On Spending Money

I remember an event in my life many years ago that seems relevant today. It was during a period of personal rebuilding after realizing that I had built my life on a foundation of sand and needed to find a set of principles to live by that were more lasting than self-gratification and self-aggrandizement. This was not a religious thing; it was more just a case that what I was doing, while outwardly successful, was inwardly failing me completely.

Money, which had been plentiful before, was in short supply. At one point I had some spare cash and decided I was going to go out and buy something simply because, for the first time in quite a while, I could afford to. I went to the store and walked around for some time, but I just couldn’t find anything I wanted. After a while I left with the money still in my pocket. Later I recognized that a change of significance had occurred, that I had achieved a measure of growth.

I knew that spending money was not going to make me feel good.

I’ve thought about that as I read about the “economic recovery stimulus” package that is being discussed these days on this kumbaya bipartisan basis. The one thing that seems to be universally agreed is that,

we have to put money specifically in the hands of people who will spend it.

If the money goes to people who use it to pay down excessive debt the economy will still be screwed. The high levels of debt, high levels of bad debt which will be defaulted upon, is not the problem. If we put the money in the hands of people who will save it the economy will still be screwed. The lowest-ever level of personal savings is not the problem.

The problem with the economy is that people aren’t spending enough.

Ever since the economy first became a concern I have been looking at the casual statement that consumer spending is the “backbone of the economy,” that it accounts for more that 70% of GDP, with a degree of disbelief. Not that the condition exists, but that everyone is so comfortable with it. My father died more than 25 years ago but I recall him mumbling something, when he read about the economy back then, to the effect of, “Hell, we can’t base an economy on selling each other hamburgers.”

Actually, we’ve done worse than that - people would have to continue buying food to avoid starving. We’ve based our economy on selling each other flat screen televisions, using borrowed money to pay for them and sending that money overseas to import them. To paraphrase, “That giant sucking sound you hear is money leaving the United States.”

I have long wondered how can a country survive when it doesn’t actually produce anything. Historically, America has been a manufacturing country, but over time we have allowed that manufacturing capacity to erode and now we produce very little other than military hardware and software. We have become the world’s largest debtor, and when spending slows the solution seems to be that we should spend ourselves deeper and faster into debt.

Politicians claim that “putting money into the hands of people who will spend it” will create jobs and boost the economy. Certainly it will do the latter, at least momentarily, since the economy consists primarily of people spending money. But how is it going to create jobs?

Suppose I own a store and my sales are down because consumers are not buying in my store. The government hands out a bonus and a surge of people come in and buy things in my store. (Our government does like “surge” policies, doesn’t it.) Am I going to expand my store and hire new people based on that? Not if I have any sense, since I am bound to know that the spending spree is over and will not benefit me past the short term.

Inflation occurs when an economy is booming and materials and workers are in short supply. Competition for inadequate resources raises the costs of them. Recession occurs when an economy is slumping and there are too many goods available. Prices for materials and wages drop because demand for them is low and no competition exists between users of them.

When inflation and recession occur simultaneously something is fundamentally flawed in the economic model, and I don’t think it’s going to be fixed by a quick handout of “putting money in the hands of people who will spend it.” I’m not enough of an expert to know in detail what the solution is (or solutions are), but I just don’t believe that this is it.

I do believe that our economy can recover, but I think it’s going to be a long and difficult process. It’s going to involve things like rebuilding our manufacturing base and restoring productive, well paying jobs. It’s going to mean fundamentally restructuring our tax codes in some fashion. It’s going to mean stopping “cooking the books” on unemployment and inflation numbers and looking at what they really are. It’s going to mean real health care reform, not just minor changes in health insurance coverage. It’s going to mean, above all else, eliminating our dependence on foreign oil.

Just spending a little money isn’t going to make us better.

Flying Skill

I took this photo from The Daily Dish where Andrew Sullivan says that, while he has not verified the claim, he was told that it is our military making a rescue somewhere in Afghanistan. He says,

"Sometimes we forget what amazing people we have in the military - people with skills and balls most of us cannot even imagine. (...) I don't mean this as a typical look-at-me-I'm-a-patriot-Fox-News kind of gesture. But these kids are astonishing."

Indeed they are. Can you imagine the degree of skill required to fly that helicopter into that position, let alone hold it there?

Medical Wisdom

Jill over at Brilliant at Breakfast in her post today calls our attention to a New York Times article about cholesterol which you can read here.

Now, I generally think that people talking about their health is about as exciting as watching paint dry. I know whereof I speak, because I have actually watched paint dry, but that is a story for another day. But this whole cholesterol thing and the timing of it, vis a’ vis my health status, is just too weird not to share with you.

I have enjoyed very low cholesterol all of my life, usually in the 120 range and sometimes below 100, and very good “ratios” of LDL to HDL. Doctors have always been borderline ecstatic with my blood tests and I’ve never really had to work at keeping those levels stable. I do maintain a reasonably healthy diet, but I don’t really work at it; I seem to just have good genetics.

I have had emphysema for more than 20 years to a rather severe degree, but I learned to breathe efficiently with the remaining portion of my lungs and the condition has had no real effect on me. I was, for instance, still able to do cross-country skiing at 10,000 feet altitude when I was 60 years old.

In 2003 my health crashed. I really don’t know any other way to put it, as pretty much everything went to hell. I had seven small strokes, my heart developed a couple of arrhythmia’s, I had some sort of systemic inflammation problem and in 2004 I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. My cholesterol was still in the low 100’s.

One of the tests suggested a blocked cardiac artery, so I went in for an angiogram and the result was that I had arteries that, according to the cardiologist, the average forty-year-old would be happy to trade me for. Lovely clear arteries with not a trace of plaque.

One friend suggested I should turn myself inside out so my arteries would show if they were that lovely.

So I had a procedure to stabilize my heart and I’m on medications for all the other things, and I’m thriving. Modern medicine is awesome.

One small problem has developed, my cholesterol is going up. It’s above the magic number of 200, it’s now up to a whopping 206 and now the doctor wants to put me on a medication to reduce it.

Okay, go read the New York Times article. I’m going to cut it out and take it with me next time I go to the doctor.

Even if current “medical wisdom” is valid it doesn’t suggest that cholesterol itself is the problem. The problem is that cholesterol leads to a buildup of plaque in the arteries and that is not something that happens overnight. I am 65 years old. I have severe emphysema, heart disease and Parkinson’s. I’m optimistic, but really – how much longer am I going to live? How much plaque is going to build up in these arteries which are currently plaque-free?

Jill even suggests that cholesterol might be the result of a problem rather than the cause of one. I don’t think that is an outlandish suggestion at all. Is my rising cholesterol my body’s response to the assault?

Democratic Debate

I actually watched the Democratic debate last night, and I’m quite glad I did. It was informative and, for the most part, interesting. The moderators were much less obnoxious than I expected and after some initial “horserace” questions the debate got down to issues that mattered. Tim Russert is an idiot, though. How many people think John Edwards called Musharref to “provide him with cover” as Russert so coyly suggested?

I thought I was going to have a long night of high blood pressure when Senator Clinton said, “..and I opposed the Bankruptcy Bill of 2005.” While she didn’t vote for it, she didn’t vote against it either, and I do not recall any speeches of significance from her at that time to the effect that it should not pass. Maybe she opposed it at the time without saying so, but…

She talked about her desire to freeze mortgage rates, a plan that I have opposed because it rewards the poor judgement of too many people who used teaser rate loans to refinance their homes to support an unsustainable lifestyle. Senator Clinton pointed out that her plan is consistent with the Fed cutting rates and asked why should bank rates be getting cut now while mortgage rates are still resetting upward. That is a very good point, and she has sold me on her plan. Let’s freeze those mortgage rates immediately for people who live in these mortgaged homes as a primary residence.

There was some interesting “back and forth” between Obama and Edwards regarding the military presence in Iraq which made that part of the show an actual debate. I wish more of that were allowed on a regular basis which, with fewer candidates, is entirely feasible. We learn a lot about the candidates themselves in such a discussion, and we learn a lot more about their positions.

The segment on energy policy was seriously interesting to me and I was very surprised by whom I liked. Obama’s energy policy is vague and muddled at best, and his position on nuclear power is totally unclear. Edwards just plain doesn’t seem to have an energy policy. Clinton blew the doors off of both of them, not only having a clear plan but one that makes a lot of sense to me. She also had in her energy statement what was, for me, the best challenge of the night for this country in saying that energy should be a major effort, “This should be our Apollo Moon Shot.” I think she is exactly right and I think that is an outstanding way to phrase it. I very much liked her description of the 2005 energy bill.

Her other heroic moment was her legislation to prevent Bush from making long term military agreements with Iraq which bypass Congress. Her asking Obama to cosponsor the effort was politics (and pretty canny politics, I had to rather admire that move), but the legislation itself is admirable indeed. I hope we hear more about this in the near future, like maybe Congress passing it with a veto-proof majority.

