The New New Deal

If you do not get Imprimis magazine, you must start now! Subscriptions are free, it's a very brief read (5-10 minutes), and it's always excellent.

Warning: If you are of a liberal political persuasion, exposure to the truth presented in Imprimis could be a shock.

In the January Issue, there is an article by Burton W. Folsom, Jr. He holds the Charles F. Kline Chair in History and Management at Hillsdale College. In the article, he discusses the effects of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal". The amount of political wrangling, graft, and corruption involved in the handouts of Federal money is staggering. In addition, many of the programs created had unintended (and in some cases disastrous) consequences.

His concluding sentence:

If history is a guide, we have every reason to believe that if President Obama institutes a New New Deal, then universal health care, federal bailouts, and jobs stimulus programs will be costly, will be politicized, and will fail.

The more things change ...

An interesting story today on the BBC about "banksters", a word which combines "banker" and "gangster".

In 1928, Professor William Z. Ripley of Harvard condemned the practices of Wall Street at that time. He called them "prestidigitation, double-shuffling, honey-fugling, hornswoggling and skullduggery".

He tried to warn then-President Coolidge, but the President was an insider on Wall Street, making money using some of the very practices Ripley was citing. The result was the crash of 1929 and a decade of depression. A depression, by the way, made much worse and much longer by the Socialistic programs of Franklin Roosevelt.

Alas, the situation is remarkably similar today. And we now have a President who will take a slim victory in the polls as a "mandate" to do things far above and beyond what Roosevelt ever dreamed of. I hope you have comfortable shoes. You'll need them when you're standing next to me in the soup line.

Read the BBC story here. There's an interesting twist at the end.

Random Quotes

Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in.
--Hub McCann in the movie "Secondhand Lions"

In the old days, people worried that computers would take over the world. We have now come to a point where computers are intelligent enough to realize that they don't want to.
--Randy Cassingham, thisistrue.com

The Unretired

Business Week magazine, in the December 15, 2008 issue (page 46), has an article on The Unretired. These are people who retired, but due to the economic downturn are now hurting financially, and in many cases going back to work.

A couple of quotes, just a few paragraphs apart, stood out to me:

These aren't just the spendthrifts or sloppy planners you would expect to run into trouble in retirement ... many are people who did everything they were supposed to do -- working for decades and regularly socking money away.

Peter Fay, like many of The Unretired, feels angry and betrayed. The 63-year-old built up a $1 million retirement account as an executive at companies including Chiquita Brands International and then at his own high-end flooring company in Scottsdale, Ariz. But with all his money in stocks, he's lost 50% of that this year, at the same time that his house has tumbled in value. He's drawing down his savings and applying for jobs at Lowe's, Home Depot, and Costco. "All the systems we grew up trusting during all those years of work -- you save your money, you trust in the government -- are no longer valid," he says.

Did you catch that? "all his money in stocks" This is doing "what they were supposed to do?" I know of NO reputable financial planner or advisor who would recommend a retiree (or near-retiree) have all his money in stocks, even in the heady days of the market of the last few years.

Quite the opposite. He (and/or his financial advisors) were apparently driven by pure greed. If history can't teach people that greed is ultimately bad for them, nothing will, I suppose.

Grammar

Grammar is important, but it's not the hallmark of great writing. Rather, it's a tool to help us express ourselves and understand others.
It's what separates "Let's eat children!" from "Let's eat, children!"

--Martha Brockenbrough
Errors that Aren't: 12 Grammar Rules You Can Toss Out the Window

Why they call us a "right-to-work" state

Section 12 of Article 15 of the Constitution of the State of Kansas:

Membership or nonmembership in labor organizations.
No person shall be denied the opportunity to obtain or retain employment because of membership or nonmembership in any labor organization, nor shall the state or any subdivision thereof, or any individual, corporation, or any kind of association enter into any agreement, written or oral, which excludes any person from employment or continuation of employment because of membership or nonmembership in any labor organization.

The Poetry of Dorothea Mackellar

I'm not sure how it happened, but my Australian buddy and I got to talking about poetry the other day. He began quoting a poem he'd learned in school. It's called My Country, and was written by Dorothea Mackellar (1885-1968).

