Sobering Thoughts |
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Comments on politics, the culture, economics, and sports by Paul Tuns.
I am editor-in-chief of "The Interim," Canada's life and family newspaper, and author of "Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal" (2004) and "The Dauphin: The Truth about Justin Trudeau" (2015).
I am some combination of conservative/libertarian, standing athwart history yelling "bullshit!"
You can follow me on Twitter (@ptuns).
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Friday, August 31, 2012
I say just ban all books. Period CNSNews.com, and not The Onion, reports: The U.S. Justice Department says it has reached a settlement with the Sacramento (California) Public Library over a trial program the library was conducting that let patrons borrow Barnes and Noble NOOK e-book readers.DOJ and the National Federation of the Blind objected to the program on grounds that blind people could not use the NOOK e-readers for technological reasons...As part of the settlement agreement, the Justice Department directed the library system to purchase at least 18 e-readers that are accessible to the blind, something that comes in the midst of budget cuts that have forced Sacramento libraries to implement one employee furlough day each month for two years.The library says it will add iPod touch and iPad devices, which read e-books aloud with a computerized voice.Adding the Apple devices could cost the library anywhere from $3,582 with the purchase of 18 of the most inexpensive iPod Touch models, to $14,922 if they wish to provide the high-end version of the iPad, which cost $829 a piece. Three and out 3. On Friday night, the Baltimore Orioles beat the New York Yankees 6-1 and the Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox 7-4. Both victors closed the gap between themselves and their respective division leaders to just two games. If the Orioles sweep the Yanks and Tigers sweep the ChiSox, both the AL East and AL Central divisions will feature ties atop the division. To make things really interesting, the Sunday night contest between the Tigers and Sox features Justin Verlander against Chris Sales. 2. David Pinto and Rob Neyer had a conversation and determined that today's Los Angeles Angels are like the New York Yankees of the 1980s. 1. The Tampa Bay Rays are 2.5 games out of a wild card and 4.5 games behind the AL East-leading Yankees. They have suffered numerous injuries throughout the season and most of their players fortunate enough to stay off the disabled list are performing way below expectations, so it is something of a miracle that the Rays are still in the race. Tampa Bay picked up an extra outfielder with no bat just before the final (waiver) trading deadline (August 31) by trading for Ben Francisco from the Houston Astros who had acquired him in a pre-non waiver deadline deal with the Toronto Blue Jays in July. Francisco's bat probably won't be of much help. The Jays threw him into a package for a handful of relievers after he produced a 240/296/380 line in 50 at-bats for Toronto. In a slightly larger sample size (85 at-bats), he has remained consistent: 247/289/365. Perhaps Rays skipper Joe Maddon can leverage him to maximum effect (as he seems to do with everyone) but on the surface Francisco doesn't look like the kind of player who will solve Tampa Bay's problems. Beware junk science Your kid's vinyl backpack might be tacky but as John Entine explains at Forbes.com, it won't kill your child: "Self-proclaimed environmental groups cite research linking outsized doses of some phthalates to reproductive problems in rodents. Mainstream scientists counter that phthalates and adverse health effects in humans never have been connected." Entine notes that the research that has found any harmful effects of phthalates (PVCs, plasticizers used in all sorts of products) are based on small sample sizes and haven't been replicated. Credentialism gone wild Clayton Cramer: "At the end of class last night, I overheard two students discussing job searches. One explained that she applied for a job answering phones. She was informed that she was not qualified, because she did not have a four year college degree. To answer phones?" The Left Russ Roberts: My view that I don’t want the President (or the government) to help me or my family often gets twisted by the left (as Ryan’s libertarian moments in his speech also were) as some kind of anarchism or rugged individualism.God forbid, if something bad happens to me, I don’t want to be on my own. I want help from family and friends and my religious community and even people who like my blog or my podcast. Or who follow me on Twitter.Being against government help is not the same as being against any kind of help. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Is the misunderstanding deliberate and malicious or does it just reflect a lack of imagination? That's in the context of not liking Mitt Romney's best line: "President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. MY promise is to help you and your family." Et tu, Minnesota? Joe Biden lists Minnesota among swing states Democrats has to win? Powerline's John Hinderaker explains how Minnesota might switch from blue to red: Strange as it might seem for a state as traditionally Democratic as Minnesota to be so close, there is a possible demographic explanation: given his awful performance in office, President Obama is heavily dependent on overwhelming support from African-Americans, which he continues to receive, at least in polls. Among white voters, Romney leads Obama by something like 16 or 17 percent, a remarkable margin. Minnesota (like Wisconsin and Iowa, but to a greater degree) is a traditionally liberal state, but one with a very small minority population. Could it be that Obama is being deserted by swing voters and moderate Democrats in such numbers that without a massive advantage among minority voters, he might not even carry a state like Minnesota? The coming landslide? Didn't watch the Republican National Convention, but I followed the first two days online (twitter, blogs, conservative/libertarian websites). I didn't follow last night because I was on the road to begin a long weekend at the cottage. Small Dead Animals links to speeches and predicts landslide. Adam Shaw at The American Thinker says a landslide is possible. Slow down there. While the range of possible outcomes has expanded from what I would have predicted a month ago, I'm not sure a Romney landslide is among them, although it might be getting close. (It depends on your definition of a landslide; a 10-point difference is the standard definition, but not sure about Electoral College vote, but to me 350 ECVs doesn't count as landslide.) People should not get caught up in the Ryan/Republican convention excitement and lose their heads. Kathy Shaidle and James Pethokoukis remind us that 2012 is not 1980 to explain why landslide probably isn't in the cards. Shaidle's explanation comes down to Barack Obama is not Jimmy Carter and Mitt Romney is not Ronald Reagan. Carter became president in the aftermath of Watergate and still only eked out narrow victory.* Obama came to power much more popular than Carter ("few people were possessed of a fanatical, irrational love of Jimmy Carter, at the beginning or at the end"). Shaidle doesn't mention this, but it might be connected to the Obama-love people have; they voted for Barack Obama as the first black president and the are invested in giving him a chance to succeed. Or as Shaidle titles her post, "Well, I’ve been afraid of changing/'Cause I’ve built my life around you." Less charitably, having been guilted into voting for the black president, voters might feel guilty about firing him. Shaidle reminds us to "keep the differences in mind, in terms of the general culture and atmosphere," which brings us to Pethokoukis. He notes the the narrow victory that brought Jimmy Carter to power: 50.1 vs 48%, compared the 52.9 vs 45.7% "landslide" Obama won. More importantly, the demographics of 1980 favoured Reagan, when "88% of voters were white" compared to 74% today. Given the racial composition of 32 years ago, Romney would win easily today. In 1980, there was a recession, not just a weak recovery. Lastly, Pethokoukis says that voters might not want to add to the economic uncertainty by adding the political uncertainty of a new presidential face. I would add to all this the idea (supported by some survey data) that Americans have recalibrated their expectations in life (about employment, housing, and standard of living) and gotten use to the poor economy; this obviously benefits Obama. Furthermore, so-called independent voters are unemployed at a lower rate than the national average. They might not be as keen to change course. None of this is to say that Mitt Romney can't win a huge majority or even a landslide. But as Shaidle says, don't get cocky. Romney is not assured victory. If I were to bet on the election, my money would be on the Republicans. I might even be willing to comfortably bet on 300 electoral votes. You'd have to give me some pretty good odds to take the Republicans winning 350+ ECVs, and I still don't think that's a landslide. But I wouldn't be surprised once the Obama campaign gets going and the attacks on the GOP are sustained for two months, that this is another nail-biter or even something closer to Obama's 2008 result. As I began this post, the range of results is big. The campaign is going to matter. * Check out the electoral map from 1976 to see how much things have changed in 36 years. Carter won the South and most of the midwest, while Gerald Ford won the west including the Left Coast and New England. Why does the Left think that all women have to think/act the same? Katha Pollit of The Nation: "I’m ashamed for my sex that any woman is still planning to vote for Romney and Ryan. What’s the matter with them? Do they have Stockholm syndrome? And how about you, women of Virginia — 21 percent of whom in a just-issued Public Policy Polling survey say they “strongly” agree that abortion should be banned even in cases of rape and incest? (For women 18 to 29, it’s 32 percent.)" What this election is all about Moe Lane: Eight billion, five hundred and thirty nine million, five hundred and twenty six thousand, three hundred and thirty three dollars and seven cents. That’s how much debt the country racked up since the convention started.This. Must. Stop. Hypersensitivity at the State Department The Daily Caller reports on an effort to take diplomacy too far: "John M. Robinson, the Chief Diversity Officer at the U.S. Department of State, wants America’s diplomats to know that common phrases and idioms like 'holding down the fort' are, in fact, deeply racist." Here's the kicker: some of the the banned terms may not really be offensive, as Robinson admits: "Much has been written about whether the etymologies below are true or merely folklore, but this isn’t about their historical validity." Thursday, August 30, 2012
