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General « Dangerous Dan
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Dangerous Dan Thoughts and musings on the world

11/5/2008

The Aftermath

Filed under: General,Politics — Tags: , — Dangerous Dan @ 4:11 pm

Here is what I immediately wrote elsewhere last night as the sad returns were coming in:

The Democrats are actually now in a very precarious position (hard to see right now, I know).  They now have control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.  They were elected largely as a reaction of voter discontent with the Republicans and are being given a shot.  Certainly, the Dems made a cottage industry out of blaming Repubs for all sorts of problems since the Repubs were the ones in charge of all three parts.  Well, now the Dems are in charge of all three parts and they’ll have more trouble blaming the Repubs for national problems and failures.  The next two years are a referendum on the Democrats.  If they fail to produce, they stand to lose the House and/or the Senate in 2010 (or at least lose seats).

The next four years are a referendum on Obama and expectations are high (really high).  If he fails to produce, he may not make it past 2012.  Unfortunately for Obama, he stands to inherit an economy on the downturn that I argue will be made worse if he implements his various plans.  There are likely to be some important foreign policy decisions and challenges in the next four years too and I’m not confident of his ability to handle them.  I certainly don’t think he has a clue how to handle the military.

In short, it ain’t over.  It’s just beginning.

Happily, I still agree with me 18 hours later.  But let’s expand.

The expectations on Obama are ridiculously high.  People typically view the president and presidential candidates as just mistake-prone people.  A special aura has surrounded Obama, however, and his supporters have a near cult-like devotion: the talk of hope in isolation and never hope for anything (which I find peculiar since you can’t simply hope, you must hope for something; hope needs an object, but that’s never given), the “yes, we can” chanting, how Obama’s use of the word ‘we’ wraps up their identity and hopes in him and that they are one, when really there is just him.  They expect the impossible from their candidate.  Because of this, their disappointment will be immense and Obama’s fall from grace terrible.  They will quickly discover that Obama still has a congress to deal with (most of which is up for reelection in just two years), that candidates lie during campaigns and make promises that presidents are incapable of fulfilling by themselves, and that their man’s deeds are not as silky as his words.

Part of the problem for Obama supporters is that they really do not know who the man is or how he will really behave in office.  They may claim to know, but Obama’s legislative, national, and intellectual records are too sparse to draw anything approaching an accurate view.  The advantage for Obama is that this allowed the supporters to fill in that record with whatever image they chose and they chose a very lofty image that can’t be lived up to.  They weren’t restricted by a knowledge of the real man and his history and so could enlarge that image as much as desired into a near-mythical status where the mere fact of his election will change things in all the rigth ways.  When they realize he cannot fill out that image, it’s not going to be pretty.  The man is going to come out in the messiah.

I expect the economy to get worse before it gets better.  Wall Street and business are not ideologically driven, so those entities do not much care in itself if a Republican or Democrat is president.  They do, however, like stability, which the choosing of a president-elect will now provide.  I suspect, though, that they’re nervous about Obama since he openly declared war on both and on the incomes of the people who run them or invest in them.  Look for people to be wary about investing capital so badly needed by companies right now.  Obama has promised to increase the capital gains tax and investors will be relunctant to put their money somewhere where their profits will be 15% smaller than before and where the government will take nearly 30% of it.  If the top marginal tax rates are going to be raised, many of these investors are also worried about how much they can solidly invest and are probably now trying to figure out loopholes to preserve as much of their assets as possible.  Thus, things will likely get worse before Obama even takes office.  Much of the business sector will probably be in a bit of a holding pattern to see what Obama the president, as opposed to Obama the candidate, will attempt to do and what he will be able to do.

The U.S. is a center-right country despite claims that this election shows it moving center-left.  Nearly half the country still voted for McCain, preserving the close to 50-50 split seen the past 20 years.  It’s more that the pendulum swings around and the American people occassionally get tired of one party having the power and they give the other one a shot.  Even many Republicans are and have been annoyed with their own party due to its profligate spending and non-adherence to conservative ideals.  This time in the wilderness will hopefully be good for the conservative movement and the GOP and will help both refocus themselves and get back on track.  On the other hand, they could also tear themselves apart with infighting.  I’ll hope for the former result.

So, we shall see.  The next two years will be interesting, entertaining and hopefully not damaging.  Who knows, maybe it will even bring this blog back to life.  I hope I won’t have to credit Obama with that.

For more good thoughts, refer to Steven Den Beste who said most of the things I was already thinking… but he said them a lot better.

11/3/2008

The Election

Filed under: General,Media,Politics,World — Tags: , , — Dangerous Dan @ 6:36 pm

My absence from my beloved blog is regrettable, and somewhat avoidable, but I’m a busy guy. I figured before the election takes place, I might as well give my view on things as they’ve been building up over the last few months.  And so this post will be a bit long.  But it’s good.

