No Oil for Pacifists

Ted Leonsis embodies the American dream. Inside-the-beltway readers know him as the owner of three sports teams--the Washington Wizards (NBA), Washington Capitals (NHL) and Washington Mystics (WNBA)--plus the Verizon Center arena in downtown D.C. where they play. But he was Brooklyn born, the son of a waiter and a secretary. From those humble origins, he founded and sold his first new media company at age 26 for $60 million; co-founded AOL, where he was Vice President, then President. Retiring from AOL in 2006, he founded another internet company, later bought by American Express, and started and still owns SnagFilms, which distributes documentary films online so as to reach a greater audience.

Leonsis voted for President Obama and supports the President's re-election. Yet, his reaction to Obama's latest approach is "Class Warfare -- Yuck":

Economic Success has somehow become the new boogie man; some in the Democratic party are now casting about for enemies and business leaders and anyone who has achieved success in terms of rank or fiscal success is being cast as a bad guy in a black hat. This is counter to the American Dream and is really turning off so many people that love American and basically carry our country on their back by paying taxes and by employing people and creating GDP.

This is a bad move all designed by some pollster who said this is the way to get votes during the re-election. It should be stopped. We should be healing and creating teams NOT dividing and pitting people against one another.

I know the President isn’t speaking to me specifically when he talks but many times I hear stuff and I cringe personally. As a friend told me the other day who lives in China, "Every time your President talks of late, it costs us billions in market cap and in confidence in your country and your economy." Why do we devalue success in the US when the rest of the world is trying to emulate what we have created as an economic system? . . .

With my investments and board seats and companies that I own, I am at a leadership position in concerns that employ more than 200,000 people. We do our best to be good corporate citizens. I know in the companies that I own personally or am the largest shareholder that we support now more than 500 charities. We care. Pick some business leaders that you work with and make them heroes. Don’t demonize them. Showcase them as great Americans that care and hire and employ people. Employment is the biggest issue you will face when re-election comes. If people aren’t working, they will blame you and your administration. And since you have never worked before in a real job for a real company, you need help from people who have been there. Don’t push them away!

I pay taxes. I am willing to pay even more taxes but I would want accountability that the money was being spent wisely on infrastructure investments; education and retraining; and anything that makes us more competitive and gets people working again. That seems fair doesn’t it?

I voted for our President. I have maxed out on personal donations to his re-election campaign. I forgot his campaign wants to raise $1 billion. THAT is a lot of money-money-money-money! Money still talks. It blows my mind when I am asked for money as a donation at the same time I am getting blasted as being a bad guy!

Someone needs to talk our President down off of this rhetoric about good vs. evil; about two classes and math.

Our country was founded on the premise of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Is anyone happy right now with all of this?

Hit a reset button ASAP.

Maybe the Democrats should nominate Leonsis for President. The best part, if Leonsis won, is that (caution--obscure 1980s hockey reference coming) Rod Langway could return to his old job.

(via reader Doug)

At last week's Republican Presidential debate, Texas Governor Rick Perry's answer on immigration could crater his candidacy. Yet, it's a revealing window into the dysfunction of both parties on the topic.

Initially, some background. The "Texas Dream Act" passed and was signed by Perry himself in 2001, six months after he became Governor when George W. Bush went to the White House. The Act extends in-state tuition rates at state universities to illegal aliens residing in Texas, if they've been there for at least three years and said in an affidavit that they've applied for legal residency. Texas was the first state to permit this. A dozen states followed that lead; six states affirmatively bar illegals from residents' tuition reductions at state schools.

During the debate, Perry took shots from other candidates over the Texas Dream law. Responding to Chris Wallace's question, Perry retorted:

[I]f you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they've been brought there by no fault of their own, I don't think you have a heart. We need to be educating these children because they will become a drag on our society.

Now, as the Manhattan Institute's Heather MacDonald says,

There are compelling humanitarian arguments for treating illegal minors who did not themselves choose to break the law with far greater leniency than the parents who brought them into the country illegally. How to deal with them is the thorniest problem resulting from our broken borders.

But, as MacDonald goes on to note, Perry's approach is unfair to legal immigrants and their families, plus making illegals pay out-of-state college tuition rates "hardly constitutes a denial of education, as Perry implies." Further, it's expensive--students benefiting from the Dream Act also often receive state financial aid.

Wherever one comes out on the policy question, this post is about another issue MacDonald raises--the legality of the Texas Dream Act. She points to the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), section 505 of which says:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State (or a political subdivision) for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amount, duration, and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.

8 U.S.C. § 1623(a).

You'd think that would settle it--but no. First, it's hard to find the proper plaintiff. Day v. Sebelius, 376 F. Supp. 2d 1022 (D. Kan. 2005), aff'd sub nom. Day v. Bond, 500 F.3d 1127 (10th Cir. 2007), cert. denied, 128 S. Ct. 2987 (2008), rejected a challenge to Kansas law on procedural grounds--saying the IIRIRA did not allow private citizens to seek judicial enforcement. Second, don't discount liberal jurisprudence: the California Supreme Court reached the merits in Martinez v. Regents of University of California, 241 P.3d 855 (Cal. 2010), cert. denied ___ U.S. ___ (June 6, 2011), finding no preemption by Section 505 of IIRIRA because some U.S. citizens living elsewhere -- such as those who moved away after high school or attended in-state boarding schools -- also were eligible for in-state college rates.

So, if taxpayers can't turn to courts and California invents illogical interpretations, who could best enforce Federal law? Why, the Federal government, of course. But IIRIRA's been in effect for 15 years. Meaning that four Attorneys General (Janet Reno, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales and Eric Holder) didn't do their jobs. What we have, as reader Doug emails, is "a bipartisan refusal to enforce the law."

That's the real crime. It's also further foundation for states like Arizona and Rhode Island assisting immigration status checking. Especially when border arrests have sharply declined.

Think about it--Texas and a dozen other states flout a Federal statute without consequences (indeed, praised by the left). Yet the requirement that illegals swear that they've applied for legal status makes no sense--they're illegal immigrants; only were there some general amnesty in the future, or they returned to their country-of-origin, could they obtain citizenship. So Texas's affidavit clause is a sham. At the same time, Arizona's genuine and non-discriminatory attempt to supplement enforcement is vilified (and halted by Holder).

There oughta be a law.

By Doug Powers on Michelle Malkin's blog:

In the spirit of bipartisanship, if the Obama administration is serious about putting Gitmo out of business, I’d like to offer a suggestion that is tried and true: Declare the prison a "green jobs" hub, loan it a half billion taxpayer dollars, then hire the detainees to manufacture and sell solar panels and windmill parts. The place would be shuttered before next summer.

(via reader Warren)

"We don’t allow faster-than-light neutrinos in here," said the bartender.

A neutrino walks into a bar.

