The big news this week has been the 9/11 hearings, particular the accusations, flip-flops and tomfoolery of Richard Clarke.

I've learned this week that it's all George Bush's fault.

I've learned this week that it's all Bill Clinton's fault.

Blame the Republicans. Blame the Democrats.

If only it were so simple, then maybe 9/11 could have been prevented.

If we could precisely spot a single point of blame, 9/11 never would have happened. The coming attack would have been stupidly obvious and we would have stopped it.

But our intelligence services, military complex, congressional and executive branches are so big, and the flood of information and chatter so intense, looking backward with the intent of pinpointing a single point of blame is a fools errand.

It's foolish because you'll never get it right, and the process is detrimental to preventing another 9/11 because it does not systematically address what actually happened and why.

Notice that I didn't say "what went wrong." The whole effort to assign blame is counterproductive. It's nothing more than partisan folly. There is no logic behind the notion that just because something bad happened, somebody somewhere did something wrong. We could have done everything right, and those who hate us could still have scored a deadly victory.

Yes, we want to figure out ways to tighten our security, our response to threats and do our best to make sure we never suffer this kind of lose again. A thorough investigation of 9/11 will help us do that, but such an investigation will never uncover the truth if it is nothing more than partisan theatrics.

To reduce this whole issue to partisan sniping is to cheapen and tarnish the value of democracy. The long-term consequences are to further erode the fabric that binds us together. And that is only handing victory over to our enemies.
Posted By Howard Owens
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John Kerry calls George Bush's foreign policy arrogant unilateralism, but look at what Kerry says about trade with other countries:

I support free trade, but I don't support what the Bush administration calls free trade. I will order an immediate 120-day review of all trade agreements to ensure that our trading partners are living up to their labor and environment obligations and that trade agreements are enforceable and are balanced for America's workers. I won't sign any new trade agreements unless they contain strong labor and environmental standards.

This is exactly the sort of go-it-alone imperialism that gets America into the most trouble internationally. The "freedom for me but not for thee" attitude is what builds resentment. It fuels terrorism and ensures poverty for billions of people.

Global poverty is often analyzed with more moral indignation than intellectual rigor. From the fallacy that economics is a zero-sum game—that someone's gain must be someone else's commensurate loss—moralists conclude that people are living badly in sub-Saharan Africa because people are living well in North America.

Poor people are poor because their governments are not free, their trade is not free and their leaders are corrupt.

If John Kerry wants to help American workers, he can help us prosper, and the best way to do that is to create new markets for our goods and services. That will happen best when we crack the nut of socialism and corruption in foreign lands.

This concept was reinforced for me when I went through this multimedia presentation on the billions of dollars Mexican immigrants send home every year. That much money being pumped into local economies should do more to alleviate poverty, but Mexico remains a corrupt bastion of macro controls.

All the free trade in the world, including a completely open border, isn't going to help Mexico unless the Mexican government can embrace true capitalism, which includes a respect for the rule of law. What can John Kerry do to help? I don't know, but I'd like him to answer the question.

Certainly, protectionism isn't the answer. That just costs American jobs.

If you want to help impoverished workers, help them become upwardly mobile. Such a society quickly lose its tolerance for exploitation of workers, and tends to care more about the environment (a concern that is an extravagant luxury when you don't know where your next meal is coming from). Forcing cultures to comply with our standards in those two areas is more than arrogant, it's a recipe for unending poverty, which means neither of those issues really get resolved.
Posted By Howard Owens
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Where has Howard been?

Busy. Very busy.

Two quick notes ...

Teen voting: Stupid idea. Partisan idea. The Dems figure most young people are idealistic and their message resonates with them more, so register more teens and you get more Dem votes. That's the way I read it. Not that I see a lot of 14-year-olds voting, but I have doubts about 18-year-olds being qualified to vote, let alone any younger.

Baseball: Steroids. Pete Rose. A-Rod to the Yankees. Labor disputes past and future. On and on ... lots of reasons to get disgusted with the grand old game. But it remains a lovely game. When it's being played, cares seem to slip away. I admit it. I'm addicted. I can't wait for the season to start. And here's a prediction for you: The Padres will win the NL West.

