Damn you Montreal Canadiens. Damn you.
Still recovering from the surgery, and facing an over-nighter in Detroit later this week, this update will be short and sweet. Sort of like me. Without the sweetness.
In case you're keeping score, it's oil spill 37, British Petroleum, zero. It's been over a month since the exploratory well in the Gulf of Mexico began leaking thousands of barrels a day into the water, still with no end in site. BP will attempt a "top kill" on Wednesday, forcing pressurized mud into the well in an attempt to clog it, then seal it completely. However, to this point, nothing has worked, and if this maneuver fails, which is certainly possible - if not likely, the next plausible response is the completion of the relief wells at least 30 days from now. Add that to the fact that independent analysis of the leak has determined the flow rate to be significantly higher than the 5,000 barrels/day BP has touted thus far, and we have what can only be described as a disaster of epic proportions.
There has been some grumbling suggesting the federal government should simply seize control of the clean-up and well-capping effort from British Petroleum, removing them from the equation. Setting aside the delicious irony that some of the people engaging in the grumbling could be found as recently as a few weeks ago searching out television cameras to whine about how awful it is that the federal government interferes in private business, it's pretty obvious that these people have little to no understanding of how the government actually works. Unlike say, hurricane relief, in which the government has unfettered access to its own rescue equipment, like helicopters, transports, communications and security, the U.S. Navy does not have any deep water drilling equipment. In fact, the government doesn't own any oil drilling, containment or rescue equipment at all. So demanding they take over is really what? A demand they remove BP from the operation, then hire Exxon to come in and do exactly what British Petroleum is doing right now? Come on. Despite what the right-wing talking heads would have you believe, this is not a socialist country. The government does not own the means of production. Private industry does. And when private industry screws up, we have to wait for private industry to rectify the mistake. Sometimes you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Sometime this week Congress will consider a bill to delay a 20% cut in Medicare payments to doctors for at least three more years. Said cuts were supposed to kick in several years ago to help reduce the cost of the Medicare program and save the government money. But due to a "flaw" in the formula used to arrive at the reduction amount, everyone in Congress seems to agree that the size of the cuts, and the short period of time during which they would be implemented would cripple the program and leave many Medicare patients without coverage. A reasonable person might conclude that if there was a "flaw" in the reduction formula, the smart thing to do might be to revise the formula in order to arrive at the correct scale of reductions over an adequate period of time. However, Congress is not filled with reasonable people. So instead of fixing the problem, they will, again, simply postpone them, setting up the next Congress for an even larger potential cut, combined with three years of healthcare cost escalation. Brilliant. Lest you think this is an aberrant error for Congress, they've had plenty of practice with the Alternative Minimum Tax. When it was first passed, no one thought it important to tether the trigger for the tax to inflation. So every year, more and more people are threatened with having to pay it. But instead of simply indexing the AMT to inflation and forgetting about it, Congress passes a temporary fix for it every single year, for the express purpose of claiming they succeeded in not raising taxes on a certain group of voters. At what point will the public demand our representatives actually solve problems instead of simply running on them?
Last week, new Republican senatorial candidate and folk hero Rand Paul made a complete ass of himself on the Rachel Maddow show when he aired his opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, (outlawing discrimination on the basis of race) because it "interferes" with the rights of private business to conduct said business however they please. You see, Rand Paul is a libertarian. (Well, a pseudo-libertarian. A libertarian who believes the federal government should supplement 50% of the income of his private practice really isn't a libertarian.) And while libertarianism sounds fascinating in academic debates, it, like every other purist political ideology, crashes and burns spectacularly upon contact with reality. Paul sincerely believes that no business should be forced to provide goods or services to any individual, for any reason. The "free market" provides choices, and the person being denied service could always choose to patronize another business that chose not to discriminate. Of course, by that logic, a hospital emergency room staffed with misogynists could refuse to treat a woman having a heart attack, simply because they are a private hospital and don't have to treat anyone they don't want to. The lady having the heart attack could then choose to have the ambulance rush her to a different hospital not staffed morons, hopefully before she dies of said heart attack, which would render her incapable of exercising her free market choice. It's stupid, and Paul knows it. He just doesn't care. It's his ideology. Reality be damned. It's too early to know if Rand Paul and his tea party supporters will pay a political price in Kentucky for their lunacy. The smart money says they don't. But it promises to be an interesting campaign.
Last November, a supervising nun at Saint Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, signed off on an abortion to save the life of a 27-year-old pregnant patient. Last week, news of her excommunication came to light. I don't care about the excommunication, one's relationship with a particular organization has nothing to do with the well-being of one's soul. What raised my ire was the reason given for the excommunication by the medical ethics director of the Diocese of Phoenix. When asked what actions the nun should have taken instead, the director replied, "...there are some situations in which the mother may in fact die along with her child..." Excuse me? The "right thing to do" would have been to allow the mother AND the fetus to die? That sounds so ridiculous it can't possibly be true, right? But according to Lisa Sowle Cahill, professor of Catholic theology at Boston College, "...The official church position would mandate that the correct solution would be to let both the mother and the child die..." Wow. I do not have the vocabulary necessary to express how ludicrous that statement is. I have always been baffled at the juxtaposition between the pro-life movement's reverence for the unborn and their lack of concern for the "post-born," but now I'm just angry. Life is precious. Even if it exists outside the womb. If this is what the Catholic church is offering, I don't want any part of it.
