Election 2008, #7: Energy Policy

I told you they'd be in no particular order. For the original post, go here.

Anyway, energy policy is in the news a lot, so I'll dispense with my thoughts on that forthwith. Let's look at each candidate's policy positions and see what they hold. We'll start with Sen. John McCain.

McCain's energy policy position stresses the importance of increasing oil and gas exploration, mostly by opening up the currently off-limits areas of the Outer Continental Shelf to drilling. From his tenor on the campaign trail, this appears to be the centerpiece of his policy. He does have some ideas on encouraging research to get cars made more efficient - including sort of a governmental version of the automotive X Prize. He wants to expand nuclear power and clean coal power, and does lip service to other alternative power sources like solar and wind. He'll propose getting rid of ethanol subsidies and tariffs, presumably opening our ethanol market up to Brazilian products.

Sen. Barack Obama's energy plan involves giving immediate relief from high gas prices by issuing an energy tax credit. It will presumably be paid for by an extra tax on oil companies (the "windfall profits" tax you've heard so much about). He talks about more effective regulation of the oil futures markets. Like McCain, he supports pouring money into alternative energies - unlike McCain, he wants 25% of our energy to come from renewables by 2020 (something of an arbitrary goal, but a goal nonetheless). He also supports research for making better biofuels. He proposes an overhaul of the national energy grid as well, and wants to give grants to people who make their buildings more efficient. Obama also stresses the need to coordinate conservation efforts with other energy-using countries.

Rep. Bob Barr's energy policy essentially boils down to "get the hell out of the way." Barr believes that more subsidies and government programs will distort the market, and wants to do away with all restrictions on exploration. So like McCain, he wants to open up the OCS and ANWR to drilling; like Obama, he wants to end subsidies to oil companies. He wants to do away with ethanol subsidies, and says nothing about renewables.

I'm having issues finding Rep. Cynthia McKinney's energy policy, so I don't know much about it. All I know is that McKinney opposes opening up the OCS (the only candidate to completely oppose doing so) and expansion of nuclear power.

Anyway, here's my take:

I've never seen so much demagoguery over one issue in my short political career. I don't even think terrorism got this treatment in the wake of 9/11. The national panic over $4/gallon gas got the candidates all worked up, and really got the B.S. flowing. There are several things we can do without in all these plans. Obama's "windfall profits" tax is an awful idea, as are continued subsidies for ethanol production. McCain's insistence that OCS drilling will help gas prices is ridiculous. It won't become profitable for oil companies to drill on the closed parts of the OCS unless oil prices continue to rise. Heck, it's not even profitable for oil companies to drill on all the areas that they have already leased. And even if drilling were to start today, it would increase our oil output by 1-2%... in ten years. President Bush and McCain seem to think that there will be some psychological effect on oil prices from a repeal of the OCS ban, but last time I checked, neither supply nor demand were affected by psychology. And biofuels? Right now, production of biofuels in America costs about as much energy as the fuels produce. Encouraging production before research has made them viable is ridiculous, and is part of what's driving the global food crisis to boot.

There are, however, some ideas I like. I can sympathize with Barr's desire to say "to hell with it, let the market decide," and I think the market ought to be the main driving force of an effective energy policy. The market, however, isn't particularly good at conducting research on technologies whose profitability is beyond the horizon, and so we need government money to help out with that. But Barr's suggestion that we do away with subsidies altogether is right on. Obama's talking about the grid, which is good because the grid is decaying rapidly and needs a little refurbishing. Also, he's the only one who seems to think that alternative energy research is important. McCain is talking about nuclear, which is a technology that is cleaner than what we have and ready to deploy now.

All of this, though, is long-term, and unfortunately, the campaigns are leading voters to believe that their policies will send gas back to $2/gallon tomorrow. Nothing will - I doubt gas will ever go below $3/gallon again. The most effective tool anyone can use to lower gas prices is... the calendar. Fall will be here soon, people will be using less energy to cool their houses or travel for summer vacations, and prices will decline. It happens every year, folks. We've driven less this year, and the midsummer recent gas price retreat is probably a result of that.

But the best idea that anyone has come up with for lowering gas prices in the short term? Barack Obama's suggestion that we make sure the tires on our car are inflated. As any bicyclist knows (and as Matt Novak recently discovered), it's easier to move if your tires are inflated. Estimates are that proper inflation saves you 8% at the pump. Assuming that half of us have underinflated tires, that's going to cut gas consumption by 4%, and since gas consumption is roughly half of our oil usage, we'd cut our oil use by around 2% if everyone inflated their tires. For reference, if we developed all the oil in the OCS tomorrow, we'd increase our oil output by about that much.

Naturally, people are making fun of Obama for coming up with a good idea. That is because people are stupid.

An effective energy policy, in my opinion, will involve both controlling demand and increasing supply. There's a lot not to like about Obama's energy policy (the "windfall profits" B.S. and the ethanol subsidies, for example), but at least he's thinking seriously about both sides of the equation. Barr and McCain are only thinking about supply. Credit Obama for bringing up the grid, too - recent regional power failures have pointed out the weaknesses in our grid, and we need to refurbish it yesterday. I like Barr and McCain's dedication to eliminating subsidies, but to me that plus Obama's bad idas aren't enough to overcome Obama's good ideas. McCain second because he's at least throwing out some token funds for alternative energy research. McKinney's in fourth by default - if I keep having trouble finding her policy positions I'll just drop her from consideration.

1. Barack Obama (D)
2. John McCain (R)
3. Bob Barr (L)
4. Cynthia McKinney (G)

So for those of you keeping track at home, we're at:

Obama - 16
McCain - 12
Barr - 8
McKinney - 4

Election 2008: The Series

So I'm starting a new series of posts here where I'll rank the four main Presidential candidates - Obama, McCain, former GA reps Bob Barr (Lib) and Cynthia McKinney (Green) - based on the 10 issues I feel are the most important. The issues will be presented in no particular order, but here's the list in order of importance:

1. Foreign Policy
2. Civil Liberties
3. Terrorism/Security Policy
4. Regulatory Enforcement
5. Subsidies/Government Waste
6. Taxes/Budget
7. Energy Policy
8. Health Care Policy
9. Education Policy
10. Respect for Congress/Judiciary

A few notes: Most of the issues here are self-explanatory. I've split economic issues up into what I think are the most important for a President to tackle - taxes and budget-balancing, and proposing the elimination of useless subsidies and wasteful, ineffective programs. I recognize that the President can't do much to affect the economy, but these issues are important from a fiscal solvency standpoint. Second, many may wonder why I've separated civil liberties from terrorism/security policy. This is because even without issues like warrantless wiretapping, "enemy combatant" policy, and torture, civil liberties is a really freakin' broad category. I'm including things like free speech, legal gay-bashing (see: Marriage Amendment), respect for Constitutional rights from law enforcement, and support for various nanny-state regulations that aren't particularly onerous but are just plain annoying. Third, the main national policy issues people are discussing are fairly low on the list. That's because Congress, not the President, mostly determines policy direction here. The President proposes and approves legislation, but it's still gotta go through the sausage factory.

Finally, you'll notice two issues (#4 and #10) that most people wouldn't include. Both tackle the Constitutional role of the President - to faithfully execute the laws. If a President isn't trying to enforce regulations passed by Congress, he's not doing his job. And if a President is trying to overpower (or just plain ignore) Congress or the judiciary, that's bad too. I'll work judicial nominees into #10 to some extent - if a President wants to weaken the courts by nominating a bunch of defer-to-the-executive types, I'll mention that.

I'll assign points to each candidate based on their ranking on the issue - you get 5-rank points. I'll then multiply by (11-issue ranking) to properly weight each issue. I'll add these up and whoever gets the most points, wins. Not necessarily wins my vote - I'm not sure I could see myself voting for the stridently anti-Semitic McKinney, even if she gets more points than the others - but wins something.

Anyway, enjoy. I'll post the issues in no particular order, whenever I feel like it.

Yay! Free Money!

Lest you think vote-buying is illegal in America, Barack Obama wants to give you $1000 for yours.

OK, OK, it's not directly for "vote-buying," it's for an "energy rebate" or some crap like that. Which means that he's not using his own money to buy your vote, but... yours. Of course, a $1000 cash handout to every taxpayer is going to be a little pricey ($2 billion or so, I think), and will have about as much effect on the economy as that stimulus check you've already spent has - which is to say, none. But hey, if the government's going to waste my money, they might as well waste some of it on me.