Oh, and did you hear about this book about the Vulcans? I'm one of them, for the most part. I'm no longer a neocon -- I'm a Vulcan.

Now I'm going to do something else I haven't done much of last few weeks -- play my guitar. Good night.
Posted By Howard Owens
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When I hear music as soulful, heartfelt and immaculate as Greg Brown's, I want to find some shimmering and honest way to tell you about it. But finding the right words to get to the gritty truth of performers like Brown requires more poetics than I can muster.

Greg Brown has been making music for more than 25 years and has 24 albums to his credit. Mostly, he's written and performed his own material, gaining a reputation as a skilled and powerful songwriter.

Now he brings us "Honey in the Lion's Head," a collection of songs of the hills and woods of America. Like Dave Alvin's Grammy-winning "Public Domain" -- an inevitable comparison, especially when Brown opens with an even earthier "Railroad Bill" -- "Lion's Head" takes the songs of the land and transfuses them both with an updated esthetic and he's own unique style.

Like Alvin, Brown's throaty baritone gives the selections an authenticity that none of the '60s folksies could achieve with their perfect harmonies and precious arrangements. Brown isn't trying to make a commercial document to revitalize a genre. He is paying tribute by paying close attention to the original intent of the songs.

Fans of Alvin and Johnny Cash's American Recordings series will love "Lion's Head."

And that's as close as I can come to conveying the imperative message: Buy this CD.
Posted By Howard Owens
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A friend called tonight and we got to talking about my post on GWB's anti-gay-marriage amendment. We zeroed in particularly on the widespread conservative criticism of the proposal.

The conversation engendered these thoughts that are nothing new for me, but come to the fore again. I think the GOP leadership greatly misunderstands where conservatism is going these days. Traditional social conservatism is losing to libertarianism.

I blame the Internet.

Way back in 1995, I noticed the Net culture was different. Remember the word "Netizen"? Netizens were net users who defended with zeal the freewheeling, anything goes, content wants to be free, ethos of the mid and late '90s Net. It was a very libertarian ethos.

As the Net has grown, fewer newbies have quickly adopted that ethos, with more of them retaining their meatspace prejudices and predilections, but the underlying libertarianism of the Net is still pretty persuasive. It is probably felt strongest in the blogosphere.

It used to be that all of the energy of conservatism percolated in the churches, because that was the one place where hordes of conservatives could be found every week. It was an easy target for the GOP to aim at. But the Net is swamping the pulpit. Now conservatives of all hues have a place to inform and exhort, and free of the central control of the Christian Coalition or the RNC or any other organizing force.

The right-center/libertarian/non-ideological/non-partisan part of America has never had an outlet like the Net to connect, learn and share. The silent majority is silent no longer. I think it is being itself felt in American politics like never before. I think we saw it in the Trent Lott affair, and I think we'll see it in the way GWB is embarrassed by conservatives fleeing from his puerile sop to the hard right.

I think GWB can lose in 2004, and if he does it will because the center shifts away from him. The center is not driven by concerns of party or politics. It is driven by common sense. And in the Net age, the center can move so quickly, old-political strategies will miss it and be unable to keep up.

Ah, these are just some rambling thoughts. I would really like to see some political scientist study the Net's effect on political philosophy and how it is changing political culture and the political landscape. It's more than Howard Dean supporters drinking lattes at some Meet Up. The more nuanced story is how belief systems are changing.
Posted By Howard Owens
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For more than 200 years, with one notable exception, the Constitution has largely stood for the defense of individual rights and limitations on government power.

The one time we used the Constitution to limit freedom, it was maybe the biggest mistake this country ever made. In fact, I think it was by far the biggest mistake this country every made, though reasonable people might disagree. That mistake was prohibition. Prohibition unleashed organized crime and promoted a libertinism that has had profound impacts on each succeeding generation.

The government is perfectly within its right to prohibit socially unacceptable behavior (caveat: within the scope of compelling government interest, such as outlawing murder or pedophilia), but the Constitution is not the tool for proscribing individual conduct, no matter what that conduct is.

