Weekend Music Chill

When I was growing up, Pops always had an eclectic variety of music on the stereo: classical, country and western, and folk. (No rock and roll for him.) I wasn't aware of it at the time, but many of the folk singers we heard in our youth were pretty much lefties, Woodie Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and Cisco Houston to name a few. Didn't seem to harm me much, as I grew into the libertarian leaning conservative and otherwise fine upstanding citizen. I was particularly fond of some of Ian and Sylvia's tunes, especially V'la Le Bon Vent (and yes Paul, you ultra-rightist, I took French in high school.) I couldn't find Ian and Sylvia's version of that tune on YouTube but I came across a group called the McDades who rock! So here are the McDades with a traditional French-Canadian chanson à répondre (a round).

Daschle and Patriotism

Tom Daschle, wanna-be Generalissimo of Health, fails Joe Biden's patriotism test. Today's post can be found over at Beers with Demo.


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Growing a Spine?

At first I was fearful, then hopeful, now I am just resigned. After today's love fest between Republicans and Barack Obama, I feared that they were going to just cave in on the stimulus porkage being offered up by the administration. Then I saw Drudge's headline "NO!" and thought great, now the Republicans are growing a spine and standing up to a permanent increase in government spending and race to socialism disguised as a stimulus bill. The bill proposes to give tax credits to people who pay no income taxes at all. If that isn't socialism, what is?

But then I started thinking about the Republican track record of late. It occurred to me that this is all just posturing to extract some concessions from Obama and then they'll go along, or enough will, to give a show of "bipartisanship." If the concessions are meaningful, then I say great, but Obama made it clear that he is not going to compromise on the tax credit issue. Why not? Because it allows the Democrats to buy votes from poorer Americans who will get hooked on this juice and just want more and more. It's a form of European socialism that will wreck this country, so no matter what other concessions Obama might grant, the tax credit issue is a deal breaker on which there should be no compromise.

Who's Your Daddy?

Pictured at left is the newly installed Chairmen of the Board of Citigroup, who just got the job last week. The two men pictured are of course Barack Obama and Richard D. Parsons. I leave it to readers of the BwD article, to decide who is the actual chair.

Interesting First Week

So what did our new President accomplish in his first week? Most of what a President can do in that short a time is symbolic, but Obama sought to create the impression of motion. Some thoughts.

First, he reversed the Mexico City Policy, that requires charities receiving federal funds to refrain from promoting abortion. While this was typical, it also served to remind the public that Obama is a typical doctrinaire pro-abortion Democrat. I don't think the policy really makes much difference one way or the other, because it is too difficult to enforce.

More substantively, he gave the expected Presidential order to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This just raised questions about where the prisoners will go and why won't their home countries take them back. As discussed previously, I think this will negatively impact him as Americans realize none of the mostly Muslim nations of origin for these killers are willing to take them back just to help Obama. I also think this used up news cycles and allowed conservatives an easy line of attack, without having to directly attack the President. Tonight, I saw that Hannity will be profiling each terrorist in Gitmo, one at a time. Nice water torture for his viewers, but also a reminder of Obama's lack of planning. A silver lining is that there are reports that they ship these murderers to the Colorado SuperMax. That's a real prison, with 23 hours of solitary a day that grinds the life out of its inmates. (H/T WeaselZippers) If we ever catch Bin Laden, I hope he ends up there, as a constant reminder to our enemies that he is under our control.

On the stimulus package, when Republicans raised objections that Obama's plans to send checks directly to all Americans would be redistributive and be giving money even to those who don't pay taxes, he replied, "We won." Great, but don't expect any cooperation. Also, trying getting Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to first agree with you, then agree with each other, then get their troops in line if you can't get a single Republican vote. Further, when stuff goes wrong, as it inevitably will, that comment will come back to haunt the President. More substantively, isn't this just socialism flat out? I mean, were just going to tax those who work and give money to those who don't. How else could you characterize such a scheme? Maybe a charge of socialism isn't toxic in politics any more, but the gross unfairness of such a scheme is surely grist for conservatives mill.

