The Gormogons

Movie Re-review: The Phantom Menace in 3D

2012-02-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

The J. clan took in the 4:00 showing of The Phantom Menace in 3D at the New Atlantis Googleplex yesterday.

Go ahead, openly mock, you know the consequences.

Why did we fork over $51.50 go see what is considered a mediocre film, especially when we have it on Blu-ray? Well, we love Star Wars, warts and all. Mrs. Dr. J., and the Lil Resident and the Lil Med Student wanted to see it on the big screen, and Dr. J. wanted to see what Lucas could do with 3D.

Now, as far as the story goes, The Phantom Menace is Dr. J.'s favorite prequel. It has the most coherent and believable plot of the three, and the best light saber duel (3-uel?). The flaws with the film, in Dr. J.'s opinion are pretty much isolated Jar Jar being too slap-stick, a couple of scatological jokes, and Dr. J. would have cast Anakin closer in age to Padme.

In other words, the flaws were in the window dressing. For all the haterade poured on Jar Jar, he was a character with potential that was executed poorly. The idea of the Pigeon English speaking native worked much better in the novelization, and were he toned down, would have made this a terrific film.

Episodes II and III are flawed in their framework. While all of the political intrigue was fascinating, what was going on in front of you was the real problem. The dialogue was horrible, Hayden Christenson was poorly cast, and the motivations and evolution of Anakin's character was really difficult to follow. You didn't buy the love story either.

As a aside, there were trailers for The Lorax, Wrath of the Titans and Spider Man in 3D. He'll be seeing the first and 3rd of those in 2D, thank you very much. Spidey swing around the city in 3D looks like crap, and he isn't paying $51.50 for 4 tickets to The Lorax.

Back to TPM in 3D. The first thing Dr. J. noticed was that the sound was cleaned up and dramatically improved from the 1999 release. You could understand everything everyone was saying. That in itself makes it worth going to see (even in 2D). Visually, there were a few subtle cut aways that were more elegant than in the original release, and Yoda being upgraded to CGI was also welcome.

The use of 3D was different than Dr. J. expected. 3D was designed to create depth into the screen. Given that this was filmed on 35mm film in 1999 and rendered into 3D, it was done very well. It was continuously present and added to the experience rather than distract from it. It worked best in scenes with characters and dialogue. It drew you into the scene and put you more there than with 2D. Its use in the podrace and space scenes was more subtle than one would expect, and that restraint is appreciated.

Dr. J. looks forward to seeing how Episodes II and III which were filmed in digital HD make the conversion to 3D. Aesthetically the films should be improved dramatically. They'll still be turds, but they'll likely be very nice 3D turds. Given the technical success with Episode I, Dr. J. expects Episodes IV-VI, also filmed on film, to be worth taking in, even if Han doesn't shoot first (he did, Dr. J. saw it when he was little...).

So, if you have $15 burning a hole in your pocket, this 3D film is worth your time, even if only to see how the technology should be used. This movie makes an effective a case for moving the cinema experience to 3D, especially because in the era when many of us have respectably sized HDTVs at home, we don't really like forking over more than the cost of a Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy combo pack to sit in a theatre.

Ruminations on Romney

2012-02-11T16:15:00.003-05:00

With all the attention on Rick Santorum lately, Mitt Romney seems to be increasingly marginalized. But the fact is that he stands a very good chance of winning the nomination, and a reasonably good chance of being elected President.

The Czar doubts Romney has that many conservatives fooled about his bona fides. His legacy as governor as Massachusetts isn’t as bad as many popular stories about him would have you believe. Here at the Castle, we have even found that some continuing stories about his anti-conservative practices are either untrue or distorted well beyond what really happened.

But let’s not fool ourselves; Mitt Romney is not the guy who will correct all that’s wrong with our country; neither, of course, is Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich. But any of these three would be a vastly better choice than our incumbent.

Or not. There is a persistent libertarian belief echoing around the internets these days, some even by regular visitors of our Castle whom we love (you know who you are), that they would rather vote for Barack Obama rather than Mitt Romney.

Yes, it is over-the-top dramatic, and it joins that long-running tradition of announcing that if Candidate X wins, by God, we’ll leave the country. You remember when a handful of Hollywood types declared this about Bush? It is the same argument. We laugh at those claims not because they are spurious, but because it makes the speakers look paper thin overall. The libertarians may say the argument is not the same, but really, to the rest of us, it is.

They have their reasons. Some say that a re-elected Barack Obama would be so powerless compared to an all-Republican Congress that the country would be put on pause for four years, and this would at least stop the bleeding. This of-course ignores the mid-terms of 2014, which would wind up putting Democrats back in power. Also, there’s no such thing as a hobbled Obama. He could be more dangerous, as he has already repeatedly demonstrated he can damage the country without Congress; fiats, executive orders, and regulations can do the dirty job quietly and with little fuss from the media.

Another reason that there would be so little difference between President Obama and a President Romney that we ought to just stick with the devil we know. This, too, is an argument based more on media pretensions than in careful analysis of the landscape.

No difference? None at all?

Here is a handy chart to help our libertarian friends realize that maybe their worst fears about President Romney aren’t as bad as they dramatize them to be.


	Mitt Romney	Barack Obama
Prior political experience:	Elected Republican governor of heavily Demcoratic state, transformed $3B deficit into $700M surplus two years in a row.	Served incomplete term as state senator and incomplete term as US senator. Presidency likely to be first thing he ever finished.
Educational experience:	BA, English, BYU, delivered two commencement addresses. Cum laude from Harvard Law School, Baker Scholar for graduating top 5% of class with combined JD/MBA	That’s a really good question. Got a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Columbia University, and magna cum laude JD from Harvard Law School.
Business experience:	Highly successful, ranging from night security guard all the way to CEO of highly profitable enterprises.	Put in hours with three law firms, lectured at UC Law School (was not a professor), and let his law license expire. Never hired, never fired, never had to balance the books, never underwent a financial crisis.
Attitude on 1st Amendment:	As a Mormon, Romney has suffered religious prejudice and maintains a deep relationship with God. Has demonstrated willingness to entertain protestors’ questions and even engaged in a protest himself when in college.	Shut up and do what I say.
Attitude on 2nd Amendment:	While not an avid shooter, Romney has opposed many gun control laws in Massachusetts, Although he did support the Brady Bill, Romney joined the NRA in 2007 and has worked to educate himself on lawful gun ownership and now subscribes to the idea that firearms are essential for self-defense.	His Department of Justice allowed thousands of weapons to fall into the hands of Mexican criminals in the hope that enough chaos would result and he could push for extensive suspensions of 2nd Amendment rights; hundreds have been killed in Mexico, and one (possibly more) law enforcement officers are dead in the US as a result of his hatred of firearms.
Attitude on 10th Amendment:	Believes healthcare is an example of where states can make better choices than the federal governmet.	Not quite sure what this deal is about states rights. Believes that governors of states, especially Arizona, report to him on an org chart of federal power.
Foreign policy:	Extensive overseas experience. Believes that a strong respect for America reduces stress on military while making powerful markets for businesses to row.	Makes Ron Paul look sober.
Taxes:	As a business owner, wants them reduced or eliminated.	Are you kidding? Dude, you don’t pay nearly enough.
Regulations:	As a business owner, knows that regulations limit the free market. As an investor, knows that they eat into his personal revenue stream.	Way more effective at turning us into Europe than that pesky Congress.
Religion:	Devout Mormon; performed exemplary and astonishing missionary work in France.	Professes to be some form of Christian, with an eye roll, and frequently misquotes scripture as a way to connect with dumber people. Attended a church which espoused racist views and promoted radical takeover of the US for a couple of decades, but is not certain whether any of that had an effect on him. By the way, Catholics are the biggest jerks he’s ever met.
Primary economic theory:	Low taxes, decreased regulation, and made career of starting businesses.	Bailouts, government takeovers, chronic high unemployment and increased dependency on welfare and handouts.

Well, you get the point. Even at his worst, Governor Romney did a better job than President Obama looking at the numbers. Romney has many, many faults to be sure, but he appears to be learning. Barack Obama, on the other hand, not only knows everything, but he certainly knows more than you.

Additionally, look for Romney to become more stable and strong in his delivery over the next few months. The effect Rick Santorum is having on Romney’s campaign is sending a very clear message: you better take this stuff seriously, because Rick Santorum does and it’s showing up in the polls. Candidate Mitt Romney is seeing firsthand that a President W. M. Romney cannot goof off and get away with it. You better deliver, or you will be delivered.

On the other hand, Barack Obama has yet to demonstrate he gives a shit what you think about anything.

There. Differences clear?

Right-Wing Media ♥♥♥♥ Rick Santorum!!!!

2012-02-11T11:19:00.001-05:00

The Czar was going to make a prediction, but it began to come true before he got it into print. Not that it was a stunning one: you probably made the same prediction yourself.

Instead, here be a postdiction. Start with Rick Santorum winning three states, and seeing his popularity in the polls literally double. In some places, he is tied or has surpassed Mitt Romney.

The postdiction? Look at all the right-wing pundits and columnists who are describing him in loving detail, salivating about what a True Guy he is, and what a stoop Mitt Romney is compared to him. Please take a moment to mime a puppet yapping with one of your hands.

Not even a couple months ago, these same writers were ridiculing him for his pouty faces during the debates, his off-kilter messages about social conservative beliefs, his hysterical lack of funding, and so on. Rick Santorum? No way. No, the smart money is on Mitt Romney and you better get used to calling him Mr. President.

The Czar likes Rick Santorum for a whole bunch of reasons, and does not disagree that Santorum lacks the funds, national organization, and what we call net presence in hockey to defeat Barack Obama. Mitt Romney is still in a much stronger position. But this repetitive 180° flipping on who the Better Candidate is becomes tiring to the Czar.

The media are being what they always are: a petty, jealous, 14-year-old girl, jumping from one crush to another and despising the previous guy. The Czar expects to see little hearts drawn around Santorum’s picture, with the media making all sorts of wedding plans, while the Mitt Romney picture has the eyes crossed out and a big X in the middle of the hearts, which is of course on top of the similarly defaced Newt Gingrich picture...on top of the Mitt Romney photo again...on top of the Herman Cain picture...another Mitt Romney...Rick Perry... a Michele Bachmann picture...hey, there’s a Tim Pawlenty picture...a Paul Ryan headshot...and is that Chris Christie?...all the way down to a faded, crumpled Sarah Palin picture.

When the Left does it, we poke fun at it for being so puerile. When the Right does it, it gets pathetic. Too bad—for those of you still wanting a prediction—Rick Santorum will probably be chucked into that stack of hated photos.

Volgi Makes a Commercial

2012-02-11T01:24:00.000-05:00

It is not playing during prime hours, so perhaps you missed it?

Shame that Vince the Sham-Wow guy backed out at the last minute.

Triple Mail Bag

2012-02-10T22:31:00.001-05:00

Minion ScottO writes in with a tuple of questions spread across three Gormogons:

Gentlemen and overlords,

Your 3 posts inspired questions, so you get a 3-fer email.

First, GorTechie: I recognize the idea of Federal laws superseding State, but if "health insurance" (pre-paid medical care coverage) is not allowed to be sold as the same policy in multiple States, could not the case be made that Federal law has no standing in this case? Of course, this argument misses the point that the PPACA is unconstitutional, along with probably 90% of the Federal laws passed since 1913.

So I appreciate your confidence in me that you think I could answer a legal question. I'll defer a real answer to 'Puter who both is a lawyer and plays one on TV. First, a quick aside. Regulations should be lifted to allow insurance providers to sell plans across state lines. This creates a more competitive market - a good thing - something that will actually drive down health care insurance costs. It also provides the potential for better portability if an employee relocated. Now, onto your question. Yes, the PPACA is likely unconstitutional. The issue here being, in my amateur barrister status*, is the 10th Amendment to the Constitution that states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." This is an amendment that liberals tend to have an issue remembering and they usually try to twist it with the "life, liberty an the pursuit of happiness". Guess what? That's in the Declaration of Independence that, while an important document for this country, is not a foundational document setting governmental practices like the Constitution. Then they try to pin on "promote the general Welfare" from the Constitution, for which they get points for using the right document. However, the Supreme Court has upheld that the Preamble to the Constitution "has never been regarded as the source of any substantive power conferred on the Government of the United States or on any of its Departments". (Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11). In 1824, Chief Justice John Marshall described in obiter dictum a further limit on the General Welfare Clause in Gibbons v. Ogden: "Congress is authorized to lay and collect taxes, &c. to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States. ... Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." (my emphasis added)

Nowhere in the Constitution is the power of requiring health care coverage delegated to the United States (meaning to the federal government - this is where the founders were geniuses - the federal government derives it's authority, responsibilities and limits from the Constitution - it doesn't just "have" these powers). So, health care coverage or insurance is a power reserved to the states or the people. What is missed by liberals is the beauty of this system. If a state, let's pick Massachusetts, passes a law requiring mandatory health care coverage by employers in that state, then people have the freedom and option to move to a different state and still enjoy the benefits of the federal laws but not the restrictions that they oppose. Of course, they could take appropriate political action and try to get the state to reverse the law too. Brilliant! This system goes to !@!!!#!Eleventy!@!@ So, maybe an answer (and not the answer to your question) is that it doesn't really matter if the federal law has standing or not because you really need to address its constitutionality first. Maybe a cop out, but it's the best I can do with no "JD" behind my name.

- GorT, 01100110 01110010 01100101 01100101 01100100 01101111 01101101 00101100 00100000 01110011 01110101 01100011 01101011 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100001

Next, Confucius: While you no doubt have given a literal translation of the phrase in question, I believe the sentiment could be better summed up as, «Приходите и принять их, присоски!», couldn't it?

Scottō,
Grammatical fine points aside, I'm not entirely sure he called them “suction cups.” Might I suggest prostaki as an equivalent for SUCKAZ! But if I knew Leonidas—and I did meet him briefly once about 500 B.C. — he called them kakai kuōn, basically, “bitches.” (An offensive person, like a yapping dog.) Filthy mouth that guy, but pretty ripped six-pack…

Scripsit 孔夫子
Confucius the Œcumenical Volgi

Last, but certainly not least, Good Doctor: I would imagine the Tcho-Tchos don't need a lot of culling, as the periodic skill-enhancing tournaments at Castle Gormogon result in sufficient attrition, n'est-çe pas?

Verily, you are correct!

While the skill-enhancing tournaments, and various and sundry other work hazards such as 'Puter dynamite fishing, Mandy testing Orbital Death Rays, The Czar raging, and my unleashing of force lightning can be lethal for the Tcho-Tcho's they still breed like rabbits. Besides, they see the cullings as our love for the whole herd.

Best,
Dr. J

Thanks for the questions - the 3-fer was fun.

* - true story, 'Puter mildly encouraged GorT to pursue a law degree after receiving my undergraduate CompSci degree. While I instead elected to pursue a MS in EE/Telecom, I did take a course titled "Telecommunications and the Law" and aced it.

Four Simple Points

2012-02-10T19:00:00.000-05:00

1. Right, cue up option 2 and maybe option 3 from here
2. It's not about contraception. It's not about how many Catholics use it or not. If you haven't read the various posts here and understood this point, you need to re-read them all.
3. Some intrepid reporter needs to ask Jay Carney - so if the administration worked so hard to strike a balance with religious freedoms regarding the HHS mandate then what are they doing now?
4. The argument that the cost of unwanted pregnancies would be greater than the cost of providing free* contraception is a canard because the cost of acting responsibly BEFORE you need the contraceptive is free.

At least Hillary Clinton was right when she said he wasn't ready for that 3am phone with this kind of bungling.

* - as pointed out below, it's not free nor is it going to lower healthcare costs. It's another wealth transfer move.

Accommodation = Capitulation

2012-02-10T18:16:00.000-05:00

Definition of ACCOMMODATION
1
: something supplied for convenience or to satisfy a need: asa : lodging, food, and services or traveling space and related services —usually used in plural <tourist accommodations on the boat> <overnight accommodations>b : a public conveyance (as a train) that stops at all or nearly all pointsc : loan
2
: the act of accommodating : the state of being accommodated: asa : the providing of what is needed or desired for convenienceb : adaptation, adjustmentc : a reconciliation of differences : settlementd : the automatic adjustment of the eye for seeing at different distances effected chiefly by changes in the convexity of the crystalline lens; also : the range over which such adjustment is possible

Thank you Merriam-Websters.

The word of the day is accommodation.

The White House Announced today:

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, most health insurance plans will cover women’s preventive services, including contraception, without charging a co-pay or deductible beginning in August, 2012. This new law will save money for millions of Americans and ensure Americans nationwide get the high-quality care they need to stay healthy. [It will raise costs for 10s or 100s of millions more. ed.]

Today, President Obama will announce that his Administration will implement a policy that accommodates religious liberty while protecting the health of women. [President Obama is cutting the baby in half, but that's still an abortion. ed.] Today, nearly 99 percent of all women have used contraception at some point in their lives, but more than half of all women between the ages of 18-34 struggle to afford it. [Show me the numbers, big guy. ed.]

Under the new policy to be announced today, women will have free preventive care that includes contraceptive services no matter where she works. The policy also ensures that if a woman works for a religious employer with objections to providing contraceptive services as part of its health plan, the religious employer will not be required to provide, pay for or refer for contraception coverage, but her insurance company will be required to directly offer her contraceptive care free of charge.

The new policy ensures women can get contraception without paying a co-pay and fully accomodates important concerns raised by religious groups by ensuring that objecting non-profit religious employers will not have to provide contraceptive coverage or refer women to organizations that provide contraception. Background on this policy is included below:

• Under Section 2713 of the Affordable Care Act, the Administration adopted new guidelines that will require most private health plans to cover preventive services for women without charging a co-pay starting on August 1, 2012. These preventive services include well women visits, domestic violence screening, and contraception, and all were recommended to the Secretary of Health and Human Services by the independent Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science. [Dr. J. discusses this here.]

• Today, the Obama Administration will publish final rules in the Federal Register that:

o Exempts churches, other houses of worship, and similar organizations from covering contraception on the basis of their religious objections.

o Establishes a one-year transition period for religious organizations while this policy is being implemented. [Uh, transition to what, big guy? ed.]

• The President will also announce that his Administration will propose and finalize a new regulation during this transition year to address the religious objections of the non-exempted non-profit religious organizations. The new regulation will require insurance companies to cover contraception if the religious organization chooses not to. Under the policy:

o Religious organizations will not have to provide contraceptive coverage or refer their employees to organizations that provide contraception. [Got to love that First Amendment. ed.]

o Religious organizations will not be required to subsidize the cost of contraception. [ibid. ed.]

o Contraception coverage will be offered to women by their employers’ insurance companies directly, with no role for religious employers who oppose contraception.

o Insurance companies will be required to provide contraception coverage to these women free of charge.

[Clearly, President Obama has no frickin' clue how either the Catholic Church or Insurance Companies run. See note below. ed.]

o The new policy does not affect existing state requirements concerning contraception coverage.

Covering contraception is cost neutral since it saves money by keeping women healthy and preventing spending on other health services. For example, there was no increase in premiums when contraception was added to the Federal Employees Health Benefit System and required of non-religious employers in Hawaii. One study found that covering contraception saved employees $97 per year, per employee. [Lies, damned lies and statistics, CHICANERY, I SAY! Dr. J. can show smoking to be cost effective, it doesn't make it right or smart. ed.]

President Obama, your accommodation is a load of horsepucky and unacceptable on such a vast number of levels that on August 1st, 2013, the court process initiated will ultimately strike down this rule.

This is why:

1) If I buy a policy that does not cover birth control, sterilization AND abortifacents, and then the insurer contacts my employee and says that it can sell her a rider for free, I am still buying an unacceptable product.

2) The cost of a rider, out of pocket, to a woman who would want those services would have to be the cost of the unacceptable items/year for the group paying divided by the number of payors, and offset by rate of return on investment of the premiums.

3) To be even remotely quasi-acceptable, that rider and its financials must be totally firewalled from the primary policy. Therefore, it cannot be free. The money must come from somewhere. Since it cannot come from the ether, and you won't let it come from the employee, it must be subsidized by the Federal government.

4) All of this is insane, because a health insurance policy should a product purchased by me, and containing the products that I need in a contract that is between me and my insurer. Because health insurance is subsidized by my employer, they have a say in the game. Other than to safeguard the obligations and responsibilities of four parties in involved in the contract you and the Federal Government. The whole thing is insane and unconstitutional. It is only being done to draw liberal Catholics back into the Obama fold like beaten housewives hoping their abusive husband will change for good this time.

If your want more sound reading on all of this, because Dr. J. is totally ticked off about work stuff, and really isn't thinking clearly to make points 5 through !!!@!!11@!Eleventy!!1!!!, read here, here, here, here, and here.

Ponies, they're not all evil?

2012-02-10T17:02:00.003-05:00

Dr. J. is really having a bad day...force lightning unleashed, hate flowing, you know the drill...now get back to work, unless you are one of our minions attending CPAC on our behalf...(I mean you @mbernadette and @m_mcaualy, go get root-beer floats at the end of today's session and send the receipt to the castle, doctor's orders).

The Reality of Women in Combat is Complex

2012-02-10T10:16:00.001-05:00

Much hoodoo is hitting the newswire that the Pentagon is relaxing restraints on combat roles that could potentially allow up to 10,000 women to serve in more front-line and special forces missions.

This is a canard, and has been a long-running liberal theme in regard to the military; the notion itself indicates how little our liberal leadership understands combat. Indeed, this is another classic example of textbook versus real-world Smart Thinkers.

The Czar will confess he himself was turned around on this issue decades ago. When this became a brief talking point in the Carter administration, the Czar was all for it. Heck, yeah—let women serve. If they can prove they have the strength, aggressiveness, and discipline—and remember that many men do not pass these criteria—then they should be given a chance to fight for, kill for, and possibly die for their country.

During the Clinton administration, though, the argument for women serving in active combat roles came back in vogue. The Czar noticed that most opposition came down to these two arguments:

Women are not stronger than men, so it is a waste of time to talk about it. The Czar however notes that the incredible demands on strength and stamina and combat accuracy required by the military are always far in excess of what the typical combat soldier experiences. Women do not have the upper body strength of men, but they have enough to kill, even in hand-to-hand combat. Interestingly, most women in favor of combat roles tend to focus on this point more than the next one.
Women are a distraction; they break up discipline and unit cohesion. And, the Czar notes, this almost always descends into a discussion about fraternization or sexual assaults, or what horrors will be inflicted upon captured women. The Czar counters that this is a problem regardless of gender, right? As a result, this seems like a cop-out argument. Men tend to focus on this point more than others.

But it turns out the Czar was completely, 180° wrong on this issue, and the two points have merit when explained much more carefully.

Certainly is was decades ago that the Czar, who has met many military personnel in his life, had a chance conversation on the topic during the early years of the Clinton administration. In chatting with an Army Ranger, the discussion turned toward women serving in more active combat roles. And the Ranger presented an argument for which the Czar not had no answer, but realized that nearly everyone is misunderstanding the two points and that women serving in active roles is a disastrous idea for any military.

All right—he conceded that if a woman can carry 30 kilos of weight on her back and schlep a rifle for 30 miles, that would be most of their combat weight-lifting duty. He further added that two hours of labor alone exceeded the physical stresses that most men endure in combat. And he concurred that probably the same percentage of women could qualify for realistic combat loads as men—but that isn’t the point, and it never has been.