George Bush is being neither presidential nor conservative to support an amendment to ban gay marriage. 

Here's a message for all of the religious conservatives who support this amendment: Stop calling yourself conservative. You're lying.  You are under no obligation to marry gays in your churches, but amending the Constitution to ban gay marriage is not the action of a conservative. Compassionate or otherwise.

That said, this amendment has no chance of passing. Too many people in both blue and red states think it's just stupid. And I suspect Bush knows this, but it's a cheap and easy way to shore up his base. The people that are pissed off at him today over this are most likely the same people who were pissed off at him yesterday because of the war, the economy and his funny way of talking. This is nothing more than a dry bone for his lap dogs to lick on between now and November.
Posted By Howard Owens
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Jon Henke uncovered this quote from John Kerry:

"I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that," Kerry said. "However, I did take part in free-fire zones, I did take part in harassment and interdiction fire, I did take part in search-and-destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground. And all of these acts, I find out later on, are contrary to the Hague and Geneva conventions and to the laws of warfare. So in that sense, anybody who took part in those, if you carry out the application of the Nuremberg Principles, is in fact guilty.

But here's the part that bothered me -- how do you become an officer in the Navy and NOT KNOW that the acts he alleged violated the Hague and Geneva conventions? Hell, I never made it past senior airman in the Air Force, and I knew that.

So in which part of Kerry's statement is he lying?

On the other hand -- This Week offered up a virtual debate between Kerry and John Edwards this Sunday, juxtaposing responses to questions on trade, the economy, health and defense. I was so disappointed in Edward's performance, especially is rabid protectionism.

I keep saying I'm going to vote for Edwards in the California primary, but I'm really starting to choke on his anti-trade rhetoric.

"My position on this issue," he said, "is based on my own personal experience. I've seen what a devastating effect this has on workers and families."

Sorry, John, no you haven't. Free trade is NEVER devastating to American workers. It is what makes jobs possible. We import two or three times more jobs than we export. Shipping low-skill jobs overseas makes companies more efficient, which means they can afford to hire better skilled, more creative and productive workers in this country to further drive the economy. Yes, the flux of shifting economics some times causes temporary dislocations for some workers, but in the long run both the workers and their families, and the rest of us are much, much, much better off.

This Democratic protectionism and anti-free trade rhetoric is really starting to irritate me.

As for Kerry (who is also protectionist, but not as bad as Edwards), he was impressive on This Week. If all I had to judge the two candidates with was that show, Kerry would get my vote without a doubt. He even SOUNDED strong on defense (I don't believe that he is) and gave a good answer to the war vs. law enforcement issue. Meanwhile, Edwards has suddenly become a limp dish rag on national defense. He was meek, mild and slightly clueless on This Week.

But geez, I still hate the idea of even considering casting a vote for Kerry.
Posted By Howard Owens
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I'm not a fanatical Bogart fan, but for a long time, I figured there were few good Bogart films I hadn't seen, and fewer still (like none) that I didn't at least know about.

Somehow, In A Lonely Place escaped my attention. That might have been because the original prints were in pretty bad shape and it rarely (if ever) showed up on teevee or video store aisles. Fortunately, not long ago, the film was restored and it's now available on DVD.

In A Lonely Place is classic Noir. Set in 1950 Los Angeles with all the murder and intrigue a mystery fan could hope for. It's also a love story. If you think every Hollywood film has a happy ending, you haven't seen In A Lonely Place.

It's the story of a screen writer who invites a young girl back to his apartment, then sends her on her way with cab fare. She is later murdered. The writer is accused of the crime, but a neighbor woman provides him with an alibi. Soon, the writer and neighbor fall in love. But the writer is a complex man who isn't easy to adore. He is a man who is gentle and kind, but also hot tempered and thuggish. He is a man that viewers, and his lover, come to believe is capable of murder.

The script is deft and the plot artful and unpredictable. You are drawn into the characters pyschology both by their solid acting and by the construction of the film. It is beautifully shot (some great exterior scenes of 1950 Hollywood) and cut.

