Today is our one-year blogaversary. Max and I began posting on June 5th, 2002. In honor of the event we are moving to off blogspot and onto our own website.
A lot of people are in a huff over the red star being incorporated into the emblem of the Russian armed forces. After people remember that Putin also reinstated the Soviet national anthem (though with new words) they get ideas of a reversion to the past. I can tell you there is no chance of this happening. There are people that want to go back to the past but most Russians really don't. They realize there is no going back now. They remember constantly being paranoid someone was watching them, not being able to read what they wanted, not being allowed to listen to the Beatles or Metallica, and being forced to wait in long lines for they knew not what (seriously, if people saw a line, they got into it figuring that there was something at the other end that they needed since they were always short of everything). And also remember that Communism barely was able to be instituted the first time around when people had no idea what they were getting into (it's really depressing actually how close Russia came to being saved from the Soviet calamity). August 1991 was Communism's last gasp in Russia and while it's not all clear sailing from here, Russia is now free and will remain free. A few symbols of the past to reinvigorate nationalist spirit will do nothing to change that. Max Jacobs 4:00 PM
Hamas has rejected the Palestinian PM's call for an end to the intifada. This really makes me wonder exactly what is the point of negotiating with the PA when such a large perpetrator of terrorist attacks isn't going along. The point is not to make peace with the PA but to make peace with the Palestinians in general, otherwise the only thing that will change will be who is perpetrating the attacks, and not the number of Israeli victims. I don't think Israel should sign any peace agreement until all the major parties go along, or at least until the PA actually starts disarming, jailing or killing militants who are bent on the destruction of the Jews. Max Jacobs 1:53 PM
Dallas Fed President, Robert McTeer, sings the praises of the dismal science and it's practitioners and suggests better economic education of the public would be a good thing.
My take on training in economics is that it becomes increasingly valuable as you move up the career ladder. I can't think of a better major for corporate CEOs, congressmen or American presidents. You've learned a systematic, disciplined way of thinking that will serve you well. By contrast, the economically challenged must be perplexed about how it is that economies work better the fewer people they have in charge. Who does the planning? Who makes decisions? Who decides what to produce? ... Economics training will help you understand fallacies and unintended consequences. In fact, I'm inclined to define economics as the study of how to anticipate unintended consequences. Most fallacies in economics probably are fallacies of composition: What's true of the individual may not be true of the whole. You may be able to see better if you stand up -- but not if everyone stands up. John Maynard Keynes' paradox of thrift provides a currently relevant example: Individually, most consumers need to save more. But, if all or many consumers start trying to save more, the economy will be in deep trouble.
However, little in the literature seems more relevant to contemporary economic debates than what usually is called the broken window fallacy. Whenever a government program is justified not on its merits but by the jobs it will create, remember the broken window: Some teenagers, being the little beasts that they are, toss a brick through a bakery window. A crowd gathers and laments, "What a shame." But before you know it, someone suggests a silver lining to the situation: Now the baker will have to spend money to have the window repaired. This will add to the income of the repairman, who will spend his additional income, which will add to another seller's income, and so on. You know the drill. The chain of spending will multiply and generate higher income and employment. If the broken window is large enough, it might produce an economic boom! (Other catalysts to such booms might be a hurricane, a tornado or just about any government spending boondoggle.)
I couldn't agree more. For those not familiar with the work of the Dallas Fed under Mr. McTeer, you should have a look at their fabulous Annual Reports by W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm. They are, along with Berkshire Hathaways Annual Reports by Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger, required reading. John Hudock 11:03 AM
Duane D. Freese has some fun at the expense of the anti-obesity zealots and the trial lawyers who support them.
So, what are we to do about this deadly scourge? Well, I always believe in going back to the roots. First, define the problem. And while I congratulate WHO and the CDC for developing proper bureaucratic verbiage, what I need to know is what kind of disease obesity is and how is it being spread.
Is obesity an acute disease with a quick onset that runs a short course, like a heart attack? Or is it a chronic disease with a slow onset that sometimes runs a year long, like rheumatic fever?