First, a prediction. I’ll be bold and predict McCain will win. The prevailing opinion is that this is a stupid prediction and it might be. Johnny Mac is down in all the national polls and isn’t doing well in several battlegrounds. From what I’ve been looking at, though, McCain may very well pull this out. I’m not overly confident in the polls’ accuracy. Most provide greater weight towards Democrats since more people are identifying themselves as Dem in this election. I’m not sure that this generic party preference will necessarily translate to corresponding Obama votes since it could just be an irritable reaction against the Republican administration, but those folks still don’t plan to vote that way for president. There’s also still a significant chunk of undecideds and I’d bet most of those who are still undecided at this point will be more likely to break for who they see as the safe choice. Next, most polls are counting on a high turnout of new voters, especially the young, poor, and minority, who will go for Barack. Counting on these people, though, is misguided. There will be a fair number of new voters, but I seriously doubt it will be what the pollsters are expecting. Every stinkin’ election, for example, people make noise about how the youth will finally mobilize and vote in large numbers and yet each time, the proportion of youth who vote is about the same. Non-voters simply tend to be non-voters. They’re not that way just because there wasn’t a candidate to wow them enough for them to get to their polling location; they just don’t care enough to bother voting. Finally, there’s the dreaded Bradley Effect in which people may tell pollsters they’re voting for Barack when really they won’t. They lie because they don’t want to appear racist (I’ve repeatedly seen this described as covert racism, but that’s a straw man dismissal. People aren’t lying because they’re actually racist – they likely have very good reasons for not voting for Obama – they just don’t want to appear racist and accusing them of covert racism only proves their worries about instead being accused of overt racism should they be honest.). I’ve read several accounts saying the Bradley Effect has lessened in the past 20 years, but I’m not so sure. There’s never been an election of this scale to test it. Most of the citations for the effect’s lessening are also not very good since they focus on candidates from mostly black neighborhoods or on black Republican candidates who are routinely impugned as not being authentically black and so eliminating the worry about appearing racist if you say you won’t vote for him (you can’t be racist for not voting for someone who’s not really black, after all). So we’ll see. The only poll that really matters is the one from the actual voters at the end of Tuesday night. I think McCain will eke it out, but here’s an illustration of my confidence: If you asked me to bet a dollar on who I thought would win, I’d bet it on McCain. If you asked me to bet $10, I wouldn’t bet it.

Second, I’ve been struck recently at what a weak candidate Obama really is. This seems like a surprising statement since he leads in the polls. But c’mon… he’s the Democratic candidate in an election year that favors Democrats generally, the opposing party has a very unpopular lame duck president currently in office, he’s raised an ungodly sum of cash totaling over $650 million which dwarfs the war chest of his opponent, he has ridiculously compliant and supportive media on his side, and his current advertising spending is third only to AT&T and Verizon… and yet despite all these amazing advantages, the man is still only polling 3%-7% over McCain in the average national polls. You’d think he’d be blowing McCain out of the water. That he hasn’t done so is indicative of voters’ less than confident opinion of him.

Third, both candidates are hurt by the fact they’re senators. Americans simply don’t like electing senators president. They much prefer vice-presidents, governors, and generals. The last sitting senator to be elected president was JFK in 1960. Before that, you have to go back to 1920 and Warren Harding. And before that… well… Harding was the last. That’s right, only two sitting senators have ever been elected president and it sure ain’t for lack of trying. There have been a number of senators who were the main party candidates and innumerable more who tried but were felled in the primaries. The voters’ ambivalence towards senators is understandable. Senators are not executives. For many, their only executive experience is heading their campaigns. When it comes down to it, though, senators don’t have to make executive decisions. They dither and argue, compromise, and cast votes. Successes can be claimed, but are still distributed among others while blame for failures can be spread around. These are not luxuries of an executive. Senators, for all their ability to see nuance, may actually be held back by the talent. I still recall in 2004 how John Kerry had this amazing tendency to nuance himself into decisive paralysis. He would on-the-one-hand/on-the-other-hand an issue so much that he ultimately couldn’t come down on a side. A president needs to see the nuances of a problem, yes, but he still has to make a decision and stand by it. He can’t put it off indefinitely, he can’t blame somebody else for it (say, a staffer), he can’t spread the blame around to other presidents, he can’t just be out of the White House when the decision is made, and he certainly can’t just vote ‘present.’ The lack of executive skills comes out during a campaign and voters notice it. A governor may not have the knowledge base for being president since a governor isn’t that concerned with national and international affairs, whereas a senator is. The governor, however, knows what it’s like to be the head of a government, to make executive decisions, work with a congress, have the responsibilities, etc. A senator does not. It’s easier for a person to learn new data than it is to master new skills, which is why the august egos in the Senate don’t do well in presidential elections.

Fourth, vice presidential choices. McCain’s choice of Palin was a daring one, but it paid off. She energized the conservative base and helped remove the ambivalence they felt about McCain and his history of poking them in the eye. No other candidate could have done that. I also like how she’s been more independent lately and breaking away from the McCain handlers who botched her rollout after the convention. She also brings that aforementioned executive experience to the ticket, which can’t be found in any of the other three candidates. Obama’s pick of Biden was a mistake, but not a serious one. He was an odd choice since Obama positioned himself as the candidate of change and then he picked a man who has spent more of his life in the Senate than out of it (can’t we at least make that a term limit?!). I understand Obama needed to balance the ticket with more experience, but he probably didn’t need to go in quite this direction. The man is also a gaffe machine who will say remarkably stupid things if you let him. That’s why the campaign has kept him on a tight leash since about September 10th and has limited his impromptu speaking. Biden seemed to be a safe choice; he won’t help that much, but if he’s controlled, he won’t hurt things either. At least he’ll help bring in those desirable Delaware electoral votes.

Fifth, like many people, I have been amazed by the behavior of the media in this election. I’ve long been used to liberal bias in the media, but they haven’t even bothered much to feign objectivity this time around. After Palin’s VP announcement, there were reporters crawling all over Alaska looking for dirty laundry. That in itself doesn’t terribly bother me because at this level, it’s to be expected. That the media made fair game of her children, however, and splashed stories about them on the front pages was troubling. It was also annoying that hit pieces on Palin quoted only those with whom she had made enemies, of which the largest number were in her own party. By contrast, Obama has gotten nearly a free pass. There are plenty of interesting stories to investigate about Obama and his history and it’s mostly been left up to blogs and the alternative press to look into them. It’s understandable that the MSM doesn’t want to reproduce the work of conservative sites, but they’ve shown a shocking non-curiosity about anything to do with possible shady aspects of Obama’s past. It’s not that they’re not reporting on these stories that’s the problem; the problem is that the media isn’t even investigating them. They’ve consistently turned a blind eye to any stories that could hurt their preferred candidate. Even without the connection to Ayers or the rest, the mere fact he came out of the Chicago political machine means he’s got to have dirt on him. A politician can’t rise up out of Chicago without having sold parts of his soul, but the media has looked into none of it.

