Profiles In Courage: Part 344

I'll always remember the year 2011 as the time brave souls took to the streets and fought for the right to camp illegally whenever and wherever they damn well feel like it.

Power brothers and sisters.

You Heard It Here First (Or Thereabouts)

Back in July I wrote:

In the aftermath of the Oslo atrocities the usual braying from conservative bashers was to be expected. After all, the chance to score political points in this country usually trumps everything else, up to and including common human decency. Still if one bothered to look at the "manifesto" published online by Anders Breivik (or even a selection of "highlights") one could get a feel for the perpetrator of these heinous acts of barbarism.

My take, for the outset, was that this man was completely delusional....

For myself, it was hard to read [Breivik's manifesto] and not think we are dealing with a situation such as was depicted in the film A Beautiful Mind about the real life struggles of mathematician John Nash. As depicted in the film Dr. Nash in the grips of a terrible mental disorder begins to believe he is part of a secret code breaking operation bent upon unmasking dangerous agents communicating by code in newspapers and magazines. In order to flesh out his "world" Nash's diseased mind invents enemies and friends to populate it.

It seemed pretty obvious reading Breivik's ravings about "Knight Templars" and the like, that we were dealing with something similar here. Breivik seems to actually believe he went to London to be part of a meeting of a new Templar order hellbent on reviving anti-muslim crusades throughout Europe. It also is becoming increasingly clear it was all in his fevered imagination.

Today comes word that my suspicion was correct:

Psychiatrists assessing self-confessed Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik have concluded that he is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

They believe he was in a psychotic state both during and after the twin attacks on 22 July that led to the deaths of 77 people and injured 151.

Their report must still be reviewed by a panel of forensic psychiatrists.

Breivik will still be tried in April but it seems likely he will be placed in psychiatric care rather than prison.

Breivik admits carrying out the attacks but has pleaded not guilty to charges, arguing that that the attacks were atrocious but necessary for his campaign to defend Europe against a Muslim invasion.

The two psychiatrists who interviewed him on 13 occasions concluded that he lived in his "own delusional universe where all his thoughts and acts are guided by his delusions", prosecutors told reporters.

Seemingly in only people to actually believe in Breivik's delusions were Breivik himself and the lefty side of the blogosphere.

That fact is its own editorial comment.

Damn! I Always Miss My Blogoversary...

Maybe its because early November is so... early Novemberish, I forgot to make a note of the anniversary of The Iconic Midwest back on the eighth. This one man dog and pony show has been annoying the good citizens of the world for seven years now.

What do you get for seven years worth of whatever the hell it is I'm doing here? Mostly disapproving stares.

I'll take it.

Here is to seven more good years! (Yes, that is a threat.)

Irony, It's Not Just For Breakfast Anymore

From the "People Who Do Not Listen To Themselves" File:

Jonathan Gruber, a key intellectual architect of President Obama's overhaul of the American health care system, is a little frustrated.

"I'm frustrated that the future of the American health care system rests in the hands of one or two of these unelected people...

Amazingly, he's not talking about himself.

I myself find it particularly disturbing that all of our fates are being determined by a unelected "intellectual architect" who seemingly knows nothing about American government:

He credited Mitt Romney for not totally disavowing the Massachusetts bill during his presidential campaign, but said Romney's attempt to distinguish between Obama's bill and his own is disingenuous.

"The problem is there is no way to say that," Gruber said. "Because they're the same fucking bill. He just can't have his cake and eat it too. Basically, you know, it's the same bill. He can try to draw distinctions and stuff, but he's just lying. The only big difference is he didn't have to pay for his. Because the federal government paid for it. Where at the federal level, we have to pay for it, so we have to raise taxes."

Here is a clue for the great intellectual: they are different fucking Constitutions. What is allowable for Massachusetts under their state Constitution may not be allowable for the Federal government under the U.S. Constitution. Really, its not that hard a concept to grasp.

But, I guess trivial matters like rule of law are a matter of indifference when you are an "intellectual architect."

Why Is Paterno Being Singled Out?

All I'm saying on this matter is this: Joe Paterno, by all published accounts, did not witness any wrongdoing by anyone. Merely being told of the allegation by the actual witness does not shift the burden away from the witness and onto Paterno.

That being the case I have to wonder if the outrage (if such it is) is being directed at Paterno at the behest of his enemies. And make no mistake, Paterno has enemies, alumni and boosters who have been campaigning behind the scenes for his dismissal for more than a decade.

Just saying.

UPDATE:

I see the lynch mob has been successful. Oh, happy day. After all everyone knows hounding an innocent 84 year old man out his job makes the pain of child rape go away.

Gravy Train Time

From the "It's crap like this that make me want to tear my hair out" file:
Loophole lets union officials claim big teacher pensions

Last fall, Ed Geppert, then president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, co-wrote a scathing public essay that alleged some politicians and pundits in Illinois were "waging a relentless war against public employees over state pensions."

The "claim that the state pension shortfall was caused by overly generous pension benefits paid to state employees and teachers is provably false," stated the essay.

What Geppert didn't mention during that debate is that he personally was already getting an annual pension of roughly $185,000 — far more than most working teachers make in salary — through that same struggling system.

Geppert taught in the Metro East for seven low-paid years in the 1970s before leaving teaching and rising through the union ranks for three decades. Thanks to a little-noticed loophole in the system, he was allowed to apply the regular state teachers' pension formula to his much higher union salary.

The formula is based on an average of the retiree's highest four recent years of salary. For many teachers, that average may be around $50,000. For Geppert, it was more than $200,000 because of his union salary, which was six figures through most of his IFT tenure. That average was helped along by a salary spike of about 15 percent, to $260,000, just before he formally retired in 2004.

There was nothing in the law to prevent him from continuing to collect that pension after he returned to the union as its president three years later.

When asked last week about the arrangement, Geppert's combative tone from the essay had become more pragmatic. "I followed the law," he said. Using the system as it was available to him "was only the prudent thing to do."

Prudent, eh? Geppert stopped working as a public employee in the pension system in 1977, back when his average pay was only $12,100. Now he is drawing $186,000 a year from that same pension fund. That is patently absurd. If Geppert continues to draw his pension for another ten years we will have taken out over $3 million dollars out of the fund.

And Geppert is not alone:

Among former Metro East teachers who went on to boost their public pensions through union positions, the Post-Dispatch review of records found, was Terry Turley, a former East St. Louis schoolteacher. Records show Turley left teaching in 1995 to work for the IFT, making a union salary of between $90,000 and $157,000, then getting a final-year spike to $184,000 in 2005. Turley's resulting pension annuity through the Teachers' Retirement System is about $129,900.

That list also includes ex-teachers such as Andrea Baird, who taught in Carrollton for 13 years in the 1970s and 1980s, topping out at a salary of $17,300. After joining the staff of the IFT, her salary roughly doubled, then continued to climb, to $165,000 by 2003. She retired a year later, with a $32,000 final-year raise to $197,000 — setting up a $140,700-a-year pension annuity through the teachers' pension system.

Neither Turley nor Baird could be reached for comment despite messages left last week and on Tuesday.

While some pension recipients spent most of their careers as union officials, others actually did teach for most their careers, then were able to substantially boost their pensions with just a few high-paid years with a union.

That was the way it worked for Martha Bowman, who spent 33 years teaching in Marion, climbing to a salary of about $62,000, according to records. She then spent her last six years before retirement with the Illinois Education Association, the state's second major teachers union. There, her salary rose to $143,500 in five years — $24,000 of that coming in a final-year boost — setting up a retirement annuity of about $100,000 annually, more than twice what it would have been for her teaching service alone.

It's crazy. It also, it must be noted, is not a loophole. "Loophole" suggest an unintentional ambiguity in a law or regulation. This was very clearly intentional, and a legalized fleecing of Illinois taxpayers and the rank and file teachers the unions are supposed to be supporting. It amazes me liberals can bitch and moan about CEO pay for Fortune 500 companies while at the same time signing off on the pillaging of millions, if not over a billion dollars nationwide, from the pension funds of rank and file teachers.

And make no mistake, these unions officials want this "system" to carry on forever, because, they say, they work hard not like those lazy-layabout-all-summer teachers:

Bowman said she doesn't agree with the move in Springfield now to prevent union salaries from being applied to the teacher pension system. "Most teachers work nine months out of the year. When you're a union leader, you're on call 24/7. You don't have time off. There are a lot of weekends and evenings."

Geppert, the former IFT president, also is opposed to the legislation.

