In the otherwise excellent article about the preservation of the Battleship Texas, (“Battle on home front; groups can’t agree on a final resting place for aging warship; leave it at the San Jacinto Battlefield or move it to Galveston,” Page B1 Thursday), reporter Harvey Rice included a comparison of the cost of the Texas back in 1911 to the cost of a battleship today. He reckoned a modern battleship would cost $256 million, but that is way, way too low. For comparison, Iowa class battleships cost $125 million back in the early 1940s, when the dollar was worth only 1/15th what it is today. In the modern age, when a quarter of a billion dollars gets you only four F-22 Raptor jets, you can bet a state of the art battleship would cost almost 10 times the amount reported.
Pete Smith, Cypress
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
The Things We Ought To Keep 1000' Away From Schools
Two stories in the Houston Chronicle today focus on the efforts of the Usual Suspects (government bureaucrats) tasked to "preserve" the quality of education in Houston. The first involves a plan by HISD (Houston Independent School District) to incent teachers to transfer to failing schools by paying them $10,000 per year in "bonus" money for up to two years. The "pilot" program would involve only twenty teachers specializing in Math and English, and only for grades 4 through 8.
The other story involves the busybody minions of the State of Texas and Harris County going after Spec's, a reputable chain store that sells alcohol, mixers, soda, coffees, cigars and sundry specialty foods. The reason? Spec's built a store within 1000' of an elementary school.
Several thoughts come to mind on the bonus program. For one thing, it is refreshing to hear HISD admit, albeit unintentionally, that their programs - not to mention the Teachers they propose to replace - have failed to teach our children effectively. Given the regular feel-good stories that come out of HISD about how well their schools are doing, it's a change of pace for them to admit otherwise. It is also predictable that the solution that HISD would come up with would be to throw more money - and boodles of it - at the problem, as if that was the only option available.
It is also interesting that the standard for judging the success of the pilot bonus program would be if scores on standardized tests improve, inasmuch as there is a movement afoot in the Texas educational establishment to abandon the standardized testing component of No Child Left Behind. The Chronicle ran a story mere weeks ago outlining the consensus of our Educational bureaucracy that the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) test has to go. Now, if TAKS is as useless as they proclaim, how can HISD bureaucrats then use standardized testing as the basis to justify enormous performance bonuses for Teachers? Sounds like a classic case of cherry-picking to me.
The next thing to consider is the cost. When the Obama Administration is allowed to portray any and every increase in education spending, including larger Pell grants, vastly increased Federal subsidy of primary and secondary education and a government takeover of student loan programs as a worthy "investment" in our "underfunded" school systems - and nothing less than a moral obligation on the part of America to boot - you better reach for your wallet. If you think this program (which has failed everywhere else that it has been tried) has not been well thought out, your instincts are correct.
There is nothing that can strike fear into the heart of a taxpayer faster than a bureaucrat mouthing the words "pilot program", so one must contemplate the consequences of this ill-conceived idea. For instance, who determines which schools are "failing"? Who determines which teachers qualify for the bonuses? And since HISD as much as admits that some Teachers are successful while others are not, in taking successful teachers from one school and putting them in another, aren't they dooming the students that lose the services of the successful teacher to failure?
Are they suggesting that the sterling qualities of a handful of "successful" teachers transplanted to a failing school will somehow rub off on the other teachers who are not? Exactly how will this happen? And exactly how do they keep from engendering jealousy - not to mention animosity - on the part of the incumbent teachers at the failing school who do not get bonuses for the Outsiders sent in to "rescue" the school from failure? And what of the teachers these superstars replace? If they weren't doing their jobs in the first place, will they be fired, or - more likely - will they keep their jobs and continue doing a substandard job?
And since there are apparently no objective criteria for determining the success or failure of the program, how long will it be before these "bonuses" become a standard feature in teacher compensation? How long could before a pilot program to give $200 thousand per year in bonuses to a mere twenty teachers devolves into a $10 million program for a thousand teachers, or a $50 million program for 5000 teachers? And who in their right mind would believe that these supposedly two year bonuses wouldn’t become a permanent part of teacher compensation? It's not like there isn't proof that this is the objective, inasmuch as HISD and school districts the nation over have been advocating "incentive" or "bonus" pay programs, on the assumption that a) Teachers are underpaid and b) they need to "pay like the private sector" in order to "attract top talent".
Note to the Education Establishment: a) Teachers aren't underpaid compared to their Private Sector alternatives and b) the Private Sector is ROTFLOL at the notion that you would attempt to emulate it. For starters, while not perfect, the Private Sector does not as a matter of course employ battalions of tenured, self-important and ultimately clueless windbags who think it's a good idea to subsidize failure with money in the first place. In that sense, you are indistinguishable from Investment Bankers - who are as surely a part of the Public Sector as you are - in rewarding incompetence with taxpayer dollars.
Further, what drives the Private Sector is measureable performance. Take, for example, a UPS delivery person. If he or she routinely failed to successfully deliver a truck full of packages on time and in reasonable repair, the Private Sector solution would not be to bring in another driver to take over their route, whilst still employing the underperforming driver. No, the driver would be subject to remedial training, some supervisory oversight and some form of counseling; and if their performance still didn't improve, they would be fired and replaced by somebody who could. Since that is not now and never has been the modus operandi of our education system, it seems extremely unlikely that incentive pay would yield any tangible results.
Next on the agenda is Spec's vs. the State of Texas. As background, remember that the city of Houston has been on a mission for many years now in their efforts to shut down "gentlemen's" clubs within 1500 feet of a school or neighborhood. Now, never mind that many of those establishments were there first, and that the newly built school or neighborhood encroached on them. In their never-ending efforts to provide a quality living environment - not to mention creative new ways to spend your tax dollars - the City has been methodically shutting Girlie bars down, so as to preserve the tender sensibilities of our children, not to mention providing a goodly dose of self-esteem to the bureaucrats in State and Local government appointed to oversee - like vengeful Hall Monitors - the preservation of the moral character of our fair state and its citizens.
Fresh off their victorious effort to close down the Strip Clubs, these same devoted public servants (or their ideological soulmates) are now aiming their big guns at Spec's, a sterling corporate citizen of Houston and as benevolent a purveyor of alcohol, tobacco products and appetizers as you could imagine. I'll spare you the details of how this came to be except to say that the City didn't do all the necessary paperwork in granting Spec's an exemption. Yes, the general rule is that liquor stores cannot be within 1000' of a school, but only a public servant could make a crusade of the matter in the absence of any evidence to suggest that the store's presence had in any way affected the students of the nearby school.
Which makes one ponder the impact on the neighborhood - not to mention the moral fiber of our youth - by there being a Spec's within 600' of the school instead of the customary 1000'. What dire consequences must Officials have been contemplating if such a thing occurred? Granted, 1000' is safer than 600', since arguably few of the children in HISD could actually walk 1000' on any given day without a school-issued inhaler, so the shorter distance alone might be enough to give the school district pause in this, our litigious age, but for the fact that most schoolkids are equally disincented to walk even 600'. And school officials ought to be further comforted by the knowledge that close to 100% of the little darlings are chauffeured to and from school anyway, with little evidence that bus drivers (or Soccer Moms) are routinely stopping off at Specs so as to allow little Johnny to grab a Roadie for the trip home.
So, while there is a practical consideration to keeping places that children ought not to go into at least at arm's length, it ought to be tempered by the knowledge that - in going to school - schoolkids are never going to get close to them in the first place.
As for me, I can think of some real dangers Biffie and Brittany should be protected from that are within 1000' of your typical school:
- The vending machines found on most every campus - not to mention the nearby convenience stores - which dispense cans of Coke (44 grams of sugar), Mountain Dew (48 grams of sugar) and a six pack of Oreo Cookies (44 grams of sugar).
- School cafeterias that daily crank out metric tons of diabetes and coronary heart disease inducing breakfasts and lunches consisting of eggs, sausage, bacon, pancakes, syrup, butter, sugar, donuts, tacos, cheeseburgers, pizza, nachos, potato chips, processed meats, a vast array of desserts and more salt than the residue from Hurricane Ike. They do also prepare some cooked vegetables and the occasional salad, but these items are - as a Math teacher might confirm - statistically insignificant.
- Student's cell phones, virtually all of which are used to one extent or another for texting, "sexting", cheating, browsing, twittering, gossip and a dozen other recreational functions that distract from learning and contribute to the epidemic of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) that so contributes to the endless-funding educational bandwagon.
- Miss Comehither, the randy twenty-six year old temporary English teacher that revels in short skirts and the opportunity to relive her freshman year - with Freshmen.
- Student and custodial drug dealers, hardy entrepreneurs peddling dope on campus with an impunity not granted to, say, a group of kids attempting a moment of silent prayer, much less a student wearing a T-shirt that promotes abstinence. That includes School Administrators advocating a pharmaceutical strategy to address the ADHD of the aforementioned cell phone addicts, by the way.
- Teachers who are held to absolutely no standards, produce a terrible product, and then blame their customers.
- An educational bureaucracy that holds intellectual rigor in contempt, that promotes political correctness and moral relativism, and then papers over the resulting failures with decades of knob twiddling devoid of any empirical foundation or results.
- Organized crime on campus, including educrats who extort money from taxpayers with the gleeful abandon of Mexican Druglords, whose modern incarnation is known as the National Education Association.
As to the corrupting influence of Girlie bars and liquor stores, I'll start worrying about that the minute that HISD can convince me that their school system does less damage to the liver, arteries and moral fiber of our schoolchildren than does Spec's or Rick's Cabaret.
The other story involves the busybody minions of the State of Texas and Harris County going after Spec's, a reputable chain store that sells alcohol, mixers, soda, coffees, cigars and sundry specialty foods. The reason? Spec's built a store within 1000' of an elementary school.
Several thoughts come to mind on the bonus program. For one thing, it is refreshing to hear HISD admit, albeit unintentionally, that their programs - not to mention the Teachers they propose to replace - have failed to teach our children effectively. Given the regular feel-good stories that come out of HISD about how well their schools are doing, it's a change of pace for them to admit otherwise. It is also predictable that the solution that HISD would come up with would be to throw more money - and boodles of it - at the problem, as if that was the only option available.
It is also interesting that the standard for judging the success of the pilot bonus program would be if scores on standardized tests improve, inasmuch as there is a movement afoot in the Texas educational establishment to abandon the standardized testing component of No Child Left Behind. The Chronicle ran a story mere weeks ago outlining the consensus of our Educational bureaucracy that the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) test has to go. Now, if TAKS is as useless as they proclaim, how can HISD bureaucrats then use standardized testing as the basis to justify enormous performance bonuses for Teachers? Sounds like a classic case of cherry-picking to me.
The next thing to consider is the cost. When the Obama Administration is allowed to portray any and every increase in education spending, including larger Pell grants, vastly increased Federal subsidy of primary and secondary education and a government takeover of student loan programs as a worthy "investment" in our "underfunded" school systems - and nothing less than a moral obligation on the part of America to boot - you better reach for your wallet. If you think this program (which has failed everywhere else that it has been tried) has not been well thought out, your instincts are correct.
