White Hot

Consider the following:

The national economy has added 625,000 net jobs since January 2004. In April alone, 288,000 jobs were created.

The DC metro area has added 60,600 net jobs through the twelve months ending in March 2004. Of that number of net jobs, Fairfax County has contributed 27,612, or 46 percent of the region’s net gain.

Despite further additions to the job market, Countywide unemployment has continued to decline (from 2.6 percent to 2.0 percent during the twelve month period ending March 2004).

Reported retail sales in March 2004 for Fairfax County are up sharply. Razor sharp. Sales are 20 percent over March 2003 and largely contribute to the year-to-date total gain of 10.1 percent over fiscal year 2003.

With the announcement of a national gain of 308,000 jobs in March, this economic expansion may appear new to many folks. Truth is, this expansion is nine quarters old. Local economists are extending their strong forecasts for the region well into 2005 if not beyond.
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- posted by Jameson on 5/18/2004 |

 
Silence All Around

It appears that Benon Sevan, the UN kleptocrat at the center of the oil-for-food scandal, sent letters to at least three potential witnesses in the inquiry currently being conducted by Congresss, demanding their silence. Sevan has been hiding out in a Cyprus hotel doing his damndest to obstruct any investigation into why his name appeared on the notorious list of 270 friends of Saddam.

And as a friend of the fallen dictator, Sevan secretly received oil vouchers to sell 14.3 million barrels of oil. Did I mention that Benon Sevan was also the man responsible for overseeing the UN's oil-for-food program? Oops. So much for transparency and ethics. Speaking of which, I join John O'Sullivan in calling for the resignation of Kofi Annan from the post of UN Secretary-General for his involvement in this scandal.

U.N. officials at a very high level were apparently complicit in this vast fraud. Among them was Benon Sevan, the program's director and a long-time U.N. official, reported directly responsible to the U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan. U.N. officials — whose approval was required for certain expenditures — okayed such purchases as Mercedes Benz touring sedans and the rebuilding of Saddam's Interior Ministry.

Some will — and should — go to prison. Kofi Annan should at least resign since he presided, knowingly or not, over this vast robbery. Needless to say, the entire scandal casts a dark backward light on the U.N.'s convolutions in the run-up to the Iraq invasion — France, Russia, the U.N. bureaucracy, and the "peace movement" all had an undeclared interest in the survival of their co-conspirator, Saddam Hussein, at the very moment when they were seeking in the Security Council to save him from the consequences of his defiance of U.N. resolutions.

Read the whole article.
- posted by Jameson on 5/10/2004 |

 
Terror Draped in the UN’s Flag

As Roger Simon suggests, Claudia Rosett deserves a Pulitzer for her tenacious drive in getting the UN’s oil-for-terror story told. Her latest offering was in the WSJ’s opinionjournal:

U.N. secrecy--in deference to the privacy of Saddam and his former clientele--makes it extremely difficult to confirm the many whiffs of sleazy and sinister dealings in these lists. But for an example of how dirty Oil-for-Food could get, take the case of one of Saddam's U.N.-authorized relief suppliers, a company called Al Wasel & Babel General Trading LLC, set up in Dubai, in 1999. This same Al Wasel & Babel was designated by Treasury earlier this month as a front company set up by senior officials of Saddam's regime to serve as a foreign seller of goods to Saddam's regime, through Oil-for-Food (while trying to procure for Iraq a surface-to-air-missile system).

And although full information is hard to come by, partial lists leaked from the U.N. show that in 2000-2001 alone, Saddam's regime ordered up from Al Wasel and Babel more than $190 million in construction materials, trucks, cars and so on. Over Mr. Annan's and Mr. Sevan's protests, the U.S. and U.K. blocked some $45 million worth of those contracts; that still left the Saddam front company of Al Wasel & Babel with about $145 million of Oil-for-Food business for that two year period alone.

Basically, Oil-for-Food was Saddam--just slightly harder to spot, swaddled as he was in that blue U.N. flag.

- posted by Jameson on 4/28/2004 |

 
There's Smoke So Where's the Fire?