Before you think somebody else is writing my blog today…

When reminded of her promise to dump from her campaign anyone who used tactics of which she disapproved and asked if she would distance herself from Bob Johnson for his oblique references to Obama’s teenage drug use, Clinton said Johnson had explained those remarks away and that she believed his explanation. She has got to be the only person in this country who does.

When asked about her greatest weakness she replied that she is too aggressive in working for change. I was looking for a barf bucket.

My blood reached something close to boiling point when she was defending, and expanding upon, and repeating, her fear mongering prior to the New Hampshire primary. Obama countered that, but not as vigorously as I believe he should have done.

At least nobody mentioned changing the constitution.

Drained Pond

I’ll bet when you read the title you weren’t expecting something like this.
Hawaii evokes mental images of beaches and lush greenery, right? But the Big Island has the world’s most active volcano and the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory provides an outstanding library of images, and they are updated quite frequently.

Lately the “rift” has been erupting, which is really cool; lava pouring out of a long split in the earth and flowing down the mountainside. It formed a pond of lava which lasted several days until the rim ruptured and the pond drained, shown above.

Hillary Clinton, Republican

I am trying to avoid becoming a "Clinton hate site," but some things are just too abominable to let pass. Before the New Hampshire primary Senator Clinton was adopting the Republican tactic of fearmongering, “Vote for me or the terrorists will kill you,” and now she’s using the Republican Swift Boat maneuver. Talk about a Republican in Democratic clothing...

The lawsuit filed in Nevada to prevent the Culinary Workers Union from voting effectively in support of Obama has been filed by a group which Senator Clinton avows she has no knowledge of or affiliation with. You can read more details on this affair in Dick Pohlman today, but her disavowal sounds just like Bush’s disavowal of the Swift Boaters. "Who me, I don’t know anything about them, but I can’t do anything about their actions." She claims the group does not include her supporters, but... Not that she doesn't know, she claims they are not. Read the piece by Pohlman.

The group of non-Clinton supporters was fine with the polling places in question until that union endorsed Obama, now they are filing a lawsuit that seeks to close the polling places where most of that union would be voting. Hillary Clinton has "no opinion" on the lawsuit.

Of course Clinton won't speak against a lawsuit that aims to disenfranchise voters who might vote against her.

Charger Weekend

Update: Sunday, 6:00PM

If the Chargers want to visit Catalina Island they will not need a boat or an airplane, they can just walk there.

My goodness. The game was over at, what, 1:30, but it's taken me until now to collect myself. That was no fluke, the Chargers earned that on both sides of the ball. With four pro-bowlers injured on the sideline. I do believe A.J. Smith has found our head coach.

And there will be a Manning playing next weekend. It won't be Payton. Yesterday both of the favorites romped to easy wins. Today both of the underdogs prevailed in exciting games. Cool.

Update: Sunday, 9:20AM

After watching the games yesterday the Chargers are looking better to me. Lots better. Admittedly, New England is the best offense in the league, but the Jaguars are slow on defense. I've seen glaciers move faster than that. Before global warming. Brady got to have a lunch break before throwing the pass on every down. The secondary guys couldn't find their butts if you gave each of them a mirror on a stick. Only two incomplete passes in an entire game, and one of those was a drop. Sheesh.

The "snow bowl" wasn't much better. Couldn't see the yard markers? Seattle didn't know where the freaking stadium was, let alone any of the yard markers.

Only one national sportscaster that I have found is actually picking San Diego to beat the Colts today, but by golly there actually is one! Of our locals, one of four is predicting the Chargers on the winning end of today's score. Don't look at me, my record is close to zero.

Still, the Chargers defense is pretty much as good as it's cracked up to be and the secondary has gone from a major weakness in the recent past to what may be the best there is. The offense is "feast or famine," but if the offense doesn't do a pratfall today do not rule this team out.

Saturday

The Chargers not only beat Tennessee last week, they did so rather convincingly. Well, for one half at least, but it was enough. Reading the paper the next day I kept wanting to ask the sports writers "Um, did you watch the first half?"

So tomorrow we go to Indianapolis. No problem, we’ve already beaten them the last two times we played them. Right. All we have to do is intercept Manning six times, run back two kicks for touchdowns, have them miss two easy field goals and have it rain in the RCA Dome and we can win by a whopping two points.

Add up the errors listed above. Each interception prevents a score for them and makes possible one for us, so there’s a potential for a 90 point swing there. There was 42 points to be had off interceptions, and we won by 2 points. Of course that’s hyperbole, but…

There is an event scheduled at Qualcomm next weekend, a monster truck rally, that will have to be cancelled if a) the Chargers beat the Colts and b) the Jaguars beat the Patriots. If both of those eventualities come to pass then San Diego would host the championship game against Jacksonville next week.

I don’t think monster truck fans need to worry.

The "con" in Economy

Many analysts now expect the Fed’s policy makers to cut half a percentage point off the Fed’s benchmark interest rate, reducing it to 3.75 when they next meet, on Jan. 29 and 30. They expect the Fed to continue cutting, to 3 percent or even lower by summer, to prevent — or at least mitigate — a recession. The goal would be to get people to borrow and spend more.

By LOUIS UCHITELLE and MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
New York Times News Service, Jan 11, 2008

I find that highlighted statement (the emphasis is mine) utterly astounding. Granted, I do not have any sort of formal educational background in economics, but in what world does this make any sense?

American savings rates are at an all time low. Wages are not keeping pace with inflation. Home equity is disappearing faster than the ice caps. Bank foreclosures on homes are multiplying like rabbits. Late payment of credit card debt is increasing. An increasing number of people are without health insurance because they cannot afford the premiums.

And the solution for the financial crisis is for people to borrow more and spend the borrowed money.

This solution makes sense for the management and stockholders of corporations who are selling the products and services that the borrowers are going to buy. It makes sense for the managers and stockholders of the lending institutions who will be lending the money.

Notice the “managers and stockholders” in the part about who it makes sense for. It makes sense for the money-holding part of the economy, the part of the economy that consists of people who already have money and want to have more of it.

This solution makes no sense whatever for people who work for wages; wages that increasingly are not providing for the well-being of wage earners and their families.

A policy of propping up the economy with the spending of borrowed money drives those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder deeper into debt to further enrich those on the upper rungs.

And… Does not reducing interest rates contribute to further weakening of the dollar in the world economy? On the face of it that helps our export market, but we are so dependent on imported oil and manufactured goods that a weaker dollar deepens our trade deficit rather than reducing it, and it adds to inflation and further erodes the purchasing power of worker’s wages.

Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but maybe we’re being conned.

Weather Follies

This is, in part, the weather display for us for today at the NOAA site. Yes, to some degree I’m bragging, but note that there seems to be some hazardous weather in the offing. Okay, sunny and warm with mild breezes and hazardous weather.    So, click on the hazardous weather link, and...
Well now, isn’t that a kick. They are being very specific about where the hazard does not exist. How many agencies go to that much trouble to tell you that you are not in any danger?

Department of Homeland Stupidity eat your heart out.

Food Blogging

Some people do recipes on Mondays, cat pictures on Fridays, etc. I'm not that regimented. I do cat pictures whenever Molly does something cute, and food whenever I feel like it. I promised you a recipe, so... Despite all the voting going on in New Hampshire, let's eat.

Orange and Ginger Chicken

2 boneless, skinned chicken breasts
2 tbsp peeled fresh ginger, minced fine
4 tbsp brown sugar
2 cups orange juice
1 tbsp grated orange peel
1 tbsp cornstarch

Slice breasts in half so you have four thin pieces. Flour lightly, salt and pepper to taste and then brown on both sides in a good olive oil in a skillet. No need to be sure they are cooked thru at this point, just brown lightly on both sides and transfer to a plate.

Add a touch more olive oil if needed and add ginger to skillet, cook for one minute. Add brown suger and stir for one more minute. Add orange juice and orange peel and bring to a fast simmer, stirring as needed.

Mix cornstarch with a bit of cold water and add to skillet and stir until sauce is thickened, reduce heat to a slow simmer. Return chicken to sauce, cover and simmer slowly until chicken is cooked through, about ten minutes or so. Serve over noodles or rice.

Part of the secret is not to overcook the chicken initially, before transferring it to the plate. Letting it finish cooking at the slow simmer in the sauce cooks the flavor in and leaves it really tender.

Senator Clinton on Change

Wait a minute now, wait a minute. I’m going to respond to this because obviously — making change is not about what you believe. It’s not about a speech you make. It is about working hard. (…)

I want to make change, but I’ve already made change. I will continue to make change. I’m not just running on a promise of change, I’m running on 35 years of change. I’m running on having taken on the drug companies and the health insurance companies, taking on the oil companies.

So, you know, I think it is clear that what we need is somebody who can deliver change. And we don’t need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered. The best way to know what change I will produce is to look at the changes that I’ve already made.

Sen. Hillary Clinton at the Democratic Debate.