Finally, American researchers have developed what they are calling synthetic life. Doctor Craig Venter has taken an existing cell "blank" and implanted it with a completely synthetic, "home-made" strand of DNA. Yeah. In the words of Bartok the bat, this can only end in tears. Oh sure, at first this might be used to replicate vaccines much more quickly and cure diseases on a cellular level. But how long until someone holds up in a secret basement lab somewhere designing an army of perfect, superhuman embryos to implant in unsuspecting women in a plan to take over the world 20 years later? We are going straight to hell in a handbasket. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.
5.25.2010
5.20.2010
No Strenuous Activity For You... Two Weeks!
Surgery is over, and on doctor's orders I am attempting to remain as immobile as possible. It's really not that difficult.
So, as I was watching the Montreal Canadiens drub the Philadelphia Flyers, I came across this very interesting debt reduction exercise via one of my favorite blogs. It is a calculator created by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, in which you can select from a variety of different spending cuts and revenue increases to reduce the Federal debt to a manageable 60% of GDP by 2018 (from a projected 85% of GDP). Too many people think they can magically eliminate the debt by simply regurgitating tired political mantras. This exercise is a fair example of how complicated debt reduction actually is, and how many difficult choices will need to be made. I recommend everyone give this a try and let me know how you did.
So, as I was watching the Montreal Canadiens drub the Philadelphia Flyers, I came across this very interesting debt reduction exercise via one of my favorite blogs. It is a calculator created by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, in which you can select from a variety of different spending cuts and revenue increases to reduce the Federal debt to a manageable 60% of GDP by 2018 (from a projected 85% of GDP). Too many people think they can magically eliminate the debt by simply regurgitating tired political mantras. This exercise is a fair example of how complicated debt reduction actually is, and how many difficult choices will need to be made. I recommend everyone give this a try and let me know how you did.
5.19.2010
By The Time I Get To Arizona
Two more days until surgery. I think the waiting is worse than the actual operation.
I guess when you’re on a roll, you’re on a roll, right? Hot on the heels of demanding any suspected non-Americans show them their papers, the state of Arizona passed two more of the most ridiculous laws to come across a governor’s desk in the 21st century. In the span of a week, the legislature approved a bill banning teachers with “heavy accents” from teaching English, and another attempting to eliminate ethnic studies courses - required or elective - from the curriculum of all publicly-funded schools.
As usual, proponents of these laws have attempted to cast their distain for people of other than white, anglo-saxon decent, as just looking out for the well-being of the kids. They don’t want teachers with heavy accents teaching English because proper pronunciation and enunciation are essential to the language and skills - and therefore future success - of the children. Outlawing ethnic studies programs is a way to ensure that all children learn the same version of American history and all the important people and events that have taken place. Those “reasons” may or may not have redeeming value. I would argue that they do not. Let’s be honest, how many teachers sporting a heavy Southern drawl or quirky Minnesota jaunt are going to be excluded from the the English classroom? And how many U.S. history courses without an emphasis in ethnic studies include details of significant contributions from non-European Americans? I don’t think I’m walking too far out on a limb by answering few to none. All these new laws are designed to marginalize brown people in Arizona, legal or not, and make them understand that they are expected to conform to a very specific idea of how the older, whiter majority in that state believes they should look, sound and think . And the fact that so many people in Arizona - and around the country - support these initiatives, and are attempting to duplicate them elsewhere says something very disconcerting about the direction in which too many would like to take us.
There has been a lot of talk, mostly on Fox News and conservative talk radio, about the continuing BP oil spill being “Obama’s Katrina.” A few points on the absurdity of that statement. First, why is it that every time this President does something his conservative critics consider to be a gaffe, they always seem to find the perfect Bush screw-up to describe the situation? Second, these same critics have spend the past four years trying to convince us that Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina was perfectly adequate, and that the blame for the chaos and death in New Orleans and surrounding areas were really the fault of the Governor and Mayor Nagin. If this spill is “Obama’s Katrina,” does that not mean, by their own definition, that this administration is therefore doing a “heck of a job,” and that the fault for the economic and environmental damage should really be placed with Governor Jindal? And finally, exactly what is it that the conservative critics expect the government to do, beyond what they are already doing? The coast guard was on the scene the day of the explosion. Both NASA and NOAA have been providing a steady stream of information to British Petroleum to assist them in directing their clean-up effort. The Navy is providing equipment and deep water operating experience to a company with obviously no idea of how to tackle a deep water spill. Did the Minerals Management Service perform its function of properly permitting, regulating and overseeing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico? Of course not. What do you expect from an oil regulator gutted by two oil executives for eight years? About the only thing the government hasn’t done is nationalized BP, plugged the leak and performed the clean-up themselves at taxpayer expense. The critics certainly aren’t advocating a government bailout and operation of British Petroleum, are they?
As the returns for Tuesday’s primary races come in, one thing is abundantly clear. Voters (those that bother to vote in primaries anyway) are angry. Angry with the establishment, be they Republican or Democrat. Irrationally angry. But angry nonetheless. And they’re willing to direct that anger at whoever is in power by attempting to replace them with the most polar opposite candidate they can vote for. It’s reflexive. And stupid. And reminiscent of a four-year-old’s temper tantrum. But that is what it is.
