Thursday, May 21, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
I'm "Batchin-it"...
For the next few days with "Bunches" out to NY to collect our daughter, see some of the sights available on the NY side of America. Warm and sunny enough here in the Greatland to beat last year's miserable global-warming-denial-of-a-summer already, and it's only the middle of May. I'm crossing fingers.
Sarah (our governor) Palin has sided with fellow beauty pageant contestant Miss USA California, claiming that the 1st Amendment's freedom of speech clause covers Miss Prejean's somewhat impolitic statement, seemingly (and biblically) anti-gay rights. Our Governor thinks that the freedom of speech is unrestricted by privately owned ("The Donald" Trump)and funded events like the Miss USA bimbo-fest. This is of course, not true, which is why Al Campanis, Jimmy-the-Greek and others have famously been fired or retired by their media bosses when caught practicing bigotry. Not by the bosses, but by the public.
While it is a true example of sisterhood that an aging former beauty queen is standing up for a silicon-enhanced current beauty queen, neither of them seem to "get" the 1st Amendment: You can speak your mind...but there may be consequences. We bloggers should understand this too.
Sarah (our governor) Palin has sided with fellow beauty pageant contestant Miss USA California, claiming that the 1st Amendment's freedom of speech clause covers Miss Prejean's somewhat impolitic statement, seemingly (and biblically) anti-gay rights. Our Governor thinks that the freedom of speech is unrestricted by privately owned ("The Donald" Trump)and funded events like the Miss USA bimbo-fest. This is of course, not true, which is why Al Campanis, Jimmy-the-Greek and others have famously been fired or retired by their media bosses when caught practicing bigotry. Not by the bosses, but by the public.
While it is a true example of sisterhood that an aging former beauty queen is standing up for a silicon-enhanced current beauty queen, neither of them seem to "get" the 1st Amendment: You can speak your mind...but there may be consequences. We bloggers should understand this too.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Late to the party again...
But The "Tea Baggers" on April 15th here in Alaska count among themselves one Chuck Heath, father of Sarah "Caribou Barbie" (Heath) Palin, observed at the Wasilla Tea Party wearing a grin and a "Joe the Plumber" sweatshirt, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Question: Is there anything so galling as a former public employee who lives on a handsome retirement (payed for by the local taxpayers), and who so gleefully attends tax protest demonstrations? Word is that Chuck was an exceptionally good teacher, so I'm sure he feels he earned his retirement. fine. Why protest against others getting theirs?
Our local publicly-owned electric utility here in Alaska's Matanuska-Susitna Valley has completed its annual membership meeting, board elections and bylaw referendum. In other places news of this sort would rarely make the shopping fliers, but this is the Wasilla-Palmer-Mat-Valley, so its BIG news. The relatively new "liberal" majority on the Matanuska Electric Association (MEA)board was re-elected, even after ordering manager Wayne Carmony to cashier Bruce Scott and Republican political gadfly Tuckerman Babcock. MEA has long served as a Laundromat for Republican patronage jobs, which explains Scott and Babcock's tenure there. Frankly, it couldn't have happened to two of more deserving practitioners of the professional sinecure. Tuckerman, who ran for Alaska State House as a conservative "let the private sector do it" candidate back in 1990, never so much as threw a paper route, and has probably never known a "private sector" job. I'd say good riddance, but the slippery smug and unctuous Tuckerman will re-emerge in some other form, shape-shifter that he is.
A University of Miami study indicates that religious people tend to "live longer than the norm for their demographic group." This should perhaps be unwelcome news to secular humanists like myself. Upon reflection, however, the secularist and non-theistic among us must consider that the average religious person spends 3 - 6 hours per week in Sunday School and church,or on the way to and from church. We non-religious put those hours to other uses: taking a walk, watching football, reading, doing chores, having a mimosa in the hot tub, making love, sleeping in or writing blogs, all kinds of relatively more productive endeavors. I figure the religious have to live 2 - 8 years longer than we un-churched just to make up for all the time they wasted - in church.