Of course, it's not like McCain has any better ideas for fixing energy. Opening up more offshore drilling areas aren't the answer - oil companies aren't drilling in the areas that are already open because oil's not expensive enough to make it profitable. Offshore drilling only makes sense if oil becomes pricier... which sort of defeats the cited purpose of the legislation. And it's not like any candidate who values his/her prospective job will be suggesting we do what should actually be done - conserve frickin' energy. (We saw how well that worked out for Carter when he suggested it.) And our wonderful Senate is stubbornly refusing to extend renewable energy tax credits for, well, God only knows what reason.

In sum, I'm resigning myself to listen to a bunch of people who don't know what they're talking about doing something stupid that will waste my tax money while doing nothing to make energy more affordable and cleaner. Whee.

Dumbest News Article Ever

Is Barack Obama too skinny to be President?

Does Amy Chozick have any real news to cover?

Clubbin'

Buried in this article about beating crazy dogs with sticks (note: I'm all in favor of that) is this interesting line:

But [bite sticks] currently are prohibited in Texas under a state law that bars most people who are not certified peace officers from carrying clubs.

So does that make golf illegal in Texas?

Baby Pic of the Day

That's Selah hanging out with her cousin at Great-Grammy's house in Arkansas.

Brass Balls, Serbian Edition

Last week we reported on the brass balls displayed by the Lebanese when they welcomed child-butcher Samir Kuntar back to Lebanon after having been deservedly imprisoned in Israel.

Today we move north a little ways to Belgrade, where Serbian nationalists are displaying similar chutzpah in their support for former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. Karadzic, you might remember, was the war-crimes fugitive captured recently by the Serbian government. While he was heading the Bosnian Serb uprising, he was responsible for, among other things, the siege of Sarajevo and the massacre of Srebrenica.

Nothing like a little mass murder to get the blood flowing in the morning, eh? You stay classy, Serb nationalists.

Your Daily Dose of Crazy

This comes to us via this Balko post.

Last week, our lawmakers were treated to a panel on the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prevents openly gay and lesbian soldiers from fighting for their country. (Balko points out that 58 Arabic translators have been booted under "don't ask, don't tell" - think they could have been useful?) For some reason that escapes us here at ONAF, the anti-gay forces on the right chose Elaine Donnelly as one of their witnesses at the hearing, despite the fact that Donnelly's credentials on the matter are somewhat questionable. According to Post columnist Dana Milbank, she promptly delivered one of the most hilarious moments of unintentional comedy Congress has seen in a while. A few choice morsels:

Donnelly treated the panel to an extraordinary exhibition of rage. She warned of "transgenders in the military." She warned that lesbians would take pictures of people in the shower. She spoke ominously of gays spreading "HIV positivity" through the ranks.

"We're talking about real consequences for real people," Donnelly proclaimed. Her written statement added warnings about "inappropriate passive/aggressive actions common in the homosexual community," the prospects of "forcible sodomy" and "exotic forms of sexual expression," and the case of "a group of black lesbians who decided to gang-assault" a fellow soldier.

Racist and homophobic in the same breath? Awesome. Milbank points out that the incident Donnelly refers to happened in 1974, though Milbank must have an awesome research department because I couldn't find another reference to it online. But wait, there's more:

Then came Donnelly, severe in a black jacket with a flag pin on her lapel as she attacked the "San Francisco left who want to impose their agenda on the military." She spoke of the "devastating" effect gay soldiers would have on the military and said "people who do have religious convictions" would be driven out of the military by the "sexualized atmosphere."

"We are not talking about a Hollywood role here," Donnelly lectured the lawmakers.

Ooh, and this:

[Arkansas Democrat Vic] Snyder asked [retired Navy captain, lesbian, and panelist Joan] Darrah about Donnelly's reference to "passive-aggressive actions common in the homosexual community," saying, "I'm almost tempted to ask you to demonstrate."

Darrah was stumped. "Like a woman who is stared at, her breasts are stared at," Donnelly explained. She further explained the "absolutely devastating" effect of homosexuals "introducing erotic factors" and made a comparison to Sen. Larry Craig's adventure at the Minneapolis airport. She said admitting gays to the military would be "forced cohabitation" and a policy of "relax and enjoy it."

The lawmakers' reactions are great, too. Patrick Murphy (D-PA), an Iraq War veteran, almost explodes. Chris Shays (R-CT) practically yells at her. The quote of the day, though, goes to Snyder, responding to Donnelly's concerns about HIV:

"By this analysis . . . we ought to recruit only lesbians for the military, because they have the lowest incidence of HIV in the country."

I don't have anything to add. I'm sure there are reasonable people who support "don't ask, don't tell," but in the absence of reasoned debate, we'll take high comedy.

O Little Child Of Honolulu

I don't care what your political views are, this is the most awesome column written this year, if not ever. All praise the Gospel of Gerard Baker, whoever the heck that is.

Even The Idiocy Is Bigger In Texas

Via Fark, here's a story out of the Houston suburbs that contains so much craziness that it makes my head spin...

- A couple (whose last name is, hilariously enough, McKain) puts a sticker of someone (presumably the fake Calvin, and I say fake because Watterson never licensed his characters) urinating on the name "Obama" on their truck. You stay classy, there. One wonders if they rant and rave every time they see an anti-Bush sticker, which at least tend to be clever and not completely derivative and dumb.

- A woman interprets their distaste for Obama as racism - because everyone who hates Obama has to be racist, dontcha know - and starts yelling at them.

- A police officer arrests the woman for "making a terroristic threat."

The moral here: in Texas, yelling stupid crap at other idiots makes you a terrorist.

Warning: Disclaimer May Be Dumb

While in AR this past week, I was changing the volume on my new phone, when AT&T decided to let me know of the horrific dangers that would surely result from such an insolent act. On the screen the following message popped up:

"CAUTION: Loud ringtones could damage your hearing."

Thanks, Mommy. Now let my ears die in peace.

On the ride home, we stopped at a Starbucks, and Danielle got an iced coffee. The straw she got - the STRAW - was emblazoned with a disclaimer warning us to not use the straw for hot drinks.

Most disclaimers - like the standard airbag one - are actually pretty useful. But why is it that so many producers feel the need to warn us about every possible bad thing that could ever conceivably happen with their product? Could AT&T really be legally responsible if some idiot turns their phone up too high and sticks it in their ear, damaging their hearing? Is it really Starbucks' fault if you burn yourself sipping piping-hot coffee through a straw? Those aren't product defects, those are user defects.

Anyone else got some wacky disclaimers they'd like to share?

ONAF, Brass Balls Edition

Back from a week-long vacation to Arkansas, and ready to blog again... with apologies to Stephen Colbert, here's a few people who apparently have some massive brass balls:

- The top generals of the U.S. Air Force, who are busy diverting counterterrorism funds so that - wait for it - they can have luxury seats on their airplanes. Congress has told them to quit, and yet they still press on. Along the way, they are extending their middle fingers to lower-ranking officers (who don't get to use the seats, natch, but have to watch the top brass use them), Congress, and the American taxpayer. Hell, any schmuck can steal government money and use it to pimp their rides. To do so out in the open, stealing from the money that's supposed to be used to keep us safe, and not care when you get called on it? Brass balls, my friend.

- The National Collector's Mint, whoever the hell that is, for this hilariously awful piece of commemorative bling. Keep in mind, folks, this is a private company seeking to make a profit by putting out fake money that supposedly commemorates 9/11. Keep in mind also that coins and money generally commemorate good things and people (Andrew Jackson on the 20 notwithstanding). The website doesn't do it justice, though - you have to see the TV ad, which plays in the top-right of the website. The announcer sounds way too happy. "Commemorate the deaths of 3000 people on one of the darkest days in U.S. history, now only $20 plus shipping and handling!" Anyone can profit off the memory of dead people, but to do so in a way that makes 9/11 look like the Lewis and Clark expedition? Brass balls.

- And finally, the entire population of Lebanon. Why? First, I need to explain to you who Samir Kuntar is. In 1979, he beached himself in a northern Israel town, dragged a civilian and his four-year-old daughter out onto the beach, executed the man, and bludgeoned the four-year-old to death with his rifle. (In the process, he indirectly killed the man's two-year-old, who was smothered when the kids' mom tried to keep him from screaming while they were hiding. Also, Kuntar denies killing the kid, saying she got caught in a crossfire with Israeli police - but come on, how does a kid get bludgeoned in a crossfire?) Basically, he's a loathsome child-killing steaming pile of shit. So what reaction do you suppose the Lebanese people gave this child-killing fuckface when he was freed by Israel (incidentally, in exchange for two dead bodies)? That's right, kids, a welcome fit for a Super Bowl winner (second photo down).

