The Noble Pundit

A Dirty Tricks Campaign Against Dean in Iowa?

Howard Dean is upset.

Yeah, yeah I know. Big surprise there, huh?

Specifically, he's upset over what he perceived as a series of dirty attacks against him in Iowa.

Apparently, he is upset of the campaigning techniques of his opponents.

He has accused the John Edwards campaign as portraying Dean as an "elitest from Park Avenue in New York City." Now if I remember correctly, everything after the word "elitest" is a biographical fact.

He also accused the other candidates of having "their folks really beating up on the people who went in, trying to get them to change their minds..."

He even railed aginst "the phone calls and all that stuff under the table..." as "not particularly good for democracy."

"I never dreamed that would happen," Dean said. "And I don't think that's a healthy thing for democracy. It's enough to have it go on for weeks and weeks in the press, but when it goes on inside the caucus, I don't think that's good," he said.

OK, the Edwards campaign attack of Dean as elitest does expose the Edwards campaign as slightly hypocritical, as they claimed to be running only a postive campaign.

But the phone calls and, I'm assuming that when he describes campaigners "beating people up" that he means that they are campaigning right up until the people get to the door, not they actually, physically beat them up, are both simply part of the campaigning process. The whole idea of politics is to sell the voter on the concept that your ideas are better than the other guy's. In regular sales, the selling ends when the deal is closed. In politcs, the selling stops when the vote is cast.

Dean needs to get a little thicker skin if he's seriously planning on going all the way in this campaign. What he has seen in Iowa is but a little taste of what the rest of the campaign will be like.

Politics is nothing more than the sale of ideas for a vote. In sales, you sometimes have to deal with rejection, even when you absolutely believe that you have the better offer because your opinion isn't the one that counts - it is that of the consumer (or the voter in this case) that counts. The voters are telling Dean that they didn't like his message. Instead of whining about it, he needs to spend more time trying to figure out how he might better close the deal.

Does The Phrase "All-Volunteer" Mean Anything?

Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal Constitution has written a column in which she decrys the unfairness of the all-volunteer military claiming because we don't have a draft that affulent whites are being given a free pass on military service.

I guess the concept of "all-volunteer" escapes Ms. Tucker. In a volunteer force, no one is compelled to join the military. For minorities, they may find the military to be a haven of non-discrimination, and the poorer among us may find the military to be a respectable and reasonable path to middle classdom. But everyone who joins does so of their own free will. In some way, shape or form, they have decided that the military provides the best answer to their needs at this point.

If the military meets the needs of these people - and these people meet the needs of the military - where is the problem? Not everyone is suited for the military. If there is a problem here it is because we are not making the military an attractive option to everyone.

I find Ms. Tucker's assertation that 500 American soldiers have died in Iraq with scarcely a mention to be very odd. The deaths have been examined in almost excruciating detail in the media. In wars past we would hear, say, 25 soldiers died this week - and that, plus a list of their names, would be it. In this conflict (and the peacekeeping that has followed) we not only learn about each and every soldier that dies, we also learn the manner of their death, the events surrounding it, theorizing about failures that may have led to the death, the reaction of the family and friends - all of which stands in stark contrast to conflicts past. Each death is much more personal. And our resolve to make sure that they are not in vain is that much greater.

For Ms. Tucker to claim that we are where we are because of a lack of affluent soldiers is preposterous. We are where we are because of Saddam Hussein and the dithering of previous administrations dating back to 1991.

I would really like to know what Ms. Tucker's solution to this "problem" would be.

Is Political Speech Protected?

The North Dakota Attorney General is looking in allegations that Gen. Welsey Clark's campaign may have violated the state's do-not-call list by conducting an automated phone poll of 50,000 registered Democrats without first having a live operator ask for permission.

Now I am certainly no friend of telemarketers, and I certainly do not think that they should be allowed to use such tactics, but this is different. This was done in the furtherance of a political campaign - a Presidential campaign no less.

Political speech is on a much different level than telemarketing. It may be just as offensive, but it is part of the national discourse - something that telemarketing is not.

Yes Clark was simply conducting a poll, but it was designed so that he would know how to better focus his message in North Dakota (must be easier than staying consistent in his beliefs). As such, it should be unconditionally protected - even to the point of seemingly violating laws that would slam telemarketers with huge fines.

In this case I have to side with the General. The calls shoud be legal. He might, however, want to get his people a little more on the ball. "I'm sure it's been checked out," just isn't good enough. A political campaign should know beyond any doubt. Shouldn't the man who wants to be President at least make sure that he follows the law in getting elected?

This Is A Practical Skill?

OK, for those who have a lot of theorectical education, but not much in the way of practical skills New Canoe University (sounds like something out of Rocky and Bullwinkle) is offering a class in "How To Sell Your Body...."