Question: Is there anything so galling as a former public employee who lives on a handsome retirement (payed for by the local taxpayers), and who so gleefully attends tax protest demonstrations? Word is that Chuck was an exceptionally good teacher, so I'm sure he feels he earned his retirement. fine. Why protest against others getting theirs?
Our local publicly-owned electric utility here in Alaska's Matanuska-Susitna Valley has completed its annual membership meeting, board elections and bylaw referendum. In other places news of this sort would rarely make the shopping fliers, but this is the Wasilla-Palmer-Mat-Valley, so its BIG news. The relatively new "liberal" majority on the Matanuska Electric Association (MEA)board was re-elected, even after ordering manager Wayne Carmony to cashier Bruce Scott and Republican political gadfly Tuckerman Babcock. MEA has long served as a Laundromat for Republican patronage jobs, which explains Scott and Babcock's tenure there. Frankly, it couldn't have happened to two of more deserving practitioners of the professional sinecure. Tuckerman, who ran for Alaska State House as a conservative "let the private sector do it" candidate back in 1990, never so much as threw a paper route, and has probably never known a "private sector" job. I'd say good riddance, but the slippery smug and unctuous Tuckerman will re-emerge in some other form, shape-shifter that he is.
A University of Miami study indicates that religious people tend to "live longer than the norm for their demographic group." This should perhaps be unwelcome news to secular humanists like myself. Upon reflection, however, the secularist and non-theistic among us must consider that the average religious person spends 3 - 6 hours per week in Sunday School and church,or on the way to and from church. We non-religious put those hours to other uses: taking a walk, watching football, reading, doing chores, having a mimosa in the hot tub, making love, sleeping in or writing blogs, all kinds of relatively more productive endeavors. I figure the religious have to live 2 - 8 years longer than we un-churched just to make up for all the time they wasted - in church.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
I should call this "Bill's Blog-A-Fortnight"...
Or "Think Again, Every Two Weeks or So." Anyway:
In her plaintive response to President Obama’s plan to redirect funds from the anti-ballistic missile program to defense programs deemed more worthy, Governor Palin claimed: “Alaska's strategic location and the system in place here have proven invaluable in defending the nation....”
If, by “invaluable” our governor means “not of value,” she is spot on. The “mid-course” missile defense program is – according to the Pentagon – rife with technical problems, waste, cost overruns, and mismanagement. The billions we’ve spent on this program only show that we’ll buy a system that, even under ideal test conditions, fails more often than it works. Cold fusion would be neat to have too, but the technology for it, and the missile “shield” placed in Alaska has yet to prove feasible, much less cost effective.
The fact that Ted Stevens brought the system, and the billions of federal dollars which go along with it, to Alaska has more to do with Palin’s complaint than Obama’s funding decision, or North Korea’s recent (unsuccessful) missile launch. After all, defense spending is the gift that keeps on giving for Alaska, as it has been for decades. Besides, our governor still has national aspirations.
In her plaintive response to President Obama’s plan to redirect funds from the anti-ballistic missile program to defense programs deemed more worthy, Governor Palin claimed: “Alaska's strategic location and the system in place here have proven invaluable in defending the nation....”
If, by “invaluable” our governor means “not of value,” she is spot on. The “mid-course” missile defense program is – according to the Pentagon – rife with technical problems, waste, cost overruns, and mismanagement. The billions we’ve spent on this program only show that we’ll buy a system that, even under ideal test conditions, fails more often than it works. Cold fusion would be neat to have too, but the technology for it, and the missile “shield” placed in Alaska has yet to prove feasible, much less cost effective.
The fact that Ted Stevens brought the system, and the billions of federal dollars which go along with it, to Alaska has more to do with Palin’s complaint than Obama’s funding decision, or North Korea’s recent (unsuccessful) missile launch. After all, defense spending is the gift that keeps on giving for Alaska, as it has been for decades. Besides, our governor still has national aspirations.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
From my perspective...