There is nothing that can strike fear into the heart of a taxpayer faster than a bureaucrat mouthing the words "pilot program", so one must contemplate the consequences of this ill-conceived idea. For instance, who determines which schools are "failing"? Who determines which teachers qualify for the bonuses? And since HISD as much as admits that some Teachers are successful while others are not, in taking successful teachers from one school and putting them in another, aren't they dooming the students that lose the services of the successful teacher to failure?
Are they suggesting that the sterling qualities of a handful of "successful" teachers transplanted to a failing school will somehow rub off on the other teachers who are not? Exactly how will this happen? And exactly how do they keep from engendering jealousy - not to mention animosity - on the part of the incumbent teachers at the failing school who do not get bonuses for the Outsiders sent in to "rescue" the school from failure? And what of the teachers these superstars replace? If they weren't doing their jobs in the first place, will they be fired, or - more likely - will they keep their jobs and continue doing a substandard job?
And since there are apparently no objective criteria for determining the success or failure of the program, how long will it be before these "bonuses" become a standard feature in teacher compensation? How long could before a pilot program to give $200 thousand per year in bonuses to a mere twenty teachers devolves into a $10 million program for a thousand teachers, or a $50 million program for 5000 teachers? And who in their right mind would believe that these supposedly two year bonuses wouldn’t become a permanent part of teacher compensation? It's not like there isn't proof that this is the objective, inasmuch as HISD and school districts the nation over have been advocating "incentive" or "bonus" pay programs, on the assumption that a) Teachers are underpaid and b) they need to "pay like the private sector" in order to "attract top talent".
Note to the Education Establishment: a) Teachers aren't underpaid compared to their Private Sector alternatives and b) the Private Sector is ROTFLOL at the notion that you would attempt to emulate it. For starters, while not perfect, the Private Sector does not as a matter of course employ battalions of tenured, self-important and ultimately clueless windbags who think it's a good idea to subsidize failure with money in the first place. In that sense, you are indistinguishable from Investment Bankers - who are as surely a part of the Public Sector as you are - in rewarding incompetence with taxpayer dollars.
Further, what drives the Private Sector is measureable performance. Take, for example, a UPS delivery person. If he or she routinely failed to successfully deliver a truck full of packages on time and in reasonable repair, the Private Sector solution would not be to bring in another driver to take over their route, whilst still employing the underperforming driver. No, the driver would be subject to remedial training, some supervisory oversight and some form of counseling; and if their performance still didn't improve, they would be fired and replaced by somebody who could. Since that is not now and never has been the modus operandi of our education system, it seems extremely unlikely that incentive pay would yield any tangible results.
Next on the agenda is Spec's vs. the State of Texas. As background, remember that the city of Houston has been on a mission for many years now in their efforts to shut down "gentlemen's" clubs within 1500 feet of a school or neighborhood. Now, never mind that many of those establishments were there first, and that the newly built school or neighborhood encroached on them. In their never-ending efforts to provide a quality living environment - not to mention creative new ways to spend your tax dollars - the City has been methodically shutting Girlie bars down, so as to preserve the tender sensibilities of our children, not to mention providing a goodly dose of self-esteem to the bureaucrats in State and Local government appointed to oversee - like vengeful Hall Monitors - the preservation of the moral character of our fair state and its citizens.
Fresh off their victorious effort to close down the Strip Clubs, these same devoted public servants (or their ideological soulmates) are now aiming their big guns at Spec's, a sterling corporate citizen of Houston and as benevolent a purveyor of alcohol, tobacco products and appetizers as you could imagine. I'll spare you the details of how this came to be except to say that the City didn't do all the necessary paperwork in granting Spec's an exemption. Yes, the general rule is that liquor stores cannot be within 1000' of a school, but only a public servant could make a crusade of the matter in the absence of any evidence to suggest that the store's presence had in any way affected the students of the nearby school.
Which makes one ponder the impact on the neighborhood - not to mention the moral fiber of our youth - by there being a Spec's within 600' of the school instead of the customary 1000'. What dire consequences must Officials have been contemplating if such a thing occurred? Granted, 1000' is safer than 600', since arguably few of the children in HISD could actually walk 1000' on any given day without a school-issued inhaler, so the shorter distance alone might be enough to give the school district pause in this, our litigious age, but for the fact that most schoolkids are equally disincented to walk even 600'. And school officials ought to be further comforted by the knowledge that close to 100% of the little darlings are chauffeured to and from school anyway, with little evidence that bus drivers (or Soccer Moms) are routinely stopping off at Specs so as to allow little Johnny to grab a Roadie for the trip home.
So, while there is a practical consideration to keeping places that children ought not to go into at least at arm's length, it ought to be tempered by the knowledge that - in going to school - schoolkids are never going to get close to them in the first place.
As for me, I can think of some real dangers Biffie and Brittany should be protected from that are within 1000' of your typical school:
- The vending machines found on most every campus - not to mention the nearby convenience stores - which dispense cans of Coke (44 grams of sugar), Mountain Dew (48 grams of sugar) and a six pack of Oreo Cookies (44 grams of sugar).
- School cafeterias that daily crank out metric tons of diabetes and coronary heart disease inducing breakfasts and lunches consisting of eggs, sausage, bacon, pancakes, syrup, butter, sugar, donuts, tacos, cheeseburgers, pizza, nachos, potato chips, processed meats, a vast array of desserts and more salt than the residue from Hurricane Ike. They do also prepare some cooked vegetables and the occasional salad, but these items are - as a Math teacher might confirm - statistically insignificant.
- Student's cell phones, virtually all of which are used to one extent or another for texting, "sexting", cheating, browsing, twittering, gossip and a dozen other recreational functions that distract from learning and contribute to the epidemic of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) that so contributes to the endless-funding educational bandwagon.
- Miss Comehither, the randy twenty-six year old temporary English teacher that revels in short skirts and the opportunity to relive her freshman year - with Freshmen.
- Student and custodial drug dealers, hardy entrepreneurs peddling dope on campus with an impunity not granted to, say, a group of kids attempting a moment of silent prayer, much less a student wearing a T-shirt that promotes abstinence. That includes School Administrators advocating a pharmaceutical strategy to address the ADHD of the aforementioned cell phone addicts, by the way.
- Teachers who are held to absolutely no standards, produce a terrible product, and then blame their customers.
- An educational bureaucracy that holds intellectual rigor in contempt, that promotes political correctness and moral relativism, and then papers over the resulting failures with decades of knob twiddling devoid of any empirical foundation or results.
- Organized crime on campus, including educrats who extort money from taxpayers with the gleeful abandon of Mexican Druglords, whose modern incarnation is known as the National Education Association.
As to the corrupting influence of Girlie bars and liquor stores, I'll start worrying about that the minute that HISD can convince me that their school system does less damage to the liver, arteries and moral fiber of our schoolchildren than does Spec's or Rick's Cabaret.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The Real Cost Of A Government Job
We are right to bitch about Obama's recent "stimulus" package, and his nebulous claims that the $876 billion spent will "save or create 2.5 million jobs". I along with many others pointed out that this comes out to $350,000 per job. With his weasle words about "save or create", if he only created one additional job, that job would end up costing $876 billion, but that's on the high side, and we should hold off on judging him until the results are in.
But that aside, do we really have a right to complain about the Stimulus package? After all, the federal government now spends $3.5 trillion to create 15 million jobs. That works out to $233,000 per job, so he's not too far off the government average.
Now granted, the Private Sector creates the other 100 million jobs that government does not, at an average cost of $55,000 per job, but don't dwell on that too long or you will just drive yourself crazy......
But that aside, do we really have a right to complain about the Stimulus package? After all, the federal government now spends $3.5 trillion to create 15 million jobs. That works out to $233,000 per job, so he's not too far off the government average.
Now granted, the Private Sector creates the other 100 million jobs that government does not, at an average cost of $55,000 per job, but don't dwell on that too long or you will just drive yourself crazy......
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Barack and Déjà vu
A reprint from the Weekly Standard, so timely as to be excrutiating. Could Obama be a reincarnation of 19th century tyrants past? Could Americans as a whole be the sheep we appear to be?
Read on:
"It seems that if despotism came to be established in the democratic nations of our day, it would have other characteristics: it would be more extensive and milder, and it would degrade men without tormenting them. . . .
When I think of the small passions of men of our day, the softness of their mores, the extent of their enlightenment, the purity of their religion, the mildness of their morality, their laborious and steady habits, the restraint that almost all preserve in vice as in virtue, I do not fear that in their chiefs they will find tyrants, but rather schoolmasters. . . .
I want to imagine with what new features despotism could be produced in the world: I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. . . .
Above these an immense tutelary power is elevated, which alone takes charge of assuring their enjoyments and watching over their fate. It is absolute, detailed, regular, far-seeing, and mild. It would resemble paternal power if, like that, it had for its object to prepare men for manhood; but on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them fixed irrevocably in childhood; it likes citizens to enjoy themselves provided that they think only of enjoying themselves. It willingly works for their happiness; but it wants to be the unique agent and sole arbiter of that; it provides for their security, foresees and secures their needs, facilitates their pleasures, conducts their principal affairs, directs their industry, regulates their estates, divides their inheritances; can it not take away from them entirely the trouble of thinking and the pain of living? So it is that every day it renders the employment of free will less useful and more rare; it confines the action of the will in a smaller space and little by little steals the very use of it from each citizen. . . .
Thus, after taking each individual by turns in its powerful hands and kneading him as it likes, the sovereign extends its arms over society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way to surpass the crowd; it does not break wills but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it rarely forces one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one's acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which government is the shepherd. . .
I have always believed that this sort of regulated, mild, and peaceful servitude, whose picture I have just painted, could be combined better than one imagines with some of the external forms of freedom, and that it would not be impossible for it to be established in the very shadow of the sovereignty of the people".
Alexis de Tocqueville
Read on:
"It seems that if despotism came to be established in the democratic nations of our day, it would have other characteristics: it would be more extensive and milder, and it would degrade men without tormenting them. . . .
When I think of the small passions of men of our day, the softness of their mores, the extent of their enlightenment, the purity of their religion, the mildness of their morality, their laborious and steady habits, the restraint that almost all preserve in vice as in virtue, I do not fear that in their chiefs they will find tyrants, but rather schoolmasters. . . .
I want to imagine with what new features despotism could be produced in the world: I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. . . .
Above these an immense tutelary power is elevated, which alone takes charge of assuring their enjoyments and watching over their fate. It is absolute, detailed, regular, far-seeing, and mild. It would resemble paternal power if, like that, it had for its object to prepare men for manhood; but on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them fixed irrevocably in childhood; it likes citizens to enjoy themselves provided that they think only of enjoying themselves. It willingly works for their happiness; but it wants to be the unique agent and sole arbiter of that; it provides for their security, foresees and secures their needs, facilitates their pleasures, conducts their principal affairs, directs their industry, regulates their estates, divides their inheritances; can it not take away from them entirely the trouble of thinking and the pain of living? So it is that every day it renders the employment of free will less useful and more rare; it confines the action of the will in a smaller space and little by little steals the very use of it from each citizen. . . .
Thus, after taking each individual by turns in its powerful hands and kneading him as it likes, the sovereign extends its arms over society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way to surpass the crowd; it does not break wills but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it rarely forces one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one's acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which government is the shepherd. . .