The full name of the course is actually "Body Bucks: How to Sell Your Body to Science While You're Still Alive," but that still doesn't make it much better. Some of the desrciptions in the article are priceless:

"By selling bodily fluids.... a human being can earn $20,000 or more per year"

"[T]eaches students how to make money by legally selling their blood, sperm, eggs, hair and bone marrow...."

"The sale of vital organs is illegal in the United States."

"The university specializes in Internet-based training courses in practical skills needed to set up unusual....businesses."

I guess it's better that the graduates of this course have some kind of practical skill for life, but might there be some other skills that might be a bit more useful, ones like effective communication or lawnmower repair?

I wonder what UCF would say if I tried to transfer this course for credit towards a second bachelor's degree....

I'll Bet Dean Is Just So Happy

Last night Howard Dean claimed that there were no al-Qaida operatives in Iraq.

Today, it is being reported that we have, in fact, got an al-Qaida operative captured in Iraq in custody.

I'm guessing that Dean will not be happy about this latest development....

Oh yeah, they've been in custody for over a week now.

Now, if only the Bin Laden rumors are true (thanks to AllahPundit for the link!)

OK, This Is Too Much

First we had the slutty dress defense against rape - you know "The way she dressed, she was asking for it" - and now we have a new version - "He was so attractive, I couldn't help myself." This is not only the stated defense, it was the successful defense used by a gay man who bought crystal meth for an undercover cop in Ft. Lauderdale!

Had the argument been that he had been badgered into doing something he might not have otherwise done, I might buy it (he was apparently asked multiple times to do so). But no, instead they release the guy because he was entrapped by "nonverbal communication."

Give me a break.

I don't believe that the "victim" was truly entrapped. He willingly bought the narcotics. His motive may not have been the most idealistic (he was apparently doing it in an effort to further his relationship with the cop), but I would also find it very hard to actually convict the guy of selling narcotics (if that was indeed the charge, rather than simple possession) as it doesn't sound like he expected the cop to pay, at least not monetarily. Convict him of being incredibly stupid and desperate. Maybe even convict him of possession.

But remember he chose to act this way of his own free will, regardless of the attractiveness of the cop in question.

Withdraw From NAFTA & The WTO?

OK, I know that some of you will complain that this post is like shooting fish in a barrel, but I'm going to take on one of Rep. Kucinich's worst ideas from last night's debate. Specifically, he called for (and promised if elected) a full and immediate withdrawl from both NAFTA and the WTO. He brought out some really nice graphs that showed a significant drop in something (I'll assume that they did represent manufacturing jobs as he claimed) at some point in time (I'll even assume that that time corresponds with NAFTA and the WTO). Despite the graphs, I absolutely believe that withdrawl is the wrong path to take.

First, I find it very curious that in general the biggest protectionists in politics are almost always the same ones that want us to sell out our sovereignty to other nations. They want us to be internationalists and engaged in the political realm and isolationist in the economic. Never does it occur to them that the two are inextractibly linked.

The want us to be a totally self-sufficient nation, able to produce everything we need in order to maintain our standard of living. That is a nice, utopian goal. But as with most utopian goals it is unachievable.

Even during WWII, when 10% of the world's economic output used to travel over the same hill in Pennsylvania, the United States was not completely self-sufficient. Were we the biggest manufacturing plant in the world? Yes. But we still needed energy and material inputs (generally oil and exotic materials) from other nations.

Now, we are even more dependent on others, particularly those in the Middle East. Could we bring home more manufacturing? Sure. Everything that is currently being manufactured in Asia or South America or Europe could most certainly be made here - by American workers. It might cost more, but surely the increase in employment in the United States would more than offset the higher costs, right?

What the isolationists want to dismiss is the concept of economic specialization. We used to always talk about it as such:

A given unit of labor in the US can be used to either grow 1 bushel of tomatos or to produce 5 semiconductors. A similar unit of labor in Mexico can grow 2 bushels of tomatos or can produce 3 semiconductors. Each nation has 10 units of labor available.

The US would be capable of producing a maximum of 10 bushels of tomatos or 50 semiconductors. We could also choose to allocate labor to produce say 5 bushels of tomatoes and 25 semiconductors.

Mexico similarly would be capable of producing a maximum of 20 bushels of tomatos or 30 semiconductors. Or the could choose to produce 10 bushels of tomatos and 15 semiconductors.

Now obviously the US is more efficient at making semiconductors and the Mexicans are better at growing tomatos. If each nation specializes, there are 50 semiconductors and 20 bushels of tomatos available to divide between both nations. If the US trades 25 semiconductors for 10 bushels of tomatos then the US has 5 more bushels of tomatos than they would have for having produced 25 semiconductors for domestic consumption and the Mexicans would have 10 more semiconductors than if they had produced 10 bushels of tomatos for domestic consumption. Both sides benefit from the trade.

We could bring all the manufacturing back home that Kucinich is up in arms about, but how many high-tech jobs would have to be surrendered? How many service jobs would have to go by the wayside? Fact is, our economy is really geared more towards service than it is towards manufacturing any more. To ramp up our manufacturing to be as close to self-sufficient as possible our standard of living would decline. Manufacturing is no longer our specialty.

