawing comparisons between different conflicts in the world across history, and between different soldiers he's met in his extensive travels and research.

Here's why you need to read this book: I learned more about the role of the military and the context in which the Global War on Terror is being fought from the Prologue of this book than I had in all my readings - book, news article, op-ed piece - to date. And while I was initially uncomfortable with Kaplan naming the US an "imperial" nation, he makes the case quickly and convincingly, and I'm actually embarrassed to admit that discomfort now, and that I'd never thought about it in such terms before. From the Prologue:

He was a lieutenant colenel in the First Marine Expeditionary Force...stationed at Camp Pendleton, California. I met him before he left for the Persian Gulf in the autumn of 2002. He had just been injected with anthrax vaccine, and had been taking malaria pills for many months of his life... The Romans, by their rites of purification, accepted and justified the world as it was, with all its cruelty. The Americans, heir to the Christian tradition, seek what is not yet manifest: the higher ideal. Thus, he was without cynicism.

'The century is only two years old,' he told me, 'and look at what's happened. That al-Qaeda incident on September 11 was somewhat significant. But we may have nuclear attacks and disease outbreaks that will take many mroe lives, and which will get us deeply involved on the ground in countries still obscure to us, the way September 11 got us involved in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is those involvements-to-come that will shape the course of the new century.'
...

Imperialism is but a form of isolationism, in which the demand for absolute, undefiled security at home leads one to conquer the world, and in the process to become subject to all the world's anxieties. That is why empires arise at the fringes of consciousness, half in denial. By the time an imperial reality becomes truly manifest, it is a sign that the apex of empire is at hand, with a gradual retreat more likely than fresh conquests... Rome never consciously thought that it was building an empire until it already had one, and had already reached the limits of its expansion in the Near East... Empires are works in progress, with necessity rather than glory the instigator of each outward push.

Since antiquity the collapse of empires has been a messy business, and the most benign antidote to the chaos unleashed has been the birth of new imperial domains. Consequently, the turn of the 21st century found the United States with bases and base rights in 59 countries and overseas territories... while defense appropriations amounted to only 3.3 percent of America's GDP - compared to 9.4 percent during the Vietnam War and 14.1 percent during the Korean War.

...

Some denied the very fact of American empire, claiming a contradiction between an imperial strategy and America's democratic values. They forgot that Rome, Venice, and Britain were the most morally enlightened states of their age...Liberalism at home and a pragmatic, at times ruthless policy abroad have not been uncommon in the history of some empires.

It's that combination of vivid descriptions of the soldiers, political philosophy, painstakingly documented military history, and the terror and excitement of the events he chronicles that make this such a readable book. If you don't at least once find yourself considering talking to a military recruiter while reading this book, well, you're either sleeping your way through your reading, you're unpatriotic, or you're a robot.

I've obviously condensed and cherry-picked passages that I deem appropriate to sum up the argument for the USA being an empire, and thus Kaplan's choice of the modifier "Imperial" in the title of his book. And while his argument for "empire" takes up nearly 11 pages in the prologue, in a very poetic and symbolic way, his argument for the choice of the word "Grunts" takes up only one paragraph. And even the first sentence of that paragraph really needed little follow-up: "Grunts: cannon fodder."

For the entirety of the book, Kaplan details his extensive travels across the globe, embedded with US troops (Army and Marines). Among the nations he visits are the expected ones: Iraq and Afghanistan; and many unexpected ones: Yemen, Mongolia, The Philippines, and Eritrea/Somalia/Ethiopia. In each place, he details his activities with the troops, and describes the "grunts" with such vivid detail that if you ever met someone he profiled, you'd have a major head start toward striking up a friendly conversation. And understand one thing clearly: this is NOT a journalist who hangs around the base or does interviews via phone from hotels well-removed from danger zones. Kaplan basically serves mini-tours of duty; he's given assignments during operations like feeding ammo to gunners, driving vehicles under pressure of RPG fire, supervising prisoners while the "grunts" clear more buildings in their area of operation, etc. In doing so, he forges a unique bond with the troops, earns their trust, and therefore gets the ultimate scoop: the true feelings, thoughts, and visions of the "grunts".

Couple that with Kaplan's amazing grasp of military history, and you've got yourself a book that I will guarantee will not only hold your interest (an understatement), but it will educate you in ways you didn't know possible.

VERDICT: REQUIRED.

What I'm reading - Oct. 2006 - Part 2

2006-10-16T22:36:00.000-05:00

This book I read about a month and a half ago - it's The West's Last Chance, by Washington Times editorial page editor, Tony Blankley. It's a book about the Islamist threat to Western values, and while it's not the most prominent book on the subject that's out there right now, from the handful that I've read and previewed, it might have the best balance between depth and accuracy of information vis-a-vis readability.

The book begins with "The Nightmare Scenario", where, in a scene that's extremely contrived and vastly improbable, a Senator who's a former Vietnam POW (gee, wonder who that is) gets caught up in the energy of a speech to a Muslim audience, and declares that "It's time for sharia in America."

As ridiculous as the opening chapter is, the rest of the book is credible and chock-full of information that every American needs to know. From historical context to the sectarian rivalries in the Middle East, to the demographic nightmare facing Europe, to assaults on Western values (i.e., the murder of Theo van Gogh, and the Dutch cartoon scandal), to an apt comparison of today's international reluctance to respect the Islamist threat vis-a-vis the "Neville Chamberlains" of the world in 1940's Europe, the book provides a wide-reaching view of what the War on Terror is really about at its fundamental level, and provides a very high-level vision of how the world should be addressing the Islamist threat.

If you're not at least marginally scared by the prospect of radical Islamic terror, then perhaps you need to read a book such as this. If you've already got a pretty decent grasp of it and the war on it, other books, such as Eurabia by Bat Ye'or, Londonistan by Melanie Phillips, and Onward Muslim Soldiers by Robert Spencer would probably be better choices. If you do opt to read Blankley's book, do yourself a favor and skip Chapter 1.

VERDICT: If you're unfamiliar with Islamism, Highly Recommended. If you're already fairly well-read on the subject, take it or leave it.

What I'm reading - Oct. 2006 - part 1

2006-10-16T21:29:00.000-05:00

OK, so I've been neglecting this feature of my blog, and I have 3 book entries I need to backfill, plus one more for what's got my bookmark in it right now. The first is a political strategy book, and I'll wait to reveal the author until I've re-hashed some of his main points. For starters, take this quiz, which is printed in the Introduction of the book. Give a score of 10 if you agree fully with the statement, a 0 if you absolutely disagree, or anywhere in the middle for a continuum-score that approximates your agreement with the statement. Here we go:

1. We should be allowed to say "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
2. Able-bodied people on welfare should be required to work.
3. A person who assaults a pregnant woman that kills the unborn child should be prosecuted for the murder of the child.
4. The United States should put its own interests first and cooperation with international organizations second.
5. I believe in God.
6. I am proud to be an American.
7. Schools should teach new immigrants about American history and values.
8. Every American should learn English.
9. Personal injury lawyers should get no more than 15 percent of any jury award.
10. It is possible to use new technology and new science to develop clean, renewable energy that protects the environment and the economy.

