|
EspressoPundit Ruminations of an over-caffeinated political junkie |
|||||
|
|
April 3 Here's Opinion Journal's take and an unfortunate headline in the Republic
Can't We Get Them Some Real Food?
March 31 Here's a letter about the Terri Shiavo tragedy.
Greg As I take a late lunch, a news item from
National Journal re: Schiavo fallout: Wednesday, U.S. Circuit Judge Stanley
Birch Jr., appointed by former President George H.W. Bush, wrote a rebuke
of President Bush and Congress, saying Congress' and the White House's
actions on the case were "demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers'
blueprint for the governance of a free people -- our Constitution." Is this not the same Constitution that established the creation of a bi-cameral legislative body with powers equal to that of the executive and judicial branches? And does this Constitution not also charge each branch with serving as a system of checks and balances against each other? So, the duly elected representatives and senators who must bow to the will of the people and face them at the bar of public opinion every so often passed legislation to remedy what many believe to be a tremendous injustice. This bill became law when signed by another duly elected public officer. Their efforts ultimately failed. Why? Because the unelected and effectively unaccountable judicial branch (when was the last time a federal judge was impeached - 20 years ago?) did not interpret the law as intended by those who wrote it. In other words, one branch of government overrode the will of the two others. Constitutionally, that's the way things are supposed to work. Checks and balances. But Judge Birch has the nerve to preach to the country about how much damage the president and congress did to the Constitution with the Schiavo law? He's a sore winner. Every court that looked at this law refused to grant relief to Terri's family, so, if anything, Judge Birch should be praising the effectiveness of the Constitution because the courts saw congress as overreaching its bounds. I think he was just ticked off that people somewhere besides the judiciary had the gall to try and craft legislation. Isn't that what judges are really for? They seem to think so. Doug Nick Well said
March 30 My post on the Gov's veto of the corporate tax credit for scholarships bill drew this response from a teacher in Pima County who was with TUSD for nearly 30 years. Greg, The teachers'
unions, esp. here in Tucson, are killing, destroying the name withheld Well said
March 29 Mainstream Arizona has settled with the AG's office. The committee has to pay $5,000 and register with the Secretary of State's office. But this is interesting: Mainstream will demonstrate to the Attorney General’s Office that it did not use corporate contributions to pay for any of its mailings within thirty (30) days of the effective date of this Order; Hmm, Since most of the money they received was corporate, I'll be interested to see the evidence in their demonstration.
Wow, Salvador Reza is ticked off. He thinks that Arizona is a racist state, run by racist guys like Russell Pearce who sponsor racist bills like the one that would: ban undocumented immigrants from living in public housing, taking adult literacy courses and enrolling in college, among other services. But Salvador has a solution. Salvador Reza is working with a California-based immigrant rights group to organize the boycott and hopes to publicize it through Latino organizations across the country. Without an immigrant workforce, he says, Arizona's economy would collapse. That's right, Salvador is going to get back at racist guys like Pearce by...telling Mexicans not to come here. Yeah, that will show him.
Gov. Napolitano has looked unbeatable of late. But if she loses, I'll point to this event as the key factor. Gov. Janet Napolitano Monday vetoed a measure offering tax credits to businesses that donate to private school scholarship funds. The Democratic governor nixed the Republican and Catholic schools-backed bill which extends existing individual private school giving tax credits to businesses Teachers unions oppose the measure, Both of Arizona's Catholic Bishops endorsed the bill, but when the Gov. was forced to choose between two key Democratic constituencies, she went with the teacher's unions. Arizona Republicans enjoy a 150,000 voter edge and a higher turnout percentage. To win statewide, an Arizona Democrat must keep her entire base and lure enough crossover voters to populate Flagstaff--three times. The low income, Catholic--primarily Hispanic--families who pay to send their kids to religious schools who would have benefited from these scholarships, are, of course, a core Democratic constituency. The natural organization that develops around churches and schools means that this constituency has the deepest of grassroots. They are active, organized and now ticked off. Don't get me wrong, the Hispanic Catholic community will vote overwhelmingly for Napolitano. But she doesn't need "overwhelmingly," she needs "unanimously."
March 28 Perhaps the best example of media hypocrisy you will ever see. When former Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was "outed" as a CIA operative, major newspapers--especially the New York Times--demanded the appointment of a special prosecutor. Conservatives complained that the charge was politically motivated and it was clear that no crime had been committed. But with an election looming, the east coast editors and the NPR crowd smelled blood and it smelled like Karl Rove's blood. John Ashcroft reluctantly complied and called for a special prosecutor--who promptly subpoenaed the newspapers in an effort to find the leak. Now that the election is over and the papers have realized that the prosecutor is going to go after reporters, the east coast crowd is singing a different tune. From Thursday's Washington Post A federal court should first determine whether a crime has been committed in the disclosure of an undercover CIA operative's name before prosecutors are allowed to continue seeking testimony from journalists about their confidential sources, the nation's largest news organizations and journalism groups asserted in a court filing yesterday.
March 27 He is risen, he is risen indeed.
March 25 Here's a recent email in Bush/freedom, Gore/internet controversy. Greg,
Name withheld Here's my response. I appreciate the feed back. Thanks. I'm somewhat of a history buff myself. The two periods that you address have been discussed often in the debate about current events in the Middle East and I considered them carefully when I made my claim. Unfortunately, the countries created after WWI didn't stay free long and we have yet to see if the "Arab Street" will surpass the fall of the Soviet Empire. But I think it is well on it's way to doing so. As for who gets the
credit, I think Reagan gets credit for the fall of the Soviet
Empire--although Truman gets credit for containment, which was far better
than Roosevelt's policy of appeasement.
Check out this video
March 24 This is shocking. I'm sure no one expected this and it must be the first time it has ever happened. The first leg of the new light rail system is...gasp...way over budget. The cost of the
automated people mover that would connect the Metro light-rail system with
terminals at Sky Harbor International Airport could climb higher than $1
billion, a price tag that is forcing airport officials to scramble for
ways to scale it back. When originally proposed in January 2001, the cost was projected at $200 million. Wow, 200 million in 2001 became 700 million in 2003 and is 1 billion in 2005--and we are still in the design stage. I can't believe it. Next you'll be telling me that publicly funded stadiums are a poor investment, there's a glut of public Civic Centers , "voluntary" all-day Kindergarten is, in fact, mandatory and provides no long-term benefits. Thank goodness T-gen is going to move Arizona into the future so life will be worth living otherwise I would spend my days longing for the Phoenix Grand Prix while walking--absolutely alone--by Tempe Town Lake.
March 23 According to the New York Times Paul Wolfowitz once wrote that a major lesson of the cold war for American foreign policy was: "the importance of leadership and what it consists of: not lecturing and posturing and demanding, but demonstrating that your friends will be protected and taken care of, that your enemies will be punished, and that those who refuse to support you will regret having done so." That pretty much sums up the difference between the Clinton and Bush administrations.
March 22 It's frankly not surprising that the Republic abandoned its long-held support of school vouchers in an overt effort to provide veto cover for Gov. Napolitano. Get your veto pen ready, Gov. Napolitano. Vouchers are coming. However, it is surprising that the editorial defenders of the status quo could do little more than regurgitate well-worn NEA talking points And more talking points (NEA et. al. talking points in blue, Republic Editorial in black)
The public doesn’t want vouchers.
Sending public money to private schools, including religious schools, that operate with little public scrutiny or public accountability is not a wise choice.
Families that can't afford transportation don't really have a choice.
Touting vouchers as
a way of helping the poor "rescue" their children from low-achieving
schools is a false promise because few of those parents can provide the
transportation to get their children to the private schools.
Will a
voucher pay all or part of the tuition? Vouchers take money away from low-performing schools. The students left behind would see their hopes for a good education further diminished as their schools were bled of resources.
Arizona needs targeted investments in public schools
strong public education
as a key underpinning of democracy.
While providing a barrel of red herring, the good folks on the Republic’s left bank fail to address one point. Unlike two of the education establishment’s pillars of faith—head start and all day Kindergarten—the evidence demonstrates that school vouchers actually have long term benefits for children. Especially for disadvantaged and minority children After one year, the results show that students who used a scholarship to attend a private school scored 5.9 percentile points higher on the math section of the ITBS than comparable students who remained in public schools. Choice students scored 6.5 percentile points higher than their public school counterparts in reading after one year. Standardized reading and math test scores for black students who had used the vouchers (worth up to $1,400 each year) to attend private schools for three years were 9.2 percentile points higher than those of comparable black students who did not attend a private school. Shouldn't that be the standard by which vouchers are judged?
March 21 Kudos to Bob Robb for unmasking Greater Phoenix Leadership. GPL is a
self-appointed group of business and community leaders that, at this
point, pretty much operates as a liberal lobby, consistently supporting
the expansion of government power and influence. He could have gone further by pointing out that many of those large corporations share a common characteristic--they rely on government largess for their existence and their CEOs tend to be successful based on their ability to deal with government agencies. The GPL Board of Directors is dominated by heavily regulated banks, utilities, insurance companies, and healthcare providers together with construction companies that profit from massive government infrastructure projects. Sprinkle in some big lawyers and newspaper publishers and it's not too surprising that GPL has a government solution to whatever perceived problem you can drum up
Here's an embarrassing correction in the Washington Post via powerline The March 18 Names & Faces column included a quote that was attributed to Britney Spears via Allure magazine. The quote was actually a spoof, written by a Philadelphia Daily News reporter, of an Allure interview with Spears. The spoof was then picked up as an actual quote by MSNBC.com. Here's the fake quote Like omigod, I have to tell the maid to buy diapers and get the poolboy to walk the dog? Can't I just make out with Kevin all the time? Being married sucks. You would think that the mainstream media would, like you know, check stuff like this out. Of course, if you read in the Republic that Colette Rosatti said that abortion causes cancer, you can be excused for being skeptical. If you want accurate media, check out the blogs.
March 19 My Sunday post managed to tick off John Genette of Carefree. This letter to the Editor was published in Tuesday's Republic. In the spirit of a sore winner, Greg Patterson rekindles the notion that Al Gore should be mocked for saying he invented the Internet. Gore never said that, but he did, in fact, play an instrumental role in supporting the Internet's development in the United States. By breathing life into the inaccurate version of the Gore-Internet quote, Patterson uses the broad platform given him by The Republic to make an irresponsible contribution to community dialogue I can only hope that the burgeoning democracies Patterson applauds don't look to him for an example of civil discourse. - John Genette, Carefree Here's what I said on Sunday.
