Pulverized Concepts

A Very Bizarre Episode on Law Enforcement Planet

2012-02-01T09:36:00.000-08:00

Sadly, this is what happens when all-too human authority figures are trusted with the power of the state.

Optum Health-Kelly Benefit Strategies Team Presentation

2012-01-31T11:13:00.000-08:00

Charles Aaron, head of Circuit Global Sports Management, presents the 2012 men's and women's Optum Health-Kelly Benefits cycling teams.

Celebrated Minneapolis theater venue and architectural marvel, the Guthrie Theater, was the setting on the evening of January 30, 2012 for the presentation of the Optum Health-Kelly Benefits Strategies cycling teams. Beginning with a food, booze and schmooze including riders and fans from across the globe, the event moved onto the main theater stage itself for an introduction of the veteran riders and new additions to the squad and interviews with the most prominent members, including stars Jesse Anthony, Alex Candelario, Janel Holcomb, and Kristen Sanders. Everyone then adjourned to the open bar in the lobby for some extended chat with America's leading race riders. A great time was had by all.

Second-year team member 20 year-old Colton Barrett from North St. Paul represented the extensive local cycling scene.

Winnipeg, MB native Leah Kirchmann is looking forward to another hugely successful racing campaign with a new sponsor and a podium spot at the Olympic games in London in July.

Dr. Reid Mumford, particle physicist from Johns Hopkins University, now considers larger moving objects while he maneuvers through the pro peloton.

Janel Holcomb is the current National Racing Calendar champion.

Canadian Joelle Numainville is the 27th ranked elite female cyclist in the world.

Sarkozy and the VAT

2012-01-31T08:01:00.000-08:00

IMF head LaGarde, German chancellor Merkel and French president Sarkozy examine the sheet of clues for a European scavenger hunt.

French president Nicholas Sarkozy proposes raising that country's Value Added Tax rate to 21.2%. Ostensibly, the increased tax revenues will be used to offset reductions in government-mandated employer expenses related to payroll, ie. French social security programs. The French tax system confiscates between 40% & 45% of national GDP. Sarkozy says that increasing the national sales tax will allow French manufacturers and exporters to more effectively compete with their foreign rivals. He also intends to institute a "financial transactions tax" of .1%, meant to discourage short term speculation as well as raise state revenues. The French president's popularity is rapidly declining and he will soon face an election that will be considered a referendum on his stewardship of an ailing economy with an unemployment rate hovering near 10% and a Standard & Poor reduction in sovereign debt rating from AAA to AA+.

The word now in Europe is "austerity". The most proficient money manager in the Eurozone, Germany, intends to protect the integrity of the Euro and its own economy by reining in the profligate spending of its neighbors like Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy by establishing central control over member states' budgets. Lots of luck with that. France, too, is being pressured, like all social democratic states, by the insoluble situation of increasing demands for state services that must be paid for by bonds that seem less and less likely to be redeemed at face value, plus interest. The austerity lamented by some economists and other observers is a reduction in government spending on social services while taxes are increased to pay off an interlocking web of international bondholders. Politicians have borrowed massive sums to purchase votes in the vain hope that economic growth, hamstrung by growing government regulation and parasitic tax policies, will provide the tax base for repayment. Such is not to be. A wave of financial woes are moving across Europe, Great Britain will feel more discomfort soon. As always, there are really only two ways out of the situation, monetizing the debt (print more money) and enduring inflation that wipes out the savings of ordinary people and requires a new form of fiat currency or repudiation of the debt, which is often a cause of war and eliminates the possibility of future sovereign debt, at least in the short term.

The small (at least for now) financial transactions tax is the nose of the camel under the tent. Other countries will see how it works out for the French and if there isn't outright rebellion it will be adopted across the globe in a more insidious form. Its future configuration will be the registration of all contracts, accompanied by a graduated fee, with the government to guarantee their enforceability. A real property lease, for instance, will have to be registered with a government agency if either party to it wishes to enforce its terms. Independent adjudication, such as with arbitration panels, will be required to abide by the terms as well. There will be no escape.

World Record Holders

2012-01-29T07:07:00.000-08:00

On May 12, 2010 three American ladies set a new world record in the women's team pursuit on the Bicentennial Velodrome at Aguascalientes, Mexico, during the PanAmerican Track Championships. Sarah Hammer, Lauren Tamayo and Dotsie Bausch zipped the 3000 meters in 3:19.569, about 2 seconds faster than the previous mark. The 2012 Olympics in London will include the women's team pursuit for the first time and the USA cycling team is preparing for it now.

Go to BNQT.com for more videos.

Today's Cartoon

2012-01-25T21:31:00.000-08:00

A Short History of the US Gold Standard from "Liberty", Nov. 1995 Book Review

2012-01-23T19:56:00.000-08:00

From Here to Economy: A Shortcut to Economic Literacy (Dutton, 1995, 259 pp., $21.95), by Todd G. Buchholz.

Although I am not a professional economist, I am reasonably well read in the field. As I read this primer, I marveled at how concisely Buchholz explained complex economic concepts and economic history, and the liveliness of his prose. Further, he shows
considerable respect for Austrian economics - a respect not often in evidence among mainline economists or their popularizers - and an admiration for the Chicago School. Surely, I thought, this is a book of great merit, making matters economic understandable to those unwilling to devote the study to the field that I have. I was already planning to buy copies as gifts for the economically underendowed when Iencountered the following two paragraphs:
The U.S. moved to a de facto gold standard in the 1830s and adopted it formally in 1900. Tourists who visited Washington could walk up to the Treasury Department building on Fifteenth Street and swap their bills for gold. Every bill was inscribed with the following promise: The United States of America Will Pay to the Bearer on Demand One Dollar in Gold." (In the 1930s the U.S. dropped this pledge and replaced the inscription with a promise to Pay to the Bearer on Demand One Dollar in Lawful
Money." A puckish man from Cleveland who decided to test the government then mailed a ten-dollar bill to Washington asking to swap it for lawful money." The wits at the Treasury Department mailed him back two fives!)

As it happens, this passage discusses the one aspect of economic history where my knowledge is systematic and arguably expert. And I immediately recognized several errors:
(1) The United States more or less adopted the gold standard de facto in 1873 and de jure in 1900, more or less abandoned it in 1934, and completely abandoned it in 1971. Prior to 1873, the U.S. was on a bimetallic standard; that is, the U.S. dollar was defined as a fixed quantity of either gold or silver; in
effect, there were two dollars in circulation, one .7734 troy ounces of silver, the other .04837 troy ounces of gold. Needless to say, this bi-metallic standard was an utter failure, as in the marketplace the values of both gold and silver fluctuated. Prior to the Coinage Act of 1834, the laws of the United States decreed that one ounce of gold was worth 15 ounces of silver, the market ratio that prevailed (more or less) at the time of the creation of the U.S. monetary system in the 1790s. Unfortunately, by the early 1800s, this arbitrary valuation was out of whack with the prices of gold and silver in the market. It overvalued silver; that is to say, $100 in silver coin had less value as metal than did $100 in gold coin. At the time, Congress had no authority to repeal Gresham's Law, so the result was predictable: gold coins were driven from circulation. The Coinage Act of 1834 changed the gold-silver ratio to 16-to-l, which was by then, more or less, the market ratio. As before, this new ratio worked for a while, but soon the market ratio changed, this time in favor of gold. (That is to say, the ratio soon overvalued gold.) Silver coins were driven from circulation. Between 1849 and 1873, the coinage system was an utter mess, thanks to this problem and to the paper-money inflation of the Civil War years. In 1873, Congress repealed authorization for striking a silver dollar, in effect, reducing the status of silver coins from standard to subsidiary coinage and demonetizing silver. Finally, the U.S. was on a de facto gold standard.
(2) There was no government issued paper money at all until the Demand Notes of 1862 and the Legal
Tender Notes of 1863. These notes were not legally redeemable in gold or in silver and, in fact, were routinely refused by the federal government when tendered in payment of tariffs. Needless to
say, they never included any language guaranteeing that they could be redeemed upon demand in gold.
(3) Between 1862 and 1933, the U.S. government issued, at one time or another, thirteen different types of paper money: Demand Notes, Legal Tender Notes (also known as United States Notes), Compound Interest Treasury Notes, Interest Bearing Notes, Refunding Certificates, Silver Certificates, Treasury Notes (also known as Coin Notes), National Bank Notes, Federal Reserve Bank Notes, Federal
Reserve Notes, National Gold Bank Notes, Gold Certificates, and Fractional Currency. These pieces of paper money had a wide variety of redemption clauses, some of which were changed from time to time. The only ones the federal government promised to redeem in gold were Gold Certificates and Federal
Reserve Notes (Series 1928 only). None of these were issued in denominations of $1.00. The Treasury Notes (Series lS90 and 1891) promised redemption in "coin," which in fact meant the bearers choice
of gold or silver coin, but this is nowhere stated on the note. The National Gold Bank Notes (co-issued
by the federal government and certain federally-chartered National Gold Banks during the 1870s) promised redemption in gold, but by the National Gold Bank, not the federal government.

So I don't know how much I ought to recommend From Here to Economy. Its discussion of the one area where I might be considered an expert is fraught with errors. The frustrations of a book-reviewer!
-R.W. Bradford

Candid Camera

2012-01-19T14:02:00.000-08:00

A January 18 article posted on the Minneapolis Star-Tribune website:

A Florida man has been charged with surreptitiously videotaping men in an airport restroom by using a camera rigged into a book.

Joshua Fletcher, 34, of Valrico, Fla., appeared in court Wednesday to answer to two gross misdemeanor counts of interference with privacy. He was charged after a Monday incident at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in which someone complained to police that Fletcher was holding what appeared to be a book with a hole in it, with a camera or cellphone behind the book.

Charges say airport police approached Fletcher outside the restroom and recovered his cellphone, which contained multiple videos of men urinating in public restrooms. A search of a trash bin nearby revealed an address book with a hole in it and a digital camera.

The incident occurred in the same restroom where former U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, was arrested in June 2007 for allegedly soliciting sex from an undercover police officer.

Fletcher's attorney, Marsh Halberg, called the arrest "an unfortunate situation."

"We will await what is discovered on the camera," Halberg said. "Obviously there's the question of privacy and limitations regarding private versus public sexual activity."

ABBY SIMONS
____________________________________________

Don't get the idea that I'm an advocate of this kind of behavior but questions about it are part and parcel of the simmering debate about things like police arresting individuals for recording their activity or confiscating their phones and cameras, the use of surveillance cameras on private and public property and the difference between a human observing something personally and looking at a recording of the same event. There seems to be a general agreement, or at least acceptance, that businesses have the right to record the images of people entering their premises, apparently to both discourage crime and aid in the apprehension of perpetrators. The same seems to be the case with public spaces like business districts and college campuses.

The case could be made that there's a difference between an observer taking notice of the size of a man's penis at an airport rest room urinal and the same observer taking a digital photo of the member. But is there really? How do we even know that there aren't hidden surveillance cameras in public restrooms? Singer Chuck Berry was arrested for taping the occupants of a lady's rest room in a business he owned. What comparison would be made between a photo of a person and a sketch or very well done portrait? Would a quick pencil caricature of someone be an invasion of their privacy? Primitives around the world are often reluctant to have their photo taken because they feel the process steals part of their soul. Are we wrong to dismiss their concerns and if we're not, why do we care if someone is recording us? Recently there have been news stories of people convicted of child pornography for downloading computer images of imaginary children, children that couldn't have been harmed, because they don't exist. Disgusting as such behavior is, there's a philosophical issue there that really hasn't been explored to the point of resolution.

An Example of Professionalism

2012-01-19T05:56:00.000-08:00

When your ID expires, you're not a person anymore.

2012-01-19T05:14:00.000-08:00

Experience has taught that no one can receive money or favors without proof of identity. This is a good thing. Nobody should be allowed to cash my paycheck or pick up my Lady Gaga ducats at will call or fly to Pittsburgh with my Delta ticket unless they can prove they're me. So when I push an endorsed check through the teller's window at the bank, I also submit a state-issued document with a photograph that seems to prove that I am, indeed, the person whose name is on the check. The teller will examine this item of identification not only to ascertain that my face closely resembles that of the photo, but that the document itself has not EXPIRED. There's a problem with this "expiration" concept. With the arrival of an arbitrary date printed on a driver license, the license holder is no longer legally authorized to drive an automobile on the streets and highways. There's perhaps more than one reason for this but a major reason is that the issuing authority is collecting a tax. This tax is paid just as much for the privilege of presenting legal proof of identity as it is for legally conducting a Buick down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. But when the expiration date arrives, does my identity expire as well? Does the invalidity of my state identification card invalidate my identity vis a vis actors that are not state agents? Maybe the bank could ask to see my birth certificate, which evidently does not expire. As a private business, they have the right to establish requirements that may or may not guarantee their services but why should they care about the date on an identification card? Or is there some sort of legality that turns one's ID to junk with the passage of a day as far as the bank is concerned? And what about passports? Why should a passport ever expire or require renewal? Is there the possibility that a person's identity might change over the ten year lifespan of a passport? And if it did, for instance when a woman takes her husband's surname after marriage, couldn't something be done for that particular eventuality? Or, since the money involved is relatively small, is this just another case of the state shepherds attempting to assume as much control as possible over the subject flock?

Update: The Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby reflects on the same subject.

Emma Johansson is Tougher than a Football Player

2012-01-16T17:04:00.000-08:00

The number two ranked lady road cyclist in the world, Swedish champion Emma Johansson, has narrowly escaped death from an illegal automobile maneuver while training in the Canary Islands as reported here. She estimates that her two broken collarbones and badly injured arm will heal up in time for the London 2012 Olympic road race where she was a favorite for a medal. Good luck, Emma.

What About Me?

2012-01-16T16:36:00.000-08:00

In the waning hours of the day set aside to honor the memory of the life and accomplishments of the Reverend Martin Luther King some of us are tempted to think about others with similar stories that have yet to receive similar honors, Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull, for instance. While Sitting Bull's people were never held in bondage by Americans, they, like all other native Americans, were swindled out of or physically evicted from their lands and subjected to a national policy of extermination. Sitting Bull himself was assassinated by members of his own tribe that had become agents of a government that hated and feared him. American liberal/progressives, always on the look-out for an oppressed minority to use as political cannon fodder, have made it a point to ignore the injustice and cruelty visited upon the native Americans that continues to this very day. When will we close the post office for Sitting Bull?

A Psychological Test: When You Hear The Word "Hayek" Do You Envision

2012-01-16T07:51:00.000-08:00

Freidrich?:

Or Salma?

ALE'

2012-01-15T17:46:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the greatest rock and roll songstress anywhere, anytime, the fantastic and certifiably crazy Alejandra Guzman belts out "Hey, Guera".

3M Sues the State of Minnesota and the Metropolitan Council

2012-01-11T16:37:00.000-08:00

According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

The 3M Co. has a new tactic to defend itself against a lawsuit filed by the state of Minnesota and the Metropolitan Council: If we polluted, so did you.

In a counterclaim filed Monday, the company said that if it is found liable for polluting the Mississippi River, the Met Council also should pay.

That's because, 3M says, the planning agency for the seven-county Twin Cities area dumps chemicals into the river from its seven waste treatment plants.

The court document is a new twist in the legal battle over PFOS, or perfluorooctane sulfonate, found in the river.

The state sued 3M in December 2010, saying its chemicals had damaged the environment. The Met Council joined the suit 11 months later.

But 3M now argues that the chemicals are coming from treated sewage and other sources.There has been no dollar amount specified in the state's lawsuit, but removing PFOS from the Mississippi could cost billions. In November, the Met Council said the cost of stripping the chemical from water discharged from a single plant could be $1 billion and would require a 40 percent rate hike.

In an email Tuesday, a spokesperson said the Met Council would not comment on the 3M counterclaim.

"In the unlikely event that we were held liable to the state for damages or reparations for the Mississippi cleanup, the Met Council should be assessed for a proportional share," said Bill Brewer, a partner at 3M's law firm, Bickel & Brewer, which has offices in Dallas and New York City.
The 3M document was filed in the Fourth District Court in Minneapolis. In it, the company said it has spent $100 million - double previous estimates - to clean up ground and river water in the past 10 years.

Those efforts stand "in sharp contrast to the Met Council's inaction," the document says.

Starting in 1949, 3M manufactured chemicals called perfluorochemicals, or PFCs, including PFOS. They were used in Teflon, fire extinguishers, Scotchgard stain repellent and other household products.

The company legally disposed of waste products containing PFCs in landfills until the 1970s. In 2004, minute amounts of PFCs were found in groundwater around those landfills, affecting the drinking water of 67,000 people from Oakdale to Hastings.

PFCs in megadoses cause cancer, thyroid problems and birth defects in mice, but they have never been shown to be harmful to people at any level.

3M says amounts found in the Mississippi River measure in parts per trillion and are far too small to harm people or wildlife. The water has been regularly tested in Pool 2, between the Ford Dam in St. Paul and Hastings.

The state says 3M should pay for damage to the environment.

"3M polluted and damaged our waters with these chemicals," Attorney General Lori Swanson said when the original lawsuit was filed.

"The lawsuit asks the company to make right the problems caused by its contamination of our waters."

Minnesota spent $13 million - and 3M contributed $8 million - to install a liner beneath a landfill in Lake Elmo to prevent PFCs from leaching into groundwater.

The state lawsuit also points to fish consumption advisories in several lakes and the Mississippi as a sign of environmental damage.

The Met Council said in a November 2010 news release that PFCs, regardless of the immediate source, were from a "known party" - 3M. So if 3M made the chemicals, it is liable, the Met Council is arguing.

But 3M attorney Brewer said the company stopped making PFOS in 2002. So, 10 years later, why is the chemical still found in the Mississippi River?

The answer, Brewer said, must be that it is coming from sources other than 3M. He said he suspects other users of PFCs, such as factories or even households, might be the source of PFOS.

The PFOS in the river could be from other U.S. and foreign companies that still make it, he said. It's possible that the Mississippi was polluted when a local fire was extinguished with foam containing PFOS, he said.

"You spray it all over the place, then it rains, and gets into the groundwater," Brewer said.

3M also said the Met Council gives farmers sewage sludge that contains PFOS, which can seep into rivers and underground water.

Wastewater from such sources must be finding its way into the Met Council's treatment plants, Brewer said. Four of those plants are on the Mississippi, and three are on tributaries, the document says.

Bickel said 3M's efforts to reduce environmental PFCs have been working.

In 2011, a study showed that the PFC levels in Washington County residents dropped by about 23 percent in two years.

In addition, PFC levels in fish dropped by as much as half from 2009 to 2011, depending on the species of fish. The study measured PFC levels in fish in Pool 2, from Hastings to St. Paul's Ford Dam.

It's quite obvious

2012-01-09T09:11:00.000-08:00

that ice hockey is much more violent than football. Hockey officials wear helmets, football officials wear ball caps.

Gyptian

2012-01-09T09:03:00.000-08:00

Rastafarian Jamaican reggae star Gyptian populates his videos with nubile Caribbean nymphets that make one want to jump in a magic flying machine and join the party.

Today's Police

2012-01-07T10:41:00.000-08:00

Just some 21st century American suburban cops on their way to make a collar, that's all.

They're running out of kid dope

2012-01-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

The monsters that have decided that children that do not conform to school requirements and require medication have found that presently there isn't enough of the active ingredient available to modify the mental state of all the children suffering from ADHD. So the government is releasing a new supply of the dope to drug manufacturers. No information on where the feds get this stuff. Do they make it themselves or contract it out? Anyway, they've got it all figured out.

Comments on Hegel

2012-01-02T10:19:00.000-08:00

Will Durant, in his The Story of Philosophy, 1933, Simon and Schuster, NY, NY,p.221 quotes Scottish philospher Edward Caird's "Hegel", Blackwood Philosophical Classics;pp.5-8: ""But the height of audacity in serving up pure nonsense, in stringing together senseless and extravagant mazes of words, such as had previously been known only in madhouses, was finally reached in Hegel, and became the instrument of the most bare-faced general mystification that has ever taken place, with a result which will appear fabulous to posterity, and will remain as a monument to German stupidity."

In his Fooled by Randomness Random House, NY, 2004 p.74, Nassim Nicholas Taleb says:
"The Father of All Psuedothinkers

It is hard to resist discussion of artificial history without comment on the father of all pseudothinkers, Hegel. Hegel writes jargon that is meaningless outside of a chic Left Bank Parisian cafe or the humanities department of some university extremely well insulated from the real world. I suggest this passage from the German 'philosopher' (this passage detected, translated, and reviled by Karl Popper):

Sound is the change in the specific condition of segregation of the material parts, and in the negation of this condition; merely an abstract or an ideal ideality, as it were, of that specification. But this change, accordingly, is itself immediately the negation of the material specific subsistence; which is, therefore, real ideality of specific gravity and cohesion, i.e.--heat. The heating up of the sounding bodies, just as of beaten and or rubbed ones, is the appearance of heat, originating conceptually together with sound.

. . . . Now consider that Hegelian thinking is generally linked to a 'scientific' approach to history; it has produced such results as Marxist regimes and even a branch called 'neo-Hegelian' thinking. These 'thinkers' should be given an undergraduate-level class on statistical sampling theory prior to their release into the open world."

More Strange Economics From The New York Times

2012-01-02T05:28:00.000-08:00

CHRISTINA D. ROMER An economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, she was chairwoman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.

THE United States faces two daunting economic problems: an unsustainable long-run budget deficit and persistent high unemployment. Both demand aggressive action in the form of fiscal policy.

Waiting until after the November elections, as seems likely, would be irresponsible. It is also unnecessary, since there are plans to address both problems that should command bipartisan support.

On the deficit, the big worry isn’t the current shortfall, which is projected to decline sharply as the economy recovers. Rather, it’s the long-run outlook. Over the next 20 to 30 years, rising health care costs and the retirement of the baby boomers are projected to cause deficits that make the current one look puny. At the rate we’re going, the United States would almost surely default on its debt one day. And like the costs of maintaining a home, the costs of dealing with our budget problems will only grow if we wait.

We already have a blueprint for a bipartisan solution. The Bowles-Simpson Commission hashed out a sensible plan of spending cuts, entitlement program reforms and revenue increases that would shave $4 trillion off the deficit over the next decade. It shares the pain of needed deficit reduction, while protecting the most vulnerable and maintaining investments in our future productivity. Congress should take up the commission’s recommendation the first day it returns in January.

But we can’t focus on the deficit alone. Persistent unemployment is destroying the lives and wasting the talents of more than 13 million Americans. Worse, the longer that people remain out of work, the more likely they are to suffer a permanent loss of skills and withdraw from the labor force.

Despite heated rhetoric to the contrary, the evidence that fiscal stimulus raises employment and lowers joblessness is stronger than ever. And pairing additional strong stimulus with a plan to reduce the deficit would likely pack a particularly powerful punch for confidence and spending.

The payroll tax cut for workers and employers and the extended unemployment insurance that President Obama proposed last September would help put people back to work.

But even better would be measures that increase employment today, while also leaving us with something of lasting value. Because many people worry about increasing the role of the federal government, why not give substantial federal funds to state and local governments for public investment? Tell them that the money has to be used for either physical infrastructure like roads, bridges and airports, or for human infrastructure like education, job training and scientific research. Then let the states, cities and towns figure out what would work best for their citizens.

Ronald Reagan once said that “there are simple answers — there just are not easy ones.” What needs to happen on fiscal policy is relatively straightforward. The hard part is getting politicians to do it.
-------------------------------------------------

This is the same balderdash that's been peddled for the last four years and logically it still doesn't hold up. The budget deficit is composed of two factors, government revenues (not enough) and government spending (way too much). There are two sides in the budget struggle, one that wishes to increase taxes, mostly on the "rich" to balance the budget and a second that wants to dramatically cut government spending. Romer pays lip service to balanced budget architects but implementing the Bowles-Simpson recommendations involves the cooperation of the Congress, the members of which are unlikely to submit to spending reductions in their own districts without a battle. This piece-meal approach isn't going to result in the changes needed for true fiscal reform, namely the abolishment of whole departments like Agriculture, Commerce and Education and the major down-sizing of others such as the EPA and Interior. Amazingly, she doesn't mention, in this particular contribution, raising taxes.

The second part of the Romer recipe is lowering the number of jobless. Naturally, this requires increased government spending on stimulus and unemployment benefits, although she presents zero evidence that these actions have resulted in increased employment in even the near past. We've seen that much of the stimulus funding has gone not to infrastructure but instead has been used by lower levels of government to retain cops and school teachers. Regurgitating the canard that unemployment benefits increase employment is the kind of thing we expect to hear from that intellectual heavy-weight Nancy Pelosi, not a tenured professor at one of the country's most prestigious universities. Logically, as Austrian economists would attest, paying people not to work discourages their search for employment. If you pay for unemployed workers, you get unemployed workers, just as if you pay women to be unwed mothers, you get lots of single moms, not fewer.

Additionally, Romer is implying the other unemployment myth, that benefits are quickly spent and multiplied throughout the economy, the essence of Keynesian magic. That's illogical as well. There's no doubt that some portion of the weekly benefit goes to a couple brews at the saloon down the street and some frozen pizzas from the supermarket but surely much of that largesse is spent on the two most important expenses an American has, his mortgage or rent and his car payment. Both of these are existing contractual obligations, not stimulative at all and having no net positive effect on employment. Other necessary expenses, like heat, power and cell phone service aren't discretionary expenses, either.

The socialist/humanitarian theory that wealth should be extracted from the collective to subsidize the less fortunate is considered valid by many. Fine, but maintaining that this course of action actually produces wealth and increases long term employment is silly.