I already commented on his little press room incident. Although it seems small it is important. To quote David Warren:

The liberal mind—now fully restored to power in the United States—is in love with symbolic gestures.

When those gestures go south, they can be harbingers of things to come. One can only hope... for change.

And remember: Dissent is Patriotic.

For those who missed it, here is the video of the muffed oath. The spin is that this is all on the Chief Justice, but notice how Obama is not exactly a team player, my opinion. (I'd like to hear yours.)

Best Video From Last Week

This is definitely the most powerful video from last week. H/T: WeaselZippers,



How ironic that among this week's executive orders, was one that rescinded the ban on funding for international birth control organizations that advocated abortion. But hey, you dance with the one who brung ya.

Something to Ponder from over 2000 years ago

The following quote appeared online in the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons website, of all places. (H/T E3 Gazette)

And then, later, Brutus, the long-time sycophant of the ambitious Caesar, came to his senses and went to Cicero with his plea that something be done to save the nation. He confessed his error, he said he had believed in Caesar, he had believed he would restore the public, but that he has betrayed his trust.

Cicero's bitter reply was "Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions and laughed delightedly at his licentiousness and thought it very superior of him to acquire vast amounts of gold illicitly. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new, wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome's, interpreted to mean 'more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.' Julius was always an ambitious villain, but he is only one man."

Just something to ponder.

Making Matters Worse

Dean has an excellent post on Robert Reich's proposals for make work, targeting the unskilled and minorities for more employment. In typical racist fashion, he assumes that construction workers are white males. Further, the administration proposes mandates for hiring the unskilled.

This is why the recession will last longer the more stimulus that is applied. The whole reason we got into a recession is the misapplication of resources. In the inevitable correction that follows economic activity contracts as resources stop flowing to investments and spending that now appears to lack utility. But lo and behold, the aptly named Reich's proposals for a national socialist experiment, will only serve to continue to send funds to unneeded projects. Further, the requirement to use unskilled labor will only increase the waste. What happens to these unskilled folks when these make work projects dry up. It will just lead to more recession. Just as FDR's policies prolonged the Great Depression, so too will these kind of policies prolong the current recession.

Not Ready

Barely into his first week in office, Obama is working on convincing me has not matured enough or developed the temperament to hold the highest office in the land. Play this video and I will explain further.



Note his intent, "I came down here to visit," not adding, "my adoring fans." Here is a man with a pathological need to be liked, and his instincts are that the press room is the place to satisfy that urge, the way Clinton knew to look for chubby interns. Unfortunately, some members of the press seemed willing to oblige:

The president was quickly saved by a cameraman in the room who called out: “I’d like to say it one more time: ‘Mr. President.’ ”

News flash for Mr. Obama. The press are not your friends, they're not your groupies, they're not you're biggest fans. They are supposed to be the "fourth estate," keeping our government honest by asking those tough questions. Get used to it.

Part two of my complaint is that Obama wants to be seen as the "coolest dude." He's like this geek that was somehow transformed, and he just can't stop showing off his utter coolness: From the same Politico.com article:

He revealed that he had already gotten in two work outs since being sworn in Tuesday.

"Turns out I have a little gym up there," he said with a smile.

This man needs to mature fast, for the sake of the country. Hopefully not as a result of a tragedy he could have prevented.

Rapid Bus? Update

In an earlier post, I bemoaned the proposed waste of stimulus dollars on so-called rapid transit initiatives. Desperate to fill space, the local fishwrap published my letter to the editor on the same subject (scroll about halfway down to read it).

So I gave public transportation a try anyway, with my youngest (online handle: mew2ds); recently riding the so called "express bus" downtown, making one transfer to get to his school. He will be sans transportation next semester, as Mrs. Daddy goes back to school herself, so this was a test run to see if the public transportation system was a viable alternative. It was, barely. I'm hoping this motivates him to get and keep his license his senior year, right now, he just has the permit.