OK, now that that's done, the author recommends that if you scored 51 points or more, "this book is about how you can protect and defend America's traditions and values." Whether or not you'll like the book in its entirety is another matter altogether, as I'll show.

FYI, in a Gallup poll in Spring, 2004, Americans agreed with statements 1-10 above with the following frequency (a margin of error was not given, but I'm guessing, since it was Gallup, that a +/- 3 or 4% is in order): 91, 87, 84, 73, 92, 91, 88, 81, 75, 88%.

Before you get it into your head that this is just another right-of-center politico spouting the GOP line, read this (also from the Introduction):

For me and for many Americans, a moment of decisive understanding came in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: Government hadn't done its first and most basic job, which is to protect citizens and their property. Signs of failure were all around us. I use the word "failure" deliberately. When you see on TV for three days running an American body lying on an American street because the government can't collect the dead, something has failed. When you learn that 34 senior citizens were abandoned in a nursing home and drowned in isolation, something has failed. When you realize that there were 22,000 people in the Superdome to whom the government couldn't deliver water, while private companies had trucks of water going by on the streets outside, somehting has failed...

Americans are frustrated with government that can't do what government is supposed to do... But the kind of change we need is real change. Legislators who are scrambling in the aftermath of the Jack Abramoff scandal to enact piecemeal reforms to lobbying rules believe they are enacting change, and that may well be. But real change means understanding that the problem isn't an individual lobbyist. The problem in Washington is a government so powerful and bloated that a special interest group would decide it's worth their while to spend $80 million to hire a lobbyist like Jack Abramoff...

In a stunning expose, the Washington Post reported that the federal government was paying prime contracts of $1.75 a square foot to cover storm-damaged roofs with blue tarp. But these companies then subcontracted the work an additional two times. The local laborers who actually did the work were paid only ten cents a square foot. Only a government bloated by pork and riddled with bureaucratic inefficiency would do business this way.

OK, time for the revelation. The book is Winning the Future, and the author is former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. Blasting the sitting administration, Congress, and FEMA for its Katrina response and the Abramoff scandal doesn't sound like the "divisive" Gingrich, does it? While he's still true to conservative principles in this book, he comes across very different from the "wedge politician" image that he's portrayed as in the media. The topics he tackles include the Global War on Terror, Social Security, immigration, the cost of health care and insurance, the environment, energy policy, budget balancing, education, and pretty much any other issue that's grabbing headlines today.

While the first few chapters were very good, and the Introduction was highly enlightening, some of the middle chapters in this book dragged on repetitively. Considering that chapters 5 through 7 are entitled "Patriotic Immigration", "Patriotic Education", and "Patriotic Stewardship", you get the idea. All in all, it's a decent book and a good look at how Newt will attempt to shape the debate if he indeed takes a stab at the presidency in '08, although, as Hugh Hewitt said last night at a lecture I attended, "If you've talked as much as Newt has, there's no way you'll get elected president."

All in all, it's a decent read, and a good primer of conservative thought if you need a quick way to catch up on the major issues of the day. It does a fair job of presenting a platform that by and large, though with some notable exceptions, correlates with the national Republican platform. However, Newt chose to take on a hopelessly broad array of topics (he could have addressed his thoughts on each one with an entire book), and the result is that the analysis and argument is hopelessly thin. It's certainly not a book that's meant for an audience of political junkies, and for a political novice, the salient arguments are bound to leave the reader with little more committed to memory than some talking points, and if challenged in a friendly debate, he'd probably fall flat in trying to defend those points against anyone who's even moderately well-read.

Now, if you couple this book with a subscription to Newt's newsletter, Winning the Future (you can sign up for podcasts or email delivery of his weekly column at WinningTheFuture.org), you might be on to something. His columns there take on individual issues in greater, more timely depth, and give you more insight into the details beyond his high-level visions that he presents in the book. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to recommend the book without recommending a commitment to spending some time on the WinningTheFuture.org website.

VERDICT: Semi-recommended (with qualifier).

New Feature - Required Reading

2006-10-12T15:25:00.000-05:00

I've added a new category on the sidebar of my site; it's a list of books that you have to read if you want to understand how I think. I'm not saying this is an exhaustive list, and I'm certainly not saying that I agree 100% with any of the assertions put forth in any of the books (90%, maybe). What I am saying is that if you want to understand the logic and platform of center-right thinkers, the list on the sidebar is a great place to start.

The list is presented in no particular order, and I don't know that I have any recommendations on which one you should start with (something I'll think about as a future project, I guess). Note that for those of you who know me personally and live in the Twin Cities area, each and every one of the books I'll put in this list is in my personal library, and I'd be more than happy to loan them to you.

Need to read: 10-9-06

2006-10-09T16:46:00.000-05:00

Amen. Paul Greenberg's column this week pretty much summarizes my thoughts on everything from the Foley scandal to Bill Clinton's tirade on Fox News to rhetoric posing as "a summation of the difference between Rhetoric and substance". There has been a steady erosion in our society of the distinction between popular opinion and fact, as I alluded to in a previous post. Greenberg's column laments that fact, and since I couldn't have said it better myself, I'll let you read it...

(A side note on the article linked in the second link: yes, I know the "cut and run" line is lame, inane, pithy, and cliche all at once, but if a columnist for a nationally-read blog is going to dissect it, you'd think it reasonable actually to link to pages that illustrate his point, rather then just allude to them and have readers accept them as truth - Condi's message in her trip to Iraq, for example, is vastly misrepresented, as is his assertion that Bush would 'cut and run' himself "if the Iraqis don't make those tough choices", while in actuality, Bush has said repeatedly that if the Iraqi government all of a sudden asked us to leave, we'd comply. But enough of my analysis. Read the Greenberg article, then read the article linked in the post, and decide for yourself if it's truly "substance" or just more "rhetoric".)

Here's a key excerpt from Greenberg's article:

"The economists have a term for it: opportunity cost - the benefits forgone when an investor puts his capital into one project rather than another. His choice may prove profitable, but another choice might have been even more so - and so he's lost the difference between the two. That's the opportunity cost, and it can be measured not just in dollars but in time or energy or anything else of value.