The New Pledge of Allegiance

2011-12-19T09:36:00.000-08:00

Those with even a rudimentary grasp of national issues know that the free speech guaranteed by the first amendment to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights isn't limited to personal verbalization. The concept has morphed into "freedom of expression", which might include art works. Nude dancing, flag burning and campaign contributions as well as pornography have been considered as examples of free expression.
Non-verbal expression can and does include activity that is somewhat less apparent at first glance. The pledge of allegiance, at one time a staple primary school morning ritual, has fallen into disuse. An adult American rarely recites these words, even in a public setting, probably never to himself. Yet, there is a pledge of allegiance that millions of Americans voicelessly utter each day. They buckle their seatbelts. By doing so, drivers not only buy in to the theory that government knows best, they demonstrate that they're a legitimate part of the program, that they're giving the state's coercion a thumbs-up. Certainly many drivers give this endorsement reluctantly, but that doesn't matter to the state. They have agents that can make your life miserable if you care to exercise what you mistakenly believe to be your freedom. If you simply forget to click, they're on the look-out for that, too. Carelessness is to be punished just like defiance.

The state may not be able to read your mind (yet) or mandate your clothing but they can require you to display an easily seen and enforceable expression of subservience. Always buckle your seat belt.

Twin City Light Rail Update

2011-12-16T08:52:00.000-08:00

At 6:45 AM the other day I pedaled my bike the two miles down University Ave. in St. Paul from Lexington Ave. to Rice St. This would definitely be "rush hour" time, peak fares on the bus and I-94 a few blocks away packed with traffic. Yet on this route, which will see the construction of a new billion dollar light rail project, there were a total of THREE people waiting for a bus. Edinburgh, Scotland has a similar project under development.

UPDATE of the UPDATE: Thursday, January 12, 2011, 1:30 PM, Bus 16A, from St. Paul city limits eastbound to downtown St. Paul, 7.1 miles, 49 passengers got on the bus.

Work

2011-12-11T08:01:00.000-08:00

"...the Occident's attitude toward work, so far from being natural and normal, is strange and unprecedented. It was the relatively recent emergence of this attitude which, as much as anything else, gave modern Western civilization its unique character and marked it off from all its predecessors.
In practically all civilizations we know of, and in the Occident too for many centuries, work was viewed as a curse, a mark of bondage, or, at best, a necessary evil. That free men should be willing to work day after day, even after their vital needs are satisfied, and that work should be seen as a mark of uprightness and manly worth, is not only unparalleled in history but remains more or less incomprehensible to many people outside the Occident."

This passage is from Eric Hoffer's tour de force, "The Ordeal of Change". Although the work is filled with nuggets of insight, this particular observation is important because it applies so directly to the aims of the welfare state. The concept of "working" and having a "job" is not a universal one, even in the Occident. There are many westerners that are quite satisfied to live at lower level of consumption if they can do so with a minimum of effort. Who is to say that they are wrong? And, at the same time, who is to say that the rest of society should subsidize their values? "Progressives" maintain that the "poor", whoever they might be, are victims in some Darwinian contest for economic supremacy, losers, through no fault of their own, in the game of life. The reality is that they're not playing the game and that the game's rules shouldn't apply to them.

Cinema/Literary Notes

2011-12-08T09:10:00.000-08:00

The 2000 Israeli cops and robbers flick "The Investigation Must Go On" is the enraging story of a psychopathic Tel Aviv police lieutenant whose efforts to wring a confession out of a happy-go-lucky night club singer for a crime he didn't commit destroys the lives of a number of innocent people. A very popular film at festivals around the world and in Israel itself, it contains some odd vignettes. At one point, Micha, the deranged cop, is attempting to get in the apartment of the arrested Shalom Shalom to interrogate his wife. He tries to bribe her with the gift of a copy of New York novelist Paul Auster's book, "The Music of Chance", which had been made into a film in 1993. Amazingly, she says, perhaps truthfully, that she's already read the book and refuses to admit him. One can only wonder why this reference made it into the show.

W.G. Sebald died in a car crash in England at age 57 in 2001. In that same year his last novel, "Austerlitz" was published. Born in Bavaria, he spent most of his adult life in Britain as a lecturer at the now infamous University of East Anglia and as a writer. "Austerlitz" is a recounting of the title character's experiences through the words of the narrator. The first paragraph is 117 pages long. This book, like others by Sebald, is a curious amalgam of perhaps factual history, architecture, nature study, art and eccentric personal observations, with Europe and the British Isles as the focus. Black and white photos scattered through the text illustrate the author's assertions. An unusual and captivating read. Other novels he wrote were, "Vertigo", "The Emigrants" and "The Rings of Saturn".

Calculated Risk: How Large is the Outstanding Value of Sovereign Bo...

2011-12-06T05:47:00.000-08:00

Calculated Risk: How Large is the Outstanding Value of Sovereign Bo...: CR Note: Reader "some investor guy" has put together some data on sovereign default risk. This is the first in a series of posts. Debt iss...

LA DIABLA

2011-12-01T18:08:00.000-08:00

A look at Lauren Tamayo, superstar rider in the American lady's cycling peloton.

The Heat is On - Ep 3 "Racing with The Devil" from Jim Fryer/BrakeThrough Media on Vimeo.

10 little known – or often ignored – facts about gas prices and ExxonMobil’s earnings

2011-11-28T12:00:00.000-08:00

10 little known – or often ignored – facts about gas prices and ExxonMobil’s earnings

A Clip From the 1981 film "Rollover"

2011-11-11T05:56:00.001-08:00

A Santa Tax Next?

2011-11-08T21:24:00.000-08:00

This from "The Foundry":

President Obama’s Agriculture Department today announced that it will impose a new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees—the Christmas Tree Tax—to support a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.
In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The purpose of the Board is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expend existing markets for Christmas trees; and to carry out programs, plans, and projects designed to provide maximum benefits to the Christmas tree industry” (7 CFR 1214.46(n)). And the program of “information” is to include efforts to “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States” (7 CFR 1214.10).
To pay for the new Federal Christmas tree image improvement and marketing program, the Department of Agriculture imposed a 15-cent fee on all sales of fresh Christmas trees by sellers of more than 500 trees per year (7 CFR 1214.52). And, of course, the Christmas tree sellers are free to pass along the 15-cent Federal fee to consumers who buy their Christmas trees.
Acting Administrator Shipman had the temerity to say the 15-cent mandatory Christmas tree fee “is not a tax nor does it yield revenue for the Federal government” (76 CFR 69102). The Federal government mandates that the Christmas tree sellers pay the 15-cents per tree, whether they want to or not. The Federal government directs that the revenue generated by the 15-cent fee goes to the Board appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture to carry out the Christmas tree program established by the Secretary of Agriculture. Mr. President, that’s a new 15-cent tax to pay for a Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.
Nobody is saying President Obama doesn’t have authority to impose his new Christmas Tree Tax — his Administration cites the Commodity Promotion, Research and Information Act of 1996. Just because the Obama Administration has the legal power to impose its Christmas Tree Tax doesn’t mean it should do so.
The economy is barely growing and nine percent of the American people have no jobs. Is a new tax on Christmas trees the best President Obama can do?
And, by the way, the American Christmas tree has a great image that doesn’t need any help from the government.

"The Commodity Promotion, Research and Information Act of 1996." Well, well, well. Seems to me that if one person or a group of people have a commodity that needs research, promotion or information, maybe they should just hire somebody to do it for them. And pay for it themselves. Certainly a fifteen cent tax on a Christmas tree isn't going to put the hurt on the holiday season for anyone but why should a small segment of the US agricultural complex be subsidized by the taxpayers?

Further information:

Artificial War On Christmas Campaign Launches Fake Obama "Christmas Tree Tax"
November 09, 2011 12:38 am ET - by Jeremy Holden

Right-wing media figures are accusing the Obama administration of seeking to impose a tax on Christmas trees; but the Christmas tree industry has been working since 2008 -- before President Obama was elected -- to partner with the Department of Agriculture and establish a marketing campaign funded by tree growers in order to promote the sale of fresh Christmas trees.

On November 8, the Federal Register published a rule establishing a program within the U.S. Department of Agriculture "to strengthen the position of fresh cut Christmas trees in the marketplace and maintain and expand markets for Christmas trees within the United States":

USDA received a proposal for a national research and promotion program for Christmas trees from the Christmas Tree Checkoff Task Force (Task Force). The program will be financed by an assessment on Christmas trees domestic producers and importers and would be administered by a board of industry members selected by the Secretary of Agriculture (Secretary). The initial assessment rate will be $0.15 per Christmas tree domestically produced or imported into the United States and could be increased up to $0.20 per Christmas tree. The purpose of the program will be to strengthen the position of fresh cut Christmas trees in the marketplace and maintain and expand markets for Christmas trees within the United States.

The Task Force proposed that a referendum be held among domestic producers and importers three years after the first assessments begin to determine whether they favor continuation of the program.
Led by the Drudge Report and Fox Nation, right-wing media figures immediately leaped on the rule, calling it President Obama's "Christmas tree tax":

Gateway Pundit blogger Jim Hoft said the "Christmas Tree Tax" illustrated that "Barack Obama hates Christians."

Far from a tax initiated by the Obama administration, the proposal to create an assessment on tree growers to fund a research and promotion program through the USDA was begun by the industry during the Bush administration.

In February 2008, faced with declining sales, members of the National Christmas Tree Association created a task force to consider the merits of a checkoff program, which would allow the USDA to collect a fee from growers in order to fund research into marketing Christmas trees. NCTA officials explained:

While the fake tree industry is investing dollars to vigorously promote their product, the Real Tree industry is pulling back and devoting fewer funds to public relations and marketing. More than 1,000 people donated more than $900,000 for 2004 promotion and marketing programs. By 2007, donations to the market expansion activities had dropped to about $400,000. The erosion of funding resulted in fewer projects aimed at positively impacting consumer attitudes about Real Trees limiting the ability of the industry to affect the sales of Real Trees in the marketplace.

Given this continued erosion of the market share of farm-grown Christmas Trees, an industry task force is being formed to study the possibility of a federal marketing order that could establish a nationwide checkoff designed to support expanded promotion, marketing and research projects.

The NCTA Board of Directors supports the industry task force study of a federal marketing order.

Even if the industry decides to pursue a nationwide checkoff, it takes at least a year for USDA to follow its "rule making procedures." Thus, it is highly unlikely that a checkoff could start before 2010. In the interim, NCTA will engage in an aggressive promotion and protection program as funds allow.

The NCTA board urges members and non-members to be involved in the discussion and will schedule a town hall discussion at the 2008 national convention at which time the task force will give a report.
In April 2008, NCTA officials announced the formation of a task force to continue studying the merits of a checkoff program. As explained in the Fall 2008 edition of Christmas Trees, a leading Christmas tree magazine, fee levels are established by industry -- not government -- and commodity growers frequently partner with the USDA for marketing and research checkoffs:

Examples of other agricultural commodity Checkoffs include the egg, beef, pork, mushroom, milk, and honey, etc. industries. We're all familiar with the Dairy industry's ad campaigns; "Milk Does a Body Good" and "Got Milk." "Pork: the Other White Meat," "Beef: It's What's for Dinner" and "The Incredible Edible Egg" are recognizable slogans developed and funded by Checkoff programs. These four 'big guns' collect between $45 and $91.2 million in assessments annually.

Funding for promotions and research comes from within each industry. Fees could be assessed for example, in the Christmas tree industry, on a percentage of the selling price, per cut tree or per seedling basis. The amount of the assessment, who would participate, how the fees would be collected and how utilized, would be determined by the industry taskforce with the input of growers and attendees at the National Convention. Fresh imports (mainly from Canada) would be assessed at a comparable rate. As in other agricultural industries there would be exemptions for smaller growers. If the assessment is made on a cut tree basis, 4,000 trees has been discussed as a minimum. A percentage of the amount collected could go to state associations in proportion to the amount paid from within that state. The state association could utilize the funds for promotion and research abiding by the same rules as the national Checkoff organization. Hugh anticipates that Christmas tree assessments would be comparable to the amount raised by the blueberry industry, which is $2 million.

At least no one was shot to death

2011-11-03T16:10:00.000-07:00

Dismal Tale of Arrest for Tiniest of Crimes
By JIM DWYER New York Times
The arresting officer came by the cell, Samantha Zucker said, to make snide remarks about finding her with a friend in Riverside Park after its 1 a.m. closing.

For instance:

“He was telling me that I needed to get a new boyfriend, that I should get a guy who takes me out to dinner,” Ms. Zucker said. “He mocked me for being from Westchester.”

Early in the morning on Oct. 22, a Saturday, Ms. Zucker, 21, and her friend Alex Fischer, also 21, were stopped by the police in Riverside Park and given tickets for trespassing. Mr. Fischer was permitted to leave after he produced his driver’s license. But Ms. Zucker, on a visit to New York City with a group of Carnegie Mellon University seniors looking for jobs in design industries, had left her wallet in a hotel two blocks away.

She was handcuffed. For the next 36 hours, she was moved from a cell in the 26th Precinct station house on West 126th Street to central booking in Lower Manhattan and then — because one of the officers was ending his shift before Ms. Zucker could be photographed for her court appearance, and you didn’t think he was going to take the subway uptown while his partner stayed with her at booking, did you? — she was brought back to Harlem.

There she waited in a cell until a pair of fresh police officers were rustled up to bring her back downtown for booking, where she spent a second night in custody.

The judge proceeded to dismiss the ticket in less than a minute.

News about the Police Department lately could run under the headline of the daily Dismal Development, starting with a judge declaring Tuesday that an officer was guilty of planting drugs on entirely innocent people and continuing back a few days to gun-smuggling, pepper-spraying and ticket-fixing.

Here, in the pointless arrest of Ms. Zucker, is a crime that is not even on the books: the staggering waste of spirit, the squandering of public resources, the follies disguised as crime-fighting. About 40,000 people a year — the vast majority of them young black and Latino men — are fed like widgets onto a conveyor belt of arrest, booking and court, after being told to empty their pockets and thus commit the misdemeanor of “open display” of marijuana.

Such arrests are a drain on the human economy.

Ms. Zucker said that throughout her stay in police station cells, other officers were shocked that she had not been given a chance to have a friend fetch her ID. “The female officers were gossiping that the officer who arrested me had an incredibly short fuse,” she said.

We are instructed by the mayor that the garish crimes of police gun-running and fake arrests are the work of rogues, not the daily toil of honest police officers. A fair point — but no more than Ms. Zucker’s observations of spiritual corruption.

“While it may have been one out-of-control officer that began the process,” she said, “no other officer had the courage to stand up against what they knew was a poor decision.”

After two days of storming design firms around the city with about 80 classmates, Ms. Zucker stopped at the hotel near West 103rd Street where the group was staying so she could drop off the bag she had been schlepping. Then she got Mr. Fischer — a classmate, not a boyfriend, the leering remark of the police officer to the contrary — to walk with her a few blocks to the park, at about 3 a.m. They wanted to see the Hudson River, which runs past her hometown of Ardsley, N.Y.

“We’re there five minutes when a police car came up and told us we had to leave because the park was closed,” Mr. Fischer said. “We said, ‘O.K., we didn’t know,’ and turned around to leave. Almost immediately, a second police car pulls up.”

Its driver said they would get tickets for trespassing and demanded their IDs. Ms. Zucker suggested that someone could bring her papers from the hotel. “He said it was too late for that, I should have thought of it earlier,” she said.

The law does not require people to carry identification, but those who do not have it with them when they are stopped for an offense are held for a court appearance instead of receiving a summons for a later date.

Asked about the policy, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said officers can allow a friend or relative to retrieve ID. He did not say if a supervisor approved the arrest of Ms. Zucker, which was attributed in court papers to a Police Officer Durrell of the 26th Precinct.

Twice, she said, the officer told her not to call him by a specific foul term.

“I said, ‘Sir, I never used that word.’ ”

No doubt he was hearing things: the unspoken truth about his unspeakable actions.

At the same time, we have this:

Democrats For Election Fraud

Posted 07:02 PM ET
Suffrage: We're used to Democrats' trotting out the Republicans-are-racists trope whenever they want to score a political point. But even we can't believe they're doing it to block reasonable protections against election fraud.

This week, Maryland's Rep. Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, claimed that "we are witnessing a concerted effort to place new obstacles in front of minorities, low-income families and young people who seek to exercise their right to vote."

Earlier in the month, NAACP president Benjamin Jealous declared that "this is the greatest assault on voting rights, happening right now, that we have seen since the dawn of Jim Crow."

It all sounds so menacing. Except that these liberals are excoriating Republicans for supporting what the vast majority of Americans agree is a perfectly reasonable requirement for voters — that they show a photo ID before casting a ballot.

This year, three states enacted photo ID laws, and three others toughened their existing laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In all, 31 states now require voters to show some sort of ID, with 15 requiring a photo ID.

The requirement is hugely popular with the public — a Rasmussen survey this June found that 75% of likely voters back photo ID laws, including 63% of Democrats — which is hardly surprising given that citizens routinely have to produce a picture ID to board a plane, buy alcohol and any number of other mundane tasks.

Plus, the states offer free photo IDs to those who can't afford them and let people cast provisional ballots if they don't bring their IDs on Election Day.
Well, to liberals intent on politicizing everything under the sun these days, voter ID laws are merely a Republican ploy to suppress turnout among those most likely to vote Democratic — namely blacks, Hispanics and the poor. They point to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice that claims the requirement could disenfranchise 5 million eligible voters.

But a Heritage Foundation analysis of that study found it to be seriously biased and fundamentally flawed. It notes that there's no concrete evidence whatsoever that ID laws discriminate or suppress turnout.

In fact, turnout in Indiana and Georgia — the first two states to enact strict photo ID laws — climbed sharply after that requirement went into effect.

What's more, legal challenges have failed because, as Heritage's election expert and former FEC commissioner Hans von Spakovsky noted, "The plaintiffs were unable to produce a single individual, much less 'millions' of voters, who would be unable to vote because of the requirement to show a photo ID."
Does this strike anyone as unreasonable?
Well, to liberals intent on politicizing everything under the sun these days, voter ID laws are merely a Republican ploy to suppress turnout among those most likely to vote Democratic — namely blacks, Hispanics and the poor. They point to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice that claims the requirement could disenfranchise 5 million eligible voters.

But a Heritage Foundation analysis of that study found it to be seriously biased and fundamentally flawed. It notes that there's no concrete evidence whatsoever that ID laws discriminate or suppress turnout.

In fact, turnout in Indiana and Georgia — the first two states to enact strict photo ID laws — climbed sharply after that requirement went into effect.

What's more, legal challenges have failed because, as Heritage's election expert and former FEC commissioner Hans von Spakovsky noted, "The plaintiffs were unable to produce a single individual, much less 'millions' of voters, who would be unable to vote because of the requirement to show a photo ID."
And when the Supreme Court upheld Indiana's voter ID law by a vote of 6-3 in 2008, liberal Justice John Paul Stevens concluded that asking for an ID "does not qualify as a substantial burden on the right to vote."

Liberals also make the curious claim that voter ID laws aren't needed because there isn't any evidence of "widespread" election fraud.

What are these people arguing? That a little voter fraud is perfectly OK? That we don't need to take steps to secure the sanctity of the voting booth until the election process completely breaks down?

Whatever happened to the Democrats' insistence that we had to count every vote and that every vote counted? Surely they understand that even one case of fraud is unacceptable, since it denies another citizen his right to be heard.

In any case, the liberal argument that election fraud is a myth merely ignores the many reports of fraud over the years. Can you spell Acorn?

Keeping elections honest is a fundamental responsibility of our government officials. It's too bad Democrats would rather play crass racial politics than uphold this principle.

So, it's against the law to be in a park after dark without an ID but you can vote without one?

Old Buildings

2011-10-03T06:29:00.000-07:00

Parts of downtown St. Paul, Minnesota, especially the area known as "Lowertown", are, like many American cities, made up of buildings raised in the latter years of the nineteenth-century and first half of the twentieth. St. Paul is also well-known as a reliable center of "progressive" politics. New cars sport "Wellstone!" bumper stickers, though the popular socialist senator died in a plane crash eleven years ago. The political atmosphere is permeated by not only draconian anti-smoking regulations and "living wage" ordinances but also an enthusiastic historical preservation movement. Exteriors of old buildings are to be preserved in their original appearance and new structures must fit in with their surroundings dating from a previous era.

One can't help but wonder what the situation would have been if similar ideas had existed when these buildings were erected. At that time they were state-of-the-art, the most modern and technologically advanced structures in the country. Could the residents of nearby neighborhoods have insisted that new buildings be compatible in appearance with existing log cabins and tar paper-covered shacks? Who decides when history begins? And how can forcing the owners of property to conform to these historical imperatives be justified? Is it really "progressive" to require that buildings appear to have been built a hundred years ago?

2011-09-22T19:48:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I took a detour on my way home from work to visit St. Paul Saddlery on James and West 7th in St. Paul, MN. In business since 1908, the company is one of the few still manufacturing horse harness for carriage and draft teams. It's operated by a descendant of the founder, a guy named Gary, who toils alone in a room full of antiquated machinery that cuts, stitches, punches and bangs on leather. I thought it might be interesting to converse with Gary for a little while and get some perspective on a business that's a remnant from another era. He was pretty pessimistic about the harness business and business in general. When I inquired about leather tanning, the process that produces his raw material, he said that US hides were shipped overseas for tanning, that little of that was done here and like everything else, our manufacturing capability was sadly relocating to foreign locations.

I mentioned that in my earlier years I had worked in a packing house. That working in the hide cellar, step number one in turning the exterior of a cow into leather, was regarded as the worst possible job in the plant and employment there considered punishment by those unfortunate enough to be sent there. That I had never had any ambition to work in a tannery. That I knew no one who had ever expressed such an ambition. That no child had ever told me that their goal in life was to become a tanner. That I would be very much surprised if a domestic tannery could attract permanent employees. And that the nation's fixation with college education didn't include courses in leather production. For some reason this put a damper on the conversation and I soon left.

Alaska Wood Bison Update!

2011-08-14T10:42:00.000-07:00

Admit that the future of the 103 wood bison lounging in a pen at Girdwood, Alaska, waiting for bureaucrats to determine their fate, has kept you on pins and needles since our previous post. Well, the latest news on this situation from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner isn't going to put your mind at ease:

Release of bison into Alaska wilderness put on hold again

by Tim Mowry / tmowry@newsminer.com

08.14.11 - 12:32 am

FAIRBANKS — The re-introduction of wood bison in Alaska has been delayed for at least another year, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is paying for it.

The federal agency recently forked over $200,000 to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to maintain a captive herd of more than 100 wood bison for another year at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in Girdwood south of Anchorage.

The hope is it will give federal and state agencies enough time to negotiate a special rule that will make the animals exempt from the Endangered Species Act when they are finally set loose in Alaska. The state has been holding the bison at the AWCC for more than three years as part of a plan to restore the shaggy beasts to the Alaska landscape. The Department of Fish and Game imported 53 bison from Elk Island National Park in Alberta, Canada, in June 2007 to complement a herd of 33 wood bison that were already being held at the AWCC.

The herd size has since grown to 103 with the addition of calves the past four years.

The Fish and Wildlife Service gave the state $200,000 to maintain the herd for another year “because we support the reintroduction and believe that it is clearly in line with our missions and mandates,” agency spokesman Bruce Woods wrote in an email. The money will cover food and veterinary costs for the herd for the next year.

Release stalled

The department’s original plan was to release at least 40 of the animals in one of three locations — the Yukon Flats, Minto Flats or the Innoko River Flats — in spring 2010. The most recent plan, after concerns were raised about releasing the animals in the Yukon Flats (national wildlife refuge) and Minto Flats (oil and gas development), was to release a small herd into the Innoko River Flats in western Alaska in spring 2011.

But that release has been stalled while the state waits for the Fish and Wildlife Service to approve a special rule, called a 10j rule, that would not prohibit resource development, i.e. oil and gas drilling, in areas where the bison may be released. The snag at this point is over a provision in the 10j rule that will allow future hunting of wood bison after they are released, assuming the population increases to allow for that.

“The main obstacle we are dealing with is a lack of inclusion of general hunting in the special rule,” Doug Vincent-Lang, a special assistant to ADF&G commissioner Cora Campbell and the state’s endangered species coordinator, wrote in an email.

Wood bison existed in Alaska in the 1800s before becoming extinct because of a combination of hunting and changing habitat.

There are no wood bison in the United States but they are still listed as endangered because they are listed as threatened under Canada’s Species at Risk Act, that country’s equivalent of the Endangered Species Act in the U.S. Wood bison were downlisted from endangered to threatened in Canada in 1988 but they were not downlisted in the U.S.

The fact there are no wood bison in the U.S. and they are still listed as endangered is “simply amazing,” Vincent-Lang said.

Hunting is integral

The Fish and Wildlife Service gave the state the option in March of publishing a proposed rule in the federal register by the end of April without a provision allowing future hunting or waiting for several months until the issue could be discussed further and, hopefully, resolved.

Releasing the animals without a clause that would allow hunting down the road was not an option, Vincent-Lang said.

“Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison when we put them on the landscape,” he said.

The Fish and Wildlife Service recognizes that, spokesman Bruce Woods at the Anchorage regional office said, but has yet to figure out a way to incorporate such language into the 10j rule without compromising legal requirements. The provisions of the ESA that allow designation of nonessential experimental populations are legally complex, he said.

“The service has always known that hunting would be among the ultimate goals of this re-introduction, but 10j rules are designed to aid the recovery of species listed under the Endangered Species Act and the agency is focusing on this goal,” Woods wrote in an email. “While the Fish and Wildlife Service remains committed to and supportive of the reintroduction and ultimately the hunting of wood bison in Alaska, the agency wants to provide assurances to the state that the rule establishing the population of wood bison is within the legal framework.”

Hunting is an integral part of wood bison restoration and management in Canada, where the population of wood bison has increased to approximately 4,400 animals in seven disease-free, free-ranging herds.

“Even though they’re listed in Canada as a threatened species, Canada recognizes the need for hunting,” Vincent-Lang said. “We are working closely with the USFWS to resolve this issue and remain confident that we can reach a solution.”