I just had to look her up, and what I found amazed me. Frankly, I'm not much into poetry. I've never really understood it, I guess. I'd rather read good prose anytime. But the poems I read from her were so moving, so touching ... it was obvious that she had worked hard to make sure every word was in just the right place to carry the exact shade of meaning she wanted. Her poems don't just paint pictures, they tug at my heart and pull me into her pictures.

I'll quote a couple of her shorter poems here, and if you want more I'll suggest The Official Dorothea Mackellar Site.

The Waiting Life
Since it befell, with work and strife
I had not time to live my life
I turned away from it until
Work should be done and strife be still.

My hands and head for use are free,
Nor does my own life worry me,
But docile as a spaniel waits
Until this present stress abates.

Tranquil it breathes, and waits, I know,
With all its joy contained. But oh
I hope when I have time to play
My life will not have run away!

This next one really surprised me at how much it touched my emotions.

An Old Song
The almond bloom is overpast, the apple blossoms blow.
I never loved but one man, and I never told him so.

My flowers will never come to fruit, but I have kept my pride -
A little, cold, and lonely thing, and I have naught beside.

The spring-wind caught my flowering dreams, they lightly blew away.
I never had but one true love, and he died yesterday.

If you have no time to read any more of her poetry, I hope you can at least read about "a sunburnt country" in My Country, which is probably her most famous poem.

Thoughts on the election

Now that B. Hussein Obama has completed his purchase of the Presidency, a few thoughts.

I was on the campus of William Jewell College yesterday. Melissa says that there must be a budget line-item in the Obama campaign's books for sidewalk chalk. Sure enough, every few feet on all the sidewalks I was on, there was another "Vote Obama" message. One said, "Want more green cars on the road?" Another, "Worried about finding a job?" And another said, "Want affordable healthcare? Vote Obama."

The problem is, that few people (and least of all college students) stop to consider the cost of those options. Putting more green cars on the road, giving people jobs, paying for healthcare ... they all seem like good ideas, but they all have a cost. By conveniently ignoring the cost, the tax-and-spenders can buy votes with promises of things, and the voters just eat it up and march in lockstep to the polls.

In some ways, the cut-taxes-and-spend crowd is worse, because they want to buy your vote from both ends: What you'll get, and it will even cost less. Every politician tells us they want to cut out the porkbarrel spending, but it's those very porky projects that buy re-election votes. If a Congressperson truly turned down everything of a porcine nature for the home state, he or she would be out of a job come the next election, no question about it.

But giving people who won't work a bunch of freebies paid for by those who will is precisely the wrong way to build or sustain a great nation. It encourages mediocrity, or worse. When asked, "What is wrong with the redistribution of wealth, which Obama talked about as far back as a 2001 interview?", Senator McCain said it very well:

That is a bold, left-wing view of how you help people that's been tried in other countries. In America, you don't take money from one group and give it to another. You create jobs, create opportunities, and give people the ability to accumulate wealth. We have Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance. But to somehow say that when "Joe the Plumber" reaches a certain income level, we're going to take money from him and give it to somebody else, that's a fundamental contradiction of what made this country the strongest and greatest nation in the world.
Business Week November 10, 2008, p.20

The UK's view of our elections

I love to read the BBC News ... and other foreign news outlets. They have such an interesting view of us.

Today's take on last night's speech by Hillary Clinton at the Democrats' convention is a lot of fun to read. Here are some relevant quotes:

After all, the winds of change should be blowing against the Republicans and their president. But, everywhere you look in Denver, you find nail-biting delegates, nervous surrogates, defensive campaign staffers.

The rest of the world thinks that Mr Obama will be America's 44th president but, at home, the Democrats are the worried party.

To some extent, this is their traditional role. Like Woody Allen in one of his earlier movies, the Democrats excel at fretting, agonising, navel gazing and over-analysing.

The opinion polls, which have Mr Obama and his Republican rival John McCain neck-and-neck, prove that they have reason to worry.

The senator from Illinois has had an arid summer. He needs to have a bountiful harvest season.