Baffled. I'm just baffled. I cannot understand how the UN's oil-for-food turned oil-for-terror scandal has yet to gain any traction. Here you have Saddam Hussein who diverted $5 billion into his personal accounts under the watchful eye of the UN, which itself skimmed a cool $1 billion off the troubled program. Hungry kids? Please -- this oil-for-food program was serving a dictator, a corrupt organization, and a handful (well, at least 270 individuals and corporations, listed here) of folks who found themselves on the receiving end of lucrative Iraqi oil contracts. UN undersecretary general Benon Sevan is one of three UN officials to so far be accused in this scandal, but that sure hasn't helped give this story legs. Perhaps we will just have to wait until Kofi Annan is brought up on charges before any news bureau takes this seriously.

From James Morrow of The Australian:

But by far the biggest recipient of Saddam's largesse was the UN. During the program's existence, more than $US1 billion was kept by the organization as a fee for administering the program. As one senior UN diplomat recently told London's Daily Telegraph: "The UN was not doing this work just for the good of Iraq. Cash from Saddam's government was keeping the UN going for a few years."

Amazingly, though, it has taken an incredible amount of time for this story to get what little traction it has so far gained in the media. (Certainly the anti-war Left, which is happy to believe that George W. Bush toppled Saddam to kick a few contracts to Dick Cheney's old pals at Halliburton, has been deafeningly silent on the topic.)

Perhaps because of all the DIY international lawyering engaged in by the world press corps in the run-up to Iraq's invasion, many journalists are reluctant to admit that the UN they put so much faith in was many times more corrupt than they could imagine the Bush White House being.

Or maybe they just don't want to admit that so many of the anti-war voices they used to support their stories were bought and paid for with money belonging to the long-suffering, if little-mentioned, Iraqi people.

But the naive belief among journalists with little or no international law background that no military action is legitimate without the UN's seal of approval is one thing. The continued fetishistic belief of politicians and opinion-makers in the supposed good intentions of the UN is another -- and it is something that needs to end immediately.

Do yourself a favor and read Claudia Rosett's piece on NRO, if you haven't already. She dubs this the oil-for-terror scandal for a reason.

Also, check out the blog Friends of Saddam, which has done a great job of collecting news reports related to the scandal that have slowly trickled out onto the internet.

Hand the oil-for-terror story over to Tom Clancy and you'd have yourself a bestseller... but for some reason, there's just no press on this. So what's the problem?

From The Australian again:

Any outfit that can keep a straight face while electing Libya to chair its human rights commission, claim to stand for peace while virtually ignoring genocides in Rwanda and elsewhere, and routinely condemn the Middle East's only democracy for defending itself against suicide bombers has lost all moral legitimacy and needs to be wound down.

The world may need some sort of forum to help nations sort out their political disputes, just as there are bodies that help sort out, say, trade disputes; a community of democracies is one idea being kicked around in Washington and Geneva to counterbalance the UN, where the votes of dictatorships such as Cuba and Zimbabwe carry the same weight as democracies such as Australia and the US.
But this latest scandal proves that the UN, with all its structural flaws and moral failings that have led to the deaths of millions, can no longer claim the role of legitimate and neutral broker anymore. If, indeed, it ever could.

- posted by Jameson on 4/27/2004 |

 
Speak Up, Kerry

John Kerry is again displaying his penchant for announcing big, round numbers that mean absolutely nothing (see his previous announcement that 10 million jobs would be created on his watch as president, in four years!). He has proposed cutting the number of jobs federal agencies contract out to private-sector firms by 100,000, estimating that the federal government would save $50 billion over 10 years.

Missing from that calculation is the cost to transfer the work done by private contractors back over to the federal government. Those jobs were originally outsourced because of the glaring inefficiencies within our federal government and he’s prepared to send it right back into the productivity void. Or are we to believe that John Kerry has quietly become a soldier of limited government, prepared to take it down from within by reducing the government’s capacity to conduct work? I seriously doubt it.