That's not to say that we should completely abandon manufacuring. As I like to say, everything in life is a balance. Manufacturing is not only an economic concern, it is also a national security concern. Prudence says that we need to maintain a certain level of manufacturing capacity in the event that conflict breaks out and we become isolated from our suppliers. The trick is maintaining the balance.

Kucinich wants to push us out of balance. He's willing to sacrifice the economy in a quest for more manufacturing jobs. Sounds an awful lot like a command economy to me.

The Soviet Union already proved that the government is not the best source for determining the proper mix of jobs in the economy. That is a task better left to the invisible hand of capitalism. The government does have in interest in promoting a degree of economic inefficiency in the interest of security, but nowhere near the degree that Kucinich is proposing.

Withdrawing from NAFTA and the WTO is a bad idea precisely because it would force the United States to become more of a manufacturing economy overnight.

Final Thoughts On The Democratic Debate

After a night to digest everything learned during the Democratic debate last night, I have come to the following thoughts and conclusions:

1.) The only guy up there who I thought might be electable in a general election was Lieberman. He had some ideas that we're all too great, but he at least has dignity, intellectual thought, and consistancy. I believe the assertation that he would provide the greatest challenge to Bush is accurate.

2.) I saw a number of people who referred to Kucinich as being the Democratic representative from Space. While seemingly accurate (he would scare Lenin and Marx as being too far to the left), I don't think that it's a good idea to continue to refer to him in this way. Reason being that as soon as the Martians get done downloading porn on the Mars Rover links, if they ever find out that we're trying to blame Kucinich on them, the may make Orson Wells' War Of The Worlds look like kiddie play.

3.) Edwards has a ways to go before he is truly a viable candidate. He's simply too green to be running yet. You can't fumble that many attempts and expect to win. I also get concerned about his stance on the Second Amendment. I like that he admitted that the Second does guarantee the right to own a gun, I did not however like his assertation that somehow there was a caveat in the wording that allows only certain types of guns to be owned. I still have yet to see the word "but" in the language of the Second Amendment.

4.) Last night was the first time I saw Clark speak. I now understand why some people have described him as the candidate for the folks who didn't want to vote for Dean because they hated moderate Republicans. When your best endorsement to date is Michael Moore I think that that just about seals the fate of your campaign.

5.) I was really disappointed with Al Sharpton. Usually he's a pretty sharp and not too terribly unreasonable. Last night he seemed out of it and also seemed to be pandering to the audience. I felt like he was out to prove that he could be every bit as lefty as the rest of the guys up there. Only one good one-liner. Disappointing.

6.) Kerry and Dean both did a pretty good job of not really saying much of anything. I did find Kerry's two new divisions proposal to be very odd, though. I agree we need two more divisions (more than that really). but temporary? I was under the understanding that the Reserves and the National Guard were in place specifically to address temporary needs of the standing military. The over-reliance on them simply proves that we need more soldiers on a permanent basis.

I think that raising two divisions in the standing Army now, only to disband them in a few years is a major mistake. It essentially means that as those units are being disbanded, the Army will be trying to create forced attrition. It also means that they'll be turning away highly qualified potential volunteers for a temporary lack of need. As a result, they'll end up with a hole in the seniority ranks, something that many businesses are struggling with now. Success is predicated on an availability of qualified personnel at any given time. A hole in the seniority ranks threatens that availability.

7.) Dean really didn't say much, but I noticed that when he was standing up there, he seemed to be leaning back a little, with a forced wooden smile on his face quite a bit. Looked almost to be a ventriliquist's dummy at times. I don't think he hurt his cause any last night, but I also don't think he helped it any - and it was in dire need of a boost. He'll stick around for a while, but I think last night sealed the fate of his campaign.

So now I'm down really to only paying attention to two candidates: Lieberman and Kerry. I've expressed my distaste for Kerry many times in the past and Lieberman is just a little too socialist for my tastes, but we'll watch and see. Tracking the campaign just became a lot easier for me.

G'Night

OK, I think that the flu and the NyQuil has got me way too cranky, so I'm off to bed. Hopefully my rants this evening made some sense. More to come tomorrow.

CAPPS 2 And Civil Rights

The other issue that came up during the debate that I thought was interesting was that of CAPPS 2, an experimental screening system that Northwest Airlines was assisting the government in testing. It apparently was proving to be pretty effective until word got out the NWA was participating. Then the ACLU and privacy people came out screaming and threatening until NWA withdrew from the program (a good business move for NWA).

As I understand it (and possibly I'm wrong here) CAPPS 2 was taking general information: name, address, itinerary - all the basic stuff that you tell the airline in order to buy a ticket - and runs it through essentially an agency check. They compare your name against a number of databases and critereon in order to better focus our security resources to identify terrorists and other threats.