Bison Timeline

1991

After numerous meetings with Native villagers in the Yukon Flats to document the existence of wood bison in Alaska in the 1800s, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game begins working on a wood bison re-introduction plan.

1997

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announces it cannot support the wood bison restoration effort because of concerns that doing so would not be compatible with the purposes of the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge. The project is put on hold.

2000

ADF&G re-evaluates the re-introduction effort and determines it is an outstanding wildlife conservation opportunity for Alaska that should be fully examined in an open, public decision-making process. Still unsure if the feds will go along with a release in the Yukon Flats, ADF&G begins looking at other possible release sites.

June 2005

ADF&G forms the Wood Bison Restoration Advisory Group, a consortium of environmentalists, Native subsistence hunters and trophy hunters, and holds a two-day public meeting to determine if there is public support for the project. The group endorses the plan and comes up with three possible release sites — the Yukon Flats, Minto Flats and Innoko River Flats.

2005-06

Local advisory committees in the Minto and lower Innoko-Yukon River areas endorse the wood bison restoration plan after meeting with ADF&G. The Eastern Interior and Western Interior federal subsistence advisory councils also endorse the plan.

August 2006

ADF&G initiates an evaluation of the wood bison restoration plan according to the state’s wildlife transplant policy and determines “that wood bison are an extirpated indigenous species and are native to Alaska.”

January 2007

A wildlife transplant policy review committee concludes that wood bison restoration will not likely effect a significant reduction in the range, distribution, habitat, or preexisting human use of other species in Alaska.

June 2008

ADF&G imports 53 wood bison — 27 females and 26 males — from Elk Island National Park in Alberta, Canada. The state used a $100,000 grant from the Turner Foundation to transport the animals by truck to Alaska, where they were released into pens at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center to serve a two-year quarantine.

January 2009

After meeting with officials from Doyon, Ltd., who expressed concern that releasing wood bison on the Minto Flats could jeopardize the Native corporation’s plan to drill for oil and gas in the Nenana Basin, former state Sen. Gene Therriault, R-North Pole, introduces a resolution calling for a halt to the wood bison introduction until Alaska gets the federal reassurance it wants.

April 2009

Former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin asks the departments of fish and game and natural resources to look for places other than the Minto Flats to release the wood bison because their release there could endanger oil and gas or mineral exploration, production or development under the Endangered Species Act.

February 2010

A notice of the state’s intent to develop a “10j rule” that would establish wood bison as a “nonessential experimental population” is published in the federal register.

March 2010

In a presentation to the Board of Game in Fairbanks, ADF&G officials say the Innoko River Flats is now the preferred release site because of concerns over the Yukon Flats and Minto Flats. Game Board chairman Cliff Judkins directs ADF&G to come up with a harvest plan for both subsistence and sport hunting before any bison are released.

July 2010

The state delivers its version of the proposed 10j rule to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for review.

November 2010

ADF&G announces the wood bison have been given a clean bill of health by state veterinarians after being tested multiple times for tuberculosis and brucellosis. The only thing preventing their release is the adoption of a 10j rule to make them exempt from the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tells the state it hopes to have the final rule in place by the end of July 2011.

April 2011

Rep. Alan Dick, R-Stony River, introduces a bill — HB 186 — that would require legislative approval before the bison could be moved into the Interior. Dick says environmental groups would sue the state to make money and ensure the land where the bison are is off limits to human use. The Alaska House Resources Committee refers the bill to the Alaska House Rules Committee, where it is still sits.

Contact staff writer Tim Mowry at 459-7587.

LEFTISM

2011-08-14T07:20:00.000-07:00

Erich von Kuehnelt-Leddihn's "Leftism, From DeSade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse" was published in 1974. Here are some of the first few pages:

"Let us state at the outset of our investigation that, viewed from a certain angle, we all are subject to two basic drives: one toward identity, the other toward diversity. Neither in ourselves as persons, nor in the nations through the course of history are these drives always the same in their intensity and in their balance. How do they manifest themselves? We can all experience a mood during which we feel the desire to be in the company of people of our own age, our own class, our own sex, conviction, religion or taste. It is quite possible that this drive toward conformity, this herd instinct, is something we share with the animal world. This strong identitarian feeling can rest squarely on a real herd instinct, a strong feeling ofcommonness and community directed in a hostile sense toward another group. In race riots and demonstrations of ethnic groups this collective sentiment can manifest itself with great strength. This sort of conformist herd instinct was the driving motor of the nationalistic gymnastic organizations of the Germans and the Slavs, so potent in the first half of this century and engaging in enormous, carefully synchronized gymnastic performances. When five or ten thousand identically dressed men or women are carrying out identical movements, the onlooker gets an overpowering impression of homogeneity, synchronization, symmetry, uniformity.

Identity and identitarian drives tend towards an effacement of self, towards a nostrism ("usness") in which the ego becomes submerged. Of course, nostrism (a term created by the Austrian Nazi Walter Pembaur) can be and usually is a clever multiplication of egoisms. Whoever praises and extols a collective unit in which he participates (a nation,a race, a class, a party) only praises himself. And therefore all identitarian drives not only take a stand for sameness and oppose otherness, but also are self-seeking. There is an identitarian (and nonsexual) aspect to homosexuality ("homoeroticism") coupled with the refusal to establish the sometimes difficult intellectual, spiritual, psychological bridge to the other sex. And in this respect homosexuality is a form of narcissism, of immaturity and implies the limitations of the "simpleton."

Luckily man in his maturity and in the fullness of his qualifications has not only identitarian but also diversitarian drives, not only a herd instinct but also a romantic sentiment. More often than not we have the yearning to meet people of the other sex, another age group, another mentality, another class, even of another faith and another political conviction. All varieties of the novarum rerum cupiditas (curiosity for the new)-our eagerness to travel and to eat other food, hear another music, see a different landscape, to get in touch with another culture and civilization are derived from this diversitarian tendency in us. A dog neither wants to travel, nor does he particularly mind getting the same food day in and day out, if it is healthy fare. Man, however, wants change.
The ant state, the termite state, might remain the same all through the centuries, but man's desire for change results in "history" as we know it. There is something in us that cannot stand repetition, and this hunger for the new can be quite fatal if it is not blended with an element ofpermanence -and prudence.

All higher theist religions rest squarely on this longing, this love for otherness. Though I would not subscribe to Karl Barth's formula of Gott als der ganz andere (God as the totally different One), no theist will deny God's otherness. We are created in His image, though we are not a facsimile of God. This is one of the reasons why the Incarnation moves man so profoundly, why over its exact nature the first Ecumenical Council raged with such bitterness and led to tragic heresies and schisms.

Viewing these two tendencies, these two drives, both with psychological foundations, but only the romantic sentiment with an intellectual character, we inevitably come to the conclusion that modern times are more favorable to the herd instinct than to the enthusiasm for diversity. This is perhaps not immediately evident, because in a few ways the opposite seems to be the case: The craving for travel can now more
easily be satisfied, and in the domain of art a greater variety of tastes
and schools exists today than in the past. In other, more important realms, however, identity has been pushed in every way, partly by passions (mostly of an animal order), partly by modern technology and procedures forming part and parcel of modern civilization. In another book we have dealt with the dishonesty in the use of the fashionable term "pluralism." As a matter of fact all modern trends point to the
specter of a terrifying, bigger and more pitiless conformity. In this connection we must never forget that identity is a cousin of equality. Everything which is identical is automatically equal. Two fifty-cent coins of the same issue are not only identical but also equal. Two quarters are equal to a fifty-cent coin, but they are not identical with it. Identity is equality: It is equality-at-first-sight, an equality which takes no lengthy reasoning or painstaking investigation to discover.
Therefore all political or social forms which are inspired by the ideal of equality will almost inevitably point into the direction of identitarianism and foster the herd instinct (with subsequent suspicion, if not hatred, for those who dare to be different or have a claim to superiority).

There exists a dull, animalistic leaning toward identitarian gregariousness, but we encounter also a programmatic, passionate, fanatical drive in that direction. Nietzsche knew of it, so did Jacob Burckhardt. It has fear as its driving motor in the form of an inferiority complex engendering hatred and envy as its blood brother. Fear implies a feeling of being inferior to another person (or to a situation): Hatred is possible only if one feels helpless in the face of a person considered to be stronger or more powerful. A feeble and cowardly slave can fear and hate his master; his master in return will not hate, but will have mere contempt for the slave. Haters all through history have committed horrible acts of cruelty (which is the inferior's revenge), whereas contempt-always coupled with a feeling of superiority-has rarely produced cruelty. In order to avoid that fear, that feeling of inferiority, the
demand for equality and identity arises. Nobody is better, nobody superior, all can relax, all can be at ease, nobody feels challenged, everybody is "safe." And if identity, if sameness has been achieved, then the other person's actions and reactions can be forecast. No (disagreeable) surprise can be expected, everybody can read thoughts and feelings in everybody else's face. And thus a warm herd feeling of
brotherhood will emerge. These sentiments, these emotions, this rejection of quality (which can never be the same with everybody!) explain much of the spirit of the mass movements of the last 200 years.

The other factor is envy. Envy has complex psychological roots .. several, not just one. There exists, first of all, the curious feeling that whatever the other person possesses has in some (roundabout) waybeen taken away from me. "I am poor because he is rich." This inner, often unspoken argument rests on the assumption that all goods and good things in this world are finite. In the case of money or, even more so, of landed property, such argument might have some substance. (Hence the enormous envy of peasants as to each other's real estate.) Yet this argument is often unconsciously extended to values which are not finite. Isabel is beautiful; Eloise is ugly. Yet Isabel's beauty is not the result of Eloise's plainness, nor Bob's brightness of Tim's stupidity. Again envy might subconsciously use a statistical argument. ("Not all
of us brothers can be bright, not all of us sisters pretty. Fate handed it to her, to him, and discriminated against me!")

The second aspect of envy lies in the superiority of another person in an important respect. The mere suspicion that the other person feels superior on account of looks, of brain-power, of brawn, of cash, etc., can create a burning feeling of envy. The only way to find a compensation lies in a successful search for inferior qualities in the person who figures as the object of envy. "He is rich, but he is evil," "He is
successful, but he has a miserable family life," "He is well born and well connected, but, oh, so stupid." Sometimes these shortcomings of an envied person serve as a consolation: sometimes they also serve as a "moral" excuse for an attack, especially if the object of real or imagined envy has moral shortcomings. In the last 200 years the exploitation of envy, its mobilization among the masses, coupled with the denigration of individuals, but more frequently of classes, races, nations or religious communities has been the very key to political success. The history of the Western World since the end of the eighteenth century cannot be written without this
fact constantly in mind. All leftist "isms" harp on this theme, i. e. , on the privilege of groups, minority groups, to be sure, who are objects of envy and at the same time subjects of intellectual-moral inferiorities. They have no right to their exalted positions. They ought to conform to the rest, become identical with "the people," renounce their privileges, conform. If they speak another language, they ought to drop it and talk the lingo of the majority. If they are wealthy their riches should be taxed away or confiscated. If they adhere to an unpopular ideology, they ought to forget it. Everything special, everything esoteric and not easily understood by the many becomes suspect and evil (as for instance the increasingly "undemocratic" modern art and poetry). Of course there is one type of unpopular minority that cannot
conform and therefore is always in danger of being exiled, suppressed or slaughtered: the racial minority.

As always hypocrisy is the compliment which vice pays to virtue,and in inciting envy, this ugly feeling will never be openly invoked. The nonconforming person or group sinning against the sacred principle of sameness will always be treated as a traitor, and if he is not a traitor the envious majority will push him in that direction. (As late as 1934 there were German Jews who tried to form a Nazi group of their own:
naively enough they considered anti-Semitism a "passing phase." Yet can one imagine a German Jew in 1943 not praying in his heart for an Allied victory? He was pushed in that direction.) Thus to be different will be treated as or made into treason. And even if the formula Nonconformist-Traitor will not always be promulgated with such clarity, it lurks at the back of modern man's mind only too often, whether he openly embraces totalitarianism or not. One wonders how many people who sincerely reject all totalitarian creeds today would subscribe to the famous dictum of St. Stephen, King of Hungary, who wrote in his will to his heir presumptive, St. Emmeric: "A Kingdom of only one language and one custom is a fragile and stupid thing. "

Unity and uniformity have been blended in our minds. The modern magic of sameness has been enhanced not only by a technology producing identical objects (e.g., one type of car owned "commonly" by half-a-million people), but also by the subconscious
realization that sameness is related to cheapness and that sameness makes for greater intelligibility, especially to simpler minds. Identical laws, identical measurements, an identical language, an identical currency, an identical education, an intellectual level, an identical political power ("one-man-one-vote"), identical pay rates, identical or nearrency, an identical education, an identical intellectual level, an identical political power ("one-man-one-vote"), identical pay rates, identical or
near-identical clothes (the blue denim of Communist China!)-all this seems highly desirable. It simplifies matters. It is cheaper. It saves thinking. To certain minds it even seems "more just."

These identical tendencies run into two obstacles; nature and man (who is part nature). Still, nature is more easily pressed into identical patterns by human endeavor, as witness certain types of gardening. Hills can be "leveled." Geometry can be impressed upon the landscape. To make man more identitarian is a more difficult task, yet not such a hopeless one to the dolt who "optimistically" declares, "All men are equal" and then "All people are more alike than unlike." Here one has to remember Procrustes, the legendary Greek robber and sadist who flung his victim onto a bed: Those who were too short were stretched and hammered until they filled it, those who were too long were "cut to size." Procrustes is the forerunner of modern tyranny.
Here, however, the identitarian comes up against the mystery of personality. Human beings are different: They are of different ages, different sexes, they vary according to their physical strength, their intellect, their education, their ambitions. They have different character and different kinds of memory, different dispositions. They react differently to the same treatment. All this enervates and antagonizes the identitarian. The shoemaker takes it for granted; it is a headache for the shoe manufacturer. It is natural to the governess and no mystery to parents, but it can become an insoluble problem to the teacher of a large class. Along with this goes the proclivity among large groups to give up at least part of the personality. Mass-man in a mass has the tendency to think, act, and react in synchro-mesh with the crowd, a
phenomenon that might have a scientific explanation. And precisely because human identity is difficult to achieve, a poor substitute often has to be brought in. This equally unworkable substitute is equality."

The remainder of this work can be found here: http://mises.org/books/leftism_kuehnelt_leddihn.pdf

Handicapped Parking

2011-08-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

It seems that even the smallest parking lots have handicapped parking spots reserved. No doubt it's a legal requirement. But what happens to a handicapped driver when all the handicapped slots are filled, as they often are? Do they then go to another location where they can more easily park? Do they wait, engine idling, for a cripple to leave so they can inherit the spot? Or do they just go home, hoping to try again later?

More Federal Mandates

2011-08-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

The AP reports on the latest mis-guided HHS policy implementation:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Health insurance plans must cover birth control as preventive care for women, with no copays, the Obama administration said Monday in a decision with far-reaching implications for health care as well as social mores.

The requirement is part of a broad expansion of coverage for women's preventive care under President Barack Obama's health care law. Also to be covered without copays are breast pumps for nursing mothers, an annual "well-woman" physical, screening for the virus that causes cervical cancer and for diabetes during pregnancy, counseling on domestic violence, and other services.

"These historic guidelines are based on science and existing (medical) literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

The new requirements will take effect Jan. 1, 2013, in most cases. Over time, they are expected to apply to most employer-based insurance plans, as well as coverage purchased individually. Plans that are considered "grandfathered" under the law will not be affected, at least initially. Consumers should check with their health insurance plan administrator.

Sebelius acted after a near-unanimous recommendation last month from a panel of experts convened by the prestigious Institute of Medicine, which advises the government. Panel chairwoman Linda Rosenstock, dean of public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that prevention of unintended pregnancies is essential for the psychological, emotional and physical health of women.

Birth control use is virtually universal in the United States, according to a government study issued last summer. Generic versions of the pill are available for as little as $9 a month. Still, about half of all pregnancies are unplanned. Many are among women using some form of contraception, and forgetting to take the pill is a major reason.

Contraception is about more than simply preventing pregnancy - it can help make a woman's next pregnancy healthier by spacing births far enough apart, generally 18 months to two years. Research links closely spaced births to a risk of such problems as prematurity, low birth weight, even autism. Research has shown that even modest copays for medical care can discourage use.

In a nod to social and religious conservatives, the rules issued Monday by Sebelius include a provision that would allow religious institutions to opt out of offering birth control coverage. However, many conservatives are supporting legislation by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., that would codify a range of exceptions to the new health care law on religious and conscience grounds.

Although the new women's preventive services will be free of any additional charge to patients, somebody will have to pay. The cost will be spread among other people with health insurance, resulting in slightly higher premiums. That may be offset to some degree with savings from diseases prevented, or pregnancies that are planned to minimize any potential ill effects to the mother and baby.

The administration did allow insurers some leeway in determining what they will cover. For example, health plans will be able to charge copays for branded drugs in cases where a generic version is just as effective and safe for the patient.

The Ideas of a Socialist

2011-07-30T06:18:00.000-07:00

Arthur Koestler, author of the celebrated novel Darkness at Noon, was many things; writer/journalist, investigator of the paranormal, political prisoner, womanizer and suicide. But, more than anything, he was a committed socialist, although a vociferous critic of the Soviet Union. In 1944 he wrote the following in his essay The End of an Illusion:

"The paramount lesson which we have to draw from the failure of the Russian experiment is that economic factors are important, but not all-important. The regimental tailor is not a socialist institution, and a nationalised economy may become an instrument of tyranny and reaction. By concentrating all its attention on the economic issue, the Left became deaf to the strange and changing moods of the People. Their religious nostalgia turned into free valences of the soul, apt to fuse into the wrong compounds of chauvinism, mysticism, addiction to new myths.
The weaning of the Left, the breaking up of the false emotional compounds, is one half of the task. The other half is the creation of a new fraternity in a new spiritual climate, whose leaders are tied by a vow of poverty to share the life of the masses, and debarred by the laws of the fraternity from attaining unchecked power. If this seems utopian, then socialism is a utopia.
The age of enlightenment has destroyed faith in personal survival; the scars of this operation have never healed. There is a vacancy in every living soul, a deep thirst in all of us. If the socialist idea cannot fill this vacancy and quench our thirst, then it has failed in our time. In this case the whole development of the socialist idea since the French Revolution has been merely the end of a chapter in history, and not the beginning of a new one."

The Latest From Judy Shelton

2011-07-30T05:51:00.000-07:00

Judy Shelton, monetary authority and critic of fiat money and government deficit financing, has apparently been inspired to address the debt ceiling fiasco:

She's certainly one of the more interesting economists you'll ever run across. Here's a great interview with her from November of 2009.

The Big Three

2011-07-29T19:57:00.000-07:00

Linsey Hamilton leads usual adversaries Emma Bast and Terra James toward the finish line of a scratch race at the National Sports Center Velodrome in Blaine, MN on July 28, 2011.

Changes Down on the Farm?

2011-07-29T09:04:00.000-07:00

This report tells us that the DOT is considering a requirement that operators of farm equipment have a Commercial Driver's License and follow the rules that apply to other CDL operators. The story tells something of the background of the operation of farm machinery in the US, that family members, often as young as twelve, have been using powerful equipment to plow, cultivate, harvest and process crops. Of course, farming also had a juvenile component before mechanization. Kids drove horses and oxen centuries before the introduction of the tractor.

No doubt the ostensible reason for considering this policy is safety, both for the operators of the equipment and the public at large. Isn't that always the case? That's why there's a picture of a baby drowning glued to the side of a 5-gallon paint bucket. That's why you'll be arrested for driving without a fastened seat belt. And there's no doubt that farming can be a dangerous pursuit. Every year we hear about farmers entangled in equipment with a resulting loss of limb or life. So tractor drivers should be registered just like pistol owners. Thank goodness for the state and its concern for our safety and well-being.

It gets more weird every day

2011-07-28T08:46:00.000-07:00

A Pennsylvania mommy is going to trial because she got on a school bus to see if her child was OK. Apparently it's against the law, at least in Pennsylvania, for an adult to get on a school bus. And although this particular incident seemed to have been resolved to everyone's satisfaction months ago, county attorney Charles F. Chenot III isn't going to let the matter disappear. As he says, if they do, sex offenders with kids on the bus will jump on and molest other students.

Naturally, the first thing that a normal person would think is that there needs to be a little of that increasingly uncommon, especially in educational circles, common sense used here. Maybe every parent shouldn't succumb to panic when they perceive a situation where their child could be in danger. And maybe the authorities could have the judgement to disregard an isolated incident where no actual harm has been done. But that misses the real point.

Through some tortuous logic, the state is legally responsible for the education of residents of a certain age. In exchange for this obligation the state and schools themselves make regulations regarding the conduct of the students and parents. Why? Why is the government involved in something like bussing children to school in the first place? Even if you can justify the behemoth US public education system, how is it possible to extend the justification for instruction to transport? At one point, there couldn't have been any bussing to schools because there were no buses. How did we arrive at the conjecture that hauling kids to school at government and ultimately the taxpayers' expense was part of the education package? Must have been before they turned the schools into subsidized restaurants.

I remember asking the bartender at a saloon in the hamlet of Interior, South Dakota where the school was. He replied that there was no school, the kids went to Wall, 32 miles up the road. I said that was a long bus ride every day. He said, "Yeah, it would be, but they drive theirselves."

Stephen Pearl Andrews

2011-07-26T06:30:00.000-07:00

Individual anarchist Stephen Pearl Andrews said this in a continuing discussion with Horace Greeley and Henry James in 1853:

"The most stupendous mistake that this world of ours has ever made is that of erecting an abstraction, the State, the Church, Public Morality, according to some accepted standard, ...into a real personality, and making it paramount to the will and happiness of the individual."

"Give up...the search after the remedy for the evils of government in more government. The road lies just the other way-toward individuality and freedom from all government... It is the inherent viciousness of the very institution of government itself, never to be got rid of until our natural individuality of action and responsibility is restored. Nature made individuals, not nations; and while nations exist at all, the liberties of the individual must perish."

Quoted from Men Against the State, James J. Martin, The Adrian Allen Associates, 1953.

Queen of Wheels

2011-07-25T07:41:00.000-07:00

Minnesota Elite Women's Criterium Champion Teresa Moriarty

Perhaps the most successful female Minnesota athlete that doesn't play with a ball or don skates is cyclist Teresa Moriarty, who through the years has won every local road race of note and continues to be a sterling representative of her sport. In this year's edition of the state criterium championship, held before a deserted state capitol building in St. Paul, she attacked from the start and soloed in front of the pack for the entire race, sprinting up the hill to the finish line with a 36 second advantage. Yesterday she once again showed who's the boss in local women's cycling with a victory in the inaugural "South Side Sprint" in Minneapolis. Moriarty has occupied this spot for some years now but no one seems to be able to push her off the throne.

Teresa escorts a participant in the kid's race to the finish line after her own triumph a few minutes earlier.

Fear of Anarchy, the Classroom and Lord of the Flies

2011-07-24T19:08:00.000-07:00

Bring up the possibility of a stateless society, anarchy, and you'll typically get the response, "But who would build the roads? And what about crime? There wouldn't be any order!" Where does this assumption come from and does everyone believe that society without the state is impossible?

In the US, and probably most other western countries, students are daily exposed to the necessity of order. When a teacher leaves the room, they tell the class to behave, study their lesson and be quiet. As soon as the door shuts behind the teacher pandemonium ensues. When the teacher returns, order is restored. This is a lesson that survives into adulthood, just like algebra and English. Without authority there is chaos. The idea that people mature and act differently as adults than they do as children isn't recognized.

That's why William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies, and its two cinema interpretations have proven to be so popular in the government-sponsored classrooms. Golding's first novel, originally published in 1954 to less than enthusiastic reviews, eventually became one of the most read works of fiction in US high schools and colleges. A group of British schoolboys are marooned on a tropical island when the plane carrying them away from an atomic war crashes. No adults survive the crash and the boys, ranging in age from 7 to 12 are forced to fend for themselves. There are four main characters, Ralph, the responsible type; Jack Merridew, a budding alpha male; Simon, the focus of the story's metaphysics; and Piggy, a myopic asthmatic who also attempts to use logic and reason in the boys' attempt at survival and hopefully eventual rescue. In a Hobbesian progression the boys begin a rapid descent into barbarism and murder until finally order is restored with the arrival of the Royal Navy. While there is certain amount of character development in the story, the basic premise is that without authority (the state) and in a condition of anarchy, humanity will devolve into bestial savagery. There's no evidence, historical or otherwise, that such a thing would ever occur under any circumstances but to think contrarily runs counter to statist beliefs.

Wintercow Hits a Homerun.

2011-07-15T18:30:00.000-07:00

Where Did it All Go?
Jul 15th, 2011 by wintercow20
The following bar chart demonstrates the spending levels of the various federal agencies between 2006 and last year. Over that time, federal expenditures increased from $2.66 trillion to $3.72 trillion, an increase of over 40%. During this time period, prices rose by about 8% and population rose by about 3.5%, so in real per capita terms, over a mere 5 year period federal government spending per capita has increased by over 28%. This is larger than real median family income increased over the preceding 30 years.

Percent Changes on the Right, All Figures Nominal

The red bars indicate current spending levels while the green ones indicate past spending levels. Does anyone at all, in Congress, in the press, on the street, in the academy, ever look at this picture and ask where it all went? How can it be possible for spending to have increased by over 28% in real per capita terms, but now all kinds of federal agencies and programs are experiencing … a … crunch? You’d think you were being put on Candid Camera with this sort of rhetoric.