Whether or not that women are physically capable of serving in combat roles isn’t the issue—it is that they are not, pound-for-pound, as strong as men. And that creates a social dynamic. He asked how often the Czar has seen a woman struggling to lift something or carry something, and the Czar instinctively runs over to assist. Nearly every time, right? Not that the woman couldn’t manage—the instinct to help is thousands of generations old.

Second point: he agreed that a disciplined, tightly integrated unit functions without distraction. But that was exactly the problem: in a squad, if not a full platoon of men, they become brothers. Each man fights extra hard to keep his brothers alive and safe, and knows full well that his brothers have his back as well. It works well, and has for centuries.

But if you add even a single woman into the platoon, the social dynamic changes. She becomes your sister. And there is a huge difference between a bunch of brothers beating the boogers out of each other and a family of brothers protecting their sister.

So he said it goes like this in the real world: a woman joins a platoon. The men are excited about it, and welcome her in. They give her plenty of space, are impressed by everything she can do, and even note that she (like most women) can instinctively outshoot the men with a weapon. Having a woman around the barracks is pretty cool.

But then they deploy. The orders are clear: take out an enemy position. The platoon is tasked with clearing some barbed wire out so the second platoon can pass through with heavier weapon. The team divvies up their tasks accordingly and move forward. Rather than climb up the first fence, the brothers stop, instinctively, to ensure their sister makes it up and over.

When the reached the barbed wire fence, the platoon moves in, rifle bullets whizzing past them. Rather than fan out and hit the fence in multiple points, the brothers cluster and tell their sister to stay behind them. She cuts her hand on a section of barbed wire. Rather than focus on their tasks, two of the guys crawl over to make sure their sister’s all right.

Okay, they got the job done, but do you see the differences? Add up these little “distractions” (which are not sexual but social) and the efficacy of the platoon is compromised. In an even more critical situation, it can be counterproductive.

Then consider what the Ranger called the Dry Creekbed scenario, which he personally experienced in Desert Storm.* Pinned down by Iraqi troops and low on ammunition and on rescue time, the men had to individually battle their way out—each would sequentially run out under fire while the others distracted the Iraqis with return fire. He said that each man knew that if they didn’t do this, they would be killed or captured, and if captured they would be tortured badly. But the bounding overwatch technique worked, and they got out in one piece.

Had one of them been a woman, he said, the plan would have been rejected: at least five guys would cluster around their sister, because there was no way in hell the enemy would capture and abuse here—even if it meant most of them had to die.

That’s a hard-wired instinct folks, and the enemy knows it. Only a textbook reader would falsely conclude that “Well, the stats show women can do it; the men will just have to get over their antequated notion of chivalry.” The Czar, whom you will remember from many posts has little problem with gays serving in the military (provided they do so on absolute military terms and no exceptions are expected or granted), now understands that the weakness isn’t with the women—it’s with the men; specifically, their general inability to treat women decently.

So both objections are correct, but not for the pop culture ones. They are valid objections when you look at people not as genders but as a species.

*Incidentally, this guy was a character in Black Hawk Down, although his character’s name was changed. And that wasn’t his worst experience, either.

Mailbag - Chalk Trauma edition

2012-02-09T17:06:00.001-05:00

Our Royal Exchequer, SW writes in:

I've enjoyed your musings over the state of education both because I often agree and because my daughters are teachers. One of them, currently a professor teaching teachers has a perspective you may want to consider.Rather than paraphrase her I'll direct you to the source:

Robotic

"So how do you respond to critics and naysayers who believe that people who choose to be teachers know less or are less competent than those who choose to be scientists or historians or mathematicians? You've heard sentiments such as this, right?"

They all nodded, but stared at me blankly.I tried again. "So what do you say to them?"

Finally, a student offered, "We're experts because we passed a test. It shows that we're highly-qualified."

"You're an expert because you passed a test?" I asked, a bit incredulously.

"Well, yeah, it shows that we know the content."

Several students nodded their heads in agreement.

But a fellow student disagreed. "That test really just acts as a waiver. You don't even need a degree in the subject you want to teach. You can just pass the test."

This conversation then led to a larger conversation about testing, particularly of K-12 students. And most of what I heard from my students were canned sound bites that I hear repeated in the news and from Arne Duncan.They were also trying to tell me that it was rather impossible to get into secondary classrooms to do their observation hours because of all the testing.

"So you're telling me that they are testing kids from now until the end of May?"

They just shrugged their shoulders.

"What the heck are they testing them on then?"

Again, they just shrugged their shoulders.

"Well, Naomi, how do you know if teachers are doing their jobs if you don't test kids?"

And I countered, "So what is exactly is your job? And don't tell me that it's just to get kids to pass tests."

The blank stares returned.

Exasperated, and realizing that I didn't want to reach the pinnacle of my soap box on the first night of class, I said, "Well, I guess my job this semester is to help you come up with a better retort to your naysayers and critics, because right now, telling them that you've passed a test so you can help kids pass a test isn't going to cut it in my world."

Later, I realized that the students who sit in my classes, students who want to be teachers, have grown up in an educational world completely hinged on testing and results. They've never known a different way. They don't even think to question whether this is the way that things should be, and this reality freaks me out a bit.

I now need to figure out what to do about it.

Dear SW,

Dr. J. was fascinated with the dialogue between Naomi and her students. While many of the teachers at the New Atlantis Jedi Academy are young, they are very knowledgable in their craft.

Indeed, when the Lil Resident's 3rd quarter interim grade in the Sith Arts was surprisingly low (an A-, for those who care). So we sat down with Darth Jenicus to make sure there wasn't anything we could be working on with her, and while Darth Jenicus had no real concerns (except to make sure we weren't giving the Lil Resident an ulcer by having a Sith Lord/Sith Teacher meeting over an A-). Dr. J. suspected it was simply that during the first half of the marking period, there wasn't a lot of material in the Sith Arts covered, and her initial struggles with letting the hate flow weren't realized until she was graded on it, and it caused a little bit of grade drag. There will be plenty of opportunity for her to get those grades up.

Also, her prophecy homework was getting harder, though she was doing well with it. So she discussed, in a very academic manner, what we could do from an enrichment standpoint, and to approach divination different ways.

So the Lil resident is spending some time on the weekends force choking squirrels in the back yard and rooting through their entrails in addition to entering trances while doing handstands and lifting rocks.

Dr. J. says this because his interaction with his childrens' teachers is very different from the expectations that Naomi's students have with regard to what their jobs are, presumably in the public school setting. Dr. J. and Darth Jenicus see their relationship as a partnership to teach the Lil Resident in the ways of the force with a goal of mastery of the subject at hand and how to apply and use it.

Given that Mrs. Puter and Mrs. The Czar are teachers in public schools, they may have some commentary on what is different between what experienced teachers are doing compared to the new teachers rolling in and on the effect that testing has on the teaching environment.

That being said, with each passing year, the interns and residents at NAITMC have become a little more passive than in the past. Dr. J. has pontificated in the past that the work hour restrictions and perhaps generational issues have castrated many young doctors in training to be passive worker bees for the attending physicians. Doing what they are told well, but rarely taking initiative and telling us the goals of care. There are always gold star interns and residents, but many of them do what they're told, and what needs to be done, rather than wanting to 'run the show' as they say.

Back in the day, when Dr. J. was an intern, his goal was to be seen by his patients and the attendings as running the show. By doing a great job and taking charge, an intern or resident was given more latitude and his reputation among his peers (which mattered to him) was higher. One's colleagues slept better knowing they were handing off to you. Now, with the most stringent of work hour reductions, there seems to be a bit of apathy, and indeed, even physical diagnosis skills are atrophying just in time for Obamacare to kick in and reduce reimbursement for the imaging tests we have been using as a crutch in the management of patients in many cases where the physical exam would suffice.

Oh yeah, apparently today, 10 states have been granted waivers with regard to No Child Left Behind. Dr. J. doesn't have much opinion on the law, or the waivers beyond saying, Bush gets points for trying to hold teachers and schools to standards, but if it hasn't been working, the law should be repealed and replaced, or perhaps the Feds should get out of what should largely be a local and state issues and create less busy work for the teachers. Dr. J. hates busy work.

Day Two: 'Puter's Rage Hardens Into A Dark, Venomous Ball

2012-02-09T15:44:00.006-05:00

'Puter's still fired up about the Obama Administration's ill-considered decision to cram down its version of morality on the Catholic Church, 2,000 years of carefully considered theological consistency and 224 of American Constitutional law be damned.

If anything, 'Puter's more infuriated by the logical leap the media's permitting the Obama Administration to get away with. Let's assume for the moment that every massively intrusive program the Democrats can devise, from Social Security to Welfare to ObamaCare, is a right. Even assuming these to be rights, there is no basis in law or tradition to require third parties to pay for exercise of your right.

Czar noted here 'Puter's recurring debunking of this logical and legal fallacy. 'Puter's example goes as follows.

If 'Puter is required to pay for your abortion and/or birth control, then you have to pay for his guns. Not so please now, are you hippie?

It is not 'Puter's fault if you don't have the cash to exercise your so-called rights. You know why? Because real rights cost nothing at all to exercise. Let's go to the place most Americans look when they think of rights. It's time for Con Law, boys and girls! Put on your helmets, and keep your hands away from 'Puter's face. He bites.

Amendment I, U.S. Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

1. Generally, 'Puter's view is that the phrase "Congress shall make no law" is clear. So clear that even the most addle-pated morons gone soft-brained through years of public education indoctrination can understand it. Congress (that's the U.S. one, dimwits) shall make no law (a prohibition, or, for the MSNBC cadre out there, a no-no). So, Congress can't make a law. A law regarding what? Let's look.

1a. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Pretty simple. Congress can't establish a national religion. As a citizen, you have the right to be free from a state imposed religion. This was a huge deal back in the day, when many of the lands our predecessors left required you belong to the correct religion in order to work, or to own property or to marry. This is a right that costs nothing, and yet it's vitally important.

1b. Congress shall make no law ... prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]. Congress can't make a law that prevents you or your Church from following your belief system, within reason. This sounds as if it would prohibit HHS from using ObamaCare, passed by Congress, from forcing the Catholic Church from violating its tenets regarding a consistent ethic of life (read: birth control). As 'Puter's noted elsewhere, if Congress wants to prohibit free exercise, courts review the law under a strict scrutiny standard, which in layman's terms means it'd better be the only way Congress can do something that's vitally important to the nation, so important it requires us to ignore the plain prohibition on doing so.

1c. Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech. It's the same thing here. Congress can't mess with your right to speak freely. No matter how abhorrent your views.

1d. Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom ... of the press. This is a favorite of the media, one they never fail to trot out when they've irreparably damaged nation security by printing nuclear warhead design or confidential diplomatic cables. Guess what? Congress has a really tough time preventing the media from disseminating whatever it damn well pleases. It's that pesky Constitutional protection of rights.

1e. Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble. First, let's admire the good grammar of our Founders, not splitting the infinitive. Second, let's agree that the First Amendment prevents government from infringing on your First Annual Black Panther/Ku Klux Klan get together, no matter how much your craptacular viewpoint may deserve it.

1f. Congress shall make no law ... abridging .. the right of the people ... to petition the government for a redress of grievances. So Congress can't prevent you from bitching up a storm to your representative's office, or sending hateful (nonviolent) email to them. That's pretty cool.

We've run through the First Amendment. We've found that it defines our rights by limiting what the government can and cannot do to you, the individual, in certain areas. Over the years, Americans have wrongly internalized this to mean the Constitution created these rights. Actually, these rights are God-given, the birthright of every human wherever located, but protected from government interference in only very few special places, America among them.

In the First Amendment's limited arena we learn that the Founders believed that we each possess certain rights, and among them are those listed above, primarily concerned with communication, criticism and religion.

How much does your right to bitch and moan about taxes, or the one percent, or Whitey T. Mann cost? Nothing. Not one plug nickel. Sure, this doesn't guarantee your shitstravaganza of poorly reasoned diatribes any audience, but that's not what your right is. You don't have a right to 30 minutes of airtime on MSNBC to pontificate about how you used to fluff Tip O'Neill and Teddy Kennedy like Chris Matthews (a favorite nominal Catholic of 'Puter's) has. You have a right to say what you think, and that's it. You also have a right to suffer the consequences of your dipshittery as the Dixie Chicks found out to their surprise, but that's for another column.

This analysis goes for anything we consider rights.

'Puter's got the right to keep and to bear arms. This right does not provide a concomitant obligation on the Brady Campaign to pony up its misbegotten dough so 'Puter can go buy himself a Barrett M82, as much as 'Puter would like that.

The Supreme Court created a Constitutional right for women to have abortions. To the best of 'Puter's knowledge, the Supreme Court hasn't yet gone so far as to hold that aborters have the right to force the rest of us to pay for the murder of their child. But sit tight, it's sure to come if President Obama gets to appoint more Supreme Court nominees.

So if health care wasn't important enough to make it into the Constitution, whether originally or by amendment, why should it be treated any differently than those more important rights acknowledged therein? It shouldn't. Even assuming you have the right to health care (including birth control), you don't have the right to insist anyone else pay for it.

Congress is not prohibited from legislating health care law. Congress is not prohibited from taxing us to fund its ill-considered whims. It is, however, prohibited from doing so where the enacted laws violate the Constitution, as the HHS regulations do.

Man up and pay for your own birth control. If 'Puter's not getting laid, he's sure as Hell not paying for any portion of the transaction.

'Puter will now walk off, slowly muttering to himself, along with Sleestak and Dat Ho.

Exeunt omnes.

In which Dr. J. cries "Freedom..."

2012-02-09T12:36:00.000-05:00

Dr. J. is going to be perfectly clear.

Anything less than total removal of the HHS rule requiring all insurance coverage providing free (not really free, but other people paying for your stuff) contraception, sterilization and most importantly, abortion medications is unconstitutional and goes against conscience protections under the first amendment.

Dr. J. ran the list on the IOM recomendations a few months ago, btw...and most of the recs are ridiculous. This stuff we are facing now is not new news to your Gormogons. We tend to be ahead of the curve. Prescience and all that...

Make no mistake. Offering waivers (bribes) to key constituencies should not suffice, such as letting Catholic not-for-profits off the hook. Do you hear Dr. J., Father Jenkins??!!?

The rule needs to be gone and this is why.

If Dr. J. were to start his own business, he should be able to provide whatever benefits he wishes. As a Roman Catholic (Papist), he would eschew purchasing group coverage for his employees that would cover those above mentioned services.

Indeed, at present, Castle insurance coverage doesn't include this. We cull the Tcho-Tcho's if they over breed, but that's it.

If he lost employees as a consequence, he'd hire ones cool with his benes. He suspects he would have no trouble finding replacements grateful for his Ole Fezziwig like management style. Honestly, he would be paying them enough that they could cover any such needs >GASP< out of pocket.

As a practicing Catholic (we practice because we are still trying to get it right), his freedom of conscience is no different, and should not be treated differently than if he were running a Catholic branded not-for-profit. His freedom should be weighed equally. That is being lost in the uproar!

Those of you who believe in conscience rights heed this warning and accept no less than complete repeal of the rule, and ultimately Obamacare from errant Catholic Secretary Sebelius and President Obama. They already crossed the line. Knowing the Obama administration, the will keep at it from an infinite number of angles until they win, or they're gone from office.

Now back to your regularly schedule program...

Since the Czar asked…

2012-02-09T10:54:00.000-05:00

You say “Μολὼν λαβέ” in Russian thus: «Приди и возьми!»

We now return you to our regularly scheduled screeds.

Debunking the Spin

2012-02-09T10:37:00.001-05:00

Anna Franzonello over at NRO's Corner pens a great piece debunking what I've heard many liberals spit out in defense of the Obama Administration's HHS mandate: many states (some claims say 28, some leave it as "many") already have this mandate in place. Ms. Franzonello takes that apart:

First, it should be noted that mandated coverage for contraceptives is actually unprecedented in nearly half the states.....
Second, many of the states with contraceptive mandates provide broader exemptions than HHS, and thus the HHS mandate and corresponding regulations would trump reasoned state protections.

Did you catch that? Not only is this an affront on religious freedom but it is stepping on state laws already in place. Go read the whole thing.

Bridge Too Far

2012-02-09T09:16:00.001-05:00

Borepatch takes time away from his award-winning or whatever writing to carve this message into a dead Thracian warrior’s helmet. Not sure where he got a dead helmet as opposed to a live one, but the guy is resourceful to say the least:

Dread and Terrible, etc:

in re: your recent missive - which I must point out was entirely correct - there crept one minor area which might (in your haste, no doubt) have have been overlooked.

You said, "Once you successfully attack the First Amendment, all other aspects of the document are rendered trivial."

The Founders (rightly) made this the first amendment, that is being actually tested today. It's no mistake that they wrote the Second Amendment at the same time.

A modern translation for the Progressive Elite might go, "You can have my Catechism when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. Mολὼν λαβέ, biatches!'

Err, I'm sure that it sounded better in the original Old Russian.

Yours, etc.

(In all seriousness, this is simply astonishing, and is one example among many of the Bridge Too Far syndrome from this cabal of "Smart" idiots that will galvanize the electorate by their overreach. A President Romney will only dampen this effect)

The Czar is contemplating a post on what the Rick Santorum Effect will be on Mitt Romney, which should be pretty interesting to his detractors and a little worrisome to his establishment supporters.

But until then, what the heck is the Russian equivalent of μολὼν λαβέ? Correctly translated to “Since you’ve come, take (them),” Russian’s lack of an aorist mood makes translating the first word tough, and the lack of an object makes a single word translation for the second word unwieldy at best. We should stick to the original Doric Greek.

The Czar unsurprisingly agrees with you that the first two amendments are written in a very specific order, and that the First Amendment guarantees four freedoms while the Second is most specific. Not to turn this into Bible study, but the First Amendment is the people’s only resource to prevent tyranny in this country, and the Second Amendment is the people’s only resource to take liberty back from a tyrant. Should the First fall, you have the Second. Anyone can see why Leftists have been attacking the Second Amendment since the 1930s: hampering the Second Amendment makes whittling away the First Amendment very easy.

Mailbag: Three for Three

2012-02-08T20:47:00.000-05:00

Well, we empty out the mailbag and it fills back up. You people are awesome. The Czar received no less than three most honorable messages.

First up is our official archivist. What a delight she is! As you know, we have about two-thousand years of junk accumulating in our basement, ranging from stuff we swiped to magazine articles written about us dating back about 200 years. MbernadetteE has been hired to archive all of it. She evidently became overcome by the acres of mess, and took a break to compose the following:

My first email to the Czar! I'm moving up in the world. Normally I read your posts, share them with the world, think about how awesome they are, and continue on with my day. However, today I felt the need to respond. (And cc: 'Puter, cause this type of subject seems to be his bread 'n' butter.) So here goes.

Of course, I write in response to this. My main focus is on your assertion that the following two things are happening in the US as a result of HHS/Sebelius/Obama's decree that, as Bishop Zubik of Pittsburgh put so eloquently, effectively says "to hell with you" to all believing Catholics. Ah, so you note "a stunning lack of understanding from people as to why this is such a big deal, and an amazing amount of support from non-Catholics." Yes, to both. However, I'm noticing a third thing happening that has me struggling to determine just how much time I should devote to explaining the teachings of the Church we know and love, and how much time I should just spend shaking my head while continuing to do things more productive to society.

The third thing I see happening, currently, can best be summed up as "people of a variety of faiths and non-faiths, from evangelical Christians to moral atheists and all manner within that, declaring that because a majority of (nominal) Catholics voted for President Obama they deserved this mandate, were blind to think it wouldn't happen, and have no right to declare their opposition. They've made their bed and must lie in it, and I have no empathy for their position."

First things first - have you seen this elsewhere? Perhaps I just need to widen (or narrow) my circle of acquaintances. [I have heard someone say] the following last night: "Dear Catholic leaders: you were willing to bone my country to get your universal healthcare passed. So guess what - you can Suck. It." (among other similar sentiments)

Now, goodness and logic know that I'm far from anything defined as a "Catholic leader". That said, I am in fact a practicing Catholic who votes in any and all elections, and rarely if ever supports liberal politicians -whether Catholic or otherwise - who believe in the concept of 'social justice' (a valiant aim) but fail to truly believe in subsidiarity and solidarity in conjunction with social justice. I didn't vote for Obama. I didn't "bone my country", and I fought against universal healthcare from the get-so, because I'm logical and know what a mell of a hess it would be. So perhaps I shouldn't take this as a personal affront, but for as heartening as it is to see other Christians, Jews, and even Muslims standing with the Church as she speaks out against this violation of religious freedom - and thus attack on the First Amendment - it's just as disheartening to see/read/hear things like this. Is it a minority position among conservatives? Yes, I am sure of it. Is it a position I think conservatives should be taking? Well no, not so much. I think most everyone I know (that has a fondness for liberty and rights) sees this as government simply taking the first step to revoking liberty for all, and all would be benefited by standing up against it.

Intrigued to hear your thoughts, if/when you have a moment to spare to indulge such a #goodminion.

Oh, and as a faithful reader, a debunking of the "98% of Catholics use birth control therefore the teachings of the Church are irrelevant in the modern day and bishops are just creepy old white celibate guys who like to discuss sex" myth would be awesome. Just sayin'. When you get a chance.

I'll be in MD/DC for the CPAC chaos this weekend. I'll let you know if I hear any rumors regarding the spreading of Esperanto.

As always, Archivist-In-Training,
MbernadetteE

Hello, hello, hello. The Czar will leave matters of the catechism to dear ‘Puter, who knows it so much more than the Czar. However, we not be of much reassurance when we say the issue of the HHS letter is more serious than some prima donna attitude—which we have heard from many people—you voted for Obama, now you reap the reward.

Let us make this very clear. The HHS letter is a blunt, immediate, obvious, and very forceful violation of the First Amendment. It’s that simple, and worse, the Obama adminstration has been aware of it for some time. This is not a matter of “deal with it,” any more than an attack by a foreign power on American soil is somebody else’s problem. This one hurts all of us.

You can step back and say, as some are, this is way more than a bunch of pissed-off Papists; you can argue this is indeed an attack on all religions. The Czar says you should go one step further: this is an attack on all Americans who respect the Constitution. It is brazen, and anti-American.

Once you successfully attack the First Amendment, all other aspects of the document are rendered trivial. This is not a case of You Wacky Democrats or That’s A Liberal For You; this is a case of President Obama breaking is oath of office to protect the Constitution. And he doesn’t even care beyond the now real dread of losing the Catholic vote.

And by precedent, the Czar wonders what guarantee of Free Speech now protects his criticism of the President. The Bill of Rights is like a balloon: it doesn’t tolerate the smallest hole.

Also, with great humility, the Czar is honored to receive a missive from LTC Dan, whom the Czar thanks for his service. Thank you, Colonel, and let us look at your email:

Sir,

I'm only a retired disabled veteran who converted to Catholicism in 1983. There are still many things I don't understand about our religion.

Not the least of these is, how can any self-respecting Catholic vote for a progressive in the first place? Granted, I voted for one like that before I was forced by circumstances to get a job and support my family, but having learned a thing or two since then, the question remains...

