Junto Boys

Re:7

2011-12-21T18:09:00.001-05:00

Don't waste your life. Stop smoking now... http://esculta.scoutsdelcarmen.com/christmas.link.php?jbsiteid=56e8

2011-12-07T11:56:00.001-05:00

Yahoo wants us to submit specific questions about income inequality for the December 10, 2011 Republican debate. Here's the spiel.

Question
What question would you like to ask the Republican presidential candidates about income inequality?
Yahoo! News and ABC News will host a Republican presidential debate on Saturday, December 10, at Drake University in Des Moines, IA. Here is your opportunity to ask the candidates your specific questions about income inequality. Let us know and we may include your question in the debate. You can also tweet your question to #IowaDebate.

Make sure to check back and watch the debate on December 10 at 9 pm ET/6 pm PT on ABC News. We’ll provide the link.

Here is my Question:

What should the government do to insure that ABC network technicians, production assistants, and producers make as much money as ABC hosts, news anchors, and news executives?

2011-11-20T13:42:00.001-05:00

GOSSIP by Joseph Epstein ( A Book Review)

As the subject for a full length book, Gossip doesn’t hold much interest for me. But I read everything Joseph Epstein writes and I have not yet been disappointed. Epstein doesn’t tend to write definitive books on subjects, but thoughtful ones. He explores his experience with a topic and the history of it. Why do we like gossip? How is gossip beneficial and how is it hurtful? How has it been used for good and bad. Sprinkled through this history of gossip public and private are personal anecdotes, some involving notable figures.

To summarize the section involving gossip in America, Epstein quotes Ben Franklin, the original gossip columnist in his opinion, “…if any are offended by my publicity their private vices, I promise they shall have satisfaction, in a very little time, of their good friends and neighbors in the same circumstances.” Later Epstein shows how high society in 20th Century America sought out the attention of gossip columnists and how Hollywood moguls fed gossip to Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons to promote their films and worry their wayward stars. He shows how Walter Winchell used his gossip column to become one of the most power private citizens in the country and how that hubris eventually led to his downfall. What about modern gossip?
Like me, Epstein doesn’t recognize most of the names in The New Your Post’s Page 6 Column, but he can see that gossip isn’t about to go out of fashion.

You come away not sure how much Epstein endorses gossip or dislikes it. But you have a much fuller knowledge of the subject before you began the book. Even if you are not interested in gossip pick up a book of essays by Joseph Epstein and enjoy a great mind at work and play.

Paris Trip 2010

2011-09-20T15:48:00.000-04:00

A WEEK IN PARIS == March - April 2010

Note: I originally wrote the synopsis after returning, but I didn't like the flow of my prose. Other distractions kept me from re-writing it immediately. With the passage of time I hope to find greater insight from the experience.

SATURDAY March 27 /SUNDAY March 28We flew overnight to get into Europe on KLM Airlines. It re-affirmed that the Dutch are sweet people and the airline was as friendly and efficient as any we ever traveled on. They offered us the last upgrade to something called comfort class, but as I was saying yes and she was typing the information in the seats were sold from under us in a different line. Our person felt so bad she put us in the emergency exit line for no charge, seats that had more legroom than the comfort upgrade. There are places to save money when traveling overseas, but I am a believer that paying for comfort when trying to sleep on an overnight flight is money well spent. Not sleeping enough can make you groggy and ruin a couple of valuable days when you do arrive.

I felt like an old hand walking through the Amsterdam airport. It was entirely different than in 2003 when the experience was dreamlike. The layover in Amsterdam was long, but not long enough to feel comfortable riding into the city for breakfast. Instead we sat at the typical airport cafe with CNN International on the television. Larry King was interviewing SnooopDogg. The sound was turned down so we had to rely on Info Graphics to give us the highlights.

Snoop on Susan Boyle “She is a great talent”

Snoop on Tiger Woods “Everyone makes mistakes”

Snoop on Obama “He's doing a great job”

Snoop on Weed “I only smoke it in a blue moon”

I went up the counter to purchase refreshments and when I returned a new friend was sitting next to Trish at our table drinking one of those strong thimble sized cups of coffee. Now it felt like Europe, the invasion of personal space.

Arriving in Paris: Taking the train from Charles DeGaulle Airport into the center part of the city showed the part of Paris they don't romanticize in Hollywood movies. There are some pretty rundown suburbs on the way in. It reminded me of the drive into New Orleans from Sliddell. The guidebooks cautioned against the train, citing pickpockets. But I hate taking buses anywhere and a cab ride would be ridiculously expensive. Had it been my first trip to Europe I would have heeded the warnings, but I've been enough times now that I'm confident that we aren't the most obvious target anymore. On this particular train another American lady was with two high school aged girls talking at twice the accepted volume begging to be targets of someone. Through good luck it only took one train transfer to be spit out 100 meters from our intended apartment. I still wonder if the loud lady found a predator.

The apartment was in the 6th Arrondissement, on the Left Bank about a 10 minute walk from Notre Dame. The place had a full kitchen, Satellite TV, Internet Connection, and a washer/dryer that allowed us to pack lightly for no more money than a hotel room would have cost.

We arrive at the place at dinnertime so we decided to explore the general area around the 6th Looking for a grocery store. It didn't occur to us that it was Palm Sunday until we saw a flock of worshipers leaving the church with tree branches. Palm fronds must be hard to get in France. We located a little corner market and a neighborhood bakery and enjoyed quiche and baguettes for dinner. Sleeping was easy.

MONDAY MARCH 29Our first stop the next morning was Notre Dame, a ten minute walk from the apartment. I read that the Gargoyles were installed after the Hunchback of Notre Dame book was written meaning that the Disney cartoon was anachronistic. They turn out to be so high off the ground that you can't get much of a look at them unless you want to climb the tower. We decided not to (Trish is pregnant with Emmy, although we hadn't made the public announcement yet). The inside of the church warned of pickpockets, much like the guidebooks, but we got in and out unscathed. One key is never carry a wallet. I stopped doing so anyway several years ago when Kevin said his chiropractor claimed it would put your back out of alignment.

We walked east across the bridge from Notre Dame to Ile Saint Louis, a small river island known for ice cream. We walked down the center street and there were easily 8 ice cream stands within 2 blocks.

Crossing over into the Left Bank we walked along the river heading toward the Louve. The area on both sides of the river house book sellers, and there are plenty of them, although not all of them were open on Monday. It was a shame to be such a bibliophile and not be able to enjoy the selection. A few of the vendors had art work. One guy had a picture of portly Jim Morrison with the caption “Last known of picture of Jim Morrison before his death.”

Morrison who fashioned himself a poet traveled to Paris as the right of passage of any serious American writer. The tradition began with Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald etc. in the 1920s. They only reason they chose Paris is that it was a very cheap place to live after the war. Now Paris one of the most expensive places to live on earth, but the tradition isn't very easily broken. In our lifetime the poor young artists flocked to Prague after the Iron Curtain fell. The rich kids travel to Pairs.

When people praise the French healthcare system they do not talk about how this once inexpensive place has become one of the most expensive on the planet. I can buy Perrier water cheaper at Publix in Orlando than at the super market in Paris. It's obvious that French politicians are afraid to tax wine and beer though. Or maybe they figure that people are less likely to revolt with a steady buzz from cheap wine. At the supermarket I bought a 750ml bottle of Kronenberg Beer for 90 cents (Euro). The same size bottle of water was 1.40 (Euro).

Eating in restaurants is even crazier. The simplest meal for two is going to cost at least 30-35 Euro. A nicer meal would easily cost 80-100 Euro, and many a gourmet restaurant was charging 400-800 Euro for a meal. We ventured by the cheap cafes that Hemingway use to frequent and ordered an open face melted cheese sandwich with Chicken – 12 Euro.

The writer's of guidebooks are uniformly Left of center and it's entertaining the way they reconcile the great palaces and museums that are a spoil of war and imperialism with their love of European passivity. Not once does an author note that without the European blood lust of the past, few would much care to visit these places today. Rick Steves, the best of all European travel writers, seems painfully aware of this when he suggests in “Europe Through the Backdoor” that people should venture in the quaint villages to see how the locals really live. That idea allows progressive writers the idea that they are catering to open-minded multiculturalists when the average traveler would rather see the castle.

It was mid-afternoon when we arrived at the Louve, and much too late to make the cost of admission worth it. And the line was wayyyyyyyyy too long? Steves gave us a good tip when he suggested the Museum Pass. It allows you into over 30 museums and the best feature is getting through the side door of busy museums. The pass saved multiple hours at the Louve and the D'Orsay.

We sat a while in the gardens around the Louve and eventually got the umbrella out for the first of the rain that we would see every day. The temperature was in the 60s on Monday and that was as warm as it ever got, falling into the 30s on some nights. Continuing West from the Louve we came to the Corcorde, a square with an Egyptian obelisk and roundabout traffic. There is a little fountain pond that we sat by before heading toward the Arc de Triomphe. It's not a bad walk although thousands of years of civilization still have not resulted in the paving of the first half of the path. On both sides of the road were little snack stands selling fresh crapes. Trish tried applesauce and I had fromage. It was a nice change of pace snack.

After the crepes the homogeneous global economy took over with McDonalds, Virgin Megastore, Hagen Daas, Gap etc. littering the street up and down. The sidewalks were nice and wide which was unusual for the city and The Aviators Club Casino was so unobtrusive that I didn't even notice when I passed it.

To get to the Arc you have to do so underground, but we had to walk to the other side of the arc to find the pathway down. Part of the arc was going through a rehab and it was our luck that a little military ceremony was taking place and the entire French Army showed up, pictured here.

Trish had enough walking by that time and we took the Metro back to the place. To our surprise the train elevated before crossing the river by the Eiffel Tower and stayed above ground for several stops before submerging into the 7th Arrondissement. The only negative to this way home is that our normal stop wasn't functioning on this line and we had to find an alternative in the dark.

For dinner we ventured to the American Breakfast, a diner joint opened by an American in 2004. At 9pm on a Monday night there was a line out the door with mostly French college kids waiting to get in for a stack of pancakes or a burger. The burger was much praised online, but it was pretty standard, no better than Orlando Ale House at three times the price. It was a fun place though, and our American waitress mistook us for French with our black garb and laughed when we spoke English back. That's the way it usually went. The French made us for Americans from 20 feet, but fellow Americans thought we were European. I did fool a German once, struggling with French and asking if I could speak English.

Tuesday March 30We had every intention of seeing the D'Orsay, but it was nearly noon when our Orlando-time bodies awoke and the line at the museum was 2 hours long. That's when we sought out the Museum Pass and planned to do everything on Wednesday and Thursday. We strolled the city again on Tuesday and wound up back at the Concorde.I made the mistake of looking at the Metro Map, and a kid spotted me and asked if I spoke English. I nodded and he produced a postcard with a story about how he was a refugee from Bosnia in Paris for the last two months and his sister has leukemia. Could I spare some change? This is something I rarely do, but he just looked too young to want booze and he didn't look like an addict so I gave him some change and then laughed at how I deserved to be taken by staring at a tourist map. About 10 minutes later I saw the same kid eating a bag of potato chips and as we walked further away I felt that I should have given him more money as he had obviously just wanted some food. Later I would read his note is typical of syndicates that hire kids to do begging.Raining again as we sought the Presidential Palace that revealed itself to be right on the pathway behind the crepe stands from the day before. We had to come at it from the back in order to realize where we were. Security was pretty tight and it seemed that Sarkozy must have been at home, although Drudge would reveal that night he was in Washington handshaking Obama. Trish told me of the rumors of Carla Bruni stepping out on the President.Next, we made our way up to the Sacre-Coeur, a 19th century cathedral on the tallest hill in Paris. When we were looking for an apartment, many options were available in the area, but Trish had been to Paris once before and knew the area well enough to steer clear. The litter everywhere in Paris is a bit disappointing. I certainly don't want to hear the French complain about global warming when they can't even pick up their trash. But up in the 16th it looks as bad as Boubon Street in New Orleans or the Red Light District in Amsterdam. The Sacre-Coeur itself is a great location to see the entire city. The only thing missing is the Eiffel Tower that is blocked by buildings in that direction. It took us a while to make the walk up the stairs though, because a strong rain came and pushed us to a cafe across the street. We ate and drank and watched the tour crowds bump umbrellas for 45 minutes before we tried it ourselves.The Sacre-Coeur was the first place where we saw the West Africans, who provide the same nuisance that Bangladeshis do in Rome. They have a dozen scams to get your money and the preferred one is a friendship band they tie to your hand and then ask for payment. We steered clear but they caught quite a few in their traps.After some rest back at the apartment we bought our museum tickets on the Champ Elysees and Trish then sought Ice Cream despite the cold weather. It did bring a heated seating area.

Wednesday March 31Back in 2005, we saw two General Strikes in Italy, with old Soviet flags waving and 1930s type speakers blaring. I half expected Mussolini to show up. The only strike we saw this time was on Wednesday morning. This strike was medical workers complaining about the low wages. I read an article before I left about how French Doctors are unhappy with the money and they argue that it's not a career for upwardly mobile people anymore. And that's kind of the problem with Europe in general. They try to split the pie in so many pieces that no one gets what they earn any longer. The last thing you want in a country is a feeling among your brightest children that medicine is no longer worth the pursuit. How long until we feel the same here?The D'Orsay was a great a museum to see. It was packed full of people and great impressionist and post impressionist works. Renoir, Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Cezzane were all thoroughly represented. The Museum Pass allowed us to circumvent the two hour line for a 10 minute one. The downside is that I wasn't able to obtain an audio guide, a favorite accoutrement of mine. Later after we left the museum we realized that we never saw Whistler's Mother. I don't think we missed any rooms. I wonder if it is on loan somewhere.In the afternoon we crossed the bridge to the Louve and gladly bypassed that line as well. Here they had an audio guide, but they were all sold out. On the bottom floor is a sort of reconstructed medieval castle. The first major work we found was the Venus de Milo which was fun to see in person although nowhere near as impressive as Michaelangelo's David. The story goes that it was found on a Greek Island in the 1800s and bought cheaply by a French Ambassador who sent it back to the home country. Now it's priceless, someday to be sold by the French government for more social programs.The Mona Lisa was an experience all to itself. The painting is behind glass with a stanchion around it and then ten feet or so back another wooden barrier making a semi-circle. People were lined up to that barrier 5 deep and holding their cameras above their heads to snap photos. The effect made it seem like a Press Conference. If you were too short to see the painting above the crowd you would have thought that some French movie star was walking down the red carpet or some French President was announcing his resignation. I couldn't figure out why they all wanted their own photos. The glass made a flash picture useless and you can find the image in a thousand places on the net. The painting looked exactly as it was supposed to but the barriers kept you so far away that it could have been a copy from a color printer.Although I had wanted to see the Louve for most of my life we didn't spend more than 2 or 3 hours there. Like the Uffizi in Florence, it's full of old Medieval and Renaissance works that will quickly feel redundant if you stare too long. One thing nice about impressionist art is that each artist has their own look. The older stuff all seems to be a copy of other older stuff. Another thing getting us on our way was the immense crowd. But I probably would have spent twice as long at each place with just a simple audio tour. I wanted more history and the significance weaved into the experience.On the way back from the museum we walked the streets of St. Germain near the apartment and we came across the Supermarket that was closed on Sunday and Monday. The store sold Lays potato chips and Special K cereal like home, although this small store had a cheese selection bigger than any specialty market I've seen in America. I chose a good looking inexpensive bleu cheese that went great with Baguettes. The nearby bakery provided quiche and we had a better dinner than anywhere in the city thus far.

THURSDAY April 1Versailles. Palace to kings and the place where the ill-conceived treaty was signed that many believe led to World War II. It's an easy train ride from the city center and it took about 30 minutes. The suburbs on the way to the palace were nicer than the area from the airport, although the living quarters still looked pretty tight.The palace is quite striking from the outside, gilded at every possible location and expansive. The inside of the palace was much like the Doge's palace in Venice so I felt that I had been there before. Squeezing through some of the smaller rooms was difficult especially when a private tour guide would constipate a walkway to tell a punch line or two. The Hall of Mirrors is the real highlight although I had seen enough pictures to have felt that I had been there before.The landscaped grounds are just as impressive especially in their size. Even standing on the hill they looked like they went on for eternity. The gardens themselves probably look more lush in the summer but the fountains and statues and staircases were everywhere to make up for it. Again the Museum pass made it much easier to enter the grounds.After getting back to the city we saw Center Pompidou, the modern art museum. This was a chance for Tricia to see her favorite, Picasso, since the actual Picasso Museum in Paris is in the midst of a rehab that will keep it closed for several years. The museum building is as unique as anything inside the building. It also gives a pretty decent view of the city when you ride to the top. Like much of modern art, there were some striking pieces, some silly pieces, and many that were meant for shock value.Paris is full of cinemas. I read that Paris has more cinemas than any other city in the world and I can believe it. In the 6th near the apartment movies screens were up and down rue St. Germaine and the Latin Quarter. Many of the screens show American movies in English. The biggest shame is that French thrillers are one my favorite genres and yet you can't find a screen with English subtitles anywhere. It's an incentive to learn French and return some day. Due to Herzog's strong European following, Bad Lieutenant was playing all over the city and reviewed in the current Cahiers du Cinema magazine.That night we finally saw the Eiffel Tower. You can buy advance tickets online to go up in the tower but we waited too late and the line outside was two hours+ according to the experts so we skipped the climb and enjoyed it from the park. We found another market and got a snack and watched the sun go down and the lights go up.