"I think it's a sad thing to occur," he said. He predicted it will be difficult to lure high-quality people into union service without allowing them access to teacher pensions.

That's right. What could possibly induce a teacher making $35,000 a year from taking a job making over $100,000 a year? Hmmm.... I wonder.

I'm sorry, but there is no rational reason why highly paid union officials should be in the teachers pension funds. By all means, set up your own pension fund for union officials, and even apply for a teacher's pension if you are properly vested in it. However, that pension must be based solely upon your work and salary as a teacher.

That's how it would work in the real world.

Matthew Yglesias Comes Out Forcefully Against The Enlightenment

From Think"Progress" (or is that "Think""Progress"?: Let Children Vote

Sally Kohn writes about a campaign in Lowell, Massachusetts to let seventeen year-olds vote in local elections. More power to them, but I say let any American citizen vote in any American election he or she wants to.

Objections to this usually take the form of imagining a highly disciplined party of seven year-olds reliably delivering bloc votes to whichever candidate credibly promises endless kindergarten.

Uh, no. The usual objections would cite John Locke or John Stuart Mill and acknowledge children have insufficient reason to be held responsible for their actions. That Yglesias is seemingly unaware of any such fact, and instead believes children were not voting because of the difficulty in molding them into a coherent voting block - I'm not joking... he actually says that is what he believes is the rationale - really, it's impossible to have an argument with such a person. After all, Yglesias is denying reason itself as being anything other than an arbitrary notion.

I really fear for our civilization. Half of our "educated" classes are morons. I'm sorry folks but intellectual doofism will be our downfall.

A Step Into The Wayback Machine

Remember all the riots that broke out in 2010 because of all those degenerate and violent and racist tea party protests? All the hundreds of arrests? All the hundreds of riot police called out into the street to re-establish public order?

Yeah, me neither.

There are those who are saying the reason for the difference is because the governments involved, like the Oakland City Council, are not just friendlier to right wing causes then to left wing causes, nay!, they are the very source of authoritarianism! (They are also overwhelmingly Democratic. Funny how that happens.)

I'm sorry lefties but the fact that hundreds of Tea Party demonstrations have happened without a single canister of tear gas being fired puts the lie to the claim that our government is simply an authoritarian Leviathan hell-bent on denying us our rights. What it does mean is there is a difference between lawful orderly protest and mob criminality.

And if they think for a second any of this crap is going to generate sympathy for their "cause" they are a lot higher then they ought to be.

Paul Krugman As Outsider

LOL moment of the day:

As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to grow, the response from the movement’s targets has gradually changed: contemptuous dismissal has been replaced by whining. (A reader of my blog suggests that we start calling our ruling class the “kvetchocracy.”)

This is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to take the Left seriously in this country. I'm sorry but in no one's theory of a ruling elite, be it Pareto or Veblen or Weber or Burnham or even Marx, is someone like Krugman not a member of said elite. In order for anything like OWS to be even remotely interesting, and not merely the mass temper tantrum it actually is, they would have to start targeting elites like Krugman. That they cannot even correctly identify him as being a member of the ruling elite says something about their lack of intellectual acumen.

It's Called A Flashback And Not A Flashforward For A Reason

I've not been paying too much attention, obviously, to the various "Occupy" rallies going on hither and yon... mostly because I have a life. I did read this however and thought it worthy of a sympathetic chuckle: The 1960s radicalism of Occupy Wall Street will help elect a Republican in 2012

Photos confirm what I suspected: that most of the protesters are kids looking for their Sixties rush. Naked girls are painted in psychedelic colours. Handsome boys lounge around in cable-knit sweaters. Angry, doomed youth wave signs in the faces of frustrated policemen. Numbers are exchanged; kisses are snatched behind the barricades; disease is spread. This is what every generation of liberal has tried to recreate since 1968, be it the Watergate protests, the Battle of Seattle or the Stop the War Movement. I know this because I, too, once grasped for my 1968 moment. In 2003, I joined the sweaty ranks of the antiwar campaign. I was honestly motivated and intellectually sound, but I can’t deny the heady anticipation that a life of protest would lead inexorably to drugs and girls. I got the drugs but not the girls, and woke up several months later in a squat surrounded by Trotskyite bores who seemed far more intelligent when I was stoned....

Protest is exciting when you are young, and everyone deserves their chance to burn something down. But the political reality is that voters don’t actually want the wheels of Capitalism to stop turning. They don’t want free love or a rainbow nation of stoners. They want a job. That’s why Barack Obama, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have made a big mistake in expressing sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street movement. They’ve endorsed a happening that is moral in principle but politically toxic. Ordinary voters – the boring, unpretty folks who get up every day and go to work and never once complain – will reject it at the polls. The silent majority will be heard eventually, just like it was back in 1968.

Bingo.

Early Onset Curmudgeondom

I swear, as time goes on I find myself looking at the topics of political discussion displayed at Memeorandum and saying "Oh, go away already. I know what I feel is important in this world, and it has nothing to do with whatever the hell is occupying your tiny little minds."

And I'm not 83. I'm 43.

If I don't see some intelligence enter the fray soon I'm giving up.

What that entails exactly I have no idea. But I'll tell you one thing... this won't be a political blog anymore.

Dumb Guys Calling Other People Dumb

Really, David Frum has no business calling anyone else on earth dumb... so, of course, he does:

I like walkable urban centers, so I want to take a hopeful view of this Washington Post report about the future of Tysons Corner. Unfortunately for my belief, the story ends with one of the most foolish quotes I’ve ever read about the future of the American city, from Joel Garreau, normally a smart guy.

With broadband, employees no longer need to physically be transported to work. He sees Americans moving to scenic, ideal locations such as the mountains of Montana or the hills of Santa Fe. Garreau splits his time between Fauquier County and Arizona.

“What you’re seeing now is what I call the Santa Fe-ing of the world, or the Santa Fe-ing of America,” he said. “The fastest growth you’re seeing is in small urban areas in beautiful places, because now you’ve got e-mail and Web and laptops and iPhones and all that jazz.”

Here’s one thing we know about the America of the future: It’s going to contain lots and lots and lots of poor, low-skilled people – in percentage terms, many more than the America of, say, 1995. And the America of 1995 already contained tens of millions of poor, low-skilled people. Those people won’t be telecommuting from Santa Fe. If your vision of the future of the American city does not include those people, it’s going to be missing a very large fact.

Which is why, when you look at the actual list of the actual top 10 fastest-growing US cities of 2000-2010, you see no examples of small scenic places (unless you count Orlando, Florida, which I sure wouldn’t).

Frum then gives a list of cities growth by absolute number, and not by the rate of growth, thereby insuring you would not get any smaller areas. Nice going Sherlock.

Gee, I wonder what happens if you look at the actually fastest growing urban areas by percentage growth.

#1 Palm Coast, Fla. - 92% growth
#2 St. George, Utah - 52.9% growth
#3 Las Vegas, Nevada - 41.8% growth
#4 Raleigh, N.C. - 41.8% growth
#5 Cape Coral, Fla. - 40.3% growth
#6 Provo, Utah - 39.8% growth
#7 Greeley, Colo. - 39.7% growth
#8 Austin, TX - 37.3% growth
#9 Myrtle Beach, S.C. - 37% growth
#10 Bend, Ore. - 36.7% growth

Of these only Las Vegas would be in the top ten in terms of absolute numbers. As for the rest of them, they strike me as being a hell of a lot more like Santa Fe than New York or Houston.

Really, David. How dumb can you be?

"No One But Us Non-Bigots Here"

Head shaking time:

An Orange County couple has been ordered to stop holding a Bible study in their home on the grounds that the meeting violates a city ordinance as a “church” and not as a private gathering.

Homeowners Chuck and Stephanie Fromm, of San Juan Capistrano, were fined $300 earlier this month for holding what city officials called “a regular gathering of more than three people”.

That type of meeting would require a conditional use permit as defined by the city, according to Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), the couple’s legal representation.

The Fromms also reportedly face subsequent fines of $500 per meeting for any further “religious gatherings” in their home, according to PJI...

“The Fromm case further involves regular meetings on Sunday mornings and Thursday afternoons with up to 50 people, with impacts on the residential neighborhood on street access and parking,” City Attorney Omar Sandoval said.

Got that? So, if you want to hold weekly "readings" where you and 49 guests "discuss" Gary Regan's The Bartender's Bible: 1001 Mixed Drinks, well, there is nothing the city can do about it. Have fun. However, if you instead discuss the actual bible, well, then you are a "church" and can be regulated by the city as such.