(via reader Warren, via National Review)

UPDATE(S): Below


Barack Obama, September 19, 2011:

Middle-class families shouldn’t pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires. That’s pretty straightforward. It’s hard to argue against that. Warren Buffett’s secretary shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. There is no justification for it.

David Freddoso in the Washington Examiner, September 20, 2011:

It was even more straightforward than he seemed to think. Not only should middle-class families pay less than millionaires and billionaires, but in fact they already do pay less than millionaires and billionaires. Much less.

John S. Gordon in the Washington Post, September 24, 2011:

Obama said raising taxes on millionaires isn’t class warfare, but "math." His math may be off: According to the IRS, those with adjusted gross incomes of more than $1 million paid an average of 23.3 percent in federal income taxes in 2008; those earning between $100,000 and $200,000 paid 12.7 percent; and those earning between $50,000 and $100,000 paid 8.9 percent. Nearly half of American families don’t make enough money to pay federal income taxes at all.

Daniel Indiviglio at the Atlantic, September 20, 2011:

So how much would the so-called Buffett Rule bring in? It's hard to say, because Obama didn't define precisely how it would work. But he did say it would create a tax rate floor for those who make more than $1 million per year. So let's use 2009 tax return data from the IRS to imagine some possible scenarios for how much additional tax revenue the new tax could bring in. Here's a chart:




Let me explain what's going on here. I used IRS data for 2009 adjusted gross income (which I know isn't perfect, but it was the best they had). I then calculated the effective tax rate based on its data to be 29.1% for all Americans who earned more than $1 million. I consequently took the total income of the group and multiplied by different tax rates (as shown). I subtracted the taxes already paid (at the 29.1% effective rate) to figure out how much additional revenue they'd provide to the U.S. government at those new tax floors.

As you can see, the short answer is: some, but not enough to make a dent in the deficit. If you put a floor at their current marginal tax rate of 35%, the government would obtain $37 billion more dollars. That might sound like a lot, but it amounts to just 2.5% of the 2009 $1.5 trillion deficit (which is the red line shown). If you increase the floor to the pre-Bush-tax-cut marginal rate of 39.6%, the additional revenue grows a bit -- to $66 billion, or 4.5% of the year's deficit.

Mark Perry on Carpe Diem, September 19, 2011:

Even if we account for payroll taxes (which the chart below does for 2007 using CBO data), Buffett's tax analysis still doesn't make sense. Most "super-rich" taxpayers are paying federal taxes (income, payroll, corporate and excise) at a rate of 25-30% of their income (much higher than Buffett's 17.4%), and the middle-quintile and second-highest quintile groups are paying average tax rates of only 14%-17% (about half of the 33-41% Buffett's employees are paying, assuming they fall in those income groups).

Peter Ferrara in Forbes, September 22, 2011:

[W]hat creates jobs is capital investment. The result of all of Obama’s tax increases on capital investment would be even less such investment, which means even fewer jobs. If the prospect of those tax increases drives the economy back into recession, unemployment will soar further, along with government spending, deficits and debt.

If you try to rob the rich, you only end up stealing from the poor and working people. That is because the poor and working families have the most to lose when the economy turns bad, as they lose the jobs and wages they need to maintain a basic standard of living.

An anonymous Facebook user quoted on Instapundit, September 19, 2011:

Obama is great at math. He divides the country, subtracts jobs, adds debt and multiplies misery.

Agreed, several times. See also the Washington Examiner in April.

MORE:

Wall Street Journal, September 27, 2011:

As data from the Internal Revenue Service make clear, the vast majority of those earning more than $1 million per year typically pay tax rates two to three times higher than people making less than $100,000. In 2008, the average tax rate for millionaires and above was 23.3% and for those earning between $30,000 and $50,000 it was 7.2%.

But the opportunity to educate the public would be even greater if Mr. Buffett would let everyone else in on his secrets of tax avoidance by releasing his tax returns. Going only by Mr. Buffett's unverified claims, his federal taxes in 2010 amounted to 17.4% of his taxable income, probably because much of his income was from capital gains and dividends. It's also likely that he took significant deductions for charitable donations. No doubt the millions of Americans who could end up paying more because of this claim would love to see the details.

Mr. Buffett also wrote in the New York Times that none of the other people in his office paid less than a 33% rate, and at least one colleague paid 41%. This suggests that Mr. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway staff are the kind of folks the President would consider "rich." Mr. Obama might even call them "millionaires and billionaires" if some of them have annual incomes of more than $200,000.

MORE & MORE:

The Tax Foundation did the math and concludes Buffett's claim is, literally, "impossible."

I'm no better--maybe a bit worse. No decision on, or schedule for, surgery yet.

I'll try a couple of posts this week.

A friend says I've scared readers. So let me tell you what's going on.

I don't have cancer and I'm not dying (at least not yet). For about a year, I had a low-grade infection no one could cure. This was finally pinpointed to my jaw, and -- in June -- I had seven hours of surgery to clean out the infection. Pulled a bunch of teeth to get there. Recovery has been slow.

On top of that, over the past three weeks, I've had shoulder pain and I haven't been able to hold a pen. That diagnosis, confirmed last Friday, is cervical spine stenosis. After taking a look at my MRIs, surgery has been recommended, probably next week (after I get a second opinion this week).

The pain and numbness makes it very difficult to work. For the moment, I can't both work and blog. Heck, I can't even sleep.

I appreciate the shout-out, and I'd be happy to work with a co-blogger--but so far, no luck finding one.

I will return to blogging when I can both blog and work. I just don't know when that will be.

My health requires a weekend off and, because that's when I do the majority of my writing, a few days off from blogging.

From Andrew Roberts's "The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War" (2011), at 221:

[T]he various sections of the new Japanese Empire had very little in common with one another, as was displayed with sublime irony in November 1943 when General Tojo presided over a conference in Tokyo of the prime ministers of all the puppet governments in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The leaders took it in turns to praise the freedom that Japan had promised their countries from the evil Western imperialists, but as there was only one language common to all of them, the proceedings had to be conducted in English.

The Atlantic's Megan McArdle on Stimulus II:

I was tentatively in favor of the jobs plan that Obama proposed last week. But that's before I realized that he has no intention of trying to get it passed:

The White House said Monday that President Obama wants to pay for his $447 billion jobs bill by raising taxes on the wealthy and businesses. Jack Lew, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), said the tax hikes would pay for Obama's entire bill, which the administration is sending to Congress Monday evening. . . .

It's worth noting that a deduction phase-out is actually worse than a marginal tax hike. Deduction phase-outs amplify other rate increases--depending on how they're structured, a deduction phase-out can actually mean that you make less money at $251,000 than $249,000.

But more importantly, paying for the bill with tax hikes--any tax hikes--is going to substantially reduce the stimulus this bill provides. Just as government spending boosts aggregate demand, tax hikes (yes, even on rich people), reduce aggregate demand. Providing stimulus through payroll tax cuts that are financed with tax hikes on other people is like trying to boost your household income by making your wife pay you to mow the lawn.

