No Oil for Pacifists

Compare & Contrast

2012-01-28T00:01:00.007-05:00

President Obama, in Tuesday's State of the Union Address:

[W]e will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits. . . Let’s never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that do the same. It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom. No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts.

President Obama, in Tuesday's State of the Union Address:

On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s number-one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.

We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And tonight, the American auto industry is back.

What’s happening in Detroit can happen in other industries.

It's like having two Presidents in one!

(via reader Warren)

Circular Reasoning of the Day

2012-01-27T00:01:00.003-05:00

One of the more controversial books inside the beltway is The Obamas, by Jodi Kantor. Even the White House has raised questions about the author's access to sources and the accuracy and knowledge of those sources. Is there a scandal?

Well, not if you believe the New York Times. The paper's January 9th review of the book dismissed the doubts in a single sentence:

In lesser hands "The Obamas" would be an act of astonishing overreach, but Ms. Kantor, who covered the Obamas for The New York Times during the 2008 presidential campaign, and is currently a Washington correspondent for the paper, has earned the voice of authority.

Huh? As Andrew Ferguson says in the Weekly Standard:

The reviewer didn’t go on to explain what exactly Jodi Kantor did to earn her authority, other than to work for the New York Times.

I can hear the skeptics already--should we really trust the word of the New York Times about the trustworthiness of the New York Times? Perhaps the skeptics get hung up on the circular reasoning, not realizing that it is this circularity that perpetuates the grand reputation of the Times and its many writers and reporters: Why can you trust the New York Times? Because it employs authoritative reporters like Jodi Kantor. How do we know Jodi Kantor is authoritative? Because otherwise she wouldn’t work for the New York Times.

The Times and its readers remain trapped in the late Pauline Kael's bizarrely naive "hermetic liberal provincialism." Good: that's how leftists lose elections.

QOTD

2012-01-26T00:01:00.003-05:00

From political observer extraordinaire Michael Barone:

There is a near-unanimous sentiment among the high-minded that negative advertising is a bad thing. It pollutes the air even more than carbon dioxide. It breeds cynicism about politics and government. It is somehow unfair.

In response, let me say a few words in praise of negative ads.

First, elections are an adversary business, zero-sum games in which only one candidate can win and all the others must lose. Sometimes it's smart for competitors to concede points to their opponents. But it's irrational to expect one side to sing consistent praises of the other.

In second-grade elections, it may be considered bragging to vote for yourself. But it is silly to expect adults to behave this way.

It is especially foolish to expect that candidates who seem headed to win elections should escape criticism on television. Every candidate has weak points and makes mistakes. It's not dirty pool for opponents to point them out.

Second, it is said that negative ads can be inaccurate and unfair. Well, yes -- but so can positive ads. An inaccurate or unfair ad invites refutation and rebuttal, by opponents or in the media, and can boomerang against the attacker. So candidates have an incentive to make attacks that can be sustained.

Sometimes voters respond negatively even to fair attacks. That's why in multicandidate races, an attack by candidate A on candidate B can hurt A as well as B, and end up helping candidate C or D.

That's why many campaigns hesitate before attacking. And it also gives them a motive to make attacks that can be sustained because they are accurate and fair.

Third, advertising is not always decisive. Other things can matter more. The barrage of negative ads against Gingrich hurt him in Iowa and New Hampshire, but in South Carolina (which has not yet voted as I write) it did not prevent him from overtaking first Santorum and drawing even with Romney in the polls. Debate performances trumped attack spots.

Behind the disdain of the high-minded for negative campaign spots is a fear that they will erode Americans' faith in politics and government. These folks like to cite polls showing Americans once had great confidence in institutions and that now they lack it.

But polls have been showing lack of faith in institutions going back to the late 1960s. The only time when pollsters found high levels of confidence was when the questions were first asked in the 1950s. That was during the two decades when American institutions -- big government, big business, big labor -- enjoyed enormous prestige after they led the nation to victory in World War II and presided over the unexpected growth and prosperity of the postwar era.

To those who decry the money spent on campaign advertising, I note that in the 2008 election cycle, Presidential candidates combined spent $711.5 million on "media" (broadly defined to include consultants and loans). For comparison, a single company -- Proctor & Gamble -- had an advertising budget of "approximately 8.68 billion dollar[s] in 2009." Negative or positive, American politicians don't over-spend on ads.

How to Strangle German Capitalism: Renewable Electricity

2012-01-25T00:01:00.015-05:00

UPDATE: below

Germany is the least damaged country in the Euro-zone. And although that status has lost much of its luster, Germany's continued growth and economic reform is necessary for preservation of the Euro (leaving aside whether saving the common currency is worth it).

A problem: Germans were more committed to un-competitive renewable energy than to competitiveness and prosperity. Most of the EU implemented solar power subsidies that upped electricity prices by over €60 billion or, in Germany, €130 per household annually. This was done via artificial "feed-in tariffs," that over-paid for wind and solar generation, stimulating economically inefficient power production that accounted for a fraction of Germany electric generation demand. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work, according to Der Spiegel:

The Baedeker travel guide is now available in an environmentally-friendly version. The 200-page book, entitled "Germany -- Discover Renewable Energy," lists the sights of the solar age: the solar café in Kirchzarten, the solar golf course in Bad Saulgau, the light tower in Solingen and the "Alster Sun" in Hamburg, possibly the largest solar boat in the world.

The only thing that's missing at the moment is sunshine. For weeks now, the 1.1 million solar power systems in Germany have generated almost no electricity. The days are short, the weather is bad and the sky is overcast.

As is so often the case in winter, all solar panels more or less stopped generating electricity at the same time. To avert power shortages, Germany currently has to import large amounts of electricity generated at nuclear power plants in France and the Czech Republic. To offset the temporary loss of solar power, grid operator Tennet resorted to an emergency backup plan, powering up an old oil-fired plant in the Austrian city of Graz.

Solar energy has gone from being the great white hope, to an impediment, to a reliable energy supply. Solar farm operators and homeowners with solar panels on their roofs collected more than €8 billion ($10.2 billion) in subsidies in 2011, but the electricity they generated made up only about 3 percent of the total power supply, and that at unpredictable times.

The distribution networks are not designed to allow tens of thousands of solar panel owners to switch at will between drawing electricity from the grid and feeding power into it. Because there are almost no storage options, the excess energy has to be destroyed at substantial cost. German consumers already complain about having to pay the second-highest electricity prices in Europe.

Having already wasted over €100 billion on solar subsidies, and with German wind power "in the doldrums," Germany's Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen recently decided to start scaling back the solar subsidy immediately, ending it in 2017 (automatic translation here). Share prices in solar companies promptly sunk like a stone.

An overdue correction. But though the operation could be a success, the German economy may die on the table. Already burdened by the country's likely decision to close its nuclear generation plants -- at a cost of €1.7 trillion ($2.15 trillion) by 2030 -- German industry may already have fled. According to the January 18th Südwest Presse (Ulm) (automatic translation here):

One fifth of every German industrial company has moved activities to foreign countries, or plans to do so, because of the uncertain energy and raw material supply. This is the outcome of a survey conducted by the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK), in which 1520 companies participated. DIHK-President Hans Heinrich Driftmann finds this alarming: He fears that Germany is losing its appeal for foreign investors in the wake of its energy supply transformation.

Not the euro crisis, but rising energy prices, are cited as by companies as their biggest problem: 86 percent fear it's getting worse for their business. More than half also identified worry about possible power outages or voltage fluctuations.

Conclusion: Planning for predicted increases in power demand isn't easy; India, for one, could fall well short (despite abundant coal), because of corruption and market inefficiencies. But Germany has has no such excuses:

Unfortunately, Germany’s green politicians here were too dim-witted to foresee the obvious consequences. Now reality has since caught up. The German electricity market is on the verge of collapse. The scale of the EEG Renewable Energy Feed-in Act is of unprecedented stupidity, a folly that will certainly go down in German history textbooks.

Let the record reflect that it took a concept as crazy as green energy to destroy German industrial capitalism--the engine of the country's post-war success. And if Germany falters, Greece, Italy, Spain, France, etc., are doomed.

MORE:

Et tu the United States?, wonders Robert Samuelson in Wednesday's Washington Post:

But we don’t view energy this way. We clamor for grander goals: becoming energy "independent" or stopping global warming. And these -- as the EIA report also shows -- are unreachable anytime soon, if ever. Barring vast new discoveries, we won’t produce enough oil to meet our needs. Indeed, the EIA’s assumption about biofuels, which roughly triple by 2035, could be too optimistic. If so, oil imports would exceed EIA projections. (In 2035, the EIA expects biofuels to account for 12 percent of liquid fuel use, up from 4 percent in 2010.)

The same is true of global warming. It’s hard to see how, under plausible assumptions, greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced substantially in the foreseeable future. The pressures of population and economic growth overwhelm improved energy efficiency or shifts to "green" energy. For example, renewable fuels (wind, solar, geothermal, biomass) are projected to more than double by 2035. Still, including hydropower, they account for only 16 percent of electricity generation in 2035. Coal and natural gas dominate.

We need to view matters as they are, not as we wish them.

(via Global Warming Policy Foundation)

Letterman Wears Glass Underwear

2012-01-24T00:01:00.005-05:00

This is a guest post by reader Morgan:

In a recent Top Ten List, late-night libertine David Letterman went beyond living in a glass house. He mocked Newt Gingrich over revelations in the candidate's ex-wife’s interview, including:

9. Their towels were monogrammed "His" and "Current Wife's"

7. He never leaves home without a set of blank divorce papers

3. Newt was once briefly married to Kris Humphries

1. He once had sex with a vending machine

Letterman even varied his list's normal format by airing a fictional animation of #1.

Once again, reader Morgan came up with a fitting top ten list about Letterman. [NOfP note: Fortunately, Morgan provided no video.]

Top Ten Revelations In The Interview With David Letterman’s Current Wife

10. Letterman never bothered to ask her about having an open marriage

9. His towels are labeled "His" and "Use this one, bitch"

8. Dave likes his wife to call him "my big gapped-tooth stud"

7. On his Montana ranch, she caught him in the barn with a goat dressed as a CBS page

6. On Tuesday sex nights, he likes her to dress in a dominatrix outfit and Jay Leno mask as Dave screams, "Beat me, Jay, beat me again and again and again you big-chinned devil"

5. To avoid a costly divorce, Dave agreed to have a police ankle bracelet strapped to his little Letterman

4. He’d love to marry Kris Humphries -- except he can’t stand tall people looking down on his bald spot

3. He has a tattoo of President Obama on his lower back.

2. The "pants" in Worldwide Pants doesn’t refer trousers but to breathing in short, quick breaths when Dave's sexually excited

1. When hard up, Dave has sex with a Mr. Coffee

QsOTD

2012-01-23T00:01:00.007-05:00

Peggy Noonan in Saturday's Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Obama this week blocked Keystone pipeline, a decision that means tens of thousands of jobs lost, new energy possibilities rejected. It is a decision so bad, so political, that it amounts to a scandal. But it just sort of eased through the news, blurrily. All the cameras were focused on the Republicans, who were distracted by their own dramas. They did not, together, in one voice, protest, as they should have. Keystone happened while they were busy looking like the Keystone Kops.

Program Notes

2012-01-22T00:01:00.002-05:00

Health issues are forcing me to slow blogging even more.

Not The Whole Truth

2012-01-21T00:01:00.005-05:00

The Boston Globe, which claims to be among the nation's largest newspapers, has been owned by the New York Times for almost two decades. Which was obvious from Monday's nutty Metro section story headlined "Couple found love at Occupy Boston." The article, by Martine Powers, focused on a "bond forged in crowd who shared fervent beliefs" between 25 year-old Robert Stitham and 18 year-old Anya Karasik. The piece included a picture of the two (Stitham shirtless) embracing as if it were Times Square on V-J day.

One problem--according to the Boston Herald, Robert "Red" Stitham, "is a Level 3 sex offender":

A quick Google search of his name turns up his sex offender notification -- complete with his photo -- on the website of the police department in Plymouth, where Stitham grew up. A search on the state Sex Offender Registry Board website shows Stitham now lives in a homeless shelter in Boston.

"The Board has determined that these individuals have a high risk to re-offend and that the degree of dangerousness posed to the public is such that a substantial public safety interest is served by active community notification," the registry site reads.

In 2007, a Barnstable County jury convicted Stitham of two counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14, and he was sentenced to 18 months with time served, court records state.

According to online state Appeals Court records, the victim testified that she was assaulted by Stitham and another man after the trio decided to go swimming at a beach after midnight on June 7, 2005. The victim testified that she did not consent to having sex with Stitham or the other man, according to court records. The state Appeals Court denied his appeal for a new trial in 2010.

Reached by phone yesterday, Stitham acknowledged he’s a Level 3 sex offender. He also said his girlfriend, Karasik, knows all about his criminal history.

The Globe added a note to the story Wednesday:

Editor’s note: A story in Monday’s paper about relationships that began during Occupy Boston featured a man, Robert Stitham, who is a registered sex offender. Had his status been discovered during reporting, the story would not have been published.

Translation: had Ms Powers known how to use Google, the story would not have been published.

The Boston subsidiary of the New York Times failed to live up to its motto and print the "whole truth." Why does anyone believe the media? Good thing the Internet led to Layne's Law.

(via reader Warren)

Unicorns Twist Science and Corrupt the Rule of Law

2012-01-20T00:01:00.012-05:00

Section 201 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), Pub.L. 110-140, signed by President Bush on December 19, 2007 (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 7545(o)), amended the Clean Air Act to require the EPA mandate that domestic transportation fuel contain a specified volume of renewable fuel, including "cellulosic biofuel." Cellulosic biofuel is made from cellulose, "the leaves, stems, and other fibrous parts of a plant." EISA originally set average annual cellulosic fuel targets of (Section 7545(o)(2)(B)(I)(iii)) 100 million gallons in 2010, 250 million 2011 and 500 million for 2012. A failure to meet the cellulosic standards in any year would oblige fuel providers to buy "waivers" from the EPA at "the higher of $0.25 per gallon or the amount by which $3.00 per gallon exceeds the average wholesale price of a gallon of gasoline," adjusted for inflation since 2008 (42 U.S.C. § 7545(o)(7)(D)).

Environmentalists were ecstatic about the mandate, certain that the volume of cellulosic biofuels available by 2010 would "far exceed the mandate." Whoops. It turned out that processing leaves to fuel wasted nearly half the cellulosic biomass, yielding only about 4 percent ethanol. The EISA law allowed the EPA to reduce the alternative fuel quotas. Recognizing reality, the EPA reduced the cellulosic fuel requirement for 2010 first to 12.95 million gallons then down to 6.5 million for 2010, and 6.6 million gallons in 2011.

Whoops twice: the EPA acknowledged that, through July 2011, exactly zero gallons of cellulosic biofuel were produced. 77 Fed. Reg. 1320, 1323 (Jan. 9, 2012). But that's not going to stop the EPA from forcing fuel producers to buy cellulosic fuel "waivers" (a euphemism for "paying fines"), according to the New York Times:

When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law.

But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist.

The $6.8 million figure is based on the waiver price EPA set last year: $1.13/gallon. (Obligated companies can carry over un-met quotas for one year, but not a second year, a problem since no cellulosic biofuel existed in 2010 either.)

Undeterred, the EPA perpetuated its "misguided optimism" by upping this year's cellulosic fuel additive quota to 8.65 million gallons. 77 Fed. Reg. at 1323. Yet, few believe this goal can be reached: one possible producer, Range Fuels, wasted $65 million in state and federal subsidies and closed its cellulosic fuels plant before being sold for pennies on the dollar. Another company, Poet, isn't scheduled to begin commercial cellulosic fuel production until 2013.

A third possible source is Mascoma, a company partly owned by General (i.e., Government) Motors--but Mascoma only completed construction financing on December 14th, courtesy of an $80 million Department of Energy grant. Given that timing and ownership, Mascoma is more likely to experience a Solyndra-style bankruptcy than produce a barrel of cellulosic fuel this year. Maybe they should switch to dilithium crystals.

So I'm betting on a third "whoops." Fortunately, the EPA is dropping the price of cellulosic fuel waivers (fines) to $0.78 for 2012.

Conclusion: This isn't just crony capitalism. It's not merely starry-eyed EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson joining Obama on the unicorn, rather than real, world, to the detriment of the economy. And it's beyond a parody of the President's promise to "restore science to its proper place."

Most importantly, punishing companies for failing to sell non-existent fuel also is a complete breakdown in the rule of law. Criminal laws with which citizens or companies cannot conform, however hard they try, are unconstitutionally vague. City of Chicago v. Morales, 527 U.S. 41 (1999). Calling a multi-million dollar administrative sanction a "waiver fee" can't change the result without turning law -- and law enforcement -- into a cruel joke.

I didn't think this was encouraged at Harvard Law.

(via reader Warren)

QOTD

2012-01-19T00:01:00.000-05:00

Brett Stephens calls the November election a "U.S. Referendum on Europe" in the January 3rd Wall Street Journal:

The conventional wisdom about this year's presidential election is that it's mostly about domestic issues and barely about foreign policy. That's wrong. What kick[ed] off . . . in Iowa is America's referendum on whether it wants to become an honorary member of the European Union.

GOP-leaning voters generally get this: Warning against the "European social democrat" model is one of Mitt Romney's better talking points. The problem for Mr. Romney is that he represents something of another European specialty: the dispassionate technocrat, data-driven, post-ideological, lacking in soul. GOP-leaning voters get that, too.

Many on the left also understand American politics as a referendum on Europe, and it wasn't all that long ago that they were more-or-less prepared to say it. For example:
"Europe is an economic success, and that success shows that social democracy works." -- Paul Krugman, Jan. 10, 2010

"The European Dream, with its emphasis on collective responsibility and global consciousness. . . . represents humanity's best aspirations for a better tomorrow." -- Jeremy Rifkin, "The European Dream," 2004

"If we took Europe as a guide, we would do a lot better at capitalism." -- Thomas Geoghegan, "Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?" 2010
These views have now become a bit embarrassing, intellectually speaking. But it hasn't done much to change the basic terms of the debate President Obama will have with whoever emerges as his challenger.

The contours of that debate are familiar enough. Should government be an engine of employment growth? Does government investment in favored industries or technologies make economic sense? May government compel individual economic choices in the name of a social good? Should the rich pay an ever-rising share of the total tax burden? Are higher taxes the best way to close a budget deficit? Is financial regulation generally effective? Are labor unions good for overall employment? Is inclusiveness the best test of fairness? Must environmental concerns (or phobias) take precedence over economic interests? Is consensus-seeking the ideal mode for international conduct?

To all these questions, Mr. Obama's record answers yes: the Solyndra and Fisker subsidies; the Keystone XL pipeline postponement/ cancellation; Dodd-Frank; the SEIU's Andy Stern as the top White House visitor; the growing government work force; the individual mandate; the nonstop rhetorical assaults on Wall Street; federal debt moving north of 100% of GDP; the "balanced approach" to deficit reduction; the perpetual deference to the United Nations.

That's the Obama presidency in a nutshell. It's also how Europe, mutatis mutandis, became what it is today.

Doubly Wrong

2012-01-18T12:00:00.003-05:00

UPDATE: below

Yesterday, I was wrong twice. First, I missed President Obama's tepid endorsement of domestic shale gas exploration (corrected the same day via an update).

Next, toward the end of the post, I noted I was "betting Obama finds a way to kick the can on Keystone once again." It's worse than that: According to Politico, the Administration formally will reject the Keystone XL pipeline permit application later today.

Score another for green zealots; zero for cost-effective energy, jobs, and economic recovery.

MORE:

The Presidential statement denying the Keystone pipeline permit is here.

Meow

2012-01-18T00:01:00.003-05:00

A male reporter would be lynched for this, but that doesn't make S.E. Cupp's December 15th NY Daily News column, "Newt Gingrich, natural woman," any less delicious:

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. No one in the modern era, save maybe Lorena Bobbitt, has proved the axiom more true than our gal pal Newton Leroy Gingrich, who is now -- let’s face it -- a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. . .

It all started when that no-good prom king Mitt Romney did Newt terribly wrong. Everybody knows you don’t double-cross the most popular girl in school, and Newt was just that, for a little while at least. Mitt should have known who he was up against. Newt didn’t get to where she was by being nice. She knows how to fight dirty -- she’s had years of practice.

So when Mitt unexpectedly stole Newt’s thunder, everyone in school could see the writing on the wall. Ms. Gingrich was going to lose it. And lose it she did.

There was the catty talk on the campaign trail about Romney’s posse, his Super PAC brat pack. There were the nasty rumors about Mitt’s past as a Bain Capital ne’er-do-well. And then, in New Hampshire, there was the debate mudslinging over Romney’s reputation. Washington outsider? "Pious baloney! In this high school -- GOP High -- them’s fighting words, and they marked the beginning of the end.

And now that the end is near for Ms. Gingrich, she is getting even more desperate. She’s always taken high school politics personally (remember the time she threatened to shut down the school because she didn’t get a seat at the cool lunch table?) So it’s no surprise to any of us that she’s taking this latest catfight to heart. . .

Well we all have those fantasies. Who among us hasn’t wanted to rip the throat out of some guy who betrayed us? But my message to Ms. Gingrich is simple: Snap out of it. Have some dignity, woman, and do what we all do in times like these.

You get yourself in a bubble bath. Inhale a tub of ice cream in the privacy of your own home while watching a "Toddlers and Tiaras" marathon. And when that tub of ice cream is done, you follow it up with a bag of potato chips and a bowl of Cap’n Crunch. Then cut up all his pictures and burn them in the fireplace. But whatever you do, this public psycho trip has got to stop.

(via reader Warren)

All Hail Shale

2012-01-17T00:01:00.010-05:00

UPDATE: I missed it, but on January 11th, even President Obama tentatively endorsed domestic shale gas exploration (subject to Lisa Jackson's assessment of environmental risks, sigh).

Remember all that fear-mongering about "peak oil"? The price mechanism of free markets always overstated such worries, as did the plentiful fossil fuels still untapped in North America.

Chief among those resources is shale gas. With shale, according to Luis Alberto Terrero, head of the Venezuelan Gas Processors Association (AVPG), "the global energy chessboard is changing, and markets will be realigned. Countries that have never had so much available energy will become self-sufficient, and perhaps even exporters."

Foremost among those former countries, of course, is the United States, whose net daily petroleum imports in 2011 were around 8,500 barrels per day. Within 25 years, shale gas could dramatically increase domestic energy supply (page 79), and both lower natural gas prices, and make the U.S. a net natural gas exporter (page 39).

Unless the green zealots freeze it. Environmentalists once supported natural gas as an alternative to "dirty" coal. But now they're hysterically opposed, citing fears of ground water contamination and earthquakes. According to the publication New Scientist, both worries are over-stated.

In fact, greenies' actual rationale for agitation is that -- without Obama's failed cap-and-trade to drive up energy prices -- shale gas production will make renewables even more uncompetitive. That explains why Obama and the enviros also oppose building Keystone XL to pipe Canadian shale gas to the U.S.. But, as even those concerned about greenhouse gas emissions admit, domestic shale gas production has a higher upside: According to a new IHS Global Insight study, domestic shale gas production could add 270,000 jobs and contribute almost $120 billion to GDP by 2015. This is especially important in light of the historic correlation between high oil prices and high unemployment.