I have always believed that this sort of regulated, mild, and peaceful servitude, whose picture I have just painted, could be combined better than one imagines with some of the external forms of freedom, and that it would not be impossible for it to be established in the very shadow of the sovereignty of the people".
Alexis de Tocqueville
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Democrats Up The Ante; Republicans Fold
One of my legion of liberal friends has been - as he likes to remind me at least once per fiscal quarter - steadfastly opposed to the Iraq War. Not that he's got much use for fiscal quarters, being a Socialist and all, but then again, Democrats have for my entire life made use of that which is useful in our Capitalist society without embracing Capitalism, in much the same way that Communists the world over have embraced the 12 month calendar without embracing, well, Catholicism.
But I digress.
My buddy is an equal opportunity Opposer. In addition to Iraq, he has also courageously opposed the war in Afghanistan, the Bosnian conflict, the liberation of Kosovo, intervention in Darfur, Viet Nam, Korea, World Wars I & II, the Spanish American war, the Civil war, the Revolutionary war, Leno vs. Letterman and Shaq vs. Kobe.
He also believes George W. Bush personally piloted the plane that hit the Pentagon on 911, but that's him.
For my entire life, the Democrat's strategy in debating the great issues of the day has been to establish in the Public's mind some indisputable reference point that we all agree upon. Some undeniable truth; some conventional wisdom; something we all believe or that we were taught in school. Things like "the deficit is a debt that we owe to ourselves", or "Cuba has the best Health Care system in the world", or "Robert Bork would return Jim Crow", and my personal favorite "Dick Cheney is the personification of evil".
Believe me, folks, Democrats - like Jimmy Durante - have "got a million of 'em" when it comes to universal truths. Take for instance, the reason we got into the Iraq War, or what Democrats call the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" argument. Democrats claim there were no WMD, and further more, that "everybody knows it". With that little bit of self-delusion, America bought in and lurched to the left. Now, most Americans oppose our Iraq mission, never mind that it is the most excellent advancement of Freedom and Liberty since Ronald Reagan destroyed the Soviet Union and freed all of Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, the Caucasus, and dozens of other nations under the thumb of the Evil Empire.
Let us first address the most common misconceptions implanted by Democrats and their Media Toadies in the nation's brainpan since 911:
Bush accused Iraq of involvement in 911
This never happened in any plausible way, shape or form. George W indicted the whole of radical Islam for 911, and set his sights on Afghanistan. He was - if anything - overcautious of blaming Iraq. He correctly targeted as his starting point the Taliban since they provided the majority training for Al Qaeda and other terrorists groups, defeated them in Afghanistan and moved on from there. The next logical target was then the only known and active purveyor of WMD in the Middle East, Saddam's Iraq.
Absent any statements from the Bush Administration attempting to link Saddam to 911 (since there were none) one could plausibly argue that it was The Media that was responsible for conflating the separate causes of 911 and the elimination of WMD held (or pursued) by terrorist regimes. Ironically, we now know that there was a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda, notwithstanding that Bush never made the argument. It turns out Iraq did harbor and fund a number of 911 conspirators, and offered financial aid to other countries more directly involved, such as Sudan. We also know that Saddam put aside his disagreements with Bin Laden in order to foster Al Qaeda as a resource that would benefit the aims of the Baathists. None of that mattered to the Democrats. They won the rhetorical battle before the facts came out, a strategy that they would employ throughout the war to discredit the Bush Administration.
There were no Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Well, yes, there were. Lest we forget, Saddam used them to kill tens of thousands of Iranian soldiers, and thousands of his own civilians. The Iran/Iraq war and whole villages of dead men, women, children, dogs and livestock are stark testament to the fact that Saddam had WMD, used WMD, and likely retained the stockpiles and capability after the first Gulf War. Upon occupying Iraq after the Second Gulf War, the military also found hundreds of discarded or stockpiled chemical weapons over the course of the war.
Democrats then upped the ante by claiming that we had to find pristine stockpiles and functioning weapons labs in order to justify Saddam as a dispenser of WMD. This is the classic example of Democrats establishing a standard of proof so burdensome as to be next to impossible to satisfy, and yet another example of the nefarious things they do to hogtie America and discredit the motives of those who would defend it.
Did they really expect Saddam to leave functioning weapons labs or stockpiles of weapons to be discovered by our invading forces? Hussein was secretive, after all, and lest we forget, we granted him an eight month interval between the War resolution in 2002 and our invasion in 2003. Exactly how much time would Democrats have liked to give Saddam to dispose of the evidence before we invaded?
They also conveniently forgot that Saddam's ten year shell game with U.N. weapons inspectors was the major justification for the Bush Administration's claim that Saddam retained both chemical stockpiles and capability. That decade long fiasco made the West a laughingstock, emboldening terrorists the world over. In retrospect, Democrats now proclaim that Saddam played hide and seek only to sustain the impression that he had WMD capability so as not to lose stature in the Middle East. So what? Compliance with U.N. mandates meant revealing all of his capabilities. He didn't, and thus, deserved to be overthrown. Were it otherwise, the standard that Democrats would have the world adhere to would now force us to abandon all military plans against Iran and Korea, so long as they can successfully hide their capabilities from the world.
Sounds like a prescription for nuclear blackmail, and perhaps even Armageddon, but Democrats excel at burying their heads in the ground, particularly when it comes to facing the consequences of their treasonous actions. Suspension of disbelief is not only a prerequisite for being a Democrat, it is - in conjunction with a compliant Media - the most effective weapon in their propaganda arsenal.
Another classic example of this phenomenon was when some Administration officials (and other commentators) speculated that Saddam might have shipped his WMD and infrastructure out of the country. Democrats and the Media immediately declared it implausible, and a desperate ex post facto attempt by the Bushies to explain the lack of evidence of WMD. By why, indeed, was such an argument ever implausible?
All of the chemicals and equipment necessary for building an arsenal capable of killing millions can be carried on two flat bed trailers. Not only is it likely that all the evidence was either buried or transported out of the country (probably to Syria), it is a veritable certainty. To believe otherwise is to believe in the good intentions and essential honesty of Saddam. To believe in the honesty and good intentions of Saddam is to believe in the Easter Bunny, the Flying Pumpkin, Santa Clause and many other feel-good symbols that defy common sense and human nature; you know, things like Barack Obama's Stimulus plan.
Also absent from Democrat musings on the meaning of the conflict is that Saddam continued to pursue deployment of artillery and missiles whose only purpose was the delivery of chemical weapons. They also discounted the discovery of tens of thousands of chemical weapons suits found by the U.S. after Iraq fell in the Second Gulf War. Again, why have these things if you're not pursuing chemical weapons? The answer is that only evidence contrary to the Bush administration was ever considered by Democrats and The Media. In retrospect, I'm surprised that the Democrats didn't attempt to make more of the argument that the suits were stockpiled in anticipation of an American chemical weapon attack (which some of their number did), a small but hopeful sign that there are limits to the credulity of the American public.
Bush Misled Us
It's interesting to note how quickly the "Us" became not just Democrats and The Media, but the American public as well. Funny thing is, for decades Democrats and Republicans alike had access to exactly the same Intel on Saddam's WMD programs and capabilities, and the Bill Clinton era is replete with Democrats declaring that Saddam not only had WMD, but was intent on using them. It was also the official Clinton policy to pursue "regime change", and Clinton himself bombed Iraq. How then, were Democrats allowed to declare - like some chaste Southern Belle who didn't even know what porn was - that they were shocked, "shocked", at how George W had "misled" them?
The simple answer is that they had gotten away with so many other abuses of truth and history by The Media that they figured they could get away with this one too. And they were right. I've got to tell you, that one still get's them laughing at Democrat Power Broker get-togethers. "Oh my god", Hillary will declare, "I practically peed my pants the first time I said that in public..........AND GOT AWAY WITH IT!"
For decades prior to George W, Democrats made exactly the same arguments about Saddam's WMD capabilities as Republicans did, right up until the point when, well, they didn't. They then cobbled together a couple of Straw Men, the most damaging being their contention that Bush providing as sole proof of Saddam's nuclear ambitions a discredited report from the Italians about Iraq negotiating with Niger on the procurement of uranium ore, with the infamous Joe Wilson (husband of Valerie Plame) claiming that Niger never did any such thing. The other notable Straw Man was the credibility Democrats gave to reports from the notoriously incompetent and corrupt U.N. weapons inspectors tasked to find any WMD that Saddam did not let them find. Democrats presented both of them to butress their "Bush Lied" argument to the World, said "case closed", and just that easily, it was.
We now know that the Italian report was one of dozens reviewed but not cited by the Bush Administration. We also know that much more credible reports - particularly from the British - were completely ignored by the Media. We also know that Niger likely did negotiate with Saddam for uranium ore, and that Wilson actually provided additional evidence to support that conclusion. Finally, we have ample evidence of outright U.N. collaboration with Saddam, with dozens of U.N. officials raking in millions on the Oil-For-Food program even as their so-called objective weapons inspections were taking place.
To me, these are but a few breath-taking instances of The Media allowing Democrats to re-write history and Republicans going along for the ride, surely one of the most cynical actions on the part of Democrats and one of the most incomprehensible on the part of Republicans. It seems that Repub politicians and apologists literally came to believe that an argument was lost if it was sustained from one Media cycle to the next. In other words, the Democrats fought this like a political campaign, and Republicans acquiesced. That left them nothing but to be progressively backed into a rhetorical corner of the Democrat's choosing.
Which brings us to Republican gutlessness. There's a certain irony that George W. Bush himself would declare in one of his exit interviews that one of his greatest regrets was "the accuracy of intelligence on WMD". What idiocy. The intelligence was as good as it was going to be, given the reality that the Democrat Party has been committed for almost forty years to destroying America's intelligence gathering agencies, not to mention using the Media to rewrite history at the expense of America but to their - and Saddam's - great benefit. What W ought to have "regretted" was Democrat traitors, not the quality of Intel. The Intel was plenty good enough - absent the Democrat's fantastical interpretations - as was Saddam's history, to justify our actions.
My point here is one I've made a hundred times before and will continue to make: if Democrat's are allowed to define the truth to be their propaganda, and insisting on "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" to refute that propaganda, we will never be able to adequately defend our interests, and we will never learn the lessons we should have learned from these conflicts. Put in more concrete terms: by so consistently giving Aid and Comfort to the enemy, think of how difficult they have made it for America to pursue the next dictator disposing of Weapons Of Mass Destruction.
As to Republicans, it seems most of their commentators and decision-makers get tired of defending the defensible, and some allowance has to be made for their advancing age. It is by such measures that conservatives "grow" into acceptability by The Media and Liberal Opposition. Just look at how the cynical bastards embraced Barry Goldwater when - in his dotage - he trashed the Republican Party, not to mention much of what he had professed to believe when he was in his right mind.
Bottom line, a public that can believe the Democrat's arguments against the Iraq war can be made to believe anything, and a Republican establishment that refuses to defend the essential honesty of W's argument is not only not worth supporting, but should be replaced.
But I digress.
My buddy is an equal opportunity Opposer. In addition to Iraq, he has also courageously opposed the war in Afghanistan, the Bosnian conflict, the liberation of Kosovo, intervention in Darfur, Viet Nam, Korea, World Wars I & II, the Spanish American war, the Civil war, the Revolutionary war, Leno vs. Letterman and Shaq vs. Kobe.