Any asshole can celebrate a garden-variety terrorist. But to take a guy who forced a four-year-old girl to watch her father be murdered before bashing her brains out with the butt of a rifle, someone who would be shunned and ostracized by anyone with any shred of human decency... and to put him on a pedestal? Massive, unbelievable brass balls.

Helms Deep

Tasteless, I know. But it was the obvious title, and someone had to use it.

Helms had retired by the time I moved to the Tar Heel State, so I never really experienced him except via the Washington papers. I do remember the bombastic actions, the seemingly reflexive anti-Clinton-ness, the nasty campaigns, and the ridiculous statements that seemed to always issue forth from his mouth. He was probably the most polarizing figure in the Senate, and in retrospect he makes Tom Coburn (probably today's most polarizing Senator) look like a milquetoast.

So it should come as no surprise that the reactions to his death range from effusive praise to, well, Ken Layne. How else to remember a man who thought AIDS was the judgment of God against homosexuals - and then abruptly repented after a meeting with Bible-quoting rocker Bono? How to think of an unabashed racist who once bragged about trying to make Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun cry but who is remembered as the nicest guy in the Senate and "especially kind to children?" Or the man who supported numerous oppressive dictatorships throughout Latin America that were darlings of the right, and staked out a position on free trade that has since been usurped by the left?

Clearly, Helms was more complex than we give him credit for. Like most people, he doesn't fit into the devil/angel dichotomy that we like to apply to everyone in the public eye. If there's one lesson to be learned from the life of Jesse Helms, it is that simplistic characterizations of someone simply don't work.

All-Star Screwups

OK, baseball fans - especially AL fans - you got some 'splainin' to do.

Here are the all-star lineups that you picked. The NL looks good - the two Cub outfielders are good, Soto's a decent catcher, and the infield is pretty solid.

But the AL... dude. With the exception of the obvious choices (Mauer, Rodriguez, Hamilton), this is nothing short of a complete screwup.

OK, OK, I can see Youkilis at first over Justin Morneau - they're pretty close and Youk's slugging better. I'll let that slide. I'll let Jeter go at short too - there are no good choices at short this year. Ichiro's a borderline choice given that it's an off year for him, but he's still over .300 so I'll let you have it. But the choices of Ramirez and especially Ortiz and Pedroia? No excuse for that. At all. Ortiz isn't even healthy. Ramirez isn't even the best outfielder on his team this year (that would be J.D. Drew). And Pedroia? Maybe the fifth best second baseman (Kinsler, Polanco, Roberts, and Grudzielanek are all better).

Fortunately, the deserving Milton Bradley will be starting for the injured Ortiz. As for Ramirez and Pedroia? You guys better consider yourselves very, very lucky.

Since The Gay Marriage Thing Came Up

...here's a great story about a Virginia gay couple who were legally married for a day.

Monkey's Uncle

One hundred fifty years ago today, Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace announced their theory of evolution by natural selection. It would be another year before Darwin published the definitive book on the subject, which is when everyone would notice said theory.

What's interesting is that the idea that species evolved over time was pretty well accepted by the biological community back then - but when it concerned the "how," people were mostly subscribing to a "great chain of being" theory or an "acquired characteristics" theory (most famously articulated by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck). Darwin provided a better answer, and it has stood up to scrutiny for 150 years now - aided greatly by the work of a contemporary, Gregor Mendel, whose work in genetics would go unnoticed for decades after its completion in 1865. Scientific notoriety is a fickle beast sometimes...

Also, in unrelated culture-war stuff, this is awesome. My favorite line: "After the race, Homosexual and Dix looked at each other and slapped palms, then hugged." Autoreplace: Not all it's cracked up to be.

Just Because

Your Morning Opinion Dump

-It's baaaack! Everybody's favorite situational federalists in the Senate have decided that it's time to defile the Constitution with some super-fun gay-bashing! We have Roger Wicker, formerly Mississippi's king of pork, to blame. And it seems that Larry Craig and David Vitter have signed on as well, having decided that gay couples wanting the same rights as straight couples is a greater threat to marriage than, say, soliciting sex in a bathroom stall or frequenting a high-priced D.C. prostitute. The amendment's in no danger of getting 67 votes in a Democratic Senate, of course (it probably won't make it past Pat Leahy and the Judiciary Committee). It's just dumbdiddlyumptious.

For another laugh, read this unintentionally hilarious explanation of why the sky will fall if gays are allowed to marry. Bonus: he uses a sketchy example of a state-run church as proof of what will happen here.

- Next time anyone from the right bellyaches about "judicial activism," please show them the results of the latest round of Supreme Court cases. In two cases - the Heller case striking down the D.C. handgun ban and the Davis case striking down part of McCain-Feingold - the conservative wing of the Court took the judicially active path (i.e. contravened the will of the legislature). Conservatives are hailing both cases, especially the former - and apparently missing the irony.

So shut up about "activist judges," already. They're supposed to be activist. Isn't that what Marbury vs. Madison was about? The right of the Court to strike down unconstitutional laws? Perhaps a danger greater than an "activist" judge is a judge who makes decision based on his/her own political leanings... which is exactly what the right-wing nominee hawks want.

- More stupid African dictator tricks. This time, it's a petrostate dictator propped up by Exxon's tax dollars in a 500,000-person country you've never heard of. Bonus: Margaret Thatcher's son tried to overthrow him. Good times!

- And this might be the dumbest story ever (thanks be to The Agitator).

Hold Me

A Kossack posts an extremely interesting description of how holds in the Senate work. A hold, for those of you who don't know, is when one senator informs the Majority Leader (for all intents and purposes, the speaker of the Senate) that he/she intends to impede passage of a bill. The poster explains why holds work sometimes but not always, and what factors cause a hold to fail. It's a really good read.

My All-Star Ballot

I just cast my ballot forbaseball's all-stars (thanks Matt), and here are my choices, along with a brief description of why I picked that player...

American League

1B: Justin Morneau, Twins: This one was between Morneau and Boston's Kevin Youkilis, who are about equal. Morneau is hitting slightly better, though, and drove in more runs.

2B: Brian Roberts, Orioles: There's no shortage of good choices here - I could have picked Detroit's Placido Polanco, Texas' Ian Kinsler, or KC's Mark Grudzielanek here. I picked Roberts because a) he's got 21 stolen bases, b) he's a good fielder, and c) I'm an O's fan and a massive homer.

SS: Orlando Cabrera, White Sox: Preferably, we'd take the glut of second-basemen - either Grudzie or Kinsler - and move them here because there are no good options at short for the AL. No one's hitting well, and Cabrera's the best fielder, so there you go.

3B: Alex Rodriguez, Yankees: Really? You're going to vote for someone else here?

C: Joe Mauer, Twins: You'd have to be brain-dead to pick anyone else here, too.

OF: Milton Bradley and Josh Hamilton, Rangers; J.D. Drew, Red Sox: Lots of options, but Hamilton's a no-brainer and Bradley and Drew are hitting really well. I wrote in Baltimore's Nick Markakis here too - he should be the AL's fourth option.

DH: Hideki Matsui, Yankees: It's either Matsui or Oriole Aubrey Huff, and while Huff's a better power hitter, Matsui's average is way better.

National League

1B: Lance Berkman, Astros: No-brainer.

2B: Dan Uggla, Marlins: Either Philly's Chase Utley or Arizona's Orlando Hudson would go here. But Uggla gets the edge because he's a better hitter than Utley and a better fielder than Hudson.

SS: Ryan Theriot, Cubs: I could have gone with Washington's Cristian Guzman, but if I hadn't picked Theriot here despite his awful glove, I would have been leaving the NL's best team without an All-Star. Which is just weird. Guzman should be the tenth guy though. Florida's Hanley Ramirez can't field either.

3B: Chipper Jones, Braves: Really, if you vote for anyone else, you're either a massive homer or you're an idiot.

C: Bengie Molina, Giants: That's how bad the catching in the NL is - I had to vote for Bengie Molina.

OF: Matt Holliday, Rockies; Xavier Nady, Pirates; Ryan Braun, Brewers: After the no-brainer pick Holliday, I just kind of drew names out of a hat. Nady's a solid hitter, and Braun's a slugger with a potential Gold Glove. I wouldn't fault anyone for picking SF's Randy Winn here.

So there you go. Only difficulty with this lineup - no one from the AL's second and third best teams (TB, the Angels). Discuss.

Update: Mike tells me that Orlando Cabrera plays for the White Sox, not the Tigers. Noted and changed.

We Don't Negotiate With Terrorists... Except When We Do

The Bush administration is taking North Korea off the terror list after they dismantled their nuclear program. This also comes along with increased food and fuel aid for the hermit state, and a slight relaxation of sanctions.