The World is experiencing a new birth of
freedom. From the successful elections in
Two men are largely responsible for this
transformation. President Bush, whose willingness to identify the Axis of
Evil--backed up with troops in
Dude, it was a joke. But since you insist on making a case of it, let's chat a little bit about Al Gore and the Internet. On March 9, 1999 Gore appeared on CNN'S WOLF BLITZER. GORE--But (my vision for America) will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system. Some might argue that I'm being unfair by replacing "took the initiative in creating" with "invented" but I believe it's a distinction without a difference. It ultimately doesn't matter because Gore eventually backed off the statement. But first his staff shoved his foot further into his mouth. Here's a defense of Gore that explains what followed: Gore's spokesman Chris Lehane tried to explain. He noted that Gore "was the leader in Congress on the connections between data transmission and computing power, what we call information technology. And those efforts helped to create the Internet that we know today." [AP, March 11, 1999] So instead of saying that he had mispsoken, Gore's staff tried to claim that Gore's Congresional efforts helped create the internet. That's not the same as "I took the initiative in creating the Internet" and it's not true either Here's a brief history of the net published in 1993. And, believe it or not, it includes a contribution by Al Gore It starts like this Some thirty years ago (1963) , the RAND Corporation, America's foremost Cold War think-tank, faced a strange strategic problem. How could the US authorities successfully communicate after a nuclear war? The article goes on to list the usual ARPANET history etc. The Gore contribution is listed in the bibliography. One of the books used as source for the article was: The Internet Companion an Evangelical etiquette guide to the Internet featuring anecdotal tales of life-changing Internet experiences. Foreword by Senator Al Gore. Well, that's kind of like creating the internet. Gore finally got wise and backed off by saying The day I made that statement, I was tired because I'd been up all night inventing the Camcorder. Now that's funny. He should have said it originally. March 15 I'm starting to feel bad for former ASU President Lattie Coor. First, he gets a school named after him--but it's failing and in danger of being taken over by the state. Then he starts a think tank, excuse me he calls it a "do tank." (My aunt's do tank must be too small, because they have to get it cleaned out, like, twice a year.) Lattie's "do tank's" goal is to promote a vision for a better Arizona. Back when he was ASU President, the media and political types used to beat a path to his door so they could partake in his vision and glimpse the new economy. That's because they never understood that the real economic engine in the state is a guy working a second job at Home Depot so he can put his kid through Brophy. The trouble with Lattie's vision is that Michael Crow followed him as ASU President--now that guy's got vision. Teach kids? Shucks, we're going to buy downtown Phoenix and turn it into Silicon Valley circa 2001, or Japan circa 1995. Biotech and Starbucks as far as the eye can see. But now Lattie has got the jump on Michael. We're talking vision here. Lattie Coor's Do Tank has announced that it is going to formulate a plan to.... ..Significantly lower the nighttime temperature in the Valley.
Dude, that's awesome. Forget about so called "global
warming," Let's change the weather. Maybe Michael Crow can
follow up by making water freeze at 50 degrees so we can skate on the
Tempe town lake. Now that would be cool, maybe they could finally
get someone to actually got there. But why be critical, that was
last year's vision. March 13 You can make a lot of mistakes in business and survive, but every industry has its fatal error. There’s always one mistake, or one small error in judgment, from which you can’t recover. In the airline industry, for example, you can be late, you can lose bags, but crash a plane and it’s over. In the newspaper industry, the fatal error is burning major advertisers. Newspapers don’t like to admit it, but if the hotshot reporter nails the major sponsor, that’s a problem. It’s so much of a problem that the marketing department will occasionally call a major advertiser so they can pull that week’s copy and not face the humiliation of advertising in the issue in which they get nailed. Newspapers and periodicals that humiliate major advertisers are not long for this world. In lobbying, the fatal error is taking a swing at the Chairman of whatever committee all your bills have to go through. Or looking like you are embarrassing the chairman, or being around when someone else takes a swing at, or embarrasses the Chairman. Nothing eliminates your Legislative agenda faster than looking like you may have been a root cause of nailing your Chairman. That’s why I was stunned when I researched the Jana Bommersbach hit piece on Senator Huppenthal in Phoenix Magazine and realized that the magazine had managed to combine two fatal errors. The major sponsor of the current issue of Phoenix Magazine is the State Bar of Arizona. All of the State Bar’s bills would have gone through the Senate Judiciary Committee—chaired by John Huppenthal.
March 13 I’m not a Jeff Groscost basher. I’ve known Jeff for 14 years, and I’ve worked with him (and against him), got fired because of him, been backstabbed by him and frankly, I’ve stabbed him in the back a time or two. But I don’t bash him—and I wouldn’t buy a car from him either. Jeff is like Bill Clinton, Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon—remarkably talented and fatally flawed. The flaws derailed his career early—but it’s still early. It’s easy for journalists who are one downsizing away from a career at Starbucks to snipe at men like Jeff Groscost. Sometimes it’s deserved, sometimes it’s not, but it’s always easy. That’s why it’s hard to take a Jeff Groscost story seriously. Is he actually doing something newsworthy, or is he just trying to earn a living while a reporter takes a cheap shot at him? However, I believe that this is going to be big. Jeff Groscost,… donated $19,000 to a referendum effort against a retail development in west Mesa last fall, according to a deposition taken Friday. But Groscost, who is on retainer with Vestar, which is building a rival project in Tempe, said the donations are his own money… His own money? Is there anyone in Arizona who knows Jeff and thinks that his statement could possibly be true? Political consultants don’t fund campaigns, just like lawyers don’t fund lawsuits and surgeons don’t fund operations. They make a living convincing other people to do that. Maybe Jeff is being forthright. Maybe he’s made a ton of money and decided to invest it in political causes about which he cares deeply. More power to him. Or maybe not. And if not, the next questions are going to be asked under oath and they will be posed by lawyers not reporters. And the answers had better be right. Otherwise, the fatal flaws are going to finally overwhelm the remarkable talent.
The Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens redeems himself. The cliché is that journalism is the first draft of history. Yet a historian searching for clues about the origins of many of the great stories of recent decades--the collapse of the Soviet empire; the rise of Osama bin Laden; the declining American crime rate; the economic eclipse of Japan and Germany--would find most contemporary journalism useless.
March 11 I was troubled by the swagger in Jana Bommersbach's claim that she "nailed Senator John Huppenthal for "lying" about all-day kindergarten in her March column in Phoenix Magazine." So I decided to do a little investigating. What I discovered was a
wide body of evidence that Jana's column is the journalistic equivalent of
a drive-by shooting, filled with twisted quotes manufactured evidence and
erroneous conclusions. It's clear who's guilty of prevarication - Michael
Moore would be proud. Furthermore, the
statistic she quotes is on the SAME PAGE of the report that indicates that
there is NO difference in the performance of children who attend all-day K
verses half-day K. "I wanted to be sure I had it straight. The guy who directed the study finds it difficult to determine how somebody concluded all day kindergarten was worthless?" This appears to Jana to
be confirmation that Dr. West secretly agrees with her that Huppenthal is
lying.
March 10 Last week, I attended the parent orientation for my junior high age son's facts-of-life class. Good thing too, because when I was his age and went through the class, I was too busy passing notes and giggling to learn anything. Now that I’m a middle aged father of 3, I’m finally mature enough to pay attention, take notes and learn something. What I discovered is the catastrophe caused by 30 years of the “use a condom” mantra. The instructor confirmed the startling fact that condoms do not prevent transmission of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) the most common, and one of the most dangerous sexually transmitted diseases. Afterwards, I looked HPV up to see how serious this virus is. One doctor put it this way: Because: there is no cure for HPV, men cannot be tested, most infected people have no symptoms, and condoms do not stop transmission -- students need to make other choices. …nearly all cervical cancer is caused by HPV. Moreover, in the USA, more women die from cervical cancer than die from AIDS! Incredibly organizations like Planned Parenthood remain in denial that their “safe sex” shibboleths are medically irresponsible, and insist on framing the debate as a defense against a political and religious onslaught. This example is typical: Abstinence-only education is one of the religious right's greatest challenges to the nation's sexual health. Ironically, Planned Parenthood concedes the same basic facts that the abstinence-only advocates are emphasizing: HPV is extremely common; condoms don’t prevent HPV transfer; and HPV is the leading cause of cervical cancer. However, instead of conceding the logical conclusion that, in the face these facts, students should be warned not to have sex, Planned Parenthood provides comfort by siting declining cancer mortality rates and recommending regular pap smears! It is estimated that in 2004 there will be about 10,520 new cases of invasive cervical cancer in the United States, which will result in about 3,900 deaths. Worldwide, about 500,000 new cases are diagnosed each year. Due largely to routine screening using Pap tests, the number of deaths attributed to cervical cancer in the United States dropped 45 percent between the periods 1972-1974
While we are at it, skip the sunscreen because chemotherapy is more effective than ever.
Could any rational parent consider this a responsible recommendation?
No matter what your religious beliefs, moral values or political persuasion, the evidence is clear. The only acceptable advice for our kids is abstinence only.
March 9 Dan Rather will be gone after tonight. Here's a greatest hits of bias list. “There was no doubt
Republicans in the House had enough votes tonight to pass another key item
in their agenda to rip up or re-write government programs going back to
the Franklin Roosevelt era. It is a bill making it harder, much harder, to
protect health, safety, and the environment.” “President Bush
tonight outlines his cut-federal-programs-to-get-a-tax-cut plan to
Congress and the nation.” "If we could be
one-hundredth as great as you and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been in the
White House, we’d take it right now and walk away winners....Tell Mrs.
Clinton we respect her and we’re pulling for her.”
March 7 Much has been made of Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer's plan to increase the Democratic base by overturning state statutes that prohibit felons from voting. Here's George Will Here's John Fund's take on it. The Constitution grants states the authority to determine "the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections," but Hillary Clinton and John Kerry are pushing a Count Every Vote Act that would, among other things, force states to allow voters to register at the polls and declaring Election Day a federal holiday. And then they want to force every state to let felons vote--even though the 14th Amendment specifically permits states to disfranchise citizens convicted of "participation in rebellion, or other crime." However, there has been less focus on other desperate attempts by leading democrats to bring more voters to the polls.
Bill Clinton bent the rules on immigration to expand his base. In a memo to Clinton obtained by congressional investigators an aide wrote: "You asked us to expedite the naturalization of nearly a million legal aliens who have applied to become citizens.'' It recommended, ''Lower the standards for citizenship,'' but warned, ''INS warns that if we are too aggressive at removing the roadblocks to success, we might be publicly criticized for running a pro-Democrat voter mill.''
Incredibly, Jimmy Carter went to the Russians to expand his base Russian documents show that in the waning days of the 1980 campaign, the Carter White House dispatched businessman Armand Hammer to the Soviet Embassy. Hammer was a longtime Soviet-phile, and he explained to the Soviet ambassador that Carter was "clearly alarmed" at the prospect of losing to Reagan. Hammer pleaded with the Russians for help. He asked if the Kremlin could expand Jewish emigration to bolster Carter's standing in the polls. "Carter won't forget that service if he is elected," Hammer told Dobrynin.
What a difference a few months make. While these are different sources, I think they are indicative of the changing European attitude.
Indubitably, however, even his most grudging domestic opponents and his harshest critics in the region admit that Mr Bush is also in part responsible. The 2003 invasion of Iraq may have been justified by a giant fraud, but that, and above all the January election to which it led, transfixing the Arab world, has proved a catalyst. The mood at the White House, on Capitol Hill and in the punditocracy has been transformed. The weapons of mass destruction fiasco is forgotten, the deaths of US troops have slipped from the front pages. Even Senator Edward Kennedy, bitter Democratic critic of the invasion, admits that Mr Bush deserves credit "for what seemed to be a tentative awakening of democracy in the region". The neoconservatives are predictably triumphalist. "What changed the climate in the Middle East was not just the US invasion and show of arms," exults the commentator Charles Krauthammer in Time magazine. "It was US determination and staying power, and the refusal of its people last November to turn out a president who rejected an 'exit strategy'." You've got to love the Brits. Who else would say "indubitably." I also like "learnt" and "whilst."