Wait, didn't the President promise that, in addition to tax hikes, the bill "would be paid for by additional long-term budget cuts tacked on top of the totals already agreed to by Congress during the debt ceiling negotiations"? Guess that promise now is inoperative.

From Nate Beeler in the Washington Examiner:

From International Business Times:

Advocates for natural gas drilling have trumpeted its environmental benefits as an alternative to the coal that produces most of America's electricity, noting that natural gas emits about half the amount of carbon dioxide when burned as coal does.

But a new study sheds doubt on that claim, finding that a shift from coal to natural gas would in fact accelerate the planet's rising temperatures before slightly reducing them. Tom Wigley of the National Center on Atmospheric Research found that swapping the two fuels would increase global temperatures over the next four decades by about a tenth of a degree.

"From the CO2 perspective, gas is cleaner, but from the climate perspective, it gets complicated," said Wigley.

Wigley's study does not dispute the fact that natural gas produces far less carbon dioxide, a key culprit in pushing temperatures steadily upwards. But coal also gives off sulfates and other particles that dissipate more quickly than coal fumes and effectively reflect sunlight away from the earth, cooling rather than warming. Those particles do increase air pollution and the likelihood of acid rain, but from a global warming perspective they are a source of relief.

(via Global Warming Policy Foundation)

The Worldwide Wildlife Fund (WWF) UK has a new President -- Prince Charles, who said in his inaugural speech:

We are, of course, witnessing what some people call the sixth great extinction event -- the continued erosion of much of the Earth’s vital biodiversity caused by a whole host of pressures, from the rising demand for land to the corrosive effects of all kinds of pollution. This is an important point that needs to be stressed more than it is, because its ultimate impact is plainly not at all clear to most people -- without the biodiversity that is so threatened, we won't be able to survive ourselves.

The Earth is also being depleted of many of her natural resources, from top soil to fish, and if we carry on as if it's "business as usual", we will receive a dangerously diminishing return from Nature’s capital that will begin to threaten our very survival. . .

The result of our spiritual or inner disconnection is that society condones a system that depletes the very natural capital which is actually the fundamental foundation of capitalism itself. And notice how the more vigorously we pursue unlimited growth, the more success we think we have achieved! This is a very fundamental flaw which, as I say, I believe is borne out of the great distance we have put between ourselves and the natural order of things.

Just what we need: a self-important, hereditary Prince to instruct the rest of us on capitalism and "the natural order of things" -- so as to return to the stone age. Glad I'm a "republican."

(via Planet Gore)

Massachusetts law (Chapter 269, Section 10(b)) already bans possession of any:

stiletto, dagger or a device or case which enables a knife with a locking blade to be drawn at a locked position, any ballistic knife, or any knife with a detachable blade capable of being propelled by any mechanism, dirk knife, any knife having a double-edged blade, or a switch knife, or any knife having an automatic spring release device by which the blade is released from the handle, having a blade of over one and one-half inches.

As I read the law, steak knives are ok, though nunchakus (a "weapon consisting of two sticks of wood, plastic or metal connected at one end by a length of rope, chain, wire or leather") and throwing stars ("a shuriken or any similar pointed starlike object intended to injure a person when thrown") are verboten.

That's not enough for Boston, where the city council last week held hearings on a proposal to require licensing of businesses that sell knives. The idea was to stem a supposed crime wave of stabbings. Ultimately, the council delayed action until an ordinance was drafted, but proponents' testimony included:

"Why would we allow any corner store to sell these dangerous weapons (knives)?"

"Selling knives does not support families."

"We must do everything we can to restrict access to these dangerous weapons."

"Why would anyone need a knife with a blade more than two inches long?"

Uh, perhaps to butter some toast?

It can't be too long before Boston bans blunt instruments, to the delight of NY Yankee fans (and Dice-K). After that, maybe Beantown will suppress sporks. The future of the nanny state: only spoons.

(via Maggie's Farm)

Over at Watts Up With That?, commenter Andrew Harding lists eleven questions warming alarmists can't answer, including:

1) Why should I be paying a fortune for my gas, electricity, petrol and flights and have my countryside disfigured by windmills when industrial giants like China and India do nothing and have booming economies?

2) What % of CO2 in the atmosphere is regarded as "safe"? . . .

8) If the science is "settled" why do we need more money pumped into research? . . .

11) The global economic meltdown will be nothing in comparison to what will happen to the worldwide economy if we reduce CO2 emissions to the levels proposed. Is it worth it?

Let me take a shot at the last one: No. Read the rest.

President Obama seems to be on a months-long losing streak. Still, I haven't endorsed a Presidential candidate (my guy dropped out). Given the choices, I see 2012 less as an election Republicans could win, but rather one Obama could lose.

Yet, the President might be re-elected. And if so, it might be because, as Kyle-Ann Shiver explains, "Republicans Keep Losing the Propaganda War":

Ask yourself: when was the last time you freely discussed any conservative or even moderate political view with friends at work, or on campus, or in public, or at a large social gathering -- without hedging your every word? When? Can you identify a single recent instance when you felt your conservative or even moderate views would be tolerated without provoking name-calling or public shaming into the nearest corner of societal oblivion?

Everywhere one goes, save conservative websites, Republicans are widely connoted with tinges of racism, hate, selfishness, greed, war-mongering, and conspiratorial theocratic designs against democracy. Fox News has some opinion shows that try to give an ounce of conservative balance to the airwaves and they’ve paid for it with an all out war declared against them by leftist activists.

And, honey, any way one chooses to slice, dice, puree, or grind to bits this reality, it spells one thing for the Democrats: VICTORY.

Democrats are nearly ubiquitously perceived -- key word, "perceived" -- as anti-racist, loving, un-selfish, generous, peace-making and unfailingly tolerant of all religions and all cultures. When conservatives outnumber liberals 2 to 1 among the electorate, and yet liberal views have achieved such dominance that they are perceived as dominant even in private settings, then Republicans are not only losing the propaganda war, they are all but missing in action.

I agree about the perceptions. But I rarely pull punches in debate. And I tend to blame media bias for undermining the right; in his book "Left Turn" (at 245) Tim Groseclose calculates that press slant costs Republicans about 8-10 percent of the vote.

So, and unlike Shiver, I'm pessimistic about changing the perceptions. And about the election.

(via Instapundit)

The debate about high tax rates for the rich isn't confined to America. England already taxes earnings over £150,000 (about $240,000) at 50 percent. How's that worked out? Well, 20 "high-profile" economists signed a letter printed in last week's Financial Times:

[W]e are concerned that Britain’s 50p income tax is doing lasting damage to the UK economy. It gives the UK one of the highest personal tax regimes in the industrialised world, making it less competitive internationally and making us less attractive as a destination for both foreign investment and talented workers.