So we carefully plotted out the whole route, careful to give ourselves an 18 minute cushion. It is about three blocks to our initial bus stop, not too bad; but being lazy, we caught a ride anyway. No need, because our bus was eight minutes late. Not to worry, right, we're on the express bus. My first gaffe was committed as I boarded the bus; I forgot about that whole exact change thing; so I ended up donating ten bucks to the city coffers of "Enron by the Bay."


View Larger Map

As we debarked at our downtown transfer, (bus 50 to bus 3, Fifth and Broadway, if you zoom in you can see the bus stops), we saw our #3 bus pulling away. Our eight minute cushion for the transfer had evaporated. Not to worry, the 120 bus also goes north on Fifth, however, when it pulled up, we noticed the warning: LTD STOPS, which we took to mean limited stops. Maybe a bad idea to hop on we thought. We ended up waiting a little beyond the advertised fifteen minutes for the next #3 bus. Finally, we were dropped right by the school, exactly ten minutes late for school. All told, an 11 minute car ride turned into a one hour public transportation adventure.

Some observations; the buses were clean and appeared well maintained; not so all of the riders, there were a plethora of new scents. Also, our bus was crowded for most of the trip. Downtown is filled with both business people and employees hustling to work and sketchy characters, just hustling, or not.

A 7 mile, 11 minute trip that would cost me $1.50 in gas in the Civic (based on the round trip) was $10 and one hour on the bus. To be fair, the student monthly pass will be $34 and theoretically could be used for 20 round trips per month, but still, there would not be much savings. For frequent flyers(?), the bus pass is certainly the way to go, but having to budget an hour of your life, two if you took the bus home, certainly explains why everyone who can afford to, takes their car.

It's Official: Republicans More Responsible Administrators

From this week's Economist:

The outgoing president has done an admirable job of smoothing the transition. Mr Bush’s staff have done all they can to brief and assist the new people, for example by quickly giving 1,000 members of the Obama team clearance to look at sensitive information. Mindful that terrorists like to strike when their enemies are unprepared, incoming and outgoing aides and cabinet members met at the White House this week to rehearse their response to a hypothetical terrorist attack. The Bushites’ co-operativeness contrasts with the childish behaviour of some Clintonites in 2001, who vandalised White House offices as they packed up to leave.

That's right, when it comes to responsible behavior in turning over the executive branch, the previous Administration has it all over the previous Democrat one. This, despite the mantra at DailyKos that Democrats are somehow more competent.

Congratulations to the former President and his chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, for putting the good of the nation as their first priority during the transition period.

A Heart Beat Away

The election is long over, but Joe Biden can't seem to find the off switch for the "Gaffe-O-Matic," even getting his wife in on the action. After swearing in cabinet members at the White House today, Biden apparently had to be reminded by Obama that he was also supposed to swear in senior staff. Not content to let it ride, he commented:

"My memory is not as good as Chief Justice Roberts."

Which was a swipe at the Chief Justice's misplacing the word "faithfully" in the part of the swearing in oath yesterday.

A couple of days ago, Jill Biden let slip on Oprah that Joe was given the choice of Secretary of State or VP. Dean has more insight here. I remember during the campaign, Joe commenting on how Hillary was probably more qualified than him to be the Vice President. The most recent comments puts a whole new spin on those remarks.

I'm also concerned about something else? If Obama has to correct the Chief Justice and remind the VP of his duties, is this a trend? Will he have to do everything? That would make for an interesting four years.

There May be Hope and Little Change for us yet

Will Rogers famously said, "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat." The opening agenda of the Democrats seems to confirm the quote and I happy to see them tackling issues that will waste their political capital.

Obama's supposed first act will be to close the Guantanamo Bay holding facility. I commented on this previously, but now I say, great, chew up political spin cycles on how you are going to deal with moving the prisoners to the U.S., the embarrassment of no other countries taking them and a big fight over what constitutional rights they should be afforded. Ultimately, this is a small issue. If the Democrats start to look weak in the fight against jihadis, I think that will be self correcting. Meanwhile, I look forward to them wasting time and political capital on this issue.