First, talking about making change and reminding us that you have been part of the system for 35 years seems counterproductive to me. You are reminding me that you are part of what we are trying to change. I’m looking at the changes you’ve made, Senator Clinton, and I do not want more of the same.

You’ve taken on the drug companies, have you? And the outcome of that was what, precisely? You gave seniors the infamous “donut hole” in their drug coverage and drug companies enjoy their highest profit levels ever. That’s not the kind of change I am looking for.

You’ve taken on the health insurance companies? Looks to me like they won. Certainly Nataline Sarkisyan, who died because her insurance denied her a liver transplant didn’t win and, like the drug companies, health insurance companies have the highest profit levels in their history. I’m less than thrilled with your accomplishment there.

You’ve taken on oil companies? They take oil out of public lands without paying royalties, gasoline is at its highest ever winter price, homeowners are going into hock to pay for fuel oil to heat their homes, and oil companies also have record profits. Who benefited from the changes you accomplished there?

False hopes? Just how cynical can you be? Hope, by definition, can never be false. What you offer is no hope at all.

Change begins with beliefs and speeches. Words do lead to change, and leadership is about making speeches and creating hope. In fact, that’s what leadership is all about. Empowering people and inspiring them into action, and it is words that do that. Yesterday is a cancelled check and the words and actions of the past will not lead to tomorrow’s change. To quote shamanic over at The Newshoggers, "..without the right words today, the actions of tomorrow will continue to fail us."

As they have failed us on your watch, Senator Clinton.

Fine Lines

Thanks to shamanic over at The Newshoggers for one of the best lines I think I've ever read. In response to a quote by Hillary Clinton,

"Words are not action and as beautifully presented and as passionately felt as they are, they are not action. What we’ve got to do is translate talk into action, and feeling into reality."

shamanic responds, in part, "..without the right words today, the actions of tomorrow will continue to fail us."

Go read the entire post. I guarantee it's worth the click.

New Voters and Youth Vote

In reading online about the primary, I think that not enough is being made of a couple of factors in Obama's Iowa victory.

Independent voters (in decreasing order of significance) turned out in large numbers, voted in the Democratic primary, and voted for Obama. How they voted may, however, be indicitave of why they turned out so their votes being for Obama may be more important than it would seem.

First time caucusers participated in large numbers, and they too voted in the majority for Obama.

Young people turned out in unusually large numbers and voted heavily for Obama, and I believe that is by far the result of most significance.

For too many years the quality of governance of this nation has suffered from the lack of participation by citizens. The number of people who go to the polls on election day is a national disgrace, and the state of our government, the lack of accountability, the arrogance and corruption reflects just how uninvolved the citizenry has become.

If Obama does nothing more than reinvolve people, particularly young people, reactivate citizen participation in governing this once republican (small 'r' ) nation, then he will establish himself as one of the men that history books will write great things about.

Football Follies

The sports writers in today's paper are swooning over the Charger's record in the last six games. They fail to consider who the opponents for those games have been. Only one has had a winning season, Tennessee at 10-6, and the cumulative record for all six is a whopping 37-59, for a 38% winning average. The last five games for those teams is even worse, 9-21 for 30% average. It really doesn't take a stunning effort to defeat teams that only win 30% of their games.

Nick Canepa waxed rhapsodic about the Chargers defense in those six games. Well, the highest ranked offense that the Chargers have faced is Denver, ranked 11th in the NFL. The others that this "awesome defense" has stopped are ranked 19th, 21st, 25th, 22nd and 31st for an average of 25th. I am somewhat less dazzled than Nick by this performance.

Norv Turner raves about the performance of Philip Rivers, citing that the bottom line is that he has won games. With a couple of games where his rating was in the 30's and several in the low 60's, I don't see much to rave about; and Norv doesn't mention the fumbles, interceptions, and really bad decisions. Does Norv not think that a running back wearing the number 21 had something to do with those wins?

Methinks there is a little bit of wishful thinking going on here. The team and the writers cannot talk themselves into a win over Tennessee tomorrow, the team is going to have to shut the hell up and perform. This team has a tendency to start believing their own hype and expecting that the opponent will simply faint when they come on the field. Unfortunately, that seldom happens. Actually, we're still waiting for it to happen.

Wacky Weekend

Well, the weekend may be a little wacky but mostly I’m getting that way. I’m taking a break from working my butt off. Well, I’ve been working 3+ hours/day which for me is a frenetic pace: I’m supposed to be retired for medical reasons which I won’t bore you with.

There is a major rainstorm coming, I have laid in supplies for cooking but have decided not to build an ark, and the Chargers are in a playoff game on Sunday which may or may not be televised locally and which they may or may not win even though they are favored by a ridiculous 9 points.

The rainstorm has been being forecast for several days, with predictions of up to 5”-6” at the coast. That would put us above our normal rainfall for the first time in several years. At one point the NOAA was cautioning about the “likelihood of life-threatening flooding” in the recently burned areas. More recent predictions are beginning to soft-pedal a bit, but they are still for quite a lot of rain for several days. This during a La Nina year, which normally produces severe drought here. Go figure.

I’ve laid in supplies because San Diego becomes quite hazardous when it rains. Everybody thinks their car is going to dissolve, or something, so they drive really fast to get home before that happens. Nobody’s windshield wipers work because “My God, who knew I might need them?” and, of course, you can’t replace them when it’s raining. You’ll get all wet.

Grilled burgers for dinner tonight, Orange and Ginger Chicken on noodles tomorrow, and Green Chilies Chicken Salad for the football game Sunday. Want recipes? I might accommodate you in the next day or so.

Which brings us to the upcoming game with the Chargers, winners of six straight games now. Yeah, against teams with records like 4-12 or so. I’m not quite as impressed with them as they are with themselves. Nine point favorites against the Titans? In your dreams.

The personalities of the players, with their arrogance and chest-pounding, “look at me” ways may have something to do with the fact that, as of Friday morning, the Sunday playoff game was not yet sold out and its presence on the tube was still uncertain. That and the forecast of rain. San Diegans do not like to get wet, except in the ocean or their bathtubs. But you can’t get naked at Qualcomm Stadium. (Well, I guess you could, but... Never mind.) There were only about 350 tickets left to be sold as of today, so…

Philip Rivers is being hailed as something between George Washington crossing the Delaware and Moses parting the Red Sea. To me he looks more like Barney Fife dropping his bullet while loading his gun and doing a belly flop in the lake. He’s turned out to be an arrogant jerk with a thoroughly unlikable personality; but we aren’t asking him to dinner, we’re just expecting him to throw enough good passes to win games. Which he has done, marginally, against 4-12 teams. It remains to be seen what he can do against a team with a winning habit.

I want to see them win Sunday, I’m just not real confident that I will.

Spin Goes Into High Gear

I am absolutely cracking up today as the "spin machine" kicks into ultra-high gear. Those who hate Clinton are whooping and hollering about the whupping she got, and those who support her are decrying what a "flawed process" the Iowa caucuses are.

The reality is that it doesn't mean as much as either side is making of it. It does destroy the "inevitability" of the Clinton coronation, and I'm all for that, but she is far from out of it. She has a powerful machine and a lot of money, and those are the meat and potatoes of politics today.

But I have more hope for this nation today than I did yesterday, that's for damn sure.

Campaign Tactics

Just a quick note on presidential election campaign tactics.

"We’re a nation at war in a dangerous world," Clinton tells Iowans in what she calls her “closing argument.” It does get a bit better after that, but that’s her opening salvo.

That’s the kind of “leadership” we’ve had for the past six years and more, do we really want four more years of fearmongering from the White House?

In a blog I was reading the other day the author was ticking off the points in favor of the candidates and one of the criteria was “willing to do anything to win.” He graded Clinton highest in that category, saying that she seemed very willing to do anything to win and that that makes her the best candidate. I just can’t get on board with that. I think honesty and decency and ethics count. Rove and Bush and company were willing to do anything to win, and they won (well, they took the prize) and look where that got us.

Clinton does appear to me to be willing to do anything to win the presidency, including the use of Republican scare tactics, and to me that is reason to vote against her, not for her.

Not that I was going to vote for her anyway, of course.

Update: Thursday 9:30PM

I can't find the quote, but there was something on an MSNBC crawler about Hillary Clinton saying that today was a "great day" because so many people turned out to vote in the Democratic primary, or caucus, or whatever. The fact that only 29% of them voted for her apparently didn't upset her a bit.

Sam Nunn and Campaign Issues

I lived in Atlanta many years ago, and Sam Nunn was a man for who I had great respect. He had character. I remember one time while chairing the Armed Services Committee he favored a Boeing proposal over a Martin-Marietta one for the Air Force, even though the latter one would have had the planes being built in his home state of Georgia. He drew a lot of heat for that, but the Boeing proposal was the more cost effective one.

I had been gone from Georgia for some time by the time he retired, so I don’t know what happened to him. I do know that he has been active in nuclear non-proliferation issues, which is certainly effort well spent.