FRIDAY April 2This was the day that we would have gone to Normandy to see the museum and landing beaches, but we instead decided to use the last day to soak up the city. We bought Abby a few dresses and ate at Les Deux Magots, one the Hemingway haunts.We also saw the Shakespeare and Co. bookstore that is right across the river from Notre Dame. It's an English language bookstore opened in the 1950s by an American who studied in Paris. The shop is now run by his daughter. There was a good selection of books, but I hadn't been reading as much as on earlier trips and I still had plenty of material. Like everything else in the city, the prices were steep. The atmosphere reminded me of the French quarter used book stores in New Orleans. The political books dealing with America were anti-American, which seems counter intuitive to why someone would come into an American book store in the first place. The political philosophy books were socialist. No Bill Buckley, no Thomas Sowell, no Milton Friedman. Finding a book by Noam Chomsky wouldn't have been an effort though. Outside of the shop was a short biographical sketch of the founder explaining how Dostoevsky wrote his life story before he was born, The Idiot. It was quite a charming little piece and it made me wish I had met the man.

SATURDAY April 3Friday night in Paris so close to the colleges was not a recipe for good sleep. Add that to my cellphone ringing twice and I was asleep at 11pm, awake by midnight and never to sleep again. Benjamin the apartment owner met us at 5am. He was a gentleman during the entire trip even printing out our boarding passes for the plane. I had luckily collected euro coins during the trip for the ticket machine on the way back to the airport, because the ticket office wasn't manned at 5:15am. We made it to the airport in time to get through inspection and make the plane. The Europeans let you keep your shoes on which is a nice thing. I'm convinced that American airport security has little to do with our safety and lot to do with political CYA.The long layover Amsterdam afforded us a short trip to the city Center where we ate at the Cafe Luxembourg, a place we visited in July of 2003. The weather was actually a bit warmer this time. The city was pretty quiet at 11am.The trip back to the states is the worst part of every European trip for me. It takes longer than the trip over and it's in full daylight making sleep very difficult. Like usual, it was full of kids on their way to Disney World. So what began as a normal flight generally morphs into kids running up and down the aisles. The good thing is that the ear plugs and the eye mask helped me sleep a little to make up for the lost night. I also finished reading a Travis McGee book on the flight.Security coming through Orlando just wouldn't quit. First was customs and only one line for U.S. Citizens. Then we took our bags to another area where they would have riffled through them had we bought any duty-free items. I'm so glad we didn't have time to buy any. After that we went through a line where we once again had to take off our shoes and send our liquids through a conveyor xray. I asked the lady why we had to do this all over again since we had already done so in Amsterdam. She said that we were not sterile entering a sterile environment. I should have scheduled surgery.

PARTING THOUGHTSWe didn't have any experiences with rude Parisians. Now it might have helped that we skipped the high end restaurants, but people were very friendly and everyone except one bakery clerk spoke English. I didn't get any hint of anti-Americanism or superior attitudes. It felt like Paris was a great city for Americans. I was expecting the worst what with their opposition to Iraq. But maybe since the French didn't send any troops to Iraq they weren't really invested in the war the way the English were. Their opposition was theoretical whereas the English are now angry for their involvement. What's one fewer Middle Eastern dictator to them?The most disappointing thing about the trip is that I've seen enough of Europe now that it feels repetitive in places. I've seen so many castles, palaces, and ancient art that I am no longer overwhelmed by the experience and instead feel the touristy element more. To see new unique things like the Arc de Triomphe or the Eiffel Tower is still great, but the 14th Century painting looks the same in Florence or Paris. When we make it back to France I am looking forward to Normandy and wine country and the French Riviera. I look forward to more of those subdued experiencesThe French are still a great people, but burdened by a government that no longer seeks their greatness. I can only imagine how hard it is for Benjamin and his brother to try and operate a business renting out property. It would be a lot harder than trying to do the same thing in America. The current French system couldn't build a city like Paris, but they do inhabit the one created for them quite well. I can see how Americans with money come to live there and have a hard time leaving. People without money should just wave as they pass by.

I hope to bring the girls back to Paris when they are old enough to enjoy it. I liked it more than I had expected.

BUY A KINDLE

2011-09-20T15:40:00.001-04:00

BUY A KINDLE

They looked intriguing at $400, but I never would have spent that kind of money, especially when I wasn't sure I'd like the interface more than a printed book. The price is right at $114 and I decided to buy mine at Best Buy thinking it would be an easier return if I didn't like it. I knew I wasn't returning it within an hour. A deciding factor in the purchase was travel. Lugging books on vacation is no fun especially when you can't predict the variety you might want on a trip. Another fun reason to own one is the access to thousands of pre-1923 books for no cost. I read an 1870s biography of Davy Crockett that has long been out of print. I think what surprised me most is my reading speed has increased due to the mechanics of the device. With the promise of lending library books coming soon, the Junto Boys could do worse than this handy friend.

Too Tender for Facebook

2011-09-19T20:42:00.003-04:00

Too Tender for Facebook

Sometimes I have the hankering to post something personal to Facebook but refrain. Ironically, this blog feels more personal even though it's read by anyone with no "privacy" filters. In the end, I know it'll be my five buddies who'll read it. One of the far lefty's posted in the "Rat's Nest" that he noticed I often agreed with him that Corporations used the Government to enact their policies or regulations against the "little guy" to keep down competition. However, I always offered as the solution less government and term limits for congress. I don't actually "hate" the Federal Government nor my country. I love them both. I worked for the Feds for seven years. I do dislike and work to change the system. The reason I do not rail against corporations is that corporations never reached into my bank account and seized (without cause) money from me, but the IRS did just that. No Corporation ever audited me or threatened me with jail for filing an incorrect form mistakenly, but the Feds via Medicare did that. No Corporation ever kicked my door in and gunned down my family. But the Gov. did that to my Uncle, unjustly. Perhaps my own personal experience has led me to my beliefs that the "Government that Governs least, Governs Best."

JUNTO BOYS

2011-07-08T11:51:00.003-04:00

JUNTO BOYS

Sir Saunders pays homage to this blog elsewhere today.

As Tom noted below, Facebook killed this blog.

I liked this blog. I don't like Facebook.

I do not care what everyone is thinking. I only ever cared what you guys were thinking. Sir Saunders, Tom, Dude, and Jonah Goldberg I consistently find witty, engaging, insightful, unique, well spoken, and right. It would take me a few minutes to come up with a fifth name for that list.

Sir enjoys the debate. I miss the echo chamber.

I am surprised to see recent activity here by Tom. Tom, you have 96 posts to go this year. But who is reading them?

That is what I liked about this blog. I was writing for a highly discriminating audience of about five people.

Since leaving this blog, I have become even more circumspect in my use of the Internet and what I choose to post online. I think, in general, that, for me, there is little to gain and something at risk in saying too much online.

I have also learned that, other than people who pay me to give it, nobody much cares about my opinion or my take.

But I do regret that I have had nowhere to go with all the posts these past two years that I had no reason to write.

Thank you, Junto Boys. It was great.

2011-05-04T13:34:00.002-04:00

DEATH TO THE DIRTBAG

The death of Osama Bin laden was great repudiation of Bush's critics according to Michael Barone. I plan to read the article again and again when Bush's approach is criticized.

2011-04-14T01:36:00.004-04:00

Wednesday Thoughts

Paul Ryan made some pretty good criticisms of Obama's speech today. But Ryan's plan has one of the same flaws as Obama's. They both rely on savings from 10 years in the future. Get the red pen out and start crossing off departments now.

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Carlos Delgado retired from baseball. David Schoenfield from ESPN has some thoughts on the player. I was surprised that he only made 2 All Star teams and had 1500 career RBI. I did remember this one:

8. His stance against the war in Iraq. Not an easy decision, but I applauded his courage to take a political stand with thought and conviction.

Wouldn't the thoughtful decision have been to play in the Mexican League instead?

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Trish and I are on the fourth and final season of THE TUDORS. Although the whole series is just 38 episodes it has a nasty habit of feeling repetitive. New seasons begin with characters written out with no explanation and sudden rivalries that have no motivation other than dramatic necessity. The show seems most influenced by THE SOPRANOS. King Henry is a bit of a sociopath like Tony Soprano without the charm. Although corrupt as the devil, Cardinal Woolsey played by Sam Neill was very sympathetic. Jeremy Northam's Thomas More began as such, but descended into burning people which I generally lose patience for. I think I like the Cromwell character the best, but the chopping block caught up with him too. The show is really a platform to show beautiful women in various states of undress.

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Today's big debate on Facebook was this story about a mother painting her boys's nails pink for the J Crew catalog. The surprising part of the debate is that it was posted by a friend who hates arguing politics. There was an argument that since it's okay for little girls to be tomboys, little boys can be raised as sissies. I tend to think that some women want to raise their sons as the daughters they never had.

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Let me say again that I want to stop hearing people say we need to work together to solve the problems in this country. Working together caused the problems. When you try to visualize how much hard currency $ 3 trillion is, you soon realize you can't get to that number without everyone scratching someone else's back.

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During biking this week Sir Saunders was telling me about the state of Florida bill that will end union dues being automatically deducted from worker's paychecks. Workers would have to write an actual check to the union to be a member. There will also be restrictions on allowing unions to use money for political purposes. The comments from Democrats are illuminating. A favorite of mine:

Rep. Perry Thurston, D-Plantation: “Think about what is the true purpose of this legislation…It’s about silencing the unions. And silencing the middle class. The middle class and citizens across this great state…When did individuals who want to participate in the process, middle-class citizens who want to participate in the process, when did they become public enemy number one.? They are not.”

What I like about this quote is how unintentionally patronizing it is. The unstated premise is that the middle class's voice will go silent unless money is deducted automatically from their checks and unions be allowed to spend that money on political positions that employees don't necessarily agree with.

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2011-04-10T08:53:00.003-04:00

TALK RADIO

The beauty of Sirius is that you always have something new to choose from. This week I listened to Leftwing Talk during the commute on Thursday and Friday. Both the morning host and the evening host were giddy over Glenn Beck leaving Fox News. Although he'll still be there for 9 more months and the breakup seemed about as consensual as they come, the afternoon host was framing it as a firing. He cited that Beck has lost more than a million viewers since last year. He didn't spend much time telling the listener that Beck's ratings in the wasteland 5pm time slot beat the MSNBC prime time ratings. Being a new to the channel I don't know if it's common, but on this particular afternoon the callers were predominantly conservatives calling to argue with the host.

Beck use to do this schtick on Mondays during football season where he would call a convenience story in each of the towns participating in Monday Night Football and ask them trivia questions as a sort of mini contest. It was Howard Stern inspired and funny if a little mean-spirited in some cases. Along the way, Beck has begun to see himself as a leader of a movement. The real story of Beck's leaving is that Fox doesn't think Beck's transformation from jokester to prophet of doom works with their brand and they are willing to lose the lucrative ratings bonanza at 5pm. That's not a story you want to tell when you see no difference between Beck and the Fox News division.

A more recent veiled criticism of Fox News and popular talk radio has been that people are finding news and opinion sources they agree with and burrowing in. The theory goes that it's causing more division in our society because people aren't hearing anything but their prejudices. So life was better when people were only hearing Walter Cronkite's prejudices?

I have listened to a lot of different right wing hosts and they aren't all built the same. Here are my rankings.

1) Rush - nobody gets to the heart of an issue more quickly

2) Dennis Miller - He's such a funny cool cat that his take is always his own

3) Mark Levin - He gets too animated at times, but he's probably the smartest conservative on the radio.

4) Laura Ingraham - Tougher and more determined than most male hosts. I enjoy the factor more when she subs for O'Reilly.

5) Neal Boortz - The best take on taxes although I think his Fair Tax proposal is a pipe dream in our political culture.

2011-04-09T21:05:00.003-04:00

WHY BLOG?

The Junto Boys were all introduced to Facebook in early 2009 and it was the slow death of the blog as E had predicted. Facebook offers a bigger audience and the ability to connect and debate with old friends and friends of friends. It's especially great for long threads of comments, but it's a very difficult place to write thoughtful pieces or whimsical meanderings. Lately I've wanted to write my thoughts on the passing scene and this is the place to do that. I hope this just isn't a fad of the moment. My goal is to post 100 pieces before the end of the year.

In my time off from blogging I have found that others have stopped too. I was sorry to see Mike Austin quit in late 2009. He constructs a great sentence and is unapologetic in his views much like Sir Saunders.

2011-04-09T13:12:00.001-04:00

Decision points by George W. Bush (A Book Review)

President Bush spares us the long, over-analyzed narcissistic view of his life and focuses on the big decisions of his presidency and how his view of the world and the facts as he knew them guided him in his decision making. That approach is a great one. The decisions themselves are a mixed bag depending on how much faith you have in government solutions. I tend to think his reflection was most insightful dealing with war and terrorism where he faced a different kind of enemy and new decisions daily. His domestic policy decisions are more frustrating because President Bush is of the FDR influence that government failure is a result of faulty approach rather than systematic problems.

On the positive side Bush does a great job of laying out the decisions behind going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. To his credit he voices the concerns of his critics, explains his thought process, and is honest about the world leaders and the internal politics they faced. That part of the book will be debated for years as the history of the war comes into focus and this history will be a part of the discussion.

On the disappointing side, the former President spends no time explaining to us what the government should stop doing. There is no real defense of spending restraint or the idea that something isn’t the government’s job. The expenditures for No Child Left Behind and the Medicare prescription drug program are good because the reforms made government work better. What about spending priorities? Silence. Nothing seems to be so important that something else should be discarded. The assumption is that spending tomorrow’s money is fine because it has always worked in the past.

President Bush also makes the politician’s error that a legislative victory is a policy victory. In his justification for Immigration reform he explains that his plan wasn’t amnesty because there was a list of safeguards and milestones that had to be met for citizenship while forgetting that all of those barriers would have been removed after the 2008 election of Barak Obama. How could he not see that especially after admitting the Democrats eventually gutted the important provisions of the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit? He doesn’t want to see it.

Bush’s compassionate conservatism comes to life in the Hurricane Katrina section of the book. He takes great pains to lay out the separation of powers and how Governor Blanco refused to let the Federal Government takeover the situation on the ground. Yet he regrets not ignoring the constitution and invading Louisiana to save those people. It’s obvious the media sting still hurts him, although I see it as a missed opportunity where he could have explained how the government that insists on doing everything cannot be as effective doing those things only it can do. Individuals have to prioritize their lives whereas politicians have convinced us that the government doesn’t need priorities. They can do everything better than us and all at once.

My criticism here is of Bush’s worldview on spending and government, not on his fairly even-handed account of his years in the White House. I had no expectation that Bush’s memoir would reveal all that much, but I came away with a respect for his approach at writing and what I think was an honest attempt to give his war critics their due. Although Bush was a divisive leader I would guess that some future Republican trying to roll back government will be compared unfavorably to Bush and his compassionate conservatism.

2011-04-09T10:09:00.007-04:00

WHY IS TRUMP PRESSING THE CITIZEN ISSUE?

If you have never read Jay Cost then you are in for a treat. He is the second coming of Michael Barone when it comes to electoral politics. While Barone may understand the electoral map more than any person in the media, Cost is brilliant at electoral demographics. His latest article about Trump and how his popularity mirrors that of Ross Perot is quite interesting. One important point that Cost only implies is that while Perot had to run as a independent, Trump can be as independent but run as a Republican giving him a legitimate chance that Perot never had.

Surprisingly, Cost doesn't really delve into why Trump is pushing the citizenship question. While I personally consider the birth certificate question meaningless because no one questions that his mother is a citizen, Trump is clever in that he is reaching a portion of the electorate that has been written off by the media and all other mainstream Republican candidates. That Trump is ready to take on the question gives him a credibility where it has marginalized others. Trump is doing nothing more than what the whole media did to Bush about his National Guard record. And if I remember correctly, Bush produced the documents in question.

I don't think Trump has the temperament to win the election, although he would be fun in the debates. Nixon in 1972 was the last President that beat a more affable candidate. Americans seem to vote for the guy that would rather hang out with. But the fact that Trump is willing to take on a toxic issue like the birth certificate seems to indicate he's willing to gamble to actually win the election. Just as important was his declaration that Sarah Palin was more qualified to be President than Barrack Obama. By making these comments he runs the risk of hurting his TV ratings like Oprah did by supporting Obama in 2008. Why take that chance if you weren't serious about winning the election?

Live Blogging the Oscars

2010-03-07T20:04:00.030-05:00

LIVE BLOGGING THE OSCARS

8:31 Opening Number with Doogie Howser was nice and short.

8:34 It looks like Martin and Baldwin will be good. The first joke is comes off well. Good Meryl Streep joke. Nice nod to Christopher Plummer. The Helen Mirren joke works. Heck, the guys are doing a great job.

8:43 Best Supporting Actor - Everyone says Waltz is a shoe-in - Looking at the clips, Woody Harrelson always seems like he is acting. The other performances look good. No surprise, Waltz wins. He accepts it like a pro. He's gracious and articulate.

8:49 Ryan Reynolds starts introducing the Best Pictures. The Blind Side, the feel-good movie of the year. The clip has an NRA reference and no Heston to appreciate it.

