The Writing is On the Wall

From the WSJ.  The Obama Stimulus efforts aren't working and spending (in government efforts) isn't leading us out of this.  We're likely heading for a double-dip recession.  So much for VP "Say it ain't so" Joe Biden's Summer of Recovery.  The DOW is current well above the valuation of its composite companies and, as the graph shows, the U.S. GDP is slowing.  In fact, the government recently revised - down - GDP estimates dating back to 2007.  As the article states, the recession is deeper and the recovery path is going slower than past recessions.

With the "most open, honest and ethical" Congress' democrats facing two ethics investigations and a poor economy, it doesn't look good for them in the fall.  Maybe there's hope that the ship will change direction.  Hopefully, the GOP can put up some quality candidates to do so.

‘Puter Abides

Fret not, Geep.

Although your attendence will be missed, we fully understand your absence.

If it is any consolation, we shall also pour a series of 40 ouncers on the curb in your memory.

Except, we’re going to drink ours, first.

Mailbag!

'Puter heard from Operative J.Y. concerning this little story in American Thinker. J.Y. sums up 'Puter's reaction as well, when he states:

Morons in Boston…

Teaching kids to be more moronic every year.

"Avant-Garde Sustainability Curriculum" my aching dying ass….

Well put. Although in 'Puter's opinion, the article does not delve deeply enough into the roots of this quasi-religious, openly socialist green youth movement. 'Puter bets it eventually leads back our current admistration and its misguided policies.

Remember, it's the wacky liberals and their screwy government funded programs that put the "mental" in "environmental."

In Which 'Puter Fails, Gormogonicon Style

And abjectly apologizes to his fellow Gormogons.

Gormogonicon 2010 kicks off today, and 'Puter will not be in attendance. 'Puter fully intended to be present, along with Mrs. 'Puter, 'Puter Jr. and Emergency Backup 'Puter. 'Puter went so far as to shell (back in September 2009) out a non-refundable $350 on a hotel room for his clan at the undisclosed location.

But life has a funny way of changing plans. As regular readers know, 'Puter reinjured his L4-L5 disc, which makes it difficult to remain in any one position for a lengthy period of time. It's better, but not right. As Mrs. 'Puter's unavailable to assist in driving duties (see below), this makes the approximately 12 hour drive to the undisclosed location undoable at this time. 'Puter looked into airfare, but at the late date, it was going to be approximately $2,000 round trip, and at the moment, 'Puter just can't swing that scratch.

The largest reason, however, for 'Puter missing Gormogonicon 2010 is that Mrs. 'Puter received an unexpected opportunity. She's gone for a period of 10 days, which unfortunately overlapped with Gormogonicon. The opportunity involves an education program at NASA in Houston, which is a once in a lifetime opportunity for her. So, good for Mrs. 'Puter, bad for 'Puter.

It pains 'Puter not to be in attendance for any number of reasons. Most importantly, 'Puter regrets not being able to meet Czar and Mandarin. You read that right. Czar and Mandarin have never met 'Puter and GorT in person. Only Your Volgi knows each of us on sight, which, ideally, is how a conspiracy of this magnitude should operate. It further pains 'Puter that he will be unable to pay proper tribute to Your Volgi in his most regal abode.

'Puter will pour out one of his many 40s on the curb this weekend in silent tribute to his Gormogon brethren and the awesomeness that will be Gormogonicon 2010.

The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Oil (Spill)

So it looks like the Horizon rig oil spill in the Gulf may not be quite the environmental disaster that environmentalists and even President Obama indicate.  To set the stage, President Obama stated, "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced" (someone needs to tell him some debating techniques, like never use modifiers like "worst", "always", "least", etc.).  Read the full story from Time here.  No, this isn't some conservative blog site, this is Time Magazine.  Some choice excerpts:

"Yes, the spill killed birds — but so far, less than 1% of the number killed by the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska 21 years ago"
"so far, assessment teams have found only about 350 acres of oiled marshes, when Louisiana was already losing about 15,000 acres of wetlands every year"

It's about time that our politicians and special interest groups (in this case, Obama, the democrats and the Big Environment folks) stop trying to spin things way beyond reality.  Sure, this isn't a good situation, but when you look at the real numbers, it isn't the "worst environmental disaster" we've ever seen.  Technology has improved.  And given the number of wells in the Gulf and elsewhere, we're doing pretty well.

战争, what is it good for? Establishing hegemony and destroying rivals!

Hmm. That doesn’t scan as well as it should. Still, hey, what’s keeping the Œcumenical Volgi up at night, playing insomnia chess with དགའ་པོ his Yeti assistant?

War with China.

You’ve heard this song before, but these days, it’s the increasing Chinese swagger (call it confidence, call it belligerence) and our almost complete detachment from foreign affairs—and Amateur Hour ham-fistedness when we do stagger off the well-trodden path of boondoggle spending and idiotic “racist, racist, who’s the bigger racist” roundelays—that are worrying Confucius. China’s been planning a war with us for a long time, and their perception of our weakness makes their making a foolishly aggressive move much more likely. Here’s where Confucius usually tosses in an arch remark about our being lucky enough to have a robust F-22 force, but he hasn’t been sleeping and his sense of humor is shot.

So, here, do some reading of stuff that‘s come across the wire in the last week or so…

• U.S. & China Are Headed for a Generational-Crisis War
  
  
• China Picks a Foolish Fight Over the Yellow Sea
  
  
• China’s Growing Military: Much Ado About Something (Part 1, Part 2)
  
  
• Is US ready to recognize China as world power? asks the People’s Daily testily, though at least they make some statements about the need “avoid a Cold War, or worse.”

…and then join Confucius and དགའ་པོ at the chessboard. Sassanian shatranj rules. Fifty Ying yüan a piece.

Image: Range of Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles from marinebuzz.com.

Shout Out to a Guy Who Gets It

You could just about spend the better part of a day here at Rep. Paul Ryan’s website.

And you should. Rather than read the same gripes about the current administration, how refreshing it is to read Mr. Ryan’s proposals to (gasp) actually fix our country. They are easy to understand, and the math checks out.

You may have heard this is the guy who delivered a mighty smackdown to Chris Matthews on MSNBC recently.

Man, we could use more of this guy around.

Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

Confucius* would be a little more fired up if this project hadn’t been pretty much the ne plus ultra of unfulfilled rumors, but, one has to say, this would rock pretty hard:

EXCLUSIVE: Since he left The Hobbit, Guillermo del Toro's next film has been a hot topic of conversation. I'm hearing he will next direct At The Mountains Of Madness, an adaptation of the HP Lovecraft tale that will be shot as a 3D film for Universal Pictures. The big surprise is that Avatar director James Cameron will come aboard as a producer. Del Toro was non-committal when I asked him about the prospect of Mountains days ago as we discussed the Comic-Con reaction to Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. But when del Toro announced at Comic-Con he'd cowrite and produce Haunted Mansion, he told the crowd he'd set his next film shortly, and that it would be scary. At the Mountains of Madness fits that bill, even for del Toro and Universal. The film will be a big ticket item, shot in 3D where Cameron's expertise can really help. Cameron has said he won't put his name on many future movies outside of the 3D reboot of Fantastic Voyage at Fox, but I've heard he's making an exception for del Toro. Cameron's presence helped win over the studio. I'm told the film will begin pre-production in the next few weeks, and shoot next summer.

C’mon, Antarctic horror! (Think the giant penguins will make it?)

*For those who came in late: Confucius (孔夫子) is the given name of the Gormgons’ Œcumenical Volgi.


Image above from Propnomicon. Go buy some of their stuff.

And for the Czar, who disdains fiction, but really digs science, herewith A Dysquisitione on Ye Plausibilitie of Ye Elderr Thyngges.

Why the “nakba” narrative is the main impediment to Arab-Israeli peace

Nor will the facts about 1948 impress the European and American leftists who are part of the international Nakba coalition. The Nakba narrative of Zionism as a movement of white colonial oppressors victimizing innocent Palestinians is strengthened by radical modes of thought now dominant in the Western academy. Postmodernists and postcolonialists have adapted Henry Ford’s adage that “history is bunk” to their own political purposes. According to the radical professors, there is no factual or empirical history that we can trust—only competing “narratives.” For example, there is the dominant establishment narrative of American history, and then there is the counter-narrative, written by professors like the late Howard Zinn, which speaks for neglected and forgotten Americans. Just so, the Palestinian counter-narrative of the Nakba can now replace the old, discredited Zionist narrative, regardless of actual historical facts. And thanks to what the French writer Pascal Bruckner has called the Western intelligentsia’s new “tyranny of guilt”—a self-effacement that forbids critical inquiry into the historical narratives of those national movements granted the sanctified status of “oppressed”—the Nakba narrative cannot even be challenged.