Bogart made so many wonderful films, but he may never have played a role better than Dixon Steele. He is both vulnerable and transparent and simmering with an unquenchable rage. He is cynical without being borish. He never overreaches for his anger, while leting his face tell stories words could never convey.

In the bonus material, a commentator says, "I'm not saying this is the greatest film every made ..." I agree. But it is a perfect film. It is flawless in every way, and should be a must-see for every noir and Bogart fan.
Posted By Howard Owens
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Did Jeb Bartlet serve in Vietnam? Or was he a weed-smokin', draft-dodgin', Height Ashbury-lovin', long-haired commie pinko freak? Or a draft-dodgin', National Guard-AWOLin', daddy-kissing, short-haired square?

We just don't know, and we should all find the lack of a forthright answer troubling.
Posted By Howard Owens
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Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani wields power in Iraq not with bombs, nor with the support of heavily-armed thugs, but merely by the depth of his wisdom, the clarity of his vision and his grace in the ways of his religion.

He is the most formidable force Coalition troops face.

He may also be right in his vision for the transformation of Iraq.

Sistani rejects U.S. transitional plans -- the appointed constitutional committee, caucuses to pick leaders and open-ended occupation. Sistani is calling for direct elections, with no formal consitution being drafted until after such elections.

His conflict with the U.S. over planning for Iraq's future is seen as a stalemate, but it may be significant that while Sistani clearly wants an end to the occupation, he has never called for (as far as I can find) a deadline on elections or the end of occupation.

Most Americans freak out when they hear the word "Ayatollah," but all sources agree that Sistani is a moderate in Islamic terms, a devoted religious leader with a long history of teaching that politics and religion do not really mix. It is unlikely that his ambition is to set up an Islamic state in the Iranian mold, though Iraq freedom in Sistani's vision probably does not match what we would call Western-style liberal democracy.

Given Sistani's power, and his demonstrated willingness to work with the United States, maybe his demands should be given a little more serious consideration then they are getting to this point.

Maybe elections, with the new representatives drafting the constitution, isn't such a bad idea.

Elections, if done right (in other words, free and fair), will carry a credibility both in Iraq and around the world, including in the Arab world, and could help stabilize Iraq in ways that months and months, if not years, of occupation never could.

If we truly believe in democracy, maybe we need to trust the Iraqi people to govern themselves well. Elections will also help give the Iraqi people a greater sense of ownership over their own country, which is another way to promote stability. If structured correctly, elections will create a government body that allows power sharing among factions, and give the Iraqi people an important lesson in federalism (there is every reason to believe that Shiites will elect a mixture of moderates and fundamentalists, not just a straight-fundamentalist ticket as some fear, which will open the door for cooperation with Sunnis and Kurds). And in the process, the U.S. will gain the trust of the Iraqi people (again, if done right).

The U.S. caucus plan strikes me as naive and misguided. Caucus barely work in this country; how can newly democratized citizens possibly understand the process, or at least participate with confidence that the outcome will be truly representative. And as we dawdle, the transitional government is faltering, making the non-representative consitution nothing more than a piece of paper.

Of course, in exchange for elections, Sistani must agree that voting under current conditions may lead to additional bloodshed as Saddam/Sunni loyalists try to disrupt the process (though I'm betting most Sunnis will gladly participate), and that unless Sistani wants to see the new government devolve into another dictatorship, Coalition forces must remain in Iraq until that country develops its own institutions to ensure stability and security.

I once opposed quick-pitch elections. In fact, before the war I once predicted that Iraq wouldn't be ready for elections until five years hence. But I have a strong faith in the industry and intelligence of the Iraqi people. I believe Sistani is a cleric we can trust to guide his people in the right direction. Now I see Iraqi elections as the fastest, safest path to a clean exit from Iraq, and a more stable, pro-U.S. and legitimate Iraq down the road.

Articles I read before writing this post can be found here, here, here and here.
Posted By Howard Owens
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Home ownership is more than just the pinnacle of the American Dream, it is a substantial societal benefit.