Now he is launching a series of seminars to try to coerce the presidential candidates to address serious issues that he feels are being neglected in the present campaign; issues like the federal debt, national service and failure of this country to adopt a comprehensive energy policy. He is drawing a lot of criticism from both sides about this “bipartisan” effort, a label that as far as I can find has not been used by him but has been applied only by his critics.

I am seriously unhappy about his decision to include Bloomberg in his efforts, and the impetus that such a move provides for Bloomberg as a third party presidential candidate. Third parties in the presidential election have been pretty disruptive in the past, sometimes disastrous, and Bloomberg is a particularly awful choice to put in such a role.

However, he has a valid point in saying that the presidential campaign to date is giving us pretty much nothing on which to base any kind of decision on who is best suited to guide this country. Look at the subjects he named and ask yourself how much discussion has been held regarding them in the campaign so far, by any candidate of either party.

To the list mentioned by Sam Nunn I would add one, the fact that our spending on the military exceeds that of the rest of the nations in the world combined and what little talking is done about that is to the effect that it should be increased.

The two subjects that are discussed are the war in Iraq and healthcare. As to Iraq, Republicans will keep us there and Democrats will get us out but the promises of getting us out are short on specifics as to implementation and are always hedged with conditions about the need of “keeping us safe.” On healthcare Republicans wants to leave individuals on their own and Democrats promote variations on the theme of increasing the role of the insurance industry which is the only present winner in the current debacle. Yes, these statements are oversimplifications, but not by much.

The rest of the campaign is fluffy statements that are geared to the audience of the moment, empty rhetoric designed to make the speaker sound good and/or make the other candidate(s) sound bad. “I’ve been fighting for you for 35 years so you should vote for me,” whatever that means.

The federal debt? We cannot talk about that because untying that knot requires talking about raising taxes on somebody, probably on campaign contributors, or cutting services, to people who vote, or reducing pork barrel spending, on projects being built by contractors who are campaign contributors. We are spending the resources of future generations, which is irresponsible to the point of criminality.

National service? Perish the thought that we should talk about patriotism in the form of actually asking men and women to bear arms and die for their country, or even telling them that it is their duty to do so. Duty is to go shopping and to put a magnet on one’s car in memory of other people who bore arms and died for their country. No politician can say today what Kennedy said so many years ago that stirred a country to action, “Ask not what your country can do for you…”

An energy policy? We cannot form a sensible energy policy with gasoline that costs about half what the rest of the world pays to fuel their cars. We can’t do it with auto manufacturers being free to set their own mileage standards, and with other manufacturers free to set their own air quality standards. We can’t do it with corporate America running Congress with lobbying dollars.

Sam Nunn has one thing right, the presidential candidates need to talk about the hard things. The Iraq war and healthcare are the popular things to talk about, the easy things, and the candidates are not giving us real talk even on those. The easy things matter, but the hard things matter too, and they won’t go away just because we don’t talk about them.

History Book

You know you are getting old when your military service is described in Chapter 8 of 22 chapters in a history book. Sigh.

My sister sent me this book for Christmas. My first reaction was, “Omigod, this is awesome.” Further investigation reveals it is beyond awesome. The story it tells is awesome, the way it tells it is truely remarkable. I've missed parts of several football games with this book in my lap, mentally breathing in the stench of diesel, chlorine and locker room and hearing the hammer of massive engines charging batteries.

My service in “the boats” was more than forty years ago and yet it is as much a part of who I am today as it was then. It branded me permanently in a manner which is by no means unique to submariners, but which is certainly common to us. What was it about? What was it that marked us so, that stamped those silver dolphins so indelibly on our souls?

Part of it was the service itself. We walked the decks in the footsteps of giants. The submarine service was only 3% of the U.S. Navy in World War Two, but those gallant ships sank more Japanese shipping than all other causes combined. No other service suffered losses nearly as high, but there was never a shortage of volunteers and submarines were always fully manned. Twenty years later we always felt the presence of Wahoo and Growler and all the other ships and men eternally on patrol.

A lot is made of patriotism today, and in the military “serving one’s country” but I don’t think that was really a big part of it. My dad was a career Air Force officer and an intense patriot but patriotism was always rather assumed, sort of a background to life. I always knew that I would serve in the military, but I don’t really recall having a real sense of any kind of noble purpose about it. I was just doing a job.

It wasn’t an adventure, I can tell you that. I never saw a foreign port. We left our home port, went to a part of the world where we were highly unwelcome, spied or performed other seriously hostile activities, and then returned to our home port. There was a war on; a cold one, but a war nonetheless and for the boats it was not all that cold. Submarines didn’t do the “showing the flag” thing. We trained against antisubmarine groups and we trespassed in enemy waters for nefarious purposes. It was mostly just long periods of boredom punctuated by brief periods of sheer terror. I guess it depends on how you define adventure.

I think mostly it was the satisfaction of taking on perhaps the toughest job known to man and doing it. Overcoming fear. Doing something that most men simply cannot do. Not only going down to the sea in ships, but going under the sea, and in really old ships; living in an environment which is entirely hostile to man’s presence.

I’m still not sure what it’s all about, but I know that forty years later the pictures in this book can bring tears to my eyes. This book is a treasure.

Food Blogging Friday

Okay, I’ll take a quick break and share one of my favorite “skillet meals,” which I can post pretty quickly. This one is actually pretty healthy if you use salt-free tomatoes and tomato sauce. You’ll need a fairly large and deep skillet. Mine is, of course, cast iron. Enjoy.

Bill’s Spicy Chicken

1# skinless boneless chicken breasts
1 lg onion (for about 1 cup chopped)
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp paprika
pinch of ground cloves (or a bit more)
1 lg Bell pepper (red or green), cut to 1” chunks
1-1/2 tsp (or more) fresh ginger, minced fine
1 tsp garlic, crushed or minced fine
1 can diced tomatoes (15.5oz )
1 can tomato sauce ( 8 oz )
1 tbsp brown sugar (or a bit more, see below)

Cut the the chicken into bite-sized pieces and saute it with the onion, stirring frequently, until the opion is just transparent and the chicken is no longer pink.

Add the bell pepper just before chicken is cooked through, along with the cumin, paprika, cloves, ginger and garlic. Stir fairly often, but you don’t need to stir constantly.

When chicken is cooked through add tomatoes with all the juice, tomato sauce and brown sugar. Stir well, bring to a boil then turn heat down and simmer for a few minutes. Serve over rice or, preferably, pasta.

The amount of ground cloves is tricky. Cloves is what makes it really yummy, and I use a bit more than a pinch – something close to ½ a teaspoon. But too much really overwhelms – yikes.

I use quite a bit of ginger, probably 1 tbsp or so, and I go heavier on the brown sugar, more like 2-3 tbsp. Be guided by your own taste.

Posting Lull

Posting will be light for a week, or a bit more. I have a client who is doing yeoman service as a slave driver. I know that all three of you who regularly read my work will miss me, but I'll be back as soon as I either satisfy or kill my client.

A Christmas Wish

Jill, at Brilliant at Breakfast says it far more beautifully than I could:

And if I stand very still and listen to the quiet, I can visualize a young couple in a makeshift shelter, surrounded by well wishers from afar, with a newborn whose arrival they don't quite understand but that they know promises great things for mankind. They're a little bit frightened, but also awed at the huge responsibility they face in caring for this tiny child and nurturing him into the man whom some will believe is a god. As this couple looks up at the same sky I do, they also feel insignificant, and inadequate to the task they face -- not much different from what all new parents must feel. Tonight, millions of people think about this tableau that even I can see. And for a brief time, it reminds them of what they've often forgotten during the shopping frenzy of the last four weeks; of what they celebrate tonight and tomorrow.

For those who believe, I wish you all a joyous Christmas filled with love and wonder.

Thank you, Jill.

How the Mighty Have Fallen

After weeks of speculation, it’s finally official: Karl Rove’s memoirs will be published by Threshold Editions, the conservative-minded imprint of Simon & Schuster’s Pocket Books overseen by GOP strategist Mary Matalin.

Rove got a $1 Million advance, reportedly, for his book after shopping it to publishers for months and hoping for tens of millions.

Ted Kennedy got $8 million for a book about Chappaquiddick last month…

So Ted Kennedy gets eight times the advance for his book about drowning a hooker while driving drunk, than Rove got for his book about the total destruction of an entire political party (and a couple of countries and a million people or so).

Merry Christmas, Karl.

Healthcare Reform

I wish that people who talk about healthcare reform would quit equating "universal health insurance" with "universal healthcare." They are not the same thing at all.

Did you know that of all the people who went bankrupt due to medical expenses last year, one-third had health insurance?

Does the term “reasonable and usual” mean anything to you? Or “preapproval req'd” (but not obtained), or “pre-existing condition”? These are terms that insurance companies use to avoid paying for medical treatment. Having insurance does not mean having full access to healthcare.