I suppose one can claim to be Catholic and still ignore the pro-fetus-murder plank of the progressives. Seems to me, conservatives and progressives each have single-issue voters. Problem is, the progressives have single-issue voters that vote progressive in favor of that one issue, and conservatives have single-issue voters that don't vote for conservatives (or don't vote at all) in opposition of that one issue. Doesn't make sense to me.

Thanks for your help,

LTC Dan

The Czar agrees completely. ‘Puter hit on this today, in fact. The Church is in dire need to start addressing the sloppy behavior of some of its older members. Vatican II let too much slide.

Allow the Czar to be a bit more blunt: you cannot call yourself a Catholic and vote for a Democrat on the Federal level.

A couple of explanations: first, the Czar—as perhaps some of you know—is the least church going member of the Gormogons by far. Indeed, when it comes to religious loyalty, we are pathetic. Terrible. But even a badly wayward and sinful Czar can point to the truth and say it: Catholics cannot justify supporting pro-abortion candidates without exemplifying the most extreme hypocrisy. If you call yourself a Catholic, and knowingly support candidates who approve of murdering children, nothing else in your faith matters.

Second, the Czar stipulates the Federal level. There are likely many Democratic candidates at the state and local levels who are not Catholic but adamantly oppose abortion; they just aren’t in a good position to do anything about it. But if you are the president, a senator, or a US representative—and are a Democrat—than you bear responsibility for not introducing legislation to end sanctioned murder of the most innocent humans imaginable. Remember your Cicero: qui tacet consentire videtur—he who is silent is seen to assent.

The Czar would tie into ‘Puter’s jeremiad today, and suggest it is time for Rome to make it very clear to American Catholics that it has gone too far. The Church has a duty to protect her faith, and she needs to give her followers a simple choice: oppose pro-abortion candidates without fail, or seek redemption elsewhere. Reagan and Romney learned, and they weren’t Catholics: murder is reprehensible in any form.

Finally, we receive a letter from the distinguished Professor Mondo, whom you should be reading daily:

Esteemed Terror of the Steppes and/or Escalatorres:

As a devoted garage rock fan, your post (while I found it encouraging) also reminded me of this:

My concern would be more along the lines that we Xers may be shortchanged all round by the bulges in the python that were/are the Boomers on one end and their offspring on the other. Also, I think there's a real risk that the Boomers' Gramscian Long March has left a cadre of indoctrinated nitwits (e.g., President Zero) to succeed them in the Codevillian Ruling Class.

Best as ever,

Mondo

The Czar understood about every other word of that. How did you do?

Good to see Shelley Winters is still finding work.

'Puter Goes Pro-Choice

2012-02-08T18:34:00.000-05:00

And 'Puter chooses freedom.

Generations of immigrants have done so, abandoning their old lives, setting off for America's blessed shores, believing that America's foundational ideals would enable them, and if not them then certainly their children, to build better lives.

These brave immigrants believed -- knew -- that America was the place to be. Anyone could be anything in America if they worked hard enough, unlike at home. In America, they could criticize the government in the streets without fear of government retribution, unlike at home. In America, they could own their own land, farm their own fields, build their own business, unlike at home. And, most importantly to many Jews and Catholics, and more recently Muslims and Falun Gong, practice their chose faiths freely, without government imposition.

Well, no more. Welcome to the tipping point, America. We have a government committed to taking away our fundamental freedoms. Freedoms so basic that they are actually the first freedoms listed in the Bill of Rights, guaranteed by America's foundation document. Freedoms so revolutionary millions of people voluntarily gave up everything they had and came here because of the promise.

It is time we Americans who have lived here our entire lives, in the cushy materialism and seductive vacancy of our culture, look at America with an immigrant's eyes. Do we want an America where individual choices that harm no one are subjugated to the opinions of unelected bureaucrats? Hell, no.

America's guarantees of individual rights and limited government unique in the world, and worth a vigorous defense. Is America perfect? Again, Hell, no. But it's the best there is. Sure, Canada's nice, but you can't have a gun, and your right to speak is dodgy if you're perceived to be mean to gays or Pakistanis or Muslims. (It's OK to pile on Jews in Canada, though. They're not a minority. Or, at least they're the wrong kind of minority.).

'Puter's an absolute ass. He's hard-headed, opinionated and abrasive. But you know what? 'Puter's capable of making his own decisions. And God help the government official who gets in his way. 'Puter's already sued his local school district (and won) for impermissibly using government property to support school board candidates with "acceptable" (pro-union) viewpoints. 'Puter's not going to be scared away when you come with your Code of Federal Regulations. You'd better come hard, G-Man, because 'Puter's dead serious about this, and he will bury you so deep beneath a mountain of pleadings that you'll retire before you dig out. And you won't outlast 'Puter. He's to ornery to die, and he'd never give you the satisfaction.

Anyhoo, 'Puter's been mulling over Secretary Sebelius' HHS regulations for the last several days. 'Puter's come to several conclusions and observations.

1. The Obama Administration walked into a buzzsaw here. Worse, they did so because they are so out of touch with America outside the Beltway and the hallowed fraternity of right-thinking coastal elites they didn't know it would be a problem. Who could possibly object to making those pointy-headed Catholics, with their sexist, misogynistic, all-male priesthood dressed in quaint costumes, violate their core beliefs? Certainly not right thinking people.

2. The American Catholic Church currently reaps what it has sown post Vatican II. For far too long, Rome and the local bishoprics have allowed Catholics in place of public prominence to misportray Catholic teachings. Even worse, the Church has stood idly by as "Catholic" politicians from Kennedy to Cuomo have treated the Church's positions on adultery and right-to-life as optional. Worst of all, 'Puter's Church has utterly failed to catechize the several generations raised during and immediately after Vatican II, leaving no one to act to protect and to defend the Holy Mother Church.

2a. Much of the priesthood ordained from 1970-1985 are self-loathing Catholics. They don't like the choice they made, but see no way out. They vote against the Church's teachings. 'Puter's pastor announced in a homily that he voted for pro-abortion Obama. These men are doing a grave disservice to a great institution, both religious and societal, through their sinfulness.

3. A growing minority of Americans, and possibly a majority of all politicians in both parties, are only too happy to treat the Constitution as a set of old-timey recommendations. These suggestions can be ignored without fear, so long as so doing is in service of a Big Idea. Most Big Ideas arise on the left, however, and involve subjugating the individual to the government. The irony is lost on liberals that the one Big Idea that matters, the Constitution, is four-square opposed to their grand schemes.

4. If you don't understand that the HHS regulations spell a new nadir in government-individual relations, you've likely sustained a massive head injury while huffing canned air and mainlining an eight ball. If Obama's HHS can tell Catholics they must violate a core belief or exit the public arena, there is no meaningful limit on government power. And if you didn't see this trajectory coming with Obama's "you participate in a market by refusing to do so" laugh-track of a legal defense of ObamaCare, you're as blind as Ray Charles.

4a. If Obama can tell Catholics they must provide birth control, it's a short hop to telling Catholic hospitals they must provide abortions. After all, both are legal, and both are women's reproductive health needs. This leaves aside the argument that if single women kept their knees together, or engaged in alternate activities, there is absolutely no need for birth control. Dependence on birth control and abortion is dehumanizing. There. 'Puter's said it. The Church is correct. Humans have free will, along with conscience and self-control. We can simply refuse to have sex. Yes, it's difficult, and yes, it's unpleasant. But the Church's view celebrates our human dignity. The Obama Administration's position treats us like instinctively rutting animals with no control. We have to provide abortions and birth control, because women are too stupid or randy to control themselves! No, women are not. They just aren't required to do so any more. And before you lefties get your panties in a wad, if you're in fact wearing any you filthy hippies, no, 'Puter is not arguing for a ban on abortions or on birth control. What he is arguing is that you let 'Puter and his gosh darned Church act according to their relatively mainstream views and be left the Hell alone, that most cherished of American rights.

4b. Riddle 'Puter this. If Obama's HHS can require Catholics to provide birth control, why can't it then ban minors from receiving Holy Eucharist in both species? For you non-Papists, at a Catholic Mass, we receive bread and wine, which we believe has through God's miraculous intervention, been transformed literally to the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Now, you may think this stupid fantasy, reenacting a human sacrifice weekly to appease our Sky God, but it's what we believe. Are you so willing to deify sex that you're willing to prevent millions of Americans from practicing our faith? The Obama Administration sure seems willing to do so.

That's all 'Puter's got for now. Suffice it to say, it ought to be clear to you that we are in a struggle for America's future. Turn left, and enter a world where the government slowly and surely subjugates your decision making to its. Or, we can go back to the future, the future where we are all like immigrants, coming to an America ready to keep her promise to protect our rights to choose for ourselves.

'Puter has made his choice. Make yours.

Hoist By Their Own Petard

2012-02-08T10:32:00.001-05:00

Oh, make no mistake. It's not revenge he's after. It's a reckoning.
—Doc Holliday, Tombstone (PBUVK)

Want some pop psychology?

This country is about 20 years away from a reckoning. Not revenge, as our scripture quotes above, but a reckoning: an accounting. Here is why.

Right now, look at all the liberals in high positions of pop culture. The media, Hollywood, television, fashion, the arts, critics, the record executives. Know what nearly all of them have in common? Boomers. And where were they in the late 1960s and early 1970s? Either hippies themselves, or greatly influenced on college campuses by the leftist slash anarchist slash radical crowd. Yes, that describes a large number of elected officials as well.

They were children of the World War II generation; they were terrified of war, living under the shadow of the Cold War nuclear clouds. Mom and dad wanted them to have everything they were denied, and an entire generation grew up feeling like society owed them everything. They heard songs about how great they were, how this special snowflake of a generation was going to change the world. Ordinary rules do not apply to them, and so forth.

In the mid-to-late 1970s they started to experiment with obtaining power. They got into disco, bell bottoms, and symbolic independent art film. Yes, basically, they were responsible for the nadir of American culture. Broke, coked out, and bored, they exiled themselves in the 1980s into junk bonds, LBOs, and other get-rich-quick schemes to suck off the teat of the burgeoning American economy. In the 1990s, they accumulated enough wealth and influence to put themselves into power, starting with the “I didn’t inhale” Clinton presidency. And this is where it completely fell apart.

But here they are, deciding what television programs we will see, what films win awards, what types of music become popular, what clothes our kids wear. They push their liberal memes as often as they can as hard as they can, with all the fervor of any old-timer trying to recapture the youth of his high school and college years. Much of popular culture, you have already noticed, is driven by nostalgia now. And whose nostalgia is driving it?

Within 20 years, they will be nearly all retired; all out of business. And who will take their place? The generation who learned about freedom, liberty, and a free-market economy during the 1980s, who developed their sense of Americana when Reagan was president. And there will come the reckoning.

Each year, already, we see that the average number of self-identified liberals ticks downward a point or two while the number of self-identified conservatives ticks up faster, eating away into the post-Boomer moderates. Each year, there is less and less opposition to conservative values—and why not? Since the end of the Roosevelt presidency, it has consistently been easier for a liberal to become conservative than the other way around: few conservatives switch sides.

And, with painful regret, we must acknowledge that the World War II generation will have largely passed away. While we miss their guidance and reminders that sometimes America has to be pushed to the brink for Americans to show their absolute best, we have to also acknowledge that they, among the greatest defenders of government entitlements, will be silent. Certainly, the Boomers will crave their lavish social welfare and will enjoy it in greater numbers; but they already know that the fuse on this has been lit. There is only so much defense they can offer before the next generation begins lopping off its limbs.

The change is inevitable, and Boomers will view it as seeing their world come undone. Conservativism will, from their point of view, be rammed down their throats. But nothing so dramatic—ask the kids who grew up in the 1960s through the 1980s whether they had a choice in participating in the Boomers’ world. Yes, it will be unpleasant, but not because anyone is forcing the older generation to obey; it will be unpleasant because the grownups will have to start paying the bills and undoing the party damage.

The Boomers started the Generation War. And they will be its largest victims.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for Ice Cream that devours you!

2012-02-08T09:26:00.001-05:00

Now with bigger chunks of soul. Mmmmm...souls...

Mailbag: No, Tim...

2012-02-08T01:37:00.001-05:00

The Royal Mathematician to the Gormogons, that other Dr. J, writes into the Czar. And this caught him by surprise, because the Czar looked up and down the length of this email and could not isolate a single instance where the Czar screwed up Physics 101 and Dr (KN)J had to correct him. Write this day down.

O Dread and Majestic Czar,

The whole subject of politically-correct labels is one that has amused and irritated your Royal Mathematician for years. In addition to the abominable "African American" appellation, there was at one point, a "Spanish Surname" protected category that was equally problematic. This was, of course, designed to affirmatively act in favor of some folks, mostly of Latin American heritage, who (or whose ancestors) have been historically treated poorly, but it also included, for example, some Castilian Spaniards of my acquaintance whose ancestors had never been treated as less than near-royalty. The category, however, excluded another acquaintance of mine whose Spaniard ancestors were treated rather poorly in Spain, then again in Latin America - his name is Appelbaum and he is descended from an old Jewish family that has been in Spain off and on since before the time of Ferdinand and Isabella.

One of my office-mates during my postdoc years was a white South African mathematician who routinely checked the "African American" ethnicity box - he said, "I'm African and I'm in the process of becoming an American citizen - if the term doesn't apply to me, then what does it mean?"

On the other hand, among the current congregants of my church we have a delightful family from Botswana who are here for graduate school. Our young pastor, out of force of externally-enforced habit, will occasionally refer to them as "African Americans." I can't count the number of times I have said to him, "No, Tim, they're simply Africans."

—Dr. (KN)J
Royal Mathematician to the Gormogons

Santorum: Nobody the NYT Knows Voted For Him

2012-02-07T23:10:00.002-05:00

It is astonishing that anyone can possibly take the New York Times’s political reporting seriously anymore. It is beyond satire.

Check out an early story about the Rick Santorum stampede. First, the only picture they could find of him? A shot of him brushing glitter off his coat after being hit by a protestor. Because, the NYT wants to remind you, they have decided that Rick Santorum HATES gay people. And there is no nicer picture of him. So here is a photo of him being hit with glitter. By a protestor. You can figure out why. Hater.

Then, check out the opening two paragraphs:

His candidacy all but dismissed just days ago, Rick Santorum held a strong lead in the early returns from the Minnesota caucuses late Tuesday and won a nonbinding primary in Missouri.

With his unexpected victory near, Mr. Santorum was suddenly presenting new competition to Newt Gingrich as the chief alternative to Mitt Romney, the front-runner. Mr. Santorum’s showing also provided another sign of the continued unwillingness of some of the party’s grass roots to rally behind Mr. Romney.

Anyone who has been using more than two digits of their IQ to follow the news lately is well-aware that Rick Santorum’s campaign has not been dismissed by anyone sensible, and that he would almost certainly win Missouri and Minnesota. So let us rewrite the article more truthfully:

Although we here at the Times dismissed Santorum as a second declension genitive plural Latin noun, he seems to have won a couple of states. But don’t worry: these elections don’t really count. Heck, we already forgot about Iowa. Which is even more west than Ohio, we believe.

Anyway, we didn’t expect him to win, and now Romney might have some stronger competition, especially since we like to think the Republican party is totally fractured and in shambles, unlike the massive numbers of unified Democrats who outnumber Republicans probably like 15 to 1.

Anyway, the real story is this.

You will be reading a lot in the next few days that Mitt Romney now has real competition, but that Rick Santorum lacks the political machinery to clinch the nomination. After all, Santorum has a very small organization and virtually no money to speak of. This is all true—but look at it this way: although he wins no delegates from these three primaries, Santorum has pulled in a significant number of actual votes. That’s enough to get serious looks by big donors. Certainly this should be enough to push Newt Gingrich out of the picture for a while, but overall this is still Mitt Romney’s show.

So the Czar agrees with estimations that, all things considered, Rick Santorum may be one of the better run campaigns that will not achieve nomination; however, the battle between Santorum and Romney may be much, much closer than early dismissals would lead you to believe. Remember, too, that conservatives are itching for a reason to bail on Romney. Newt Gingrich is kinda scary. Ron Paul is scary. Santorum was too far behind in the early polls to warrant attention—but that could change fast. And a lot of voters queuing up to vote for Mitt Romney may think twice.

The next two-to-three weeks may well be the most important in Rick Santorum’s life. He will need to be 100% on his game, ready to go, and gaffe-free. Because by March, he can legitimately threaten Romney’s remaining delegate count, or he can implode dramatically. Rick Santorum is, right now, a guy who literally cannot afford a single mistake.

Catholics Are Right: This Is A Serious Problem

2012-02-07T19:43:00.003-05:00

The Czar is already hearing that large (even massive) Catholic organizations across America are rallying for a major fight against the HHS letter that forces Catholic institutions hiring secular employees to cover abortion (through day-after pills), contraceptives, and a host of other things that Catholics must oppose on religious grounds. Fireworks will be starting this week in a massive awareness campaign.

Two things are resulting from this, nationally: a stunning lack of understanding from people as to why this is such a big deal, and an amazing amount of support from non-Catholics. The latter is not really all that surprising, but the widespread nature of it (Jewish groups, Mormons, Lutherans, et al.) is unexpected.

Most of the former group, who cannot fathom the issue here, tends to latch onto one of the following fallacies:

Look, it’s the law, and you gotta obey it. Catholic-based employers obey all sorts of laws without a problem: tax collection, OSHA requirements, ADA, and more. This is another business regulation; if you don’t like it, get out of the business.

Catholics have no right to impose their beliefs on non-Catholics. This is, not surprisingly, the ACLU’s stated position. Therefore, they should obey the law to the letter.

Where does this end? Okay, so Catholics don’t want to obey this law for political reasons. Does this then mean that a conservative think-tank doesn’t have to obey the same law for the same reason? Or a Democratic or liberal-based organization doesn’t have to obey a law about paying property tax on a building they own? Why should Catholics get an exemption?

All three fallacies revolve around the same misunderstanding: this isn’t a simple political tantrum; abortion, to even the most nominal Catholic, is murder. The law is forcing Catholic organizations to compensate individuals for committing murder, which is of course a legitimate objection under the First Amendment.

The HHS letter is requiring Catholics, via the First Amendment, to violate a higher law. The first objection does not apply, because standard business regulations have never asked employers to knowingly violate any law. Second, the ACLU objection falls apart because, they may have noticed, indentured servitude and slavery have been outlawed: no one is required to work for an employer who opposes them ideologically. On the other hand, the Catholic-based enterprise has no recourse under this law to opt out. The employee has the civil liberty they need to opt out; the employer does not. The third objection fails because this is not a political disagreement: it is a specific and fundamentally religious violation.

Ghettoputer has an ongoing and quite successful analogy that always seems to work. Guess what? It works here, too: imagine if the government required all employers to arm their employees with a handgun. Imagine that was in the HHS letter, under the idea that by so arming most Americans, they would cut down on deaths and injuries resulting from violent crimes. Imagine the hue and cry that would bellow out of the Left; you now get an idea why Catholics must, by definition (as their local churches are reminding parishoners), oppose this law.

This is a significant gamble for the Obama administration, who very recently assured America they will not back down on this issue. Catholics were essential to his election in 2008; and by and large, few Catholic priests offer much coercion to vote for Democrats. But this one issue has become a lightning rod for the Church, and priests are openly advocating their flocks to rethink their support of the President. Indeed, by the catechism itself, Roman Catholics are compelled to vote Republican at the federal level.

In the Ted Kennedy years up and into the Nancy Pelosi era, Catholics knowingly looked the other way when many of their friends and fellows voted for pro-choice Democrats. As one spokesperson for a gigantic Catholic employer said on the radio this evening, this has to change everything.

Author Tim Groseclose predicts that Obama will be forced to back down on this issue as a shift in Catholic voting will ensure a Republican victory this fall. So far, the administration is vociferously insisting they will not back down, and despite Catholics pointing out they were promised otherwise in a series of assurances from the President, the message is clear: go ████ yourselves.

Gonna be hard to come back from this one, especially so late in an election year. And, more to the point, it will be very difficult for the GOP to ignore this issue in the next few months. Of course, the Obama administration could suddenly at the eleventh hour grant a waiver and take all the credit for it against “typical Republican obstructionism.” But even the most squishy Republican candidate will find it hard to resist exposing this as pure anti-religious pomposity: a series of quotes from Jay Carney insisting it is the law, and Catholics do not matter, and you have an incredibly embarrassing television ad all written by the President himself.

And you might see it running in a few days.

Mailbag - How Things Work - Chemo Edition

2012-02-07T11:39:00.003-05:00

Dr. J. has received a bunch of email of late, so the next few posts will be delving into the mailbag. As each is a different subject, they all will go up in their own due time. Hopefully interspersed with some other topics of Dr. J.'s choosing. This is sort of like 'Open-Line Friday' on Rush, but with none of the bombastidity. Hey Czar, bombastidity a word?

Dr. J.'s New Jersey homeboy, @jedmo writes in:

The Good Doctor J

I don't know why I am thinking of this but I am. I watched the movie 50/50 (I liked it very much). But it got me thinking about chemotherapy (I realize this is fictional movie) but it got me thinking nonetheless. I read Christopher Hitchens' last piece in Vanity Fair. The quote about that which does not kill only makes you stronger in which he basically says bravo sierra to that.

Chemo to me seems to be worse than the disease. How can something that kills healthy cells, nauseous, makes your hair fall out etc. be good. It seems to me the cure or supposed cure is worse than the disease. I find it amazing that someone who may feel sick but is relatively OK then gets a cancer diagnosis and usually goes down hill from there. It amazes me the power of the mind. What is the benefit of chemo? To me it seems at best to give you some limited time here on Earth but at an extremely costly price. The treatment is brutal. I don't know what I would do if faced with such a dire diagnosis but I would think long and hard about subjecting myself to that horror.

Seems to me you want something to build your body up to fight a disease not systematically break it down.

Just curious your expert medical opinion.

ThanksLoyal Minion

@jedmo

Dear @jedmo,

There are a number of different ways of thinking about chemotherapy for cancer. Dr. J. will, like an old school oncologists, try to hammer you with all of them until you say, 'I can't stands no more!'

First, all chemotherapy means is using drugs to treat an illness (specifically cancer), as opposed to surgical treatment and/or radiation therapy. Oncologists basically picked that term, so we're stuck with it.

Second, cancer, by and large, kills people. There are few cancers, such as basal cell and prostate where more people die with it than from it. Historically, few cancers were, and still are detected sufficiently early, such as Stage I colon cancer, where bright lights and cold steel are curative. Advanced and aggressive cancers (e.g. acute leukemias, blast phase lymphomas, stage II and beyond solid tumor cancers) can kill fairly quickly, so the goals for a treatment are, in order, to cure the disease, delay progression of the disease, make the patient feel better than if they aren't on the medication.

Third, given that people die, and can die relatively quickly and with much suffering, the side effect profile of the treatment can permissively be worse than for other diseases. You would not accept hair loss, protracted nausea and vomiting, and susceptibility to infection to treat, say, mild allergic rhinitis, strep throat, hypertension, or even coronary disease with stable angina.

Given these philosophic points, lets look mechanistically at how chemotherapeutic drugs work.