Was it worth it? The price tag for Jack Layton's state funeral: $368,326. A waste of taxpayer money is a fitting tribute to the deceased NDP leader. Today we're crass There have been references in several posts today that some people don't like (douchebag, circle jerk, jizz). This is not typical here at Sobering Thoughts. If you find it offensive, skip over them. It won't become standard fare, I can almost promise. The purpose of communication is to get one's point across, and those words worked. I'm also playing with the idea of a column defending crassness, so it's the frame of mind I'm in right now. Also, for David Frum, if the nozzle fits ... David Frum is a douchebag I normally don't read David Frum because life is too short. But in a moment of masochism, I wondered what he would say about Paul Ryan. Frum begins his post on the GOP vice presidential candidate: I ran into an old friend tonight after Paul Ryan's speech. We shared a beer at a nearby hotel lounge, where he put a question to me in an amiable way: For the past 20 years, I've been urging Republicans to take a harder line on entitlements. Now here at last in Paul Ryan is a Republican willing to do just that. He's intelligent, knowledgeable, serious, and committed. Exactly what I've been hoping for all these years. So why aren't I applauding? Even though Frum has been calling for entitlement reform for forever, when a principled and articulate Republican (like Ryan) makes the case for such reform, Frum changes directions. He has some fancy excuse (the economy is too bad for entitlement reform), but that can't be all. Frum's shtick is to criticize Republicans, even apparently when they deliver what he's been calling for. A charitable view of Frum's career over the past decade is that he is contrarian, changing the goalposts when necessary in order to be different. In reality, he changes the goalposts because he can ... because he's a douchebag (to be polite). Erickson on Ryan's speech Despite my implicit criticism of Erik Erickson joining the conservative circle jerk for Paul Ryan, this is true: "He did what he had to do — convince independent voters that it is okay to like Obama, okay to have voted for Obama, and okay to want to replace Barack Obama." Conservatives jizz over Paul Ryan's speech The reaction is predictable: Paul Ryan turned water into wine and then walked on it. Robert Costa and Jim Geraghty at NRO, Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post, Erik Erickson at RedState, Jonathan Tobin at Commentary, Paul Mirengoff at Powerline, the editors at the Wall Street Journal, Bridget Johnson at PJ Media, and a non-bylined article at Breitbart. I didn't watch the speech, but from what I've read of it and the reaction to it, Ryan belted a homerun* by hitting all the right notes and then some. He unexpectedly went beyond policy with rhetoric that soared and criticism that stun. Good for him and good for the Republicans. It can't hurt, but it's unclear how much it helps. Ryan's speech got conservatives excited, but they were going to be excited if he farted the national anthem. What matters is Mitt Romney tonight; has Ryan set a bar too high? Will the presidential candidate look meager in comparison to his running mate? * When I checked the poll "Did Ryan hit a home run?" at NRO, 96% of respondents said yes. Let's start thinking about 2016 Politico reports that Condoleeza Rice's performance at the GOP convention has people talking about her as the GOP candidate in 2016. Or perhaps California governor in 2014. Bailing out cities doesn't work Carl Schramm of the 4% Growth Project: Bureaucrats, experts to be sure in urban planning, will make the decisions in Albany, and inevitably will put the money into physical things — infrastructure and buildings. “If we build it, they will stay.”Think of the cost of this misdirected expert impulse. Millions of people whose economic livelihoods might be greatly improved if they move are the focus of spending to make them stay put. Rebuilding city centers will not bring jobs, there is no evidence that this strategy ever works. Cities grow and shrink organically. Government policy does affect this process, but urban redevelopment or public housing strategies generally accelerate a city’s decline. Reihan Salam's debut Reuters column Reihan Salam on the significance of former Congressman and erstwhile Democrat Artur Davis endorsing Mitt Romney. 2012 election is about calling the voters' bluff George F. Will in the Washington Post: Now begins the final phase of this cognitive dissonance campaign. America’s 57th presidential election is the first devoted to calling the nation’s bluff. When Mitt Romney selected Paul Ryan, Republicans undertook the perilous but commendable project of forcing voters to face the fact that they fervently hold flatly incompatible beliefs.Twice as many Americans identify themselves as conservative as opposed to liberal. On Nov. 6 we will know if they mean it. If they are ideologically conservative but operationally liberal. If they talk like Jeffersonians but want to be governed by Hamiltonians. If their commitment to limited government is rhetorical or actual. If it is, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan suspected, a “civic religion, avowed but not constraining.” Not an either/or Mike Huckabee: "I care less about where Mitt Romney takes his family to church than I do about where he takes this country." One could care about both. RNC speech word clouds National Journal has word clouds for the speeches of Paul Ryan, Tim Pawlenty, Chris Christie and Ann Romney. Rice & Ryan Powerline's John Hinderaker on the (reportedly) excellent speeches from Condoleeza Rice and Paul Ryan: "The Democrats have two hopes: 1) that not very many people saw Rice and Ryan tonight, and 2) that reporters and editors will somehow be able to spin what happened this evening, for those who didn’t see it, in a way that will neutralize its impact. As Republicans, all we can ask is that voters see us first hand, rather than mediated through Democratic Party journalists." That is the problem with political speeches and debates: there are two audiences, one that actually saw it and one that thinks it saw it even though they only experienced it through a media filter. Wednesday, August 29, 2012
The not friendly neighbours Mental Floss reports that in 1927 the United States developed plans to attack Canada. Canada had plans to attack the U.S. in 1921. Both plans were short-lived and the American one was predicated on stopping Britain from expanding in North America. This can't be good for Obama By almost all measures of consumer confidence Americans are not optimistic about the economy in the near future (six months out) and they're feeling worse about the country's economic prospects than they did earlier this Summer. Speculation: Clint Eastwood = GOP mystery speaker Market Watch says that Clint Eastwood might be the Thursday evening mystery speaker at GOP convention. Also, there is a possibility of a Ronald Reagan hologram addressing the convention. I don't know which one is lamer. When evaluating Jack Layton you can't ignore his ideas Writing in the Waterloo Region Record, Mark Milke, a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, evaluates Jack Layton's faith in government to direct the economy and concludes: Layton underestimated the dangerous nexus created when economic decisions are taken out of the hands of consumers and shareholders and placed in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats. His ideas would have made Canada and the world poorer, with the most vulnerable being the first to suffer. How to improve conventions Don't let spouses speak. It would make conventions slightly more tolerable. My question is what do the words of the wives add to our knowledge of the candidate that is important. Of course wives think their husbands deserve to win. (Whether they really want them to is another question.) But the qualities that make a good husband and father might not be the qualities of a good president, and vice versa (good leaders should probably be ruthless; marriage is a partnership but the Oval Office mostly is not). Ann Romney began her speech last night saying she wanted to talk about love. That's when I stopped watching the video. If a Democrat (Michelle Obama) started that way, the right-side of the blogosphere and twitterverse would be mocking her. And rightfully so. Frankly, love as a topic is above the pay scale of politicians and their wives. The spouses' speeches are overly scripted, offering excessively romanticized versions of their husbands.