The UK has already slipped from second to fourth place as a destination for inward investment. It punishes wealth creation by imposing on entrepreneurs and business people a marginal tax rate in excess of 50 per cent once national insurance contributions are added in. This is particularly damaging when the UK needs to create new businesses in new industries and promote growth by small companies, which  can  grow fast. . .

We call on the government to drop the 50p tax at the earliest opportunity as part of a package of measures to stimulate growth. Only by returning to an internationally competitive tax regime will Britain enjoy long-term sustainable economic growth.

Sensible advice, but too conservative for the U.K.'s Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government--they've already rejected it.

Walter Russell Mead on the lessons to be learned from the postal service:

The USPS is one of the great surviving examples of the blue social model and, not surprisingly, it is going down the tubes. Technological change has made its original mission of delivering vital information and private correspondence obsolete. Judging by what comes in through the mail slot at the stately Mead manor these days, the primary job of the postal service appears to be the delivery of the snail mail equivalent of spam.

Snail spamming is an expensive business to be in; the USPS loses billions of dollars each year so that advertisers can send out billions of pieces of spam at below market costs. In fairness, e-spammers should demand an equivalent subsidy; shouldn’t non-prescription Viagra dealers and Nigerian con artists get the same kind of help from a benevolent government that the Publisher’s Clearinghouse gets for junk mail? . . .

[T]o look at the USPS is to see why enterprises built in the blue model heyday are falling apart. The special relationship with the government used to be a strength; now it is mostly a weakness: irrational congressional mandates and regulations tie it down in red tape. The large, unionized workforce used to provide job security to workers and a stable team of well trained and reliable workers for managers. These days, the workers don’t get security, and union rules accelerate the rate at which the whole enterprise is falling apart. The large integrated service that handled everything from birthday cards to parcels cannot match smaller, nimbler competitors that target market segments. Email providers have largely killed first class mail. E-readers are killing the periodicals business. Fed Ex and UPS can do a better job with parcels. . .

Now the collapse of the postal service raises questions about the rest of the government as well. How much of the rest of the government is doing jobs that private services could do better and more cheaply? How many government departments are so hamstrung by conflicting congressional mandates accumulated over decades that they can no longer be effectively managed? How many government departments are grotesquely overstaffed, with employment levels based on pre-IT business models and procedures? How much of the rest of the government is operating under civil service rules and union agreements that lock us into unsustainable patterns that will have to be broken -- at great cost to the workers? . . .

But at the same time, the decline of the USPS leaves the overwhelming majority of Americans better served than ever before when it comes to getting written information and packages from one person to another. The difficulties we face today are basically the good kind of problem: how do we make productive and profitable use of new freedom and flexibility?

Agreed. As even the New York Times quipped, "Nothing stays these couriers. . .but maybe bankruptcy will."

No surprise, but -- according to the Department of Homeland Security -- the vast majority of illegal immigrants are from Latin America:


source: NOfP chart via DHS data

(via EconLib)

Remember this cartoon about the real-world consequences of enviro policies? In National Review, Jim Lacey writes similarly about how the "Left’s 'morally superior' policies kill millions and impoverish billions":

The Left has fought the spread of genetically modified (GM) foods with every weapon in its arsenal. Leftists did this in the name of combatting a long list of "potential risks" that never materialized. They have been permitted to overlook the fact that their assaults on GM food were not cost free. For instance, they have greatly delayed and in some places stopped cold the use of rice modified to increase vitamin A content. For the Left this is cause for celebration. In fact, widespread use of this "golden rice" would have prevented a half-million cases of child blindness a year. So the next time someone talks to you about the evils of genetically modified foods, remind him of the millions of poor children this crusade has condemned to a lifetime of blindness. How do folks prepared to allow millions to needlessly go blind still command the respect of any truly moral person?

However, even looking the other way as children go blind pales in comparison to the needless starving of millions that has occurred because anti-GM-food groups have frightened and bullied the people and governments of Africa into forbidding the use of GM seeds. Such seeds, modified to resist the effects of drought and disease, would make Africa self-sufficient in foodstuffs. But for most African farmers they remain unavailable because of the successful efforts of American and European anti-GM-food groups. Even though every American consumes GM foods on an almost daily basis, with no ill effects, they remain off limits to those most in need.

There is no reason [Somali children need] to be hungry except for the fact that some groups are working overtime to prevent his country from growing the food needed to feed him. What do you call people who are willing to let millions starve to death rather than let them grow food that scientists long ago proved safe? Why the anti-GM groups are not condemned for crimes against humanity escapes me. For that matter, as these groups have made it their life mission to starve poor Africans, Asians, and other peoples of color, how come they have never been branded as racists?

Agreed, and I suspect reader OBH will support as well.

(via reader Warren)

E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post, September 8, 2011:

After we honor the 10th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we need to leave the day behind. As a nation we have looked back for too long. We learned lessons from the attacks, but so many of them were wrong. The last decade was a detour that left our nation weaker, more divided and less certain of itself. . .

[I]f we continue to place 9/11 at the center of our national consciousness, we will keep making the same mistakes. Our nation’s future depended on far more than the outcome of a vaguely defined "war on terrorism," and it still does. Al-Qaeda is a dangerous enemy. But our country and the world were never threatened by the caliphate of its mad fantasies. . .

We know now, as we should have known all along, that American strength always depends first on our strength at home -- on a vibrant, innovative and sensibly regulated economy, on levelheaded fiscal policies, on the ability of our citizens to find useful work, on the justice of our social arrangements.

Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, September 9, 2011:

The new conventional wisdom on 9/11: We have created a decade of fear. We overreacted to 9/11 -- al-Qaeda turned out to be a paper tiger; there never was a second attack -- thereby bankrupting the country, destroying our morale and sending us into national decline.

The secretary of defense says that al-Qaeda is on the verge of strategic defeat. True. But why? Al-Qaeda did not spontaneously combust. Yet, in a decade Osama bin Laden went from the emir of radical Islam, jihadi hero after whom babies were named all over the Muslim world -- to pathetic old recluse, almost incommunicado, watching shades of himself on a cheap TV in a bare room.

What turned the strong horse into the weak horse? Precisely the massive and unrelenting American war on terror, a systematic worldwide campaign carried out with increasing sophistication, efficiency and lethality -- now so cheaply denigrated as an "overreaction." . . .

In the end: 10 years, no second attack (which everyone assumed would come within months). That testifies to the other great achievement of the decade: the defensive anti-terror apparatus hastily constructed from scratch after 9/11 by President Bush, and then continued by President Obama. Continued why? Because it worked. It kept us safe -- the warrantless wiretaps, the Patriot Act, extraordinary rendition, preventive detention and, yes, Guantanamo.

Perhaps, says the new conventional wisdom, but these exertions have bankrupted the country and led to our current mood of despair and decline.