People are mad. And when people get mad, or frightened, or panicked, any semblance of rationality goes out the window. I’ve lost count of how many interviews I’ve heard this week with voters angry with congressmen and/or senators who voted for the financial rescue package. In the very next sentence they admit that either a) the steps to preserve the banking system had to be take to avoid complete economic collapse, or b) they have no idea what should have been done to prevent the impending economic Armageddon. Then, seemingly forgetting what they said three seconds before, demand the removal of the guy whose actions they just said were necessary. Then there’s the guy who claims he is voting against his senator because she voted for healthcare reform. Attempting to explain his anger he claims that the healthcare bill didn’t go far enough in reforming the system, but he opposes the individual mandate, but he thinks healthcare should be less expensive, and he really wants some kind of reform, just not this package, so he’s voting her out. Translated into English, he opposes the healthcare reform package because it didn’t include enough, but was too expensive, even though he opposes the primary cost control measure of the legislation, and hopes some other more perfect version of the bill will happen along and magically pass through Congress without any horse trading and fix the system, even though overhaul is the first in 45 years to be signed into law. I don’t even want to talk about the clowns decrying a “government takeover of healthcare” while fiercely clinging to their Medicare and Social Security. Oh, and then there’s the National Rifle Association. Since the election of Barack Obama people have been acquiring firearms and ammunition at a ridiculous rate. Why? The NRA has convinced them that the President is coming to get them and take away their guns. Is there any evident whatsoever to back up such an assertion? Of course not. In fact, laws governing gun ownership have actually become less restrictive during the tenure of this administration. Yet when asked in an interview with NPR why he continues to insist the government will crack down on gun ownership, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, the spokesman for the NRA said, “I just have a feeling that there are storm clouds on the horizon.” That’s right. He has a feeling.
These people are idiots. Logic and reason mean nothing to them. The facts don’t matter, only their feelings. Somebody has offended their sensibilities and as a result they’re lashing out. It doesn’t matter that TARP prevented 2008 from reverting to 1939. The system didn’t actually fail, and things aren’t too bad right now, so obviously it was a waste of money and whoever voted for it should be fired. That is, of course, the equivalent of showing up at the five-alarm fire after the fire department has already put it out and saying heck, I don’t see any flames, guess we really didn’t need the fire department after all, what a waste of money! But that doesn’t matter. They’re mad dammit! And they’re not going to take it anymore! It’s irrelevant that the administration has made no attempt to, and given no indication it wants to curb gun ownership. They’re suspicious of that Obama guy, and have “bad feelings” about everything he has - or hasn’t done. They’re mad dammit! Monkeys in pants could do a better job than those fools in power now! Well, looks like some of those pants-wearing monkeys are going to get a chance to prove it. I’m stocking up on bananas.
Indiana Republican Congressman and evangelical Mark Souder held a press conference Tuesday afternoon to announce his resignation and admit he has been having an affair with a staffer not his wife. Surprise! Yet another family values conservative exercising his “values” with someone other than his family. I can’t help but wonder how the rise of gay marriage and the absence of school prayer damaged Souder’s traditional marriage and forced him to copulate with another woman. I would have to assume those things had little to effect, but I’m obviously not an expert on family values like he is.
Speaking of family values, disgraced South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford spent the past week in Florida, trying to rekindle his relationship with his Argentinean “soul mate.” The tryst cost Florida taxpayers $1,200 in security for the Governor and his lady-friend. While its kind of an inconsiderate thing to saddle out-of-state taxpayers with the cost of romancing your lover, you have to admire the man’s persistence. Lesser men, publicly humiliated by the media and divorced by a wealthy, politically powerful wife, might have given up on scoring the mistress. But not Sanford. This guy is the very model of stick-to-it-ive-ness. Perhaps if he had focused a little more of that attention his state and a little less on his illicit love affairs, he would still have both a marriage and a reputation.
Finally, from the desk of solutions-to-problems-that-aren’t-actually-problems, Lysol is advertising a new, touch-less soap pump. Their tag line? “Never touch a germy soap pump again!” Now, call me crazy, but it seems as though this product is aimed specifically at people who apply soap to their hands after they have already washed them. Why else would it matter whether or not there were germs on the soap pump? Isn’t that what the soap is for? To cleanse my hands after I have lathered with said soap from said soap pump? Come on guys. You’re not even trying anymore! I know times are tough, but really. You have to do better than that.
I guess when you’re on a roll, you’re on a roll, right? Hot on the heels of demanding any suspected non-Americans show them their papers, the state of Arizona passed two more of the most ridiculous laws to come across a governor’s desk in the 21st century. In the span of a week, the legislature approved a bill banning teachers with “heavy accents” from teaching English, and another attempting to eliminate ethnic studies courses - required or elective - from the curriculum of all publicly-funded schools.
As usual, proponents of these laws have attempted to cast their distain for people of other than white, anglo-saxon decent, as just looking out for the well-being of the kids. They don’t want teachers with heavy accents teaching English because proper pronunciation and enunciation are essential to the language and skills - and therefore future success - of the children. Outlawing ethnic studies programs is a way to ensure that all children learn the same version of American history and all the important people and events that have taken place. Those “reasons” may or may not have redeeming value. I would argue that they do not. Let’s be honest, how many teachers sporting a heavy Southern drawl or quirky Minnesota jaunt are going to be excluded from the the English classroom? And how many U.S. history courses without an emphasis in ethnic studies include details of significant contributions from non-European Americans? I don’t think I’m walking too far out on a limb by answering few to none. All these new laws are designed to marginalize brown people in Arizona, legal or not, and make them understand that they are expected to conform to a very specific idea of how the older, whiter majority in that state believes they should look, sound and think . And the fact that so many people in Arizona - and around the country - support these initiatives, and are attempting to duplicate them elsewhere says something very disconcerting about the direction in which too many would like to take us.