Politicians, like the rest of us, make much the same mistake when, given a chance to score political points, they seize the moment and exploit it for all it's worth, or rather for what they think it's worth. Actually they might gain something incalculably more by declining the opportunity to engage in a little cheap drama - and instead serve their fellow citizens by raising the level of public discourse, and win a place in history.
...
It's the difference between a Joe McCarthy and an Adlai Stevenson. Let it be noted that Gov. Stevenson paid the usual price for thoughtfulness and eloquence in a televised age; he lost his race for the presidency in 1952. (And in 1956, too, by which time he'd learned the cost of talking sense to the American people and was content to just repeat catch phrases, which availed him even less.) But in the presidential campaign of '52, he was still introducing novelties like reason and eloquence into, of all things, an American presidential race.

Some criticized Adlai Stevenson that year for 'speaking over the heads of the American people' when he was only trying to get us to look up."

Need to read - 9-28-06

2006-09-28T11:44:00.000-05:00

George Will did it again. I don't know why, but his dry humor just... well... humors me. The "Sensibly, she compartmentalizes her moods and her money" line from the last column I cited pales in comparison to this week's chuckler. I'm not going to ruin the punchline of his joke by excerpting it here, but the last paragraph in this week's column about campaign financing is priceless. Be warned, though, jokes aren't funny without their main-body setup, so read the whole thing - don't skip!

Need to read - 9/21/06

2006-09-21T15:07:00.000-05:00

Tony Blankley, author of "The West's Last Chance" (a book I recently read and highly recommend, though I likely won't be doing a "what I'm reading" entry on it), has an interesting column comparing the Pope's recent controversial remarks with some less reported, though no less pointed, remarks from Henry Kissinger. I'm not going to get into my thoughts on the Pope's controversy, but I'd like to highlight what Kissinger said regarding Islamic terror/agression:

"[W]e are witnessing a carefully conceived assault, not isolated terrorist attacks, on the international system of respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. The creation of organizations such as Hezbollah and al-Qaida symbolizes the fact that transnational loyalties are replacing national ones. The driving force behind this challenge is the jihadist conviction that it is the existing order that is illegitimate... The debate sparked by the Iraq war over American rashness vs. European escapism is dwarfed by what the world now faces ... the common danger of a wider war merging into a war of civilizations against the backdrop of a nuclear-armed Middle East. ... We now know that we face the imperative of building a new world order or potential global catastrophe."

Interesting that the pioneer of the policy of detente with the Soviet Union and a politico deeply entrenched in the realpolitik school of international relations (i.e., someone who willingly sacrifices ideology on the altar of negotiable and practical political policy), would have such pointed things to say. If you're still unconvinced that a global war against the ideology of jihad is necessary, perhaps you should reconsider your position. Blankley's book (linked above) is a great place to start.

What I'm reading - 9/20/06

2006-09-20T15:59:00.000-05:00

One of my newest readers (I think I'm up to 10 now!) asked me what I'm reading, and I figured that would make as much sense to blog about as anything else I write, so here goes...

In addition to daily news/politics articles and columns (the sources of which you can figure out by following the links in my need to read posts), I'm a pretty heavy book reader, too. Using public transportation dictates that you listen to inane conversations about the idiocy of last night's "Deal or No Deal" contestant, deafen yourself with noise-proof headphones, or block it all out by absorbing yourself in a book. I choose the last of these options, so I get about an hour and a half per day to read books, which typically lets me read a book every week or so.

Right now, I'm taking a somewhat rare dabble into fiction, albeit historical fiction. The book is Gates of Fire, by Steven Pressfield, author of "The Legend of Bagger Vance". Its subtitle is "The Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae" (the literal translation of Thermopylae is "the hot gates", so named for the medicinal hot springs near the battleground, which is a narrow pass between rugged mountains and the sea). The battle pitted 300 elite Greek warriors in a last-ditch, "all-sire" (warriors with sons - since they were all slated to die in this battle, it was desired that their respective family lineages live on) suicide effort to buy time for the "real" Spartan army to assemble and be dispatched to fight the Persian army, supposedly numbered at 2 million.

The story is told through the 1st-person perspective of the sole Spartan survivor of the battle, Xeo, a squire who was captured on the battlefield in the Spartans' unsuccessful, though admirable and heroic, defeat at the hands of the advancing Persian empire. King Xerxes compels Xeo to tell him about Spartan army training, which he does, but what unfolds is more a telling of Greek culture than anything else.

Whether you're talking about the importance of acting honorably, male bonding, the warrior's code, or upholding your family's good name, the book gives gripping life to many cultural ideals that often get lost in cliche when we consider our own personal value systems. The battle and training scenes are pretty gory, but if you can stomach vivid descriptions of blood and other-bodily-fluids, it's a definite must-read for anyone who's interested in understanding the ancient roots of our culture (or for anyone who just enjoys military fiction). Either way, it's a tough one to put down once you get started.

It's meticulously researched, and I'm amazed at how much of our Western value systems arise from ancient Greek culture, both in military and civilian settings. Indeed, the book was recommended as a must-read for that very reason in Hugh Hewitt's book, "In, But Not Of: A Guide to Christian Ambition".

I'm only about 2/3 of the way through it right now, but I think I'll make a habit of blogging my readings PRIOR to finishing the books, so that I don't accidentally give away any endings. As far as readability goes, there are a lot of ancient Greek words thrown in here and there, but the author uses the pretext of a captured foreign-language-speaker as a not-so-subtle excuse to throw in those words' translations right within the sentence. It makes for some choppy reading, but it's also educational in the sense of seeing a lot of etymological roots of words that are commonly used in English today. It's also a bit confusing at times, because there are lots of places where the timeline jumps around quite a bit - which I suppose also matches up with the pretext of a captured (and injured and exhausted!) slave. The jumps are very related in topic, but not in sequence, if you know what I mean. Apart from those two things (which actually add value to the story even if it makes for some disjointed reading), it's very readable and action-packed.

Highly recommended.

Need to read - 9/15

2006-09-15T14:01:00.000-05:00

The Ellison candidacy is getting some big-time national blog attention - Hugh Hewitt and company are devoting a significant amount of time and space to it. I have nothing to add regarding today's article, though I'll emphasize the Minnesota DFL chairman's comments, as quoted in the blog entry:

Minnesota DFL Chairman Brian Melendez said Ellison won't hurt the party's other candidates. He condemned Fine's attack, saying it was racist. "He'll probably pick up the pigheaded fool vote but hopefully there aren't too many of them," Melendez said.

More arrogance on behalf of the campaign, and ad hominem attacks nonetheless. Forget refuting the claims, just label any dissenters as bigots, and you're done...

Also read this, from Wednesday, where Hewitt labels Fine as a "center-left" politician. I'm inclined to agree, and as I told Mr. Fine in our conversation prior to the CD 5 Endorsing Convention, I disagree with a handful of his political principles, but in a deep-blue district like ours, his views actually make him electable. That's why I voted for him - both at the convention and in the primary. Indeed, people with reasonable views and a sense of realism understand this concept, although there was one wing-nut at the convention who refused even to shake Mr. Fine's hand. I was about 10 yards away from the incident, and my lip-reading skills aren't shiningly honed, but I think I saw the word "abortion" as the underlying cause of the delegate's ire...