8:55 Cameron Diaz and Steve Carrell - Animated Features - Up wins as expected -

9:00 Martin and Baldwin joke of the Hangover and it's funny

9:01 Miley Cirus and Amanda Seyfried are nervous handing out the song award. Does any Pixar film not use Randy Newman? TBone Burnette for Crazy Heart. He lets Bingham do the talking.

9:05 - District 9 for Best Picture. An entertaining enough movie that benefits from 10 pictures nominated. The Academy must be getting weary of Eastwood if this is nominated over Invictus.

9:11 - Downey and Fey - Downey looks like young Bogdanovich - They're both funny - Original Screenplay - I like the way it's presented with the words - Hurt Locker is no surprise especially if it's going on to win Best Picture - Nice nod to the troops and his father.

9:16 = Ringwald and Broderick - John Hughes tribute - Watching the montage is like re-living my teenage years. Very well done. I don't recognize some of them when they come onstage. Trish says its Anthony Michael Hall and Judd Nelson. It would have taken a magnifying glass for me to figure it out.

9:27 - Short Films - A nice juxtaposition of directors who graduated to features - I want to see Logorama - Ah, it wins. I guess Wallace and Grommit can't win every year. A nice speech. 6 years to make 6 minutes. What dedication.

9:33 Documentary Short - Music by Prudence - I like that they can actually get to the stage this year in decent time. Last year the winners had a hail a cab.

9:35 Live Action Short - The New Tennants - He seems nervous and surprised - The second guy doesn't get to speak - This will give more time for people in ridiculous dresses to make it across the stage.

9:37 - Ben Stiller as an Avatar - Best Makeup - James Cameron doesn 't crack a smile -now he laughs when Stiller jokes on the tail - The Young Victoria was nominated for putting makeup on her neck - Stiller is funny - Star Trek wins - Makeup? I thought that guy really was a Vulcan - They seem truly happy. I like it when regular people show real elation.

9:47 - McAdams and Jake Gyllenhall - Adapted Screenplay - Precious - I haven't seen it because it looks like a downer. Speechless with genuine emotion. A writer is the loneliest job in entertainment and then you'[re thrust into the spotlight for the awards - You can't help but like the guy.

9:51 - Queen Latifah - Governor's Award - Roger Corman - Gordon Willis the Prince of Darkness - Lauren Bacall - I don't know John Calley -

9:55 - Robin Williams Best Supporting Actress - Moneique is the mortal locks according to the rags - They all look like good turns - Precious looks depressing - No surprise for Moneique - Hat tip for Hattie McDaniel.

10:01 - So that's what AN EDUCATION is about.

10:05 Sigourney for Art Direction - Avatar should win this. And it does.

10:08 - Costume - Ford and Parker - The Young Victoria - Sandy Powell has been there before - She shows poise - A nice dedication to the contemporary film costumers.

10:16 Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner - They look like I should recognize them - Horror Montage -

10:22 Sound Editing - The Hurt Locker - Wow, that looks like a harbinger for Best Picture - Sound Editing does not include haircuts - His wife is estatic.

Sound Mixing - I don't understand why editing and mixing are two different awards. Hurt Locker again. It doesn't look good for Avatar.

10:34 - Sandra Bullock - Cinematography - Avatar - Subdued winner.

10:37- Demi Moore - Haven't seen much of her lately - The Obit piece went too quickly to match JT's singing. It might be the least touching one I have seen.

10:45 Lopez and Worthington - Score- Dancing First - Up wins

10:53 - Visual Effects - Avatar - No Surprise - It's all FX.

11:01 - Matt Damon - Best Documentary - The Cove - Dolphins win over blaming America - A surprisingly apolitical show tonight.

11:06 - Film Editing - Hurt Locker - It sure built tension like few movies do -

11:14 - Foreign Language Film - Secret in their Eyes - Biggest Surprise of the night - The prison film was getting all the ink. White Ribbon won the Golden Glove. A nice speech racing against the clock.

11:25 - Saluting the Best Actor nominees is a bit overdone although Robbins finds a touch of humor. Kate Winslet presents and Jeff Bridges should win according to experts. Bridges wins. One of the most enjoyable actors of our time. What a good fella Bridges is. And he talks just like The Dude.

11:39 Best Actress - Does Sandy Bullock win or does Streep win again? Enter Sean Penn. He starts with a little speech that I don't understand. Sandy wins to go along with the Razzie. She's sincere and funny.

11:52 Babs with the Best Director statue - They say Katherine Bigelow will win even if Hurt Locker doesn't win. But I think it's going to win both awards. Bigelow is overwhelmed with the win. A nice nod to the troops.

11:58 - Best Picture - No fooling around Hanks gets right to it. The Hurt Locker.

A nice wrap up by Martin and Baldwin. A great job of hosting.

2010-01-20T14:10:00.002-05:00

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Yesterday, as Mass. voters went to the polls to denounce ObamaNation, I was on a plane. The guy in front of me was explaining to his apolitical colleague what was going on in Mass. Another guy was reading National Review. A woman was reading Sarah Palin's book. Everyone came out of hiding to celebrate the repudiation of 7+ terms of Ted Kennedy liberalism!

2009-12-04T16:23:00.004-05:00

MR. NEWT SIGNS "REAL CHANGE" FOR SIR-SAUNDERS 40TH BIRTHDAY

It Reads "Happy 40th Birthday, together we can make real change happen, your friend, Newt"

2009-11-24T18:19:00.001-05:00

Hello? Heellloooooo?? Anybody home??????

2009-11-01T20:44:00.001-05:00

APPARENTLY CURRENT SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE UNCLEAR AS TO CONSTITUTION

2009-11-01T20:25:00.002-05:00

HEALTH INSURANCE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE CONSTITUTIONAL?

Can Congress require every person to buy health insurance? In short, no. The Constitution assigns only limited, enumerated powers to Congress and none, including the power to regulate interstate commerce or to impose taxes, would support a federal mandate requiring anyone who is otherwise without health insurance to buy it? Even if Obamacare passes, it will be overturned as unconstitutional. Central Planning is antithetical to the founders intention.

The Federalist Society gives a compelling argument against the individual mandate. Here is a favorite exerpt:

As part of comprehensive legislation to change the health care system in the United States, several key congressional leaders – and President Obama – are proposing a new federal law to require every American to purchase health care insurance coverage, a so-called “individual mandate.” Failure to comply with this mandate to purchase health insurance would subject a person to fines, penalties, or excise taxes. This individual mandate, if passed, would be an unprecedented federal directive that might call into question the constitutionality of such an action under Congress’s taxation or interstate commerce “regulatory” authority, as well the ramifications of such a mandate under the First Amendment’s “free exercise” protections and Fifth Amendment protections against governmental “takings.”

2009-11-01T20:17:00.002-05:00

THE SOUTH REASSERTING VALUES IN VIRGINIA AND MAKING GROUND IN CENTURY LONG DEMOCRAT TERRITORY IN NEW JERSEY

From Rasmussen Reports

Republican Robert F. McDonnell has now opened a 13-point lead over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds with less than a week to go in the race for governor of Virginia.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state - taken last night just after President Obama made a campaign appearance for Deeds in the state - shows McDonnell ahead 54% to 41%. Only four percent (4%) remain undecided.
Republican Chris Christie continues to hold a three-point advantage over incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine in New Jersey's down-to-the-wire race for governor.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state, conducted Thursday night, shows Christie with 46% of the vote and Corzine with 43%. Those numbers are unchanged from earlier in the week and little changed from polling conducted the week before.

HELLO Republicans! These are CONSERVATIVE candidates that are winning. Might be a good idea to nominate a Neo-Con in 2012.

2009-11-01T20:02:00.003-05:00

CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATE FRONT RUNNER: REPUBLICAN BOWS OUT

GOP Candidate Drops Out of Special NY Congressional Race, Leaving Democrat and Conservative Party Candidate in Two-Way Race
Republican in NY House Race Suspends Campaign
Sunday, November 01, 2009
By Valerie Bauman, Associated Press

Albany, N.Y. - Fighting plunging support, Republican Dierdre Scozzafava has abruptly suspended her campaign in a special election for a U.S. House seat that has exposed a rift among national factions of the party.

Campaign spokesman Matt Burns said Scozzafava is essentially withdrawing from the race, although her name will remain on Tuesday's ballot. She thinks stepping aside is best for the party, he said.

"It is increasingly clear that pressure is mounting on many of my supporters to shift their support," Scozzafava said in a written statement Saturday. "Consequently, I hereby release those individuals who have endorsed and supported my campaign to transfer their support as they see fit."

The announcement comes after a Siena College poll found she was in third place with 20 percent of the vote in the heavily Republican upstate New York district that has been safe ground for the party for more than 100 years. Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman and Democratic nominee Bill Owens were too close to call with 35 percent and 36 percent, respectively.

This is an interesting wake-up call to the Republican party. It shows that a third party "Conservative" style party could possibly win in the General election? I hope the idiotic Republican's wake up and smell the coffee. The conservative agenda is what America needs most now.

2009-10-26T18:22:00.005-04:00

SAUNDERS VISITS MT. VERNON IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

As the Juntoboys roving reporter I found the following images interesting. Firstly, it is I and my lovely wife in front of our 1st President's home in Virgina at his Mt. Vernon estate. Inside the estate was the second picture which is a "period" piece from Washington's time. "Beware the Tax Collector" says the sign with tar and feathers at the ready. Just down the street was the 3rd photo. "Paid for by the Investment and Recovery Act" aka the So-called stimulus/porkulus law. My how things have changed.

2009-10-02T05:01:00.001-04:00

JIMMY CARTER FAILS FOR A LIVING

Check out his backtrack on "racist" Obama opponents.

2009-09-17T16:09:00.002-04:00

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

I sure wish ACORN had been exposed a year ago.

Obama worked for Acorn and Acorn worked for Obama. That doesn't mean the president is implicated in any wrongdoing, but it suggests at least that the worse things get for Acorn, the more embarrassing it is for him. If the Justice Department fails to prosecute, it invariably would raise suspicions of political favoritism. This column does not care for special prosecutors, but the case for appointing one would seem to be stronger here than usual.
UPDATE: Finally the predictable response at salon.com: The right-wing smear campaign against ACORN is much more reprehensible than the unfortunate actions of a few bad employees. My former ACORN director cousin posted the link to his Facebook page. No link here, and no readers anyway.

2009-08-26T19:44:00.003-04:00

HOW PRESIDENT JOHNSON PUSHED MEDICARE THROUGH

There was a great story on NPR today that bares taking a look at in it's entirety.

My favorite quote of the story, "We believe, after looking at the evidence, my co-author [David Blumenthal] and I, that if the true cost of Medicare had been known — if Johnson hadn't basically hidden them — the program would never have passed. America's second-most beloved program would never have happened, if we had had genuine cost estimates."

Hilarious how the Left sees the world, "Beloved Program", It is going bankrupt ya know! This story was written with the premise, "This is how we did it before and maybe how we can do it again." But what it really shows is the deception and suppression of facts that the Democratic Left engaged in back during the "Great Society" and how they are continuing the same tactics today. The only difference is that blogs, talk radio, and alternative media help expose the truth without filtering from the State owned media.

2009-08-15T12:06:00.003-04:00

WHOLE FOODS

It was certainly a shot in the arm to see the CEO of Whole Foods make a case for the free market in his Wall Street Journal article. If you haven't seen it, you can read it here.

He's been taking a lot of heat so I left this comment on his blog:

I don't understand the outrage leveled against you. The point of shopping at Whole Foods is to rely on healthy living to avoid the medical system as much as possible. A government medical plan is going to disproportionately subsidize the very people who eat junk food and let themselves go.

Those of us who shop at Whole Foods for health reasons benefit the most from a free market system. I guess I overestimated the number of pretentious people who shop there only to make themselves feel socially conscious.

I'm happy that you stood up for the consumer and I'll be back to Whole Foods again and again.

2009-08-12T21:50:00.002-04:00

MOVEON.ORG ANSWERS THE PRESIDENT'S CRITICS

Lie #1: President Obama wants to euthanize your grandma!!!

Lie #2: Democrats are going to outlaw private insurance and force you into a government plan!!!

Lie #3: President Obama wants to implement Soviet-style rationing!!!

Lie #4: Obama is secretly plotting to cut senior citizens' Medicare benefits!!!

Lie #5: Obama's health care plan will bankrupt America!!!

In a recent speech the President said that doctors are paid more for amputating the limb of a diabetes victim than they are paid for keeping that same patient healthy to prevent the amputation. He got to the heart of something important in the reform debate that I don’t think he realized. Much of the debate is about the intentions of the government rather than the incentives that such a sweeping bill would create.

Obama does not want to euthanize your grandmother, but he did recently question whether his own grandmother should have received a hip replacement near the end of her life. What he was addressing is that the government is not going to be able to conquer the scarcity of resources. No one can. The difference in the government plan is that a civil servant will decide who gets what instead of an insurance adjuster.

Democrats are not going to outlaw private health insurance. That’s what doomed the 1993 plan. But the incentives in the bill will make many corporations decide to end their own health insurance plans because those plans will become more costly with the reform. Many corporations are longing for the government to take this expense off their ledgers, so in some ways the reform is corporate welfare.

The President does not want to implement Soviet style rationing. But someone is still going to have to manage scarce resources and people won’t all get what they want even if they are paying a greater amount of the taxes to create such a plan. Cancer survival rates are higher in American than in Canada and Great Britain because it’s more likely here that you’ll get timely treatment under the current system.

Medicare is growing broke without any nefarious plan from Obama. In fact, the way the government has mishandled Medicare should give anyone pause that national health care won’t find the same problems.

One thing that the President will not address is the lottery lawsuits that are causing so much of the health care expense in this country. There are places in America with inadequate OBGYN doctors because the malpractice insurance is too costly for a small town practice. Great Britain has a loser pays system and that keeps the frivolous suits from coming before a judge. Here attorneys can make litigation so expensive that insurance companies will settle cases because it would be more cost-prohibitive to win.

Rather than trust the intentions of any politician we need to ask whether the incentives of a reform plan are likely to create unintended consequences that are worse than the current problems. And likewise we should ask what incentives a health care bill should have to ensure that we’ll get the results that we the taxpayer desire. Neither is being addressed in the debate. It's become a sporting event in the media.

2009-07-29T09:27:00.002-04:00

FEDERAL ELVES STILL BUSY MAKING GIFTS FOR ALL AMERICANS

I ain't no genius, but this doesn't sound good.

Here are the numbers for the first nine months of the 2009 U.S. fiscal year, which ends September 30th. Federal receipts are down 18% from 2008 levels. Individual income tax receipts are down 22%, and corporate tax receipts are down 57%. Meanwhile, federal outlays are up. . . a lot. The budget deficit for the nine months now stands at $1.086 trillion versus a deficit of $286 billion over the same nine months of fiscal year 2008.

2009-07-22T20:15:00.002-04:00

OBAMA's PRESS CONFERENCE

SirSaunders' Analysis:

Obama: "It meets with my agenda to tax the Rich"
Further Socialist agenda proof.

"We have to make the changes, Doctors are paid for quality not quantity care."
In other words, Doctors will become Government bureaucrats, employed by Gov. not the patient.

Reporter--"Why the rush to pass by August?" Obama: "I'm rushed from families everyday that are getting clobbered by healthcare costs, can you help?"
Ahhhhh!! It's an emergency!! What it really means, I know 2010 the Dems will get booted out and I'll never get anything passed.

"I'm not going to sign a bill that will add to our deficit or will work. My measure is listening to the American people and healthcare experts and have shown in some communities that healthcare can deliver a better result."
??? How can he ever sign ANY bill that meets the standard of not adding to the deficit or adding to healthcare inflation. Certainly the current House bill does that. I see this an an outright lie! This is absurd. He simply won't get a bill that doesn't do that. See CATO's commentary on this. Further, now the AMA support the house bill because they've paid off the Dr's by increasing the medicare reimbursement for them. It's good for me right now, but won't be for the overall healthcare system in the future.

"I haven't really been blaming the Republican's" Then he went on the blame the Republican's except for Olympia Snow and other RINO's who voted for the stupid Stimulus package. Why are these people in the GOP?

Sacrifices: Reporter--"People will have to give up tests, end of life care, etc." Obama--"They'll have to give up paying for things that don't make them healthier." IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS MR. PRESIDENT IF I CHOOSE TO SMOKE, EAT A DONUT, EAT A BUCKET OF LARD, or SIT ON MY FAT BUTT!! Geesh! Talk about a Statist!!

Blah blah blah, I got tired of listening and switched over to a MASH re-run.

2009-07-13T13:26:00.002-04:00

DR. BENJAMIN

Obama just named Regina Benjamin the new Surgeon General. I remember reading a feature on her years ago in my alumni magazine, how she eschewed the riches due her as a doctor to work with po folks on Bayou La Batre. Bush hates poor people. And black people. He hates anybody of color who is poor and colorful. Obama nominated a woman of color to the Supreme Court and the bad Republicans are yelling at her. Obama loves everybody very much. He loves those who follow him and place their trust in him. He is the lover of the world, bless his soul forever.

2009-07-06T15:23:00.000-04:00

2009-06-30T20:56:00.002-04:00

NATIONAL HEALTH CARE

Sean sent me an article promoting it. Since I went to the trouble of refuting it, I might as well preach to my buddies the choir.