There has been a lot of talk, mostly on Fox News and conservative talk radio, about the continuing BP oil spill being “Obama’s Katrina.” A few points on the absurdity of that statement. First, why is it that every time this President does something his conservative critics consider to be a gaffe, they always seem to find the perfect Bush screw-up to describe the situation? Second, these same critics have spend the past four years trying to convince us that Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina was perfectly adequate, and that the blame for the chaos and death in New Orleans and surrounding areas were really the fault of the Governor and Mayor Nagin. If this spill is “Obama’s Katrina,” does that not mean, by their own definition, that this administration is therefore doing a “heck of a job,” and that the fault for the economic and environmental damage should really be placed with Governor Jindal? And finally, exactly what is it that the conservative critics expect the government to do, beyond what they are already doing? The coast guard was on the scene the day of the explosion. Both NASA and NOAA have been providing a steady stream of information to British Petroleum to assist them in directing their clean-up effort. The Navy is providing equipment and deep water operating experience to a company with obviously no idea of how to tackle a deep water spill. Did the Minerals Management Service perform its function of properly permitting, regulating and overseeing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico? Of course not. What do you expect from an oil regulator gutted by two oil executives for eight years? About the only thing the government hasn’t done is nationalized BP, plugged the leak and performed the clean-up themselves at taxpayer expense. The critics certainly aren’t advocating a government bailout and operation of British Petroleum, are they?
As the returns for Tuesday’s primary races come in, one thing is abundantly clear. Voters (those that bother to vote in primaries anyway) are angry. Angry with the establishment, be they Republican or Democrat. Irrationally angry. But angry nonetheless. And they’re willing to direct that anger at whoever is in power by attempting to replace them with the most polar opposite candidate they can vote for. It’s reflexive. And stupid. And reminiscent of a four-year-old’s temper tantrum. But that is what it is.
People are mad. And when people get mad, or frightened, or panicked, any semblance of rationality goes out the window. I’ve lost count of how many interviews I’ve heard this week with voters angry with congressmen and/or senators who voted for the financial rescue package. In the very next sentence they admit that either a) the steps to preserve the banking system had to be take to avoid complete economic collapse, or b) they have no idea what should have been done to prevent the impending economic Armageddon. Then, seemingly forgetting what they said three seconds before, demand the removal of the guy whose actions they just said were necessary. Then there’s the guy who claims he is voting against his senator because she voted for healthcare reform. Attempting to explain his anger he claims that the healthcare bill didn’t go far enough in reforming the system, but he opposes the individual mandate, but he thinks healthcare should be less expensive, and he really wants some kind of reform, just not this package, so he’s voting her out. Translated into English, he opposes the healthcare reform package because it didn’t include enough, but was too expensive, even though he opposes the primary cost control measure of the legislation, and hopes some other more perfect version of the bill will happen along and magically pass through Congress without any horse trading and fix the system, even though overhaul is the first in 45 years to be signed into law. I don’t even want to talk about the clowns decrying a “government takeover of healthcare” while fiercely clinging to their Medicare and Social Security. Oh, and then there’s the National Rifle Association. Since the election of Barack Obama people have been acquiring firearms and ammunition at a ridiculous rate. Why? The NRA has convinced them that the President is coming to get them and take away their guns. Is there any evident whatsoever to back up such an assertion? Of course not. In fact, laws governing gun ownership have actually become less restrictive during the tenure of this administration. Yet when asked in an interview with NPR why he continues to insist the government will crack down on gun ownership, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, the spokesman for the NRA said, “I just have a feeling that there are storm clouds on the horizon.” That’s right. He has a feeling.
These people are idiots. Logic and reason mean nothing to them. The facts don’t matter, only their feelings. Somebody has offended their sensibilities and as a result they’re lashing out. It doesn’t matter that TARP prevented 2008 from reverting to 1939. The system didn’t actually fail, and things aren’t too bad right now, so obviously it was a waste of money and whoever voted for it should be fired. That is, of course, the equivalent of showing up at the five-alarm fire after the fire department has already put it out and saying heck, I don’t see any flames, guess we really didn’t need the fire department after all, what a waste of money! But that doesn’t matter. They’re mad dammit! And they’re not going to take it anymore! It’s irrelevant that the administration has made no attempt to, and given no indication it wants to curb gun ownership. They’re suspicious of that Obama guy, and have “bad feelings” about everything he has - or hasn’t done. They’re mad dammit! Monkeys in pants could do a better job than those fools in power now! Well, looks like some of those pants-wearing monkeys are going to get a chance to prove it. I’m stocking up on bananas.
Indiana Republican Congressman and evangelical Mark Souder held a press conference Tuesday afternoon to announce his resignation and admit he has been having an affair with a staffer not his wife. Surprise! Yet another family values conservative exercising his “values” with someone other than his family. I can’t help but wonder how the rise of gay marriage and the absence of school prayer damaged Souder’s traditional marriage and forced him to copulate with another woman. I would have to assume those things had little to effect, but I’m obviously not an expert on family values like he is.