It becomes abundantly clear that local Alaskan outdoor writer Howard Delo subscribes the notion that “Just because your paranoid doesn’t mean somebody’s not out to get you.” Central to two of Howard’s missives, (“2nd Amendment is very clear,” 3/3/09, and his latest, “I just don’t believe it”, 3/10/09) is the idea that President Obama, the jackbooted ATF and the Democrat controlled Congress is going to kick down his door and haul off all of his guns, presumably to the recycling center, where they’ll be melted down, presumably into the next generation of energy-efficient GM vehicles.
First, for 230 years the 2nd Amendment was not “clear” in a legal sense, until last year’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision that struck down the D.C. handgun ban. In this decision, the majority held that there was indeed an “individual right” to keep and bear arms. But even Justice Scalia (on the majority side) wrote: “Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited,” meaning that reasonable restrictions to gun ownership can be applied, and do not constitute an ”infringement” of rights under the 2nd Amendment.
In his Spectrum of March 3rd, Delo says: “Just try passing a law restricting free speech in the print media…” In fact, there are plenty of laws restricting the “free speech” clause of the 1st Amendment. Laws regarding: incitement to riot, so called “fighting words,” libel and slander, national security, obscenity – the list goes on.
For that matter, there are laws restricting the “free exercise” of religion clause of the 1st Amendment. Same thing for the 4th (privacy rights) and the, 5th and 6th (rights of the accused) Amendments. And U.S. Supreme Courts through the years have found all of these legal restrictions constitutional. This is why neither I nor Mr. Delo can own a operational bazooka, or a claymore mine, or a howitzer, at least not without a really expensive license.
On the same day as Delo’s Spectrum, Erik Heiker wrote in to give us the old slippery slope argument that: “Gun restriction is always a precursor to gun confiscation.” I moved from Alaska to Illinois for a couple of years back in the ‘80s. According to long-standing state law, I was legally bound to register my guns with the county sheriff. Two years later I moved back to Alaska, and who’d believe it, but my guns weren’t confiscated at all. In fact, I hear that gun registration that does not lead to confiscation has been going on in Illinois for decades – who’d a thunk it? And that’s in Confiscator-in Chief Obama’s home state.
But back to Howard Delo. In his March 10th “OUTDOORS” column, he claims that Obama will do anything - short of making us choose between our 1st born child and our guns (and/or bibles) – to trash the 2nd Amendment. Yet a cursory investigation at FactCheck.org or other non-partisan websites will disabuse the more thoughtful among us of these idiotic NRA Kool-Aid-induced accusations.
As an Alaskan gun owner, I don’t particularly want restrictions on my 2nd Amendment rights. I don’t hunt, but I want the right to keep a handgun for personal protection, and the protection of my family. Living in Alaska, we view registration as anathema. Were I back in Illinois, I’d do as Illinoisans do and register my guns. It’s part of the beauty of the concept of federalism.
First, for 230 years the 2nd Amendment was not “clear” in a legal sense, until last year’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision that struck down the D.C. handgun ban. In this decision, the majority held that there was indeed an “individual right” to keep and bear arms. But even Justice Scalia (on the majority side) wrote: “Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited,” meaning that reasonable restrictions to gun ownership can be applied, and do not constitute an ”infringement” of rights under the 2nd Amendment.
In his Spectrum of March 3rd, Delo says: “Just try passing a law restricting free speech in the print media…” In fact, there are plenty of laws restricting the “free speech” clause of the 1st Amendment. Laws regarding: incitement to riot, so called “fighting words,” libel and slander, national security, obscenity – the list goes on.
For that matter, there are laws restricting the “free exercise” of religion clause of the 1st Amendment. Same thing for the 4th (privacy rights) and the, 5th and 6th (rights of the accused) Amendments. And U.S. Supreme Courts through the years have found all of these legal restrictions constitutional. This is why neither I nor Mr. Delo can own a operational bazooka, or a claymore mine, or a howitzer, at least not without a really expensive license.