Sorry folks, but this doesn't pass the smell test.

Only an anti-religious bigot would be okay with this.

Sometime I Hate Being Against The Death Penalty...

...because of how freakishly stupid so many anti-death penalty advocates are. The trouble is they are so stupid they have no idea how much damage they are doing to the cause. The recent example in the case of Troy Davis proves my point.

Its depressing. It begins with an assault on the very idea of reasonable doubt. Yes, eyewitness testimony can be tricky, but the lengths people are willing to go to exonerate Davis in this case is ludicrous. The argument they are making is "sophisticated" in the same way "it depends on what your definition of 'is' is" was sophisticated, and it doesn't help.

Second, this emphasis on portraying these criminals as innocent victims has to stop. The point of being against the death penalty is that you are against it even when the person involved is guilty as sin. If you cannot make the hard argument, but instead try to only make the case that innocent people ought not to be executed (well, yeah), then you have lost the argument before it even started. This is particularly the case when in your zealousness you whitewash actual guilt, as is happening in the Davis case. No objective reading of the evidence leads to Davis' exoneration. You only look like a fool if you insist it does.

I'm sorry but the argument that says "we ought not to have the death penalty because we could make a mistake" is a dumb argument. It invites the rejoinder, "Well, what if we reserved it only for the cases we are really sure of." The response to that has been, "But, how can we ever really be sure of anything..." and BOOM!!!!!! The sound you are hearing is the sound of the minds of millions of Americans closing against you...and, if that is the best argument you can come up with, rightfully so.

The real argument is its unnecessary... its barbarous, as witnessed by the fact it is the way the Taliban does business... and its uncivilized. Actually, I'd argue it is worse than uncivilized, it is anti-civilization. In philosophical terms it is a remnant of the closed society. It appeals to our hive/pack instincts, and not to the rational parts of our being. Lots of people will disagree with me, but at least that is an argument worth having. It helps that that it also the only kind of argument we have a hope of winning. Until we are willing to have that argument we will continue to lose, and we will deserve to lose.

What? No More Free Lunch? I'm Outraged!

I must say I'm finding all the hand-wringing concerning the changes to the pricing of Netflix subscriptions a little odd. (See here, here and here.)

When Netflix started offering streaming movies at no extra charge I was an early adopter, and why not? Even if I didn't use it that often it was free. I also realized that it wouldn't be free forever. Nothing is. The real question becomes then how much would I pay for it. Well, whatever that price is it is under $8 a month.

I'll admit having to get used to going to a new site to manage my, now, Qwikster queue will be a little annoying, but somehow I'll manage to cope.

James Fallows Doesn't Know What He Thinks He Knows

*sigh* 'People Don't Realize How Fragile Democracy Really Is'

Two days ago I mentioned the "Goodbye to All That" essay by Mike Lofgren, a respected (including by me) veteran Congressional staffer who had worked for Republican legislators on defense and budget issues for nearly 30 years....

Among the important aspects of his essay is that it goes beyond one now-conventional point of "the worse, the better" analysis: that the GOP's main legislative goal is to thwart Obama, and if that includes blocking proposals that might revive the economy, so much the better for the Republicans next year.

More fundamentally, Lofgren argues that today's Republicans believe they are better off if government as a whole is shown to fail, not just this Democratic Administration. Republican hard-liners might seem to have "lost" the debt-ceiling showdown, in that they wound up even less popular than the Democrats are. But in the long view, Lofgren says, unpopularity for anyone in Congress, including their party's leaders, helps the Republicans: "Undermining Americans' belief in their own institutions of self-government remains a prime GOP electoral strategy," because it buildings a nihilistic suspicion of any public effort, from road-building to Medicare to schools. (Except defense.)

This is the kind of eau de garbage we readers get when writers become so partisan they cannot see or think straight. Oh, are there people out there who want all government to fail? Sure there are. On the Right various kinds of libertarians hover around the fringes, and you'll find anarchist types floating around the periphery of the Left as well. But the idea that any of these people represent the dominant political opinion of the Republican or Democratic party is nonsense. Actually, it is nonsense on stilts.

When it comes to mainstream political opinion there is no "nihilistic suspicion of any public effort" anywhere except the minds of folks like James Fallows. Sure there is plenty of suspicion about Washington, but Washington (thank God) does not have a monopoly on "public efforts." In fact, a large part of the complaint many people are making is that the Federal government has become far too overweening, and the result has been that our society has become less democratic. By definition most "public efforts" are local affairs, but increasingly we are not allowed to direct our own affairs unless we get the Feds to sign off on whatever it is we want to do, be it build a bridge or update the curriculum of our public schools.

To the degree that Fallows rejects the idea that power should be located in the people and instead embraces the idea that experts in Washington should govern all of our public affairs, Fallows can be said to be anti-democratic, if not by intent certainly by result.

The sad fact is the ruling classes, and the journalists that spend their cushy lives rubbing elbows with them, are not synonymous with "democracy" in any meaning of the word. And really this is what this all comes down to in the end. Fallows despises (and most likely hates) this tea party rabble which won't shut up and let the rulers rule already. That Fallows calls this impulse respect for democracy is the cruelest irony of all.

Dr. Krugman's Perscription: Bury Head Deeper

Krugman on stuff:

Do the dismal economic numbers really reflect the turn to fiscal austerity? I keep hearing people say no, because austerity hasn’t actually happened yet in America. But they’re wrong.

The fact is that the fading out of the stimulus, and in particular of aid to state and local governments, is already and noticeably leading to substantial withdrawal of government demand.

This is, of course, lunacy. Yes, state and local governments buy services and supplies in the course of their duties and this does act as a source of demand in the economy more generally. However, by far the largest amount of spending in operating accounts is on salaries and benefits for public employees. The idea that such spending should be financed permanently by the use of Federal aid whenever state and local governments run out of money, which Krugman seems to be suggesting, is ludicrous. For starters, people move. Demographic changes and the resulting changes in things like the tax base (which could increase or shrink) or the need for services (which can also increase or decrease) mean that nothing is constant. Just because a government run out of funding for existing services doesn't mean that level of service should be maintained. Krugman believes it does because, for him, government has one big job, i.e. to get bigger.

In the real world, states and localities need to constantly evaluate the kind and level of services they provide, and what staff they need to provide those services. Additionally, those services will not be the same from locality to locality. The preferences of voters in the various locales will also play a large role in determining what is being paid for and what isn't. This is especially true when the funding for these services comes directly from the tax payers in the community. Switching the funding of these services away from local tax payers and towards federal aid has the effect of hiding the true cost of these services. This is great if you believe in the God given right of government to grow larger, but it is nonsense if you believe in democratic accountability and fiscal sanity.

The truth is if Middletown, America wants to have a library system, well, then Middletown ought to be prepared to pay for it without counting on everyone else to pick up the tab if they run a little short. No, if MIddletown runs short they need to ether A) find a local revenue stream to pay for he desired level of service, or B) do less.

What happened in localities across the country was they experienced a boom in revenues when real estate prices soared during the heights of the housing bubble. Their coffers swelled and they did what governments at all levels do when the coffers swell, they spent it. However, they often spent it in ways that created a higher baseline of spending, as would happen when you increase the numbers of employees you are paying. Unfortunately, increasing the number of public employees isn't the same thing as increasing the number of employees in a factory. Factories hire more employees because they believe there is more money to be made. This will come as a shock to many Democrats but, yes, factories can increase their payroll and at the same time increase profits. Public employees, by and large, never create profits. They are there to provide services (some vital, some not), but the money flows one way only.

Now, what happens when property taxes stop going up and in fact begin to decrease? The Krugmans of the world want to say "Nothing should happen, keep right on spending! Money grows on federal trees!"

However, it doesn't. The truth is none of the money spent on maintaining state and local spending at housing bubble rates stimulated anything. Instead all it did was allow politicians, local officials and voters/taxpayers to ignore reality.

Hurricane Hype Continued

First, the idiotic statement:

I find it extraordinary that so many political leaders won’t actually talk about the relationship between climate change, fossil fuels, our continuing irrational exuberance about burning fossil fuels, in light of these storm patterns that we’ve been experiencing. Listen, since I’ve been sworn in as governor just seven months ago, I have dealt with—this is the second major disaster as a result of storms. We had storms this spring that flooded our downtowns and put us through many of the same exercises that we’re going through right now. We didn’t used to get weather patterns like this in Vermont. We didn’t get tropical storms. We didn’t get flash flooding. It wasn’t—you know, our storm patterns weren’t like Costa Rica; they were like Vermont.