—Sol Stern @ City Journal

Notice to Our Readers: Gormogonicon 2010

Dearest readers:

The Gormogons are pleased to announce that we are mere days away from GCon MMX. As you ticket holders know, we will be meeting at the Plateau of Leng this year. Festivities begin today (Thursday) at 0900 and continue until sunset, Monday, when the shofar blows.

The bad news is for you non-ticket holders. Because the Castle is fully booked and we have all these special events going on, we will be diverting our attention to this the next few days.

As a tragic result, we shall be posting quite sparingly...and some of us not at all...until Monday. We beg your indulgence during this brief period.

To keep you going, we have asked GorT and his time technology to compile our responses to the top five items that will occupy most of our readers’ minds in the next few days. The answers to most of your questions are:

1. Absolutely, but what do you expect from the most honest, ethical and open Congress evah?

2. Third shelf, far right, behind the aspirin.

3. Yes, and his picture is right here. Freaking moron.

4. Nope. The Volgi will post on it probably around late August, though, so check back.

5. This is why we call it the Obama Amateur Hour.

Please keep in mind the site will not be shutting down; there will the odd post here and there, and we will certainly read any and all emails to us. Replies, though, may be late and hint strongly of a lack of sobriety.

Mailbag: Where the Wild Things Stank

Dear Czar,

I've been visiting the castle for about a year now and it has maintained a spot as one of my ever-shifting group of 5W2TAGAED. Now for the obligatory grovelling...I owe each of you a debt of gratitude for making me seem smart and well-informed on a breadth of topics. I humbly...dang it, i can't do this bowing and scraping. I just can't be a minion. Send the Okhrana if you must, but I'm going to ask my question directly. You threatened war if childhood memories were cheapened by a poor motion picture version of Max' journey to the land of the Wild Things. Did you declare war? Were people lined up against the wall, or not? Thank you in advance for your opinion.

Your absolute equal (in the Declaration sense), and Appalachian ally,
Harley

P.S. If you are sending the Okhrana, you might could find me in the land of the overmountain men, though I'll guarantee them the same welcome extended to Major Ferguson.

The Czar spake thus: The Czar has not seen the film even as of yet, although he understands full well they dropped the ball with it. Suffice it to say, the rage was great. Without getting into detail, let it be known that they will not be making any sequel to that movie any time soon.

Briny Depths

Dearest Czar,

Since you so recently debunked all I knew regarding West Virginia and her educational system, I thought you might have knowledge of another dearly-held area: the ocean. Many people state that we have only explored "5% of the ocean" or 1% or any set of numbers. Is this disingenuous? I know mankind has been farting around coastal areas for forever, and the ocean is in 3D- it would be like saying we've only explored .1% of our airspace, when we certainly do know what's going on above our heads.

I know many unexplained things happen in the ocean (largely because of the Gormogons and GorT hiding his spaceship down there), but honestly- are they counting all that empty water as ocean we haven't explored? Please enlighten me and shatter my notions yet again.

Thanks and God Bless,

Operative JS

This is a superb question, and you are quite correct that we have all sorts of crap hidden down there. We indeed have a variety of spacecraft and undersea bases squirreled away, but you may not know that ‘Puter has got a golf cart down there from 1988.

But how much of it has been explored? Well...it depends on what you mean by explored.

Nearly all of it has been mapped by radar. Of course, these radar maps are crude beyond belief, and pretty much all of the “maps of the ocean floor!” you see are artists’ interpretations of the actual radar profiles...which, themselves, look like child scribbles with a very large black marker (picture at right). It can be truly said that we know the surface of Mars today in way more detail and definition than we do of the ocean floor.

Some areas, in and around key harbors, for example, have been mapped in pretty good detail. Areas around shipwrecks or key transoceanic cable installations have as well. But as we learned recently in the Gulf of Mexico, we do not necessarily know details in and around key oil fields—themselves the result of speculation and deduction more than direct observation by geologists.

NOAA says only 5 percent has been explored; quite frankly, the Czar tends to be skeptical of governmental agency claims. Not because he thinks they deliberately lie, but a lot of the promotional stuff you find on their websites is often marketing fluff, and there is always the possibility of repeating myth and unverified stats.

More conservative estimates put it at 2-3 percent. More generous ones say 10 percent. The upshot is, nobody really knows. But like we said, it depends on what you mean by “explored.”

General mapping? Sure. Probably a reasonable amount, as far as navigation is concerned. But not all oceans are equally studied. For example, the Arctic Ocean is likely nowhere as well explored as the Pacific, which the Russians tried to use to their advantage in making some land claims quite close to Alaska.

Currents are pretty well mapped, although not fully understood. While we think of vents travelling horizontally through the oceans, it turns out that currents also travel vertically like an elevator and diagonally like an escalator. We still do not fully have all this worked out. For example, that silly Gulf Oil disaster showed we do not even understand all the currents of the Gulf of Mexico yet, let alone deep ocean currents and conveyors. And that is curious, mostly because a temporarily slight deviation in a current can have tremendous implications on life, economics, and weather.

Mapping of minerals, oil, and other precious items? Work is underway, but very little has been done. A lot of that work, as mentioned earlier, is speculative. We think there is oil here...based on the following. That kind of stuff.

Biodiversity? Err, not a whole lot. Fishermen are still pulling up all sorts of bizarre creatures. We know, for dead certain, that there are gigantic squids down there, but really have not directly observed a living one. We have had some cool teasing glimpses, though. The Czar would like to have one as a pet, but we have our hands full with the Mandarin’s pet manticore, Barry.

In fact, we can be totally rocked. In 1977, exploration of some geothermal vents on the ocean floor found tube worms living there in huge numbers. This is as alien a life form as we have ever encountered. It lives on a totally different physiology from animals we understand, and in conditions we thought unlikely for life.

But this brings us to an important point. The oceans are frequently changing. In the Atlantic for example, the ocean floor is spreading due to plate tectonics. Radar maps need to be updated from time to time as the sea floor literally grows. The ocean floor is one of the most dynamic environments on earth: by the time we finish exploring some regions, we are out of date.

Another question, which you did not ask, is why we are so far behind. Obviously, the crushing pressure makes direct observation difficult. The subsequent weight of equipment and viscosity of water makes this a slow process. And water, being...well, wet...makes normal optical measurement tricks very difficult. It is also quite dark down there. You need light, and light gets absorbed fast. Ditto for radar, infrared, microwave, and other imaging technologies. Bottom line: it is far easier to explore space than our oceans on most days. That is quite sobering.

Curiously, one aspect most people do not think about is that the US Navy is a leader in this area. It helps to know where submarines are going, so major sub routes are pretty well known. But as you suspect, subs do not operate below their crush depth, for some reason. Actually, they do not operate below their MOD, or maximum operating depth. The pride-and-joy Seawolf class (which both the Czar and Mandarin witnessed being designed in a highly limited way in the mid-90s) has a MOD around 610 meters (2,000 feet, or—aarrrrhhh—333 fathoms, aarrrrhhh!). So once your sub’s altitude clears 650 meters, even they stop caring.

In other words, if you were to take a map of the continents, and color in the areas of the ocean we really explored and know quite well, you would wind up spending a lot of time to produce very little. But is it true that, like the atmosphere, we still have a good idea of what goes on? Eh, the Czar would argue your analogy is upside-down. We have a good idea of what goes on with water, but not with the massive amount of land below it.

The “reality-based community” is half-way to the Hollow-Earth Lizard People Theory

John Podesta, head of the hard-left Center for American Progress which has been an important source of policy staffers for the Obama Administration, and Bill Clinton’s former “Secretary of S—” troubleshooter, is apparently a UFO conspiracy theorist, or at least gives them aid and comfort. Your Volgi shouldn’t be surprised, and yet he is.

Pseudo-Chesterton comes to mind yet again.

Maybe he should ask his friend President Obama [at right] to release the Secret Files.