And consider this, even with the “grand budget deal” that would have spending slashed … slashed! by $2 trillion over 10 years, that means we’d be reducing spending from $3.7 trillion (using the latest year as an illustration) to a “mere” $3.5 trillion, still a mountain of spending beyond what prevailed a few years ago (about a 20% real increase per capita). If I asked you the following how would you answer: “your real per capita spending will increase by 20% over the next five years, would you characterize that as a crisis? Would your roof shingles begin to fall off? Would you have to do without heating your home? Would you have to stop purchasing things at Amazon? Of course not. Real per capita increases mean spending over and above what you are currently able to do.

How is it possible to be spending over a trillion dollars more today than five years ago and for anyone to be claiming we are in a crunch? Certainly with the lagging revenues we have a deficit issue, but I urge you to be aware of the rhetoric that makes a deficit problem appear to be like one where agencies cannot somehow afford to do the things they did just a couple of years ago.

And allow me to ask, can some “progressive” who wants even more spending and taxes please point out a year when spending levels were appropriate? And would you kindly do me the favor of comparing how the agencies performed and how our “vital” infrastructure was doing when spending was at those levels? And then can you again answer my question, what the heck has the government done with all of the new money that has been spent since that nirvana?

The University of Rochester's Michael Rizzo posts here.

The Death Penalty Administered

2011-07-12T03:56:00.000-07:00

This incident wouldn't have made the news at all if the victim hadn't have been an athlete of moderate renown. Turner was an NFL player with the Cincinnati Bengals and a local football star. But, he made the mistake of encountering law enforcement and will now be the focus of funeral rites. Of course, as is usually the case in affairs of this type, there are two versions of events, the cop version and the witness version. Surveillance video from the c-store might reveal the truth.

Not surprisingly, family members were agitated at the hospital where Turner was declared dead. The result was the arrest of two family members, as described here.

Of course, a sheriff's department investigation has determined that the shooting was "within department policy".

An account of the memorial service for Turner is here.

Broadway Melody of 1940

2011-07-04T20:02:00.000-07:00

A movie that features some fabulous dance numbers by Fred Astaire, George Murphy and Eleanor Powell also includes a spectacular juggling routine by perhaps the greatest female juggler ever, Trixie Firschke.

Powell and Astaire danced together in only one film and this was it:

An Economist Changes Her Mind

2011-07-04T19:01:00.000-07:00

Christina Romer, UC-Berkeley economics professor and former head of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, has penned an op-ed for the NYT recommending tax increases as the least painful method of dealing with the federal budget deficit. She hasn't always felt that way. The Wall Street Journal in announcing her appointment, pointed out that "That the Romers are so well-regarded by their peers of both parties has many economists cheered that the Obama administration is going for the top minds in the field rather than those who adhere most closely to party lines. The Romers’ work has even been cited by Republicans as supporting the idea that tax increases negatively impact economic output."

But that was in 2008. This is 2011. The science of economics has evidently changed in the last three years. Romer has a different take on taxes now. The Keynesian theory that government spending drives the economy has come to the fore. Romer now maintains that increased taxes on "the rich" will be paid for out of their savings, putting less strain on the finances of "the poor". That would extinguish the fact that only savings, deferred consumption, can be used to create the capital necessary for economic expansion and a subsequent increase in employment. The less saving there is, the less investment there can be.

Twenty-seven feet six inches

2011-07-03T19:28:00.000-07:00

That's the distance that a pair of draft horses must pull a loaded stone boat in competition to record a "full pull". While the specifications and rules of draft horse pulls can vary from region to region, in Wisconsin contests are usually divided into two divisions, one for teams weighing 3200 lbs. or less and another for teams of unlimited weight, which could be as much as 5000 lbs. a pair. The stone boat is initially loaded with weights that would add up to perhaps 4500 lbs., an amount that probably all the teams entered would be able to manage. Each team has three opportunities to make the pull and those that are successful move on to the next round, where more weight is added. Eventually, only one team is able to make a full pull and wins the event outright or, if no team makes a full pull at a given weight, the one that pulls the boat the farthest wins.

Horse pulls are calm affairs, except for the horses themselves when actually involved in a pull. There is no loud music or other noise. Spectators are cautioned to be quiet, as the horses take their cues from sounds and can be easily distracted. Beer and barbecued chicken are cheap. If the competitors can be said to wear uniforms, they would be T-shirts printed with farm equipment advertising, bib overalls and free caps, much like the audience.

A low key yet exciting afternoon at a draft horse pull in rural Wisconsin is a step back to another age when things happened more slowly and quietly.

Bad Lieutenant

2011-06-28T20:45:00.000-07:00

Bad Lieutenant is a 1992 crime drama starring Harvey Keitel and directed by Abel Ferrara. It's the story of a New York City detective addicted to drugs, gambling, alcohol, violence and weird sex. His descent into hell is through the investigation of a particularly sick crime, an imaginary National League baseball playoff series between the Mets and Dodgers and a drug-addled Catholic vision experience.

While the movie might not be just the thing for everyone, The Onion AV Club interview with director Ferrara paints a great picture of the movie-making process that any cinema buff will find interesting. For instance:

"O: On the commentary track, you look at the credit "A Pierre Kalfon Production" and ask, "What's a Pierre Kalfon production?" So... what is it?
AF: Yeah, it's a joke. This is some robber baron. He's the guy who was the in-between guy between Canal+ [the largest French financing company] and us. In France, if you rob a quarter-million dollars from the budget, that's business as usual. I'm not kidding. I'm very angry about what happened. They're using our names to raise money. In their mind, if it wasn't for them, there would be no financing, so they see it as their money, you dig what I mean? When you deal with the French... The French, they stick together. So between Pierre and these guys, it got to a point... Canal had put up X amount of money to preproduce the film, and we never saw a penny of it. We were preproducing it for nothing, and all along, Pierre had this money in his pocket. I initially said, "Forget it, I'm not going to do this." But then, who would believe that there was $200,000 appropriated for preproduction, and I didn't know about it? So we were forced to make the film. I wasn't going to have anything to do with this film, but I made it with Canal under the express consent that Pierre have nothing to do with it, and I have final cut anyway. Everything went along well until we finished the movie and they just stole the fucking print and put on all these producers that I never even heard of. And now, with the poster, Barry Amato—the guy who produced the film, who actually made it happen—his name isn't even on it. It's a nightmare. We own 25 percent of this movie, but when they sold it in the States, they made a deal with a company that doesn't even have distribution set up. I mean, who is Barry Barnholtz? Who are these people? We own that film. We slaved on it for two years. In the film business, it's basically honor among thieves. I see the biggest rip-offs in the world, and they're all sitting next to each other at Morton's or Spago. With this film, we're seriously thinking about filing a class-action lawsuit. They promised me theatrical distribution, and they opened it in L.A., but they have one print. They booked three cities, and they only have one fucking print. No ads. Who the fuck do these people think they are? They put it out, we get very good reviews in the L.A. papers... In the rest of the world, we don't have these distribution problems, though we still have never gotten proper accounting. I don't want to sound like some whiner, but there's a place where you've got to draw the line, and this is the film. This is one of the reasons why we haven't done another film since then."

Read the whole interview here.

The Most Important Second

2011-06-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

In modern America there can be no more significant moment than the one in which a law enforcement officer points a weapon at an individual. In a society that purports to respect the sanctity of life, the judicial process and the theory of presumption of innocence, this second can be instant death or the beginning of a long and convoluted process of incredible expense. This Los Angeles Times story highlights one of the truly bizarre features of the US legal system.

But it's not really bizarre. It's actually another feature of a statist welfare system, the recipients being appeals attorneys, prison guards and judges instead of unmotivated losers. With the average time spent on death row in California being over 25 years and no one at all being executed since 2006, the death penalty has become an expensive and ineffectual scam that can only be administered instantaneously by a deputy sheriff or patrolman.

Probably the Tip of the Iceberg

2011-06-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

Former Speaker of the House of Representatives for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Democrat Salvatore diMasi was convicted on June 15 in federal court on seven of nine felony counts, including extortion and conspiracy in connection with the award of state contracts according to the Boston Herald. DiMasi is the third consecutive Massachusetts speaker to be convicted of crimes committed while in office, although the previous two served no jail time.

There's a question waiting to be answered here. Is DiMasi a criminal that took advantage of his elected position to line his own pockets? Or is he merely a casualty in the ongoing battle between the all-powerful federal government and their inferiors at the lower level of the polity?

Historical Propaganda 1925

2011-06-21T07:31:00.000-07:00

Nature Valley Grand Prix, What Did We Learn About the Women?

2011-06-20T19:47:00.000-07:00

Peanut Butter & Co/2012 rider Lauren Tamayo shows us the results of a race mishap.

When it was all over for the ladies on early Sunday afternoon we knew for sure a couple of things that we may have suspected. First, Italian sprint queen and current world road champion Giorgia Bronzini can climb hills, too, if they don't go on all day. Second, Kristin Armstrong, who sat out this race last year because she was about to become a mother, is working her way back to where she was when she won this event three years in a row and was an Olympic gold medalist. Third, Joelle Numainville, a rookie in the women's pro peloton last year, is now a bonafide threat to occupy the podium after any race, along with her more experienced Tibco to the Top team mate Erinne Willock. These two Canadians regularly compete with Colavita rider Leah Kirchmann from Winnipeg. Canadian ladies are a dominant force in women's cycling. Lastly, for even the casual spectator, women's racing is a much more exciting affair than the formulaic product produced by the men. Sorry, guys.

Nature Valley Stillwater Criterium results:
1. Giorgia Bronzini
2. Evelyn Stevens
3. Kristin Armstrong

Nature Valley General Classification results:
1. Amber Neben
2. Erinne Willock
3. Kristin Armstrong

HTC-High Road star Evelyn Stevens gets ready to put the hurt on the peloton charging up Chilkoot Hill in Stillwater.

Joelle Numainville rides to the start line.

2008 World Time Trial Champion and race leader Amber Neben gets ready for 18 miles of racing with 2,000 feet of vertical climbing.

The ladies begin their 13 laps of torture, forgetting about the picturesque scenery of Stillwater and the St.Croix Valley.

Amber Neben leads world champion Giorgia Bronzini across the line two laps before the finish.

Bloodbath on Hennepin Avenue

2011-06-18T07:28:00.000-07:00

Lauren Tamayo leads Shelley Olds, Leah Kirchmann and Joelle Numainville around a corner in Minneapolis.

The Uptown Minneapolis Criterium is a popular feature of the 5-day, 6-event Nature Valley Grand Prix, one of the premier bicycle races in the US. On June 17, eighty-one ladies, including world road racing champion Giorgia Bronzini, from Placenza, Italy; Olympic champion Kristin Armstrong; US champion Shelley Olds; world record holder Lauren Tamayo; multiple world champion Amber Neben and US time trial champ Evelyn Stevens lined up at the intersection of 31st & Hennepin to make 28 laps around a neighborhood variously described as "trendy" and "chic", then crowded and noisy with cyclists, racing fans, al fresco diners and various breeds of dogs on leashes, all celebrating the end of the work week.

As is often the case, the women's race was an aggressive affair compared to the tame, predictable effort put forth by the men later in the evening. The powerful Peanut Butter & Company/2012 team was anchored by Armstrong, a four-time winner of the women's championship and leader by 23 seconds in the general classification standings after three stages. Other teams had taken aim at winning the stage, if not the overall leadership. Diadora Pasta rider Olds, who had won the NVGP general classification as a member of the Peanut Butter & Company/2012 team last year, attacked immediately with Amanda Miller of HTC and Leah Kirchmann of Colavita/Forno d'Asolo. They were soon joined by second-year sprint star Joelle Numainville and then powerhouse Lauren Tamayo. Eventually this group extended its lead far enough that Armstrong's place in the standings was threatened and teammate Tamayo dropped back to escort the US Olympic hopeful back to the front. The riders were making a right turn from Lake Street to Hennepin Ave. to get the bell for the last lap when disaster struck. Olds may have brushed a barrier and then struck another rider. The crash ultimately took 39 riders down, including some of the leaders.

Four competitors were taken to the hospital by ambulance, including Olds, Hillary Billington, Robin Bauer and Laura Ralston. Armstrong received road rash and an injury to her arm but walked away. During the time it took to sort matters out, remove broken bikes and send injured riders to the hospital, officials nullified the race, meaning that no results would apply, including points awarded for sprints. Two more events remain to be contested, a 76 mile road race around Menomonie, WI on Saturday and a gut-wrenching up hill and down 13 lap criterium in the St. Croix River valley city of Stillwater on Sunday.

The Twin's Season Is Over Already

2011-06-16T08:05:00.000-07:00

If you're a Minnesota Twins fan, you're probably already aware that even though it's early June, there will be no play-off activity at Target Field in 2011. A steady march of key players to the disabled list has put the team in such a hole that they would have to win 63 of their last 96 games in order to reach 90 victories, a .656 pace that no team in the major leagues has done so far this season. Maybe next year.

RUMBLE, RUMBLE, RUMBLE

2011-06-14T06:58:00.000-07:00

Sadly, the great American movie musical has become as extinct as the dinosaurs. Fortunately, celluloid, and now digital recordings have preserved the work of some of the country's most talented entertainers. In 1947 Paramount Pictures released "The Perils of Pauline", a fictionalized account of the career of Pearl White, the star of the original silent film series of the same name. With songs written by Frank Loesser and starring the indefatigable Betty Hutton as Pearl White, this is one of the great musicals of all time. Watch and listen to the incomparable Hutton as she sings "Rumble":

It's only money. What's to get excited about?

2011-06-13T07:31:00.000-07:00

latimes.com

Missing Iraq money may have been stolen, auditors say

U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion, sent by the planeload in cash and intended for Iraq's reconstruction after the start of the war.

By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times

June 13, 2011

Reporting from Washington

After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the George W. Bush administration flooded the conquered country with so much cash to pay for reconstruction and other projects in the first year that a new unit of measurement was born.

Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills. They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time.

This month, the Pentagon and the Iraqi government are finally closing the books on the program that handled all those Benjamins. But despite years of audits and investigations, U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion in cash — enough to run the Los Angeles Unified School District or the Chicago Public Schools for a year, among many other things.

For the first time, federal auditors are suggesting that some or all of the cash may have been stolen, not just mislaid in an accounting error. Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an office created by Congress, said the missing $6.6 billion may be "the largest theft of funds in national history."

The mystery is a growing embarrassment to the Pentagon, and an irritant to Washington's relations with Baghdad. Iraqi officials are threatening to go to court to reclaim the money, which came from Iraqi oil sales, seized Iraqi assets and surplus funds from the United Nations' oil-for-food program.

It's fair to say that Congress, which has already shelled out $61 billion of U.S. taxpayer money for similar reconstruction and development projects in Iraq, is none too thrilled either.

"Congress is not looking forward to having to spend billions of our money to make up for billions of their money that we can't account for, and can't seem to find," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), who presided over hearings on waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq six years ago when he headed the House Government Reform Committee.

Theft of such a staggering sum might seem unlikely, but U.S. officials aren't ruling it out. Some U.S. contractors were accused of siphoning off tens of millions in kickbacks and graft during the post-invasion period, especially in its chaotic early days. But Iraqi officials were viewed as prime offenders.

The U.S. cash airlift was a desperation measure, organized when the Bush administration was eager to restore government services and a shattered economy to give Iraqis confidence that the new order would be a drastic improvement on Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

The White House decided to use the money in the so-called Development Fund for Iraq, which was created by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to hold money amassed during the years when Hussein's regime was under crippling economic and trade sanctions.

The cash was carried by tractor-trailer trucks from the fortress-like Federal Reserve currency repository in East Rutherford, N.J., to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, then flown to Baghdad. U.S. officials there stored the hoard in a basement vault at one of Hussein's former palaces, and at U.S. military bases, and eventually distributed the money to Iraqi ministries and contractors.

But U.S. officials often didn't have time or staff to keep strict financial controls. Millions of dollars were stuffed in gunnysacks and hauled on pickups to Iraqi agencies or contractors, officials have testified.

House Government Reform Committee investigators charged in 2005 that U.S. officials "used virtually no financial controls to account for these enormous cash withdrawals once they arrived in Iraq, and there is evidence of substantial waste, fraud and abuse in the actual spending and disbursement of the Iraqi funds."

Pentagon officials have contended for the last six years that they could account for the money if given enough time to track down the records. But repeated attempts to find the documentation, or better yet the cash, were fruitless.

Iraqi officials argue that the U.S. government was supposed to safeguard the stash under a 2004 legal agreement it signed with Iraq. That makes Washington responsible, they say.

Abdul Basit Turki Saeed, Iraq's chief auditor and president of the Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit, has warned U.S. officials that his government will go to court if necessary to recoup the missing money.

"Clearly Iraq has an interest in looking after its assets and protecting them," said Samir Sumaidaie, Iraq's ambassador to the United States.
------------------------------------------------------------

According to available calculations, a billion dollars in $100 bills would weigh roughly 22,000 lbs. That means that a normal C-130J could crawl across the sky with about $1.64 billion in C-notes, not counting pallets, lunches for the crew, and toilet paper. In any event, the Herc will haul a lot of cash. During WWII, the "cargo cult" was established in the Pacific, where islanders believed the airplanes arrived with presents from a supreme being and attempted to attract airplanes with small airstrips and even aircraft "decoys". There's probably a similar feeling among the Iraqis, whose emirs and tribal chieftains have a continual courier shuttle running between Iraq and the banks of Europe and the US, deposting the $100 bills in accounts that will then be tapped for homes in Naples, Florida and London, Harvard tuition, well-bred race horses and plastic surgery.

Naturally, the story continues:
The U.S. watchdog on Iraq reconstruction is disputing a report quoting him suggesting that $6.6 billion in Iraqi oil money entrusted to U.S. hands may have been stolen.
The charge, if true, would make the theft of funds the largest in U.S. history, and has already angered Iraqis reportedly debating whether to sue over the missing funds.
The Pentagon refuses to endorse the charge that the disappearing dollars were stolen -- either by greedy U.S. contractors or others involved in its movement from U.S. holdings to Iraq. And now, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen said he never said that $6.6 billion in missing money was swiped.
"What we concluded in our previous audits is that it's been virtually impossible to account for what happened to that money," Bowen told Fox News in a telephone interview Monday, adding that criminal cases have led to the convictions of people who have stolen money from a special fund set up by the U.N. Security Council.
But Bowen said he did not mean to imply anything more when he answered a Los Angeles Times reporter's question about whether it would be serious if billions of dollars was stolen from the Development Fund for Iraq.
"I said, yes, it would be a very significant serious crime," he said. "So yes, the reporter was correct that some of it, and perhaps a lot of it, has been stolen. But we don't have a factual basis to reach that conclusion. What we said over and over again is that the lack of controls created vulnerabilities to fraud, waste and abuse."
Bowen did not say where the Los Angeles Times derived the $6.6 billion figure in question, a figure that he didn't use.
After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration airlifted to Baghdad a total of $12 billion that was carried by tractor-trailer trucks from the Federal Reserve currency repository in New Jersey to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland for reconstruction of the country.
Bowen said most of the money was deposited in Iraq's central bank for distribution to Iraqi ministries and contractors, but he doesn't know how much.
"Iraq could have it all," he said. "They probably do have most of it."
The Pentagon has been unable to properly account for the $2.8 billion that it controlled under the Commander's Emergency Response Program, which allowed military commanders to spend money for reconstruction projects. Bowen said the Pentagon's comptroller asked him last year to help audit the flow of money.
"More important, we're trying to work with the Iraq government to find out what happened to the rest of the money," Bowen said.
Bowen emphasized that the missing money is not U.S. taxpayer funds. The revenues in the DFI come from among other sources -- Iraq's oil and gas exports, as well as frozen Iraqi assets and surplus funds from the now-defunct, Saddam Hussein-era oil-for-food program.
But previous audits have shown the Defense Department didn't do a good job of tracking the money and Iraqi officials told The Los Angeles Times that under a 2004 legal agreement, Washington is responsible for the missing funds.
Iraq's chief auditor and president of the Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit has warned Washington that Baghdad will sue if necessary to recoup the money.
"Clearly, Iraq has an interest in looking after its assets and protecting them," the newspaper quoted Iraqi Ambassador to the United States Samir Sumaidaie saying.
Bowen said the U.S. needs Iraq's assistance to obtain the bank data regarding the disbursal of the funds so that his office can close the books on jurisdiction over DFI by the end of the summer since it's been years since the U.S. has had control over it.
"We're going to account for it as best we can," he said.
Fox News' Justin Fishel contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/14/auditor-disputes-report-about-66-billion-in-iraq-money-being-stolen/#ixzz1PHwQD3gT

Ruler on Ice?

2011-06-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

The 143rd Belmont Stakes, the third race in America's mythical "triple crown" series for three year olds is a 1 1/2 mile feat of endurance known as the "Test of a Champion". The winner was 24-1 longshot Ruler on Ice, followed by two other horses ignored by the bettors. The $2 exacta paid $928, the $2 trifecta $8,268 and the $2 superfecta totaled a cool $74,052. Until 6:41 pm EDT on June 11, 2011, nobody would have considered Ruler on Ice any kind of a champion. With a maiden victory at Delaware Park as a 2 year old and just a conditioned allowance win at Parx in Philadelphia during the current campaign, the Kelly Breen trainee had minimal qualifications for a race of this magnitude. In his previous effort, the Frederico Tesio Stakes at Pimlico, he was beaten by Concealed Identity, who went on to finish up the track in the Preakness. There were, however some factors that could have been twisted into positives for the horse. None of the entrants had genuine off-track credentials, which might be considered a plus. Most important, maybe, was an equipment change. Breen had been dissatisfied with horse's concentration in previous races. As he said, they had already gelded him, so they couldn't do it again. He decided to run him with blinkers for the first time. Normally, an equipment change before a big race is a negative, it indicates that the trainer is experimenting, attempting to come up with a recipe for success, that he doesn't have the horse where he wants him. And that was indeed the case for Ruler on Ice. No one can know if the sloppy track, the blinkers, Johnny Velasquez losing a stirrup on Animal Kingdom, or what else might have determined the outcome of the race. Or that if the race were run tomorrow the results would be the same. All we know is that on one rainy spring evening Ruler on Ice ran a mile and half faster than eleven other horses and put his name in the record books forever.

I wanted to do this TWICE this weekend

2011-06-11T19:12:00.000-07:00

This sort of thing needs to happen more often:

American society has developed an increasing abhorrence of violence, except in spectator sports like football and ice hockey and ultra-technological warfare. The words, "We don't want anybody to get hurt" are often used in confrontational situations by law enforcement, who are happy to hurt people and consider it an occupational fringe benefit that only they can enjoy. But there are offensive people who are unwilling to listen to reason and only understand violence and concomitant pain. Mr. Eddie isn't just randomly running amok, he's administering much needed discipline at no expense to the rest of society. So, what's wrong with a little violence? Especially when it's so well deserved?

Another great example of somebody getting what they deserve:

A Disquistion on Government

2011-06-07T08:10:00.000-07:00

John C. Calhoun 1782-1850

A few weeks ago some lamebrain that considers himself a student of the War of Northern Aggression realized that Lake Calhoun, adjoining the trendy Uptown district of Minneapolis, was named in 1820 after John C. Calhoun, then the Secretary of War and the individual that authorized the establishment of nearby Fort Snelling. He has proposed to the Minneapolis Park Board that the name of the lake be changed because Calhoun was an advocate of slavery. Who knows where this will go but it made the local media. Coincidentally, at that very time, I was reading Calhoun's "Disquisition on Government" and his "Discourse on the Constitution of the United States".

The popular perception of Calhoun today is that he was a retrograde states rightist and outspoken promoter of slavery. Both are true as far as they go, but the story is much more complicated than that.

John Caldwell Calhoun was born and raised in rural South Carolina and was the very epitome of the self-made man so important in American folklore. After graduating from Yale in 1804, Calhoun completed law school and was elected to the U.S. House in 1810, remaining a national political figure until his death forty years later, holding every major office except the Presidency itself. In 1957, a Senate Committee selected Calhoun as one of the five greatest U.S. Senators, along with Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Robert La Follette, and Robert Taft. No doubt the next Senate Committee tasked with a similar job will name John Kerry, Carol Mosely Braun, Barbara Boxer, and Teddy Kennedy shortly before the world comes to an end.

Calhoun's political ideas were rooted in the interests of the South, an agrarian society. He, and many others, believed that the United States was made up of British colonies that had banded together through the Articles of Confederation to achieve independence from Britain while retaining their own sovereignty. The US Constitution, adopted after much debate and acrimony, was, as historian Charles Beard pointed out, a means to insure the payment of War of Independnce debt, among other things, through a central government more powerful than that of any of the states. While the new constitution was eventually ratified by each of the states, there remained a substantial minority of the population that never intellectually accepted a lesser role for the states. Calhoun was a leader and spokesperson for these people, believing that every state had the right of "nullification", meaning that if a state found a federal law to be onerous it had the right to nullify that law and forbid its enforcement within that state. This concept was particularly directed at the federal protective tariffs used to finance the federal government in that era. The southern states, with little industry of their own, were forced to subsidize northern manufacturing to the detriment of their trade in raw materials with Europe. The federal government did cut tariff duties in response but never eliminated them entirely. During the first half of the nineteenth century slavery was legitimized by the US Constitution itself. Even abolitionists in the north had to admit that they could do little about southern slavery, except prevent its spread to new western territories. Slave state southerners could envision a future where they would be surrounded by new anti-slavery states and become even more of a minority nationally. Thus the argument between North and South was rooted in two different views of the ideology of republican government. The South felt that there was no single federal government with a power over individual states and that ultimately a state had the right to secede from the Union if it felt that to be necessary.

Additionally, Calhoun advanced the theory of the advantages of the "concurrent majority" as opposed to that of the "numerical majority". The latter is what we accept as normal today, where a simple majority of voters elect representatives and endorse government policies that affect all citizens. On the other hand a concurrent majority, as outlined by Calhoun, would be exemplified by our jury system, where decisions are made unanimously.