Second, in a shocker, Nancy Pelosi says she is open to prosecution of former Bush administration officials. I say, go for it. Hold hearings. Televise them. Get conservatives worked up over the injustice of it all. Embarass yourselves with comparisions to Clinton, Blagojevich, Tim Mahoney, Bill Richardson, the mayors of Detroit and Baltimore, etc. Criminalize participation in the Executive Branch and see how many capable folks on your own side decline nominations.

Third, the Democrats are signalling that they are going to run against Bush in 2010 and 2012 as well. They are trotting out talking points about how this "deep recession" might last that long, and why they should be forgiven if they don't have it fixed by then. Good luck. Even though the shenanigans at Fannie Mae could be fairly blamed on the Democrats in Congress and the previous Clinton administration, see how far that got the Republican party in the last election. And desrvedly so, I might add. Because, it was Bush's watch, and he could have used the investigative power of the Justice Department to clean up Fannie and Freddie if he had the will to do so. My point is that blaming the previous administration will only buy you about a year. Then, tough, it's your problem. Meanwhile, the Democrats will have given conservatives some time to re-group to challenge what I consider the biggest menace, the proposal to slowly nationalize health care.

See Carpe Diem and Beers With Demo for some excellent discussion on why more free market competition would be good for health care costs, not less. More from Professor Perry here and here.

And Yet...

As we close the books on the Bush Presidency in just a few days, there is much for conservatives and libertarians to regret over the last eight years. I twice voted for Mr. Bush, so you might say that I have little excuse for this hand wringing. As KT points out, the alternative was worser, so I have no regrets about my vote. Still I have a long list of complaints about the last eight years, so I will let fly.

1. No Child Left Behind. Anytime you see a so called conservative teaming up with Teddy Kennedy, you can be sure mischief is afoot. This vast intrusion on local school systems, however well intentioned, is out of the constitutional purview of the federal government. Further, it will retard much needed scholastic experimentation for decades to come.

2. Indifferent support of free trade. In 2002, Bush imposed steel tariffs to buy a few votes in the Rust Belt, showing a total moral indifference to the defense of the principles of free trade. Despite lifting them later, he sent the message to the rest of the world that he didn't really care about the issue, setting back international negotiations.

3. Indifference to the constitution. From foreign wiretaps to Guantanamo, Bush acted as if his commander-in-chief powers trumped the rest of the constitution. While I agree with the policies per se, I disagreed vehemently that the President had the authority to implement them unilaterally. On the foreign wiretaps, of course they have provided valuable intelligence, that's why even Democrats voted for changes to FISA when it came to a vote. So why would the administration lay themselves open to charges of illegality when they could have got this legislation so easily passed. Further, it has been argued that it is too difficult to get judges to approve the needed surveillance. Baloney, if it is that important, then create enough special judgeships to oversee the program. We spend enough on the war itself, spend enough to make sure surveillance is conducted legally. Same for military tribunals and the Gitmo prisoners. Do they deserve to be treated as POWs under treaty? Obviously not, but the President lacks the authority to invent a procedure to deal with unlawful combatants out of whole cloth. When Republicans controlled both chambers, surely he could have gotten the procedures and avoided a smack down from the Supremes.

4. Incompetent execution of the war. I was on active duty when Donald Rumsfeld was selected as Secretary of Defense. I remember his emphasis on re-shaping the military to a smaller force with more emphasis on special forces and air power. I disagreed at the time, and believe events in Iraq have proved me out. While I have no smoking gun, there is no doubt in my mind that we went with too small a force in the initial Iraq invasion. The initial looting became important as a tipping point, letting thugs and terrorists (but I repeat myself) know that we lacked the forces to control the country. Displacing a government will always take fewer forces than maintaining effective control of a nation, and we should have known better. Further, we mindlessly de-Baathisized Iraq, but were left with no one who knew how to manage vital civic services. We have only recently found our footing and not because of the geniuses and cowards in the Pentagon. (I don't use that term lightly, Generals and Admirals have a duty to resign and speak out when the administration is being criminally stupid, but those guys valued their pensions and promotions more than their duty.)