Thematically, they all work the same way, even though their detailed mechanisms are very different from each other. They prevent reproducing cells from succeeding. The cells in your body are either reproducing or they aren't. The drugs used target cells when they are in the growth phases of the cell cycle (S - DNA synthesis, G2 - Pre-mitotic gap, M - Mitosis).

Now there are healthy cells in your body that are turning over rapidly. The lining of your alimenary canal (the inside of the mouth, through to the entire GI-tract), hair follicles, bone marrow (red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets), and even skin.

As a consequence these areas are affected while other areas, such as the lungs, heart, bones and muscles historically were not noted to do so. Some drugs, such as vincristine, because they affect microtubules in reproducing cells, also affect microtubules in stable cells, such as nerves, creating long term neuropathy, but you live to enjoy that problem.

Now we have become victims of our own successes. Through a legion of clinical trials, we have improved therapy and survival for patients. We have also improved symptomatic treatment (nausea, vomiting, pain, hair loss) through other drugs and smarter dosing/dose timing of medications. Since then we have identified therapies causing longer term effects (secondary malignancies, heart failure, accelerated coronary disease) of chemotherapy, especially breast cancer (where survival is much much improved) and childhood malignancies.

We are also now using more mild (and not so mild, in the case of Avastin), targeted small molecules (e.g. Gleevec) and biologics (Herceptin) that specifically target the cancer cells themselves.

Chemotherapy has been in evolution. As time has moved forward, treatment for malignancies has become better tolerated and with better outcomes. There are still malignancies (acute leukemias, metastatic melanoma, and others) where the therapy is absolutely brutal, but with time, we are refining those treatments as well.

Dr. J. hopes this answers your question, but if it does not, write back for your second cycle.

Mailbag - Satan Whispers...

2012-02-07T10:29:00.000-05:00

Gentle Readers,

Dr. J. received this email from the one and so far, only, the Great and Mighty Borepatch. We hope you read him everyday, just as we do!

And by hope, we mean, "You will read Borepatch everyday..."

He writes:

Dr. J,

I was moved by your post on the struggles that women have with their past abortions. It brought to mind the expression "one dead, one wounded" that you sometimes hear.

It also made me think on how Satan is rightfully called the Deceiver. These women were told that it was no trouble, that it was right, that it was their choice. That message was whispered in their hearts. Some of them to this day hear a whispering in their hearts that the easy way was the right way.

As one of those who grew up very liberal, I find it saddening that so many who pride themselves on their desire to protect the weak find it so easy to listen to those whispers, and to ignore the weakest of all. I find it saddening that so many who see themselves as firmly more enlightened and thoughtful that the rest of society find it so easy to listen to those whispers.

I must confess that I find it gratifying (if unworthy) to reduce to spittle-flecked rage those Global Warming advocates who like to prattle on about the "Precautionary Principle" - that if we're not sure, we should err on the side of doing least harm, by asking them to apply that Principle to the issue of abortion.

Thank you for your post.

Borepatch

Mailbag: African? American?

2012-02-07T09:10:00.001-05:00

Folks have been writing in on the Czar’s distaste for the term “African-American.” And for pretty much the same reason: it diminishes who Americans are. N or S writes in:

The difficulties inherent in the term "African American" were brought home to me by an article I read several years ago about a US delegation to Liberia. It was plain from the writing that the newspaper had a strictly adhered to style manual. What was not clear, when they referred to someone's race, was whether they were talking about a black Liberian or a black American. Both were referred to as African American. I never could figure out if one individual was an American who had moved back to Liberia, a Liberian who was style manualed out of his heritage, or some other black African. Technically, I suppose he could have been a white American whose family emigrated from Africa to the US but as soon as you wander in that directions heads begin to explode.

Indeed, RC adds to this with this equally awkward anecdote:

As pointed out, "African-American" is a problematic term, because it isn't precise, but another problem people usually don't think of is that it ALSO includes white people from Africa, like the guy I know who emigrated from South Africa to the US and then became an American citizen. Sometimes he calls himself African-American just to mess with people.

The Czar risks repeating himself, but you don’t get to be a 700-year-old tyrant without taking a few risks. Or repeating yourself.

One of the easiest clues that a term is a PC-term from the 1980s is that the result produces more awkward and messy results than it could ever hope to prevent. The entire political correctness riot of the late 80s and early 90s was a perfect study in the law of unintended consequeneces. And as a term, African-American is a crystal example of the danger in labels by committtee. Thanks for writing in, everyone!

In Loco Parentis

2012-02-06T16:07:00.000-05:00

'Puter spends a fair amount of his time frequenting Wegmans, as it is truly the happiest place on earth. If not the happiest place on earth, then certainly the happiest place in godforsaken Upstate.

So 'Puter's standing in the checkout line, pretending not to notice all the cute moms who wear their tight yoga pants and workout tops to grocery shop (even though many of them have never been anywhere near a gym/yoga studio/Curves). Seriously, ladies, don't pretend you don't want me to notice your figure if you're wearing skin tight spandex and bending over directly in front of me.

Now where was 'Puter? That's right. Standing in the Wegmans checkout line. The woman in front of 'Puter has a grocery cart and conveyor belt full of food, stuff 'Puter doesn't buy for himself because it's either junk food or too danged expensive or both. The lady in front of me was paying for all her food with a combination of cash and an EBT card.

'Puter was amused, then pissed off, realizing that this woman was purchasing junk food with his taxpayer money. 'Puter thought it couldn't possibly be that the government, particularly one whose First Lady is so focused on childhood obesity, would permit purchase of crap. Boy, was 'Puter ever wrong. Apparently, SNAP (food stamps) can't be used to buy booze, tobacco, hot prepared foods, paper products or supplement/hygiene products, but pretty much anything else goes. The USDA says:

Soft drinks, candy, cookies, snack crackers, and ice cream are food items and are therefore eligible items.

Seafood, steak, and bakery cakes are also food items and are therefore eligible items.

Great. So 'Puter's funding the layabouts' Cheetos habit. If they were industrious, recipients could use your money to figure out how much Coke and Pop Rocks it takes to make them hurl (or explode, like Mikey). Soda and candy are on the USDA approved list.

And, heck, if the multi-generational welfare recipients could figure out how to cook it, taxpayers would be financing their lobster and swordfish habits as well. There's nothing but common decency (less likely) and ignorance (the likely culprit) from preventing these purchases, and your government's hunky dory with it.

So, after refocusing on the task at hand rather than the lovely distractions, 'Puter got to thinking. Welfare recipients are nothing more than fully grown children, dependent of foolishly lavish and slightly senile Uncle Sam to meet their every need. In the legal world, we have a phrase for that relationship: in loco parentis. Essentially, the institution is acting in the place of the parent, with all concomitant rights and responsibilities.

Let's apply this doctrine to the welfare recipient. Further, let's make the assumption for this discussion only that the current level of benefits are wise, humane and just, not in any manner profligate.

1. Food stamps. A parent can tell a child what he can and cannot eat, simply by offering no other choices. Similarly, the government should have an exceptionally restricted list. Canned of frozen fruit, vegetables and legumes seems reasonable. Skim milk to drink, or 100% vegetable/fruit juice would be fine as well. For protein, the aforementioned legumes along with fresh or frozen ground beef and chicken would seem to do just fine.

Even better, rather than providing EBT cards, we should have recipients show up at the grocery store with ID, which will be run through a computer. The individual will then receive once a week a cart full of provisions geared to the caloric needs of each individual in their household. Let's reintroduce some discomfort (and perhaps shame) into this process. We may find soon enough that people would find it preferable to find employ somewhere rather than eat --shudder -- healthy food.

2. Subsidized Housing. This one's easy. If 'Puter's paying for your house, as he is for his own children, he can consent to a search of their rooms. 'Puter's house, 'Puter's rules. Similarly, if you are living in government housing, the government has a right to enter your house at reasonable times just to look around and make certain everything's up to snuff. If this search turns up evidence of a criminal activity, so be it. If you don't like it, figure out a way to move to private quarters you pay for yourself. Beggars can't be choosers.

3. Health Care. If you're getting government health care, you get minimal service. You will be helped, but the government is free to make value judgments and provide minimal treatment. If you're a 60 year old smoker with lung cancer, no treatment for you. Welcome to opiate based hospice care and an early grave. Need a kidney transplant at 75? Nope. Dialysis is cheaper. 'Puter would, though, fund walk in clinics in poor neighborhoods to take strain off emergency departments. Heck, we're already going this way anyway with Obamacare.

'Puter's not saying there is no government obligation to help those unable to care for themselves. 'Puter thinks there is such an obligation. 'Puter accepts his obligation to support the truly disabled, including those elderly who cannot work any longer.

'Puter is saying, however, that America's generosity has created multi-generational families comprised of otherwise able-bodied and able-minded nominal adults who have learned how to exist on the system without working. And it's about time we put a stop to this.

America needs to bring back shame. Shame at being able-bodied and refusing to work.* Shame for living off your neighbors with no thought for them. Shame for your failures. Shame drives us to work harder, to better ourselves, to get off the dole. One should be ashamed, and shamed, to be a freeloader.

With a liberal application of in loco parentis and shame, 'Puter's plan might just be the next big thing.

*'Puter makes a distinction between the individual refusing to work and the individual who cannot find work. The latter should not be shamed, for he is likely ashamed to be on the dole in the first instance. However, after, say, 99 weeks, the latter transforms to the former. You can find or create your own job in two years. It's time to get off your ass and do something.

Lies, damned lies and Facebook...

2012-02-06T11:47:00.000-05:00

Dr. J. is letting everyone else do his work for him today, as he has a crazy day at work.

This, however caught his eye, and as such he recommends reading it, if only because the first graph was being spread from lefty friend to lefty friend via Facebook and other reliable media sources (see #donut).

First is the graph that made its way around cyberspace several months ago...

From this it appears that President Reagan was the worst President ever regarding spending and the debt, followed by President GWB. And it intimates that the Democrats are fiscal hawks. Two things aren't looked at, which are absolute increases in debt, and debt per year.

Indeed, GorT tackled this last summer.

Well our friends at freedomworks.org have also added information popping the Democratic balloon as well by adding these two figures:

AND

What these figures add is the reminder that the Congress controls the purse strings and consequently a Republican controlled House of Representatives has been less fiscally irresponsible than a Democrat controlled one.

Now the Gingrich era in the House appears, by far to be the best with regard to deficits, they had advantages, however. There was Republican control of the Senate. There was a Democrat President who found it more important to be liked than be an ideologue (not that there is anything wrong with being an ideologue, mind you, but BHO can't change his stripes). And third, there was a crap-load of unexpected money coming in via the tech-boom.

This is what figure 3 above looks like when you stratify by House/Senate control (h/t SBVOR) Just turn it upside down to match it with the others.

Two more things in the Republicans defense. When Newt was replaced by Hastert, the Republican pigs started eating at the trough...resulting in the great purge of 2006. Even Dr. J. muttered under his breath, "A pox on both your houses" when Pelosi took the gavel, hoping to God that Bush would use his veto more than he did. Second, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in the current divided government has effictively played chicken with the house to prevent them from putting too much of a dent in spending.

The take home message is that Congress continues to spend more than it takes in, but Democrats are far better at it than Republicans. Disciplined Congressional leadership is critical, so local primaries are as critical as the November congressional races. If the Tea Party was born in response to Hastert's excesses in 2006 rather than Obama's in 2010, we might not be in as big a pickle as we are in. Dr. J. in part blames a sleeping public (though 'roofie slipped' public might be more apt). But as we learned in 2010, the sleeper has awakened (but might be taking a cat nap, given the Republican Presidental Primaries).

Now that Americans understand the issues at hand, Dr. J. hopes that smart decisions up and down the ballot will occur in 2012.

Mmmm...#donuts

2012-02-06T09:42:00.002-05:00

How you document your donut eating says even more about you than your choice of donut...

h/t - Some friend of a friend on Facebook.

Big Howdy to the ShieldCroc

2012-02-06T09:42:00.001-05:00

Pro-evolution thinkers are happy: scientists have confirmed that Aegisuchus witmeri, a fossilized creature, neatly fits into a parallel arrangement with Aegyptosuchus peyeri, a 95-million year old cousin of both crocodiles and alligators who all sprang off the Eusuchia line.

No doubt creationists are happy, because scientists now have two fossil gaps to explain: whatever was before them, and whatever was after. You know, like how science has yet to explain who was president between Jackson and Van Buren, and who was president between Van Buren and Harrison.

"How I Really Feel Is I'm American"

2012-02-06T01:53:00.000-05:00

A most interesting story can be found on The San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate.com. Within, witness a story in which a certain percentage of people prefer to call themselves black rather than African-American.

Two things. First, you should always be wary of stories like this. All it takes is for two or three people to say they prefer to speak Elizabethan English, and the media will run a story about the “growing number of Elizabethan English speakers.” This story makes no attempt to cover up that we do not know the percentages of blacks versus African-Americans; neither does it stipulate the number may be less than a dozen.

Second, the polls cited herein do not really give any indication of what blacks prefer to be called; to its credit, the story (originally by AP writer Jesse Washington) focuses on that aspect. So don’t read this thinking that the term “African-American” is actually on its way out.

But it should be. First, the term is meaningless. While not as bad as the racially offensive “people of color,” which sounds nice but actually has an insult built into it (given there are multiple meanings to color), African-American is a terribly exclusive term: many blacks are not African. Some blacks are neither African nor American. A Libyan who becomes an American citizen is an African-American, but is not black. And so on.

The linked story even mentions how many people reject the term, and attribute it to political correctness. Absolutely it is, because the more you think about things like in the preceding paragraph, the more you recognize one of the hallmarks of political correctness—choosing a word or phrase as a label that actually fails to provide correct denotation.

But the bigger problem with African-American is perfectly captured in a quote from Shawn Smith, an accountant from Houston, who said: “I prefer to be called black,...How I really feel is, I’m American.” Zing goes the Czar’s heart. Forget the black part—Smith nailed it when he said he is an American.

Most correct. Smith goes on to add that not a single one of his relatives has any connection to Africa; the family stories from mom and dad revolve around Macomb County, MS, and Shelby, NC—just as yours probably do. Is Smith any less an American than anyone else? Hell, no.

But then again, the report notes, the African-American buzzphrase was heavily promoted by Jesse Jackson, starting in 1988, as part of a “cultural offensive.” No surprise. Because if there is one thing we can say about Jackson, it’s that despite his close proximity to Martin Luther King, Jr., he never heard a single word the good reverend ever said. The phrase “African-American” would have been anathema to Dr. King, who like Smith would have identified himself solely as an American.

So what should blacks call themselves? Who cares—the entire notion is a waste of time. The Czar likes how his boys do it: they say things like “the man with the dark brown skin” or “the woman with the light brown skin.” Skin color is only an attribute, but never as important as whether the person is a Man or a Woman.

The Czar’s boys also have a collection of small flags from every country in which they carry blood: Ireland, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and so on. Guess which flag flies highest? And ask them what nationality they are? American.

If this culturally rich, genetically diverse, and widely differentiated community wants to call itself black, or something else if it’s so important, fine.

But please: call yourselves Americans. We all deserve it.

Mailbag - EMTALA edition

2012-02-05T06:00:00.000-05:00

Operative DT writes in:

RE:"if they don't want to pay for practices they consider immoral, they should stick to serving their own co-religionists rather than the wider public"

Dr. the J, EMTALA has rendered even that unlikely option impossible, hasn’t it?

In effect, if a doctor wants to keep his soul, he has to quit his job. Pretty cool, eh?

Best, Operative DT

Dear Operative DT,

Dr. J. is happy to see, unlike Operative JS, you aren't too busy with the Myrmidons to do your required reading. Gold star for you.

EMTALA, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, for our readers who are not in the know is the Federal Law passed in 1986 that states that pretty much any hospital has to offer emergent, necessary care for individuals regardless of their citizenship, legal status ability to pay. Dr. J. says virtually because VA hospitals, Indian Health Service hospitals are exempt, because they already serve subsets of the impoverished and it is very difficult to get someone who isn't a participant in those systems (or employees) to be registered to have care delivered.

Indeed, someone crashed their care in the VA parking lot when Dr. J. was a resident, and we provided CPR until an ambulance could take him across the street to the University Hospital. He wasn't a Vet, so there was no way we could effectively deliver care for him because he just wasn't in the system. The nice thing is that VA's tend to be near other hospitals.

The other big exception is the Shriner's hospital who because of their limited scope of practice (orthopedics, burns and such) can't provide care to adults, or individuals with health issues not within their purview.

Regarding the quote from the Douthat article, Dr. J. sold his soul to get in to medical school so it isn't an issue for him.

The truth is that the actions that the Obama Administration is taking is with the goal to force Catholic (and perhaps other religious) hospitals to shut down. They won't do what he wants. They won't provide abortions or access to birth control to patients, and now they have to make a choice regarding employees. Buy health insurance antithetical to their believes or take a financial hit that may force them to close shop. The health insurance issue is not so much on the doctors, but on the hospital administration.

Now Dr. J. is against the HHS rule, not only because of its attack on religious freedom, but also it makes horrible medical economic sense. He wrote about it before. Uncovered services for women (birth control, sterilization, and even abortions), like all uncovered services (OTCs for example) are CHEAP. The costs will only go up if you make them 'free services covered by insurance.'

Obamacare is onerous in other ways to private for-profit hospitals, that they will struggle as well.

The goal, ultimately, is to force the system to collapse and make the public beg for a 'single-payer' system, aka Guv'mint run healthcare.

Everywhere

2012-02-05T03:51:00.000-05:00

The Czar and Mandarin were very careful to leave their mark at their alma mater decades ago. If you look closely, you can still see evidence:

Comic Books Meet Dungeons and Dragons

2012-02-04T14:00:00.000-05:00

Dr. J. used to work in a comic book store as a youth. Just humor him. It's been a long week.

h/t geeksaresexy.com

Ok. Ok. I'll put the Batman one up too.

A Tale of Two Abortions...

2012-02-04T06:00:00.000-05:00

Reaction formation - n - (psychiatry) a defense mechanism in which a person unconsciously develops attitudes and behavior that are the opposite of unacceptable repressed desires and impulses and serve to conceal them; "his strict morality is just a reaction formation to hide his sexual drive"

Dr. J. promises that this will be his last post on abortion, hopefully for quite some time. Mailbags willing, of course.

This post has been germinating in the back of Dr. J.'s mind for a couple of weeks, since the anniversary of Roe v. Wade was marked. The Lil Resident had dance practice on MLK day at a nearby Catholic school. Student and parent volunteers were laying out 3600 crosses on the front lawn of the school, commemorating the number of infants lost to abortion every day. Mrs. Dr. J. let it slip that it disgusts her that there are so many women who kill their children when there are so many families who can't have children or wish to adopt.

Since then, Dr. J. has had to have age appropriate conversations with each of his children to explain why grown ups would want to kill their offspring. He suspects that Mrs. Dr. J. has had to do the same. To the Lil Resident, he explained that while he would rather save this conversation for when she is a little older he is willing to say that there are some women who could have their baby, but are simply selfish, but there are others with such a sense of hopelessness about themselves, their situation and their future, that they can't see any other option beyond this. To the Lil Med Student, who would ask, "Why would people want to kill their babies?" he has simply said, there are people out there who make bad choices. Of course his next question, heartbreaking as it was was, "You would never kill me, right?" Dr. J. could do nothing but hug him and say, of course not.

Before Dr. J. gets on with the substance of his post, he would like to make a comment regarding his most recent post.

When Dr. J. was running the numbers on abortion to make the point that Gen X and the Millenial generation are 58 million smaller than they otherwise would have been without the scourge of abortion, and the consequential impact, he neglected to discuss aspects of abortion that make his discussion potentially an overestimation of the economic impact, and that is that abortion is largely a predatory action upon the poor and African-Americans who have a disproportionate number of abortions.

Indeed, The Czar took him to task for this over martini's at the Castle bar this afternoon. Dr. J. told him that NRO's own Jonah Goldberg did far better justice to this subject than he ever could and he should either read that chapter in Liberal Fascism, or just read this editorial, which nicely sums up that aspect of the scourge of abortion. It is not a coincidence that many Planned Parenthood offices are in lousy neighborhoods.

Dr. J. is writing this post because the shrill reaction of many pro-choice women to the Susan G. Komen foundation announcements regarding its funding of Planned Parenthood.

In four decades of life, Dr. J. only knows two women who have had abortions. There may be more, of course, but he doesn't know that they've terminated a pregnancy.

In December, Dr. J. was at a medical research regulations and ethics conference in D.C. (the one at which he enjoyed a pitcher of Guinness with GorT).

There was a woman who was speaking on a panel about how to Institutional Review Boards handle controversial research. This woman was clearly a first wave feminist, with the severe haircut and all.

Her entire sociology/behavioral psychology research was in the area of studying Post Abortion Grief. Recently she wanted to study how faith based support groups functioned to address Post Abortion Grief. She told the audience that 1) she didn't have Post Abortion Grief (denial) 2) she was not a spiritual/religious person. That being said, Dr. J. believes there probably are a small subset of individuals who do not have post abortion grief, but they are a very dark, heartless subset of humanity who have no value for human life. This woman was not one of them.

In order to perform the research, the group told her that she had to be a participant as well as an observer. She spent her entire lecture time talking about her experiences with the group and how she never had Post Abortion Grief, so she didn't want to participate. Dr. J. observed that she respectfully fought tooth-and-nail their attempts to help her cope with her pain that she denied that she had. Given that her entire research career revolved around the subject of abortion, it was clear to Dr. J. that she had guilt about her actions, but her lack of spirituality, and Progressive feminist brainwashing, prevented her from finding a way to forgive herself for her actions. In essence her career was a form of inadequate penance for her actions.

When Dr. J. was in about 7th grade, he had a friend, DB who he went to school with. DB was different than Dr. J. Dr. J. was Roman Catholic; DB, Jewish. Dr. J. was conservative; DB, liberal, Dr. J.'s parents were Silent Generation; DB's Baby Boomer. Dr. J. wanted to be a doctor when he grew up; DB, a comedian/entertainer.

Dr. J. and DB were talking about his upcoming Bar Mitzvah, and Jewish tradition regarding special treatment of the first-born (dating back the the Jacob/Esau deal). Anyway, DB told Dr. J. that he had an older brother, but his parents weren't ready to have children yet, so his mom had an abortion. Even in 7th grade, Dr. J. found it totally messed up that DB knew of his mom's decision to terminate her first pregnancy, but Dr. J. also saw a sadness in DB. A sadness that DB understood that his mother terminated a older brother that he never got to meet, or have a relationship because she wasn't ready to have kids a few years before he was born. He also was saddened because he knew that it stood to reason that if his parents weren't ready when he was conceived, he could have also been on the proverbial chopping block.

Mrs. DB was not just a mom who had an abortion. Since then she spent the rest of her life trying to justify that decision. When Dr. J. was growing up, she was a feminist (in the mold of Gloria Steinem), an activist. She rose to the local NOW chapter President. She raised her son to be a sensitive new-age guy feminist castrati, and her daughter to be equally strident in her views (as evidenced by her recent Facebook posts).She even tried to shake Mama J. down for a few bucks to 'support women's equality through a donation to NOW' despite knowing Mama J.'s conservative Catholic bona fides, preying on Mama J's willing to write a check to keep a friendly acquaintance friendly. Mama J. was smart enough to make a directed gift to preserve the historic homestead of a pro-life feminist that was part of the local chapter's fundraising efforts.