In other news, the right wing continues to call anyone who suggests we do something similar with the more reasonable Iranians "naive" and "dangerous."

Actually, I'm Quite Happy With It

North Carolina is offering a replacement for all license plates beginning with the letters WTF. As the proud owner of one of such plates, I won't be taking the DMV up on that offer.

Islamic Law Okay for Blackwater

The sheer amount of cognitive dissonance in this bizarre story made my head explode. I gotta admit, though - suggesting that a U.S. court ought to hear a lawsuit by Americans against an American company under Shari'a law takes massive chutzpah. Let's hope this gets rejected - Afghan Shari'a states that a company can't be sued for neglect caused by its employees, which is a horrible precedent if that neglect is systemic. It would just make military contractors even less responsible for their duties.

What are the chances, though, that Erik Prince is the kind of conservative who will wax philosophical on the horror that would be caused if Islamic law came to America? Until it fits his personal purposes, of course.

Baby Picture Dump

I've been meaning to post baby pics for a while, but haven't gotten around to it... until now.

This is from her baby-naming ceremony, where we take her up to the bima during Shabbat and the rabbi gives her a blessing and we give her a Hebrew name. It's supposed to happen earlier, but oh well.

The dress is definitely her...

...the kipa, not so much.

A tune, Maestro...

That's one cute duck!

Is this a form of child abuse?

Goodbye, George

George Carlin, 1937-2008. Carlin was one of my first exposures to stand-up comedy. He was one of my dad's favorites, and he became one of mine. He's famous for his shockingly offensive routines - but unlike too many other "shock humorists," Carlin was side-splittingly funny and, once you realized there was a purpose behind all the naughty words, rather cerebral.

For kicks, here's his famous "Seven Words You Can't Say On Television" routine. Or one of my favorites, on sports. And for those of you who like your comedy clean, enjoy the Hippy Dippy Weatherman.

Barfing in Memphis

It's old news, but I just stumbled upon it - here's a bizarre flyer circulated against Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) of Tennessee's Ninth District, which is basically Memphis:

Astute readers will notice that the flier gives the name and address of the responsible party - a certain Rev. George Brooks in Murfreesboro, TN - which is conveniently located nowhere near Memphis.

Cohen, as you might be able to tell from the name, is a white Jewish guy representing a majority-black (60%) district. The flier was circulated presumably in support of Cohen's August 7th Democratic primary opponent, Nikki Tinker. Tinker was criticized for being slow on the reaction to the issue, but to her credit, the first thing you see as you visit her website is a statement roundly condemning anti-Semitism or racism (presumably of the anti-white variety as well).

My first reaction, of course, is that this is yet another reminder that while anti-Semitic opinions are mostly marginalized, they still rear their ugly head every now and again. It's something of a shock to see it put out there that blatantly, and from a guy who lives near a city - Nashville - where I spent my undergrad years.

But there's a deeper issue here, and this Memphis Commercial-Appeal editorial touches on it:

The flier is the product of an African-American minister from the Middle Tennessee town of Murfreesboro. Rev. George Brooks said he distributed it because the 9th District is "about 90-something percent black." (The actual figure is close to 60 percent.) Does the Tinker campaign agree with the Anti-Defamation League that the document "attempts to incite tension" between African-Americans and Jews? They aren't saying.

Inciting tension between African-Americans and Cohen was the aim of several members of the Black Baptist Ministerial Association who took Cohen to task last summer for his support of federal hate crimes legislation. The real motive behind the attack was revealed in later comments by at least one of those involved.

"He's not black," said Rev. Robert Poindexter of Mt. Moriah Baptist Church, "and he can't represent me, that's just the bottom line."

Congratulations, Rev. Poindexter, you've just demonstrated identity politics at its absolute worst. But Poindexter's not alone in exploiting identity - he's just really blunt about it, and doing so in a manner to which much of America is not accustomed. Replace "black" with any number of identity groups - evangelical Christians, the middle-class, blue-collar workers, you name it - and someone has said it. Often the media fans the flames, disguising their plays at identity politics with questions like "Can candidate X connect with (insert group here)?" It's the same crap, and if we're shocked by that flier and by Poindexter's statements, we shouldn't be. It's a pervasive part of modern politics, and it stinks.

I've gone into this before, so I don't want to repeat myself. I'll say this: it's appealing to vote for someone who looks and acts like you. But to think that someone who doesn't look or act like you can't stand up for your needs? Or that someone who does will be a better representative because of it? Pure 200-proof bullshit. Whites can represent blacks. Jews can represent Christians. Rich people can represent the working class. Sushi-eaters can represent KFC diners. Get over yourselves, voters. Your membership in some identity group isn't that important.

Middle East Truce?

The BBC reports that Israel and Hamas have agreed to a truce, whereby Israel will open Gaza to the outside world a little bit while Hamas will quit with the rockets. This will hopefully snowball into Hamas letting go of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier whose capture set off the latest round of violence, in exchange for the opening of the Gaza-Egypt border.

This is good news, but needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Hamas hasn't exactly been 100% faithful to its truces of late. Israel should - and surely will - take steps to make sure that food and supplies are the only things getting through the open borders, not guns and rocket fuel. But this time it may be different - Gaza's economy has gone even further into the shitter since Hamas began hostilities with Shalit's capture (and maintained them with repeated rocket fire). Hopefully Gazans recognize this and are turning on Hamas' hard-line tactics.

It is perhaps too much to hope for that the Palestinian leaders are beginning to realize that the only thing Palestinian violence is truly hurting (on a geopolitical level) is the Palestinian cause. But maybe the economic consequences of a policy of violence have finally been made clear...

That's Some Fine Campaign Work, Lou

Your next governor of New Jersey may be... Lou Dobbs?

First order of business - build a fence along the Hudson River. Can't have all those illegal New Yorkers invading the Garden State causing havoc and taking New Jersey jobs, right?

They Have A Fight, Triangle Wins

I've often described Raleigh as "a nice place to live, wouldn't want to visit." Apparently MSNBC agrees with me in part - they've ranked Ral-town America's best place to live. So there.

(Yes, I know I technically live in Cary. It's close enough.)

Oink Oink, Bizzatches

The Post reports that - surprise surprise! - earmark spending is going back up again. Sure, it's small potatoes when it comes to fixing the deficit, and if we want to get into the black, we're going to have to fix Social Security and Medicare and quit trying to fight wars without raising taxes.

(Tangent to anyone who wants to fight a war in the future: don't assume it'll pay for itself. Assume that we'll have to foot the bill for the whole thing. And make the budgetary tweaks necessary to raise money for the war. And if you support a war, don't bitch about the higher taxes that are going to come along with it. War means sacrifice, kids.)

It doesn't matter who's in power - earmarks go up under Republicans and Democrats alike. Personally, I don't think we can do away with earmarks entirely, but we can have a system where the entire House votes on each earmark. That oughta trim some of the fat out of the process, since I'm sure no one wants to be on record as having voted for a "bridge to nowhere."

Anyway, Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who I have a lot of respect for as a legislator, hits it on the head:

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said the budget system almost demands that lawmakers use earmarks to win support from voters. He said his colleagues also award earmarks with the expectation that they will generate campaign contributions from happy recipients and their lobbyists, a dynamic that Taxpayers for Common Sense describes as the "pay-to-play system." Lawmakers often boast of the earmarks they have obtained.

Earmarks happen because voters and donors like them. End of frickin' story. You want earmarks eliminated? Don't ask the federal government for funding for your cat museum, and don't congratulate your rep if you get it. You think you have an appropriation that's important for defense or for the welfare of your district's population? You better be prepared to defend that appropration before the entirety of Congress and the court of public opinion.

I've said it (more than) once before, but it bears repeating now. (Ah ah ah ah ah ah...)

One more thing, for anyone who has been watching Euro 2008: how the heck is Tommy Smyth doing color for the early game and then doing studio commentary for ESPN afterwards? Does he have a teleporter that takes him from Austria/Switzerland to Bristol and back? And if he's commenting on the game from Bristol, does that mean Derek Rae is there with him? Because I'm not sure how they could function with the play-by-play guy in Salzburg and the color guy in Connecticut...

Wait, What?

So now Israel has a Muslim cabinet member and the small Arab nation of Bahrain has a Jewish ambassador.

I'm sorry, did you say something? I can't hear you over all the cognitive dissonance.

Fahrenheit Four-Fifty-Dumb

Somewhere near Shreveport, LA, some genius had the following brilliant thought: "You know what would make the Gospel seem welcoming to non-Christians and would make our area's churches seem like vibrant communities that people would actually want to join? A book burning! Let's hear it for some Christian nihilism! Woo WOO!"