Ellison speaks...

2006-09-14T16:46:00.000-05:00

Alan Fine has (rightly) gone on the attack regarding Keith Ellison's questionable past. Mr. Fine questioned his relationship with the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, as well as other issues that have arisen regarding Ellison's campaign. Watching the local news last night, Mr. Ellison retorted (I'm paraphrasing all but the italicized words - those, I remember specifically) "I'm not going to take one minute away from the people in order to answer any questions or accusations coming from my political opponent." So much for open and honest debate between political rivals...

But my main qualm with this is: just which people qualify for your precious minutes, Mr. Ellison? I'm a person, and I'm one of your prospective constituents (and I'm a voter!). I'd say you owe me much more than "one minute" to explain precisely how your views have changed, and how accepting campaign contributions from extremely questionable sources is not a relevant issue for debate. Are "the people" you refer to just those who don't question the controversy, or just those people who either approve of them or don't think they're relevant? Are those the only "people" who are worthy of your precious time? The arrogance of Mr. Ellison to purport that only Alan Fine takes umbrage with certain aspects of his candidacy is telling.

To be sure, he's in a predicament that he probably has never been before - that of national spotlight and scrutiny for issues that cut deep in a post-9/11 America. So I can appreciate if he made that statement out of defensiveness or shell-shock. But he and his advisors should have seen this coming, and had a prepared statement (or at least some talking points) for retort. With that in mind, his campaign is not terribly shrewd, and though I'm not optimistic given the DFL's deathgrip on the 5th District, perhaps that's a weakness that the Fine campaign can exploit.

Need to read - 9/14

2006-09-14T14:11:00.000-05:00

George Will has a masterpiece of a column this week regarding the left's disdain for Wal-Mart. Some excerpts:

"A woman pushing a shopping cart with a stoical 3-year-old along for the ride, has a chip on her shoulder about the size of this 141,000 square-foot Wal-Mart. She applied for a job when the store opened in January and was turned down because, she said, the person doing the hiring 'had an attitude.' [From later in the column: 'More than 25,000 people applied for the 325 openings.'] So why is the woman shopping here anyway? She looks at the questioner as though he is dimwitted and directs his attention to the low prices of the DVDs on the rack next to her. Sensibly, she compartmentalizes her moods and her money."

and

"A McKinsey company study concluded that Wal-Mart accounted for 13 percent of the nation's productivity gains in the second half of the 1990s, which probably made Wal-Mart about as important as the Federal Reserve in holding down inflation. By lowering consumer prices, Wal-Mart costs about 50 retail jobs among competitors for every 100 jobs Wal-Mart creates. Wal-Mart and its effects save shoppers more than $200 billion a year, dwarfing such government programs as food stamps ($28.6 billion) and the earned-income tax credit ($34.6 billion)."

For the record...

2006-09-14T00:23:00.000-05:00

While my response to Josh on my "inconvenient truths" post was and is fully honest, as I've thought about it for the last hour or so, I've come to the realization that the whole exchange could easily be construed as highly disingenuous on my part, which is not my intent. Writing a blog means that your thoughts become permanent, so I'm going on the record. What, in fact, do I think about the global warming debate?

Call me hopefully pessimistic. I'm concerned about what's going on in the environment, as any reasonable person should be. But I'm more concerned about other issues (especially global terror, as I think it to be a more immediate threat), and I'm especially concerned that government "solutions" to any environmental crisis that may be impending are going to make things worse, not better.

The Kyoto Treaty is severely flawed. It essentially puts developed nations in a choke-hold, while leaving developing nations free to do pretty much anything they want as they develop their industry. That means American and Western European economies, as well as some of those on the Pacific Rim, are to be hamstrung in a bevy of costly environmental limitations, both on waste and consumption. Nations like India and China (China is already the #2 emitter of carbons, by the way), whose enormous populations mean their consumption of natural resources means their usage curve is going to rise sharply over the next 15 years, have virtually no limits put on them in Kyoto, and re-evaluation procedures and timelines of nations' status as 'developed' or 'developing' in the accords are vague at best. You want to hear Perot's proverbial "giant sucking sound"? Implement Kyoto and watch every major manufacturing firm move to India or China.

As far as the politics of it goes, I'm pretty disappointed with all of the rhetoric. The right, by and large, seems to have a head in the sand approach, and the left, by and large, is bantering like the square mileage of the US is going to be cut in half by next Tuesday. I'm encouraged by reasoned attempts at stimulating investment in alternative sources of energy, especially wind, and I actually think the good that will come out of recent high fuel prices (though a gallon of unleaded is down to $2.25 in Minneapolis right now - BTW, since everyone blamed GWB for the $3 gas, is he entitled to thank-yous now that it's down, and forecast to continue to drop?) is that it now becomes financially viable for investment into these alternatives. Supply and demand have a way of fixing a lot more things than the left gives it credit for (though the one thing about Kyoto that I DO agree with is the capitalization and marketability of carbon credits - given that the Protocol was largely the product of leftist thinkers, I'm impressed that this was a major tenet of the accord; it gives me some hope for the future of the global economy), and I saw some encouraging and interesting exhibits on bio-diesel and other crop-based fuels at the Minnesota Fair this year.

What baffles me is the politics-as-usual that goes on any time attempts are made at reducing (A) our reliance on petroleum, and (B) our reliance on Middle Eastern petroleum. Even France has been producing, accident-free, the vast majority of its power through nuclear fission for several decades, yet the 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl disasters have kept the US from pursuing this as an option. Nuclear technology has come a long way since the disasters mentioned above, yet the possibility of a new nuclear plant is scuttled before rough drafts of the legislation can be printed out.

Teddy Kennedy's opposition to the wind-energy farms off the coast of his home state has long been ridiculed in right-wing circles (the Senator seems to take umbrage that his ocean views will be obstructed - how truthful that assertion is, I have no idea, and I don't feel like researching it). But an Economist article a few months back highlighted a simple yet major breakthrough in wind-power technology. Instead of a single, long, propellor-like vane (which is indeed obstructive in terms of the landscape, and extremely expensive to produce and ship, since it has to be done in one piece), new turbines are designed to spin about a vertical axis. In addition to major cost reductions for the engineering, production, and transport of the blades, the visibility factor is reduced by a long shot, and even top-of-building mounting is being researched (in addition to lighthing rods, satellite dishes, and cell phone towers, perhaps wind turbines will become a common site on rooftops soon!). To me, this seems very promising.