Speaking of family values, disgraced South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford spent the past week in Florida, trying to rekindle his relationship with his Argentinean “soul mate.” The tryst cost Florida taxpayers $1,200 in security for the Governor and his lady-friend. While its kind of an inconsiderate thing to saddle out-of-state taxpayers with the cost of romancing your lover, you have to admire the man’s persistence. Lesser men, publicly humiliated by the media and divorced by a wealthy, politically powerful wife, might have given up on scoring the mistress. But not Sanford. This guy is the very model of stick-to-it-ive-ness. Perhaps if he had focused a little more of that attention his state and a little less on his illicit love affairs, he would still have both a marriage and a reputation.
Finally, from the desk of solutions-to-problems-that-aren’t-actually-problems, Lysol is advertising a new, touch-less soap pump. Their tag line? “Never touch a germy soap pump again!” Now, call me crazy, but it seems as though this product is aimed specifically at people who apply soap to their hands after they have already washed them. Why else would it matter whether or not there were germs on the soap pump? Isn’t that what the soap is for? To cleanse my hands after I have lathered with said soap from said soap pump? Come on guys. You’re not even trying anymore! I know times are tough, but really. You have to do better than that.
5.12.2010
There's A Hole In The Bucket...
...dear Liza a hole.
Okay, so the oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is still leaking. More than 3 million gallons have leached into the water so far, with no end in sight. Over the weekend the steel dome British Petroleum planned to lower over the leaking pipe filled with a mixture of sludge and methane ice crystals, clogging the line to the surface and rendering the dome useless. BP now plans to try another, smaller dome to cap the pipe, and if that doesn’t work, fill it with a mixture of cement and shredded rubber. In other words, they have little to no idea what they are doing. Over the past decade the oil industry managed to convince a lot of people that deep water exploration and drilling were “perfectly safe,” that the chances of an accident were slim to none. Unfortunately, as everyone should have known then and certainly knows now, nothing is perfectly safe. BP assumed they could simply adapt shallow water clean-up techniques to deep water - that there was no real difference between the two. That proved to be a faulty assumption. It wasn’t the first, and certainly won’t be that last faulty assumption made throughout this process. Fossil fuels will remain as essential part of this country’s energy mix for at least the foreseeable future. But let’s not continue to pretend there is no risk and are no consequences associated with their retrieval. There are millions of people living on the Gulf coast who understand different.
Following heavy rains last week, Nashville, Tennessee found itself partially submerged by a swollen Cumberland River. There were complaints and questions regarding the fact that the Nashville flooding did not receive the level of media attention - positive or negative - that was given to New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. Seems to me that the relative lack of attention is a direct result of the vast improvement in disaster response over the past four years. If the Tennessee flooding was an unmitigated disaster, we would have heard of nothing else for the past ten days.
The big news of the day (Monday) was the nomination of Solicitor General Elana Kagan to the Supreme Court. By most accounts the former dean of Harvard Law School is a brilliant legal mind, a student of the law, and a consensus builder, able to sway others to her way of thinking. She lacks judicial experience, something her opponents played up even before she was nominated. But the idea that a Supreme Court justice needs to have judicial experience is relatively new. Prior to the 1980’s it was fairly common for justices to have little or no judicial experience. In fact, former Chief Justice Renquist spent no time on the bench prior to his selection to the court. Of course, little things like facts and precedents matter little in the modern ideological grandstanding exhibition that passes for confirmation hearings these days.
Frankly, I’m a little tired of the whole charade surrounding Supreme Court nominations. The process is so formulaic it’s boring. The President makes the announcement, his party praises the nomination, the opposition claims they’ll keep an open mind. Then the Senate convenes a hearing, both sides insist there will be no “litmus test” the nominee must pass in order to be confirmed, one side claims the nominee in a capable, intelligent moderate who respects the Constitution and will apply the law accordingly, while the other side insists the nominee is so far outside the “judicial mainstream” he/she couldn’t see that mainstream with binoculars and should never be allowed near the bench. Abortion always makes headlines, and Republicans always make a fuss about “activist judges.” Any justice nominated by a Republican president will be cast as “outside the judicial mainstream” by Democrats, and any justice nominated by a Democratic president will be cast as a “judicial activist” intent on shredding the fabric of America. It’s pathetic and it’s beneath us, and I wish we could just get on with it. There’s no need for a twelve week confirmation process, every single Senator knows right now how they intend to vote. The dog and pony show is unnecessary and insulting to the intelligence of people who actually give a crap about the Supreme Court.
In a situation straight out of Brewster’s Millions, Great Britain held an election last Thursday and voted for... none of the above? David Cameron’s Conservative Party captured more seats in Parliament than either current Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party or third party challenger Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats. But since no party won a clear majority of seats, there is quite possible that Cameron will not receive the keys to 10 Downing Street, and not impossible that Clegg could wind up Prime Minister. Being the party in power prior to the election, Labour has the first opportunity to try to form a coalition government. Both they and the Conservatives have reached out to the Liberal Democrats in hopes of reaching some sort of consensus. The primary sticking point is Clegg’s demand for electoral reform of the sort that might prevent this type stalemate from recurring in the future. UPDATE: As of Tuesday afternoon, Cameron and the Conservatives have reached a deal with Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats involving a referendum on electoral reform, an “emergency budget,” and the seating of David Cameron as Prime Minister with Clegg as his deputy. Pundits expect this coalition to last anywhere from six months to a year before another election is called. Should be an interesting year in the UK.