Several years back, the local parish on Main Street of our town would put a banner up across Main Street saying, "Life, what a beautiful choice." Mrs. DB hit the roof, screamed ZOMG!!1!!!!2!!!ELeVENTY!!!!!!!" and stormed the town zoning office about the banner. Apparently the town had an ordinance stating that all banners across Main Street must advertise an event. That was certainly true. In all of Dr. J.'s life, he could not recall a banner that did not advertise an event. The Monsignor took down the banner, added a line advertising a screening of a documentary, and the banner was back up.

Dr. J. in observing Mrs. DB's actions basically saw a woman who, in his opinion was sufficiently wracked with guilt over terminating the life of her first unborn son that she dedicated her entire life to vociferously and passionately championing the cause of abortion as a coping mechanism for the emptiness and pain she suffered as a consequence of a decision she made out of fear.

While President Obama would tell you that he would not want his daughters, "punished with a baby," Dr. J. would tell you that he is completely wrong on this, as he is with pretty much every thing else. As you can see from these two examples, abortion has a painful and damaging effect on the mother. While some find ways to forgive themselves, with the help of the Church or other faith organizations, others who eschew religion double-down on their decision and become champions of the cause because they fear they cannot cope with the realization that they took the life of their unborn child.

This lies in stark contrast to the far larger number of individuals that Dr. J. knows who, when faced with an unplanned pregnancy, chose life. To a one, none of those individuals, who Dr. J. knows personally, regrets the decision to bring that child into the world. One put her child up for adoption, and was happy with that decision. Each and every one of the remaining women who chose to raise their child never regretted that decision and have proudly brought some wonderful young men and women into this world, people with whom the world is clearly a better and brighter place.

Better Jump On The New Meme Bandwagon

2012-02-04T01:58:00.000-05:00

We better do this before everybody else jumps on the bandwagon, too. We waited too long on that Netscape IPO, for example.

Mailbag - Cancer devours from within...edition

2012-02-03T13:21:00.000-05:00

This missive arrived by bicycle courier from Operative JS regarding yesterday's required reading assignment:

Dear Dr. J,

I don't think you've been there long enough to tell us what to read. YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD!!!1!

God Bless,J S

ps- keep up the good work, you're alright [sic.] in my book, no matter what the Czar says

Dear JS,

God Bless you as well! Thank you for writing in and for thinking Dr. J. is 'alright' as well.

Sadly, however, you are actually incorrect regarding the eldrich powers that Dr. J. is permitted to exercise.

According to the Gormogons' bylaws, there is a probationary period of 6 months. As Dr. J. was initiated on June 29th, that probationary period ended on December 29th. Dr. J. may now make reading assignments with impunity!

Muah ha ha ha ha...

Operative KH also writes in with letters cut out from ads in Us magazine.

Well, doctor,

Between the HHS rule and the manufactured uproar over Susan G. Komen, it looks like Gloria Steinem's wish has come true:Abortion is now a sacrament.

Ruefully, Operative KH

As a preface, Dr. J. is disappointed in the apparent caving to the abortion lobby that Susan G. Komen made today. The checkbook is closed for the time being, and future contributions will go to the American Cancer Society, unless Susan G Komen grows a pair.

Dr. J. digresses.

Dear KH,

Abortion has been the sacrament of the left since 1973. And a false sacrament, it is. There is no grace given by it, rather, it is a curse on the future of any society. Above and beyond the immorality of abortion in itself, it is a bad financial move for the left given their statist agenda.

With Generation X and the Millenials being smaller in size than the Baby Boomers, and with Boomers entering retirement with a sense of entitlement to the fruits of the workforce's labor, and a longevity not enjoyed by generations prior, the debt is on the cusp of exploding. With 58 million Gen X'ers and Millenials never born, this would translate in 2012 to about 33,000,000 more adult aged Americans eligible to participate in the work force, be additional drivers of our economy and help to delay the entitlement crisis that is looming before us. This would mean 33,000,000 more adults poised to buy the growing inventory homes as Boomers downsize.

The pro-choice harridans of the Progressive movement clearly failed basic math. Little did they realize that by killing their young, they were also killing the people whose wealth was to be redistributed into their pockets as they became old. Progressives are always shortsighted, and it always blows up in their face. Sadly, they have always caused a lot of collateral damage in the process.

True Story

2012-02-03T10:23:00.001-05:00

Time for a true story about the Czar’s sainted mother?

The year is about 1994. Some acquaintances of hers begin speaking in non sequiturs and laughing hysterically, much to her annoyance. She demanded an explanation, naturally, and her friends asked “Haven’t you seen Sleepless in Seattle?”

“Is that the one with Tom Hanks?” They said yes, surprised that she hadn’t seen a film that won so many awards and accolades. Her friends advised her to rent it at all haste, and that it was one of the funniest films they had seen in years.

About two weeks or so later, she found herself in one of the then-ubiquitous video rental places, staring up and down the aisles. A clerk asked if he could help. She naturally forgot the name of the movie—it was on the tip of her tongue—but said “I’m trying to find this Tom Hanks movie that won all those awards; it came out last year, maybe? It has a city in the title.” The clerk knew immediately what she was looking for and handed her the cassette.

The very next day, she accosted her friends, furious. “How could you find that movie funny? That movie was terrible, it was so sad! I hated it. You heartless bastards.”

They stared at her. “You didn’t think Sleepless in Seattle was funny?”

The Czar’s mother blanked. “Sleepless in Seattle?”

“What did you rent?”

“Philadelphia.”

Still More on the Ever-Exciting Tax Subsidies Question

2012-02-03T01:23:00.000-05:00

Remember 1000 years ago when the Czar took on the task of reading the entire draft ObamaCare bill? He didn’t receive nearly as much email on that as he is on this subject of film tax subsidies. Amazed and MC have written back. Again. But obviously this is a more interesting topic than you or the Czar thinks, because there is quite a bit of passion here. Note, too, the similarity in the arguments. First up, let us commence with Amazed, as she led off the initial discussion. Amazed adds:

Oh wise one.......

With respect, MC makes the more cogent points here, methinks. Auto industry notwithstanding, in no other industry in the Midwest, that I’m aware of, does the State underwrite 42% of the industry’s customer base. In no other industry does the State say to customers “We’ll pay for 42% of your incoming business. Just yours, no one else's.” The State does not underwrite 42% of my customer’s insurance premiums or 42% of the pizzas at the restaurant down the street, why are movies made by gazillionaires who live elsewhere so special? Why is that industry so much better than mine.

Sorry – if a Government has to pay customers with taxpayer money to shop at your establishment or make something in your factory, it’s not really that good an idea, is it? Can they do it for everyone? Just a bit unsustainable.

It’s a bit like when I was an elected local official and one of the economic development types came to us with a deal to subsidize one year of rent for a company from another town to come in and compete with existing businesses (underwriting their profits with taxpayer money on an uneven playing field, to strain a metaphor), we told him to “take a hike, Mike”.

We need a better plan. I know! Lower tax rates and regs for everybody who does business in our state to a level that would make it attractive for everyone to do business here. The winners and losers will pick themselves.

Ever so sincerely,
Amazed.

And here is MC’s addendum:

But how much did Real Steel spend in Michigan? That’s also in there: $48,898,189. The Czar is no GorT, but it looks like the net revenues for the State of Michigan are (48,898,189 - 18,400,189 = ) $30,498,000, or a net profit of $6.93 per resident.
This was net spending per resident, not net profit. Obviously in order to get that $30.5M in revenue the individual business had to spend some money. If we say there was a (generous?) 20% profit on the spending, that means there was about $6.1M of profit for a tax subsidy of $18.3M.

One would hope that the State got more than $18.3M back in other tax revenue (increased state business) as a result of investing $18.3M in the movie. Did it? Doubt we can really know, and I doubt that it did.

But again I say, why should the film industry be afforded special tax treatment just because others do it? Again, lower all taxes for all businesses, not just the "preferred" ones like the film industry! This is the point - why is the film industry deserving of tax breaks not offered to others? If I can come in and generate $6.1M of business profit for a tax subsidy of $18.3M, should I not also get this subsidy?

I am arguing the general question of offering specific tax breaks to specific industries, not whether this break was a "good thing" for the residents of Michigan for this particular film. One can easily pervert an economy with the power to arbitrarily tax or not tax, as our current experiment in green energy shows. Reducing taxes on film makers is just as arbitrary and just as perverting of the economy.
Once you decide to make these subsidies, where do you draw the line? Is there an objective way of determining which industry is worthy of subsidies and which isn't?
At the risk of earning another decapitation, please answer this specifically.

After rereading the post I see you tried to answer with what might be considered objective criteria. Here's why I'm on about this.

There is a figure from a 2009 study that indicates about $1.08 would be returned for $1 in tax abatements (subsidies). Like most such studies, I suspect the numbers are weak and have error bars extending well below $1 (negative return). Why choose the film industry? Abate all the taxes! Choose all the industries!

Say all the states abate taxes on the film industry roughly equally. Now you have a straight subsidy since they get the tax abatement regardless of where they go. How about going the other way, where they don't get a tax break from anyone? Then they choose to film where it makes the most sense, not to get the better tax breaks.

Whew. Parts of those two emails practically sound each other, don’t they? Okay, in order in which they appear...and the Czar loathes this, because it looks like he’s short and rude with two very dear people, but he is quite unable to think of a better way of responding without spending another thirteen seconds of thought coming up with a better way. Here we go.

The State does not underwrite 42% of my customer’s insurance premiums or 42% of the pizzas at the restaurant down the street, why are movies made by gazillionaires who live elsewhere so special? Why is that industry so much better than mine.

Yikes, the Czar is nervous about people complaining about gazillionaires keeping their money. He will however get back to this shortly.

Sorry – if a Government has to pay customers with taxpayer money to shop at your establishment or make something in your factory, it’s not really that good an idea, is it? Can they do it for everyone? Just a bit unsustainable.

Here is the crux of it: the State did not pay anyone any money. They merely offered a tax credit, which has value, but does not transfer money to the recipient, as much as voluntarily not collecting it. An analogy here might be a store slashing its markup and passing the savings onto you in the form of a sale. Other shoppers are not necessarily paying for your savings; the store is merely absorbing the loss of profit into its general overhead.

Our argument, and the one that municipalities use all the time with TIFs, is that we would rather lose 5 years of revenues to gain 10 more, than see a property go 15 years without collecting a cent. A TIF, in that respect, is very much like a tax sale. It attracts buyers, so at least you make something rather than lose everything.

Lower tax rates and regs for everybody who does business in our state to a level that would make it attractive for everyone to do business here. The winners and losers will pick themselves.

No argument here! We love lower taxes. But we will return to that “winners and losers” concept in a moment.

No onto MC.

This was net spending per resident, not net profit.

The report we cited, which is the source of all the hullabaloo, states the following quite clearly in Exhibit A: Real Steel dumped $48,898,189 into local area businesses, including wages for 456 Michigan residents, moneys spent by non-Michigan residents, goods, services, and other expenditures. They are all broken out. The amount of money discounted from taxation was $18,400,189 and returned to the production as an incentive, minus $92,001 kept by the Michigan film office for their use. This means that the production company left almost $30.5 million in Michigan. In a business, that’s a profit that went to taxpayers, not to the state.

This is the point - why is the film industry deserving of tax breaks not offered to others? If I can come in and generate $6.1M of business profit for a tax subsidy of $18.3M, should I not also get this subsidy?

To your point, and to Amazed’s up above, many businesses qualify for subsidies. When a business is considering moving into a state, the state often offers a tax incentive to do so. When a business threatens leaving a state, the state offers them incentives to stay. The math is simple: the initial loss in revenues is offset by the increase in revenues in getting the business.

States, and other governments, are not businesses. That is something on which the three of us will agree. But states, and other governments, can do much to increase revenue without raising taxes. And making the states attractive to business is a sure-fire way to do it. Your linked story helps illustrate the Czar’s point: Nebraska rejects film subsidies, and is seeing potentially millions of dollars going to Kansas.

They are going to shoot the film somewhere. Location often does not matter; but if a state is willing to do business with a film company, or any company that could readily take signficant chunks of money elsewhere, they are welcome to consider it.

How about going the other way, where they don't get a tax break from anyone? Then they choose to film where it makes the most sense, not to get the better tax breaks.

Works in theory. But you are on a slippery slope with that idea: if that analogy is spread to other areas of business, you see some fallacies pop up right away. Should stores all offer the same price on an item? Should stock prices be the same? Obviously not: you need things to attract customers and investors alike. That’s basically what these incentives are doing.

And we do know what happens when states refuse to offer subsidies across the board: the film productions all go to Vancouver. Today, only most go North. Incentives keep that money here in the states. And by the way, what they heck is wrong with states competing for business? That’s one of the things our founders wanted them to do! Tax incentives are a darn simple way for one state to compete against another without necessarily outlaying cash directly.

Two points the Czar really wants you both to consider:

Subsidies are not offered to the film industry: they are limited to specific production companies. Further, many businesses qualify for subsidies under similar circumstances. The state wants money and it wants jobs; if the states stopped competing with tax incentives, the money and jobs would drift to Canada: film productions, auto manufacturers, intermodal facilities—all examples of where that exactly happened at one point in time or another.

Both Amazed and MC are using the phrase “winners and losers.” That argument works against the federal government picking specific companies (specific TARP banks, General Motors, Solyndra, etc.), because there are clear winners and losers. But that’s a bailout: a direct investment or outlaying of cash. A tax incentive is not a direct outlay: it is a reduction in revenues collected. Who is the winner? The film production company and the Michigan businesses they utilized and the Michigan residents they employed. Who are the losers? The other residents? They made their money back, plus. The state? The incentives cost the state nothing. It is essential not to conflate a federal bailout with states competing against one another for business.

The Czar understands—and agrees—that lowering taxes would be a great incentive. He will do you one better: notice that Democrat politicians always want to raise taxes on evil corporations to kill their job-killing profiteering? Yet, whenever the Dems really need to fix unemployement, what’s the first thing they do? They lower corporate taxes.

The discussion we have had about subsidies is proof: lowering taxes boosts employment, and the Michigan film office data shows how much money can be generated by lowering taxes to the nearest dollar. Heck, forget the film industry! Rick Santorum has a fairly sensible plan to offer 100% federal subsidies on all manufacturing industries. If you are a manufacturer, that’s irresistible. No, it won’t shut down the factories in China, India, and Indonesia, but it will allow those same businesses to expand like crazy here in the US, hiring folks by the hundreds of thousands at least.

Is that picking a winner or a loser? You have to decide that for yourselves, dear readers.

Dog bites man...

2012-02-02T16:09:00.002-05:00

This is a bit of a non-news-item, but it is worth mentioning. Art Laffer, supply-side economist, Reagan Administration economic adviser, and all-around great guy wrote an article in the WSJ endorsing Newt Gingrich's tax plan.

Dr. Laffer is an economist, and if he is going to support a candidate it isn't going to be regarding his or her position on gay marriage, a moon base, or even development of a 6th generation Fighter Jet. It is going to be with regard to which candidate has the most robust plan to stimulate the economy.

If Dr. Laffer was writing an endorsement for his country club newsletter, despite Mitt's tea-totaling status, Dr. J. would suspect that Dr. Laffer would much rather sink into a leather chair, across from the fireplace and make gentle conversation with Mitt over Newt. But, he is not making such an endorsement. He is endorsing a plan for stimulating the economy. Back in the day, this was how a party created its platform, planks would be adopted during the convention. Now the convention is a big PR gig.

Mr. Gingrich's plan is really simple:

1) Keep the current income tax rates, with an optional 15% flat tax alternative.

2) 12.5% corporate tax.

Dr. Laffer likes this plan because countries with low tax rates that do not have an expiration date do really well. He sites Hong King and Ireland as examples.

He likes it better than Mitt's plan which cuts the corporate tax only to 25%, and freezing current rates and eliminating the death tax, because they do not go far enough, although making these rates permanent is a step in the right direction.

He also likes the plan because it is so simple that it cuts out the cost of compliance, something he talked about last spring.

Dr. Laffer writes:

Jobs and wealth are created by those who are taxed, not by those who do the taxing. Government, by its very nature, doesn't create resources but redistributes resources. To minimize the damages taxes cause the economy, the best way for government to raise revenue is a broad-based, low-rate flat tax that provides people and businesses with the fewest incentives to avoid or otherwise not report taxable income, and the least number of places where they can escape taxation.

In other words, the best tax plan is to keep it simple and keep it low. Gingrich's plan does that, and for that, he has Dr. J.'s support for that plank of his platform. Dr. J. has yet to make his endorsement.

Now go read the rest here, doctor's orders...

The Susan B. Komen foundation hates women...

2012-02-02T15:19:00.002-05:00

In other news...the Susan G. Komen foundation, a major fundraiser for breast cancer prevention, treatment, and research has pulled grants from Planned Parenthood. They were providing $600,000 to the nation's largest abortion provider. The official reason for this is that they do not fund groups under governmental investigation. That being said the reality was that they hired a Vice President who is pro-life and could not in good conscience support funding Planned Parenthood. She was probably able to persuade her colleagues at SGK that the cons outweighed the pros of giving grants to Planned Parenthood for cancer screenings.

Indeed, it is probably important to remind people that while Planned Parenthood reportedly offers a cornucopia of women's health products, getting a mammogram on site seems challenging, at best. Indeed, SGK ambassador Nancy Brinker suggests that $600,000 donated to Planned Parenthood for cancer screenings is probably not the best use of the funds.

Why does Dr. J. bring this up?

Well, first and foremost to congratulate SGK for doing the right thing. It was made plainly clear today that SGK made the right decision because a number of Dr. J.'s frothing at the mouth, rabidly pro-infanticide eugenicist Facebook friends from high school, college and medical school are screaming from the rafters about the inzjustz!!1!!!!@!!EldvENTY!!!#!!!!!! The sheer amount of reaction formation and guilt/denial from some of these pro-choice women (who are probably trying to rationalize in their own minds the 'choices' they may have made in the past) is very clear in that they've been able to raise $400,000 for Planned Parenthood in response to SGK pulling funding.

Indeed, one of Dr. J.'s favorite lefty meme's over the issue is this:

One, SGK isn't cutting off funding for cancer screening, it is giving the money to more screeny screeners. $600,000 can go farther if spent at a place with a working x-ray machine, than at a place where breast cancer screening consists of giving a card with a phone-number. And two, Rick Perry!!!!!!!

Also, Dr. J., who clearly hates women just as much as Susan G. Komen does, and whose great-grandmother, grandmother, mother (sort of) and aunt all had breast cancer, will make a public declaration that Clan J. will be re-opening its checkbook to Susan G. Komen, and will be participating (as we did before knowing that it gave to Planned Parenthood) in the next Walk for the Cure.

Dr. J. looks dashing in pink, BTW...

Obama Attempts To Refute Finance's Equivalent Of The First Law Of Thermodynamics

2012-02-01T18:44:00.000-05:00

The First Law of Thermodynamics states roughly that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be changed in form. This is, as proponents of Anthropogenic Global Warming are wont to say, settled science. And, as these self-same acolytes of Gore (the creepy high priest of environmental fetishism) conclude, therefore beyond debate.

There is a corresponding, though lesser-known metaphysically certain scientific law: 'Puter's First Law of Finance. That is, "Risk can neither be created nor destroyed, but only transferred by mutual agreement (or, these days, government diktat)." It's simple, really. And yet no one in charge gets it.

President Obama introduced his newest soon-to-be-failed attempt to resuscitate the cratered housing market. We can tell President Obama's just phoning it in now, as he hasn't even come up with a catchy acronym for his scheme. As near as 'Puter can figure from the media's gullible, yet oddly sycophantic at the same time, coverage (as exemplified by the Washington Post, here), the newest scheme has the following components:

1. Qualifying homeowner, whether their mortgages are federally guaranteed or not, can refinance. From what little is available on the specifics, it appears that one only need have a 580 credit score ('Puter wouldn't lend to you, even if the loan was over-collateralized) and have a mortgage within Federal Housing Administration limits (somewhere between about $270,000 and $730,000). That's it.

2. Refinancing costs would be borne by banks, through the levy of a new tax on them. Republicans estimate the tax would cost banks between $5 billion and $10 billion. 'Puter's two thoughts here are (a) politicians always underestimate the cost of any program and (b) once a government benefit is instituted, it never ends, regardless of what politicians promise.

This program and every other program the Administration will come up with will not help the housing market one iota. That's because the Administration doesn't want to admit the problem. The problem is that losses have to be taken in order for the housing market to recover. Every single stinking program proposed to date involves pretending that no one has to bear negative consequences ever.

When each of these mortgages originated, banks valued the collateral and individual borrowers' credit risk, determining how much they would lend. Borrowers looked at their income and prospects to see if they could afford the deal banks were offering. When the parties agreed, documents were drafted and executed, memorializing each party's rights and obligations. We fancy-pants lawyer types call the documents "promissory notes" and "mortgages" or "deeds of trust," depending on borrower's state.

The structure of mortgage transaction is well defined under each state's laws, from the document's requirements, to the consumer protections, to the recording costs, taxes and fees. Heck, for most residential mortgage transactions on one-to-four family housing, the federal government (through Fannie and Freddie) even has provided forms. There are tons and tons of state and federal regulations governing the industry already.

Risk of loss provisions in these transactions are clear. Banks risk that you won't repay the money, and that their recovery may be limited to the value of the collateral (your house). You risk that the value of the collateral will fall and you will have to choose between continuing to pay according to the contract terms or defaulting and filing bankruptcy (or walking away in a non-recourse state) taking a massive credit score hit. This is the calculation made up front, and both parties know or should know what they're signing on for.

To be fair to President Obama, there are no good choices here. He (and hopefully his Republican successor in 2013) has the following choices, should he choose to follow the rule of law, letting contracts and courts sort things out in their own time:

1. Banks bear the losses. This screws shareholders and consumers. Shareholders (including pension funds, old timers), because they'll be holding stock in a newly undercapitalized bank on the verge of a shutdown. Consumers because banks concerned about their capitalization ratios hoard cash and won't lend.

2. Consumers bear the losses. This results in millions of lost homes and likely millions of consumer bankruptcies. Consumers are people, and people vote. Politicians can't have their constituents bear pain associated with the foreseeable outcome of their gambles, else they become former politicians.

President Obama continues to pretend Clinton-esquely that there is a third option, one with no risk for anyone whatsoever. That option is to have the government rush in and rewrite the rules of the game, creating fanciful new programs and even tossing in money to grease the skids.

This is no solution, and never will be. Not only will the President's proposals undermine the rule of law by upsetting centuries-old contract law, these proposals ignore statutes and the extant bankruptcy safety valve. Doing so will plunge the economy even deeper into the cold. If the government changes the rules of the game one day to the next to benefit itself or a favored constituency, who in his right mind is going to invest his wealth, knowing it can be devoured by government at its whim?

More importantly, President Obama claims to have done away with the risk. There's no risk to consumers (you can keep your house) and there's no risk to banks (no revaluation of portfolio assets to fair market value). But risk, as 'Puter has sagely noted, never goes away. If you can't find the risk, look harder. Risk's still present somewhere in the system.