As our lawmakers struggle to come up with improvements to our failing health care system, we as concerned citizens have a responsibility to become more knowledgeable about this issue and to lend our voices and opinions to the debate. Since the United States is the ONLY industrialized nation without universal coverage, it may be helpful to compare the systems of other nations in determining what models might work here.

In 1787 America became the ONLY one of the aforementioned nations that didn’t have a king or emperor? Europe traded theirs for socialism.

The most “socialized” system is exemplified by Britain’s National Health Service. All citizens and legal residents are covered by the NHS. Ninety-five percent of NHS expenditures are financed through taxes, with the remaining 5% through user charges such as co-pays on prescription drugs, dental and vision services. Because there are no bills to collect or claims to review, administrative costs are very low. The government owns the hospitals and employs the doctors, but citizens can choose their doctors and where they receive care. Doctors are paid based on the number of patients they see and get additional financial rewards for keeping their patients healthy. As a result, Great Britain is the world leader in the area of preventive care.

Yes, and they keep them healthy by regulating their life choices.

To control costs, the NHS does not cover certain high cost treatments that are often ineffective. The most common complaints about the NHS involve waiting times—particularly for elective surgeries such as hip replacements.

These are not small questions. Once you cover everyone in a single system the only point of savings is the individual. Some bureaucrat gets to decide whether you get your transplant. Numerous stories of how people with treatable cancer die in Britain on waiting lists is no small matter either.

Britain spends only 8.3% of its GDP on health care, or an average of $2723 per person per year. The World Health Organization (WHO), which ranked the US 37th in the world in overall health care, ranked Britain’s system 18th. Other countries with systems similar to Britain’s include Spain (7th), Norway (11th), and Sweden (23rd).

By what criteria does WHO rank each country? I want to know how many people travel from the United States to each of these countries to be treated for rare diseases and vice versa. If their health care is the best then there would be no reason for them to come to America.

The health care systems of Germany, France and Japan are “insurance based” systems, similar to the US, but with several major differences. The first is that insurance is provided on a non-profit basis.

Why doesn’t the Left put their energy into a non-profit insurance company in this country? If what they say is true they could put private insurance out of business.

The second is that insurance is paid for by payroll deduction, similar to the way we pay for Social Security coverage. Another difference is that coverage is universal—no one can be excluded based on age, health status, etc. Unlike Britain, the government does not own or operate hospitals and doctors are in private practice or are employees of hospitals.

Well, if the model is Social Security then I know exactly how solvent the system is.

In Germany, workers and employers split the costs, with each contributing approximately 8% of payroll to 240 different “sickness funds”. Coverage includes dental, prescription drugs and long-term care. Germany spends 10.7% of GDP on health care, or an average of $3673 per citizen.

In Japan, employers and employees each contribute 4% of payroll to mandatory national health insurance plans. While taxes are lower, the Japanese pay more in deductibles and co-pays for inpatient and outpatient care (30% for outpatient care and 20% for inpatient hospitalizations.) The Japanese spend 8% of GDP, or an average of $2358 per citizen per year on health care. The WHO ranked Japan 10th and Germany 25th in overall health care.

Here we all pay the same amount for the same care as anyone else in our country. But In Japan you are punished for making more money.

The country ranked Number One in health care is France. The French system has the most comprehensive coverage in the world, with quality care, excellent choices of doctors and specialists, and with no waiting time. The French system taxes employers 13.1% of payroll and employees 0.75% of payroll.

Wrong! French Employers pay nothing. The 13.1% paid by employers is actually wages that the employee never sees. In what way are the choices excellent? And if waiting times in other countries are insignificant then why is it significant to mention that France doesn’t have them?

Most people (87%) have additional private for-profit supplemental insurance. Income taxes provide coverage for the elderly and unemployed. The French pay higher taxes, which they accept as a necessity. They spend 11.1% of GDP on health care and costs average $3374 per person per year.

Why is private insurance a necessity when they are already paying 13% in payroll taxes?

Canada’s single-payer system is often mischaracterized as “socialized” medicine. In actuality, a single-payer system is publicly funded with private delivery. Unlike Britain, the government does not own the hospitals or employ the doctors. Our Medicare system is an appropriate analogy to the Canadian system.

Our Medicare system is going broke like Canada.

In Canada, all insured people are required to be covered for all medically necessary hospital and physician care without co-pays or user fees. About 70% of total health care spending is financed by the public sector through income taxes, payroll taxes and sales taxes. Many Canadians obtain private insurance to cover prescription drugs, rehabilitation services, vision and dental care, which accounts for the remaining 30%. Canada spends 9.9% of GDP on health care, or $3678 per person.

Who decides what is necessary and are they rewarded for turning people down? How is it financed by the public sector? Do they own a football team or Exxon? No, they take the money from productive people. And on top of all those taxes they need private insurance anyway.

While Canadians complain of long waits for elective procedures and to see specialists, surveys show that a majority of Canadians are happy with their health care delivery system.

House slaves were pretty happy with their lives too in comparison.

Only about 40 developed countries in the world have established health care systems. In Africa, much of India, China and South America the rich who can afford to pay out-of-pocket get care and those who can’t afford to stay sick or die.

China is a communist country. Why doesn’t their socialism cover the best health care possible?

According to T.R. Reid, a Washington Post correspondent who has written extensively on health care issues, our fragmented national health care apparatus has elements of all these models. Our veteran’s health care system is like Britain’s, Medicare is like Canada’s, our employer-based insurance is like Germany’s or Japan’s (with the exception that most of the insurance industry in the US operates on a for-profit basis), while our 47+ million uninsured Americans might as well live in India.

Really, better in India? Health Insurance came about in the United States during World War II. Before that were people better off in India?

No country has the perfect health care system and perhaps none of these systems would be perfect for the United States. You should note however that, contrary to what the scary “Harry and Louise” type ads might imply, in ALL these systems, patients have a choice of doctors!

Wrong! You only have a choice of doctors in countries where it pays for the smartest most dedicated people to become doctors. That doesn’t happen in countries that control health care. Medicare is a year behind paying Sir Saunders his money from patients because they can be as late as they want.

The US spends a larger percentage of GDP (15.3%) and more per person ($6714) than any other country in the world—and unlike the US, the other 39 countries with established systems cover all of their citizens.

Anywhere else in government progressives will point to the amount of money spent and use it as justification for a superior system. Have you ever heard them brag that America’s education is better because we spend less money than Germany?

Whether we end up with a hybrid system like we have now or a system like the ones detailed above, we cannot solve our health care problems without finding a way to cover all Americans, without controlling administrative costs and without reducing wasteful, unnecessary and ineffective treatments and procedures.

Those efficiencies are impossible without Tort Reform which is not a part of this proposal. And we all know the government is a master at reducing administrative costs. Look at how little the Department of Education, Labor, Commerce etc cost.

2009-06-29T16:49:00.002-04:00

E WITNESSES FLAG BURNING

Not what you think. On Flag Day (June 14) my wife and I took a little getaway to a quaint small town in PA. We were strolling about the town when the sounds of live music drew us to the town square, to what turned out to be a Flag Day ceremony presented annually by the Elks lodge. A succession of Boy Scouts, in pairs, marched old flag after old flag to its ceremonial position on the platform. Old men presented a brief history of each flag in what amounted to a pretty comprehensive US history lesson. "The price of liberty is constant vigilance" was a theme. Many versions of the stars and stripes were honored, as well as the POW-MIA flag.

The local community band ("All Instruments - No Auditions") performed traditional favorites: The Star-Spangled Banner, God Bless America, a medley of Sousa marches, America the Beautiful, and others. We had followed the band's trailer into town but thought nothing of it at the time.

Everyone stood and pledged allegiance to the flag.

Finally the flag burning. A beat-up old flag was given an honorable retirement from service -- "presented for inspection and dignified disposal" ... "honorably retired from further service" ... it had "reached its present state through honorable service to our country" ... "worn out in worthy service" ... "retired and replaced" ... "fittingly destroyed." All the vets stood at attention while this was taking place. Man with bugle played Taps as an old vet set the folded flag ablaze in an urn.

The event was carried out with assistance from the local Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, VFW, and American Legion. It was the kind of afternoon that Manhattan ridicules and that makes me proud to be an American. I really enjoyed it.

2009-06-25T13:45:00.003-04:00

R.I.P.

We remember with fondness and gratitude the contribution she made to our young lives.

WE NEED CONSERVATIVE THOUGHT IN OUR UNIVERSITIES

2009-06-15T21:07:00.001-04:00

WE NEED CONSERVATIVE THOUGHT IN OUR UNIVERSITIES

Why is conservative thought even needed in our universities? The Wall Street Journal, gives an excellent editorial in defense of conservative thought. Here is an exerpt:

That constellation (Conservative thought) begins to come into focus at the end of the 18th century with Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France." It draws on the conservative side of the liberal tradition, particularly Adam Smith and David Hume and includes Tocqueville's great writings on democracy and aristocracy and John Stuart Mill's classical liberalism. It gets new life in the years following World War II from Friedrich Hayek's seminal writings on liberty and limited government and Russell Kirk's reconstruction of traditionalist conservatism. And it is elevated by Michael Oakeshott's eloquent reflections on the pervasive tendency in modern politics to substitute abstract reason for experience and historical knowledge, and by Leo Strauss's deft explorations of the dependence of liberty on moral and intellectual virtue.

Without an introduction to the conservative tradition in America and the conservative dimensions of modern political philosophy, political science students are condemned to a substantially incomplete and seriously unbalanced knowledge of their subject. Courses on this tradition should be mandatory for students of politics; today they are not even an option at most American universities.

Of course, I'm having a hard time just getting my University to let me expose my students to William F. Buckley, much less Leo Strauss.

2009-06-07T12:39:00.002-04:00

THE PRESIDENCY ISN'T ABOUT BRAINS BUT HARD WORK

A few weeks ago I ran across Wayne Allen Root’s challenge from last summer. Root was the Libertarian VP candidate and he was theoretically a schoolmate of Obama’s at Columbia.

Welch: Were you the exact same class?

Root: Class of '83 political science, pre-law Columbia University. You don't get more exact than that. Never met him in my life, don't know anyone who ever met him. At the class reunion, our 20th reunion five years ago, 20th reunion, who was asked to be the speaker of the class? Me. No one ever heard of Barack! Who was he, and five years ago, nobody even knew who he was.

Other guy: Did he even show up to the reunion?

Root: I don't know! I didn't know him. I don't think anybody knew him. But I know that the guy who writes the class notes, who's kind of the, as we say in New York, the macha who knows everybody, has yet to find a person, a human who ever met him. Is that not strange? It's very strange.

I’ve read over this several times since because it’s more poignant than all off the plot points that we heard last summer because it kind of explains everything with Wright, Ayers, Allinsky and what not.

He most likely skirted at Columbia and that’s why no one knows him there and it’s why he won’t release his grades. After four years in the real world and the added maturity he went to Harvard Law and applied himself and he’s more than willing to share those grades and stories. But like a talented athlete he treated Columbia like he was a bonus baby and he treated Harvard like he was playing in his option year.

I'm kind of getting the feeling that he treated the campaign last year as the option year and he's now skirting. It’s common to make campaign promises that you don’t intend to keep, but it’s surprising the number of times he’s made an actual policy decision as president and then backtracked. That’s clearly the tendency of a guy who isn’t doing his homework. It’s also one explanation as to why the teleprompter is going everywhere. He’s a talented guy use to getting by on glib philosophical statements and that just doesn’t work in the White House. The CEO of a successful corporation isn’t the smartest guy in the company but the hardest working.

Look at Obama's post Harvard Law years. Instead of using such a degree to find his own success he went into public service where even if he were a failure no one would ever know. We do know that he couldn't make enough money to buy his own house and needed the shady Tony Rezko to accomplish it for him.

When all the talk was going around last summer that he had no personal accomplishments it was derided because he was such an exciting person. But electing a man with no accomplishments gives such a man the idea that the world is about keeping cool rather than making tough decisions. Obama has been accomplished in getting elected to things, but he has yet to make his mark in any particular job.

Bush didn’t speak well, but he knew the issues and where he stood as President. Obama has been unable to understand how his radical upbringing fits into the real world decisions of the presidency. It’s going to take a lot of hard work for him to be as comfortable with decision-making as Bush and nothing in his past suggests that he is up to the task. Once the newness wears off so will the facade. At some point you have to actually judge a president based on his own accomplishments instead of his contrast to the previous leader. I hope that we can get there before the 2010 election.

2009-05-25T08:37:00.000-04:00

2009-05-24T11:21:00.004-04:00

THIS WEEK IN BASEBALL HISTORY

May 26, 1959 -- The Pirates' Harvey Haddix pitches a perfect game thru 12 innings and loses 1-0 in 13.

The Pirates were retired in the top of the 13th by Lew Burdette — who, like Haddix, had started the game and was still pitching.

Felix Mantilla, who was to record a lifetime batting average of .261, led off the bottom of the Braves' 13th. He hit a grounder to Don Hoak at third. Hoak appeared to take his time gripping the ball, got it right, but his throw to first baseman Rocky Nelson — who regularly fielded better than .990 — was on a bounce. Nelson could not dig it out. Hoak was given an error. The perfect game was over, but not the no-hitter.

With Mantilla at first, the Braves’ great home run hitter Eddie Mathews was up. He did something he was to do only two more times that season — hit a sacrifice bunt. It was successful, and Mantilla moved to second. Now Haddix was facing Hank Aaron, who was leading the major leagues in batting. Of course, Aaron was intentionally walked.

Then big Joe Adcock was up. He was a home run hitter who once had smacked four in a game against my Dodgers at Ebbets Field. This time, he stroked a low liner that went over the head of right fielder Roman Mejias, toward the fence about 330 feet from home.

From Aaron’s vantage point, it did not seem to clear the fence. Aaron
took off for second, saw Mantilla racing home, and Aaron thought that was the ballgame. So he touched second, then cut across the infield for the dugout. He believed the ball had landed inside the stadium and that the game was over. But the ball had cleared the fence.

Adcock continued running, though, and rounded the bases. He touched home and the plate umpire Vinnie Smith declared the game over.

But not so fast. There was some confusion. The Braves thought it was a 3-0 game, but Adcock had passed Aaron on the bases. That made Adcock out. That night, the National League president, Warren Giles, ruled that the game was actually a 1-0 affair, that Adcock’s hit was a double. And for Haddix, officially it was never ruled a no-hitter, nor a perfect game, even though it went beyond nine innings.

Haddix went on to win Game 7 of the 1960 World Series over the Yankees but nobody remembers that.

LINKS to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette archives here.

2009-05-19T10:08:00.001-04:00

OBAMA ELECTION ESTABLISHES NEW STANDARD

Now being black is sufficient qualification in itself, and not endorsing whoever the black candidates are is racist.

Two Philadelphia state senators and the city Democratic City Committee chairman held a press conference today in front of the Philadelphia Inquirer building in support of the black female judicial candidates who did not receive the endorsement of Inquirer editorial board.

Is this what MLK had in mind?

ONE MAN (YES EVEN A JUNTOBOY) CAN FIGHT THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA

2009-05-18T21:11:00.006-04:00

ONE MAN (YES EVEN A JUNTOBOY) CAN FIGHT THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA

Tonight I was surfing the web as usual when I came across this story written and released by the Associated Press:

I found it on the San Francisco Chronicle. I then posted this comment on Facebook and on the San Francisco Chronicle comment section associated with the article (not one other person out of 96 posts had found it):

The SF Chronicle is so out of touch that the SF Chronicle can't even bash the Bible correctly! SF Chronicle incorrectly sites that "Pentagon reports no longer include quotes from the...Gospel of Peter." There is no Gospel of Peter in the Catholic or King James or any other standard English Canon of the Bible. I guess their action line was "Christians Bad", "Bible Bad", Government stopped quoting Bible "Good." Interesting to see if they retract. Just to let you know SF Chronicle, there are only four recognized Gospels in the Canonized Version of the Bible as we know it today (old and new testament), since around 375 A.D., Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There are the Gnostic gospels recently rediscovered but still considered heresy by the mainline churches.

AP then changed the article, after I posted a comment on SF Chronicle Website. Was it that comment that made them correct "Gospel of Peter" to correctly "Epistle of Peter?" Don't know, but there certainly was a correlation if not causation. Don't tell me one guy on his computer blogging about these things can't make even a little difference!

2009-05-12T15:11:00.002-04:00

MILITARY TRIBUNALS

The New York Daily News take:

Lest there be any doubt that civilian courts are precisely the wrong place for these folks, consider the prosecution of Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, who was arrested in Illinois in December 2001 and held as an enemy combatant in a Navy brig.

Al-Marri joined Al Qaeda in 1998. In 2001, he was approached by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, architect of 9/11, about becoming a sleeper agent for a second wave of attacks.

With $10,000, Al-Marri entered the country Sept. 10, 2001, researched how to make cyanide gas bombs and focused on dams, waterways and tunnels.

The facts are beyond dispute; Al-Marri confessed in a plea bargain. In return, the Justice Department agreed Al-Marri would face no more than 15 years in prison, with the possibility of having his sentence reduced by the time he has already served.

Al-Marri's term of incarceration for active confederation with the forces that attacked America, killing 3,000, is, in a word, pathetic.

Credit card fraud can carry a stiffer punishment.

It would be more of the same if he closed Gitmo and brought them here.

