Stop Making Sense

James Carroll struggles to make sense of our $700 billion military budget by imagining stacks of hundred dollar bills. Here’s another way of looking at it: for each of 300 million Americans, it costs $2,333 a year, or $6.39 a day to keep us safe in a dangerous world. In addition, Mr. Carroll neglects to point out that many countries around the world have small defense budgets because they rely on the American military, funded by American taxpayers, for their defense.

Get in their faces

This weekend I was subjected to a fifteen-minute harangue by an Obama supporter, who apparently was following Obama’s advice to “get in my face.” Either that or he’s been watching too much Keith Olbermann. It seems probable that Obama was inspired by Alinsky’s tactical rule #4, to ridicule and “infuriate the opposition, who then react to your advantage.”

My reaction, however, was to excuse myself from the conversation and remind myself to avoid this “friend” in the future. His effort made me far less inclined to change my vote to Obama.

I’m having trouble imagining a situation where this tactic would work. Discussing politics with friends—or strangers--is certainly not a place where ridicule will successfully lead to a re-evaluation of one’s political opinions.

Huntin' and snowmobilin'

Tom Brokaw makes a valid point in the title of his op-ed piece: “Lots of People Could Use a Cash Infusion.” The examples of small business owners he chooses, however, are condescending and not especially funny. Barney "Big Un" Baumgartner of Windblown, Wyo, owner of the Big Un 24 Hour Tow Service and Trophy Taxidermy? Darlene Dalrymple, owner of the Shear Joy Hairstyling and Tattoo Salon in Rockhard, Vt? Rural rubes who dream of winning “a fleet of new snowmobiles and lifetime hunting rights on Brett Favre's farm”? (Remind you of any particular vice presidential candidate?)

It takes great courage to open a small business. In a campaign where Obama and the mainstream media have been accused of elitist snobbery, Brokaw shows himself to be tone-deaf to the lives of ordinary Americans.

Scandalous

The Wikipedia entry for "UN Special Investigator" offers examples of the type of scandal that the UN might investigate:

In other cases it is a specific, politically relevant fact, scandal or event, such as Israel's construction of a security wall in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, how the US Bush administration spent Iraqi oil-for-food program money after the invasion.

It's no surprise that the anti-Semites at the UN would investigate Israel, but the second example--the UN investigating the Bush administration for fiscal improprieties in the Oil For Food program? Did I wander into the Onion website by mistake?

Letter to WSJ

Rahm Emanuel’s “Wal-Mart Thrives When Democrats Are in Charge” makes an argument similar to that of Larry M. Bartels in his recent book, “Unequal Democracy,” that the performance of the American economic in arbitrary four-year periods has a single explanation: the political party of the President “in charge.”

To begin with, this argument assumes--in true liberal fashion--that an economy responds immediately and in orderly fashion to the economic policy of the country’s leader, ignoring the many factors that go into economic performance—9/11 perhaps? The business cycle? War? Natural disasters? The growth of the Chinese and Indian economies leading to higher commodities prices?

Secondly it assumes that economic policies take effect on the day a President takes office and end the day he leaves—assuming therefore that Carter’s policies had no effect on the early Reagan years and that Reagan’s policies had nothing to do with the boom of the 1990s that Clinton presided over.

Thirdly, the President does not have unlimited power over economic policy. He appoints an independent Fed Chairman (and Clinton was wise enough to keep Reagan’s appointee, Alan Greenspan.) Congress writes the budget and it is common for Congress to be controlled by a different party than the President.

Finally, it might be helpful to analyze actual economic policy rather than simply the party affiliation of the President. Mr Emanual cites Clinton’s budget surplus to explain the robust economy in the 1990s, and Bush’s big spending ways to explain the slower economy. In his own article he therefore argues that fiscal conservatism is better for the economy. Perhaps I missed Barack Obama’s call for fiscal conservatism. From what I have heard, Obama seems more concerned with raising taxes and expanding government to assist the reputed victims of the Bush economy.

To say that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are both Democrats and therefore the economy will do better under Barack Obama is simplistic in extreme—with obvious political motivation.

Studies show conservatives are racists

A gem from the Wikipedia entry on "minority groups."

"Studies have consistently shown a correlation between negative attitudes or prejudice toward minorities and social conservatism (as well as the converse, positive attitutes and social progressivism).[2]"

The Obama Green Revolution

Earlier this month Obama revealed his energy program to Wesleyan graduates:

At a time when our ice caps are melting and our oceans are rising, we need you to help lead a green revolution. We still have time to avoid the catastrophic consequences of climate change if we get serious about investing in renewable sources of energy, and if we get a generation of volunteers to work on renewable energy projects, and teach folks about conservation, and help clean up polluted areas.

The four-point Obama green revolution:

1. “Getting serious about investing in renewable sources of energy”: renewable energy is a great thing, but Obama doesn’t specify where the money for all this investing will come from. My guess is that he means that government officials will take money from you and redistribute it to industries that they, with expertise gained from majoring in political science, deem worthy of support, with helpful advice from renewable energy experts, a.k.a., lobbyists for the renewable energy industry. These lobbyists are not to be confused with oil industry lobbyists, because they are only interested in serving the planet. Unlike the American Petroleum Institute, they have no interest in attracting government funding to their clients’ projects.

2. “A generation of volunteers [working] on renewable energy projects.’ Volunteers? Tom Friedman talks about a hundred thousand Manhattan Projects. Obama wants them staffed with volunteers? It must be part of the “path of service”he recommends to Wesleyan graduates. It’s what Michelle Obama calls “the helping industry,” as opposed to the “money-making industry.” So either get down to the local food pantry and stock some shelves, or drop by the community renewable energy pantry and pitch in on the nuclear fusion car project. Yes, we can!

3. “Teach folks about conservation” because “folks” are kind of dumb and they need some teaching. Once you 21-year-old Wesleyan kids explain to us folks how we are buying the wrong light bulbs and driving the wrong cars, viva la revolution!

4. “Help clean up polluted areas.” Everybody hates pollution, so this is a good closing point. Except for Republicans who like pollution because it means they make bigger profits by avoiding clean-up costs. But is Obama talking about getting a bunch of eighth graders to pick up trash in an abandoned lot in Southside Chicago? Shampooing seagulls after the Exxon Valdez oil spill? Okay, pollution cleanup ought to be part of any good green revolution, but how does this help us “avoid the catastrophic consequences of climate change”? Perhaps since carbon dioxide has been defined as pollution, Obama wants the Wesleyan green revolutionaries to stop driving, cooking, heating their houses and breathing?

By the way, a study released in January 2008 by NASA offers a glimpse at the “catastrophic consequences of climate change.” Under the headline, Antarctic Ice Loss Speeds Up”we learn that ice melt has increased by 75% in the last ten years! This “sharp jump” is "enough ice to raise global sea level by .01 inches a year in 1996, to .02 inches a year in 2006"! It may not sound like much, but in that means that in 2106, the sea will be TWO INCHES higher! Vote Obama before it’s too late!