Where's the risk in the Administration's plans? Who's left holding the bag? The answer's as plain as the nose on your face because the answer's attached to the nose on your face. You. You're the answer, provided you pay taxes. Every single one of President Obama's plans involves taxpayers financing crappy schemes that do nothing but prolong the inevitable day of reckoning. Worse, these schemes foist risk onto taxpayers who never were parties to these transactions.

President Obama can put as much lipstick on the pig as he wants, but the facts remain. Someone has to take the losses associated with this fiasco. The proper choices are the parties to the transactions, not the taxpayers.

Ignoring risk doesn't make it go away any more than saying the Administration's not screwing the taxpayers makes it so.

Don't get cocky...

2012-02-01T16:51:00.003-05:00

Remember boxing great Cassius Clay?

Dr. J. does.

He often used a technique called the 'Rope-a-Dope' where he was able to sustain blow after blow from his opponent, and when his opponent was sufficiently worn out, Mr. Clay would kick into high gear and pound the crap out of his opponent. The key to victory was that his opponent wasn't ready for what was in store for him due to being lulled into a sense of complacency.

Gallup released its annual 'State of the states' poll. Basically this the cumulative tracking poll data from the last year. What it shows is that President Obama is down since 2010 by 3% amongst people who answer the telephone in the various states. Only 10 states and the District view him favorably, while 40 states do not.

This is not a poll of a state-by-state proportionally representative poll of likely voters stratified by state party registration, with the question being asked, "If you were going to vote today for Obama, the Republican nominee, who would you vote for today.

Despite this, the Washington Examiner, transmogrified the data into a, 'If the election were held today..." map at the 270toWin.com website where you, too, can play electoral fantasy football....

So one must be circumspect. These data basically represent the idea of the election as a referendum on President Obama, or a vote of no confidence, if you will. This is not in any way, shape or form, a predictor of a blow out. As such the Republican candidates MUST NOT BECOME COMPLACENT.

Because it doesn't take into account the current slate of Republican candidates with their positives (Mitt's deep pockets, Newt's intellect, Rick's decency and conservative bonafides, and Ron's belief in small government) or their negatives (Mitt's mushy moderateness, Newt's newtyness, and Rick's lack of funds or national stature, Ron's foreign policy). So, Mitt, Newt, Rick and even Ron have a lot of, as we in the medical business like to say, service recovery to do.

In other words, this map represents, at best, a best case scenario where voters are motivated sufficently to vote based on their approval of Obama or not, and at worst, GOP electoral fantasy pr0n.

Unfortunately, elections aren't won when the populace is simply voting against someone. Even in the 2010 congressional primaries and elections, voters were motivated to vote for a candidate most of the time.

The Republican candidates MUST evolve by Super Tuesday into folks that (in addition to Jen Rubin and Ann Coulter) primary voters are voting FOR, rather than being an exercise in picking the best turd in the punch bowl.

Jonah Goldberg: Intelligent Idealism

2012-02-01T15:36:00.000-05:00

This appears in the February 6, 2012, National Review, in the little box inset in “This Week.” Thought it would be worth your while.

Conservatism is a distant cousin of cynicism.

The traditional conservative believes that man is fallen, sinful, flawed. Hence we understand that man cannot leap out of history, cannot begin at Year One, cannot create a heaven on earth. This does not mean conservatives cannot be idealists; it simply means we cannot be utopians.

Our political system is decidedly anti-utopian, which is one reason conservatives love it so. It assumes that even the most decent man will act out of self-interest. The Constitution doesn’t deny men’s flaws, but relies upon them. It sets ambition against ambition, faction against faction, in the hope that the negatives will cancel out and leave room for wisdom. So while no informed person would call our Constitution cynical, most would agree that its idealism is tempered by the sometimes lamentable constraints of reality.

The Left’s problem is that it has no limiting principle to its idealism. It may deny that it is utopian, and some liberals even recognize the folly of utopianism in the abstract. But those same liberals will not tell their idealistic cohorts to abandon utopianism. It is too useful motivating those who do not so much think their way through politics as feel.

For instance, Barack Obama ran for president insisting that his chief opponent “is not other candidates. It’s cynicism.” He affirmed, “I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on earth.” Upon securing the nomination he declared that his triumph proved that “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” and that we would look back on this moment as the time “when we came together to remake this great nation.”

How’s that working out?

President Obama and his defenders claim that he has failed in his efforts to begin an era of new politics solely because his opponents refused to grant him everything he wanted. The hubris of this argument is breathtaking The president‘s expectation that in a properly functioning constitutional democracy he would win every battle bespeaks an ignorance and an arrogance the likes of which we haven’t seen in the Oval Office for a century.

And now our president has become a champion of cynicism. His triangulating proposals are designed entirely to conceal his desires and priorities. He’s streamlining government, promising savings that amount to 0.0081 percent of the 2012 budget. He once campaigned on unity and idealism, and is now in every breath spitting the bile of demonization and disunity.

Conservatives know better. Because we never dreamed of making a perfect society, we’ve come to appreciate a good society. The utopian protestors occupying thither and yon look at this good society and curse it. President Obama plays them for fools, telling them that all that stands between them and their objective is his political “enemies.” The bacchanalia of idealism has given way to the hangover of cynicism, and the president instructs us to alleviate our suffering by making the perfect the enemy of the good.

—JONAH GOLDBERG

Fair Warning (fixed)

2012-02-01T12:55:00.001-05:00

The Obama Administration's HHS mandate issue is growing. Leaders from not only the U.S. Catholic Church, but also several Protestant churches, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (a/k/a Mormons) and some Jewish organizations are beginning to discuss forming a more unified front against the administration's mandate. Jay Carney, Whitehouse spokesman, fumbled around with several choice quotes:

"The administration believes that this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious beliefs and increasing access to important preventive services"

"All I can tell you is it was made after very careful consideration based on the need to balance ... (religious rights and) the necessity to provide access to preventive services for women was an important consideration."

So, we should be clear - there is access to these preventive services now under certain health care coverages. Just not all. The administration is hiding making it look like these services wouldn't be accessible if the mandate wasn't in place. This is completely false. Furthermore, some intrepid reporter should have asked Mr. Carney what "balance" was struck? It is a mandate that provided a very narrow exemption that, by all appearances, many religious groups think is insufficient.The president "utterly botched" the issue and "threw his progressive Catholic allies under the bus."

Even 'Puter's favorite toy, EJ Dionne is being quoted from his piece where he charged that the president "utterly botched" the issue and "threw his progressive Catholic allies under the bus."

It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out. American Catholics made up about 27% of the electorate in 2008, of which, Obama won 54%. So, in my opinion, this could go one of three ways:

Option 1: The American Catholic Church holds it ground and makes this an issue within its congregations. A significant portion of the congregations, while not enthralled by the Church's stance on contraception, sees the greater evil here - especially regarding morning-after pills and other potential procedures yet to be covered by the mandate - and they throw their weight behind the GOP candidate. Many pundits believe that if Obama does not carry the Catholic vote, he will lose in 2012. Compound this by the various Protestant, Jewish and Mormon voters who might sway along the same lines.

Option 2: The Obama Administration, fearing the backlash and losing 2012, will recant its position and, using some sort of spin doctoring, will put lipstick on this pig of a misstep. Probably something along the lines of Obama meeting with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops or some other Catholic leaders, decided that they didn't do enough "balancing" of the religious freedom. The media, also fearful that dear leader has really put his foot in it, will not pepper Mr. Carney with questions about why he said that they did strike a balance but now think that they didn't. EJ Dionne will praise the president for remedying the situation without making a reference to his earlier piece and 'Puter will rightly ('Puter's always right) rip him a new one.

Option 3: Possibly the most dangerous of futures. Neither the Obama Administration nor the American Catholic Church back down. But American Catholic voters still support Obama. The Church takes drastic steps to adhere to the new mandate (ceasing to provide healthcare coverage where it can afford to pay the fines, limiting services and employment to Catholics in other areas). Jobs are lost and a schism begins to emerge. Public sentiment, aided by the media, begins to question why the Catholic Church is adopting this approach (rather than asking why the mandate is needed with such tight exemptions) and an anti-Catholic air begins to form. Some Catholics leave the Church for other more liberal Protestant churches over the issue.

Pick one and place your bets now and bookmark this post.

Don Cornelius - 1936-2012

2012-02-01T11:39:00.000-05:00

Dr. J. was saddened to hear about the death of Soul Train creator Don Cornelius this morning by what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Dr. J., as a youth, always felt that Mr. Cornelius was a cool cat.

If this was a suicide, Dr. J. hopes that Mr. Cornelius is at peace from what ever demons were tormenting him, and wishes nothing but prayers and good thoughts for his next of kin.

Real Deal

2012-02-01T09:30:00.003-05:00

MC is dying to learn more about tax subsidies.

Thanks for the amplification, but I'm still not getting it. The government is still picking winners and losers, and in this case the winner is the film industry. The short-term benefit to the locals can't be denied, but I still think Bastiat's "that which is unseen" effect is also important here. Say a state or city provided a bucket of tax incentives of $1M to a really crappy movie that had no residual benefits to the locality where it was filmed. That is $1M presumably which could have gone to more productive purposes had it remained in the hands of the taxpayer. The government picked the film crew to be a "winner" for no other reason than it happened to be a film crew and not, say, some other set of artists. It effectively benefited the temporary hosting of a set of glaziers and window-breakers, to continue the Bastiat reference.

The "everyone else does it, so we gotta get in the trough with the other pigs" argument is a weak one. Is it necessary? Perhaps. Is it conservative to advocate it as a good policy? No.

Once you decide to make these subsidies, where do you draw the line? Is there an objective way of determining which industry is worthy of subsidies and which isn't? If there isn't, why do you ask the government to pick these winners and losers?

There is such a way, and in theory, should answer all your valid questions.

A film subsidy is a bit like a TIF. Actually, it is a lot like one: a city has a property that has sat vacant for year after year, in an area that tax assessments show ought to be producing more revenue than it is. Word gets out that a company is looking for 600,000 square feet of space; the city jumps up and says they have such a property—that distressed location. If the new company comes in, tears down the old building, and builds a shiny new one, the city will waive property tax collection on it for five years.

This adds up to a heckuva lot of money, and the company jumps at the chance. They save money, but look at what else happens: other businesses start to move into the area as well to support the needs of the 500 new employees: the coffee shop, followed by the drug store, followed by the gas station, and so on. Pretty soon the ring of properties around the new space start producing more revenue and the urban blight around that immediate area begins to fade. This is a classic example of the NPV argument: the initial loss of revenue eventually translates to increased revenue later that is higher.

So who is the loser? No one—because if the city hadn’t acted, that company would have gone somewhere else. The bottom line accounting here is that the distressed property, which collected no tax for 12 years, would continue collecting no tax in perpetuity. By going only another 5 years without tax collection, the city starts to see an increase in property tax revenues across the board.

Now, to the film argument. In your scenario, the film company is the winner. But they would have won anyway by going elsewhere to film. Who is the loser? In the case of Real Steel, the loser is the 49 other states who didn’t enjoy the added local revenue of having a film crew come in. If, say, Ohio wants that more, next time they can offer a bigger tax subsidy than Michigan.

One other point has been bothering the Czar. According to Amazed’s source, the total film tax subsidy was $18.3 million. Where on earth did this number orginate? All the sources point back to the 2010 Michigan Film Office Annual Report.

There we find something more interesting: the total incentives were $18,400,189! The $18.3M is after the Film Office pocketed $92,001 dollars (they keep 0.5% of the total as part of their operating budget). The $18.3M is therefore not all Michiganders lost in tax revenues.

But how much did Real Steel spend in Michigan? That’s also in there: $48,898,189. The Czar is no GorT, but it looks like the net revenues for the State of Michigan are (48,898,189 - 18,400,189 = ) $30,498,000, or a net profit of $6.93 per resident.

So you cannot call Michiganders the losers, either. Looks like Real Steel did them a real deal. And that movie accounted for about half of the net profits per resident, when you look at the other movies filmed there.

This isn’t really about picking winners and losers at all, but another example of government stimulating business by reducing outrageous taxes. States can and should compete for business like this.

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

2012-01-31T22:54:00.002-05:00

MC has recently returned from the Antarctic, where he tells weird tales of finding a ruined city of giants, with enormous penguins, strange carvings on the wall hinting at terrible events in our ancient past, as well as a Caribou Coffee. He also has a question.

Dread, awful, tax-subsidy-lovin' Czar,

At the risk of a definitely messy, probably painful, and possibly deserved decapitation, can I get a fuller take on why you believe providing film subsidies to producers is a good thing, while (and I'm making an assumption here) providing subsidies and tax breaks for ethanol production or some other favored group is not?

I wish I had time to expound on this, but my fundamental point is that tax breaks for any too-specific purpose is not really conservative despite any observed benefits. Lower all the taxes, and make 'em as broad and even as possible. No favors.

Welcome back, MC! The Czar is happy to explain.

The simplest explanation is that not all tax subsidies are created equal. There are two variations:

Net Present Value. This is typically the movie industry subsidy, which can consist of lower tax rates, tax breaks, or even financial investment in the production. Basically, the NPV looks at the future cash flow that can be affected by the movie filming locally. For example, in Amazed’s case, the current value was $4.26 per resident; the NPV suggests that future revenue produced by the initial tax break is positive, and over time the $4.26 dwindles to less and less and maybe, if the movie generates tourism dollars over some time—like The Bridges of Madison County—the locals benefit from an investment the state or municipality could have made, but not on their own.
Annual Flow is the method to which you object: each year, the energy industry gets a chunk of money back from the government that they otherwise would have to pay as income tax; in exchange, they reinvest that money in research and development. The objectionable fallacy with this idea is that (a) it subverts free markets, (b) it lowers energy prices by raising taxes for a net gain of nothing, and (c) it puts the government in charge of picking which industries benefit and which ones do not. There is no NPV for these, necessarily, unless the government becomes a full-fledged investor which, by rights, they ought never to do for a variety of ethical reasons as well as practical reasons.

Big difference, as we see it.

Plus, look at it like this. The movie crew can damn well film anywhere. Heck, New York City can be so unfriendly to the movie industry that many New York scenes are shot in Chicago, Cleveland, and Vancouver. When Chicago dabbled with ending film subsidies, the film crews went to Vancouver. The point is, they don’t need the location as much as the location needs them.

So then the film crews arrive, book all the hotels for weeks straight, rent properties, buy local meals for hundreds of people three times a day, use local actors, pay home owners a stipend in some cases for using their homes’ exteriors, buy hardware, supplies, paper products, and so forth for consumable props, and on and on. This becomes a pretty big chunk of change, rather quick. If the movie generates later tourism dollars, this is where the NPV formula takes effect.

On the other hand, the energy industry is going to have to build their plants and offices somewhere, and many cases this is interchangeable. TIFs can help lure employers to a location—that’s a very different argument. But your issue is that no matter where they build, the government refunds their tax dollars back to them whether or not they build in your area, whether or not they produce a profit, and whether or not they lower costs for consumers.

Errr...does this help?

It's Grammar Humor...

2012-01-31T17:55:00.000-05:00

Krugman's Keynesian Knucklehead-ery

2012-01-31T17:30:00.000-05:00

'Puter's no economist, thank goodness. It's not called the dismal science for nothing, and 'Puter has enough dismal-ness to deal with in the maw of Upstate's wintery, dead gray.

And, to be fair to real science, economics like many other social "sciences" isn't really scientific at all. Real science permits of experiments to verify or falsify hypotheses, usually involving controls and rigorous standards. Real science permits of duplicable results. Real science encourages publication so skeptical colleagues may do their level best to disprove or falsify another scientist's results.

Near as 'Puter can tell from his observation of Paul Krugman, economics consists of making wild-assed conjectures about a global economic system so complex and intertwined that no being short of God could possibly determine with any accuracy the effect of tinkering with any single (or multiple, for that matter) input. We, the unwashed and semi-literate, are expected to accept Mr. Krugman's (and his like-minded solons') conclusions with unswerving faith. Questioning one so learned and beneficent is intolerable, and to be met with a deserved hail of Mr. Krugman's wrath and fury. Mr. Krugman need not show his work! He is a Nobel Laureate! Asshat.

'Puter read Mr. Krugman's column in the New York Times yesterday, in which Mr. Krugman belittled England's austerity program, otherwise known to we simple folk as "living within one's means." Mr. Krugman claims that cutting government spending in the midst of economic turmoil would plunge the country back into recession.

Before addressing Mr. Krugman's core contention, please bear with 'Puter as he offers Mr. Krugman and his editors some much-needed advice. Please do not waste 'Puter's time in penning the first three paragraphs of your opinion piece, only to disavow everything you've just said in the fourth paragraph.

In his first three paragraphs, Mr. Krugman finds it telling that in this recession, England has not regained its economic footing as quickly as it did in the Great Depression. Mr. Krugman in the next paragraphs expands his premise to include the rest of Europe, then to America.

"Holy cow! We're worse off than we were in the Great Depression! We're screwed! Noted economist, Nobel Laureate and catamite of the leftie talk show circuit Paul Krugman says so!", you scream as you tear around your house preparing for the forthcoming apocalypse.

Nope. Mr. Krugman bails on his conclusion so totally in the fourth paragraph, his lack of awareness of his duplicity stunned even 'Puter. Mr. Krugman notes:

O.K., about those caveats: On one side, British unemployment was much higher in
the 1930s than it is now, because the British economy was depressed — mainly
thanks to an ill-advised return to the gold standard — even before the
Depression struck.

Oh. OK. So, if we use data and assumptions that are inapplicable to the current state of affairs to generate the results we want, that's just dandy, so long as we note that the opening of our piece has been an out-and-out lie. 'Puter assumes this is so because it comports with the Great Unifying Liberal Principle. That is, liberals can make crap up so long as it advances the correct (read: leftist) ideas, and no one is permitted to point out their dishonesty.

Well, enough said about Mr. Krugman's patent intellectual dishonesty in service of his failing and flailing ideological agenda. On to the fun.

'Puter's assailing Mr. Krugman because: (1) he's been overdue for a good beat down and (2) his column misses the elephant in the room. That is, America is in an ongoing recession and must cut spending precisely because of Mr. Krugman's preferred policy views. Krugman's Keynesian prescription is the cause of America's difficulties, not their cure.

Keynesian economics holds that government should spend lavishly into the teeth of a recession in order to stimulate demand and increase employment, even when such government spending is debt financed. What Mr. Krugman chooses to ignore is that Keynes also believed a government's debt financing should be retired once the recession's danger has passed, from the theoretical rising tax receipts.

When, during the 1990s, did you hear Mr. Krugman bashing the Clinton Administration for not paying down the national debt? 'Puter thought as much.

For the moment, let's play along with Mr. Krugman. Let's assume Keynesian economics were the right path for America during the Great Depression (1929-1939). According to the Treasury Department, the United States increased its debt from approximately $17 billion in 1929 to $40 billion in 1939, more than doubling. Lots of spending. And hey! Guess what? America's out of the Great Depression! So far, so good.

Let's look at America's paydown of debt that, according to Mr. Krugman and his fellow Keynesians, most certainly followed. Um, not so much with the debt paydown, its seems.

Due to World War II, the United States' debt skyrocketed to $270 billion by 1946. But certainly Krugman's Keynesians would have paid off the debt, or at least significantly paid it down, after the national crisis passed. Again, not so much with the paydown. Spending feels so much nicer than responsible debt management, after all.

National debt did decline slightly to about $252 billion in 1948. However, since 1948, our national debt has risen each and every year, through both Democrat and Republican Administrations alike, to its current horrific $15.3 trillion. In fact, if you add America's current debt to the difference between America's future "obligations" and America's expected future income, the actual national debt is closer to $211 trillion. But let's cut Mr. Krugman a break today, and stick to our current debt, and not pretend as he does that we can in any manner accurately predict America's economic fortunes decades into the future.

In hindsight, maybe Mr. Krugman has a point when he says Keynesian economics hasn't failed because they've never been tried. But not quite in the way Mr. Krugman would have us believe. Keynesian economics has never been tried not because America hasn't spent borrowed funds like drunken Amish teenagers on Rumspringa, but rather because America has never tried to repay what it borrowed.

'Puter finds it more likely that we are in a current economic torpor because we've pulled future year revenue forward to current years and spent it all. America spent and spent and spent, never once worrying about the consequences. Surely, Future America would pay off our insane borrowing, and, just as certainly, Future America would never arrive while we were alive. After all, it's Future America. You know. America, but in the future. Not now. Because that would just be crazy. Can't have future in the present, now can you?

Well guess what, spendthrifts? Future America has arrived, and it's broke. Enjoy the logical outcome of your selfishness. Enjoy reduced or nonexistent Social Security and Medicare. Enjoy diminished social welfare. Enjoy economic stagnation as America's government and citizens deleverage. Enjoy America's declining standard of living.

'Puter'll try really, really hard not to say he told you so.

Was It A Real Steal?

2012-01-31T11:50:00.000-05:00

Amazed writes in:

re: Your post of 1/29/12 about seeing Real Steel.

Answer: You’re welcome. My share of the $18.3 million dollar subsidy the gazillionaire producers got in taxpayer money for filming Real Steel for 2 weeks in my old home town of Mason, MI, is $4.26. And I can’t even get a rebate on the movie ticket, let alone be able to claim them as dependents. Now if I could claim Hugh Jackman as a dependent it might be worth it............

http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/15817

(Bastards come in all parties)

Anyway, you’re welcome.

Dear Amazed,

This might surprise you, but the Czar does not take your side on this one. It is cool that you knew some of the locations used in the movie; actually, the Czar is more impressed that our reach extends so far that we have fans originally from Mason, Michigan! Welcome.

But to the Czar’s point, he is unsympathetic. The Czar has been inconvenienced, taxed, rerouted, and once even prevented from walking down his own street by the filming of dozens of Hollywood movies in and around the Chicago area. And these are very likely movies you saw and liked, so you’re welcome (although, to be frank, one was a Larry the Cable Guy movie, so we apologize). The Czar would be out a lot more than $4.26 for the inconveniences of all these films, which got massive tax breaks to film here.

The counterargument is that film subsidies are an opportunity cost: you pay a little bit in tax breaks for Hollywood, but you theoretically gain that back not just from the largely freeloading extras and film crew, but there is a long-standing Hollywood tradition of using local businesses to furnish and install props, supply catering, use of home exteriors, and so on. All that money stays in your community. And does tourism add dollars? Sometimes: a movie can increase tourism or lose a community money—but that is the nature of investment risk.

Did the State of Michigan turn a profit on their $18.3 million investment? Probably not yet. Probably not even close. But your links indicate that this was not the only film shot on location in Michigan; those were probably not as costly to taxpayers, and were far more likely to turn a profit (Iron Man 3, anyone?). The more films that do film in Michigan, the more likely taxpayers will see that money return.

Look at it as opportunity cost, aggregated over all the movies that shoot there, and suddenly maybe you’re out only $2. In five years, probably less than that. The reason governments keep giving tax breaks to film studios is because ultimately this is profitable. Look at Vancouver, which has the most generous policies. When the City of Chicago briefly toyed with ending these breaks, they discovered to their horror that people stopped filming movies there. And a real loss was recognized!