I'm sorry, but I really find it hard to believe that for the airline to share manifest information - information you have already freely and willingly parted with as a condition of travel - in an effort to make your travel experience more pleasant (relatively speaking) and more safe (hopefully) is part of some great Orwellian plot by the government to direct your life.

There is a lot of information I don't want the government collecting about me. But I don't mind them running information against existing security threat databases. It only makes sense. If they start collecting the information and maybe handling the accounting for the airline frequent flier programs then I'll have a problem.

CAPPS 2 is not Big Brother. It is a legitimate governmental activity and expense as a quick comparison of information against known threats is an issue of national defense. Everything in life is a matter of balances. Security must be balanced against privacy and liberty. CAPPS 2 does not push that balance out of whack.

Even if the ACLU says it does.

Why Drugs Are Expensive Here, But Not There

Senator Lieberman in the Democratic debate this evening mentioned that he believes that it is wrong that prescription drugs generally cost more in the US than they do overseas. He goes on to blame a number of factors ranging from foreign price controls, to US import restrictions, to unfairness in the way the drug companies treat American comsumers. All interesting points, but they ignore one of the biggest costs: government interference.

FDA red tape and Medicare/Medicaid squeezing of prices both put enormous pressure on drug company profit margins. Like it or not, the drug companies don't exist for some greater altruistic motivation, the exist to make money. When they invest millions upon millions in R&D they're going to expect to earn a respectable return on that investment when the drug actually goes to market.

Foreign price controls make earning that return more difficult. But foreign price controls, while beneficial to the foreign nations in the short term, also put tham at great risk long term. Think of the major drug names: Pfizer, Bristol-Myers, Schering-Plough - they're almost all American based companies (there are some exceptions, but not many). With the designer drugs - the newest, most effective ones on the market - countries with price controls really risk losing their access to these drugs. If Pfizer decides to quit selling their brand name drugs to Canada, the Canadians don't have a pharmaceutical industry sufficient to pick up the slack - or to research new drugs of their own. Many of the price controlling nations are dependent on the continuing goodwill of the American drug companies to keep selling the drugs at restricted prices. They're gaining the reward of lower prescription drug costs, but at the risk of a nearly complete implosion of their medical system should the drug companies decide to quit playing ball on these terms.

Now as to the US import restrictions, I don't like them in general, but they do have a real point in this issue. Many countries don't have the same inventory controls required for US distributors. Expired medications, watered down, misfilled prescriptions are more likely to occur with less regulated foreign pharmacies than they are with American ones. Canada and most of Europe generally do fairly well in matching American standards, but not all the foreign mail-order pharmacies are from these nations. The additional safety regulation of the American pharmacies is both proof of the benefit and of the costs of the FDA regulation in the US.

As for the perceived unfairness, America's health care system is still one of the most respected in the world. Every other nation with price controls (and therefore socialized medicine) has some form of rationing. It is incredibly rare to hear stories of rationing of medicine in the US, but folks from these other nations sure seem to want to figure out how to get here for their health care. We may pay more, but we also get more.

I don't think that Lieberman is on the right track with his seeming desire to either institute price controls or to allow the importation of US-produced drugs from other countries. You want to find a way to subsidize drug R&D? I might be convinced to go along with that. But to reduce the drug companies to an uncompetitive status in the capital markets by fiat? No way.

We first need to find a way to rationalize the FDA. Red tape is a significant contribution to the cost of drugs from the research phase to distribution. Find ways to cut some of the regualtory fat and prices should come down - some. Let's try to find other ways to make this work.

But the status quo is still much better than socialization.

The Democratic Debates

Been watching the Democratic debate on Fox here and there over the last hour. So far:

Edwards sounds washy. Nothing specific that I can remember, he just seems to be weak. Also see Drudge here. Interesting stuff on Edwards.

Kucinich just sounds wacky. Free education from age 3 through college? For some reason I don't think we'll be able to afford that plan.

Kerry sounded weasely; Sharpton sounds like a Francophile surrender-pacifist. Clark hasn't really said much of anything.

Liberman is the only one who sounds halfway reasonable. Some of his plans like Medikids are too socialistic for my tastes, but he's the only one that seems to be sticking to trying to convey a positive message.

Haven't heard Dean yet. He must have spoken while I was doing homework with the youngest.

UPDATE:

Edwards just came out supporting the extension of the Brady Bill and of limiting the scope of Second Amendment. Don't like that.

UPDATE 2:
Acutally, I was typing while Clark was talking about the Patriot Act and he sounded (tone of voice only here - didn't catch the actual words) incredibly arrogant. Not good.

UPDATE 3:
Lieberman just talked about prescription drug costs and went on about foreign price controls, unfair treatment of Americans, and of some of the quirks of the prescription drug bill. I don't think he understands the root problem (a post to come).

UPDATE 4:
Dean is claiming that there is no al-Qaida in Iraq. I guess he must not have been reading the news stories from months ago claiming such.