Rubbish. The total cost of "the two wars" is $1.3 trillion. That’s less than 1/11th of the national debt, less than one year of Obama deficit spending. During the golden Eisenhower 1950s of robust economic growth averaging 5 percent annually, defense spending was 11 percent of GDP and 60 percent of the federal budget. Today, defense spending is 5 percent of GDP and 20 percent of the budget. So much for imperial overstretch.

Yes, we are approaching bankruptcy. But this has as much to do with the war on terror as do sunspots. Looming insolvency comes not from our shrinking defense budget but from the explosion of entitlements. They devour nearly half the federal budget.

Give credit to the Post for presenting both sides--but I'll take door number two.

UPDATE: below

It doesn't seem like 10 years since terrorists attacked and killed thousands here in America. Each year, I dedicate a post to the memory of those murdered on 9/11 (including three of my friends). By 2010 I thought I'd run out of things to say--but, it happens, not out of things to sing.

Many NOfP readers may not be opera fans. I am, though it's an old-fashioned art. Indeed, of post WWII operas, I think only two are good enough to become part of the standard repertory--Corigliano's Ghosts of Versailles and Adams's Nixon in China (mainly for its first act). Simply put, modern operas mostly stink; today, musicals are better.

An opera premiered last night that I hope will be an exception. I've previously posted about 9/11 hero, and warrior, Rick Rescorla. Yesterday, that story took the stage in San Francisco, in a new opera called "Heart of a Soldier":

What makes a hero? The question was never an academic one for Rick Rescorla, a British-born adventurer who fought in Vietnam before settling in New York as head of security for a brokerage firm based in the World Trade Center. On September 11, 2001, his extraordinary courage and calmness in a crisis paid off: Rescorla led all of the 2,700 people under his care to safety--literally singing them down the stairs--before heading back into the burning building for one last check. He never emerged.

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the devastating terrorist attacks, San Francisco Opera presents the world premiere of Heart of a Soldier, which tells the dramatic story of Rescorla’s extraordinary life. The Company’s latest commission features a dynamic and soulful score by Christopher Theofanidis, "one of the world’s most sought-after living composers" (Seattle Times). Baritone Thomas Hampson, renowned for his "clarion power and burnished tone" (Los Angeles Times), sings the role of Rick Rescorla in this story of enduring friendship and late-found love. Tenor William Burden is Daniel J. Hill, Rescorla’s best friend and fellow soldier, and soprano Melody Moore portrays Susan, Rescorla’s wife and soul mate.

Lead singer Thomas Hampson writes:

I was asked to sing the role of Rescorla, and I started finding out about his story and what made him the man he was. He fought in Vietnam, and he never got over losing any of those young men serving under him. The responsibility he felt towards them was one of the life experiences that shaped how he responded on 9/11.

Rescorla was adamant that people should be disciplined and prepared for the unknown eventualities of their lives. You learn to drive better because you never know what another driver is going to do; when you work in a 115-storey building you have fire drills -- and you have them frequently. That's what Rick did. And because of that discipline -- that attention to technical and mundane detail, and that belief in people -- nearly 3,000 people didn't die.

The closest comparison I can make to an existing opera is William Tell -- which, incidentally, is the only opera I've done before with Zambello. It's the same kind of story: about family, about hearth and homeland under attack by intruders, and how we have to stand up for people.

Rescorla wasn't a goody-two-shoes, but he understood -- and lived according to the belief -- that at the defining moments in your life you simply do the right thing. He gave people tremendous faith in themselves, and he liked doing that. It's an honour for me to try to find the footsteps of this character I have come to admire so much.

I'm thrilled at the idea of spreading Rescorla's story of duty and love. Of course, like most modern operas, it could backfire badly--I haven't yet read a review of the premiere. But, given the subject, I'm hopeful. Especially since Riscorla's marching song was a version of "Men of Harlech" from the great movie Zulu.

Not moping or apologizing but singing: a good way to spend today.

MORE:

The New York Times pans it; the LA Times says it was "emotional manipulation" and "obvious." The SF Chronicle calls it, "Dramatically lumpy and struggling with an adrenalized but often talky score, the piece touches on a variety of emotional hot spots without ever quite bringing them into focus."

Remember the National Labor Relations Board? In April, they made headlines trying to stop Boeing from opening a second aircraft assembly factory in a "right-to-work" state. They just published a rule requiring most private-sector employers "to post notices informing workers of their rights, including the right to join a union."

In between, the NLRB's been inspecting religious colleges and finding them insufficiently faithful to warrant an exemption from worker unions. Specifically, on May 26th, the Chicago office of the NLRB:

said that St. Xavier University had failed to demonstrate the "substantial religious character" necessary to qualify for exemption from federal labor law. As a result, adjunct professors in its employ will be allowed to organize, even though the school has argued that a faculty union would interfere with the school's autonomy as a religious institution by ceding "jurisdiction over important matters to a third party."

For the curious, the case law plainly exempts churches from much of the labor laws on First Amendment grounds:

NLRB v. The Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 440 U.S. 490, 507 (1979):

Here, on the contrary, the record affords abundant evidence that the Board's exercise of jurisdiction over teachers in church-operated schools would implicate the guarantees of the Religion Clauses.

University of Great Falls v. NLRB, 278 F.3rd 1335 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (citations omitted):

[We] exempt an institution [from the labor laws] if it (a) "holds itself out to students, faculty and community" as providing a religious educational environment; (b) is organized as a "nonprofit"; and (c) is affiliated with, or owned, operated, or controlled, directly or indirectly, by a recognized religious organization, or with an entity, membership of which is determined, at least in part, with reference to religion.

Questions:

1) Is President Obama's NLRB competent to decide when Catholic universities are not Catholic enough?

2) Would President Obama's former church -- Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr. was senior pastor -- be sufficiently religious for the NLRB? Or would it be treated more like a lobbying organization?

3) I thought progressives demand strict separation of church and state. Apparently, that's "inoperative" if it helps key Obama constituencies, such as "Big Labor."

4) Isn't this more evidence that, contrary to their claims, liberal disfavor choice--unless it's their choice, like overruling the student-selected graduation music or forcing Catholic charities to offer birth control in their employees' health plan.

5) Where are the neutral principles?

(via Washington Examiner)

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's on the case:

Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc., a trucking company with a service center in Fort Smith, Ark., violated federal law by discriminating against at least one truck driver because of self-reported alcohol abuse, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed today. The company should have met its legal obligation to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act while assuring safety, rather than permanently sidelining self-reporting drivers, the EEOC contended.

According to the EEOC’s suit (Civil Action No. 2:11-CV-02153-PKH in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas), the driver at the Fort Smith location had worked for the company for five years without incident. In late June 2009, the employee reported to the company that he believed he had an alcohol problem. Under U.S. Department of Transportation regulations, the employer suspended the employee from his driving position and referred him for substance abuse counseling. However, the employer also informed the driver that the employer would never return him to a driving position, even upon the successful completion of a counseling program. During the investigation, the EEOC discovered drivers at other service centers whom the employer had allegedly subjected to similar treatment.