Lincoln, of course, did not agree with nullification and sent almost 3/4 of a million men and boys to an early grave to demonstrate his beliefs, in addition destroying so much Southern capital and property that the rebel states took almost a century to recover. By that time, Calhoun had been dead for over 15 years. He had no personal connection with War of Northern Aggression but his ideas were still poison to the industrial North. And government-sponsored education either ignores one of America's greatest statesmen or paints him as a villain, in addition to inspiring grommet-heads to remove his name from bodies of water.

Autopsy Update on Jose Guerena

2011-06-07T06:14:00.000-07:00

The Tucson Star reports on the autopsy of Jose Guerena,the 26-year-old Marine vet executed in his own home by the Pima County Regional SWAT team on May 5. No traces of illegal drugs were found in his system and a minimal residue of the legal product alcohol was detected. Perhaps most interestingly, while a total of 71 shots were fired at Guerena by SWAT members, only 22 struck him. The majority of the shots missed him and some went through the walls of the house and struck other nearby buildings. What does this say about marksmanship and concern for the safety of others demonstrated by Pima County law enforcement?

There are other questions as well. Is it a good thing that law enforcement in the US continues to look more and more like military activity? Does the response to alleged criminality, like at the Branch Davidian "compound" or at Ruby Ridge, and now in Tucson, need to be conducted like a military raid? Are US occupational forces in the Middle East returning to America and bringing the law enforcement techniques used to subjugate the Iraqis and Afghanis to places like Tucson? A Pima County spokesman brought up the issue that the approaching SWAT team turned on its sirens for a few moments before arriving at the Guerena home. Do you, if you live in an urban environment, react to the sound of a siren by preparing to surrender to police? If that were the case, shouldn't all of the Guerena neighbors have emerged from their homes with their hands in the air?

The video shows a paid volunteer group of government-sponsored thugs engaged in the most depraved form of behavior. The idea that these individuals are following "procedures" or "obeying orders" hardly relieves them of personal responsibility. They're not heroes. They are all guilty of murder.

Don't fall in the water in Alameda County

2011-06-04T17:30:00.000-07:00

The enormously paid public "servants" in California are more interested in their own bureaucratic procedures than actually doing their jobs, as Cal WatchDog explains.

Smiling Alameda County Fire Chief Ricci Zombeck

KGO-TV in San Francisco also covered the event.

The Queen's Quest for the Derby

2011-06-03T08:55:00.000-07:00

by Kellie Reilly

These are heady days for the House of Windsor. A compelling tale of its past has been commemorated by the Oscar-laden The King's Speech, and its future has been bolstered by the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Moreover, such state occasions as The Queen's recent visit to Ireland, and Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Great Britain last fall, were epoch-making in their significance. And now, at this very confluence of history, Elizabeth II has yet another landmark in view: a victory in the Derby with CARLTON HOUSE (Street Cry [Ire]), perhaps her best chance so far in the one English classic that has eluded her.

The Queen is heir to a centuries-old tradition of royalty promoting racing in Great Britain, a contribution that spans a succession of dynasties. The collection of prized Near Eastern stallions, crossed with English and Irish strains -- the first stirrings of what would become the Thoroughbred -- gathered pace under the Stuarts. The ill-fated Charles I owned an exquisite group of Royal Mares, which later emerged from the tumult of the Commonwealth and left their legacy on the nascent breed.

After the Restoration, his son Charles II made Newmarket the headquarters of the racing scene, a nickname the town still holds. The Merry Monarch was also responsible for the name of the course, "the Rowley Mile," honoring his favorite mount, Old Rowley. Well known for his horsemanship, Charles II actually rode in races himself, observed training sessions from a special post on the heath, and established the conditions of the races known as the King's Plates.

Nearly three decades following his death, his niece, Queen Anne, founded the racecourse at Ascot in 1711. Tribute is still paid to that sovereign at the opening of every Royal meeting, with the mile race run in her name. This year will be particularly special as Ascot marks its tricentennial.

The first Hanoverians to ascend the British throne weren't nearly as committed to racing as the Stuarts had been, but the new royal house would come to exert a breed-shaping influence. The Duke of Cumberland, a son of George II, was a pedigree maven who bred the monumental stallions Herod and Eclipse, veritable building blocks of the breed. Without the Duke of Cumberland, the Thoroughbred as we have it today would be unthinkable.

In light of this background, it might come as a surprise that the British royals have had precious little success in the Derby since its inception in 1780. George IV, a hard-core racing enthusiast and inveterate gambler, won the 1788 running with Sir Thomas when he was still Prince of Wales. But a century passed before another Prince of Wales savored a Derby victory.

In 1896, Queen Victoria's son "Bertie" took the Blue Riband with his outstanding homebred Persimmon. Four years later, Persimmon's full brother Diamond Jubilee -- foaled in 1897, the 60th anniversary of Victoria's ascension to the throne -- captured the Derby on the way to glory in the English Triple Crown.

After succeeding his mother as Edward VII, the King made history by becoming the only reigning monarch to win the Derby. That unique royal colorbearer was Minoru in 1909, and his victory was the result of a few twists of fate.

Minoru was leased to the King by his breeder Col. William Hall-Walker. This arrangement came about when the colt was a yearling because the King was disappointed with his homebred crop. But Abram Hewitt relates a more colorful possibility in Sire Lines: Hall-Walker, a devotee of astrology, believed that Minoru was destined to win the Blue Riband, and wanted the King to enjoy an unprecedented victory.

Whatever the real explanation, Minoru was in the right place at the right time in the Derby. The highly-regarded Sir Martin (whose half-brother Sir Barton would later become the first American Triple Crown winner) fell while in front in the stretch, and several contenders were hampered as a result, including the great Bayardo. Meanwhile, Minoru didn't have a straw in his path. Capitalizing on his good fortune, he stormed to the lead and just barely held on from the fast-finishing Louviers by a short head.

Minoru returned to Hall-Walker's ownership upon Edward's death in 1910. He was at stud for two seasons before being sold to the Russian government in 1913. Fate was not on Minoru's side there, for he was lost amid the chaos of the Revolution. In the words of the inimitable Joe Palmer in Names in Pedigrees, it was a time "when anything with a pedigree was obnoxious."

Yet from his short time prior to export, Minoru earned a permanent place in Thoroughbred pedigrees. His daughter Serenissima was a blue hen, and her daughter Selene became famous as the dam of Hyperion, *Pharamond II and *Sickle. Thus Minoru's genetic heritage is diffused across the globe.

Four years after Minoru's popular triumph, royal fortunes took a tragic turn in the 1913 Derby. Edward's son King George V (the present Queen's grandfather) had a runner named *Anmer, who became the target of a suicidal political protest. The suffragette Emily Davison darted onto the course and hurled herself into Anmer's path, bringing the colt down and sustaining fatal injuries herself.

The Queen's father, George VI of The King's Speech fame, experienced Derby disappointment of a different kind with Big Game in 1942. The previous year's champion two-year-old colt, Big Game remained undefeated through the Two Thousand Guineas, and was hyped as the "horse of the century" in advance of the Derby, then staged at Newmarket on account of the war. Unfortunately, he failed to settle for his legendary rider Gordon Richards, didn't stay the 1 1/2-mile trip, and was well beaten in sixth behind the victorious *Watling Street.

One day earlier, George VI had landed the Oaks with Sun Chariot, whom he led into the winner's circle in his RAF uniform. The star filly also garnered the One Thousand Guineas and defeated males in the St Leger, completing an historic classic treble -- the fillies' version of the English Triple Crown -- in the royal colors.

The Queen has likewise registered victories in all of the English classics, except for the coveted Derby. Her first classic winner, 1957 Oaks heroine *Carrozza, was out of a full sister to Sun Chariot. Next came Pall Mall, winner of the 1958 Two Thousand Guineas. Not until 1974 did Elizabeth add the One Thousand Guineas with Highclere (GB), who scored a classic double in the Prix de Diane (French Oaks). During her Silver Jubilee year in 1977, Dunfermline (GB) gave The Queen her second Epsom Oaks title. Dunfermline is better remembered for winning a war of attrition over Alleged in the St Leger, inflicting upon him the only defeat of his stellar career.

Elizabeth has had nine previous Derby contestants. Her first -- Aureole -- came the closest, just days after her coronation in 1953. Until the advent of Carlton House, he also had stronger credentials than any of The Queen's eight subsequent runners. A promising fifth in the Two Thousand Guineas, he dominated the Lingfield Derby Trial en route to Epsom.

While the 1953 Derby was Elizabeth's first as reigning monarch, it also marked the 28th and final chance for Richards, who had yet to win the Blue Riband. The newly-minted Sir Gordon, just knighted by The Queen, famously thwarted her bid for a victory in the "coronation Derby," and achieved an overdue win for himself. Guiding the high-class Pinza, Richards stole a march on the late-running Aureole and careered away in convincing fashion by four lengths. After Pinza was retired to stud, Aureole went on to become a superior four-year-old, capturing the Coronation Cup, Hardwicke and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth S., named for the sovereign's parents.

The Queen's representative in 1954, *Landau, was a son of Sun Chariot, but didn't have much more to recommend him. No factor in the Guineas and runner-up in the Lingfield Derby Trial, Landau retreated to eighth at Epsom, well adrift of the winner Never Say Die. Landau later cut back in distance and romped in the Sussex S.

In 1956, The Queen's Atlas scored in one of the Derby preps, the Dee S. at Chester. Nevertheless, he already looked a cut below classic standard, and did well to rally for fifth to Lavandin after suffering interference in the straight. Atlas would prove his merit over an extended distance by landing the Doncaster Cup.

The Queen fielded a substantially better prospect the next year with Doutelle. From the immediate family of Aureole (the two shared Feola as their second dam), Doutelle was a workmanlike victor of the 1957 Lingfield Derby Trial, but unfortunately was the victim of a rough trip in the Derby. He exited his 10th-place finish, behind the cozy winner Crepello, with an injured pastern. Doutelle did not return to action until the fall, when rebounding to take the Cumberland Lodge S.

The Queen's runner in 1958, Miner's Lamp, was a half-brother to Atlas, both out of the Lancashire Oaks winner Young Entry. Miner's Lamp earned his berth with a score in the Blue Riband Trial at Epsom, but despite his experience over the course, he became unbalanced on the hill in the Derby. He eventually stayed on for sixth to Hard Ridden, and later earned his signature win in the Princess of Wales's S.

In 1959, for the fourth year in a row, The Queen's colors made a Derby appearance. Above Suspicion was still a maiden, but an accomplished one. The half-brother to Doutelle, out of Yorkshire Oaks and Cesarewitch victress Above Board, missed by only a short head in the Newmarket S. Compromised by a troubled passage at Epsom, he rattled home for fifth to Parthia. Above Suspicion was able to show his true ability that season when garnering the St James's Palace S. and Gordon S.

Nineteen more years would pass before The Queen had a Derby runner, if not a prime contender, in 1978. English Harbour wound up 18th, never seeing the climactic finish between Shirley Heights and Hawaiian Sound.

A decent case could have been made for The Queen's Milford in 1979. Produced by dual classic heroine Highclere, Milford prepped with victories in the White Rose S. and Lingfield Derby Trial. Willie Carson, the stable rider for Dick Hern, had to choose among Milford and his stablemates Troy and Niniski. Carson believed that Troy was the best of the lot, and Sir Michael Sobell's colt ratified the decision with an electrifying, seven-length victory in the 200th Derby. Milford, who faded to a disappointing 10th, bounced back to take the Princess of Wales's S. in course-record time at Newmarket.

The Queen's 1981 Derby hopeful, Church Parade, was a three-quarter brother to Highclere. He didn't offer much encouragement when 14th in blinkers in the Two Thousand Guineas, and he was beaten out of sight when fifth to the mighty Shergar at Epsom.

Highclere might have played a still greater role in The Queen's Derby ambitions, but for a questionable bloodstock management decision. Her daughter Height of Fashion (Fr), England's champion two-year-old filly of 1981, was sold to Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum after her record-setting victory in the 1982 Princess of Wales's S.

The price was reportedly around $2 million, but the loss to the royal broodmare band was incalculable. Height of Fashion became a foundation mare for Sheikh Hamdan, and her brightest star was Nashwan, the conqueror of the Derby, Guineas, Eclipse and King George in 1989.

Parting with Height of Fashion, a descendant of Feola's line that had served The Queen so well, was a blunder supervised by her racing manager at that time, the late Earl of Carnarvon. He was the grandson of the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, who supposedly brought the "Curse of Tutankhamun" on his head by orchestrating the opening of the Pharaoh's tomb. Critics of the racing manager were not hesitant to bring up the curse.

But the Maktoum family might have helped to adjust the balance sheet with Carlton House. Bred by Darley, Carlton House was a gift from Sheikh Mohammed to The Queen. The ruler of Dubai was grateful to the British sovereign for earlier giving him Highland Glen, a horse that he had expressed an interest in purchasing. When The Queen gave Highland Glen to the Sheikh outright, he repaid her generosity in kind.

Such courtly gift-giving is a distant echo of the diplomatic exchanges of centuries ago, when Arabian, Barb and Turcoman stallions were dispatched as gifts to European monarchs. In this way were laid the cornerstones of the Thoroughbred.

But besides recalling ages past, Carlton House is in some sense a recapitulation of The Queen's own history in racing. Like her Two Thousand Guineas winner Pall Mall, his name is London-oriented. Like her Oaks and St Leger heroine Dunfermline, he is named for a former royal residence: Carlton House was where George IV was based before taking the throne.

Moreover, the colt's pedigree reads like an episode of "This Is Your Life." His sire Street Cry is out of a daughter of Troy, whom The Queen watched demolish that milestone Derby in 1979. Troy's second dam is by Pinza, vanquisher of The Queen's Aureole in 1953. Street Cry's third dam is by Pall Mall.

Carlton House's dam is by Bustino, a longtime denizen of the royal stud at Wolferton, and the sire of Height of Fashion. Bustino's grandsires are Crepello and The Queen's Doutelle, who had clashed in the 1957 Derby.

Carlton House's third dam, Triple First, finished fourth to Dunfermline as the favorite in the 1977 Oaks. His fifth dam is a half-sister to Never Day Die, whom The Queen's Landau chased in the 1954 Derby.

Like Aureole, Carlton House is trained at Freemason Lodge in Newmarket. Sir Michael Stoute is now in charge of the historic yard once directed by Capt. (later Sir) Cecil Boyd-Rochfort.

Perhaps it is fitting that Carlton House is also embodying the highs and lows of The Queen's quest for the Derby. After stamping himself as a serious classic prospect with a nine-length maiden romp at Newbury last October, the bay colt developed a foot infection over the winter. Stoute was pleased enough with his progress to pitch him into the Dante, following the same route he took with the 2010 Derby hero Workforce (GB).

In that typically key trial, Carlton House scythed between horses with a smart turn of foot to win readily, fueling legitimate hopes for a royal Derby winner. But just as excitement was reaching fever pitch, the antepost favorite sustained an injury blow. On Tuesday his connections revealed that he developed slight swelling in a joint.

Although racing manager John Warren remains optimistic that this reportedly minor issue will not derail his Derby bid, no one wants to cope with any setback days from the race. If Carlton House doesn't line up after all, The Queen's best chance would turn out to be her most painful disappointment. If Carlton House puts this behind him with an historic victory Saturday, the nerve-wracking week will become the stuff of Derby legend.

UPDATE: Carlton House, the Queen's entrant and post-time favorite in the Derby made a gallant bid coming for home but was overtaken by French invader Pour Moi. Carlton House lost a shoe in the stretch but that likely wasn't the cause of his third place finish.

Louis XIV, the Duke of Marlborough and My Lawn Mower

2011-06-02T20:48:00.000-07:00

The English have always had an inferiority complex when it comes to their neighbors across the channel. The French aristocracy was already in command of a highly-developed feudal economy when the English were still living with their livestock in mud huts. Later, when the English society had advanced to the point of a smattering of affluence, France became the mecca it remains to this day for most Englishmen. From the late 16th century on, French was the second language for educated Britons. Travel to France was common, in fact required, of members of all but the most impoverished classes. Imports from France, such as wine and clothing, were so popular that punitive excise taxes were levied and responded to by rampant smuggling. English visitors to the continent were flabbergasted by the elaborate residences of the French aristocrats and their own increasingly wealthy lords patterned their new estates after them. See Blenheim Palace, Marlborough's home (and Winston Churchill's birthplace).

This didn't work the other way. The French have never cared much one way or the other about learning English, eating English food, dressing up like Englishmen or visiting London. Anyway, besides importing French architecture, the English nobility also felt compelled to adopt French landscaping. Long driveways lined with oaks, ponds, and most conspicously, lawns.

During the feudal era, large expanses of grass probably made some kind of sense. Horses and cattle could be pastured on them and there was no shortage of serfs to maintain a manicured appearance. The transplantation of the phenomenon to North America is more problematical, however. For centuries there was a labor shortage in the North American colonies and subsequent states. Workers had more important things to do than mow the lawn. Available grass, even in urban areas, was devoted to animal forage. Boston Common was a place where anyone could graze a horse or cow.

Somehow, unlike rugby football, kippers for breakfast and the NHS, obsessive lawn care has made the trip across the Atlantic to the US. You may note that countries in the western hemisphere with a Spanish heritage have no lawn fetish. Anyway, it seems odd that the descendants of practical, frugal Yankees would devote so much time and expense to an artificial plant ecosystem between their front steps and the street. Maybe it's symbolic of our wealth that we no longer require the produce of a vegetable garden or meat, milk and eggs of our own livestock to live happily. The areas around our homes, instead of being scenes of utilitarian enterprise are simply living carpets of a grass that grows naturally nowhere and is expensive and time-consuming to maintain, producing no real benefits except maybe an appearance of concern.

The Deflation Death Spiral

2011-05-31T11:54:00.000-07:00

As Paul Krugman has warned us so many times, we are now entering a liquidity trap and an economist's greatest fear is being realized, the Christian Science Monitor points out. As home prices continue to decline, potential buyers put off purchases because they believe that by waiting they will get an even better deal. Home sales and the ancillary business activity that goes along with them, real estate, construction, furniture sales, landscaping all go into decline. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune weighs in on the local situation. We saw the boom. Now we're seeing the inevitable painful bust that follows. Just as government entities have no power to repeal the laws of physics, the feds cannot arbitrarily repeal those of economics. Misguided federal policies have created ongoing crises in major segments of the American economy, not only in housing and home ownership, but also in health care, finance and banking, and employment. How bad do things have to get before the citizens realize that crony capitalism and rent seeking are the problems, not free markets?

National Sports Center Velodrome

2011-05-31T10:55:00.000-07:00

Season number 21 is underway at the National Sports Center Velodrome in Blaine, MN. Here's a short clip from season 20:

Met Mile

2011-05-31T05:32:00.000-07:00

For horse players, Memorial Day means the Metropolitan Handicap or "Met Mile" at Belmont Park, the first race in New York's "Handicap Triple Crown" that also includes the Brooklyn Handicap and the Suburban Handicap. Only four horses in history have won all three races in one given year, the last being Fit to Fight in 1984. Unlike all but a few US tracks, Belmont's "Big Sandy" is configured for a one-turn mile, which makes it more of a dash than a route. This year's 118th edition of the race was made up of a competitive field of eleven older horses.

Initially, Nick Zito trainee Morning Line, winner of the Grade I Carter Handicap in April at Aqueduct was projected to be the favorite for the Met Mile but he developed a tenderness in one foot and his nomination was withdrawn. His absence made the race even more competitive. Only two of the entrants had failed to have a graded stakes victory on their resume'. Luke warm post-time 3-1 favorite Tizway, who had won the G-2 Kelso at Aqueduct in October, drew the outside 11 spot in the gate next to Florida-based Tackleberry, a 4-year-old carrying co-highweight of 120 lbs. and running with Lasix for the first time in his fourteenth race. Dogwood Stable's Aikenite, winner of the seven furlong Commonwealth at Keeneland and the Churchill Downs Handicap at the same distance in his two previous starts, was also to carry 120 lbs. from the fourth stall in the gate. Steve Asmussen's millionaire 5 year-old Haynesfield, winner of Belmont's Jockey Club Gold Cup in October was second in bettor preference in the eighth spot.

Soaring Empire, Stormy's Majesty, Rodman, Caixa Eletronica, Yawanna Twist, Ibboyee, and Kensei, all seasoned vets, made up the rest of the field.

When the gates opened it was no surprise to see the speedy Tackleberry scamper to the lead from the outside, closely tracked by the adjacent Tizway and rider Rajiv Maragh. These two set the pace through decent fractions of 23.17 for the first quarter mile, 45.57 for the half and a blistering 1:08.66 for the six furlongs. That was enough for Tackleberry, who rapidly faded, finishing 9th. Tizway kept driving for the wire, covering the mile in 1:32.90, a fraction off the track record and extending his lead over the field, with the exception of 36-1 longshot Rodman, who closed impressively to take second and make the trifecta a $2400 bonanza. Caixa Eletronica settled for third and Aikenite managed to salvage fouth.

Tizway is the product of a mating between two-time Breeder's Cup Classic winner and increasingly influential sire Tiznow and the Dayjur mare Bethany and was purchased at the 2006 Keeneland Sept. sale for $140,000. His Met Mile victory brings his lifetime total earnings to $909,274 and gives him an automatic berth in the Breeder's Cup Mile at Churchill Downs later this year plus $10,000 in expense money for the trip.

It's often said that the most difficult thing in the world to do is pick the horse that will finish SECOND in a race. Here is an example of that:

This ticket shows a little more prescience:

Denmark Strikes a Blow for Food Freedom

2011-05-25T18:51:00.001-07:00

Marmite made illegal in Denmark
According to the marketing slogan it is a taste that you either love or hate. But Danes will no longer get the chance to make up their own minds on Marmite after the British delicacy was banned under food safety laws. The strongly flavoured dark brown spread made from brewer's yeast has joined Rice Crispies, Shreddies, Horlicks and Ovaltine prohibited in Denmark under legislation forbidding the sale of food products with added vitamins as threat to public health.
Many well known breakfast cereal and drink brands have already been banned or taken off supermarket shelves after Danish legislation in 2004 restricted foods fortified with extra vitamins or minerals.
But Marmite had escaped notice as an exotic import for a small number of ex-pats until the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration telephoned Abigail's, a Copenhagen shop selling British food, to ban the famous yeast spread.
"I don't eat it myself, I don't like it but Marmite was one of our best selling products. Not a day goes by without someone coming in and asking for it," said Marianne Ørum, the shop owner.
"All the English people here are shaking their heads in disbelief and say that it is insane. I agree but it is the law. It's becoming impossible to run a business in this country. We are not allowed to do anything anymore. It is the way Denmark is going."
The shop has now started a "Bring back Marmite" campaign to overturn a ban that is seen as discriminating against Britons living and working Denmark.
Lyndsay Jensen, a Yorkshire born graphic designer working in Copenhagen, told the British ex-pat RedHerring.dk website, that Britons would carry on spreading Marmite on their toast, even if it meant smuggling it in to Denmark.
"They don't like it because it's foreign," she said. "But if they want to take my Marmite off me they'll have to wrench it from my cold dead hands."
The sale of any foodstuff with the "addition of vitamins, minerals and other substances" must be first approved by the Danish authorities after a health scare over their effect on children or pregnant women when combined with other foods with high vitamin levels.
A spokesman for the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration said: "I cannot comment on the Marmite case because our expert is away until Thursday."