I don't see a lot of my friends coming down with obesity overnight. So my guess is that it's a chronic disease with a slow onset. That could pose problems. So we must find out what are the causative agents to develop a course of prevention. If it is an infectious, or communicable, disease that can be passed from person to person, like a severe case of mumps, the suggested course, as in the SARS epidemic, would be to isolate the carriers. Only, if infectious only in the early stages of the disease as in some types of flu, the slow onset will make it hard to spot those carriers, especially if they are infectious only in early days. Further, it is perfectly possible for a causative agent to survive in an organism without affecting that organism. And asymptomatic carriers could pass along the disease to others that are susceptible to impairments caused by it. So, simply rounding up obese people wouldn't isolate the disease. ... So, obesity may have something to do with food as a source of caloric intake. What, though, is the mechanism by which the people and their pets are taking these calories in? Are they breathing them in with the air? Do they gain pounds every time they pass a Krispy Kreme bakery or fast food restaurant?
Some people seem to think so. And on June 21-23 at Northeastern University, the Public Health Advocacy Institute is going to bring these people together to explore an altogether radical way to attack the problem of obesity. They will explore "Legal Approaches to the Obesity Epidemic."
In other words, they are planning to sic the most fearsome macrobiological weapon known to human kind upon this health scourge - trial lawyers. John Hudock 8:30 AM
Two oddly similar searches are underway in Iraq these days, one for Saddam Hussein and another for his weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Neither has yet been found.
No one argues that because Saddam has not been located, he never existed. But that is what some are saying about the coalition forces not finding actual WMD. Probably those weapons were well hidden; maybe some were latterly destroyed. What if they are never found - does that undercut the rationale for going to war?
Hardly; WMD was never the basic reason for the war. Nor was it the horrid repression in Iraq. Or the danger Saddam posed to his neighbors. Rather, the basic reason was Saddam's having signed a contract with the United States, then breaking his promise.
Let's replay this video:
Iraqi and coalition military leaders met in Safwan, in southern Iraq, on March 3, 1991, to sign a cease-fire agreement. This was right after the U.S.-led coalition forces ejected Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
The agreement they drew up had many provisions – specifying the cease-fire line, prohibiting certain activities by Iraqi troops, ending support for terrorism. Foremost among them was the demand that Baghdad dismantle all its WMD. To give this teeth, Baghdad had to accept outside inspectors who would locate and destroy the offending weapons.
...
This work of locating and destroying was supposed to be completed in 120 days.
No way. Instead, for 7½ years Saddam Hussein and his minions played a cat-and-mouse game. They hid weapons and documents, threatened the Special Commission personnel - and on the sly developed new WMD. Overall, were more WMD destroyed or built in that period? It's hard to say.
Feeling ever more confident with what he could get away with, Saddam finally closed down the inspections in August 1998. His government blithely announced it had completely fulfilled the terms of Resolution 687 and ejected the Special Commission from Iraq. Saddam Hussein now had a free hand to build WMD without those bothersome inspectors.
With this step, however, he broke the Safwan contract. The correct U.S. response to this outrage should have been: "Let the inspectors back in and cough up your WMD-related activities . . . or else."
But 1998 was the era of "end of history" dot-com fog, and President Bill Clinton was diverted by the Lewinsky scandal. As a result, Saddam got away with his defiance. Four long years followed, without anyone keeping tabs on what WMD he might be developing.
Then came 9/11, and a new American sense that the world is a dangerous place. The old casualness toward broken promises was no longer acceptable. Beginning in early 2002, President Bush began exerting pressure on Iraq to fulfill its agreement, or pay the consequences.
...
The moral of this story: Uncle Sam enforces his contracts - even if a few years late. Keep your promises or you are gone. It's a powerful precedent that U.S. leaders should make the most of.
The campaign in Iraq is ultimately not about weapons. It's not about the United Nations. And it's not about Iraqi freedom.
It is about keeping promises to the United States - or paying the consequences. Max Jacobs 4:37 PM
Check out this Honda commercial from the UK. Apparently it took 606 takes to get right and has no CGI effects. It is really cool! And by the way, everything you see in the film is a part of a Honda. Max Jacobs 4:17 PM
Oregon wants to use GPS to implement a road-use tax by keeping track of how much every car uses the roads. At first this really scared me. But then I remember that the government already keeps track of every dime I make and even takes some away from me before I even get a chance to see it. So we definitely shouldn't be surprised when tax authorities want to know everywhere we go as well. That is what happens when you give the government an inch, they take a mile. Max Jacobs 3:29 PM
The tyranny of the left exposed for the self aggrandizement of the class. Jerry Scharf 2:57 PM
Rev. Ken Joseph says that most Iraqis welcome the US presence and want US forces to stay.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 2 (UPI) -- It is dusk in Baghdad and I am talking to the regular group of men who gather near the house I am staying in to talk about the day's events.