* They make the voting public dumber by persuading it to put personality above policy. Everything about wives' political speeches should be condemned. Not only conventions, but politics would be better if wives were seen and not heard. * If we want information that could be actually and legitimately useful to determining whether a person is qualified for elected office, we should demand that political wives release their diaries so we can know their innermost and honest thoughts about the men they share their lives with. But if that was a requirement, the diaries would become scripted bullshit just like the convention speeches. Teachers protest Dalton McGuinty BlazingCatFur has video of the signs used by aggrieved teachers demonstrating against their pet with rabies. Check out the video to get the reference. Politicians, economic growth and Leviathan The Wall Street Journal editorializes: Without a sustained recovery in national output to 3% growth or more and without putting millions more Americans back to work, there is no politically feasible spending reduction or tax increase that could balance the budget even if Ron Paul ran Congress. Tax revenues have remained below 16% of GDP for the last four years because the economy is in a slow growth rut. The growth deficit, not the budget deficit, is the great issue of our time. The WSJ warns that "Romney and the GOP need to resist what former Buffalo Congressman and supply-side evangelist Jack Kemp used to call 'root canal' Republicanism," and while that's true from a political point of view, it's simply not true that you can grow yourself out of Big Government; a lower percentage of state involvement in a larger economy will still be too much government interference in the economic and private lives of companies and individuals. The United States needs both a growth agenda and austerity measures to significantly scale back the size of the state (certainly much more than Paul Ryan proposes). But balancing the budget -- and budget balancing and reducing the size of government is not the same thing -- requires more people working and companies making large profits. So why stop at 3% economic growth? Virginity cream Here's a commercial running in India for 18 Again, a vaginal tightening and rejuvenating gel. (HT: Kids Prefer Cheese) Three and out 3. Interesting facts about the Boston Red Sox-Los Angeles deal that sent 1B Adrian Gonzalez, LF Carl Crawford, and SP Josh Beckett (and infielder Nick Punto) to the west coast for 1B James Loney and a handful of possibilities and prospects. Only three players with $100 million left on their contract have ever been traded: the Texas Rangers sent Alex Rodriguez to the New York Yankees after the 2003 season, and Gonzalez and Crawford going from Boston to LA this past week. Only four players making $20 million or more per season have been traded and the Dodgers have acquired three of them: Gonzalez, Crawford, and Manny Ramirez in the 2008 season; the other, of course, was A-Rod. Interestingly, they are still paying Ramirez, who is retired, about $4 million a season in deferred salary. 2. New York Yankees notes. Nick Swisher hit his 20th homerun Monday night and in doing so became just one of three American Leaguers to have at least 20 HRs in each of the last eight seasons, joining Paul Konerko and David Ortiz. The New York Daily News reports that closer Rafael Soriano is no Mariano Rivera, especially in how he deals with the media after blowing a save. And the New York Post's Joel Sherman claims that before the Los Angeles made their Mega Deal with the Boston Red Sox for Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett, LA asked the Yankees about CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira. Sherman says the "Yanks told Dodgers executives they had no interest in moving either." You have to be skeptical of these types of stories and the second half is full of what-ifs about the Dodgers taking Alex Rodriguez even though Sherman admits, "there are no signs the Dodgers were interested in A-Rod." 1. For the first two months of 2012 Erik Bedard, who was signed to a low risk/high reward $4.5 million flyer in the off-season by the Pittsburgh Pirates, had a 3.12 ERA over ten starts. Since June, he's been 6.35 while going 4-10; Bedard now has a MLB-leading 14 losses, which is hard to do on a team with legitimate playoff hopes at the end of August. Jeff Sullivan at Fangraphs points out that while Bedard's first 12 games were better than his final 12, they weren't that much worse (see graph of Strike%, Contact%, GB%, K%, etc... in Sullivan's article). The FIP (fielding independent pitching) was worse, but not as drastic as the climb in ERA. Still, the Pirates look like they might blow a chance at a respectable showing for the second season in a row. Pittsburgh released Bedard yesterday. Bedard may be taking some blame for the fact Pittsburgh went 2-7 before last night's win over the St. Louis Cardinals, falling three games behind the Cards for the wild card spot before gaining a game yesterday; their playoff odds have fallen to a meagre 13% But do the Pirates really want Kevin Correia (who is likely to post his fifth negative WAR in six seasons) back in the rotation? Here's what Sullivan says about substituting Correia for Bedard: "It’s not out of the question that Correia could generate Bedard-like results while generating other, very un-Bedard-like results. You might end up with the same innings and runs, but the feeling might be different watching Correia than it would be with Bedard." That might be all the team and its fans need right now. Why do parties (and taxpayers) spend so much money on conventions? Roger L. Simon on why political conventions seem unnecessary: Basically, conventions are media events intended to direct attention to the election by a public that was supposed to have been otherwise engaged. But have they? In the swing states they have already been bombarded by television commercials to such a degree that they could be excused for despising politics for the rest of their lives. So what is their purpose? Not sure, but this doesn't seem useful or productive: Gaggles of reporters are running around the convention hall, chasing after the likes of Jon Voight and Michele Bachmann, not exactly people scarce to the media under normal circumstances. I’m not going to name names, but if you stand in the “radio row” area long enough, you will notice several big time or semi-big time “celebrities” just standing there waiting to be “recognized.” So it goes in the great “vanity fair,” but it has little to do, again, with democracy or the intention of conventions. Harper's scary, weird Christianity and public policy Gerry Nicholls explains why some pundits are going after Stephen Harper's Christian faith looking for motives for his conservative policies: "Of course, it's all nonsense, but sometimes nonsense works." The greatest movie sequal Grantland has "A tournament to determine the greatest movie sequel of all time." Some first round battles aren't fair (Godfather II vs. Jackass II) while others are tough (The Empire Stikes Back vs. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King). Also, not sure if The Dark Knight Rises should be only a sixth seed (taking on Die Hard with a Vengeance); if TDKR goes on, is it really an upset? Not sure if their voting system allows you to vote early and vote often. Justin Trudeau's 10 favourite swims Seriously, the list is at Macleans. Can you swim in the snow at Kootenay? Back-to-school gift registries The Los Angeles Times has an article on the most pampered class, students: "Gift registries gain popularity among cash-strapped students." Used to be you just got some money from the parents. Sowell on why insurance is expensive Thomas Sowell says that "foreseeable events are not a risk" and therefore should not be insured but interfering politicians want insurance to solve every small problem (and thus win themselves accolades and votes) and not just insure against potentially financially ruinous risks: If automobile insurance covered the cost of oil changes or the purchase of gasoline, then both oil changes and gasoline would have to cost more, to cover the additional bureaucratic work involved.In the case of health insurance, however, politicians love to mandate things that insurance must cover, including in some states treatment for baldness, contraceptives and whatever else politicians can think of. Playing Santa Claus costs a politician nothing, but it can cost the policy-holder a bundle -- all of which the politician will blame on the "greed" of the insurance company. Government solutions are often as bad as the problems they seek to fix, which are often caused by previous solutions. Sowell points to an example in health insurance: The problem of "pre-existing conditions" is a problem largely because of the way that politicians have written the laws -- more specifically, by giving a tax break to employer-provided health insurance. If individuals bought their own health insurance, with the same tax advantages, the fact that an illness occurred after they changed employers would not make it a "pre-existing condition." One thing Sowell doesn't address is that consumers want insurance to cover non-risk items in order to socialize their own costs because Americans want to be taken care of. Dennis Miller is not a fan of Joe Biden Dennis Miller on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: "I don’t think the president does himself a service having that moron, Joe Biden, fronting for him out there. Listen: Biden, to me — they say Paul Ryan has six percent body fat, I guarantee you Biden’s got eight between his ears, OK?" Mia Love wows GOP convention Every time I hear the name Mia Love, I think it sounds more like a porn name than that of a Republican Utah mayor and congressional candidate. Love, however, is a serious candidate even if she faces steep odds to defeat six-term Rep. Jim Matheson (D) in Utah's 4th Congressional District. Apparently the mayor of Saratoga Springs impressed observers Tuesday in Tampa. Fox News reports: The 36-year-old mayor, who is in an uphill race against popular incumbent Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson, described President Obama's vision for the country as a "divided one" that she said is "pitting us against each other based on our income level, gender and social status." Make sure you click on the video of Love's convention speech in Fox's coverage. I hope the conservative movement does not Rubio her if she wins. Yes, it is nice to have a minority face on the Sunday panel shows, but it is more important to have a conservative voice, and as a Tea Party-backed candidate, her credentials are pretty good. But let's see if she can back her predicted stardom with action and achievements before anointing her future presidential or vice presidential material. That said, I agree with Paul Mirengoff: "I wish she had been given more time and a somewhat better slot." Not because she speaks to a particular demographic or allows the Republicans to delivery diversity, but because what she said is worthy of a larger audience. Tuesday, August 28, 2012
These seem like bad numbers for President Obama ABC/Washington Post poll finds: Approve Obama's handling of the economy: 56% disapproval, 43% approval. Confident economy will get back on track if Obama re-elected: 42% confident, 58% not confident (-16). Confident economy will get back on track if Romney elected: 46% confident, 52% not confident (-6). Trust to handle economy: 50% Romney, 43% Obama. Anxious about Obama's handling of economy if he wins: 57% very or somewhat anxious, 39% not so anxious or not at all anxious. Size of government: 59% want smaller government with fewer services, 35% want larger government with more services. WTF? The Daily Caller: "MSNBC abandons GOP convention during every speech by a minority." Guess it doesn't fit the narrative. For pure entertainment value, wouldn't it be great if Sarah Palin was the special guest Thursday night? Alonzo Bodden is exactly right about how Sarah Palin talks. You can order Naomi Wolf's Vagina at Amazon for $18.47 Naomi Wolf's latest offering, Vagina: A New Biography. A little early for this Politico: "Who’s on the inside track for a Romney Cabinet." Mitt Romney values private sector experience for cabinet and White House personnel, but is reportedly likely to name Mike Leavitt (who has since 1993 been Utah governor, Bush-era cabinet member and public policy thinker) either chief of staff or Treasury Secretary. Also mentioned for White House jobs are Ed Gillespie (a consummate political insider) and Dan Senor (who has been in the private sector for two years since getting his MBA in 2001). This passes as news The Toronto Star: "Paul Ryan: Everyone wants a peek at the veep’s P90X abs." It's about the vice presidential candidate's workout routine and how he hasn't been photographed topless in six years. Mystery guest at GOP convention Hot Air's Allah Pundit says it could be either former first lady Nancy Reagan or former Democratic Virginia governor Douglas Wilder. The idea of a major disaffected Democrat would be good; good storyline, implicitly criticism of President Obama, but does not upstage the main event (that would be candidate Mitt Romney). Make every vote valid Glenn Harlan Reynolds in the New York Post on requiring photo identification to vote: [T]he real objection to requiring voter ID isn’t based in civil rights, but in civil wrongs. With elections often decided by narrow margins, the ability to produce a few thousand more ballots can often swing the results. (In Minnesota’s 2008 disputed US Senate election, won by Al Franken — who proceeded to cast the deciding vote in favor of ObamaCare — the margin of victory was 312, but it turned out that 1,099 votes were cast by felons who were ineligible to vote. Many of them have gone to jail, but Franken has remained in the Senate).Voter ID makes that kind of trickery harder, which is why political manipulators oppose it. Palin to speak at GOP convention? NRO's Jim Geraghty doesn't think the idea of Sarah Palin being a surprise speaker at the Republican convention to be either outlandish or dangerous. I disagree; don't remind voters of a past disastrous campaign. The base won't need stirring up if Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney do their job properly. The middle class election Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson says that the fight over the middle class is symbolic at best: "The idea that anyone can 'save' the middle class assumes that it’s in danger of disappearing, which it isn’t, and that presidents possess sufficient powers to resurrect it, which they don’t." But people think of themselves as middle class and politicians are pandering to them. Democratic priorities RedState's Erick Erickson: "The Democrats, unable to run against the economy, intend to make the election about the female uterus, not an economic recovery. At 8.3% unemployment, people are much more interested in putting food on their tables than over killing kids." Of course, elections are never about any single issue. But the Democratic strategy betrays its desperation and complete intellectual bankruptcy of the party. Questioning the conventions At Time's Swampland, Mike Murphy questions the utility of political conventions: "Does all this money and effort and schmooze and confetti really do much to win a campaign? I’m dubious." Sometimes the conventional wisdom is wrong William Kristol challenges much of conventional wisdom (vice presidents don't matter, that challengers to incumbents must make the re-election a referendum on the president, the election is about the economy and social issues will sink the Republicans, and that the campaigns need to microtarget) and says it is true except when it's not. Cost on the election The Weekly Standard's Jay Cost says that it is not enough for Mitt Romney to tear down President Barack Obama, he must convince swing voters that he "will make a better president than Obama." Costs says: "Romney will have to aggressively project a positive message over the next few months ... he does have to combine a sunny optimism that America’s best days are ahead with enough specifics to leave the impression that he actually knows how to execute the turnaround the nation so desperately needs." Cost is convinced that that for Romney, selling himself "is at least as important as attacking the president’s record." Let's start looking at 2016 TNR's Noam Scheiber says that Joe Biden is going off script for vice presidents by not vigorously denying interest in the top job four years from now. This struck me as noteworthy: "Given his age (he would be 74 on Inauguration Day 2017), his Rodney Dangerfield reputation among Democrats, and the icon status of presumed front-runner Hillary Clinton, few political observers seem confident he’ll even contest the next race." Is HRC really the front-runner? She's looking old and not terribly interested in her job or running the country. Two decades of political life in Washington (first lady, senator, secretary of state) and being the wife of Bill Clinton has not been easy for her. If she is the front-runner, it's because there is nobody else at this point. Congress and the cabinet is populated by pygmies. But the perception should change November 7. The day after the November election, the front-runners will be more obvious: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will probably be the frontrunner if the Democrats lose the White House and Cuomo and Biden co-frontrunners if the Democrats retain the presidency. Pundits should resist handing front-runner status to Hillary Clinton. Obama and Ohio William Galton goes through the electoral college math at TNR, notes it is possible to win the popular vote but lose the electoral college (a standard complaint at this point of the campaign for as long as I can remember), and makes fairly pedestrian observations about the necessary combinations of states either Mitt Romney and Barack Obama must win in order to end up in the White House in January. It's nothing terribly special, other than this paragraph about Ohio: Let’s look more closely at Ohio. During the past five presidential elections, the Democratic candidate’s share of the state’s vote has trailed his national share by an average of 1.3 percentage points. 