Three years ago I underwent some severe health problems and, even with an excellent and very costly health insurance policy provided by my wife’s employer and deducted in part from her pay, the cost out of pocket for the year was more than $10,000 for medical expenses not paid by insurance.

And what are all of the Democratic presidential candidates offering as healthcare reform? Universal health insurance. While each plan has ways to help people pay for the insurance, not one of those plans will prevent those health insurance corporations from finding ways to deny payment for medical treatment needed by the insured.

These reforms do not assure universal healthcare. What they do assure is increased profits for the corporations who are a major part of the problem in our healthcare system today, increased profits for the corporations who are major financial contributors to the Democratic presidential candidates.

Business as usual in Washington, DC.

Minor Observation

Birds on the chimney cap will drive a calico cat pretty much bonkers.

Media Hostility...

Glenn Greenwald is at it again. If you care about the political and constitutional status of this nation and do not have his commentary site bookmarked, you should do so now. I know of no one who writes more powerfully about the status of our country than he does. His commentary can be found at Salon.com (a site which I also recommend).

Yesterday his post was a critique both of our media and of the way our country is governed, titled Media hostility toward anti-establishment candidates. Read the whole thing, but he says in part (emphasis mine),

Edwards, Paul and Huckabee are obviously disparate in significant ways -- ideologically, temperamentally, and otherwise. But there is a vital attribute common to those three campaigns that explains the media's scorn: they are all, in their own ways, anti-establishment candidates, meaning they are outside and critical of the system of which national journalists are a critical part, the system which employs and rewards our journalists and forms the base of their identity and outlook. Any candidate who criticizes and opposes that system -- not in piecemeal ways but fundamentally -- will be, first, ignored and, then, treated as losers by the press.

It is very striking how little Edwards' substantive critique of our political system has penetrated into the national discourse. That's because the centerpiece of his campaign is a critique that is a full frontal assault on our political establishment. His argument is not merely that the political system needs reform, but that it is corrupt at its core -- "rigged" in favor of large corporate interests and their lobbyists, who literally write our laws and control the Congress. Anyone paying even casual attention to the extraordinary bipartisan effort on behalf of telecom immunity, and so many other issues driven almost exclusively by lobbyists, cannot reasonably dispute this critique.

Yet because that argument indicts the same Beltway culture of which our political journalists are an integral part, and further attacks the system's power brokers who are the friends, sources, and peers of those journalists, they instinctively react with confusion, scorn and hostility towards Edwards' campaign. They condescendingly dismiss it as manipulative populist swill, or cynically assume that it's just a ploy to distinguish himself by "moving left." In the eyes of our Beltway press, the idea that our political system is "rigged" or corrupt must be anything other than true or sincerely held.

I still have hope for Edwards. If he gets elected it will be despite the media’s best efforts to defeat him, but I think he presents the best hope for real change, for a return of government for the people of this country. We have been without it for too long.

Cool Critters

She is a classy enough critter, but she’s just a bit of a wide load. The vet said that anything over 7 lbs could be considered overweight and she weighs in at 8 lbs 12 oz now.

That would be the equivalent of me hitting the scale at about 290 or so. My doctor would frown on that; he's somewhat less than ecstatic about my present 235.

 

“You have not been truly ignored until you have been ignored by a cat.”

I don’t know what we did to offend her when this was taken, and I’m not sure we knew at the time, but Molly has mastered the art of ignoring her people. Notice the ears.












This is not a critter, but it is very cool. It was given to me by my “North Carolina Family” and is hand made by a craftsman in Asheville. In addition to looking really neat, it grinds pepper better than anything I’ve ever had.

 

Exhibiting Leadership

In the movie “Glory” the penultimate scene is of the African-American Battalion advancing on the Confederate fortress that was their downfall, marching along a beach into the teeth of a relentless gunfire of artillery and rifles, steadfast in the face of almost certain death. Their colonel marches
at the front of his troops, saber in hand, leading his men into battle.

Leadership, in those days, was a risky business; but one taken seriously.

Not so much any more. It seems leadership means asking people to give you lots of money so that you can give lots of speeches and make lots of promises that you won’t keep after you are elected. Most of the promises are for things that are beyond the scope of the office you are campaigning for, but today’s leadership says that you promise them anyway.

Leadership means promising what you will do if elected to a higher office while you are failing to fulfill the responsibilities of the office you currently hold; the office to which you already have been elected.

Chris Dodd is in Washington today, campaign put aside while he fights for the rights of the American people as he promised to do when elected to the Senate; fights to preserve the constitution.

Chris Dodd is in Washington today being a leader.

Other presidential candidates are saying they support his effort, but they are not actually supporting it. They are campaigning for their own ends, more interested in their own personal pursuit of power than in the preservation of the constitution of this great country that they want to lead. They have shown that they are full of high-sounding talk about supporting the people of this nation, but when it comes to crunch time they will place their own interests first. They are more concerned with gaining power than with exercising responsibility and serving constituents.

They are as sounding brass; filled with noise and fury, signifying nothing.

Predatory Lending 2

A few days ago I commented that the government’s bailout of people who bought homes they could not afford by taking out mortgages on which they would not be able to make the payments was a bad idea. I said that I did not favor the government rewarding bad judgement and financial irresponsibility.

The response has been comments saying that Loan Company A was publishing memos to it’s salesmen saying that they should promote the high rate loans, and that Loan Company B is settling a lawsuit and making refunds because they illegally concealed in the documents that the payments would increase. The implication is that the bad loans are all the fault of these heinous companies that were out in the market place ripping off poor innocent victims.

To defend the government’s program with these arguments is like saying that there are some innocent people in jails in this country. That is a bad thing and the juries that wrongly convicted those people were, I don’t know, corrupt or maybe racist or something. Therefor we should open the doors of the prisons and let everybody go free. Everybody, innocent or not.

I did not suggest in my post that loan companies which violated the law should not be punished and their victims be made whole. What portion of the mortgage crisis does that constitute? I do not have the answer to that question, but I know for sure that it is not the entirety of it. I am reasonably sure that it is actually a fairly small portion.

As to the loan company advising its agents to “push” the high-interest loans, of course they do that. Just because someone is suggesting that I buy something does not mean that I have to do so. Before I commit myself to the payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars, fiscal responsibility demands that I do my own due diligence rather than simply signing whatever has been placed in front of me.

How many buyers were sitting at that loan officer’s desk, looking at the “non-conventional” loan because they had already been turned down by a conventional lender? This is another question to which I don’t have the answer, but reading news articles suggests to me that the portion is not exactly miniscule.

Who is the victim when one who cannot qualify for a legitimate loan turns to a “loan shark” instead? Certainly that does not legitimize the loan shark, but does it justify rescuing the borrower? Maybe if the loan was required to save a life, but…

How many borrowers knew full well that a safer loan was available to them but accepted the risky loan because it would “enhance their lifestyle” and thought they could refinance out of it before the risk caught up with them? Right, I don’t know the answer to that one either, but I know full well that it is a significant portion of this crisis. And the government’s plan rescues these borrowers in greater numbers than it does those who actually are victims.

Proponents of the government rescue plan point out that without it the flood of foreclosure will cause home values to fall and that will damage those who own homes. I own a home in Southern California, bought before the home values skyrocketed, and I cannot say that I really want to see it be devalued. Still, perhaps I am not as important as the well-being of the society in which I live. Perhaps the greater good of the greater number should prevail.

Do I really want to live in a society where only the very wealthy can own a home, even if I’m one of those who does?

Tortured Confession 2

Keith Olbermann again referred to the Kiriakou “confession” in not one but two of his segments on Countdown last night. In so doing he rather decided to have his cake and eat it too, as in one segment he quoted Kiriakou in evidence that the White House was aware of the torturing, and in the other he exposed the assertion that Kiriakou made as to the effectiveness of that torture as being unlikely in the extreme (as did my post yesterday).

Olbermann is guilty of some rather bad journalism, here; using a source to prove a point in one story and then totally discrediting that same source in another story. Wtf?

Watching Kiriakou on the various shows on which he has appeared, the man comes across as not only a liar, but not even a particularly skillful liar. I see no reason to believe one single word that this man says.

He admits he was not present at the torture session and then goes on to describe it in loving and meticulous detail. His descriptions of the permission needed for each step of the process and how that permission was obtained is damning indeed, but it is also utterly ridiculous.

“You may slap him one time in the face with an open hand and then call me back and I'll tell you what you may do next.” Yeah, right.

The White House may have been involved in the decision to commit these atrocities, and probably was. But the statements of a blatant, obviously lying non-witness to events is not the way to prove it.

Other sources contradict Kiriakou’s claim that the subject he is talking about provided valuable information that deterred “dozens of attacks.” Those sources, who did participate in the interrogation admit that the subject was insane and provided nonsense for the purpose of making the pain stop. Which we know to be the usual result of torture.

Yesterday I seemed to be alone in suspecting this guy’s story was phony. Today I have quite a lot of company.