UPDATE 5:
Liberman just took a pretty smack at the denials of some of the other candidates as to the threat posed by Saddam.

UPDATE 6:
Clark wants to get ACLU pre-approval before instituting systems, like CAPPS 2, that may actually provide much greater security with very little civil rights intrusion (I'll post why I think CAPPS 2 really is not a great concern for me at some point)

UPDATE 7:
Sharpton thinks we should talk to the Iranians to expedite the fall of the thugocracy. He also believes the UN is the best way to go in replacing the regime. A bad idea followed by a worse one.

UPDATE 8:
OK, they just seem to be getting worse and worse, not even bothering to even pretend to answer the questions. I'm done.

A Surprise!

When I first started this site, I swore to myself that I would never publish a photo of me online.

Well, I changed my mind. If you're so interested I am posting a photo of me enjoying one of my Christmas presents from my father.

I'm the one in the front seat.

A Morning Poetry Recitation

I've never been a big fan of poetry. I generally find it to be rather boring and stale. The other day while researching something, I came across one of Rudyard Kipling's poems, The Gods of the Copybook Headings, which I thought was pretty timeless in its point.

I apologize if you've read it before or are not interested in it for some reason. I think the message, dating from 1919, is so powerful that it doesn't hurt to remind people of it now and again.

A complete collection of Kipling's poetry can be found here.

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I Make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place.
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four --
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

* * * * *

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man --
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began --
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mice,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire --
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

I'm Not Sure This Is Any Better

As I noted a couple of days ago, I upgraded to Movable Type 2.661 and installed MT-Blacklist to try to control the spamments on the site. This has been successful. No spamments have hit the site since.

I have another problem now. Instead of posting the spamments online, they're now emailing me "link exchange" requests. So basically all I did was change which Inbox folder they get routed to (and have kept them from tying up web space for more than a couple hours).

These people really need to get a useful job.

This Is Inspiring

So someone had the bright idea to try to ask NASA how much the mission to Mars is going to cost. NASA's answer? Don't know and don't want to know yet.

For some strange reason, I'm guessing that beyond the general idea of sending a man to Mars, NASA probably has no idea how they're even going to begin to approach this challenge.

I'm sorry to say it, but at some point NASA has got to quite thinking in abstracts and start setting limitations on the scope of the project. I would even be so bold as to venture that a good place to start would be to set a date. From there we can start working backwards to determine what technology exists that would be useful and also what technology needs to be developed and by when.

At that point we could start having real discussions with the Russians about how they might be able to contribute (As they want to and as they should. We need to tap this willing and able resource).

NASA needs to accept that the Mars mission will not be the blank check, cutting edge program that they fantasize about. It's going to have to be a practical program, gently pushing the boundaries, rather than pushing them farther than imaginable. The mission to Mars will be special, not because of the sheer magnitude of it, like the Apollo missions, but simply because it is a taking our exploration to a new level.

The mission to Mars is a worthy and admirable goal. It is one worth pursuing. But it needs to have some definition besides "Going to Mars." Effective goals contain an element that makes them specific and makes them measureable. Our current statement of the goal is too vague. It needs to be better defined.

Of course, you do realize that once we're successful in this venture, as my father points out, the feminists and trial lawyers will be getting together to force a mission to put a woman on Venus. It just wouldn't be fair otherwise....

Selfishness Vs. The Public Good

Reading along today, I came across an interesting editorial on the Scottsdale, AZ newspaper's website: Selfish pocket pickers. Let me pull out a couple of quotes here if I may:

"They include ... selfish public school parents who want private school parents to subsidize their kids' education...

Disagreeing with me about public education funding, he smugly told me that although his three kids have graduated from public school, he gladly continues to pay education taxes for the public good, implying that he is generous and compassionate.

The fact is, the cost of his kids' public education exceeds what he will pay in public school taxes over his lifetime. In other words, he has taken more from the public good than he will contribute to the public good. Private school parents, on the other hand, will contribute well over $100,000 per household in public school taxes and take nothing from the public good."

I believe in small, limited government. There are really few expenditures that I believe are appropriate for the government to undertake. Public education is one of them.

Will the parent in question ever pay enough in public school taxes to fully cover the cost of educating his three children? Probably not (but he might depending on the value of his house). Does that mean that we, as a society, should have refused to educate his children? Would society be a better place if only those able to fund an education would receive one?

Get real.

Without a public education, a child is more than likely doomed to spend his or her life wallowing away in some menial, minimum wage job never really contributing to society. Often they become welfare recipients or charges of the state. The ongoing, lifelong expense associated with the uneducated is far in excess of the cost of educating them in the first place. It's bad enough that we have to deal with people who choose not to be educated, why are we even contemplating forcing more into similar situations?