Lest anyone think that Dan Rather's penchant for fabrication developed late. Here's an example that demonstrates he was a liar from day one. In the immediate aftermath of the Kennedy Assassination: Rather went on the air with a local Methodist minister who made a stunning claim: Children at Dallas's University Park Elementary School had cheered when told of the president's death. The tale was perfect for the moment, reinforcing the notion among distant media elites that Dallas was a reactionary "City of Hate." Except that it wasn't true, and Rather knew it
March 6 Here's an excerpt from the Sean Noble email. You've probably heard of it by now. It was sent to members of the Legislature, and it is having an impact on the debate over All-day K. (Sean is Congressman Shadegg's Chief of Staff.) Here's the key line. Here's the whole thing. If all-day K is "voluntary" then let us have our half-day program back. With out it, our son's education suffers and it puts the education of our younger children at risk.
Thomas Sowell makes an excellent point in the Vision of the Anointed that the programs of the ruling elite must, by definition, be mandatory. If free people exercise their own choices and do so for their own benefit, that would be a market solution. Make no mistake, to the extent that the intelligentsia's programs differ from market solutions, they have to be enacted by force. There is no need to explain that to a poor family who wants to send their child to a private school but is compelled to attend a failing public school in their neighborhood--they already know. Give them a voucher. Let them choose.
March 5 Blogs work best when they are part of a network. You don't really care what I think, it's what everyone else thinks that's important and I hope I can provide a unique forum for that interaction. The case in point is the Doug Wead entry that I posted a couple weeks ago. It turns out that an espresso pundit reader had Doug's private email address, so I sent him an email and asked him about the tapes. The response I got was pretty formal and I'm sure it's a form letter response, but I found it to be interesting. Wish I could live my life over and do things differently. Actually, I think the released tapes made him look good, that unlike other tape stories this was not about catching someone doing something wrong but catching someone doing something right.
This is what I am doing now, not sure what else I can do. 1.) Directing any future proceeds from the book to charity and 2.) finding the best way to get these tapes back to the president to whom they belong.
Doug Wead
Not sure what more I can do. Here's a relic from the past:
Anyone remember who Doug's Primary Election opponent was? Were it not for Doug, Phil McDonald would have had the seat currently occupied by J.D. Hayworth.
March 4 Here's the piece I submitted for this Sunday's Republic. We'll see if I can muscle my way into the rotation past Stan Barnes and Jay Heiler
The World is experiencing a new birth of
freedom. From the successful elections in
Two men are largely responsible for this
transformation. President Bush, whose willingness to identify the Axis of
Evil--backed up with troops in
The Wall Street Journal has, in my opinion, the best analysis of the recent juvenile death penalty case. But what makes Roper notable, and worthy of wider debate, is the way it symbolizes the current Supreme Court's burst of liberal social activism. From gay rights to racial preferences and now to the death penalty, a narrow majority of Justices has been imposing its own blue-state cultural mores on the rest of the country. We suspect it is also inviting a political backlash. Of particular interest is the way Roper invoked foreign public opinion to determine what should be part of the national US consensus. Perhaps the most troubling feature of Roper is that it extends the High Court's recent habit of invoking foreign opinion in order to overrule American laws. "It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty," Justice Kennedy writes. We thought the Constitution was the final arbiter of U.S. law, but apparently that's passé. I'm not a lawyer but I'm concerned by the precedent set by this tactic. Here's a satiric look at the implications that will make my buddy Bas Aja happy. WASHINGTON, DC - In a far-reaching decision that will likely create complicated consequences for the American livestock and wedding-planning industries, the Supreme Court this morning ruled 5-4 that all US marriage dowries "must include three non-diseased oxen."
March 3 My post (below) about Joel Nilsson's naive assertion that merit selection..took politics out of the judiciary. Has drawn a response from John McDonald Lots of folks who want to reform Arizona's justice system love "the federal model," but only to a point. Without Greg Patterson's permission, allow me to finish a sentence from his latest blog: Read the rest here
I like debating John McDonald—especially when he concedes that I’m right. The point of my previous post was that Republic editorial writer Joel Nilsson demonstrated astonishing naiveté with the absurd statement that: Conservative lawmakers can't accept the fact that merit selection, as passed by the voters in 1974, took politics out of the judiciary. John opens with the line: Patterson is correct that politics is part of any selection process, and merit selection is no different. Ohh, I like that, especially the first part. However, John proceeds to make some excellent points regarding the inadequacies of my post. For example: But to say those volunteers who serve on nominating commissions are "invisible" is just flat-out wrong. Hmm, well technically John’s right. I didn’t really mean that they are literally invisible—until they engage their cloaking devices or vote themselves into executive session. That’s a metaphor. You know like “the wheels were falling off the Republic’s editorial board until Phil Boas threw down the gauntlet and told everyone to get back into the game; then it was smooth sailing.” While the selection commission operates in full view, its work is so obscure, process so arcane and media coverage so lacking, that it is virtually invisible and totally unaccountable. I will buy a nice lunch at the Wendy’s of his choice to any member of the Republic Editorial Board who can name two members of the Commission. John also makes an excellent point that federal judges serve for life. He’s right, and we all know that in Arizona, judges have to face the scrutiny and wrath of the voters every four years—judges live in constant fear that one slip up or lack of deference to a key constituency and they are bounced from office like a…give me a break. The evaluation committee that recommends judges for retention or removal is stacked with judges. Complaints against judges are kept secret, and judges run unopposed on the ballot. If they receive a simple majority of yes votes, they are retained. Only two judges have ever been removed-- nearly 30 years ago. Fidel Castro has less job security than these guys, but at least he’s not whining about it. Incredibly, Judge Marquardt was retained after being busted for marijuana possession. It took a felony drug conviction to remove him from office. In 1999 he was convicted of another marijuana offence and disbarred. The point at which it becomes easier to remove a judge by convicting and disbarring him than it does to remove him through the “merit” process, the retention system has become a farce. Arizona judges have stacked the retention system to such an extent that they serve for life. The only people who refuse to acknowledge the fact are judges and naïve editors. But the people are waking up and things are going to change.
March 2 I’m going to establish an award for the most naïve printed statement from someone who should know better and the top prize will go to Joel Nilsson for this Forrest Gump moment.
Conservative lawmakers can't accept the fact that merit selection, as passed by the voters in 1974, took politics out of the judiciary.
Took the politics out of the judiciary? You may love the merit selection system or hate it, but there is no one understands its workings and claims with a straight face that it’s not political. Judicial candidates organize kitchen cabinets and lobby every member of the committee as well as Governor’s office as part of their full blown multi-year campaigns. It requires much more political skill to navigate the “merit” model than the federal model in which the Executive branch appoints and the Senate confirms.
No Joel, the process is purely political, but it manages to bypass those knuckle dragging East Valley types who keep getting elected over the objections of enlightened editors.
Judicial selectors may be unelected, unaccountable and invisible, but they are entirely political—you know, like the founders intended.
March 1 The New York Times has shot itself in foot over the Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame affair. Jim Taranto at Opinion Journal has the definitive wrap up. When I grow up, I will be able to blog like Jim.
Here's a really sobering chart on the average life expectancy in Africa.
Here's an interesting Hunter Thompson obit. It has this great line: Thompson was a talented journalist posing as a drug addict, who eventually became a drug addict posing as a journalist. Thompson will soon be forgotten. As the 60's icons die off, the world is going to wake up and say "What were we thinking? Kinda like we do when we look at our senior picture.
February 28
This juxtaposition depicts 50 years of progress better than any I've seen. In the first picture, Alabama guardsman keep African American students out of school. If I remember her bio correctly, Condi Rice lived within a few miles of this demonstration. Do I dare speculate that she was at both events? Don't forget that the events in first picture were orchestrated by a Democrat and the events in the second picture were orchestrated by a Republican. Most of the "leadership" of the African American community has forgotten both.
My mom went to the Botanical Gardens in Tucson this weekend and took this picture. Awesome huh?
February 22 Jon Talton’s latest column manages to go from sloppy to unprofessional to potentially libelous in a mere 250 words. He starts cute yet condescending: We must begin to consider the unhappy possibility that the East Valley is insane. What else can one conclude from its elected representatives in the Legislature? Talton then leads with an example of the usual East Valley wacko suspects…first is Jack Harper. Unfortunately for the example, Senator Harper lives in the town of Surprise on the far west side. Talton’s diatribe continues to focus on East Valley mischief with a discussion of the Guns in Bars bill. Unfortunately, SB 1363 has six prime sponsors and only two of them are from the East Valley. Sponsors are: Harper (Surprise), Arzberger (Wilcox) Johnson, (Mesa) Pearce, (Mesa) Smith (Scottsdale) and Rosati (Scottsdale.) Ok, that’s sloppy but not criminal and I wouldn’t be picking nits except that Talton then goes off on Rosati: Then there are the
weird utterances such as Rep. Colette Rosati's claim that abortion leads
to breast cancer. If this urban legend were true, it might add to the story. But alas, the truth is mired in a comedy of errors. First a little context. There are plenty of studies that link an increased incidence of breast cancer to abortion. But none of the evidence appears to be conclusive, and there is no evidence that the correlation represents causation. Rep. Rosati is a nurse and her husband is a doctor; she understands the evidence. So far, so good, but hijinks ensue. Last August Republic reporter Leslie Wright was assigned to cover a campaign meeting featuring Rosati, but got lost and couldn’t find it. Rosati’s Primary opponent tried a stunt to trick Rep Rosati into saying that abortion causes cancer. Unfortunately the article leaves the impression that the reporter was in the room and quotes conflicting sources on Rosati’s response. Rosati herself is not quoted, and claims she has never stated that abortion leads to cancer. The key line in the article is: House candidate Royce Flora, already the subject of a hit piece by Rosati, then challenged her statements that abortion has been linked to breast cancer. Next, Republic reporter Robbie Sherwood wrote a Primary Election wrap up piece that described Rosati as: an outspoken social conservative who has claimed that abortions lead to breast cancer. I called Sherwood and he indicated that he did not attend the meeting, and did not talk to Rosati. Although, he has talked to people who attended the meeting, there is no indication why he changed “linked to” in the story that covered the meeting to “leads to.” Talton picks up the chain with: Then there are the weird utterances such as Rep. Colette Rosati's claim that abortion leads to breast cancer. I emailed Jon Talton and asked him about the line and he responded: Rosati's claim was
reported in the paper, and repeated to me by people who
heard her say it at a meeting. This is journalism? It is, of course, too late to do anything about it. Once a false statement appears in the Republic three times, it becomes gospel. Fifty years from now, Collette Rosati’s obituary will appear in the Republic and it will say that she was: an outspoken social conservative who has claimed that abortions lead to breast cancer. Unless doctors discover that abortion indeed causes cancer, then her obituary will read: an outspoken social conservative sponsored a bill to allow guns in bars.