2009-05-12T15:05:00.003-04:00

ROCKET MISFIRES

I heard Mike and Mike's interview with Roger Clemens this morning on ESPN Radio. After quite a buildup that Roger was taking to the airwaves to break his long silence, the actual interview provided a lot of nothing. Clemens missed his opportunity to speak straight up with the folks, and Mike and Mike missed their opportunity to make news by asking hard, direct questions. Maybe they had a softball agreement in place, sure seemed like it. What I learned is that Clemens talks to kids, lots of kids, and high school players too, and he has a foundation, and the foundation serves kids, and he likes to get out and talk to kids. Did he mention how warmly he is received by the kids he goes out to talk to?

Hall of Fame credentials are worth a great deal of money, not just ego strokes, during a ballplayer's remaining lifetime and to his heirs. That is really what Clemens is all about at this point methinks.

2009-05-12T14:57:00.002-04:00

EMPATHY IN THE LAW

Thomas Sowell produced 4 great columns about this topic last week. A response of sorts from slate magazine.

Webster's defines empathy as "the experiencing as one's own the feelings of another." Obama, in The Audacity of Hope, described empathy as "a call to stand in somebody else's shoes and see through their eyes." To Obama, empathy chiefly means applying a principle his mother taught him: asking, "How would that make you feel?" before acting. Empathy in a judge does not mean stopping midtrial to tenderly clutch the defendant to your heart and weep. It doesn't mean reflexively giving one class of people an advantage over another because their lives are sad or difficult. When the president talks about empathy, he talks not of legal outcomes but of an intellectual and ethical process: the ability to think about the law from more than one perspective.

It's funny that this writer seems to know exactly what the President means while everyone suspects that empathy in the law is supposed to right those wrongs the legislature didn't get around to righting. We suspect this because every other liberal nominated to the court since the 1950s crusaded instead of applying the law.

The court has already become a super legislature that answers to no one and Obama is asking that a potential justice be willing to peek through the blindfold.

2009-05-11T22:47:00.002-04:00

WANDA SYKES

What she said doesn't surprise me, but I am surprised by how many people seem to be surprised. It's not worth blogging about except that James Taranto has a larger point about why it's funny to the Left.

The answer, it seems clear, is that this is an example of shock humor: a genre that relies on the frisson of violating taboos. By our count, Sykes runs afoul of five taboos in her Limbaugh joke: She equates dissent with treason. She likens a domestic political opponent to a foreign enemy. She makes fun of the disabled (Limbaugh's past addiction to painkillers would entitle him to protection under the Americans With Disabilities Act). She makes light of a form of interrogation that some people consider torture. And she wishes somebody dead.

Except for the last one, these are all taboos that liberals promote and enforce with especial vigor. If a conservative violated any one of them, he would be on the inside track to be named "Worst Person in the World" by that NBC blowhard (as indeed Feherty was).

What makes Sykes's joke funny to a liberal, then, is the sense of danger that accompanies her risky themes, combined with the secure knowledge that since the joke is at the expense of a liberal hate figure, the usual rules do not apply. It's the same reason people on the left evince particular glee when they attack Clarence Thomas or Michael Steele in expressly racist terms, or when they use antigay innuendo against their political opponents (regardless of the latter's sexual orientation).

One of the great PC tricks of the Left is making certain words and thoughts by the Right taboo. They reserve the ability to go down those roads to attack members of the Right before locking the thoughts and words up again for the sake of decency.

2009-05-11T08:49:00.002-04:00

BASEBALL BRIEFING

Buck Martinez made an interesting point today on XM's Baseball This Morning regarding whether DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak will ever be broken. He thinks not, because Joe faced 73 pitchers in those 56 games, whereas today a hitter would face any number of pitchers that he had not seen before, or had seen little. Deep in games, Joe would have seen the pitcher 3 or 4 times already. Buck cited games during the streak in which Joe saw the same pitcher 5 times and finally collected a hit. Now a hitter faces situational matchups designed specifically to get him out. Scott Graham's argument was weak but maybe right: that statistically anything is possible, and other records we never thought would fall have fallen.

Speaking of fallen, the Bucs started off 11-7 and have since lost 12 of 13, so they're out of it by mid-May and I can turn my attention to the Phils.

We saw a minor league game Saturday night and my younger son watched the whole game (and consumed many treats) without complaining, so I have entered the Golden Age of parenting. My older son scored the game, prompting the couple behind us to whisper how clever we were to find a way to keep him occupied, but he has been scoring games for years at his own initiative. He even tracks balls and strikes and the fielded location and relative arc of batted balls.

In other baseball news, apparently there is an ambidextrous pitcher having success in the Yankees system. There have been others who could throw both ways (Tulane pitcher and future Major League Gene Harris could do it while I was there in the 80s, but never actually switched arms on the mound as far as I know), but this guy is both an anomaly and a success. The catch is you have to start training the kid to do everything with either hand when he is 3.

You can see something right now that hasn't been around in baseball since the late 1800s: a switch-pitcher.

His name is Pat Venditte, he's 23, and he's pro baseball's only ambidextrous pitcher. This living piece of history is more than a YouTube star; he's throwing almost daily for the Charleston RiverDogs, the Yankees' Single-A club. And he's not just throwing: He's blowing through hitters like a Cub Scout through Skittles. At one point in April, the closer's ERA was 0.00 in 6 1/3 innings, and he hadn't blown a save in five games.

Last season, he had 23 saves for the Staten Island Yankees, with a 0.83 ERA. And best of all, the kid can relieve himself!

He wears a specially made six-fingered Mizuno glove with two thumbs. (His Dominican teammates call him Pulpo, Spanish for "octopus.") When he warms up, he throws four pitches righty and four lefty.

I feel bad for Dodgers management who were daily reaping from all things Manny and then this. And for all the dads who get to explain to their kids, as I did, that Manny will make $15m this year for cheating and will be joyfully welcomed back after his 50 games off. But eventually he becomes a rich retired ballplayer who everbody knows is a cheater, and he will pay that price forever. (I didn't ask what they would have done in Manny's situation; $15m buys a lot of Skittles.)

2009-05-08T00:19:00.002-04:00

THE CHRYSLER NONSENSE

Megan Mcardle has the lowdown on why the bailouts are all about the unions:

Chrysler is a good company caught in a bad situation. Chrysler has been a bad headache for years. Daimler bought it for $36 billion in 1998, and actually paid $650 million to have Cerebrus take the company off their hands in 2007.

The hedge funds benefited from the government money, so they're getting more than they would have otherwise. As far as I know, Chrysler has burned basically all the cash they got from the government, which is why they're in bankruptcy. They haven't bought exciting new assets the secureds can liquidate; they've just produced more cars that can't be sold at a profit, put more wear and tear on machinery, etc. The deal they made with Fiat doesn't put any cash into the company.

The administration isn't kowtowing to the unions; it's trying to prevent massive job loss. Chrysler employs about 60,000 people. This is a rounding error in the number of jobs that have been lost since this recession began.

To put it another way, we could have taken the $8 billion or so we gave to Chrysler and given every one of the company's employees $133,000 to start their own War on Poverty, while still providing much of their pensions through the PBGC. Of cours, the new Chrysler is going to cut many of those jobs, so the cost of actual jobs saved will probably top $200K per. For as long as the company lasts. Which most analysts do not expect to be long, given that their super secret surprise scheme for turning everything around is to have Chrysler sell retooled Fiats to a country with one-seventh the population density and almost twice the birthrate of Italy.

Good points all. Here is Business Insider.

CLIFF MAY ON TORTURE

2009-05-07T18:41:00.005-04:00

CLIFF MAY ON TORTURE

A couple of days ago I posted the Hiroshima history inspired by the Daily Show. May was on the show to talk about the memos and whether the United States tortured anyone. Dude said that Obama had a point and I rejoined that Obama was being disingenuous.

Here are some of May's points:

Obama's top intelligence official, Admiral Dennis Blair, says these techniques produced "high-value information" that gave the U.S. government "a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country."

Former CIA director, Gen. Michael Hayden, and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey recently wrote: "As late as 2006, fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of Al Qaeda came from those [coercive] interrogations."

Former CIA Director George Tenet has said, "I know that this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than [what] the FBI, the [CIA], and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us."

Former National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has said, "We have people walking around in this country that are alive today because this process happened."

Many other top intelligence officials say the same: coercive interrogations are the only way we have to get life-saving information out of trained, hardened al-Qaeda terrorists.

I think the evidence is clear. But if others do not, let's release the "effectiveness memos" as former Vice President Cheney has requested and let's release other data on this question. Perhaps at this point we need a national debate on security and morality.

By not releasing the memos, Obama and company can make people think the worst instead of analyzing the actual events. His supporters have been yelling torture since before the 2004 election and they won't be happy with a conclusion that says otherwise so therefore the memos and an honest discussion on the issue cannot take place.

Look, we know this: Khalid Sheikh Mohamed was captured. He said: "I want a lawyer." He didn't get one - I know some people think he deserved one but he's not a criminal defendant or an honorable prisoner of war. The Geneva Convention does not cover him - even Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder has said that.

Later, they asked KSM over and over: "Will there be another attack?" He would just smile and say: "Soon you will see."

Now maybe you think asking him again and adding pretty please with a cherry on top would have produced results in time. The intelligence officials didn't think that. They went to the Justice Department and said: "What can we do? How far can we go to save lives?" And they got the information they needed -- and we haven't had another attack on American soil since.

And after being waterboarded and suffering other coercive methods in 2002, Abu Zubaydah explained that he and his "brothers" were permitted to give up information - only once interrogators pushed them to the limit of their endurance. At that point, he provided information that helped the CIA capture terrorist Ramzi Binalshibh.

The current administration appears to have ruled out any coercive techniques: No sleep deprivation - not even for a night. No loud music - it drives the terrorists crazy! So it's torture! Better to let the attack proceed. The victims and their families surely will understand.

We basically have three weapons against terrorists: capture them, interrogate them, kill them. But there's no point in capturing if you can't effectively interrogate, so that leaves just killing. How do you justify that? How do you say, yes you can hit that terrorist with a Predator missile but you can't make him listen to Shady Slim?

I would hope that President Obama would change his mind. I would hope he would say to his advisors: "Give me a list of all the techniques that are effective. I'll take a red pen and cross out the ones we will never use no matter what. But I'll circle the ones that may be used if I'm asked -- and if I give specific authorization. As for other techniques that are clearly not torture but may inflict discomfort, there will be detailed guidelines and I want the director of the CIA to sign off every time they are used.

This sounds reasonable to me. Since we rarely have a debate on here I welcome Dude to identify the chicanery in May's depiction or conclusions.

The TV debate was more rancorous. Here it is:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

M - Th 11p / 10c

Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 1

thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Economic Crisis

Political Humor

EMPATHY IN THE LAW

2009-05-06T21:43:00.002-04:00

EMPATHY IN THE LAW

Dr. Sowell and another gem.

Would you want to go into court to appear before a judge with "empathy" for groups A, B and C, if you were a member of groups X, Y or Z? Nothing could be further from the rule of law. That would be bad news, even in a traffic court, much less in a court that has the last word on your rights under the Constitution of the United States.

Appoint enough Supreme Court justices with "empathy" for particular groups and you would have, for all practical purposes, repealed the 14th Amendment, which guarantees "equal protection of the laws" for all Americans.

PROUD TO BE PART OF THE PARTY OF "NO"

2009-05-05T20:48:00.002-04:00

PROUD TO BE PART OF THE PARTY OF "NO"

Much has been made by the Democrats in their latest attempt to demonize the Republicans and create a new moniker for them. Their latest efforts is in calling the Republicans the "Party of No." But there is more to this than meets the eye. In fact the Democrats are correct in form if not in intent. When I first heard this statement I was immediately reminded of a wise saying by my old Philosophy Professor "To Know something first begin by no-ing it. To no it, is to Know it and vice versa." What does this mean precisely? When humans first begin to learn language and learn we have choices or determination we begin exerting these new powers by saying, "no." Any parent of a 2 year old will tell you one of the reasons the terrible 2's are so terrible is because the 2 year old is saying no to everything. We know what we don't want before we know what we do want. This cognitive propensity continues into our adulthood. For example, if you go to a restaurant with a large menu you may not be certain immediately what you want. You may begin with narrowing your options by eliminating what you know you do not want before you arrive at what you do want. This is a process that happens anytime that there are a large number of choices.

Likewise, when the framers of the U.S. Constitution met to explore precisely how they were to create a new government, they too had many choices from the present as well as historical forms of government. They began the process of framing the constitution by saying no. The U.S. Constitution is a document that uses the words "no" and "not" dozens of times. The Future of Freedom Foundation, a non-partisan think tank, reports that the U.S. Constitution was a terribly shocking document when it was first written, especially to rulers all over the world. Because here were a people who were placing themselves in the role of master and placing government in the role of servant. In other words, in one fell swoop, the American people had inverted the historical relationship between citizen and government.

But there was a logic behind their actions. Think back to the Declaration of Independence. Expressing the commonly held sentiments of the people in that document, Thomas Jefferson had said that man has been endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights and that governments are instituted to protect those rights.

That was why the people of the United States called into existence a federal government — to protect rights that preexisted the government they were calling into existence.

Notice that they could have called into existence a government that had omnipotent powers over the citizenry. They did not do that. After all, that was the nature of the government they had recently rebelled against.

Instead, they created a government whose powers were limited to those enumerated in a document. They told the Government NO! It was the first time in history that people had had the audacity to limit the powers of their own governmental officials, by repeatedly saying "NO" to the powers of the government.

For example, Article 1, Section 8, sets forth the powers of Congress. Whether you believe that all of these enumerated powers are proper or not, one fact is indisputable: that the powers of Congress were indeed limited. In other words, if the powers of Congress were unlimited, there would have been no reason to enumerate specific powers. By listing the specific powers, the Founders made it clear that the federal government’s powers over the people were not omnipotent.

To clarify matters even more, the Founders enumerated specific restrictions on the powers of both the federal and state governments. See, for example, Article 1, Sections 9 and 10, and notice the number of times that the words “no” and “not” are used.

Look at the 1st Amendment to the Constitution, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The Founders didn't list every possible way religion or speech, or the press could be formed. They in their wisdom understood that was impossible. Rather, they limited the Government by saying "No." Most of the Bill of Rights are written this way.

Thomas Jefferson understood the sole purpose of good Government was to protect the freedom and liberty of it's people. When Government begins to grow beyond it's constitutional limits and threatens that very liberty it was originally designed to protect, it is then time for the American People to rise up and say with a loud and resounding voice, "No!"

And that is why, I am proud to be part of the party of "No."

RIO BRAVO IS FIFTY

2009-05-03T21:57:00.006-04:00

RIO BRAVO IS FIFTY

I'm not sure if any of you all have seen it, but Rio Bravo is my favorite Western and maybe my favorite movie of all-time. I first saw it in High School during the summer when Brother John and I stayed up all night to catch it on some Texas station when we had a satellite Dish in Indiana. I have seen it again and again and it never ceases to entertain. Here is Big Hollywood's take.

The next time you watch Bravo pay close attention to the compositions, most of which are medium-wide shots, with the camera at chest level. There are virtually no close-ups in the picture, a gutsy decision at a time when technique was becoming far more elaborate in Hollywood fare. In hindsight, it was a bold choice that enhanced the languorous, easygoing byplay between the film’s charismatic stars. Director Michael Powell once said that Hawks “had a very deep understanding of people, what was inside people.” The relaxed purposefulness of Rio Bravo’s confident compositions allows a rare richness of character to shine through.

Here is Hawks talking about the movie:

I like things like — I think it was in Rio Bravo — Wayne went over to a man and said, “So nobody ran in here?” Some man said, “Nobody ran in here.” And Wayne went like this and hit him right across here with a gun so blood was coming all over his face. And Dean Martin said, “Take it easy, Chance.” And Wayne turned and said, “I’m not going to hurt him.” The audience laughed so at that.

I anticipate that moment every time.

Most crucially, it was director Hawks who crafted John Wayne’s character into a master not only of action but of reaction, in the process establishing an overriding feeling of camaraderie that makes the film endlessly rewatchable. “John Wayne represents more force, more power than anyone else on screen,” Hawks claimed, and yet by dint of directorial will the star of Rio Bravo becomes everyone else’s straight man. During the course of the plot the Duke gets socked by Dean Martin (twice!), is verbally out-dueled by the precocious Ricky Nelson, suffers the outrageous behavior of Walter Brennan, is relentlessly teased by the ever-flirtatious Angie Dickinson, and is continuously rescued by all of the above. “You give everybody else the fireworks,” Wayne grumbled to Hawks at one point, “but I have to carry the damn thing.”

Wayne spends virtually the entire film loaning his star power to others in this fashion, not acting so much as reacting, and using those reactions to give his co-stars a much brighter spotlight in which to shine. Indisputably, we have Howard Hawks to thank for that. The Duke was known to sometimes distrust and argue with lesser directors, but along with John Ford only Howard Hawks commanded his absolute respect. “Hawks I trust with my life,” he once declared, a sentiment amply proven by the fearless bigheartedness of his performance in Rio Bravo.

The Wall Street Journal also has a nice story.

STEWART AND HIROSHIMA

2009-05-03T11:11:00.002-04:00

Jon Stewart and Hiroshima

A great history lesson video. It's long but worth the time.