He also believes George W. Bush personally piloted the plane that hit the Pentagon on 911, but that's him.
For my entire life, the Democrat's strategy in debating the great issues of the day has been to establish in the Public's mind some indisputable reference point that we all agree upon. Some undeniable truth; some conventional wisdom; something we all believe or that we were taught in school. Things like "the deficit is a debt that we owe to ourselves", or "Cuba has the best Health Care system in the world", or "Robert Bork would return Jim Crow", and my personal favorite "Dick Cheney is the personification of evil".
Believe me, folks, Democrats - like Jimmy Durante - have "got a million of 'em" when it comes to universal truths. Take for instance, the reason we got into the Iraq War, or what Democrats call the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" argument. Democrats claim there were no WMD, and further more, that "everybody knows it". With that little bit of self-delusion, America bought in and lurched to the left. Now, most Americans oppose our Iraq mission, never mind that it is the most excellent advancement of Freedom and Liberty since Ronald Reagan destroyed the Soviet Union and freed all of Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, the Caucasus, and dozens of other nations under the thumb of the Evil Empire.
Let us first address the most common misconceptions implanted by Democrats and their Media Toadies in the nation's brainpan since 911:
Bush accused Iraq of involvement in 911
This never happened in any plausible way, shape or form. George W indicted the whole of radical Islam for 911, and set his sights on Afghanistan. He was - if anything - overcautious of blaming Iraq. He correctly targeted as his starting point the Taliban since they provided the majority training for Al Qaeda and other terrorists groups, defeated them in Afghanistan and moved on from there. The next logical target was then the only known and active purveyor of WMD in the Middle East, Saddam's Iraq.
Absent any statements from the Bush Administration attempting to link Saddam to 911 (since there were none) one could plausibly argue that it was The Media that was responsible for conflating the separate causes of 911 and the elimination of WMD held (or pursued) by terrorist regimes. Ironically, we now know that there was a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda, notwithstanding that Bush never made the argument. It turns out Iraq did harbor and fund a number of 911 conspirators, and offered financial aid to other countries more directly involved, such as Sudan. We also know that Saddam put aside his disagreements with Bin Laden in order to foster Al Qaeda as a resource that would benefit the aims of the Baathists. None of that mattered to the Democrats. They won the rhetorical battle before the facts came out, a strategy that they would employ throughout the war to discredit the Bush Administration.
There were no Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Well, yes, there were. Lest we forget, Saddam used them to kill tens of thousands of Iranian soldiers, and thousands of his own civilians. The Iran/Iraq war and whole villages of dead men, women, children, dogs and livestock are stark testament to the fact that Saddam had WMD, used WMD, and likely retained the stockpiles and capability after the first Gulf War. Upon occupying Iraq after the Second Gulf War, the military also found hundreds of discarded or stockpiled chemical weapons over the course of the war.
Democrats then upped the ante by claiming that we had to find pristine stockpiles and functioning weapons labs in order to justify Saddam as a dispenser of WMD. This is the classic example of Democrats establishing a standard of proof so burdensome as to be next to impossible to satisfy, and yet another example of the nefarious things they do to hogtie America and discredit the motives of those who would defend it.
Did they really expect Saddam to leave functioning weapons labs or stockpiles of weapons to be discovered by our invading forces? Hussein was secretive, after all, and lest we forget, we granted him an eight month interval between the War resolution in 2002 and our invasion in 2003. Exactly how much time would Democrats have liked to give Saddam to dispose of the evidence before we invaded?
They also conveniently forgot that Saddam's ten year shell game with U.N. weapons inspectors was the major justification for the Bush Administration's claim that Saddam retained both chemical stockpiles and capability. That decade long fiasco made the West a laughingstock, emboldening terrorists the world over. In retrospect, Democrats now proclaim that Saddam played hide and seek only to sustain the impression that he had WMD capability so as not to lose stature in the Middle East. So what? Compliance with U.N. mandates meant revealing all of his capabilities. He didn't, and thus, deserved to be overthrown. Were it otherwise, the standard that Democrats would have the world adhere to would now force us to abandon all military plans against Iran and Korea, so long as they can successfully hide their capabilities from the world.
Sounds like a prescription for nuclear blackmail, and perhaps even Armageddon, but Democrats excel at burying their heads in the ground, particularly when it comes to facing the consequences of their treasonous actions. Suspension of disbelief is not only a prerequisite for being a Democrat, it is - in conjunction with a compliant Media - the most effective weapon in their propaganda arsenal.
Another classic example of this phenomenon was when some Administration officials (and other commentators) speculated that Saddam might have shipped his WMD and infrastructure out of the country. Democrats and the Media immediately declared it implausible, and a desperate ex post facto attempt by the Bushies to explain the lack of evidence of WMD. By why, indeed, was such an argument ever implausible?
All of the chemicals and equipment necessary for building an arsenal capable of killing millions can be carried on two flat bed trailers. Not only is it likely that all the evidence was either buried or transported out of the country (probably to Syria), it is a veritable certainty. To believe otherwise is to believe in the good intentions and essential honesty of Saddam. To believe in the honesty and good intentions of Saddam is to believe in the Easter Bunny, the Flying Pumpkin, Santa Clause and many other feel-good symbols that defy common sense and human nature; you know, things like Barack Obama's Stimulus plan.
Also absent from Democrat musings on the meaning of the conflict is that Saddam continued to pursue deployment of artillery and missiles whose only purpose was the delivery of chemical weapons. They also discounted the discovery of tens of thousands of chemical weapons suits found by the U.S. after Iraq fell in the Second Gulf War. Again, why have these things if you're not pursuing chemical weapons? The answer is that only evidence contrary to the Bush administration was ever considered by Democrats and The Media. In retrospect, I'm surprised that the Democrats didn't attempt to make more of the argument that the suits were stockpiled in anticipation of an American chemical weapon attack (which some of their number did), a small but hopeful sign that there are limits to the credulity of the American public.
Bush Misled Us
It's interesting to note how quickly the "Us" became not just Democrats and The Media, but the American public as well. Funny thing is, for decades Democrats and Republicans alike had access to exactly the same Intel on Saddam's WMD programs and capabilities, and the Bill Clinton era is replete with Democrats declaring that Saddam not only had WMD, but was intent on using them. It was also the official Clinton policy to pursue "regime change", and Clinton himself bombed Iraq. How then, were Democrats allowed to declare - like some chaste Southern Belle who didn't even know what porn was - that they were shocked, "shocked", at how George W had "misled" them?
The simple answer is that they had gotten away with so many other abuses of truth and history by The Media that they figured they could get away with this one too. And they were right. I've got to tell you, that one still get's them laughing at Democrat Power Broker get-togethers. "Oh my god", Hillary will declare, "I practically peed my pants the first time I said that in public..........AND GOT AWAY WITH IT!"
For decades prior to George W, Democrats made exactly the same arguments about Saddam's WMD capabilities as Republicans did, right up until the point when, well, they didn't. They then cobbled together a couple of Straw Men, the most damaging being their contention that Bush providing as sole proof of Saddam's nuclear ambitions a discredited report from the Italians about Iraq negotiating with Niger on the procurement of uranium ore, with the infamous Joe Wilson (husband of Valerie Plame) claiming that Niger never did any such thing. The other notable Straw Man was the credibility Democrats gave to reports from the notoriously incompetent and corrupt U.N. weapons inspectors tasked to find any WMD that Saddam did not let them find. Democrats presented both of them to butress their "Bush Lied" argument to the World, said "case closed", and just that easily, it was.
We now know that the Italian report was one of dozens reviewed but not cited by the Bush Administration. We also know that much more credible reports - particularly from the British - were completely ignored by the Media. We also know that Niger likely did negotiate with Saddam for uranium ore, and that Wilson actually provided additional evidence to support that conclusion. Finally, we have ample evidence of outright U.N. collaboration with Saddam, with dozens of U.N. officials raking in millions on the Oil-For-Food program even as their so-called objective weapons inspections were taking place.
To me, these are but a few breath-taking instances of The Media allowing Democrats to re-write history and Republicans going along for the ride, surely one of the most cynical actions on the part of Democrats and one of the most incomprehensible on the part of Republicans. It seems that Repub politicians and apologists literally came to believe that an argument was lost if it was sustained from one Media cycle to the next. In other words, the Democrats fought this like a political campaign, and Republicans acquiesced. That left them nothing but to be progressively backed into a rhetorical corner of the Democrat's choosing.
Which brings us to Republican gutlessness. There's a certain irony that George W. Bush himself would declare in one of his exit interviews that one of his greatest regrets was "the accuracy of intelligence on WMD". What idiocy. The intelligence was as good as it was going to be, given the reality that the Democrat Party has been committed for almost forty years to destroying America's intelligence gathering agencies, not to mention using the Media to rewrite history at the expense of America but to their - and Saddam's - great benefit. What W ought to have "regretted" was Democrat traitors, not the quality of Intel. The Intel was plenty good enough - absent the Democrat's fantastical interpretations - as was Saddam's history, to justify our actions.
My point here is one I've made a hundred times before and will continue to make: if Democrat's are allowed to define the truth to be their propaganda, and insisting on "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" to refute that propaganda, we will never be able to adequately defend our interests, and we will never learn the lessons we should have learned from these conflicts. Put in more concrete terms: by so consistently giving Aid and Comfort to the enemy, think of how difficult they have made it for America to pursue the next dictator disposing of Weapons Of Mass Destruction.
As to Republicans, it seems most of their commentators and decision-makers get tired of defending the defensible, and some allowance has to be made for their advancing age. It is by such measures that conservatives "grow" into acceptability by The Media and Liberal Opposition. Just look at how the cynical bastards embraced Barry Goldwater when - in his dotage - he trashed the Republican Party, not to mention much of what he had professed to believe when he was in his right mind.
Bottom line, a public that can believe the Democrat's arguments against the Iraq war can be made to believe anything, and a Republican establishment that refuses to defend the essential honesty of W's argument is not only not worth supporting, but should be replaced.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
AIG Execs Should Go To Jail
Froma Harrop want's "jail time for culprits of AIG fiasco". She "sees no justice in paying $165 million in bonuses to the AIG execs whose reckless conduct led to a $170 billion (so far) bailout".
I agree. There should be a Special Prosecutor appointed immediately, and let's start by finding out which Party and which politicians received the lion's share of campaign contributions from these executives that allowed them to perpetrate their fraud in the first place. If Ms. Harrop is serious about "jail time for culprits of AIG fiasco", Congress would not be a bad place to start.
I agree. There should be a Special Prosecutor appointed immediately, and let's start by finding out which Party and which politicians received the lion's share of campaign contributions from these executives that allowed them to perpetrate their fraud in the first place. If Ms. Harrop is serious about "jail time for culprits of AIG fiasco", Congress would not be a bad place to start.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Mario Gallegos Has His Hand Out
With a tiresome consistency, yet another professional Grievance Monger - State Senator Mario Gallegos - has put himself forward to right another perceived wrong, in this case the supposed lack of representation of Hispanics and Blacks in the executive committees of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. He's also upset that HLSR doesn't award scholarships to illegal immigrants, and has proposed a combination of legislation and civic pressure to force them to do both.