2008 was no exception: Obama received 52.9 percent of the national vote, versus only 51.4 percent in Ohio. But so far, 2012 looks different: the six most recent Ohio surveys give Obama an average of 47.2 percent of the vote—0.7 points more than his national share. Relative to the historical benchmark, then, Obama is outperforming in Ohio by two percentage points—enough to win the state even if the national vote is very closely divided. Why are women joining the War on Women? ProWomanProLife's Andrea Mrozek apparently hates her mother or ex-wife: "I find it misogynistic to claim that 'women’s rights' come down to birth control and abortion. I find it misogynistic to force a woman’s body to act exactly like a man’s and then claim that is "empowerment'." She is responding to Judith Timson of the Globe and Mail. The Judith Timsons of the world is the reason we need blogs like ProWomanProLife. About that gender gap The Hill: "Romney crushing Obama with married women." It reports: "According to a new Washington Post/ABC's new survey, married women are strongly backing Mitt Romney, 55%-40%, over Barack Obama." In other words, there is no gender gap. There are gender gaps. The Democrats suffer one among men, the Democrats experience one among married women, and the Republicans are on the wrong side of the gap among unmarried women. The unmarried women gap (Obama leading Romney 57%-32%) is a result of single women being married to the state, dependent on the government for things that women used to need men for: unemployment benefits and welfare (security), affirmative action hires (work outside the home), university and health care (basic needs), and contraception and abortion (reproductive choices). Note the Democratic desperation Powerline's John Hinderaker looks at two Democratic fundraising email appeals from yesterday and notes, "The Democrats blurt out “Koch brothers” at random intervals, like Tourette’s sufferers." Charming Breitbart reports that Cher tweeted that it would be "Karma" if Rep. Todd Akin is raped by someone with HIV. David Brooks can be (intentionally) funny (too) New York Times Mitt grew up in a modest family. His father had an auto body shop called the American Motors Corporation, and his mother owned a small piece of land, Brazil. He had several boyhood friends, many of whom owned Nascar franchises, and excelled at school, where his fourth-grade project, “Inspiring Actuaries I Have Known,” was widely admired ...The teenage years were more turbulent. He was sent to a private school, where he was saddened to find there are people in America who summer where they winter. He developed a lifelong concern for the second homeless, and organized bake sales with proceeds going to the moderately rich ...Romney is also a passionately devoted family man. After streamlining his wife’s pregnancies down to six months each, Mitt helped Ann raise five perfect sons — Bip, Chip, Rip, Skip and Dip — who married identically tanned wives. Some have said that Romney’s lifestyle is overly privileged, pointing to the fact that he has an elevator for his cars in the garage of his San Diego home. This is not entirely fair. Romney owns many homes without garage elevators and the cars have to take the stairs. Shouldn't be any trouble turning Mitt Romney into a likeable everyman, if that's what America wants. Three and out (BoSox-Dodgers Mega Deal edition) 3. I'm a little late getting to this because I've been away for the past few days watching the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Bills Saturday night in Buffalo and taking in the Strong Museum of Play and National Toy Museum with the family in Rochester. I got back and ignored baseball until checking out the sports websites today. Don't know how this totally eluded me for two days, but it did. Here's the deal: the Boston Red Sox traded 1B Adrian Gonzalez, OF Carl Crawford, RHP Josh Beckett, and utility infielder Nick Punto (one of these things is not like the others) and reportedly $11 or $12 million cash for 1B James Loney, infielder Ivan De Jesus, minor league 1B/OF Jerry Sands, and minor league pitching prospects Rubby De La Rosa and Allen Webster. This Mega Deal, as it seems to be called, could be a lot of things but you can't evaluate this trade in terms of talent for talent. The BoSox are dumping salary and adding financial flexibility in 2013 and beyond. I don't buy that this move is part of total rebuild because the Sox still have a lot of talent: OF Jacob Ellsbury, SP Jon Lester, SP Clay Buchholz, SS Will Middlebrooks, 2B Dustin Pedroia, and DH David Ortiz if they re-sign him and SP John Lackey if he can comeback after missing 2011 with an injury. Removing about $60 million from the payroll next year (and more than a quarter billion dollars in total) brings a lot of flexibility and they could add a bat and a starter and still have money left over. Don't write off the Red Sox in 2013. The Los Angeles Dodgers add monster salary commitments, bringing their salary base to about $190 million next year before re-signing arbitration-eligible players and adding any new talent assuming they let the likes of Shane Victorino and Joe Blanton go. On the plus side, they now have a first baseman who is infinitely better than the former first basemen (Loney) and a starting pitcher who displaces the underwhelming Blanton to slightly improve their chances of winning the NL West this year, but also in 2012 and the year after. The $100 million-plus committed to Carl Crawford is a lot and he'll need to have better seasons in the future than he's had the past few in Fenway, and there is some risk he won't get better, but the hope is the Tommy John surgery and change of scenery helps Crawford improve his game. This is not a great bet, but not necessarily one not worth taking considering everything else LA got in this deal. And another added consideration is that if LA wants to get upgrades at first, leftfield and the rotation, they might have to do it through trades like this because fewer great (and even good) players are making it to free agency as teams buyout the arbitration and first years of free agency. Lastly, LA needed to inject excitement into the Dodgers franchise after all the damage Frank McCourt did to the brand and drove away about more than a half-million fans. This is an investment in returning fans to the ballpark; that will reap dividends over time. This is potentially a very good deal for both teams. 2. Must-reads: Jonah Keri at Grantland on how the Los Angeles Dodgers are becoming the New York Yankees of the West or National League, or worse as they are re-writing the rules of running a pro baseball franchise; Dave Cameron at Fangraphs on how the deal might make sense for the Dodgers and was a necessity for the Red Sox; the Boston Herald's Michael Silverman explains how the deal was made, and although I always have doubts about this kind of reporting, it seems likely to be true. 1. For an evaluation of the talent that was moved, check out Baseball Prospectus. And for an evaluation of the minor league pitchers the BoSox acquired, check out the optimistic view at Fangraphs. While theoretically one player can't make much of a difference over five weeks of baseball, the heart of the Dodgers order -- Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, Adrian Gonzalez and a rejuvenated Hanley Ramirez -- is a pretty formidable group and given LA's pitching it should provide the Dodgers with a pretty decent chance to overtake the San Francisco Giants in the standings. Monday, August 27, 2012
Chris Matthews is a jerk & perfect surrogate of the Obama brand: Preibus RNC chairman Reince Priebus bashes Chris Matthews and says his "not a serious program" so Republicans are not too worried about what the spitting mad MSNBC host says. Obama the Narcissist Every politician is a narcissist; if they weren't narcissistic, they wouldn't seek a job of telling others how to live their lives. But even by the standards of political narcissism, President Barack Obama is bad. The Daily Caller's Jim Treacher notes that Obama remembers the recently deceased Neil Armstong by posting a picture of himself. This captures Obama's entire adult life: it's always about him. Always. Colleges create castes Niall Ferguson in Newsweek: "Our universities now offer social mobility mostly to foreigners. For Americans, they risk creating a new caste system." The New Yorker, not funny I think that Andy Borowitz's pieces for the New Yorker are humour pieces, but they are huge failures at comedy. He repeatedly refers to the Republican War on Women in this article. Ha, ha, ha. Things that are patently untrue don't make very good fodder for jokes. South Africa deserves better than the ANC Kathy Shaidle points to a column by Moeletsi Mbeki, author of Architects of Poverty: Why African Capitalism Needs Changing, and reminds us, "that Nelson Mandela is a communist." Of course, progressives don't call it communism, it's called black economic empowerment, described by Mbeki: What the ANC [African National Congress] did instead when it came to power was to identify what its leaders and supporters wanted. It then used SA’s strengths to satisfy the short-term consumption demands of its supporters. In essence, this is what is called black economic empowerment (BEE).BEE promotes a number of extremely negative socioeconomic trends in our country. It promotes a class of politicians dependent on big business and therefore promotes big business’s interests in the upper echelons of government. Second, BEE promotes an anti-entrepreneurial culture among the black middle class by legitimising an environment of entitlement. Third, affirmative action, a subset of BEE, promotes incompetence and corruption in the public sector by using ruling party allegiance and connections as the criteria for entry and promotion in the public service, instead of having tough public service entry examinations... The third worrying trend is that the ANC-controlled state has now internalised the BEE model. We are now seeing the state trying to implement the same model that the conglomerates developed.What is the state distributing? It is distributing jobs to party faithful and social welfare to the poor. This is a recipe for incompetence and corruption, both of which are endemic in SA. Liberal leadership race (August 27 edition) Assuming the Hill Times has the right quote attributed to the right person, Deborah Coyne