Talton continues
his transition from mere typos to uncorroborated defamatory quotes to
outright libel with this little missive: Is that supposed to be funny? Efforts to repay big-money backers are called bribery. Is there any evidence that any of the sponsors of SB 1363 received “big-money” from the NRA? Most of the sponsors ran using public money, but Sen. Arzberger took private money. If I wrote a hit piece that said: “Sen. Arzberger sponsored the “Guns in Bars” bill. According to the Arizona Republic, her "efforts repay her big-money backers, such as the NRA” Arizona Republic February 22, 2005 With Talton's slander as a kernel, I could continue... Grand Jury proceedings are secret and there is no word whether state or federal prosecutors are investigating her efforts. Talton’s statement is not funny, it is demonstrably false and defamatory and should be retracted. As for the rest of it...well, you know it's Talton.
February 20 While some argue that I was obsequious in my recent discussion of Congressman Flake, at least I never compared him to a coming Messiah. Check out this David Brooks column. In the Midst of Budget Decadence, a Leader Will AriseThere's going to be another Ross Perot, and this time he's going to be younger. There's going to be a millionaire rising out of the country somewhere and he (or she) is going to lead a movement of people who are worried about federal deficits, who are offended by the horrendous burden seniors are placing on the young and who are disgusted by a legislative process that sometimes suggests that the government has lost all capacity for self-control. Brooks goes on to name possible candidates for this fiscal second coming... In the House there are Republicans like Mike Pence and Jeff Flake (whose predictions of this program's actual cost have been entirely vindicated by events).
Senate Bill 1257 makes numerous changes to the clean elections statutes, one of which is to count the value of editorial endorsements as independent expenditures. What a great idea.
Local newspapers, however, are apoplectic. The Republic and Daily Star cheered while Arizona’s Clean Election laws eroded the average citizen’s free speech rights and are now dismayed that their shop windows are being broken as well.
The Republic tacitly admits as much in its latest editorial missive.
Martin is fighting a law that muzzles free speech by trying to muzzle still more free speech.
Funny, the Republic and Star were nowhere to be found when the law was muzzling my free speech. I hope they are not amazed by my lack of empathy while their rights go by the wayside.
How does clean elections law muzzle free speech? The Supreme Court has long recognized that I can spend as much of my own money as I wish on behalf of, or against, the candidate of my choice—as long as I don’t coordinate with that candidate.
Do you think that the state is being run by Christian fundamentalist wackos of whom your State Senator is the prime example? By all means, take out an ad in the Republic, mail a hit piece to the entire district, cut a commercial and run it on Fox. Exercise your rights; make a difference.
But the value of your expenditure will be matched by the Clean Elections Commission which will promptly send your wacko Senator a check for the full amount of your expenditure. Cash in a candidate’s hand is much more effective than an independent broadside, so Mr. Wacko’s election prospects are actually improved by your exercise of free speech.
Martin’s bill simply provides the same matching rules to the newspapers as it does to private citizens. And what’s wrong with that?
Here’s what the Star thinks is wrong with it. In a stunningly naive and hilarious missive they argue that:
A newspaper's editorial board members probably lean a certain direction ideologically, but if they're doing their jobs right, they are practicing a journalistic tradition of independence. Their allegiance is to their readers, not to any particular cause.
Yeah right. The Red Star, Pravda on the Rillito claims that while the individual board members “probably lean a certain direction ideologically,” they’re “allegiance is to their readers.” Are all their readers French or what?
Maybe instead of rationalizing that they should be exempt from the free speech suppression inherent in the matching provisions of the clean election laws, they should use their free speech rights—while they still have them—to oppose those matching provisions for everyone.
Wow, restoring my rights—now that would be an act of reader allegiance from the Star.
February 20 Here's disappointing news from the New York Times. As George W. Bush was first moving onto the national political stage, he often turned for advice to an old friend who secretly taped some of their private conversations, creating a rare record of the future president as a politician and a personality. In the last several weeks, that friend, Doug Wead, an author and former aide to Mr. Bush's father, disclosed the tapes' existence to a reporter and played about a dozen of them. Those who have followed Arizona politics for many years will remember that Doug Wead was something of a mystery man with a host of DC connections who moved to Arizona and ran for Congress in 1992. He won the Republican nomination and was defeated by Karan English. Wead made the mistake of saying he was a Goldwater Republican and then Goldwater promptly endorsed Karan English--leaving the greatest unwritten headline of all time in his wake. "Goldwater Smokes Wead." Doug makes his living as a motivational speaker and author. I've never understood the motivational speaker circuit. It's a hard way to make a living, and, after all, how good can a speaker really be anyway? Sure, if you are famous for doing something really great and you can give a decent speech--Joe Namath, Neil Armstrong, Gary Coleman--people will pay to see you. But how do you make a living just giving speeches? That's so 1840s. My view changed in 1993. I had dinner with Doug in Paris before he gave a speech at Bercy Stadium. Dinner was of the normal political gossip variety except it was eight courses, cost a few hundred bucks and the waiter was chain smoking. The speech, however, was simply stunning. He brought tears to 10,000 pairs of eyes--including mine. By the end, the crowd was doing those freaky European soccer chants. It was truly amazing. I was deposed once and I told my attorney that I thought the questions would be "friendly." I'll never forget his response. "Friends don't ask you questions under oath." Well, friends don't record your conversations and play them for New York Times reporters either. I'll be interested to see how this story develops.
February 19
Here's a joke for your weekend pleasure. Courtesy Powerline
February 18 Here's Congressman Flake's comment on my NYT post.
Greg,
Not to squelch a good inter delegation rivalry, but there are
probably as many ratings systems as there are members of Congress.
Shameless politicians like me will tout the NTU scorecard, where I do
well, and dismiss the National Journal scorecard, where I'm probably
somewhere south of Henry Waxman (something about coddling communist
dictators by promoting the freedom to travel to Cuba, I suppose).
That said, there is nobody in the House of Representatives who works
harder and does more good for the cause of limited government than John
Shadegg. It's easy to cast a no vote. It's another to offer a better
alternative and work to get people on board, as Shadegg often does.
No, I didn't get a call from Sean Noble, and no, I haven't even
talked to John about this. John just deserves his due.
Jeff Flake
At the risk of once again sounding obsequious, I will have to say well said.
February 18 Whenever I get lonely, I just blog about Congressman Shadegg before breakfast and by the time I get to work, I have a message from Sean Noble that simply reads: Call me. Today was no exception. I think Sean is in charge of all enforcement actions that don't require the use of deadly force. Gotta love a good staff guy. Below, is Congressman Shadegg's take on the New York Times story. UPDATE: I think the information below is a good response on Congressman Shadegg's part. I will emphasize however, that my blog entry was aimed at the apparent intra-Arizona rivalry of Flake slamming the spenders in the New York Times when Hayworth and Shadegg were one the list. If Shadegg can demonstrate that he shouldn't be on the list, it makes Flake's comments even more ironic. SECOND UPDATE: I received a lot of comments on this post. One thread was that I was picking on Congressman Flake and should knock it off. The other train was that I was pandering to Congressman Flake to the point of being obsequious and I should knock it off. Well, at least I was clear. THIRD UPDATE: Good staff work also means getting your message out immediately. Notice that fellow Republic Blogger Ian Macpherson has a Shadegg defense that looks remarkably similar to the official Shadegg response below.
Here's Shadegg's response. Greg, Also, if you took the $34 billion prescription drug alternative out of the mix, Shadegg's net is $4,074 and Flake's is $7,808. (see attached word doc with the NTU analysis on Shadegg and Flake) Sean NTU's Taxpayer Friends in the House for 2003 2003 Taxpayer Friends (House) NTU believes a score qualifying for a grade of "A" indicates the Member of Congress is one of the strongest supporters of responsible tax and spending policies. We are pleased to give these Members of Congress our "Taxpayers' Friend Award." Name
State
Grade
Score
Rank
February 17 Remember the Republican revolution of 1994? You know…Newt Gingrich had his contract with America, Hillary Care was falling fast, Rush was drug free and the era of big government while not quite over was at least winding down? Voters sent seventy-three new Republicans to Washington to give Newt the Speakership and change the world. Doesn’t sound familiar? That’s OK they don’t remember either. Here’s an interesting analysis from the New York Times. [i]If the history of the Republican revolution were being written today, a single overarching question would have to be answered: Whatever happened to the promise of smaller government?[/] The Times has a great graphic that lists the surviving revolutionaries and contrasts their previously proposed spending cuts with their current spending priorities. The really fun part is the intra-Arizona Republican rivalry. Congressman Jeff Flake unleashes his libertarian limited government wrath on the turncoats…but J.D. Hayworth and John Shadegg are featured prominently as revolutionaries turned spenders. Oops. Now, I happen to think Jeff’s right, and I doubt that he had Shadegg and Hayworth in mind, but these quotes are going to look nice in Janet’s next TV Commercial. [i]"Too many people started to believe that the surest path to re-election is to spend money rather than cut government," says Representative Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican. "The material that comes from the Republican caucus is not to call for the elimination of this program or that, it's to brag that we have increased the budget for education by 144 percent. Mr. Flake, the Arizona Congressman, said the future of his party hinges on the revolution's revival. "If voters want bigger government," he warned, "then sooner or later they'll return to the genuine article, and that's the Democrats."[/] Hmm, maybe I could pick up some consulting work on this one. Let's see, every commercial needs a theme song. And Jeff isn’t going to play himself, so I have this recommendation…
February 15 Do you ever think that you are creative and unique, even daring or bold, only to discover that you move in the same herd as everyone else—and worse yet, you are toward the back?
No? Well, crank up the baby name wizard and prepare to be humbled. Type in a name and the wizard will graphically plot the name’s popularity through the century. Did you name your daughter Ashley in 1984? Moo. I bet you bought Cisco in 1999 too.
Since I’m a Gregory, born in 1963, I’m a monument to my parent’s herd mentality. Naturally, my wife and I are out-of-the-box snooty intellectual types who chose to be unique and name our daughter Jordan in 1995—the same year everyone else did.
My kids and I recite poems before bed and tonight my daughter asked for the "Daddy'sburg Address." Gotta lovem
Some guys really have a tin ear. This is from "The Middle Seat" in today's Wall Street Journal. Middle Seat is a travel feature for frequent fliers and this week's feature is about the survivability of plane crashes. The biggest threat in a survivable crash is fire. Jet fuel (essentially, kerosene) burns very hot at 1,500°, hotter than the melting point of aluminum. In addition, materials used in manufacturing airplanes give off toxic smoke, so the fuselage can become a deadly gas chamber in as little as 90 seconds. Just as quickly, heat can become so intense that a "flashover" occurs, where the entire cabin explodes in instantaneous combustion. You know, it's just a hunch, but I doubt that the airline industry is too thrilled when travel columnists use phrases like the entire cabin explodes in instantaneous combustion. And I don't really see the point of mentioning that new safety features allow you to survive the impact...so you can burn to death in a mixture of molten aluminum and poison gas.
February 12 Lincoln's Birthday. Our family will use this occasion to recite the greatest speech in American history. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
February 11
On Feb 5th, I mentioned that Eason Jordan was in trouble but that the mainstream media was ignoring it. He resigned today. Chalk another one up for the blogsphere. CNN Chief News Executive Eason Jordan resigned late Friday in the wake of a controversy over remarks he made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, about deaths of journalists in Iraq.
I strongly recommend against trying this at home.
You will not often hear me refer to a hilarious ACLU commercial. But check this out.