"What do you think about the Americans? How long do you think they should stay? Are they doing a good job?" I ask.
The answer is very complicated while at the same time very, very simple. It is the "politically correct" thing to do to complain about the Americans, say they are not wanted and tell them to "go home."
The reality, though, is very different.
As usually happens throughout Iraq, people look around before they tell their true feelings. Simply put they are still afraid to speak the truth. Before it was Saddam, now it is the Shiites and others who frighten them.
"The Americans are doing wonderfully. We want them to stay forever," I hear.
I am not surprised. It is exactly like I thought. When I was in Iraq before the war, the reported feelings were that while the people of Iraq did not like Saddam, they would fight for their country and were against the war.
As I said then, the people wanted the war to come so they could be liberated from Saddam but were not free to talk. The same situation with a different twist exists today. It is not widely reported, nor fashionable to say the Americans are loved and wanted in Iraq, but in fact as they were wanted before the war, they are wanted now.
"We hope they stay forever" is the true feeling of the silent majority in Iraq, contrary to what is reported.
The logic is very simple -- the Iraqis do not trust their leaders. Faced with a very complicated situation of a 60 percent Shiite majority, a former police state, Iran at their doorstep trying with all its might to destabilize their country, and desperately relieved and happy to be finally liberated from nearly 30 years of Saddam, they want the United States to stay. John Hudock 2:49 PM
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a short guide to scholars who blog, many of whom you can find on our blogroll. John Hudock 1:49 PM
Dennis Prager has a good piece on how lawyers have turned our legal system into a nightmare. I must admit I am rather torn by this issue, on the one hand I completely support the right of people to sue for damages and am loathe to impose any restrictions on those rights. On the other hand, the sheer stupidity of many lawsuits and the costs to society, both direct and hidden, makes me think we have to have some kind of sanity check on lawsuits. I don't have any suggestions, including 'loser-pays' which is usually touted as a solution. This would only discourage people with legitimate complaints from suing for fear of facing ruin if they lost (just as being wrong and idiotic is no guarantee of losing a lawsuit, being right doesn't guarantee a win either).
David Frum on how silly liberal complaints over the feds detaining illegal immigrants are:
Is it really so outrageous for a citizen to worry when two Middle Eastern men rent a truck from him ostensibly for a one-way trip to a distant city, return it just a few minutes later after driving only a few miles, forfeit a large deposit without complaint, and seem visibly nervous through the transaction? When the citizen reports the incident and it turns out that the men are present in the country illegally, is it really so intolerable for the FBI to hold them, question them, and then deport them?
If you remember how much favorable attention the press gave to reports last year that the Bush administration had missed opportunities in the summer of 2001 to detain the 19 9/11 hijackers, you have to wonder – are they telling us that in a national emergency the government should detain only those illegal immigrants who later turn out to be dangerous and no illegal immigrants who later turn out not to be dangerous? Is it really true that the cause of civil liberties requires law enforcement to have 100% perfect foreknowledge of what their investigations will later find? Max Jacobs 10:30 AM
Now this is something we can never have enough of. Apparently there is a 'new' kind of orgasm, dubbed the 'trigasm' by sexologist Dr. Ava Cadell.
She admits many couples who have tried to reach a "trigasm" found it nearly impossible, "unless they were contortionists."
But now, Dr. Cadell hopes to influence people to give her new kind of orgasm a whirl with a special sex toy designed for it called the "Trigasm vibrator."
Lileks thinks the Simpsons may have gotten away with broadcasting the filthiest joke on network television:
Watching the Simpsons “Tomacco” episode tonight, I was struck again by the brief appearance of the filthiest joke ever broadcast on network TV. I’m serious. I think it’s still there because the censors didn’t get it. If you don’t get it, you don’t see anything untoward; it doesn’t have the appearance of naughtiness. But there it is, every other month when the episode’s rerun: a sign on a rural store.
SNEED’S FEED AND SEED (Formerly Chuck’s)
I’ve described the line to smart people, clever people, Men of the World, and they don’t get it, which is probably why it’s still there.
And no, I’m not going to tell you if you don’t get it.
Okay, three words: search and replace.