5. Indifference to social security reform. Bush gave up on the ownership society way to easily. He failed to communicate and let constant naysayers Pelosi and Reed get the best of them, even though, by their own admissions, they had no better plan to deal with the Ponzi scheme that is called social security.

I could go one, but these are my chief complaints. Do I blame Bush for the recession? To the extent that it is due to the war and other spending putting us into deep debt, yes. So by this reckoning, it would seem that his was a failed presidency.

And yet....

I'm still not sure. The book "Good to Great" talks about the hedgehog, who only has to know one thing to defeat the much more clever fox. George Bush may be that hedgehog in that he knew this: Allowing the drift of events and opinion in the Middle East to continue unchecked would inevitably bring far greater tragedy to the world than the events of 9-11. Something huge needed to be done, something that only America could do, something that would demonstrate our commitment to democracy as well as serve as a reminder that we remain the most powerful nation on earth. A confluence of events made that something a place and a war called simply "Iraq." Only time will tell if he was able to reverse the course of history. I am certain only of this, on the most important decision he had to make on his watch, George Bush got it right. We hope and pray that Barack Obama will be similarly fated.

Try Not Paying THEM

So, my state is broke. The controller, John Chiang, announced today he would stop paying tax refunds on February 1. I guess that's what bankrupt firms do, stop paying their just debts. I just wonder what would happen if I stopped paying taxes.

However, this situation reminds of the advice that every tax professional has ever given me, don't over-pay your taxes just to get a fat refund, your just giving the government an interest free loan. Now I've got another reason to follow that advice. Hopefully, I was smart enough to owe a few bucks this year. More likely, I was not.

Meanwhile, the state failed to run a surplus and save for a rainy day when the revenue was pouring into the treasury. I pray the Republicans keep up the good fight and force steep spending cuts during this crisis. Rahm Emmanuel is reputed to have said, "We can't let a good crisis go to waste..." That can cut both ways.

Of course the usual suspects are crying about how their interest group can't stand to give up any of their government funding. For example:

"Cutting crucial health and human services for the poor while demand for those services skyrockets during this recession is simply the wrong approach to solving the financial crisis," Jeffrey Luther, president of the California Academy of Family Physicians, said in a statement.

Meanwhile in Texas, where the legislature meets for about five months, every other year, (H/T Dean), a state almost as big and with as many difficulties as California, their budget problem is vastly less. They are facing a $9.1 billion shortfall compared to California's $41 billion. The California budget gap is actually bigger than every state's budget except New York's, (H/T San Jose Mercury News.)

Piracy Update

I previously posted about the difficulties, strategic and otherwise, in containing pirates near the Horn of Africa. The Commander, U.S. Fifth Fleet, Vice Admiral William Gortney, pictured, pointed out perhaps the most significant problem: No deterrent. How's that you say? Aren't there laws? Yes, but no country is willing to take the pirates in to try them. Why aren't we bring the pirates to the U.S. for trial? Are you kidding, after all the crap we took over Guatanamo? This isn't even our fight really, but the Saudis and others in the area won't lift a finger.

And all that help we're supposed to be getting from other nations.

The United States is expecting other nations to join the anti-piracy task force, but at the moment, the United States is the only country in the task force with just three ships off of the waters of Somalia.

That's right, three ships to patrol a million square miles of territory, source here. Good luck sailors, you're going to need it.

Rapid Bus?

In today's fishwrap, Erin Steva of CALPIRG waxes poetic about how Obama needs to spend money on rapid transit.

"Imagine bus rapid transit connecting downtown San Diego to San Diego State University, going through downtown along Broadway, North Park and Hillcrest, and finally, down El Cajon Boulevard through midcity neighborhoods."

Kind of gives you a tingle? NOT! Who rides that route? I did try to imagine it, but all I get are visions of empty vehicles, like the official "rapid bus" pictured above left. Any time I see proposals for the oxymorons "light rail" and "rapid bus," I know to clutch my wallet.