Things You Learn In High School

You cannot make a person a leader by merely insisting he or she is special. You need to challenge the person on a physical, mental, and spiritual level; only then will the leader emerge.

Of course, you might be hard-pressed to find evidence of this maxim in the world today, especially where kids are concerned.

The Czar spent some time at two very different Chicago Public Schools; he will not name the schools individually, but will say that one was in a highly transitional neighborhood that moved from Polish to Arabic, and is now moving fast from Arabic to Hispanic. The other school was in a high school in an infamous southeast-side neighborhood that is entirely African-American.

Your first impression, and possibly only impression, in the now Hispanic school is a powerful emphasis on language. Signs are bilingual everywhere, and even common objects have labels attached to them, such as windows / ventanas: three-by-five index cards written in Sharpie tacked to the item with tape. Mind you, these are in rooms for older children. Know why?

Well, you would not be wrong to think there was a strong and noble attempt to teach them English. Libertarians tend to believe otherwise—and there is much evidence to push them to extremes—but this is still very much an English-speaking country. You cannot achieve anything beyond a marginal potential if you speak no English here. Amigos, usted debe hablar Inglés en los Estados Unidos, a pesar de lo que usted escuchado en México.

But the real reason is more sinister, and although understood by educators in large cities, remains unknown by the average person: a huge percentage of the children arriving here from Mexico cannot read Spanish, either. Imagine you are a seventh-grade teacher, and have non-English-speaking kids who have the reading, writing, and arithmetic skills of a kindergartener. Good luck getting them through geometry and American history.

Of course, the conservative gut instinct is to wring your hands and wonder why we are letting these kids into our country. But hold on: Chicago does not allow illegal aliens into the schools. These kids, whatever their faults are, are American citizens—just uneducated ones. As long as we make education compulsory, we inherit an obligation to teach them. And these weird methods are largely what our grandparents learned when they went to pubic schools, unable to read whatever language was spoken at home as well as English.

And no, before you correct the Czar, many public schools did not teach solely in English. Although there were no formal bilingual education programs in 1913, many schools with a predominant nationality used the primary language quite a bit as a way to transition students into English. Did it work? Ask your grandparents.

On the other hand, the largely black high school was a surreal experience. The school was completely the result of some sociological experiment in the 1960s, with brightly colored concrete masonry block walls, long corridors that go nowhere, claustrophobic rooms, and a complete basement feel with exposed piping and conduits. The students have attempted to personalize the school in their own ways: a mix of brilliantly done murals and, sadly, a fair amount of gang-related symbology. We are not trying to paint an image: this becomes important in a bit.

Because in nearly every single classroom, there is either disturbingly excessive motivational propaganda or an over-the-top emphasis on slavery. For example, there are pictures of black civil rights protestors being sprayed with fire hoses, under which is the caption “Resilience: they were strong like you.” Another poster of President Obama with the title “You can change the world.” Uh-huh.

And pictures of slaves in chains everywhere, coupled with posters of contributions by slaves to American culture (blues and jazz, various foods, and so on). In one room, there are essays posted on looseleaf paper, taped to the orange walls: “I believe that slavery still exists because the rich man still exploits the black and make us sleep on the floor and not have good clothes.” We found that quote today. Another: “I think the Emancipation Proclamation shows hypocrisy because it freed the slaves in the South but not the North.” Make of this what you will. The Czar’s thoughts: these did not represent random samples, but were the best of the bunch. And no critique from the teacher on either one? Know why? Because this is being promoted.

No, this is not some screed about conspiracies. What we mean here is that there is a very deliberate attempt to promote black culture as (a) purely the result of slavery and oppression by the white man and (b) reassurance that despite the fact you are black, you are a decent person. And this is pathetic. Perhaps the Czar is cynical after all these years, but come on: this is some misguided program developed, doubtless by white guys in some conference room, to try to make blacks feel better about themselves while acknowledging the vast debt they are owed.

That sound is our sympathy leaving the room. Yes, we must never ignore the hideous crime of slavery. But face it: unless these kids are actually from some of the uglier parts of Africa, they have never been slaves. At this point, neither have their parents or grandparents. But constant emphasis of this almost creates the impression that it could happen again. And this assault with motivational messages? Tell us this does not stem from some 21st Century version of the noble savage bullshit.

Throughout the school is a total lack of historical context bordering on the obscene. In a main corridor are student-painted portraits of key figures in history. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rosa Parks. Malcolm X. Huey P. Newton, for God’s sake. Beyoncé Knowles. Snoop Dogg. Holy crap: whatever happened to Fred Douglas or George W. Carver? Is anyone teaching the truth about Newton? Or that Beyoncé and Snoop are stunningly wealthy entertainers that lead a life unobtainable by the average person? Where is the distinction between great, merely famous, infamous, and notorious? Evidently, school administrators seem to think that blacks are only valuable when they become famous. What a shame that Dr. King finds his great visage placed among these people. A bigger shame that no one at this school seems to be teaching King’s message, as these portraits seem to have been chosen for the color of their skin, rather than the content of their character.

Lest you be uncertain: the Czar believes entirely in Dr. King’s awesome goal. The Czar believes that blacks are real people, like anyone else. No better, no worse. No greater, no weaker. That it is up to the individual to recognize his or her own strengths, and use them to his or her own advantage. But this school immerses students in a dismal mixed message that they are victims, and that despite all their faults, they might just become incredibly wealthy. And that is a crime, right out of the leftist make-them-dependent-on-you playbook.

But hold on. There is hope. As the Czar entered one classroom, abandoned for summer vacation, he was shocked to see written on the blackboard one comment: Final exam question: choose one result of the Tonkin Resolution and how this continues to effect foreign policy today. The Czar stood and gaped at this for almost a half-minute. Wow! Real history being taught. With a lesson for today! Heck, most people writing for blogs today could not answer this question. Whoever that teacher was, nice one.

Then, the Czar wandered into the school auditorium, where a speaker was addressing the entire future (incoming) freshman class during orientation. The Czar entered completely unobserved, and caught a delicious moment. The speaker was warning the kids not to expect society to just hand over their earnings to you. Lots of kids come in here as freshmen, he said, hoping to eke out a couple years of high school, drop out, and then live off a monthly government check for $500. “You think you can live off $6,000 a year? You boys think you can impress a girl with that? You girls think you can raise a family on that? Because a lot of you kids do, and that right there is why some white folks think you’re crazy.” He then rattled off average starting incomes for lawyers, dentists, accountants, and stockbrokers, explaining how only hard work and discipline will make that happen. What could they do with that kind of money? What could you do to make that happen?

It was, overall, a shocking conservative message of hard work, investing, and playing it smart. He warned the girls about premarital sex (which wound up with a really funny but off-color joke that made a superb point). He warned the boys about gangs—if you want carry a gun, and belong to a group that takes care of you, the military recruiters will be in to talk to you in two years. You get all that, plus a steady job, and serve your country as well.

What a refreshing change from the usually ineffective “stay in school, don’t do drugs” pablum, eh? But then the Czar went back into the main corridors, saw the picture of Huey Newton, and wondered who had the siren song here.

Much Ado About Nothing

Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering ("CASPIN"), a group probably numering in the tens of tens, has its collective undies in a bunch over WalMart's plan to track its inventory using RFID technology.

Forgive 'Puter's skepticism, but he doubts that this somehow amounts to "a first piece of a very large and very frightening tracking system." Maybe if WalMart started bar code tattooing 'Puter and his kids and set up cameras in 'Puter's house to track his habits, he would agree that the system was "very frightening." If you are frightened by a low cost retailer streamlining its inventory process in order to increase profits and better serve its shoppers, then you need to get out more.

What's the big worry here? WalMart's going to know what size undies you wear, or how many half gallons of Haagen-Dazs you suck down weekly? Don't you think they can already pull that data? You don't think they have extensive credit card records cross indexed to your purchases? How about all the in store surveillance footage? They could probably track even cash purchasers if they wanted. While it may be embarrassing for 'Puter to have his Cheezy Poof and vodka consumption known to the local inventory manager, it's no direct assault on his zone of privacy. 'Puter proudly chooses to shop at WalMart.

'Puter has a choice, along with all the shrinking violets over at Privacy Under Sustained Scrutiny Is Extremely Suspect, or CASPIN, or whatever the heck they call themselves. Shop at WalMart and live with the technology or go elsewhere to get your $5 Bucket O' Margarita mix.