So the Czar begs your forgiveness, but thinks that a lot more financial analysis needs to be done before Michiganders go berserk over $4.26. You might be right, of course—it is your money—but long-term it tends to work in your favor.

The Clock is Ticking for Holder

2012-01-31T09:17:00.001-05:00

Wow. As people (but not the media) start to go through the latest released information (and there is a lot) on Fast and Furious, the reality is becoming clear: Eric Holder is doomed as Attorney General.

Not only has the President distanced himself over the last few months, but the White House itself released the information most damning to AG Holder. You can bet the White House knows exactly what’s in that batch of materials. And the AG should realize the truth: even the President wants him gone and out. That racist president, no doubt, as AG Holder is wont to accuse critics.

Prediction: Holder will resign in disgrace before the election, and the Media will wonder why. Second prediction: the GOP, handed a perfect opportunity to expose the liberal excesses in the Obama administration, will do little or nothing with this. Third prediction: the Obama campaign will scapegoat Eric Holder to dodge the few criticisms from the GOP.

Mailbag

2012-01-30T12:56:00.001-05:00

GorT got two messages over the weekend, I was having too much fun to work on them until today so here we go. First up is from operative KH:

Estimable GorTechie,

The only way I would go along with point eight in the referenced post is to point out that Obama isn't doing anything right with respect to the housing market, either. The pre-Obama median value was fairy dust floating on artificially cheap credit.

Granted, as I said above, Obama won't make it any better, and might even make it worse.

Estimable? Estimatable, maybe. Yes, the pre-Obama median value was already artificially high. But it's been growing that way for over a decade. But the closing statement is accurate - the Obama Administration has been meandering around taking stabs at various "solutions" to the problem. Many of these proposals failed or were hung up with...wait for it....regulations and policy issues. Even Timmy Geithner thought that some of the proposals would be more damaging to the economy than an aid.

The second communique comes in from the Royal Mathematician Dr. (KN)J who kindly took some time away from working out faster fourier transforms on his abacus to write:

O Automaton Most Shiny :

I realize that this wasn't really your point at all, but allowing credit to be given to our current President for *any* stock rally is dubious at best. The media narrative, of course, is that the slumping economy caused Obama to take the lead over McCain in the fall of 2008. Certainly that is *part* of a feedback loop that helped propel us to where we are today.

However, I would argue that a portion of the massive stock market crash of the fall of 2008 was an attempt to "price in" the effects of a possible/likely Obama presidency - that is, Obama's ascendancy produced part of the crash, rather than exclusively the other way around.

Consider these dates:
September 24 - Obama takes statistically significant lead in Gallup; Dow stands at 10825.17
(Note that this is down a modest 14.2% from the pre-crash summer peak of 12604.45 on June 5 - not even a traditionally-defined "bear market" by this point).

November 4 - Election Day, the Dow closes at 9625.28 (now 24% down from the summer peak), a stratospheric height that it would not reach again for almost a year (not until September 21, 2009).

November 5 - First trading day after election, the Dow drops another 500 points.

January 20 - Inauguration Day - Dow closes at 7949.03 (now 37% down from summer), having dropped 300 points during the day.

If you measure from Inauguration Day, then Obama gets "credit" for a rise from 7949 to 12708 (60% rise) in 3 years. On the other hand, if you observe that pretty much every time he opens his mouth, the markets tank, you might think that a more accurate result would be obtained by taking that 3 year
period from the point of his election (9625 to 11983, or 24% over 3 years - reasonable, but not spectacular) or from the point of his taking the polling lead (10825 to 11153, or 3% over 3 years - truly anemic). Say what you will about the markets, they *do* try to factor in all available data.

I would also point out that the fiscal and energy policies of this administration are those that tend to favor inflation (though their regulatory policies generally favor deflation) and in those circumstances,
the most rational investments tend to be non-consumable commodities and equities, both of which have certainly increased in price more rapidly than the general inflation rate during this administration. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing depends, I suppose, on whether one is, say,
running for reelection or not.

--Dr. (KN)J,
Royal Mathematician to the Gormogons

Spot on. It is an interesting look at the numbers. I tend to believe as well that the markets react to all the information and even the possibilities that we, as a country, will face.

Mass Psychogenic Illness? Almost Certainly

2012-01-30T09:29:00.002-05:00

The Czar hopes he is right about this. But this weird story about 14 girls and 1 boy in LeRoy, New York, who have developed nervous tics and so-called verbal outbursts. The kids&146;s parents have engaged Erin Brockovich to investigate whether contaminated ground water would suddenly strike a small subset of children forty years after the fact.

Like some of the doctors being interviewed for this, the Czar suspects mass psychogenic illness. A psychogenic illness is not strictly psychological: hence, they will pass physical medical inspections (at least one child has been tagged with a conversion disorder, which is a poite way of saying what was in your head is now in your body).

Here is what the media are not asking or telling, which is quite revealing. Have children in other years exhibited these symptoms? Are these children more or less confined to one small area of the school? Are these kids in physical or frequent social contact? Why does it take 40 years for a contaminant to affect children? How can symptoms associated with a neurological disorder manifest themselves in different ways in such short order?

See where we are going? Stories like this are actually quite common, if anyone in the media would care to do their job and research: a maintenance crew uses a new cleaner, the smell wafts up the stairwell, and suddenly kids are vomiting, dizzy, and passing out. The new cleaner? A perfectly safe off-the-shelf brand that the kids have in their own homes. But due to psychogenic hysteria, one kids acts weird and they all act weird, eventually developing measurable physical symptoms.

The Czar does not expect you to sit through all the video, but some interesting pieces emerge. One student seems to be at the heart of this, in terms of spreading the news, contacting Ms. Brockavich, and taking an entire month off school because of her twitching right arm. She has suffered bruises on her face from fainting and hitting herself, allegedly, with her own cell phone. The bruise is massive and about the size of her own fist. The Czar is most skeptical that this latter bruise is on her left cheek: most right handed people are not going to whap themselves on the left cheek with a phone, especially if the right arm is as uncontrollable as demonstrated in the video.

Is she faking? Well, not really. She certainly has trouble controlling her one arm, and her symptoms are measurably neurological—but the Czar suspects they would be this way if she were a student in Mentor, Ohio, or Fort Collins, Colorado, or Jupiter, Florida. The media has not interviewed any of the other kids, which tells you quite a bit as well.

No, the kids really do think they have something; but the media could establish whether there was a real threat within an hour of basic journalism science. They just don’t want to.

Hope and Change

2012-01-29T12:26:00.000-05:00

GorT and family attended the Saturday 5:30 Mass yesterday since today is jam packed with various kids events. At the end of the Mass (GorT only remembered two of the four "et cum spiritu tuo" responses), the priest asked the congregation to be seated for two short announcements. The first was a quick blurb for the annual Archdiocese of Washington Cardinal's Appeal made by one of the parish finance council members. The second was made by the priest and it entailed reading excerpts from a letter from our Cardinal (Cardinal Wuerl) to the parish priests concerning the HHS mandate for contraception and sterilization coverage. The excerpts pointed out (and they were outlined in an insert to the weekly bulletin) the flaws of the mandate, which Dr. J has covered well in the past week or so here. There is one point that I'd like to highlight: The Institute of Medicine committee that compiled the "preventive services for women" list for HHS said in its report that unintended pregnancy is "a condition for which safe and effective prevention and treatment" need to be more widely available. The Conference of Catholic Bishops point out that women who suffer from infertility which really could be considered a condition to be treated were ignored by this mandate.

A common argument for the HHS mandate is that this is part of the Obama Administration's effort to have access to health care more broadly available. However, the net result will be that people will not be able to keep their coverages with respect to their convictions. Organizations will have to meet the narrow criteria or cease to provide health benefits for their employees. And resources currently being applied in health coverages towards basic health care to the uninsured will now facilitate birth control, "morning after" pills and the like for those who already had ample coverage.

Most impressive was that the Cardinal and our priest closed by stating the following with no equivocation: religious freedom in this country is under attack and in jeopardy if we sit idly by watching. This is after the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against the Obama Administration's EEOC who tried to interfere with the administrative practices of religious organizations. The Court’s decision called the EEOC’s view of the ministerial exception “untenable,” “extreme,” and “remarkable,” according to religious organizations no greater rights than those enjoyed by “a labor union, or a social club.” The 9-0 ruling amounted to a “very emphatic rejection of this administration’s very narrow view of religious liberty,” Mark Rienzi, an attorney at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said.

I'm glad that the Catholic Church (and others as illustrated by the Supreme Court case participants) are standing up to the Obama Administration. This isn't getting a lot of press but it should. This is a basic tenant of this country's foundations and I'll let our readers decide: either the administration are idiots and don't know what ramifications their policies and mandates have or they are actively working to interfere with the religious freedom in this country. Incompetent or evil? or ad GorT would summarize: evily incompetent.

Bibles in Public Schools?!?!!??!?

2012-01-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

An Arizona legislator introduced a bill this week attempting to get the state to allow public high schools to offer an elective class on GASP! the Bible. The idea behind the bill is that the misguided mindset behind banning the Bible from public education is just that, misguided. If you are going to understand art, literature, and history, a foundation in knowing what is in that book, called the Bible is critical.

Not only that, understanding the differences between a Catholic and Protestant Bible can be handy. Dr. J. almost came to blows with a classmate in 11th Grade as we were reading an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story called Absolution. His character, Rudolph, is afraid of being overheard discussing his violation of the 6th and 9th commandments at confession. In the Catholic Church, and the following paragraph, this refers to committing adultery and coveting your neighbor's wife. In Protestant teaching 6 and 9 are committing murder and bearing false witness. As the character is going to confession, one would think the former is the case. That didn't stop Dr. J.'s smokin' hot Lutheran crush from putting her spin on the tale (as a lot of Minnesotans, where F. Scott grew up, were Lutheran, she felt the need to make the Lutheran case regarding what was otherwise a rather Popish story).

Dr. J. went to an independent school so he learned the Bible as history in 5th grade. He learned all about how it applied in English class in 9th grade. (Never learned the its/it's thing, though), and when it came up in History or English class, we discussed it (literary allusions and such).

That's what this legislator wants to happen, as the Bible is a critical body of work for understanding our history, our literature and our culture, in addition to being a Holy Book for many. Dr. J. and his classmates were good at compartmentalizing our faith, and honestly, it didn't come up in class.

By way of contrast, in a Greek Philosophers class, Dr. J. had an annoying classmate who kept comparing everything to Hinduism. Usually he couldn't even get that right.

Now obviously, there are opponents. All we need to do is go to the Puffington Host article on the topic to find one.

Critics are troubled by the bills, arguing that teaching religion and the Bible is tricky -- and teachers are often not sufficiently or properly trained to teach the subject effectively. It's also difficult to teach a Bible course without imposing religious views, even inadvertently, Victoria Lopez, a program director with the Arizona office of the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Associated Press.

"It's very easy for teachers to cross the line and violate students' religious rights," Lopez told AP. "There's a lot of room here for those violations to take place."

Leave it to the Progressives to block teaching a critical part of the Western Canon because they think the teachers and students are incapable of separating Sunday from the rest of the week.

Is it any wonder our public education program is in shambles?

Real Steel? Actually, Real Good!

2012-01-29T05:34:00.000-05:00

The Czar had heard good things about Dreamworks’ Real Steel, and was more than okay with the kids renting it this weekend. You probably heard too that it was better than it looked.

Wow. This was, seriously, one of the best boxing movies ever made. And the Czar has seen plenty.

The film takes place in the near future, where humans have been regulated out of combat sports entirely to protect them. By the way, the world has not improved very much as a result. To take the place of humans, robots (ever more ridiculous) have been built to fight in rings, with massive wagers and promotions and blackmarket activities surrounding it all. The Czar thought this realistic—you regulate the unsavory stuff out of anything, and it comes right back in an even worse form.

Hugh Jackman is a busted down former boxer who got pulled into this world of outrageous robots doing implausible things to each other in the ring. When his estranged wife dies, he is awarded temporary custody of his 11-year-old foul-mouthed punk, whom he takes on the circuit with him. The only warning for parents, really, is that this film had Steven Spielberg as an executive producer, meaning you get just enough of the kid’s potty talk to get to the coveted PG-13 rating.

Bottom line, the kid finds an abandoned robot that can mimic human actions; Jackman’s character realizes that it has no weaponry, no outlandish gadgets, and no exotic silly features, but its ability to mimic is so good that he decides, in a flash of ingenuity, to teach it old-fashioned boxing.

You can guess what happens if you know anything about the Sweet Science: put a good boxer against the most outrageous spectacle-fighter, and guess what happens. Yeah, better than Million Dollar Baby. The boxing is good enough that even the Царица herself really got into it. And both kids had to be tied down: the cinematography, camera work, and general flow of the bouts puts you in the ring.

Flaws? Plenty—some blatant silliness, impractical plot twists, and a needlessly racist character (in case you forgot he was a bad guy) create some eye rolls for parents; but the film makes up for it every time the robot fights, and there’s a ton of it to keep you impressed. Sugar Ray Leonard himself was the fight consultant, and this movie reminds you how good he was: Jackman himself looks very credible as a boxer.

Finally, the Czar was dimly aware from the promotional stuff that the kid teaches the robot to dance with some hip hop moves. Braced for it, the Czar was relieved that the whole bit was carefully threaded into the plot and wound up, incredibly, making sense: Jackman encourages it because crowds love stupid stuff, and they love kids doing it. His character is absolutely right: a kid dancing with a robot as part of the pre-fight showboating is believable and elevated the kid to pop culture icon, and they treat it quite authentically in that regard.

Even if you hate hate hate fight movies, you will get caught up in this one. Rent it, kick back, and enjoy.

Sometimes They Just Don't Get It

2012-01-28T11:17:00.001-05:00

A failing or flailing economy is a powerful thing for a candidate to use against an incumbent opponent. Remember, "It's the Economy, Stupid" ? Or jump back just a few years and look at the "Hope and Change" campaign and how it leveraged the economic problems. Democrats realize this and are starting to get worried about 2012. That, even with the three ring circus that is the GOP primary, a non-incumbent could easily attack Obama on the state of the economy. It gets worse when you start looking at the administration's record.

Before we get into this, let me be clear - conservatives do not want the economy to fail. This is a popular line that liberals will drop in this argument but it makes no sense. First, conservatives want a strong economy - we believe that wealth as a whole is generated through a strong economy. Second, it demonstrates the shallow thinking of liberals if they truly believe this. Conservatives believe that Obama's policies economic have, are and will fail. This is distinctly different from wanting the economy to fail.

The easy place to start is the Stimulus and the administration's "Summer of Recovery" and "Summer of Recovery II". Neither the summer of 2009 nor the summer of 2010 proved out to be a period of recovery for the U.S. economy but the President and his administration, including VP Biden, touted it.

Next, we can look at some fact-based statistics (courtesy of the House Ways & Means Chairman):

America Before President Obama Took Office and Now

	Before	Now	Change
Number of Unemployed¹	12.0 Million	13.1 Million	+9%
Long-Term Unemployed²	2.7 Million	5.6 Million	+107%
Unemployment Rate³	7.8%	8.5%	+9%
“High Unemployment” States⁴	22	43	+95%
Misery Index⁵	7.83	11.46	+46%
Price of Gas⁶	$1.85	$3.39	+83%
“Typical” Monthly Family Food Cost⁷	$974	$1,013	+4%
Median Value of Single-Family Home⁸	$196,600	$169,100	-14%
Rate of Mortgage Delinquencies⁹	6.62%	10.23%	+55%
U.S. National Debt¹⁰	$10.6 Trillion	$15.2 Trillion	+43%

But liberals will point out that under Obama, the Dow Jones index rose 50% in his first three years in office and is only one of five presidents under whom that has happened. Ok, great, start the ticker tape parade, sound the horns, strike up the band. Economists remain cautious of the future of the economy as many of the root problems have yet to be addressed.

Instead, the liberals you meet will likely try to take a few tacts in a debate: (1) blame Bush - of course, the logical response is to ask at what point is the economy President Obama's? After we wait and see how it turns out? Only the good parts? (2) blame Congress - well, Congress is in charge of the national purse strings (a point often overlooked by liberals since the Democrats have largely been in charge of Congress for decades, minus a brief stint under Clinton when...what?...yes, we had serious economic growth. I'm ok with levying some of the blame there. The Federal Budget issue is just plain ridiculous. There is no reason why Congress should be allowed to get away with not passing a budget. (3) post some silly photoshopped or comically captioned image of a GOP candidate for 2012. Yep, classic distraction and mockery technique. A clear sign they are nervous about the issue and won't address it head on so instead, they try to make the opponents look silly, ridiculous or mean in order to dissuade voters.

¹Number of unemployed in January 2009 and December 2011. http://www.bls.gov/data/#unemployment.

² “Long-term unemployed” means for over 26 weeks; data for January 2009 and December 2011. http://www.bls.gov/data/#unemployment.

³ Unemployment rates in January 2009 and December 2011. http://www.bls.gov/data/#unemployment.

⁴ “High unemployment” means having a 3-month average unemployment rate of 6% or higher. From the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ “Extended Benefits Trigger Notice” for January 18, 2009 and January 22, 2012. http://www.ows.doleta.gov/unemploy/trigger/2009/trig_011809.html and http://ows.doleta.gov/unemploy/euc_trigger/2012/euc_012212.html.

⁵ The “Misery Index” equals unemployment plus inflation. For January 2009 and December 2012. http://www.miseryindex.us/indexbymonth.asp.

⁶ Average retail price per gallon, January 2009 week 3 and January 2012 week 4. http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMM_EPMR_PTE_NUS_DPG&f=W.

⁷ U.S. Department of Agriculture, values represent monthly “moderate” cost per family of four for January 2009 and November 2011. http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/USDAFoodCost-Home.htm.

⁸ U.S. median sales price of existing single-family homes for metropolitan areas for 2008 and 2011 Q3. http://www.realtor.org/research/research/metroprice.

⁹ Residential mortgage delinquencies (real estate loans) for 2008 Q4 and 2011 Q3. http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/chargeoff/default.htm.

¹⁰ Values for January 21, 2009 and January 23, 2012. http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np.

Rock, Paper, Scissors, PRIMARY!

2012-01-28T06:00:00.000-05:00

Gentle Readers,

Dr. J. and Mrs. Dr. J. were having their morning at 0:Dark:45 yesterday morning, enjoying a little Fox and Friends before waking the Lil Resident and Lil Med Student for classes at the New Atlantis Jedi Academy. Rick Santorum was being interviewed and Mrs. Dr. J. commented that Rick reminded her of the prototypic Jedi Academy dad.

This got Dr. J. thinking. If Rick Santorum reminded her of a Jedi Academy dad, were Mitt and Newt analogous to other New Atlantean private school dads?

New Atlantis, by the way, has a number of excellent private schools. The public school system has a few very good elementary schools and magnet middle and high schools,but other than that forget it. After thinking about it, Mitt reminded Dr. J. of a prototypic pop from the New Atlantis School for Atlantian Aristocracy (NASAA). Now NASAA is actually a wonderful school but there are a number of old money New Atlantian families who have 3rd generation kids there. Newt, is reminiscent of the typical New Atlantis Ivory Tower Academy, or New Atlantis Magnet Pop (where many NAITU faculty send their kids), because he is so professorial in his demeanor (or a know-it-all, depending on who you ask). Ron Paul, he's the homeschooling dad. (No offense home-schoolers). He just wants his kids off the grid.

Thinking this through further, Dr. J. realized that this analogy falls apart because in New Atlantis, there is too much crosstalk. There are Mitt-like dads, Rick-like dads and Newt-like dads at every school.

Furthermore, Mitt, Rick and Newt all have their pros and cons, and each of them appeals and is repulsive to a different facet of Dr. J.'s personality.

Dr. J. - Country Club Republican - likes Mitt because you don't have to worry about Mitt. He's loaded, so you don't have to worry about him being bought or over indulging in the trappings of the office. He's polite and well mannered, so you know he won't offend anyone. He's worked for a living, so you know politics aren't his end all, be all.

Rick on the other hand, is too blue collar. It makes Dr. J. worry he can't actually raise enough funds to stay in the general election race against Obama who has a $1B head start. If he did win, you worry about him using the wrong fork at the state dinner, or wearing the sweater-vest with the tux. And Newt, he's' great for the first Jack and Coke, but he keeps talking through the second, and Dr. J. would have to order a third before Newt might say, "So, what do you think?"

Dr. J. - Religious Conservative - likes Rick. He's Roman Catholic, and probably doesn't say the Our Father in the 'Orans' position. He is what folks in New Atlantis call a 'Cradle Catholic.' So culturally, he and Dr. J. get each other. He reminds Dr. J. of the dad manning the grill at the Church carnival, or passing the collection basket at mass. He's clearly Pro-life, has his conservative bona fides, but as a good Catholic, he has compassion for the poor. Dr. J. worries that this element of his personality may translate into squishiness on entitlements when the left screams !!1!!1!! ELEVENTY!!!!!!!!! when it comes time to tackle entitlement reform.

Mitt doesn't go to Church with Dr. J. so while Dr. J. admires his spirituality, there's not the same connection. Newt...he's the guy that did RCIA and converted three years ago and can tell you all the corporal and spiritual works of mercy by rote, and he IS the guy who wants to hold your hand during the Our Father.

Dr. J. - The Ivory Tower George Will/Charles Krauthammer Republican - of course, likes Newt. Newt is a policy nerd, just like Dr. J. is a medical wonk. That aspect of Newt's personality that can discuss an issue in profound detail, and describe the history of the issue appeals to Dr. J. because he's exactly the same way with medicine. He can wear you out not just about how to manage a heart attack, or heart failure, but also explain how we got to where we are now from where we were then. This is the guy that Dr. J. wants to have a latte with in the faculty lounge, rather than be productive on a Friday afternoon. The only drawback to this is that occasionally Newt can turn people off by talking too much, or sometimes not see the forest for the trees.

Mitt can tell you what's going on right now and give you his plan, however he can't look back within his own history and convince Dr. J. how he got from point A to point B. Specifically why Romneycare is not bad, while Obamacare clearly is. He's the legacy kid. Rick, well, Rick reminds you of the guy who worked his way through a respectable, but not caché college, the one that the Ivory Tower types look down on, but despite that, he was Magna Cum Laude there, so he gets his props.

Conclusion - So as you can see, each of these candidates has their appeal, but also their un-peal to Dr. J. It reminds Dr. J. of playing Rock Paper Scissors. Santorum beats Gingrich, Gingrich Beats Mitt, and Mitt beats Santorum.

Because Rock Paper Scissors, like this campaign, can become tiring, folk expanded it, adding a lizard and Spock. In our case whoever comes out of the campaign will be beating the lizard.

Let's just hope that the GOP will pick the right one, the one who in November can beat Spock.

ABC News Favorite Color is Yellow

2012-01-28T02:35:00.000-05:00

ABC News is terrified to report... deep breath... Romney Failed to Disclose Swiss Bank Account Income!!!!!!!11!!!$!!!ELEVENTY!!!! !!1 !!

The horror, the horror. Allow the Czar to summarize this horrible, horrible story, paragraph by paragraph. You might want to cushion yourselves with a couple eleventies, because it is truly that bad. Ready?