That is from noted weather expert Vermont Gov. Pete Shumlin.

The only trouble is he is wrong. Way wrong. Way way way wrong. Way way way "My name is Pete Shumlin, I'm a moron and I don't know what I'm talking about" wrong.

Table 1: Tropical Remnants that Made Landfall In/Proximate to Vermont

Name Year Month, Day
[unnamed] 1927 November 3
Great New England 1938 September 21
#2 1949 August 29–30
Hurricane Baker 1952 September 1–2
Hurricane Carol 1954 August 31
Tropical Storm Brenda 1960 July 30
Hurricane Donna 1960 September 12
Tropical Storm Doria 1971 August 28
Hurricane Belle 1976 August 9–10
Hurricane David 1979 September 6–7
Hurricane Frederic 1979 September 14
Hurricane Gloria 1985 September 27
Tropical Storm Chris 1988 August 29
Hurricane Hugo 1989 September 22–23
Hurricane Bob 1991 August 19
Hurricane Opal 1995 October 5–6
Hurricane Bertha 1996 July 13
Hurricane Fran 1996 September 8–9

Shumlin was born in 1956, so Irene's remnants would be the 14th to have hit the state while Shumlin was around to see it.

"Never" sure ain't what it used to be.

"Once In A Lifetime Storm"

The morons are out in force today: How Global Warming Is Making Hurricane Irene Worse

Hurricane Irene is bearing down on the Outer Banks of North Carolina as a Category Two storm, and is expected to track a path of destruction up the densely populated Atlantic coast....

Global warming pollution is far from the only reason that Hurricane Irene shouldn’t be thought of as a “natural” disaster. Much of the devastating potential of Hurricane Irene will be a consequence of past decisions about land use, construction and coastal preservation, mitigated by the brave work of public servants under attack by Tea Party conservatives. Even as we have polluted the climate to increase the threat from Atlantic storms, we have overbuilt the increasingly vulnerable coasts. Although Irene is being described as a “once in a lifetime” threat, the weight of the evidence indicates that this storm is merely a harbinger of our dangerous future.

Really, I wish the internet was a one strike and you are out kinda thing. Crap like this is so stupid on so many levels. In fact, it is too dumb to need to be fisked. It's self-fisking.

It's also anti-science. The only people working in the field of hurricanes that believe a global warming signal is detectable in the data are so far out of the mainstream that there is only one word for them: cranks. They are cranks because they will do anything to shoe-horn reality into their preferred personal ideological perspective.

As for Irene being a "once in a lifetime" storm, well, that could indeed be true... if you were a German Shepard that is. For those of us a little bit older, well, we have seen this sort of storm before. Just 15 years ago in fact:



This is Bertha, a storm from July 1996 which pretty closely follows the exact same track and intensity of Irene. If anything, Irene is a little weaker. The only difference between the two storms is the amount of "the world is ending" crapola we have to endure nowadays.

I do miss the saner days of the 90's.

It's Decided: I'm Sitting Out 2012

Pawlenty Drops Out of Republican Race

Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, dropped his bid for the Republican nomination for president on Sunday morning, saying his disappointing performance in Iowa’s straw poll convinced him that his campaign had run its course.

Just hours after his third-place finish in Iowa, Mr. Pawlenty said on ABC’s “This Week” program that his message “didn’t get the kind of traction we needed and hoped for” in order to continue.

“There are a lot of other choices in the race,” he said. “The audience, so to speak, was looking for something different.”

This is too bad as Pawlenty was the only one worth looking at in this field. I've vetted the rest and came to the obvious conclusion: none of them is my cup o' tea.

I've no idea what I'll be blogging about next year, but it won't be the election.

Justice Done.

This is a quick update on a case I noted here on The Iconic Midwest back in 2009: Pa. judge gets 28 years in 'kids for cash' case

A northeastern Pennsylvania judge was ordered Thursday to spend nearly three decades in prison for his role in a massive bribery scandal that prompted the state's high court to toss thousands of juvenile convictions and left lasting scars on the children who appeared in his courtroom and their hapless families.

Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison for taking a $1 million bribe from the builder of a pair of juvenile detention centers in a case that became known as "kids for cash."

Ciavarella, who denied locking up youths for money, had no reaction as the sentence was announced. From the gallery, which was crowded with family members of some of the children he incarcerated, someone shouted "Woo hoo!"

In the wake of the scandal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned about 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, saying he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles, including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea.

Ciavarella, 61, was tried and convicted of racketeering earlier this year. His attorneys had asked for a "reasonable" sentence in court papers, saying, in effect, that he'd already been punished enough.

Convicted felon Ciavarella was an ass right up until the end:

Then, in an extraordinary turnabout, Ciavarella attacked the government's case as well as the conclusions of the state Supreme Court and the Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice, a state panel that investigated the scandal. Both said Ciavarella engaged in wholesale rights violations over a period of many years.

Ciavarella denied it.

"I did everything I was obligated to do protect these children's rights," he said….

Federal prosecutors accused Ciavarella and a second judge, Michael Conahan, of taking more than $2 million in bribes from Robert Mericle, the builder of the PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care detention centers, and of extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Robert Powell, the facilities' co-owner.

Ciavarella, known for his harsh and autocratic courtroom demeanor, pocketed the cash while filling the beds of the private lockups with children as young as 10, many of them first-time offenders convicted of petty theft and other minor crimes. Ciavarella often ordered youths he had found delinquent to be immediately shackled, handcuffed and taken away without giving them a chance to say goodbye to their families.

Here hoping someone “misplaces” the key to felon Ciavarella’s cell.

Wisconsin Results = No Speed Bump

Well, it's all over but the shouting:

Wisconsin Democrats knocked off two GOP state senators on Tuesday night, exacting a hard-fought political price on Republican lawmakers for restricting collective bargaining rights of state and local employees. National advocacy groups funneled tens of millions of dollars into nine races, seven of which have now been decided, turning a parochial skirmish into an all-out proxy war between Tea Partying conservatives and labor-backed liberals. But the historic recall effort, launched in the wake of intense union protests in February and March, ultimately fell one seat shy of reestablishing Democratic control of the state senate.

On an usual day of high energy and high turnout, Republican state senators Robert Cowles and Sheila Harsdorf cruised to wide-margin victories over their Democratic challengers, as fellow incumbent Luther Olsen managed to squeak by on a few thousand votes. Not all their colleagues were so lucky; Democrat Jessica King narrowly beat out Randy Hopper, while senator Dan Kapanke was easily felled by Democratic assemblywoman Jennifer Shilling. At the end of the night, the fate of the senate majority rested on Alberta Darling, the highest ranking Republican under threat of recall and one of the architects of the controversial collective bargaining legislation. She prevailed in the most bitterly contested and heavily funded recall fight, declaring victory near midnight as both parties scrapped over the final ballots.

The six districts that voted on Tuesday were ground zero in Wisconsin’s labor fight; each delivered substantial support to Walker’s gubernatorial bid last November, despite being carried by Obama in 2008.

It should also be remembered that all of the GOP seats at issue last night were last contested in 2008, which means Republicans won them during an election cycle that favored Democrats substantially. It was always going to be an uphill fight for the Dems, and they came up short.

To see how much of an uphill struggle it was one need only look at where I live, the 10th District. Here the GOP incumbent, Shelia Harsdorf, easily defeated her Democratic opponent, Shelley Moore. When I say easily I mean it. Not even close. This was despite the fact that copious resources were pumped into the Moore campaign. Indeed, Moore had a vigorous ground game here, which was far more visible than the Harsdorf campaign. It mattered for nothing. Moore still got crushed. In fact, Harsdorf won by a larger margin last night then she did in 2008.

It should also be noted, for all the talk I heard about high turnout rates rivalling presidential election years, it really didn't materialize that way. Oh, more people voted than usually do in these "off-season" elections, just not at presidential election levels. A little over 64 thousand votes were cast last night. However, in 2008 almost 99 thousand ballots were cast. That's a huge difference.

In the end, the Dems statewide got close. However, as the saying goes, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. It really doesn't count here.

On The Ground In Wisconsin's 10th Senate District

Turnout seemed noticeably heavy at the polls today.

I have no idea who that would favor. As usual in this election, the Democratic get-out-the-vote operation has been the more visible of the two. (My house was visited twice more yesterday.)

It's now, for me at least, wait and see time.