I'll probably ruffle more than a few feathers with this paragraph, but I'm for drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). I recognize that there will be some impact on caribou migration patterns, but every bit of research (research, not huff-and-puff opinion) seems to indicate that the impact will be minimal, and some of the impact would even be positive for the 'bou. Seems pipelines provide windbreaks and protection from predators... But here's the rub on my favoring the drilling: I firmly believe that firms that would do any drilling in ANWR would be held to a much higher environmental standard than what's happening in much of the global oil drilling that's already going on in the world. I've alluded to this before - state-run oil companies (like Citgo's parent - seized by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela) simply don't have the transparency that's required of publicly-traded oil companies. Sure, I know it's fashionable to demonize "big oil", but I also know that it should be fashionable to demonize a dictator's seizure of private assets in order to entrench his grip on political power. But I digress... Nations don't enjoy Spaceball-esque 'air-shields' that engulf the atmospheres over their land masses - pollution migrates (much like the European swallow!). Where we get our fuel is a choice that must me made, and that choice is not made in the proverbial vacuum. Not drilling ANWR means that we get more oil from the likes of Chavez and the House of Saud, and if you try to tell me there's no environmental impact from drilling for oil in Venezuela, well, hippie, bust out your Enya CD and listen to "Orinoco Flow" as many times as it takes you to realize that Orinoco Flow refers to the Orinoco River, and its basin pretty much covers the entire nation.

Bottom line: we haven't had a coherent energy policy and/or strategy in this country for far too long. And while I agree that it's crucial to the long-term viability of our environment, global terror and the solvency of entitlement programs are crises that have a lot more basis in proven fact, and the focus of our government should be on those. The focus of many enterprising capitalists is no doubt on clean energy research and its marketability - just Google "wind energy technology" and you'll see a ton of private- as well as public-sponsored organizations that are devoted to it. We need governmental leadership in the form of a sound energy policy that makes cleaner energy sources possible and free from over-burdensome legislation and regulation; we don't need governmental leadership in building the technologies for us - unless of course, you want it to operate as smoothly as, say, the DMV...

Need to read - 9/13

2006-09-13T16:47:00.000-05:00

Not a bad piece of political satire, by Michael Graham.

The state of the Minnesota DFL

2006-09-13T10:24:00.000-05:00

Sad, really. Either we've got a district full of people who think it's OK to elect someone who takes campaign contributions from unabashed supporters of Hamas, promotes a separate nation for African-Americans, supports the SLA and Kathleen Soliah (see page 4), and opposes the trial of a cop-killing gang memeber, or they're just too uninformed to make a decent choice.

And even if you could forget about Ellison's questionable past and chalk up his acceptance of CAIR money to naivete, he flat-out promotes untruth in his campaign. On his website, he published this:

"We talk about things like the racism revealed in the Katrina disaster, community violence and police accountability, transit cuts, and bunch of other things. We're concerned about the Bush Administration going after poor kids of color to supply soldiers for Bush's oil war. But we're also worried about protecting the right to vote, especially in light of conservative efforts to strip it away in places like Florida and Ohio."

Let's start with Katrina. It is now well-documented that blacks were NOT overly represented in terms of their percentage of population in the deaths due to Katrina. But hey, no mainstream press touted that finding, or at least they ho-hummed in in a blurb after the daily financial report, instead of leading with the story or "teasing" it in promo spots like they did with all the hype about "is Kanye West right? Does President Bush really hate black people?" So, Mr. Ellison, feel free to exploit the underinformed nature of your voting public, and perpetuate falsehood in order to launch yourself into the US House - it's fine, really.

And what about Bush 'going after poor kids of color to supply soliders for [his] oil war'? Is this really a big problem? Let's see. According to DOD figures, black people represent 15 percent of military enlistment, compared with about 14% of 18-24 year olds in the general civilian population. But black people also, "represented 10 percent of the Selected Reserve officer accessions in FY 2003 compared to just over 8 percent African American college graduates in the civilian comparison population." So let me get this straight. African-Americans who stay out of the military are statistically less likely to graduate from college than their military counterparts are to be successful enough to be promoted to officer status?

But it's not just black people that Bush is targeting - we all know he hates ALL minorities and wants them to die in his greed-driven wars, right? Well, from the same DOD report, Hispanic-Americans make up 17% of the 18-24 year old civilian population, but they represent only 12% of active duty military personnel, and only 9% of reserves. "Asians are underrepresented among NPS Selected Reserve accessions at just over 2 percent. Asians are represented in the civilian comparison group at just over 4 percent. American Indians and Alaskan Natives are proportionally represented among NPS Selected Reserve enlisted accessions at 1 percent, compared to 1 percent for 18-24 year old civilians. Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders represent slightly less than one-half of one percent of all NPS Selected Reserve accessions, the same percentage as found in the comparable civilian group." Mr. Ellison, meet Mr. Google - he can teach you a lot. Pay attention...

And as for all those evil Republicans who kept black people from voting in Florida and Ohio, if that's really true, Mr. Ellison, why don't you represent those oppressed masses in a pro bono class-action suit? You'd no doubt raise your name recognition and probably be able to scrape a huge windfall off the top of any settlement, which you could use to fund your campaign. Oh wait, reasonable people stopped whining about Ohio and Florida long ago, and you don't need any more money for your campaign - you're already on your way to DC. Never mind.

Primary elections in MN...

2006-09-12T10:20:00.000-05:00

It's primary day in Minnesota, and as a citizen of the 5th Congressional District (Minneapolis), it's tough not to be too jaded about the state of Minnesota politics. The GOP-endorsed candidate, Alan Fine, is, despite my disagreements with him on a few specific issues, a reasonable candidate, though after today's primary, the blue-ness of our district affords him little chance of winning a US House seat (here's to hoping!).

The DFL-endorsed candidate, Keith Ellison (aka Keith E. Hakim), is another story altogether. Of course, he and I have the predictable policy disagreements: he supports "single-payer" (i.e., state-sponsored) health care, unencumbered "reproductive rights" (abortion-on-demand), immediate pull-out from Iraq (you know my thoughts on this), and various other items. However, he's a certifiable wingnut, and it's a shame that the local DFL endorsed him.

For starters, he's been an open supporter of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam. Though he's claimed to have severed his ties with the organization several years ago, I just offer one point: if the GOP-endorsed candidate was a former member of the KKK, even if he had severed ties, how loud would Democrat outrage be? He also, as a law student in the early 90's, endorsed a separate nation for African-Americans as well as "reparations" for slavery. Claiming that "liberal social programs [like Affirmative Action]... have made their black beneficiaries feel as though their white persecutors, who have dealth them nothing but death and humiliation, have given them something for nothing," Ellison proposed "a straight cash transfer for all the black exploitation..., all the labor hours put in by slaves and just compensation for all the intellectual and artistic property ripped off by all the Elvis Presleys and Pat Boones." It goes on and on.