I’m all for the elimination of 100,000 jobs funded by our federal tax dollars. But perhaps we should focus first on reducing wasteful government jobs before we’re handing out pinkslips to those who were called in to fix what the feds couldn’t do at a low cost (isn’t that the idea behind outsourcing?).

And as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, John Kerry must know what his proposal would mean for the small business community. It would be impossible for the feds to disentangle themselves from the large contractors, leaving the less politically-apt, smaller campaign contributors to fend for themselves. Smaller contracts are most vulnerable because their contracts are easier to measure than say Raytheon’s complex multi-year awards. So this may pose difficulty for Kerry’s other promise of jobs, jobs, and more jobs. Unless of course he’s talking about just ballooning the fed’s direct payroll, and if that’s the case, why isn’t he talking about that?

- posted by Jameson on 4/23/2004 |

 
Another Reason Not to Vote for John Kerry

Sure he can generate some revenue for New York. But do we really need Eliot Spitzer as our nation’s Attorney General?

- posted by Jameson on 4/12/2004 |

 
Dumbing Down Houston’s Schools

The School Board in Houston, Texas voted to abandon the short-lived practice of requiring high school students to pass core classes (English and math) before they can move on to the next grade. The Board’s justification is to not discourage students and ultimately reduce the dropout rate. What a sleazy way to accomplish that.

More than 5,000 freshmen and sophomores who would have been held back under the old policy will now be promoted.

"The ninth grade has become a bottleneck year," said Abe Saavedra, HISD's executive deputy superintendent. Forty-three percent of the district's freshmen are over age, he said. More than a third of 10th-graders have already failed at least one grade.

School board members insist the change does not amount to social promotion because those students will still have to pass the classes they failed before they graduate.

Another alternative would be to teach kids properly the first time. That way, there’s no need to hope and pray that the next teacher down the line can get through to the struggling student and solve what the teachers before couldn’t. Also, it’s much easier to hold someone back incrementally (“Johnny can’t read and he’s in the 4th grade!”) then to look at the kid when he’s 18 and still illiterate (“Maybe Johnny should just work on his jumpshot”). The pressure to allow someone to graduate is still too great, which will come to terms in most cases after a brief and worthless summer school session to make up for a 14 year learning deficit.

Again, the lesson remains that teachers unions are more concerned with their retirement tomorrow then their responsibility today. Shame on them and the elected officials who echo their irresponsibility.

- posted by Jameson on 4/12/2004 |

 
Auditioning For The Part Of The VP Candidate

From the WSJ Opinion Journal:

We predicted yesterday's Condoleezza Rice show would be more about the 9/11 Commissioners themselves than anything the National Security Adviser had to say. But we confess we were unprepared for Bob Kerrey's Vice Presidential audition.

We thought the former Senator had more class than to preface his remarks with a condescending allusion to the fact that Ms. Rice is a black woman. ("I'm very impressed . . . [by] the story of your life.") Or to then complain that her attempts to answer his monologue were cutting into his time. In their zeal to show all the things that went undone before 9/11, Mr. Kerrey and other Democrats on the Commission inadvertently underscored all that President Bush has done since. Think of it as one long endorsement of pre-emption.

Also from the editorial:

In another arena Ms. Rice might have blamed Democrats of the John Kerry stripe for another barrier to effective counterterrorism. Instead, she politely limited herself to pointing out the 1970s-era laws forbidding information-sharing between intelligence and law-enforcement officials. It was only the much reviled Patriot Act that finally changed that.

- posted by Jameson on 4/9/2004 |

 
Fearing Virginia Republicans

Cal Thomas echoes my concern for the state of the Virginia GOP:

The state of Virginia, the home of presidents who believed in small government, low taxes and personal responsibility, may be about to join the big taxing and spending federal government with the help of the party that claims the heritage of some of the nation's Founders.

Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat, is getting aid and comfort from 20 Republican members of the House of Delegates and others in the Virginia Senate in his effort to raise state taxes that will soak citizens for an additional $1.8 billion annually in order to cover a deficit of just $1 billion over two years. It is an undeniable truth that there are no temporary taxes, so if these increases pass and the deficit is eliminated, state spending will rise to, or exceed, the level of new taxes. Legislators will then be "forced" to contemplate even higher taxes rather than reduce spending.