It took me a few minutes but I did finally get it. Lileks has way too much free time. Either that or he is just that neurotic. I think the truth is a little from column A and a little from column B. Max Jacobs 8:55 AM
I've spent the past couple of weeks on a motoring tour of western and northern Iraq, and I can't recommend it highly enough. The roads are empty except for the occasional burnt-out tank and abandoned Saddamite limo. You can make excellent time, because it will be several months before a deBa'athified Iraqi highway patrol squad is up and running and even longer before they replace the looted radar detectors. On the boring stretches of desert motorway you can liven things up by playing D-I-Y contraflow. And best of all, if you avoid Baghdad and a couple of other major cities, you'll find the charming countryside completely unspoilt by Western reporters insisting that America is "losing the peace".
For most of the Iraq war and its immediate aftermath, it was easy for any relatively rational person to dismiss the media doom-mongering. Hundreds of thousands of dead civilians? Never gonna happen. Hand-to-hand street-fighting as Baghdad morphs into Stalingrad? Dream on. Even that Iraqi National Museum "disaster" was an obvious hoax, though I was sad to see my friends at The Spectator fall for it and add their own peculiar twist that it was all a conspiracy of a sinister US antiquities lobby. John Hudock 3:43 PM
Researchers at the University of Manchester say they have cracked the secret of one of the reptile world's greatest climbers, the gecko, and produced a sticky tape that can mimic the lizard's gravity-defying abilities.
Soon, people could walk on walls like comic-book superhero Spider-Man, the university said.
The WSJ reprints two superb Peter Drucker columns from 1976. With the incredible changes in the world over the last quarter century, it's amazing how some things seemingly never change.
Businessmen habitually complain about the economic illiteracy of the public, and with good reason. The greatest threat to the "free enterprise system" in this country is not the hostility to business of a small, strident group, but the pervasive ignorance throughout our society in respect to both the structure of the system and its functioning. But the same businessmen who so loudly complain about economic illiteracy are themselves the worst offenders. They don't seem to know the first thing about profit and profitability. And what they say to each other as well as to the public inhibits both business action and public understanding.
For the essential fact about profit is that there is no such thing. There are only costs.
What is called "profit" and reported as such in company accounts is genuine and largely quantifiable cost in three respects: as a genuine cost of a major resource, namely capital; as a necessary insurance premium for the real--and again largely quantifiable--risks and uncertainties of all economic activity; and as cost of the jobs and pensions of tomorrow. The only exception, the only true "surplus," is a genuine monopoly profit such as that now being achieved by the OPEC cartel in petroleum. John Hudock 1:51 PM
Steven Pinker has a very interesting essay on the technical difficulties of creating designer children:
Many prognosticators assume that we are currently discovering single genes for mathematical giftedness, musical talent, athletic prowess, and the like. The reality is very different. The Achilles heel of genetic enhancement will be the rarity of single genes with consistent beneficial effects.
Behavioral genetics has uncovered a paradox. We know that tens of thousands of genes working together have a large effect on the mind. Studies show that identical twins (who share all their genes) are more similar than fraternal twins (who share half of those genes that vary from person to person), who in turn are more similar than adopted siblings (who share even fewer of the varying genes). Adoption studies show that children tend to resemble their biological relatives in personality and intelligence more than they resemble their adoptive relatives.
But these are the effects of sharing an entire genome, or half of one. The effects of a single gene are much harder to show. Geneticists have failed to find single genes that consistently cause schizophrenia, autism, or manic-depressive disorder, even though these conditions are substantially heritable. And if we can't find a gene for schizophrenia, we're even less likely to find one for humor, musical talent, or likeability, because it's easier to disrupt a complex system with a single defective part than to improve it by adding a single beneficial one. The 1998 report of a gene that was correlated with a 4-point advantage in IQ was recently withdrawn because it did not replicate in a larger sample-a common fate for putative single-gene discoveries.
So don't hold your breath for the literary-creativity gene or the musical-talent gene. The human brain is not a bag of traits with one gene for each trait. Neural development is a staggeringly complex process guided by many genes interacting in feedback loops. The effect of one gene and the effect of a second gene don't produce the sum of their effects when they're simultaneously at work. The pattern of expression of genes (when they are turned on or off by proteins and other signals) is as important as which genes are present.