Bonus: the guy who's running the show heads a church called "The International House of Prayer." The sad part is that if the pastor weren't making douchey remarks like "It is allowed for Harry Potter to be taught in our schools, but not the Bible" (patently false) and "I'm not a doom-and-gloom preacher... but we are at the threshold of dark days" (in the same category as "I'm not a racist but..."), the awesomeness of the church's name might actually draw people in...

Bert Plays Soccer

Euro 2008 kicked off yesterday, and as with most international competitions not involving the U.S., I have no one to root for. That is, until yesterday, when I decided to root for Portugal. Why, you ask? Here's why:

Best. Unibrow. Ever.

Seriously, anyone with the balls to sport that much brow has to be badass.

On Obama and Iraq

OK, this is worth noting: 99% of the time, conservative 527s (like their liberal counterparts) are bloviating about nothing - the most strident example of this being the Swift Boat Vets from 2004. And I'm sure we'll have 527s trying to convince us that we should care about Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers and Rod Parsley and McCain's ex-lobbyist staffers and whatever insignificant issue you can imagine. But the ridiculously named right-wing attack 527 "Vets for Freedom" may have hit on something when they talk about Obama's lack of visits to Iraq or meetings with Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus.

Here's the VfF founder, Pete Hegseth, explaining why he thinks it matters. Essentially, if you filter out all the right-wing talking points, the argument boils down to this: you can't understand what's going on in Iraq unless you go over there and talk to army leaders, rank-and-file soldiers, and Iraq's political leaders.

Obama would counter that the military puts on a dog-and-pony show for visiting luminaries, and that the truth on the ground is obscured. But certainly there's only so much that the military can hide. And if Obama's not getting his information from meetings with Petraeus or al-Maliki and if he's not meeting with troops in the field, he's getting his info essentially the same way we are - through the media and through anecdotes from soldiers he knows. I wouldn't feel confident about making a decision on the proper course of action in Iraq from what I now know. I can't see how Obama would either.

Obama has been to Iraq once, in 2006 - but a lot of things have probably changed since '06, when the war was at its darkest. The rigors of the campaign and the safety requirements for a candidate will likely not permit him to visit before November 5. But I think Obama should pledge to visit Iraq and meet with Petraeus and al-Maliki as soon as possible should he be elected. In fairness, I suspect Obama probably will make that visit. And if Obama should choose Joe Biden (who practically lives over there) or Jim Webb (who has forgotten more about the military than I'll ever know) as his running mate, these criticisms have less validity since there'll be a highly knowledgeable advisor at his side.

But I worry, and here's why - one of the more off-putting things about Bush's presidency is his seeming tendency to make uninformed decisions based on ideology, and his seeming lack of intellectual curiosity. We don't need more of that out of our next President, be that Obama or McCain.

We Are Your Overlords

Allow me to take this opportunity to reach back in time 64 years and say: Suck it, Nazis.

Communism WOW!

The London Times is holding an awesome Communism joke contest. Mike, Ben, I'm hoping that the guy we met in Hickory doesn't win... (h/t: Chad)

Anyway, one of the commenters on the site - read the comments, there are a lot of clunkers, but some of them are actually funny - points out that the Communist Party of the US has a website... and they use it to sell crap. Word has it, though, that if you order something you'll be charged double the advertised price, it'll take two years to get to you, it'll look absolutely nothing like what you actually ordered, and it will fall apart in a week. And I don't even want to know what happens if you complain to the website about it...

Just for Andy: Bush. That is all.

Warrantless Wiretapping, Revisited

Name that country:

The law allows security forces to gather evidence through surveillance methods such as wiretapping without obtaining a court order, and authorities can withhold evidence from defence lawyers if it is considered to be in the interest of national security.

The answer: Venezuela.

OK, I don't want to go into a full-blown reductio al Chavezem here, but I do have this to say to Bush and the Republicans: if Hurricane Hugo is getting ideas on how to consolidate power from you, shouldn't you be just a little bit concerned?

One last note: I was watching McCain's speech last night, and I can't help but notice that every time he delivers an attack line he grins ridiculously - you can imagine him thinking "hee hee, I'm a bad boy." It's not a reason to vote for or against the man - it's just funny.

Game Over

It seems that Barack Obama has just wrapped up the Democratic nomination. I think I'll let the fans of recently relegated EPL team Derby County speak for me:

Yet Another Frickin' Banditos Theorem Proof

Read this, then tell me who's dumber: Michelle "EVERYBODY PANIC" Malkin, or the Dunkin' Donuts people who actually took her foam-mouthed ravings seriously?

A Couple of Random Thoughts

- Scott McClellan, the former Bush press secretary, turns on the war in Iraq. Apparently Bush wanted to go to war and launched an aggressive campaign to "sell" it to the public using somewhat dubious means. Who'da thunk it?

I guess I'm not sure what the importance of this book is. We all know, pretty much, that Bush wasn't entirely truthful when he led us to war, regardless of whether you think the war was justified or not. What this doesn't change? The fact that someone has to clean up this mess.

- I'm really not sure what to say about this. Bombs are supposed to kill people and destroy shit, right? So why were the toxic gases that they released a concern? Because that's the true tragedy when a bomb goes off - not that people get killed but that toxic gases might harm the environment.

- Speaking of people with farked-up priorities, someone apparently torched the home next to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's summer home in Michigan because the city killed a cougar that was wandering the streets in April. Never mind that cougars can kill people and that even animal-rights organizations were cool with the city's response.

Scariest line of the article, though? This (emphasis mine):

In California, where human contacts with cougars are more frequent, the public has mixed feelings about how to respond. In 1994, a cougar was slain after it killed a woman jogging in the Sierra Nevada. The cougar's cub was later found and brought to a zoo. For a while, donations for the cub's upkeep significantly outpaced contributions to a fund for the woman's two children.

Really? You would rather feed some furball than two motherless children? Who are you people?

- On a slightly happier note, the coveted award of which state's residents put away the most beer per capita goes to... North Dakota? I guess you'd have to be drunk to live there. Rounding out the top ten are New Hampshire, Nevada, Montana, Louisiana, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming, South Carolina, and Delaware. Surprisingly, the craft-brew hubs of Oregon (22nd), California (a shockingly awful 45th), and Colorado (20th) ranked nowhere near the top.

It should come as no surprise to anyone with a pulse that Utah is 51st (the list includes D.C.). But the next-lowest three? Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, in that order. I guess they don't drink beer in New York City...

North Carolina is 34th. Andy, we have some serious drinking to do.

- Update: Next time anyone tries to feed you the B.S. (not Ben Stark) line that the ACLU is a bunch of Godless commies trying to steal your religion and force you to worship Charles Darwin, show them this story. Then tell them to shut the hell up.

Crossing the Barr

Congratulations to former Cobb County, GA congressman Bob Barr, who just won the Libertarian nomination for President. It's kind of bizarre that the LP would nominate a Christian-rightist who voted for the Patriot Act, but whatever. He's at least a somewhat well-known name.

Now it's up to the Green Party to ensure that both the national small-party nominations go to wackjob former Georgia congresspeople.

Digital Disaster

As many of you know, all television must, by law, be broadcast in digital by 2009. I think this is a dumb law - why outlaw analog TV? - but I don't understand the reasoning behind it. Was it a giveaway to cable companies and DTV manufacturers? Is there a scientific/economic reason for the ban? What's going on? I throw the question to you, dear readers - any ideas on why this is happening?

This Amuses Me For Some Reason

Apparently Molson Coors is a sponsor of the Democratic Convention in Denver and will provide their ethanol (in more ways than one). If my memory serves me right, though, Pete Coors ran for Senate in 2004 as a Republican, losing to Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar.

Flip-flop?

And was New Belgium not available? How many of those convention delegates would choose Coors Light over Fat Tire?

A Thought on Cultural Pandering

You know what makes me sick? When candidates try to do crap that they wouldn't normally do in a misguided attempt to "impress" a certain category of voters. What bugs me is that it seems de rigeur for candidates who currently live a middle- or upper-class urban/suburban lifestyle to pretend like they're good-ole-boys (or girls) from the country. I don't remember Bill Clinton (who actually was a good-ole-boy) eating sushi and shopping at Whole Foods in an effort to impress me. Where's my cultural pandering, dammit?