2009-05-03T01:05:00.002-04:00

OBAMA'S 100 DAYS PRESS CONFERENCE

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. You've said in the past that waterboarding, in your opinion, is torture. Torture is a violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. Do you believe that the previous administration sanctioned torture?

OBAMA: What I've said -- and I will repeat -- is that waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. I don't think that's just my opinion; that's the opinion of many who've examined the topic. And that's why I put an end to these practices.

I would explain why it is torture, but I will instead say that other people think it's torture too.

I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do, not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.

2 years in the Senate, 2 years on the campaign trail, no real career beforehand and yet an expert in counter-terrorism that could have gotten anything out of these guys without making them uncomfortable.

I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, "We don't torture," when the entire British -- all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat.

Germany was a signer of the Geneva Convention and al Qaeda was not. We shot 200 Germans by firing squad during the Battle of the Bulge because they impersonated American soldiers although it would be retroactively inconsistent with Obama's values.

And then the reason was that Churchill understood, you start taking short-cuts, over time, that corrodes what's -- what's best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.

On the economy of course we need all the shortcuts I can dream up.

And -- and so I strongly believed that the steps that we've taken to prevent these kinds of enhanced interrogation techniques will make us stronger over the long term and make us safer over the long term because it will put us in a -- in a position where we can still get information.

Check out that answer. He's in the enhanced interrogation prevention business. It will make us stronger because it will put us in a position where we can still get information. Lighting my car on fire will make me stronger because it will still put me in a position where I can still get to work on Monday.

In some cases, it may be harder, but part of what makes us, I think, still a beacon to the world is that we are willing to hold true to our ideals even when it's hard, not just when it's easy.

But not for the economy where we must spend the money of generations yet to come to maintain whatever creature comforts voters want now.

At the same time, it takes away a critical recruitment tool that Al Qaida and other terrorist organizations have used to try to demonize the United States and justify the killing of civilians.

Terrorists are simple folk just running the fruit cart for a meager living when they hear a report on NPR about innocent countrymen dunked into water in Cuba and they join the cause (without even pledging support to their local NPR station).

And it makes us -- it puts us in a much stronger position to work with our allies in the kind of international, coordinated intelligence activity that can shut down these networks.

Bush never worked with the allies. Any intelligence they sent he put it through the shredder.

So this is a decision that I'm very comfortable with. And I think the American people over time will recognize that it is better for us to stick to who we are, even when we're taking on an unscrupulous enemy.

Let's get back to treating these people as jaywalkers.

QUESTION: Thank you, sir. Let me follow up, if I may, on Jake's question. Did you read the documents recently referred to by former Vice President Cheney and others saying that the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" not only protected the nation but saved lives?

And if part of the United States were under imminent threat, could you envision yourself ever authorizing the use of those enhanced interrogation techniques?

OBAMA: I have read the documents. Now they have not been officially declassified and released. And so I don't want to go to the details of them. But here's what I can tell you, that the public reports and the public justifications for these techniques, which is that we got information from these individuals that were subjected to these techniques, doesn't answer the core question.

Which is, could we have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques? And it doesn't answer the broader question, are we safer as a consequence of having used these techniques?

The underlying premise is that the Bush Administration was just too lazy or sadistic to do it the hard way. Does even the most staunch leftists believe that? But how many of the Far Left want these tactics to end because they were successful?

So when I made the decision to release these memos and when I made the decision to bar these practices, this was based on consultation with my entire national security team, and based on my understanding that ultimately I will be judged as commander-in-chief on how safe I'm keeping the American people.

Yes, I think we know that a president has consultants and a legacy.

That's the responsibility I wake up with and it's the responsibility I go to sleep with. And so I will do whatever is required to keep the American people safe. But I am absolutely convinced that the best way I can do that is to make sure that we are not taking short cuts that undermine who we are.

Is this idealism or veiled cynicism? Sometimes I'm not sure with him. Is the best way to keep us safe to live up to some imagined ideal? He needs to be a realistic leader here and say that there are no solutions in the war on terror just trade offs. He would rather trade a few more American lives not to look bad to his international friends. The American people will get to decide if he traded too many.

And there have been no circumstances during the course of this first 100 days in which I have seen information that would make me second guess the decision that I have made. OK?

I think this is an important point. Being President is the first job that Barrack Obama has ever had with real decision-making responsibilities. And so in his experience, so far so good.

2009-04-30T22:48:00.002-04:00

ARLEN SPECTOR

Jay Cost AKA Horse Race Blog has a great take on the party switch.

In the 2004 GOP primary every county in metro Pittsburgh voted for Toomey over Specter - and Specter failed to crack 40% in several of them. In the general election that year, Specter ran behind Bush in six of the seven counties in metro Pittsburgh, even though he won the state by almost ten points and Bush lost it by two and a half. In 1992 - the last time Specter faced a tough general election challenge - his opponent, Lynn Yeakel, won six of the seven counties that border Ohio. Additionally, Toomey defeated Specter in York and Lancaster counties in the 2004 primary. Specter's narrow victory in the primary depended entirely on him sweeping Toomey in metropolitan Philadelphia, whose declining importance in the statewide Republican electorate has now made Specter exceedingly vulnerable.

When he entered the Senate, metropolitan Philadelphia, his home base, was also the GOP's base in the state. In 1980 four of the five counties in Philadelphia voted for Reagan while five of the seven counties in metro Pittsburgh voted for Carter. This has basically been inverted in the last quarter century - and while neither party's presidential candidate has been better off statewide for this shift, Arlen Specter has personally been on the losing end.

The interpretation from the wise political sages in Washington, D.C. is inevitably going to be about how the hardened, conservative rump Republican Party is so intolerant of a moderate like Arlen Specter that he had no choice but to bolt. However, this is quite an oversimplification. There is a big geographical component to this story: the west has become more important in party politics, and Specter has long been weak in the west.

2009-04-29T23:35:00.003-04:00

REASON ON THE FIRST 100 DAYS

So here we are, 100 days into the great eight-year triumph of Hope over Change, a new Era of Really Good Feelings in which only one thing has become increasingly, even irrefutably, clear: President Barack Obama is about as visionary as the guy who invented Dippin' Dots, Ice Cream of the Future. Far from sketching out a truly forward-looking set of policies for the 21st century, as his supporters had hoped, Obama is instead serving up cryogenically tasteless and headache-inducing morsels from years gone by.

Consider the president's recent "major" speech about transportation, yet another Castro-like exhortation in which Obama boldly rejected the failed policies of the past in favor of the failed policies of the future.

In nearly every key area of policy concern, from industrial bailouts to massive deficits, from Afghanistan to the Middle East, from education to energy, the president's standard operating or reach back into the Carter playbook for ideas that didn't work back then, either. All while rhetorically valuing "good ideas ahead of old ideological battles."

Obama's typical M.O. is to proclaim a new era of responsibility while ushering in a new era of irresponsible debt, promise to close the revolving door of lobbyists and government while keeping it open, and vow to post all bills online for five days without doing anything of the sort. He says the bailout is "not about helping banks—it's about helping people," then gives more of the people's money to banks. He says he doesn't want to run General Motors, then fires its CEO, guarantees its warranties, and wags his finger about the company's surplus of brands. He says he's taking a battle-axe to the budget, then offers to shave $100 million off a $3.4 trillion tab. At his gee-whiz, interactive, online town hall meeting, he laughed off the most popular question asked by web viewers—should marijuana be legalized—with a lame joke before embracing the status quo like Jimmy Carter hugging a Third World dictator.

Reason thinks that such policies will ultimately fail with moderates once they tire of the shtick.

2009-04-28T16:49:00.002-04:00

WIRETAPS DOWN IN 2008

The number of wiretaps used by federal and state law enforcement is surprisingly low. I had never seen a number before.

Note the strange editing of the last sentence.

Wiretap Applications Drop for First Time in Eight Years

Jordan Weissman
04-28-2009

The number of wiretaps used by federal and state law enforcement dropped 14 percent in 2008, declining for the first time in eight years, according to a report released this week by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Judges approved 1,891 wiretaps last year, down from 2,208 the year before. The number of intercept applications had been steadily climbing since 2001, when there were 1,491. No applications were rejected.

State agencies accounted for 1,505 of the applications, while federal law enforcement asked for 386.

Like every other year for the past decade, the vast majority of the wiretaps in 2008 were used in narcotics cases. Those investigations also accounted for much of the drop. Last year, there were 1,593 wiretaps in drug cases, down from 1,792 the year before. In the next largest category, homicide and assault investigations, law enforcement officials asked for just 92 wiretaps.

The report found that wiretaps contributed to 4,133 arrests and 810 convictions.

The average cost of executing each wiretap also continued to drop, down to about $47,000 from the decade high of $63,000 in 2004. The average cost of a federal wiretap was $70,536.

The report compiles statistics on the surveillance methods used in domestic investigations. Wiretaps used in terrorism-related cases.

2009-04-23T20:41:00.003-04:00

THE YOUTH OF AMERICA

I was asked today to meet a group of college program students along with some other media professionals. The idea was to share what I do and allow them some networking opportunities. There were six of us and six tables of students and every 15 minutes we would switch tables. Most of them had standard questions and I gave them the basic philosophy of work hard and be a good teammate and opportunities will open up wherever you work. An encounter was worth mentioning here.

About halfway through the program I sat with a student from Ecuador who said he majored in Economics. Economics is interest of mine as you know. I read those books for fun. Like a fool who should know better, I asked him if he was familiar with the Austrian School and he looked perplexed. You know Hayek, von Mises etc? No I haven't, he said. What about the Chicago School, Milton Friedman? No, I haven't heard of him.

So now I looked perplexed. I guess we haven't gotten that far, he said. We've been studying the London School, Keynes. Oh, yes Keynes. Of course. Why would a poor country study the free market when they could be studying how to stymie growth.

I knew intellectually that Keynes is a God everywhere in the world and no one has heard of Hayek or Friedman despite the Nobel Prizes. I just didn't want to put that knowledge to practical use. The world is a mess and I was reminded.

2009-04-23T18:16:00.003-04:00

SOUTH OF THE BORDER

Barrack’s recent encounter with Ortega and Chavez has closed the loop on something that I didn’t understand leading up to the Iraq War. Back then the loudest opposition wasn’t from people who thought Bush was lying about a WMD program. Everybody thought Saddam had a WMD program. The loudest opposition was from people who said you can’t attack a sovereign nation. I had never heard that one before. It certainly wasn’t a historical standard. The people who were saying it were the same ones that have always felt sympathy for regimes that were anti-American in policy or rhetoric. You can and should stop the bloodbath in Bosnia or Darfur where there is no American opposition figure, but you cannot even fund the Contras in Nicaragua because Ortega was anti-USA. South Africa was anti-communist and racist and they must be stopped. Castro’s judicial system is openly racist and he’s embraced by the Congressional Black Caucus.

The political Left is trying to reshape the world as they have always done through government control and seizure of the private sector. The President is a fellow traveler with that ideology and it’s now making sense as to why he embraced those figures. He would like kind of power.

Now the war has become a folly that Cheney pushed and Bush executed for reasons much different than the reasons before the war began. Enough reasons for everyone to hate it or at least enough for a majority of Obama voters last fall. But the anti-war effort was pushed from the beginning and funded the whole way through by people that liked Saddam simply because he opposed America. The way the message spread from it's Marxist Roots in George Soros to the mainstream media via blogs and what not is a lesson in how the ardent Leftists influence the media.

Obama is the end result, a total media creation. We heard about how Bush's success was all through his father. Obama doesn't even have a single life achievement. The man was elected President because he seemed reasonable. It was like the country was hiring an intern and he seemed the most affable. Not even 100 days in and it feels like the Berlin Wall is going back up. Permission granted for every tin horn demagogue in the Western Hemisphere to seize power on some poor unsuspecting country and receive hugs from the U.S. President.

WSJ ON THE LATEST HOOEY

2009-04-23T15:37:00.002-04:00

WSJ ON THE LATEST HOOEY

Policy disputes, often bitter, are the stuff of democratic politics. Elections settle those battles, at least for a time, and Mr. Obama's victory in November has given him the right to change policies on interrogations, Guantanamo, or anything on which he can muster enough support. But at least until now, the U.S. political system has avoided the spectacle of a new Administration prosecuting its predecessor for policy disagreements. This is what happens in Argentina, Malaysia or Peru, countries where the law is treated merely as an extension of political power.

Mr. Obama may think he can soar above all of this, but he'll soon learn otherwise. The Beltway's political energy will focus more on the spectacle of revenge, and less on his agenda. The CIA will have its reputation smeared, and its agents second-guessing themselves. And if there is another terror attack against Americans, Mr. Obama will have set himself up for the argument that his campaign against the Bush policies is partly to blame.

What was once an inkling and soon a fear has become a reality. Barack Obama doesn't much care about the security of this country.

KERRY TO THE RESCUE

2009-04-22T13:54:00.002-04:00

KERRY TO THE RESCUE
via Instapundit

Troubled by the possible shuttering of his hometown paper, Sen. John Kerry reached out to the Boston Globe on Tuesday, then called for Senate hearings to address the woes of the nation's print media.

"America's newspapers are struggling to survive, and while there will be serious consequences in terms of the lives and financial security of the employees involved, including hundreds at the Globe, there will also be serious consequences for our democracy where diversity of opinion and strong debate are paramount," Mr. Kerry said.

Maybe Kerry should read the Internet where real diversity of opinion resides. He knows that any paper saved by the government will become a mouthpiece for government intervention and that is just what he wants.

APPEARANCE OVER RESULTS

2009-04-22T13:40:00.002-04:00

APPEARANCE OVER RESULTS

Even the New York Times admits it.

President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.

“High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday.

Admiral Blair’s assessment that the interrogation methods did produce important information was deleted from a condensed version of his memo released to the media last Thursday. Also deleted was a line in which he empathized with his predecessors who originally approved some of the harsh tactics after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past,” he wrote, “but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given.”

Ah, but here are the political considerations.

Admiral Blair said in a written statement issued last night. “The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

There it is:

1. World Opinion
2. Protecting American Lives

Where in the constitution does it says we must maintain America's reputation among the coward nations?

NO ENEMIES TO THE LEFT

2009-04-22T08:52:00.004-04:00

NO ENEMIES TO THE LEFT

What will America stand for under Obama?

And if Obama feels that he has to be the one to greet a man like Chavez, must it be with the kind of ear-to-ear grin that one might show girl scouts selling cookies? It must surely be disheartening for those who suffer oppression in countries like Venezuela, Cuba and Saudi Arabia to see the American president backslapping their oppressors when these victims have always looked up to the United States as their champions.

HIS ONLY ENEMIES ARE DOMESTIC

2009-04-19T10:02:00.003-04:00

HIS ONLY ENEMIES ARE DOMESTIC

Drudge has been feeding a steady diet of Obama meets the Latin dictator and the results are much like Bill Ayers meeting a Latin dictator. He graciously met Hugo Chavez and he recently listen to Daniel Ortega knock the U.S. in a speech.

This is Obama's mild retort and my favorite part of the article:

"To move forward, we cannot let ourselves be prisoners of past disagreements. I'm grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old. Too often, an opportunity to build a fresh partnership of the Americas has been undermined by stale debates. We've all heard these arguments before."

Actually, the president misspoke on the sequence of events in Cuba. The invasion of CIA-trained rebels at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba occurred in April 1961. Obama was born August 4, 1961.

He's grateful that Ortega didn't blame him for things that happened when he is three months old and yet the entire grievance industry in the United States is based on retribution for what people's grandfathers did to other people's grandfather. I'll save that gem for a future Obama speech.

As far as not knowing the history of Cuba, a President is only a dunce if the media wants him to be. Does President Obama ever get anything right when he is off script?

Back to my major point. . . do you notice how the loyal opposition in America needs to be crushed to the point of releasing warnings about them through Homeland security? And yet our foreign enemies should be listened to patiently with a sigh now and then followed by a please love me retort. This is no mainstream politician.

ONE FOR THE TEAM

2009-04-18T19:45:00.005-04:00

ONE FOR THE TEAM
Home owners associations are their own special little fiefdom. What once was supposed to stop my neighbor from have goats, cars up on blocks, and naked children running around, has turned into a tedious, rule governed nightmare that is anti-American. Recently a veteran in our community wanted to put up an American Flag. The "Board" said NO and sent everyone to the by-laws to reference this. They then had the audacity to suggest their lawyer fully endorsed this rule and basically we all should hush about it. To add insult to injury, our President is a Federal Law Enforcement officer. I'm certainly no lawyer, but I know how to reference laws and rules in the State of Florida. Working in the Forensic Science field for many years, I'm asked often by Judges and Lawyers about mental health law as it pertains to certain cases. Here is the recent discourse on our website:

Innocent Homeowner: "Does anyone know the law that was passed that allows us to put up flag poles and fly the American flag? I know there is a law out there that supersedes what the association rules are in reference to putting up a flag pole"

Board Reply: "Regarding the flag pole questions: Please review the ACB document and confer with Sentry Management if you have any further questions. Although this is a deed restricted community, we will of course comply with all federal, state and local laws/ordinances that are applicable in our neighborhood. We rely on our property Management Company and HOA law firm to properly advise us on all legal related matters and to review our rules on occasion."

Sir Saunders Reply:
"The Rules and By-laws of this HOA are subordinate to the Laws of the State of Florida and to the Constitution of the United States. Please review the law below."