Tortured Confession

The confession of John Kiriakou regarding the CIA use of torture, aired yesterday by ABC news, has the media and blogosphere all atwitter about what a black eye the revelation is to the Bush Administration. Even Keith Olbermann was breathlessly reporting about it on Countdown last night. Me, I’m not sure that this guy is all that real, as a few things he’s saying strike me as a bit “off.”

First, he says that the torture he witnessed was 35 seconds of waterboarding and that as a result the subject not only gave in, but he did so permanently. According to his description the subject actually became an ally and freely gave information without a trace of coercion from then on. After 35 seconds of mistreatment.

Now, I am certainly no expert, and maybe I would cave after 5 seconds. But I have seen films of our soldiers who have been tortured for months and years and some of them did sign documents and make statements, but they certainly did not become allies of their torturers. Is our present enemy one of so little character that a small dose of torture is enough to make them spill their guts for the rest of time? If so, why are we so afraid of them? It’s a minor point, but his description sounds like something out of a dime novel.

Kiriakou is quoted in the news report as saying that the torture he witnessed “prevented dozens of attacks.” Does nobody other than me hear an echo of Bush Administration propaganda in that statement? Why do I have the feeling that this guy is more interested in convincing us that torture is effective, which almost no one believes, than in revealing that our government has been doing it, which everybody knew anyway?

This is a key suspicion for me. He repeats over and over in his dissertation that it was necessary at the time and that it was effective, that it “saved lives.” It seemed to me that this, in fact, was the real gist of what he wanted to convey.

When Gibson asked Brain Ross why Kiriakou was coming out with the story now, Ross’ answer made no sense to me at all. Ross reported that Kiriakou was angry that the torture sessions had been taped and even more furious that the tapes had been destroyed. According to Ross, Kiriakou thought the tapes should have been preserved as a “historical record.”

What? He’s angry that the tapes were made, but since they were made they should have been kept? In what world is that logical?

When a storyteller provides illogical reasons for telling the story, I have to seriously doubt not only the reason for telling it but the facts as well.

I do not really doubt that the CIA has been fouling this country’s honor by torturing, but I do seriously doubt the effectiveness of that practice as reported by one John Kiriakou.

And the effectiveness or otherwise begs the point. The practice is wrong regardless of its outcome. It is a disgrace to this country and dishonors those who have fought and died to secure its freedom. Kiriakou and others may try, but torture cannot ever be justified.

"Predatory Lending"

An editorial in today’s New York Times by Paul Krugman today listed three concerns about the current mortgage crisis. The third one was this,

Finally, there’s injustice: the subprime boom involved predatory lending — high-interest loans foisted on borrowers who qualified for lower rates — on an epic scale. The Wall Street Journal found that more than 55 percent of subprime loans made at the height of the housing bubble “went to people with credit scores high enough to often qualify for conventional loans with far better terms.”

He calls it “predatory lending” but I submit that, in most cases, that term is far from accurate. It would be more accurately called, “serving the borrower’s greed.”

Why did those borrowers not take out the “conventional loans with far better terms?” Clue number one is that many of them replaced just such loans with the subprime ones. Doing so gave them a lower house payment for a year, or a few years, and allowed them to live a more affluent lifestyle. Their assumption was that before the reset occurred “something would happen” to prevent it. They took a gamble for the sake of immediate gratification and, inevitably, many of them lost.

Paul Krugman regards that as injustice and thinks we should bail them out.

My nephew bought a house for his young family in the San Diego area some time ago and last year I rather casually asked him what kind of mortgage he had on it. He looked at me like I had lost my mind and said that “of course” he had a thirty-year-fixed, and added some remarks about not being stupid enough to go for any of those “crazy loans.”

He is a young man, very much enthusiastic about life and adventure, full of plans and upwardly mobile. And he lives within his means. He doesn’t have to have what he cannot afford. How strange. Downright un-American. How dare he display the flag?

I do agree with Krugman that the Bush/Paulson plan is a bad one, but not for the same reason. He thinks it doesn’t rescue enough borrowers. I think it rescues too many.

The victims of this crisis are portrayed as the people who are losing their homes, but they are preponderantly victims not of predatory lenders but of their own greed and/or financial mismanagement. The main victims of the lack of regulation are the investors who purchased those “innovative instruments” which were preordained to become worthless.

Unregulated capitalism becomes predatory.

You either believe in the “free market” system or you do not. (I do not.)
This bunch, including Krugman, wants to have it both ways. They'd like the market to be free to create the kind of “innovate market instruments” that created the mortgage crisis, but when that inevitably turns to destructive chaos they want to be able to step in and make whole those who were burned in the flames.

And, of course, they want to do that without taking away the riches from those who profited in the process of creating the destruction.

No one in the government or business communities is even talking about any plans for making whole the people and institutions who bought the instruments that have turned to junk. And probably no one should be. If you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig. These investors failed to look past the lipstick and bought the pig.

Caveat emptor, baby, caveat emptor.

Sunday Football

Chargers are favored at Tennessee by a half point this morning. Seems a bit odd, since the latter are a bit better statistically and are the home team. I've been flipping a coin all morning and it has come up heads half the time and tails the other half. Drove the cat crazy.

For the second game we here in sunny (well, cloudy at the moment) San Diego get to watch a titanic battle between two teams with losing records. Our local CBS affiliate has decided that a far more exciting game between the Patriots and Steelers is not in our best interest because the KC/Denver game is in our division and if KC wins that game the Chargers will clinch our division. The Chargers are going to win the division simply by being the least crappy team: I'd rather watch a game with some excitement in it and where it mattered who won.

An interesting weather tidbit: the jet stream is actually dipping to the south of us today. (That's the northern jet stream. There's also a southern one that is almost always south of us.) That's not freakishly unusual, but it is uncommon and the forecast is that it will dip even farther down the Baja Penninsula tomorrow. In addition to being interesting to weather freaks such as myself, it also means that we have to get our snuggies out of storage.

Words to Congress

No doubt the latest scandal, having to do this time with destroyed tapes, will result in our members in Congress fulminating at great length and investigating endlessly one more time about who knew what and just exactly when they knew it. The real scandal is, of course, that the CIA used tapes, for God’s sake, instead of DVD’s but…

May I suggest, ladies and gentlemen of the legislative branch, that you just spare us all the bull feathers? Unless you are actually going to do something about this administration, unless you are actually going to bring someone to justice, just shut the hell up. You are making yourselves sound like morons.

Religious Testing

I used to have a fairly neutral view of Mormons, since I knew very little about them. After listening to Mitt Romney's speech, and assuming the he is representative of the religion, I now have an extreme and highly negative view of them. They should all be confined to an encampment and a chain link, razor wire fence built around it to confine them.

Our constitution says that no religious test shall be applied for any office. Romney says that not only must you be religious to hold office, you must be religious to be a free member of this society. Smug bigotous bastard.

Is The System Working?

Andrew Sullivan had a piece at his blog The Daily Dish the other day titled The System is Working. I would love to be able to say that I agree with his piece in it’s entirety, and I can say that I don’t entirely disagree with it. But I don’t think that the final chapter in this saga has been written yet.

The Democrats may not have stopped the war, but they helped shift its course. That, in turn, saved the war in Iraq from becoming a complete disaster. Now it's merely a rescuable disaster.

I’m not sure in what way the Democrats helped shift the course of the war and to say at this point that it is rescuable is certainly hopeful but is, I think, far from certain at this point. We may safely say that it may be rescuable and that absolutely is a turn for the better, but Sullivan doesn’t say precisely how the Democrats helped get us to that point and he has very little company in his certainty on the rescuability issue. As much as I would like to be, I am not in that company.

But my roster of those who helped get us back toward a rational war-policy would put Bob Gates and David Petraeus at the top of the list.

Bob Gates certainly. David Petraeus has always been a Bush mouthpiece and it is far too early to tell whether his current strategies, such as enlisting and arming former enemies, will prove successful in the long run. Certainly his first two assignments in Iraq were short term successes and long term disasters, and we can only hope at this point that his third one will turn out any better than the first two did.

Mukasey has a chance to do the same kind of thing at Justice.

But will he? The fact that he has a chance to do so is not evidence, to me, that the system is working. In fact, he went to very nearly the same lengths to cover Bush’s backside in his confirmation hearings that Gonzales did in his hearings, so I’m somewhat less than sanguine.

The system that looked rather fragile for a couple of years has begun to assert itself again. It works.

Congressional oversight is, so far, little more than a farce. I take that back: it is nothing more than a farce. Hearing after hearing with not one person held to account, removed from office or convicted of wrongdoing. Just enough to serve the political purposes of the party in power without triggering revenge from the party which is currently in the minority.

The Democratic Congress has made no attempt to restore any of the civil liberties abrogated by this administration, or to restore any of its own power usurped by this president.

And if the president is wise, he'll allow all this to shift, and take some of the credit.