The year in energy could hardly have begun better, with the elimination of the corn ethanol subsidy. But with a decision on the Keystone pipeline tied to the extension of the payroll tax holiday, Obama must rule on the necessary permit by February 21st. Pipeline opponents have started claiming House Speaker John Boehner has a financial conflict of interest, given his investments in Canadian oil sand firms; Boehner says his financial decisions are made by an independent adviser, over which he has no control. In any event, granting the cross-border permit is the President's and (State Department's) decision, so it's not clear how Boehner's investments (even if unethical) would be relevant. Anyway, I'm betting Obama finds a way to kick the can on Keystone once again.

But the most important issue is a Federal commitment to expanding approvals for shale gas exploration and extraction. Especially given how EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is trying to kill the energy sector, I'm afraid that will require a Republican President.

(via Global Warming Policy Foundation)

Program Notes

2012-01-15T00:01:00.001-05:00

Two-day break--back on Tuesday.

QOTD

2012-01-14T00:01:00.000-05:00

Right Wing News's John Hawkins:

Basically the Occupy movement's complaint is that they can't live a CEO's lifestyle on a philosophy degree & a 20 hour work week.

Your Politically Correct Government at Work

2012-01-13T00:01:00.001-05:00

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is the agency "responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person's race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information." The EEOC enforces the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), which forbids employers to "discriminate against a qualified individual on the basis of disability in regard to job application procedures, the hiring, advancement, or discharge of employees, employee compensation, job training, and other terms, conditions, and privileges of employment." 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a). Unlike courts and many other agency, the EEOC issues informal "guidance" letters in response to public inquiries.

Last November, the EEOC responded to the State of Tennessee's question about whether requiring employees have a high school diploma might violate the ADA. According to staff of the EEOC Office of Legal Counsel, the answer is "yes":

[S]ome individuals cannot obtain a high school diploma, and therefore cannot obtain jobs requiring a high school diploma, because their learning disabilities caused them to perform inadequately on the end-of-course assessment.

Under the ADA, a qualification standard, test, or other selection criterion, such as a high school diploma requirement, that screens out an individual or a class of individuals on the basis of a disability must be job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity. A qualification standard is job related and consistent with business necessity if it accurately measures the ability to perform the job’s essential functions (i.e. its fundamental duties). . .

Even if the diploma requirement is job related and consistent with business necessity, the employer may still have to determine whether a particular applicant whose learning disability prevents him from meeting it can perform the essential functions of the job, with or without a reasonable accommodation. It may do so, for example, by considering relevant work history and/or by allowing the applicant to demonstrate an ability to do the job’s essential functions during the application process. If the individual can perform the job’s essential functions, with or without a reasonable accommodation, despite the inability to meet the standard, the employer may not use the high school diploma requirement to exclude the applicant.

As the American Spectator's Ross Kaminsky observes:

The confused thinking from EEOC seems to overlook the fact that an inability to graduate from high school probably represents something important about a person and that, from an employer's point of view, the reason someone didn't graduate usually is not and need not be important. Even if it were of modest importance, making a hiring process more complicated is an unjustifiable expense for most companies. . .

For employers, they may fear being forced to hire a stupid or incompetent employee because that person claims his inability to graduate was due to a disability. Perhaps the EEOC thinks we all live at Lake Wobegon, where all children are above average.

Educationally, it diminishes the incentive for marginal students to finish school, something which would not only be good for their brains but is also important to show troubled or only modestly intelligent kids that persistence is a valuable trait and strategy for life.

And just as there is a cottage industry of doctors who will sign a medical marijuana prescription for any reason at all as long as the "patient" has cash, we will see a cottage industry of psychologists, therapists, and psychiatrists who will certify a slacker or a moron (sorry, EEOC, those people really exist) as disabled so that he can be forced down the throat of an unwilling employer.

The predictable effect: corporate counsel already are advising companies to re-evaluate whether a high-school diploma requirement can be legally justified before replacing vacant positions or publicizing opportunities for new employment openings.

Just what we need: more uncertainty prompting additional disincentives to create the "jobs, jobs, jobs" this Administration elsewhere seeks. I can't wait to see how President Obama blames this on the "do-nothing Republican Congress."

Legislation of the Day

2012-01-12T12:00:00.006-05:00

Beginning January 1, purchasing Drano in Illinois requires a photo ID:

According to the new law, any person seeking to buy a product regulated by the Federal Caustic Poison Act and identified on its package as "causes severe burns" must:
Display a government issued photo ID with the person's birth date.

Sign a log documenting their name and address, date and time of the transaction and the product's brand, name and weight.
According to the Illinois Food Retailers Association, among the products included are Drano Crystals, SnoBol Liquid Bowl Cleaner, The Works Drain Opener, KaBoom Bowl Blaster Toilet Cleaner and Vam-Sol High Acid Bowl Cleanse. Batteries are exempt from the law.

The Act was passed in response to some recent attacks in which Chicago-area women were burned with caustic drain cleaners.

Yet, although Illinois protects its citizens by mandating government-issued photo identification to buy Drano, it has no similar law to protect its electorate from voter fraud. Indeed, in 2008, Illinois rejected voter ID legislation, on a party-line tally.

Meanwhile, on December 23rd, Eric Holder's Justice Department blocked South Carolina's voter ID law, saying the state hadn't proved the requirement wouldn't discriminate against racial minorities attempting to exercise their electoral franchise (though the photo IDs were free). This from the same DoJ Civil Rights Division that retained a staffer who apparently leaked confidential internal memos to the press, then allegedly perjured herself to cover up.

Four years ago, the United States Supreme Court upheld the Constitutionality of Indiana's voter ID law as a legitimate check against ballot fraud that imposed minimal burdens on eligible voters. Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181 (2008). That decision was denounced as detrimental to those who are "poor, elderly, belong to racial minorities, or have disabilities." Yet somehow, it's not racist to demand a picture ID to clean your drain--though (except perhaps in Boston) no ID is necessary when purchasing a kitchen knife that also could be used to stab. And, what are Illinois police going to do with the mass of new "Drano reports"?

The nanny state is both absurd and internally inconsistent, as Steven Birn says:

I’m left wondering how blacks in south side Chicago will ever be able to clean their drains since obviously they’re incapable of obtaining one of these racist picture ID’s.

A photo ID is required in most states to purchase tobacco or alcohol. If it’s racist and burdensome for the poor to obtain picture ID’s, one wonders how black, other minorities or the poor obtain beer and cigarettes. Especially so considering how the left always likes to point out how the poor disproportionately purchase tobacco products. How do these people come up with a picture ID, what with all the red tape and burden placed on them, so they can buy cigarettes. Yet the poor somehow manage. Amazingly even blacks and other minorities manage to come up with a real, legal photo ID.

The whole notion that minorities and the poor are incapable of coming up with a photo ID is insulting to the intelligence of such people. It also flies in the face of reason. . .

With all of the other products and services that require a photo ID out there, it’s a wonder how only the requirement for voting is called racist. The reason is clear: The left wants to work minorities and the poor into a frenzy so they’ll vote Democrat. If Obama loses, then the left wants to taint the election and call into the question the results based on phony, non-existent racism. Reasonable people won’t buy this nonsense, unfortunately the far left has never been reasonable.

Yup. It's fine to force the hypothetical poor old Illinois woman without a driver’s license to pay an expensive plumber rather than unclogging a drain herself, but racist to require her to show ID to vote. Could it be that progressives want to help the poor only on election day?

(via reader Warren)

QOTD

2012-01-12T00:01:00.003-05:00

Sean Trende assessing the Republican primaries in the January 7th Real Clear Politics:

[T]o paraphrase Jay Cost (and the great Stealers Wheel), Romney was left in 2012 with no one to the left of him and jokers to the right. The GOP appears to be stuck in the middle with him.

(via reader Doug J.)

Chart of the Day

2012-01-11T00:01:00.007-05:00

UPDATE: below

From K. Kraemer, G. Linden and J. Dedrick, "Capturing Value in Global Networks: Apple’s iPad and iPhone" (July 2011):

source: iPad/iPhone study at 5

The study explains (at 6; footnote omitted):

[T]he main financial benefit to China takes the form of wages paid for the assembly of the product or for manufacturing of some of the inputs. Many components, such as batteries and touchscreens, receive their final processing in China in factories owned by foreign firms. Although hard facts are scarce, we estimate that only $10 or less in direct labor wages that go into an iPhone or iPad is paid to China workers. So while each unit sold in the U.S. adds from $229 to $275 to the U.S.-China trade deficit (the estimated factory costs of an iPhone or iPad), the portion retained in China's economy is a tiny fraction of that amount.

The authors conclude (at 7-8; footnotes omitted):

This study also confirms our earlier finding that trade statistics can mislead as much as inform. . . Statistical agencies are developing tools to gain a more accurate breakdown of the origins of traded goods by value added, which will be attributed based on the location of processing, not on the location of ownership. This will eventually provide a clearer picture of who our trading partners really are, but, while this lengthy process unfolds, countries will still be arguing based on misleading data.

Finally, our study also shows that "manufacturing" is not necessarily the path back to "good jobs". The need for the U.S. to rebuild its manufacturing base has gotten greater attention lately from both pundits and policymakers, including a newly launched "Advanced Manufacturing Partnership".

Those who decry the decline of U.S. manufacturing too often point at the offshoring of assembly for electronics goods like the iPhone. Our analysis here and elsewhere makes clear that there is simply little value in electronics assembly. The gradual concentration of electronics manufacturing in Asia over the past 30 years cannot be reversed in the short- to medium-term without undermining the relatively free flow of goods, capital, and people that provides the basis for the global economy.

Told you so.

MORE:

From a Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco report titled "The U.S. Content of 'Made in China'":

Figure 2 shows the share of U.S. PCE [personal consumption expenditures] based on where goods were produced, taking into account intermediate goods production, and the domestic and foreign content of imports. Of the 2.7% of U.S. consumer purchases going to goods labeled "Made in China," only 1.2% actually represents China-produced content. If we take into account imported intermediate goods, about 13.9% of U.S. consumer spending is attributable to imports, including 1.9% imported from China.

source: FRBSF report at 4

(via Carpe Diem)

Backdoor Amnesty

2012-01-10T00:01:00.002-05:00

In what's become the norm, the Obama Administration released a controversial proposal on Friday, hoping to bury the news on slow-news-Saturday. Specifically, the Department of Homeland Security's Citizenship and Immigration Services proposed to allow illegal immigrants who are spouses or parents of citizens to get, in effect, an automatic waiver to remain in the United States while seeking citizenship. Current law requires such illegal aliens to return to their home country and seek immigrant visas and waivers of prior unlawful entry at the American Embassy there. 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9)(B)(i)(I) & (II). The "Notice of Intent" to change the current policy was published in Monday's Federal Register.

Naturally, the lapdog Mainstream Media spun it as another triumph for the Obamessiah. The story in Saturday's Washington Post was headlined "Obama to ease route to legal immigration by keeping families together" (changed for the online edition to "Obama eases route to legal immigration"). Both versions highlighted the compassion shown by "significantly shorten[ing] the time that illegal immigrants would have to spend away from their U.S. citizen spouses or parents."

Nonsense. "Chained immigration" is bad enough, but the new policy will encourage aliens whose close relatives are citizens to jump the border and stay illegally -- under a waiver -- while undertaking the lengthy process of gaining citizenship. It also incentivizes "marriage fraud", which not only increases illegal immigration but potentially ups the risk of violence: marriage fraud was linked to two murders in the District of Columbia alone last year.

I support legal immigration. I'd even favor increasing current quotas. But illegal immigration is, well, illegal. The Administration's new approach winks at the law, implicitly opening the floodgates.

No wonder the Justice Department is blocking tighter state immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere. Obama's incrementally implementing illegal immigration amnesty by stealth and without the consent of Congress.

(via reader Warren)

QOTD

2012-01-09T12:00:00.003-05:00

Mark Steyn in the National Review:

The Left’s much-vaunted powers of empathy routinely fail when confronted by those who do not agree with them politically. Rick Santorum’s conservatism is not particularly to my taste (alas, for us genuine right-wing crazies, it’s that kind of year), and I can well see why fair-minded people would have differences with him on a host of issues from spending to homosexuality. But you could have said the same thing four years ago about Sarah Palin -- and instead the Left, especially the so-called feminist Left, found it easier to mock her gleefully for the soi-disant retard kid and her fecundity in general. The usual rap against the Right is that they’re hypocrites -- they vote for the Defense of Marriage Act, and next thing you know they’re playing footsie across the stall divider with an undercover cop at the airport men’s room. But Rick Santorum lives his values, and that seems to bother the Left even more.

(via reader Warren)

Obamacare In the Real World

2012-01-09T00:01:00.001-05:00

Andrew Puzder, CEO of CKE Restaurants in a Bloomberg op-ed called "Job Creation Is Price for New U.S. Health Law":

Our company, CKE Restaurants Inc., employs about 21,000 people (our franchisees employ 49,000 more) in Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurants. For months, we have been working with Mercer Health & Benefits LLC, our health-care consultant, to identify Obamacare’s potential financial impact on CKE. Mercer estimated that when the law is fully implemented our health-care costs will increase about $18 million a year. That would put our total health-care costs at $29.8 million, a 150 percent increase from the roughly $12 million we spent last year.

The money to cover our increased expenses will have to come from somewhere. We are a profitable company and, after paying our obligations, we reinvest our earnings in the business. Reinvesting in the business is how we grow, create jobs and opportunity. This is true for most U.S. businesses.

To offset higher health-care expenses, we will have to cut spending on new restaurant construction, one of our largest discretionary spending areas. But building new restaurants is how we create jobs. An $18 million increase in our costs would more than consume the $8.8 million we spent on new restaurant construction last year, leaving nothing for growth. We will also need to reduce our general capital spending, which also creates jobs and allows us to improve our infrastructure and maintain our business. In summary, our ability to create new jobs could vanish.

To reduce the financial impact of Obamacare, many businesses, including ours, will have to consider increasing the number of part-time employees (those who work less than 30 hours a week as defined under the health-care law) and reducing the number of full-time employees. So, some individuals seeking full-time work will need to find two jobs.

Automation will also become more appealing. For example, although we value the personal touch, electronic ordering kiosks will become more economically desirable. Nationwide, 63 percent of our employees are minorities and 62 percent are female. Unfortunately, these cuts will affect them the most.

The complexity of this legislation makes it hard to anticipate costs in the future. Our investments pay off -- when they are successful -- over the long term. Because we don’t know what our health-care expenses will be in two or three years, we are unable to determine with any certainty how much our investments will have to return for us to be profitable. All of that counsels in favor of holding off on new investments and saving our funds. We want to grow. But we are unable to do so knowing that large and undetermined liabilities will absorb funds we otherwise would invest for expansion.

(via Carpe Diem)

Program Notes

2012-01-08T00:01:00.002-05:00

No improvement in health; expect light blogging this week.

Chart of the Day

2012-01-07T00:01:00.000-05:00

Celebrating the 33rd anniversary of satellite measurements of global average lower tropospheric temperature, Dr. Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama at Huntsville published a chart of the entire data set:

source: Roy Spencer, Ph.D

Over at Reason magazine, Ron Bailey reprints the UAH team's notes on the data:

The end of November 2011 completes 33 years of satellite-based global temperature data, according to John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. Globally averaged, Earth’s atmosphere has warmed about 0.45 Celsius (about 0.82° F) during the almost one-third of a century that sensors aboard NOAA and NASA satellites have measured the temperature of oxygen molecules in the air.

This is at the lower end of computer model projections of how much the atmosphere should have warmed due to the effects of extra greenhouse gases since the first Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) went into service in Earth orbit in late November 1978, according to satellite data processed and archived at UAHuntsville’s ESSC.

"While 0.45 degrees C of warming is noticeable in climate terms, it isn’t obvious that it represents an impending disaster," said Christy. "The climate models produce some aspects of the weather reasonably well, but they have yet to demonstrate an ability to confidently predict climate change in upper air temperatures."

The atmosphere has warmed over most of the Earth’s surface during the satellite era. Only portions of the Antarctic, two areas off the southwestern coast of South America, and a small region south of Hawaii have cooled. On average, the South Pole region has cooled by about 0.05 C per decade, or 0.16 C (0.30° F) in 33 years. The globe’s fastest cooling region is in the central Antarctic south of MacKenzie Bay and the Amery Ice Shelf. Temperatures in that region have cooled by an annual average of about 2.36 C (4.25° F).

The warming trend generally increases as you go north. The Southern Hemisphere warmed 0.26 C (0.46° F) in 33 years while the Northern Hemisphere (including the continental U.S.) warmed by an average of 0.65 C (1.17° F).

The greatest warming has been in the Arctic. Temperatures in the atmosphere above the Arctic Ocean warmed by an average of 1.75 C (3.15° F) in 33 years. The fastest warming spot is in the Davis Strait, between the easternmost point on Baffin Island and Greenland. Temperatures there have warmed 2.89 C (about 5.2° F).

While Earth’s climate has warmed in the last 33 years, the climb has been irregular. There was little or no warming for the first 19 years of satellite data. Clear net warming did not occur until the El Niño Pacific Ocean "warming event of the century" in late 1997. Since that upward jump, there has been little or no additional warming.

"Part of the upward trend is due to low temperatures early in the satellite record caused by a pair of major volcanic eruptions," Christy said. "Because those eruptions pull temperatures down in the first part of the record, they tilt the trend upward later in the record."

Christy and other UAHuntsville scientists have calculated the cooling effect caused by the eruptions of Mexico’s El Chichon volcano in 1982 and the Mt. Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines in 1991. When that cooling is subtracted, the long-term warming effect is reduced to 0.09 C (0.16° F) per decade, well below computer model estimates of how much global warming should have occurred.

Agreed, though see the later back-and-forth between the WaPo's Andrew Freedman and John Christy's and Roy Spencer's reply.

California High Speed Fail

2012-01-06T00:01:00.081-05:00

On the 3rd of January, the California High Speed Rail (HSR) Peer Review Group issued a report that essentially kills HSR in California. In 2008, Californians authorized $9B bonds for HSR. However, the measure requires that the Peer Review Group sign off on the feasibility and reasonableness of the plan to build the rail system before the state issues the bonds. Thus it appears the report will/should effectively kill the project, which is probably a good thing.

The primary criticism the Peer Review report has to offer is that the California HSR plan isn't financially feasible, that private sector involvement should be accelerated, that demand forecasts have not been subject to external and public review, and that they "cannot at this time recommend that the Legislature approve the appropriation of bond proceeds for the project."

This carefully footnoted Peer Review report says basically the same thing that Dr. Vranich (Big HSR Advocate and best-selling author of Supertrains) told the State of California in 2008. Its worth it to watch his video here. At that time Dr. Vranich said:

Vranich skewered every aspect of the HSRA’s proposal. He insisted that passenger estimates were wildly inflated—64 percent higher than those developed by the Federal Railroad Administration and by independent studies from the University of California at Berkeley’s Transportation Center, as well as a thorough report by the Reason Foundation...“High speed rail in California may be salvageable after all of this poor work, but someone else must be in charge,” Vranich said. “If the authority is unable to conduct studies that have credibility, how will they ever effectively deliver a mega construction project on time and within budget?” His argument tracks closely with a May 2011 report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office, which also suggests that the High-Speed Rail Authority be dismantled.

If the legislature fails to issue the next $3B in bonds, the California High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) just may close, and all the directors will lose their cushy jobs. Roelof-Van-Ark the Chief Executive Officer makes $375,000. So, in their defense, the California HSRA stated that following the recommendations of the peer review means California loses matching funds from the Feds, and that it is a "narrow, inaccurate and superficial assessment of the HSR program, it does a disservice to policy-makers who must confront these decisions." (Emphasis in original.) Basically they said they stand by their numbers, reject the findings of the Peer Review, and that it isn't important to have funding sources for the $75 Billion that isn't funded.

I read the business plan, and I agree with the peer review findings. You can read them both and make your own assessment as well. I'll provide some of my findings here.

NOfP has covered the High Speed Rail (HSR) issue for the last several years. HSR is a favorite project for politicians, and especially President Obama. Not only does HSR and other public rail transport projects shift jobs from the public transportation sector to the government, and creating massive government bureaucracies in the process, it allows government to also redistribute wealth from taxpayers to HSR contractors, and to provide subsidies to the middle class and wealthy that ride the trains. In short, HSR and other public transport put more power in the hands of the government, and provide less freedom of choice for the citizen. High Speed Rail is High Speed Fail:

Though a centerpiece of President Obama's recent stimulus plans, even the WaPo editors label high-speed rail "a lost cause."

Most proposed new passenger rail systems would require massive subsidies. Florida turned back Federal funding for fears of the necessary state spending. Wisconsin rejected high-speed rail funding, asking instead for reduced Federal monies to improve existing train service. California's high-speed rail -- mandated by a 2008 state ballot measure -- will bankrupt the state.

Most recently, Carl wrote that President Obama’s administration is providing $3B to fund California’s High Speed Rail initiative, even though CA is building the first section of rail not in an urban or even suburban area, but in the middle of the richest farmland in America -- where nobody actually lives. This, despite the anticipated program cost tripling in the last three years. As the LATimes puts it: "The bullet trains from Anaheim and Los Angeles to San Francisco will not cost $34 billion as originally estimated... but closer to $100 billion. Critics say the agency's new $98.5-billion estimate is low, and the authority admits it might go as high as $117.6 billion."

In 2008, California voted authority to borrow up to $9 Billion to cover part of the capitalization costs of a high speed rail to connect San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Francisco. This initiative was sold to the voters through unsupported claims of costs and ridership made by the the California High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA).

Ridership: At that time, the California HSRA predicted the system would have ridership in 2030 of 117M passenger trips. The 117M riders of a California rail system was absurd (and the HSRA knew it). The current annual ridership of the nations intercity rail system -- Amtrak -- is only 28.7M per year, nationwide, and Interstate 5, which stretches from Tijuana to Canada (including San Diego to LA through Sacramento and to Oregon and the main connector between LA and SF) has an annual passenger count of only 26M. So, does any reasonable person think rail travel between those cities is going to suddenly be a multiple of existing rail or road travel? Let me add that the current Los Angeles to San Francisco air traffic is only 2.7M passengers per year.

Capital Construction Cost: This year, the California HRSA changed its plan, creating Phase 1 to serve between LA and SFO, with service to Sacramento and San Diego and extend the lines by 1/3rd would be added later. This smaller system, they admitted, would cost a lot more than the full system, at least $100B, which is more than triple what they forecast only three years ago for a much larger system.

The thing about both ridership and capital construction estimates is they are almost always wrong. In the most comprehensive study of large scale transportation projects, a strategic misrepresentation bias underestimates costs by 50-100%, and overestimates ridership (and thus revenue) by 50-100%. The report states:

[F]orecasters and planners deliberately and strategically overestimate beneﬁts and underestimate costs in order to increase the likelihood that it is their projects, and not the competition’s, that gain approval and funding. Strategic misrepresentation can be traced to political and organizational pressures, for instance competition for scarce funds or jockeying for position, and to lack of incentive alignment.