Sixth, the treatment of Palin and how ardently the left tried to personify her as an idiot made me realize a fundamental flaw in modern liberalism: many liberals make the error of equating being smart with being right. Intelligence is no guarantee against error and it isn’t even much of a hedge against foolishness. Nor does it preclude emotions, personality traits, upbringing, or any other non- or semi-relevant factors from affecting the decision making process. Nevertheless, the association has been made and because of that, many liberals feel the need to constantly position themselves as smarter than their opposition. Proving your intellectual superiority, though, is more difficult than asserting the other side’s inferiority and so the latter course is the one most often taken. Thus, conservatives must be painted as dullards. Ford was a clumsy bumbler, Reagan was a doddering old man, Bush 2nd is a raging moron, Palin is a ditz, etc. None of this is true, of course, but the memes must be established so as to demonstrate that conservatives are dumb and therefore necessarily wrong.

When this can’t be done because the person is simply too obviously intelligent, another tack must be taken: the conservative is either evil or simply out of touch. Take Bush 1st, Bob Dole, and John McCain, for example. While efforts were/are made to denigrate their respective intellects, they don’t play the role well enough for it to stick. Instead, they’re old, out of touch, and sadly want to bring back a past that cannot be. On the other hand, folks like Tom Delay who are clearly smart and not out of touch are wily and evil.

This phenomenon can also create interesting problems. Bush 2nd was long established by the left to be incredibly stupid. But he somehow managed to win two presidential elections and his party controlled the House for 6 of his 8 years and the Senate for 4, a pretty rare feat in modern politics. An idiot shouldn’t be able to do that – he should be incapable of outsmarting the smarter Democrats. This creates an unpleasant cognitive dissonance in that Bush beating them would indicate he’s smarter and therefore right The resolution came in the person of Karl Rove, a very smart, but evil, man who orchestrated the victories.

So for liberals, conservatives will always be stupid, evil, or out of touch. That is often the only way the left can position themselves as being right since being smart equals being right. Ironically, circular logic sneaks into this arrangement. They are right because they are smarter and they are clearly smarter because they are right. Conversely, the opposition is wrong because they are dumber and they are clearly dumber because they are wrong. I argue most liberal positions are wrong not because of anyone’s intelligence, but because they are just wrong (with backing reasoning, of course). I may accuse some on the left of being fools, but not of being of low intelligence.

This general attitude also leads to unfortunate perceptions of their fellow citizens. The red-staters in flyover country who cling to God and guns are not as smart as coastal lefties and therefore wrong (and circularly, vice-versa). They must be simultaneously combated and also led to the correct positions the liberals offer; they must be forced to be free and to abide by the general will the liberals have decided they themselves embody and represent. While the left may admit there are many uneducated and rather stupid folks who support their liberal positions, those are people who have seen some kind of light and given themselves over the paternalistic shepherding of their betters. And herein lays the danger of this liberal arrogance of intelligence equaling correctness. Classical liberalism dictates that individuals can better choose, pursue, and achieve their personal versions of happiness than can the state and so they must be given the freedom to do so. Too many of the liberal elites, however, view the masses as unwashed and in need of their benevolent guidance. The hoi polloi lack the smarts to know what is best for them and what is in their best interests and they must be directed to what the elites have deemed is happiness for them. It is nearly a secularized religious devotion in pointing people toward a decided-upon earthly heaven they may not even want. This is a dangerous Rousseauean zeal.

Seventh, taxes. Obama’s tax plan borders on the obscene. It is a classic case of class warfare and exhibits one of the dangers of democracy (for the record, democracy is the only political system I endorse, but while the best, it is still imperfect, and its mere nature holds dangers). Since the majority are not in the higher income brackets, he can always appeal to their interests by saying he’ll increase the taxes of the wealthier minority and provide the not as wealthy majority with the benefit. The majority democratically pillages the minority. This is itself unfair. What is more unfair is the mere concept that the government is permitted to confiscate such huge percentages of anyone’s income. The current top marginal rate is 35% and Obama seeks to knock it up to 39.6%. That doesn’t include concurrent markups in social security withholding rates or whatever cuts most states and even some cities take out of a person’s income.

In this form of class warfare, Obama keeps talking about the rich as Warren Buffet types. He, as most on the left do, makes it seem as if the only people facing tax increases are oil-baron plutocrats who wear top hats and three-piece suits, and have indoor swimming pools filled with $100 bills in which they roll around. Most of those in the top brackets are not filthy rich. Let me tell you about my wife who is a doctor. I watched her spend four years in medical school working her butt off studying, learning medical skills, and taking overpriced board exams. I have watched her during her three-year residency also working her butt off on different rotations, spending the night at the hospital every third night while on call, leaving the house at 5:30 AM and not getting home until 7 PM, sacrificing time with our young daughter due to her job, sometimes even going one or two days without so much as seeing her awake. She has put a lot into becoming a doctor and racked up large debts in order to do so. And when she is practicing independently, she won’t be a stock speculator or the manager of a hedge fund or some other demonized profession. She’ll be a doctor providing a valuable service to her community. And while her salary will push us into the top bracket, it won’t be by much. We will be well-to-do, but not filthy rich and could probably only justify a kiddie-pool filled with $1’s. Yet, after she has spent eight years in higher education, three years in an apprenticeship, built up debt, all to be a success and provide valued services to society, the government will deem that she has been too successful and will take ever greater proportions of her hard-earned and well-deserved income. There are many Joe the Plumbers out there and one of them is my wife the doctor.

Is this what our society will be? Constant encouragement to achieve, to excel, to succeed, only to be penalized for daring to be too successful? That seems to be the case as Obama will take greater sums of money from the hard-working well-to-do and redistribute it downwards. While he often touts that 95% of Americans will receive tax cuts, he never mentions how this is possible when 47% of Americans pay no income tax. This is because people will qualify for refundable tax credits, meaning they’ll receive checks from the IRS even though they’ve paid no tax. Its a simple and direct, yet hidden transfer of wealth.