And CAGW wonders why Virginia taxpayers should be expected to support tax increases to pay for legislators’ pork projects that continue to make their way into budget compromises:

None of the plans makes a serious effort to reduce wasteful spending. Even House members, who have been most willing to hold the line on tax increases, have advocated an additional $8.1 billion in pork-barrel spending. Requested projects include $2.4 million for the promotion of Virginia wine, $2 million for the Great Dismal Swamp Interpretive Center, and $117,500 to digitalize President Woodrow Wilson's historical papers.

There is other existing waste to be found in Virginia. Each year, approximately $300,000 is appropriated to the Virginia Association of Counties, allowing a select few of Virginia's local government officials and employees to dine on gourmet food, play golf, and enjoy the spas at one of Virginia's outstanding resort destinations. The group's 2003 annual conference was held at the Homestead Resort in southwest Virginia, a destination that that the overwhelming majority of Virginians wish they could afford for just one night.

Next time local government officials bitch and moan about the unfairly stingy Richmond politicians, perhaps they should remember where their next meal comes from. This is just more evidence that there are clear opportunities to reduce spending and avoid increased taxation. Give the taxpayers a chance, Republicans!

- posted by Jameson on 4/8/2004 |

 
Did You Know?

From my credit union's newsletter:

We've all done it. We're out shopping, ready to use our debit cards, and the sales clerk asks, "Debit or credit?" We really don't know what the difference is -- it's a debit card, so we say "debit" -- right? Wrong.

By choosing debit and entering a PIN (Personal Identification Number), your transaction is treated as an ATM transaction. Instead, when you're making a retail purchase with your debit card, choose credit. You'll bypass any potentional fees and the funds still come out of your shared draft checking account. Another good reason: credit transactions require a signature, which helps against fraud.

When you choose debit, you purchase the convenience of not having to show ID to complete the transaction.
- posted by Jameson on 4/7/2004 |

 
The Turning Point?

An economic snapshot: business confidence is at a 20-year high, jobs are up, personal incomes are up and consumer confidence is strong. The Consumer Confidence Index was unchanged from its level in February; Lynn Franco, Director of the Conference Board's Consumer Research Center, blamed consumers' damp short-term outlook on an ambling job market. Hopefully this will be the turning point.
- posted by Jameson on 4/5/2004 |

 
Religion Does Irony

Forced to become a buddhist monk.
- posted by Jameson on 4/1/2004 |

 
No Vote of Confidence

From a Hampton Roads Daily Press editorial, dated April Fool's Day:

It has been more than five years since business leaders first presented then-Gov. Jim Gilmore with an independent analysis of the state's financial condition that identified a widening disparity between Virginia's commitments and its anticipated revenue.

The study was detailed and complex, but the cause of the problem was simple and clear: too many tax cuts in defiance of the state's standing commitments to education, transportation and public safety.

Never one to be impeded by facts, Gilmore dismissed the study out of hand and attacked the sources of the report. In turn, a load of like-minded Republicans rode into the House of Delegates in 2001 on basically the same proposition, namely more government for less.

The problem is this: Enjoying majority control, the Republican Party has developed a disparity between election rhetoric and action. Blame Gilmore if you'd like, but I think it's more systemic.

The disparity that the authors discuss is one between how much Virginia wants to take from its taxpayers, and how much it promises to give in return. On one end of the spectrum, the state can increase revenues to meet those demands. On the other end, reduce the commitments.

This is an age old battle, where the winner will always be the state; supporters of limited government don't have established networks to disseminate propaganda (sending leaflets and info packets home with school children) or school children to produce catchy slogans (couldn't their time be better spent preparing for the SOLs instead of fighting for their teacher's pay scale increase?).