Before we discuss the merits of his proposals, much less his motivation, we must first ask whether Gallegos is even qualified to offer comment on the motives of the HLSR. To answer this question, one need go no further than a Google of his credentials to discover the measure of the man:
His personal history is that of a city boy and lifelong government employee, and a chair jockey to boot: his job for 22 years with the City of Houston was as a Dispatcher for the Fire Department. His Senate bio and other sources reveal no involvement with, or apparent interest in, rodeo, horses, livestock, Future Farmers of America, or for that matter anything to do with HLSR. That is not to say that he has no "country" cred, but it is not apparent from his public record that Gallegos has ever mounted a horse, much less knows how to ride one, and he has also devoted not 50 BTUs of effort to the Rodeo in terms of personal effort.
As to his likely motivation, Gallegos' Wikipedia profile includes this gem: "In July 2001, Gallegos was named one of the worst legislators in Texas by Texas Monthly magazine in their biennial feature. The authors noted that Gallegos was 'a retired firefighter who threw gasoline on every combustible issue', and noted his penchant for injecting race into seemingly innocuous legislation. In July 2005, Gallegos was again named one of the worst legislators in Texas by Texas Monthly".
His affiliations, loyalties, motivation and activities have been overwhelmingly for the advancement of causes that support the Hispanic community, not exactly the resume of a Uniter, much less somebody who has the moral authority to pass judgment on others.
Gallegos' penchant for rabble rousing and Anglo Baiting aside, it's funny that he has had no interest in making a commitment to HLSR himself, working up through the ranks as all members are required to do, performing countless hours and long years of service to elevate their status. Of the dozens of people I know who contribute to the rodeo, my impression of HLSR is that of a volunteer organization that encourages commitment before privilege, and not, most emphatically, ham-fisted attempts by anyone to push themselves to the front of the line. The simple fact is that - like so many other civic organizations - the vast majority of members will never rise very far in the hierarchy, yet are still content to make their contribution.
It also strikes me that the HLSR has over the years done a very good job accomodating their Hispanic constituency, a decades-long tradition of Hispanic Trail Rides, exhibits and performers to name but a few. There has long been a Go Tejano day, and HLSR has actually provided a continuing venue for Tejano music at a point in time when it has next to zero popularity with the larger Hispanic community. Ironically, this was another point of contention between Gallegos and HLSR last year, when the venue for the Tejano concert was downgraded to make room for Norteno and other more popular forms, arguably out of consideration for Hispanics attending the rodeo who - as we stated earlier - apparently could care less about Tejano music.
Finally, to his point that the Board of HLSR is all Anglo, I reply: you might want to read the listing of Board members; there's some distinctly Hispanic sounding names on the list. My second reply is, if there aren't a lot of Hispanics on the board, so what? HLSR is a private organization. If we take Gallegos' suggestion at face value, does that mean there should be proportional representation of Anglos and Blacks on HISPAC, a Hispanic interest group that he belongs to?
If Mario Gallegos wants to influence the direction of HLSR, here's my suggestions:
- He shouldn't assume that Anglos are bigots.
- Stop trying to fashion himself into the Hispanic Quanell X, using race and ethnicity to divide rather than unite.
- Renounce "La Raza", otherwise known as "The Race" - an organization which celebrates the superiority of Hispanics over other ethnicities and races - or, at the very least, lobby for proportional representation at La Raza and HISPAC to include Anglos, Blacks and other ethnicities.
- Exert more of energy to advance the Community's interests, and not just the Hispanic Community's interests.
- Join the HLSR.
- Volunteer for committees.
- Work his butt off at HLSR for a decade or two.
- Embrace Rural culture.
- Participate in a Trail Ride, although he might want to start small before working himself up to Los Vaqueros Rio Grande, Hispanic riders who travel a total of 386 miles, the longest Trail Ride in HLSR.
In other words, if Gallegos wants position and privileges for himself or anybody else, let him (or them) do it the old fashioned way: earn it.
Black and Hispanic Trail Rides are legendary in their number and the commitment of their members. More to the point, few of the thousands of Black and Hispanic participants seems to care about Mario Gallegos. We shouldn't either.
One final bit of advice for Mario: lighten up, and pull that giant stick out of your butt. Portraying yourself as a victim and Anglos as the Bad Guys is so 90s.
OK, that's two bits.
Before we discuss the merits of his proposals, much less his motivation, we must first ask whether Gallegos is even qualified to offer comment on the motives of the HLSR. To answer this question, one need go no further than a Google of his credentials to discover the measure of the man:
His personal history is that of a city boy and lifelong government employee, and a chair jockey to boot: his job for 22 years with the City of Houston was as a Dispatcher for the Fire Department. His Senate bio and other sources reveal no involvement with, or apparent interest in, rodeo, horses, livestock, Future Farmers of America, or for that matter anything to do with HLSR. That is not to say that he has no "country" cred, but it is not apparent from his public record that Gallegos has ever mounted a horse, much less knows how to ride one, and he has also devoted not 50 BTUs of effort to the Rodeo in terms of personal effort.
As to his likely motivation, Gallegos' Wikipedia profile includes this gem: "In July 2001, Gallegos was named one of the worst legislators in Texas by Texas Monthly magazine in their biennial feature. The authors noted that Gallegos was 'a retired firefighter who threw gasoline on every combustible issue', and noted his penchant for injecting race into seemingly innocuous legislation. In July 2005, Gallegos was again named one of the worst legislators in Texas by Texas Monthly".
His affiliations, loyalties, motivation and activities have been overwhelmingly for the advancement of causes that support the Hispanic community, not exactly the resume of a Uniter, much less somebody who has the moral authority to pass judgment on others.
Gallegos' penchant for rabble rousing and Anglo Baiting aside, it's funny that he has had no interest in making a commitment to HLSR himself, working up through the ranks as all members are required to do, performing countless hours and long years of service to elevate their status. Of the dozens of people I know who contribute to the rodeo, my impression of HLSR is that of a volunteer organization that encourages commitment before privilege, and not, most emphatically, ham-fisted attempts by anyone to push themselves to the front of the line. The simple fact is that - like so many other civic organizations - the vast majority of members will never rise very far in the hierarchy, yet are still content to make their contribution.
It also strikes me that the HLSR has over the years done a very good job accomodating their Hispanic constituency, a decades-long tradition of Hispanic Trail Rides, exhibits and performers to name but a few. There has long been a Go Tejano day, and HLSR has actually provided a continuing venue for Tejano music at a point in time when it has next to zero popularity with the larger Hispanic community. Ironically, this was another point of contention between Gallegos and HLSR last year, when the venue for the Tejano concert was downgraded to make room for Norteno and other more popular forms, arguably out of consideration for Hispanics attending the rodeo who - as we stated earlier - apparently could care less about Tejano music.
Finally, to his point that the Board of HLSR is all Anglo, I reply: you might want to read the listing of Board members; there's some distinctly Hispanic sounding names on the list. My second reply is, if there aren't a lot of Hispanics on the board, so what? HLSR is a private organization. If we take Gallegos' suggestion at face value, does that mean there should be proportional representation of Anglos and Blacks on HISPAC, a Hispanic interest group that he belongs to?
If Mario Gallegos wants to influence the direction of HLSR, here's my suggestions:
- He shouldn't assume that Anglos are bigots.
- Stop trying to fashion himself into the Hispanic Quanell X, using race and ethnicity to divide rather than unite.
- Renounce "La Raza", otherwise known as "The Race" - an organization which celebrates the superiority of Hispanics over other ethnicities and races - or, at the very least, lobby for proportional representation at La Raza and HISPAC to include Anglos, Blacks and other ethnicities.
- Exert more of energy to advance the Community's interests, and not just the Hispanic Community's interests.
- Join the HLSR.
- Volunteer for committees.
- Work his butt off at HLSR for a decade or two.
- Embrace Rural culture.
- Participate in a Trail Ride, although he might want to start small before working himself up to Los Vaqueros Rio Grande, Hispanic riders who travel a total of 386 miles, the longest Trail Ride in HLSR.
In other words, if Gallegos wants position and privileges for himself or anybody else, let him (or them) do it the old fashioned way: earn it.
Black and Hispanic Trail Rides are legendary in their number and the commitment of their members. More to the point, few of the thousands of Black and Hispanic participants seems to care about Mario Gallegos. We shouldn't either.
One final bit of advice for Mario: lighten up, and pull that giant stick out of your butt. Portraying yourself as a victim and Anglos as the Bad Guys is so 90s.
OK, that's two bits.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Freeman Gets The Boot; Democrats Shocked
David Broder - archliberal extraordinaire - had an interesting article on Friday where he expressed his disappointment that "Lobbyists" and partisan Republicans had sunk the nomination of Charles Freeman to head up the National Intelligence Council. Describing Freeman as "thoughtful" and "smart as hell", Broder then goes on to reveal that Freeman "once referred to a clash between Tibetan demonstrators and Chinese guards as a race riot", and that Freeman once accused Israel of trying "to smother Palestinian democracy in its cradle".
Let's set aside for the moment the sheer lunacy of such beliefs. After all, China is to Tibet what Nazi Germany was to Poland, and if anybody is strangling Palestinian democracy in its cradle, it's the Palestinians themselves. More the question is whether somebody who relishes such controversial viewpoints is necessarily the person who ought to be in charge of interpreting foreign intelligence for the President.
Broder himself further reinforces the perception of Freeman's inclination towards an anti-American worldview by stating that Freeman's first order of business would have been to assign "the intelligence analysts this week to figure out why the Chinese provoked a naval incident" with a U.S. warship "off their coast and what lessons we could draw from the mixed reactions of other nations".
Reasonable people can argue over whether that ought to have been Freeman's first priority, but it is the classic example of the Liberal tendency to blame America first, and no doubt one that Broder and Freeman had hashed out over breakfast: America brought the Chinese provocation on itself by having a military vessel in international waters, the rest of the world was dismayed at our provocation, and America must mend it's ways by ceasing such activities.
It's also revelatory of Freeman's mindset that such breath-taking lunacy as declaring some moral equivalency between Tibetans and the Communist dictatorship bent on their destruction might not automatically qualify one for a job meant for more sober-minded people. For example, what outrageous statement could Freeman have made before Broder would question his judgment? If Freeman attempted to legitimize say, The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion, would that do it?
But then, what would you expect of a man who has been a registered Chinese agent for many years? Freeman's commercial ties to China are wide, deep and - as the Chinese like to say - inscrutable. His public fascination with a brutal Commie dictatorship is the stuff of not just in-depth articles, but psychoanalysis, absent the simple explanation of a man consumed by self-interest and self-aggrandizement at the expense of freedom and liberty for the rest of us. This is the guy, after all, who expressed his sympathy for the Commie overlords of China when protestors massed on Tianamen Square in 1989. Apparently, they caused quite a problem for orderly society not to mention a mess in the Square when they stopped all those bullets.
Only in America would a President Barack Obama nominate a disingenuous hump like Charles Freeman to be at the nexus of the most sensitive intelligence America collects on its enemies - China included - only to be defended by a disingenuous hump like David Broder for the treason Freeman - by his words and deeds - was so eminently qualified to commit.
Add to that sauce a generous dollop of Jew hatred, and Freeman is shaping up to be quite the package, and apparently worthy of the prompt boot administered by Congress.