When candidates try to impress "soccer moms," they don't show up at a campaign rally in a minivan with their kids in the back seat. When candidates try to impress urban professionals, they don't hold the rally at a coffeeshop with a cappuccino in hand. I don't know that I've ever seen a candidate for national office show up at a black barber shop for a haircut, and I personally really don't care whether a candidate knows a latke from a matzah. So why do candidates feel the need to shoot whiskey and sing the praises of car racing and bowling to the Appalachian and Southern white rural working class? And why does the media feel the need to rip them for "not connecting with voters" if they don't? Do we really think the white working class is that stupid?

I really can't wait for the candidate who quits with the cultural pandering and stands up there and says, "You know what? I like sushi. I eat arugula in my salads. I drink lattes. Birkenstocks are damn comfortable. I'm bored off my ass by NASCAR, I think Jack Daniels tastes like shit, and I drive a fuel-efficient Toyota. But you know what? My ideas are far better than what this other schmuck has come up with. I'm supporting policies that will make your lives better, whatever floats your cultural boat. Yeah, if you want a President that acts like you, better vote for someone else. But if you want a President who will work to make this country better, I'm your candidate."

Update via Jacob: At least McCain is pandering to the coffeeshop crowd. Or maybe he just likes espresso. Sad that in our current political climate we can't really tell.

Welcome to Missouri: No Meanies Allowed

Ever been insulted by someone? Especially by someone older? Well, it's time to move to Missouri, because there your tormentor is now a criminal! And if the person insulting you is over 21 and you're under 18, your tormentor is a felon! How cool is that! I think every teenage nerd in the country just started trying to convince their parents to move to St. Louis.

All kidding aside, the legislation is the predictably over-the-top and stupid reaction to the Megan Meier tragedy, where the mother of young Ms. Meier's enemy "drove" her to commit suicide. What the mother did was despicable, but illegal? Come on. Suicide may be triggered by emotional distress, but 99.999999999% of the time it's the result of latent mental illness. You want to fix the problem of kids killing themselves and others (see Columbine, etc.) because they've been picked on? Remove our society's stupid-ass stigma against seeking mental health assistance. Criminalizing meanies isn't the answer, and I'm pretty sure it's unconstitutional anyway.

(Also, isn't "emotional distress" already an oft-abused tort?)

When News Personalities Attack

Howard Kurtz tells the hilarious story of the feud between Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann, and how it snowballed until, before long, Olbermann was sniping at Fox News boss Roger Ailes, O'Reilly was attacking General Electric (which owns NBC, which owns Olbermann's MSNBC), and the executives of each network were demanding that the other exercise a little prior restraint on their rock star commentator. It's like Hearst and Pulitzer all over again - complete with third-grade-style namecalling! Journalists - they're almost just like people!

With Teeth

I'm not going to ruin anything about the movie Teeth's premise on this blog - click on the link and read it for yourself (of course, spoiler alert). It is, however, undoubtedly the most amazingly awesome horror movie idea ever.

I'm not sure how they managed to pull this off with only an "R" rating, but still awesome.

(H/T: The Agitator)

Whose Memorial Is It Anyway?

So let me get this straight - the long-awaited D.C. memorial to a man who led the struggle for civil rights by engaging in nonviolent confrontation is being held up because some suit somewhere thinks the statue for the memorial is too confrontational? Dude, Dr. King was confrontational. That's what made him great - the courage to confront without being violent. If he's confrontational and not holding a knife, I think that's just about the best statue of Dr. King you could come up with.

What do you want to memorialize, some sanitized version of Dr. King that makes him look like all he did was hold hands and sing Kumbaya and segregation ended? Or should we memorialize the man who stood up to the evils of segregation, looked the Southern white establishment in the eye, and refused to blink? Sheesh...

Ron Paul, Pinko

As if to prove that if you go far enough right you end up on the left, Ron Paul supporters are now proposing a commune based on libertarian ideals. Libertarian communists? How does that work?

They Grow Up So Fast...

Selah voted for Hillary Clinton today. It was a difficult decision, and she said that both she and Obama would make a good president. However, she asked herself which candidate would be less likely to expand the power of the presidency, and realized that Obama, for all his virtues, would still lead people to put far more faith in the presidency than the office deserves. Clinton would be more likely to be a competent placeholder rather than a transformative force, she said, and after eight years of a presidency-expanding transformative force she thought the last thing we need is more of that.

She's very mature for a two-month-old...

(UPDATE: Selah's mom would like to clarify that we don't know who Selah voted for. It's a secret ballot, and she can't technically talk. She can gurgle and make random cute noises though.)

A Quick Link to Cinco de Mayo's History

Here's an informative little blurb on what Cinco de Mayo actually is: a regional holiday commemorating a temporary defeat of the French (insert cheese-eating surrender monkey joke here) that somehow caught on in the U.S., and is now celebrated more by the Mexican diaspora (and those non-Mexicans who like Coronas and margaritas) than it is by actual Mexicans in Mexico outside of the state of Puebla. I find this hilarious.

Can anyone think of another case where a minor or regional holiday became a symbol of pride among a diaspora? Off the top of my head, there's Hanukkah for the American Jew... any others?

OK, This Is Scary

From a municipality near my hometown of Herndon, VA comes the following story: Arlington County CPS apparently took a child away from her parents because... wait for it... she lost 10 ounces after birth.

Now, as anyone who has had a child knows, babies are supposed to lose 10% of their birth weight in the first two weeks. As such, our 9lb 10oz baby lost - you guessed it - 10 ounces before she started gaining weight again. You can expect Cesarean babies (like ours, and the one in the story) to lose a little bit more. We were hardly starving our baby - she's been in the 95th percentile for weight all her life, and she's 13 pounds now - and I doubt this couple was either. There are all kinds of reasons why a child would be losing too much weight - sickness, severe reflux, allergies, etc.

Obviously I don't know all the facts here, so there may have been real reasons why the parents were judged to be unfit. But on the basis of a 10 oz. weight loss? Hell, by that standard they could have taken our baby away. That's what's scary.

H/T: The Agitator

Me! Me!

Michael has tagged me with the "Really Good Meme," or something like that. The rules are as follows:

1) Open the nearest book to page 123.
2) Post sentences 6, 7, and 8 from that page.
3) Tag five others.

OK, since I have two books on top of one another, I'll cite them both. Book 1:

In 1994, Koch, working with his own proprietary strains of yeast over multiple fermentations, fired the first shot in the ABV wars by blasting through the 15 percent brewing mark with a dark ale called Triple Bock at 17.5 perent, which had been three years in the planning and making. As if that weren't enough, Kock threw down a gauntlet to other craft brewers by declaring that he had brewed a beer that consciously crossed the line between beer, wine, and spirits; a beer that, after brewing, he had aged for eighteen months in oak whisky barrels before bottling; a beer that he said had "the complexity of a fine cognac, vintage port, or an old sherry" and that "should be sipped from a small snifter in a two-ounce serving."

Calagione was barely out of Pennsylvania's Muhlenberg College then and didn't enter the craft brew fray until the summer of 1995, when he and his wife, Mariah - his high school sweetheart - opened a brewpub near the beach in Lewes, Delaware, twenty miles from Milford, Delaware, where Mariah grew up.

From Travels with Barley by Ken Wells, who apparently likes long sentences.

The other book:

The EGF acts like a tonic to enhance the growth of important cells like these throughout your baby's body. Your milk also contains many of your hormones - vital substances that help important organs work better.

We have only skimmed the surface in pointing out the unique quantities and components of human milk.

From The Baby Book by William and Martha Sears. The third book I'm reading, Vonnegut's Player Piano, wasn't near me at the time.

Ben, Mike, Matt, Jacob, and Lindi, you're up. I'll tag a sixth, too... Trish. If I've forgotten any regulars who haven't done this yet, feel free to chime in.

It's A Gas, Gas, Gas

Baby pictures coming soon. I promise. I just have to download them first.

A little while ago David Ignatius asked whether the presidential candidates could be honest about the issues for a change. Mike answered no. I think I have Exhibit A that Mike's right.

I just read about this idea Clinton and McCain have about suspending the federal gas tax for the summer. Apparently they think this is a good idea. Let's take a look at the facts here...

1) We have a huge federal budget deficit.

2) Increasing demand, especially from China and India but also here at home, is driving the price of gas up.

3) Lower tax revenues make the budget deficit worse.

4) Higher gas prices will encourage people to conserve, thus limiting demand and slowing the rise of gas prices.

5) There's a little bit of a budget deficit in Washington right now.

6) The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents - about 6% of the cost of a tank of gas. Not much for the consumer, but a lot for the feds once you add it all together.

7) Did I mention the HUGE FRIGGIN' BUDGET DEFICIT?