Also, while yes, the Senate plan has been compromised more (put more on the chopping block) than the House's proposal, that's because they have more to give up. As a Republican-led chamber, you can't come to the table with a budget four times that of a sitting Democrat and expect to be taken seriously. Get a fiscal clue.
- posted by Jameson on 4/1/2004 |

 
Chichester's Tax Hike

Follow this odd string of events: A Democrat governor proposes a $1 billion increase in largely income and sales taxes; a Republican Senator proposes an increase of $3.9 billion in cigarette, sales, gas, income, and vehicle taxes; and now that same Republican, Senate Finance Committee Chairman John Chichester, is complaining that surveys mailed to constituents in his district mislead and politicize the overall tax discussion. However, the mailers do no more than ask one simple question:

The mailers ask residents to check one of two boxes, which read: "Do you think government should raise taxes?" or "Do you think government should cut spending?"

Chichester's reaction to the mailer:

"It attempts to distort what we are trying to do, and it's turned the people's business into a political campaign. When you are on the wrong side of the issue, to politicize it is the only way to extricate yourself. It's a sad state of affairs, and it's a Virginia and a Republican Party I'm not used to seeing.

Using Chichester's words, the wrong side of this issue is asking the Virginia state government to cut spending as opposed to raise taxes. Hm--some Republican. Frankly, if the VAGOP fails to do something about Chichester, who has behaved as Warner's goon on the ground, I will be very disappointed. By offering a tax plan in the Senate that quadrupled Warner's own proposal, Chichester allowed Warner's $1 billion tax hike to become the compromise. As a result, Warner will come out smelling roses, thanks to Chichester's positioning. IMHO, Virginia does not need a McCain.
- posted by Jameson on 3/28/2004 |

 
Let's Resolve This

Let's be clear. No one in their right mind wants the Virginia budget impasse to extend to June 30th. Doing so, local governments would be tasked with either (temporarily) cutting services and laying off workers or increasing taxes to offset the uncertainty brought on by the Richmond two-step. Matters are not helped by the determination of teachers unions, sellout Republican Senators, and a Democrat governor to shape the debate as one between a huge tax hike and a not-quite-as huge tax hike. Their cause is certainly aided by the fact that taxpayers are being told to choose between extremes -- either tax ourselves silly or fire teachers. Hm, middle ground, anyone?

Leave that to Republican Sens. Jay O'Brien and Ken Cuccinelli, who are pushing a minimum budget (SB 5004) in the event that a comprehensive 2-year budget cannot be etched out in time. Such a temporary fix would allow some breathing room and also allow taxpayers to realize that the debate does not have to be whatever Mark Warner and John Chichester says it is. It was no accident that Warner delayed releasing his budget until after the November elections. His intention was to allow our politicians to consider tax hikes without having to answer to the public; and on that front, the man was a success. He took moderate Republicans and turned them into a frickin' mouthpiece for the Virginia Education Association.

But remember: they work for us. So relax, Virginia. We aren't California and we don't have to be.

- posted by Jameson on 3/27/2004 |

 
More Questionable Deaths Surrounding the National Zoo

What do you get when you combine the incompetence of your United States Postal Service with that of the National Zoo? Five dead ducklings that were intended for a "Kids Farm" exhibit opening in June.

Sixteen ducklings were hatched and mailed Monday and arrived at Dulles International Airport a day later, Long said. A zoo staff member who called the Oxon Hill post office Wednesday was told the package had not arrived. But the staffer, Bob King, the assistant curator for small mammals, discovered that evening that the post office had unsuccessfully attempted to deliver the ducklings at his home by mistake, Long said.

Given as how this was supposed to be a straight shipment from the hatchery in Iowa to the National Zoo, I'm unclear on how the ducklings ended up at King's home; the post office had to have been given King's home address.
- posted by Jameson on 3/27/2004 |

 
Well, That's a Start

Kerry's corporate tax cut proposal doesn't offset the fact that the man has already sold out our country and he's not even president yet.