Welcome To Welfareland

In this piece excusing the rioters across Britain, the Guardian’s Nina Power points out the following as an “explanation” for what we are seeing:

 Haringey, the borough that includes Tottenham, has the fourth highest level of child poverty in London and an unemployment rate of 8.8%, double the national average

So, this one borough has an unemployment rate less than it has been nationwide in the United States for more than two years, and we are supposed to believe rioting is the appropriate response?

Oh, but there is more says Nina:

Since the coalition came to power just over a year ago, the country has seen multiple student protests, occupations of dozens of universities, several strikes, a half-a-million-strong trade union march and now unrest on the streets of the capital (preceded by clashes with Bristol police in Stokes Croft earlier in the year). Each of these events was sparked by a different cause, yet all take place against a backdrop of brutal cuts and enforced austerity measures.

I, for one, don’t care. I’m certain that even with the cuts the benefits available to the average Brit far exceeds that commonly available to people here in the States.  The idea these folks are being put into a third world situation is simply ludicrous. It seems much more likely we are dealing with spoiled brats and thugs.

Of course, any given situation may have a real point of contention or grievance that demands a call for justice, but that isn’t the “cause” of this display of mass criminality. What we are seeing here is less a cry of “justice!” and more a cry of “more! more! more!” and “gimme! gimme! gimme!”

Peg O’ My Heart

Last evening I made something new for the Mrs. and myself called a “Peg O’ My Heart”. It went over real well with the wife, and I liked it pretty well too.

The recipe:

2 oz. dark rum

1 oz. lime juice

1/2 oz. grenadine

Shake the ingredients in a shaker half-filled with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. No garnish.

The drink is very fruit forward and more than a little sweet. This is in keeping with the time period of the drink. It pre-dates Prohibition when sweet drinks were far more common. In that it has more in common with 19th century cocktails than it does with the drinks of much of the 20th century. I personally didn’t find the sweetness cloying, but if you wanted to cut back on the sweetness making it with less grenadine (say two teaspoons) should work just fine.

I’ve seen on the net where some “Peg O’ My Heart” recipes call for 1 1/2 oz. of light rum instead of the larger amount of the dark.  This is a mistake, and may date from the time when Bacardi company was suing folks for making “Bacardi Cocktails” without using Bacardi rum. It very well could be some places got around that problem by tweaking the “Peg O’ My Heart” to bring it more in line with the “Bacardi Cocktail” (which consists of 1 1/2 oz. light Bacardi rum, 1 oz. lime juice, and 1 teaspoon grenadine.) The original “Peg O’ My Heart,” as far as I’m concerned, is simply the better drink.

You Know, I Really Want To Try...

...but the more I read intellectually dishonest crapola like this, the more I come to think the Left in this country is completely beyond rational discourse. That so many people find such idiocy to be compelling argumentation scares the hell out of me. I understand people will have different values and different perspectives that will inform their political beliefs...but democracy is only possible when most people are not completely blinkered.

I have no idea what the percentage is these days, but we are trending in the wrong direction.

Expectations

From Politico: Wis. Dem memo: Victory predictions "dangerous"

Democrats on the ground here are increasingly confident they will pick-up two state Senate seats, but are warning that winning the third necessary for a takeover is a tenuous prospect.

Despite hype from some in the party apparatus about a "six for six" sweep Tuesday, the more realistic scenario is winning two or three seats, according to those involved in the ground game.

The most stark word of caution is included in a private memo obtained by POLITICO from the Democratic-leaning We Are Wisconsin group to its donors.

"In our final days, we remain cautiously optimistic about our chances to take back the Senate. But predictions of victory at this point are beyond premature – they’re dangerous," wrote We Are Wisconsin field director Kristen Crowell in an Aug. 3 memo obviously designed to lower expectations.

"While we have solid research suggesting there are races where we might secure a second and third potential pick-up, none of these of these races except 32 should be considered safe pick-ups (and even there we face challenges to get the ball over the goal line), and we are dealing with an unprecedented electorate that is very difficult to forecast," she continues.

After outlining the odds Democrats face in going up against the "unlimited resources" of "corporate interests, she warns the the predictions of three wins in bank are overblown.

I have no idea what will happen tomorrow, but I do know this: If the Dems don't win at least three senate seats they have lost... and lost big.

"But," one might ask, "why is that? Even if the Democrats do not take control of the Wisconsin state senate just getting close might force the Republicans to work with them a little bit."

No it won't. The things is, none of the seats tomorrow were last won by the Republicans in 2010 when conditions were just right for the GOP nationwide. They were all last contested in 2008, an election that was a mighty good one for Democrats nationwide. Wisconsin Democrats are attempting to make the case that Gov. Walker's term to date has been so unpopular the effect in the state will be greater than the positive effect the Obama candidacy had for Democratic candidates in 2008. Any way you slice it it is a ballsy argument.

However, because it is so ballsy "close but no cigar" won't cut it. Walker and Co. are much more likely to shrug their shoulders and say "That's all you got?" and continue on their desired course. Only putting an actual speed bump in the state senate will actually slow them down.

As for "the odds Democrats face in going up against the 'unlimited resources' of 'corporate interests'", all I can say is that isn't how it looks on the ground here in the Moore v. Harsdorf race. The Moore campaign has been much, much more visible in television advertising, direct mailings, and canvassing. Moore forces have knocked on our door five times in the last three weeks, while I've not seen any Harsdorf people. Moore mailings have outnumbered Harsdorf 10 or 12 to one. If the Harsdorf campaign has access to "unlimited resources" they have a funny way of showing it.

In any event, the political scientist in me is looking forward to seeing what happens tomorrow.

Moral Equivalency For Morons

Steve Benan (aka the dumbest columnist in America), "informs" his readers today that Republicans wanting to reduce spending is the worst public policy choice in the history of the country, somehow beating out:

A) Support for slavery (Democratic policy)
B) Support for expansion of slavery (Democratic policy)
C) Support for Jim Crow laws (Democratic policy)
D) Entry into the Vietnam war (Democratic policy)
E) Placing of Japanese-Americans into concentration camps (Democratic policy)

That's right, advocating for a reduction of the budget from #3.9tr to $3.7tr is worse.

A Water Carrier Too Far

Here is some “wisdom” for you courtesy of Jonathan Chait: What Caused The Deficit? A Reply To Megan McArdle

One of the most effective Republican themes of the last two years has been blaming President Obama for the explosive growth in the budget deficit since 2009. The accusation that "Obama's spending binge" has blown up the deficit has discredited any further fiscal stimulus, and helped encourage Republicans to use the debt ceiling as a hostage. The White House fought back with a chart showing that its policy changes contributed only a small fraction to the worsening deficit picture:

The chart the White House provides shows that, indeed, when you add up the seven years worth of deficits from the Bush years it is a larger number than the deficits Obama has racked up in three years.

OK, lets look at the deficits from 2001 to 2011.

 

And here are the raw numbers:

Federal Deficit
Fiscal Years 2001 to 2011

Year	GDP-US $ billion	Federal Deficit -fed $ billion
2001	10286.2	-127.89	a
2002	10642.3	158.01	a
2003	11142.1	377.81	a
2004	11867.8	412.90	a
2005	12638.4	318.59	a
2006	13398.9	248.57	a
2007	14077.6	160.96	a
2008	14369.1	458.55	a
2009	14258.2	1412.69	a
2010	14660.4	1293.49	a
2011	15079.6	1645.12	b
Legend: a - actual reported b - budgeted estimate in US fy12 budget

The average yearly deficit for this entire time period is $578bn. 

The average yearly deficit for the Bush years (2001-2008) is $251bn.

The average yearly budget deficit for the Obama years (2009-2011) is $1450bn.

OK, lets try and screw over the Bush numbers. Let’s throw out 2001’s budget surplus saying that was Clinton’s doing and, while we are at it, let’s take 2009 out of the Obama column and give it to Bush (since everything bad on God’s green earth is Bush’s fault anyway.) What do the numbers look like then?

The average yearly deficits for the Bush years (2002-2009) is $433bn.

The average yearly deficits for the Obama years (2010-2011) is $1469bn.

OK, but maybe that doesn’t tell the whole story. Maybe it was all those Bush tax cuts which acted like a poison pill which is only being felt now!

Alright, the Bush tax cuts were implemented between 2001 and 2003, and the Obama administration claims it cost the country $3000bn added to the deficit, or a yearly average of $375bn between 2004-2011.

Let’s see if such a story seems likely (data here.)

From 1996-2000 (the second Clinton term, when all was right with the world and everyone ate rainbows for dinner!) the federal government’s take via income taxes increased at the average yearly rate of  $73bn. Between 2001 and 2003 (when the Bush tax cuts were still in process) the average yearly tax decreased by an average of $73bn, as the recession took its toll. Between 2004 and 2008 after all of the tax cuts had been fully implemented, the average yearly take of the federal government increased by $90bn a year.