(Hmmm... do you think that $375,000 salary paid the California High Speed Rail Authority CEO is an incentive alignment or misalignment?)

So the costs are probably higher than $100B, and the revenue will not be enough to cover operating expenses. Set that aside for a moment. Recognize this: For $100B we could fully subsidize air travel between Los Angeles and the Bay Area for the next 300 years. A ticket from LAX to SFO costs about $100. So, for 100 billion dollars, you could buy one billion Air Fare tickets. At 2.7M passengers a year, that $100B would last over 350 years. Even at 10M passengers a year, it would last 100 years.

How about this -- rather than spend $100B on rail service, lets just spend $27B on subsidized air service for everyone for the next 100 years, and invest the other $63B in bonds. Preferably something conservative and profitable, like railroad freight bonds. Then we’d still have our $63B plus interest in another hundred years.

By that time, another technology (like gravity trains) will probably replace road and rail and air travel. With transportation technology roughly doubling speed every generation (horse to rail to auto to propeller to jet...) who can say what technology will be available in 30 years? It does not make sense to me to invest for 100 billion dollars in an infrastructure that could be obsolete before it is built, with a California HSR Authority that has no credibility. It could be like another bridge to nowhere, but just in the middle of nowhere.

Compare & Contrast

2012-01-05T00:01:00.009-05:00

Los Angeles Times, December 16, 2011:

U.S. stands by California bullet train project despite critics

'We are not going to flinch' on support, an official says at a House committee meeting. The opposition alleges political corruption in the granting of federal funds for the Central Valley segment.
The Obama administration vowed Thursday at a House committee meeting in Washington that it would not back down from its support of California's bullet train project despite attacks from critics who alleged it is tainted by political corruption.

"We are not going to flinch on that support," said Joseph Szabo, chief of the Federal Railroad Administration.

Szabo said that his agency had committed itself to provide $3.3 billion for a construction start next year in the Central Valley and that federal law prohibits any change of mind about where to begin building the first segment of the state's high-speed rail system.

"The worst thing we could do is make obligations to folks and start to renege on our word," Szabo told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Szabo was grilled repeatedly about why the project was starting in the least populated region the route traverses, an area one East Coast politician asserted had "more cows and crops than people." Szabo said it was the state's application that determined where the money would be spent.

But that characterization of the decision-making process was sharply disputed by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), whose district would be served by the rail line. Nunes led a charge of Republican criticism of the effort and claims that it would create tens of thousands of jobs.

"It is clear that high-speed rail is not about jobs," Nunes said. "It is about corruption, public deception and bureaucratic experimentation."

Wall Street Journal, December 24, 2011:

China to Slash Railway Spending

Chinese authorities are cutting spending on railway construction for 2012, the latest signal the world's No. 2 economy is de-emphasizing one of its most expensive programs after a year of problems highlighted by a deadly high-speed collision.

Under the new plan, spending for 2012 construction will drop 42%, from more than 700 billion yuan ($110 billion) earmarked in 2010--an investment level that initially had been expected to be maintained for a number of years, until the death of 40 people in the July crash prompted a reassessment.

Now that the Obama Administration finally should be copying China, it's not (except in Detroit). As Walter Russell Mead says:

Those of us who remember the short lived but intense Sushi Lobby, the Americans who thought the US needed to imitate the brilliant success of Japanese state capitalism back in those halcyon days of the 1980s when the grounds of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo were estimated to cost more than the entire state of California, will be waiting to hear how the Panda pundits explain the high speed rail meltdown.

"Tom Friedman, please call your office."

(via reader Warren)

QOTD

2012-01-04T00:01:00.000-05:00

Iain Murray and James Bennett in the Wall Street Journal (alternative link here):

French President Nicolas Sarkozy helpfully summed up the results of this month's [December's] summit. He told Le Monde that there are now two Europes, one that "wants more solidarity between its members and regulation, the other attached solely to the logic of the single market." The Europe of regulation wants to press forward with deeper integration, stringent budget rules and a transition away from nation-state democracy.

The problem is that no one asked the peoples of Europe whether they wanted this. Nationalism is on the rise. Budget rules have been flagrantly ignored in the past, and the Franco-German plan does nothing to deal with the euro's structural problems, which make southern European countries grossly uncompetitive.

It is obvious to most outsiders that the euro zone's problems remain. The rating agencies have been unimpressed, and downgrades of most euro-zone members and their banks are now more likely than ever.

Agreed--twice.

Most Obnoxious Quotes of 2011

2012-01-03T00:01:00.003-05:00

John Hawkins of Right Wing News has assembled the 50 Most Obnoxious Quotes of 2011, including:

49) Storms Kill Over 250 Americans In States Represented By Climate Pollution Deniers -- ThinkProgress Headline

45) Do you think this Constitution-loving is getting out of hand? -- Joy Behar

42) The Republican Party is saying that the President of the United States has bosses, that the union bosses this President around, the unions boss him around. Does that sound to you like they are trying to consciously or subconsciously deliver the racist message that, of course, of course a black man can’t be the real boss? -- Lawrence O’Donnell

40) We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money. -- Energy Secretary Steven Chu on banning incandescent lightbulbs

24) What happened after 9/11 -- and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not -- was deeply shameful. [The] atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neo-cons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons . . .The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it. -- Paul Krugman

21) The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln. -- Barack Obama

Read the whole thing.

Dumbest Statements of 2011

2012-01-02T00:01:00.011-05:00

The Daily Caller's Jamie Weinstein lists 'um, in two parts. Number one deserves particular notoriety:

1) James R. Clapper Jr., a retired Air Force Lt. General, became Obama's Director of National Intelligence in mid 2010.

2) On February 10, 2011, Clapper testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

3) Clapper's written statement was unobjectionable. However, responding to concerns about Egypt from Representative Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), Clapper explained (video at link):

The term 'Muslim Brotherhood'. . .is an umbrella term for a variety of movements, in the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam.

4) According to Lorenzo Vidino writing in XII Middle East Quarterly, 25-34, at 25 & n.1 (Winter 2005), the motto of the Muslim Brotherhood is:

Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.

5) A Council on Foreign Relations "Backgrounder" issued seven days before the hearing tagged the Brotherhood with "a history of violence."

6) The day after the hearing, Clapper's office tried to back away from his "secular" designation, which the New York Post's Peter Brookes headlined "Clapper's crass Bro'hood bungle."

7) Remind me again what Democrats were saying about failures in Bush's intelligence community?

Happy New Years!

2012-01-01T00:01:00.010-05:00

UPDATE: below

Enjoy! The fact that the corn ethanol subsidy just expired (after a mere 33 years) is a sign 2012 will be better than last year, I hope.

Except for Barack Obama; the WaPo's Jennifer Rubin calls 2011 the President's "annus horribilis." Still, our Chief Executive managed to golf at least 32 times last year; a full 90 trips to the links during his term. Which won't reverse lefty derision of George W. Bush as the golfing President.

MORE:

Editorial in the January 2nd Washington Post:

There may not have been a party in Times Square to celebrate, but two of the most wasteful subsidies ever to clutter the Internal Revenue Code went out with the old year. Congress declined to renew either the 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit for corn-based ethanol or the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol, so both expired Dec. 31.

Taxpayers will no longer have shell out roughly $6 billion per year for a program that badly distorted the global grain market, artificially raised the cost of agricultural land and did almost nothing to curb greenhouse gas emissions. A federal law requiring the use of 36 billion gallons of ethanol for fuel by 2022 still props up the industry, but the tax credit’s expiration is a victory for common sense just the same.

Meanwhile, a lesser-known but equally dubious energy tax break also expired when the year ended Saturday: the credit that gave electric-car owners up to $1,000 to defray the cost of installing a 220-volt charging device in their homes -- or up to $30,000 to install one in a commercial location. As a means of reducing carbon emissions, electric cars and plug-in hybrid electrics are no more cost-effective than ethanol. What’s more, only upper-income consumers can afford to buy an electric vehicle (EV); so the charger subsidy is a giveaway to the well-to-do.

The same goes for the $7,500 tax credit that the government offers purchasers of electric vehicles, a subsidy that, alas, did not expire at year’s end. The Obama administration says that the credit helps build a market for EVs, which helps create jobs. Given the price of eligible models, like the $100,000 Fisker Karma, that rationale sounds an awful lot like trickle-down economics.

Backers of the charger tax credit may lobby Congress to renew it when lawmakers tackle the payroll tax extension issue again in the new year. We hope that Congress says no. Not only is it a case study in upward income redistribution, it also would represent a deepening of the taxpayers’ commitment to what looks increasingly like an industry not ready for prime time.

Cartoon of the Year

2011-12-31T00:01:00.002-05:00

From David Hitch in December 8th Worcester Telegram and Gazette (Mass):

(via Don Surber via reader Warren)

Picture of the Year

2011-12-30T00:01:00.001-05:00

From a 2011 retrospective in the December 25th New York Times:

caption: Firefighters of Ladder Company 4, which lost seven men in the Sept. 11 attacks, perched together on their aerial ladder, watching a news bulletin in Times Square declaring that Osama bin Laden was dead.

Can America Be Mended?

2011-12-29T00:01:00.028-05:00

In comments last week, KitWistar wrote:

Several of the recent postings and comments have made me think: Is the US actually too large, too diverse--both within its peoples and beliefs--perhaps too litigious & antagonistic, perhaps even too petty, within itself to actually continue to have one leader who can be successful both here at home and within the global community?

Is it even possible for the US government, as we now know it, to responsibly deal with issues that truly benefit most of its people, most of the time? (I don’t believe our government currently really does and perhaps hasn’t in quite a while. . .) Can the US successfully remain one nation? Should it?

Yet, whenever I read the Constitution I am in awe, that any nation could be built on such an extraordinary & beautifully written document, and then I feel a bit of a traitor for asking such questions.

Some background for all of you out in NOfP-land: I am not a politician, I’m not a lawyer, economist or educator. I do not call myself a liberal OR a conservative. I am liberal on some issues, conservative on others. Some current issues, I believe, do not even belong in politics at all. What I DO do, is think (one of the reasons I like NOfP so much. Thank you, Carl.)

I have become reluctant, particularly here in DC, to openly discuss my political views, which may make it appear that I don’t have any.

There are several points in Kit's cris de coeur, and I doubt I can respond adequately to all, but here goes:

1) America is large and diverse, both in its people and beliefs--and thankfully so. But size isn't the problem--America's founding fathers (and certain of today's paleoconservatives) worried excessively that the democracy of Athens or Rome was only reproducible in small city-states. That's one reason why they emphasized state sovereignty--and in any event, mass communications appears to have changed that equation. Nor is it immigration, which "historically has fueled American strength and growth." Illegal immigration, of course, is a different issue altogether.

2) America certainly has become too litigious--reform of tort law (though not its elimination) is long overdue, and would cut healthcare spending by about 10 percent. (Compare to Obamacare's intended "bending of the cost curve" from 9.9 percent to 12 percent of GDP--sounds like an increase to me!)

But I can't agree that we're more antagonistic today. I haven't heard recent news-flashes about Senators beaten unconscious within the chamber itself. Newspapers formerly were propaganda house-organs for political parties (now, having switched to Democrat mouthpieces, at least one knows what not to believe). And talk of unheard of incivility forgets the comparatively recent riots during the Vietnam war and the near-endless and unnerving Watergate crisis.

3) With the fall of the Soviet Empire, the global community has changed. And, perhaps more importantly, America's policy changed in response, when President Bush in 2005 rejected "the false stability of dictatorship and stagnation [that] can only lead to deeper resentment in a troubled region, and further tragedy in free nations." In other words, no more propping up dictators merely because they were our dictators.

The disappearance of a bi-polar world and the increased emphasis in U.S. foreign policy on the spread of democracy can be deeply unsettling. For example, if the promise of the "Arab Spring" turns into a bleak mid-Winter. But I'm not ready to give up on authentic efforts of people to topple despots. And that's in part because of what the absence of genuine democracy has done to Europe--cooked its goose. Which neatly transitions to the next issue.

4) Although I don't think our government is irretrievably broken, it's hard to dispute that the economic status quo has reached its sell-by date. I warned before the election that we were heading toward a real-world test of the Meltzer-Richard hypothesis "when the voter in the exact middle of the earnings spectrum receives more in benefits from Washington than he pays in taxes." Well, we've arrived--in 2009, only 49 percent of filers had any Federal income tax liability. So, America soon must choose a path to "benefit most of its people."

In Monday's Washington Post, economics correspondent Robert Samuelson says "We're in denial":

[W]hile the economics of giveaway policies have changed, the politics haven’t. Liberals still want more spending, conservatives more tax cuts. (Although the tax burden has stayed steady, various "cuts" have offset projected increases and shifted the burden.) With a few exceptions, Democrats and Republicans haven’t embraced detailed takeaway policies to reconcile Americans’ appetite for government benefits with their distaste for taxes. President Obama has provided no leadership. Aside from Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), chairman of the House Budget Committee, few Republicans have.

No one wants to take away; it’s more fun to give. All of 2011’s budget feuds -- over the debt ceiling, the supercommittee, the payroll tax cut -- skirted the central issues. There’s a legitimate debate about how fast deficits should be reduced to avoid jeopardizing the economic recovery, notes Charles Blahous, a White House official in George W. Bush’s administration. But the long-term budget problem, as he says, stems from Social Security, Medicare and other health programs.

Any resolution of the budget impasse must repudiate, at least partially, the past half-century’s politics. Conservatives look at the required tax increases and say, "No way." Liberals look at the required benefit cuts and say, "No way."

Each reverts to scripted evasions. Liberals imply (wrongly) that taxing the rich will solve the long-term budget problem. It won’t. For example, the Forbes 400 richest Americans have a collective wealth of $1.5 trillion. If the government simply confiscated everything they own, and turned them into paupers, it would barely cover the one-time 2011 deficit of $1.3 trillion. Conservatives deplore "spending" in the abstract, ignoring the popularity of much spending, especially Social Security and Medicare.

So the political system is failing. It’s stuck in the past. It can’t make desirable choices about the future. It can’t resolve deep conflicts.

An alternative theory is that we’re muddling our way to a messy consensus. All the studies and failed negotiations lay the groundwork for ultimate accommodation. Perhaps. But it’s just as likely that this year’s partisan scapegoating implies more partisan scapegoating.

I agree with most of this--entitlements are the core problem; Obama's ducked the issue; the commitment of Democrats to run a Mediscare platform "to scare grandma should not be underestimated."

But I also think that the fiscal crisis brings political opportunity. The next President -- whether Democrat or Republican -- must begin to tame the entitlement beast. That person must have the courage of Prime Minister Thatcher: she severed the link between state pensions and average private sector earnings. We must both decrease or eliminate cost of living hikes in Social Security benefits and means-test Social Security and Medicare. Ultimately, we must modernize all entitlement programs: Social Security privatized, and Medicare disciplined by market forces.

Oh, yeah, did I mention repealing Obamacare? That too--whether by Supreme Court decision or a Republican President and Congress or a triangulating second-term Obama.

BTW, history demonstrates that pro-growth policies and free trade are the most effective anti-poverty program, a fact that this Administration apparently never learned. Commerce and capitalism creates wealth; redistribution only impoverishes one to support another. (I'm going to skip the over-hyped and occasionably laughable claim of increasing income inequality--I've addressed it before, it's ever more controversial, and an update demands its own post.)

I do not pretend this will be an easy sell. Which neatly transitions to the next issue.

5) I share Kit's reverence for our Constitution. Its beauty lies in its brevity -- a scant 34 pages in 20-point type. But its especial brilliance is the Framers' assessment of human nature and the solution they devised:

Thus expert omniscience could not be trusted to check the excesses of popular passion, and public omniscience could not be trusted to check the excesses of expert arrogance. In the view of the framers, there is no omniscience; there is only imperfect humanity. We therefore need checks on all of our various excesses, and a system that forces us to think through important decisions as best we can. This may well be the essential insight of our constitutional system: Since there is no perfection in human affairs, any system of government has to account for the permanent imperfections of the people who are both governing and governed, and this is best achieved through constitutional forms that compel self-restraint and enable self-correction.

In other words, process is the answer; ideas not in the Constitutional text are neither enshrined or prohibited, but instead "are the provenance of politics, to be settled numerically":

the founding fathers didn't expect voter unanimity on controversial issues. Instead, they created a process to address disagreement--a relatively immutable Constitution, a Congress with limited Federal powers, separation of powers, a list of untouchable rights, and an expectation that state legislatures would reflect the will of their own citizens.

One of those relatively immutable rights is, of course, the 10th Amendment, designed as a limitation on Federal power

that devolve[s] decisionmaking to the lowest possible unit of government, such as states or municipalities. This tends to ensure that citizens have the maximum possible ability to monitor and participate in policy determinations, making law and regulation the responsibility of legislative and executive bodies most closely connected to those directly affected.

America's founders didn't presume they possessed all truth. So they created a process whereby each state and its citizens could ponder and pick the policy they preferred. Even if others disagree; no one state's policy is compulsory for any other. Even if misguided; a democracy is flexible, and can always change its mind.

That's a long-winded way of answering "yes": we can remain a single nation, within a Federalist system of representative democracy, with a leader and legislature in Washington and 50 leaders and legislatures in each state. Sooner or later, more voters and elected officials will awake to the dangers (e.g., public sector union abuses and pension burdens). That's assuming, of course, that we "Occupy the 10th Amendment."

Conclusion: Don't give up on this country. Unlike the Norwegian Blue, American Exceptionalism isn't dead--just resting. It's your call whether or not to share your opinion -- though I think polite objection wise.

However vocal you chose to be, don't retreat into despair. Selling doom is the sole capitalism progressives understand--and have cornered the market. American politics isn't broken, and don't count our people or potential out. Sooner rather than later, once again, it will be "Morning in America."

Chart of the Year

2011-12-28T00:01:00.007-05:00

Greece isn't Germany, and if the Wehrmacht couldn't turn Greeks into Germans, than Brussels bureaucrats are less likely to succeed. So, everything you need to know about why the Euro was a mistake, and the gravity of Europe's current sovereign debt crisis, is captured in this chart of the perils of lending to Eurozone countries as if they all were supervised by the Bundesbank:

source: Der Spiegel

The same chart also appeared in Atlantic magazine's "most important charts of the year" with this comment:

"Despite repeated European Summits over the past eighteen months that were supposed to provide definitive resolutions to the European debt crisis and despite enormous IMF-EU bailout packages, government borrowing costs for the European periphery rose to unsustainable levels. More disconcerting yet, by mid-2011, a crisis that had embroiled the smaller countries like Greece, Ireland and Portugal, started knocking on the door of Italy and Spain, which is now calling the very survival of the Euro into question" -- Desmond Lachman, AEI

See also MaxedOutMama.

By comparison, see this chart, from George Mason University's Anthony Sanders:

source: December 15th testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on TARP, Financial Services and Bailouts

(via the Tax Policy Center's Donald Marron via Ezra Klein's Wonkblog, ZeroHedge)

Justice Department Injustice

2011-12-27T00:01:00.005-05:00

On December 2, 2005, the Washington Post published a page one story headlined "Justice Staff Saw Texas Districting As Illegal". The kernel of the article was "a previously undisclosed memo" written by career staff members of the Voting Rights section of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division recommending disapproval of a Texas redistricting plan--but were overruled by more senior DOJ officials, including the principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General. In a follow-up the next month, the Post repeated claims by DOJ staffers that "Politics Alleged In Voting Cases," pointing fingers at Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the Bush Administration in general. About the same time, the WoPo wrote of complaints by current and former staffers that Bush Administration politics were ruining morale at the Voting Rights section.

Obviously, the Post had an inside source, particularly for the leaked memo, which "dominated the news for days." This NRO article by Edward Blum, Abigail Thernstrom and Roger Clegg explains:

The memo wasn't accurate. In fact, it was filled with erroneous assumptions and irrelevant statistics, it misrepresented the testimony of expert witnesses, and it omitted key data for the proper analysis of voting-rights law. The career bureaucrats who wrote it--one of whom now works for a left-leaning advocacy group--seemed to be intent on saving Texas Democratic incumbents any way they could. Thus they, rather than their Justice Department supervisors, were the ones brazen in their political motivation.

Abigail Thernstrom later wrote a book, Voting Rights--and Wrongs: The Elusive Quest for Racially Fair Elections, addressing these and other flaws.

But that's not what this post is about. Rather, it's about former DoJ attorney Hans von Spakovsky's stunning revelation last week of who leaked the memo, and the fact she's still a DoJ employee:

A career employee in the Voting Section of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has confessed to committing perjury, sources say. The employee, Stephanie Celandine Gyamfi, reportedly told investigators from the Inspector General’s Office that she perjured herself during an inquiry into Justice Department leaks during the previous administration. Despite the admission, she has not been fired for criminal malfeasance. Indeed, it appears she has not been disciplined in any meaningful way at all. . .

Ms. Gyamfi made no secret of her hatred of conservatives and Republicans when I worked in the Voting Section from 2001 to 2002. Later, when I moved to the Civil Rights Division’s front office, she had a difficult time hiding her contempt any time she was forced to meet with the political leadership. In revelations now known throughout the Voting Section, she apparently went beyond hatred and resorted to flagrantly violating Justice Department confidentiality requirements and ethical obligations. It is now common knowledge in the Section that she lied about her actions to Inspector General investigators and was caught in the lie with e-mail documentation. Ahh, it’s always the cover-up.

According to numerous sources within the Section, Ms. Gyamfi had been asked in two separate interviews whether she was involved in the leaking of confidential and privileged information out of the Voting Section. Each time, she flatly denied any knowledge as to who was responsible for the leaks. In a third interview, she was once again questioned about her role in the leaks. At first, she adamantly denied involvement. Then, however, she was confronted with e-mail documents rebutting her testimony.

At that point, she immediately broke down and confessed that she had lied to the investigators three separate times. Since IG interviewees are all required to take an oath to tell the truth upon penalty of perjury, and investigators record all interviews, an audio recording of these admissions must exist in the IG files. Mind you, Ms. Gyamfi did not say she misunderstood the questions. She did not claim to have forgotten something and later remembered it. Instead, she plainly admitted her deceit and ascribed her motive to attempting to protect the "other people" involved, i.e., the other career staff (mostly attorneys) who also violated their oaths of office and their professional obligations by publicizing confidential legal opinions and analyses.

After the admission, Ms. Gyamfi returned to the Voting Section distraught, crying and sobbing. She was consoled by another career employee to whom she confessed what had happened. This was witnessed and heard by other Voting Section staff, and the story of what occurred during the IG interview was soon known all over the Section.

Amazingly, despite Ms. Gyamfi’s admission of committing perjury not once, but three times, she so far has been neither terminated nor disciplined by the Justice Department. In fact, her boss, Voting Section Chief Chris Herren, continues to assign her to the most politically sensitive of matters, including the Department’s review of Texas’s congressional redistricting plan.

More disturbing, according to my sources, is that Ms. Gyamfi is now being treated as a hero by some of her Voting Section colleagues. Many of them are gratified at her efforts -- illegitimate or not -- to make the Bush administration look bad in its preclearance of Texas’s earlier redistricting submission.