The Plot Thickens

2011-05-20T19:36:00.001-07:00

The man shot and killed by Pima County SWAT officers was linked to a home-invasion crew, the attorney representing the officers said Thursday.
Attorney Michael Storie said authorities found rifles, handguns, body armor and a portion of a law-enforcement uniform inside the house where Jose Guerena was shot by officers serving a search warrant May 5.
"Everything they think they're going to find in there they find," Storie said in a news conference called a day after the Sheriff's Department complained that media reports on the incident spread misinformation and encouraged speculation about events surrounding the shooting. The Sheriff's Department said Wednesday that it would provide no details about the case to the public until the investigation is complete.
The search warrant and court documents showing what deputies were looking for and seized from Guerena's home have been sealed by a judge and are unavailable to the public.
Christopher Scileppi, who is representing the Guerena family, said nothing seized from Guerena's home was illegal and that Storie's statements were unsupported by facts and meant to discredit Guerena's character. Scileppi did not comment on the details of the case.
On Thursday afternoon, the Sheriff's Department declined to comment on what the attorneys said.
All statements made by Storie on Thursday morning came from the five SWAT officers he is representing, he said.
The five officers had "no choice but to shoot" when they breached the front door of the house in the 7100 block of South Redwater Drive and saw Guerena holding a rifle, Storie said. The home is on the southwest side, near South Wade and West Los Reales roads.
The house was targeted as part of an investigation into home invasions and drug rip-offs. The Guerena house was among homes that "were identified as locations where these activities were being carried out from."
No arrests have been made from any of the other homes where SWAT served search warrants, Storie said.
According to the SWAT members' statements, all law enforcement vehicles approaching Guerena's home had lights and sirens on and parked in the driveway, Storie said.
Guerena's wife, Vanessa, who was inside the house with their 4-year-old son, has said she did not see or hear lights and sirens and that Guerena thought they were being targeted for a home invasion, which is why her husband grabbed his AR-15 rifle and told her and their son to hide in a closet.
The raid took place about 9:30 a.m., and Guerena, 26, was asleep after working the graveyard shift at Asarco Mission Mine, Guerena's wife said.
Storie said that once the SWAT team parked outside the home, the lights and sirens were turned off. An officer banged on the door for about 45 seconds while identifying the team as police, he said.
After that, five SWAT members broke in the front door and saw Guerena holding a rifle at the end of a long hallway.
One officer began shooting after Guerena placed the rifle in front of him and said: "I've got something for you; I've got something for you guys," Storie said.
The other officers at the front door of the house also fired, striking Guerena.
All five SWAT members were shooting from just outside the home and never entered the house, Storie said.
After Guerena's wife and son came out of the house, officers sent in a robot, and that's when they saw Guerena had been shot and was unresponsive.
When asked why SWAT members did not rush in to render medical aid to Guerena, Storie said officers on scene "have to assume that there are other people with guns and that there are other people with body armor inside the residence."
He said officers could not conclude Guerena was incapacitated because he fell into a room after he was shot and officers could not see him from the doorway.
Based on a photograph of a large bloodstain inside the home, Scileppi said, Guerena fell down in clear view of the front door and officers could see him.
The SWAT officers fired 71 shots, striking Guerena 60 times.
The search warrant was not directed at any particular person, and Guerena's name was not mentioned, but it was targeting whoever might be inside the residence, Storie said.
If SWAT members had been let into the home, those inside "probably ... wouldn't have been arrested," Storie said.
While the SWAT team was at Guerena's home, another SWAT team was serving a search warrant in a nearby home as part of the same investigation, and Storie said a man showed up during the search and said, "You shot my relative."
Storie believes somebody called from inside Guerena's home and alerted family members to the shooting.
Scileppi said he would not comment on those allegations until he "has all the facts."
A portrait of Jesus Malverde, believed to be a "narco saint," was found under Guerena's bed, Storie said. He did not know if drugs were found in the home. Guerena's wife denies having them in her home.
According to Storie, several days before the shooting undercover officers in an unmarked car drove by Guerena's home to do surveillance, and 10 minutes after they drove by, they were alerted that their license plate had been run through the Motor Vehicle Division by someone they say followed the unmarked vehicle from Guerena's home. That was considered countersurveillance on law enforcement, Storie said.
Under the Federal Privacy Act, the MVD in Arizona cannot release information on a license plate to anyone other than to law enforcement.
Scileppi said it took two weeks for "the fourth version of the story" and these details to emerge because "they needed to put a story out that is going to protect them."
"Bottom line is they've had two weeks to construct a story, circle the wagons," Scileppi said.
Scileppi asked Storie and the Sheriff's Department to release more information about the incident. "The family wants to know the truth," he said.
Scileppi has partnered with Patrick Broom for this case. The five officers Storie is representing are from the Sahuarita, Marana and Oro Valley police departments, and two from the Sheriff's Department. The sheriff's SWAT team is made up of officers from different agencies

SWAT Team Fires 71 Shots

2011-05-17T05:49:00.000-07:00

The Arizona Daily Star describes an unpleasant event in Tucson:

The Pima County Regional SWAT team fired 71 shots in seven seconds at a Tucson man they say pointed a gun at officers serving a search warrant at his home.
Jose Guerena, 26, a former Marine who served in Iraq twice, was holding an AR-15 rifle when he was killed, but he never fired a shot, the Sheriff's Department said Monday after initially saying he had fired on officers during last week's raid.
Six days after Guerena was shot, few details about the investigation that brought the SWAT team to the southwest-side home Guerena shared with his wife and their two young sons are known. Guerena's role in the narcotics investigation is unclear and deputies would not comment on what was seized from his home.
Three other homes within a quarter of a mile from Guerena's house, were served search warrants related to the investigation that morning. The addresses and the names of people who live in the other homes have not been made public.
Vanessa Guerena says she heard noise outside their home about 9 a.m. Thursday and woke her husband who had just gone to bed after working a 12-hour shift at the Asarco Mine, she said. There were no sirens or shouts of "police," she said.
Guerena told his wife and son to hide inside a closet and he grabbed the AR-15 rifle, his wife said.
The department says SWAT members were clear when identifying themselves while entering the home.
"Tucson is notorious for home invasions and we didn't want to look like that," said Lt. Michael O'Connor of the Pima County Sheriff's Department. "We went lights and sirens and we absolutely did not do a 'no-knock' warrant."
When five SWAT members broke through the front door Guerena was crouched down pointing the gun at them, said O'Connor.
"The suspect said, 'I've got something for you,' when he saw them," O'Connor said. Guerena's wife denied he said that.
Deputies began shooting.
A deputy's bullet struck the side of the doorway, causing chips of wood to fall on his shield. That prompted some members of the team to think the deputy had been shot, O'Connor said.
The Sheriff's Department put in a call to Drexel Heights fire at 9:43 a.m. requesting assistance with a shooting. But crews were told to hold off.
Guerena was dead by the time they were allowed in the house, fire officials said.
Vanessa Guerena vividly remembers seeing her wounded husband.
"When I came out the officers dragged me through the kitchen and took me outside, and that's when I saw him laying there gasping for air," Vanessa Guerena said. "I kept begging the officers to call an ambulance that maybe he could make it and that my baby was still inside."
The little boy soon after walked out of the closet on his own. SWAT members took him outside to be with his mother.
"I never imagined I would lose him like that, he was badly injured but I never thought he could be killed by police after he served his country," Vanessa Guerena said.
The family's 5-year-old son was at school that morning and deputies say they thought Guerena's wife and his other child would also be gone when they entered the home.
Guerena says there were no drugs in their house.
Deputies said they seized a "large sum of money from another house" that morning. But they refused to say from which of the homes searched that morning they found narcotics, drug ledgers or drug paraphernalia. Court documents showing what was being sought and was found have not been made public. A computer check on Guerena revealed a couple of traffic tickets and no criminal history.
Guerena was a Tucson native and Flowing Wells High School graduate. He joined the U.S. Marines in 2002. He served two tours in Iraq in 2003 and 2005 as part of the Yuma-based MWSS-173 under direct supervision of Master Sgt. Leo Verdugo.
Verdugo was with Guerena's family Tuesday afternoon. He gave them a Marine Corps jacket and gloves to use at Guerena's burial.
"He was an excellent Marine, with a bright future ahead of him," Verdugo said.
"We had just bought a home and he was working graveyard shifts and overtime just to help pay the bills, we were just starting to make this house our home," Vanessa Guerena said.
"I know I can't have him back but I want justice. I want explanations for what happened," she said.
-------------------------------------

What does this all mean? Assuming that Guerena was indeed the object of the SWAT team operation, was this the best possible method of effecting his arrest? Even the most cursory investigation would have revealed that he was working at Asarco. Wouldn't it have been easier and safer to simply have stopped his car during his commute? Or arrest him as he left the mine? There's no difference now between the tactics of American law enforcement and that of the Gestapo or the NKVD. The police can arrive at any hour, for unknown reasons, without a warrant, murder someone in his own house, and keep the details of the event secret. This is terror by any definition.

Law enforcement personnel have managed to elevate themselves to a value far above the population that they are meant to protect. Their bodies are inviolate. An on-duty death requires national mourning. Buildings are named after them. Yet, should they kill an innocent citizen, do they then annually place flowers on the grave? Are memorial funds established by the police to educate their children? Of course not.

On May 19, the Arizona Daily Star adds this:

Unanswered SWAT raid questions demand answers - from Dupnik

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik answered almost nothing Wednesday in his "comment" on the SWAT-team shooting death of Jose Guerena.
To start with, Dupnik didn't actually step forward to explain anything about the shooting of Guerena, who was inside his home when officers arrived to serve a search warrant in a drug investigation.
Instead, Dupnik had a public information officer issue a press release that offered little insight.
It starts this way: "As a result of the need for information surrounding the shooting of Jose Guerena by members of the Pima Regional SWAT Team, the public has received misinformation and emotionally charged speculation."
And who gave the public that bad information? That would be Dupnik's department. At least be accountable enough to write a clear sentence that says the Sheriff's Department is to blame for the wrong information that now has citizens - in blogs, online comment boards and letters to the editor - engaging in "emotionally charged speculation." Not to mention asking legitimate questions.
We asked several yesterday in this space, and today we have more.
• The department originally said Guerena, a former Marine, fired on SWAT officers when they went to his house on May 5. It subsequently said he pointed an AR-15 rifle at them but had the safety on. SWAT team members fired 71 times and hit him 60.
How did the sheriff get that wrong?
• Why refuse to say what, if anything, drug-related was found in his house? If Guerena did deal drugs, his fellow criminals know the authorities might be on their trail. So what about this investigation is being protected by refusing to say what might have been found?
• Authorities said they expected Guerena to be home alone when they served the search warrant. Did they also know that he'd been a Marine and therefore was skilled in the use of a firearm and might well have one in his home?
Did they know that he had a job at the Asarco mine? If so, wouldn't it have been safer to serve the search warrant when they knew he would be at work? As it turned out, his wife said he was sleeping after working the graveyard shift when the SWAT team arrived at about 9:30 a.m.
• A sheriff's spokesman said earlier, before the department clammed up, that they expected Guerena's wife to be off to school with their two children. As it turned out, she and a 4-year-old son were home. Were authorities conducting surveillance on the house in the hours before the raid so they would know for certain who had come and gone that morning? It's fortunate that Mrs. Guerena and her child weren't also shot.
• Most of all, why hasn't the Sheriff's Department said that an outside law-enforcement agency will review its conduct?
Instead, Wednesday's press release said that the criminal investigation and one by the County Attorney's Office will precede "any administrative review of the actions of the officers involved in the shooting. By mutual agreement, that administrative review will include officials from the Pima County Sheriff's Department, the Marana Police Department, the Oro Valley Police Department and the Sahuarita Police Department. Each of these agencies had officers involved in the shooting as members of the Pima Regional SWAT Team."
Those agencies can review all they want, but there must be one done by an agency that wasn't involved.
We understand that SWAT team members risk their lives to go after dangerous bad guys. Perhaps Jose Guerena was one of them. If so, the Sheriff's Department should lay out its allegations. What we know now is that the 26-year-old former Marine, who served two tours in Iraq, had no criminal record.
We also know that police have tremendous power - even to enter a private home. Because law-enforcement has that awesome authority, citizens have the right to question its decision-making and actions.
Finally, we point out that Dupnik's refusal to answer questions himself in this case stands in stark contrast to his behavior after the Jan. 8 Tucson shootings. Step out, Mr. Dupnik, and explain what happened and why.
Arizona Daily Star

Odd behavior for a politician

2011-04-22T17:20:00.000-07:00

From the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner:

Don Young refuses Humane Society award
by TimMowry_FDNM
Outdoors with Tim Mowry

Saying he wants no part of the Humane Society of the United States’ agenda, Alaskan Congressman Don Young last week refused an award from the organization that would have honored his work for animals in 2010.
“HSUS are hypocrites, plain and simple, and I will not join them by accepting this award,” Young said in a press release issued by his office on March 30.
While praising the work done by local humane societies that shelter, spay and neuter animals, Young noted the HSUS does not own, operate or directly control a single animal shelter in the U.S., despite a budget of over $100 milllion. He chastised the HSUS for having “absolutely nothing to do with animal welfare.”
“Instead they prey on the emotions of big-hearted Americans,” Young said. “They flash images of abused animals on our television screens to raise money that will eventually go to pay their salaries and pensions, not to helping better the lives of these animals.
“They run anti-hunting and anti-trapping campaigns and are of the same cloth as PETA and other extremist organizations,” he said.
It was unclear why Young was being honored by the HSUS but the outspoken Congressman suspects it was due to his support of the Wildlife Without Borders program, which develops wildlife management and conservation efforts to maintain global species diversity.
“That program is true conservation; what this group wants is preservation,” Young said of the HSUS. “To accept this award would be supporting their manipulative ways and misguided agenda, and I want no part of that.”

Fool's Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe

2011-04-14T08:16:00.000-07:00

Gillian Tett, of the Financial Times, tells the story of the world-wide financial collapse of 2007 and the people and ideas that created it. Banks, the never-ending quest for higher profits and the management of risk are the issues.

Much like other businesses, banks are competitive within their milieu. They each wish to attract more deposits and investors, increase their sales of products and develop and market new products. Managing risk is a key aspect of the industry. Investors weigh the returns on an investment against the risk assumed. An investment of virtual certain return, a US government bond, for instance, can be accepted at a lower rate of return than would be required for something chancier, like common stock in a Canadian mining company. Investors, institutional, corporate and individual, are constantly in search of opportunities for income that match the level of risk that they can accept.

Tett describes the personalities at J.P. Morgan, people like Bill Winters, Blythe Masters and Bill Demchak and their creations, BISTRO (broad index secured trust offering) and other esoteric financial instruments based on credit risk analysis. Their strategies and products were adopted by the rest of the world banking community. In particular, mortgages were bundled into CDOs that were divided into tranches . These were groupings based on evaluations made by ratings agencies. Mortgage-based CDOs consisted of thousands of home mortgages, assembled and then divided into three tranches based on risk. The least risky, the "super-senior" tranches paid off first. If there was a problem, the holders of the most risky tranches, the juniors might not be paid off at all. Many entities were involved in these transactions, the purchaser of the property, the seller, the bank writing the mortgages and then bundling them for sale, the agency rating the tranches, and the investors purchasing them. Ideally, at least in the bank's view, the bank would write many mortgages that would be rated AAA and then these mortgages would be assembled and sold, coming off the bank's books. As time passed, the federal government began requiring, through the Community Re-investment Act, that banks write more and more mortgages for lower income home buyers. Many of these loans did not perform. As time went on, defaults on home mortgages increased in number, investors that had purchased the CDOs didn't receive payments and mortgages that banks had been unable to bundle and sell threatened to drag them into bankruptcy. But, while you or I can be allowed to expire financially, no such fate is permitted in the banking world. We, the taxpayers, must rectify the misdeeds of the government and the banks.

2011-04-11T13:10:00.000-07:00

In today's "Best of the Web" the WSJ"s James Taranto talks about the federal budget impasse and John Boehner and BHO's conflict in aims, which boiled down to Planned Parenthood. However, the most interesting paragraph in the story is this one:

". Planned Parenthood receives millions in taxpayer subsidies and spends hundreds of thousands on lobbying and campaigning. In February, OpenSecrets.org reported that Planned Parenthood's political action committee "donated more than $148,000 to federal candidates--almost all Democrats--during the 2010 election cycle" and "spent more than $443,000 overall." Planned Parenthood made an additional $905,796 in "independent expenditures" during the 2010 cycle--exercising its right to free speech pursuant to last year's Citizens United decision.

The biggest beneficiaries of Planned Parenthood money, according to OpenSecrets.org, were Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Barbara Boxer of California. According to the Hill, both were also among "a defiant group of Senate women," all Democrats, who "said Friday they'll oppose any spending bill that would affect reproductive health funding":

"We are not going to throw women under the bus to give them an agreement to keep this government open," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said during a press conference at the Capitol.
"We are determined to draw the line in the sand," Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) added. "There are moments when you must do that, and this is one of those moments."
Yet in contrast with Reid, Murray's and Boxer's sincerity seems beyond question. They're not in it for the money; Planned Parenthood gives them money because it knows they are true believers.

In some ways the dispute over Planned Parenthood funding is symbolic. The legal right to abortion is not at stake, and the subsidy doesn't even pay directly for abortion, which the group is required to fund from nonfederal revenue. So why is the Democratic Party's No. 1 priority?"

OK, Planned Parenthood can't legally pay for abortions with federal funds. But the organization receives millions in taxpayer subsidies. So, does that mean that they have two or more sets of books to keep that money separate? And how much are they charging for an abortion? Do the 300,000 plus women undergoing the procedure pay for the entire cost of it themselves? And, even if no federal funds are used to perform the actual abortions, doesn't that money actually defray expenses that Planned Parenthood would otherwise have to charge "patients", even if the costs of the procedure were paid for by other parties? And the federal government punishes the accounting practices of guys like Bernie Madoff.

The Canadian Free Press, the ultra-conservative counterpart to FiredogLake, brings up an interesting point in the "birther" argument. The issue, as these people see it, is not that Barry Soetoro, as they call the POTUS, was born on US soil, but that he is the offspring of a father that was never a resident of the US. "The key provision in this U.S. Supreme Court case, also highlighted by Mr. Gilliland, lies in the following statement: “the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons, whose fathers have never been resident of the United States.” This is very different from the story we hear from the Mastodon Media.

A Rothbardian Video

2011-04-04T08:16:00.001-07:00

This character presents the case for a stateless society in the terms that Murray Rothbard would have used.

On the Bus

2011-03-31T08:42:00.000-07:00

Gazing out the window as the bus was leaving a stop this morning, I noticed a burly younger fellow emerge from the nearby drug store with a bottle of soda in his hand and make a determined sprint for the moving bus. He was built and ran like a Big Ten fullback and before the bus had begun to merge into traffic he had reached the door and the driver kindly stopped and opened it. He bounded on but didn't drop any money in the fare box, showing the driver a card and then sat down. I wasn't aware of anyone being able to ride the bus for free, except perhaps a company driver. Then I looked at the fare schedule up among the advertisements. Nobody, even the aged, ride for free. Except disabled veterans. This guy had to be one. OK, maybe his disability was unrelated to his mobility. Maybe he had mental issues. Or something wrong with his innards. But isn't a mobility disability what deserves free public transportation? Or is free passage a bonus for any kind of degradation?

CIA Pension Fund Going Bankrupt

2011-03-12T13:00:00.000-08:00

This is fabulous. The federal agency given the task of compiling the info the country needs to survive in the hostile world has somehow mismanaged its own retirement accounts, the size and scope of which are secret. They need a little over half a billion dollars in the next budget to avert bankruptcy. And they have a total UNFUNDED LIABILITY of over $6.4 billion in their pension account. Remember, this is an agency of the federal government, the same folks that in one role or another tell the financial industry how to manage its affairs and want us to surrender up our own hard-earned funds for them to wisely disburse. Mark Steyn has a great take on it here.

A Thought-Provoking Take on the Human Condition

2011-02-20T09:18:00.000-08:00

Call Me the Matchmaker

2011-01-27T19:59:00.000-08:00

The first time I worked the Kodiak, AK rodeo, back in the 70's, the busy fishing port was home to the lucrative Alaskan crab fleet, successful shrimpers, and a big salmon seiner fleet. The town was awash in money and high-liners timbered the bar regularly, you could spend a whole night in the saloon without ever buying a drink. Saturday night my pal Ozzie, a native of the Nebraska sandhills who had become a crabber, and I made our way down to "The Harvester Inn", flamboyant Jim Fisk's drinking and eating establishment on the outskirts of town. After wearing out our welcome in that spot we decided to head back to the city center. On exiting the bar we noticed an empty taxi just sitting there idling. Always concerned about wasting resources, we put the vehicle to immediate use, drove it downtown and left it parked on the street with the keys in the ignition. I never gave the matter much thought.

A couple of years later I was standing at the bar in that same "Harvester Inn". A gentleman approached and set his beer beside mine on the bar. "I believe I know you", he said. "I'm pretty sure that you're the guy that stole my cab outside the bar here two years ago".

"Gee", I answered, "I really don't think that could possibly be the case."

"Well, there's not much to be done about it now, I don't guess", he responded, "I just want to tell you what happened after you ran off with the cab. When I went out there and saw the thing was gone, I just said ,'Hell', and went back into the bar and ordered a drink. As I was standing there figuring out my next move this gorgeous young lady walked up and we got to talking. She gave me a ride back to town and we started going out together. Three months ago we got married. She's the finest girl I've ever known and the greatest thing that ever happened to me. If you hadn't run off with my taxi I'd probably never have met her. I just wanted to thank you for stealing that cab. Funny the way things work out some times, ain't it?"

I was very happy to hear this story and bought the fellow a drink. Wish I could have met his wife.

Cleveland's Message Advocating the Repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, August 8, 1893

2011-01-25T10:05:00.000-08:00

Here Grover Cleveland explains simply yet in detail, in words comprehensible to any English-speaking person, the financial situation in which the US found itself, including relevant figures, and what he intended to do about it. We may be foolish to look back fondly on "the good old days", forgetting the many ways in which our lives are better than our predecessors. Nevertheless, it is striking how far the level of communicative ability of our leaders has fallen.

____________________

"The existence of an alarming and extraordinary business situation, involving the welfare and prosperity of all our people, has constrained me to call together in extra session the people's representatives in Congress, to the end that through a wise and patriotic exercise of the legislative duty, with which they solely are charged, present evils may be mitigated and dangers threatening the future may be averted.

Our unfortunate financial plight is not the result of untoward events nor of conditions related to our natural resources, nor is it traceable to any of the afflictions which frequently check national growth and prosperity. With plenteous crops, with abundant promise of remunerative production and manufacture, with unusual invitation to safe investment, and with satisfactory assurance to business enterprise, suddenly financial distrust and fear have sprung up on every side. . . . Values supposed to be fixed are fast becoming conjectural, and loss and failure have invaded every branch of business.

I believe these things are principally chargeable to Congressional legislation touching the purchase and coinage of silver by the General Government.

This legislation is embodied in a statute passed on the 14th day of July, 1890, which was the culmination of much agitation on the subject involved, and which may be considered a truce, after a long struggle, between the advocates of free silver coinage and those intending to be more conservative. .

This law provides that in payment for the 4,500,000 ounces of silver bullion which the Secretary of the Treasury is commanded to purchase monthly there shall be issued Treasury notes redeemable on demand in gold or silver coin, at the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury, and that said notes may be reissued. It is, however, declared in the act to be

"the established policy of the United States to maintain the two metals on a parity with each other upon the present legal ratio or such ratio as may be provided by law."

This declaration so controls the action of the Secretary of the Treasury as to prevent his exercising the discretion nominally vested in him if by such action the parity between gold and silver may be disturbed. Manifestly a refusal by the Secretary to pay these Treasury notes in gold if demanded would necessarily result in their discredit and depreciation as obligations payable only in silver, and would destroy the parity between the two metals by establishing a discrimination in favor of gold.

The policy necessarily adopted of paying these notes in gold has not spared the gold reserve of $100,000,000 long ago set aside by the Government for the redemption of other notes, for this fund has already been subjected to the payment of new obligations amounting to about $150,000,000 on account of silver purchases, and has as a consequence for the first time since its creation been encroached upon.

We have thus made the depletion of our gold easy and have tempted other and more appreciative nations to add it to their stock. .

Unless Government bonds are to be constantly issued and sold to replenish our exhausted gold, only to be again exhausted, it is apparent that the operation of the silver-purchase law now in force leads in the direction of the entire substitution of silver for the gold in the Government Treasury, and that this must be followed by the payment of all Government obligations in depreciated silver.

At this stage gold and silver must part company and the Government must fail in its established policy to maintain the two metals on a parity with each other. Given over to the exclusive use of a currency greatly depreciated according to the standard of the commercial world, we could no longer claim a place among nations of the first class, nor could our Government claim a performance of its obligation, so far as such an obligation has been imposed upon it, to provide for the use of the people the best and safest money.

If, as many of its friends claim, silver ought to occupy a larger place in our currency and the currency of the world through general international cooperation and agreement, it is obvious that the United States will not be in a position to gain a hearing in favor of such an arrangement so long as we are willing to continue our attempt to accomplish the result single-handed. . .

The people of the United States are entitled to a sound and stable currency and to money recognized as such on every exchange and in every market of the world. Their Government has no right to injure them by financial experiments opposed to the policy and practice of other civilized states, nor is it justified in permitting an exaggerated and unreasonable reliance on our national strength and ability to jeopardize the soundness of the people's money.

This matter rises above the plane of party politics. It vitally concerns every business and calling and enters every household in the land. There is one important aspect of the subject which especially should never be overlooked. At times like the present, when the evils of unsound finance threaten us, the speculator may anticipate a harvest gathered from the misfortune of others, the capitalist may protect himself by hoarding or may even find profit in the fluctuations of values; but the wage earner-the first to be injured by a depreciated currency and the last to receive the benefit of its correction-is practically defenseless. He relies for work upon the ventures of confident and contented capital. This failing him, his condition is without alleviation, for he can neither prey on the misfortunes of others nor hoard his labor. .

It is of the utmost importance that such relief as Congress can afford in the existing situation be afforded at once. The maxim "He gives twice who gives quickly" is directly applicable. It may be true that the embarrassments from which the business of the country is suffering arise as much from evils apprehended as from those actually existing. We may hope, too, that calm counsels will prevail, and that neither the capitalists nor the wage earners will give way to unreasoning panic and sacrifice their property or their interests under the influence of exaggerated fears. Nevertheless, every day's delay in removing one of the plain and principal causes of the present state of things enlarges the mischief already done and increases the responsibility of the Government for its existence. Whatever else the people have a right to expect from Congress, they may certainly demand that legislation condemned by the ordeal of three years' disastrous experience shall be removed from the statute books as soon as their representatives can legitimately deal with it.

It was my purpose to summon Congress in special session early in the coming September, that we might enter promptly upon the work of tariff reform, which the true interests of the country clearly demand, which so large a majority of the people, as shown by their stiffrages, desire and expect, and to the accomplishment of which every effort of the present Administration is pledged. But while tariff reform has lost nothing of its immediate and permanent importance and must in the near future engage the attention of Congress, it has seemed to me that the financial condition of the country should at once and before all other subjects be considered by your honorable body.

I earnestly recommend the prompt repeal of the provisions of the act passed July 14, 1890, authorizing the purchase of silver bullion, and that other legislative action may put beyond all doubt or mistake the intention and the ability of the Government to fulfill its pecuniary obligations in money universally recognized by all civilized countries."

William Graham Sumner

2011-01-22T08:57:00.000-08:00

Yale sociologist William Graham Sumner was one of the most influential American thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While Sumner could be considered the founder of sociology as an academic discipline, his ideas ranged much farther. An intellectual ally of Englishman Herbert Spencer and American president Grover Cleveland, he was an outspoken advocate of laissez-faire capitalism, minimum government, personal responsibility and sound money. He wrote biographies of Andrew Jackson, Alexander Hamilton and Robert Morris as well as the popular Folkways and The Forgotten Man.

Some quotes of William Graham Sumner:

A proposition to give everybody an existence worthy of a human being, without a specification of the measures by which it is proposed to do it, is like a proposition to make everybody handsome. . . . Our analysis has . . . shown this noble sentiment is simply a bathos.