Alcoholism is a recognized disability under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), and disability discrimination violates this federal law. The EEOC said that the company violated both the ADA and the Americans With Disabilities Act Amendment Act of 2008 (ADAAA) by conditioning reassignment to non-driving positions on the enrollment in an alcohol treatment program. In addition, the EEOC argued that Old Dominion’s policy that bans any driver who self-reports alcohol abuse from ever driving again also violates the ADA.

A perfect example where government's reach exceeds its responsibility. Question: If the company allows the alcoholic driver to take the wheel, and there's a booze-related accident, will the EEOC accept liability? Answer: Not a chance--can you say "sovereign immunity"? (See Spalding v. Vilas, 161 U.S. 483, 498 (1896).) Which is why the ADA does not mandate acceptance of disabilities carrying "a significant risk to the health or safety of others that cannot be eliminated by reasonable accommodation." 42 U.S.C. § 12111(3). Shouldn't that principle apply here?

Justice should be blind--but not necessarily blind drunk.

From former Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services and former Policy Director for Senator Ashcroft Tevi Troy, on the coming Democratic talking point of "Mediscare," in Commentary:

In 1980, Medicare was only in its adolescence, having been signed into law in 1965, and the extent of the fiscal challenges it would create were not yet apparent. For this reason, attacks against Republicans on the Medicare issue were relatively mild throughout the 1980s (although the left achieved some of the same effect by highlighting homelessness). By the 1990s, however, things had changed, as the program that was originally projected to cost only $12 billion in 1990 had already surpassed $100 billion in spending annually. As Avik Roy explained in National Affairs, "Medicare expenditures grew at roughly 2.4 times the rate of inflation" in the period from 1975 to 1990--a period that was not unfamiliar with inflation.

[NOfP note: what follows is Roy's chart, which was not included in Troy's piece.]


source: Avik Roy, Testimony before the Health Subcommittee of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, July 13, 2011, at 19

By the time the Republicans took control of the House and the Senate in 1994, Medicare had become a significant part of the federal spending--today, Medicare and Medicaid constitute a staggering 23 percent of the federal budget. No effort to control budget deficits could then or can now be taken seriously without taking Medicare into serious consideration. In the aftermath of their electoral triumph, the Gingrich Republicans saw an issue that had to be addressed, and they sought to put controls on the growth of Medicare spending. And in this, Democrats saw an opportunity to regain lost political ground. . .

The standard narrative about the episode is that the Mediscare campaign, along with the showdown over the government shutdown, stopped the momentum of the Republican Revolution and helped get Clinton reelected in 1996. . .

The reaction to Representative Paul Ryan’s honest proposal to reform Medicare has served only to solidify that fear. In April, Ryan proposed a "premium support" plan to restructure Medicare to make it fiscally sustainable. He has long been regarded as the most thoughtful and articulate Republican on budget issues, and the plan he created is far from a radical one. . .

The basic outline of the Ryan plan is as follows. Future, not current, retirees will get a list of guaranteed coverage options for Medicare provided by private-sector insurance companies. They will also get some level of federal support for the premiums they must pay into the plan they choose. The support would be means-tested, so wealthier individuals would receive less support than would lower-income individuals. Medicare would also provide additional assistance to both lower-income recipients and beneficiaries with greater health risks.

This innovation--linking support to both economic and health needs--would correct a serious flaw in the current structure of Medicare. Right now, seniors currently are promised, and receive, Medicare hospital benefits regardless of income level. This means that Medicare’s Part A does not distinguish between Warren Buffett and an impoverished widow. As a result, Medicare currently spends billions of dollars on seniors who do not need governmental assistance to pay for their medical bills. This is done largely to maintain the illusion that Medicare is an insurance policy on which people are collecting and not an income transfer from younger taxpayers to the elderly. Shattering this illusion is one of the most politically explosive aspects of the Ryan plan. . .

And so, even as the administration’s leaders acknowledge the absolutely desperate state of Medicare’s finances--while refusing to suggest ways to solve the problem--their minions are steadily on the political attack on behalf of this misleading and unattainable notion of "saving Medicare as we know it." The next election will test Republican resolve to get the country on a more responsible track, and test the basic honesty of Democratic leaders when they are called to account for the fiscal disasters that lie in wait if Medicare is not reformed. And the American people will be tested as well. Will they be able to see through the fog of Mediscare to the very simple fact that a program designed with the best of intentions could have the most catastrophic of results--the fiscal collapse of the country itself?

Agreed.

(via reader Warren)

Such a fun-loving bunch--they're now anti-music:

Up to 30 pro-Palestinian demonstrators were ejected from the Royal Albert Hall after attempting to drown out the orchestra.

They shouted anti-Israel statements throughout the concert, leading to clashes with members of the audience who wanted to hear the music. Witnesses reported seeing a fight break out.

Different groups of protesters stood up to chant at the start of each of the four pieces of the evening, meaning that fresh people had to be ejected each time.

Radio 3 broadcast the first piece, which lasted about seven minutes, including the protests.

When the protesters started again at the start of the second, the broadcast was halted and a recording of a different orchestra playing the same music was played instead.

The BBC tried to resume the broadcast at the start of the second part of the concert -- Prom 62 -- but further protests led to it being abandoned.

But audience members told The Daily Telegraph the protests did not deter the orchestra.

According to the Guardian:

Pro-Palestinian group The Palestine Solidarity Campaign had called for the BBC to cancel the concert, claiming that the Israeli orchestra showed "complicity in whitewashing Israel's persistent violations of international law and human rights".

I agree with Norm Geras:

I'd like to ask when the musicians of any other country accused of committing 'violations of international law and human rights' were subjected to this kind of protest. If it's about Israel and not about Jews (as the partisans of these poisonous initiatives always claim), there are sure to have been some recent occasions when the performances of Russian and Chinese, and (while I'm about it) American and British, musicians have been targeted in a similar way; so I'm surprised I haven't heard about that. I'd also like to comment on the idea that these were 'protesters'. Somehow it doesn't do them full justice. A protest can be staged without behaving like hoodlums and barbarians.

Nearing the end of his term, Wisconsin’s now departed Democratic Governor Jim Doyle ordered a review of how Obamacare would affect insurance coverage within the state. The Governor turned to Jonathan Gruber, a health policy expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Gruber actually was part of Obamacare: starting in 2009, he earned almost $400,000 consulting for Obama's Department of Health and Human Services. So, Gruber's no free-market fanatic.

Yet Gruber's report, "The Impact of the ACA on Wisconsin's Health Insurance Market," is a devastating indictment of Obamacare, says Peter Suderman in Reason:

[Gruber starts by predicting] that the law is expected to increase health insurance coverage; approximately 340,000 of the state’s residents are expected to gain insurance coverage by 2016. Of course, about 170,000 of the newly covered will be shuffled into Medicaid, a program that’s wrecking state budgets and providing, at best, uncertain health benefits.