In response to global investors’ panic and riots in the streets of Athens last week, the European Union committed to a trillion dollar financial bail-out package over the weekend for any country in the Euro Zone in danger of impending financial collapse. Currently that list is limited to Greece, but Spain, Portugal and Italy have also been put on notice. In order to be eligible for their portion of the money, Greece will still have to go through with the wildly unpopular austerity measures passed by their parliament. It is obvious that Greek citizens either do not understand the situation they are in, or they don’t care. My money is on the latter. This is a country in which almost half of those required to pay taxes, choose not to. The government employs far too many people, with far too generous benefits and far too little fiscal responsibility. Yet the Greek people seem to think that the rest of Europe should pay their debts while refusing to change their irresponsible behavior. They are acting like children, and therefore probably deserve to be treated as such.
Oh, and before someone starts bitching about how the Greek debt crisis is merely a precursor to what we will face here in Obama’s socialist America, a few important notes of distinction. The U.S. economy is the largest in the world, 42 times the size of the Greek economy. We have substantial margin for error. Most of the people in America required to pay taxes, actually pay them. A novel concept apparently. When the rest of the world panics, they don’t run to Greece for security. Frightened investors always flock to U.S. stocks, currency and Treasury bonds. That provides us with access to quick capital at reasonably low rates. And because we maintain control over our own currency, we have the ability to print, extract or devalue our currency if necessary to increase the value of our exports and extricate ourselves from the kind of debt trap Greece worked itself into. It wouldn’t be pretty, but we could do it. Australia, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, all far higher up the “socialism” scale than we are with their national healthcare and free higher education. None of them are in danger of economic collapse. Neither are we.
And now for lighter fare.
Seattle Seahawks perennial Pro Bowl left tackle Walter Jones announced his retirement last week. If you’ve never heard of him, it’s probably because while the offensive linemen are the most important players on the field, they receive the least amount of glory. But for the past 10 years, Jones was easily the best player on a team with four straight division championships and a Super Bowl appearance, and has been widely regarded as the best offensive lineman in all of football. One staggering statistic of how good Jones was at the most difficult position in the game is this - in his 12 years in the league, Jones was flagged for only nine holding penalties. Nine penalties over the the course of 188 games. That’s the basketball equivalent Shaquille O’Neal committing only nine fouls in about two-and-a-half seasons! He should be a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame as soon as he is eligible. Others at his position have made it in on far lighter credentials.
Last week, the Oakland Raiders cut ties with former first overall draft selection JaMarcus Russell. Russell was, to say the least, disappointing. Over the past three years the Raiders paid Russell $39 million, and for all that money reaped a grand total of seven wins. An average of $5.6 million per win. I’m tempted to feel bad for them. It’s not often a team squanders such a massive amount of money on a single player. But I’m only tempted. Russell was selected first overall on the strength of a single game against an inferior opponent, instead of on his body of work at LSU. The Raiders should have seen this coming. There’s a reason that team has been so bad for so long.
Failure of the NHL to come to an agreement with the city of Glendale, Arizona has cleared the way for the Phoenix Coyotes to return to Winnipeg, where they belong. That’s right, I said it. Long live the Winnipeg Jets! Of course, nothing has been finalized yet, but unlike 1996, the NHL seems willing to place higher value on the integrity of the game than the potential size of the market, and there is a billionaire businessman in Winnipeg ready and willing to make it happen. Despite the increase in American viewership during this season’s playoffs, the league’s experiment with the sunbelt has been disappointing at best. Ice hockey teams should play in places where people love hockey. Canadians love hockey. More Canadian teams will be good for hockey. Let me know when I can order my Jets jersey?
The Chicago Blackhawks crushed my dreams of a Vancouver vs. Montreal Stanley Cup final tonight. Damn you Chicago! Damn you! Now I have to rely on the Canadiens - following a grueling seven-game series against the best team in the league - to defeat Sidney Crosby and the Penguins in game seven tomorrow night, then beat the Boston Bruins in seven games, before losing to those cursed Blackhawks in seven in the final. Sigh. It could be a long three weeks.
It feels like I’m forgetting something. Oh that’s right, the failed car bombing in New York City last weekend. (How the heck did that idiot find a parking space in Times Square on a Friday night?) I don’t have much to say about this other than the fact that it seems as though the quality of Al Queda’s operatives has deteriorated significantly. It’s almost as if this moron wanted to be caught. I guess a stupid terrorist is better than a smart one, right?
Finally, co-founder of the Family Research Council and noted anti-gay activist George Alan Rekers took a two week vacation with one Jo-vanni Roman, a male escort Rekers hired from a website called Rentboy.com. Confronted with the story, Rekers claimed that due to his recent surgery, he is unable to lift his luggage and needed someone to carry it for him. The trouble with this explanation - aside from the obvious oddity of a conservative christian activist hiring a male escort for a European vacation - is that in a series of photos taken of the pair at the Miami International Airport, Roman can clearly be seen standing nervously next to Rekers, carefully not handling the cart full of luggage. Anyone who reads this blog regularly understands that I have very little patience for people who make a living condemning certain individuals for the very same behaviors they themselves indulge in. Men like Rekers are among the lowest form of humanity, hypocrites, preaching one thing while doing the opposite. I’m sure his followers will accept whatever explanation he provides for them, regardless of how ridiculous they are, because they can’t afford to have the “liberal media” tear down another “good conservative.” But these clowns are a cancer in our society. It is perfectly acceptable for good people to have honest disagreements. But they should be honest disagreements, not charades.