But the other reason for anxiety is the Lady who broods in the wings. Of late, Hillary and Bill Clinton have not uttered a single public word of apostasy. They are toeing the line, gritting their teeth and swallowing their pride.

They are also economical with their enthusiasm. I am told that senior Clinton people aren't even sticking around for Obama's big stadium speech on Thursday. This is damning with faint praise.

And what has to be my favorite quote:

If Barack Obama wins the 2008 election, this will be remembered as a gracious salute from a defeated rival; if he loses and Republican John McCain gets the White House, then we might just see it as the first speech of Campaign 2012.

Read the article here.

Mitt Romney's Top 10 list

Mitt Romney's Top 10 List of reasons for quitting the race for US President, as he gave them at yesterday's Radio and Television Correspondents Association annual awards dinner:

10. There weren't as many Osmonds as I had thought.

9. I got tired of the corkscrew landings under sniper fire.

8. As a life-long hunter, I didn't want to miss the start of varmint season.

7. There wasn't room in the campaign for two Christian leaders.

6. Word leaked out that nobody had bothered to search my passport files.

5. I'd rather get fat, grow a beard, and try for the Nobel Prize.

4. I wanted to finally take off the dark suit and tie and kick back, in a light-colored suit and tie.

3. Once my wife Ann realized I couldn't win, my fund-raising dried up.

2. I took a bad fall at a campaign rally and broke my hair.

1. There was a flaw in our campaign theory that as Utah goes, so goes the nation.



Source: Deseret News website, which cites youtube.com as their source.

Off the Bottle?

From Business Week magazine, April 14, 2008, page 47:

Many people drink bottled water because they deem it superior to the stuff that comes out of the faucet. Wrong, argues Food & Water Watch, a Washington (D. C.)-based non profit dedicated to consumer rights. In a report last year, the group blasted bottled water, declaring that Americans "think it is somehow safer or better than tap water ... but it is generally no cleaner, or safer, or healthier than tap water. In fact, the federal government requires far more rigorous and frequent safety testing and monitoring of municipal drinking water."
Americans drank 31.2 billion liters of bottled water last year. And the Pacific Institute, an Oakland (Calif.)-based sustainability thinktank, estimates that it takes approximately 17 million barrels of oil to produce the bottles all that water comes in. That, says the institute, is enough to fuel more than 1 million cars and light trucks for a year.

Is there any hope for more nuclear power in the US?

Is there any hope for more nuclear power in the US? Probably not, as long as the news outlets are so biased against it.

Exhibit A:
Headline on CNNMoney website: "Nuclear Plant Shutdown Causes Massive Florida Power Outages"
Excerpt from the actual story: "A problem with the electrical grid in Florida caused power outages stretching from Miami up almost to Jacksonville that affected as many as 3 million people Tuesday and caused a nuclear plant to automatically shut down ..."
Truth: A problem outside the nuclear generating facility caused instability in the electric grid, so the power plant shut down (safely) as a precaution. The headline doesn't just give the impression that the plant was at fault, it blatantly says so.

The fact is that most Americans have an irrational fear of nuclear power. The amount of radiation release in the Three Mile Island incident was less than is released in the average chest X-ray. And Chernobyl ... well, that reactor was not built to any reasonable safety standard. The reactor building was not even encased in concrete. FAR more radiation occurred in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania from the Chernobyl incident than from the one at Three Mile Island.

And here's something I didn't know: One big concern with nuclear power is the waste. Fortunately, most of the waste can be recycled and used for medical and other beneficial uses. France, which generates a huge percentage of it's power with nuclear plants, stores all of it's waste in a small room. We can't do that in the USA thanks to Jimmy Carter. He was concerned that terrorists and other countries might use waste to make bombs, so he outlawed ALL recycling of nuclear waste. Didn't make any difference. The bad guys have found many cheaper sources of what they want.

Until laws and attitudes change, we have little hope for the inexpensive, clean and safe power that the nuclear option offers.

There's an EXCELLENT article in this month's Imprimis magazine on the future of nuclear power in the USA. Well worth the 5 minutes or so it takes to read it.