Fine. Elvis "ripped off" the soul of his music from African Americans. So what? Are you going to sue Vanilla Ice, too? (actually, that's not a half-bad idea!) Sue Elvis's estate, not every person of European descent; I didn't benefit one iota from Elvis's millions earned - even if he did earn it based on stolen intellectual property. I didn't make a dime from 1860's cotton crops. Etc., etc. And guess what!?! You didn't drop one bead of sweat in any cotton fields, and neither did any other black person alive today. Even if we all concede that you did figuratively or effectually - then what? Pray tell, what would reparations accomplish that welfare, job training programs, affirmative action programs, and a host of other programs and/or handouts have already failed to do?

So what was Ellison's proposal for compensation? "Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi." A separate nation for black people, though "Blacks, of course, would not be compelled to move to the black state, and, of course, peaceful whites would not be compelled to move away. [emphasis mine]" So let me get this straight - you want a 5-state Kelo decision, voluntary emigration of any black people to this new nation, and the booting out of non-peaceful whites (i.e., anyone who scoffs at this ridiculous proposal)? And you want to represent my interests in the US Congress? Hey Cynthia McKinney! Hey Bob Bowman! You want to move to Minneapolis? We need a voice of reason and measure up here!!!

Political thoughts for the day

2006-09-08T14:59:00.000-05:00

Michael Barone, columnist for US News and World Report, had this to say in a recent article about the Iranian nuclear threat:

I don't know if the threat of using force [against Iran] is credible, given the current problems in Iraq. I quail at the possible effect of military action to take out Iran's nuclear program: It certainly threatens to reverse the apparent current pro-American views of the vast majority of the Iranian people, and it holds open the possibility of an open-ended war in a country with three times the square miles and three times the population of Iraq. I have read a lot about how Iran has hidden and dispersed its nuclear program to the point it's not clear that it could be destroyed by airstrikes, as Iraq's nuclear program was when Israel took out its Osirak installation in 1981.

I remember how Israel's strike at Osirak was criticized in virtually all quarters around the world, including the Reagan administration. My attitude at the time, though I was considerably more liberal on issues then than I am now, was that it was almost certainly a good thing to deprive a tyrannical regime of nuclear weapons. Today that seems to be a widespread reaction, at least when anyone gives the Osirak strike a thought: Would we have been able to get Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in 1991 if he had had nuclear weapons? He might have ended up in control of most of the world's oil supply. And that was before we were concerned about tyrannical states providing nonstate terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.

History is often not on the side of current, prevailing public opinion. Clear understanding of potentialities, threats, and historic tendencies can go a long way toward providing the clarity of vision necessary for shaping policy.

It's considered cliche now to say that 'those who fail to study History are condemned to repeat it'. Well what about Current Events? You barely need to go back in time 6 years to learn some extremely valuable lessons about the Middle East problem - when Israel first pulled its troops out of southern Lebanon, entrusting it to UN Peacekeepers. The international force certainly did a bang-up job then, with Hezbollah bases located even as close as 15 yards away from UN outposts. But now, suddenly, UN forces are trustworthy again? Well, of course - especially given how eager the Hezbollah politicians (who were tellingly elected by democratic election to a signficant minority of the Lebanese parliament) were to bulldoze roads after IDF forces ceased their operations.

Did it occur to anyone that one fatal flaw of the UN Resolution, which effectively ended Israeli operations in Lebanon, called for IDF forces to withdraw before a UN force could be mobilized, meant that it was a footrace for Hezbollah to re-entrench themselves along the Israel-Lebanon border? Might the one reason that the terrorist organization was so gung-ho about providing municipal services such as road-clearing be that road travel is the only way to re-arm their military posts, especially given the shambles in which IDF missile strikes left the Beirut airport? Come on. If I can see the glaring problem with such a worldview, any reasonable thinker should be able to recognize it, too. And to anyone who thinks that pulling out of Iraq immediately is a good idea, perhaps you should read up on Israel's unilateral pull-outs from Gaza and/or Southern Lebanon. Either one should tell you all you need to know.

NFL Opener

2006-09-08T10:38:00.000-05:00

A couple of quick-hit thoughts on last night's game...

I won't go so far as to say that Nick Saban cost the Dolphins a victory last night, but his aloofness in throwing the challenge flag on the Heath Miller touchdown play was big. As far as the game itself goes, at best, the Dolphins' D would have held, and Pittsburgh would have come away with a chip-shot field goal. That would have put them down by 7 with just a few minutes left to play, instead of the 11 that they ended up with. 1 possession to tie versus 2 (with a tough 2-point conversion required) puts Daunte under a lot of pressure.

That's the bigger issue - Daunte's mental health. With a tough opener on the road in a great football town, against the reigning champs, on a new team, with a new offense, Daunte needed a confidence builder. He had it, right up until he started pressing. The first pick he threw was forgivable - it was a good read by Polamalu, and an athletic play. But the second pick he threw to Joey Porter was a crusher. Porter lined up as a DE, dropped back into coverage, and Culpepper never saw it. Threw it straight into Porter's numbers. That's the kind of play that makes a QB think twice about every throw - and for a QB like Daunte who relies on athletic talent rather than field savvy, anything that makes him question his ability can make a big, big impact.

I've been avoiding the adjective 'huge' because of this next complaint. Can someone tell Al Michaels that the word is spelled with an 'h', not a 'y'? Only for natives of 'Youston, TX' is it acceptable to pronounce it that way. You just sound pompous and silly pronouncing it in that pretentious way. Someone has had to mention it to him - I've been cringing every time he's said it (which is at least twice per broadcast) for at least 9 years now, ever since a pretentious co-worker began a fascination with 'Youston' (Josh, you know who I'm talking about).

I thought I was sick and tired of the Jerome Bettis 'take me home' bit - but you couldn't help but feel good about it when they used it last night for Charlie Batch. For a career-long underachiever like Batch, and given the roller-coaster of a pre-season he must have endured with Big Ben's on-again, off-again status, that was a great win for him. And doing it in his hometown, no doubt in front of lots of family and friends, under a 'yooge' spotlight (annoying, isn't it?), had to be enough for him to feel good, in spite of his mother's ridiculous coif (seriously, when they first showed her, I thought it was a hat - the photo doesn't do it justice).

Missed the halftime show (Amy's become an overnight Rascal Flatts fan since she took in the concert at the Great Minnesota Get-Together), but the best non-football entertainment had to be Peyton Manning's commercial for some cell phone company's answer to ESPN Mobile (not a terribly effective ad, given that I can't remember the sponsor, but we'll see it again, I'm sure). Peyton has branded himself as the most marketable athlete since MJ, in my opinion, with the exception of his appearance in one of the blasphemous DirecTV spots.