Critics will argue that those who have done well owe more to society than those who have not, and this might be true. But why is the government the arbiter for how much shall be taken and how much shall be given?   Why not leave the money in the hands of the people to spend, to create jobs, to start businesses, to give to charities? Even Jesus said to give to God what is God’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s. He didn’t say give it all to Caesar and let him sort it out. People in society have different responsibilities to their fellow citizens, but the point is that those responsibilities belong to the individual, not the collective, and it is up to the individual to fulfill them. The sort of welfare Obama has in mind (or at least the kind he intends to increase) removes that personal responsibility from the individual. It is no longer the individual who is tasked with caring for his fellow man, it is the state. We have many responsibilities towards the weaker in our society, whether they be poor, young, old, infirm, or suffer some other issue: we are to aid them, protect them, help them improve, give them proper freedoms. Increasingly, though, those responsibilities are being abdicated to the Leviathan. It is the state that is tasked with providing aid. It is only the state that is tasked with protecting the weak. It is only the state that can improve people to the point that even self-improvement is improbable and no longer does one even have a responsibility to himself. it is the state that must grant freedoms, with positive liberties replacing negative ones. It is a dangerous society that gives up its rights, but still more dangerous when it gives up its individual responsibilities. Because when responsibility is collective, no one is responsible. When someone does not receive aid or protection, it is no one’s fault and since no one feels the weight of responsibility, everyone may feel free to shirk it.

Eighth, health care. Obama isn’t trying to directly create a national health care system. He’s smart enough to avoid past Democratic mistakes. It is, though, an effective outcome of his system since it will gradually force more people into government insurance. I’ve always been mystified when people complain about insurance companies and HMO’s and then their solution is to create a gigantic monopolistic HMO out of the federal government, as if it will be magnanimous, efficient, and not under financial pressures. This is absurd. Nationalizing an industry is a guaranteed way to make the industry moribund and eye-poppingly inefficient, cf. Amtrak. Current federal meddling in health care is already responsible for many of the field’s problems. And a government can hardly do more violence to its citizens’ health than by mandating national coverage. The systems often pointed to, such as Britain and Canada are not good. If all you need is a primary care physician, you might be ok. Since that’s all most people need, the system frontloads the industry to these doctors and invests more resources there. If you need specialist care, however, expect that to be severely rationed. Remember that there is no market that will fill the demand for this care; the government allocates limited funds and since the minority will need this care, it gets less emphasis. You will be placed on waiting lists, be limited in what medication you may get (what good is free or cheap medicine when it is ineffective or less effective than other drugs?), and will likely not survive as long. The five-year survival rate for men diagnosed with prostate cancer in the U.S., for example, is 91.9%. In Britain, it’s 51.1%. I’ll take the 40.8% greater chance of living, thank you.

Ninth, foreign policy. To say I distrust Obama on foreign policy would be an understatement. He has been consistently wrong on what he has so far had a chance to weigh in on. He’s been on the national stage for so little time, however, that he hardly has a record. His rhetoric, though, is indicative of weakness and a failure to realize that nearly all of America’s soft power of diplomacy derives from its hard power of military might. Without the latter, the former cannot hope to be effective. On the one significant crisis that came up during the campaign, Russia’s invasion of Georgia, Obama’s first instinct was moral equivocation while his second was a soft-gloved almost-condemnation of Russia (more like furry-mittened almost-condemnation) and his third was calling for the UN Security Council (this was bad enough) to pass a resolution against one of the Security Council’s veto-wielding members. His desire to immediately pull out of Iraq invites disaster, a destruction of everything we have so worked so hard and sacrificed so much to achieve in the past five years, and will finally be what achieves what the liberals have so tried so hard to claim is the result of Iraq: that the lives lost there were lost without purpose and were wasted.  They will fulfill their own prophecy.

Tenth, who is Obama? Rarely has such an empty suit ever been such a contender for the presidency. His life has been one of non-accomplishment save for getting elected to higher offices or appointed to better positions. He did nothing of note in teaching law school or as editor of the Harvard Law Review. Bizarrely, he has published nothing in his life except for his two memoirs, which even he doesn’t claim are factually accurate autobiographies. Having taken a sojourn through academia, I can attest that this is remarkable. Publishing is not the expectation for professional academics, it is almost always a requirement. That Obama has nothing to his name is simply odd. It is also unfortunate since we have no written evidence of his constitutional interpretations, his real thoughts on law and the courts and judges, the nation’s place in the world, an evolution of thinking, etc. All we have to go on is whatever he says at the time, which is as likely to be from shifting political expedience as from firm belief. Consider… I, an amateur little read blogger, have left far more evidence about my political thinking in the six and a half year operation of this blog than Obama has over the course of his life. From reading this site, you will know more about my political beliefs and interpretations than you will ever firmly know about Obama’s. And yet, nearly half the country is prepared to vote for a man they do not really know and who they cannot claim to know.

But Obama is the candidate of the abstract concepts, of hope and change, and so people who hope for whatever and who want change will vote for him, heedless of the fact that change can be either good or bad, that hope is at best merely potentiality, not actuality, and is meaningless unless it is hope for something.

Eleventh, the economy. The economy is troubled and it is suffering from a big crap sandwich that lots of people made, but too few of whom will have to a bite. Deregulation played little role in the subprime lending debacle, while greed was more prominent and government meddling in the lending market is most to blame (another case of government interference in a market causing problems). The government’s heavy-handed “encouragement” of lenders to give mortgages to the poor and minorities whose credit ratings would not normally qualify them for large loans was a prime ingredient in the tasty recipe for economic disaster. With the threats and backing of the feds, the loans were made and then creative accounting took over, seeking to minimize risk to the bank while increasing profit by securitizing the mortgages and then spreading them out throughout the financial sector. Shockingly, the default rate was much higher than was speculated and the damage started hurting everything else. Despite warnings and attempts by Bush, McCain, and other Republicans to reign in the problem, especially the risky mortgage backings by the quasi-governmental Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the Dems plowed ahead, saying there was no problem and any claim to the contrary was tantamount to racism. Barney Frank was the worst of all and has so many conflicts of interest in this debacle, he should be impeached. Now that the economy is troubled, however, the Democrats seek to capitalize on it. It’s a great irony that the problems they did so much to cause are being used to their electoral advantage, as if their further intervention will make things better.

The bailout was a mistake and is yet more government meddling and preventing the markets from natural self-correction. It is also dangerous to allow the government to hold stocks in private companies. While the idea was for the government not to have voting or controlling stakes and for the stocks to be bought back, don’t count on it. Should the government decide to exercise control based on its stock holdings, there is little to stop it. It can certainly exert influence unofficially. The state is also not inclined to give up whatever power it is given and so will not be inclined to give up its ability to manipulate the banking system. For their parts, the banks and companies, while disliking government meddling, will grow to like the financial backing of the government. The possibility for failure is gone and the removal of this market-driven competitive fear will make the companies worse for consumers and inefficient for stockholders.

Into this fray steps Barack Obama whose policies will sound really good, but will only make things worse. If he follows FDR’s example, though, he will continue to tout what good he’s doing and how the economic downturn is only due to Republican malfeasance and how the economy’s failure to improve is due only to Republican intransigence.  How great will Obama be able to make this downturn?

Twelfth, the nightmare scenario is that Obama wins, the Dems significantly extend their majority in the House, and then they gain a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. This would allow them to ramrod almost whatever measures they want through the government: Fairness Doctrine, national health care, whatever. Due to libertarian sensibilities, I prefer a divided government since that slows down just how much the government can do and it therefore minimizes just how much damage it can do. The Republican dominance was certainly not a success story in small government. If the Dems take the executive branch, I’ll be happy to be left with a consolation prize of a Republican filibuster minority in the Senate. If the polls can be trusted, it looks like the Repubs will get it.

The Democrats then have two years to prove themselves to America. If things don’t turn around by 2010, they may find their majorities in Congress slashed. If Obama wins, they will already be pressured by the trend in modern politics of no party controlling both houses of Congress and the presidency. Obama himself will have just four years. Considering how close things have been for him this time, without a real record for him to stand on, 2012 is no lock. And if McCain wins… Sarah Palin 2012?

Thirteenth, I think I’m finally done.

8/8/2008

Picture Time

Filed under: General — Dangerous Dan @ 9:52 pm

Affair?

After giving it some thought and continually denying it, John Edwards suddenly remembers he did have an affair with Rielle Hunter and notes he’s at least 63% honest about it now.  Although he’s still not sure why he recently secretly visited a woman at night when his brief meaningless affair with her ended in 2006 and whose son is not his.  He’s about 6% honest about that.

Nuts off

Jesse Jackson explains how John Edwards would have been better off had Jackson cut his nuts off.

Beijing Olympics

Filed under: General — Dangerous Dan @ 9:27 pm

The real logo

I’ve only watched the opening ceremony and I’m already irritated by this Olympics.  I’m disappointed a tyranny has the opportunity to make it seem like a responsible nation and not an autocratic oppressor of one sixth of the planet’s population.  I’m disappointed news organizations haven’t said more on China cracking down on potential dissidents ahead of the games, including the parents of children who were killed in the earthquake, which was largely due to official corruption and incompetence (this made the line in the ceremony about the state being the guarantor of children’s safety tragically ironic).  I’m disappointed those same news organizations didn’t make more of a fuss when they found out China would censor their internet connections despite repeated claims it wouldn’t.  In both cases, though, this wasn’t surprising.  They were following a long journalistic tradition, best exemplified by the SOB Walter Duranty, of cowing to tyrannies in order to maintain access and privileges and avoid being expelled.  I don’t like the Chi-coms.  And I don’t like the international media.  They will crow about freedom of the press while in countries assuring it but will cave without complaint to countries denying it.

Some general observations on the opening ceremony:

  • Just as I did in 2004, I dearly wish Bob Costas would shut the hell up.  I’ve always been irritated during these ceremonies when the man is unable to let more than 10 seconds go by without blithering something – anything – no matter how inane.
  • The three major Chinese philosophies were listed as Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.  What?  No Maoism?  Communism?  Oppression…ism?
  • In all the symbolic dancing representing Chinese history, where were the dances for the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution?  Think of the great costumes with dunce caps on intellectuals and everybody wearing Mao suits!  Oh and backyard smelting furnace props!  Oh, and the leaping, the leaping that could have been done!
  • Of the 22 ethnicities making up China, did that include those that were conquered and forcibly relocated throughout China in order to destroy their cultural identity while their homelands were repopulated by loyal ethnic Chinese?
  • With the nations’ delegations walking in, the crowd has thus far cheered for Taiwan, Iraq, the U.S., and North Korea.  Curious selection.  Is it cynical of me to think the cheering is directed and not spontaneous?
  • Those girls along the sidelines in the white caps were pretty active at first.  They’re barely moving an hour in.  They better get with it; it would be sad if their families never saw them again.
  • Yao Ming is tall.
  • Why can’t they just have somebody run up some damn steps and light the damn torch?  That goes for all Olympic opening ceremonies.

My Current View on the Presedential Race

Filed under: General — Dangerous Dan @ 8:45 pm

Considering how close things are and that there’s still nearly three months left before election day, I’m not yet willing to make a money bet on this race.  I think, though, McCain has the edge, which sounds completely absurd right now since it’s conventional wisdom that Obama has the edge.  What I find interesting is how Obama is barely ahead of McCain in any polls (and even behind or tied in others) and this is after a good deal of media attention and his big world tour.  With the many GOP issues and that McCain isn’t exactly a wow candidate, Obama should be putting McCain away – but he ain’t.

Obama seems to be peaking and at a bad time; it’s better to peak in late October than early August.  The bloom is starting to come off the rose.  His move to the center after sitting on the left for the primary has been abrupt and bungled.  For example, deciding to drill offshore after denigrating the idea as recently as two weeks before.  The problem with these moves is that the voters who are meant to be attracted by them aren’t buying it and the liberals who supported his liberal positions are feeling betrayed by the new more centrist positions.  He’s trying to be more appealing to moderate and conservative voters, but I’d wager his ham-handed approach is resulting in a net loss of prospective voters.

Another factor to take into account is Obama’s perceived personality.  Candidates always have a personality that gets attached to them that is often like a Saturday Night Live caricature.  Bush is dumb, Kerry was a rich aloof snob, Gore was boring and stiff, Clinton was an impulse-indulging horndog, Dole was old and cranky, H.W. Bush was slightly oblivious, Reagan was forgetful, Ford was clumsy, etc., etc.  Obama didn’t start off with a caricature.  This is partly due to his gifts of rhetorical presentation and controlling his public persona, but also because he’s somewhat of an empty suit onto which it was hard to put a tag.  With being fully in the national eye for just four years and with having no major accomplishments beyond getting elected to higher offices, no one knew how to pin him down.  Increasingly, though, he’s coming across as arrogant and as someone whose rhetoric with questionable substance is wearing thin.  Obama’s presidential seal, his presedential tour meeting with European leaders (who, it should be noted, may have met with him not only because they may have liked him, but also because if Obama could be president, they don’t want to snub the man now and irritate him), the press accounts that he and his campaign staff are acting like the election is a fait accompli, the near messianic flourishes in his speeches, the unusual adulation of his supporters – all this is contributing to a developing Obama narrative that is unfavorable, especially compared to McCain, the worst of which for him is that he’s old.  In the next couple of months, this caricature is likely to take greater hold and erode some of his support.

I’m not enamored with McCain, though I did vote for him in 2000 (I didn’t like either Bush or Gore and wrote McCain in on the ballot, knowing that mine was definitely not a swing state).  I do, however, think he’ll be a solid president, especially with foreign policy.  He’s also running a smart campaign with a good use of humor and internet advertising with viral videos.  He also seems to be minimizing the age issue.  When Bob Dole ran in 1996, he got pegged as being a bitter old man, in part because he was trying to present himself as the grown-up alternative to Clinton.  This was unfortunate since Dole did and does have a magnificent sense of humor and a quick wit.  Despite being about the same age as Dole was in 1996 and with similar wartime and senatorial credentials, he is being careful to let his humor come through and not seem like an angry uncle the rest of the family avoids.  I think we could see a slow trend his way and away from Obama.

On a related note, it’s a shame Obama decided not to participate in the town hall forums McCain proposed, but it’s not surprising.  Obama gives a great sounding speech, but he’s often terrible when off-script and off the teleprompter.  There are lots of uh’s and bungled phrasing that make Bush sound like Cicero by comparison.  McCain would probably eat him for lunch.  Instead, we’ll get the same usual three “debates,” which are actually little more than a series of scripted speeches by the candidates.  Dull.  I’ve always thought they’d be much better if the candidates, you know, debated each other.  It’s also funny that Obama begged off a few debates with Hillary Clinton because he found them unproductive and merely series of speeches and now this is all he wants to do.  It’s another sign that he’s trying to play it safe and protect his lead.  In football terms, he’s running the ball a lot, playing defense and hoping not to make a mistake.  That’s fine, but you lose the initiative and gives incentive to the other team to be more daring.

4/27/2008

Nature vs. Humanity

Filed under: General — Dangerous Dan @ 3:23 pm

One of the stories of humanity is its antagonism towards nature.  The tendency nowadays is to take a Walden Pond approach and honor the environment.  And, no doubt, it’s a fine thing.  Its functioning preserves us, I enjoy clean outdoor spaces, excessive wastefulness should be avoided, etc.  For me, however, I have little interest in preserving the environment except insofar as it serves current and future human interests.  There is nothing to be gained in preserving the environment for its own sake.

I recall that several years ago, for example, I was waiting for a speaker to begin when two people in front of me began having an earnest conversation about how much better off the world would be if all humans just went ‘poof!’  It immediately occurred to me what an absurd idea that was since without humans the environment wouldn’t be better off, nor would it be worse off.  It also wouldn’t be either good or bad; it would just be.  Humans are the ones who apply value judgments.  Without us, nature operates just as it always has with species coming and going, climates changing, natural disasters wiping out areas, lions killing antelope, etc.  It all simply is, without any of it being good or bad.

If it is only humans who can apply value judgments to nature and nature is not good in itself, then it only remains what will be the determinant of those judgments.  It brings to mind a show I watched about some kind of Wiccan nature-worshiping types who were performing a ritual that involved them dancing around outside becoming one with nature while saying nice things about various natural deities.  They contend they’re merely the successors to ancient peoples, druids, fertility rites folks, or whomever.  The problem with this is that when ancient peoples worshiped nature, it wasn’t in a feel-good, connect-with-the-universe capacity.  They did so because they didn’t want nature to kill them.  They knew well what many of us have forgotten in our cultural sheltering: nature is a cruel bitch.  It has no concern for humanity and will inflict floods, droughts, earthquakes, and diseases in the same measure as blessing us with sufficient rain, bountiful crops, and good health.

The simple fact is that the history of humanity is one of antagonism toward nature.  We try to control it, alter it, shield ourselves from it.  The environment isn’t something to be honored in its own right or for itself, it’s something to be fought against in order to achieve self-preservation.  Thus, the environment is good not for anything that has to do for its own sake, but because it exists in such a condition that is beneficial for humans.  This shouldn’t seem controversial, I know, but I discuss this only because of the foolish people out there who believe in doing things they think are beneficial to the environment even though the actions or policies are detrimental to humanity (a notion that, given what I’ve said, is self-contradictory since what is beneficial to one must be beneficial to the other).

There are others, of course, whose concern is for people and not for the environment itself.  They often make mistakes themselves, however.  Typically, they pursue unclear long-term gain that results in immediate loss.  This is well exemplified by the ethanol debacle, something which I complained about over a year ago.  It has become even more apparent since then that the West’s dedication to producing and using the fuel is wreaking havoc on food prices here and abroad.  It’s even accelerating other environmental concerns such as the deforestation of the Amazon as farmers seek more land to plant ethanol-producing crops.  The result is that we risk the world’s poor suffering from malnutrition and starvation all so that we might mitigate global warming (which, for the record, I don’t buy into and, considering the oil-based energy that goes into producing and transporting the stuff, means it would have little effect on the phenomenon anyway).  This is a case of not benefiting humans and we are therefore not benefiting the environment.  The possibility of global catastrophe has also put me into the uncomfortable position of agreeing with the UN on something.

What’s amazing to me is that in spite of this, some environmentalists seek to make the food crisis even worse.  There are now folks complaining about the world’s movable feast wherein foods are transported across oceans to countries that already grow that food on their own.  Or, as in the case of Norway where fish are shipped to China for filleting and then back to Norway for consumption, foods are exported only to be later reimported after processing.  All this transportation is done, of course, because it is cheaper for the producers or because they may make some kind of profit.  Norwegian fish take their journey because the Chinese will fillet them for 19% of what Norwegians will.  Argentine lemons wind up on Spain’s citrus coast because a profit can be made doing so while local lemons will not produce a profit when sold locally, and if no profit can be made, then lemons simply won’t be grown at all and no one benefits.

The fact that more food is produced and at cheaper costs, though, is of no concern to the environmentalists since the movable feast means greenhouse gases are released during transport.  These people are now proposing that taxes be assessed on fuel used for international trade, which not now done due to international agreements.

So, while we currently have a situation in which global food prices are increasing dramatically and we risk the world’s poorest starving and even countries destabilizing, environmentalists are advocating measures that would only serve worsen the problem.  If companies have to pay more for transporting food, they will merely pass the expense along to consumers.  If the high costs inhibit the movable feast, prices will still rise as the local prices for local produce will have to be high enough to generate profits.  Their only upside will be that their costs won’t be quite as high as internationally shipped food.  If the prices aren’t raised, then the food just won’t be produced at all as nothing is to be gained by it for the producer and everybody loses.

But all this is no matter.  The environment must be saved even if people suffer or die in the process.  We’ll just have to wait and see for whom it’s being saved since it doesn’t appear to be for humans.

4/25/2008

Picture Time

Filed under: General — Dangerous Dan @ 12:38 pm

As maverick John McCain stares longingly at Sen. Obama, Barack in turns stares longingly at Hillary.  Damn this unrequited love triangle.
As maverick John McCain stares longingly at Sen. Obama, Barack in turn stares longingly at Hillary. Damn this unrequited love triangle.

Imaginary victims of symbolic gun violence.  If only there had been an imaginary holder of an symbolic concealed handgun license who could have protected them.
Symbolic victims of imaginary gun violence. If only there had been a symbolic holder of an imaginary concealed handgun license who could have protected them.

CNN Shirts?

Filed under: General,Media,Pics — Dangerous Dan @ 11:03 am

If you’re like me and you frequently visit CNN.com, you may have noticed the appearance of a new icon next to some stories. The icon is a t-shirt and if clicked, you will be taken to a new page where you will have the grand opportunity to buy a t-shirt with that new story’s headline on it.

Now, why you would want a shirt with a headline on it is beyond me. Unless you want to come up with some kind of dirty double entendre, which I guess you could do with this sinkhole shirt if you really try and gutterize your mind.

The humor value of other headlines, though, may be a little better than others.

4/23/2008

You’ve Changed…

Filed under: General — Dangerous Dan @ 7:25 am

I finally upgraded my Word Press from 2.0.3 to 2.5. The only problem with upgrading is that it goes back to the default template and I wind up having to play around with things to get them back to the way they were. It may take me a few days.

Update: Or maybe it won’t. That was easier than I thought. Most of the changes for the blog are on the back end and the new dashboard looks pretty nice. I’m digging the new wysiwyg editor.

3/31/2008

I Live

Filed under: General — Dangerous Dan @ 1:49 pm

Bad things have not happened to me; I’m still around. I have become much busier than I used to be, which has seriously cut into my blogging time. The election season, though, may just drag me back in.

I’m also aware that my comments and trackbacks are fouled up. I think I know why, but will need to experiment, probably after I upgrade my WordPress version. I always hate doing that since it messes with my theme formatting, but it’ll have to be done sometime.

4/24/2007

Always Low Prices!

Filed under: General — Dangerous Dan @ 6:45 pm

This unfortunate, but very funny juxtaposition of headlines on Drudge made me laugh.

ha!

3/16/2007

Ethanol Foolishness

Filed under: General — Dangerous Dan @ 10:19 pm

There are few more foolish movements right now than the drive towards biofuels, specifically ethanol. This drive has gained momentum due to President Bush’s cheerleading since he wants something… anything… to make him sound like an environmental president. Add on to this the massive corn lobby, led by ConAgra, and you get an enormous boondoggle that will benefit a few at the expense of everyone else.

There are several problems with ethanol, which in the U.S. is made almost entirely from corn. The first is that it’s not clear that you get a net gain in energy from its production. The feds say you get nearly a third more energy from ethanol than what’s put into it, but other studies have indicated that there’s actually a net energy loss once you calculate fuel used for transport (due to its water-absorbing nature, it can’t be shipped via pipeline), fuel used in tractors, fertilizers and pesticides used, harvesting, conversion, etc., etc. This means that far from increasing energy independence for the U.S., an oft-stated justification, it’s actually increasing how much fuel and energy we use. It’s frankly difficult to get a good gauge on the net gain or loss of energy concerning ethanol because most of the reports and studies are from folks in the pocket of one industry or another.

Ethanol also doesn’t produce as much energy as gasoline. There’s a reason we use gas as a fuel, after all, and it’s because the liquid has a tremendous amount of energy packed into it per unit. Ethanol is not nearly as energy efficient, meaning that you lessen the mileage in vehicles.

The other sizable problem is that recent increased ethanol production is driving up prices in the entire food sector. Whether you realized it or not, corn is used in a wide variety of food products, including as the sweetener in damn near everything. Due to so much corn being diverted for ethanol production, the price for corn is going up; it’s doubled in the past year. We already know about the riots in Mexico because prices for corn tortillas are on the rise, but it goes further than that. High-fructose corn syrup is more expensive and therefore everything that uses high-fructose corn syrup will become more expensive. Meat prices are also going up because ever-pricier corn is used to feed livestock. Even prices for other crops are increasing because farmers are planting more corn instead of things like soybeans. The end result is that food producers are either going to lose money or they’re going to pass along their expenses to the consumer. Guess which one it will be? According to Labor Department stats (for which I couldn’t find a link, but these are from 3/16/07 Wall Street Journal, page C1), “prices for ‘crude foodstuffs and feedstuffs’ were 18.8% above year-ago levels” and “wholesale consumer food prices were 6.8% above year-ago levels.” That the latter stat is lower than the former just means that it hasn’t yet caught up, but it will get there. A nearly 19% or 7% increase in just one year is big and most of it can be attributed to corn-based ethanol. Thanks, Iowa! I hate you!

In short, the results of the pipe dream of a renewable fuel are that the fuel possibly uses more energy than it generates, it contains less energy than fossil fuels, and it’s raising food prices for all consumers. This is potentially the most worthless – no, costly – endeavor ever pushed by the federal government and there’s plenty of competition for that august award. Ethanol is a bum deal that hurts everyone and benefits Big Corn almost alone. It’s nice to know that their lobbying money is paying off for them. Meanwhile, I’d prefer it if the feds would stop meddling in the market, stop endorsing foolish technologies, and if Bush would just shut the hell up about ethanol… like maybe not mentioning it in the State of the Union address as he has at least the past three years.

Schwarzenegger-related Premonition Watch

Filed under: General — Dangerous Dan @ 8:55 pm

Nearly two and a half years ago, this blog expressed its worry over rumblings of a Constitutional amendment that would allow foreign-born American citizens to become President. My concern was that this would validate a reference made in the terrible yet entertaining movie Demolition Man, a film already with one true prediction in that it listed a ‘Scott Peterson’ as a criminal in the cryo-prison.

I am now frightened that events may be unfolding such that the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Total Recall may be proved prophetic. Scientists have just announced that they think there is a massive ice deposit up to 2.3 miles thick at Mars’s southern pole. In the movie, Arnold activates an alien machine that takes a massive ice deposit somewhere underneath the surface of Mars and somehow converts it into a breathable atmosphere.

Next Schwarzenegger movie thing to come true? Male pregnancy? Clones? He’s like a crystal ball, that Arnold!

2/25/2007

Trivial Miracles

Filed under: General — Dangerous Dan @ 12:35 pm

You know how occasionally you get those cases where people see the Virgin Mary in grilled cheese sandwiches, a spot under an overpass, or a mold clump in the bathroom?  The latest incarnation, coming out of Houston is that the image of Mary, on Ash Wednesday no less, appeared on a school cafeteria baking sheet that had recently been used for pizza.

On Wednesday, Rodriguez, a longtime kitchen worker, was leaning over the sink of the cafeteria at Pugh Elementary washing sheet pans — the kind that normally hold rows of chocolate chip cookies or chicken nuggets.

It was with the last pan, pulled from the cold rinse, that the Virgin appeared, Rodriguez, 59, said.

“I started looking at it, and started looking at it, until I realized it was the Virgin,” she said.

The pan appears to be stained, maybe by grease, with an image several inches tall. A splotch of missing color resembles the Virgin Mother’s down-turned face, a slight rainbow stain running alongside this could be a shawl.

This example of pareidolia is now being hailed as a message from God and as a miracle.  The pan has its own shrine outside a PTA member’s house where crowds are coming to pray before it.

It’s a grease spot. 

My opinion on such things is that if the God of the universe – who created existence as we know it, whose power is beyond fathoming, whose previous miracles included such things as healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, and resurrecting the dead – has been minimized or reduced to executing such miracles as producing curiously-shaped grease spots on a cafeteria baking sheet, then we’re all in a lot of trouble.


The miraculous grease spot.  We’re doomed.

Trivial Miracles

Filed under: General — Dangerous Dan @ 12:33 pm

You know how occasionally you get those cases where people see the Virgin Mary in grilled cheese sandwiches, a spot under an overpass, or a mold clump in the bathroom?  The latest incarnation, coming out of Houston is that the image of Mary, on Ash Wednesday no less, appeared on a school cafeteria baking sheet that had recently been used for pizza.

On Wednesday, Rodriguez, a longtime kitchen worker, was leaning over the sink of the cafeteria at Pugh Elementary washing sheet pans — the kind that normally hold rows of chocolate chip cookies or chicken nuggets.

It was with the last pan, pulled from the cold rinse, that the Virgin appeared, Rodriguez, 59, said.

“I started looking at it, and started looking at it, until I realized it was the Virgin,” she said.

The pan appears to be stained, maybe by grease, with an image several inches tall. A splotch of missing color resembles the Virgin Mother’s down-turned face, a slight rainbow stain running alongside this could be a shawl.

This example of pareidolia is now being hailed as a message from God and as a miracle.  The pan has its own shrine outside a PTA member’s house where crowds are coming to pray before it.

It’s a grease spot. 

My opinion on such things is that if the God of the universe – who created existence as we know it, whose power is beyond fathoming, whose previous miracles included such things as healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, and resurrecting the dead – has been minimized or reduced to executing such miracles as producing curiously-shaped grease spots on a cafeteria baking sheet, then we’re all in a lot of trouble.


The miraculous grease spot.  We’re doomed.
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