Romney needs to amend his published tax forms because he did not acknowledge income from a Swiss bank account.

So he is going to do that.

Romney’s campaign explained that the tax document in question is really complicated and lengthy, so that slipped by them.

The account was overlooked because it was closed out in 2010.

The interest earned on it was $1,700. They discovered it, so they are correcting it.

Also, Newt Gingrich missed about a quarter million in earnings.

The Gingrich camp spotted the error themselves, and are already correcting it.

Romney’s finances are confusing to journalists.

A liberal watchdog thinks these sorts of problems do not help voters.

Another “non-partisan” (i.e.,very liberal) group (CREW) spokeswoman thinks this is really bad for Gingrich.

She reminds people that Gingrich was once sanctioned.

ABC News reminds people that Swiss accounts are often used by wealthy people to hide stuff from the government.

The first liberal person interviewed thinks Romney was probably doing just that, although there is no evidence.

However, he admits no wrongdoing actually happened, since the report is being corrected.

And he thinks that this is bad, because Romney won’t be punished for doing something that isn’t wrong.

Allow the Czar to tell the whole story in a very different way. Mitt Romney (and Newt Gingrich) provided the public information on their taxes, but each camp made a minor error in their respective releases. Although the taxes were paid properly, and the information was not withheld from their tax forms (only the public releases), both candidates are correcting the oversight in the interest of complete transparency. Again, nothing illegal or unethical transpired.

The Czar, as a supporter of Republicans generally, is completely non-partisan.

The story is a complete non-story, written with as many negatives as possible to paint the Republicans in a bad light. Quoting CREW, especially citing them as non-partisan, is a juvenile farce.

The saddest part is that the very existence this anti-Republican quasi-hit piece on both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, written solely to tarnish the candidates for the benefit of Barack Obama, is not surprising to any of us.

It’s just stupid.

Move this...

2012-01-27T13:21:00.000-05:00

From realpolitics.com

"On Tuesday at the State of the Union, I laid out my vision for how we move forward," President Obama said at a campaign event in Las Vegas, Nevada. "I laid out a blueprint for an economy that's built to last, that has a firm foundation. Where we're making stuff and selling stuff and moving it around and UPS drivers are dropping things off everywhere."

Mr. President, making, moving, and selling requires something called energy. You use it to do work. The cheaper the energy is, the easier it will be for America to get back to work. Feel free to call Dr. J. if you have any questions on the relationship between economic policy. His number is 1-800-Cas-Gorm, ext. 1977, and leave a message with 2-1B. We'll have the Lil Resident call you back since she's learning all simple machines and qualitative physics this π'th grade at the Jedi Academy...

Musings on Campaign Directions

2012-01-27T09:08:00.000-05:00

It will be interesting to see followup polls from the debate.

Romney definitely put himself ahead of Gingrich. But did Santorum lift himself higher than Gingrich as well? The Czar is not making a prediction, but advises you not be surprised if Santorum went into second place nationally, if not just Florida alone.

There seems to be some merit to the analyses that suggest Gingrich voters will almost certainly flock en masse to Santorum if the former drops out of the race; this would put Santorum ahead of Romney, and we would expect to see many Romney supporters defect to Santorum merely because he would represent a valid alternative. This alone could put Santorum ahead of Romney as well.

The Mandarin said it at lunch yesterday: Rick Santorum is running a heckuva good, smart campaign. Not that Romney will sit back and let it all happen: this promises to get even better.

Newt Doesn't Care for 3 on 1

2012-01-26T22:56:00.005-05:00

Wow, thank goodness for audience participation. CNN allowed the crowd to jump in, and it was awesome when (a) Ron Paul led them in a call-response with “Bicycle Built For Two,” and (b) Rick Santorum had them conjugate amō, amās, amat, amāmus, amātis, amant several times while (c) Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney did full contact MMA-fighting in a fully fenced-in octagon.

Wolf Blitzer, whom the Цесаревич referred to as Wolf Schneiser, asked a mix of good and really painful questions. We should probably get onto that.

Not a great night for Newt Gingrich. If you like Newt, you will note he answered with his usual confidence and sound byte stingers. If you do not like Newt, you will agree he got hit from all three sides. The Czar thinks this was Gingrich’s weakest debate by far. He mustered much applause, but not as much as he has been getting. And he was clearly flummoxed when Ron Paul (no, seriously) said that he researched Gingrich’s claim about balancing the budget four times, and found that was never strictly true, but only technically true if you changed the definition of budget to exclude social security. Santorum hit Gingrich very hard on cap and trade and global warming (less effectively on healthcare, largely because Gingrich suddenly pivoted and announced Ron Paul had a better position). Romney jumped on Gingrich repeatedly over erratic and inflammatory language used in interviews. Overall, Newt Gingrich came off looking pretty well worn.

Gingrich’s absolute worst moment was when Santorum and Romney tag-teamed with a terrible knockout blow—Gingrich has consistently walked into every primary state and delivered a different, ridiculous multi-billion-dollar promise to those voters. Santorum said that if you add those up, there is no way he can avoid a massive government debt pileup; Romney said that this shows Gingrich simply makes stuff up to win voters, and has no sensible message to conservatives. Gingrich had no clear response other than to shrug and say he thought it was a candidate’s job to build big ideas and provide vision. This defense provoked little applause.

And who is this new Mitt Romney? His new debate coach is working, because Romney looked tougher by far, and much less willing to bend backwards. Unfortunately, he channeled this tough guy persona into some solid hits on Newt Gingrich, and was more than unprepared for another onslaught from Rick Santorum about Romneycare. The Czar thought for a moment that, when Santorum cited a study that one out of five residents of Massachusetts are receiving inadequate levels of healthcare due to costs, Romney was )this close( to saying “That’ bullshit!” He almost did, but checked himself at the b. Unfortunately, just as he did before, Santorum used Romney’s refutation to dump even more egregious examples of RomneyCare’s failings on the audience. The more Rick Santorum hit Mitt Romney, too, the more the audience applauded.

Santorum’s finest moment was when he tore a page out of Newt Gingrich’s playbook, and fired a cannon at Wolf ~~Schneiser~~ Blitzer. Wow, the Czar really mixed metaphors there. The point is that Rick Santorum lost his temper in a highly productive way.

For about ten solid minutes, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney badgered each other, back and forth, about each other’s finances. Gingrich hit Romney on his offshore accounts, while Mitt Romney peppered Gingrich with chides about his Freddie Mac consulting work really being lobbying. Blitzer asked Santorum what he thought, and Santorum said, in essence, (a) Newt Gingrich is an expert at Congressional politics, and took a paying job to provide them advice, which he was uniquely suited to do, (b) Mitt Romney is a legitimate success who earned his money legally, ethically, and paid all his taxes and donates a hell of a lot to charity, so (c) drop it already. Get to the questions that matter! Americans do not care about either story. Huge applause, and Gingrich delivered a visible thank you. Best line of the night, bar none.

Second best line was an insightful joke by Ron Paul. The question was what each candidate would say if he received a phone call from Raul Castro of Cuba; what would you tell him? Ron Paul had a quzzical look on his face and asked “Why would he be calling me?” In those six words, he took all the air out of a dumb question.

Worst question: should Puerto Rico become the 51st state? Santorum got to go first, and shut it right down. He explained that isn’t the President’s decision at all. In fact, there is a whole process carefully spelled out about how states join the union, starting right with whether Puerto Ricans want statehood. Then it goes from there. A ridiculous question, probably insulting to the thousands of other questions Puerto Ricans want answered first, because the President is the last step in the process, and in most ways the least critical.

All four of the candidates had their absolute best moment in an off-the-wall question about why each of their respective wives would make a good First Lady. Ron Paul treated the question with humor, and seemed exactly like the grandfather who makes a stunningly sweet and sensitive speech at an anniversary dinner. Mitt Romney described his wife with such pride over her triumphs over adversity that you saw there really is someone in Mitt’s world more important than him. Gingrich politely (but a bit awkardly given his history) stated that he is impressed by all of the candidates’ wives, but wrapped up with a very nice description of how much class his wife radiates. She looked stunning, by the way. And Rick Santorum, whose wife was at home with the kids, delivered a choked-up speech about how strong his wife was with all their kids, including the death of little Gabriel as well as the tribulations their daughter Bella is working through. The question was dumb, but the answers totally humanized each of these guys in a different way.

Winner? Hard to say: Ron Paul and Rick Santorum had outstanding nights; Mitt Romney looked very different, and very aggressive—too bad he squandered it playing verbal grab-ass with Newt Gingrich. And Gingrich, as we said, probably had his worst debate night so far. Too many of his oddball claims, promises, and on-the-record quips are coming up to haunt him, and both Romney and Santorum seem to know exactly how to throw him to the floor.

The next debate, which will probably be in ten more minutes the way they’ve been scheduling them, ought to be even more interesting.

Things 'Puter Learned During His Hiatus

2012-01-26T15:51:00.002-05:00

As all 4.3 billion readers of this site and all two of 'Puter's fans have surely noticed, 'Puter's been absent of late, except for the odd Twitter posting. 'Puter's been working on negotiating, papering and closing the sale of a portfolio of sub and non-performing loans.

In the course of the transaction, 'Puter had to interact with seller's counsel and purchaser's counsel, as well as with the business principals on both sides.

Seller's counsel is a contemporary of 'Puter's, born and raised south of the Mason-Dixon line. 'Puter's worked both with this specific counsel and her firm before. She is a savvy and pragmatic attorney who has also cut her teeth on these sorts of transactions. She has a thick Virginia accent, which is, for those not in the know, quite pleasant.

Purchaser's counsel is about 7 years younger than 'Puter, a Chicago native who left the cozy confines to move to New York City and work for a glamorous bit-named firm for large dollars. Her expertise is in papering collateralized mortgage backed securities ("CMBS") transactions. If CMBS sounds familiar, it's because those are the instruments Wall Street created to leverage your mortgage, slicing and dicing it into ever-smaller portions and selling the subprime instruments as "A" paper. Not that disguising riskier paper as gilt-edged would contribute to anything negative, like a massive housing bubble and subsequent nationwide economic coronary or anything. Purchaser's counsel had never papered a deal like this before, but she assumed it would be no different from her big city, high powered CMBS securitizations.

Wrong.

And from there, hilarity ensues. Watch for tomorrow's exciting installment, now with more banking regulation induced insanity! Also, 'Puter uses swear words he didn't know he even knew!

Need More Mailbag

2012-01-26T13:00:00.000-05:00

When you have readers such as the ones we have, it does make our work a bit easier. Operative BG writes in with the following after toweling off having been slimed by the slippery lies:

Last year, President Obama spoke at George Washington University, and said, in part, "We believe, in the words of the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, that through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves."

Then in his SOTU address this week, he paraphrased Lincoln again: " I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more."

There's a subtle but important change in what he's saying there, which I'll get to shortly.

1) In the George Washington University speech, he doesn't say government should just do what individuals, groups, or businesses can't do at all; he's saying government should do things that it can do better. And how do you find out whether government can do better? You start a little program, then when it doesn't work as well as the private sector, you claim that it just needs more funding. And more funding. And more funding. All government programs need more funding, in the liberals' eyes (except for national defense, of course, which always needs less). Eventually, your little government program has grown to monstrous size with monstrous consequences. The KKK could not have come up with a better plan to destroy the black family than our welfare system, which was somehow supposed to be better than private charity.

2) Here's what Lincoln actually said: "The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere." (emphasis mine)

Note Lincoln's restrictions: First, that it has to be something we actually need to have done, and second, it has to be something that people can't do as well as government. In both speeches, Obama dispenses entirely with the first requirement, and in the SOTU address, he raises the bar for the people by requiring that they be able to do better than government, rather than just as well. In other words, as far as Obama is concerned, government should do anything that government thinks it can do just as well as individuals, whereas Lincoln said that if the people individually can do just as well by themselves, government should butt out. Lincoln was stating how government should be restricted; Obama twists what Lincoln said into a justification for more government.

It's a slippery lie, but that's one thing Obama excels at.

It is a slippery lie but here's the twist - Obama and other liberals will pass judgment as to what a person can and can't do well for themselves and what we need and don't need. This is a fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives truly believe in the power of the individual (or groups of individuals - in other words, companies). It is what made America great. Thanks, BG!

First Drafts Reveal So Much

2012-01-26T11:37:00.000-05:00

Your Czarness,

Greetings from your Bongburgher.

I have a contact on Capitol Hill which has provided me with an early draft of the President's SOTU. I submit it to you via passenger pigeon as part of the historical record. It is, I fear, the only copy in existence.

Good hunting,

B.B.
-------

The State of the Union, as prepared: (draft)

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:

Last month, I went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in Iraq. For the first time in more than nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. Let me juxtapose this with the fact that, for the first time in more than nine years, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country, even though I have long maintained that there is absolutely no connection between the service of our brave fighting men and women in Iraq and the fact that the Taliban’s momentum has been broken.

These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed my very low expectations. They’re not consumed with personal vanity. They don’t obsess over their differences in race, religion, social or economic standing. They focus on the mission at hand, not content to give a flowery speech while letting their dwindling number of congressional allies do the heavy lifting.

Imagine what I could do if I followed their example. Unfortunately, I must spend too much of my valuable personal time promoting our nation’s golf courses, tourist attractions, and soda fountains.

My grandfather, then an honorably discharged veteran of Patton’s Army, in a story that will never appear in a history book, personally liberated Auschwitz by clinging to his guns, religion, and a handcrafted mess kit made from organic materials manufactured on an assembly line by my grandmother in a union shop using green energy.

We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of ivy league graduates do really well, or we can restore an economy where everyone plays by the same rules. Because the goal of the progressive vision now is to restore America to the world of the 1950s – an America that promised if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and let someone else take care of your retirement.

Let’s remember how we got here. Long before the recession, and thus totally unconnected from it, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores. More recently, technology made businesses more efficient and made some jobs obsolete. Folks at the top saw their incomes rise like never before. So these three things: Technology, Efficiency, and Rising Incomes are to blame for our recession. QED.

In 2008, a year that I will never forget, the house of cards collapsed. We learned that mortgages had been sold to people who could not afford or understand them. Banks had made huge bets with other people’s money, knowing they were too big to fail and that, provided they were well connected with political leaders, regulators would look the other way.

It was wrong. It was irresponsible. And to make sure that it never happens in exactly the same way again, I have made many of those responsible my most trusted advisers and confidants, while the rest I have pilloried publicly, holding them accountable for the poor decisions of others.

In one period of time four million jobs were lost. In another period of time four million jobs were lost. Those are some facts. So are these: Two plus Two is Four. Pluto is not a planet. American manufacturers are creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s. Together manufacturers and I have agreed to cut the deficit by more than $2 million. And we have put in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable to federal regulators.

The 57 states of our union are getting stronger. And we have traveled too far down the road I have led you to turn back. As long as I am President, I will work with anyone who agrees with me. But I will fight obstruction with extra-constitutional action. And I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.

No longer will Americans fear the specters of Technology, Efficiency, and Rising Incomes.

This blueprint begins with American manufacturing.

What’s happening in Detroit can happen in other cities. It could happen in Milwaukee or Pittsburgh or Raleigh. [Srsly, should we be holding Detroit up as our model of the future? Oh, screw it. No one is paying attention, just include some shout-outs to purple states –Ed.]

Hello Cleveland!

Hello Kitty!

My message to business leaders is simple. Ask yourselves what you can do for the AFL-CIO, or I will seize your assets, defraud your bondholders, and cast you as villains.

We should start with our tax code. It is incredibly complicated, so complicated, in fact, that my own secretary of the Treasury could not figure it out despite the best software available on the open market. It is even more complicated for businesses and manufacturers who can, with the help of an army of accountants and lawyers, position themselves to take advantage of deductions, exemptions and tax shelters. Therefore, tonight I propose a new set of deductions, exemptions, and tax shelters that will cure the problems caused by the ones that already exist.

We are also making it easier for American businesses to sell products all over the planet. I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products – especially if it is a warm and sunny location. But if Norway needs butter, I will sell it to them myself. If Iran wants centrifuges and mass spectrometers for medicinal purposes, I will hand deliver them. If North Korea’s new leader wants to supplement his late father’s movie collection, I will send him the latest releases in the digital or analog format of his choice. And if Pakistan wants the latest military helicopter or drone with stealth technology, I will send them one on spec.

America’s future lies in manufacturing tires and antagonizing our existing trading partners.

Tonight I am announcing the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit whose sole function is to remind China of the humiliation that nation suffered as a result of the Opium Wars. Here’s what they will do: they will investigate unfair trade practices in China, prevent counterfeit or unsafe goods from China from crossing our borders, and they will open new markets in China for American goods and services by dividing China into ‘spheres of influence’ so that American manufacturers can compete on a level playing field in China. To sum up, we will address the problems of the 21st century by using the methods that failed so horribly in the 19th.

Our workers are the most productive on Earth.

There is no possible way to segue to my next point, but here goes: Many business leaders in the United States can’t find workers with the right skills.

Growing industries have more job openings than those in decline. Think about that – industry, which, you know, produces the goods and services that make up our economy, is constantly adjusting and adapting to change.

That’s inexcusable. And we know how to fix it.

Here is an anecdote in which an evil corporation got so fed up with the educational system that it took over the apparatus of a community college in order to train a worker, thus ensuring that she has the necessary skills and aptitude before giving her a paycheck.

This is what I like to call “a solution in need of a problem”. Since these and like partnerships exist and seem to function perfectly well, we must pour federal money into our community colleges, thus restoring them to their rightful place – career centers for paper shuffling administrators living off the public trough, exploiters of adjunct instructors and occupiers of valuable real estate.

And I want to cut through the maze of confusing training programs, so that from now on, people have only one place to go for all the information and help they need. Because if there’s one thing the federal government is good at, it’s making one-size-fits-all databases and putting them up on the web. Just ask my good friend Joe Biden, here, about his work with recovery.org.

But challenges remain. And we know how to solve them. And since knowing is half the battle, we’re already halfway there.

I believe as strongly as I ever have that we should take on illegal immigration. The fact that there are fewer illegal crossings today than four years ago has nothing at all to do with our nation’s economic downturn. And my administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. [OMG!!! Do you think anyone will get the Boot Hill ref? LOL!!! – Ed.]

Red tape is bad. So, when I get back from my next vacation, I will sign an Executive Order banning the use of red tape in all construction projects. The bridge to America’s future will be held together not with red tape but by American-made duct tape!

Remember how I talked about banks selling people mortgages that they couldn’t understand? And how they took big bets with other people’s money? And how regulators looked the other way? No? Good. Now listen here:

I’m sending this Congress a plan that gives homeowners a chance to save $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates that I heard about on a radio ad. No red tape. No questions asked. I will demand that banks give you free money, then pay for this by assessing them a fee which in no way could possibly be passed on to you. And, unlike my “Making Home Affordable” program, this one will be heavily advertised on television with a catchy theme song and images of people who look just like people who might need help.

We’ve already paid the price for lenders who sold mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them, so this time we should be able to get them for free, or at least a steep discount.

Right now, our most immediate priority is stopping a tax hike on working Americans while the economy is still fragile. Because I recognize that failing to extend a tax cut is the same as a tax hike. Right now, we are poised to spend nearly $1 trillion on what was supposed to be a temporary tax break for people who make more than me. Let me be perfectly clear: Refusing to extend a tax cut is not the same as a tax hike.

Jimmy Buffett rules!

All government spending is an investment. But when a wealthy individual invests his or her own money, that can be problematic. That kind of investment might result in the person becoming wealthier, setting up a cycle in which the rich get richer and the poor stay poor. I think we can all agree that we would feel better off if the wealthiest Americans just poured their money into a big hole and then covered it up with dirt. This would also create jobs.

I’m a Democrat. So when you hear me say that my education plan offers more competition and local control, you know I’m not really serious. But my Republican friends who complain about Government spending, like my best buddy Tom Coburn, are hypocrites, because they drive on federally financed roads and hold federal office.

So there it is. No one built this country on their own. This nation is great because we built it together. No credit should be given to those who came before us, and no quarter should be granted to those who refuse to get with the program.

Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

Four More Years of This?

2012-01-26T09:27:00.001-05:00

Arizona governor Jan Brewer, whom the media will remind you is a Republican governor, had an interesting thing happen to her on the way to the airport. She went to the airport to meet the President, who was arriving on a visit.

Shortly after leaving the plane, the President allegedly lit up into her about some comments she made in a book, in which she described him as patronizing and dismissive. The President, as we keep hearing from different sources on both sides of the aisle, apparently is a big freaking crybaby about everything, and scolded her right on the tarmac about what she wrote.

The MSM generally reconstructs the confrontation with the President giving her an earful, because as you know, he is all-powerful and paternal, whereas she is just some dumb Republican woman. But the photos (one is provided above) show a very different bit of body language.

Perhaps the Governor is reminding the President that, thanks to that pesky Constitution, she does not report to him, and he does not have the right to treat her with disrespect in her own state in front of her own staff. Perhaps she reminded him that Arizona is a perfect example of his failed policies, and that his visit here is partially because of the massive screw up he caused on his inane and absent immigration enforcement policies.

The Governor said that the exchange ended well, with her inviting him for a return visit in which he can actually see the tragedy happening on the border, as well as have a nice lunch to talk about things in an adult manner. The President’s staff is not describing the incident in any on-the-record detail, which unfortunately shows who really won any contest between them.

Mailbag: Folks Cater to the Czar's Whims

2012-01-26T09:13:00.000-05:00

As the Czar predicted (some might say begged for), emails have been flooding in (some might say two arrived) about the Czar’s tribute to Kolchak: The Night Stalker television series.

ScottO, the @AgStateSense, writes in:

O Great and All-Knowing Czar,

Not wishing to disappoint Your Czarness, I just had to tell you I also loved Kolchak: The Night Stalker. I was about the age of the Цесаревич when it aired, and my dad was almost as cool as you, so I got to stay up and watch it every week. I was also very sad when I learned it was no longer being aired.

Since then, anytime I saw that Darren McGavin was in something, I'd watch if I could. Boy, was I glad of that when A Christmas Story came on! I was devastated when I heard he'd died.

Your uncreeped minion,
ScottO
@AgStateSense

Thanks! The Czar pointed out to ScottO that everyone the Czar met who loved the television series always remembers one or two specific scenes from it, usually in considerable detail. We asked ScottO what his were, and of course, he said he couldn’t remember a single one. There is one in every crowd.

And Dr. J puts forth an interoffice memo (you can tell the interoffice ones: more blood stains because we tend to reuse paper):

I couldn't hold out the email any longer.

Loved that show too. I was introduced to it when The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler were broadcast on UHF one October Saturday afternoon when I was in late Junior High or early High School. Darren McGavin will always be one of my favorite character actors. I will definitely tap into You Tube tv and such as our Blu-rays and AppleTV are linked.

Thanks for awakening some dusty neurons today.

P.S. You owe me two dollars for the Predators victory the other night.

Now don’t get us wrong: The X-Files was a very successful show, and its creator worshipped Kolchak: The Night Stalker as its inspiration. But the two shows were very different in execution, style, theme, and atmosphere. Kolchak: The Night Stalker was fun and satirical; The X-Files seemed overly staged and too into itself, even though Darren McGavin was brought back late into the show’s demise to pick up its ratings.