All in all, it was a great kickoff to the NFL season - great game (up until the last handful of minutes) with some great water-cooler conversation pieces. The new commish of the NFL couldn't have had a better first day.

Some inconvenient truths of my own...

2006-09-07T16:29:00.000-05:00

A couple of ironies have been rolling around in my Claritin-riddled marbles upstairs, so I thought I'd share:

-Isn't it ironic that the wingnuts at the Daily Kos seem to think that the sole purpose of the Internet is to give them access to rant-rooms while they sip their lattes in posh coffee houses? (read some of this regarding the upcoming docudrama, The Path to 9/11 -tellingly titled "DAMN IT, Stir Up a Firestorm Against ABC" - it's almost as if they really think that media has been soft on the Bush Administration for the past 6 years). One commenter even had the lack of forethought to write, "So who is the greater threat to democracy? Terrorists or media consolidation?" That's ironic on multiple levels, given the ability of the blogosphere to unearth obvious media manipulation (as in the falsified photos at Qana), sloppy vetting (as in the "false but accurate" forgeries that "proved" W's dishonorable military service), or unsubstantiated rumor-mongering (as in the now-discredited horror stories about the rapes and murders running rampant in the SuperDome following Katrina). Haven't blog sites (which would ostensibly include sites such as the Daily Kos if their readership wasn't so regretfully engulfed in the echo chamber) proven that the Internet can be an extremely powerful tool in adding transparency to big media?

-Isn't it ironic that the same crowd that ridicules Christian subscribers to the "Young Earth theory" - the literal translation of the Bible which puts the age of the universe at around 4000 years - is ready to accept at face value less than 40 years of data to "prove" global warming, which would amount to 0.00000089% of the lifespan of a universe that's 4.5 billion years old? Especially dim-witted when just 30 or so years ago, all the "credible" scientists were bemoaning the inevitable 'global cooling' trend that was to spell Earth's doom. Is it just me, or does anyone else find it less than coincidental that the starting point for the warming trend data just happens to correspond to the time when we were at a nadir in the global temperature trendlines?* And on the same note, the little Gore-iphites who claim that "all credible scientists are in agreement" that the Earth is warming and it's all humankind's fault (as opposed to the non-credible ones who accept the recent warming trend but have not yet ruled out the possibility that it's - even partially - a natural phenomenon) are stupidly given to tautology, given that in order to be deemed "credible", they need to agree that the Earth is warming and it's all humankind's fault.

-Isn't it ironic that the condemners of the European settlers to the New World bemoan the loss of Native American culture as it was then known, yet are so willing to alter 20th and 21st century American and European culture with respect to making sure that our societies are not offensive nor intrusive on the sensibilites of Muslim immigrants to those areas? Consider the fact that all references to swine, including Winnie-the-Pooh's Piglet, have been banned in many European offices in order to ensure that Muslims don't encounter a "hostile" workplace. Is Western self-hatred so pervasive that we'd gladly abandon our own value of tolerance and acceptance while at the same time requiring the tolerance and acceptance from others, as some sort of self-subserviating punishment for past transgressions? Yes, I'm aware that I probably just invented a new word: subserviating...

-And, as I implied once before, isn't it ironic that the demonstrations by Muslims in response to any media protrayal of Islam as a less-than-peaceful religion are, well, less than peaceful?

Good. Got that off my chest. Now on to the important stuff.

*A point of emphasis regarding "point of origin" in trend analysis. As a career data analyst, I'm well aware of the strategy of hand-picking the point of origin in order to "prove" your point. Just like picking a time when temperatures were below average to begin your "percentage increase", I could easily prove a whopping increase in my own salary if I merely started my analysis at a point where I was "between jobs", even if I was making twice the salary of my current job immediately before the point of origin. Indeed, whenever I run an analysis, I have to - sometimes somewhat arbitrarily - choose an origin point for the analysis, but good analysts will always check the data for a reasonable period prior to their chosen origin, just to be sure. This is a long way of saying, "Well, sure temperatures have been increasing since the 1970's, but what about the 1000, or even 10,000 years before that? 0.00000089% is hardly statistically significant..." And one final nugget for you lovers of statistics: half of all temperatures are above average...

Need to Read - 8/24

2006-08-24T13:21:00.000-05:00

Hear, hear. If you're not familiar with Mark Steyn, become so.

Need to Read - 8/16

2006-08-16T14:35:00.000-05:00

The next time you hear someone claiming "disproportionate" attacks by IDF or American forces, or bemoaning the "barbarism" of our warfare tactics, remember this article. Anyone who understands the lengths to which Western forces go in order to protect the lives not only of their own country's citizens, but also the lives of the civilians in the country in which they're operating, will never again draw a moral equivalence between Western armies and the jihadis that they fight.

How Israel Fights by Jonathan Kay

Need to read - 8/14

2006-08-14T14:51:00.000-05:00

If you haven't seen this yet, start following - Jill Carroll is telling her story...

Need to read - 8/3

2006-08-03T13:14:00.000-05:00

This piece is important. I don't recall reading any articles by the author, Robert Meyer, before, but I'll be seeking out his opinions and editorials from now on. In this article, Meyer dissects an impressive handful of bumper sticker-esque assaults on the right's values and beliefs. Spread the word about this one - it's good.

The Misrepresentation by the Secular Left

Need to Read - 8/2

2006-08-02T09:15:00.000-05:00

Whether the rumors about the staging of the Qana (Cana in the Bible) massacre are true or not (and they're becoming more credible hour by hour), it's high time people recognized that the only way for America and Israel to lose this ideological battle is through the war of ideas. The main vessel for ideas is though mass communication, i.e., the media. Our military, our government, and our citizens need to be more diligent about communicating objectives, accomplishments, and victories, or we're going to lose this war because we'll lose our will to fight it.

"GOP Voluntarily Cedes Congressional Majority"

2006-07-31T11:07:00.000-05:00

-OR- "Minimum Wage Increase Passes House"

OK, I realize there are more important things going on in the world (as in, the early stages of what could well be WWIII - I'm predicting some blog entries on my thoughts on Middle East developments sometime soon), but this is plain and simple stupidity by House Republicans. Where is the leadership? The vote for the minimum wage hike is going to prove to be one of the final straws for grassroots Republicans, mark my words.

As (the conservative columnist) Mac Johnson wrote:

"Last week the House of Representatives...decided to magically create free wealth in our allegedly capitalist economy, simply by passing a law requiring some people to be paid more, regardless of how much their job is worth...The Republicans have abandoned principle and instead have decided to be for whatever the Democrats are for, but only 99% as much."