Remember, the Obama administration is claiming without the Bush tax cuts the yearly increase for the feds would have averaged not $90bn but instead $375bn. I’m sorry, but on what planet does that seem plausible?

Let’s do an experiment here. Let us pretend there are no such things as recessions, and let us further stipulate the increase in revenues of the Clinton years are a constant of economic reality. So, we will compare this fictional “Clinton number” with the real Bush numbers and see how close we can get to the $3000bn number uncritically accepted by Chait.

Before Bush tax cuts:

2001: C# - $1284bn  B# - $1145bn (+139)

2002: C# - $1357bn B# - $1006bn (+351)

2003: C# - $1430bn B# - $925bn (+506)

After Bush tax cuts:

2004: C# - $1503bn B# - $998bn (+505)

2005: C# - $1576bn B# - $1205bn (+371)

2006: C# - $1649bn B# - $1397bn (+252)

2007: C# - $1722bn B# -  $1533bn (+189)

2008: C# - $1795bn B# -  $1450bn (+345)

Do, in this completely unrealistic scenario where recessions do not exist and revenue growth is as constant a force as gravity, Bush comes up only $2658bn short all together.  The Obama administration and, evidently, the water carrying Jonathan Chait want you to believe the “realistic” number should be $3000bn.

That’s nuts.

Look, the recession has been bad and the recovery not so hot. Obama has every right to say, “Hey, we are really working under some economic constraints here.”  He has the right to say it because it’s true. However, the budgets he has submitted are not examples of constraints placed upon him by George Bush, they are his policy choices. To claim otherwise is simply dishonest.

(Post written using Windows Live Writer. I’m curious to see how this works!)

Michael Isikoff: Investigative Reporter!

From our intrepid Hero: Firm gives $1 million to pro-Romney group, then dissolves

NBC News
updated 8/4/2011 6:01:38 AM ET 2011-08-04T10:01:38

A mystery company that pumped $1 million into a political committee backing Mitt Romney has been dissolved just months after it was formed, leaving few clues as to who was behind one of the biggest contributions yet of the 2012 presidential campaign.

The existence of the million-dollar donation — as gleaned from campaign and corporate records obtained by NBC News — provides a vivid example of how secret campaign cash is being funneled in ever more circuitous ways into the political system.

The company, W Spann LLC, was formed in March by a Boston lawyer who specializes in estate tax planning for “high net worth individuals,” according to corporate records and the lawyer’s bio on her firm’s website.

Can't you just see it? Our hero doggedly filing FOI requests, or peeking into filing cabinets in the dead of the night, or getting behind locked doors to see what nefarious things lurk beyond... or even, and this would have been the most difficult thing of all, reading last Sunday's Washington Times: Romney campaign raises $12 million from just 90 donors

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney raised more than $12 million from just 90 donations so far this year in an unprecedented use of a fundraising account that can accept unlimited, loosely-regulated contributions in support of a presidential bid.

Disclosures filed Sunday show a supremely flush reserve for the man seeking to lead some 300 million-plus Americans, bankrolled by a few dozen in the finance industry, with some donations coming directly from corporations and others ascribed to near-anonymous addresses in Utah.

The total far overshadows that of similarly-structured funds set up to collect unlimited contributions in support of President Obama’s re-election.

Of four $1 million donations, two came from cryptically-named limited liability companies, or LLCs, sharing the same office suite in Provo, Utah. The only one with a recognizable name attached arrived from the 50th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper: The offices of John Paulson, the hedge fund manager who made millions of dollars an hour betting on the implosion of the housing market.

Illustrating the poor disclosure that accompanies the lack of monetary limits on such accounts, the final million-dollar donation was reported simply as coming from “W Spann LLC” of 590 Madison Ave. in New York, with no suite number or other identifying information. That building has housed offices for Paulson, lobbyists Akin Gump and Bain Capital, the hedge fund Mr. Romney once led.

Indeed, our hero, showing none of the investigative skills of a latter day Sherlock Holmes, has managed to discover less information than was printed in the Washington Times four days ago.

At this rate, by sometime next week Isikoff will be unable to confirm or deny the existence of this person known as Mitt Romney.

Of course there is always the possibility that Isikoff did read the Washington Times piece and this is just a garden variety example of plagiarism.

That is modern jurnalism in a nutshell: incompetence or plagiarism.

What a choice!

Alarmists Have Lost The War, But Do They Know That?

You can be sure the upshot of this poll will be the demand for more complete indoctrination of the population. Too many Americans are making up their own minds! 69% Say It’s Likely Scientists Have Falsified Global Warming Research

The debate over global warming has intensified in recent weeks after a new NASA study was interpreted by skeptics to reveal that global warming is not man-made. While a majority of Americans nationwide continue to acknowledge significant disagreement about global warming in the scientific community, most go even further to say some scientists falsify data to support their own beliefs.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of American Adults shows that 69% say it’s at least somewhat likely that some scientists have falsified research data in order to support their own theories and beliefs, including 40% who say this is Very Likely. Twenty-two percent (22%) don’t think it’s likely some scientists have falsified global warming data, including just six percent (6%) say it’s Not At All Likely. Another 10% are undecided....

Republicans and adults not affiliated with either major political party feel stronger than Democrats that some scientists have falsified data to support their global warming theories, but 51% of Democrats also agree.

This is just another example of how you cannot fool all the people all the time. The very idea that Anthropogenic Global Warming alarmism was an example of disinterested science was always ludicrous. Disinterested science never demands an end to debate, and it never attempts to hide the uncertainties of what we know and what we don't now. Both of those impulses were the bread and butter of AGW alarmism, and people know it. It turns out most of the people know it.

Of course nothing will stop the true believer. After all they have too much ego, power and money wrapped up in the project to give it up now.

Me, Amused

It is always fun when I see something I've done and cast upon the waves of the mighty Internet ocean pop up in an unexpected place. Today I found a discussion of The Kinks album Muswell Hillbillies that embeds a YouTube video of the song "20th Century Man" which I made several years ago for a political theory class I was team teaching.

Good times.

The Associated Press: Dumber Than A Box Of Rocks

From the couldn't make this up department: Northeast braces for temps near boiling point

The extreme heat that's been roasting the eastern U.S. is only expected to get worse, and residents are bracing themselves for temperatures near and above boiling point.

Really? Some place is going to be above 212 degrees? What is amazing is this isn't just an example of a stupid headline. The story itself makes the claim. How dumb can you get?

Part of me wants to go looking for sites that are believing this AP story. Another part of me is afraid I'd be too depressed by what I'd find.

Here is the screen-shot:

David Frum Ain't No Martin Luther

I agree with much of this piece by David Frum, but when he falls off the rails he really falls off the rails:

Give me a hammer and a church-house door, and I'd post these theses for modern Republicans...

5) We can collect more revenue without raising tax rates.

Republicans stand for low taxes to encourage people to work, save and invest. But how would it discourage work if we reduced the mortgage-interest deduction again?

Even if I agreed it wouldn't discourage work, what about the "save" and "invest" portions of the statement. Why did they all of a sudden disappear from the equation?

Did it hurt the economy when we reduced the maximum eligible loan to $1 million back in 1986?

I don't know. Why not link to a study confirming that it didn't. For all we know maybe it did have a negative impact. I hate it when people make rhetorical questions out of ones that are subject to empirical answers...like From does again in the very next sentence.

Do Canadians and Brits -- who lack the deduction -- work less hard than Americans?

Why, as a matter of fact they do. According to the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development Americans work 8 more work days than Canadians and 16 more days than Brits. Additionally, Americans rank 4th in productivity while the UK and Canada rank 11th and 14th respectively. Any other empirical questions you want to ask? (Please note: I am not saying this difference between American and other workers is due to the mortgage-interest deduction. I'm merely pointing out that the difference exists where Frum claims it doesn't.)

Wouldn't higher taxes on energy encourage conservation? Who decided to allow inflation to corrode federal alcohol taxes by 80% over the past 50 years?

Wait a second, how are raising taxes on energy and alcohol an example of raising revenue without raising taxes?