On the same day as Delo’s Spectrum, Erik Heiker wrote in to give us the old slippery slope argument that: “Gun restriction is always a precursor to gun confiscation.” I moved from Alaska to Illinois for a couple of years back in the ‘80s. According to long-standing state law, I was legally bound to register my guns with the county sheriff. Two years later I moved back to Alaska, and who’d believe it, but my guns weren’t confiscated at all. In fact, I hear that gun registration that does not lead to confiscation has been going on in Illinois for decades – who’d a thunk it? And that’s in Confiscator-in Chief Obama’s home state.
But back to Howard Delo. In his March 10th “OUTDOORS” column, he claims that Obama will do anything - short of making us choose between our 1st born child and our guns (and/or bibles) – to trash the 2nd Amendment. Yet a cursory investigation at FactCheck.org or other non-partisan websites will disabuse the more thoughtful among us of these idiotic NRA Kool-Aid-induced accusations.
As an Alaskan gun owner, I don’t particularly want restrictions on my 2nd Amendment rights. I don’t hunt, but I want the right to keep a handgun for personal protection, and the protection of my family. Living in Alaska, we view registration as anathema. Were I back in Illinois, I’d do as Illinoisans do and register my guns. It’s part of the beauty of the concept of federalism.
Monday, March 16, 2009
A comment or two...
From some pithy thinkers of late.
One is a recent reader's comment from Paul Krugman's NYT blog regarding Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Party. It reflects my thoughts as well as any author thus far in this early Obama presidency:
"Rush Limbaugh openly states that he hopes for the failure of this presidency and its policies — and clearly states that any honest Republican shares his view. But isn’t wishing that the policies fail the same as wishing that the country fails? If one disagrees with the policy decisions, it’s legitimate to say so. But if the policies work, the intellectually honest thing to do is to reevaluate one’s own belief system. Wishing for their failure though is patently ideological, and ultimately an act of metaphorical suicide bombing. 'I’ll go down with the whole country just to make sure they’re never proven right'".— A. Devero
Another is from Ed Phillips, an old friend and retired real-life economist from Alaska, now from beautiful Kalama, WA. I get the big point but not the finer ones, really:
"There are real reasons to criticize the Obama fiscal policy. It's too bad the conservatives have chosen to retreat to a 1920's pre-Keynesian argument. They have adopted what is know as "The Treasury View".,promoted by the British Treasury in the interwar (WW1/WW2) and held by very few economists otherwise, even then.
This view holds that any increase in government expenditure must come at the expense of private expenditure. Public expenditures financed by taxes or deficits (future taxes) are held to "crowd our" private expenditures. This argument is plausible if the economy is at full employment and/or government borrowing increases interest rates, thereby reducing private investment and consumption. It seems that in periods of recession and/or depression the full employment constraint is not operative and it is possible to increase government expenditures financed by deficits and not crowd out private expenditures. This was recognized before Keynes and public works projects as a means of reducing unemployment was recognized by the economics profession by the early 20th century. A British commission in 1912 or so explicitly advocated such a policy.
In 1932 members of the University of Chicago Economics Faculty including Frank Knight, Jacob Viner, Henry Simons and Paul Douglas( Yes, the Paul Douglas that became a US Senator) sent a letter to Congress advocating public works projects financed by deficit spending and monetary expansion. Sounds very Keynesian.
In fact the efficacy of deficit spending and public works projects was orthodox nostrum before Keynes. His major contribution was to give it a theoretical underpinning. Had the Roosevelt Administration been willing to become Keynesian (follow the advice of Chicago) before WW2 the Great Depression may not have been "Great".'
Fox News "Analysts" claims FDR prolonged the Depression. If he did, it's because he spent too little, tried to balance the budget after 1936, and needed WW II to get us out of the "Great" depression. Here's to Obama not making the same mistake.