This is hardly Big Brother using oppressive government to mold unquestioning obedience. And pretending otherwise does not make you Winston Smith. In fact, pretending otherwise makes you like the 40 year old people dressed like elves and pirates 'Puter ran into this weekend at his local Renaissance Fair.

Grow up.

Everything That is Wrong With Journalism

If you could take everything that is wrong with "journalism" today, the vindictive liberal bias, the vapidity, the lock-step narrative, the in-the-tank-for-Obama-ness, roll it up into a sticky tar ball and form it into a single person, you'd have E.J. Dionne.

In this column, Mr. Dionne beclowns himself (again), stating as fact notions that are so fundamentally wrongheaded as to be absurd. Let's begin yet another installment of "what's wrong with E.J.'s column today."

1. The mainstream media and the Obama administration must stop cowering before a right wing that has persistently forced its propaganda to be accepted as news by convincing traditional journalists that "fairness" requires treating extremist rants as "one side of the story."

Seriously, Mr. Dionne? The media is cowering before a resurgent vast right wing media conspiracy? OK, 'Puter, calm down. Let's be rational here. FoxNews, Drudge and Breitbart have successfully conspired to bend The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, NPR, The Nation and every other liberal media outlet to their will. And Mr. Dionne's evidence for this is the Obama Administration wetting itself when it's becoming apparent that Americans are no longer buying the liberal media's Obama hero worship?

Mr. Dionne, this is projection, plain and simple. 'Puter has one word and one question for you. First, the word: JournoList. Second, the question: Were you ever a member of the JournoList? 'Puter assumes that you were, as this is the only explanation for your crackpot "conservatives run the media" theorem. It jibes well with the unhinged logic so very prevalent on that liberal listserv.

2. Al Gore never actually said he "invented the Internet," but you could be forgiven for not knowing this because the mainstream media kept reporting he had.

Well, Mr. Dionne, maybe not. But it was the liberal media that failed to correct that notion. But Since you brought up former Vice President Al Gore, 'Puter wonders when the liberal media is going to investigate the following ongoing Gore scandals: (a) three alleged sexual assaults; (b) an Oscar and Nobel Prize garnered through a premeditated pattern of lies; and (c) Gore's "do as I say, not as I do" massive carbon footprint environmentalism. 'Puter expects to be waiting a good, long time.

3. There were no "death panels" in the Democratic health-care bills.

The death panels to which Mr. Dionne alludes were a liberal media spin of a serious conservative talking point, nothing more. The reality is the natural outgrowth of ObamaCare would result in health care rationing to contain costs. Rationing would necessarily lead to denial of certain beneficial treatments in certain instances (e.g., a new hip for a 90 year old). And the denial of treatments would shorten lives. Since ObamaCare has passed, and since 'Puter's certain Mr. Dionne, like all good liberals, will be an early adopter, 'Puter looks forward to Mr. Dionne's thoughts on the quality of his care and his choices as he enters his golden years. 'Puter's betting Mr. Dionne will have to eat his words, unless, of course, ObamaCare is repealed prior to that time.

4. The traditional media are so petrified of being called "liberal" that they are prepared to allow the Breitbarts of the world to become their assignment editors.

Nope. Traditional media is terrified that it will be scooped (or embarrassed) again by others willing to cover stories that don't hew to the liberal world view. That's why it reacts with terror to conservative media stories. Traditional media's been bested too many times, and now it's gun shy. Traditional media is watching its ivory towers crumble and its relevance fade. Traditional media blames the new media for its suddenly precarious position. In reality, new media is only partly to blame. Traditional media has done the heavy lifting by destroying its credibility over a decades-long span. The recent conservative pushback is not primarily to blame despite Mr. Dionne's protestations otherwise.

And, as an aside, it wasn't conservatives who made liberal a dirty word. It was liberals. When confronted with the polling evidence that a large majority of Americans don't like liberal notions of governance, liberals went and hid. They changed their name to "progressive," as if the shiny new packaging would mask the stench of their failed ideas. Americans are wise to the charade now, and they're pissed off.

5. Thus did Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander ask this month why the paper had been slow to report on "the Justice Department's decision to scale down a voter-intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party." Never mind that this is a story about a tiny group of crackpots who stopped no one from voting. It was aimed at doing what the doctored video Breitbart posted set out to do: convince Americans that the Obama administration favors blacks over whites.

Americans aren't fooled. The video tells the tale. There was a black man with a club outside a polling place with the clear intent to intimidate white voters. Americans know that if the races had been reversed, the perpetrator would be in jail right now. The Obama Administration and its media sycophants have been reduced to the hackneyed "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes" defense. Despite Mr. Dionne's snotty denial, Americans' lurking suspicion that "the Obama administration favors blacks over whites" is confirmed by this incident. And no amount of bitchy denials can change this.

If this is the best defense of the liberal ("traditional") media and the foundering Obama Administration that E.J. Dionne can muster, then conservative victory cannot be too distant.

State- and municipal-level debt is a ticking bomb.

State and local borrowing, once thought of as a way to finance essential infrastructure, has mutated into a source of constant abuse. Like homeowners before the housing bubble burst, states and cities have gorged on debt, extended repayment times, and used devious means to avoid limits on borrowing—all in order to finance risky projects and kick fiscal problems down the road. Though the country’s economic troubles have helped expose some of these unwise practices, the downturn has brought not reform but yet more abuse. Even as Tea Party protesters and taxpayer groups revolt against excessive government spending and taxes, they are paying too little attention to the gigantic state and local debt bomb. If it can’t be defused, we’re all at risk.

Photo from iStockPhoto.com.

Roger Kimball eviscerates Obama and the Anti-American American Élite

You’ve made it clear that, deep down, you really don’t like the United States. In that, you are like many of your Ivy confrères, all those Harvard-Yale-Princeton types who find the spectacle of individual freedom playing itself out irredeemably vulgar. You all are beyond allegiance to anything so parochial as an individual nation. And when it comes to what (even now) is the world’s nation of nations, the United States, you are more than embarrassed: you are downright impatient.

Read on. If you don’t, your Gormogons’ conspiracy membership is on probation latæ sententiæ.

♫ Panic on the streets of London…

…Panic on the streets of Birmingham
I wonder to myself
Could life ever be sane again? ♫

So, yeah, remember the guy Obama knew he couldn’t get through Congress, so gave him a recess appointment as head of Medicaid & Medicare? Right, Berwick. Big fan of the NHS.

So, let’s check in on the NHS. How are things going over there?

Oh.

Well.

That’s not ominous at all.

Good thing there’s nothing else to—what? I posted what an hour ago? Oh.

Sorry.


Poster image from Rock Explosion, which has some ludicrously cool stuff.

Even if people scream at Congress and get this fixed…

…are we going to have to have this fight over every goddamned decision these evil bastards make?! Yes, evil. They’re going to let people die because they don’t believe it’s in “society’s” interest that they live. Evil.

In September, the Food and Drug Administration will try to take the anti-cancer drug Avastin “off-label.” Avastin is a Stage 4 drug used to battle breast cancer. Avastin is not a cure but has been shown to stop the growth of cancer for an average of five months — meaning some late stage breast cancer victims live beyond five months.
But late stage breast cancer patients do not fit into the cost-benefit analysis of the Obama Administration. We told America rationing would happen if the health care takeover bill passed and in September, women with breast cancer will be its first victims.
Avastin is the first medicine to fight cancer by blocking the growth of blood vessels that feed tumors. While Avastin is expensive and may not be the miracle drug some anticipated for breast cancer (it is for other types of cancer) from the success of the early trials, the overwhelming majority of breast cancer specialists believe the drug can be effective and useful in certain patients
If the FDA takes Avastin off label it will effectively deny all but the richest Americans access to the drug. Once a drug is off label, most insurance and Medicare will no longer cover the cost of the treatment. So even if a patient meets the criteria of one who might respond positively to Avastin once it is taken off label it is highly unlikely that patient will have access to the drug unless they have the money to pay for it outright.
WHIFF OF SCANDAL?
Traditionally the FDA and ODAC make decisions based on a process called “endpoints.” Does a drug achieve certain targets? In this case, the FDA changed the criteria to judge the effectiveness of the drug.
Dr. Richard Pazdur is the FDA’s Cancer Czar. Pazdur decides which anti-cancer drugs patients can have access to. In the case of Avastin, Pazdur changed the criteria to a new very subjective and slippery standard of “clinically meaningful.” And apparently the FDA and Pazdur don’t believe that extending the life of a Breast Cancer victim by 3 to 5 months or more is “Clinically Meaningful.”
How do you put a price tag on those precious months for the families who are living through the hell of losing a Mother, Sister, Daughter, Aunt or Wife? Taking Avastin off label is nothing more then government rationing of healthcare. Period.
Americans with cancer live much longer than similar victims in other nations. Traditionally the FDA has not based its decisions on the cost of drug or biologic treatment, but solely on the effectiveness of the treatment. This approach seems to be changing as Obamacare is being implemented and the rationing of healthcare soon begins.
If you knew you could take a drug and perhaps live another year, would you take it? The government will now be making that decision for you.