Meanwhile expanding the state’s health insurance coverage will come at a significant cost to hundreds of thousands of individuals, especially within the individual market, where the law has the greatest effect. Gruber projects that the average individual market health insurance premium will cost about 30 percent more than if ObamaCare had never passed. For most individual market enrollees, the average premium increase will be even higher: 87 percent of the individual market is projected to see a premium price increase of 41 percent.

Defenders of the law might note that more than half--about 57 percent--of those who get their insurance through the individual market will benefit from the law’s generous health insurance subsidies. But even discounting the enormous public cost of financing those subsidies (which account for roughly half of the law’s $950 billion price tag over the next decade), it’s still not much consolation for the majority of individual market enrollees.

That’s because more than half the individual market will still end up paying more: "After the application of tax subsidies," the report projects, "59 percent of the individual market will experience an average premium increase of 31 percent."


source: Gruber Report at 26

One factor in the price increase is the addition of new coverage mandates that will make health insurance more expensive: An estimated 40 percent of the Wisconsin’s current individual market enrollees don’t carry coverage that meets ObamaCare’s minimum coverage standards. Thanks to the law, they’ll be required to purchase more expensive coverage.

No wonder Obamacare supporter Doyle's an ex-Governor. Time to make Obama an ex-President, and repeal Obamacare.

(via reader Warren)

With President Obama about to propose a new stimulus package, it's worth asking whether the first one was a success. There's lots of data on the topic, but I prefer a simpler approach, based on the Congressional Budget Office's recent assessment, "Estimated Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Employment and Economic Output From April 2011 Through June 2011."

1) The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act cost $787 billion. The CBO says (at 1) that the act added $825 billion to the deficit, but I'll conservatively use the first figure.

2) The CBO estimates (at 2) that the ARRA added between 1.0 and 2.9 million jobs. Again, conservatively, let's use the higher number.

3) Dividing 1) by 2) yields $271,379, which is how much each stimulated job cost. More even than I thought.

4) Don Surber suggests one reason why the ARRA was a bad deal:

In order to break even, 2.9 million jobs would have to pay $200,000 a year to pay back taxpayers their investment in 12 years (that’s at the average of 24.4% in net federal income taxes paid by people who make $200,000 or more).

5) Still more simply, in 2009, the median family income was $49,777 (see page 40). Meaning we could have subsidized directly for five years as many people for the price of jobs created by the stimulus package. Remember, the White House says the stimulus created only "temporary" jobs (see Executive Summary) probably lasting far less than five years.

Conclusion: The stimulus was wasteful and inefficient. Any questions?

You'll be pleased to know that the Obama Administration's standing up for the rights of foreign temporary sheep and goat herders. In late July, the Department of Labor published new policies mandating:

[T]he employer must also specify in the job order and provide at no cost to workers an effective means of communicating with persons capable of responding to the worker’s needs in case of an emergency. These means are necessary to perform the work and can include, but are not limited to, satellite phones, cell phones, wireless devices, radio transmitters, or other types of electronic communication systems. . .

When mechanical refrigeration of food is not feasible, the worker must be provided with another means of keeping food fresh and preventing spoilage, such as a butane or propane gas refrigerator. Other proven methods of safeguarding fresh foods, such as salting, are acceptable. . .

In areas where it is not feasible to provide electrical service to mobile housing, including tents, lanterns shall be provided (kerosene wick lights meet the definition of lantern).

Who knew the nanny state was this specific?

(via reader Warren)

Remember when Barack Obama complained that President Bush was ignoring Iran and vowed to negotiate with Iran directly? Well, how's that working out?:

Iran is moving its most critical nuclear fuel production to a heavily defended underground military facility outside the holy city of Qum, where it is less vulnerable to attack from the air and, the Iranians hope, the kind of cyberattack that crippled its nuclear program, according to intelligence officials.

The head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, Fereydoon Abbasi, spoke about the transfer in general terms on Monday to an official Iranian news service. He boasted that his country would produce the fuel in much larger quantities than it needs for a small research reactor in Tehran that produces medical isotopes.

The fact that Iran is declaring that its production will exceed its needs has reinforced the suspicions of many American and European intelligence officials that Iran plans to use the fuel to build weapons or to train Iranian scientists to produce bomb-grade fuel.

Describing the new facilities in an interview with the news service, the Islamic Republic News Agency, Mr. Abbasi, who narrowly survived an assassination attempt last year, said that a 2009 proposal for the West to supply Iran with new fuel for the small research reactor, in return for an end to Iranian production of the fuel, is dead.

"We will no longer negotiate a fuel swap and a halt to our production of fuel," he said. "The United States is not a safe country with which we can negotiate a fuel swap or any other issue."

Wait, wasn't Obama's election going to make the world love America?

(via Jennifer Rubin)

From Walter International Productions, Inc. v. Salinas, slip op. at 32-34 (11th Cir. Aug. 23, 2011):

The Bart Group also contends that it is entitled to a new trial because of a comment the judge made to the jury in phase II of the trial. After instructing the jury on the law, the district court closed with these words:

On behalf of everyone, thank you so very much for your patience and your good humor and your attention. It has really been a pleasure working with you all. God speed and may you have the judgment of Solomon.

Then the court sent the jury out to deliberate. No one objected to that remark, probably because it seems so unobjectionable.

Nonetheless, in its motion for a new trial on damages the Bart Group contended that the district court’s benedictory remarks violated its rights, not by wishing the jury "God speed," but by expressing the hope that the jury would have "the judgment of Solomon." The district court responded to that argument, when it belatedly appeared in the motion for a new trial, this way:

Plaintiffs’ motion lists an additional error: the Court’s comment to the jury to "have the wisdom of Solomon." Overlooking the fact that Plaintiffs did not object to the statement at trial, Plaintiffs have not presented any argument or authority in support of their contention that this remark was improper. Therefore, the Court will not address it.

The problem, the Bart Group argues, is that the remark refers to "splitting the baby" and the jury might have thought that it was being urged to decide the breach of contract damages issues in favor of Mercado since it had found the liability issues in favor of the Bart Group--to split the case down the middle and give each side half.

The Bart Group’s argument reflects a misunderstanding of scripture that is almost biblical in proportions. When two women each swore to be the mother of a child, King Solomon did not split the baby. Instead, he announced his intention to do that in order to flush out the truth. See 1 Kings 3:16-28. Confronted with the prospect of the baby being split with a sword, the woman who had falsely claimed the child responded with the Old Testament equivalent of "let ‘er rip," while the woman who had borne the child begged Solomon not to slay the child even if it meant that she would lose it to the other woman: "[G]ive her the living child, and in no wise slay it," she pleaded. Id. at 3:26 (King James Version). Solomon was wise enough to know that a mother would rather lose her child to another than have it slain, and so he gave the child to the woman begging for its life to be spared. Id. at 3:27. And all of Israel was in awe of his wisdom. Id. at 3:28.