One is a recent reader's comment from Paul Krugman's NYT blog regarding Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Party. It reflects my thoughts as well as any author thus far in this early Obama presidency:
"Rush Limbaugh openly states that he hopes for the failure of this presidency and its policies — and clearly states that any honest Republican shares his view. But isn’t wishing that the policies fail the same as wishing that the country fails? If one disagrees with the policy decisions, it’s legitimate to say so. But if the policies work, the intellectually honest thing to do is to reevaluate one’s own belief system. Wishing for their failure though is patently ideological, and ultimately an act of metaphorical suicide bombing. 'I’ll go down with the whole country just to make sure they’re never proven right'".— A. Devero
Another is from Ed Phillips, an old friend and retired real-life economist from Alaska, now from beautiful Kalama, WA. I get the big point but not the finer ones, really:
"There are real reasons to criticize the Obama fiscal policy. It's too bad the conservatives have chosen to retreat to a 1920's pre-Keynesian argument. They have adopted what is know as "The Treasury View".,promoted by the British Treasury in the interwar (WW1/WW2) and held by very few economists otherwise, even then.
This view holds that any increase in government expenditure must come at the expense of private expenditure. Public expenditures financed by taxes or deficits (future taxes) are held to "crowd our" private expenditures. This argument is plausible if the economy is at full employment and/or government borrowing increases interest rates, thereby reducing private investment and consumption. It seems that in periods of recession and/or depression the full employment constraint is not operative and it is possible to increase government expenditures financed by deficits and not crowd out private expenditures. This was recognized before Keynes and public works projects as a means of reducing unemployment was recognized by the economics profession by the early 20th century. A British commission in 1912 or so explicitly advocated such a policy.
In 1932 members of the University of Chicago Economics Faculty including Frank Knight, Jacob Viner, Henry Simons and Paul Douglas( Yes, the Paul Douglas that became a US Senator) sent a letter to Congress advocating public works projects financed by deficit spending and monetary expansion. Sounds very Keynesian.
In fact the efficacy of deficit spending and public works projects was orthodox nostrum before Keynes. His major contribution was to give it a theoretical underpinning. Had the Roosevelt Administration been willing to become Keynesian (follow the advice of Chicago) before WW2 the Great Depression may not have been "Great".'
Fox News "Analysts" claims FDR prolonged the Depression. If he did, it's because he spent too little, tried to balance the budget after 1936, and needed WW II to get us out of the "Great" depression. Here's to Obama not making the same mistake.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Just got back....
From the LIONS gun show here in my little corner of "Land-of-the-Northern-Redneck," and boy was it crowded! Full disclosure: I do like guns. But I am not a member of the NRA, who I believe pedals paranoia to angry white guys. I am a gun owner who doesn't like a lot of other gun owners, and doesn't share their monomania about the 2nd Amendment, slippery slopes, torches and pitchforks.
When the US Supremes decided that there indeed was an individual right to bear arms over the D.C.handgun ban lawsuit), it was hailed by the trigger-happy right as validation for the false belief by many that there were no restrictions on gun ownership. The unintended consequence of the ruling, however, opens all gun ownership in the USA open to "reasonable restriction." Just as there are reasonable restrictions on our 1st Amendment (yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater, "fighting words..."), 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendment rights, there are assumed to be reasonable restrictions on Amendment #2. The debate should be about what constitutes "reasonable." At the gun show, President Obama and HR 45 were the big topics of conversation, none of it complimentary, among the 99% white male patrons. So let the debate begin, eh?
Can anyone tell me why a vendor at a gun show thought it was necessary to wear a t-shirt that proclaimed of its wearer:
Christian
Heterosexual
Patriotic
American
?
I would have automatically assumed as much, given the venue.
When the US Supremes decided that there indeed was an individual right to bear arms over the D.C.handgun ban lawsuit), it was hailed by the trigger-happy right as validation for the false belief by many that there were no restrictions on gun ownership. The unintended consequence of the ruling, however, opens all gun ownership in the USA open to "reasonable restriction." Just as there are reasonable restrictions on our 1st Amendment (yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater, "fighting words..."), 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendment rights, there are assumed to be reasonable restrictions on Amendment #2. The debate should be about what constitutes "reasonable." At the gun show, President Obama and HR 45 were the big topics of conversation, none of it complimentary, among the 99% white male patrons. So let the debate begin, eh?
Can anyone tell me why a vendor at a gun show thought it was necessary to wear a t-shirt that proclaimed of its wearer:
Christian
Heterosexual
Patriotic
American
?
I would have automatically assumed as much, given the venue.
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