Picture: New Orleans, 1943. From Hello, New Orleans.

Oh Brother.

Let us go over some comments flying over the intersphere.

Andrew Breitbart owes Shirley Sherrod an apology.

Shirley Sherrod owes Andrew Breitbart an apology.

The NAACP owes Shirley Sherrod an apology.

Andrew Breitbart owes the NAACP an apology.

FoxNews owes Shirley Sherrod an apology.

PBS owes FoxNews an apology.

Look, all the Czar knows is that he owes the Mandarin an apology. He needed a bookmark, and grabbed an index card off the Mandarin’s desk, not caring that the Mandarin had a very important phone number for the Plateau of Leng building commissioner’s office.

Sorry, man.

♫ West Virginia is the place for me! ♬ Folks view farm animals romantically!

♪ Entire towns with only one last name! ♪

♪ Cross-eyed, slack-jawed, we all look the same! ♪

Apologies to all our Mountaineer readers. The Gormogons actually adore the state, and have at least one secret base in the mountains there. We can’t say any more. But, as Washingtonians, we’re required by birth and Maryland state law to make at least one West Virginia joke whenever the state is mentioned.

Scripsit Cæsar Muscoviæ:

the Volgi will happily explain why the educational curriculum has moved away from core math and reading skills in favor of softer, social class subjects geared toward feelings and understanding.

Well, sure. Take a look here. And here. Plus, in what field has society gotten more rigorous and exacting since, oh, the 1960s? Racial manners? Sure. But what intellectual field? Could we send a crew to the moon with slide rules and a guidance computer less powerful than the average digital watch these days? One has one’s doubts.

Why the decline in teacher quality? There are probably a bunch of reasons, but the major one is probably an unforeseen consequence of feminism. By opening up professions to women and the ensuing social pressure women to seek out a well-compensated career, many of the highest-IQ women who in the past might have been (often to their frustration) limited to professions like nursing, teaching, and secretarial work became doctors, professors, and lawyers and MBAs instead. Which devastated, in many ways, the pool from which those older “women’s professions” drew. Not that there aren’t brilliant women in teaching, nursing, and administration. You can’t spend time around schools, hospitals, and offices without noticing that. Nevertheless, one suspects there’s probably a measurable decline in the average pool of teachers, nurses, etc., as really, really smart women have a lot more options. Overall, the tradeoff benefits society by matching up interests and market needs better, but it may well have seriously hurt certain fields.

Also, the rise of “education” as a major (and the Deweyan/Conantian process-rather-than-content ideology behind it) means a lot of teachers spend a lot of time “learning how to teach” without actually mastering a body of knowledge and the requisite skills of a discipline. Consequently, the major attracts many people (not all, obviously) looking for (or only capable of) less-challenging work.

These observations are not intended to denigrate the fine teachers we have, but to explain why, perhaps, we don’t have more.

West Virginia: Drop Out Rate a Crisis? Or Not?

Operative JS has not checked in for some time, having been on special assignment deep in the Sudan. JS was told not to return unless there was proof of a deep underground spacecraft made of a living metal capable of dissolving all life. Anyway, JS has returned, so do the math.

Caro Czar,

I was speaking recently with a public school teacher here in West Virginia. We ranged over a wide array of topics until we reached the topic of public schools here. The situation is frightful—25% don't graduate high school and populations are dropping over most of West Virginia. However, it's worse than it appears. He spoke about the children he taught—they cannot read well, write well, do homework, and the standards are shockingly low (with many shoddy/lazy teachers). This, to me, seems unfortunately common in public schools today.

The most interesting thing was the abuse of the homebound program. This is where students, usually for a medical/disciplinary (I think) reason, do their schooling at home (like homeschooling, but without the education). Many students are abusing this privilege at great cost to the public (tax money) and to themselves (the slack off and don't learn). This is a scandal, and as far as I know, isn't spoken of nationally.

Is this merely a problem here in WV? I am asking you, o great Tsar, because you are so dang smart. S-M-R-T smart.

God Bless,

Operative JS

PS- if this doesn't make it onto the blog, I WILL KEEP ON E-MAILING GORMOGONS UNTIL IT DOES. I WILL. PERIOD.

Operative JS. Blessings in return and thanks for writing.

West Virginia high schoolers have anywhere from a 17%-25% dropout rate, which seems obscene. Lawmakers blame this on the fact that, until recently, a student could drop out of school at age 16 with parental consent. In response, they passed a bill quite recently that will raise the dropout age to 17. The conversations seem to conclude that doing so will cut the rate by a quarter, so that the dropout rate will descend from 17% to 13%. Hooray!

Of course, this is all a load of crap. 13% is still one out of eight, and that is pathetic. Further, the age of 16 has nothing to do with the problem. Ohio, for example, allows students to drop out at 16 with parental consent as well; the drop out rate there is a bit better than West Virginia’s. Age really has nothing to do with it. If it did, can lawmakers explain why most kids in West Virginia drop out of school around ages 14-15?

Still and all, West Virginia needs to let go of its mining history in the 19th Century: kids need to stay in school, so the law needs a legislative correction. Finally, you would think, West Virginia is coming into line with the rest of the country. No one could hate that.

Well, guess who opposes the new law? The West Virginia Education Association, which you already know is the teacher’s union. And the Czar probably does not even need to quote them: you already know they are saying that without additional funding, this will stretch overtaxed resources to the breaking point, blah blah want money yadda yadda hands are out cough cough pay raise ahem.

But hang on a second. As bad as you have heard it, facts vary. For example, in west Virginia, there were 83,481 students enrolled in public schools in 2008. Of that number, 3,680 dropped out. Forgive the Czar’s math here, but that drop out rate is only 4%...and that number goes back before the bill got passed.

Indeed, West Virginia therefore falls into the middle of the pack, ranking only 30th in terms of percentages. Arizona, Alaska, and Louisiana are the worst offenders, with the last state hitting a drop out rate of 7.5%. So where did that 17% or 25% dropout number come from?

It comes from a statistical model, specifically from the year 2007. The model is called the Average Freshman Graduation Rate (or AFGR). You take the number of West Virginia students who graduated as high school seniors in 2007, and divide this by the number of West Virginians who graduated eighth grade in 2003. The number for West Virginia in 2007 was 78.2%, meaning that 78.2% of 2003 freshman were expected to graduate high school in 2007.

Okay, so what? So the media decided “this means that the difference results in your dropout rate!” 100 - 78.2 = a 21.8 percent drop out rate. Wanting more recent numbers (which are not fully known yet), they coughed up more “recent” numbers; this results in our varying 17 - 25% drop out rate (basically our original 21.8% with a few points on either side for error). Simple, yes?

Indeed, West Virginia therefore falls into the middle of the pack for dropouts. Arizona, Alaska, and Louisiana are the worst offenders, with the last state hitting a drop out rate of 7.5%. So where did that 17% or 25% dropout number come from?No, not really. The AFGR is exactly what it says it is: the rate of students who graduate in four years. Many students (a) repeat a year, (b) transfer to private schools, (c) move out of the state, or (d) get home schooled. These numbers get mashed into the AFGR, which does not track actual drop out rates. The real drop out rate is the 4% the Czar showed you previously. That makes West Virginia nowhere near the bottom.

Further, if you want to talk about the AFGR as a measure of probability a freshman will graduate in four years, here are two additional facts: (1) the AFGR of the United States, as an average, was 73.9% in 2007...meaning that West Virginia is better than the national average! Oh, and (2) the AFGR has been improving in West Virginia on average. More freshman can expect to graduate in four years.