says the Liberal Party doesn't believe in anything. Coyne, a declared candidate for the party leadership, is quoted saying: "The main problem is the Liberal Party does not stand for anything,” she said. “That’s why it’s so easy for people right now to ignore it quite apart from the fact it only has 30-odd MPs." Pierre Trudeau, with whom Deb has a child, once said much the same thing before joining Lester Pearson's cabinet in the 1960s. Not really believing in anything (but power) was once the draw of the party (just ask Pierre) because anyone could join and hope to climb the tawdry ladder of power. The fact the party doesn't draw much interest has more to do with its lack of access to the halls of power than its lack of strong convictions. What to look for at the GOP convention NRO's Robert Costa is correct to say that the Republican National Convention is the chance for the party to introduce Mitt Romney to American voters. Politico "9 questions for the GOP in Tampa," but this is the only one that really matters: "Can Tampa make Romney likable?" If not likable, at least tolerable. The election may hinge on that question, and while Romney has about nine weeks to prove he is not going to make Americans regret their decision to put him in the White House and therefore before their conciousness for the next four years, this week is the second chance to make a first impression for Romney. Former Florida GOP governor endorses Obama In an column exclusive to the Tampa Bay Times (nobody else wanted it), former Florida governor Charlie Crist, an erstwhile Republican who is now not registered with any party, endorses President Barack Obama. After noting two specific policies Obama supported, Crist turns to attacking the Republicans as too socially extreme and therefore "they've proven incapable of governing for the people." Meanwhile, despite listing precisely two policies (cutting Medicare spending to extend the program in the future and more spending on education, specifically hiring new teachers) Crist concludes, "President Obama has a strong record of doing what is best for America and Florida." Not sure how Crist can say that with a straight face considering the administration's inattention to fiscal issues, the high unemployment America has suffered through for four years, and the loss of U.S. prestige abroad. The Democratic Party's War on Children Mark Steyn debunks the idiotic line that Republicans are engaged in a war on women, concluding his column this weekend thusly: So we can’t fight a war in Afghanistan, but we can fight a “war on women” that only exists in upscale liberal feminists’ heads. We can’t do anything about exploding rates of childhood obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, but, if you define “health care” as forcing a Catholic institution to buy $8 contraception for the scions of wealth and privilege, we’re right on top of it. And above all, we’re doing it for the children, if by “doing it” you mean leaving them with a transgenerational bill unknown to human history — or engaging in what Boston University’s Larry Kotlikoff, speaking at the International Institute of Public Finance in Dresden last week, called “child fiscal abuse.”If that sounds a trifle overheated, how about . . . hmm, “legitimate fiscal rape”? No? Then let’s call it a “war on children.” Unlike the “war on women,” it’s real. Ron Paul's last campaign The Daily Caller's W. James Antle III notes that Ron Paul will likely not run again for office and a group of Paul's followers had a mini-convention of their own in Florida ahead of the official Republican confab. Antlee noted: [C]onservative columnist Jack Hunter compared the Paul and ’64 Goldwater campaigns. “Barry Goldwater said extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” he said. “Ron Paul listened.” Goldwater may have lost in 1964, but as George F. Will says, he won 16 years later when Ronald Reagan came to power. Who will be Rand's Reagan? May the adults win George Will makes an important point in a column otherwise about Mitt Romney possibly winning a larger share of non-southern electoral votes than any Republican president since George H.W. Bush: The eclipse of foreign policy underscores the rationality of Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan. The youngest vice presidential choice since Dan Quayle in 1988, Ryan guarantees that the Republican message — certainly subliminally, perhaps explicitly — will be Obama’s immaturity, which is writ large in the childishness of his characteristic rhetorical evasion: Every difficult choice is, he says, “a false choice.” And the maturity gap between the two tickets is underscored by the serial buffoonery of the oldest candidate on either ticket, the 69-year-old fellow currently a heartbeat away from the presidency. Levant, Frank Valeriote, and 'consensus media' Ezra Levant has a 12-minute must-watch video about how Glenn MacGregor and Stephen Maher have ignored the story of the Frank Valeriote campaign being found guilty by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission of making illegal robocalls in his 2011 victory in Guelph. Levant is sure it has nothing to do with the fact that Valeriote is a Liberal and McGregor and Maher have been focusing on the Tories for the nearly 100 stories they've written so far about the scandal. Of course, it was only a scandal when the Tories were robocalling, so there is nothing to see here, even if there is an admission of guilt by Valeriote (with fine and some PR stunt of having "to create a training and education program on how to make a proper automated call)." Valeriote, by way, says he would do it again because, you know, it was a close race and he just had to win. Elections Canada said it is satisfied that Valeriote would not break the law again. Levant criticizes the consensus media's silence on this file (by the late weekend the silence turned into burying the story deep in the papers, which is like plausible denial about the silent treatment) and Levant is both amusing and indignant in doing so. Levant is great on this issue for the first 80% of the video before critiquing the media as a whole, including how the media covered up Jack Layton's illness during the election campaign. Why did the media collude with the NDP to hide the extent of Layton's illness? Sunday, August 26, 2012
Obama the Whiner Powerline's John Hinderaker points out that the Democrats are sending out fundraising appeals that are nothing more than whining about his Republican opponents criticizing him and raising more money than he is ("We're losing this air war right now"). That is standard rally the troops fundraising fare (although the negative tone about their own campaign could deflate enthusiasm), but it is notable how whiny the President is. Unexpected hit Hot Air reports: "It looks like the the very unflattering critique of the current administration, 2016 Obama’s America, is set to come in at number three this weekend and turn a profit in the first 24 hours since its wide release. (It actually premiered six weeks ago and was previously in limited release.)" The movie is based on Dinesh D’Souza’s best-seller, The Roots of Obama's Rage. Saturday, August 25, 2012
For righteous anger and against timidity This article, "Anger Management," in Crisis by Rev. George Rutler is worth reading in its entirety, but this stands out: I do not know which is worse: sinful anger, which thinks that it is just, or timidity, which thinks that it is charitable. In our media-conscious culture, timidity easily takes the form of affected joviality, hoping to diffuse tension by amiability: a hug and a slap on the back and then let the “dialogue” begin. That may work with victims of evil but not with the minions of the Evil One himself. Friday, August 24, 2012
The Obama advantage Paul Mirengoff at Powerline talks about this Washington Post article and the superior Democratic ground game. The Obama ground game is only a big advantage if it's a get-out-the-base, six-battle-ground-states election everyone has been anticipating for the past four years. It might not be. Or maybe it is. We'll know in November. 'Vowel Movement' At Slate, Rob Mifsud explains American linguistic diversity (even if the Boston accent seems to be disappearing) in an article sub-titled, "How Americans near the Great Lakes are radically changing the sound of English." Many of the links are worth clicking through, too. Americans are clinging to their guns The media line about the growing number of gun sales is that right-wing Americans are afraid of Barack Obama and/or the possibility that Obama will bring in radical gun control limits. Frank Miniter of Forbes.com says that there is a much larger story about the growing acceptance and incidence of gun ownership in America, much of which pre-dates Obama and November 2008. Miniter says: There are many other categories and statistics showing the tidal shift in gun ownership beneath this current wave of sales, all of which are related to legislative successes that freed up Second Amendment rights, judicial victories and a popular shift in the way American’s view guns. With all of this going on it’s a shame so many in the media are ignoring or cynically simplifying the movement behind gun sales. Miniter also points to a great GIF on the growing right to carry and shall-issue states from 1986 (by 2011, it's all but Illinois). Obama is an abortion extremist Rich Lowry in Politico: Even as he stakes out the outer edge of the abortion debate, the president sounds soothing. He has said he wants to discourage the practice. Uh-huh. He is as serious about discouraging abortion as he was about opposing gay marriage up until a few months ago. Which