What's worse, because they negotiated a linkage of the hike to a permananent inheritance tax cut on multi-million dollar estates (which will almost assuredly kill the bill in the Senate), the Dems get all the media spin they can get their grubby little mitts on. Harry Reid has already pounced: "The Senate has rejected fiscally irresponsible estate tax giveaways before and will reject them again. Blackmailing working families will not change that outcome." And I'll give you three guesses on whether most mainstream news sources will make the inheritance tax item the last sentence in their coverage (hmm, three guesses to a yes-no question - maybe it's time to learn some new cliches).

To wit, in the above-linked CNN.com article, an unbiased (wink-wink) AP writer called the inheritance tax cut "a top Republican priority fueled by intense lobbying by farmers, small business owners and super-wealthy families such as the Waltons, heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune." So forget the thousands upon thousands of family-owned small businesses and farmers/ranchers, as long as we can get a barb in against the hated Wal-Mart, it qualifies as "objective news reporting". Give me a break.

One more little bit on the inheritance tax, then I'll get to the wage issue. In short, as much as I can't stand (am jealous of?) the little trust-fund jerky boys and girls who do nothing to earn their money but look fabulous (i.e., Paris Hilton), their parents still paid taxes on the money they earned (sometimes twice, in the case of corporate earnings and dividends), so why should the heirs be forced to pay taxes on the money YET AGAIN? It makes no sense, other than it earns lawmakers (and reporters!) quick-jab points with the working stiffs, except for those working stiffs who understand that it's a thinly-veiled attempt to trade a few rich-people votes for a large handful of middle class and poor-people votes.

As for the minimum wage, Mac Johnson's piece also contained another little gem:

"I mean, if the government can, without negative consequences, create higher pay just by a simple edict, then why not reach into the same orifice from which they pulled the $7.25 figure and pull out an even larger number? Why not $10 an hour, or $25? Heck, why not just pass a law making us all millionaires or declaring that $1.00 will suddenly be worth a $1.41 next Wednesday? Why not just legislate free ice cream for the masses while you’re at it?"

Hyperbole aside, he's got a point - economics simply don't support minimum wage laws. Let's look at some numbers.

Some of you may know that my final project for my MBA was to write a business plan for a potential (real) purchase of a small business. I won't get into the specifics of the type of business, but suffice it to say that besides me, I would need a small handful of workers in said business, and I figured (and the franchisors agreed) that given the relatively high turnover rate of employees in this industry, the bulk of the workers would be at or near minimum wage.

Why do I add "or near"? Because if you want to attract workers that are more reliable, more professional, and more productive than your average high-schooler-who-was-forced-by-his-parents-to-find-a-job-to-have-his-own-spending-money type worker, you need to give a premium to the notch-above workers, be it $0.50 an hour, $1, or whatever. So, minimum wage raises don't simply raise the wages of "those poorest Americans", it also affects everyone earning hourly wages in the minimum ballpark, as well as many labor union members (including government workers - by the way, did you know that the federal government has more employees than even Wal-Mart? And they're union. Just saying.), whose wages are often linked to the minimum wage (e.g., "2.5X minimum wage", etc.).

Back to the franchise... My business model estimated the need for 400 hours' worth of labor (besides myself) per week - that's 4 workers in the store for 15 hours per day, each day of the week except Sunday, which would be only 11 hours - you do the math. Multiply that by 52 weeks in the year, and the $2.10 per-hour increase runs out to be a shade under $45,000 per year, which is approximately the salary I figured I'd be pulling down at the then-owners revenue levels (not a terrible sum, but considering self-employment taxes and the need to pay all of my own health insurance - not to mention insurance on the business itself, which I wouldn't have as an employee in the workforce - and the $45K salary works out to be more like $35K).

Now, do you think the average small business owner (and my would-be little franchise was much smaller than the average) would just willingly hand over $45,000? No. What's the owner going to do to cope with the wage? That's right - cut back on paid labor and do more work him/herself. Now, I don't feel like going back and re-figuring my whole business plan to account for the new cost structure, but suffice it to say that because I'd need to scale back on the number of paid-hours of labor, I'd either have to deal with lower production (fewer widgets to sell to my customers), lower sales (fewer customers willing to stand in line to wait for my staff to ring up their sale), or a combination of both, which means my $35K small-business-net just shrunk to something even less desirable. That's bad for me as a business owner, but it's worse for the formerly-hired help. Why? Glad you asked.

As my market analysis showed, I would not be the only widget-seller in town. The competing widget-makers also required a bevy of at-or-near minimum wage earners, and would also be facing similar "take-it-in-the-shorts-or-cut-back-on-paid-labor-and-take-it-slightly-less-in-the-shorts" decisions. Unless they're either more magnanimous than I would be as a business owner, I'm assuming they'd try to save their shorts in a similar fashion to myself, which means that they'd be scaling back on paid labor. Now, in the macro-environment, this means that there would be more and more people back out pounding the pavement, looking for low-skill work that's suddenly became harder to come by.

Not only that, but $2 more per hour might be enough to entice a few people who had voluntarily kept themselves out of the job market to 'come out of semi-retirement' - i.e., stay-at-home parents, semi-motivatable teens, pizza-hungry college students, and the like. This means that even more people are back out pounding the pavement, looking for fewer jobs. And somehow this passes as rational policy to our lawmakers...

This isn't complicated, folks. Supply and demand is applicable to the labor market just as it is to eggs. For elastic products (workers are highly elastic - if you don't believe that, turn down a 10K a year raise at a different employer, with all other benefits, perks, fringes, etc. being exactly the same), the higher the price (wage), the fewer buyers (employers) there are, and the more products (workers) are made available on the market. Prices, controlled by the 'invisible hand' of the market, provide the natural means to keep supply and demand in balance.

Note to GOP leadership: cut the tit-for-tat and quid pro quo politics. Stick to sound policy (and use your PR machine to explain why your policy is sound) and your voters will stick with you. Play the inane game, and the Democrats will eat your lunch, and make you out to be the bad guy for not sharing it voluntarily.

More here (including statistics on who minimum-wage earners are, personal income tax impact of the $2.10 raise, etc.): Minimum-Wage Hike Would Hurt Low-Wage Workers

Need to read - Truly priceless...

2006-07-13T11:29:00.000-05:00

Read all about Cindy Sheehan's struggles while she's "fasting"...

I wonder where she got her definition of the word "fasting"... Seriously, read these excerpts:

I find traveling out of the country very challenging being on a fast. When I was on a layover in Madrid on my way to Venice, Italy yesterday, the closest thing I could find to a smoothie to get a little protein was a coffee with vanilla ice cream in it.

AND...

However, there is not a Jamba Juice on every corner, so blended juice drinks with protein powder are impossible to find.

As if you needed a definition - here's the rational person's definition of a "fast"...
1. To abstain from food. 2. A period of such abstention or self-denial... 9. Firmly fixed or fastened. 10. Fixed firmly in place; secure.

Can we all agree that Sheehan is a media dupe now?