School junk food debate is going strong. Educrats hide behind the bromide that what they propose is "for the children." Those of us who advocate school choice, question current funding priorities and refuse to walk in lock step with the teacher’s union somehow "don’t get it," or do not have the best interest of the children at heart. Our argument--that enhancing school choice, properly spending available resources and ignoring the union bosses actually improves education--fall on deaf ears. After all, we know who really has the best interest of the children at heart. Conservatives have been stymied by this response. But now, we have the school junk food experiment to answer the age old question: If school administrators could establish a program that raised a nominal amount of money, but clearly harmed the children as well as the educational environment, would they do it? The junk food debate reveals that the answer is clearly yes. Educrats will establish, promote and defend programs to sell soda, chips, cookies and donuts in the face of a child obesity epidemic and a crisis of hyperactivity and it's assoiciated Ritalin solution. They will do so in exchange for a nominal amount of money and furthermore, they will defend the program while acknowledging that the results are harmful, but worth the additional cash. This is clearly a point at which the Legislature should step in and restore some degree of sanity. And the next time the union claims that it opposes school choice because it has the best interest of the children at heart…consider the source.
Here's a letter about my previous post in which I watched the Talking Heads video from the rocking chair. my gosh are your hillbilly roots emerging!!! I remember meeting your dad's grandpa Charlie in Kentucky, and he was sitting on a five gallon bucket in the yard. That's not so strange for country people, but he was sitting on the open end. I've always wondered about that. Love Mom Always nice to remember where we come from.
Here's another response to that post. Apparently, I'm not alone. Speaking of us older people, when I was in the Army and my son was about ten, I went to Korea for a year. Later, my son went in the Army, to Korea, and in one of those spontaneous "old Person" moments, asked me if when I was over there they had paved roads... With age comes wisdom and I hope I don't have to wait too much longer! name withheld
February 10 Chicago Sun Times' Mark Steyn on Europe's dismal future... For purposes of comparison, by 2050 public pensions expenditures are expected to be 6.5 percent of GDP in the United States, 16.9 percent in Germany, 17.3 percent in Spain and 24.8 percent in Greece. In Europe, we're talking not about the prospect of having to reduce benefits but of total societal collapse. With a death-spiral fertility rate of 1.46 children per couple, the EU will have to increase mainly Muslim immigration to a rate that will transform those societies out of all recognition. American reformers like to say that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. The EU has a vastly greater problem: The entire modern European welfare state is a Ponzi scheme. And the political establishments in Paris, Berlin, Brussels et al. show no sign of producing their own plain-spoken EuroBush to confront it. ...and about W's legacy This is a president who wants to leave his mark on more than a cocktail dress.
Proving yet again that God has a sense of humor, the Ninth Circuit court of Appeals has been sued because their official seal includes tablets that appear to be the 10 Commandments.
Before the justices from the left coast rule on this one, maybe they should check out the East Pediment of the United States Supreme Court. The guy in the center would be Moses.
Here's a close up.
The inscription below the pediment was chosen by Justice Charles Evans Hughes. His hand-written text is reprinted below. My Latin is rusty, but I think it reads: "The good news is I got him down to 10, the bad news is that adultery is still on the list"
February 9
My wife and I had dinner with Phil Mickelson and his wife last week.
Well, actually,
there were about 20 of us. But what really impressed me was what a gracious and patient father he was - dutifully collecting every ticket he and the girls won and helping them redeem them for plastic spiders, fake coins and spinning tops. Sure, his girls will remember the FBR Open - they have a picture in today's Republic as an eternal reminder. But having dad take time out of the tournament to eat cheap pizza and convert his skeet ball prowess into trinkets for his girls - now that's a memory that will last a lifetime.
Gosh, I hope I can write like this when I grow up. What explains this automatic censure of the United States, Israel, and to a lesser extent the Anglo-democracies of the United Kingdom and Australia? Westernization, coupled with globalization, has created an affluent and leisured elite that now gravitates to universities, the media, bureaucracies, and world organizations, all places where wealth is not created, but analyzed, critiqued, and lavishly spent. Thus we now expect that the New York Times, Harper's, Le Monde, U.N. functionaries who call us "stingy," French diplomats, American writers and actors will all (1) live a pretty privileged life; (2) in recompense "feel" pretty worried and guilty about it; (3) somehow connect their unease over their comfort with a pathology of the world's hyperpower, the United States; and (4) thus be willing to risk their elite status, power, or wealth by very brave acts such as writing anguished essays, giving pained interviews, issuing apologetic communiqués, braving the rails to Davos, and barking off-the-cuff furious remarks about their angst over themes (1) through (3) above. What a sad contrast they make with far better Iraqis dancing in the street to celebrate their voting. Read the whole thing.
Light blogging today. I'm in San Diego, but lest you think I'm having fun, I've provided the agenda. Status on the implementation of the STEP Short-term Upgrades • Palo Verde Devers Series Capacitors, Devers SVC, Devers 500/230 kV #2, and Devers Series Reactor (or alternative) • Imperial Valley Series Capacitor Upgrade and Imperial Valley Phase Shifting Transformer • WECC Rating Studies Just shoot me.
February 8 Oh those crazy Conservatives, always good for a cheap laugh. How's this for funny... Turns out Blewster was on hand to testify on Mesa Republican Sen. Karen Johnson's memo to Congress calling for the United States pull out of the United Nations. This ought to be good, we thought. Ah, the low hanging fruit that keeps reporters employed. Any reporter who’s short on creativity and near deadline can slam together a quick piece that reads: “East Valley Legislator/John Birch member proves he/she is crazy and wastes your tax dollars by opposing the good work of the UN…didn’t say anything stupid this time, but boy, she’s said some real whoppers in the past, like who could forget this one from a couple years ago..." That's the journalistic equivalent of the whoopie cushion...gets the kids every time. Hey, if you liked that one...pull my finger. Why are the crazy right wingers always picking on the UN anyway? I mean what's not to like? Of course there's the whole Peacekeeper child rape thing. But that's probably exaggerated. And, the report of widespread evidence of sexual abuse of West African refugees by UN personnel. Well, they’ve probably stopped most of that stuff. And that whole Rwanda gig, 800,000 people hacked to death in 100 days while UN observers on the ground begged the UN to intervene. You know that’s like really a bummer. Good movie though. Although this one wasn’t very good—too violent for me. All that burning people alive and stuff, I mean come on, I’m eating dinner here. And Darfur, well…that’s too small to actually be called genocide, that’s more on the order of ethnic cleansing. And the UN has a committee that’s planning to look into all that stuff anyway. And that oil for food deal? Saddam probably didn’t keep all the money and the French and UN officials on the payroll… well, they probably…oh whatever. And the millions to Kofi Annon’s son and his buddies? Well, boys will be boys. Nice suit. And that stingy comment…well, that was technically, you know, out of context. And the UN taking credit for US Aid because they are incapable of providing their own…well, you know, stingy is as stingy does. Wow, maybe it’s the UN supporters who are the crazy ones. But then that wouldn’t be a very funny story, now would it? And it would probably take more than 10 minutes to write.
February 7
This ad is raising quite a storm. Volkswagen, of course, denies all involvement.
Michael Barone on George W. Bush George W. Bush is a transformative president. Bill Clinton skillfully adapted to circumstances. George W. Bush -- clumsily in the view of his critics, but with confidence self-evident to those who watched his State of the Union with clear eyes -- sets out to transform America and the world. And is succeeding.
February 6 This is both ironic and sad. Compare this to this. February 5 I was watching parts of the Talking Heads Concert video Stop Making Sense tonight when my 13 year old son walked in and we had a conversation that went something like this: Him: What's this? Me: A concert video of a band that was popular the year your mom and I got married. Him: Wow, when was that? Me: 1984. Him: Are any of those people still alive? I was going to hit him with my cane, but it was too much effort to get out of the rocking chair.
Occasionally, a story breaks in the blogsphere and the main stream media (MSM) ignores it and hopes that it will go away. Since reporters and editors follow the blogs closely, they play an interesting game of musical chairs. They don't want the story to break, but they don't want to be a news cycle behind if it does. Eventually an editorial writer or a columnist will comment on the story--leaving those who rely on the main stream media for their news completely lost. That's the tipping point. Once the story is out, every reporter and editor is afraid to be left out. Trent Lott's unfortunate comments at Jesse Helms' 100th birthday party are a good example. The Swift Boats vets' charges are a classic example. But Dan Rather will be THE classic example. The next example will be Eason Jordan's, chief news executive at CNN, comments at Davo. Here's a first person account: "During one of the discussions about the number of journalists killed in the Iraq War, Eason Jordan asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by US troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience (the anti-US crowd) and cause great strain on others." ...this isn't a story about media bias. It is a story where a senior American news executive accused the American military of assassinating journalists, and did so before an international crowd of influential opinion-makers. Hugh Hewitt has the quite a few links. The story will be huge because it has many implications. Here are just two.
The story is a smoking gun to those who believe the stereotypes of the mainstream media being run by America-hating leftist radicals who protect each other while hounding the US military. Jordan has tried to back pedal by claiming that by "targeted" he meant the soldiers intentionally shot people whom they believed were insurgents and were later apologetic when they realized they were journalists. No one's buying it. Especially since he as made similar charges in the past, but added that the US had captured and tortured journalists as well.
February 4
I was in the Senate Finance Committee yesterday and watched the Arizona Democratic party stare into the abyss. The bill under consideration was SB 1176.
The bill: Allows corporations to claim an income tax credit for contributions made to a school tuition organization that provides educational scholarships and tuition grants to children of low income families.
The bill was passed along party lines—every Republican voted yes and every Democrat in attendance voted no.
Howie Fisher summed it up well.
Sen. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Tucson, called the measure bad public policy.
"The state, in my opinion, shouldn't be taking taxpayer dollars and putting them into these institutions," she said. Giffords said these schools can discriminate on who is admitted based on religion.
Through a strange twist of fate, divine intervention or a brilliant scheduling move by Chairman Dean Martin—the Committee Room was packed with Hispanic children from Pima County Catholic schools touring the Capitol on a field trip.
The children sat in polite silence for Sen. Giffords’ “bad policy” speech and erupted in applause when Sen. Bob Burns suggested that school vouchers would be even better than tax credits. The applause was sustained when Chairman Martin announced the vote.
When the Pima County Hispanic community—the core of the Democratic core--begins to perceive that Republicans serve their interests better than Democrats, the Party will be over.
For the scores of children in Senate Hearing Room One, that perception came sharply into focus.
February 2
Who is John Galt? Today is Ayn Rand's 100th birthday. I should probably have Atlas Shrugged on my list of most influential books. Marginal Revolution has an interesting take on her life's work. She tried to apply her capitalistic philosophy to her personal life with disastrous results. Barbara Brandon recounts how Rand alienated and eventually expelled life long friends from her inner circle because they believed Beethoven to be superior to Rachmaninoff. Eventually all of her disciples--and disciples they were-- faced expulsion from that circle, but one of the last to go was a young New York intellectual who was well on his way to greatness as a concert violinist. He absorbed her philosophy during years of study and discourse and chose instead to pursue a career in finance. His name is Allan Greenspan.