You just have to laugh at that pipe dream. The one thing this president has never been accused of is wisdom. He has always been and will always be an ideologue and will pursue his personal goals monomaniacally.

And if the country is wise, they'll pick a successor who can unite the country around a prudent path forward.

Has Sullivan read or listened to any part of the presidential primaries? Uniting the country is the very last thing on the mind of any of the major candidates, and prudent paths forward have not been proposed by any one of them. They are without exception fearmongering in the mold of the current president and preaching about leaving “no options off the table” in the name of keeping us safe from something that has not harmed us in the last six years.

Statements beginning "if the president is wise","if the country is wise" and "Mukasey has a chance" are not probative of one's cause in writing an article titled The System is Working. They are nothing more or less than wishful thinking.

The system may yet work and, yes, there are a few signs that it is beginning to stir into life. I want it to do so, and I certainly have hope that it will. But this administration still has a full year left in office, and this Congress is still behaving in a manner more self serving than constructive.

The lawyers have finished, and the jury is still out.

Profoundly Stupid

There's beginning to be some thinking that she might not be our next president, but this kind of pronouncement tends to make me think that Hillary Clinton is a fitting successor to the current one.

Defending her vote on the Kyl-Liebermann amendment, she claimed that declaring the Iranian Republican Guard as a terrorist group has already changed their behavior by causing them to quit attacking American troops and sending weapons to Iraq.

1. The amendment did not declare them a terrorist group, it merely suggested that the president do so. Which he did not.

2. There is no actual evidence that they have been attacking American troops and arming Iraq, other than the unsupported word of, um, George Bush, whom even she claims is a serial liar.

3. What evidence can she provide that it was that vote of the Senate that led to the Republican Guard ceasing to do that of which there was no proof that they were doing to begin with?

Okay, I will admit that #3 was not very clearly worded, but neither was Senator Clinton's position.

Update: as it occurs to me

With respect to #1: you think the preznit is ever going to do anything that the Senate "suggests" to him? Get real.

Decision Making for Dummies

Here’s a part of the latest NIE that stands out to me:

Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs.

I wonder if a similar section of another government’s NIE regarding the U.S might read something like:

Our assessment that the U.S. instigated its war in Iraq regardless of international pressure and has been similarly pressing for war in Iran under equally false pretenses indicates Washington’s decisions are not guided by a cost-benefit approach but rather consist of a rush to war irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs.

The latest NIE does not surprise me in the least, but its publication and the reaction to it by all and sundry, particularly by George Bush, saddens me to the core. To have our highest elected official not only revealed as a gross and serial liar, but as a completely unabashed and smugly unrepentant one, is a serious blow to a once proud nation.

And there is still a full year to go. God help us all.

Football Observations

Updated below

An observation about Chicago Bears fans. In most stadiums (stadia?), when the home team is down by 17 points with 8 minutes left in the game the stands will begin emptying in droves. That would be especially true if the home team offense had been playing flat for the entire second half. It looked to me like not one single fan had left the house when the Bears tied the game, and then won in overtime. Those are some kind of loyal fans.

Again, the local writers are losing sight of just who the Chargers beat last week, and are suggesting we will win in a walk today against a team that held the Colts to 13 points two weeks ago. I no longer make predictions on the Chargers, but I’m not quite as sanguine as our local pundits. Depends on which team got on the plane.

I am so sick of the grandstanding of one Shawne Merriman, who treats us to his “Lights Out” sack dance and literally pounds himself on the chest after making a tackle behind the line of scrimmage. “Um, Merriman, no one even attempted to block you on that play. Pretty much anyone in the NFL can tackle someone who is standing still when no one tries to prevent them from doing so.” There are many in the NFL who are as good or better at playing football as this egotistic jerk, and there are hundreds who are far better men.

I am a big fan of Philip Rivers, have been since he was drafted, but someone needs to take him in hand. Even in a winning cause last week he was unimpressive. Nick Canepa asked “…would you rather have an excitable quarterback, or one who comes off the field hanging his head?” Well, Nick, those are not the only two choices. I’d actually rather have a professional.

If you watch Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, every single pass is precisely on target. Quarterbacks like these either throw the ball away or they hit their receiver precisely where they mean to do so. Rivers hits the receiver in full stride part of the time, but too many of his completions are made because the receiver made an athletic grab of a pass that was just a bit off-target. You cannot throw with deadly accuracy when you are excited; that kind of throwing comes from being professionally calm and in control. Rivers doesn’t seem to be growing in that direction.

Chargers are playing at Arrowhead Stadium today. Buckle up.

Update: Tuesday 9PM

Finally, a deserved win. Still some problems with the aerial part of the offense, but look what happens when you (a) keep attacking them with the best running back in The League and (b) turn the dogs loose on defense. Rivers needs to graduate from grade school, though.

Tomorrow I will comment on the total lack of sanity in Washington.

No bad deed...

The administration is now finalizing a plan to rescue people who are in danger of losing their homes due to the resetting of interest rates on loans that were taken out with low initial, “teaser” interest rates. The plan is that the loans will be frozen at the lower rate for several years.

I’m no economist, so I don’t know what effect this plan will have on the economy of the country, nor do I know what the effect would be of letting those loans be foreclosed. What I do know is this.

For years I have been receiving advertising importuning me to refinance my home and take out money to finance a “better lifestyle,” telling me how much money I could save with lower payments. Knowing that there is no such thing as a free lunch, I ignored those ads and stayed with my 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. I felt that doing otherwise was financially reckless.

If nothing else, people who took out loans they could not afford were guilty of bad judgement in that they accepted advice on a major financial decision from someone who was a total stranger to them.

My reward is that people who took out those bad loans, either through greed or ignorance, are now paying a lower interest rate than I am, thanks to a government that rewards greed and punishes thrift and financial conservatism.

So this plan not only rewards bad behavior, it punishes those who decided not to engage in that bad behavior. Which brings me to the title of this piece, the credo of our present government:

No bad deed goes unrewarded.

The Rains Have Come

The NOAA weather service has been unusually confused recently.

For several days they have been forecasting “rain showers” followed by a “red flag” warning. The latter is severe fire danger due to extremely low humidity and Santa Ana winds and the oddity is not that those conditions would follow rain showers, but that severe fire danger would do so. Following a very light rain things would dry out in a matter of hours, granted, but what they have been forecasting has been a system with a really good connection to tropical moisture.

They were saying that most of it would bypass us and go into Arizona, but that we would get showers and some steady rain for 24-36 hours. Amounts, they said, would only be about a tenth of an inch in San Diego, although they admitted that there was uncertainty in the forecast.

Well, the “showers” that were supposed to be arriving later this evening have been pounding on my roof since about 4AM, pretty much without a break. I don’t have a rain gauge any more, but I’d estimate we’ve had at least an inch so far.

The problem lies in forecasting the activity of a "cut off low," a low pressure system over the Pacific that is not connected to the jet stream. These things can sit motionless for days, and when they do move their direction and speed are pretty much random since there is no "steering current" of air to direct them.

What’s interesting is that the “Current conditions” on the NOAA site say that showers are moving through the area now and that the best chance for significant rain is late this afternoon and tonight. So, what is this that we are getting now? Well, according to them, “showers.” All I can tell you is that at times I’m finding it difficult to hear the radio because the “showers” are making so much noise on my roof. We may need an ark when the heavy rain gets here.

This may go from being one of the driest Novembers on record to one of the wettest, in the space of one day. If it keeps up it could become one of the wettest Decembers as well.

All kidding aside, this is much needed stuff; more than welcome. The only problem is that it is coming down hard enough that it may very well cause serious flooding problems in the recently burned areas of the county. Some prevention work has been done, but not anywhere near enough and some of this rain is quite heavy. The people who suffered through the fires do not really need to have more problems added on.

Keep them in your prayers.

Arming the Sunni

Sometimes I just don’t get it. Either I’m an idiot or…

I’ve been reading about the U.S. arming Sunnis for quite a while now, and I’ve remained on the sidelines because I just don’t have enough facts to form an opinion. I’ve leaned toward thinking that it was probably not a good idea, but the people doing it are a lot better educated in these matters than I, and they are in the thick of it while I’m sitting safely here at my keyboard in calm and sunny San Diego.

Then there’s this article in McClatchy News today. In part,

“More than 60,000 have had fingerprints and DNA taken and had retinal scans, American officials said, steps that will allow them to be identified later, should they turn against the government.”

Now I’m getting into the “what are they thinking?” territory.

If someone is blasting away at me with an AK-47 how, exactly, is me having his fingerprints, DNA and retinal scan going to help my cause in any way, shape or form? What, I’m going to hold his DNA up in front of myself and he’s going to hold fire because he’s unwilling to shoot himself?

“Hey, guy, this is you. Hold your fire. You’re shooting yourself in the spit.”

He might not want to shoot his fingerprints either. Hold those up too. Somehow I think diving into a foxhole or shooting back at him might be just a bit more effective.

Or maybe not arming the guy in the first place.