• Helps create wealth for middle-income families;
• Helps build nest eggs for education and retirement;
• Provides incentive for work and career stability and advancement;
• Creates stable and safe neighborhoods and communities;
• Is a hedge against inflation for long-term savings and investment;
• Helps create jobs in construction and finance.

Home ownership is a staple of the American capitalist experiment, and perhaps the greatest proof that the experiment is working exceptionally well. So we don't want to do anything that would jeopardize the ability of families to buy and retain homes.

Even so, in California we are saddled with a draconian tax law that creates untenable inequities in tax burdens, reduces government services and stifles economic growth. Ironically, this tax law was meant to protect the American Dream.

Proposition 13 is probably the biggest man-made disaster in the history of California.

• Reduce government services;
• Makes sensible revenue generation hard to come by;
• Gives too much power to Sacramento bureaucrats at the expense of locally elected leaders;
• Creates inequities between home owners, putting a greater burden to pay for services on new home owners, while letting long-time owners skate by with paying less than their fair share;
• Creates a disincentive for new residential development;
• Creates a disincentive for high-density, urban development (which would help reduce traffic, infrastructure and pollution-related burdens on communities);
• Creates an over-reliance on sales tax and income tax (the two easiest taxes to avoid);
• Leads to higher developer fees, which still prove inadequate to pay (long term) for infrastructure and government services;
• Leads to local governments favoring developments that push against urban-limit lines, where larger, more expensive homes can be built at the expense of smaller, higher-density, lower-income housing;
• The shunning by local government of development for manufacturing and R&D;, instead favoring lower-wage retail centers;
• Discourages businesses from turning under-producing property to higher benefit uses.

To top it all off, nearly two-thirds of the tax savings from Prop. 13 went to businesses and landlords. That would be OK, but Prop. 13 was meant to benefit the little old retired couple that was in danger of losing their home to a heavy tax burden. And that would be OK, but businesses have no incentive under Prop. 13 to turn under utilitized property into higher-production, better job-creating uses. Prop. 13 has some constraining effect on business growth.

And Prop. 13 is filled with loopholes that make it easy for businesses to avoid reassessment (which would increase property taxes) when the businesses change hands.

Meanwhile, individual Californians are overburdened with income and sales taxes that could and should be lower (stimulating growth), and corporations pay one of the highest tax rates in the nation (lower corporate taxes would help keep jobs in the state), and state and local governments are grossly under funded.

There are ways to fix Prop. 13 that would still protect home ownership, but also help the state fix the structural deficiencies in its budget. These changes could increase government revenue by $5 billion to $10 billion annually, minus any reduction in other taxes.

1. Reassess commercially-zoned property to current market value, and reasses it at market value every five years.
2. Reassess all residential property, unless it meets the following exceptions:
   • It's been purchased within the last five years;
   • It was purchased prior to 1990 but it's 1990 market value was less than $500,000;
   • It has been owned by the same owner for more than 20 years;
   • It hasn't been refinanced within the last 12 months (with any future refinancing forcing a new assessment).
   • The owner doesn't qualify for a hardship waiver;
3. Exempt qualifying low- and mid-income rental units from reassessment, and grandfather the Prop. 13 tax rates for any low-income rental property sold after the reform date so long as the new owners do not raise rents for 24 months;
4. Exempt family-owned agriculture property from reassessment;
5. Guarantee 80 percent of all property tax revenue remain in the communities that generates it, with the remaining 20 percent being made available to state government on a "last resort" basis.
6. Send all sales tax to the state, with a capped rate of 5 percent, and prohibit the state from taking action that would force local communities to build more retail centers;
7. Phase out special assessment districts created to skirt Prop. 13.

My intention with these reform ideas is to fashion a system that creates incentives for businesses to put commercially-zoned, especially manufacturing-zoned property to its highest and best use; to protect middle-income and low-income homeowners who have counted on Prop. 13 protections for these many years; to protect renters from spikes that might be caused by reassessment; and to devolve government back to a local level, weakening the power of the state.