Like I said, only in America: or should I say Barack Obama's America?
On the plus side, Freeman was - by Broder's own admission - a breakfast buddy, so he ought to at least take consolation that Freeman - in not getting the NIC job - will likely be that much more available to Broder when he ventures to Denny's, where they can no doubt hatch their next plot, or meet their next Chinese government official.
Let's set aside for the moment the sheer lunacy of such beliefs. After all, China is to Tibet what Nazi Germany was to Poland, and if anybody is strangling Palestinian democracy in its cradle, it's the Palestinians themselves. More the question is whether somebody who relishes such controversial viewpoints is necessarily the person who ought to be in charge of interpreting foreign intelligence for the President.
Broder himself further reinforces the perception of Freeman's inclination towards an anti-American worldview by stating that Freeman's first order of business would have been to assign "the intelligence analysts this week to figure out why the Chinese provoked a naval incident" with a U.S. warship "off their coast and what lessons we could draw from the mixed reactions of other nations".
Reasonable people can argue over whether that ought to have been Freeman's first priority, but it is the classic example of the Liberal tendency to blame America first, and no doubt one that Broder and Freeman had hashed out over breakfast: America brought the Chinese provocation on itself by having a military vessel in international waters, the rest of the world was dismayed at our provocation, and America must mend it's ways by ceasing such activities.
It's also revelatory of Freeman's mindset that such breath-taking lunacy as declaring some moral equivalency between Tibetans and the Communist dictatorship bent on their destruction might not automatically qualify one for a job meant for more sober-minded people. For example, what outrageous statement could Freeman have made before Broder would question his judgment? If Freeman attempted to legitimize say, The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion, would that do it?
But then, what would you expect of a man who has been a registered Chinese agent for many years? Freeman's commercial ties to China are wide, deep and - as the Chinese like to say - inscrutable. His public fascination with a brutal Commie dictatorship is the stuff of not just in-depth articles, but psychoanalysis, absent the simple explanation of a man consumed by self-interest and self-aggrandizement at the expense of freedom and liberty for the rest of us. This is the guy, after all, who expressed his sympathy for the Commie overlords of China when protestors massed on Tianamen Square in 1989. Apparently, they caused quite a problem for orderly society not to mention a mess in the Square when they stopped all those bullets.
Only in America would a President Barack Obama nominate a disingenuous hump like Charles Freeman to be at the nexus of the most sensitive intelligence America collects on its enemies - China included - only to be defended by a disingenuous hump like David Broder for the treason Freeman - by his words and deeds - was so eminently qualified to commit.
Add to that sauce a generous dollop of Jew hatred, and Freeman is shaping up to be quite the package, and apparently worthy of the prompt boot administered by Congress.
Like I said, only in America: or should I say Barack Obama's America?
On the plus side, Freeman was - by Broder's own admission - a breakfast buddy, so he ought to at least take consolation that Freeman - in not getting the NIC job - will likely be that much more available to Broder when he ventures to Denny's, where they can no doubt hatch their next plot, or meet their next Chinese government official.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
LTE: Questioning nominee
Regarding Thursday’s Outlook column “Lobbyists torpedo national intelligence post nominee”: I was amused to read that David Broder is disappointed that “lobbyists” and Republicans sunk the nomination of Charles Freeman to head up the National Intelligence Council. Describing Freeman as “thoughtful” and “smart as hell,” Broder went on to reveal that Freeman “once referred to a clash between Tibetan demonstrators and Chinese guards as a race riot.” Setting aside for the moment the sheer lunacy of such a belief, the question is whether somebody who relishes controversial viewpoints is necessarily the person who ought to be in charge of interpreting foreign intelligence.
Broder stated that Freeman’s first order of business would have been to assign “intelligence analysts this week to figure out why the Chinese provoked a naval incident” with a U.S. warship. It is the classic example of the liberal tendency to blame America first: America brought the Chinese provocation on itself by having a military vessel in international waters, the rest of the world was dismayed at our provocation and America must mend its ways by ceasing such activities.
It’s also revelatory of Broder’s mind-set that declaring some moral equivalency between Tibetans and the Communist dictatorship bent on their destruction might not automatically qualify one for a job meant for more sober-minded people.
— Pete Smith, Cypress
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Immigration Causes Global Warming
One of the enduring truths of political life in America is that Democrats are rarely called on the inconsistency of their positions. Take Illegal Immigration and the impact on our environment, for example. While there are a handful of Republicans who support unfettered immigration, this is rightly an issue owned by the Democrats. While Democrats try to deflect this by perpetuating the myth that Republican "businessmen" rely on immigrants for cheap labor, it is entirely a bipartisan affair, willfully abetted by millions of Americans too lazy to cut their own grass or rear their own kids, or - more accurately - too cheap to pay the "going rate" of having an American citizen do it.
It is also the case that Democrats rely on immigrants for voters, not to mention the various pathologies they inflict on the U.S. that necessitate more government, more taxation and thus, more Democrat power.
And yet.
Democrats are also the party of Global Warming. As only the most prominent of an endless procession of prominent Democrats, Al Gore lectures and hectors that, if we don't reduce so-called "Greenhouse Gases" - consisting of CO2, Methane and water vapor - there will be Global Catastrophe. Never mind that two of those substances are benevolent and the other one arguably harmless, Democrats gleefully break America's piggy bank to fund, among many other things, an incomprehensible grab bag of Global Warming initiatives for everything ranging from Wind power to Solar power to Geothermal power to Ethanol production to Energy Conservation to Carbon Sequestration to Conservation.
Besides massive funding for all of these programs, Democrats also plan to permanently tax the consumption of power through Carbon Credits, taxes on oil, taxes on gasoline, so-called "Windfall Profits" taxes, cash payments to the U.N. and adherence to the Kyoto Protocols, a mindlessly perverse program whereby the U.S. - and only the U.S. - pays the worst polluters in the world countless billions so that they can not only continue to pollute but actually increase their pollution, thus creating a so-called incentive for the U.S. to pollute less whilst simultaneously paying ever more.
Never mind that there is no coherence to any of these programs. Fear trumps coherence. And as President Obama has so amply proven in his first six weeks in office, Democrats are the party of fear, and their apocalyptic rhetoric regarding the Stimulus Package should be all the proof reasonable people require to reach that conclusion. The $840 billion dollar bill was passed not only without being read, but without even being provided to the Republican opposition in enough time that they could briefly thumb its pages and expose its more egregious boondoggles. Likewise with the $410 billion dollar spending bill they passed the following week. There is no warning too dire, no outcome too terrible to contemplate that Democrats will not give voice to in the pursuit of their objectives. It has ever been thus.
Which brings us to the subject of Global Warming and Immigration.
A reasonable case can be made that increasing our population is actually the worst thing to do if one's objective is to control Greenhouse Gas emissions. After all, each immigrant - legal or otherwise - represents not only incremental consumption, but necessitates more infrastructure to provide for their needs. That means more housing, roads, sewers, power plants, transmission lines, bridges, schools, water systems, and garbage removal, to name the most significant. That is incremental consumption of resources and power that would otherwise not be required. If America stabilized its population, infrastructure requirements would be in a maintenance mode, not the mindless "expansion" being advocated now.
Democrats are fearless in the face of this contradiction. Never ones to let a sane argument get in the way of their objectives, Democrat politicians thunder on about "investment" in our "crumbling" infrastructure, never mind that it wouldn't be quite so crumbly if we hadn't inflicted an extra 20 million people on it in the past twenty years in the form of Illegals. Just look at the numbers. Democrats maintain that the U.S. generates upwards of 6 billion metric tons of CO2 per year. That's 20 metric tons per citizen. Simple math would show that 20 million less people would mean 400 million metric tons of CO2 that would not be produced by the U.S. annually, had we not allowed Illegal Immigrants into the country. The actual figure is likely much higher, given the infrastructure production necessary to support them, and the fact that they drive a disproportionate number of the Beaters on America's roadways.
Now, the flood of Illegals threatens a population time bomb as well, given their relative fertility rates compared to average Americans. How do Democrats feel about the extra 100 to 150 million in population that will result by 2100 from unchecked immigration? That will be at least 2 to 3 billion extra metric tons of CO2 produced per year, assuming we maintain current rates of energy consumption. The actual figure will likely be double that, based on reasonable projections of actual energy consumption.
It strikes me as passing strange that worldwide population control - a favorite theme of Democrats everywhere - should not be looked on as a cure to America's Global Warming "crisis". But then again, if there's any means of population control that doesn't involve birth control or an aborted fetus, Dems generally can't get too excited. That said, they are perfectly content for America to be a population safety valve for a narco-terrorist state like Mexico, as long as it suits their political ends.
My Grandma counseled that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" - as did all of our Grandmothers - as straightforward a prescription for avoiding a population explosion so as to mitigate Global Warming as you could imagine. Of course, our Grandmas also honored the common sense implicit in those words.
But that the same could be said of Democrats.
It is also the case that Democrats rely on immigrants for voters, not to mention the various pathologies they inflict on the U.S. that necessitate more government, more taxation and thus, more Democrat power.
And yet.
Democrats are also the party of Global Warming. As only the most prominent of an endless procession of prominent Democrats, Al Gore lectures and hectors that, if we don't reduce so-called "Greenhouse Gases" - consisting of CO2, Methane and water vapor - there will be Global Catastrophe. Never mind that two of those substances are benevolent and the other one arguably harmless, Democrats gleefully break America's piggy bank to fund, among many other things, an incomprehensible grab bag of Global Warming initiatives for everything ranging from Wind power to Solar power to Geothermal power to Ethanol production to Energy Conservation to Carbon Sequestration to Conservation.
Besides massive funding for all of these programs, Democrats also plan to permanently tax the consumption of power through Carbon Credits, taxes on oil, taxes on gasoline, so-called "Windfall Profits" taxes, cash payments to the U.N. and adherence to the Kyoto Protocols, a mindlessly perverse program whereby the U.S. - and only the U.S. - pays the worst polluters in the world countless billions so that they can not only continue to pollute but actually increase their pollution, thus creating a so-called incentive for the U.S. to pollute less whilst simultaneously paying ever more.
Never mind that there is no coherence to any of these programs. Fear trumps coherence. And as President Obama has so amply proven in his first six weeks in office, Democrats are the party of fear, and their apocalyptic rhetoric regarding the Stimulus Package should be all the proof reasonable people require to reach that conclusion. The $840 billion dollar bill was passed not only without being read, but without even being provided to the Republican opposition in enough time that they could briefly thumb its pages and expose its more egregious boondoggles. Likewise with the $410 billion dollar spending bill they passed the following week. There is no warning too dire, no outcome too terrible to contemplate that Democrats will not give voice to in the pursuit of their objectives. It has ever been thus.
Which brings us to the subject of Global Warming and Immigration.
A reasonable case can be made that increasing our population is actually the worst thing to do if one's objective is to control Greenhouse Gas emissions. After all, each immigrant - legal or otherwise - represents not only incremental consumption, but necessitates more infrastructure to provide for their needs. That means more housing, roads, sewers, power plants, transmission lines, bridges, schools, water systems, and garbage removal, to name the most significant. That is incremental consumption of resources and power that would otherwise not be required. If America stabilized its population, infrastructure requirements would be in a maintenance mode, not the mindless "expansion" being advocated now.