But even then I'm calling bullshit on the numbers Frum is using when it comes to the alcohol tax. The rate 50 years ago was first established in 1951 at $10.50 per gallon. This rate was increased from a $9 per gallon rate established during World War II. (The federal tax on distilled spirits went from $2 per gallon in 1938 to $9 per gallon in 1944.) In 2010 dollars the World War II rate would be the equivalent of $110 per gallon (or about $22 for each 750ml bottle in Federal tax alone.) The 1951 rate would work out to $87 per gallon (or about $17.40 per 750ml bottle.) Is Frum advocating we should, as a matter of course, be taxed routinely at nearly the same level as during World War II? Nonsense.

Now, if someone wanted to adjust the tax to be in line with the last time it was raised (in 1991), which would mean taking it from the present $13.50 per gallon to $21 (i.e. from $2.70 to $4.20 per 750ml bottle), I could see a rationale. This is particularly so as such a number would be in line with what we have historically taxed alcohol at when we didn't have a world war ongoing. Even during the American Civil War when the spirits tax was raised 1000% between 1862 and 1865, the resulting tax would only amount to $28 per gallon in today's dollars. It says something about the change in this country that after the Civil War ended the emergency tax rate was dropped and alcohol taxes dropped from $2 per gallon to 50 cents (about $8.09 in 2010 dollars.) After World War II the "crisis" rate was kept.

So, while I agree with Frum on many particulars, this cavalier attitude about other people's money is really grating. It is one of the main reasons so many people are distrustful of "mainstream" Republicans these days as being no different than most Democrats when it comes to big government.

Oh! Blissful Day!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about today. I'm imagining a day in the future when we no longer have to read or hear about the hackery that is the average Paul Krugman column. I, for one, won't care if Krugman is simply put out to pasture or if he is abducted by space aliens and transported to another galaxy and installed in a zoo of outlandish creatures. (Though I'll admit the latter does hold an added appeal.)

It simply boggles the mind that anyone as contradictory in his statements as Krugman is is afforded any credibility. Let's take his account of the economy the last few years:

Act I) Economy tanks (in part because we followed a housing bubble strategy advocated by one Paul Krugman.) Krugman counsels a massive governmental intervention into the economy to forestall an economic panic. TARP and the other bailouts ensue.

Act II) Economy still reeling Krugman advises a massive increase in governmental spending to kick start the economy. Enter Stimulus. Deficits, says Krugman, are our friend.

Act III) Economy still not responding, Krugman attacks the "Wall Street bailouts" and claims there has been no increase in government spending. (The claim is patently absurd, but no one at The Times bothers to point this out. "He's rolling," they said.)

Act IV) Krugman's finger feels a different breeze and Krugman discovers two new facts: 1) deficits are problematic, and 2) entirely the fault of Republicans!

Act V) Today Krugman is claiming any alteration to the spending pattern he has previously called A) vital, B) nonexistent, C) inconsequential, or D) problematical, is the end of Democracy as we know it.

Uh, thanks Paul. Oh and Paul. if you see strange lights in the night sky feel free to run after them waving you hands in the air.

House Democrats Are The New Patty Hearst?

I don't blame all liberals as it seems only liberal "journalists" are actually this stupid: The tea party's terrorist tactics

It has become commonplace to call the tea party faction in the House “hostage takers.” But they have now become full-blown terrorists.

They have joined the villains of American history who have been sufficiently craven to inflict massive harm on innocent victims to achieve their political goals. A strong America has always stood firm in the face of terrorism. That tradition is in jeopardy, as Congress and President Barack careen toward an uncertain outcome in the tea party- manufactured debt crisis.

As we stumble closer to Aug. 2, it has become clear that many in the tea party are willing to inflict massive harm on the American people to obtain their political objective of a severely shrunken federal government. Their persistence in rejecting compromise, even as the economic effects of the phony crisis they have created mount, has taken their radicalism beyond tough negotiating, beyond even hostage-taking.

Got that? Tea party types not voting for Boehner's plan equals terrorism bent on destroying the nation.

What about Demcorats not voting for Boehner's plan? If Dems in the House were to vote for the Boehner plan it would pass in the House even if the tea party caucus continued to oppose it. House Democrats were they to join with the Republicans Boehner has on board clearly have the votes to get it passed, yet they refuse to do so. They have even gone as far as to brag that "No Democrats will vote for it."

The funny thing is no journalist is calling them terrorists for not voting for the Boehner plan. No one is calling them ideological for not compromising. Plus, the upshot of House Dems not budging an inch is making Boehner throw in useless crap like a "balance budget amendment" in an effort to appease the tea partiers which does absolutely nothing to move the process forward in the long run as Democrats, last time I checked, still controlled the Senate and the White House.

The reality is "tea party Republicans" cannot do anything unless the Democrats go along with them, which is exactly what they are doing.

Not acknowledging this fact isn't responsible journalism. It is hackery of the most cynical and intellectually dishonest kind.

A Not So Beautiful Mind

In the aftermath of the Oslo atrocities the usual braying from conservative bashers was to be expected. After all, the chance to score political points in this country usually trumps everything else, up to and including common human decency. Still if one bothered to look at the "manifesto" published online by Anders Breivik (or even a selection of "highlights") one could get a feel for the perpetrator of these heinous acts of barbarism.

My take, for the outset, was that this man was completely delusional.

Here is a snippet:

Q: Why haven’t we heard anything about PCCTS, Knights Templar before, considering the fact that the organization was formed in 2002?

A: That’s a good question. I am surprised why EU countries haven’t labeled our organization yet. Perhaps it is politically motivated psychological warfare, who knows? First of all, I only met 4 out of the 9 original founding members due to security precautions and I only know the identity of 5 of them (4 of them know my identity). There might be tens, even hundreds of Justiciar Knights now spread all across Western Europe as far as I know. I haven’t heard anything from the media about PCCTS, Knights Templar operations before either which indicates the following; either some of the original cells have not activated yet, which is not very likely considering the fact that the military order was formed more than 8 years ago. Or a couple of the cells may have perished or have been arrested in the planning phase before they even activated. Or perhaps they did activate and went through with their operation but did not manage to penetrate media censorship. A successful operation might have been labeled as an “accident” or otherwise censored by the media/regime. Perhaps a couple of them simply didn’t want to proceed alone or in a party with 1-2 other individuals but needed or wanted the support from a larger traditional hierarchy and joined another organisation instead. A few might have gotten cold feet and went about their usual business and abandoned our struggle and campaign altogether. It is really hard to tell.

For myself, it was hard to read this and not think we are dealing with a situation such as was depicted in the film A Beautiful Mind about the real life struggles of mathematician John Nash. As depicted in the film Dr. Nash in the grips of a terrible mental disorder begins to believe he is part of a secret code breaking operation bent upon unmasking dangerous agents communicating by code in newspapers and magazines. In order to flesh out his "world" Nash's diseased mind invents enemies and friends to populate it.

It seemed pretty obvious reading Breivik's ravings about "Knight Templars" and the like, that we were dealing with something similar here. Breivik seems to actually believe he went to London to be part of a meeting of a new Templar order hellbent on reviving anti-muslim crusades throughout Europe. It also is becoming increasingly clear it was all in his fevered imagination:

OSLO, Norway (AP) — The Norwegian right-wing extremist who killed 76 people in a bombing and youth camp massacre appears to be a lone-wolf sociopath who kept his plans to himself for more than a decade, a top security official said Thursday.

"It's a unique case. It's unique person. He is total evil," Janne Kristiansen, the director of the Norwegian Police Security Service told The Associated Press.

Anders Behring Breivik claims he carried out the July 22 attacks as part of a network of modern-day crusaders plotting a revolution against a multicultural Europe, and that there are other cells ready to strike.

But investigators have found no signs — before or after the attacks — of a larger conspiracy, though it's too early to rule it out completely, Kristiansen said.

"On the information we have so far, and I emphasize so far, we have no indication that he was part of a network or had any accomplices, or that there are other cells," Kristiansen told AP.

She said Breivik doesn't appear to have shared his plot with anyone, and lived a lawful and moderate life before carrying out the attacks with "total precision."

Breivik has admitted that he set off a car bomb in the government district of Oslo, killing at least eight people, then drove several miles (kilometers) northwest of the Norwegian capital to an island where the youth wing of the ruling Labor Party was holding its annual summer camp. He arrived at Utoya island posing as a police officer, then opened fire on scores of unsuspecting youth, executing them one after the other as they tried to flee into the water. Sixty-eight people died, many of them teenagers.

Kristiansen said that Breivik's case presents a new challenge for security services, different from a "solo terrorist" who receives training and instructions from a terror network and is then left to pick out a target and attack it on his own. Breivik appears to be a true lone wolf, who conceived and executed his plot without help or coordination from anyone.