The question . . . arises, if it is proposed to reorganize the the social system on the principles of American democracy, whether the institutions of industrialism will be retained. If so, all the virus of capitalism will be retained. It is forgotten, in many schemes of social reformation in which it is proposed to mix what we like with what we do not like, in order to extirpate the latter, that each must undergo a reaction from the other, and that what we like may be extirpated by what we do not like. We may find that instead of democratizing capitalism we have capitalized democracy--that is, have brought in plutocracy.

Who are those who assume to put hard questions to other people and to demand a solution of them? How did they acquire the right to demand that others should solve their world problems for them? Who are they who are held to consider and solve all questions, and how did they fall under this duty?

We groan about monopolies and talk about more laws to prevent the wrongs done by chartered corporations. Who made the charters? Our representatives. Who elected such representatives? We did. How can we get bad law-makers to make a law which shall prevent bad law-makers from making a bad law? That is, really, what we are trying to do. If we are a free, self-governing people, all our misfortunes come right home to ourselves and we can blame nobody else.

(The abolition of poverty) When we turn to examine the means which we are invited to employ for this purpose, we find that it is only the same old proposal once more in a new disguise; we are to abolish poverty by abolishing wealth. We are to go back, in fact, to the primitive barbarism, to the bliss which rests on ignorance, and the contentment which comes from savage stupidity; and the net final gain will be that our envy will no longer be excited by seeing anybody else better off than we. . . . The philosophizing which goes on about these things is one of the marks of the literature of our time. Most of it is as idle as it would be to write essays about the distress of excessive heat.

The robbery of a merchant by a robber baron, the robbery of an investor by a railroad wrecker and the robbery of a capitalist by a collectivist, are all one.

Nearly all, when they say that they want equality only use another form of expression to say that they want more welfare than they have, because they take as a standard all which any one has and they find many who have more than themselves.

The Evolution of American Journalism

2011-01-18T07:13:00.000-08:00

Three of the most significant figures in the history of American journalism never attended any college. H.L. Mencken, outspoken editorialist for the Baltimore Sun, editor of The American Mercury and The Smart Set, and author of the multi-volume classic, The American Language, learned the newspaper business by working at a newspaper. Much despised by leftists of the thirties, Westbrook Pegler dropped out of high school to cover sports for a Chicago paper and eventually became one of the most influential columnists of the century. But the journalist that set the standard for all that followed was Will Rogers.

Will Rogers neglected to graduate from high school, became a cow hand and then a vaudeville and circus performer and then a Broadway headliner in the Ziegfeld Follies. Transferring his stage political monologue to a newspaper column read by more than 40 million, Rogers parlayed his Oklahoma rural wit into a career that included 71 movies, a radio show, travels around the world and a personal relationship with the most powerful politicians in the country. He was probably the most famous American in the world at the time of his death in a plane crash near Barrow, Alaska in 1935. No American journalist has been able to match his record, but it's not for lack of effort.

These three all achieved their success with opinion pieces. Nuts and bolts news reporters, even with regular by-lines, remained anonymous to all but their contemporaries in the business. This changed in 1972 when a group of Republican operatives were apprehended inside the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, through contacts with "Deep Throat", an informant that may have been FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt, wrote a series of articles investigating that event and others connected to the Nixon White House. Trials and hearings were held, with television coverage that enthralled the nation, and a US president was forced to resign. Woodward and Bernstein became media rock stars, wrote highly successful books about the affair and were the subjects of books themselves as well as a Hollywood movie. Their road to acclaim and attendant financial success was noticed by others who took advantage of the later expanding footprint of television.

Foremost of the next generation of journalist/media stars were Dan Rather and Geraldo Rivera. Beginning with live television coverage of a hurricane on the Galveston waterfront followed by a break-through performance following the Kennedy assassination and later in native clothing in Afghanistan, Rather took over the position once held by the more conventional Walter Cronkite as America's pre-eminent television news figure. He relinquished this spot in 2004 with the promotion of an easily-exposed bogus expose' of George W. Bush's National Guard career. Nonetheless, his success changed the face of television news coverage to a form over substance, personality-driven configuration.

Rivera took a somewhat different path, relying on a more "news as entertainment and titillation" format that also involved him in the very events, sometimes manufactured, that he was supposedly covering, such as the "Capone's Tomb" episode. As a pioneer of the "trash TV" genre, Rivera has managed to maintain visibility through the years despite failures and embarrassments. Financially, if not critically, he continues to be a success.

A fact-based reportorial process meant to enlighten as well as inform has changed to what is basically entertainment with a personality focus. Money is the major factor in this transition. Ratings that drive advertising rates are perceived to hinge on the popularity of television news "stars". Katy Couric is the leading current example, with her $15 million+ contract with CBS.

Aside from a liberal/progressive slant on the news, the leading media outlets have adopted a feeding-frenzy approach featuring their stars giving breathless accounts of tragedies with interpretations and analysis by insider experts. The Giffords shooting in Tucson is an example of this phenomenon. The competitive nature of the media business has encouraged outlets to broadcast and publish conjecture before determining the basics of the event. The rewards for "scoops", even fallacious ones, both to individuals and the industry as a whole, so far outweigh the risks of failure, that we will continue to be wise to view with skepticism anything the media reports.

Obama Administration Gives a Boost to Domestic Energy Production and Employment

2011-01-03T20:43:00.000-08:00

First there's this:

Shell receives air permits for Chukchi drilling
by Dan Joling / The Associated Press Fairbanks Daily News Miner

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Shell Oil has crossed another hurdle in its plans to drill three exploratory petroleum wells in the Arctic Ocean.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday it had approved a clean air permit for Shell to operate its drilling ship in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast.

The permit requires the Frontier Discover to burn ultra low-sulfur diesel fuel. That and other conditions, including restrictions on operating hours, will reduce particulate emissions by 72 percent and sulfur dioxide emissions by 99 percent, from 181 tons per year to 2 tons, said Janis Hastings, deputy director of EPA's air quality program.

Short-term exposures to sulfur dioxide is linked to adverse respiratory effects and increased asthma symptoms.

The fuel requirement also covers Shell's support vessels when they operate within 25 miles of the drill ship.

Shell wants to drill three exploratory wells on the Arctic Ocean acreage it leased in a 2008 sale. The company also awaits an air quality permit for proposed drilling in the Beaufort Sea; a decision will be made later this month, Hastings said.

The announcement came one day after President Barack Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a revised outer continental shelf leasing program.

The revision was in part a response to a lawsuit by three environmental groups and an Inupiat Eskimo community. A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., a year ago agreed that the Interior Department did not properly study the environmental impact of expanding oil and gas drilling off Alaska's coast before issuing its five-year leasing program.

Salazar on Wednesday announced the agency had considered nearly 50 studies for its revised leasing program. For the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, Salazar said, lease sales would be suspended for at least two years so that additional scientific studies could be conducted and because the estimated benefit is outweighed by potential environmental damage.

However, he retained the 2008 Chukchi lease sale, in which Shell paid $2.1 billion for leases. Information from lease holders' scientific studies, including whether an oil spill can be cleaned up in broken ice, will help him determine whether additional lease sales are needed in the 2012-2017 lease program, Salazar said.

Shell spokesman Curtis Smith said Thursday delivery of the final Chukchi Sea air permit on the heels of Wednesday's news that the company would continue to have access to offshore acreage obtained in 2008 was excellent news. However, he noted the permit must be listed for 30 days before it becomes usable, and it could be appealed to the Environmental Appeals Board.

Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, called the EPA's approval great news for the state.

"I'm hopeful we're poised for a renaissance in Alaska's oil patch, with this permit for Chukchi development and the Obama administration's support for OCS development," Begich said.

The Minerals Management Service estimates the Chukchi could hold recoverable reserves of 15 billion barrels of oil and 77 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Brendan Cummings, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, called the air permit "highly problematic and likely illegal."

"While Shell's drilling operations would contribute significant amounts of conventional pollutants to the atmosphere, perhaps our biggest concern is that large amounts of black carbon, which directly contributes to Arctic warming, will be released, yet EPA failed to perform any real analysis of such impacts," he said.

The Clean Air Act requires EPA to impose conditions related to greenhouse gas emissions, he said, and Shell's drilling will likely contribute upward of 90,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

"There was no analysis, much less attempt at regulation of this pollutant," he said.

Shell faces other hurdles before its drilling ship heads north.

The Minerals Management Service has a court appearance next month in a lawsuit challenging its approval of Shell's Chukchi exploration plan. The 2008 lease sale also is being challenged in Alaska District Court.

Then there's this:

Feds pull Shell's Arctic air permits after challenges
by Mary Pemberton / Associated Press Fairbanks Daily News Miner

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Alaska Native and conservation groups have succeeded in challenging clean air permits granted to Shell Oil to drill exploration wells in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.

Numerous groups alleged that Shell's permits granted by the Environmental Protection Agency would allow Shell to emit tons of pollutants into the Arctic environment from a drill ship and support vessels.

The Environmental Appeals Board reviewed the permits. It found that the analysis of the impact of nitrogen dioxide emissions from the ships on Alaska Native communities was too limited, and remanded the permits.

The groups challenging the permits say pollutants resulting from Shell's exploration drilling will harm Inupiat people and wildlife while contributing to climate change.

Shell did not immediately return a call for comment.

On the other end of the continent, a previously approved coal mining project in West Virginia gets the EPA axe.

We had to kill him to save him

2010-12-30T07:53:00.000-08:00

The St. Cloud Times reports that an unfortunate individual with suicidal tendencies and a shotgun did not survive an encounter with 4 officers.

December 30, 2010

Officers shoot, kill man holding shotgun in Little Falls

By Kari Petrie
kpetrie@stcloudtimes.com

LITTLE FALLS — Officers shot and killed a man early this morning who they say was suicidal.

The Morrison County Sheriff’s Office was called at 12:22 a.m. about a man who was suicidal and in possession of a gun, Sheriff Michel Wetzel said.

Morrison County deputies and Little Falls police located the man as he was leaving the home of an acquaintance in northeast Little Falls. When officers tried to stop the vehicle, the driver pulled into a nearby driveway and stopped, Wetzel said.

The 37-year-old man got out of the vehicle with a shotgun, Wetzel said. After repeated attempts to order the man to put the gun down, two Little Falls officers and two Morrison County deputies fired their weapons.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene. His name has not been released.

The names of the officers involved have not been released.

The investigation has been turned over to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

We will never know the details of this incident but we do know that this person, for whatever reason, was given the death penalty by firing squad by 4 highly-trained peace officers without the benefit of any judicial process. We're all much safer now.

The End of Innocence

2010-12-23T06:04:00.000-08:00

Roosevelt listening to Daniels.

After Woodrow Wilson won the US Presidency in 1912 he appointed Josephus Daniels, the editor and publisher of the Raleigh News-Observer, Secretary of the Navy. A dedicated Democrat, Daniels had previously served in the Interior Department under Grover Cleveland. After assuming his Naval duties, he chose a tall, lanky New York patrician as his first assistant, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. "The End of Innocence" is meant to be an account of the relationship of these two men as interpreted by Daniels' son, Jonathon, an eyewitness to many of the events of the era and later an editor of the News-Observer himself. In addition to his own personal recollections, the younger Daniels gleaned material from the diaries and journals of prominent figures from that era and even the local scandal sheet, Town Topics.

Fortunately, "The End of Innocence" is much more than the story of the two public figures and their connection. It is a vivid portrait of Washington society, a national but still provincial capital with a permanent population of wealthy, influential residents surrounded by transient officeseekers and lobbyists, all concerned with the maintenance and acquisition of wealth and prestige through proximity to government. His chatty gossip gives us an inside look at not only important figures like William Jennings Bryan, Henry Adams, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson himself, but also lesser known and remembered personalities like Wilson's closest advisor, Colonel House, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the amazing Col. Charles L. McCawley and his wife and many others.

Josephus Daniels had a blustery cruise as Secretary of the Navy. A committed prohibitionist, alchohol was banned on ships during his tenure. In charge of the expansion and moderization of the fleet, his ideas of nationalizing shipyards and insulating sailors from immoral influences met with fierce opposition. Eventually his ambitious second became the vice-presidential candidate to James M. Cox on the Democratic ticket in the 1920. Their loss meant that Daniels temporarily returned to his editor's chair in North Carolina. When FDR won the Presidency Daniels was made the ambassador to Mexico.

"The End of Innocence" doesn't tell us much about how government is supposed to function or if it even does. But it tells us a lot about people, the people that make up the political class and how they function. It's not altogether a flattering tale but it's very entertaining.

"The End of Innocence", Jonathon Daniels, J.B. Lippincott Company, 1954.

Bad News for the Welfare State

2010-12-07T07:04:00.000-08:00

The Nov.-Dec. issue of Foreign Affairs, a publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, contains the article "American Profligacy and American Power: The Consequences of Fiscal Irresponsibility" by Richard Haas and Roger Altman, two very high-powered establishment guys. It's worth your time to pedal down to the local library and read this essay rather than put down $12.95+tax at Barnes & Noble for the whole magazine. However, if the tires on your bike are flat, I can give you a synopsis of what they're trying to get across. It's over. The US congressional strategy of purchasing votes with the future production of the country has resulted in a state rapidly descending into irreversible financial disaster. US commitments to virtually unlimited defence spending and geometrically expanding entitlement programs financed by treasury bonds are unsustainable. The country is rapidly approaching a situation where a huge percentage of the GDP will be required just pay the interest on these bonds. It is inevitable that government services will be curtailed and that taxes will be increased. This isn't the raving of a radio talk show host. The first is the president of the CFR and a Phd. from Oxford and the second is a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, an adviser to presidents and presidential candidates, and a fixture in the world of finance and its academic auxiliaries. So what does that mean for you and me?

First of all, the celebrated US standard of living is going to take a slide. We are seeing evidence of this already. Discretionary spending will shrink in predictable ways. Luxury items like sophisticated fishing boats, high-buck motorcycles, expensive furniture, etc. will no longer be options for middle class consumers. Home buyers will be forced to look at smaller houses. Food choices for many will be less exotic.

Second, and most important, the relatively new social safety net will be re-configured because there will be no money to pay for it. It's always seemed strange that while the state could require that parents are responsible for their children, there's never been a push by the government to make these children responsible for the later welfare of their parents. You could say that the parents SHOULD HAVE made provisions for their declining years and if they did so, great. But if they didn't, why does society as a whole assume that responsibility? Sure, social security was supposed to provide some help in that line but the payroll deductions have been dwarfed by the escalating benefits and inflation. Realistically, those deductions were just another tax, they've been poured into the general tax receipts. There won't be any security provided by social security.

Defined benefit public employee pension plans, the black hole that states like California, Illinois and New York stare into now along with many profligate municipalities, will become a thing of the past. And those states and communities faced with the impossible task of guaranteeing these pensions will need some creative thinking to escape their financial responsibility. Escape they must, as dunning the general population into penury to accomodate retired firemen and cops will open the gates to political demagoguery unique in our history.

The US operates under a paradigm of education borrowed from 19th century Germany and relatively unchanged since that time. The educational bureaucracy, from the small local level to the federal pinnacle, exists not to further student knowledge but to perpetuate itself and produce docile citizens with prescribed beliefs. The country can no longer afford an expensive but ineffective system that half-heartedly embraces technological advances that should make it cheaper and better.

How long will the population be able to afford a law enforcement, judicial and penal structure that dominates society? The "war on drugs" for instance, devours tax payer funds in a losing battle with black market entrepeneurs that supply a product to willing customers while encouraging disregard of important laws throughout society. Can we really afford to spend $40,000 a year to incarcerate those convicted of supplying common vegetable matter to happy consumers?

The US military establishment, larger than that of the rest of the entire world, must be shrunk dramatically. The 2011 US Navy budget request is for $160.6 billion.

"The FY 2011 budget supports a deployable battle force of 284 ships including 11 aircraft carriers and 29 large amphibious ships. It also reflects a shift to support irregular warfare and includes funds for the littoral combat ship (LCS), expeditionary E/A-18G aircraft supporting national electronic warfare requirements, P-8 Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance aircraft supporting increased emphasis on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and a variety of unmanned aerial vehicles."

No other country has more than one carrier. The US has over seven hundred overseas bases. Those in Afghanistan and Iraq are often in the news but we hear less about installations in Bulgaria, Italy, Serbia, Israel, and Greece. In the very near future American military presence will be reduced both at home and overseas, purely for financial reasons. The concept that the US should be an increasingly ineffective policeman for the world will no longer be valid, if indeed it ever was. Other countries, especially the Europeans, will be forced to finance their own military protection in reduced form or forego it entirely.

The days of federally-financed earmark projects, the John J. Murtha Airport in Pennsylvania, anything in West Virginia with Robert Byrd's name on it and obscenely expensive rail and highway projects are numbered, even as "stimulus" efforts.

In the decades to come, the gigantic statist experiment will fail. And that's a good thing.

Tool or Weapon? Who Cares?

2010-12-04T19:09:00.000-08:00

The New York Times brings up a topic of marginal interest to many but of great importance to us 19th century fellas. I really can't remember ever leaving the house without a knife, even as a youngster. In fact, a jack knife was a common Christmas present or birthday gift for a boy when and where I grew up. A quality knife was a prized possession and the ability to keep one razor sharp was a talent envied by those who never acquired it. Try butchering a moose with a bad knife. Or doing a good job of sharpening a pencil.

The knife was probably the second tool developed by man, after a primitive stone bludgeon or handle-less hammer. It's only logical that the first knives were chipped from flint many thousands of years ago, before even arrow heads or spear points. Through the centuries improvements in metallurgy were generally initially put to use in edged weapons and tools. Swords evolved over time from the short broad swords of the Greek phalanx to French epees to cavalry sabers. Every advanced culture around the world developed some form of edged weapon. When the victorious continental rebels decided to augment their new constitution with a Bill of Rights, they didn't specify in the second amendment that the right to keep and bear arms was limited to FIREARMS. Firearms in that era were expensive, fragile, unreliable luxuries while edged weapons were arms that were common and available to everyone. Restricting their possession or use would have been considered nonsense then and until the post-war emergence of the nanny state and the spineless acquiescence of the citizenry to futile government efforts to create a risk-free society. Put out that cigarette. Buckle your seat belt.

Cutting the Deficit

2010-11-30T08:42:00.000-08:00

The Washington Post today advises us that our president has proposed a two-year wage freeze on the nearly 2 million strong federal work force. Of course, it's only a proposal. Action by the Congress would be required to implement such a policy. Estimates indicate that roughly $5 billion each year would be saved so the amount is a miniature segment of the vast federal budget. One federal worker gave her opinion of the idea:

"You could always count on your increase," said Danielle Swain of Manassas, an analyst for the foreign export service of the Agriculture Department who is nervous about the cut to her commuter-rail subsidy. "If you don't get a bonus, this is all you get. They're picking on the government because they assume we sit around and don't do anything. Well, it's not true."

There's no doubt that Ms. Swain is exhausted every evening when she's finished her analyst duties at the USDA, wobbled home on the commuter rail and lurched into her kitchen to prepare a bowl of gruel. But that's not the point. The real issue is the role of the federal government in providing a "foreign export service" through the USDA. Presumably, this office of the agency assists US farmers and agribusiness in exporting their products. Why should that be a function of the federal government at all? If exports are an important part of the agricultural complex, as they obviously are, wouldn't it be in the interest of farmers and agribusiness to set up their own organization and hire their own Danielle Swains to promote US agricultural exports? Why should a person in another line of work, a circus clown, for instance, be expected, through his tax payments, to subsidize the marketing efforts of pickle purveyors and pumpkin producers?

A Thanksgiving Thought from "The Unbroken Window"

2010-11-28T07:57:00.000-08:00

The Thanksgiving Gift

Nov 25th, 2010 by wintercow20

I wrote this for Thanksgiving last year. Didn’t get around to a new article for this year, but I hope you can enjoy this “reprint.”

Four centuries after the celebration of the first Thanksgiving, there is still widespread disagreement about the reason for the Pilgrims’ feast. But whether it was a harvest festival, a strictly religious observance, or a thank you to the local Wampanoag Indians, such a feast would not even have been possible were it not for the abandonment of the utopian ideas the Pilgrims laid out in the original Mayflower Compact.

Imagine a world where the earnings you generate from teaching, or nursing, or tending your orchard, from working the cash register, or mowing some lawns – all of the fruits of your efforts went into a common pool. Imagine further that each of your friends and neighbors, and every stranger in Monroe County was entitled to an equal share of what was placed into the kitty. It didn’t matter whether you mowed 20 lawns per day or one, whether you treated 30 patients per day or none, whether you taught 50 students per day or none – you received the same “income” as everyone else in the community. Imagine further that your home was owned in common by all in your community and that rearing your neighbor’s children was as much your responsibility as anyone else’s.

Such was the intention of the Compact – by eliminating any semblance of private property and personal accountability, which were declared to be the foundation for avarice and selfishness – prosperity and brotherly love would result. How did it work out?

You need only look at the cleanliness of your office fridge or the condition of a public bathroom for a glimpse into the horrors of such collectivism. People suffered, starved and perished. Governor Bradford wrote in his diary, “For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense … that was thought injustice.”

Most shocking perhaps is that this injustice generated penury, jealousy and sloth in a society comprised entirely of (self-professed) holy people, each with a common cause, each from a similar background, and in a community with less than 200 settlers. The lessons for a society comprised of people of varying degrees of “saintliness”, with differing interests and backgrounds, and hundreds of millions in size should be obvious.

Confronting the disaster of collectivism, Plymouth’s elders wisely “resorted” to a system of private property and free exchange. Bradford wrote of the reforms, “… it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression…By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the faces of things were changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God.”

I doubt many Pilgrims themselves properly understood the nature of their original problem, nor its solution – which is why I doubt that the first Thanksgiving was a celebration of liberty and private property. While they might have thanked Providence and luck for the bounties that followed the change in property institutions in 1623, it was only their industry, thrift and discipline in response to the formation of private property institutions that such a feast was even possible.

Fast forward to 2008, where the most productive among us are made to feel like criminals, and the non-productive (those who are able) are portrayed as innocent victims of a tyrannical system of capitalism. That Thanksgiving is a “national” holiday is ironic – for it is was a celebration enabled by an explicit movement away from “nationalistic” ideals – a celebration made possible by the unleashing of the individual productive efforts of all in the Plymouth colony.

I am blessed to have a healthy family, the ability to have completed my formal education, and the discipline to work hard with the lot I was given in life. Providence and luck has been kind to me. I give thanks to that every single day of my life. But on this day, this 385th renewal of Thanksgiving Day, as many in our nation clamor to gallop anew down a 21st century style collectivist path (health care for everyone, financial bailouts, auto bailouts, fairer taxes, public schools, managed trade, green-collar subsidies, farm subsidies, licensing restrictions, “living wages” and more) littered with the tragedies of hundreds of failed experiments before us, let us remember what made the first Thanksgiving possible, and what has made our modern prosperity possible.

The productive efforts of billions of individuals past and present who unknowingly cooperate each and every day in an effort to improve their own lots, have bestowed upon us a gift even greater than the yams, apples, turkeys, wheat, and other resources that we were naturally endowed with. Just how large a gift have they given to each of us? Imagine yourself alone in the New England wilderness on a cold and wet November day 500 years ago. The difference between the “fire roasted” yam you might conjure up with days of immiserating work in 1508 and the majestic spread set out before you today in 2008 is but a glimpse of the bounty that liberty and property have bestowed upon us. Let us hope that the light of liberty remains lit, so that we may see our way through harsh and brutal winters that might lie ahead.

That Obscure Object of Desire

2010-11-16T19:50:00.000-08:00

The last film directed by Luis Bunuel, "That Obscure Object of Desire", was released in 1977, the same year as David Lynch's first film, "Eraserhead". There can't be any doubt that Bunuel's picture had a major influence on the ideas of Lynch.

TOOD is the story of Mathieu, played by Bunuel regular Fernando Rey, an affluent widower, and his tortured relationship with a younger girl, as related by him during a Canterbury Tales-like train trip across Spain and France. He explains to the odd assortment of travellers sharing his compartment why he poured a bucket of water over the girl's head as she attempted to join him on the train. We see their initial meeting after she has been hired as his new chambermaid and their subsequent difficulties. The most notable aspect of this film is that the role of the girl, Conchita, is played by two different actresses with dissimilar appearances and temperaments, Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina. The two exchange places in adjacent scenes and even in the same scene, but Mateo doesn't seem to notice the difference. Set in the late 1960's, there is a backdrop of urban terrorism running through the movie, car bombs and armed robberies are frequent occurrences. The contrast between the lavish surroundings and lifestyle of the wealthy businessman Mathieu and the impoverished squalor of Conchita is tempered by curious incidents such as a mouse being caught in a trap in Mathieu's study and a fly landing in his water glass in an exclusive restaurant. A burlap bag carried by Mathieu at occasional moments is never explained.

The focus of the film is Mathieu's lustful obsession for Conchita, which she foils at every turn. But there is much more to the story than that. TOOD is an enjoyable and engrossing romp with a cinematic master. Professional bullriding score: 93

Re-cycling a Strategy

2010-11-09T07:25:00.000-08:00

Perhaps they deserve credit for tenacity, even though their premise is doubtful and their tactics are loathsome. It appears that it will take the sight of a mile-high glacier sliding down the Hudson River and wiping out Yonkers before the climate alarmists will turn their disaster scenario in a different direction. This from the NYT:

"The treaty, the Montreal Protocol, was adopted in 1987 for a completely different purpose, to eliminate aerosols and other chemicals that were blowing a hole in the Earth’s protective ozone layer.

But as the signers of the protocol convened the 22nd annual meeting in Bangkok on Monday, negotiators are considering a proposed expansion in the ozone treaty to phase out the production and use of the industrial chemicals known as hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs The chemicals have thousands of times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas.