Nancy Boyda spouts off again

An article in today's Topeka Capital-Journal tells how the National Guard at Forbes Field in Topeka has a dozen old jet airplanes (they'll turn 50 years old next month) that nobody flies anymore. In fact, there's nobody certified to fly the planes. They have been superseded by newer planes, and they're in the way. Unfortunately, an obscure little phrase in an old Federal law that will not allow the planes to be decommissioned without Congressional approval. As if that's not bad enough, the law requires that these planes be maintained, so somebody has to go out every week and start them up and tow them around so the tires don't get flat spots. The National Guard estimates that it costs $1.1 million a year to do this. And it's the same story at many other bases in the country. Total hit to our taxpayer wallets: $229 million annually.

Here's the article (at least until the C-J takes it down).

Enter Nancy Boyda. She says she wants to get that law off the books, and I have to agree with her (There's a first time for everything!). Her quote:

I believe that military leaders, not politicians, should decide when equipment has become hopelessly outdated.

One has to wonder if she believes that military leaders and not politicians should decide on the best course of action in Iraq?

I'd give a left lugnut to see her face if someone asked her that!

Clarence Thomas Quotes

In the latest issue of the Imprimis magazine is an interview with Hon. Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court. Here are some of my favorite quotes from him:

Today we've grown comfortable with programs and theories, whether it's affirmative action or something else. Centralized governments always have grand theories and five-year-plans. But no government program could have done what my grandfather did for me and for others who needed help. It's the golden rule -- do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The golden rule can't operate through a government program, it can only work between people.

I often say "I don't hire women law clerks." People are shocked. But I don't hire women law clerks -- I hire the best law clerks. And it turns out that 30 percent of them happen to be women. If a woman graduates from law school and I say I'm going to hire her because I need a woman, that seems to be dehumanizing, and the job would be tainted.

We're too focused on the benefits of a civil society and we think too little about the obligations we have -- the obligations to be civil, to learn about our history and our government, to conduct ourselves in a disciplined way, to help others, to take care of our homes. Too many conversations today have to do with rights and wants. There is not enough talk about responsibilities and duties.

Have you ever read Modern Times, by Paul Johnson? ... One point it makes clearly is the connection between relativism, nihilism, and Naziism. The common idea that you can do whatever you want to do, because truth and morality are relative, leads to the idea that if you are powerful enough you can kill people because of their race or faith. So ask your relativist friens sometime: What is to keep me from getting a gang of people together and beating the hell out of you because I think you deserve to be beaten? Too many people thing that life and liberty are about their frivolous pleasures. There is more to life.

More advice

Way back in May, I posted my Advice to Young Couples Part 1. My main (if ungrammatical) point was "Fight Fair".

On the Mormon Coffee blog today is a re-statement of what I said, this time directed at posters to that website. They say it so well, I'm quoting it here:

Consider these two fictional examples of comments:

“I disagree with your conclusion. I don’t think it makes any sense, and here’s why.”

This is a criticism directed at an argument; it is welcome on Mormon Coffee.

“Jason, you are an idiot. You only talk about this because you hate Mormons. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

This is a criticism directed at a person; it is not part of a respectful dialog.

Christian author and speaker Greg Koukl has pointed out,

“The minute one is labeled mean-spirited simply for raising an opposing view, it cuts off debate. This simply isn’t fair. We avoid what may be a legitimate discussion by simply calling names. Worse, we compromise our ability to know the truth.

“It’s absolutely imperative that we not silence dissent in this way. We ought to learn how to argue fairly, reasonably, and graciously. We need to cultivate the ability to disagree with civility and not take opposition personally. We also must have the grace to allow our own views to be challenged with evidence, reasoning, and Scripture. Those who refuse to dispute have a very poor chance of growing in truth.”

Sound advice for young couples, and the rest of us, too.

The real betrayers

Those foaming-at-the-mouth whiners at moveon.org published a newspaper ad the other day calling General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General of the Multi-National Foce-Iraq, "General Betray-us". They basically accused him of lying. More than that, they implicitly accused the whole military of lying. President Bush, for all his faults, called this one correctly when he said it was "disgusting". Agree with the President or the Democrats, agree with the war or disagree ... there's no reason to call into question the integrity or honesty of our military leaders without cause. Just because what they report isn't what you want to hear doesn't make them dishonest.