Public education also has benefits, even for the childless. One, it allows people to more fully develop their potential, which in turn allows them to make greater and more significant contributions to overall society. Second, educated people tend to make more money, a situation which improves the overall economy and also improves the chances that someone like Mr. Cantoni will be able to peddle his books or public speaking engagements (kind of hard to sell a book to an illiterate, isn't it?). And third, as the economy improves and these publically educated heathen earn more money, they tend to pay more in taxes. This in turn benefits Mr. Cantoni in one of two ways: one, he gets more services from the government for the same amount of taxes he personally pays or two, he gets to receive the same services from his government at a lower personal tax rate.

It's kind of ironic that Mr. Cantoni would find the gumption to complain about the "hoity-toity" and the "highfalutin' elites" when his ideal world, without public education, would create a caste system in this country more deeply entrenched than that of the Dark Ages.

I agree that there are a lot of excesses in government. Many of the items Mr. Cantoni lists are indeed legitimately questionable expenses. But not public education. You can tell me that the public education system is bad and I'll agree. You can tell me that it is the implementation of the system that is flawed and I'll agree. Blame it on the unions, on apathetic students, on disinterested parents, on uncaring teachers - find whatever fault you will with public education and I'll likely agree that there is a problem that needs to be fixed.

But the idea of public education is still good. Education, now more than ever, is still needed to have a somewhat livable existance.

Mr. Cantoni complains about the selfish parents, but I find his short-term, money-in-my-pocket approach to whining to be far more selfish over the long haul.

My Opinion On The SOTU

OK, I said last night that I would give my opinion on the SOTU after I recovered from the NyQuil dose I took to get some sleep. So here we go.

Overall, I didn't like it.

Specifically, I thought the foreign policy section was pretty good, but I absolutely hated to domestic policy section.

The foreign policy section, an area which has always been one of Bush's strong suits anyways, wasn't too bad. I thought he spent a little too much time defending the war in Iraq, not enough time talking about Iran or North Korea (both of which barely registered a mention), hit it about right with his talking about Libya and how diplomacy without the backing of force is useless, loved the permission slip line, but also thought there was just a little too much fluff to make it really top notch. It was during this part of the speech that I thought the Democrats made their worst showing (before the rebuttal which was about as exciting as watching grass grow in the winter) when, as Bush was reading off the names of many of the nations participating in Iraq, they sat there like little petulent statues refusing, even for a second, to admit that the Administration might have actually done a pretty decent job in making Iraq an international effort. I think that it showing a slavish devotion to the UN and I think it was irresponsible and intellectually dishonest. This was a success of the Administration and one that deserved to be applauded as it did address the concerns of the Democrats.

Bush really blew it on the domestic policy side though. If the foreign policy contained a little fluff, the domestic side contained the Stay-Puff Marshmellow Man. There were two parts in particular that I really took issue with. First was his nearly hypocritical admonisment to the Congress to take care with the taxpayer funds. Second issue was the proposed marriage amendment to the Constitution.

Read yesterday's editorial in the Wall Street Journal Drunken GOP Sailors (this link requires registration). Bush has been raising non-defense spending at a higher rate than any previous President in the last 40 years. Congress was voting on an appropriations bill yesterday that would provide $2 million for golf awareness in St. Augustine. Why? Why is golf awareness a national priority? Why is a single traffic light in upstate New York a national priority? Come on! There is no prioritization going on here. And this has been the norm throughout the Administration. Read the editorial, it lays out the case pretty well. Bush should not have been standing up there talking about fiscal responsibility.

And the marriage amendment is, by far, my least favorite of the domestic issues discussed. A marriage amendment is a banana republic tactic. One of the reasons why our Constitution has succeeded where so many others have failed is because it is limited in scope and serves to limit the scope of government, not of the people. Think about it. There has really only been one attempt to Constitutionally tell the people what they cannot do: Prohibition. It is also the only amendment that has ever been repealed. One of the goals of the Founders, I believe, was to protect the rights of the minority against the tyranny of the majority. The marriage amendment would do the exact opposite. It would categorrically deny rights to the minority at the direction of the majority. It is an extremely dangerous precedent to set and one that I certainly would not even attempt to set over something like gay marriage. I just can't believe that gay marriage is an issue over which it is worth risking the very foundations of our society, respect for the rights of minorities. It is not a timeless issue, it's a fad issue.

If Bush and Congress believes that there is a problem with judges misinterpreting the laws, then pass a one the is absolutely clear like "Marriage shall be defined as the union between one man and one woman only. The union of two or more men or two or more women shall not be regarded as a legal marriage and no judge shall rule otherwise." Dump all the caveats. Get rid of all the weasel words. Make it plain and clear what the intention of the law is and then, if a judge ignores it, take it all the way to the Supreme Court. Just don't wreck the sanctity of the Constitution along the way. (For what it's worth, I am still mildly supportive of gay marriage if it is instituted with reform to the marriage laws for both hetero- and homo-sexual marriages to make the institution more of an institution again and less of an issue of convienence. See here and here)

Bush has a long way to go on the domestic issues. However, I believe that the upcoming election is being framed in terms of foreign policy which is certainly Bush's forte. I don't think that he won reelection last night (I really don't think that he would have picked up any votes. The speech really was an overall dud.) but he also didn't really hurt himself either. His speechwriters had best get on the ball pretty soon here, though or it's going to be a long, boring campaign.