Most Republic Editorials are clear. Agree or disagree if you want, but one usually knows where the Republic stands. This one however is like watching a Telenovela on Univision, you have a rough idea what they are discussing, and the plot seems pretty familiar, but it needs some subtitles. I don't have any relationship, official or otherwise, with the editorial board. But as a student of the process, let me attempt to translate some of these phrases. First some background. Last fall Gods of political correctness looked down upon ASU’s Cronkite School of Journalism, pronounced it lacking in diversity, and therefore in danger of losing its ACEJMC accreditation. Here's the Republic's January 31st editorial on the issue. And here are some key phrases along with subtitles. One of the
accrediting team's concerns involves diversity, an issue across America,
including higher education. J-schools throughout the country can do
better. And they must. ...and she needs to be Hispanic--African American will do, lesbian preferred. That's because the accrediting team's report included this little missive. "the number of minority faculty members has actually declined since the last site visit, from four to two. There was little evidence of a coherent effort to address the deficiencies in minority and female faculty." The report also notes that: “no woman has been promoted to full professor in the 50-year history of the journalism department, the percentage of minority students remained flat for six years, Make no mistake, the entire controversy concerning the J school is racial. These types of numeric racial quotas aren't legal, but you know, whatever. The editorial continues... We live in an era when the "sources" of information are expanding and when outlets devoted to "news," "analysis" and "opinion" bombard us with pointed messages from all sides. This has contributed to a plunge in our credibility.
Translated, that means...
This trend only intensifies the need for
trained and trustworthy reporters to cover and transmit local, national
and international events, and for editors to understand the relative
importance of such events. The days when the New York Times, NPR, the networks and Washington Post can bury a story like the Swift Boat Vets, Kerry's fake trip to Cambodia, and his magic CIA hat, while trumpeting fiction about Bush's National Guard record are over.
(journalism) schools must collaborate
with political science, history, economics and other academic disciplines
to produce tomorrow's well-grounded media professionals. In the blogsphere, economic articles are written by economists, scientific articles are written by scientists and political analysis is often written by law professors. These professionals are quick to capitalize on the bonehead mistakes of young reporters who majored in journalism and can't read a balance sheet, look up a statute, quote a statistic or discuss basic economics.
Today, Arizona's newsrooms are
increasingly made up of graduates of state institutions. This was not true
20 years ago. When we were in college, kids read newspapers and some of them thought reporters were cool, so they went to good colleges in order to prepare for a glamorous career in journalism. Newspapers, swimming in cash because of their first-mover distribution monopoly, hired these idealistic Ivy Leaguers intent on making the world a better place. But now, kids get their news off the web, they don't remember the Reagan Administration and they want to grow up to be Donald Trump. Newspaper budgets are collapsing because corporate giants have acquired most of the decent papers and turned them into information fast food. Every Gannet paper looks the same and any intern can--and increasingly does--churn out the stuff. So we hire the kids from ASU who couldn't handle finance. The school needs to reach its potential. We need to find this Hispanic woman really soon. In no small way, Arizona's future is linked to the graduates of the Cronkite School and their ability to communicate and interpret important ideas and complicated events. We're a blue newspaper in a red state, i.e. we walk erect among the knuckle dragers; the state is depending on us, and if we don't hold back the tide, "complicated events" like immigration, school choice, free trade and budget priorities will be decided against us, so we need some young ideologues who can "communicate" and "interpret" these events. Thank goodness we have the Cronkite School of Journalism to protect our future.
February 2 Silence of the doves Skeptics of
President Bush's attempt to bring democracy to Iraq have been largely
silent since Iraqis enthusiastically turned out for Sunday's elections.
February 1 Oh how the mighty have fallen. Here's Bill Moyers--who once impressed the elite with his tax-subsidized public TV navel contemplation--writing for the lowly Star-Tribune.
One of the biggest changes in politics
in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come
in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and
in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology
hold a monopoly of power in Washington.
That's the ticket George Bush is part of the "delusional fringe."
January 31 Wow, Sunday's entire Viewpoints section was dedicated to the Lead with Five Report. Let me make sure I have it right... ... a guy gets really rich and gives a ton of money to Democratic causes and candidates then founds a think tank dedicated to improving education. He stocks is with career public school bureaucrats and commissions a report by two professors from the American Education Finance Association who conclude that Arizona schools need…an additional $1.75 billion. Wow, stop the presses. Don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends are Democrats…actually, I don’t think either of my friends are Democrats. But my point is not that the report is somehow bad because if was funded, directed and produced by people with close ties to the national teacher unions and the Democratic Party. It’s just that the teacher’s union asking for more education money isn’t much of a story. How about Dave Thompson paying the Goldwater Institute to have Russell Pearce write a report about transportation that concludes light rail is…very bad. Now that’s a story. Or maybe the South Carolina Textile Workers Union can hire Jon Talton to conclude that free trade is a bad idea, and by the way, downtown Phoenix is a vast wasteland, not like Denver…they have vision in Denver and leadership, they have leadership in Denver too but they don’t have call centers, because call centers are bad…like NAFTA…which is very bad. Or the Arizona Tax Research Association could hire Bob Robb to conclude that…the budgetary paradigm shift coincident with the correlation factor of the structural growth coefficient generates excessive zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Well, at least the Plugged In talking heads will be back next Sunday—I may even still be among them. We may be predictable, but at least we only get 100 words.
January 29 Have you seen the Cardinal's new logo?
The team still sucks, but the bird looks meaner. I guess we have a winner in town. Mike Bidwell described the beak as "predatory." That's good because previously the only thing "predatory" about the Cardinals were the prices. This
Potemkin Village strategy is even older than Potemkin Village.
January 28 If you read that very nice letter from Congressman Flake you are probably thinking that punditry is all wine and roses. But lest you think I'm getting big headed, here's a more typical letter and my response. The subject on this one was "Just Curious." I was wondering if
you ever miss your hair? Along with any intelligent Kelly Taylor And my response No, I have plenty on my back to make up for it. Greg
January 27 Has Michael Moore become yesterday's Krispy Kreme or what? Dude, you gave the election to Bush by forcing Kerry to choose between pandering to his base and reaching out to the middle. The crazy wing of the party is supposed to lay low during election years. Now even the Hollywood crowd has rejected the portly prevaricator. Moore's Oscar shutout is the first stage of his inevitable slide from momentary superstardom to ridicule and eventual obscurity - see also Vanilla Ice, Pee Wee Herman, and Milli Vanilli. Moore will be mocked on late night TV for a few weeks, forgotten in one year and bankrupt in five. Historians will juxtapose the picture of Roosevelt and Churchill at Yalta with the one of Moore and Jimmy Carter at the Democratic National Convention to represent the beginning and ending of the period in which the Democratic Party was the majority party in the United States.
January 26 Here's a recent letter Greg, As much as I probably shouldn't, I enjoy your frequent missives in this space (maybe I'm just glad not to be the subject). I'm glad somebody is saying something about the report on convention centers. You're a good writer. Congressman Jeff Flake
Wow, what a class act. He was referring specifically to this post.
January 25
If a Republican had done this, there would be hell to pay. Notice that they weren't just overly enthusiastic activists, but Kerry employees.
Handing Bush the election has cost Michael Moore his Oscar. The Republicans have plenty of wacko extremists, but they don't get to sit in the presidential skybox at the convention. I predict Moore will be bankrupt within 5 years.
January 24 I relaxed with a nice double espresso last night at about 6:00 PM and then went to see Lion King at Gammage. It was really awesome.
I think this is interesting.
Newspapers are stacked a couple feet high at my kids' schools when I drop them off in the morning. That may be part of a this disturbing national trend. Here's the an article from the New York Times that explains it. Courtesy of the ever helpful Ed Foster. Your Daily Paper, Courtesy of a Sponsor
By JACQUES STEINBERG and TOM TOROK
Marie Kurth does not subscribe to The Denver Post, but that did not stop the paper from being tossed haphazardly in front of her century-old red-brick home each Sunday beginning in October. "It was everywhere. It was on the walk, it was on the public walk, in the yard, and that I don't care for," said Ms. Kurth, who is 81 and lives in northwest Denver. After six weeks of unwelcome deliveries, Ms. Kurth said, she called the Denver Newspaper Agency, which manages The Post and The Rocky Mountain News, to put a stop to the papers. Ms. Kurth's experience is hardly unique. On an average Sunday, more than 100,000 copies of The Post - more than 1 of every 8 printed - are delivered to homes in Colorado that did not request or pay for them. Across the country each week, more than 1.6 million people who are not on newspaper subscriber rolls are being delivered copies that did not cost them a cent - but they are still being classified as paying customers, an analysis by The New York Times has found. The papers, which are typically paid for by advertisers, are delivered by small and large dailies across the country, including The Miami Herald, The Wall Street Journal, The San Jose Mercury News and The Boston Globe. The unsolicited deliveries were made possible by rule changes the newspaper industry approved three years ago. The new rules allowed so-called third-party sales - which the industry once shunned - to be counted as part of a newspaper's total circulation. Without them, many newspapers would be losing circulation at a far higher rate. In the industry as a whole, circulation has been falling for a decade or more. Maintaining the appearance of healthy circulation has been critical to newspapers at a time when the industry is losing advertisers to other media, like the Web and television. Because paid circulation determines in large part what publishers can charge for advertising - the lifeblood of an estimated $58 billion industry - any deep sustained losses threaten to erode the already shaken confidence of marketers and investors. To determine just how much third-party sales contribute to newspaper circulation, The Times analyzed circulation data that 669 newspapers provided to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, a nonprofit oversight body operated by publishers and advertisers. To gauge circulation on the day when it is typically highest, The Times analyzed figures for Sundays, but also included weekday figures for two major papers that do not publish on the weekends - USA Today, which is owned by The Gannett Company, and The Wall Street Journal, owned by Dow Jones & Company. The Times's analysis found that the combined average paid circulation for all those papers for the six- month period that ended March 2004 fell by fewer than 125,000 copies a day, or 0.2 percent, compared with the six-month reporting period that ended March 2002. But had third-party sales been excluded from those figures, as they were before 2001, the average paid circulation of those papers would have fallen 986,000, nearly 2 percent, over the two-year period, to 55,443,650. (The drop would have been even steeper had The Times's tally also excluded "newspaper in education" programs. Those programs seek to build readership among the young and are often paid for by third parties; for the most part, results in that category have long been counted under audit bureau rules.) In recent months, advertisers and some newspaper analysts have been critical of the industry's increasing reliance on papers paid for by others - regardless of whether the practice is blessed by audit bureau rules. "When we know there is someone reaching in their pocket and paying for a newspaper, we feel there is a greater likelihood they're going to read that newspaper and thus be exposed to our advertising," said Matthew Spahn, director for media planning at Sears, which spends more than $200 million a year on newspaper advertising. "When they haven't reached in their pocket, the concern is, 'Are they going to read it?' " "Suddenly, we start to lose the visibility to who we're talking to," he said. "That's what worries me." The increased scrutiny of circulation practices has come after the acknowledgment by four daily papers - Newsday and the Spanish-language daily Hoy, which are properties of The Tribune Company; The Chicago Sun-Times, a unit of Hollinger International; and The Dallas Morning News, which is owned by the Belo Corporation - that they violated audit bureau rules by routinely overstating their circulation