If true, this is perjury, or obstruction of justice at a minimum. Which, given Attorney General Holder's "misleading" and "inaccurate" statements about Operation Fast & Furious -- why hasn't he resigned? -- probably will fly under the radar. Meanwhile, Ms. Gyamfi still draws a tax-funded paycheck.

So much for the rule of law. Somehow, I doubt Oliver Stone will be making a movie about this leak.

(via reader Warren)

Program Notes

2011-12-25T00:01:00.005-05:00

Merry Christmas! Hope you're listening to some of these.

For twenty years, a non-profit organization called Wreaths Across America has delivered wreaths to Arlington cemetery, where volunteers place them on rows of white tombstones. I previously covered the 2008 funeral of 1st Lt. Chester Jordan; here's his wreath-laid marker:

Taking tomorrow off.

Worst Holiday Quote of 2011

2011-12-24T00:01:00.004-05:00

From the December 20, 2011, BBC:

'Tell loved ones they are overweight this Christmas'

Christmas may be a time of indulging for many, but health experts believe it is the perfect time to tell a loved one they are overweight.

The National Obesity Forum and International Chair on Cardiometabolic Risk said it was important to be upfront because of the health risks.

Ho, Ho Ho.

Top 2011 Quotes

2011-12-23T00:01:00.004-05:00

John Hawkins of Right Wing News has collected the 50 best political quotes of the year, including:

48) Seriously, in 2008 we elected a community organizer, state senator, college instructor first term senator over a guy who spent five years in a Vietnamese prison. And now he’s lecturing us about how America’s gone "soft"? Really? -- Jonah Goldberg

45) There used to be no income inequality in China because everyone was poor. This is a tradeoff you accept for growth and freedom. -- Michele Caruso-Cabrera

38) [The Tea Party] has to be the first "Totalitarian" movement in the history of mankind that, if it gets everything it wants. . . will leave you the hell alone. -- Ed Driscoll

31) I give the president credit for at least one thing. He’s proven that someone can deserve a Nobel prize less than Al Gore. -- Tim Pawlenty

16) Let’s pass a bill to cover the moon with yogurt that will cost $5 trillion today. And then let’s pass a bill the next day to cancel that bill. We could save $5 trillion. -- Paul Ryan

8) Those who can do. Those who can’t form a supercommittee. -- Mark Steyn

Read the whole thing.

QOTD

2011-12-22T00:01:00.004-05:00

On PJ Media, Victor Davis Hanson discusses the emptiness of various Obama mythologies. Here's the first: "Brilliant":

Presidential historian Michael Beschloss, on no evidence, once proclaimed Obama "probably the smartest guy ever to become president." When he thus summed up liberal consensus, was he perhaps referring to academic achievement? Soaring SAT scores? Seminal publications? IQ scores known only to a small Ivy League cloister? Political wizardry?

Who was this Churchillian president so much smarter than the Renaissance man Thomas Jefferson, more astute than a John Adams or James Madison, with more insight than a Lincoln, brighter still than the polymath Teddy Roosevelt, more studious than the bookish Woodrow Wilson, better read than the autodidact Harry Truman?

Consider. Did Obama achieve a B+ average at Columbia? Who knows? (Who will ever know?) But even today’s inflated version of yesteryear’s gentleman Cs would not normally warrant admission to Harvard Law. And once there, did the Law Review editor publish at least one seminal article? Why not?

I ask not because I particularly care about the GPAs or certificates of the president, but only because I am searching for a shred of evidence to substantiate this image of singular intellectual power and known erudition. For now, I don’t see any difference between Bush’s Yale/Harvard MBA record and Obama’s Columbia/Harvard Law record -- except Bush, in self-deprecation, laughed at his quite public C+/B- accomplishments that he implied were in line with his occasional gaffes, while Obama has quarantined his transcripts and relied on the media to assert that his own versions of "nucular" moments were not moments of embarrassment at all.

At Chicago, did lecturer Obama write a path-breaking legal article or a book on jurisprudence that warranted the rare tenure offer to a part-time lecturer? (Has that offer ever been extended to others of like stature?) In the Illinois legislature or U.S. Senate, was Obama known as a deeply learned man of the Patrick Moynihan variety? Whether as an undergraduate, law student, lawyer, professor, legislator or senator, Obama was given numerous opportunities to reveal his intellectual weight. Did he ever really? On what basis did Harvard Law Dean Elena Kagan regret that Obama could not be lured to a top billet at Harvard?

That his brilliance is a myth was not just revealed by the weekly lapses (whether phonetic [corpse-man], or cultural [Austria/Germany, the United Kingdom/England, Memorial Day/Veterans Day] or inane [57 states]), but in matters of common sense and basic history. The error-ridden Cairo speech was foolish; the serial appeasement of Iran revealed an ignorance of human nature; a two-minute glance at an etiquette book would have nixed the bowing or the cheap gifts to the UK.

In short, the myth of Obama’s brilliance was based on his teleprompted eloquence, the sort of fable that says we should listen to a clueless Sean Penn or Matt Damon on politics because they can sometimes act well. Read Plato’s Ion on the difference between gifted rhapsody and wisdom -- and Socrates’ warning about easily conflating the two. It need not have been so. At any point in a long career, Obama the rhapsode could have shunned the easy way, stuck his head in a book, and earned rather than charmed those (for whom he had contempt) for his rewards. Clinton was a browser with a near photographic memory who had pretensions of deeply-read wonkery; but he nonetheless browsed. Obama seems never to have done that. He liked the vague idea of Obamacare, outsourced the details to the Democratic Congress, applied his Chicago protocols to getting it passed, and worried little what was actually in the bill. We were to think that the obsessions with the NBA, the NCAA final four, the golfing tics, etc., were all respites from exhausting labors of the mind rather than in fact the presidency respites from all the former.

There's much more; read the whole thing.

Don Surber's Top Ten Obama Goofs

2011-12-21T00:01:00.003-05:00

Columnist and blogger Don Surber says President Obama started his term:

living the life of Riley. Then reality set in. Now he is living the life of Jimmy Carter. How did he wind up here?

So Surber lists the "Top 10 things Obama got wrong." I don't agree with all of them, but here's numbers 2-5, plus 8:

2. He got Obamacare wrong. Along those lines, President Obama saw how Hillarycare went and decided to do the opposite. Or likely more accurately, the president heard that Hillary lost on health care because it was written in the White House. He decided he would do it differently and have it written by Congress. This was a formula for failure because he lost control of the bill. This meant he was putting his name and reputation on the line for something he never wrote. And what was written was a mess.

3. He got the economy wrong. He overestimated its strength and went full-speed ahead with spending. Budgets for agencies were doubled as liberals wanted to have a field day regulating everything. But tax revenues tanked. That $400 billion deficit he campaigned against tripled. Guess what? The public noticed. So did S&P. He is now President Downgrade.

4. He got the stimulus wrong. The $787 billion stimulus was a grab bag of political kickbacks papered over with an unnecessary, ineffective and ill-advised tax cut. The unemployment rate would have gone to 9% if we do nothing, he said. We did something and it hit 10%. Again, people noticed.

5. He got the Tea Party wrong. This is where a sycophantic press corps really hurts a president. By blowing off the Tea Party as a pack of angry klansmen who cannot handle having a black president, President Obama lost the House of Representatives in 2010. . .

8. He got Simpson-Bowles wrong. Blowing off the entire package of recommendations to rein in spending and balance the budget took away any protection from the charge that he has no plan to balance the budget other than to raise taxes. He did not have to adopt the whole thing, just enough to announce that he has a serious plan to balance the budget beginning in 2017 -- when a second term of Obama would end.

Read the whole thing.

QOTD

2011-12-20T00:01:00.001-05:00

Fouad Ajami about America's exit from Iraq in the Wall Street Journal:

This wasn't something the people of that region pined for. These are lands that crave the protection of a dominant foreign power as they feign outrage at its exercise. Nor was it decreed by the objective facts of American power, for this country still possesses all the ingredients of influence and prestige. It was, rather, a decision made in the course of the Obama presidency--the ebb of our power has become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

America was never meant to stay in Iraq indefinitely. In all fairness to President Obama, he had ridden the disappointment with Iraq from the state legislature in Illinois to the White House. He was not a pacifist, he let it be known. He did not oppose all wars. It was only "dumb" wars he was against. In every way he could, he kept Iraq at arm's length. He never partook of the view that we had secured strategic gains in that country worth preserving. It was thus awkward to watch the president on Monday, with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki by his side, explaining as we exit that "We think a successful, democratic Iraq can be a model for the entire region." The words rang hollow.

A president who understood the stakes would have had no difficulty justifying a residual American presence in Iraq. But not this president. At the core of Mr. Obama's worldview lies a pessimism about America and the power of its ideals and reach in the world.

Hitch

2011-12-19T00:01:00.009-05:00

When I heard Hitch was dead, I sketched out a post. Or started to--because then read a dozen tributes and obits, and decided I didn't have much to add. This is what I wrote before quitting, with some links to better writers following:

He was one of the best writers I ever read (and certainly the best I ever met--once, at Mickey Kaus's "moving back to California" party). Hitch was smart as hell, and loyal to those who deserved loyalty. But he could be just plain mean. And he also retained all the instincts of 20 years of Marxism, in his reflexive distrust of tradition and hatred of religion.

I probably despise Henry Kissinger as much as he did, but Hitch saw him as a war criminal, where I saw cowardice. Kissinger's détente was a morally bankrupt side-step that prolonged the Soviet empire for two decades, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. (Realpolitik is always a consideration, but Kissinger couldn't tell when it was wrong.) Hitch, I think, got Kissinger exactly backwards--because of his instinctive opposition to anyone he would have classed, at age 17, as right-wing.

"Hitch-22" was the most self-centered autobiography I ever read. Yet, it also displayed his most praiseworthy trait: the man knew history and literature, revered Western Civ., and thought our most important task was to defend it (except for Judeo-Christianity). I only wish the book had devoted more than one sentence to his admirable willingness to tell the truth to the grand jury--that his one-time friend Sid Blumenthal was a liar. Fortunately, Hitch did that elsewhere.

But even more brave than that was Hitchens's support for the Iraq invasion--a position he never abandoned. This cost him friends -- which took more courage than voluntarily being waterboarded -- and gained him (wrongly in my view) comparisons with Whittaker Chambers.

All that doesn't make Hitch a conservative. But, as commenter KitWistar said:

I agreed with him, I violently disagreed with him, but he always made me think & re-think. Thank you, Hitch.

So, if history calls Hitch a liberal, he was among the best in my lifetime.
__________

See Peter Hitchens, Christopher Buckley, John Podhoretz, Graydon Carter, David Corn, and Hitch himself about Iraq in the 2004 Wall Street Journal.

(via reader Warren, reader Doug)

Program Notes

2011-12-17T00:01:00.001-05:00

Taking the weekend off.

Casaubon Revisited

2011-12-16T00:01:00.001-05:00

I used a recent post to pile on links critical of Republican Newt Gingrich. Each focused on his scatter-brain insistence in a "Toffler-ite future" where everything can be quantified and understood--via government planning. Mark Steyn was particularly good listing Newt's "Brainstorms-of-the-Week":

"The Triangle of American Progress," "The Four Great Truths," "The Four Pillars of American Civilization," "The Five Pillars of the 21st Century," "The Nine Zones of Creativity," "The Fourteen Steps to Renewing American Civilization," The Thirty-Nine Steps to the Five Year Plan of the Six Flags of the Seven Brides for Seven Brothers of the Nine-Inch Nails of Renewing Civilizational Progress for 21st Century America, etc.

I'm pretty sure the last one's a joke, but plausible.

I've devoted many electrons recently to the perils, and unlawfulness, of technocratic government. Newt's not alone in this, of course: Mitt Romney strays into the same territory, albeit minus the head-turning rapid-fire inconsistencies of Gingrich. And, of course, the left has been there for years.

But not before Marian Evans, better known under the pen name George Elliot. Her 1874 novel "Middlemarch" is among my favorites. One reason is her setting forth what has become known as the Casaubon delusion: an excessive and pathological search for all-inclusive answers. Such as -- I have argued -- global warming and scientific determinism. (To give a dying man his due, Christopher Hitchens sees religion the same way.)

Whether practiced by liberals or conservatives, we ought not to "impose our wishes on the world so as to make it conform to how we would like it to be." As Yuval Levin said (quoted here last week):

The framers were disdainful of the potential of technocratic know-it-alls whose abstract expertise was often of value only in what Hamilton calls, in Federalist 28, "the reveries of those political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction." And even men with expertise in administration should not be given too much power. In Federalist 68, Hamilton argues that, while good administration is very important, the idea that the best-administered regime is the best regime is a "political heresy." There is much more to government than administration.

Rely on the legal forms and popular sovereignty in a representative democracy--not judges nor scientists. And markets, not five year plans. In other words, the Constitutional process, not the Casaubon delusion.

Anyone know a Presidential candidate with that platform?

Legislation of the Day

2011-12-15T00:01:00.001-05:00

Terry Kilgore is a rocket man. Well, actually, he's an attorney and Virgina State Delegate (R-Gate City). But he wants the public to buy a ticket to space, and to prime the pump with a tax break--for the dead.

The state already hosts the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), designed to promote commercial dual use of the existing Federal Wallops Flight Facility. Wallops, located on Virgina's Atlantic coast, provides launch and support for "suborbital research programs." But with the end of the Space Shuttle, there's necessarily greater emphasis on commercial space opportunities (page 28).

One of those opportunities is space burial of the ashes of human remains, also called "Memorial Spaceflights". So, in preparation for the January session, Delegate Kilgore proposed a tax-break for those who pre-pay to be as far away from their loved-ones once they've departed corporeal existence. Specifically, House Bill 19 provides:

For taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2013, but before January 1, 2021, a deduction shall be allowed to the purchaser for the amount paid during the taxable year for a prepaid contract entered into with a commercial space flight entity, as defined in § 8.01-227.8, to place the taxpayer’s human cremated remains into earth or lunar orbit from a spaceport facility operated by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority established pursuant to Article 2 (§ 2.2-2201 et seq.) of Chapter 22 of Title 2.2. The total amount deducted by any individual shall be limited to $8,000 per person. The amount deducted on any individual income tax return in any taxable year shall be limited to $2,500 per person. If the purchase price of a prepaid contract exceeds $2,500 per person, any amount in excess of $2,500 may be carried forward and subtracted in future taxable years until the lesser of the purchase price or $8,000 per person has been fully deducted.

Supporters claim "the bill will raise the profile of and boost revenue at the spaceport," and "attract family and friends of the deceased, who in turn will visit nearby restaurants, hotels and other attractions," thereby benefiting state businesses and increasing tax receipts. Sounds suspiciously like Obama's stimulus plan--without (since it's cremation only) being "shovel ready."

The Virginia Commercial Spaceflight Authority Executive Director, Dr Billie Reed, called the burial plan a "giant step." (If not for mankind, then for the newly dead.) Yet, NASA can't even keep track of moon rocks. Perhaps a state could do better with ashes--though I thought "Virginia was for Lovers," not corpses.

QsOTD

2011-12-14T12:00:00.015-05:00

Benny Peiser in the City AM (London):

After two weeks of talks and partying, delegates at the UN climate summit in Durban agreed to meet again for further talks and partying around the dream of a global climate treaty.

As expected, an informal coalition of major emitters such as the USA, China, India and Russia won the battle at the climate talks early on Sunday when they succeeded in delaying any binding decisions on CO2 emissions caps for years to come.

That postponed the danger of a legally binding climate treaty that would force major nations to impose extremely costly restrictions on cheap energy and thus their economic growth. "Business as usual" is now the unofficial motto of international climate policy.

With the enduring standoff in international climate diplomacy almost certain to continue, even environmentalists agree that the Kyoto Protocol will continue only as an empty shell. Europe’s political isolation on CO2 emissions has deepened, with Canada yesterday dropping out of the Kyoto Protocol and Japan and Russia too considering abandoning the sinking ship.

Even before the start of the Durban talks, the Basic countries -- China, India, South Africa and Brazil -- had announced that any future agreement must be based on the next report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which will not be published until 2014, and a review of the UN climate convention -- not due to happen before 2015.

In truth, a global agreement on binding emissions caps is unlikely to ever materialise. By demanding an annual climate fund of $100bn (£64.2bn), together with billions worth of technology transfers, the Basic nations and their allies have kicked the ball into the West’s court, knowing full well that their key condition is not going to be met.

Shawn Lawrence Otto in the (liberal) Minnesota Post blames, well, groups and people like NOfP:

Perhaps most concerning for future negotiations is the apparent erosion of the status of science as an arbiter of the reality of climate change and the basis for public policy decisions. Future agreements will no longer be based on the scientific advice of the IPCC but instead decisions will only be informed by the science.

What this means is unclear but the motives are not. Science is the only even-handed basis for public policy decisions in a non-authoritarian government. The only alternative basis to the knowledge created by science, which is based on measurements of the real world, is the assertion of authority based on either belief or opinion, but neither of them are knowledge-based.

This new language appears to be carving out a further erosion of science's status as the fairest basis for public policy and leaving more room for authoritarian and denialist arguments to gain a foothold in future treaty negotiations.

Uh, Shawn, might that be because the science has been errenously alarmist, unsettled, and flat-out wrong. At the same time, science has been tainted by scandals, especially the apparently paid-for conclusions of climate alarmists. Simply put, "science" eroded itself.

And anointing science as "the only even-handed basis for public policy decisions in a non-authoritarian government" is in fact a plea for government by authoritarian scientists, not elected officials and their advisers. That's another word for that: fascism--albeit in the service of wealth redistribution. Consideration of economics -- adaptation and abatement -- might be a better way.

Thankfully, Durban did nothing, delaying alarmist dictatorial ambitions probably for ever:

[T]he Durban talks were saved from total collapse after India and China agreed to language that accomplishes the remarkable double feat of ensuring that the world will never do anything to avert climate "catastrophe"--while keeping alive the illusion that it will.

And the agreement contains a "vital get-out clause" that Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo says makes Durban a "voluntary deal that has been put off for a decade."

It's hard to imagine a better result. Well, maybe two decades.

Green Batters Blue

2011-12-14T00:01:00.015-05:00

The true-blue U.S. Navy is going green. And last week, the Navy agreed "to buy 450,000 gallons of biofuels -- arguably the biggest purchase of its kind in U.S. government history." The $12 million purchase "works out to about $26 a gallon -- about five times more than traditional fuel." The biofuel then is combined with more traditional fossil fuels for a total price of around $16 a gallon.

Worse yet, the Navy is teaming with the Department of Agriculture for the project. That led to some of the biofuel being supplied by Solazyme, whose management includes:

TJ Glauthier is an advisor and corporate board member in the energy and "clean tech" sector. He advises companies dealing with the complex competitive and regulatory challenges in the energy sector today. He also served on President Obama’s White House Transition Team, where he focused primarily on the energy portion of the economic stimulus bill.

Questions:

With automatic sequestration about to slash the Navy's budget, why raise the price of fuel?

When Obama's green energy plainly has failed, why resurrect it?

When the price of food is being forced ever higher by diverting food to fuel, why make it worse?

With ample fossil fuel energy resources available in North America, why waste time on biofuel?

Answer:

The unholy marriage of crony capitalism, political correct defense and green do-gooders.

Conclusion: Is there a Navy code meaning the opposite of "Bravo Zulu"?

(via reader Warren via Hot Air)

Boeing Blackmailed

2011-12-13T00:01:00.003-05:00

Last Friday, the National Labor Relations Board dropped its complaint against Boeing. As you will recall, the NLRB's controversial complaint was prompted by the aircraft manufacturer's establishment of a second assembly line in a right-to-work state (South Carolina), meaning employees there could not be compelled to join a union.

Contrary to appearances, the NLRB didn't bow to political pressure or try to defuse a potential issue for President Obama's re-election. Rather, the settlement was a quid-pro-quo for Boeing's agreeing to a collective bargaining agreement with the International Association of Machinists so union workers will build the 737 Max jet in Washington state. The Wall Street Journal wonders:

Has there ever been a more blatant case of a supposedly independent agency siding with a union over management in collective bargaining?

Boeing says the new contract wasn't tied directly to a settlement of the NLRB complaint, and that it always made sense to build the 737 Max in Renton, Washington because its work force has experience on the current 737 and offers natural efficiencies.

But it's hard to resist the conclusion that Boeing felt obliged to make the agreement to save its more than $1 billion investment in South Carolina, where it is building 787s. Boeing might have won a legal battle in the end, but first it would have to run through an administrative law judge, then the politicized and Obama-stacked NLRB, and only then would it get to an appellate court. Meanwhile, its investment was in jeopardy and its legal bill was rising.

As for the NLRB, its decision to drop the case so quickly after the machinists cut their deal exposes how politically motivated the Boeing suit was. The NLRB is supposed to be a fair-minded referee in labor disputes, making sure neither side breaks the law. But the board put its fist squarely on the union side to make Boeing pay a price for moving one of its 787 assembly lines to a right-to-work state, to make sure Boeing never did that again, and to demonstrate to any other unionized company that its investment is at risk if it makes the same decision.

By dropping the case, the Obama team at the NLRB can claim it delivered those lessons without ever having to contest them in court. Oh, and Democrats running for Senate in right-to-work states, like Tim Kaine in Virginia, are spared from having to endorse a union position that is unpopular because it costs their states jobs.

Talk about a "rogue" agency (in the words of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)). Although the NLRB formerly said it found no evidence "that Boeing failed to bargain in good faith" with its Washington state unions, the agency managed to force a new deal, puting a thumb on the scales of management-union relations and discouraging expansion in right-to-work jurisdictions. Plus, because it was a "voluntary" settlement, the agency worked its will while avoiding judicial review.

You can't really fault Boeing for capitulating to get a gun holstered after being pointed at its head. But bullying American manufacturers for Big Labor votes can only result in more outsourcing. Plus, it remains an alarming example of this Administration's willingness to play politics at the expense of the rule of law.

(via RedState)

QOTD

2011-12-12T00:01:00.002-05:00

PJ Media's Belladonna Rogers advises how to respond when a woman finds herself the lone conservative at the table:

Before you attend another party, practice saying calmly, "I don’t accept the premises underlying your assumption." Say it as many times as necessary to feel comfortable uttering that sentence whenever you encounter a liberal.

In the context of your dinner conversation, here’s how it would go:

"What do you mean?" the shocked liberal will ask.

"First, I wouldn’t assume that anyone to whom you put that question would vote for Obama under any circumstances.

"A second premise of your question is that I vote as a woman. That’s a classic Democrat assumption."

Again, you’ll be facing a flummoxed liberal.

A word of warning: the more you say, the more the liberal’s response will turn to enraged apoplexy. By the time you’ve finished lucidly expressing your views, the liberal will react like a shrieking, psychopathic hyena being laced into a straitjacket. . .

In your calmest, most unemotional manner, point out to him that "the Democrat Party is based on identity politics. It has been for the last 40 years. For the first two-thirds of the 20th century, Democrats were the working people’s party, as well as that of so-called ethnic voters.

"With the rise of affirmative action, feminism and newly-minted ‘minorities,’ the Democrat Party began tailoring its strategies to pigeon-hole voters into discrete categories, assuming each would vote as members of beleaguered groups that required exceptional government intervention. To me, this is a pernicious public policy for all affected -- except, of course, the Democrats scrounging for votes.

"I’m a professional woman in my early seventies and I’ve never felt like part of a beleaguered minority. I received a fine education, then went to work and had a successful career that continues to this day. I worked in a meritocratic system and it rewarded me. It would be absurd for me to think of myself as a minority when women are, numerically, a majority. Although many companies didn’t welcome women when I was younger, they do now, and even then, I made my way and did well through hard work.

"I resent the Democrat Party’s assumption that I vote as a vagino-American when in fact I vote on the basis of my reasoning capacity and my skill at sizing up people. I vote as a national security-minded, free market-appreciating, patriotic American -- not based on my gender.

"I only wish more women and genuine minorities understood that their permanent victim status may serve the Democrat Party by providing it with votes, but it utterly fails to serve the ‘victims’ in the long run. In fact, nothing could be more detrimental to them."

Agreed.

Program Notes

2011-12-11T00:01:00.001-05:00

Ok, I'm serious this time: light to little blogging next week. That's because I wrote only one post after Wednesday when I went off anti-nausea medications in advance of Friday's ENG test. During that period, I wasn't able to look at a computer screen, so I've got nothing prepared.

Thanks, China!

2011-12-10T12:00:00.013-05:00

Last month, I critiqued Republican Mitt Romney's assertion that China's currency manipulation violated trade norms or hurt US consumers. Carpe Diem blogger and econ prof Mark Perry agrees, in the December 2nd American:

When you hear discussion of China’s currency manipulation, keep the following in mind:
1. China's currency manipulation is a form of foreign aid, and to the direct advantage of millions of U.S. consumers, especially low-income groups, and to the direct advantage of thousands of American companies buying inputs from China.

2. Forcing China to revalue its currency would benefit some American manufacturers competing with China, but would significantly harm those American consumers and businesses currently buying undervalued imports. On net, there would be more harm to American consumers than benefits to American manufacturers, which would reduce our overall standard of living.

3. Like other forms of mercantilism and protectionism, forcing or pressuring China to appreciate its currency would favor certain domestic producers over millions of consumers and import-buying companies, but would make the United States worse off, not better off.

4. Finally, instead of complaining, we should be thankful for China's foreign aid to Americans through an undervalued yuan, overvalued dollar, and undervalued goods that collectively save American consumers and companies billions of dollars every year.
Bottom Line: If you wouldn't object to China sending products to the United States for free, then on what basis would you object to currency "manipulation" that allows you to purchase undervalued Chinese imports at a huge discount and great bargain?

Of course, Chinese citizens are governed by an authoritarian police state. But China's currency policies benefit America.

(via Cafe Hayek)

Tis the Season Music

2011-12-10T00:01:00.016-05:00

Inspired by reader KitWistar, here's a short list of must-have Christmas music:

1) George Frideric Handel/Messiah/Christopher Hogwood/Academy of Ancient Music. Yes, only a third of the best known oratorio is about the birth of Christ; so what? This recording employs instruments and a version of the work that may be unfamiliar. But it's better.

2) Robert Shaw/Songs of Angels - Christmas Hymns and Carols: Justly famous for years worth of Christmas choral albums, this is one of Shaw's last Xmas recordings--so is digital.

3) J.S. Bach/Christmas Oratorio/Academy of St. Martins in the Fields/Kings College Cambridge/Elly Ameling/Janet Baker/Robert Tear/Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Here I depart from KitWistar's recommendation as to the orchestra--though keeping the bass soloist. And a second, overlapping suggestion: the remastered set of Bach "Sacred Masterpieces" Karl Richter/Munich Bach Orchestra, which includes his Christmas Oratorio, the St. Matthew Passion, the Mass in B Minor, the Magnificat and the St. John Passion.

4) Gregorio Allegri/Miserere mei Deus/Tallis Scholars. Yes, this setting of Psalm 51 nominally is an Easter work. But the four- and five-part a Capella choral harmony is astoundingly lush. And its history arguably is better--for at least a century, the Pope limited performances to the Sistine Chapel; copying the score was punishable by excommunication, effectively hiding Allegri from humanity. Until, the story goes, a 12 year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart -- touring Rome in the Spring of 1770 -- heard a performance, and promptly transcribed it from memory. I must have five recordings of this piece (which originally called for castrato, and now substitutes a boy soprano)--including an instrumental version by The Canadian Brass.

5) John Rutter/City of London Sinfonia/Cambridge Singers/Christmas Night: Carols of the Nativity. Rutter is the best living Christmas carol composer and conductor, with more than a dozen great Christmas albums. But this is the pick of the litter.

6) The Roches/We Three Kings. Is it folk or a joke? One either loves this album or hates it--I'm in the first category.

7) Aaron Neville/Soulful Christmas. One of the great R&B voices does Christmas perfectly.

8) George Winston/December: Piano Solos. Christmas "new age" style.

Look Ma, no "Nutcracker." Compare to Kit's recommendations.

Electile Disfunction

2011-12-09T12:00:00.002-05:00

Item: The Federal government uses the Healthcare Common procedure Coding System (HCPCS) to classify the medical services (Level I) and medical equipment and supplies (Level II) that may be covered by Medicare and Medicaid.

Item: The 2011 list of HCPCS codes includes (page 34) code L7900--"vacuum erection system."

Item: A "vacuum erection system" is more commonly known as a "penis pump" and is used to treat erectile dysfunction.

Item: The American Urology Association (at 1-18) calls penis pumps "effective, low-cost treatment options for select patients with ED. These devices are available without a prescription." (Even stocked by Amazon.)

Item: In 2010, "vacuum erection systems" ranked 117th in "allowed charges" among medical equipment and supplies, with compensation totaling over $47 million for the year (page 3).

Item: According to Ben Domenech at the Heartland Institute, Medicare has spent over $240 million of taxpayer money for "vacuum erection systems" in the past decade. (I didn't check the math--data for the past three years are here.)

Item: As Daily Caller's Jim Treacher says, "Your tax dollars are still, um, hard at work."

QOTD

2011-12-09T00:01:00.000-05:00

Yuval Levin in the National Review:

This fall, liberals from the president on down have begun to grasp the scope of the political and intellectual disaster that the past three years have been for the Left. Their various responses to the calamity have tended to have one thing in common: immense frustration. But the different expressions of that frustration have been deeply revealing. They should help Americans better understand this complicated moment in our politics, and, in particular, help conservatives frame their responses.

Liberal frustration has fallen into two general categories that seem at first to flatly contradict each other: denunciations of democracy and appeals to populism. In September, Peter Orszag, President Obama’s former budget director, wrote an essay in The New Republic arguing that "we need less democracy." To address our country’s daunting problems, Orszag suggested, we need to take some power away from Congress and give it to "automatic policies and depoliticized commissions" that will be shielded from public pressure. "Radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic." Two weeks later, North Carolina’s Democratic governor, Beverly Perdue, made a less sophisticated stab at the same general point, proposing to suspend congressional elections for a few years so members of Congress could make the difficult decisions necessary to get our country out of its deep problems.

Orszag and Perdue both seemed to channel a long and deeply held view of the Left -- that the complexity of modern life and the intensity of modern politics should lead us to put more power in the hands of technical experts who have the knowledge to make objective, rational choices on our behalf. Leaving things to the political process will result only in delay and disorder. President Obama has frequently expressed this view himself -- wistfully complaining to his aides earlier this year, for instance, that things would sure be easier if he were president of China.

At the same time, the Left has been rediscovering the joys of populism. Populism can mean many things, of course, but in America it has often meant not only a faith in the wisdom of the masses but also a channeling of resentments into a case that the majority is being oppressed by an elite few. And that is just what the president has sought this fall. On the stump, he has been railing against wealthy corporate-jet owners and their Republican henchmen, who care not for the struggling working man and want only "dirtier air, dirtier water, fewer people on health care, [and] less accountability on Wall Street." Meanwhile, a small but opulently publicized populist protest movement has arisen to "occupy" parts of New York’s financial district as well as parks and public spaces elsewhere around the country. Although it seems at times to be all fringe and no center, the movement does appear to be held together by resentment against corporate greed and crony capitalism, and a sense that the large mass of the public shares that resentment.

So should we be guided by expert commissions or a popular movement? Does the public have too much of a voice in our politics or not enough of one? It is tempting to see the Left’s simultaneous calls for populism and technocracy as a profound incoherence, because we are inclined to see the two as opposite ends of an argument about who should govern. . .

The simultaneous populist and technocratic appeals of the progressives’ successors in today’s politics seem to echo this premise. They at least implicitly suggest that technocracy and populism are two sides of the same coin.

And the framers of our Constitution seemed to think so too. But whereas the progressives championed both technocratic government and direct democracy, the Constitution stands opposed to both. As the framers saw it, both populist and technocratic politics were expressions of a modern hubris about the capacity of human beings -- be it of the experts or of the people as a whole -- to make just the right governing decisions. The Constitution is built upon a profound skepticism about the ability of any political arrangement to overcome the limitations of human reason and human nature, and so establishes a system of checks to prevent sudden large mistakes while enabling gradual changes supported by a broad and longstanding consensus. Experts should not govern, nor should the people do so directly, but rather the people’s representatives should govern in a system filled with mediating institutions and opposing interests -- a system designed to force us to see problems and proposed solutions from a variety of angles simultaneously and, as Alexander Hamilton puts it in Federalist 73, "to increase the chances in favor of the community against the passing of bad laws through haste, inadvertence, or design."

That such a system is far from populist should be obvious. In Federalist 63, James Madison says plainly that the constitutional architecture involves "the total exclusion of the people in their collective capacity" from directly governing. The democratic elements of the Constitution are intended to be checks on the power of government, not expressions of trust in the wisdom of the public as a whole. And even as checks, these elements are imperfect. As Madison argues in Federalist 51, "A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary control on the government, but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."

But those precautions do not amount to the rule of experts. The framers were disdainful of the potential of technocratic know-it-alls whose abstract expertise was often of value only in what Hamilton calls, in Federalist 28, "the reveries of those political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction." And even men with expertise in administration should not be given too much power. In Federalist 68, Hamilton argues that, while good administration is very important, the idea that the best-administered regime is the best regime is a "political heresy." There is much more to government than administration.

Thus expert omniscience could not be trusted to check the excesses of popular passion, and public omniscience could not be trusted to check the excesses of expert arrogance. In the view of the framers, there is no omniscience; there is only imperfect humanity. We therefore need checks on all of our various excesses, and a system that forces us to think through important decisions as best we can. This may well be the essential insight of our constitutional system: Since there is no perfection in human affairs, any system of government has to account for the permanent imperfections of the people who are both governing and governed, and this is best achieved through constitutional forms that compel self-restraint and enable self-correction.

This emphasis on moderating forms -- that is, the focus on arrangements that impose structure and restraint on political life -- is crucial, and it has always been controversial. Indeed, it is what troubled the progressives most of all about our system, and what troubled many other technocrats and populists before them. But as Alexis de Tocqueville noted a century before the New Deal, "this objection which the men of democracies make to forms is the very thing which renders forms so useful to freedom; for their chief merit is to serve as a barrier between the strong and the weak." And he added, with his usual prescience, "Forms become more necessary in proportion as the government becomes more active and more powerful." In other words, we need them now more than ever.

The framers’ formalism, with its humility about our knowledge and its limits on our power, is at work not only in our political institutions but in our economic system too. American free enterprise, like our constitutional system, establishes rules of the game that restrain the powerful and create competition that helps balance freedom and progress. And in economic policy, just as in politics more generally, that framework is undermined by a populism that wants to take from the wealthy and by a technocratic mindset according to which Washington should pick winners and losers. In economics and in politics, our defense against these dangers has to start with an adherence to procedural rules and forms that restrain the hubris of the powerful -- defending markets, not coddling big business or soaking the rich; defending the Constitution, not advancing technocracy or populism. . .

Because the Left has been so much more technocratic than populist these past few years, the Right’s response has naturally drifted into populist tones. That is appropriate, and it has been effective, but the tone must not overwhelm the substance of the Right’s critique. In this time of grave challenges, conservatives must work to protect the fundamentally constitutionalist character of the Tea Party, and of the conservative movement -- avoiding the excesses of both populism and technocracy as we work to undo the damage done by both, and to recover the American project.

Agreed--especially as to the shortcomings and illegality of technocratic government, and preference for the constitutional process.

See also Will Wilkinson's "The Occupy Movement's Enthusiasm and Contempt for Democracy", and MaxedOutMama's demonstration that liberal populists and papers can't do math.

Photo of 2012

2011-12-08T12:00:00.007-05:00

The title's no typo. Unless Newt bests Romney in the primaries -- Gingrich now leads some national polls -- the mainstream media will run this on page one every day 'till November 6th:

source: Boston Globe

caption: Despite the pressures at Bain Capital, Mitt Romney kept the atmosphere loose. One year, after posing for a photo for a firm brochure, the partners did another take, the second time holding $10 and $20 bills. From left, Fraser Bullock, Eric A. Kriss, Joshua Bekenstein, Mitt Romney, Coleman Andrews, Geoffrey S. Rehnert, and Robert F. White.

To be honest, you can't blame the media for this one.

Republican Nomination Poll

2011-12-08T00:01:00.013-05:00

UPDATE: below

John Hawkins of Right Wing News polled right-of-center bloggers on 2012 Presidential nominees. The results (78 bloggers participating) are here. Newt Gingrich received the most support, while Rick Perry was second. Ron Paul was listed as least preferred to win the nomination. Btw, this week, Hawkins endorsed Gingrich. Complete questions and results here.

I was one of the bloggers polled. For comparison and comment, my answers were:

1) Mitt Romney
2) Ron Paul
3) Rick Santorum
4) Yes
5) No
6) Yes
7) Mitt Romney
8) Mitt Romney

See also Hot Air's survey, the WaPo's Jennifer Rubin, Ann Coulter, and don't miss Mark Steyn's analysis of Gingrich 13 years ago:

The Democrats demonised Newt as an extreme right-wing crazy. They were right -- apart from the ‘extreme’ and ‘right-wing’, that is. Most of the above seem more like the burblings of a frustrated self-help guru than blueprints for conservative government. For example, Pillar No. 5 of the ‘Five Pillars of American Civilisation’ is: ‘Total quality management’. Unfortunately for Newt, the person who most needed a self-help manual was him -- How to Win Friends and Influence People for a start. After last week’s election, Republicans have now embarked on the time-honoured ritual, well known to British Tories and Labour before them, of bickering over whether they did badly because they were too extreme or because they were too moderate. In Newt’s case, the answer is both. He spent the last year pre-emptively surrendering on anything of legislative consequence, but then, feeling bad at having abandoned another two or three of his ‘Fourteen Steps to Renewing American Civilisation’, he’d go on television and snarl at everybody in sight. . . For Republicans it was the worst of all worlds: a lily-livered ninny whom everyone thinks is a ferocious right-wing bastard.

MORE:

Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal: "Gingrich Is Inspiring--and Disturbing"

QOTD

2011-12-07T12:00:00.002-05:00

The Brookings Institution's Charles Ebinger in the Los Angeles Times:

Let me say upfront that I have always been a Democrat. However, I also vote my conscience and have supported independent candidates. Today, energy policy is one area where I think my party is wrong.

I wasn't always a disillusioned Democrat. For decades, the party's policies ensured that the United States had adequate supplies of domestic oil, natural gas, coal, hydroelectric power and uranium to fuel our growing economy while providing good-paying jobs to the men and women who produced our energy and transported it. These policies helped create America's affluence of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. . .

Today's Democratic leadership has reached a nadir in rational energy policymaking. In the last several years, congressional party leaders have squandered opportunities for a nuclear waste management storage program and have shown opposition to shale gas production. This month, the party reached a new low: The Obama administration's delay of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, in spite of its promise of an additional 750,000 barrels of oil per day and the thousands of new jobs it would create, was an inexcusable political decision unbecoming of a pragmatic leader.

The former generation of Democratic legislators would have embraced the energy opportunities before the United States today. Whoever is president in 2013, it will be the first time in 40 years that the United States has a serious chance to transform its energy landscape. The previously accepted inexorable decline in U.S. oil and gas production is being reversed: New "tight oil" -- resources trapped in low-porosity formations such as shale rock -- could provide the country with several million barrels of oil per day in the coming decades, and the country's abundant and accessible shale gas reserves may leave us gas independent for up to a century. There also are still conventional reserves to be tapped, most notably in Alaska, where the Beaufort and Chukchi seas and the North Slope hold an abundance of hydrocarbon reserves.

Exploitation of these resources would have a number of benefits. Increased domestic oil production, coupled with growing imports of Canadian oil sands, would result in a reduction of non-North American oil imports, leading to a significant improvement in the country's yawning trade deficit. Increased gas production would be valuable for cleaner electricity generation (when compared with coal) and could also signal a revival of the U.S. industrial and petrochemical sectors. Further, if natural gas can be deployed in the commercial heavy-duty vehicle fleet, we would be able to reduce our oil imports dramatically. We may even be able to export gas to our allies and trading partners. . .

[W]e need a vision now that all Americans accept and one they are ready to help make a reality. The Democratic leadership must start facing the hard truths about energy and stop proselytizing that renewable sources of energy can replace the fossil fuels currently in use. This is not to argue that the reduction of fossil fuel emissions is not an urgent priority. However, the emphasis must be on job creation and on building the 21st century energy infrastructure that will reestablish America's primacy in the world. The size of our energy resources gives us the wherewithal to make this transition.

Agreed, twice, except about the urgency of reducing fossil fuel emissions.

For facts about energy resources available in North America, see the Institute For Energy Research's just-released report.

(via reader Warren)

Ill Wind From the East

2011-12-07T00:01:00.012-05:00

President Obama says America's is racing China for supremacy in clean energy. And part of China's renewable investment is wind power: it's already "the country with the highest wind power installed capacity," a huge year-on-year improvement, formerly funded by huge government subsidies.

Were they NOfP readers, the Chinese National Energy Administration would have been able to foresee that much wind power is wasted:

The wind power capacity is limited, and we can’t use all the electric wind power. This is a reasonable fact. We thought we should use all electric wind power, it is a misconception. It is right to give up a part of electric wind power.

That's because:

there is an infrastructure problem that hasn't been widely reported -- many of China's wind turbines cannot connect to the country's larger electric grid. There are not enough cables, wires and related technology to bring wind-generated electricity from places such as rural Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Gansu, and Xinjiang. That is where most of China's wind turbines are located -- far from the densely populated hubs of China's northeast and south, where electricity is most needed

Currently, coal-fired power plants account for about 75 percent of electricity in China. Wind farms usually take up a lot of ground, which is hard to find in urban areas that need the power the most, and farms are usually a long way from the intended market, requiring expensive pylons and power-draining wires. Meanwhile, the system for managing and distributing the generated power -- the electrical grid -- cannot withstand anything unpredictable at this point. It is hard enough to balance demand that changes hour-by-hour with power stations that run continually, never mind input levels that change with the wind.

With all those wind turbines idle, China wastes billions of kilos of metal, rare earths and glass fiber plastics. In Scotland, 30 percent of windmills are idle; 25 percent in California. In the Peoples Republic, depending on the actual slack-rate, "heavy industrial manufacture of wind turbines [may emit] far more Carbon Dioxide emissions than what they will ever save when they finally do operate." Plus, of course, wasting millions of hectares of land.

What will it take for Obama to abandon his (crony capitalist) fixation on green energy and his addiction to wind power?

(via reader OBloodyHell, reader Warren)

QOTD

2011-12-06T12:00:00.003-05:00

Victor Davis Hanson at National Review:

Obama has . . . taught us that a president’s name, his father’s religion, his ethnic background, loud denunciations of his predecessor, discomforting efforts to apologize, bow, and contextualize past American actions -- none of that does anything to lead to greater peace in the world or security for the United States. And by the same token, George Bush’s drawl, Texas identification, and Christianity did not magically turn allies into neutrals and neutrals into enemies.

Israel, Britain, and Eastern Europe are not closer allies now than they were in 2008. Iran is still Iran -- and may be even a more dangerous adversary after the failed Obama outreach. Putin’s Russia, despite "reset" (a word we no longer much hear), is still Putin’s Russia. China still despises the U.S., and feels in 2011 that it is in a far better position to act on its contempt than it was in 2009. North Korea never got the "hope and change" message. Europe is collapsing, reminding the world where the United States is headed if it does not change course. Outreach didn’t seem to do much for the Castro brothers, Hugo Chávez, or Daniel Ortega. . . In other words, Professor Obama reminds future presidents that the world will transcend their rhetoric, their pretensions, and their heritage. Other nations always calibrate their relations with the United States either by their own perceived self-interest, or by centuries-old American values and power, or both.

Climate Science Compare & Contrast

2011-12-06T00:01:00.015-05:00

Headline, November 3rd USA Today: Biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases

Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center:

2010 was by far a record year for CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel combustion and cement manufacture. Globally 9,139 Teragrams of oxidized carbon (Tg-C) were emitted from these sources. A teragram is a million metric tons. Converted to carbon dioxide, so as to include the mass of the oxygen molecules, this amounts to over 33.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. The increase alone is about 512 Tg-C, or 5.9%, over the 2009 global estimate. The previous record year was 2008, with 8,749 Tg-C emitted; the 2010 estimate is about 104.5% of that, or 391 Tg-C more.

The Global Warming Policy Foundation:

When examined more objectively Best data confirms the global temperature standstill of the past decade. That the standstill should be present in land only data is remarkable. There have been standstills in land temperature before, but the significance of the past decade is that it is in the era of mankind’s postulated influence on climate through greenhouse gas forcing. Predictions made many times in the past few years suggest that warming should be the strongest and fastest in the land data.

JoNova blog:

The oceans have warmed for the last 200 years, but that’s awkward, the timing doesn’t match with our CO₂ emissions which rocketed from 1945 and can’t have caused the oceanic shift that started around 1800. The longer data doesn’t explain why we can’t find the warming for the last five years. . .

The models say the Earth system ought to accrue energy at the rate of 3W/m2. Instead the best estimate we have of recent energy balance suggests we’ve been losing energy at a rate of about 0.1 W/m2 (Knox and Douglass 2010). The models don’t match the observations.

There is no getting around it. The models are wrong. The energy balance is so central that none of their other predictions can be relied on.

Conclusion: Carbon emissions are up, but warming's stopped--making nonsense of USA Today's headline. In fact, there's little positive correlation between CO₂ concentration and temperature increase. There's actually an 800-year lag in 420,000 years of ice core records and a year or two lag recently.

No wonder the "Climategate emails" say "the temperature needs a ‘fudge factor’" and in GCMs [General Circulation Models predicting future climate], "[t]uning may be a way to fudge the physics." And that's ignoring Columbia's Ed Cook's profane summary of what "we know of historical temperatures from paleo-reconstructions."

More simply, as Peter Thorne warns in a Climategate II email: "the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run." Welcome to the long run.

(via Hot Air, Watts Up With That?, Coyote Blog, Junk Science)

QOTD

2011-12-05T12:00:00.001-05:00

Rich Lowry at National Review:

Europe is on the brink of a "liberal post-democracy," a form of government that (usually) respects basic rights at the same time as it lacks the mechanisms for ensuring the popular consent that characterizes traditional democracy.

There is a European Parliament, but not one with the powers or role of a proper democratic parliament. It can’t initiate legislation. It has no governing or opposition party. It can’t topple the government with a vote of no confidence. It is the unelected European Commission that initiates legislation and issues regulations. By some estimates, about half the new laws in EU states are drafted in Brussels.

This diminution in national sovereignty has been accomplished without worrying overmuch what the peoples of EU countries want. Referenda on big further steps toward integration have generally been avoided. . . Although there are elections to the European Parliament, no one pays attention to them, and their results reflect the standing of national political parties that fight on the basis of national, not EU, issues.

The recent cashiering of the prime ministers of Greece and Italy, who were replaced by a former vice president of the European Central Bank and a former EU commissioner, respectively, captured the undemocratic thrust of the European project. It was a technocratic coup forecasting how the laggards of the EU will come to be governed by Brussels -- and essentially Germany and France -- in a new fiscal union.

If Germany is paying the bills, shouldn’t it call the shots? But it shouldn’t be paying the bills for the follies of foreign countries or calling the shots. Greeks should be governed by Athens, no matter how dreary and dysfunctional this time-tested arrangement might strike Berlin as being.

The European elite claims that a reinvigoration of the nation-state will again risk war. Nonsense. Democratic nation-states didn’t precipitate World War II, the totalitarian ideology of Nazi Germany did. Are we supposed to believe that without the glue of the euro, Angela Merkel’s Germany would again roll Panzers across Nicolas Sarkozy’s France? Even without the EU, Europe would still be bound by trade, NATO, and a mutual commitment to international norms.

What Europe doesn’t share is a nation. No one speaks a language called European. There are no generic European monuments, although euro bank notes feature pleasingly fictional ones. Nor are the likes of Wellington or Napoleon generic European heroes. There aren’t pan-European political parties and never will be; voters in Denmark will always care more about their own affairs than the issues roiling Cyprus, and vice versa.

This suggests the cold comfort if the current crisis becomes the occasion for a shotgun fiscal union: Like the euro itself, it will never work.

Media Bias of the Day

2011-12-05T00:01:00.006-05:00

ABC News, December 1st:

Every year, Twitter compiles a year-in-review to recap what the company believes were the most important tweets. They highlight the "best" according to the level of "impact, resonance, and relevance," and take into account the big stories that first broke on Twitter -- not by news agencies -- but by people looking to share a photo, a thought, or a moment in time with people they may never meet.

"World News with Diane Sawyer" sat down with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey to go over this year's list.

Michelle Malkin, December 1st:

What’s missing from the Top Tweets of 2011 list? . . . [N]ot a mention of Weinergate to be found.

Tim Graham on Newsbusters, December 2nd:

Twitter picked the "Top Tweets of 2011" and ABC News got the "exclusive" right to broadcast the list...and both ridiculously skipped in that top-ten list the biggest Twitter political scandal of the year (and Twitter's five-year existence): now-former Congressman Anthony Weiner's crotch shots. . .

Twitter (and their ABC promoters) insisted it was more notable that a guy joke-tweeted for a Morton's porterhouse at the airport and Morton's decided to show up with a steak for the publicity. Or that bored NBA star Kevin Durant showed up at a flag-football game with old Oklahoma buddies through Twitter. It doesn't pass the laugh test. (By contrast, on December [29], 2010, Sawyer's newscast did mock Sarah Palin using "refudiate" on Twitter in their year in review.)

Perhaps Twitter and ABC will list ex-Congressman Weiner's "randy" pic as the number one "Bottom Tweets of 2011."

Program Notes

2011-12-04T00:01:00.002-05:00

Fewer posts next week--still not feeling up to it.

Headline of the Day

2011-12-03T12:00:00.009-05:00

From the November 29th Guardian (U.K.):

Despite warm autumn, 2011 temperatures fail to reach record highs

This year was only the 11th warmest on record, but figures confirm overall warming trend

The article is based on a U.K. Met Office press release.

As Steven Goddard says at Real Science:

Translation: Temperatures have been cooling for 13 years, and 2011 is looking to finish as the first or second coldest year of the millennium. Did the UN hire a bunch of writers from Pravda when the Soviet Union collapsed?

More seriously, Dr. David Whitehouse observes:

There is a great deal of misrepresentation in this article. Somehow its twisted logic concludes that even as 2011 turns out to be a rather cool year, as it admits probably the 11th warmest on record taking us back to the temperatures in the 1990’s before the recent warmest decade on record, somehow the world’s temperature continues to rise as expected.

I will pass judgement on 2011 when all the data is in, but if it is on a par with global temperatures seen in the 1990’s -- when the decadal average was lower than the average of the past ten years -- it certainly does not indicate that temperatures are continuing upward.

Agreed. But, as before, the Met Office is offering spin, not fact, Whitehouse says:

[I]n the absence of important UN climate meetings in December of the year I wonder if the Met Office would issue estimates for the global average temperature for the previous year based on only 10 months of data (83% of the annual data). It is a most illogical thing to do, especially as sometimes the data from the final two months can make a difference, often unacknowledged afterwards.

TARP Update

2011-12-03T00:01:00.009-05:00

I've previously reported that the TARP bailout cost less than predicted, because most of the "big banks" paid back their loans (with interest), and that the majority of expenses came from "the program's unwarranted expansion to include bailouts to GM and Chrysler, . . . the Making Home Affordable program, [and] AIG." Now, the Occupy Wall Street movement's vilifying big banks, cheered on by the Obama Administration. "Too big to fail" is back in the news--and disliked. So, it's time for a fact check.

According to the October 27th report of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), most of the big banks paid back their TARP loans (at 7):

A common misperception is that most of the 707 TARP banks have paid back TARP, when really only the largest banks have exited TARP. Smaller and medium size banks are not exiting TARP with the same speed as the larger banks, with approximately 400 still in TARP. Of these, nearly half are not paying their TARP dividend and in some cases, the banks are operating under an order by their regulator. Compared to larger banks, community banks may face an uphill battle to exit TARP. Community banks do not have the same access to capital as the larger banks. They are more exposed to distressed commercial real estate related assets and non-performing loans.

So OWS should be protesting local community banks. Instead, they're considering "transferring their checking and savings accounts from rapacious giants like Bank of America to community-based lending institutions, credit unions and other financial organizations more responsive to the needs of their customers." BTW, Bank of America repaid its TARP loan. So, as usual, OWS gets it exactly backwards.

Maybe OWS should relocate to Detroit--GM and Chrysler got huge bailouts, to benefit the autoworker unions, with little hope of eventual public profit. And don't forget Government Sponsored Entity mortgage lenders Fannie and Freddie, now-government operated but excluded from Obama's budget. Though largely responsible for the housing crisis, they got $ 183 billion, and can't pay it back (except for some dividend income).

Starting on page 43, the SIGTARP reports in detail on disbursements and receipts. A Powerline reader provides a useful summary:

After all, where did the loan proceeds GO? ANSWER: to developers, brokers, construction unions, contractors, landowners, lawyers, appraisers, servicers, local governments and boosters, real estate agents. . . AND homeowners. And house flippers, getting windfall gains.

source: Powerline

That’s where the wealth transfers from the bubble overwhelmingly ended up. The fees "Wall Street bankers" made (2% - 3%) and the net interest spread and returns expected by investors--but subject to losses--pale in comparison to the application of proceeds to the other beneficiaries. It is impossible for it to be otherwise. You might call them the 99%. Sure, the banks got fees but the 99% got the aggregate net principal from the loans. In the end there was, indeed, a wealth transfer, ultimately from taxpayers (and to a lesser extent from investor losses) paying for FNMA/FHLMC and other government agencies. But the wealth transfer was primarily TO the 99%, not to the "Wall Street banks".

Conclusion: OWS and Obama re-started class warfare. It's a Kabuki dance--but fiction.

QOTD

2011-12-02T12:00:00.003-05:00

Lisa Gartner in the Washington Examiner:

More than 1,600 low-income students have enrolled in District private schools using a federally funded voucher program this year, a 60 percent increase over last year.

This school year was the first that the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program allowed new enrollees since Congress stopped the funds in 2009 amid controversy over whether the program improved educational outcomes for the District's poorest students. Students already receiving vouchers continued in the program.

Before Congress cut off funding, the program had grown from 1,027 participants in fall 2004, its first year, to a peak of 1,930 in the 2007-2008 school year.

Congress renewed the scholarship program for $100 million over five years in April -- giving parents just four months to sign up. Yet 745 of the 1,615 participating students, or 46 percent, are new this year. . .

More than 92 percent of the voucher recipients would otherwise be assigned to schools in need of improvement, corrective action or restructuring, her organization said.

Instead, students received scholarships of up to $12,000 for high school and up to $8,000 for elementary or middle school. The program received $13.7 million in federal funding this year. Fifty-three District private schools are currently involved in the program.

About 98 percent of participating students are black or Hispanic, and 40 percent live in Wards 7 or 8. The average household income of students was $23,401 in 2010. The federal poverty line for a family of four was $41,347.50 last year. . .

D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown testified before the House that he supported the voucher program. "I cannot look a working mother in the eye and tell her that she deserves less choice, not more," he said.

Told 'ya.

(via reader Ken R.)

Legislation of the Day

2011-12-02T00:01:00.007-05:00

President Obama has been flogging his American Jobs Act for some time. To little effect, thankfully, so far.

But the flaws in the bill go beyond its costs. Specifically, Section 374(a) of Obama's AJA (page 130) would it make it unlawful for a company looking to add workers to "fail or refuse to consider for employment, or fail or refuse to hire, an individual as an employee because of the individual's status as unemployed." According to the Diversity Executive newsletter:

Employers who do not follow the proposed law would face monetary civil remedies. The provision would give those claiming discrimination a right to sue and violators would face fines of up to $1,000 per day, plus attorney fees and other costs.

The effect, says Michael Saltsman in the Wall Street Journal "would make employment status a new protected class--like age, race or sex--when it comes to hiring." As American Thinker's K.E. Campbell observes:

While such a law would be a boon for the labor bar and the culture of victimhood, it would have opposite its intended effect on hiring, assuming you buy into the premise that the actual goal of the bill is to increase employment. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R - TX), who has been an outspoken critic of the bill and the unemployed-as-protected class proposal in particular, thinks the Act should be titled "The Plaintiffs' Lawyers Full Employment Bill."

The logic that lowering employers' litigation risks will lead to greater employment escapes liberals. And overlooked in such a meddling provision, however well intended, is that every newly hired currently employed person will leave behind a vacant position in need of filling.

This country needs another protected class like it needs another Solyndra. But this bill isn't about increasing employment, self-sufficiency, and prosperity. Like this President, it is about "classes" and class warfare, special interest groups, and identity politics.

Count me with Mr. Saltsman:

The proposed legislation to address it would create a tremendous new liability for employers while doing little to lower the unemployment rate. The only employment it would spur is in law firms eager to represent applicants convinced they were denied a job because they didn't already have one.

Jobs Hokum

2011-12-01T12:00:00.012-05:00

THIS IS A GUEST POST BY READER MORGAN

As if the old Obama job metrics weren’t laughable enough, the administration added a new one, "jobs supported". The White House explains it this way:

The American Jobs Act Will Support Nearly 400,000 Education Jobs--Preventing Layoffs and Allowing Thousands More to Be Hired or Rehired: The President’s plan will more than offset projected layoffs, providing support for nearly 400,000 education jobs--enough for states to avoid harmful layoffs and rehire tens of thousands of teachers who lost their jobs over the past three years.

If you don’t think about it, or if you’re a leftist ideologue, it makes sense. On the other hand, Chuck Blahous thinks the numbers are illogical and irrelevant:

[E]ven if numbers of "jobs at risk" were correct, this would tell us nothing about the desirability of the Administration’s proposed policy response. The figures presented effectively describe a set of assumptions about state budgets; they carry no hard information about the efficacy of the AJA.

Things are obviously getting desperate at the White House. They've already invented job metrics that, at best, are silly and unsupported:

Current Obama Job Metrics

Jobs we'd have if it wasn't for Bush

Jobs saved or created

Jobs supported

The mind boggles at what may be next in Obama's jobs lexicon if unemployment gets even worse:

Theoretical New Obama Job Metrics

Jobs we'd have if everybody would just listened to me. I went to Harvard.

Average number of jobs created per state, multiplied by 57

Jobs we Hope™ to have

Jobs Joe Biden thinks we have

Jobs we’d have if green jobs count double

Jobs we’d have cleaning up after OWS if it spread to every city, town and village

Jobs we’d have if minority jobs counted triple. (Asians excluded)

Jobs we’d have if college tuition were free and everybody quit their jobs to go to back to school

Manufacturing jobs we’d have if every household earning more than $250,000 had to buy a Chevy Volt.

Jobs we'd have if all the millionaires and billionaires dropped dead and we had to bury them

Green jobs we’d have if all able bodied citizens were mandated to run to work wearing propeller beanies that charged molten-salt batteries in their fanny packs.

Jobs we’d have tending herds of unicorns if global warming hadn’t brutally murdered them

Jobs than can dance on the head of a pin

Jobs are a capitalist plot against humanity

Peek-a-boo ... look at my shiny car keys.

(via Hot Air)

Venezuela Update

2011-12-01T00:01:00.010-05:00

As I've reported, Venezuela is descending into a failed state. According to PJ Media's Jaime Daremblum, it's getting worse:

[T]o truly appreciate what the Bolivarian socialist [Hugo Chávez] has done to a once-prosperous country awash in oil, we must go beyond his vitriolic anti-U.S. rants, his attacks on democracy, and his disastrous economic policies. Here are four things you must know to understand (a) how the Chávez regime has survived this long and (b) where Venezuela might be headed:

(1). The regime is financially dependent on China.

The combination of a ruined private economy and profligate government spending has utterly wrecked Venezuelan public finances. While the country still collects sizable oil revenues, Chávez has badly mismanaged Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the state-owned energy giant, which is slowly crumbling. . .

Enter China, which has been pouring money into the Venezuelan oil sector. Moreover, under various "oil for credit" deals signed with Beijing, Chávez has secured a whopping $32 billion of low-interest Chinese loans. According to a Wall Street Journal report last week, the Chinese government had loaned Venezuela $20.8 billion through mid-April, and daily Venezuelan oil shipments to China under the agreements now total roughly 400,000 barrels. . .

(2). The regime is run partly by Cubans. . .

The cash-strapped Castro government desperately needs Venezuelan oil subsidies, so it is desperate to keep Chávez in power. Hence the influx of Cuban "advisers" working to strengthen his Bolivarian revolution. Caracas is now persecuting retired Gen. Antonio Rivero for decrying the Cubanization of the Venezuelan military.

By giving Cuban officials such important roles in Venezuela’s security apparatus, Chávez has done two things: First, he has brought in trained Communists with a wealth of experience running a dictatorship. Second, he has given Havana significant influence over Venezuelan government operations -- as long as he remains in power. . .

(3). The regime’s senior military allies are complicit in the drug trade.

To date, the U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned three top Venezuelan generals for having links to drug trafficking: Cliver Alcalá, a prominent army commander; Hugo Carvajal, the military intelligence chief; and Henry Rangel Silva, the defense minister. All three are devoted chavistas, whereas many other Venezuelan military officials have grown estranged from Chávez. When Alcalá was added to the Treasury blacklist a few months ago, Univision reporter Casto Ocando noted that he stood out as "one of the few military figures that still has the confidence of the Venezuelan president." . . .

(4). The regime has trained thousands of pro-government paramilitary fighters, who represent a serious long-term threat to domestic peace and stability.

Call them the Venezuelan Revolutionary Guards: Chávez has established a militia comparable to the famous Iranian outfit that is sworn to defend theocratic rule. Earlier this year, a presidential decree brought these Venezuelan paramilitary fighters under Chávez’s direct command; it also gave them officers who are independent of the army. According to an analysis of captured FARC computer files by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the Venezuelan paramilitaries have received direct training from Colombia’s biggest terror group. "FARC communications also discussed providing training in urban terrorism methods for representatives of the Venezuelan Communist Party and several radical cells from 23 de Enero, a Caracas slum that has long been a hive of pro-Chávez activity," as the New York Times has reported.

Chávez also has mismanaged the economy, creating shortages, imposing price controls, and threatening more nationalization.

Of course, America still has no Venezuelan policy--instead forcing the Venezuelan opposition to appeal to the International Criminal Court. Good luck.

QOTD

2011-11-30T12:00:00.007-05:00

From a new report on the risks of power blackouts by insurer Allianz and the Chief Risk Officer Forum (at 6):

A downside of renewable energy particularly, wind and solar technologies, is the volatile supply of power. Not only may a scarcity of electricity result in a power blackout, but an oversupply can also lead to grid instabilities as they alter the frequency within the network. For example wind energy in East Germany during strong wind conditions can provide up to 12 GW, which is more than all German coal and gas fired power plants considered together. This is not critical as long as there is enough electricity demand, but may lead to grid instabilities in cases of insufficient demand as there is not enough electricity storage capacity available. To get rid of excess electricity, transmission system operators (TSOs) often have to pay an extra fee to the electricity market (EEX -- European Energy Exchange, Leipzig). Otherwise wind park operators have to be convinced to stop the wind turbines immediately in order to prevent grid instabilities and blackouts. Conversely wind turbines must be stopped due to safety reasons if the wind speed exceeds 30 m/sec. This scenario may cause, within one hour, power gaps equal to the performance of two nuclear power plants. In such cases conventional reserve power plants are required to step in instantly.

In addition, the location of e.g. windfarms (onshore and offshore) is often far away from the centres of demand. Electricity has to be transported from sparsely populated regions to large electricity consumers in metropolitan areas. Therefore, new energy infrastructure (new high voltage transmission lines, transformers and energy storage capacities such as pumped-storage hydropower plants or thermal storage facilities) are needed.

Agreed, as to solar, wind and the limitations on hydro storage.

Renewables still account for only a tiny share of energy consumption, because of the expense--and that won't change any time soon. Heck, after promising a major commitment, even Google's abandoning renewable energy production.

(via The Telegraph (U.K.))

Compare & Contrast

2011-11-30T00:01:00.004-05:00

President Obama, Inaugural Address, January 20, 2009:

We'll restore science to its rightful place.

President Obama, Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies, April 9, 2009:

The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions. Political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions. If scientific and technological information is developed and used by the Federal Government, it should ordinarily be made available to the public. To the extent permitted by law, there should be transparency in the preparation, identification, and use of scientific and technological information in policymaking.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Memorandum to EPA Employees, April 23, 2009:

The success of our environmental efforts depends on earning and maintaining the trust of the public we serve. The American people will not trust us to protect their health or their environment if they do not trust us to be transparent and inclusive in our decision-making. To earn this trust, we must conduct business with the public openly and fairly. . .

I believe this will enhance the credibility of the Agency, boost public trust in our actions and improve the quality of our decisions.

John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Memorandum on Scientific Integrity, December 17, 2010:

[I]t is important that policymakers involve science and technology experts where appropriate and that the scientific and technological information and processes relied upon in policymaking be of the highest integrity. Successful application of science in public policy depends on the integrity of the scientific process both to ensure the validity of the information itself and to engender public trust in Government [including] ensuring that data and research used to support policy decisions undergo independent peer review by qualified experts.

EPA, Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, December 15, 2009:

The Administrator finds that six greenhouse gases taken in combination endanger both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations. . .

EPA’s approach to evaluating the evidence before it was entirely reasonable, and did not require a formal hearing. EPA relied primarily on robust synthesis reports that have undergone peer review and comment. The Agency also carefully considered the comments received on the Proposed Findings and TSD [Technical Support Document], including review of attached studies and documents. The public has had ample opportunity to provide its views on the science, and the record supporting these final findings indicates that EPA carefully considered and responded to significant public comments.

EPA, Office of the Inspector General, Procedural Review of EPA’s Greenhouse Gases Endangerment Finding Data Quality Processes, September 26, 2011:

EPA’s peer review did not meet all OMB requirements for such documents. EPA had the TSD reviewed by a panel of 12 federal climate change scientists. However, the panel’s findings and EPA’s disposition of the findings were not made available to the public as would be required for reviews of highly influential scientific assessments. Also, this panel did not fully meet the independence requirements for reviews of highly influential scientific assessments because one of the panelists was an EPA employee. Further, in developing its endangerment finding, we found that OAR did not: Include language in its proposed action, final action, or internal memoranda that identified whether the Agency used influential scientific information or highly influential scientific assessments to support the action. OAR also did not certify that the supporting technical information was peer reviewed in accordance with EPA’s peer review policy. (at 13)

Additionally, EPA’s Peer Review Handbook directs the Agency to include a statement in its action memorandum that the Agency followed its peer review policy with respect to the influential scientific information or highly influential scientific assessments supporting the action. (at 19)

In our opinion, the endangerment finding TSD is a highly influential scientific assessment that should have been peer reviewed as outlined in Section III of OMB’s Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review. OAR never formally designated the document as either influential scientific information or as a highly influential scientific assessment in the preamble to the proposed and final endangerment findings or in its internal documentation. EPA did not consider the TSD to be a highly influential scientific assessment. Additionally, OAR did not adhere to some of its internal processes established to guide Tier 1 actions. We noted that OAR had completed many of the processes and steps outlined in its guidance to ensure the quality of the information the Administrator used in making her determination. Those processes are intended to help ensure EPA develops quality actions and to provide assurance on data quality. We concluded that the Agency did not complete some of these key requirements and recommended actions. We did not analyze the quality of the scientific information and data used to support the Administrator’s decision. (at 22)

We found that EPA did not contemporaneously document how it applied and considered the assessment factors in determining whether the IPCC and other assessment reports were of sufficient quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity. EPA described the IPCC review procedures and how they met EPA data quality requirements in the proposed and final rulemakings. However, the Agency did not conduct any independent evaluations of IPCC’s compliance with IPCC procedures, nor did EPA document any specific processes it employed to evaluate the scientific and technical information included in IPCC’s AR4 prior to EPA disseminating that information. (at 27)

Because EPA used information from other organizations to support its findings, EPA, in evaluating whether to disseminate that information, should have determined whether the assessments referenced in the TSD (e.g., IPCC’s AR4) complied with EPA’s information quality guidelines, and whether the peer reviews of these assessments met OMB’s requirements for peer review of scientific assessments. U.S. government acceptance of the documents did not relieve EPA of its responsibility to determine whether the data met EPA’s information quality guidelines before disseminating the information. (at 28)

Conclusion: As the Wall Street Journal editorializes:

Here's one good way to consider the vote in 2012: It's about whether to re-elect President Lisa Jackson, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, which these days runs most the U.S. economy.

That is to say, she's trying to kill most of the economy.

QOTD

2011-11-29T12:00:00.005-05:00

Iain Murray in the Washington Examiner:

America's Constitution begins, "We the people of the United States." By contrast, the Treaty of Maastricht that established the European Union begins, "His Majesty the King of the Belgians."

The treaty does say that its member states should have governments "founded on the principles of democracy." Yet last week, two EU nations ceased to be democracies in any meaningful sense -- and the EU orchestrated this outrage.