Just A Little Note

Not that this should affect any of my regular readers or those of you who happen to be research John Kerry and gay marriage, but I upgraded the site to Movable Type 2.661 today and put mt-blacklist in place in an effort to cut down on the amount of comment spam hitting the site. 10-15 spamments per day was just getting to be a bit too much.

Should you happen to have a legitimate comment bounced by the system, please email it to me at blog - at - cbnoble dot com and I'll get included. By now, it should be pretty obvious that I'll allow pretty much anything except spamments.

What I Would Like To Hear In The State Of The Union

Bush is slated to give the State of the Union address tonight and speculation is already rampant about what we can expect to hear: more money for Homeland Security, more money for job training, defending the war in Iraq, and maybe even proposing to send a man to the moon again. The speculation is all well and fine, but I thought I might throw in my two cents as to what I'd like to hear.

First of all, Iraq. I want to hear about the good things that we're doing over there. All the crap about WMDs and credibility in the world community and the staging or effectiveness of Saddam's capture - well that's just all a bunch of bunk. I don't think that there is a person alive who could look at the pictures of the mass graves, who could see the pictures of the medications that were deliberately withheld, who could see the pictures of and hear the stories from the torture chambers and not say that Saddam was an evil demonic man and that the world is a better place with him awaiting his fate, rather than determining the fate of others (well, ok, Howard Dean basically questioned it, but then he's not real high on my list of favorite people these days). So far as I'm concerned, Iraq is a non-starter as an issue. Things could be better - they could always be better - but by and large, in less than a year's time, we've done a pretty good job.

What I would rather hear about is how we're supporting the students in Iran. Or maybe how we're trying to neutralize the threat that is North Korea. Let's talk about the plan for the threats that still exist rather than Monday Morning Quarterbacking the threats that have already been contained.

One area where I'm not real happy with Bush is in the area of increased spending. More money for Homeland Security, for job training, for additional Social Security or Medicare payments or whatever can be dreamed up can all be defended on a item by item basis (usually). There is no shortage of good ideas that could justify funding. There is a limited supply of money for the excellent ideas that really require funding. Somewhere along the way, the government seems to have lost the ability to prioritize spending. The gravy train has to stop at some point.

I won't argue that more money for Homeland Security isn't important, but I would like to know why it is more important than say more defense spending. I don't disagree that more spending for job training would be a good thing, but why is it more important than better border security? I really want to know why these items, singled out for special attention in the State of the Union are so important and why they should be a priority. There are lots of good causes to fund; what makes these special?

And finally, I don't want to hear about sending a man to the moon again. We've already done that. Sending a man to the moon isn't the inspiration, the reach for greatness, that it once was. It's almost passe.

That isn't to say that I think that there shouldn't be a manned space program. There absolutely should be. It's just that going to the moon isn't a real goal. It's just redoing something we've already done. You want to inspire me? You want to get me excited?

Send a man to Mars.

That's a stretch. That would push a lot of our technological expertise. It's new. It's different. It's a real goal.

The biggest problem I have with the man-on-the-moon-again schtick is that there really isn't any risk; there are few hurdles to be overcome. We could simply recreate the Saturn V and off we go. Where's the inspiration in that? Where's the potential for technological advances? I thought 60s retro came and went a few years back. NASA needs a real challenge, not a re-creation of its glory years.

That's what I'd like to hear. Unfortunately, I already know that I won't hear any of that. Instead we'll get the usual SOU fluff and we'll be left thinking that we just missed another good Tuesday night of reruns.

UPDATE: Didn't really like it. On foreign policy issues I thought it was good; on domestic issues I thought it was a complete bomb. I'll try to expand on that some more tomorrow when I'm not suffering from NyQuil.

The Dean Meltdown & What It Means For The Blogosphere

Last night was not a good night for many. I had (and still have) the flu and Howard Dean got spanked in Iowa - an event which precipitated a mini-meltdown by the candidate. So given Dean's poor showing and his apparent political tone deafness, where does the race for Bush's opposition stand?

Dean is, in my estimation, as good as done. For all his effort in Iowa he walked away in third. With the runner-up selection of John Edwards in particular (but also with Kerry to an extent), the voters sent a pretty clear message that they want to see a positive campaign: one built on ideas and positions, not on anger and mud slinging. Dean's temper tantrum at the end of the night was the absolute wrong message to send. With it he proved that he is no more than a one-trick pony - and that he is therefore unsuited for the Presidency.