Title XL
REAL AND PERSONAL PROPERTY

Chapter 720
HOMEOWNERS' ASSOCIATIONS

View Entire Chapter

720.304 Right of owners to peaceably assemble; display of flag; SLAPP suits prohibited.--

(2)(a) Any homeowner may display one portable, removable United States flag or official flag of the State of Florida in a respectful manner, and one portable, removable official flag, in a respectful manner, not larger than 41/2 feet by 6 feet, which represents the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard, or a POW-MIA flag, regardless of any covenants, restrictions, bylaws, rules, or requirements of the association.

(b) Any homeowner may erect a freestanding flagpole no more than 20 feet high on any portion of the homeowner's real property, regardless of any covenants, restrictions, bylaws, rules, or requirements of the association, if the flagpole does not obstruct sightlines at intersections and is not erected within or upon an easement. The homeowner may further display in a respectful manner from that flagpole, regardless of any covenants, restrictions, bylaws, rules, or requirements of the association, one official United States flag, not larger than 41/2 feet by 6 feet, and may additionally display one official flag of the State of Florida or the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, or Coast Guard, or a POW-MIA flag. Such additional flag must be equal in size to or smaller than the United States flag.

The only unfortunate part of this Florida Law, is that it doesn't allow for Confederate Flags! Yeeeehaaaa!! At any rate, here's one for the Gipper. I'm still waiting on a reply from the board.

Risk Theory

2009-04-13T20:46:00.003-04:00

RISK THEORY

I've been interested in risk theory for several years since I read a study at the CATO institute. Smithsonian Magazine has an article on it worth reading. (via Instapundit)

This counterintuitive idea was introduced in academic circles several years ago and is broadly accepted today. The concept is that humans have an inborn tolerance for risk—meaning that as safety features are added to vehicles and roads, drivers feel less vulnerable and tend to take more chances. The feeling of greater security tempts us to be more reckless. Behavioral scientists call it "risk compensation."

There has been a lively debate over risk compensation ever since, but today the issue is not whether it exists, but the degree to which it does. The phenomenon has been observed well beyond the highway—in the workplace, on the playing field, at home, in the air. Researchers have found that improved parachute rip cords did not reduce the number of sky-diving accidents; overconfident sky divers hit the silk too late. The number of flooding deaths in the United States has hardly changed in 100 years despite the construction of stronger levees in flood plains; people moved onto the flood plains, in part because of subsidized flood insurance and federal disaster relief. Studies suggest that workers who wear back-support belts try to lift heavier loads and that children who wear protective sports equipment engage in rougher play. Forest rangers say wilderness hikers take greater risks if they know that a trained rescue squad is on call. Public health officials cite evidence that enhanced HIV treatment can lead to riskier sexual behavior.

And think of the government regulations and spending that are supposed to make us safer.

Stimulus: Print our way to recovery

2009-04-12T13:29:00.002-04:00

BIDEN'S MOUTH

2009-04-11T11:45:00.005-04:00

BIDEN'S MOUTH

President Obama probably had buyer's remorse before he became President Obama, but it's only getting worse.

Republican strategist Karl Rove called Vice President Biden a "liar" on Thursday, dramatically escalating a feud between Biden and aides to former President George W. Bush over Biden's claims to have rebuked Bush in private meetings.

"I hate to say this, but he's a serial exaggerator," Rove told FOX News. "If I was being unkind I would say liar. But it is a habit he ought to drop."

Rove added: "You should not exaggerate and lie like this when you are the Vice President of the United States."

Biden's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, although Biden spokesman Jay Carney told Fox on Wednesday: "The vice president stands by his remarks."

I doubt Jay Carney will last long in this job. He's already speaking in a detached manner about his boss. He should seriously consider putting in for hazard pay.

2009-04-09T13:40:00.001-04:00

BUYER'S REMORSE

In March, the number of Democrats in the nation fell two percentage points while
the number of Republicans fell by half-a-point.

The number of unaffiliated went up of course. I would not be surprised to see a viable third party candidate as soon as 2012, one with horse sense and a chip on his (not her) shoulder.

2009-04-09T13:31:00.002-04:00

PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF AMERICA

News Flash: People with capital favor capitalism. 30% of Democrats favor socialism. A majority of young adults either favor socialism or don't know the difference. Possibly they think "socialism" means hanging out with friends.

Investors by a 5-to-1 margin choose capitalism. As for those who do not invest, 40% say capitalism is better while 25% prefer socialism.

There is a partisan gap as well. Republicans - by an 11-to-1 margin - favor capitalism. Democrats are much more closely divided: Just 39% say capitalism is
better while 30% prefer socialism.

We never did find out which McCain prefers. The economy is not his strong suit.

2009-04-09T13:19:00.003-04:00

CRYSTAL BALL

An article from 3 years ago about wasteful spending.

The nation's strong economic growth is creating a tax-revenue boom for the states. State tax revenues jumped 8.7 percent in 2004 and about 8 percent in 2005. About three-quarters of state governments had tax-revenue growth of 6 percent or more in 2005.

What will the states do with their overflowing coffers? During the revenue boom of the 1990s, states allowed their budgets to bloat as they expanded programs such as Medicaid to unsustainable levels. When the recession hit in 2001 and revenues stagnated, state officials moaned that they were innocent victims of a fiscal crisis. They responded by hiking taxes and clamoring for more aid from Washington.

He nailed that one.

2009-04-09T11:27:00.005-04:00

HOW BAD IS IT, DOC?

The slowly moving crisis ahead.

Mike Whalen, former policy chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, commenting on last year's Social Security Trustees annual report on the state of the Social Security and Medicare programs, said, "The report on the state of entitlement programs is rather grim -- the combined unfunded liabilities of both programs are $101 trillion." What that means is that in order for government to make good on its promises, Congress would have to put aside tens of trillions of dollars in the bank today. Keep in mind that our GDP is only $14 trillion.

In the absence of massive tax increases or cuts in benefits, in order to meet its promises Congress must cease spending on one in four programs by 2020, such as education and highway construction, and one in two by 2030, and by 2050 or so all federal revenue will be spent supporting Social Security, Medicare and prescription drug benefits. Such a scenario is unsustainable. There will be economic and political chaos. Today's politicians are not likely to take measures to avoid the coming chaos because senior citizens, the major beneficiaries of Social Security and Medicare, vote in large numbers and will exact a high political price.

And that doesn't even count the government health care we're likely to see.

2009-04-08T19:56:00.001-04:00

DUDE SAYS GO

Wife, 42, just got her first-ever summons to jury duty. She was bemoaning but I said No! Dude says go to jury duty and volunteer to be foreman, it's a great experience.

(I got the call in Louisiana and NC but never got seated for a trial.)

Maybe she will get to swing 11 Angry Men around to her point of view.

2009-04-07T21:10:00.003-04:00

THE PAPER

A funny little guy came to my door selling the Orlando Sentinel a few weeks ago. I stopped getting the Sentinel in 2004 when they endorsed John Kerry. Two salesmen have been to my door prior to this one and I sent them away. The last dude said he was just trying to save me money with coupons. The new guy offered me 13 weeks of Wed, Fri, and Sun for 50 cents a week and I took it. I figured it would be nice to read the CALENDAR section again and the movie reviews and show times, not that I have time for the movies. That crazy Commander Coconut is still at it though he moved to the end of the section.

It use to be fun to read the Sunday travel section, but it's all wire stuff now. The sports section has a columnist that thinks referencing Paris Hilton in a college basketball quip is witty. But the previous salesman was right about saving me money on the coupons. I bought these corn/rice chips with a coupon that saved me more than a week's subscription. Decline can be great for the pocketbook, but I won't miss the paper when it finally folds. Or I should say I won't miss it once my 13 weeks introductory offer ends.

2009-04-06T20:18:00.002-04:00

BUCS WIN

I turned on the PIT-STL game on the way home to find the Pirates behind 2-0 with two hits through five. The longtime Cardinals announcer butchered the first three names he tried -- pitcher Paul (wrongly "Ma-home") Maholm, OF Nyjer ("Nygre") Morgan, and OF Nate ("McCloth") McLouth. And it was the fifth inning -- nobody had corrected him. And the Cardinals faced those Pirates players about 18 times last year. That is what it's like being a Pirates fan.

(Or it's possible the guy just pronounces everything wrong. He called the last out of the sixth "a line drive, popped up to second base." Something about free Busch in the press box?)

Bucs win though, 6-4, on a bases-clearing double in top 9 by Jack Wilson, who was 0-for-4 at that point and down to the team's last strike. I'll take wins over respect if that's my choice.

2009-04-06T01:23:00.003-04:00

THE YANKEE YEARS by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci (A Book Review)

The Yankee Years gives you the history of the Yankees during Torre's reign with an account of how baseball changed after the Yankees won their last championship. You'll learn about the Yankees' internal problems and successes along with larger issues like steroids and the impact of Michael Lewis's MONEYBALL. Neither issue the Yankees were ready to deal with in a timely manner.

Joe Torre, ever the decent man, shares his feelings on many topics including the players he loved and the players who frustrated him. Derek Jeter was the most professional of baseball players and the greatest of teammates. Paul O'Neill was a fierce competitor. David Cone was the rare pitcher who was a team leader in the clubhouse. Jorge Posada was a leader on the field who had no problem getting in your face if you weren't working hard enough. David Wells was a talented pitcher always getting in his own way. Alex Rodriguez was a hard working ballplayer that spent too much time worrying about what was written and thought about him. Carl Pavano was a lazy dog who would do anything not to pitch. Randy Johnson just couldn't deal with the pressures of New York, nor could Javier Vazquez, Jeff Weaver, Kevin Brown, etc.

Verducci and Torre's first collaboration, CHASING THE DREAM was written more than 10 years ago and I remember it being a pretty standard sports biography although Torre's story was more intriguing than most. This seems like an entirely different kind of book, one that deals with the Yankees within the larger issues of baseball. I can't honestly remember the voice in the first book, but here Verducci's voice dominates and Torre is always close by to add a supporting quote. Any baseball fan should want to read this book just to find out how Joe Torre made it so long in that boiling pot of water.

2009-04-04T22:17:00.002-04:00

THE NEW MONEYBALL

Now that GMs understand the old Moneyball, this is what they are doing now:

Baseball writer Tom Verducci recently noted in Sports Illustrated that teams are moving toward “placing more and more value on young players under control.” That is, they are signing their young players to contracts that extend past their years of indentured servitude. Doing so may mean paying a relative premium in the short term, but the team in turn can still afford the player after year six.

Take what the Tampa Bay Rays did with their rookie third baseman Evan Longoria. Since they considered him the cornerstone of their team, they signed him to a nine-year deal that could be worth up to $44 million. Ordinarily, the way a player of his talent (assuming he lives up to it) would earn that much money would be by toiling for a total of, say, $10 million to $15 million for six years and then signing a blockbuster free-agent deal that would pay $13 million to $15 million per year over the next three years and beyond.

As the league slowly corrects the reserve clause inefficiency by paying players what they are worth before they hit free agency, we will see a smoothing of salary distribution throughout players’ careers. Young players will not be as inexpensive and older players will not be as overpaid. Top free agents will become scarcer over time; their hometown teams have found a way to keep them. In a way, this change will be toughest on the big-spending teams that rely predominately on the free-agent market, and whose fans demand that they pursue marquee names.

2009-04-04T10:42:00.003-04:00

THE WORLD LOVES US AGAIN. . . IN THEORY

Barack visits the Continent:

Barack Obama made an impassioned plea to America’s allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, warning that failure to do so would leave Europe vulnerable to more terrorist atrocities.

But though he continued to dazzle Europeans on his debut international tour, the Continent’s leaders turned their backs on the US President.

Gordon Brown was the only one to offer substantial help. He offered to send several hundred extra British soldiers to provide security during the August election, but even that fell short of the thousands of combat troops that the US was hoping to prise from the Prime Minister.

Just two other allies made firm offers of troops. Belgium offered to send 35 military trainers and Spain offered 12. Mr Obama’s host, Nicolas Sarkozy, refused his request.

If I remember correctly, Obama's supporters during the election said that Bush had tarnished our image in the world and Barack could heal that wound and the world would better help us in the war on terror.

35+12=47 and there you have it. The election of Barack Obama gained us 47 additional troops. They won't pick up a gun or anything, but they are ready to man the phones. That is leadership.

2009-04-03T12:38:00.002-04:00

JOKE IS ON ME?

Wednesday evening in Pittsburgh I was walking from my hotel to a meeting. On the sidewalk up ahead was a peaceful demonstration by 40 or 50 anti-capitalism protestors. There were 2 police cars and 2 police motorcycles keeping the peace. The protestors were in a tight little bunch at the entry of some building. A woman in the middle was shouting something through a bullhorn. There were some signs that I didn't really read, just struck me as "Socialism good, capitalism bad" kind of stuff. It was clear from the police presence that there was meant to be separation between the throng and any onlookers, but from what I could tell there were no onlookers and no threat of disturbance. There was also no way to cross the street due to a concrete median erected for construction purposes and the fact that traffic was moving in both directions. And I was in a hurry. So I barged right past them on the sidewalk in my suit and tie. After I passed by, I heard, "Sir! Excuse me, sir!" I was concerned that it was a cop eager to tell me the error of my ways, or maybe a protestor wishing to engage my capitalist ass. I had time for neither and kept on walking without incident.

At the time I felt a bit of satisfaction as the object of their scorn. Later as I reflected on it, I couldn't make any sense of what they were doing. There were no onlookers, they weren't really roused up, there were no cameras, and I hadn't read their signs. So now I am wondering whether the whole thing was somehow April Fools related. I wish I had stopped long enough to read the signs. I checked the websites of the two Pittsburgh papers on Thursday but couldn't find anything on it. Now it lingers as one of those memories that I don't know what to do with, which cabinet to file it in.

2009-04-02T23:47:00.003-04:00

RANDOM THOUGHTS

I know of several Obama supporters from last year who are mostly apolitical, but the country was going down the tubes with President Bush and something had to be done. Now here you have Obama following almost all of the Bush policies and on top of that spending us into an economic collapse, and we have silence from last year's critics. It was like Bush's presidency was some big reality show and now that he's voted off the island everybody is safely back to their superficial pursuits until the new season begins in four years.

--------------------------------

I've been reading THE FORGOTTEN MAN by Amity Shales and I recommend it to my Junto brethren. I doubt a better book on what caused the Great Depression will ever be written. The short version is that Hoover started us off with the Smoot-Hartley tariff act that made prices climb and hurt the poorest people and Roosevelt spent the 1930s experimenting so many ways that investment capital was afraid to take any risks, because the rules kept changing. The author surmises that without government action it would have been a mild recession and been over in a few years, but it instead stretch until 1942.

---------------------------------

Baseball season without dad is tough. Without him convincing me that the Yankee acquisitions will be fruitful I am left to consider them objectively and get depressed.

2009-04-02T21:55:00.001-04:00

FRAID

I fear that all the activity over at Facebook marks the end of this blog. Am I wrong?

2009-03-28T22:46:00.002-04:00

THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Those Thomas Paine videos that Steve has posted on Facebook have energized me. I wrote something very eloquent on this forum a year or two ago which I have been unable to find via search - it must have been written in the comments section. Anyways, I was predicting revolution in America's future and vowing to be true to the cause for the sake of our progeny as our forefathers had sacrificed to ensure our freedom. Now there are national tea parties and reminders from long dead pamphleteers indicating that the time is ripe for revolution while we can still be somewhat civilized about it. Fake Thomas Paine speaks sense and I'm all riled up about it. I'm ready to go. It's game on!

2009-03-27T10:07:00.003-04:00

BEARER OF BAD NEWS

Periodically I get economic updates from a certain investment firm. Following is some of what they had to say this week.

I am reminded of the National Weather Service alert that went out in the days before Katrina hit New Orleans. It warned of massive destruction of property, flooding, loss of electricity and water for weeks or months, and human suffering on an "incredible" scale. It said in plain English that the area would be uninhabitable for weeks or months. And yet somehow we were unprepared to deal with a scenario that common sense and our own eyes told us was coming. At least with Katrina we could blame it on a natural disaster. This one we created ourselves. The smart money is stocking up on staples before inevitable inflation.

AS WE EXPECTED, THE WORLD STOCK MARKETS BEGAN A SUBSTANTIAL RALLY
It should continue for at least another few weeks, possibly for a few months. It is typical of major bear markets to have major rallies. Initially, we chose to participate in this rally by buying some of the heavily shorted stocks in the financial area, we have been quick to take profits after these rose. More recently, we have been buying more oil and gold shares on dips, and have purchased some technology companies that are selling at very low valuations versus their growth rates. We also view the technology purchases as short term. We view the oil and gold share purchases as longer term.

We will also be buying undervalued companies in various industries in the U.S. and China, which we believe are attractively valued and have proven to have long term growth prospects.

So many absurd moves are being made by the U.S. Government; it is hard to keep track of them.

1. Continued auto industry bailouts are ridiculous, and history has shown time and again in other countries that it is a disaster for taxpayers. Eventually, the auto companies and their suppliers end up failing, but only after massive amounts of taxpayer money has been wasted trying to revive an inefficient, short sighted, and uncompetitive industry. The Swedes are demonstrating wisdom by refusing to nationalize Saab.