Well, that settles it. Seems like what we ought to be doing is trying to control our demand for gasoline, which should put a natural downward pressure on prices (not to mention help out with that whole global warming thing). Ah, but there are two little facts I forgot to consider...

1) It's an election year.

2) People vote for politicians when they pander, no matter how dumb the pandering policy.

And there you have it. Empty electoral politics > sensible solutions to one of our most important issues. Kudos to Sen. Obama for not signing on to this nonsense. Given that Obama and Clinton are, like, exactly the same on every other issue, I think I just made up my mind about who I'm voting for on May 6.

Here's what I think should be done:

1) Raise fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. This has been done, but needs to be done more. Ignore Detroit's whining - it's clearly possible.

2) Raise the gas tax substantially. (Note: this might need to come with an increase in the EITC, since this will probably hit rural poor people hard. Either way, the amount of revenue coming in from the gas tax hike should be higher than the amount of revenue paid out by the new EITC. That will leave funds for us to...)

3) Invest the revenue from that into programs that encourage conservation, such as mass transit. Help out with the research on more fuel-efficient cars if need be.

4) On the local level, encourage development that places residential and commercial sites near one another and near job centers. There are a number of ways to do this - zoning laws, help with the funding, impact fees for far-flung development, etc.

This should decrease demand somewhat, creating a moderating pressure on gas prices. Note that I don't support biofuel subsidies. The main reason for this is that biofuel subsidies are part of what's driving the global food price crisis, and any energy policy that creates famine in other countries is no kind of policy at all. (In fact, Obama supports continued ethanol subsidies while, as far as I can tell, Clinton and McCain don't... maybe I don't know who I'm voting for next week after all.) Biofuels also spend about as much energy to make as they would save. The sugar-based stuff from Brazil might be a solution, but I think that still might cause the food-price explosion. We should fund research on getting fuels from waste products (we have plenty of that lying around), but subsidizing production just seems like a bad idea to me.

But good luck finding a politician who will say that stuff, especially #2.

A final note to the American people: you have to pay for your programs. If you want lower taxes, you can't have that shiny new road. If you want that shiny new road, you have to raise taxes. It's amazing how many people don't understand this.

UPDATE: Tom Friedman agrees, although he states his case a little bit more intelligently (and just as angrily... I love it when op-ed columnists get pissed). One tidbit I didn't know: Congress is having trouble renewing the solar/wind production tax credits that are set to expire at the end of December. This despite the fact that oil producers got their tax credits. I think these will still get through (whether or not production tax credits are a good thing is another debate), it being an election year and all, but seriously... credits for oil/gas and not for renewables? If we're giving out tax credits, I think most of us would agree that those credits should go to the solar/wind/geothermal/tidal/whatever people rather than the fossils. So how did the more controversial credit get through while the least controversial credit languishes in committee somewhere?

In Which Godwin's Head Explodes

Blogging hiatus due to spending Passover in Arkansas and Arizona now over. I'll be posting the obligatory baby pics soon, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, get a load of this guy who's running for Congress in northwestern Indiana. Looks like he got the "completely crazy bigoted bastard" vote all sewn up!

Also, for a laugh, cruise his website for a few minutes. He appears to blame everything that's wrong with society on pornography, and blames porn on the Jews. Wow. (And hilariously, someone has been posting porno pictures on his message boards. He apparently can't get rid of them.)

A Response To A Fellow Blogger

Michael over at Oleh Musings has an interesting post wherein he dissects a column from Dennis Prager accusing the Democratic Party of having lost its way, foreign-policywise. Prager accuses liberals and Democrats of abandoning what Prager calls "the war against evil." Obviously I don't buy this, and here's why.

(Here's the link to Prager's column, though Michael hits all the important parts.)

Let's first dispense with the major flaw in Prager's argument, which is made crystal clear near the middle of the column. He laments liberalism's "embrace of the immoral doctrine of moral equivalence" and compares that to the good old days when liberals like Kennedy and Truman were anti-Communist. Perhaps this is true of some on the far left, but I simply don't see this runaway postmodernism out of modern liberals. Even those who I would argue do embrace some aspects of moral equivalence still draw a line between right and wrong, between good and evil. No sane liberal or conservative would claim that America is morally equivalent to Stalinist Russia or jihadists like al-Qaeda. So Prager's claim that Democrats are unwilling to oppose Russian Communism or terrorism is just plain factually inaccurate - and without that claim, his argument essentially collapses.

But there's a more interesting point to discuss here, and that is this: Prager, as would most conservatives, asserts that there are only two sides to any foreign policy issue: "good" and "evil." The misperception that Democrats don't want to "do battle with evil" comes from this idea. The change that has occurred within liberalism, and within the Democratic Party, is this: we have begun to appreciate that there are more than two sides to any foreign policy issue. The world's not as simple as "good" and "evil."

In Prager's world, Communism is evil. But what sort of communism? The Stalinism of Russia, to be sure, and perhaps China's Maoism. But how about the socialism of Latin American populists like Arbenz or Allende? Or the anti-colonial communist-leaning nationalism of Lumumba or, yes, Ho Chi Minh? Or the utopian communism of the Israeli kibbutz? Certainly not all incarnations of communism were connected, despite Marx's globalist rhetoric. How do we determine which implied expansion of the Soviet threat to America - and which were simply benign popular movements that threatened us none?

In Prager's world, fighting Communism is good. But does that make thugs like Rios Montt, Pinochet, Mobutu, and Diem "good"? Can we excuse genocide (in Rios Montt's case) and totalitarian oppression (in the case of the other three) - and can we excuse supporting them, as the US did in each case? And assuming that Prager (like anyone sane) sees jihadist terrorism as evil, would Saddam Hussein have then been "good" for maintaining a secularist society? And would he have been "good" for continuing to offset Iran? And would the Taliban have been "good" for fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan? Furthermore, are we currently "evil" for trading and having good relations with communist China and Vietnam?

Foreign relations aren't a football game. You don't pick teams and fight the guys on the other team while protecting the guys on yours. You have to look closer at each player in order to determine whether they are "good" or "evil." And frequently, each player will have a little of both.

Because, let's face it, evil and good come in a lot of different flavors. As far as evil is concerned, we have al-Qaeda. I'll give you Palestinian terror groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the governments of Iran and Syria if you want to make that claim. I'd throw the Burmese and Sudanese governments in there too, along with the rapists of the eastern Congo. Probably Kim Il Jong as well. There are any number of other unsavory characters out there who occupy varying degrees of sketchiness. But not everyone who doesn't subscribe to a liberal democratic pluralist ideology is "evil." And not everyone who opposes jihadism or nationalist terrorism or the governments in Burma, Sudan, and Iran is "good." What do we make of Jundullah, for example, an al-Qaeda affiliate that opposes the Iranian government? And what of Musharraf and Islam Karimov, cruel dictators who oppose Islamist terrorism? What of the Saudis, who hate al-Qaeda and Iran but also hate Israel? And what of China, which props up murderous regimes in Sudan and Burma but also props up our economy? Should we treat this motley crew of global players to the same one-size-fits-all policy of "bomb the bad, help the good?"

Prager fails to understand that there is more than one way to "fight evil." Another thing that the Democratic Party has recognized since Vietnam is that our military power and our espionage power have their limits. We cannot impose an ideology on an unwilling people, even if we believe that ideology to be absolutely good and beneficial to all. We were never going to convince Vietnam to embrace democratic capitalism via military force - indeed, by attacking the popular nationalists who were responsible for the communist movement there, we likely hurt the cause of American ideology rather than helped it. We have to be willing to use diplomacy and the power of popular persuasion in order to keep "evil" in check. And we have to be very careful about who we're calling "evil" - calling someone names isn't a particularly effective method of persuasion.

It's easy to look at conflicts as simple chess games between good and evil. It's simple to say that there's only one way to fight the bad guys, and that's with bombs and stubbornness. It's easy, but it's not true. The Great Lie perpetrated on America is that those who see the world as a complex place are weak, naive, helping the evildoers, and to praise simplicity as "moral clarity." But I present you, Michael, and Mr. Prager, and Sen. Lieberman, and whoever else might give voice to the myth of liberal "weakness," the following choice. Are we made stronger by the kind of "moral clarity" that led us to support Pinochet, and Diem, and Hussein, and Bin Laden, and that led us into wars in Iraq and Vietnam that damaged our credibility as purveyors of good? Or are we made stronger by a more analytical foreign policy that seeks to understand each foreign policy player and the true threat that they pose, and that seeks to solve diplomatic problems in the most effective and least morally questionable way? Is "winning" measured by defeating those who we claim as our enemies, or by making the world a better, safer, more moral place?