On Nov. 11, 2011, two EU countries, Greece and Italy, installed new prime ministers. Neither has ever held elected office. And neither holds a democratic mandate.

In Greece, the former academic and EU central banker Lucas Papademos was appointed after a deal was reached between the fractious parties of Greece's parliament, which had rejected calls for early elections.

In Italy, the former academic and EU commissioner Mario Monti was appointed only two days after being made senator for life by the country's president.

Both gentlemen can be best described as technocrats. They are part of a new European elite -- clever, progressive, and with careers paid for by the taxpayer.

However, unlike traditional politicians, members of this new class need never suffer the indignity of campaigning for office. . .

the EU's leadership has effectively repudiated the core EU value of democracy. The old core value of a market economy has already been changed to a "social market economy." One wonders which one will be dismissed next as inconvenient to the EU's leadership.

If the EU were to true to its professed values, it would take a very different approach. It would recognize that democracy and national sovereignty are incompatible with a stateless common currency and a set of overweening supranational regulations, and get rid of the latter.

The EU would become more like the United States, with jurisdictions engaging in competitive federalism, using their comparative advantages to maximize the wealth and welfare of their citizens, and thereby of the EU as a whole.

That, however, would inconvenience the unelected elite who rule Europe today, jeopardizing the jobs of future Montis and Papademoses. The European Union is now unabashedly a technocracy. Could it happen here?

President Obama's former budget director, Peter Orszag, said in September that "less democracy" and more "depoliticized commissions" were needed to tackle our problems.

As Obama seeks to further Europeanize America, We the People should take note of what is happening in Europe, and repudiate these shameful coups d'etat.

Agreed--technocratic government is worse than democracy and ineffective anyway (think Supercommittee).

The Science Gets Less Settled

2011-11-29T00:01:00.003-05:00

As previously discussed, a key element of the global warming hypothesis is "climate sensitivity," the warming "that can eventually be expected to follow a doubling in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide." The last IPCC report (AR4) gave a range of estimates that included a "fat tail"--"the possibility that very large climate sensitivities are a realistic possibility."

Not so fast. According to a new paper in Science (PDF here), the reality may not be so dire:

Specifically, if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are to double from pre-industrial levels of 280 ppm to 560 ppm, the researchers say Earth’s average temperature is likely to rise from 1.7 to 2.6 Celsius degrees, a decrease from the previous, accepted range of 2 to 4.5 degrees.

source: Schmittner et al at 14

Oregon State's Andreas Schmittner, the paper's lead author, says

Many previous climate sensitivity studies have looked at the past only from 1850 through today, and not fully integrated paleoclimate date, especially on a global scale. When you reconstruct sea and land surface temperatures from the peak of the last Ice Age 21,000 years ago -- which is referred to as the Last Glacial Maximum -- and compare it with climate model simulations of that period, you get a much different picture.

If these paleoclimatic constraints apply to the future, as predicted by our model, the results imply less probability of extreme climatic change than previously thought.

No wonder Canada and Europe are cooling on global warming.

(via Watts Up With That?)

QOTD

2011-11-28T12:00:00.001-05:00

Jeffrey Anderson in the Weekly Standard:

What should Republicans do? If Republicans want to show that they’re remotely as committed to eliminating Obamacare as Obama was in imposing it, there are plenty of actions they can take. Congressional Republicans can pass bills to repeal Obamacare’s CLASS (Community Living Assistance Services and Supports) Act and its grisly IPAB (Independent Payment Advisory Board)--and then follow that by once again passing full repeal legislation, this time in the midst of a presidential campaign. In addition, they can pass the replacement legislation for Obamacare that they promised voters they would deliver.

Republican presidential candidates can emphasize that repealing Obamacare is by far the most important thing the next administration and Congress can do. They can detail why Obamacare is probably the worst piece of legislation in American history, while unveiling plans to replace it-plans that would lower health costs, end the tax code’s discrimination against the uninsured, and fund state-run community pools to help provide access to coverage for those with prohibitively expensive preexisting conditions.

Beyond that, Republican presidential, congressional, and senatorial candidates would do well to reflect on, and perhaps reconsider, what the coming election is really all about. If Obamacare is one of the worst--maybe the worst--and most unpopular major pieces of legislation ever passed on these shores, and if its fate will likely be decided by the upcoming election (as it will), then why would Republicans say that the upcoming election is mostly about the economy?

Obama knows he cannot win a referendum on Obamacare. His best hope is that Republicans will continue to join him in pretending that this will be a run-of-the-mill election centered around the economy, rather than a historic election in which the citizenry’s verdict will largely determine the future course of the nation.

#Francefail

2011-11-28T00:01:00.001-05:00

UPDATE: British Foreign Office: "Prepare for riots in euro collapse"

Cyrus Sanati in Fortune:

France's problem is that it simply has been living beyond its means for way too long. While not as bad as Italy, France has a very high debt compared to its economic output. Its total government debt of around 1.3 trillion euros equates to a debt-to-GDP ratio of around 83%. That is relatively low in comparison to the likes of Greece, which is at 140%, and Italy, which is at 120%, but it is high for a country that has a perfect triple-A credit rating -- much higher than the United States, which lost its triple-A rating earlier this summer.

If France's economic growth prospects were strong, then its debt-to-GDP ratio wouldn't be an issue, but the country is facing some serious challenges on that front. France's once strong manufacturing sector has decayed in recent years causing it to import increasingly more goods. Where once the country ran large trade surpluses, it now runs large deficits. In the first six months of this year France had a trade deficit of 37.5 billion euros. While that's a large number, what's really troubling is how fast it has grown, up 36% compared to the same time last year.

France's high labor costs seem to be behind the drop off in exports. The Germans have trounced the French in both internal and external eurozone trade. France is actually helping the Germans win in two ways. First, it has allowed its workforce to become less competitive. In 2000, French workers were paid 8% less than German workers. Now, French workers are paid 10% more than German workers. Second, France runs a trade deficit with Germany of around 1 billion euros a month. That is a complete reversal from 2004 when it was Germany that was running the billion-euro-a-month trade deficit with France.

What has happened to the French economy? The 35-hour government mandated work week surely hasn't helped matters much, but it goes deeper. France has the highest level of government spending in the eurozone at around 54% of GDP. That high level of spending goes to support the generous French welfare state, which is funded through borrowing and high taxes. Those taxes are passed through businesses, making French goods very expensive and ultimately uncompetitive on the world market. Today, around half of the gross labor costs in France go to prop up the French welfare state, while it is just 28% in neighboring Germany, according to MEDEF, France's largest union of employers.

The market was looking for France to finally announce plans to reduce its spending and force through meaningful cuts in its social safety net. Instead, it got a plan where France would try to tax its way out of its problems. Meaningful cuts in government spending, followed by liberalization of the nation's labor laws, will go a long way to solving France's fiscal dilemma. That would require a showdown with the country's powerful unions, something that not even conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy seems to have the stomach for at this point.

But if not, France's failure could take much of the Eurozone down with it.

Program Notes

2011-11-27T00:01:00.002-05:00

Another day off: "Woo hoo! A four-day weekend."

QOTD

2011-11-26T12:00:00.005-05:00

Ezra Levant in the Toronto Sun:

For 34 years, Canada has had a disgraceful censorship law that violates our human rights.

In 1977, Pierre Trudeau rammed through the Canadian Human Rights Act -- an Orwellian name for a law that actually destroys real rights.

The entire law is a corruption of justice -- it creates a kangaroo court, run by non-judges, that does not follow the same rules and procedures of real courts, but has massive powers to punish and fine people who aren’t politically correct.

But the worst part of the law is Section 13, the censorship provision. Section 13 creates a word crime -- the crime of publishing or broadcasting anything that can cause hurt feelings.

Back in 1977, that law was focused on telephone lines and answering machines. But 10 years ago, it was expanded to include the Internet.

So it even covers things like whatever you post to your Facebook page. Section 13 says "it is a discriminatory practice ... to cause to be ... communicated ... any matter that is likely to expose a person ... to hatred or contempt."

So if you publish anything on Facebook, or on your cellphone voice message, that might make one person feel bad about another, you’ve just broken the law.

Truth is not a defence to being charged with "hate" under Section 13. Fair comment is not a defence. Religious belief is not a defence. Telling a joke is not a defence. The law has nothing to do with truth or the right to have an opinion. It’s about whether or not you’ve offended someone or hurt their feelings.

Section 13 is an insane law. So un-Canadian, so contrary to our traditions of liberty that go back centuries, inherited from the United Kingdom. . .

Last week, the federal justice minister, Rob Nicholson, stood up in the House of Commons and answered a question about Section 13.

The question was about a private member’s bill, put by Brian Storseth, an MP from northern Alberta. Storseth has introduced a private member’s bill, C-304, to repeal Section 13. But private member’s bills have little chance of passing without the endorsement of the government.

But Nicholson did endorse it. He called on all MPs to support it, too. Bill C-304, Storseth’s bill, is now effectively a government bill. And with a Tory majority in both the House and Senate, this bill is as good as done.

No more witch hunts by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. No more persecuting their political and religious enemies.

This is the best thing the Harper government has done in five years. Freedom is on the march.

Finally.

Charts of the Day

2011-11-26T00:01:00.007-05:00

The Occupy Wall Street protesters are threatening to stop paying student loan debt. They blame the 1 percent, when the fault is theirs:

source: Marginal Revolution

source: Chronicle of Higher Education

The Wall Street Journal has a nifty interactive gizmo allowing comparison of the popularity of college majors with the graduate's resulting earnings and employment. The five majors whose graduates were most likely to be unemployed:

Clinical Psychology
Miscellaneous Fine Arts
United States History
Library Science
Educational Psychology

Similar charts here.

Based on the WSJ data, Gabriel Rossman at Code and Culture plotted "unemployment by rank popularity. Because low rank means popular, the funnel is backwards":

source: Code and Culture

All of which suggests that the OWS protesters should major in something other than liberal arts so they don't go deep in debt without being able to "get a job".

Alas, OWS hasn't realized that. Nor do they seem to know that federally guaranteed student loans normally are not dischargable in bankruptcy. Although were there mass defaults, American taxpayers might be more willing to downsize the guaranteed student loan program.

But that's not the way OWS protesters see it:

[Dylan] Bozlee dropped out of college at the University of Hawaii to join Occupy, and says he’d rather travel across America than get a job. "Do I want to work? Only if I wanted a home, wife, kids and a dog. If not, I think you’re ruining your life," he said.

In other words, not only did OWS choose to become slackers, they insist taxpayers fund it. Call the soap opera "The Young and the Lazy."

QOTD

2011-11-25T12:00:00.007-05:00

Richard Grenell on "Obama's Failing Iran Diplomacy" in the November 21st Wall Street Journal:

The simple fact is that the world is less unified on Iran now than it was under President George W. Bush. True enough, Mr. Obama may hear fewer complaints about hard-charging U.S. foreign policies than his predecessor. But silence is not cooperation.

The Bush administration got five Security Council resolutions passed on Iran starting in 2006. Three were sanctions resolutions. The Security Council was unanimous on two of the votes and lost only one country's support (Indonesia) in the third vote in 2008. In total, the Bush team lost the support of one country in its three sanctions resolutions while the Obama team lost the support of three countries in one resolution.

Two views are emerging in response to the International Atomic Energy Agency's latest report on Iran's nuclear weapons. While one camp believes the Iranians are close to obtaining nuclear weapons, the other side believes they haven't mastered the technology and that time still remains to work out a diplomatic, non-military solution.

The Obama team falls in the second camp. It is calling for more diplomacy and more international pressure--as if U.S. diplomats haven't tried to convince Iran or its neighbors that its pursuit of a nuclear weapon is not a good idea.

And that's what's so dangerous about the president's spin. His administration professes that the world is unified in pressuring Iran, but what the international community is really unified about is doing nothing.

The pronouncements from the White House that unity from the international community is its priority are naïve and treacherous excuse-making. And if consensus is the mandate, then the Obama team has already failed that test with the divided-support for their only resolution. More importantly, the Russians and the Chinese, with their complaints about another round of sanctions, have scared off the Obama team from calling for a vote on another resolution.

Mr. Obama's gamble that we have time before Iran gets a nuclear weapon is perilous. Those calling for more pressure on Russia and China to comply with current sanctions miss the reality of Iran's pursuit and the weakness of the Obama team. If Russia and China can vote for multiple Iran sanctions resolutions but ignore them--and then resist subsequent demands to comply with previous resolutions or produce new ones--then giving them more time to realize the errors of their ways is foolish.

The strategy to increase pressure on Iran through international sanctions had a chance to work. But the president released that pressure and ignored the previous U.S. work to try his personal diplomacy. The Obama team has succeeded in stopping countries from grumbling about U.S. policy, but that's only because they haven't called for an Iran vote in almost 18 months.

The Obama Administration's Iran strategy manifestly has failed. Ed Lasky affirms that "the problem is Obama":

Where is the logic, then, of the administration periodically trotting out the statement that "all options are on the table"? This is a codephrase for a military option. It is also used to try to garner support among supporters of Israel in America. It is a campaign slogan and political strategy; it is not a real threat, and the Iranians know this fact. Why some Americans are gullible enough to believe Obama's latest campaign slogan is the topic of another column.

Then there are those rooting for failure, such as the liberal Guardian (U.K.), which thinks Iran's nuke program is fully justified as a deterrent. Guess the Guardian got confused about which Mid-East country vowed to wipe a neighboring country "off the map."

GM Bailout Still Under Water

2011-11-25T00:01:00.004-05:00

UPDATE: The Washington Post's Charles Lane says "GM should buy back U.S. taxpayers’ shares"

Shikha Dalmia in Reason last week:

The Treasury Department yesterday revised its loss estimate for the Government Motors bailout from $14.33 billion to $23.6 billion, thanks to the company’s sinking stock price. GM’s Sept. 30 closing price, on which the new estimate is based, was $20.18, about $13 less than its December IPO price and $35 less than what is needed for taxpayers to break even.

The $23.6 billion represents a 25 percent loss on the feds $60 billion direct "investment" in GM. But that’s not all that taxpayers are on the hook for. As I explained previously, Uncle Sam’s special GM bankruptcy package allowed the company to write off $45 billion in previous losses going forward. This could work out to as much as $15 billion in tax savings that GM wouldn’t have had had it gone through a normal bankruptcy. Why? Because after bankruptcy, the tax liabilities of companies increase since they have no more losses to write off.

This means that the total hit to taxpayers, who still own about a quarter of the company, could add up to $38.6 billion. That’s even more that the $34 billion on the outside I had predicted in May.

I told you.

Give Thanks

2011-11-24T12:00:00.001-05:00

To the Washington Post's George Will for his list of Thanksgiving turkeys, including:

A week after Barack Obama cited an Ohio restaurant as a beneficiary of the Chrysler bailout, the restaurant closed. . .

No one saw the possible problem with the word "despite" in this headline: "Gun crime continues to decrease, despite increase in gun sales." . . .

Anticipating a theme from America’s economist in chief, who would soon suggest that ATMs and ticket kiosks at airports aggravate unemployment, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. said the iPad is "responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs," such as "all of the jobs associated with paper."

(via reader Doug)

Program Notes

2011-11-24T00:01:00.002-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving--enjoy your turkey and football.

QOTD

2011-11-23T12:00:00.002-05:00

Randall Palmer and Louise Egan provide "Insight: Lessons for U.S. from Canada's "basket case" moment" (alternate link) (emphasis added):

Canada's shift from pariah to fiscal darling provides lessons for Washington as lawmakers find few easy answers to the huge U.S. deficit and debt burden, and for European countries staggering under their own massive budget problems.

"Everyone wants to know how we did it," said political economist Brian Lee Crowley, head of the Ottawa-based thinktank Macdonald-Laurier Institute, who has examined the lessons of the 1990s.

But to win its budget wars, Canada first had to realize how dire its situation was and then dramatically shrink the size of government rather than just limit the pace of spending growth.

It would eventually oversee the biggest reduction in Canadian government spending since demobilization after World War Two. The big cuts, and relatively small tax increases, brought a budget surplus within four years. . .

The Liberals thought their first, rushed budget -- delivered in February 1994, three months after taking office, was tough.

It reformed unemployment insurance entitlements, and cut defense and foreign aid, as well as closing some business tax loopholes and ending a C$100,000 lifetime capital gains exemption. The savings totaled C$10 billion over two years.

The government said it would review all programs and predicted a deficit of 3 percent of GDP in 1996. But program spending was still budgeted to rise slightly, and the budget was widely seen as a failure.

Pete DeVries, who headed the fiscal policy division, remembers overhearing chatter from economists' and others as he waited for a flight to Toronto just after the budget.

"The mood was so depressed on that plane that I thought we're never going to get off the ground and if we did get off the ground we'd crash, because it was just doom and gloom," he said. "Everywhere you heard the words, 'They don't get it. They just don't get it.'"

Voters certainly didn't get it. People who had canceled vacations or taken a second job to make ends meet in the recession couldn't understand why Ottawa thought it could live beyond its means. . .

At one 1994 cabinet meeting, Martin announced a spending freeze. A minister put forward a project that needed funding but [Prime Minister] Chretien cut him off, reminding him of Martin's freeze.

A second minister raised his hand to ask for funding, and a testy Chretien told the cabinet that the next minister to ask for new money would see his whole budget cut by 20 percent.

Chretien's scrappiness, which was one result of his upbringing in a working class family in rural Quebec, had already earned him the nickname of "Dr. No" when he was finance minister in the 1970s.

"The prime minister was the man with the steel rod up his spine. He was inflexible," Manley said.

For ministers it was brutal. Manley lost half his budget as industry minister in the 1994 budget and went from 54 programs down to 11.

"Everyone knew they had to face the music, and they did it," Chretien said in the interview in his law offices. "They had no choice. There was no great debate. I had made my view very clear."

The ratio of spending cuts to tax hikes was seven-to-one. Asked why, Chretien said simply: "There was more need on one side than the other."

That contrasts with proposals this year by President Barack Obama and the Democrats to have a much higher proportion of revenue increases in the deficit-tackling mix.

Canadian ministers were told how much they had to cut and then told to come back with a plan on how to do it. Cuts ranged from five percent to 65 percent of departmental budgets and included controversial cuts in transfers that help provinces pay for health and education, decisions that lengthened medical waiting lists for years to come.

Chretien exempted just a few areas from the cuts, including the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. He also blocked big changes to benefits for the elderly and made sure tax collectors had enough resources.

In the end, program spending (everything except interest payments on the debt) fell by about 12 percent, or C$14 billion, between 1994-95 and 1998-99. The percentage fall was substantially more after adjusting for inflation.

The gloomy Canadian reaction to the 1994 budget changed to applause in 1995. "People came up to me to say, 'You guys got it,'" DeVries said.

The deficit disappeared by 1997 and the debt-to-GDP ratio began a rapid decline -- it is now at about 34 percent.

"The entire political class decided to stop treating this as a matter of political contention and started treating it as a matter of national interest," said Crowley, the political economist.

CO2 Source and Sink

2011-11-23T00:01:00.005-05:00

As noted recently and consistently, the case for action on climate change depends on several unproven assumptions. Two of the most crucial are that warming is caused by man-made CO₂ emissions, for which the industrialized world largely is responsible. (I note that although China now is the largest greenhouse gas emitter, most of the developing world still want wealthier nations to pay for carbon reduction.)

Were the developed world-created greenhouse gas model true, one would expect the West to be net CO₂ emitters, and the lesser developed world to be net CO₂ absorbers. Oops:

The results from from Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) show that Industrialized nations appear to be absorbing the carbon dioxide emissions from the Third World. (Can we get carbon credits for that?) The satellite shows that levels of CO2 are typically lower in developed countries than in air over developing countries.

source: JAXA

There are similar results for methane emissions. And a U.S. satellite measured similar global average emissions and sinks between 2001 and 2009 (though claiming not to count "fossil fuel emissions").

Chiefio (E.M Smith) says:

This isn’t that much of a surprise to me. I’d figured out some time ago that trees and bamboo could consume far more CO2 than I "produce" via burning oil and gas. I’ve also pointed out that The West is largely letting trees grow, while mowing our lawns and having the clippings "sequestered" in land fills (along with an untold tonnage of phone books and junk mail. . .) while the 3rd world is busy burning and cutting down their forests. The simple fact is that "jungle rot" will beat out my "gallon a day" of Diesel any time. Basically, we in the west grow far more wheat, corn, soybeans, wood, lawns, shrubs, etc. than we burn oil. In the 3rd world, they burn their sequestering plants. (And it takes one heck of a lot more wood to cook a meal than it does coal via a highly efficient furnace / electric generator / microwave oven.) But it’s nice to see it documented in aggregate in the "facts in the air".

Chiefio also has created a neat animated GIF of global emissions between 2009 and early 2011.

As Dr. Tim Ball concludes,

The oceans are the main control of atmospheric CO2 as one of the atmospheric gases in constant flux between the water and the atmosphere. The ocean’s ability to absorb CO2 is a function of its temperature -- cold water absorbs more CO2 than warm water. The boundary between the warm polar water and warm tropical water is very clearly defined in most parts of the world and the map generally reflects this pattern. The map is only surprising if you believe that humans are the primary source of CO2.

Man-made emissions are dwarfed by natural atmospheric carbon in influencing planetary temperatures. The sound you hear is the man-made greenhouse gas balloon deflating.

Leaderless

2011-11-22T12:00:00.014-05:00

UPDATE: Jennifer Rubin agrees. As does Charles Krauthammer. Plus, here's the Republican view.

Unsurprisingly, the "Supercommittee" on deficit reduction collapsed without an agreement yesterday. Washington Post editorial writer Eugene Robinson says "Republicans on the congressional supercommittee didn’t offer meaningful concessions on raising new tax revenue." His fellow WaPo economics correspondent Robert Samuelson tells the real story:

Contrary to much press coverage, the committee’s Republicans opened the door to compromise by abandoning -- as they should have -- opposition to tax increases. Sen. Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania proposed a tax "reform" that would raise income taxes by $250 billion over a decade. First, he would impose across-the-board reductions of most itemized deductions and use the resulting revenue gains to cut all tax rates. Next, he would adjust the rates for the top two brackets so that they’d be high enough to produce the $250 billion. All the tax increase would fall on people in the top brackets.

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin called Toomey’s proposal a "breakthrough." With good reason: It came from a "no new taxes, over my dead body" Republican who had signed Grover Norquist’s pledge against any tax increases. But the details of Toomey’s plan are murky, and many Democrats claim that it would cut taxes for the rich. Democrats also didn’t respond with an equal concession: a willingness to deal with Social Security and Medicare.

As is known, these "entitlements" are the central cause of long-term budget deficits. From 2005 to 2035, their cost will nearly double as a share of national income, projects the Congressional Budget Office. How big a government do we want? What’s the balance of fairness between young and old? How much should other programs be reduced or taxes raised? Many Democrats duck the fundamental policy questions and reject any benefit cuts.

Only President Obama can start such a debate. He has the bully pulpit, but he hasn’t used it. Here’s an exchange between ABC White House correspondent Jake Tapper and the president, at a July 15 news conference, that captures Obama’s calculated obscurity.
Tapper: "In the interest of transparency, leadership and also showing the American people that you have been negotiating (with Republicans) in good faith, can you tell us one structural reform that you are willing to make to one of these entitlement programs that would have a major effect on the deficit? Would you be willing to raise the retirement age? Would you be willing to means test Social Security or Medicare?"