In this case the judge did not instruct the jurors to split the baby. Instead, she wished them the judgment of Solomon. A jury blessed with the judgment of Solomon would be wise in discerning the truth. Agreeing with the district court, we wish such wisdom on every jury. Even if the Bart Group had not waived any issue about the court’s remark, there is nothing wrong with what the court said.

(via reader Doug)

Progressives and populists often complain that free trade "outsources" American jobs abroad. I've disputed the connection and demonstrated that the advantages of free trade outweigh any downside. That hasn't slowed free trade opponents--even President Obama appears luke-warm on free trade.

Leave it to lawyers to try clever ways of wooden-staking trade. A month ago, Bank of America and others were sued in an effort to halt the use of offshore call centers. The suit claims that:

the electronic transfer of customers’ financial records that occurs when calls are transferred to overseas call centers allows the U.S. government to intercept and seize these records without violating the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (prohibiting illegal searches and seizures) or any other U.S. laws that would otherwise have prohibited these government actions had such calls been transferred to call centers located in the U.S. This transfer is allegedly conducted without the knowledge or prior authorization of customers, which the plaintiffs allege violates the federal Right to Financial Privacy Act.

That law prohibits release of financial records except when authorized by the customer or subject to a valid subpoena or search warrant.

In addition to its trade implications, the suit strikes me as a backdoor attack on warrantless wiretapping. That policy, so controversial under President Bush, largely has been preserved by President Obama. It's true that most financial data isn't foreign national security related. But recall that part of the fuss began when the New York Times revealed that the Bush Administration was intercepting terrorists' financial transactions.

Call it a liberal "two-for"--trying to change national security and trade policies via Federal courts, rather than the ballot box.

Two days off.

From last week's Lifesite News:

Kindergarten children in Basel, Switzerland will be presented this year with fabric models of human genitalia in a "sex box" to teach them that "contacting body parts can be pleasurable."

The kit for teachers to give sex-education lessons to primary school children uses models and recommends having children massage each other or to rub themselves with warm sand bags, accompanied by soft music, according to The Local, a Swiss newspaper in English.

"Children should be encouraged to develop and experience their sexuality in a pleasurable way," Daniel Schneider, a deputy kindergarten rector for Basel who helped develop the sex ed curriculum along with experts, had said earlier this year.

He added, "It’s important that they learn to say no if they don’t want to be touched in a certain area."

Education officials who have reportedly been flooded with over 3000 complaints from outraged parents have agreed to change the program’s name, but will do nothing to stop the materials from being distributed in schools, according to The Local.

Christoph Eymann, Basel education minister and member of the liberal democrat party (LDP), told the paper SonntagsBlick, "It was no doubt stupid to call it a 'sex box' -- we will change that. But we will stick to our goal: to get across to children that sexuality is something natural."

From sex toys for tots to suicide in nursing homes--the Swiss government supplies literally cradle-to-grave service.

(via Gateway Pundit)

From Michael Lewis's "It's the Economy, Dummkopf!" in the September Vanity Fair (at 4-5):

The Greeks not only have massive debts but are still running big deficits. Trapped by an artificially strong currency, they cannot turn these deficits into surpluses, even if they do everything that outsiders ask them to do. Their exports, priced in euros, remain expensive. The German government wants the Greeks to slash the size of their government, but that will also slow economic growth and reduce tax revenues. And so one of two things must happen. Either Germans must agree to a new system in which they would be fiscally integrated with other European countries as Indiana is integrated with Mississippi: the tax dollars of ordinary Germans would go into a common coffer and be used to pay for the lifestyle of ordinary Greeks. Or the Greeks (and probably, eventually, every non-German) must introduce "structural reform," a euphemism for magically and radically transforming themselves into a people as efficient and productive as the Germans. The first solution is pleasant for Greeks but painful for Germans. The second solution is pleasant for Germans but painful, even suicidal, for Greeks.

The only economically plausible scenario is that Germans, with a bit of help from a rapidly shrinking population of solvent European countries, suck it up, work harder, and pay for everyone else. But what is economically plausible appears to be politically unacceptable. . .

At the bottom of this unholy mess, from the point of view of the German Finance Ministry, is the unwillingness, or inability, of the Greeks to change their behavior.

That was what the currency union always implied: entire peoples had to change their ways of life. Conceived as a tool for integrating Germany into Europe, and preventing Germans from dominating others, it has become the opposite. For better or for worse, the Germans now own Europe. If the rest of Europe is to continue to enjoy the benefits of what is essentially a German currency, they need to become more German. And so, once again, all sorts of people who would rather not think about what it means to be "German" are compelled to do so.

The most interesting idea in Lewis's piece is that unsophisticated German bankers were the cause of the credit meltdown. They didn't know how to assess risk, and so were happy to buy the credit default swaps Wall Street packaged--even ones Wall Street knew were "dogs." By this view, it wasn't Wall Street crooks, but Deutsche Dummkopfs who caused the meltdown.

(via Ace)

From the Europe Wobbing blog:

A Dutch journalist, Brenno de Winter, showed on TV how easy it is to cheat a new electronic payment system for public transport. The prosecutor took up the case -- in order to decide whether the journalist should be prosecuted for fraud.

Mary Hallebeek, press officer at the prosecutor's office in Utrecht describes the case as delicate:

"The journalist did this to show that the system doesn't function well, and he had been telling this in different publications before. We are aware of that he had a journalistic purpose, and the purpose of an act should be considered according to Dutch law," she tells this web site.

Ms Hallebeek says that the investigation was triggered by a notification to the prosecutors office by Trans Link Systems, the company designing the payment system, but adds that the prosecutor also was aware of the alleged fraud through the media.

Brenno de Winter says he didn’t see another way of proving claims of the weaknesses of the system, mainly as the company behind the system had refused to answer direct questions.

Several other journalists joined him in his research, and published their results. However police has questioned none of them and the public prosecutor’s office has indicated that no other reporters are in the scope of a possible prosecution.

"I'm a freelance journalist whereas the other journalists have regular employments. So to be singled out hits me harder than it would hit the national news," Brenno de Winter says.

The core of the case is a digital payment system for public transportation, a project mainly funded with public money, and with a price tag with a large number on it.

Brenno de Winter argues that the used technology is highly insecure and that several scientific studies have warned for the risks for using this card as a payment system.

But a decision to carry on was made on the promise that fraud easily would be detected, and fraudulent cards would be blocked after a maximum of 24 hours.

Early this year Brenno de Winter showed that people with a basic computer knowledge is capable of defrauding the system, using standard tools available on the Internet.
He also showed that this could be done without the system detecting the attempts, and that cards generally aren’t blocked.

And he proved that using a card that has been blocked is still possible without being discovered by the system.

"The central systems turned out to fail in all thinkable ways," Brenno de Winter claims.