Democrats are fearless in the face of this contradiction. Never ones to let a sane argument get in the way of their objectives, Democrat politicians thunder on about "investment" in our "crumbling" infrastructure, never mind that it wouldn't be quite so crumbly if we hadn't inflicted an extra 20 million people on it in the past twenty years in the form of Illegals. Just look at the numbers. Democrats maintain that the U.S. generates upwards of 6 billion metric tons of CO2 per year. That's 20 metric tons per citizen. Simple math would show that 20 million less people would mean 400 million metric tons of CO2 that would not be produced by the U.S. annually, had we not allowed Illegal Immigrants into the country. The actual figure is likely much higher, given the infrastructure production necessary to support them, and the fact that they drive a disproportionate number of the Beaters on America's roadways.
Now, the flood of Illegals threatens a population time bomb as well, given their relative fertility rates compared to average Americans. How do Democrats feel about the extra 100 to 150 million in population that will result by 2100 from unchecked immigration? That will be at least 2 to 3 billion extra metric tons of CO2 produced per year, assuming we maintain current rates of energy consumption. The actual figure will likely be double that, based on reasonable projections of actual energy consumption.
It strikes me as passing strange that worldwide population control - a favorite theme of Democrats everywhere - should not be looked on as a cure to America's Global Warming "crisis". But then again, if there's any means of population control that doesn't involve birth control or an aborted fetus, Dems generally can't get too excited. That said, they are perfectly content for America to be a population safety valve for a narco-terrorist state like Mexico, as long as it suits their political ends.
My Grandma counseled that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" - as did all of our Grandmothers - as straightforward a prescription for avoiding a population explosion so as to mitigate Global Warming as you could imagine. Of course, our Grandmas also honored the common sense implicit in those words.
But that the same could be said of Democrats.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
You Say The Stimulus Isn't Working?
Despite the orgy of "initiatives" from the Obama administration, the market continues to tank, the economy is in free-fall and our Democrat saviors are reduced to wringing their hands. Timothy Geitner is positively dumb-struck - not only a liability quite a bit more profound than his unpaid payroll taxes, but apparently a natural condition - and President Obama has retreated to upping the ante on almost a daily basis so as to distract people from the essential incoherence of his so-called plans.
Why is anybody surprised by this outcome?
From his election in November, the economy has gotten progressively worse with Obama's every utterance. It will continue on this downward path because Obama's prescription for the disease is more of the disease itself: government spending. Since FDR, Democrats have enacted laws that have increased government spending from 20% of GDP to 60% of GDP (including government mandated private sector over-spending on things like health care and mandatory insurance of any form).
Put as succinctly as possible, the reason businesses aren't investing, banks aren't lending and consumers aren't spending is that government has stolen all the money.
Government spending produces little that an informed consumer would willingly buy, such as a car, home, food, clothing or entertainment. Those are the purchases that drive our economy. Government spending produces next to nothing in the investment and procurement of plant and equipment that is the lifes-blood of the business community, save for Defense and Aerospace. If the government consumes 60% of a $14 trillion dollar economy, that's an extra $5.6 trillion per year (in current dollars) that government takes out of the Private Economy since the days of FDR.
In the face of this competition with Government for the limited pool of dollars, consumers and businesses have sustained their purchases by doing the only thing they could do: borrow. Government has encouraged that in a variety of ways until last year when there was no asset left to leverage, and corporate and personal debt were at an all-time high.
Bottom line, there's no money left for purchases, and there's no money left for investment. If Buyers don't have money to buy things, and businesses don't have their own capital to expand and improve their businesses, then there is no economic activity and the economy dies.
Now Obama and the Democrats propose much, much more government spending, increasing government and public sector spending as a percentage of GDP from 60% to 70%. We are now far past the point of arguing whether Government spending is crowding out consumption and private sector investment. That started happening in the 30s, and the problem got serious in the 60s. It is a tribute to the resilience of our economy and the fabulous wealth we have accumulated since World War II that it has taken this long for Democrats to spend us into oblivion.
Milton Friedman famously stated that he was not nearly as concerned with the size of our current budget deficit as he was the size of the future obligations to spend made by our government. All of Obama's commitments to spend are rightly seen by investors as "down payments" on yet further spending. His solutions are thus the moral equivalent of firemen dousing a house fire with gasoline, knowing full well that there are people inside the house. Obama is either a towering economic Illiterate, or a cynical destroyer of the American way of life.
Not that Republicans get a hall pass for this debacle. First, they let Nixon out-Democrat Democrats in the 70s, when he engaged in an orgy of post LBJ social spending and government regulation that would have embarrassed LBJ, and LBJ was the author of "The Great Society". Next, they let George W. Bush out-Democrat the Democrats in exactly the same way; he saw Clinton's social spending and went all-in, funding gargantuan expansions of Medicare and Education, while benignly presiding over a 50% increase in most every other social program.
Republicans in general stood by and let it happen. This orgy of confiscation and spending goes against everything we stand for, yet our leaders do nothing - or next to nothing. On specific issues, such as the sub-prime mortgage fiasco, when our leaders did raise an objection, it was a diffident "expression of concern", as opposed to the full-throated alarm it should have been.
For one prime example, the record shows that when Repubs raised the Red Flag on the mortgage boondoggle as far back as the mid-90s, Democrats pushed back, and Republicans did - nothing. Why? Too concerned about their place at the table? Too concerned about the bad press they might have to endure? Or is it that they themselves didn't have the courage of their convictions, or the willingness to make a prediction that might not come true within one media cycle?
There's a common misconception that there's a definable cause and effect where economic activity is concerned; both sides maintain that if Button A is pushed - whether it's a new round of government spending or a tax cut - that there will be a particular result. That has never been true since the Depression, because the playing field has constantly changed as the Economy had to absorb ever higher levels of government spending. Our so-called economic "cycles" have been nothing but the economy's reaction to that spending.
Bottom line, both parties have acted like the economic process reacts and responds to the same dynamics that regulate our political process. Nothing could be further from the truth.
And my only consolation - as Obama and the Democrats pump gasoline onto the house fire that is our economy - is that Republicans had it right in theory, never mind that they were too gutless to sacrifice short term political gain to save us.
Why is anybody surprised by this outcome?
From his election in November, the economy has gotten progressively worse with Obama's every utterance. It will continue on this downward path because Obama's prescription for the disease is more of the disease itself: government spending. Since FDR, Democrats have enacted laws that have increased government spending from 20% of GDP to 60% of GDP (including government mandated private sector over-spending on things like health care and mandatory insurance of any form).
Put as succinctly as possible, the reason businesses aren't investing, banks aren't lending and consumers aren't spending is that government has stolen all the money.
Government spending produces little that an informed consumer would willingly buy, such as a car, home, food, clothing or entertainment. Those are the purchases that drive our economy. Government spending produces next to nothing in the investment and procurement of plant and equipment that is the lifes-blood of the business community, save for Defense and Aerospace. If the government consumes 60% of a $14 trillion dollar economy, that's an extra $5.6 trillion per year (in current dollars) that government takes out of the Private Economy since the days of FDR.
In the face of this competition with Government for the limited pool of dollars, consumers and businesses have sustained their purchases by doing the only thing they could do: borrow. Government has encouraged that in a variety of ways until last year when there was no asset left to leverage, and corporate and personal debt were at an all-time high.
Bottom line, there's no money left for purchases, and there's no money left for investment. If Buyers don't have money to buy things, and businesses don't have their own capital to expand and improve their businesses, then there is no economic activity and the economy dies.
Now Obama and the Democrats propose much, much more government spending, increasing government and public sector spending as a percentage of GDP from 60% to 70%. We are now far past the point of arguing whether Government spending is crowding out consumption and private sector investment. That started happening in the 30s, and the problem got serious in the 60s. It is a tribute to the resilience of our economy and the fabulous wealth we have accumulated since World War II that it has taken this long for Democrats to spend us into oblivion.
Milton Friedman famously stated that he was not nearly as concerned with the size of our current budget deficit as he was the size of the future obligations to spend made by our government. All of Obama's commitments to spend are rightly seen by investors as "down payments" on yet further spending. His solutions are thus the moral equivalent of firemen dousing a house fire with gasoline, knowing full well that there are people inside the house. Obama is either a towering economic Illiterate, or a cynical destroyer of the American way of life.
Not that Republicans get a hall pass for this debacle. First, they let Nixon out-Democrat Democrats in the 70s, when he engaged in an orgy of post LBJ social spending and government regulation that would have embarrassed LBJ, and LBJ was the author of "The Great Society". Next, they let George W. Bush out-Democrat the Democrats in exactly the same way; he saw Clinton's social spending and went all-in, funding gargantuan expansions of Medicare and Education, while benignly presiding over a 50% increase in most every other social program.
Republicans in general stood by and let it happen. This orgy of confiscation and spending goes against everything we stand for, yet our leaders do nothing - or next to nothing. On specific issues, such as the sub-prime mortgage fiasco, when our leaders did raise an objection, it was a diffident "expression of concern", as opposed to the full-throated alarm it should have been.
For one prime example, the record shows that when Repubs raised the Red Flag on the mortgage boondoggle as far back as the mid-90s, Democrats pushed back, and Republicans did - nothing. Why? Too concerned about their place at the table? Too concerned about the bad press they might have to endure? Or is it that they themselves didn't have the courage of their convictions, or the willingness to make a prediction that might not come true within one media cycle?
There's a common misconception that there's a definable cause and effect where economic activity is concerned; both sides maintain that if Button A is pushed - whether it's a new round of government spending or a tax cut - that there will be a particular result. That has never been true since the Depression, because the playing field has constantly changed as the Economy had to absorb ever higher levels of government spending. Our so-called economic "cycles" have been nothing but the economy's reaction to that spending.
Bottom line, both parties have acted like the economic process reacts and responds to the same dynamics that regulate our political process. Nothing could be further from the truth.
And my only consolation - as Obama and the Democrats pump gasoline onto the house fire that is our economy - is that Republicans had it right in theory, never mind that they were too gutless to sacrifice short term political gain to save us.
Monday, March 2, 2009
The Job Search Treadmill
So, I've been at the Job Search for more than a few months now, and the experience has been eye opening. Mostly, it has not been about actually getting a job, but mastering the techniques of getting a job. Those techniques are varied, complex and seemingly inexhaustible, as are the battalions of experts, websites and virtual entities who materialize out of thin air - Star Trek like - one millisecond after you post your first on-line resume. Let's call them the Job Search Community.
They're enough to drive you crazy.
As if seeking a job wasn't boring enough in the past, now, it is time consuming as well. According to the Job Search Community, no longer will a firm handshake, a confident manner and a provable curriculum vitae even get you in the door, much less get you the job. Oh no; it takes much more than that.
To get a great job, you must first have the perfect resume. According to the experts, your resume should not recite your accomplishments, but should convey to a harried Screener - in ten seconds or less - how you are going to be valuable to him (Or her - a rigorous Gender Consciousness is mandatory for the enlightened Job Seeker). You must never provide references, because that is so 80s, but you must have tons of certifications so as to demonstrate that you are a constant and perhaps even habitual - if not obsessive - self improver; the inherent contradiction of course being that in not providing references but stuffing your Resume Reviewer so full of certs he resembles Al Gore after one of his numerous Cheese Cake Consolation Binges directly after the 2000 Election Debacle, that you risk the appearance of inconsistency.