is to say laughably disingenuous. How many other things does the president want to discourage but not restrict in any fashion and to fund with federal dollars? Boston Market does good PR U.S. restaurant chain Boston Market is winning praise for taking salt shakers off their tables. Problem is, as Glenn Reynolds points out, table salt makes up a tiny portion of people's salt intake. The restaurant will still serve dishes with too much salt in it. I wonder what my right-leaning Manchester United fan friends think of this The Guardian reports that billionaire radical George Soros bought 2% of the British soccer powerhouse when it recently went public. Amazing Andrew Ducker via Chris Blattman: "I am amused to discover that 'Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan' is an anagram of 'My Ultimate Ayn Rand Porn'." University will get more expensive with Obamacare John Merline in Investor's Business Daily: "ObamaCare relies heavily on Medicaid — the federal/state program that provides health insurance for the poor — to expand coverage. But Medicaid is already swallowing up state budgets, forcing states to cut back on everything else, especially support for two- and four-year public colleges." The political war over women Barkha Herman at Ricochet: "So what is up with the entire birth control debate? Am I just a walking vagina? Is this insulting just to me or others?" Romney not running from Bain Capital In the Wall Street Journal Mitt Romney describes what he has learned from his private sector experience and he doesn't run from his time at Bain. For good measure he adds: "I'm not sure Bain Capital could have grown or turned around some of the companies we invested in had we faced today's anti-business environment." The story is almost correct except for all those quotes attributed to the totally wrong person Small Dead Animals notes a correction that appeared in The Hill Times. Thursday, August 23, 2012
Liberal leadership race (August 23 edition) There is a mysterious website hinting that someone is going to announce a leadership bid on September 3. There is even a countdown clock. Speculation is that it is Justin Trudeau or perhaps Andrew Coyne (who denies any involvement). If it wasn't for the claim about a "charismatic leader" to oppose Stephen Harper I'd say it might be Marc Garneau, but the former astronaut probably would utilize a countdown clock, so maybe it is. Most interestingly, the website also suggests the new leader will "unite progressives." Red books vs. blue books Yesterday I noted Amazon's red book/blue book election heat map. At TNR, Timothy Noah questions what constitutes a red/blue book, and he certainly makes some fair points. For example, is Robert Caro's latest instalment of his multi-volume LBJ bio really a blue book? 'America deserves better' Great anti-Barack Obama advertisement. The Hill says it's working. The last thing Obama needs is a narrative that has him lacking the character to be president. America might be wising up to this fact. 320-218? There is more to the LA Times story I linked to this morning about two University of Colorado professors taking economic data and coming up with a model that has Mitt Romney winning big. The model predicts Romney taking 320 electoral votes by winning "every state currently considered by pollsters to be a swing state." I don't think this is outside the realm of the possible, but I wouldn't bet too much on it right now without some good odds. 'I want to be a crony' Children used to have big dreams and wanted to do exciting things. Now they want to work for government. Not quite (although what are dreams of becoming teachers and police officers?), but this video is one of the funniest political shorts I've ever seen: "I Want to be a Crony." The girl's definition of crony is great: "It's like having a best friend that gives you other people's stuff." Is rape always rape? Tim Worstall with a courageous post that concludes: "[T]here would be a much greater societal willingness to treat all sex without consent as a punishable crime ... if we did in fact say that not all rape is rape. That sex without consent is a crime that comes in gradations. That we’d actually get to the point where all rape really is rape by denying that all rapes are rape." Charen says Akin's comments weren't 'stupid' Mona Charen finds Rep. Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" comments offensive, but does rally to his defense to say that the substance behind his remarks are not as stupid as some might believe. She writes: I must offer a mild dissent to the widespread view expressed by both Republicans and Democrats that what Akin said was outrageously “stupid.” The “legitimate rape” wording was atrocious, agreed. But much of the commentary has focused on Akin’s mistaken belief that women’s bodies have the capacity to “shut down” the reproductive process in cases of rape. (Akin has since acknowledged that he was wrong.) Interviewing Akin on Good Morning America, George Stephanopoulos spoke for many when he said, “A lot of people are wondering how an idea like that can even get in your head.”Really? Is it such an outlandish idea? I looked it up, and it appears that there is no evidence that pregnancies are less likely in cases of rape, but it didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility to me. Many things about the human body are peculiar and amazing. And frankly, more people than are today admitting it must believe that a woman’s mental state has something to do with her capacity to conceive. Consider that every woman (including me) who has ever experienced infertility is told, even by some doctors, that she should try to “relax.” Finding actual statistics of conception by rape is difficult, especially in recent years with hospitals and/or police offering emergency contraception to rape victims as a matter of course. But it seems likely from not just the physiological standpoint that Charen alludes to but an evolutionary point of view that conception during rape might be difficult. It makes sense that the female body would be less receptive to the invading sperm of violent attackers than regular partners. I have no proof but the theory at least seem logical. This qualifies as news The Orlando Sentinel reports that drivers aren't stopping at crosswalks and 35 of them got a ticket in front of one church. Economic model predicts Romney victory The Los Angeles Times reports: "Using a state-by-state analysis of unemployment and per-capita income, academics Kenneth Bickers and Michael Berry of the University of Colorado project that Romney will win 52.9% of the popular vote and 320 electoral votes." Here are five audio clips of 25-seconds or less from Bickers explaining why: "Colorado is one of the hardest to predict," but they still think Romney takes it. Obama's cabinet: least private sector experience ever Ralph R. Reiland in The American Spectator: Half or more of the cabinet members in the following administrations had prior private sector experience: Eisenhower 57 percent, Reagan 56 percent, George W. Bush 55 percent, Nixon 53 percent, Wilson 52 percent, George H. Bush 51 percent, Franklin Roosevelt 50 percent, Truman 50 percent.Prior private sector experience ranged from 49 percent to 40 percent in the following administrations: Harding 49 percent, Coolidge 48 percent, Johnson 47 percent, Ford 42 percent, Hoover 42 percent, Taft 40 percent.And the presidents with the lowest percentages of cabinet members with prior private sector experience: Clinton 39 percent, Teddy Roosevelt 38 percent, Carter 32 percent, Kennedy 30 percent, Obama 8 percent. Obama's cabinet has about one-quarter the private sector experience as the next least such experienced cabinet. Not a surprise, but worth noting. Reiland says it shouldn't be surprising that the Obama administration has no idea how to create jobs. Obama stuck in 1968 Roger L. Simon likes the new Dinesh D'Souza movie 2016: Obama’s Americ but it makes him worry that if Barack Obama wins in November, not only will the U.S. economy be in serious trouble, so, too, will America's place in the world. The problem is that Obama "lives in a world deeply nostalgic for an anti-colonialism that was at its most popular somewhere around 1968 when Barack was seven," which affects how he conducts foreign policy. In the second part of Simon's column, he explains that he knows an erstwhile liberal who got off the plantation, "because of what the Democratic Party did to black people." Do conservatives read more than liberals? Amazon has a map of book sales and red books ("conservative" books) outsell blue books ("liberal" ones) in every state (including California) except Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington D.C. (and Maryland and Minnesota where they are tied). Amazon explains that "a map of book purchases may reflect curiosity as much as commitment," which flatters liberals as know-thy-enemy types or open-minded. Or it's possible that Republicans in red states read more political books than do Democrats. The map is interesting even if it is unclear what it is telling us. Curious to see if it changes much over the next few months. Digital vs. paper Gods of the Copybook Headings has a long post on magazines and digital vs. dead tree editions/subscriptions. GCH explains the reticence of mags to switch (even if consumers are willing): The calls for a digital subsidy are more likely to be covert attempts to bailout an antiquated business model. Magazines are not like most businesses. Those who write and edit these publications generally love what they're doing, or at least are deathly afraid of trying a new line of business. Because of this magazines often don't function in what economists would describe as a rational way. They're not profit maximizer, they're utility maximizer. Dropping paper from their distribution channels might make economic sense but it would be a huge loss in prestige. A purely online magazine would seem little better than a large group blog. Magazine and newspaper people don't think very highly of bloggers. Government is the one that needs to go on the diet George F. Will notes that anti-obesity campaigns funded by the Communities Putting Prevention to Work program ("a creature of the stimulus" until it "was folded into" Obamacare) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention probably violated federal laws regarding using federal money for lobbying. More importantly, "leaving legality aside, is such 'nutrition activism' effective?" Probably not, unless the goal is making the state bigger, by expanding its influence in the decisions citizens make -- in which case, it works quite nicely, first through "soft paternalism" of incentivizing officially approved choices before turning to "the hard paternalism of mandates and proscriptions." 