UPDATE: Today's Washington Post editorial addresses Kerry's idea:

The problem with the Kerry proposal is its complexity. What if a U.S. carmaker builds a factory in Mexico to supply consumers both in Mexico and in the United States? What if the share of cars being sold to each market fluctuates from week to week? Deciding whether that factory would get a tax break would be tricky, and the complexity of administering Mr. Kerry's proposal might outweigh any benefits it created. Still, it's good that the senator is channeling voters' fears over "offshoring" jobs into a legitimate discussion of tax policy rather than into trade protectionism.

This is the benefit of a Bush-Kerry debate over, say, one involving Edwards, who would have taken great strides to appeal to protectionists nationwide. His approach, echoed by Lou Dobbs and Paul Craig Roberts, would result in isolationism and higher priced goods in the mid-term. But then again, with the truth about outsourcing becoming more and more commonplace, perhaps good news for trade-hawks is bad news for Bush. This will certainly be an interesting year.
- posted by Jameson on 3/27/2004 |

 
TechTV, RIP

The struggling network was sold to Comcast for $300 million and will be rolled into the company's game channel G4. For me at least, this means the end of TechTV, as it will disappear from DirecTV once the buyout is finalized.

As a DirecTV subscriber, where am I to go for video game reviews now? Any ideas?
- posted by Jameson on 3/26/2004 |

 
Criminalizing P2P

When Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) agree, I tend to be concerned. So just imagine my alarm when I read that they have co-sponsored a bill that would in effect relax the burden of proof on the Department of Justice in pursuing criminal prosecutions of file sharers. Speaking on behalf the RIAA no doubt, the Justice Department has complained that they don't have the legal authority to make an impact on illegal file sharing P2P networks.

Here's the money quote from a Kazaa lawyer:

"It's unfortunate that the entertainment industry devotes so much energy to supporting punitive efforts at the federal and state level, instead of putting energy into licensing their content for P2P distribution so those same people could be turned into customers," said Philip Corwin, an attorney with Butera and Andrews in Washington D.C., and who represents Kazaa distributor Sharman Networks. "The Pirate Act effectively gives government the authority to use taxpayer dollars to bring civil actions against file sharers on behalf of copyright holders."

"As the 40 percent increase in downloads over the last year makes alarmingly clear, like it or not file sharing is likely to (continue) on a massive scale no matter how many suits are brought and what the fine print of copyright or criminal law says," Eisgrau said. "Second, putting a tiny percentage of tens of millions of American file sharers behind bars or in the poorhouse won't put one new dime in the deserving pockets of artists and other copyright owners."

- posted by Jameson on 3/26/2004 |

 
The Decline of the American Teacher

There's no disputing the fact that women now enjoy far more career opportunities and choices than they did 40 years ago. Because of this cultural trend, the best and brightest women are no longer held to the expectation of being teachers or great housewives. Now, there's so much for them. Which is great for women, but not so great for the teaching profession. And even worse for the students, who have to endure the declining quality of their education as teachers with the highest aptitudes seek better, more profitable opportunities.

That sucking sound? According to this paper (Corcoran, Evans, and Schwab, 2003), it's the sound of the most talented women being lured away from teaching to outside professions. In short, using high school graduate surveys spanning the years 1957 through 1992, the authors found that a student from 1992 is much less likely to find a teacher of the highest academic ability than a student in 1964. In fact, the likelihood that a female from the top of her high school class will eventually enter teaching has declined from 20 percent to less than 4 percent, from 1964 to 1992.

Unsatisfied with the opportunity cost explanation, another paper (Hoxby and Leigh, 2003) looks more closely at the cause of teachers' declining aptitute, finding the profession's growing unionization at least in part to blame for this troubling trend. By linking states' laws that legalize and otherwise encourage teacher unionization to female wage parity, the authors discover that:

Outside of teaching, high aptitude college women did not gain dramatically relative to low aptitude college women: they all gained over time. However, in teaching, high aptitude women experienced substantial relative losses.

With the domination of teachers' unions, wage compression has left a more simplified wage structure, which rewards the less apt teachers and drives away the shining stars.
(Link via Marginal Revolution)
- posted by Jameson on 3/26/2004 |