Besides, even if every car on the road was powered by solar, wind or hydrogen engines, would-be socialist central planners would still be against the them because they give Americans freedom to go where they want, when they want. This is anathema to the culture of state planning. So, if we're going to be wasting our grandchildren's inheritance, let's get real and build some decent roads and expand the one's we have.

P.S. I got the picture of the bus from a web site Light Rail Now, that made the case that only 13% of the passengers for LA's "rapid buses" came from people abandoning their cars, the rest were cannibalized from other forms of public transportation.

Lumens and Tungsten and Bulbs - Oh My!

Over at Carpe Diem, Professor Perry has been having some fun pointing out how clearly superior products from present day actually cost significantly less than the same products from decades ago. There are some great pictures from old Sears catalogs, so I suggest you check out some of his articles. I point this out because it is important to remember that over the last few centuries, life has gotten progressively better. We work less and enjoy leisure time more, with more opportunities for recreation and serious pursuits. Even if these current times seem clouded with uncertainty, the challenges don't even seem as daunting as in the previous century. The century before that saw the country engage in a great civil war that killed a larger portion of our population than any war before or since. And in the century prior to that, we struggled against the greatest empire of the age, that sent the largest expeditionary force ever before assembled in the history of the world to defeat us, and yet we prevailed.

Back on purely economic terms, the arguments persist as to whether we are really better off, are goods really cheaper. This is a classic problem in economics, to the cost of like problems from different eras. It was tackled by William Nordhaus in 1998 in a paper on the unit cost of a lumen, a measure of light flux, i.e. photons per unit of time. Neither photons nor time have changed significantly over the course of the study. Not surprisingly, Nordhaus concludes that traditional economic measures significantly underestimate the cost benefits of quality improvements over time. His study showed that the cost of a lumen had declined by a factor of almost 400 since 1800. Different technologies such as the transition from tallow candles to light bulbs and then the introduction of tungsten and finally fluorescent bulbs continued to make the production of light less expensive. But in economic measures, the production of candles and their costs are one part of the measure of economic output. In fact, candles are now largely decorative. It is the production of a lumen that is a better measure of economic well being.

Some selected data (you can see the whole thing on page 23):
Year------Technology---------Price (cents per 1,000 lumen-hours)
1800--Talllow candle----------40.293
1815--Whale oil lamp----------29.886
1875--Gas lamp-----------------5.035
1883--Edison carbon lamp-------9.228
1900--Filament lamp------------2.692
1940--Filament lamp------------0.392
1992--Fluorescent bulb---------0.124


The study is a bit of a slog, but it is worth looking at the tables and graphs. I remember an article in The Economist on this some years ago, but couldn't find the piece to link.

What's a matta with you's guys?

After choking down $45 billion of jack from Washington loan shark, Sammy the Nose (as in "Yo Uncle Sammy nose what's best what's best for you's guys health.") The not so street-smart suits at Citibank have changed their tune about giving bankruptcy judges more latitude in resetting the terms of payment of home mortgages. No connection to their new best friend? Dean has rescued my blog with the full story.

Light blogging tonight as I finish two days of training in "best practices for service management" and have two short papers to write for an on line course in Information Resources Management.

The Limits of His Personal Charm

In a widely publicized trial balloon, presidential team advisers have indicated that Obama is preparing an executive order to close the terrorist holding facilities in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In a little noted excerpt from the article:

"...many nations have resisted Bush administration efforts to repatriate the prisoners back home. Both Obama advisers said it's hoped that nations that had initially resisted taking detainees will be more willing to do so after dealing with the new administration."

Stepping aside from the wisdom of bringing the most dangerous terrorists in the world onto U.S. soil, is Mr. Hope and Change really going to cajole other countries to take back terrorists through his charm? This reflects two strains of fallacious thinking that will be exposed. First, that hatred of America is all about Bush and as soon as he is gone the world will just love us. I made a facetious comment to this effect on DailyKos and was lauded for my thinking. Second, as I (and others) have discussed here and here, Mr. Obama seems to have a stratospherically high regard for himself.

To quote P.J. O'Rourke, "Is it too soon to talk about the failed Obama presidency just because Obama isn't president yet?"