Okay, so the oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is still leaking. More than 3 million gallons have leached into the water so far, with no end in sight. Over the weekend the steel dome British Petroleum planned to lower over the leaking pipe filled with a mixture of sludge and methane ice crystals, clogging the line to the surface and rendering the dome useless. BP now plans to try another, smaller dome to cap the pipe, and if that doesn’t work, fill it with a mixture of cement and shredded rubber. In other words, they have little to no idea what they are doing. Over the past decade the oil industry managed to convince a lot of people that deep water exploration and drilling were “perfectly safe,” that the chances of an accident were slim to none. Unfortunately, as everyone should have known then and certainly knows now, nothing is perfectly safe. BP assumed they could simply adapt shallow water clean-up techniques to deep water - that there was no real difference between the two. That proved to be a faulty assumption. It wasn’t the first, and certainly won’t be that last faulty assumption made throughout this process. Fossil fuels will remain as essential part of this country’s energy mix for at least the foreseeable future. But let’s not continue to pretend there is no risk and are no consequences associated with their retrieval. There are millions of people living on the Gulf coast who understand different.
Following heavy rains last week, Nashville, Tennessee found itself partially submerged by a swollen Cumberland River. There were complaints and questions regarding the fact that the Nashville flooding did not receive the level of media attention - positive or negative - that was given to New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. Seems to me that the relative lack of attention is a direct result of the vast improvement in disaster response over the past four years. If the Tennessee flooding was an unmitigated disaster, we would have heard of nothing else for the past ten days.
The big news of the day (Monday) was the nomination of Solicitor General Elana Kagan to the Supreme Court. By most accounts the former dean of Harvard Law School is a brilliant legal mind, a student of the law, and a consensus builder, able to sway others to her way of thinking. She lacks judicial experience, something her opponents played up even before she was nominated. But the idea that a Supreme Court justice needs to have judicial experience is relatively new. Prior to the 1980’s it was fairly common for justices to have little or no judicial experience. In fact, former Chief Justice Renquist spent no time on the bench prior to his selection to the court. Of course, little things like facts and precedents matter little in the modern ideological grandstanding exhibition that passes for confirmation hearings these days.
Frankly, I’m a little tired of the whole charade surrounding Supreme Court nominations. The process is so formulaic it’s boring. The President makes the announcement, his party praises the nomination, the opposition claims they’ll keep an open mind. Then the Senate convenes a hearing, both sides insist there will be no “litmus test” the nominee must pass in order to be confirmed, one side claims the nominee in a capable, intelligent moderate who respects the Constitution and will apply the law accordingly, while the other side insists the nominee is so far outside the “judicial mainstream” he/she couldn’t see that mainstream with binoculars and should never be allowed near the bench. Abortion always makes headlines, and Republicans always make a fuss about “activist judges.” Any justice nominated by a Republican president will be cast as “outside the judicial mainstream” by Democrats, and any justice nominated by a Democratic president will be cast as a “judicial activist” intent on shredding the fabric of America. It’s pathetic and it’s beneath us, and I wish we could just get on with it. There’s no need for a twelve week confirmation process, every single Senator knows right now how they intend to vote. The dog and pony show is unnecessary and insulting to the intelligence of people who actually give a crap about the Supreme Court.
In a situation straight out of Brewster’s Millions, Great Britain held an election last Thursday and voted for... none of the above? David Cameron’s Conservative Party captured more seats in Parliament than either current Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party or third party challenger Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats. But since no party won a clear majority of seats, there is quite possible that Cameron will not receive the keys to 10 Downing Street, and not impossible that Clegg could wind up Prime Minister. Being the party in power prior to the election, Labour has the first opportunity to try to form a coalition government. Both they and the Conservatives have reached out to the Liberal Democrats in hopes of reaching some sort of consensus. The primary sticking point is Clegg’s demand for electoral reform of the sort that might prevent this type stalemate from recurring in the future. UPDATE: As of Tuesday afternoon, Cameron and the Conservatives have reached a deal with Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats involving a referendum on electoral reform, an “emergency budget,” and the seating of David Cameron as Prime Minister with Clegg as his deputy. Pundits expect this coalition to last anywhere from six months to a year before another election is called. Should be an interesting year in the UK.
In response to global investors’ panic and riots in the streets of Athens last week, the European Union committed to a trillion dollar financial bail-out package over the weekend for any country in the Euro Zone in danger of impending financial collapse. Currently that list is limited to Greece, but Spain, Portugal and Italy have also been put on notice. In order to be eligible for their portion of the money, Greece will still have to go through with the wildly unpopular austerity measures passed by their parliament. It is obvious that Greek citizens either do not understand the situation they are in, or they don’t care. My money is on the latter. This is a country in which almost half of those required to pay taxes, choose not to. The government employs far too many people, with far too generous benefits and far too little fiscal responsibility. Yet the Greek people seem to think that the rest of Europe should pay their debts while refusing to change their irresponsible behavior. They are acting like children, and therefore probably deserve to be treated as such.