So, today, the US Senate considered an amendment to a bill. That amendment was "To express the sense of the Senate that [Petraeus] deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all members of the United States Armed Forces." Pretty cut-and-dried, right? Doesn't matter which side of the debate you fall on, surely you could support this one, right? Anyone who doesn't agree with this one is a traitor to the United States of America, right?

OK, here's the list, in all it's glory:

Akaka, Hawaii
Bingaman, New Mexico
Boxer, California
Brown, Ohio
Byrd, West Virginia
Clinton, New York
Dodd, Connecticut
Durbin, Illinois
Feingold, Wisconsin
Harkin, Iowa
Inouye, Hawaii
Kennedy, Massachusetts
Kerry, Massachusetts
Lautenberg, New Jersey
Levin, Michigan
Menendez, New Jersey
Murray, Washington
Reed, Rhode Island
Reid, Nevada
Rockefeller, West Virginia
Sanders, Vermont
Schumer, New York
Stabenow, Michigan
Whitehouse, Rhode Island
Wyden, Oregon

Notice the names of a few candidates for President in that list of traitors? Now, here's the real kicker: Mr. Biden of Delaware and Mr. Obama of Illinois simply failed to vote. They knew they couldn't go on record voting against this amendment, but they are so under the thumb of moveon.org that they couldn't vote for it. So skipping the vote saves their political careers for both the election and for the rabid left-wingnuts.

My respect for Ms. Clinton couldn't get any lower (except for that respect I have for a mastermind of crime ... how does she manage to get away with it, time after time?). But any shred of respect I had for the others on that list (Obama and Biden included) is now gone.

Innumeracy

Over the lunch hour, I heard an old song (1986) on the radio. It is by Wang Chung, and it's called "Everybody Have Fun Tonight".

In the first line of the song, the lyrics say, "I'd drive a million miles to be with you tonight." It's a nice sentiment, but let's look at the reality.

Assume you could average 60 miles an hour. That's driving 75mph or more, with occasional breaks. A million miles at that speed would take a million minutes, which is 16,667 hours. Even driving 16 hours a day, that would take over 1041 days, or the better part of 3 years.

Love (lust?) is blind, and sometimes innumerate.

Benjamin Franklin on arranged marriages

During a visit to a Moravian church at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Mr. Franklin inquired about their customs for arranging marriages. On being informed of how such things were handled, he says:

I objected, If the Matches are not made by the mutual Choice of the Parties, some of them may chance to be very unhappy. And so they may, answer’d my Informer, if you let the Parties choose for themselves.—Which indeed I could not deny.

Nor can I.

Benjamin Franklin again

Another quote I liked from the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin:

...in walking thro' the Strand and Fleetstreet one Morning at 7 a Clock I observ'd there was not one shop open tho' it had been Daylight & the Sun up above three Hours. The Inhabitants of London choosing voluntarily to live much by Candle Light, and sleep by Sunshine; and yet often complain a little absurdly, of the Duty on Candles and the high Price of Tallow.

Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, Part 2

Another quote, then I promise I'm done for today.

...and upon other Occasions I was generally a Leader among the Boys, and sometimes led them into Scrapes, of which I will mention one Instance, as it shows an early projecting public Spirit, tho’not then justly conducted. There was a Salt Marsh that bounded part of the Mill Pond, on the Edge of which at Highwater, we us’d to stand to fish for Minews. By much Trampling, we had made it a mere Quagmire. My Proposal was to build a Wharf there fit for us to stand upon, and I show’d my Comrades a large Heap of Stones which were intended for a new House near the Marsh, and which would very well suit our Purpose. Accordingly in the Evening when the Workmen were gone, I assembled a Number of my Playfellows, and working with them diligently like so many Emmets, sometimes two or three to a Stone, we brought them all away and built our little Wharf. The next Morning the Workmen were surpris’d at Missing the Stones; which were found in our Wharf; Inquiry was made after the Removers; we were discovered & complain’d of; several of us were corrected by our Fathers; and tho’ I pleaded the Usefulness of the Work, mine convinc’d me that nothing was useful which was not honest.