figures by tens of thousands of copies a day. (The four papers were not included in The Times's analysis.) The overstatements of the four papers did not for the most part involve third-party programs. Instead, those papers have acknowledged attempts to deceive advertisers. In the case of The Sun-Times, for example, the efforts included paying some distributors not to return some unsold copies and creating a charitable foundation to buy papers to distribute to schools. Nonetheless, some other newspapers have taken aggressive steps to ensure that their circulation figures, while allowed by the rules, can withstand a higher level of scrutiny. Papers including The Los Angeles Times, which is also owned by Tribune, have recently pledged to limit third-party circulation. And publishers and advertisers agreed at the annual audit bureau conference in November to explore tightening one aspect of the rules on sponsored copies. Yet as a whole, the industry is committed to finding ways to expand the distribution of such papers. "Publishers are accepting free publications as credible because of the demand they see from the public," said John P. Murray, vice president for circulation marketing at the Newspaper Association of America, the industry trade group. The uninvited papers are not just landing in driveways from Chico, Calif., to Providence, R.I. Many are being distributed in unlikely venues like the cardiac care ward at a hospital outside Roanoke, Va. Early on a recent morning at the Lewis-Gale Medical Center in Salem, Va., for example, a newsboy's cry of "Get your newspaper!" - in this case, uttered by a 65-year-old hospital volunteer - echoed down the corridors, as Ben McCoy delivered free copies of The Roanoke Times to patients. The papers contained $5 coupons redeemable at the pharmacy at a Kroger grocery store, which had paid cash for them, according to the newspaper's executives. While some papers were left at the foots of beds of people too ill to respond, others were snapped up by patients like Thomas DeBusk Jr., 80, whose bright white hair and deep tan belied the fact that he had been in the hospital three times over the last few months for heart problems. "I check the obituaries each morning to see if I'm in there," Mr. DeBusk said. The morning treat for these patients came about because of a compromise struck in 2001 between newspaper publishers and advertisers on the audit bureau board. The newspaper companies won the right to expand the definition of what constitutes a "paid" paper. In exchange, they agreed to a demand by advertisers that circulation statements provide a breakdown of circulation in the third-party category. William Dean Singleton, vice chairman and chief executive of MediaNews Group, which owns more than four dozen daily papers and a 50 percent stake in the agency that helps manage The Denver Post, said he had only reluctantly supported the compromise, but he has since emerged as one of the most aggressive practitioners. "Once this became the rule," Mr. Singleton said, "we took the position, 'Hey, it's the rule and we're going to use it.' " According to figures submitted to the audit bureau by the Denver Newspaper Agency (Mr. Singleton is chairman of the agency), the Sunday circulation of The Post would have fallen about 12 percent, or more than 90,500 copies, from 2002 to 2004, had the publisher not been able to include free papers delivered to homes. When those copies were included, the paper's circulation fell by fewer than 12,000 copies, or less than 2 percent, to 783,274. To advertisers like Mr. Spahn who worry whether such sales may be overused, Mr. Singleton has a ready retort: any advertiser can learn of the paper's use of third-party sales by reading the first page of a publisher's statement filed to the audit bureau. MediaNews is hardly alone in its use of such programs. Among the biggest gains in third-party paid circulation were those recorded over the last two years at The Boston Globe, which is owned by The New York Times Company. The number of papers delivered on an average Sunday by The Globe in that category rose to 30,220, or 4.4 percent of its circulation in 2004, from 916, or 0.1 percent, in 2002, according to The Times's analysis. Nearly all were delivered to people's homes. Even with the inclusion of those copies, the paper's overall Sunday circulation still fell, to 687,000 earlier this year from 705,000 in 2002. Alfred S. Larkin Jr., a senior vice president of The Globe, said in a statement that while such sales represented "a small percentage of our total distribution," they nonetheless constituted "an effective way for advertisers to reach new customers and for us to build future readers." (At The Times, sponsored copies represented less than 1 percent of paid circulation on Sundays earlier last year. During the week, copies distributed to elementary and secondary schools, many of them paid by the institutions or by foundations and allowed under the old rules, represented 4.6 percent of the paper's circulation.) At Knight Ridder, three major papers that posted modest gains in circulation in the spring of 2004 as compared with the spring of 2002 - The San Jose Mercury News, The Miami Herald and The Philadelphia Inquirer - would have registered sizable losses without the use of third-party sponsorship. Polk Laffoon IV, the chain's vice president for corporate relations, said the rule change coincided with an internal push to increase overall circulation of its biggest papers, no matter the category. "Even if we could only grow it a little, or at least hold it steady, at least by making the effort to grow circulation we would not experience the glacial loss that had been occurring in prior years," he said. Some financial analysts, however, have begun to question the value of such growth. "If you just look at circulation as being flat to down slightly, I think that understates the struggle newspapers are having with circulation," said Paul Ginocchio, senior publishing analyst at Deutsche Bank, who has issued two reports last year under the heading "Circulation Uncensored." At best, advertisers and newspaper companies say, such programs enable an advertiser to sponsor and promote the distribution of copies to tens of thousands of people who might not otherwise get a paper. For example, American Furniture Warehouse, which has nine stores in the Denver area, sponsored the delivery last year of 30,000 papers - in eight-week subscriptions - to homes concentrated near a new store. "Even if 10 percent of the people who get that paper look at the paper, it benefits you," said Andrew Zuppa, marketing director for the chain. But Mr. Zuppa said the company had agreed to pay for those papers only after the newspaper had raised the subject. Under audit bureau rules, advertisers who sponsor such copies must pay at least 25 percent of the regular price, or provide goods and services of an equivalent value. But how the costs are allocated can be difficult to retrace, in part because ad rates can vary depending in part on how much an individual company spends. While the Denver Newspaper Agency described this particular sale as "a cash transaction," Mr. Zuppa said that description was "not exactly accurate." Regardless, Mr. Zuppa said the cost of the papers represented a "very small component" of the more than $1 million the company spent in The Post and The News this past year. "You spend a large amount of money, you ask for things, you get them," he said. "They want to do some things, it's in the mix, it's fine." Increasingly, media buyers have been demanding they be given the option to withhold inserts from free papers to lower their spending. "Third-party distribution is not targeted at the most attractive advertising prospect," said Bob Shamberg, chief executive of Newspaper Services of America, which placed $1.7 billion in ads in newspapers over the last year on behalf of Home Depot, Sears and BMW, among others. "It is in effect targeted at where the newspaper can generate distribution." But some advertisers, like small businesses, have neither the power to set their own terms nor the savvy to know how many papers are distributed on a given Sunday. Mike Wuestner, manager of White Fence Farm, a restaurant and gift shop west of Denver that placed full-color ads in The Denver Post in recent months, said he was surprised to learn how much of the paper's circulation was paid for by others. "You think you're reaching 800,000 people requesting the paper," he said. "Actually, 100,000 are not requesting it.
January 19 Survivor's Richard Hatch has been getting his tax advice from Steve Martin. You.. can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You say.. "Steve.. how can I be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes?" First.. get a million dollars. Now.. you say, "Steve.. what do I say to the tax man when he comes to my door and says, 'You.. have never paid taxes'?" Two simple words. Two simple words in the English language: "I forgot!" Although I am a CPA, I'm not in public practice so I don't generally dispense tax advice. But if you win $1 million in front of 200 million people--making you (ever so briefly) the most famous millionaire on the planet, you should probably report it.
January 18 Why does anyone give any credence to Seymour Hersh's latest wild claim? Since at least last
summer, the United States has conducted "secret reconnaissance missions"
inside Iran in an effort to identify three dozen or more suspected
nuclear, chemical and missile sites that could be destroyed with
airstrikes and commando raids, according to a report Sunday in The New
Yorker magazine. Wow, if "not attributed to any source or document" is the standard, I should publish my books about Aliens at Roswell and the cancer- prevention benefits of herbal tea suppositories. Seriously, has Hersh been right about anything in the last 20 years? Here's his Abu Ghraib revelation. Seymour Hersh says the US government has videotapes of boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. "The worst is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking," the reporter told an ACLU convention last week. Hersh says there was "a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher." Or how about that Billion dollars of missing cash that can be traced back to the Pentagon? Hersh describes a Pentagon in crisis. The defense department budget is in incredible chaos, he says, with large sums of cash missing, including something like $1 billion that was supposed to be in Iraq. Here's Hersh on the Kennedys: Hersh...claims that President Kennedy brought dozens of prostitutes to the White House; that he was treated for venereal diseases; that he had been married to a Palm Beach socialite before he married Jackie; and that Ted Kennedy served as a "bagman" for the president in the crucial West Virginia primary, paying off county chairmen including Charles Peters, now publisher of Washington Monthly. Turns out Seymour relied on some forged documents for that one. Maybe they were fake but accurate.
Thank goodness I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, or I might have missed this revelation.
Why It's Good to Be Rich
Life is a whole lot easier if you have a truckload of money.
Here are 25 financial benefits that are enjoyed by folks with fatter wallets. 1. You can pay off your credit-card balance every month, thus avoiding ridiculously high interest costs. 2. Your kids won't qualify for college financial aid -- but they also won't graduate with a fistful of student loans. Etc. I skimmed down to see if they listed... 26 Chicks dig middle aged balding guys if they have a lot of dough. but no luck.
The London Times anticipates Bush's second term. (hat tip Powerline) Most second-term presidencies are pale imitations of the first four years in power. They have, historically, been undercut by three factors: agenda exhaustion, personnel depletion and congressional erosion. None of these constraints applies to this President. He still has plenty of proposals for domestic policy left in him. These range from making permanent tax cuts that were passed in his opening term and the partial privatisation of American pensions to his ambition to curtail the outrageous costs of the US legal system. His new Cabinet members are not noticeably weaker than his previous colleagues. His party runs each branch of Congress and, thanks to the November election results, with greater majorities. For the first time since 1937 a re-elected president who has been in Washington for four years starts again with congressional enhancement, not erosion. Love him or hate him but the man knows what direction he wants to lead the country and the stars have alligned to make him one of the most influential presidents since Lincoln. January 15 More Democratic infighting. This from Dan Gerstein who is a member of the Lieberman team. We chose as our House and Senate leaders (and thus the public face of the party) Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid--two honorable, decent people who nevertheless have done little to inspire confidence that they could successfully fight a parking ticket, let alone the war against terrorism. Taken together, these developments indicate that, beyond our rural-state problem and Hispanic problem and our values problem and our security problem, we Democrats have a far more fundamental leadership problem. We desperately need "ends people"--those who are committed more to building winning coalitions than to feeling morally superior and placating pariahs like Michael Moore...
January 12 I guess Dan Rather couldn’t resist one last lie before leaving. When he announced his resignation last November, Rather told the Washington Post that his decision to resign was not part of the 60 Minutes scandal.
[i]In saying he will step down in March, the 73-year-old anchor said that he was making a "separate decision" from the fallout over his "60 Minutes Wednesday" report but that he wanted "to get as much separation as possible" between the announcement and the findings of an outside panel likely to be released next month.[/]
Yesterday however, we learned from CBS CEO Leslie Moonves, that Rather [i]“voluntarily moved to set a date to step down after examining the report and thinking about its implications…”[/]
Old habits die hard...
...harder than an armadillo, run over by an 18 wheeler on two lane Texas highway on a hot August day.
Courage.