HFCs are used as refrigerants in air-conditioners and cooling systems. They are manufactured mostly in China and India, but appliances containing the substance are in use in every corner of the world. HFCs replaced even more dangerous ozone-depleting chemicals known as HCFCs, themselves a substitute for the chlorofluorocarbons that were the first big target of the Montreal process.

“Eliminating HFCs under the Montreal Protocol is the single biggest chunk of climate protection we can get in the next few years,” said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, a nongovernment organization based in Washington. He noted that the ozone protection effort had begun under former President Ronald Reagan and continues to enjoy bipartisan support.

The United States has thrown its support behind the proposal and negotiators said there was a strong current of support for the move at the meeting on Monday. All the signatories to the Montreal Protocol would have to agree to the expansion, but no further approval from Congress would be needed. So far, there has been no Congressional or industry opposition to the idea.

But the plan is not expected to be adopted this year. Large developing countries, including China, India and Brazil, object that the timetable is too rapid and that payments for eliminating the refrigerant are not high enough.

One advantage to using the Montreal protocol as a vehicle, supporters say, is that negotiations over the treaty have been utterly unlike the contentious United Nations climate talks that foundered in Copenhagen last year. Negotiators say that without legislative action on curbing greenhouse gases by the United States, little progress will be made when countries gather in Cancún, Mexico, late this month for another round of climate talks.

In a post-election news conference, President Obama noted that it was doubtful that Congress would do anything to address global warming “this year or next year or the year after.”

Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, the Montreal treaty has been signed by all nations. They conduct their business with little drama and with broad scientific and technical input from governments and industry. The financing mechanisms, while occasionally contentious, are generally quickly resolved and seen as equitable.

The ozone treaty was unanimously ratified in 1988 by the United States Senate, which a decade later unanimously voted against adopting the Kyoto Protocol to address climate change. Montreal’s pollution reduction targets are mandatory, universally accepted and readily measurable. None of that is true of the climate process.

The Montreal Protocol has phased out nearly 97 percent of 100 ozone-depleting chemicals, some of which are also potent climate-altering gases. The net effect has been the elimination of the equivalent of more than 200 billion metric tons of global-warming gases, five years’ worth of total global emissions, far more than has been accomplished by the Kyoto process.

It has been, according to the former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, “perhaps the most successful international agreement to date.”

The proposal to eliminate HFCs was advanced several years ago by the tiny island nation of Micronesia, one of the places on Earth most vulnerable to sea-level rise and other global warming effects.

The United States quickly signed on. Along with Mexico and Canada, the Obama administration has proposed a rapid series of steps to reduce HFC production, with rich countries meeting a faster timetable than developing nations and helping to pay the poorer countries to find substitutes. But the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that adopting the HFC proposal could eliminate the equivalent of 88 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2050, and slow global warming by a decade.

Daniel A. Reifsnyder, the deputy assistant secretary of state for environment and the nation’s chief Montreal Protocol negotiator, said that it might take several years to persuade the ozone treaty countries to back the plan.

In addition to pace and cost issues, some countries say that HFCs have little impact on the ozone layer and thus should be handled under the United Nations climate change talks. Mr. Reifsnyder dismissed that as a legalistic argument and said that the ozone treaty could and should be used to achieve broader environmental objectives.

“What we’ve found is that the Montreal Protocol has been a very effective instrument for addressing global environmental problems,” Mr. Reifsnyder said in an interview. “It was created to deal with the ozone layer, but it also has tremendous ability to solve the climate problem if people are willing to use it that way.”

Mario Molina, the Mexican scientist who shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his groundbreaking work in identifying the role of chlorofluorocarbon gases in the breach of the stratospheric ozone layer, said that it might take two or three years for other countries to see the virtues of the HFC reduction.

“My hope is that everybody will agree with this proposal from the United States and Mexico and a few other countries because the Montreal Protocol has been so successful at controlling these industrial chemicals,” he said in an interview from his institute in Mexico City.

Dr. Molina said that extending the protocol to include HFCs could reduce the threat of climate change by several times what the Kyoto Protocol proposes. He noted that the climate treaty had fallen far short of its goals, and that there was no agreement on what should replace it when its major provisions expired in 2012.

“We understand it’s a stretch to use an international agreement designed for another purpose,” he said. “But dealing with these chemicals and using this treaty to protect the planet makes a lot of sense.”
________________________

In 1973 Sherwood Rowland, a professor at the University of California-Irvine, and a graduate student there, Mario Molina, were studying atmospheric aerosols. At that time geophysical research seemed to indicate that there were annual fluctuations in the stratospheric ozone content over the poles, especially over the Antarctic. The media became obsessed with the possible ramifications of this, a supposed increase in ultra-violet radiation reaching the earth's surface that would cause increases in skin cancer and blindness in humans and animals. Television news stories gave ultimately fictional accounts of blind sheep wandering around in Patagonia and Chilean children unable to attend school due to poisonous sunlight. At just this moment, Molina ran a computer simulation of what would occur if molecules of popular and effective refrigerants, HCFCs, compounds of chlorine, were to enter the atmosphere, as they invariably would, due to leaks in refrigeration equipment. Aside from the fact that the chloroflourocarbon molecules are much heavier than air, Molina's experiment indicated that over time they would migrate to the highest reaches of the atmosphere where ultraviolet rays would break these incredibly stable molecules down, releasing chlorine atoms that would unite with the O1 ozone atoms and allow ultra-violet rays to penetrate to the earth. There was never any physical evidence that this process was actually taking place and none has been found to this day.
Nevertheless, portions of the scientific community and the media embraced the theory. Much like climate change today, opinions were polarized. However, the businesses most affected by proposed bans on HCFCs, the refrigeration and air conditioning industry, chemicals, building materials and aerosol cans didn't put up much of a fight. They saw opportunities to increase profits with newer, more expensive products and more expensive service techniques and were happy to consign R-12, R-502, and, eventually R-22, to the scrap heap. The Montreal Protocol forbids the use of these products in industrialized nations but they are still legal in the developing world. Keep in mind that all the HCFCs ever produced, and being produced to this day, will eventually end up in the atmosphere. While a certain proportion of them are recycled for further use, even that quantity will eventually escape. These compounds are not broken down into some other substance.
One would expect, if the Rowland-Molina theory had any validity, that after the adoption of the Montreal Protocol in 1987, there would be a continuing fall in polar ozone levels for an extended period of time followed by a slow rise. This has not happened. And, as soon as the signatures on the paperwork had been signed, the media and parts of the scientific community moved on to something else, climate change. We haven't heard about the ozone hole in years. Researchers with an ideological and financial interest in climate change hoped that a direct assault on what remains of free market civilization would find success with visions of world-wide calamity. Not enough people fell for it. The antidote was just too extreme. The Montreal Protocol, the most expensive and needless attempt to shape human life on a world-wide basis ever attempted, had succeeded. But Kyoto had not. Thus they will attempt to change our lives on the basis of an international treaty restricting refrigerants.
__________________

Update: They haven't given up at all. Now it's the whales that are in trouble.

Sunburnt whales: Rising UV radiation could be damaging whales' skin

November 10th, 2010 in Biology / Plants & Animals

Enlarge

A blue whale swimming in the deep waters off the southern Sri Lankan town of Mirissa. A closely-studied community of whales, including the threatened blue whale, showed worrying signs of sunburn, possibly because of ozone depletion in the atmosphere, biologists reported on Wednesday.

Whales exhibit skin damage consistent with acute sunburn in humans, and it seems to be getting worse over time, reveals research published this week in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Queen Mary, University of London and CICIMAR, studied blue whales, fin whales and sperm whales in the Gulf of California to determine the effect of rising levels of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) on their health.

For a number of years scientists have observed blisters on the skin of whales. Now, using high-quality photos to give accurate counts of the blisters and analysing areas of damage in skin samples, this research has found that the three species of whale exhibit skin damage that is commonly associated with acute sunburn in humans.

Notably, the scientists also found that signs of sun damage were more severe in the paler-skinned blue whales, compared with the darker-skinned fin whales, and that in blue whales the symptoms of sunburn seem to be getting worse during the three years the study took place.

The UV index for the Gulf of California fluctuates between high and extremely high throughout the year. Lead author, Laura Martinez–Levasseur from ZSL and Queen Mary, says, "Whales need to come to the surface to breathe air, to socialise and to feed their young, meaning that they are frequently exposed to the full force of the sun.

"The increase in skin damage seen in blue whales is a matter of concern, but at this stage it is not clear what is causing this increase. A likely candidate is rising UVR as a result of either ozone depletion, or a change in the level of cloud cover."

Co-author Professor Edel O'Toole, from Queen Mary, says, "As we would expect to see in humans, the whale species that spent more 'time in the sun' suffered greater sun damage. We predict that whales will experience more severe sun damage if ultraviolet radiation continues to increase."

The next phase of the research will look at the expression of genes involved in the production of skin pigmentation and DNA damage repair and try to gain a greater understanding of the consequences of sun damage in whales.

Lead author Dr Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, from ZSL says, "We have shown that exposure to strong sun is damaging to whales' skin. We now need to understand the knock-on effects and whether whales are able to respond quickly to increasing radiation by enhancing their natural sun-protection mechanisms."

More information: The paper 'Acute sun damage and photoprotective responses in whales' ( DOI:10.1098/rspb.20101903 ) will be published online in Proceedings of the Royal Society B on Wednesday 10 November.

Provided by Zoological Society of London

Bison and Bureaucracy

2010-11-08T04:51:00.000-08:00

There are two ecotypes of bison in North America, the plains bison that roamed the inter-mountain area of the continent in millions before European settlement, or bison bison, and the wood buffalo, bison athapascae, a larger animal with some differing features, whose range has shrunk from a large swath of present-day Alaska, the Yukon and Northwest Territories, British Columbia and Alberta to a small area of northern Alberta. These animals are not different species, they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. The average person could not distinguish one from another. Beginning in 1957, when the wood buffalo were recognized as such, the Canadian government has made an effort to increase their numbers and provide a buffer between these wild animals and the pressure of surrounding agricultural interests.

The American bison of the great plains, whose migrations by the many thousands once extended from the Llano Estacado of western Texas to northern Saskatchewan, are familiar to everyone, found in reduced numbers in the wild and semi-domesticated on ranches and in images ranging from one side of a nickel coin to the mascot of the University of Colorado athletic teams. Buffalo meat is available at many supermarkets. The state of Alaska has established three different bison herds in locations in the central part of the state that are apparently thriving. A percentage of the herds are thinned by sport hunting each year.

Now comes this piece of news:

State ready to release wood bison, waiting on federal protection

by Tim Mowry / tmowry@newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS — The state Department of Fish and Game says it is ready to release at least 40 wood bison on the lower Innoko River country in the western Interior and is just waiting for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to create protection from the Endangered Species Act for future resource development.

“There’s nothing else that can hold us back at this point,” wildlife planner Randy Rogers with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Fairbanks said this week.

The ADF&G announced a target release date of spring 2012, but that hinges on the federal government creating a special rule that will designate wood bison in Alaska as a “nonessential experimental population” under section 10j of the Endangered Species Act.

“I’m optimistic,” the state’s endangered species coordinator, Doug Vincent-Lang, said on Friday. “That’s not to say there won’t be surprise here and there but I’m confident once we get the nonessential population rule put in place and get the allowed take we would like to have associated with that rule put in place that we will be able to go ahead with the release.”

The state has been holding wood bison it imported from Canada in captivity for more than two years in anticipation of restoring the animals to Alaska, where it’s believed they roamed hundreds of years ago. The state has a herd of 89 wood bison at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in Girdwood south of Anchorage.

“We cannot maintain this captive herd of bison indefinitely,” Rogers said.

It’s costing the state about $100,000 per year to house, feed and care for the bison, the state’s wood bison biologist, Bob Stephenson at ADF&G in Fairbanks, said.

Waiting on feds

The animals have been tested for diseases such as tuberculosis and brucellosis three times and have been given a clean bill of health by state veterinarians, Rogers said. All that remains is coming up with a management plan that addresses the future harvest of wood bison in Alaska and the regulations to deal with the Endangered Species Act.

Officials with the Fish and Wildlife Service say they are still reviewing the special rule that would designate wood bison as a nonessential population and pave the way for their release in Alaska.

“The law says you have to have a rule in place before you can release these animals,” Stephenson said.

Once the regional office in Alaska comes up with a draft rule, it must be sent to the national office in Washington, D.C. for final approval before it is published in the Federal Register, said Steve Klosiewski, deputy regional manager for the USFWS in Anchorage.

“It’s easy for us to do our work here, but the Washington office has all these various Endangered Species Act rules they have to deal with,” Klosiewski said.

Once the proposed rule is written, it must be published in the Federal Register for a 60-day public comment period, after which it could be amended before it is finalized.

“Assuming the endangered species regulations come out the way we proposed them, we should be OK to do the release in the Innoko,” Rogers said. “It’s not 100 percent guaranteed by any means. There’s still a lot of things that have to fall in place.”

The state has met several times with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials in Alaska and Vincent-Lang said the two agencies “fundamentally came into agreement on what the (10j) rule should look like.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service has told the state it hopes to have the final rule in place by the end of July.

“We’re working with the state to help them meet their timeline,” Klosiewski said.

Release plans

The department recently received a $152,350 grant from the Wildlife Conservation Society for the restoration effort. The department will use the money to help develop a cooperative management plan, set up a temporary corral and move hay and supplies to the release site, and transport bison to the site.

The state settled on the lower Innoko River area, which is about 400 miles southwest of Fairbanks, after efforts to release the animals in the Yukon Flats and Minto Flats were met with resistance from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Yukon Flats) and Fairbanks Native corporation Doyon Ltd. (Minto Flats).

“That’s the way things lined up politically,” Rogers said of why the lower Innoko River was chosen as a release site.

The department’s plan calls for releasing a minimum of 40 bison. More animals could be released depending on what the prospects are for releasing animals in the Yukon Flats and Minto Flats by then, Rogers said.

“If we think we can release bison in the other sites in a two- to four-year time frame we will hold some back,” he said. “If we’re uncertain whether we’re going to be able to proceed in the other areas, we’re going to have to take more out to the Innoko so we don’t end up with crowding at the AWCC.”

While the wood bison habitat in the Yukon Flats and Minto Flats is considered better than the lower Innoko River, there is ample habitat to support a herd of at least 400 animals, according to department studies.

Doyon, which opposed the Minto Flats as a potential release site because the corporation is actively drilling for natural gas in the region, owns several hundred thousand acres in the lower Innoko River area, too, but Jim Mery, the corporation’s vice president for lands, said Doyon does not have any pending oil, gas or mineral exploration projects in the area and releasing animals there “is something we can live with.” Doyon has some done some mineral exploration in the area, primarily for gold, but not in the last five or six years, Mery said.

“The lower Innoko country would be fine with us assuming the communities want the animals down there,” he said.

Residents in local communities have been very supportive of releasing wood bison in the area, Rogers said.

The department’s tentative plan is to fly the bison to an airstrip near Shageluk, a village on the Innoko River, in March 2012. They will be held in a temporary corral and fed for about a month before being released just prior to greenup and calving. Stephenson referred to it as a “soft release.”

“The idea behind that is so they don’t just start walking when they are released,” he said. “If you hold them quietly in a new area for awhile and release them when good, green forage is not far away and they’re about to calve, then they’re kind of stuck.”

Still wild

Even after being kept in a captive environment for what will be almost four years by the time they are released, Stephenson said the bison shouldn’t have any problems adjusting to life in the wild.

“Bison are hardwired,” the biologist said. “You’d have to select them genetically for generations to change them into something more like cattle.”

Even in their captive setting at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, the bison display wild behavior. Competition for feed is intense and fights between the bison are not uncommon. Eleven bison have died in the last year and a half, Rogers said. Once an animal is injured in a fight, other bison “gang up on” the weakened animal and kill it, he said.

“Overall this is a pretty natural occurrence within a bison herd,” Rogers said. “We’ve tried to get necropsies (animal autopsies) of all of these mortalities. Several have shown there have been some wounds that only can be goring from other bison. Sometimes some of the dominant bulls are pushing younger animals away and getting mean at times.”

Most of the deaths have involved young bison, he said.

The breeding season recently concluded and the department is hopeful of having a crop of about 30 new calves next spring, Roger said.

Currently there are about 10,000 wood bison in the wild in Canada and another 4,000 disease-free animals being held in captivity in Canada.
___________________________

What can be the possible impetus for all this activity? Is there some group of citizens lobbying for an expanded population of wood buffalo? Four thousand miles away from the permanently frozen ground of the lower Innoko River, the Wildlife Conservation Society, an expansion of the New York Zoological Society and proprietor of the Bronx Zoo, among others, was instrumental in the recovery of the plains bison in the early years of the 20th century. They have now provided financing for the initial stages of this project. However, they are not paying all the bills. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and State of Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game are now heavily invested in it. We're talking large amounts of public money. Wildlife planner Randy Rogers, endangered species coordinator Doug Vincent-Lang and wood bison biologist Bob Stephenson are all full-time employees of the state of Alaska. Their very livelihoods are dependent on just this sort of undertaking. As are those of their federal counterparts in the regulatory maze that the unwitting bison must navigate along with their human advocates. The entire boondoggle is a monument to the state gone mad. From the feel-good thinking of some environmental faddists ensconced in the most densely populated city in the country, a project has been adopted by public bureaucrats that can never be arrested, that will furnish them with a lifetime income and retirement benefits, and whose accomplishments can never be measured in terms of return on investment or anything else. In fact, chances are nobody but the bureaucrats involved and a few interested locals will ever lay eyes on these animals, helpless pawns in a bizarre game played out across an immense continent and nearly as large a bureaucratic landscape.

This is not the only example of government bureaucrats hitching their wagons to an animal star. The re-introduction of the Mexican gray wolf to eastern Arizona and western New Mexico has followed a similar path, from the bright idea of a retired Honeywell employee in Phoenix to nearly open warfare on the range land of the White Mountains over cattle depredations by transplanted wolves wearing blaze orange radio collars.

Grover Cleveland

2010-10-08T08:34:00.000-07:00

Having no concept that somehow there has been a world, and a USA, before the present moment, modern politicians of every stripe, and in particular Democrats, are loathe to resurrect or even mention the ideas of their predecessors. Legendary figures like Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson are honored by a kind of Hellenistic deification divorced from their actual policies. The 22nd and also 24th President, the first Democrat to hold that office after the Civil War, and perhaps the American President most admirable for his own personal qualities, Grover Cleveland has astonishingly been ignored and forgotten by a party that has repudiated almost everything for which he stood.

Cleveland's ascent to the White House in 1885 began with his being elected as sheriff of Erie County, New York, in 1871, mayor of Buffalo in 1882, and governor of New York in that same year. Then, as now, Democrats were a far from unified party. Cleveland, a strict interpreter of the US Constitution and an advocate for the free market, became the nucleus of the "Bourbon" branch of the Democrats. This wing of the party was anti-imperialist, anti-tariff and pro-business; advocates of the gold standard and civil service reform and opponents of municipal corruption and government subsidies. These positions put them at odds with urban organizations like the "Tweed Ring" in New York City and with some populists, notably William Jennings Bryan. Throughout his political career Cleveland fought to limit the expansion of the federal government, keep its budget within bounds, and restrict the tax obligation of the citizenry. During much of his administration, the federal government ran a budget surplus, which he felt indicated that taxes, at that time mostly tariffs, should be lowered as much as possible.

President from 1885-1888, he lost the following election to Benjamin Harrison despite winning the national popular vote but came back to win again in 1892, the only chief executive to serve non-consecutive terms. He was the first and only president to be married in the White House.

Cleveland was also one of the best extemporaneous speakers to ever hold the nation's highest office. Here is a transcript of an interview he gave to the Daily Continent, New York, April 12, 1891:

"I believe a large majority of reporters are decent and honorable men, who would prefer to do clean and respectable work. Of course there are some among them who are mentally and morally cracked, and who never ought to be trusted to report for the public anything they claim to have seen or heard. Eliminate these, and I do not think any of the remainder would deliberately indulge in downright barefaced falsehood; but there is something connected with their work that they appear to think is necessary to its complete finish, which, for want of a better word, may be called embellishing. This proceeds so far, sometimes, that, almost unknown to himself, the reporter falls into mischievous and exasperating falsehood--sometimes lacking the intent to annoy and injure and sometimes not. There ought to be much less of this. The reporter who sends in these extravagant embellishments can never know when they may constitute the most outrageous injury to the feelings of the innocent and defenseless.
But, as a general rule, the responsibility for all that is objectionable in the reportorial occupation should be laid at the doors of the managers and owners of newspapers. If they wanted fair and truthful reports, they would be furnished them with more alacrity than they are now supplied with the trash so often demanded as a test of the reporter's skill and ability.
Good, clean journalism and a proper sense of newspaper responsibility , prevailing at headquarters, would so raise the standard of the duties of those remaining that they would not only be gladly welcomed by all who have information interesting to the public to impart, but would be received, without the suspicion of intrusion, at any place where legitimate news would be collected."

In 1885, President Cleveland wrote this letter to someone who inquired as to the possibility of a position in his administration:

"My Dear Young Friend:

I cannot attempt to answer all the letters addressed to me by those, both old and young, who ask for places. But, if you are the boy I think you are, your letter is based upon a claim to help your mother and others who are partly dependent upon your exertions. I judge from what you write that you now have a situation in a reputable business house. I cannot urge you too strongly to give up all idea of employment in a public office, and to determine to win advancement and promotion where you are.
There are no persons so forlorn and so much to be pitied as those who have learned, in early life, to look to public positions for a livelihood. It unfits a man or boy for any other business, and is apt to make a kind of respectable vagrant of him. If you do well in other occupations, and thus become valuable to the people, they will find you out when they want a good man for public service.
You may be sure that I am, as you say, the friend of every boy willing to help himself; but my experience teaches me that I cannot do you a better service than to advise you not to join the great army of office-seekers.
I never sought an office of any kind in my life; and, if you live and follow my advice, I am certain that you will thank me for it some day.

Yours truly,

Grover Cleveland"

Arthur Penn Moves On

2010-09-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

Motion picture and stage director Arthur Penn has died in NY a day after his 88th birthday. Penn came to national prominence with the release of "Bonnie & Clyde" in 1967. The movie's radical departure from typical Hollywood fare in its embrace of romanticized social misfits and stylized graphic violence struck gold in the anti-establishment youth consciousness of the late '60s and set the pattern for a generation of films in a similar vein; "The Wild Bunch", "Taxi Driver", "Apocalypse Now", "A Clockwork Orange", "The Godfather" and "Dirty Harry" among others. Their success was the death knell for the previous era of pictures and the people that made them. Super stars like Doris Day, Charlton Heston, Humphrey Bogart and Frank Sinatra, along with directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Blake Edwards and Douglas Sirk no longer satisfied audiences that had acquired a cynical worldview. Many of the mainstays of older cinema drifted into television and a new group took their place in the movie industry. Penn was among the vanguard of this trend that included Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Sam Peckinpah, and others.
I was an extra on Penn's next big project, the screen adaptation of Thomas Berger's novel, "Little Big Man", starring Dustin Hoffman, Martin Balsam, Richard Mulligan and, once again, Faye Dunaway. The reminiscenses of 121 year old Jack Crabb, captured by the Indians as a child and raised among them, eyewitness and participant in the battles of the Washita River and Little Big Horn, friend of Wild Bill Hickock and acquaintance of Custer, are used as an allegory of the US presence in Southeast Asia. As a cavalryman, generally involved in battle scenes that were directed by Hal Needham, I was involved personally with Penn only occasionally. He seemed to be the kind of director that took a lot of shots, hoping that at least one would survive the editing process. While many of the cast and crew circulated about the set and engaged in the kind of social interactions you might expect in that kind of a situation, Penn himself didn't associate much with the proletariat of the cinema industry.
"Little Big Man" was a popular and critical success, more so than "Bonnie & Clyde", and while it wasn't the ground-breaking effort of its predecessor, it may better stand the test of time.

Art with Meaning

2010-09-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

The American Swedish Institute, a fabulous castle, sits on the corner of 26th and Park in south Minneapolis, MN and, on the south wall of this unique building, is the "Visby Window". This stained glass window is copied from an oil painting by Carl Gustaf Hellqvist that memorializes an incident that occurred in 1361 in the small city of Visby, Gotha, Sweden. King Valdemar Atterdag and his Danish troops had surrounded the town. The king sits in the square on his throne with hogsheads before him that the citizens are filling with their portable wealth, coins, jewelry and gold and silver plate. Danish troops in the background wait for orders from the king to sack and fire the town. In the foreground the mayor and his wife and children cross the square in humiliation, sorrow and rage.

Valdemar inherited a kingdom that had been bankrupted by his father and previous Danish monarchs. Upon accession his goal was to pay off the kingdom's obligations and restore it to its former glory. One of his methods was to do just as he did with Visby. The threat of violence was used to extort wealth from its owners, to be used by the extortionist for his own purposes. Valdemar is, at that point, the effective government of Visby and the residents are in no position to resist his demands. No doubt later he sent his men from house to house to search for hidden assets and probably offered rewards for information on those assets that may have set one neighbor against another. The Visbyians saved wealth was now gone forever. Valdemar didn't have the option of investing his confiscations in common stock or mutual funds. What wasn't spent in soldiers' pay and armour was kept in a locked room and doled out to buy the things he couldn't steal.

This work of art encapsulates the relationship between the individual and the state. Valdemar is the state, an entity that requires no cooperation from the individual to rearrange or negate that individual's private property. In the ensuing 650 years it has become easier for the state to accomplish the same things. Armed government agents in the US enforce tax laws; confiscate cars, real estate and currency; arrest and incarcerate those that they determine to have failed to forfeit what the state demands. There's really no difference between Valdemar Atterdag demanding the silverware of a Visby fisherman and the US government demanding its share of a truck driver's paycheck.