Moreover, actual dropout rates for high school students has dropped on average throughout the US. In fact, since 1980, the dropout rate is about half today. That sounds great, but there is a hidden side to this. In 1980, you were far more likely to find gainful employment without a high school diploma than today. In 1980, your odds were not all that great, but were much better than today. While educators would like to crow that they are keeping kids in school until 12th grade, the reality is not so simple. There simply is no place for kids to go anymore; they might as well stay in school.

So your acquaintance is not using real drop out numbers, but is going with what the press, lawmakers, and the nearly destitute unions are repeating. And those numbers are a sham. By the way, you would think the union would want the actual numbers out there as proof of the wonderful job the are doing keeping so many kids in school for four years...but then taxpayers would argue that “our kids are doing all right, so we must be paying you enough.”

This is getting long, but we do want to address your question about the homebound instruction program. Actually, most states have this. Because public schools are the school of last resort, they have to take in anyone who wants to attend. In many, many cases, there are students who are medically or physically unable to attend a school (illness, severe physical injuries, disabilities beyond reasonable attempts to accommodate, etc.). So lesson plans and tutors are used to instruct the students at home. In the Mountain State, doctor’s mandate is compulsory, and students are limited to only four classes per semester—so a homebound student may require years of homebound instruction before graduating. This of course increases drop out candidates, and certainly lowers average test scores (especially within the homebound program), right?

There seem to be no cases of disciplinary cases or behavioral cases qualifying for the homebound program: these students must attend a special education school or basically get thrown out (yes, public schools still expel the worst offenders). Hello military!

In short, your acquaintance is working with bad numbers, and might not be seeing an unavoidable root cause for lower test scores and graduation rates with the homebound program. ‘Puter will be most happy to tell you why, on the national average, unions are keeping inept teachers working at the expense of talented, skilled, and motivated teachers; similarly, the Volgi will happily explain why the educational curriculum has moved away from core math and reading skills in favor of softer, social class subjects geared toward feelings and understanding.

Oh Look. Obama Is No Friend to Science. Yawn.

Color us not at all surprised.

Finally, the Czar is not the only voice out there condemning the Obama administration as unfriendly toward science. Remember all the real and imagined missteps the Bush administration took with science? And how President Obama was going to change all that? Gosh, the scientific community began to cheer about reversing all the sins of the last eight years, and we would finally bask in a glowing age of light and reason!

Almost immediately, your Czar began to post a long-running series of posts demonstrating that the new administration has been anything but kind to science and scientists. Anyway, the LA Times has decided to come way too late to the dance, listing some of the many ways the Obama administration hypocritically uses politics to make pseudo-scientific decisions.

Look, for as much trashing as conservatives receive from liberals about their scientific knowledge—claiming that most conservatives believe the earth is 5,000 years old, that evolution is impossible, that the earth is flat (without producing any studies or citations or statistics, ironically)—the fact is that liberals generally have a pretty bad grasp of science.

And why not? When your group tends to accept moonbattery such as new age spiritualism, crystal healing, 9/11 conspiracies, and social relativism, you’re already pretty far off the logic train. Conservatives, who tend to invest in technology, finance, and construction, tend to have a vastly better grasp of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. They (a) do not realize it or (b) do not believe it because the liberals keep insisting that conservatives are slackjaws who disregard anything that ain’t in yonder Bible.

But there is exceeding liberal hypocrisy about intelligence. One: liberals are not nearly as smart as they imagine, although you do get some reassurance living in an echo chamber. And two, the Left has always sprinkled math and science into their rants to “prove” their point of view scientifically. At least to themselves: reputable scientists will warn you of the danger in trying to prove something you already believe—you always succeed. In order to paint a better picture of yourself, you need to belittle others, right? Well, if the Left wants to look intellectually superior, all it needs to do is mock the Right.

Except, as with many other Liberal myths, the lie doesn’t seem to work as well as it used to.

You'll Never Walk Alone

Turns out teens are not the only ones “sexting”—sending naughty images and pornie-talk back and forth via mobile devices. It seems that adults and senior citizens are just as busy (or perhaps, bizzay) sexting as the kids are.

By the way, the study was conducted by ECHELON, which monitors all your emails, text messages, and phone calls and generates reports on everything you do and hands it over to the government.

Mailbag: Stick it Right Back!

Gormogon operative FR writes in:

I just got a nice little email from Senator Warner letting me know he was looking out for little ole me by supporting the Financial reform bill. I was so comforted to know I had someone is looking out for my financial wellbeing that I felt compelled to respond.

Like I’m going to believe adding more inane laws and Government bureaucracy is really going to thwart corruption. That’s laughable. Let’s spend more tax dollars on new agencies so Government employees can watch porn on their computers while existing laws are being violated. Oh, wait, we already did that and it created the first financial crisis. You guys are freakin geniuses capable of saving us from evil Wall Street. Thanks for nothing but more inept Government detailed in three thousand pages of crap.

Wish I could redirect my tax dollars to a "keep congress out of session" fund. Now that would save money and facilitate economic growth."

Top Story of the Day

Check out this story. It's got everything. White trash, firearms, toilet paper.

One Mr. Pinnix shot his wife with a pistol loaded with toilet paper. As it was loaded with toilet paper, Ms. Pinnix was not seriously injured, sustaining only powder burns.

What could have caused such an unusual turn of events? Further, what drives a man to shoot his wife? Was she cheating? Did she hit him? Was Ms. Minnix beating their children?

Nope.

Lonnie Pinnix told police he loaded the pistol with toilet paper instead of bullets and shot his wife because she would not leave.

She would not leave. Classic.

If not leaving was a shooting offense, Fifi down at the Leaping Peacock would've shot 'Puter and Czar about a million times by now.

Sherrod Fiasco

Much has been written over the past few days about Ms. Sherrod's speech before the NAACP. With the benefit of some distance and reflection, 'Puter's got the following additional thoughts.

1. Ms. Sherrod did not deserve the treatment she received at the hands of the conservative media or the current Administration for she said. 'Puter thinks Ms. Sherrod is clearly wrongheaded and (still) dangerously fixated on race, but agrees that the full text did not show a current racist motive, as we were led to believe.

2. Regardless of (1), Ms. Sherrod's admitted past inclination was clearly racist, regardless of any proferred explanation. Stating that one treated a white man differently based solely on the color of his skin is racist, whether or not one later makes amends. Ms. Sherrod admitted that in her speech. As it occurred 25 years ago, the "victim" of the racism was made whole, and there are no further (known) instances of Ms. Sherrod's racism, there is no reason to fire her.

3. A white man holding Ms. Sherrod's position making the same speech would have fired, and would not have received the second chance Ms. Sherrod received. It is this glaring double standard that caused, in 'Puter's opinion, the instant conflagration. Americans are tired of having two sets of rules, one for whites and one for blacks. Or, more likely, one for liberals and one for conservatives. This is of course exacerbated by the obscenely liberal bent of our current media (see, e.g., the simmering JouroList scandal), but that's for another post.

4. The Adminstration is in full meltdown. It fired Ms. Sherrod solely on the basis of Mr. Breitbart's original post, without seeking to confirm the truth of the charges or context of Ms. Sherrod's speech. The Administration's reaction is telling. We see a terrified child lashing out at all those it imagines might do it harm. This does not bode well at all for the challenges ahead of us. Now is the time for grown-ups.

5. The Byrd Principle is alive and well: Liberals can be racists and maintain their standing, so long as they apologize to those who may have been offended by their racism (not for the acts themselves) really, really nicely. Conservatives, well, not so much.

6. As a corollary to (3), conservatives latched on to this story because it fits the following confirmed narrative (see, e.g., JournoList).

The mainstream media is biased. It unfairly covers up the sins of its favored party, the Democrats, while at the same time pillorying Republicans for the same acts. Therefore, the only media to trust is that with a conservative bent, such as Drudge, Breitbart and FoxNews, for example.

'Puter believes that if conservatives trusted the mainstream media to fairly present all sides of a story including the conservative side, this never would have happened. Breitbart wouldn't have rushed the story out, and many conservatives would have waited for confirmation of the story. Instead, it appeared to conservatives to be merely another instance of the liberal media covering up for its side. Calmer heads (on both sides) would have prevailed had the media not spent the past 10 or so years systematically destroying its much-vaunted reputation for fairness.