Some day, I'll have the guts to be this unprofessional. This is from Verifrank Today, during an afternoon conference that wrapped up my project of the last 18 months, one of my Euro colleagues tossed this little turd out to no one in particular: " See, this is why George Bush is so dumb, there's a disaster in the world and he sends an Aircraft Carrier..." After which he and many of my Euro colleagues laughed out loud. and then they looked at me. I wasn't laughing, and neither was my Hindi friend sitting next to me, who has lost family in the disaster. I'm afraid I was "unprofessional", I let it loose - "Hmmm, let's see, what would be the ideal ship to send to a disaster, now what kind of ship would we want? Something with its own inexhaustible power supply? Something that can produce 900,000 gallons of fresh water a day from sea water? Something with its own airfield? So that after producing the fresh water, it could help distribute it? Something with 4 hospitals and lots of open space for emergency supplies? Something with a global communications
facility to make the coordination of disaster relief in the region easier? Do you know who those people were? that's right Franz, Europeans. There is a French Aircraft carrier? where is it? Right where it belongs! In France of course! Oh why should the French Navy dirty their uniforms helping people on the other side of the globe. The day an American has to move a European out of the way to help in some part of the world it will be a great day in the world, you sniggering little f**knob..."
January 9 The Arizona Republic has pulled a bonehead move of astonishing magnitude. The lead story in Sunday's paper and the lead story in Saturday's Valley & State section focused on the results of a statewide poll commissioned by the Republic. I offered observations in the January 8 post below and included this caveat. ...the Republic indicates the sample size is 602, but doesn't provide any indication of the sample composition. Depending on the pollster's voter turnout assumptions, results will vary widely. Those of you who are familiar with polls will immediately recognize that voters don't turn out equally. In fact well over 30% of registered voters will stay home. A poll in which the sample is simply "registered voters" is virtually useless and a good pollster will adjust the sample to reflect likely voters. For example, the number of voters age 18-25 may be the same as the number of voters age 65-75. But it's likely that fewer than 30% of the younger voters will go to the polls while nearly all of the older voters will cast ballots. These two blocks are also likely to express widely different preferences, so these turnout differentials must be reflected in the turnout model of any poll that claims to predict an election. Naturally, polls that simply proclaim what voters think--not predict election results--don't need to adjust for turnout. Turnout models are very sophisticated. For example a good starting point for the 2006 Arizona election would be the 2004 election, but there was an Indian Gaming proposition on the 2004 ballot, so a pollster would be wise to reflect the unusually high turnout on the reservations and under sample the Native American community in a 2006 turnout model. This is just one of a handful of adjustments that would have to be made to get an accurate model. But none of these details will matter when you analyze the Republic's poll results because The Republic indicated on Sunday that the sample was composed of...adults! My God, Adults? Adults? What were they thinking. Let's start with a sample of adults. Once you eliminate the snow birds, illegal aliens--excuse me undocumented workers--and the felons, you will have a population called "Eligible Voters" Nearly half of eligible voters aren't registered, and only 70% of those registered actually vote. That works out to about 25% of the sample going to the polls. That means the election data in the Republic's A-1-above-the-fold-Sunday-before-the-Session big story are...completely meaningless. If Chip Scutari had gone to Wal-Mart and asked 100 adults if they preferred Napolitano, Romley or Hayworth his results would have been no less accurate for predicting the results of the next election than the Republic's poll. Yet the lead story in the Valley & State section starts with this lede paragraph. Gov. Janet Napolitano enjoys a comfortable but not-insurmountable lead over her two most likely Republican rivals in the 2006 governor's race, according to a poll done by The Arizona Republic. Either Chip knew the results were meaningless and chose to write that article, sans disclaimer, or the Republic's political reporter has no idea how basic polling works. I don't know which answer is worse.
January 8 The Republic has polled the the 2006 Governor's race and declared Napolitano to be way ahead. Gov. Janet
Napolitano enjoys a comfortable but not-insurmountable lead over her two
most likely Republican rivals in the 2006 governor's race, according to a
poll done by The Arizona Republic. Polls this far out are generally pretty meaningless because no one has heard of most of the candidates, and voters are not focused on the election. Also, the Republic indicates the sample size is 602, but doesn't provide any indication of the sample composition. Depending on the pollster's voter turnout assumptions, results will vary widely. But I will venture a few observations: 1. Eighteen points is normally a huge lead, but the graphic that accompanies the article in the print edition points out that against Romley, Napolitano wins 54-35. Indeed that's huge, but most of the state hasn't heard of Romley, and everyone has heard of Napolitano, so what is she doing with just 54%? 2. Romley seems to be afraid of Hayworth, but is a point ahead of him it this poll. 3. Romley needs a better answer for why he's running. "My frustration, and the reason I'm seriously considering running for office, is a lack of leadership," Romley said. That's really lame. You may not like the direction this wagon train is going, but there is no doubt who is driving it. Napolitano is aggressive and engaged. Her line item vetoes, executive orders and renaming of Squaw Peak are examples of policies that push the leadership envelope to the point of possible illegality. All day K, the drought, and the future of the universities are her issues, they are her vision and her agenda. Object to them, whine about them, oppose them, but don't say that "My frustration, and the reason I'm seriously considering running for office, is a lack of leadership." Here's another interesting tidbit from the poll: Peck King said he
favors Hayworth in 2006. Although his
preferences are not scientific, this goes a long way towards establishing
the Peck King order.
January 7 Here's a letter Greg: In your blog you wrote: "January 1 "Best Tsunami pictures that I've seen so far are here." If you scroll down at this site there is an update that states the photos were taken at some disaster that took place earlier. Best regards, Phil MacDonnell Wow, good catch. Thanks Phil.
January 4 Punditry without predictions is like espresso without caffeine, so I would be remiss if I didn't spend part of the first week of January trying to gaze into the future. First some ground rules. It's easy to predict that the Cardinals will have a loosing season, UA basketball will be great, Flake will vote NO on everything and that Jon Talton will continue to make 6 figures to tell us that we should be living in Denver where they have a decent downtown and real leadership. But that would be easy. Predictions need to be bold. Mine are generally wrong, but they are always bold. So here goes. 1. No senior will ever be denied graduation because of the AIMS test. With the deadline fast approaching, it will be nearly impossible to obtain an AIMS failure rate below 10,000 students, and politically inconceivable that the Legislature will deny 10,000--disproportionately minority--children a diploma. 2. Rick Romley--who is choosing between running for Governor and Congress--will choose neither and instead will opt for a private sector job or run for AG. I have no special knowledge that makes this prediction credible. (In fact, I have no special knowledge that makes any of espresso pundit credible.) Let's just say that this statement does not contain the word of a future Governor. "I think it would be best for the party if leadership got together and settled on a candidate, rather than have a bitterly fought primary," Let me translate that for you "I think that J.D. Hayworth would kick my butt so Matt Salmon should ask him not to run, then I can face Janet alone." If Romley is the least bit nervous about Hayworth, then he's not going to stare at Napolitano's approval ratings, huge gender gap, power of incumbency, and financial backing and then decide to take her on. And if even if JD takes on Janet, Romley's not running for Congress either. Look, the guy's tough and he's stared death in the face and prosecuted some legislators and the Bishop. That's a great career. And I've famously underestimated candidates who have gone far--Jane Hull and Randall Gnant come to mind. But Romley's run one tough race--16 years ago. He's capable of making some real money in the private sector; time will diminish his fame over the next 2 years, and he will decide that the rubber chicken circuit isn't worth it. There are only two types of people who run for Congress. Those whom God told to run and those who have no place else to go. Romley doesn't fit either category. Compounding the problem is that Romley has 16 years in the Elected Officials Retirement system, so while fully vested, he hasn't earned the full pension that comes with 20 years of service. That pension is worth about $1.7 million. Getting elected to a federal job would be a huge financial hit. No, Rick Romley will not run for Congress or Governor. If he scores a really good private sector job, he may keep it. But if he chooses to run for office, he will run for Attorney General. It's a statewide office for which he is immanently qualified, capable of winning and enables him to complete his 20 years in EORP. It's also a good base from which to run for Governor when the seat is open.
3. Newspapers will go the way of major airlines. Newspaper circulation will continue to fall, and ad revenue will continue to decline--that's not much of a prediction. But websites like craigslist--which has cost the San Francisco Chronicle millions of dollars--will siphon off the all important classified ad revenue. Government will eventually be forced to stop the public notice announcements which keep so many newspapers viable and many of the morning dailies will go the way of the afternoon dailies. Airlines provide a great example. The rules changed in the 70's and it has taken nearly 30 years for economic reality to finally catch up with the majors. The major airlines have used up all the economic models--high frills, low frills, frequent flier tricks, no lunch, free lunch, hub/spoke and finally, government bailouts--and now it's over. The economic model is no longer viable. Some will survive but not in a form that is recognizable to people who spent $1,000 flying direct from Denver to Trenton with an approved airline on a monopoly route in 1975. Newspapers have cut costs, consolidated, eliminated afternoons, virtually given away subscriptions and lied about circulation. Now the model in which 400,000 copies of a 100 page, 8 pound, document are delivered to the driveways of 20% of a city of 2 million households every Sunday has come to an end. I have to say that I don't know what the new model wil look like, and I don't know exactly when it will arrive. But it's inevitable. Scroll down this list and see if you heard of, much less read, any of the stuff these guys put out. Then figure that salary and benefits run 6 figures, and you have the equivelent of American Airlines pilots who make $200,000 a year. Here's some additional insight.
In real estate--like romance and comedy--timing is everything. Here's New Times in 1997 providing some history on Symington's development prowess. The Esplanade continued its slide into financial oblivion in the ensuing years... Here's today's Business Journal, discussing the proposed sale of a portion of the development. The two 11-story office buildings totaling about 470,000 square feet of office space at the Camelback Esplanade are owned by the State of Oregon Public Employees Retirement System. The owner's asset manager is ING Clarion Partners in New York. The transaction will include another 53,000 square feet of first-floor retail and restaurant space. "It really does not get any better than that," Wentworth said. "The two buildings are closest to the Ritz-Carlton Phoenix, and they front on Camelback Road." In hindsight, it's clear that Symington was right. His vision changed the face of downtown Phoenix and the Camelback corridor replaced the central corridor. The intersection of 24th and Camelback is now the most valuable in the state. It's funny. Charges that looked so serious when the development was in trouble look really trivial now that so many people have made so much money off the project. Too bad too, that was a nice Christmas tree lot.
January 3 More signs that political support for the the state's unworkable judicial selection system is falling apart. The Tucson-based Daily Star, the state's most reliable source of liberal conventional wisdom, is calling for more openness in the judicial process. It is especially disturbing, however, that judges are afforded this special treatment. With the exception of those outside Maricopa and Pima counties, state judges at all levels assume their seats through a process removed from public input. A commission nominates, the governor appoints and they stand alone for a yes-or-no retention vote at the polls. The Star, of course, will support the current judicial selection system to the bitter end--no better method of stocking blue state judges in a red state's judiciary will likely be found. But this expression of frustration by the Star is an indication of how widespread dissatisfaction with the current system runs. The judges who don't know how to run political campaigns and aren't fully vested in their retirements need to be afraid--very afraid. If you want at peek at things to come, look at the rough treatment the non-lawyer JPs give the lawyer JPs at the polls. It's not pretty.
January 2 Here is a link to a message board in the Daily Telegraph for people seeking contact with missing loved ones. Take a moment and read a couple posts. They bring a whole new perspective.
|
|
|||