"This is a totally different challenge," Kristiansen said. "This is all in his mind."

Judging by a manifesto he released just before the attacks, he started "preparing himself to do something big, shocking and spectacular" some 10-12 years ago, she said.

Breivik's lunacy, then, could predate even the 9/11 attacks.

Yet, still the moral degenerates among us will want to use Breivik's madness to their own advantage, which in itself is a form of evil difficult to fathom.

Another Fine Whine

US eco-activist jailed for two years

An activist who became a hero to campaigners for disrupting a Bush administration auction for the oil and gas industry with $1.8m (£1.1m) in bogus bids was sentenced to two years in prison on Tuesday....

At a vigil outside the Salt Lake City courtroom where sentencing took place, supporters of DeChristopher's Peaceful Uprising civil disobedience movement shouted: "Justice is not found here."

As Bidder No 70, DeChristopher disrupted what was seen as a last giveaway to the oil and gas industry by the Bush administration by bidding $1.8m (£1.1m) he did not have for the right to drill in remote areas of Utah. He was convicted of defrauding the government last March.

Leftie blogs are outraged, OUTRAGED I SAY!, to discover the law applies to them. In fact, they claim, its all a corporatist plot!

Are you kidding me? If we ever saw an even playing field in the American justice system, perhaps, but it rarely works out that way. If you are part of the privileged corporate elite you can get away with anything, but not as an individual. Halliburton defrauding the US government of millions in Iraq? Slap on the wrist. Wall Street defrauding customers and driving the country and world into recession? No dessert tonight and do better next time. Environmental activist protests Bush land giveaway to Big Oil? Go to jail for two years.

So the crime by statute can lead up to a 10 year sentence and a $750,000 fine...and this nitwit gets 2 years (of which he will serve what, 10 months maybe) and a $10,000 fine and its the end of western jurisprudence.

If you cant do the time....

Here Come The Food Nazis (Again)

Achtung! You must eatz your peas for de fatherland! Bad Food? Tax It, and Subsidize Vegetables

WHAT will it take to get Americans to change our eating habits? The need is indisputable, since heart disease, diabetes and cancer are all in large part caused by the Standard American Diet. (Yes, it’s SAD.)

Though experts increasingly recommend a diet high in plants and low in animal products and processed foods, ours is quite the opposite, and there’s little disagreement that changing it could improve our health and save tens of millions of lives.

So the fuck what? The whole point of a liberal democratic society is that people have the right to decide for themselves what the good is, no matter what some pencil dicked "expert" says on the matter.

There is no compelling state interest, at least in a liberal democratic society, in maximizing the longevity of every single individual. NONE. Now, a fascist society, on the other hand, does make a claim such as the writer in the New York Times does. In a fascist society the state is paramount, so if the state deems you have a duty to eat your peas, or make little blonde haired blue eyed babies, or not be Jewish, etc. then the state can demand it.

Gee, I though we fought a Second World War so we didn't have to listen to such dipshits.

For myself, I'm gonna stick with John Stuart Mill.

Cheap Moralizing (UPDATED)

I suppose it is a sign of the times, but I really dislike things like the following on the normally reliable American Future: Shame on the House Republicans

A few days ago, the Economist reported on the rapid growth in the number of Americans on food stamps. Participation in the food stamp program has soared since the recession began. By this April, 45 million Americans were dependent on the government for their daily bread. The program’s cost almost doubled between 2008 ($35 billion) and 2010 ($65 billion). Last year, then, each American contributed about $200 to the program. That’s right — $200, or about 55 cents per day.

This trivial amount is too much for Republicans....

More and more people are or will soon be receiving their last unemployment checks. More and more people will need food stamps. How, in the name of our common humanity, can the House Republicans propose gutting the program? Are they the descendents of those who, during the Great Depression, believed that the poor had only themselves to blame for their plight, and that the provision of government assistance would undermine their morals and their willingness to work?

Appalling. It’s cruel and unusual punishment. Send them to the poor house. Let them eat cake.

Baloney. In 2008 we were spending roughly $6.03bn per percentage point of unemployment on food stamps programs. In 2010 we spent roughly $6.77bn per percentage point. Assuming an unemployment rate around 8% (which is EXACTLY the type of thing budget projections do), this would mean Republicans are suggesting spending $6.4bn per percentage point on food stamp programs. How this is an example of "gutting" a program or how this makes Republicans moral degenerates is beyond me, particularly since the 2015 budget will affect those currently running short on unemployment benefits not at all.

Of course, if unemployment is still close to 10% three or four years from now this could be inadequate. But guess what? It could be adjusted. (Congress voting to spend more money in the face of actual conditions? That must be crazy talk!)

Enough of the bogeymen, please.

UPDATE:

I want to emphasize something here. Yes, I've taken this post to task, but American Future should be on everyone's reading list. Marc is an old friend of this blog from its earliest days, and I couldn't be happier that American Future is back after a couple years away.

Bye Bye Anonymous?

It seems an international effort is ongoing to deal with the cyber-brownshirts that call themselves "Anonymous": 14 arrested for alleged cyberattack on PayPal’s website in show of support for WikiLeaks

Fourteen people were arrested Tuesday for allegedly mounting a cyberattack on the website of PayPal in retaliation for its suspending the accounts of WikiLeaks.

Separately, FBI agents executed more than 35 search warrants around the country in an ongoing investigation into coordinated cyberattacks against major companies and organizations.

As part of the effort, there were two arrests in the United States unrelated to the attack on the PayPal payment service. Overseas, one person was arrested by Scotland Yard in Britain, and there were four arrests by the Dutch National Police Agency, all for alleged cybercrimes....

The cyberattacks on PayPal’s website by the group called Anonymous followed the release by WikiLeaks in November of thousands of classified State Department cables.

Anonymous is a loosely organized group of hackers sympathetic to WikiLeaks. It has claimed responsibility for attacks against corporate and government websites worldwide.

The group also claims credit for disrupting the websites of Visa and MasterCard in December when the credit card companies stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange.

A federal indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., says that Anonymous referred to the cyberattacks on PayPal as “Operation Avenge Assange.”

The 14 charged in the PayPal attack were arrested in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio. They ranged in age from 20 to 42. The name and age of one of the 14 was withheld by the court.

I hope the Feds throw the book at them.

Look Out Below!

It's far too hot and humid here for my liking, but it could get worse: Heat wave could trigger “pavement explosions”

Among the adventures in extreme physics brought on by the white-hot temperatures is the potential for “pavement explosions,” which can happen when when moisture cannot escape through non-porous cement, causing it to blow.

As of Monday morning, Des Moines Public Works Director Bill Stowe said no pavement explosions have been discovered.

“I suspect by tomorrow, I won’t be able to answer that way,” he said. “. . .I’m surprised that we haven’t seen it yet.”

Extreme temperatures alone do not cause the problem, Stowe said, but the heat currently bearing down on the metro area is one of the key triggers. Steam pressure from trapped moisture and some kind of weakness in the pavement are the others.

Just to be safe I'm gonna stay inside and drink ice cold beer.

Undercounting Hurricanes Revisited

Some four years ago I posted a study I had made on the likely undercounting of tropical storms in the historical best track data. Using very rudimentary tools and good ol' fashioned logic I reached the following conclusion:

It seems very probable the Mid-Atlantic storm counts are undercounted in some fashion. It is a trickier question to determine the degree of undercounting. However, if we take the rates of Mid-Atlantic storms found during the satellite era (see Figure 2 above) and apply them to the pre-satellite era the results are startling. Broken down by decade, the percentage of Mid-Atlantic storms to all storms in the satellite era looks like:

1967-1976: 17.20%
1977-1986: 14.44%
1987-1996: 24.53%
1997-2006: 21.23%

and for the entire period:

1967-2006: 19.77%

If we look at the minimum (14.44%) and maximum (24.53%) values as defining a range for the pre-satellite number (which today sits at 40 Mid-Atlantic storms out of 495 total storms, or 8.08%,) we are left with a range of an additional 1.28 to 2.46 storms per year. That would mean a difference for the sixty year period [ed. 1907-1967] of plus 77 to 148 storms.

Recently a new study has come out looking at the same issues, though using a much more sophisticated method of estimating the undercounts. Here is their chart for the adjusted data account for the probable missing storms:



As can be seen these results match up with my own to a remarkable degree. If mine were a little larger it must be remembered the range I gave was for all tropical storms while this chart is only looking at hurricanes. In fact, their adjustment is more than the one I suggested.

Still this kind of confirmation is nice to see.