'Puter may or may not return to this topic later. It's almost noon, when the Castle's cantina is permitted to start serving malt liquor, and 'Puter's got a table reserved with the Czar.

Chicago's Unions: A Public (and Private) Disgrace

Unless you live in the area, you may not have heard that Chicago’s Union of Operating Engineers (150) and the Laborers’s District Council have been on strike for almost three weeks.

If you live in Chicago, you know all about it. The Eisenhower Expressway, a main artery to and from the Loop to the western suburbs has been under major renovation, with multiple lanes closed and no one working on it whatsoever. About 300 construction projects across the city and suburbs—of all kinds—have completely stopped.

Why? Because the two unions wanted a 15.9% pay increase because...well, because healthcare insurance has gone up. And someone else should pay for their coverage now that costs, according to the President, will begin going down. They settled for 9.75%, and are expected to go back to work in the next couple days. Guess healthcare costs were not as essential as a fatter check.

But that isn’t the teeth of the story, for the Czar has acquaintances in numerous union trades. And the rank and file of nearly every other union is pissed about this. Why? Because unions striking for a ridiculously high pay raise in a down economy makes unions look like the greedy asshats they are. One electrical foreman told the Czar that this is going to make the unions look worse, right now when 97% of the country already hates them. He told his crew that the clock is ticking on unions in America.

Was he right? Well, River Forest School District 90, doing a major renovation, fired their union general contractor and replaced them with a non-union one. Anti-union sentiment is fired up in the American capital of Union-ness. Non-union workers are filling jobs even in die-hard union shops: a major school district is using non-union plumbers to complete work before the school year begins, even though the district is a solid union shop. Yikes. The Czar talked with them Monday afternoon.

Second, and the real reason the other unions are furious, is that the various construction trades—the carpenters, electricians, plumbers, pipefitters, everybody—also walked off the job in a show of solidarity. And that hurts, a union tradesman said to us, because he is sitting around at home not getting paid. Bills, groceries, mortgage payments...all are due, and he is not collecting a paycheck because front lumps in two unimportant unions nobody ever heard of decided to get greedy. You try going 19 days without a check and you understand why these guys are so upset.

How much? Word is that the heads of at least two separate union locals called the heads of the IUOE and the Chicago LDC and advised them, in very clear terms, do not do this. Agree to an extension of the existing contract. Wait until the economy is better. Do not put our guys out of work. Not now.

And we hear that a third union, who was to have joined the other two, did just that: they agreed to a multi-year extension. And members are not complaining that there were settlements, apparently: they know how nakedly nasty the other two guys are. What a stupid PR move, at a time like this.

Of course, you won’t hear about serious infighting between unions anywhere else but here.

Indispensable reference!

By David Malki @ Wondermark, to whom all thanks and praise.

Contra mundum, lupae!

Go read this whole piece by R.R. Reno on the Vatican and her ham-fisted responses over the last few years to the various abuse scandals. Don’t worry. It’s not another who-struck-John (or who-fondled-John) roundelay of blame apportionment. It’s a shrewd appreciation of the fact that the European leadership of the Church finds themselves in a historically anomalous (not unprecedented, but close) position for which they’re not prepared and of which they seem not entirely cognizant. Here‘s a bit:

From time immemorial the leadership of the Catholic Church has been part of the European elite. It is the nature of elites to protect their collective status, which requires hiding faults, winking and nodding at various sins, being “realistic” about the harder requirements of their traditions, co-opting public authorities, and fixing more serious problems and transgressions behind closed doors, while interpreting criticism and exposes of problems as destabilizing attacks on the institutions of the elite.

…

Now, in part because of her own negligence and culpable mismanagement, but more significantly because of the dramatic decline of cultural relevance, the Catholic Church no longer enjoys the perks and protections of elite status. In fits and starts, powerful actors in Europeans societies are making all sorts of decisions—who to investigate and how hard, what to report and how hard—that can only be read as a judgment that the Church doesn’t get a pass anymore.

After World War II, the Catholic Church assumed a very important role in the political and social life of a re-constructed Europe. This was especially true in Italy and Germany…

And to a great extent, the impetus for reform at the Second Vatican Council came not from an effort to regain relevance, but instead from an acute sense of responsibility for reshaping the Church so that she might better fulfill her central place in Europe’s future. It was not to be.…

I don’t think, however, that the Catholic hierarchy has grasped the sociological and institutional consequences of counter-cultural status…

Put simply: the Church has become largely disestablished on the ground, with few going to church (a social reality the consequences of which were masked, perhaps, by the remarkable charisma of John Paul II), and therefore it can no longer retain the privileges of social establishment, one of the most important of which is protection from debilitating criticism.

Today's WTF Installment

'Puter works in a nondescript suburban corporate office park. His office building has two tenants: 'Puter's Employer, Inc. and Heartless Student Loan Debt Collection Corp.

Today was HSLDCC's corporate picnic. It was held in the parking lot. They had a dunking booth. For real. 'Puter couldn't believe it. He looked out, and there's the dunking booth, with women blithely climbing in and out.

'Puter had a few thoughts on this.

1. Did no one run this by in-house legal?

2. Isn't "getting into a dunking booth" second on the list of no-nos at office parties, right behind "don't get drunk and take a run at your boss' spouse?"

3. Heck, if you're going this far, why not hand out 40s and blunts?

4. 'Puter must've missed the the face painting and jailhouse tattoo stand.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Racism Rodeo

'Puter's been checking out teh intarwebs lately, and can't help but note the overweening focus on race. First, a few goofy items, then 'Puter's take generally.

According to ABC News, if you are anti-illegal immigration, you're a racist. Seriously, ABC News thinks that the Arizona law (seeking to enforce existing federal immigration law) turns regular old (presumably white) folks into racist mobs, bent on beating down any Hispanic they may encounter. Way to use one episode of violence in Staten Island as a basis to generalize about all white people in the entire country. That certainly helps race relations, ABC News.

The ever-amusing Eugene Robinson picks on one Tea Partier and his unacceptably racist rant, claiming it was the NAACP's actions that spurred the Tea Party to kick him out. Maybe so, though it's apparent that Mr. Robinson penned his piece prior to Andrew Breitbart's disclosure of blatant racism in the NAACP. Surely Mr. Robinson wouldn't ignore a racist government official addressing a like-minded gathering of the NAACP in order to advance his thesis that Tea Partiers are all racists at heart.

Jonathan Capehart in the Washington Post posits a thought experiment that ends with this conclusion: were the Tea Parties predominantly black, The Man would be all over them. Mr. Capehart proposes this thought experiment in order to have us discuss race and learn from our discussion. Fine, Mr. Capehart.

Here's 'Puter thought on race and racism. They are pithy and not intended to cover each and every possible issue. Nor are these to be taken as any sort of denial of America's past racism. It's just 'Puter's take on what's currently sticking in his craw.

1. Most Americans right now don't give a fig about the color of your skin. Racism is not the malign cancer it was 50 years ago. Don't pretend it is. There is no legal institutional racism left. Racists exist, but they are correctly reviled and marginalized in all sectors of the country. They are the vestigal tail of America's racist past, the bitter enders.

2. Most serious race baiting today comes from the left, not the right. It is not conservatives who insist on the primacy of a person's ethnicity; it's liberals. Heck, entire sectors of the leftist establishment are based on an overt racial spoils system. Just ask the Congressional Black Caucus, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc. According to this mindset, possessors of the correct skin pigmentation get benefits based solely on that basis, not on whether they actually need the benefit. Liberals' race-based focus destroys traditional American meritocracy, and that's poisonous both to the country as a whole, but perhaps more importantly to the recipients themselves.

3. Groups that are based solely on racial identity (NAACP, La Raza, etc.) do more harm to race relations than good today. These groups care not one whit about the communities they purport to represent. They care solely about advancing their own power. They are rent-seekers of the worst kind. And, by the way, seeking to advance individuals based solely on the color of their skin is racist by definition. Chew on that.

4. Educational access is the sole remaining civil rights issue in America today. Kids in poor neighborhoods receive poor educations. Poor kids are disproportionately minorities. Poorly educated adults become/remain poor themselves. It's an equation so simple even 'Puter understands it. Solve the education issue, and the rest of the problems will solve themselves. Of course, those who are standing in the schoolhouse door are liberals. Don't believe 'Puter? Look at the Democrat-controlled Congress shutting down the DC School Voucher Program at the best of its teachers' union henchmen.