Obama: "We’ve said that we are willing to look at all these approaches. I’ve laid out some criteria in terms of what would be acceptable. So, for example, I’ve said very clearly that we should make sure that current beneficiaries as much as possible are not affected. But we should look at what can we do in the out-years, so that over time some of these programs are more sustainable. I’ve said that means testing on Medicare, meaning people like myself, if -- I’m going to be turning 50 in a week. So I’m starting to think a little bit more about Medicare eligibility. (Laughter.) Yes, I’m going to get my AARP card soon -- and the discounts. But you can envision a situation where for somebody in my position, me having to pay a little bit more on premiums or co-pays or things like that would be appropriate."
Noncommittal gibberish. There is no leadership from the nation’s "leader." Space precludes running all his rambling response; the excerpt above was about half. Tapper followed up.
Tapper: "And the retirement age?"

Obama: "I’m not going to get into specifics."
Well, there you have it. The president won’t talk specifics, but government consists of specifics. The reason we cannot have a large budget deal is that Americans haven’t been prepared for one. The president hasn’t educated them, and so they can’t support what they don’t understand. Left or right, there are no comfortable positions. No one relishes curbing Social Security or Medicare benefits. But without changes, taxes will go way up, the rest of government will shrink dramatically or huge deficits will persist.

Even the Germans are irked. So the optimal solution is electing someone who doesn't duck leadership to the White House. Because mere sequestration won't close the budget gap (or address entitlements)

How To Know When Our President Is Lying

2011-11-22T00:01:00.009-05:00

THIS IS A GUEST POST BY READER WARREN

"Benford's law" is a statistical observation that:

predicts the frequency of the first digits of a collection of numbers. For example, measure the lengths of the world’s rivers, and see how many of the digits begin with "one" (184 miles; 1,543 miles) versus "three" (3,022 miles) or "nine" (985 miles). Newcomb and Benford discovered that the first digit is usually a "one" -- fully 30 per cent of the time, over six times more common than an initial "nine". And the result is true whether one counts the numbers on the front page of The New York Times or leafs through baseball statistics.

As an example of how Benford's Law works, here's a chart from Wikipedia showing first-digit distribution in population statistics of 237 countries:

source: Wikipedia

The red bars are the distribution in %. The black dots, predictions by Benford's Law.

Benford's law has become:

a useful test of the plausibility of data. In the early 1970s, Hal Varian, now chief economist at Google, argued that if economic data satisfied Benford’s Law on the way into an economic model but not on the way out, it was worth taking a second look at the model itself.

And Mark Nigrini, an accountancy professor, found fame in the 1990s by using Benford’s Law to discover accounting scams, frauds and tax dodges, such as inventing invoices that were just under some threshold for managerial approval.

Earlier this year, four German economists examined eleven years of EU official statistics -- and found that Benford's Law suggested that Greece submitted bogus numbers in its bid to be admitted into the Eurozone. Belgium may have played similar tricks.

After reading about Benford's law and the book-cooking Europeans, I thought, "If only there were a mathematical formula to show when Obama's lying."

Of course, we have the numbers and facts on Obamacare and on the mounting debt. It’s obvious that he isn’t telling the truth. Trouble is, the media mostly ignores the numbers. What we need is a quick and simple way to reveal his deceit that doesn't depend on the media, bar grafts or scatterplots.

It dawned on me that the answer is right in front of us. More specifically, it's right in front of him.

How can you tell our president is lying? His teleprompter's moving.

Poster Child

2011-11-21T12:00:00.012-05:00

Earlier today, I said climate change is "all about the cash." That turns out to be true for both countries and those supposedly-selfless scientists praised just last Saturday by a Washington Post editorial writer who plainly doesn't read NOfP.

There is no more famous climate alarmist than NASA's Dr. James Hansen, long lionized as a truth-seeking whistle-blower. He's won awards, medals and media accolades by the truck load. Hansen, seemingly, has been everywhere, doing everything to advance the socialist alarmist agenda. All on a government salary.

The Ethics in Government Act of 1978 (amended by the Ethics Reform Act of 1989) requires bureaucrats "to place loyalty to the Constitution, the laws and ethical principles above private gain." 5 C.F.R. § 2635.101(a). The Act places limits on outside income (including honoraria), paid-for travel, and gifts over nominal value. Importantly, the law requires government employees to disclose any such payments periodically. The disclosures are reviewed by the Agency's designated officer (often in the office of the Inspector General). Similar rules apply to NASA in particular.

Early this year, the

American Tradition Institute’s Environmental Law Center filed a federal Freedom of Information Act request (PDF) with NASA, seeking records detailing whether and how ‘global warming’ activist Dr. James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) has complied with applicable federal ethics and financial disclosure laws and regulations, and NASA Rules of Behavior.

After getting slow-rolled, this fall, NASA finally released some data. For 2010 those data show that NASA's Dr. James Hansen might be the first millionaire bureaucrat.

As Christopher Horner summarizes on What's Up With That?:

NASA records released to resolve litigation filed by the American Tradition Institute reveal that Dr. James E. Hansen, an astronomer, received approximately $1.6 million in outside, direct cash income in the past five years for work related to -- and, according to his benefactors, often expressly for -- his public service as a global warming activist within NASA.

This does not include six-figure income over that period in travel expenses to fly around the world to receive money from outside interests. As specifically detailed below, Hansen failed to report tens of thousands of dollars in global travel provided to him by outside parties -- including to London, Paris, Rome, Oslo, Tokyo, the Austrian Alps, Bilbao, California, Australia and elsewhere, often business or first-class and also often paying for his wife as well -- to receive honoraria to speak about the topic of his taxpayer-funded employment, or get cash awards for his activism and even for his past testimony and other work for NASA.

Ethics laws require that such payments or gifts be reported on an SF278 public financial disclosure form. As detailed, below, Hansen nonetheless regularly refused to report this income.

Also, he seems to have inappropriately taken between $10,000 and $26,000 for speeches unlawfully promoting him as a NASA employee. This is despite NASA ordering him to return at least some of the money, with the rest apparently unnoticed by NASA. This raises troubling issues about Hansen’s, and NASA’s, compliance with ethics rules, the general prohibition on not privately benefitting from public service, and even the criminal code prohibition on not having one’s public employment income supplemented. All of this lucrative activity followed Hansen ratcheting up his global warming alarmism and activism to be more political which, now to his possible detriment, he has insisted is part of his job. As he cannot receive outside income for doing his job, he has placed himself in peril, assuming the Department of Justice can find a way to be interested in these revelations.

The following summarizes records produced by the Department of Justice to resolve litigation against the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for refusing to comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request regarding the required financial disclosures Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

These records are his applications for outside employment or other activity (form 17-60), approvals and accompanying documents, and public financial disclosure (form SF 278).

As detailed in the American Tradition Institute’s lawsuit which yielded these records, Hansen suddenly became the recipient of many, often lucrative offers of outside employment and awards after he escalated his political activism -- using his NASA position as a platform, and springboard. This began with a strident "60 Minutes" interview in early 2006, alleging political interference by the Bush administration in climate science.

Hansen acknowledged this timing on his website, noting that first he was offered an award of "a moderate amount of cash--$10,000″ by an outside activist group. He claims to have turned this down because of the nominating process (without elaborating what that meant), and because of the impropriety of appearing to be financially rewarded for his outspokenness ("I was concerned that it may create the appearance that I had spoken out about government censorship [sic] for the sake of the $").

Given that Hansen makes no bones about his (often outrageous) outspokenness and activism being, in his view, part of his job, this surely is also another way of saying it would look as if he were having his NASA salary supplemented by appreciative activists and others. That would violate the criminal code, 18 U.S.C. § 209.

Yet, as the offers soon became larger, Hansen changed his mind.

The records reveal that NASA initially was very direct in warning Hansen of his responsibilities and prohibitions relating to these activities, which covered the subject of his public employment. Later, after Hansen gained much media attention and condemnation of his NASA superiors for (falsely) claiming he had been "muzzled" (the second president named Bush he claimed had muzzled him), certain clear restatements of the law were dropped from the approval letters responding to his applications for outside employment.

NASA oversight of Hansen’s compliance with ethics-related reporting requirements similarly waned. At no point did they seek reconciliation of his serially conflicting attestations detailed here.

Improper Receipt of Outside Income Without Obtaining Advance Permission

Hansen’s 2009 speech at Dartmouth University for a $5,000 honorarium and up to $1,000 in expenses came in violation of the clear rule against promoting his appearances as, or emphasizing his job with, NASA. It also had not been approved. NASA’s Deputy Chief Counsel Laura Giza, after admonishing these violations, demanded he return the improperly obtained money:
[Y]ou may not accept the offered honorarium and travel expenses. If you’ve already received this money, you need to return it to Dartmouth.

Also, in the future, if you have not received word that one of your outside activity requests has been approved, or at least that the legal office has concurred in the request, you should contact the Goddard legal office about the request before engaging in that activity. NASA regulations require that you obtain approval for certain outside activities . . prior to engaging in that activity. 5 CFR § 6901.103(d).
If there were further correspondence about this demand it would be in NASA’s document production, but there are no such records. The only lawful scenario, therefore, is that Hansen quietly agreed to the demand, but did not inform NASA whether he complied. Otherwise, NASA, Hansen, or both have violated the ethics and/or transparency statutes and regulation.

Yet subsequent financial disclosure forms show Hansen attesting to accepting even more money, between $5,001 and $15,000, for a 2008 speech at Illinois Wesleyan University for which his file, according to NASA, contains no request for permission to engage in this outside employment, or approval to do so (each a condition precedent to lawfully engage in the activity, and to accepting the money).

There is no correspondence about these two glaring discrepancies in his filings reflecting more apparently improperly accepted outside income than most federal employees will ever see in their careers.

Crucially, while Dr Hansen was opposed to (and arrested for protesting) the Keystone Pipeline, he may have been paid for the position:

A January 20, 2009, document shows that the Canadian law firm Ackroyd LLP retained Hansen to prepare a report "regarding the anticipated greenhouse gas emissions from the Joslyn Oil Sand Mine."

Ackroyd represents the Oil Sand Environmental Coalition (OSEC), a group fighting to stop oil sand development. Federal government employees are not allowed to accept money for expert testimony in proceedings before a court or agency of the United States. But Hansen was testifying before a Canadian court, so as long as he disclosed the payments, the agreement should have been legal.

It is still unclear how much money Hansen received from Ackroyd, however, since his 2010 financial disclosure form did not list them as a source of income. Neither does his 2009 form. There is also no record of his disclosing any travel expenses related to his 2010 oil sands testimony in Canada.

Conclusion: Where's the Occupy Wall Street crowd when you need them? Hansen's precisely the sort of crony capitalist (with twisted ethics) OWS purports to protest (in the course of its crime spree).

Will OWS apply those standards to an environmental hero? So far, OWS seems to confine its rage to those with jobs--who also happen to be conservative.

The Climate Changes, They Are A Changing

2011-11-21T00:01:00.007-05:00

UPDATE: below

The conventional wisdom asserts that climate change increases the frequency and/or severity of extreme weather events. It's entirely unproven. And, it's possible that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) itself may be backing-off the claim, according to the BBC's Richard Black, who has a leaked copy of the forthcoming IPCC "extremes" report [note: full report released]:

The draft, which has found its way into my possession, contains a lot more unknowns than knowns.

On the one hand, it says it is "very likely" that the incidence of cold days and nights has gone down and the incidence of warm days and nights has risen globally.

And the human and financial toll of extreme weather events has risen.

But when you get down to specifics, the academic consensus is far less certain.

There is "low confidence" that tropical cyclones have become more frequent, "limited-to-medium evidence available" to assess whether climatic factors have changed the frequency of floods, and "low confidence" on a global scale even on whether the frequency has risen or fallen.

In terms of attribution of trends to rising greenhouse gas concentrations, the uncertainties continue.

While it is "likely" that anthropogenic influences are behind the changes in cold days and warm days, there is only "medium confidence" that they are behind changes in extreme rainfall events, and "low confidence" in attributing any changes in tropical cyclone activity to greenhouse gas emissions or anything else humanity has done.

(These terms have specific meanings in IPCC-speak, with "very likely" meaning 90-100% and "likely" 66-100%, for example.)

And for the future, the draft gives even less succour to those seeking here a new mandate for urgent action on greenhouse gas emissions, declaring: "Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability".

Of course, other journalists read the draft exactly opposite. Despite the fact that the death rate from extreme weather had dropped dramatically.

So what's the timeline for climate change action? Earlier this month, a different UN agency said climate change would be irreversible within five years. Back in 2006, we had 30 years. Just two years ago, alarmists gave the planet 10 years. Yet global surface temperature measurements flatlined since 2000. (And, of course, a general warming trend likely would increase agricultural production in some regions.)

Does that mean we have until 2016? Or 2021? Or 2051? As David Whitehouse says:

Even making the questionable assumption that our computer models are good enough to predict what will happen in the future, for projected changes by the end of the 21st century, the uncertainties in those computer models, and the range of natural climatic variability, are far larger than any predicted human-influenced effects.

In the real world, there won't be global consensus on extending the Kyoto emissions limits. In any event -- as I've always said -- climate change is all about the cash: an attempt to mandate transfer payments from the developed to the developing world.

MORE:

The Australian agrees. And, according to the humanitarian charity DARA, only eight percent of the finance for climate change actions in developing countries has been disbursed. Whether this reflects inefficiency or corruption, the point is that mere wealth transfers aren't the answer.

MORE & MORE:

In early 2009, NASA's Dr James Hansen said we had only four years to save the earth from climate change. Of course, he may have been paid to say that.

Program Notes

2011-11-20T00:01:00.004-05:00

Still feel rotten. My various doctors have eliminated almost everything on the diagnostic decision tree--and yet, I'm still dizzy, can't drive, barely walk, or think straight for more than four hours a day.

Thankfully, there's been college football. Only thing more chaotic than my health is the BCS. That's some comfort.

The Myth of Increasing In-Civility

2011-11-19T00:01:00.000-05:00

I'm always amazed by the conventional wisdom that today's politics are more polarized than ever. Anyone thinking that must not have been watching during Vietnam and Watergate. And the polls don't support increased polarization. But, liberals like Chris Matthews respond, wasn't everything better back in the days when a Republican President Reagan and Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill could share lunch and a beer?

Reagan biographer Steven Hayward sets the record straight in the October 2011 Commentary:

The evocation of the supposedly reasonable Reagan who governed in relative harmony with liberals requires the opening of a memory hole the size of the Grand Canyon.

Liberals hated Reagan in the 1980s. Pure and simple. They used language that would make the most fervid anti-Obama rhetoric of the Tea Party seem like, well, a tea party. Democratic Rep. William Clay of Missouri charged that Reagan was "trying to replace the Bill of Rights with fascist precepts lifted verbatim from Mein Kampf." The Los Angeles Times cartoonist Paul Conrad drew a panel depicting Reagan plotting a fascist putsch in a darkened Munich beer hall. Harry Stein (later a conservative convert) wrote in Esquire that the voters who supported Reagan were like the "good Germans" in "Hitler’s Germany."

There was ample academic support for this theme. John Roth, a Holocaust scholar at Claremont College, wrote:
I could not help remembering how 40 years ago economic turmoil had conspired with Nazi nationalism and militarism--all intensified by Germany’s defeat in World War I--to send the world reeling into catastrophe. . . . It is not entirely mistaken to contemplate our postelection state with fear and trembling.
As for the supposed sweetness and light between Reagan and Tip O’Neill, it was mostly blarney. The two had numerous tense phone calls and meetings. In private they called each other’s views "crap" on more than one occasion; as the budget talks in 1982 headed to a climax, Reagan told O’Neill, "you can get me to crap a pineapple, but you can’t get me to crap a cactus." O’Neill publicly called Reagan "callous . . . a real Ebenezer Scrooge," whose program was "for the selfish, the greedy, and the affluent." In his diary, Reagan wrote: "Tip O’Neil [sic] is getting rough; saw him on TV telling the United Steelworkers U. that I am going to destroy the nation." He also told his diary that "Tip is a true pol. He can really like you personally & be a friend while politically trying to beat your head in." That was Reagan at his most charitable. He noted once that in a White House meeting where O’Neill "sounded off in a very partisan manner," "I almost let go the controls but I didn’t," and on another occasion he described one of O’Neill’s public claims as "the most vicious pack of lies I’ve ever seen."

Reagan had in mind such O’Neill gems as his remarks in 1981 on ABC that Reagan "has no concern, no regard, no care for the little man in America. And I understand that. Because of his lifestyle, he never meets those people." This was a mere warm-up for O’Neill’s blast at Reagan during the 1984 campaign:
The evil is in the White House at the present time. And that evil is a man who has no care and no concern for the working class of America and the future generations of America, and who likes to ride a horse. He’s cold. He’s mean. He’s got ice water for blood.
Geraldine Ferraro, Mondale’s running mate, felt free to challenge Reagan’s religious bona fides: "The President walks around calling himself a good Christian, but I don’t for one minute believe it because the policies are so terribly unfair." Jesse Jackson, who routinely referred to Reagan’s administration as a "repressive regime," said, "Reagan is closer to Herod than he would be to the family of Jesus." . . .

That was Reagan’s Washington. Obama’s is tame by comparison

Newt vs Mitt

2011-11-18T00:01:00.006-05:00

UPDATE: below

Ann Coulter on Newt vs. Mitt:

So now, apparently, we have to go through the cycle of the media pushing Newt Gingrich. This is going to be fantastic.

In addition to having an affair in the middle of Clinton's impeachment; apologizing to Jesse Jackson on behalf of J.C. Watts -- one of two black Republicans then in Congress -- for having criticized "poverty pimps," and then inviting Jackson to a State of the Union address; cutting a global warming commercial with Nancy Pelosi; supporting George Soros' candidate Dede Scozzafava in a congressional special election; appearing in public with the Rev. Al Sharpton to promote nonspecific education reform; and calling Paul Ryan's plan to save Social Security "right-wing social engineering," we found out this week that Gingrich was a recipient of Freddie Mac political money. . .

The mainstream media keep pushing alternatives to Mitt Romney not only because they are terrified of running against him, but also because they want to keep Republicans fighting, allowing Democrats to get a four-month jump on us.

Meanwhile, everyone knows the nominee is going to be Romney.

That's not so bad if you think the most important issues in this election are defeating Obama and repealing Obamacare.

There may be better ways to stop Obamacare than Romney, but, unfortunately, they're not available right now. (And, by the way, where were you conservative purists when Republicans were nominating Waterboarding-Is-Torture-Jerry-Falwell-Is-an-Agent-of-Intolerance-My-Good-Friend-Teddy-Kennedy-Amnesty-for-Illegals John McCain-Feingold for president?)

Among Romney's positives is the fact that he has a demonstrated ability to trick liberals into voting for him. He was elected governor of Massachusetts -- one of the most liberal states in the union -- by appealing to Democrats, independents and suburban women.

He came close to stopping the greatest calamity to befall this nation since Pearl Harbor by nearly beating Teddy Kennedy in a Senate race. (That is when he said a lot of the things about which he's since "changed his mind.") If he had won, we'd be carving his image on Mount Rushmore.

Contrary view by Legal Insurrection's William Jacobson. Much as I respect Newt's intellect and ideas, I think Jacobson downplays Newt's history of poor decisionmaking.

MORE:

DC Caller's Jamie Weinstein: "The Republican presidential field is truly unimpressive"

MORE & MORE:

Even the Washington Post admits -- grudgingly -- that the story about Gingrich's first divorce is slander.

Low Volt-age

2011-11-17T00:01:00.008-05:00

President Obama said electric vehicles would be popular--the Administration predicted over 1 million of them would be on the road by 2015, including 120,000 Chevy Volts sold in 2012. Well, how's that working out? Mickey Kaus answers:

General Motors is sticking by its prediction that it will sell 10,000 electric/hybrid Chevy Volts by the end of the year. Only 5,000 had been through October, meaning GM has to double that amount in just the final two months of the year. Until now, Volt production seems to have been wildly outstripping actual sales. But GM CEO Dan Akerson says sales are "starting to hit the pace," some reporters claim the Volt is "hot," and the company has made a big show of allowing dealers to sell off their demo models, allegedly to supply the now-insatiable "customer demand."

So where will all these Volts actually go? There seem to be three possibilities:
1) Akerson is right. The Volt is a "home run" and they’ll all soon be in the hands of satisfied customers!

2) They’ll be recorded as "sold" even though they’re sitting unwanted on dealer lots. "Sold" in GM parlance means sold to a dealer, who then may or may not succeed in reselling the car to an actual paying customer.

3) They’ll be pushed out to corporate fleets, as big businesses seek to please the Obama administration by doing their part to help bailed-out GM unload this overpriced showpiece pioneer our nations’ green future. Call this the corporatist solution.

I'll go with door number three. Unless, combining the worst features of crony capitalist automotive bailouts and uneconomic green subsidies, the Obama Administration buys them. Or -- though unlikely -- all Chevy Volts are recalled as a fire hazard.

(via reader Warren)

QOTD

2011-11-16T00:01:00.008-05:00

Mark Steyn on National Review:

I had cynically assumed that the Superfriends would address America’s imminent debt catastrophe with some radical reform -- such as, say, slowing the increase in spending by raising the age for lowering the age of Medicare eligibility from 47 to 49 by the year 2137, after which triumph we could all go back to sleep until total societal collapse.

But I underestimated the genius of the Superfriends’ Supercommittee. It turns out that a committee created to reduce the deficit is instead going to increase it. As The Hill reported:
Democrats on the supercommittee have proposed that the savings from the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan be used to pay for a new stimulus package, according to a summary of the $2.3 trillion plan obtained by The Hill.
Do you follow that? Let the Congressional Budget Office explain it to you:
The budget savings from ending the wars are estimated to total around $1 trillion over a decade, according to an estimate in July from the Congressional Budget Office.
Let us note in passing that, according to the official CBO estimates, a whole decade’s worth of war in both Iraq and Afghanistan adds up to little more than Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill. But, aside from that, in what sense are these "savings"? The Iraq War is ended -- or, at any rate, "ended," at least as far as U.S. participation in it is concerned. How then can congressional accountants claim to be able to measure "savings" in 2021 from a war that ended a decade earlier? And why stop there? Why not estimate around $2 trillion in savings by 2031? After all, that would free up even more money for a bigger stimulus package, wouldn’t it? And it wouldn’t cost us anything because it would all be "savings."

Come to think of it, didn’t the Second World War end in 1945? Could we have the CBO score the estimated two-thirds of a century of "budget savings" we’ve saved since ending that war? We could use the money to fund free master’s degrees in Complacency and Self-Esteem Studies for everyone, and that would totally stimulate the economy. The Spanish-American War ended 103 years ago, so imagine how much cash has already piled up! Like they say at Publishers Clearing House, you may already have won!

Of course, the Committee probably will avoid tackling the source of our core long-term fiscal imbalance: Social Security, Medicare (some hope there), and Medicaid. Remind me why we created a non-transparent technocratic committee in the first place.

(via reader Warren)