Oh, and before someone starts bitching about how the Greek debt crisis is merely a precursor to what we will face here in Obama’s socialist America, a few important notes of distinction. The U.S. economy is the largest in the world, 42 times the size of the Greek economy. We have substantial margin for error. Most of the people in America required to pay taxes, actually pay them. A novel concept apparently. When the rest of the world panics, they don’t run to Greece for security. Frightened investors always flock to U.S. stocks, currency and Treasury bonds. That provides us with access to quick capital at reasonably low rates. And because we maintain control over our own currency, we have the ability to print, extract or devalue our currency if necessary to increase the value of our exports and extricate ourselves from the kind of debt trap Greece worked itself into. It wouldn’t be pretty, but we could do it. Australia, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, all far higher up the “socialism” scale than we are with their national healthcare and free higher education. None of them are in danger of economic collapse. Neither are we.
And now for lighter fare.
Seattle Seahawks perennial Pro Bowl left tackle Walter Jones announced his retirement last week. If you’ve never heard of him, it’s probably because while the offensive linemen are the most important players on the field, they receive the least amount of glory. But for the past 10 years, Jones was easily the best player on a team with four straight division championships and a Super Bowl appearance, and has been widely regarded as the best offensive lineman in all of football. One staggering statistic of how good Jones was at the most difficult position in the game is this - in his 12 years in the league, Jones was flagged for only nine holding penalties. Nine penalties over the the course of 188 games. That’s the basketball equivalent Shaquille O’Neal committing only nine fouls in about two-and-a-half seasons! He should be a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame as soon as he is eligible. Others at his position have made it in on far lighter credentials.
Last week, the Oakland Raiders cut ties with former first overall draft selection JaMarcus Russell. Russell was, to say the least, disappointing. Over the past three years the Raiders paid Russell $39 million, and for all that money reaped a grand total of seven wins. An average of $5.6 million per win. I’m tempted to feel bad for them. It’s not often a team squanders such a massive amount of money on a single player. But I’m only tempted. Russell was selected first overall on the strength of a single game against an inferior opponent, instead of on his body of work at LSU. The Raiders should have seen this coming. There’s a reason that team has been so bad for so long.
Failure of the NHL to come to an agreement with the city of Glendale, Arizona has cleared the way for the Phoenix Coyotes to return to Winnipeg, where they belong. That’s right, I said it. Long live the Winnipeg Jets! Of course, nothing has been finalized yet, but unlike 1996, the NHL seems willing to place higher value on the integrity of the game than the potential size of the market, and there is a billionaire businessman in Winnipeg ready and willing to make it happen. Despite the increase in American viewership during this season’s playoffs, the league’s experiment with the sunbelt has been disappointing at best. Ice hockey teams should play in places where people love hockey. Canadians love hockey. More Canadian teams will be good for hockey. Let me know when I can order my Jets jersey?
The Chicago Blackhawks crushed my dreams of a Vancouver vs. Montreal Stanley Cup final tonight. Damn you Chicago! Damn you! Now I have to rely on the Canadiens - following a grueling seven-game series against the best team in the league - to defeat Sidney Crosby and the Penguins in game seven tomorrow night, then beat the Boston Bruins in seven games, before losing to those cursed Blackhawks in seven in the final. Sigh. It could be a long three weeks.
It feels like I’m forgetting something. Oh that’s right, the failed car bombing in New York City last weekend. (How the heck did that idiot find a parking space in Times Square on a Friday night?) I don’t have much to say about this other than the fact that it seems as though the quality of Al Queda’s operatives has deteriorated significantly. It’s almost as if this moron wanted to be caught. I guess a stupid terrorist is better than a smart one, right?
Finally, co-founder of the Family Research Council and noted anti-gay activist George Alan Rekers took a two week vacation with one Jo-vanni Roman, a male escort Rekers hired from a website called Rentboy.com. Confronted with the story, Rekers claimed that due to his recent surgery, he is unable to lift his luggage and needed someone to carry it for him. The trouble with this explanation - aside from the obvious oddity of a conservative christian activist hiring a male escort for a European vacation - is that in a series of photos taken of the pair at the Miami International Airport, Roman can clearly be seen standing nervously next to Rekers, carefully not handling the cart full of luggage. Anyone who reads this blog regularly understands that I have very little patience for people who make a living condemning certain individuals for the very same behaviors they themselves indulge in. Men like Rekers are among the lowest form of humanity, hypocrites, preaching one thing while doing the opposite. I’m sure his followers will accept whatever explanation he provides for them, regardless of how ridiculous they are, because they can’t afford to have the “liberal media” tear down another “good conservative.” But these clowns are a cancer in our society. It is perfectly acceptable for good people to have honest disagreements. But they should be honest disagreements, not charades.
5.04.2010
Holding Pattern
At about this time last week, oil was the big news. Five thousand barrels of crude were seeping into the Gulf of Mexico every day and things were only getting worse. As of today, five thousand barrels of crude are seeping into the Gulf of Mexico every day and things are only getting worse. I'm going to take that as a sign that I should take the week off. Well, that and the fact that my parents are visiting and I'm prepping for surgery. But those are minor details. Tune in next week for bungled car bombings, flooded cities, a football nugget, MORE OIL, and maybe even... something interesting.
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