You must be a member of several networking websites, because the easier you make it for a prospective employer to find you, the better. Howsoever, you must be diligent in not posting anything inappropriate on those websites so as to give the Reviewer pause, nor must there be any inconsistencies between the profiles on those websites. Remember, the clock is ticking, and there is nothing so precious as the time of a Reviewer, except perhaps her sensibilities, and were she to browse your Facebook profile and find out that you are really, really, really into Japanese Anime, it's Game Over, Man. Game Effing Over.
Unless of course you're going for a job writing code for "World Of Warcraft, Part VII", in which case it is a prerequisite. But I digress.
As if that is all not enough, you must have snappy Duds, excellent grooming and white teeth, but not go over board on any one of those. Underdress and you're pictured as a slob; overdress and you'll intimidate the chieftains who decide your fate. Bad hair and teeth? Get thee to a street corner. Hair and/or teeth too perfect, and you run the risk of being tagged as frivolous, self-absorbed, or both. Your height will matter immensely, but should never be used as an excuse. Your age will likely be an issue, but not to worry, there are a Google of techniques for overcoming this obstacle. Bothered with cold sweaty hands? That first hand shake is critical but, not to worry, there are mind control techniques - and if necessary prescription drugs - that can take care of that too.
In the interview, you must be brief, yet detailed; assertive, but deferential; informative, but not garrulous. Make eye contact, but not so much that the Interviewer thinks you are coming on to her (or him), much less leave the impression that you think you are better than them, or, worse still, a threat to take over their job. For the sake of this point in the narrative, I'm assuming that you're interviewing with your eventual boss and not the HR screener. Nobody wants their job, but more about that later.
Finally, presiding over the array of documents, objects, props, clothes, accoutrement, concepts, strategies, techniques, cosmetics, gestures, narrative and minor surgical procedures all essential to your survival in the Job Market is your "Brand", an overarching Gestalt that must integrate everything else into a perfect whole, that, were it to be inconsistent in any one respect, would doom you forever to an endless succession of First Interviews, assuming you ever got that far.
What the hell is going on in Today's job market, and is all this truly necessary? For starters, why would employers intentionally hire anybody with a perfect resume? Wouldn't you logically assume that Perfect Resume Person was: a) lying beyond your capacity to prove otherwise, or, b) spending a lot of productive work time (on their current employer's dime) improving their resume credentials, or c) both?
And what about all of the body language, tics, cues and other insignifica you need to master in order to put your interlocutors at ease, all while conveying exactly what they want to hear? The manic pursuit of the Perfected Interview Technique must necessarily be a distraction from accumulating the things an Employer actually wants: competence in your profession and a demonstrated work ethic.
Don't get me wrong: you've got to be able to prove your bona fides, and your resume should make sense. You shouldn't dress like a dork, or ogle your interviewer's cleavage, assuming she has been so infelicitous as to have worn something low cut. By the way, that generally only happens in the Radio business anymore, every other respectable profession outside of TV cop shows generally having banned provocative clothing. There's something of an irony in that, seeing as how Radio is an audible medium as opposed to visual, but there you have it: Women in radio dress like hookers and talk like dock workers. Randy, profane Dock Workers on the make. The men are basically the same, minus the cleavage.
To my friends in the Radio business, don't ever change.
Having gone through the inventory of paranoia-inspiring obstacles inherent in a job search, there's a certain irony to the fact that various and sundry of the Human Resources trade may have - based on that last paragraph - put a large black dot next to my name, later to be digitized, downloaded and cross-referenced against a mammoth database that all of them share with each other (not that they would ever admit it). This database would then forever relegate me to the legions of the unhireable; kind of like Nixon's enemies list of Prominent Democrats, or the Clinton's enemies list of Prominent Republicans, only ubiquitous in its accessibility.
The whole point of speculating on whether or not such a list exists is to address the underlying paranoia that fuels the Recruitment process. Expose one flaw, or leave one stone unturned in your pursuit of Candidate perfection, and you're screwed. It doesn't work that way.
To those of us seeking employment, let me avail you of the one certainty that I have about the hiring process: every single HR person I have ever socialized with, known professionally or even just met casually has been a Party Animal. Male or female - and prisoners of political correctness by their Job Description - just get them on the outside of a couple of Margaritas after work or the ubiquitous HR seminar, and they are not only monopolizing the Karaoke machine, they are complaining about how constrictive their clothing is, and doesn't that decorative fountain out in front of the Hotel look inviting? Your fast-living, hard-drinking Sales Professional and your six-a-day Red Bull-fueled Engineer have nothing on the typical Director of HR. Must be that rigorous appropriateness they maintain between 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. that justifies cutting loose during Happy Hour.
Bottom line, the people giving jobs are human beings, just like those that are seeking jobs. Interviewers may on occasion throw you a curve with the ultimate Gotcha question - a foolproof one sentence Polygraph designed to unmask your deficiencies - but for the most part, they're looking for honesty, competence and hard work, and not necessarily in that order.
Keep it simple and real. You'll end up being true to yourself and your future employer. You will also cease to drive yourself crazy.
As to that Black List, I'd like to believe that - if it exists - it would only restrict my opportunities in the Radio business.
They're enough to drive you crazy.
As if seeking a job wasn't boring enough in the past, now, it is time consuming as well. According to the Job Search Community, no longer will a firm handshake, a confident manner and a provable curriculum vitae even get you in the door, much less get you the job. Oh no; it takes much more than that.
To get a great job, you must first have the perfect resume. According to the experts, your resume should not recite your accomplishments, but should convey to a harried Screener - in ten seconds or less - how you are going to be valuable to him (Or her - a rigorous Gender Consciousness is mandatory for the enlightened Job Seeker). You must never provide references, because that is so 80s, but you must have tons of certifications so as to demonstrate that you are a constant and perhaps even habitual - if not obsessive - self improver; the inherent contradiction of course being that in not providing references but stuffing your Resume Reviewer so full of certs he resembles Al Gore after one of his numerous Cheese Cake Consolation Binges directly after the 2000 Election Debacle, that you risk the appearance of inconsistency.
You must be a member of several networking websites, because the easier you make it for a prospective employer to find you, the better. Howsoever, you must be diligent in not posting anything inappropriate on those websites so as to give the Reviewer pause, nor must there be any inconsistencies between the profiles on those websites. Remember, the clock is ticking, and there is nothing so precious as the time of a Reviewer, except perhaps her sensibilities, and were she to browse your Facebook profile and find out that you are really, really, really into Japanese Anime, it's Game Over, Man. Game Effing Over.
Unless of course you're going for a job writing code for "World Of Warcraft, Part VII", in which case it is a prerequisite. But I digress.
As if that is all not enough, you must have snappy Duds, excellent grooming and white teeth, but not go over board on any one of those. Underdress and you're pictured as a slob; overdress and you'll intimidate the chieftains who decide your fate. Bad hair and teeth? Get thee to a street corner. Hair and/or teeth too perfect, and you run the risk of being tagged as frivolous, self-absorbed, or both. Your height will matter immensely, but should never be used as an excuse. Your age will likely be an issue, but not to worry, there are a Google of techniques for overcoming this obstacle. Bothered with cold sweaty hands? That first hand shake is critical but, not to worry, there are mind control techniques - and if necessary prescription drugs - that can take care of that too.
In the interview, you must be brief, yet detailed; assertive, but deferential; informative, but not garrulous. Make eye contact, but not so much that the Interviewer thinks you are coming on to her (or him), much less leave the impression that you think you are better than them, or, worse still, a threat to take over their job. For the sake of this point in the narrative, I'm assuming that you're interviewing with your eventual boss and not the HR screener. Nobody wants their job, but more about that later.
Finally, presiding over the array of documents, objects, props, clothes, accoutrement, concepts, strategies, techniques, cosmetics, gestures, narrative and minor surgical procedures all essential to your survival in the Job Market is your "Brand", an overarching Gestalt that must integrate everything else into a perfect whole, that, were it to be inconsistent in any one respect, would doom you forever to an endless succession of First Interviews, assuming you ever got that far.
What the hell is going on in Today's job market, and is all this truly necessary? For starters, why would employers intentionally hire anybody with a perfect resume? Wouldn't you logically assume that Perfect Resume Person was: a) lying beyond your capacity to prove otherwise, or, b) spending a lot of productive work time (on their current employer's dime) improving their resume credentials, or c) both?
And what about all of the body language, tics, cues and other insignifica you need to master in order to put your interlocutors at ease, all while conveying exactly what they want to hear? The manic pursuit of the Perfected Interview Technique must necessarily be a distraction from accumulating the things an Employer actually wants: competence in your profession and a demonstrated work ethic.
Don't get me wrong: you've got to be able to prove your bona fides, and your resume should make sense. You shouldn't dress like a dork, or ogle your interviewer's cleavage, assuming she has been so infelicitous as to have worn something low cut. By the way, that generally only happens in the Radio business anymore, every other respectable profession outside of TV cop shows generally having banned provocative clothing. There's something of an irony in that, seeing as how Radio is an audible medium as opposed to visual, but there you have it: Women in radio dress like hookers and talk like dock workers. Randy, profane Dock Workers on the make. The men are basically the same, minus the cleavage.
To my friends in the Radio business, don't ever change.
Having gone through the inventory of paranoia-inspiring obstacles inherent in a job search, there's a certain irony to the fact that various and sundry of the Human Resources trade may have - based on that last paragraph - put a large black dot next to my name, later to be digitized, downloaded and cross-referenced against a mammoth database that all of them share with each other (not that they would ever admit it). This database would then forever relegate me to the legions of the unhireable; kind of like Nixon's enemies list of Prominent Democrats, or the Clinton's enemies list of Prominent Republicans, only ubiquitous in its accessibility.
The whole point of speculating on whether or not such a list exists is to address the underlying paranoia that fuels the Recruitment process. Expose one flaw, or leave one stone unturned in your pursuit of Candidate perfection, and you're screwed. It doesn't work that way.
To those of us seeking employment, let me avail you of the one certainty that I have about the hiring process: every single HR person I have ever socialized with, known professionally or even just met casually has been a Party Animal. Male or female - and prisoners of political correctness by their Job Description - just get them on the outside of a couple of Margaritas after work or the ubiquitous HR seminar, and they are not only monopolizing the Karaoke machine, they are complaining about how constrictive their clothing is, and doesn't that decorative fountain out in front of the Hotel look inviting? Your fast-living, hard-drinking Sales Professional and your six-a-day Red Bull-fueled Engineer have nothing on the typical Director of HR. Must be that rigorous appropriateness they maintain between 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. that justifies cutting loose during Happy Hour.
Bottom line, the people giving jobs are human beings, just like those that are seeking jobs. Interviewers may on occasion throw you a curve with the ultimate Gotcha question - a foolproof one sentence Polygraph designed to unmask your deficiencies - but for the most part, they're looking for honesty, competence and hard work, and not necessarily in that order.
Keep it simple and real. You'll end up being true to yourself and your future employer. You will also cease to drive yourself crazy.
As to that Black List, I'd like to believe that - if it exists - it would only restrict my opportunities in the Radio business.
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