But we’re cool because they’re going to stop handing out weapons and uniforms when they have armed a mere 100,000 Sunni. And we are leaving, what, about 30,000 to 50,000 troops there. Oh good, we’re only outnumbering ourselves by 3:1 or maybe only 2:1. I’m so relieved.

The Iraqis claim that some of the “security forces” we’ve armed are already engaged in the final mopping up of ethnic cleansing, but our military denies that. Well, duh. Of course our military denies that. Hell, under those circumstances I would deny that, and I usually tell the truth. Our military obfuscates based on wishful thinking, so of course it denies that it gave weapons to people who then used them to intimidate and even kill innocents. The military doesn’t even need to know that facts of the issue, it can merely deny that it happened. Business as usual, case closed.

There is a saying, I believe it’s an Arab one, to the effect that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

We complicate that a little. (Well, we complicate everything, usually more than a little.) In our case, if you fight us we will either kill you or we will throw you in a prison and leave you there forever. Unless you come up to us and say that you want to fight our enemy. (Please note that this is not the same as surrendering. If you surrender we will throw you in a prison and leave you there forever.)

If you walk up to us and say that you want to fight the same guys that we are fighting we will take your fingerprints and DNA, scan your retinas (“Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes, men.”) and will hand you some weapons and a uniform, pat you on the head and give you some kind of blessing.

And then we will, if we have any sense, run like hell. Or not.

Purpose of Regulation

Quite a few years ago government regulators sued at great length and expense to break up AT&T into smaller companies. Part of the deal was that consumers no longer were forced to rent equipment from the phone company, paying many times its value, but could buy whatever equipment they wanted and be able to use it with the phone company's service. That was when regulation was being managed for the benefit of the consumer.

Not so much any more. When you buy a cell phone it can only be used with the carrier that you bought it from. If you want to switch providers you must buy a whole new phone. We also have broadband internet service that is controlled by two massive corporations. Regulation is being managed for the benefit of corporations rather than for consumers.

A few years back European regulators forced Microsoft to unbundle its operating system and now they are taking on Apple. They don't like its policy of selling the iPhone and requiring the buyer to use the service provider of Apple's choice. U.S. regulators had no problem with that policy.

Similar regulatory policies mean that most of Europe has much faster and cheaper broadband internet access than we do here in what used to be the most technology-advanced country in the world.

So let's think about what "democracy" means. As a form of government, it means more than merely allowing people to vote. It means governing for the benefit of the people. Seems like Europe is better at bringing that off than is the United States, which governs for the benefit of corporations.

True Grits

When Jimmy Carter was elected president the entire country started serving grits, but the pap served in most of the country is a pale imitation of grits and I never, ever order them at a restaurant on the left coast. We are in North Carolina and had breakfast at the Waffle House this morning. Grits. Real grits. Good stuff.

After breakfast we drove from Raleigh to Asheville. The color of the trees was beyond description. It was almost like what I imagine an LSD trip might be like. Wow.

My wife kept harassing me about the signs for NASCAR goodies and asking if I wanted to stop and shop. No.

Dollar Dip

I have been using a Canadian company for web hosting for years, hosting sites for clients and a couple of sites I do volunteer work for. Their rates have been steady at $6.95/month Canadian, $4.95 American.

You know where I'm going with this, don't you?

I haven't started a new site in quite a while, and yesterday I had cause to do so. I selected my plan and was quite suprised to see that it was priced at $6.95/month Canadian, $6.95 American. I scratched my head a moment as I thought, "Wow, their price went up."    Oh, duh.

The Bleak Landscape

I’m beginning to come around to the point of view of people who just ignore the political landscape in this country. It’s an increasingly large number of people and I am increasingly sympathetic with their view. The political landscape is bleak and disheartening, and becoming more so.

For a while I had some enthusiasm for Obama, and perhaps an even slightly higher degree of enthusiasm for Edwards, but now I just want all of them to go the hell away. I don’t want any of them in the oval office.

After endless “debates” I just don’t believe a word that any of them say, and I don’t think for one minute that any of them believe anything that they say either. They are just “playing tapes” in response to questions.

Often it seems that they don’t even listen to the actual question. They just pick a tape to play back in response to certain key words that they picked out of what the questioner said.

And the media gives points to whoever has better tapes, not noticing when the politician fails to actually answer a question but swooning over how “tough” or “polished” the politician sounded.

When Edwards charged Clinton with being unresponsive to questions, for instance, she validated the charge by coming back with the non-response that her healthcare plan was better than his. The media loved it; reported than she really floored him with her “response.” They failed to note, of course, that she didn’t answer his charge.

What they also didn’t note is why her health plan “includes everybody” while Edwards’ plan does not. Clinton’s plan requires, requires that those not covered by employer coverage purchase private insurance. From whom must they purchase that insurance? From the companies that have donated millions to her election campaign. She has a plan to help people do that, but she’s not going to reveal that until later. Presumably after she’s elected.

(I’m not sure why she doesn’t just require everyone to be healthy, but…)

Obama is no less a triangulator than Clinton, aggressive in one appearance and meek in the next. He adopts whatever appearance he thinks the audience of the moment wants to see, or whatever attitude the media he’s facing will appreciate and applaud. His campaign is the antithesis of the audacity he advocated in his book.

I still have some appreciation of Edwards, but the media is so devoted to kicking him off of the bus that as part of the political landscape he is all but meaningless. I don’t think his ideas and intentions are hopeless, but I think the media has made his campaign pretty much dead in the water.

We don't even need to go into my thoughts on the Republicans.

This will all eventually pass and we will have another president. Almost certainly not one that will serve this country well, based on the campaign to date, but only a very few presidents have served this country well and we have survived. This country is bigger than one person, however misguided or well-intentioned that person may be.

Old Glory’s survival is more precarious now, but it will endure.

Why I watch videos

Because the the damn fool political debates contain questions like this:

Do you believe there are any times when abortion is killing a baby? Yes or No?

If a million people die in the next 9/11, would you be willing to chill out about torture? Yes or no?

If you asked me either one of those questions and seriously anticipated a Yes or No answer, I would punch you in the nose. I am not a violent person. I abhor violence. But I would be unable to resist punching you in the nose. And smiling while I did it.

Owl in a Bucket, Part II

My niece was apparently quite taken with her uncle having had a pet owl as a kid and carrying said owl around in a bucket. A box arrived today, and in that box was, right, an owl in a bucket. She suggested that I might get a smile from it.

I got more than a smile; I just about fell out of my chair. Note that the bucket is even labelled with the owl's name. What a treasure. Well, yeah, the owl in the bucket, too, but I was referring to my niece.

Santa Ana Warnings

Weather services, including NOAA, are now issuing warnings for strong Santa Ana winds next week and "extreme fire danger." Confidence levels in that forecast are apparently now pretty high.

Yikes. I think I'm glad we're going to NC.

But it rained yesterday in Atlanta.

Potpourri

Fearmongering Redux

ABC News is running the airline screening bomb story again, and again it's liquids. Only this time they are blowing up cars as well as airplanes. They briefly state in the news item that the story was originally released by the government in August. And they are airing it again now because...?

What strikes me as odd is that this time MSNBC picked up on it and included it on Countdown last night. Strange.

Santa Ana Redux

Forecast confidence is not particularly high, but there is a chance for a "strong Santa Ana event" next week. The Santa Ana part is pretty certain, how strong it will be is not. At best it will stir up soot and ash from the October fires, which is not good if you have severe emphysema. In the fires of 2003 I got much more ill in the Santa Ana events subsequent to the fire than from the fire itself.

Fortunately, we will be in North Carolina next week for Thanksgiving with family and the event will be over before we return. Good timing, but the trip was planned six months ago.

Spare Change

Have you got $20,000 to spare? That's your family's share of the current cost of the War in Iraq.

Torture Debate

The revival of this debate was caused by the confirmation hearings for the new Attorney General. He has now been confirmed and sworn into office. Why are we still having the debate? There is something sick about this.

Names don't always matter

When talking to a rep at the "benefits center" at my wife's company yesterday I got called "Mr. Robinson" again. She paused for a moment and then in a very embarrased tone said. "Oh no, that's not your name, is it?"
We had a good chuckle over it. Just a minor disadvantage of being married to a "liberated woman." There are plenty of advantages.

"Ending Combat" in Iraq

The newest bill in Congress vows to "end combat" in Iraq by the end of the year. The precise wording of the bill rather belies that intent as it, "[r]equires a transition in the mission of US forces in Iraq from primarily combat to: force protection and diplomatic protection; limited support to Iraqi security forces; and targeted counter-terrorism operations...". All of those require shooting, killing and being killed which are, by definition, combat. Typical word games from our elected government.

Football Follies

I will miss this weekend's Chargers game due to travels, and probably the next weekend as well. It might be that will be to my advantage and will save my wife some aggravation. I'm hoping that I have someone recording the games so I can watch them when I get back, assuming that I will want to.