'Foodborne Illness & Plastic Bag Bans' A Property and Environment Research Center video on how plastic bag bans are making people sick. Literally sick. Is Romney ahead in the Electoral College? PJ Media's Stephen Green thinks so with Mitt Romney garnering 244 Electoral College votes, Barack Obama 231, and 63 too close to call. Green has Missouri, Colorado, and Florida leaning Republican, Nevada and Pennsylvania leaning Democrat, and only Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin as too close to call. It's probably premature to assign Missouri and Colorado and Nevada should end up voting for Romney. Making those changes has the two parties tied at 235, with 81 Electoral College votes up for grabs. Putting Florida back into play, would give Obama a significant but not insurmountable lead. Of course, it's still too early to play this game, but that's what the map looks like today. Whose Batman is more popular? I wouldn't have guessed this. Film Drunk: "Dark Knight Rises has sold 10 million *fewer* tickets than Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman." That's sad. But as Vince Mancini explains, "in 1989, big movies could stay in theaters three months at a time, which isn’t the case anymore." George Will praise for Broadsides In 2009 Encounter began a neat publishing venture, Broadsides, a series of short and timely books of 48-60 pages on current controversies. They have collected a number of them in a new volume, The New Leviathan: The State Versus the Individual in the 21st Century: A Collection of Encounter Broadsides. George Will writes the introduction, which is available at Powerline. Will begins: This book is a double-barreled blast–using “blast” in two senses. One meaning of that word is a forceful, indeed explosive discharge. The second meaning, a colloquialism, is a party tending to happy raucousness. What you hold in your hand is a compendium of constructive explosions from men and women intelligently exasperated by current tendencies in American politics and culture–but also exuberantly combative against those tendencies. Republicans hate their mothers Hot Air reports on the latest line of attack from Democrats (in this case Senator Barbara Boxer) who believe there is a Republican War on Women: "There is a sickness out there in the Republican Party, and I’m not kidding. Maybe they don’t like their moms or their first wives; I don’t know what it is." P.J. O'Rourke on American decline I'm not a fan of all the cheerleading for America in this P.J. O'Rourke essay for World Affairs, but he has a point that there is something sad that the United States no longer making the biggest, tallest, and fastest things anymore. Fast cars? France. Big planes? Russia. Tall buildings? The Middle East. O'Rourke says: America’s retreat from visible, tangible manifestations of superiority doesn’t hurt just our pride, our economy, and our place in the Guinness Book of World Records. It’s also a bad advertising campaign. America has one great product to sell, individual liberty. It’s attractive, useful, healthy, and the fate of the world depends upon it.We are the most important and maybe the only country that fully embodies the sanctity, dignity, independence, and responsibility of each and every person. “American” is not a nationality, an ethnicity, or a culture; it’s a fact of human freedom. Our country was not created and is not governed by a ruling class or even by majority rule. America is individuals exercising their right to do what they think is best with due respect (to the extent human nature allows) for the right of all other Americans to do likewise. This is not an ideology or a system. This is a blessing. You don't have to be a U.S. chauvinist to think that's more true than not. I'm not sure it's all the fault of the Baby Boomers -- who, after all, raised that spoiled generation but the so-called Greatest Generation? -- but O'Rourke has a point that the focus on power and politics rather than producing tangible things is a waste of human resources: Politics also lured our brightest minds. Bill and Hillary Clinton are two of the smartest baby boomers. Imagine the good they could have done if Hillary had turned her talents to generating power instead of seeking it, and if Bill had been in the business of natural gas fracking, laying pipe literally rather than in the slang sense. Anyway, reading O'Rourke is a joy, even when his subject is decline and even when he's not 100% right. Would a second-term Obama be a more muscular president? Fortune's Tory Newmyer says: [U]nlike last summer's clash over the debt ceiling, when a faction of House Republicans was willing to let the U.S. default in order to force deeper spending cuts, the administration now has the upper hand. This time around, Republicans are the petitioners, eager to avert both a tax increase on income above $250,000 and scheduled cuts to defense spending. Newmyer predicts that in negotiations with Congress Obama will "apply his leverage to accomplish three things: a sweeping deficit-reduction agreement, a major investment in infrastructure and other spending to give the economic recovery a jolt, and a simplifying rewrite of our tax code." I'm dubious. As Niall Ferguson says in his Newsweek cover story, "The president just kept ducking the fiscal issue." Obama is not interested in addressing these issues. He has shown zero inclination to tackle them in the previous four years; there is no reason to believe that if voters were to give him another four, that he would use them to even try to fix America's deficit, economic, and tax problems. Despite probable loss in Missouri, GOP Senate chances looking good? NRO's Jim Geraghty looks at a number of tightening races, including Ohio, Florida, and Connecticut, and is feeling good that despite the likely lost chance in Missouri (thank you Rep. Todd Akin), the Republican chances of picking up the Senate are not as bleak as some might think. The Republicans are probably going to need to replace Olympia Snowe's sort of Republican seat in Maine and I wouldn't bet on Scott Brown keeping his in Massachusetts. Virginia is looking good for the GOP and so is Wisconsin. The problem is that not all these states are going to break Republican unless there is a GOP landslide. Still, as Geraghty says, "suddenly the outlook for Republicans in the Senate races doesn’t look so bad anymore, does it?" It's fun to play let's pretend (nearly) every close race will be won by the Republicans, but like NFL teams that go from division bottom dweller to one of the best in the conference (I'm looking at you, San Francisco Giants) you need a lot to break your way to make a spectacular jump. While it can happen, it's hard to predict. The Democrats are obsessed with abortion The DC Examiner reports: [T]he Democrats are turning their upcoming presidential convention into a pro-choice assault on the Republicans with the help of major abortion supporters...Democrats said that they will feature Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parent Action Fund, Nancy Keenan, president of the NARAL Pro-Choice America and Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University student whose plea for federal birth control funding drew the ire--and a subsequent apology--from Rush Limbaugh. At Powerline, John Hinderaker says: We can only pray that this report is true, and that the Democrats devote all three days in Charlotte to discussions of abortion rights, rape and contraception. If there is one thing we can say with certainty this year, it is that the overwhelming majority of voters don’t want to hear about the social issues. They want to know how we are going to climb out of the four-year economic funk that has been the Obama administration. If undecided viewers tune into the Democratic convention and hear all about abortion, and tune into the Republican convention and hear all about the economy, Romney will win in a landslide. This obsession is nothing new. Back in 2006, Ramesh Ponnuru called the Democrats The Party of Death. The gist of the 2012 Democratic strategy is to exploit what they think is the Republican War on Women. Yesterday, Ponnuru went through the recent Gallup polling to find that there is no significant gender gap in regards to views on abortion with both men and women being more pro-life than pro-choice and, surprisingly, women more likely to oppose abortion in cases of rape/incest or when the mother's life or physical health were threatened. As Ponnuru says, there is little reason to think abortion drives the gender gap between the parties. |