Will it work? Probably not, but this is just a blog, so why not throw the idea out there? We need to pick up the steam on reassessing Prop. 13. It was a poorly constructed law when it passed, and it only wears worse with time.

The inspiration for this post came from seeing UCLA economist Dr. Christopher Thornberg speak recently. Some of the ideas are ones I've been thinking about for a long time, others were spliced from this link and this link.
Posted By Howard Owens
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In the cozened quarters of La La Land, the SRT-10 couldn't be more politically incorrect if it wore a white hood and was named the Dodge Imperial Wizard. It's huge. It's big-fat-fiance obnoxious. It's got more vulgar bulges than a Chippendales show. It burns gas like a fuel depot fire and tires like a Port-au-Prince roadblock.

"I would like to see us get this place right first before we have the arrogance to put significantly flawed civilizations out onto other planets."

I read this quote in my morning paper today and nearly spat my caffeinated diet beverage all over the Lifestyles page.

Until this morning, I assumed Patrick Stewart was a fairly intelligent actor (a bit of an oxymoron there, I knew).

Before I could get home and take up the fisking of Stewart, Lilkes was already on the case, but I still find the quote so Ferengi-like in its own illogic and arrogance that I had to respond.

1) How do we get this place right, short of killing every human being on the planet? Humans are flawed. We tend toward greed, avarice, arrogance (at least Mr. Stewart got that much right), self-indulgence and other character flaws too numerous to mention. Some might call it original sin, but even a humanist can see the faults of our nature are so ingrained from birth that no government program can possibly create utopia. So what does Stewart expect? At what point are we sufficiently perfect enough to explore space?

2) Yes, we're arrogant. But the yin-yang truth is that while arrogance leads to many mistakes, it also leads to many successes. Only the arrogance of a man who believed in human-powered flight could start the process that brough us B2s and 747s; only the arrogance of a man who believed a series of 1s and 0s could transmit data who give us any hope of every owning a Commodore 64; only the arrogance of a man who believed in the capacity of the human mind could stare into a microscope and find cures for polio and small pox. All worthwhile human endeavor is fulled by such arrogance.

3) Stewart also said we should spend the resources of the space program on earth. As Lileks points out, there are any number of worthless human activities that contribute nothing to the betterment of earth, such as X-Men and Wild Geese II. Maybe we should stop paying Mr. Stewart a salary and invest the savings in housing homeless thespians?

4) Space exploration equals progress. Progress cures ills, feeds the hungry, opens up new opportunities, makes life better for all it touches. How can a man who played Capt. Picard not see that? Investment in technology is always a good thing, and who knows what we might find out there, or what we might discover about ourselves, our environment, our place in the universe. There is no way to know if these unknown unknowns will be a net benefit, but I'm betting that we will be better off if we understand our universe better, and develop new technologies to explore it.

5) When William Shatner told trekkies on Saturday Night Live to "get a life," he was only joking. Some ST fans were insulted. Most got the joke. There's nothing funny about Stewart's statements, but his words are still a middle finger to all true trekkers. Trek is about hope and optimism. Stewart's comments are about despair and defeat. It must be a huge disappointment to all trekkers to find out that Stewart learned nothing, was never really committed to his role, thought the whole enterprise was hogwash -- that ultimately, all he really cared about was a paycheck. Yet, he wants to lecture us on how fucked up our world is, when in his own inimically greedy fashion, he's shwon himself to be as clueless as the next Hollywood elitist.
Posted By Howard Owens
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When I saw a Mini Cooper parked outside my gym a year or so ago, I thought -- what a cool car. It's retro European, but thoroughly modern. If it wasn't so damn small, I'd want one.

I figure I'd seen Minis in films about London and whatnot, but until today, I didn't fully appreciate the Mini history. Today, I happened across the MiniGuy's shop and found a garden of these quaint little hot rods.

It's amazing, some of these cars can now sell for upward of $20,000. And the MiniGuy is quick to tell you, he'll ship to anywhere in the United States, and has.

I sat in one of these things and surprisingly, I fit. But even at a low-end $6,000 model, I don't think I want to adjust to a right-side drivers seat.
Posted By Howard Owens
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