Your Tax Day Thoughts

- I suppose I don't mind paying my taxes as much as, well, everyone else does. The way I figure it, if we want our government to not shut down and leave us in a state of anarchy, we all have to pay up. I'm frequently unhappy with the way in which my tax dollars are spent (not to mention the fact that the government likes to spend way more than it takes in), but the fact that they are spent? Not so much a problem. That having been said, I sympathize with the effort to simplify the hell out of the tax code (why should a 1040 be two pages? Why?), and Atlantic Monthly blogger Megan McArdle's plan isn't half bad for a libertarian-inspired tax plan. I don't agree with eliminating all the anti-poverty programs, of course, but I could get behind pretty much everything else.

- Here's a fun little article on the effect of illegal immigration on taxes - namely, illegals pay billions in payroll taxes that they'll never recoup in Social Security benefits. They only account for 1.5% of SS/Medicare taxes that come in, but when Social Security and Medicare are taking in and putting out roughly the same amount, losing that tax revenue may be the difference between solvency and insolvency. So Social Security and Medicare essentially depends for its survival on taxes taken from workers who can't receive benefits? That makes me feel good.

Incidentally, here's a reason why the federal government isn't as interested in fighting illegal immigration as the state governments. The states have to pay for all the services, and the feds get all the spare money! Since meaningful immigration reform isn't coming our way anytime soon, that's going to continue to be a source of tension.

Selah's Guide to Style

Yesterday was Little One's first trip to shul, and we figured she needed to wear something special. And, you know, colorful. So here she is...


Future rabbi or future rock star?



Of course, it's not hard to look cute in cool dresses when you look cute normally:

Bitter Herbs

The pantheon of unfairly lampooned quotes, which currently includes such classics as Donald Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns" speech and John Kerry's "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it," now has another entry, courtesy of Barack Obama. Here he is at a San Francisco rally explaining why it's tough for him to connect with working-class people:

'What's going on there? We hear that it's hard for some working class people to get behind your campaign.' I said, 'Well look, they're frustrated and for good reason. Because for the last 25 years they've seen jobs shipped overseas. They've seen their economies collapse. They have lost their jobs. They have lost their pensions. They have lost their health care.'... But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

The bullshit outrage machine, predictably, reached a fever pitch. "How dare he call working-class people bitter," they ask. Some have called it a gaffe.

Here's what I call it: STATING THE BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS. Poor people who can't find jobs because the economy sucks are bitter? No shit! If I had my job shipped overseas and couldn't find a new one and I couldn't feed my family, I'd be bitter too. I doubt all poor people are bitter, but there's gotta be a significant proportion who are. And being bitter isn't necessarily a bad thing - in fact, Obama validates the bitterness that the working class feels. Hell, the man worked among the poor for a significant portion of his life. I think he's somewhat familiar with the subject matter.

If I were working class, I'd be more inclined to vote for Obama now, since he at least is trying to understand me. Clinton and McCain, by expressing bullshit outrage at his statements, are simply trying to sweep the valid emotions of a good portion of the working class under the rug, pretending the bitterness doesn't exist. Look, there are good reasons to not vote for Obama, just as there are good reasons to not vote for Clinton or Big Mac. Just make an effort to separate the good ones from the crap ones, okay?

OK, I'll end this on a happy note...

Audacity of Dumb, Redux

In the comments section to my post on the Jeremiah Wright scandal, Andy points to something that I think says more about Barack Obama than anything having to do with Rev. Wright (link goes to Chicago Sun-Times, but it's an AP story):

White House hopeful Barack Obama suggests he would have left his Chicago church had his longtime pastor, whose fiery anti-American comments about U.S. foreign policy and race relations threatened Obama's campaign, not stepped down.

''Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church,'' Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, ''The View.'' The interview will be broadcast Friday.

Most of you by now know what I think of the Wright flap - i.e. that it's a bullshit moral panic and not worth the wasted ink. Obama initially used it as an opportunity to discuss racial issues on a different level, encouraging us to understand black frustrations (and encouraging black people to understand white frustrations too). That was ballsy.

This is not. This is a pander, pure and simple. As I mentioned in the comments, I simply don't buy the notion that someone would leave a church they otherwise enjoy over a political disagreement. Obviously Obama, or someone on his campaign, realized that a plea to understand Wright and comprehend that his relationship with the pastor went beyond a couple controversial statements went over the heads of most Americans. So he decided to tell people what they wanted to hear.

And when you think about it, isn't that basically what the Obama campaign exists upon? Telling people what they want to hear - stuff about hope and change and all that - and avoiding hard truths? Come to think about it, isn't that what all political campaigns in recent years have done? The last hard truth I think anyone heard out of a presidential candidate's mouth was Walter Mondale's promise to raise taxes in 1984... and we know how well that turned out.

I still prefer Obama to McCain by a long shot, and I still don't know whether I'll vote for him or Hillary Clinton in May. But so much for Obama being a new kind of politician.

Related question that America needs to ask itself: we whine all the time about how politicians should have the courage of their convictions. But if a politican actually had the courage of their convictions, would he/she have the vaguest chance in hell of winning a national race? I'll answer that now - absolutely not. So shouldn't we be honest with ourselves and say that we want a candidate who agrees with us rather than one who takes principled stands with which we don't agree? Couldn't we just quit asking candidates to appear principled while they're pandering to us?

McCain's Brainfart

All candidates, of course, make mistakes. They may issue unreasonable policy statements, get a fact wrong here and there in a debate, or reveal a gap in their knowledge on an important issue. You can't know everything as a candidate - that's not even what we pay you to do. Presidents have advisors for that.

Yet, I still find a reason to be a little bit apprehensive at McCain's blunder last week. For those of you who don't know, McCain, during a speech in Jordan, mistakenly asserted that Iran was training al-Qaeda operatives for battle in Iraq; he was corrected by Joe Lieberman (R I-CT), and then asserted that Iran was training extremists, which is certainly more true. It's an understandable error but not a minor one.

The more cynical among us would assert that McCain is trying to conflate Iran with anti-American terrorism and thus whip up support for military action against Iran should he become President. I don't buy it. Instead, I think McCain is making a more fundamental error. I think he believes that there are only two sides to any conflict - with us and against us, and that everyone who is against us is on the same side. As such, it's natural to confuse Iran and al-Qaeda - they both don't like us, so they must be on the same side, right?

This worries me because it's the same attitude that got Bush into so much trouble. The mistake of conflating two of our enemies - the secularist Hussein regime and the stridently Islamist al-Qaeda - is what got us into this mess. The fact that McCain made this mistake (and, according to the Post's Harold Meyerson, had made it before) makes me wonder whether he has the mindset necessary to deal with a multifaceted conflict where America is one of three or more disputing parties. And that describes most foreign conflicts nowadays. One thing we don't need is another president who can't see past the with us/against us dichotomy.

This little slip-up might not be that meaningful, and maybe McCain will demonstrate his capability to understand complex foreign interrelations at some point in the future. It does mean, however, that we can't simply assume McCain posesses it.

The Audacity Of Dumb

It is the opinion of this blog that you'd have to be kind of a schmuck to let your vote be affected by the words of a preacher who happens to count one of the candidates among his flock. The fact that Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright are separate entities with different points of view ought to be blindingly obvious to those with average intelligence.

So if the Washington Times is to be believed, 71% of Republicans, 54% of Republicans, and 52% of Democrats are schmucks.

If this isn't a Banditos Theorem proof, I don't know what is.

Update: Some reporter on CNN, as if discovering a new phenomenon: "So the pastor's political beliefs are different from his spiritual leadership?" No shit, really? That's some pretty good police work there, Lou.

A Quick Suggestion...

You know how Republicans often have trouble coming up with campaign songs by artists who are cool with having their song used by Republican candidates? John McCain needs a song by a Republican (or at least a Republican-leaner). So I think he should use the theme from "Team America: World Police."

Imagine it. You're a Republican, you're sitting at a campaign rally, waiting for McCain to show up, getting kinda bored and thinking about how screwed your party is in November, when suddenly McCain bursts onto the stage amid Trey Parker's screaming "America! FUCK YEAH!" How could you not get fired up by that? And wouldn't a significant portion of the 18-30 demographic vote for McCain just on the basis of that song? McCain should do this. Now.

Say Hello To My Little Friend

You may have noticed, dear readers, that I haven't blogged in a while. Here's the reason:



She was born February 28th. She was 9lb, 10oz at birth and 22" long - both above the 95th percentile. She's an 'A' baby. We're convinced she's a genius. Also, we pity the baby that has to go up against her in a pooping-for-distance contest.

One more for good measure: