E!!

Laugh-’til-you-can’t-catch-your-breath-and-have-to-pee Alert on this one.  It’s on the Cambridge/Harvard Gates arrest thing. 

Why doesn’t Iowahawk have some sort of fat media gig by now?  How long must he go on being the sharpest, funniest, killingest political satirist on the Internet before they give him a multi-gazillion dollar site sponsorship, a sick crib, and a lifetime supply of beer?

Great Investor’s Business Daily cartoon.

This NY Post health care op-ed includes some truly appalling commentary by Dr. Ezekiel (Rahm’s brother) Emanuel and Dr. David Blumenthal.

As I was reading the piece I had a wrenching, visceral reaction.  Orwellian in nature.

These people actually believe they are adequately equipped to make not only “minor” but also life-and-death health care decisions for the elderly, the infirm, and the terminal.  That they have the right to say when a person does, or does not, need or deserve health care – and to what degree.  That they can and should decide which technologies are “appropriate” and which are too costly depending on the age and condition of the patient.

They knowingly and deliberately wish to suppress and subvert the will of family, and of the individual.  And they do it in the name of money:  cost savings, greater efficiencies.

It is horrifying.  Because the only thing more agonizing and torturous than having to make a life-or-death and/or quality-of-life choice about the care of a loved one, or yourself, is to be taken out of the process and have some computer algorithm or committee make the decision for you.

If these monsters are allowed to proceed — what else do you call men so misguided and monomaniacal that they sit in their mahogany-trimmed offices and play at being gods with clear conscience? — we will find ourselves living that horrifying vision that was once but a fiction.

(As an aside, Orwell’s heirs should sue Emanuel, Blumenthal, President Obama, and two-thirds of Congress for copyright infringement over health care language.)

And we should all come out of our slumber before we find ourselves in a nightmare from which we cannot wake.

Update: Fred Thompson interviews the writer of the above-named NY Post piece, Betsy McCaughey (8 minutes).

She said that on page 425 of the House bill is language making it mandatory that every five years, people in Medicare will have a required counseling session that will educate them about how to end their life sooner (how to refuse nutrition and medication, and how to approach hospice care).  And that some parts of the bill dictate that the elderly will be faced with denials of care based on their age.  It’s called “comparative effectiveness.”

American Thinker has the scoop via a WSJ article.  Orlando is #2 on the chopping block.  Both cities are apparently too lavish, too resort-y, too fun.  Gotta think about perceptions, dontcha know.

Unfortunately for Nevada, we are largely a travel-dependent state.  We have thousands of hotel rooms and millions of square feet of hotel and conference space built for the express purpose of enticing people here.  (And for that reason, we often have some of the best travel deals.)

Someone ought to research the cost of conference bookings in other cities and see if they turned out to be more or less expensive than holding a comparable conference in Las Vegas.  In other words, are the feds spending more money than needed just to avoid the “stigma” of coming to Las Vegas?

And how about discouraging federal agencies from booking conferences altogether, anywhere?  In this day and age, why can’t our federal employees do a little more tele-conferencing, web-casting, Skyping, emailing, and so on, to get the job done?

Sometimes it’s necessary, or at least highly beneficial, to bring everyone together in a room “live.”  Sometimes it’s not.

Much has been said about Obama’s hurried, we-must-do-it-now approach to health care reform.  I don’t want the rush, and further, I think rushing through this is a really good way to ensure we end up with some really bad policy.

Now CNN’s Dana Bash is reporting that Harry Reid said there will be no Senate vote until after August on health care.

But, from Ohio, Ed Henry reports that a “senior administration official” said Reid’s comment does not change the president’s plans:  He still wants votes in both houses before August recess.

H/T:  K-Lo @ The Corner

Update:  Mr. Crum just called me and said he thinks Harry Reid’s statement was made with one eye on the polls and one on Reid’s 2010 senatorial campaign.  If a bill is rushed through and things don’t end well, Reid can say he tried to slow things down.  If things do turn out well, he can still point to how cautious he was.

Yuval Levin always impresses.  Read it.

Let Freedom Ring has a pledge designed to hold congressmen accountable for reading the entire health care bill before they vote on it.

(How ridiculous is it that we even have to have such things?)

Here’s what the website says:

All 535 Members of the U.S. House and Senate have received multiple copies of the Pledge by fax, email, regular mail or personal visitation. Any Representative or Senator not shown on the list of signers below may therefore reasonably be classified as having declined to sign. A few Senators have insisted that although they are supportive of our Pledge, they have adopted a blanket policy against signing pledges that prevents their signing ours. Although Let Freedom Ring believes that that they should make an exception for our pledge, because it is narrowly drawn and quite specific, we have agreed to post letters from those Senators in a separate section following the list of signers. You may read the letters by clicking on the Senators’ names.

Go see the list.  And download the pledge if you want to send it directly to your own rep.

For all you online media and blog and journalism geeks, this is an interesting post.

It resonates with me because I always click source links, read the “About,” and check to see who is paying the bills before I assess the “objectivity” of something I read online.

Do you?

Clever.  And sobering.

Dina Titus (D-NV) casts a vote that earns my respect. 

From an article in the WSJ:

A group of Democrats elected in recent years from some of the country’s richest congressional districts have emerged as a stumbling block to raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for President Barack Obama’s ambitious health-care overhaul just as the plan has begun to meet increasing resistance over its cost.

Friday, two freshmen representatives — Dina Titus, from suburban Las Vegas, and Colorado’s Jared Polis, representing Boulder, Vail and some of the tonier suburbs of Denver — joined Republicans to vote against Mr. Obama’s top-priority health-care overhaul when it faced a vote in their House Education and Labor Committee. One reason was a one-percentage point-surtax on couples earning between $350,000 and $500,000 — gradually increasing to 5.4 percentage points on earnings more than $1 million — to pay for it.

A gold star for senator Mitch McConnell for these statements.  He provides an honest history of the nomination process since the 70s, examines past and present objections to Supreme Court nominees based on ”fitness” and ideology, and then takes a stand on Sotomayor.  I think he gets it right.

Though, as we all know, she will be confirmed anyway.

I know quite a few people who are planning to go to Washington DC for the 9/12/09 March on Washington.  And quite a few people who say they are not.  Here’s what one Nevada blogger says about why he and his family are going.

I got three LOLs and one verge-of-tears moment out of this video.  It’s a joke, but my love for my country, and my desire for truth and transparency in government, is not.  Watch, laugh, cry, and then decide what YOU can do about it.

In re: to this, the always-on-the-ball Victor Joecks at NPRI dropped us a comment with a link to a 2003 National Review story about David Keene, the ACU, and political advocacy groups trying to moonlight as lobbyists. (See here for my earlier post on the current ACU dust-up due to a leaked letter from FedEx.)

It is a sobering piece, and has me thinking about whether people and/or organizations can “do” both effective issues advocacy and paid lobbying while still maintaining philosophical-political integrity.

I suppose it is possible, but it seems to me they are best kept separate and that people ought to make a choice.  The temptation to bend and accept lobby money on a “lesser” issue while (rationalizing that) you are still right on all the “core” issues can be great and should not be underestimated. As is often said at round-table meetings where political purity is challenged by the need for operating cash, “You can’t change the world if you can’t pay the rent.”

Unfortunately, once one accepts even a little money for not-quite pure reasons, one has begun to compromise, which makes it that much more likely that the next time a trade-off presents itself, one will do it again.  And again.

The next thing you know, you end up like David Keene and the ACU:  wealthy, powerful, and part of the problem with politics and public policy debates in this country.  You no longer consistently stand on principle, and everything is for sale.

God forbid I ever find myself there.

We must resist the alluring song of those enchanting twin sirens, Money and Power, or in the end suffer our good ship to veer off course or be smashed to pieces on the rocks. The siren song is beautiful; but its end is always death.

Ernest Istook @ Heritage’s Foundry blog has a good post stating concerns about Obama’s new Census Czar and his methods.  Seems that Robert Groves supports “statistical sampling” even though the administration (officially, at least) does not.  This practice attempts to make “adjustments” for under-counted people by creating fictitious profiles and assigning them a zip code, gender, race, and so on.  And then it counts them, just as if they were being counted by a census worker.

The argument in favor of the method is that poor minorities and illegal immigrants are usually under-counted so census results are skewed.  The argument against is that assumptions and formulas can be wrong.  And that data can be manipulated.

Though I think this needs watching, it is good to note that the Supreme Court ruled (in 1999) that the census has to be an actual count, so there is current protection under the law on this issue.  Any attempt to incorporate statistical sampling into the census could be legally challenged.  And I assume would be.

Istook’s closing lines are winners:

As Joseph Stalin said, “Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.”

And so could those who count the voters.

No?  Me neither.

Get ready to be flabbergasted.  And angry.

My friend and fellow blogger Dr. Melissa Clouthier brought this story to my attention on her RFC Radio show “The Right Doctor.”  (She airs Mondays and Wednesdays at 10 pm eastern.)  The gist:

On June 4, 2009, Muslim men tried to smuggle weapons onto two different Phoenix bound U.S. Airways flights within 35 minutes of one another…and the FBI called them “isolated” incidents…and no one in in the LameStream media picked the story up.

The FBI has since been shamed into looking into a possible connection.

And then there was this (from the same Pajamas Media story linked to above):

The hit-or-miss Israeli website Debkafile reported on July 7 that U.S. and German intelligence believes that 15-20 al-Qaeda terrorists have been trained in Pakistan and Algeria and are now hiding in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, and Egypt. Their mission, according to the report, is to hijack and bomb Western airliners headed to Israel and the United States.

How is it that in a post-9/11 world – or in any world - the American mainstream media does not bother to report Muslim men smuggling weapons onto commercial airliners?

I have had just about all I can take of a media that gave us 24/7 “news” coverage of Michael Jackson’s death for over a week, but did not dedicate ONE MINUTE to this story on June 4.

We need some independent media watchdog organizations.  Nationally and in every state.  Right now.  Before this country becomes unrecognizable.  And my head explodes.

Since writing about the Fed Ex/UPS dust-up here and here - and taking a fair amount of heat for it (see the Comments) – I’ve occasionally been checking the web for new articles, columns, and updates. 

This morning, before I even checked my Google alerts, I saw a Corner post referring to this story on Politico.  It seems that FedEx has leaked letter from the American Conservative Union detailing the suggested terms for an expensive email campaign on FedEx’s behalf.  (Politico has all the cut-and-pastes from the letter.)

“Oops.”

Where to begin?

Before I lament the loss of integrity or rip the ACU for being so stupid as to detail a “pay for play” proposal in writing without a strict confidentiality clause, I don’t think David Keene would have sent such a letter without an invitation to do so.  I bet someone at FedEx asked for a proposal, thinking the ACU could be a natural ally in their anti-union fight.  Don’t have any facts to support that theory, but I’m guessing that’s what happened.

Obviously FedEx passed on the ACU’s offer to run a $2 to $3.4M (yes, million) email campaign and is now going after Keene and the ACU because he/they recently threw in their hat with UPS via a coalition letter on ACU letterhead and signed by various grassroots conservative groups.  Whether or not the ACU took any money from UPS in exchange for public support is anybody’s guess.  ACU reps are saying “no.”

A purist would say something like, ”Better to lose on issues and at the ballot booth than debase the conservative movement with questionable tactics.” 

A strategist would say, “The other side does this kind of thing all the time, raising gazillions of dollars as they go, and we have to do it also in order to have a chance against them.”

E!! says:  Smooth move, genuises.  Now the reputation of one of the oldest, biggest conservative grassroots organizations in the country is tarnished, and it will be even harder for the ACU to raise money in this already anemic fundraising environment.  Or to have any political clout when they take a stand on issues.

What could be “therapeutic” about 5 days of playing poker with total strangers in Vegas?  Check out this blog post by Charles Murray re: his annual trip to Sin City.

Watch this great “retro” video illustrating the best that government run health care has to offer.  Clever!

Here’s a clever, funny 1-minute video from the Independence Institute (known for short as “I2I”) explaining just one problem with Obama’s mandated health care program.

When presented with 1,000 page bills that even Congress doesn’t read or understand, we need more stuff like this:  short, simple, easy to understand close-ups on what a given policy actually means to a citizen.  People don’t personally process all the talk of “trillions” and “socialized medicine.” 

They pay attention, though, when they realize they are going to be penalized, or lose something.

While I’m praising I2I, a Colorado free-market think tank with personality – who knew a think tank could be fun? – they have an education blog called Ed is Watching written by a clever 5-year old named Ed.  And another blog called ”The Good, The Bad, and the Shameful,” which puts officials and special interests on record re: education reform.

Aspiring education reformers should go take a look.

I occasionally blog on more obscure things because I am naturally curious and like to learn.  So:

From The Corner today:

Your Tax Dollars at Work   [Veronique de Rugy]

According to FoxNews.com:

Commercial fishermen struggling from catch restrictions and high fuel prices are getting $700,000 in federal stimulus money to retrieve lost crab pots now littering the ocean bottom, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday.

The money will be used to hire 48 people — including 31 fishermen — and to charter 10 vessels to retrieve an estimated 4,000 derelict crab pots, which pose a hazard to whales, seal lions and fishing boats, Jane Lubchenco said.

 

That’s $14,583 per person/job or $175 per retrieved crab pot.  Hard to gauge those numbers not knowing if this is a salary or commision job, or how long it will take to gather them all up.

I was curious to know if this ”hazard” is BS, so I searched out this article on the environmental impact of derelict gill nets and crab pots.  The crab pot problem is described thusly:

Commercial and sport crabbers are required to use a biodegradable cotton rot cord (also known as escape cord) on their pots so that if pots are lost, the cord will degrade and crabs can escape. Our research shows that only about a third of crab pots are properly equipped with escape cord and many derelict pots are found to continue fishing for months and even years. On average, a derelict crab pot will catch about 72 crabs a year. Primarily, crab pots become derelict when their buoy line is clipped by a passing vessel. Pots are frequently found in vessel traffic lanes and boaters out after dark have a challenging time seeing crab pot buoys.

So, 72 crabs times an estimated 4,000 derelict cord-lacking crab pots is 288,000 crabs that are caught and die, uneaten and unenjoyed, each year.  That, in itself, does seem like a terrible thing.  And at $1.60 per pound on average (that’s off the boat, not wholesale or retail), assuming a per crab weight of 1 pound, it’s also $460,800 goes uncollected by fishermen.  Or, at retail prices of $10 per pound, $2.88 million.

Anyhoo, apparently there is not much data on the hazard to whales, sea lions, and fishing boats due to derelict crab pots.  I assume this means not a lot of whales and boats are being taken out by stray crab cages, despite all the hullabaloo.  There was some data on the danger of the stray gill nets, though:

In 2008, the Northwest Straits Initiative removed a gill net with 162 seabirds, 14 salmon, 42 dogfish, 1,400 Dungeness crab and 1 harbor seal. Factoring in decomposition rates, it is estimated that this single net in 23 weeks time killed 1,800 birds, 450 salmon, 1,300 spiny dogfish, 16,900 crab, and 11 harbor seals. In an ecologically rich area like Port Susan bay, derelict gear can be a tremendous stress on the ecosystem and source of mortality.

That does seem bad.  This organization seems to have done their homework and to be doing decent work, and I was interested to read about their “no fault” non-legislative approach to the problem of reporting stray gear:

Central to the success of the derelict gear program has been its grassroots nature and partnerships with commercial and recreational fishermen to locate and remove gear. The Commission takes a no-fault approach to derelict gear removal. Rather than assigning blame for the derelict gear in the marine environment, the Commission focuses on removing existing gear and preventing new gear from entering the water through non-regulatory means. This approach is based on the following assumptions:

•    That the majority of the derelict fishing gear in Washington state waters is local or regional in origin;
•    That the majority of fishermen are operating legally in Washington state waters;
•    That fishermen do not want to lose expensive gear;
•    That if they do lose gear it is for reasons outside of their control;
•    That fishermen have a stake in recovery of lost gear that might otherwise impact the sustainability of their industry.

[Conclusion]:  The no-fault approach encourages fishermen to report lost nets so that they can be removed quickly.

I wonder what improvement could be made to crab pot and gill net technology to reduce the loss ratio?  Ideas?

In closing, here’s some trivia for all you crab pot geeks:

Derelict pots remove an estimated 74 Dungeness crab from Puget Sound each year. Dungeness crab larvae are a critical component of juvenile salmon diets.

I listened to Sessions’ opening statement on FNC this morning while getting ready.  It was good.  I can’t find the transcript anywhere (yet), but RedState has some cut-and-pastes.  They will have to do – for now.

Here’s one bit:

Like the American people, I have watched this for a number of years, and fear this “empathy standard” is another step down the road to liberal activist, results-oriented, and relativistic world where:  Laws lose their fixed meaning; Unelected Judges set policy; Americans are seen as members of separate groups rather than simply Americans; and, Where the constitutional limits on government power are ignored when politicians want to buy out private companies.

And another:

I will not vote for – no senator should vote for – an individual nominated by any President who is not fully committed to fairness and impartiality towards every person who appears before them.

I recently ran across a quotation that conveys something I have often experienced since losing my sister in November, and which I have noticed in others – most recently, a new friend – who have also lost a loved one to death:

It is an exquisite and beautiful thing in our nature, that, when the heart is touched and softened by some tranquil happiness or affectionate feeling, the memory of the dead comes over it most powerfully and irresistibly. It would seem almost as though our better thoughts and sympathies were charms, in virtue of which the soul is enabled to hold some vague and mysterious intercourse with the spirits of those whom we loved in life.

– Charles Dickens

Yes.

Since Krista disappeared from this earth, every joyful moment, every deep laugh, every quiet contemplation of beauty summons her memory.  I do not know how long this will continue, and I cannot decide whether I wish it to stop.

It’s like dancing a few perfect steps to a lovely but wistful song.  The moment is exquisite, but joy and grief strike a sudden heartwrenching chord and you find yourself nearly overcome.  Do you go on dancing or walk from the floor?  Either way, your heart is pierced with bittersweet.

And the song plays on.

John Fund at the WSJ says he talked to sources close to Palin and knows why she quit:  the tremendous political and personal cost of thousands of FOIA requests and related ethics investigations, and the stress on family caused by uncivil public discourse and a venomous media.

Too bad she didn’t articulate it quite as succinctly when she announced.  I listened to her speech and found myself wondering what the primary motivation really was.  (However many reasons are given when one is speechifying, there is nearly always a primary driver for these things).

It is a shame that we have become so accustomed to the casual defamation of political figures that we often focus more on the person’s inability or unwillingness to tolerate the abuse than on the scourging itself:

Karl Rove acknowledges the unusual battering Ms. Palin has endured in recent months, but told Fox News that GOP leaders are still puzzled by her decision. “If she wanted to escape the ethics investigations and save the taxpayers money, she’s now done that,” he said. Unfortunately, he added, her decision “sent a signal that if you do this kind of thing to a sitting governor like her, you can drive her out of office.”

I suppose.  But should we focus more on the “signal” Palin sent to her attackers – that making false accusations and being nasty can pay big political dividends – or should we drill down on the abusive behavior itself?

Regarding Rove’s comment, John got one takeaway quote that resonates:

But Palin friends say such commentary misses the real point. “The Beltway media can’t understand someone not consumed with presidential ambition,” one told me. “Maybe Sarah Palin won’t run for president and maybe her family situation made it tougher to handle the barrage of attacks that come with that territory. The real issue that should be asked is why a mean-spirited system has to treat people who run like that, instead of why someone may choose not to go through it.”

I say we have an obligation to call for an end to the vicious slandering of, and base and baseless litigation against, our public figures on both the left and the right.  It is one thing to investigate and ask questions; it is quite another to set your sights on the destruction of a person’s political life, which cannot help but bleed over into the personal.

Gun Owners of Nevada has an online petiton urging Harry Reid to oppose any new restrictions and/or a ban on assault weapons.  If you support 2nd amendment rights in NV, go sign it.  And if you are a gun owner, you really should sign up for GONV’s newsletter (upper left of their front page).

Nevermind that this gives the Dems a 13 – 7 edge over R’s on the committee; that ratio is to be expected after the 2008 elections.  But Franken is a junior senator with NO qualifications for that seat.  It’s beyond ridiculous.

Charles Murray wrote a great column on the concept of duty and other lost virtues.  Read it.

Um…  It is 6:07 a.m. and I am still on my first cup of coffee so I had to read parts of this KansasCity.com story twice before I would accept what Red State pointed out in a post in their morning brief.

The state of Missouri is on the verge of charging consumers a hefty fee for the energy they don’t use. Missouri governor Jay Nixon explains, “To save power is the equivalent of making power.”

(Hm.  Where have I heard this “saved” equals  “created” claim before?  Oh yes!  President Obama has repeatedly claimed that the actions of his administration have “saved or created” hundreds of thousands of American jobs.  Got it.)

Anyhoo, here’s the AP reporter’s sum-up of the MO policy in a nutshell:

Though it might seem illogical, the new energy efficiency charge has support from utilities, most lawmakers, the governor, environmentalists and even the state’s official utility consumer advocate. The charge covers the cost of utilities’ efforts to promote energy efficiency and cut power use.

The assumption is that charging consumers for those initiatives ultimately will cost less than charging them to build the new power plants that will be needed if electricity use isn’t curtailed.

May seem illogical?  How about inherently unfair?  Anti-free market?  How about downright criminal?

How about:  if a new power plant is needed based on consumer demand, then you build it and charge for energy accordingly, and if it ain’t, you don’t?  And how about:  if people find ways to use less electricity, you let them keep and enjoy their savings?  Or is that all way too simple and sensible for the MO governor and his pals?

Missouri’s state motto is “Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto,” which means, “Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law.” If this energy policy passes, they ought to change the word “people” to “energy companies and their bureaucrat friends.”

(And don’t miss the part of the story where one of Missouri’s “popular” energy initiatives was for KCP&L to give consumers “free” thermostats – that can be remotely controlled:

One of the company’s more popular energy-saving initiatives has provided free programmable thermostats to about 34,000 residential customers in Missouri and Kansas. KCP&L can remotely control the devices to reduce the frequency at which air conditioners run during peak demand times. The power company overrode customers’ air conditioners four times last year and twice so far this summer, Caisley said.

Yup.)

Vin Suprynowicz, one of my favorite local writers, penned a great column on immigration law enforcement (or lack thereof) in the RJ over the weekend.  As usual, he wipes the floor with his critics (albeit not very bright ones).

Mickey Kaus is keeping track of them.

H/T:  Jonah @ NRO

I’m still deciding what I think about this.  My initial reaction – before I heard her speech (which was more of a meandering ramble, really) – was “what the heck is she doing?”  Not sure that question was answered even after sifting through her speech to find her stated reasons.

Her ”higher calling” comment does seem to indicate she is not stepping away from politics, just from the governorship of Alaska.