Even when genes should be at their most predictable-in identical twins, who share all their genes, and hence all the interactions among their genes-there are no foregone conclusions about anyone's traits or behavior. Identical twins reared together, who share not only their genes but most of their environment, are imperfectly correlated in personality measures like extroversion and neuroticism. The correlations, to be sure, are much larger than those for fraternal twins or unrelated people, but they are seldom greater than .5. This tells us there is an enormous role for chance in the development of a human being. Max Jacobs 10:38 AM
OK, so maybe you ain't a geek. You do, at least, show a bit of interest in the world around you. Either that, or you have enough of a sense of humor to pick some of the sillier answers on the test. Regardless, you're probably a pretty nifty, well-rounded person who gets along fine with people and can chat with just about anyone without fear of looking stupid or foolish or overly concerned with minutiae. God, I hate you.
You are a geek. Good for you! Considering the endless complexity of the universe, as well as whatever discipline you happen to be most interested in, you'll never be bored as long as you have a good book store, a net connection, and thousands of dollars worth of expensive equipment. Assuming you're a technical geek, you'll be able to afford it, too. If you're not a technical geek, you're geek enough to mate with a technical geek and thereby get the needed dough. Dating tip: Don't date a geek of the same persuasion as you. You'll constantly try to out-geek the other.
Apparently, not only can you not defend yourself with a gun in England, but you can't defend yourself with pepper spray either, as a wheelchair bound man who did so last week and was arrested has discovered. It has not been determined yet whether he will be prosecuted. (via Rachel) John Hudock 4:17 PM
Robert L. Pollock has a short vignette of life in postwar Iraq.
Among the thousands of friends and relatives who have come to this mass grave near Hilla to find their loved ones, there is surprisingly little bitterness against the U.S. for encouraging and then abandoning that rebellion. Some even express hope that Iraq could become an American state. "Saddam, Saddam," one man mutters in disbelief, staring at the bodies. "Television only show Iraq Ali Baba [Iraqis as thieves]," complains another of the foreign media's fixation with looting, "not show this."
Not surprisingly, none of these people thinks that finding weapons of mass destruction is critical to the case for war. The old regime did most of its dirty work the old-fashioned way, with a pistol to the head. Nor are they alarmed, like so many distant pundits, that Iraq has traded tyranny for anarchy. Even a messy freedom is something to savor. ... The drive from Amman does little to prepare the visitor for the spectacle that is Baghdad. Western Iraq is a near-Martian landscape from which a few shepherds improbably coax nourishment for their flocks. But at Ramadi the waters of the Euphrates bring forth an explosion of date palms and other greenery, and it suddenly becomes clear how the lush land between the rivers, "Mesopotamia," could have become the cradle of civilization. Modern Iraq, it is often noted, is the only Arab country with both water and oil.
This wealth of resources was something neither U.N. sanctions nor Saddamite war-socialism could entirely erase. Baghdad has its slums. But it is also a city of wide boulevards, stately villas and well-tended gardens. Citizens spouting near-fluent English and holding degrees from European or American universities accost visitors with their hopes for the new Iraq. "Tell Mr. Bush . . ." they say. "I want to thank Mr. Bush and the Americans for helping liberate our country . . . and all countries that help the American people and stand with them for giving us the happiness . . . ." John Hudock 2:50 PM
You are Morpheus, from "The Matrix." You have strong faith in yourself and those around you. A true leader, you are relentless in your pursuit.
Well, what do you know? I am Morpheus. I guess one of my lives has a future after all. Steve Waite 1:57 PM
Keith Windschuttle has a detailed dissection of Noam Chomsky in the New Criterion (Warning: it's a long piece). For those unfamiliar with the odious Professor Chomsky, this article will provide a good overview. For the cliff notes version, I have provided my own short guide to the views of Chomsky:
America (or Amerika) is a totalitarian state, led by a right-wing, corporate cabal. No one except the enlightened Chomsky and his followers are smart enough to recognize this fact.
If America does anything to stop mass killings and totalitarian governments any deaths that arise from ending that governments reign of terror are the fault of America.
If America doesn't do anything to stop mass killings by totalitarian governments all of those deaths are the fault of America.
If America ever had any dealings with a country any deaths caused by that countries government are the fault of America.
Any deaths in the world due to famine, sickness and other natural disasters are the fault of America.
Any deaths caused by governments which are directly opposed by the US are justified.