2. Quantitative Easing, or in plainer English, PRINTING MONEY TO PAY DEBTS, is another costly endeavor. Our politicians had better read up on their history. This is an immense mistake...and the VERY SAME MISTAKE that has set off disastrous inflations in numerous countries, bankrupted millions of honest citizens around the world, and caused serious economic and social disruptions including wars, revolutions and national bankruptcies.

Politicians opt for Quantitative Easing because it serves their purpose. The politicians had a big role in causing the financial problems, with their decades of cheerleading for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and with their pressure on banks to make home loans to those who had no hope of paying their lenders back.

PLEASE DO NOT GET CONFUSED BY THE CHANGE IN TERMINOLOGY...THE TOXIC ASSETS ARE DERIVATIVES.
The politicians looked the other way and cheered for more broad home ownership while:
· buyers who could not afford the houses they were buying lied to lenders (many downloaded from the Internet fraudulent K-1's and 1099's to submit to lenders to help with their deception)
· real estate finance and sales professionals engaged in several kinds of fraud due to the high commissions and fees they earn from each transaction
· greedy bankers from Wall Street (whose crimes have been plastered in the papers in recent weeks) who created new derivatives that made it easy to sell the toxic assets to themselves and others
· greedy accounting and rating agency participants who helped perpetrate the overvaluation of the toxic assets

Now, to deflect the blame from themselves, the politicians are engaging in the theatre of blame...pretending that they did not know about so many of the things that they have known all along, such as big pay and bonuses to their big donors at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Wall Street firms, and in the real estate industry (which was for years the biggest political donor in the U.S.).

The politicians must think the public is so stupid as not to realize what a fraud has been perpetrated by all of the various parties.
Maybe the public is slow to gather the details, but they get the general thrust of the problem. There were too many greedy people making too many political donations to Congress...and too little oversight by the supposed regulators.

None of this is new. Please feel free to review our archives at www.guildinvestment.com to see what we have said about the derivatives crisis numerous times in the years before the problem came to public attention. A further review of our archives will show that we have discussed many global economic and financial events long before they hit the public's radar.

In our opinion, one of the worst mistakes thus far is currently being made, and in a few months or years the public will come to realize it. Just as we notified our readers about the problems with derivatives/toxic assets years before the public became aware of it, this latest tragic mistake is another one that we will discuss in our letters long before the public comes to understand it.

With respect to fixing the banking system, our leaders in Washington appear to be ignoring the advice of former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who as one of President Obama's advisors, suggests going back to a much less levered banking system. Paul Volcker suggests returning to something much like the banking system that existed under the Glass-Stegal Act. Instead, the politicians are opting for Treasury Secretary Geithner's plan which includes continuing with a more highly levered banking and finance system.

Why, after all of the problems caused by excess leverage, would they opt for the Geithner plan? Could it be that the financial institutions are too connected, and have been huge donors to many of the politicians at the national level?

England, Switzerland, the U.S., and many other countries have begun to use quantitative easing "money printing" to create a lower currency so they can export their way to prosperity. The countries want to state that they are pro free trade, so they will use the excuse that 'our currency has fallen, and that is why our exports are up and imports are down' argument. This, of course, is a misrepresentation.
When you lower the value of your currency to increase economic activity, it usually leads to more trade, more exports, and more cash in the financial system to spur consumption. Another result is that you encourage inflation. It will work. You will get inflation and perhaps some small economic growth. So it may still be a depression, but an inflationary depression.

The very politicians who are posturing that they care about the elderly, the retired, and low income groups are today creating a circumstance that will devastate those very groups with inflation. Inflation hurts primarily the poor, those on fixed income, and the retired. This is because it is hard for them to work and earn money at the new inflated pay rates. They are forced to sit by and watch as their savings be gradually eaten up by inflation, which erodes the purchasing power of their money.

We expect the U.S. dollar to fall and will invest accordingly.

2009-03-26T10:54:00.002-04:00

FREE BIRD

The fact that you CAN flip off a police officer doesn't mean it's a good idea.

A Pittsburgh motorist was exercising his constitutional right of free speech when he gave the finger to a police officer and another driver during an argument over a parking space. A judge ruled this week that David Hackbart's display of his middle finger was a nonverbal gesture protected by the First Amendment.

Obama will find a way to tax nonverbal gestures. Maybe a cap and trade system.

A state judge later ruled Hackbart guilty and fined him $119.75. When Hackbart appealed, the district attorney withdrew the charges against him. That might have been the end of the story, except that Hackbart -- with the help of the ACLU -- then sued the police officer and the city for violation of his civil rights. The incident, he claimed in his lawsuit, caused him "physical pain and suffering, emotional trauma, humiliation and distress."

Drawing upon my own experience with the legal system (with its own brand of emotional trauma, humiliation and distress), I would have paid the $120, bought a Tootsie Pop with the change, and moved on. Call me passive, I prefer pragmatic.

2009-03-26T09:23:00.002-04:00

SEXTING ON TRIAL

Grown-up lawyers are trying to figure out how the law applies to all the things kids do with technology.

In one of the first civil rights suits to focus on the growing practice of "sexting," lawyers for the ACLU of Pennsylvania will be asking a federal judge today to protect three teenage girls from the threat of criminal charges for using their cell phones to take and send semi-nude photographs of themselves.

I think about the parents when I hear about cases like this. The parents of the teenage girls are placed in the position of having to argue for the right of their precious babies to send topless pictures of themselves to be passed around the school. And spend two years of their lives doing it. And I thought I had problems.

2009-03-26T08:22:00.002-04:00

Saw this bumper sticker on my way in this morning.

He still isn't.

Sally Brown, in A Charlie Brown Christmas, on asking Santa for tens and twenties: "All I want is what I've got coming to me. All I want is my fair share." At the time it was a joke and I laughed. Now Sally Brown is setting national economic policy and it's not funny.

2009-03-26T06:17:00.001-04:00

C-SPAN TURNS 30

Here's an interview with the great Brian Lamb.

2009-03-24T14:34:00.003-04:00

THE BURSTING BUBBLE

This is an excellent rendering of what has happened in the economy:

The central banks hold $845 billion in gold. But of course, currency is no longer pegged to gold.
The money supply = $3.9 trillion = notes + coins + reserves.
$39 trillion was borrowed against it, using the "fractional reserve" system that is built on the premise that everybody won't want their money at once.
Derivatives got around the limits on how much could be borrowed, to the tune of $62 trillion.
Easy money created a huge asset bubble of $290 trillion, where the price of assets greatly exceeded any measure of the world's wealth.

It was all happy time as long as people bought in to the idea that the economy would keep growing and growing -- an irrational idea but people were making money by pretending that it could be true. Eventually, of course, the Ponzi scheme collapses like a house of cards and many get screwed.

2009-03-22T21:29:00.002-04:00

JUNTOBOYS NEWS REPORTS:
Live from the ORLANDO TEA PARTY

2009-03-21T17:32:00.005-04:00

ORLANDO TEA PARTY

It was a fun time. Steve, Donovan and I enjoyed lunch and quite a few spirited speakers.

Instapundit linked these picutres:
Here is the Orlando Sentinel story:

Here are some photos from my phone:

2009-03-19T16:28:00.002-04:00

WOW

President Obama's budget increases federal govt spending from 20% to GDP to almost 30% in HIS FIRST YEAR IN OFFICE. What can be said about that but WOW. He'll be on the cover of the history books all right.

2009-03-18T01:51:00.005-04:00

THE OTHER BLACKLIST

Remember Dwight Schultz from the A-Team? This is an interesting article about trying to make a living as a conservative actor in Hollywood.

Big Hollywood also has an article that explain how Jon Stewart and Bill Maher for hide behind comedy while delivering a steady partisan message.

Both were interesting.

2009-03-16T14:17:00.003-04:00

E's BEST BUSINESS BOOKS

I have on my shelf a book called THE BEST BUSINESS BOOKS EVER and another called THE 100 BEST BUSINESS BOOKS OF ALL TIME. The lists have quite a bit of overlap, as you would expect, and I've read 18 on each list. If I had to recommend just five personal favorites, and using a broad definition of "business book," I'd start here (with main takeaways, from memory):

1. THE EFFECTIVE EXECUTIVE by Peter Drucker.
a. The only thing you can measure is results. And the only thing you should measure is results.
b. Results exist only on the outside.
c. Know thy time. Most people don't have a very good idea of how they actually spend their time.
d. Time is an utterly non-renewable resource (unlike money, capital, workers) and must be invested purposefully.
e. Make strengths productive.
f. Do not spend valuable time trying to turn weaknesses into mediocrities.

2. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BEN FRANKLIN.
a. Timeless principles of industry, frugality, self-management, enterprise and leadership.
b. Lessons in technology transfer from a renowned inventor-capitalist.
c. A useful history lesson.
d. A useful model for writing anything in terms of structure and style.

3. WARFIGHTING by USMC.
a. The object of war is to win.
b. You gain decisive advantage by hitting your enemy decisively at their point of greatest vulnerabilty.
c. Moral considerations trump direct orders.
d. Some prefer THE ART OF WAR by Sun Tzu or ON WAR by von Clausewitz. I like this one.

4. GOOD TO GREAT by Jim Collins.
a. First get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus.
b. Don't worry about where you're driving the bus until you have the right people on and the wrong people off.
c. You don't have to worry about how to motivate people when you get the right people on the bus.
d. Get people in the right seats.
e. Then decide where to steer the bus.
f. Great leaders have a paradoxical combination of humility and professional will.
g. Great organizations commit to doing just a couple of things relentlessly well.

5. THE KNOWING-DOING GAP by Pfeffer and Sutton.
a. Something has to get done, and somebody has to do it.
b. If you do it, then you will know.
c. In America you get ahead more by sounding smart than by being smart. You sound smarter when you are critical than when you agree.
d. Successful problem solvers think when they've had the discussion and solved the problem, they're done. But nothing actually changes until something happens next.
e. Good strategy is obvious. What separates winners from losers is disciplined implementation of the obvious.
f. Disciplined implementation isn't sexy, just successful.

Honorable Mention:
6. MANAGING TRANSITIONS by William Bridges. Managing organizational change is about dealing with the emotions people have around letting go.
7. THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE by Stephen Covey. Because we are humans not Pavlovian dogs, we can choose how we respond to stimuli. Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
8. THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE by Peter Senge. Every system is perfectly designed to produce the outcomes it produces. Whoa.
9. THE VISUAL DISPLAY OF QUANTITATIVE INFORMATION by Edward Tufte. The higher the information-to-ink ratio, the more effective your communication.
10. PLEASE UNDERSTAND ME by Kiersey and Bates. Understanding personality types is critical to working effectively with others. Understanding your own personality and temperament will set you up for success rather than failure.

Articles:
1. "Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey?" by William Oncken. Don't let others' monkeys jump from their shoulders to yours for care and feeding.
2. "Leadership That Gets Results" by Daniel Goleman. Discusses six main leadership styles, when to use each, and which ones generally work best.

I would love to hear your favorite books in this or any genre.

2009-03-16T13:40:00.003-04:00

MENTAL ABILITY OF JUNTO BOYS FADING

Research confirms what we already knew.

In nine out of 12 tests the average age at which the top performance was
achieved was 22.

The first age at which performance was significantly lower than the peak
scores was 27 – for three tests of reasoning, speed of thought and spatial
visualisation. Memory was shown to decline from the average age of 37. In the
other tests, poorer results were shown by the age of 42.

I had already decided to stop reading so many new books and instead re-read good books I've already read. Sounds like reinforcing that old information might be a good idea before it slips away.

2009-03-12T22:54:00.001-04:00

ARI VS. MATHEWS

Sorry to be throwing all of these film clips on here, but Ari Fleisher's performance on HARDBALL is worth seeing. Via The Corner:

2009-03-12T22:22:00.002-04:00

BILL CLINTON AND SCIENCE

Have yet to meet. . .

How does Bill Clinton create an embryo without fertilization? Rhodes Scholar? What can explain it?

2009-03-11T21:37:00.002-04:00

A CONGRESSMAN WITH WIT

via Big Hollywood

2009-03-10T21:47:00.002-04:00

HE'S NOT EVERYTHING WE READ INTO HIM

The ranks indeed are filling with the disaffected and the disappointed — Chris Buckley, Maureen Dowd, David Brooks, David Gergen, and even that gynecological sleuth and blogger Andrew Sullivan. And then there is the very angry Marty Peretz. Their complaints are varied but expressed with equal amounts of remorse and bitterness. They all have been done wrong by Barack.

They and the rest of the country are figuring out the bitter truth: Obama bears little resemblance to the moderate and soothing figure who tied up John McCain in knots. He bears even less resemblance to the Agent of Change. Rather he’s pretty much the Chicago pol who went to the Senate to be its most liberal member.

And for the wounded Obama supporters, we can offer just one bit of counsel: you have lots of company. There are trading floors filled with sympathetic souls and businesses filled with stunned executives. They didn’t get what they bargained for either. Just ask Jim Cramer. Oh yes, please do invite him to your sessions when he’s not busy with the “I lost my life’s savings” support group.

It's worth reading the whole thing, because he quotes each of the authors who were duped.

2009-03-10T16:38:00.003-04:00

BALL

I enjoy the World Baseball Classic. It's real baseball in early March and I don't care who wins.

I bought and will finally read MONEYBALL after years of recommendations from Dude and others.

Here's a sneak peak of what Pirates fans have to look forward to this year. This photo is priceless. (The ball fell for a double yesterday.) The Bucs begin their 17th consecutive losing season in about a month. They are tearing up the Grapefruit League though. I have tentative plans to see FLA @ PIT on April 22.

2009-03-10T12:23:00.002-04:00

SWINGS

In the 1960s, with 68% of the Senate, the Democratic Party was celebrating the death of the GOP. Then their own policies energized conservative sentiment and gave us Republican presidents for 20 of the next 24 years. Pat Buchanan:

Why did LBJ fail? He overloaded the circuits. He tried to do it all. He misread a national desire for continuity after Kennedy's death as a mandate for a lunge to the left and a great leap forward with the largest expansion of government since the New Deal.

By the winter of 1968, Lyndon Johnson was a broken president.

History never repeats itself exactly. But Barack Obama is making the same mistakes today that LBJ made in 1965.

He has ordered 17,000 more U.S. troops into Afghanistan, as the situation deteriorates and the NATO allies pull out. He has no exit strategy. He has read a repudiation of George Bush as a mandate for a government seizure of wealth and power that exceeds anything attempted in the Great Society.

Fully half of the $3.55 trillion in spending Obama will preside over this year will not be covered by tax revenue but by red ink. The money will have to be borrowed from abroad or printed by the Fed.

Not only is Barack running a deficit four times as large as Bush's largest, he has called for $1 trillion in new taxes on America's most successful, who have already seen their savings and pensions ravaged.

He wants a cap-and-trade system to deal with a global-warming or climate-change crisis many scientists believe is a hoax. He is going to provide health care for all, including immigrants, millions of whom arrive uninsured every year.

He is going to plunge scores of billions more into education, though education has eaten up the wealth of an empire, as SAT scores sink further and further below the apogee of 1964, before LBJ and the feds barged in. He is going to ask Congress for authority to spend another $750 billion rescuing the banks.

He is going to find the cure for cancer. He is going to ensure every kid gets a college education.

He is going to drop half of all wage-earners off the tax rolls, while the top 2 percent, who already pay 40 percent of all income taxes, are forced to cough up more.

Obama is misreading the election returns. When America voted to cancel the White House lease of Mr. Bush, it did not vote Barack Obama a blank check.

By misinterpreting his mandate, Obama has accomplished something John McCain could not -- unite the Republican Party and instill in it a new esprit de corps. For the Obama budget is an insult to the core belief of the party -- that free people, not coercive government, should shape the character of society.

By daring Republicans to fight on the issue of a $1.75 trillion deficit, Obama has liberated the GOP from any obligation to him. He has come out of the closet as a radical liberal spoiling for a fight over an agenda of radical change.

Sooner than any might have thought, we have clarity.

2009-03-09T13:29:00.001-04:00

WHAT THEY WERE SAYING ABOUT FANNIE AND FREDDIE IN 2004

Republicans asked for further regulations and Democrats balked:

2009-03-09T09:07:00.003-04:00

AMERICA OR BUST

An 11-page Citizen's Guide provides clear resources to understand and explore our federal government finances. Links to that and other resources here.

Here's a confidence builder that our government will solve all our economic problems. From the Journal of Accountancy, March 2009:

"For the 12th consecutive year, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said it could not express an opinion on the consolidated financial statement of the U.S. government—other than the Statement of Social Insurance—because of numerous material internal control weaknesses and other limitations.
Acting Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, the head of the GAO, said in a press release that the agency’s ability to render an opinion on the accrual-basis consolidated financial statement was hampered by three major issues that include “serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense, the federal government’s inability to adequately account for and reconcile intragovernmental activity and balances between federal agencies, and the federal government’s ineffective process for preparing the consolidated financial statements.”
Dodaro also noted material weaknesses related to improper payments, information security and tax collection activities. He also noted that at least three major agencies (Defense, Homeland Security and NASA) failed to receive clean opinions."

Spoiler warning:

Chart 2 -- "Debt Held by the Public" (trend line looks like a rocket launching into space)

Chart 5 -- "Current Trends Are Not Sustainable"

Exhibit -- 2080: Total Government Cost is More Than Three Times Revenue