Kerry is a bit more interesting. I personally think that he's pretty clueless (and I've ripped on him more than once in the past for some statements that I thought were pretty dense), but he does seem to be gaining some momentum. In terms of sensing the shift in the politcal winds away from anger and more towards positions, I've noticed that Kerry has caught on relatively well. He is much more astute on the national stage than is Dean, which is most likely a product of having been in the Senate rather than simply working at the state level. A Kerry/Bush campaign would be interesting, but I think that Kerry is just a bit too far out to the left of the mainstream - and while not as bad as Dean, still too prone to political gaffes that would sink his candidacy.

John Edwards provides the most interesting opposition of any of the Democrats, I think. I'll admit to having basically ignored him up until now, but I'm going to have to take a step back and look at what he brings to the table. The fact that he has been running a positive, issues based campaign has probably worked against him to this point, but it does make the job of researching his positions much easier - he actually appears to have some! I would most like to see a the Democrats come up with an Edwards/Lieberman ticket as it might actually provide a real and worthwhile campaign to follow come September and October.

For what it's worth, I still think that Lieberman is the best of the Democratic bunch combining a degree of name recognition with an understanding of the system and a fair amount of reasonableness. I don't often agree with him, but he at least gives me something to think about most of the time. And he understands that the nation is more important than the party - a simple fact that seems to escape most politicians any more.

Getting back to the Dean debacle for a moment, I expect that the significance of his defeat in Iowa will be blown all out of proportion to what it really indicates. Dean was a product of the national media. The media made him, and now the media will tear him down. And I've got to give the big media boys credit, they may have figured out a very Machivellian way to slam him, while protecting their own turf.

As we look back at the fawning articles we've seen about Dean over the last few months, there is a great deal of discussion of about the "grassroots" Internet campaign and in particular about the effect that blogs have been having on his run for the White House. It's almost as if the media has been trying to build up this aura around the Net as having created an invincible mass of support that would carry Dean to victory.

But I'm also pretty sure that the media was aware that Dean's support was nowhere near as widespread as assumed. Knowing this, they allowed the perception to persist (instead of attacking blogs as they have in the past) with the, as it turns out well-founded, belief that Dean would get crushed in Iowa and the supposed effectiveness of the Internet in creating momentum (rather than supporting it) would take a hit as well. As Dean's campaign took a hit, so did the credibility of the power of the blogosphere to influence national elections. Blogs were shown to be a tool, not the tool, a very important distinction and one that plays very well into the hands of the major media.

The more I look at the Internet and the way it is viewed by many, the more I think that it is akin to the way that people think of military air power. For years, some of the brightest military minds have theorized that air power alone would be enough to win a war. Only over Kosovo has air power been enough to dislodge a ground force from territory it held. There still is no replacement for the soldier on the ground. Similarly, the Internet is still not a replacement for the mainstream media. The Net can influence the course of the campaign, but ultimately, the entire battle cannot be waged online.

Iowa was an interesting place last night. A surprise runner-up, the unions were all but ignored, and the "power" of the Internet was again shown to be limited. So the question becomes, what happens in New Hampshire? I think that we're going to see more of the same. Dean should poll better, but he's got a lot of credibility to make up. He has really hurt himself with his outbursts and his other gaffes. But I think that last night showed that even the Democrats want something other than the establishment choice.

And that's a good thing. Politics, as they have usually been over the last few years, were beginning to polarize society and to turn the country into a negative and cynical place.

Legalizing Sex

Ireland has announced plans that during their turn in the EU Presidency they plan to introduce a measure to ban paying for sex throughout the EU. Specifically, one of the proposals would remove some of the various porn groups, like Swedish-based Private Media Group, from the EU stock exchanges.

I have no problem with trying to restrict obscene emails. I'm even ok with restricting prostitution in the EU (although I have much stronger philosophical issues with that). But for the government to come in and deliberately order the delisting of a company is over the line.

When an investor is researching an international stock for possible inclusion into a portfolio they examine two seperate categories of risk: company and country. The company risk is the normal risk that we associate with every company, i.e.: are they making money? Do they have good management? etc....

Country risk, on the other hand, takes into account governmental interference in the capitalist market. In other words if a nation is prone to nationalization or arbitrary delisting of unpopular industries for political purposes then it will eventually lead to a higher cost of capital for all companies engaged in any business in that particular nation. With the global economy becoming more and more interconnected, this seemingly industry specific assault will have much broader, unintended consequences.

If the EU truly wants to rid itself of the porn industry (which I'm not sure is a good move. Yes, it is undesirable and distasteful, but it also employs a large number of people and has a massive customer base. Say what you will about it, but the purchasers of porn are legion.) then they need to start by outlawing the content, not the company. If a company like Private Media can survive under the new laws of legality, then so be it - give them credit for adaptabilty. If not, they'll wither away on their own without the worst consequences of government interference in the market.

I don't think it's right to try to legislate morality, but if the EU wants to try, more power to them. Better for them to try than for us to experiment.

I just hope that they don't really screw it up and accidently invoke the laws of unintended consequences.