Anything that isn't the fault of America is the fault of Israel and the Jews.
The death toll of the Holocaust is grossly exaggerated.
The death toll of Pol Pots 're-education' is also grossly exaggerated (and the fault of America anyway).
FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II are the greatest monsters in recent history.
Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, Osama bin Laden, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein are great heroes.
As a Russian I feel like I should comment on this passage from Lileks today:
The execution of the children was the event that established the character of the regime. Yes, yes, regicide was often accompanied by such atrocities, but this was the 20th century. Why, this was the birth of Scientific Socialism. There is nothing so powerful as an idea has time has come!
But just in case it’s not that powerful yet, let’s shoot the little girls.
When I woke up this morning I didn't think I would be defending the actions of Communists, but here we are. Yes, I will agree that killing children is wrong but you have to look at the historical context of all this. These days, all anyone remembers about the Romanovs is that they were the royal family that ruled Russia before the Communists. Some might even remember that they didn't do a particularly good job. The truth of the matter is that the Romanovs were dictators who brutalized Russia for 400 years. And it wasn't just one bad Czar, here and there. They were all guilty of atrocities against their own people. They were cruel despicable despots. Even Nicholas II who was viewed by many as a "kindler, gentler" czar promoted massive progroms agains the Jews and was directly responsible for the death of 2 million Russians by entering World War I. I'm sure just about every Russian had some reason to hate the czar, most likely through a family member being killed or imprisoned due to actions of the regime. So I can understand the emotional need to simply try to wipe that vile and disgusting family off the face of the Earth, especially given the condition Russia was in back in 1918.
There are plenty of reasons for me to hate the Communists and what they did to my mother country, but this isn't one of them. Max Jacobs 9:49 AM
John Cole at BalloonJuice posts this challenge from Kevin Drum at CalPundit:
Of course, Sullivan joins the chorus of those who say that they like tax cuts, honest they do, but what they really want is to cut spending. Fine. Let's hear what you want to cut. And remember, for bonus points you have to include some programs that you yourself benefit from.)
Of course, only a liberal (or a congressperson of either party) would think that this is a difficult thing. For one thing, except for defense, there is not a single Federal Program that I consider myself to benefit from. Any benefits I get from government come at the local level (garbage, schools, water, etc). That said, there is a fair amount of waste in the Defense department that I would be happy to see cut. As a first step they can accelerate and expand on the projected list of base closings which congressional pork considerations keep open. And several weapon systems in development can also be given the boot. But considering that military spending was about the only thing the Clinton administration was happy to see cut I think cuts here would be offset by spending in other areas along the lines Rumsfeld has suggested reshaping the military.
Now that the bonus points are out of the way, lets get to cutting. I culled these from a quick once over of the 2004 Federal Budget. I am amused, looking over the budget, at the distinction between 'mandatory' and 'discretionary', since except for pensions and Social Security payments which have already been promised and therefore have some contractual claim to being mandatory, everything else in the budget is discretionary (ie exists at the whim of Congress). In fact, since SS benefits have been changed many times it is hard to even claim that they are completely mandatory.
Since I believe drugs should be legalized, the whole DEA can go. NASA hasn't done anything useful in years, scrap it and build a supercollider with some of the left over cash. Department of Energy, useless, gone. Dept of Agriculture, except for inspection services and some of the research programs, gone. End all the payments to farmers to not grow things, honey, mohair, etc, etc subsidies, export subsidies, below market loan programs. HUD, scandal ridden, useless, close it. Department of Education, worse than useless, I think it has actually worsened education, get rid of it, it should be handled at the local level anyway. Commerce department, except for small business assistance which is probably an earner because of backend tax revenue from job creation and some regulatory administrative functions the rest is useless. Dept of Transportation completely useless, except for normal road maintenance programs which are mostly handled by the states anyway and FAA safety administration, close the rest of it. Cut Amtrak loose too and stop the airline payoffs. Community and regional development programs, don't work and are mostly just pork delivery mechanisms to get local congress people re-elected. Department of Health, actually one of the few I don't have major complaints about. CDC functions and food inspections services are actually useful. But I'm sure there is a lot of waste here too that could be cut, there certainly is in Medicare and Medicaid administration. Justice Department, like I said get rid of DEA, also BATF which can be merged with FBI. I think there can also be large cuts made to congressional and executive staffs which have increased exponentially in the last 40 years.