5. You'd better have damned near unassailable proof before you call someone a racist. Proof like that nice USDA official telling the NAACP how she hosed a white farmer to further the perceived interest of the black community. If you don't have solid proof and are merely casting aspersions, 'Puter thinks them's fightin' words and you ought get the beating you richly deserve.

Of course, according to critical race theory, 'Puter's thoughts are those of a middle-aged white guy, so they may be freely ignored as inauthentic. Why? Because 'Puter's a card-carrying member of the white male oppressor class, don't you know.

Feel free to drop 'Puter a line to let him know how racist you think he is. But make sure you've got your ducks in a row first, or he's likely to implement point 5 on your @ss.

Re: MOTOs

The WaPo continues the lame expose series on the Intelligence Community and its workforce today. There is little to add (as it's another 16 slides of the same stuff 'Puter covered below) but I will dispute the following:

The idea that the government would save money on a contract workforce "is a false economy," said Mark M. Lowenthal

and

"...because they thought - wrongly, it turned out - that contractors would be less expensive. Nine years later, well into the Obama administration, the idea that contractors cost less has been repudiated, and the administration has made some progress toward its goal of reducing the number of hired hands by 7 percent over two years."

The following is a direct quote from a Bureau of Labor Statistics report from June 2010:

"Total employer compensation costs for private industry workers averaged $27.73 per hour worked in March 2010. Total employer compensation costs for State and local government workers averaged $39.81 per hour worked in March 2010." 

Federal employees have historically earned (total compensation) 20% more than state and local government employees, which would put them around $47.72 per hour.

I'm not trying to debunk this claim on my own. Look at the USA Today article here. Or the American Thinker article here.

"The average federal employee earns an annual salary almost 60% higher than the average private-sector employee."

The difference in the Intel Community is the level and quality of the employees drives a higher cost.  However, when total, lifetime benefits are factored in, private industry doesn't hold a candle to the federal government.  If the government wants to reform spending - start with making the federal government workforce as competitive as private industry - remove the excessive benefits, adjust hourly pay and compete to find the best person for the job.

It's amazing that Dana Priest and William Arkin couldn't do the simplest of research and find out that their quotes and the quotes from Leventhal are either conextually inaccurate or flat out wrong.  We've covered this topic before, maybe they need to consider following us on Twitter.

MOTOs

That's short for "masters of the obvious," which is an apt description for the authors of the giant bag of nothing the Washington Post features on page one today. The giant bag of nothing is an investigation by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin of the United States intelligence community.

'Puter lists some of the shocking revelations below, so the reader can forgo wading through 16 slides of reporting.

1. Government is really, really big.

2. Government is really, really inefficient.

3. Government costs too much.

4. Government officials in charge of various programs have no clue what their charges are up to.

5. Government does not manage data well.

6. Government can't aggregate sufficient data to determine whether the benefits of the services purchased are worth the costs.

What's the word 'Puter's looking for? Oh, that's right: Duh.

Each of these criticisms can be made of any and all government enterprises. 'Puter assumes the WaPo chose the intelligence function to "expose" because it's: (a) necessarily shadowy and opaque; and (b) viscerally distrusted by orthodox liberals (read: "all right thinking people"). In fact, each of the authors' claims is difficult to test against the intelligence community because there's so little public information available, as admitted in the article.

Here's a possible solution to the issues identified by Ms. Priest and Mr. Arkin. Let's try to solve the problems identified in a more transparent government industry first. We can work backwards to intelligence, which, admittedly, could also use some work. Let's start with Social Security. Or maybe Medicare/Medicaid. We know exactly how much money is appropriated for each, and on what it is ostensibly spent. None of the information to which the employees have access is essential to national security, hence easier access. We should be able to do a full audit in less than the years it took Ms. Priest and Mr. Arkin to put together their magnum opus. But such an endeavor would challenge deeply held liberal beliefs, and we can't have that.

Were 'Puter less kind, he would characterize this article as a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But 'Puter's not that cruel.

What a Jerk

Regular readers know the Czar tends to roll his eyes everytime a person on the Left calls a person on the Right a racist.

Every so often, though, there really is one. Take, for example, Mark Williams who claims there are no leaders in the Tea Party movement, but happens to be one anyway. He heads up something called the Tea Party express.

Then, trying to be funny, Williams posted a satirical letter on the internet. The premise is that a group of black slaves, calling themselves the Colored People, wrote President Abraham Lincoln a letter demanding that he not end slavery, else there would be no cry for social justice-like claims.

The Czar gets the point, as it is a clear reaction to the NAACP shenangans. But rather than take the high road, and simply denounce the racist attitude of the NAACP, he elected to attempt humor. And wrote some pretty unfortunate things in his satirical piece. And Williams dismisses the criticism, which just reinforces how ignorant he really is.

Look, Williams: you have to have a knack for satire. If you don’t have it, now is decidedly not the time to hone your craft. People are pretty thin-skinned in our retro-racial world. So yeah: there is a double standard. People do think it’s okay for one side to act racist but not the other. We all know this. But what you did? Four letters, dude: STFU.

Cry all you want. But nobody made you do something this stupid, and even though you do not like the flack you are getting, face facts: nobody thinks you helped.

Thanks, But I'll Think For Myself

I receive a monthly industry journal from a particular vendor in the geospatial software line of business.  The most recent one had an article detailing the use of their product with regards to mapping out population and economic growth and expansion.  Note these last few words carefully, I'll come back to them shortly.  The article was submitted by the founder of Good Jobs First - an "activist nonprofit" that proposes that "states rewrite their economic development rules to subordinate them to planning goals" in order to "reduce sprawl and promote regional equity."  The nonprofit used geospatial tools (GIS) to derive two pieces of information: (1) companies are moving away from older (read: inner city or other high density areas) to new areas that offer enterprise zone tax breaks and (2) as companies move and spread out, the lack of density drives deunionization.  A quoted Chicago Federation of Labor official said in the article, "sprawl looks like a giant antiunion conspiracy."

There are a number of items to tackle here: first, the article spent way too much time on a one-sided portrayal of this issue loaded with propaganda.  The article begins with the author arguing against using loaded terms but goes on to use the term "sprawl" to refer to (remember my words above) the "population and economic growth and expansion".  He makes the statement referring to a study of Anoka (a far north suburb of Minneapolis, MN) where 29 companies moved to an Anoka industrial park as being "pirated from Minneapolis and older inner-ring suburbs."  So much for trying to avoid "loaded" terms.  The author continues with the use of the term "smart growth."  Many would argue that the growth plans by these folks aren't that smart.  Over the past few years, surveys have shown that at least 60% of Americans prefer to live in single-family homes with yards and not high-density centers.

Second, growth and expansion are a natural progression and "smart growth" should include additional road construction.  Typically, it doesn't.  Many "smart growth" initiatives aim at increasing the density of already developed areas.  This includes adding more housing, retail and businesses.  The problem is that you can't dictate to people how they want to live.  This effort could (and has) resulted in increased traffic as people still want the ability to independently commute.  Take, for example, Washington, D.C. - the nation's capital.  It is at the bottom of the list as far as road-miles added as a factor of population growth.  In turn the region has jumped to one of the top spots as far as traffic congestion.  This isn't a factor of "sprawl" - it is a factor of "smart growth" not being smart.

Third, if the geographic expansion of jobs is hurting union membership, then maybe the union isn't needed anymore.  Of course, the article depicts this as hurting the union members themselves, but generally, as jobs move to suburban centers there is the need for infrastructure and support type businesses (retail, food, and other services) that create job growth for that area.  Housing further out from the older, denser areas is usually less expensive (compare the move of young professionals to Hoboken vs. living in NYC - Hoboken experienced a huge renovation and resurgence).

The conclusion that the article avoided was that economic policies and city planners should work on rejuvenation projects in the denser, "inner-ring" areas.  Offer the economic incentives that the article denigrates to these areas.  By the way, it would be interesting to see what the organization's opinion is about the democrat-led Maryland offering larger economic incentives to Northrup-Grumman's relocation only to lose it to Virginia.  The writing is on the wall, these Utopian liberals don't understand economics.