There that was easy and I didn't even get to Social Security privatization. Now since I'm Neo, all I have to do is gain control of the Matrix, and... John Hudock 8:48 AM
You are Neo, from "The Matrix." You display a perfect fusion of heroism and compassion.
2800 BC A brilliant isolated tribe living off the coast of Scotland begin brewing a hallucinogenic ale out of, among other things, hemlock, nightshade and cow dung. Undoubtedly prompting the first unironic usage of the phrase: "Hey, this beer tastes like shit."
30 AD Performing his first miracle, Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding, rescuing the occasion from becoming a dull affair. Christ's entourage soon doubles.
625 AD Mohammed declares alcohol is evil. Europeans wonder, "Well, what shall the Muslims do for fun?" 711 AD Muslims invade Europe. John Hudock 3:33 PM
Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for picking up this gem.
WHAT LIBERAL MEDIA? An interesting exchange on Howie Kurtz's "Reliable Sources" this past weekend. The discussion was about the liberal-left leanings of most political drama on television. Why isn't there a conservative version of, say, the "West Wing?" Over to Howie: KURTZ: One thing these programs have in common, conservatives are practically invisible. President Bartlett in The West Wing is a Democrat. Martin Sheen, in fact, made anti-war ads before the invasion of Iraq. "Mr. Sterling" is a California liberal based loosely on Jerry Brown. Why aren't there any Republicans? O'DONNELL: You will never get that TV show. You'll never, ever get the Republican TV show. the Writers Guild of America, my union, is at a minimum, 99 percent leftist liberal and, like me, socialist. And we don't know how to write it. We don't. Was there some irony there? Sure. But truth as well.
David Pogue asks 'Why hasn't the digital video recorder become the must-have, smash-hit, world-changing appliance of the digital age?". As one of the million or so DVR owners, I like Pogue and the other owners of this wonderful device am constantly evangelizing it's charms to everyone who will listen. Read the article then go order your TIVO. (I recommend getting one of the pre-hacked ones you can buy online so that you can get more than the 80 hour maximum that TIVO currently sells).
P.S. I made a convert of Max who now happily has one. Join us. Resistance is futile! John Hudock 1:22 PM
Nat Hentoff adds his support for the posthumous pardon of Lenny Bruce's 1964 NY obscenity conviction. John Hudock 1:08 PM
There are 1,700 students and staff at one Canadian high school under quarantine due to SARS. How is any of this legal? How can you incarcerate someone against their will when they are not even suspected of committing a crime? And if you consider the sickness to be a disability then isn't this a form of discrimination which I bet is just as illegal in Canada as it is in the United States? Max Jacobs 1:00 PM
Somehow this doesn't strike me as a good idea...there is a "Lord of the Rings" musical being planned for the London stage. John Hudock 12:41 PM
Bob Herbert is whining again, this time on the tax cuts. Most of it is just the usual drivel but then there was this passage that really annoyed me:
What the economy needs is a real stimulus that will create real jobs, not an irresponsible package of tax cuts that will inflate the portfolios of the very wealthy while starving the government of the money needed to pay for essential services and to maintain a safety net for the nation's most vulnerable citizens.
I love the phrase "starving" the government. The US government plans to spend $2.1 TRILLION of taxpayer money in 2003 alone, with "human rescources" spending (includes medicare, social programs, etc.) totalling $1.4 trillion of this. I don't think the government is starving for funds and it surely isn't because of a tax cut which will cost the government only $50 billion in revenues this year, $30 billion of which coming simply from an acceleration of previously enacted tax cuts.
And Bob, are you for the money being spent on stimulus or government welfare programs? It makes it sound like you want to have your cake and eat it too. And I don't see how increasing the budget of government welfare programs will do anything to stimulate the economy. Max Jacobs 9:23 AM
"Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things." --Adam Smith
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." --Thomas Jefferson
"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." --Walt Whitman
The Blog
A blog dedicated to common sense in practical and political matters combined with a sense of wonder of the world around us and the amazing rate of technological change and we try to do it all with our senses of humor intact. Skeptics and cynics especially welcome.
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Max Jacobs The smart, hip, young and brash one.
John Hudock The older, wiser and grumpier one.
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"When somebody persuades me that I am wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?" --John Maynard Keynes
"Whatever it is that government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government do it to someone else. This is the idea behind foreign policy." --P.J. O'Rourke
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