Monday, August 29, 2005

Hurricanes

I've never been a storm freak. In Kansas, you get tornados; in Florida, you get hurricanes -- what's the big deal, right?

But last year Florida was hit by 4 hurricanes, and three of them came pretty close to Tampa. None ended up directly hitting Tampa or my bedroom community, but we sure thought the first one, Charlie, was aimed at us before it turned. Within a week or two of Charlie, I went down to Punta Gorda and toured the devastation. It was really hard to believe. Now, I have started to understand a lot of people's fascination and fright.

So, I'm watching Hurricane Katrina pretty closely. The news reports are, of course, so much crap. I just wanted to tell everyone of those on-location reporters last night that yes, we know it's really windy and yes, we know it's really rainy, and yes, we know the water is lapping over the sea wall.

Here are a few things I'm worrying about, specifically, as Katrina continues to hit the Gulf Coast:
  • The New Orleans area produces a tremendous amount of the nation's raw oil from its offshore drilling facilities and refines a tremendous amount of the nation's gasoline, with a lot of it headed to Florida daily. So, if those rigs and refineries are out of commission for any length of time, gas could really double in price here.
  • The politicos will of course then have to attack the problem. The headlines are already mentioning Bush and the strategic oil reserve, and I guess that's what it's there for, although I am by no means an expert.
  • So, beyond the strategic oil reserve, what else can Bush and his Republican ilk do to attack the impending problem?
  • Here's my guess: We start hearing Dubya say, over and over and over, "8/29," just like he says "9/11" now, whenever he wants to justify some misguided adventure of his.
  • And, he'll invade. My guess is, he will invade Seattle Washington. And then he'll say "8/29, 8/29," like some kind of misguided Buddhist mantra, whenever anyone questions the relationship between his invasion of Seattle and the hurricane of 8/29.
  • And millions and millions of people -- most of them Republican, but not all -- will come to believe that somehow his invasion of Seattle was linked to Katrina.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

From this week's TMQ on nfl.com:

Anybody might get cut once or even twice -- when you're let go four times in four years, there may be a message encoded in that data.



Monday, August 22, 2005

From Krugman's 8/22/5 NYT Op Ed:

In November 2001 a larger consortium, which included The New York Times, produced more definitive results that allowed assessment of nine hypothetical recounts. (You can see the results at www.norc.uchicago.edu/fl - under articles.) The three recounts that had been most widely discussed during the battle of Florida, including the partial recount requested by the Gore campaign and two interpretations of the Florida Supreme Court order, would have given the vote to Mr. Bush.

But the six hypothetical manual recounts that would have covered the whole state - including both loose and strict standards - would have given the election to Mr. Gore. And other evidence makes it clear that many intended votes for Mr. Gore were frustrated.




Here's what gets me about the Supremes' intervention into the 2000 election debacle: federal election law, in archaic 19th century legalase, provided a method to resolve election controversies. According to the statute, the cite to which I've long since forgotten, the balloting from the Electoral College could have been questioned by either a member of the House or the College itself, in which case the controversy went to the U.S. Congress, which meant that since there was then a Repug majority, Dubya still would have been crowned the boy king. Why, then, was it necessary for five members of the Supremes to call off the process in Bush v. Gore?

No one has ever explained this to me. I even attended a local Federalist Society meeting (my one and only such meeting, fyi), to hear an election law professor who was willing to say in public that Bush v. Gore was properly decided.

What am I missing?

b.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

A Political Nomenclature

Modified from TPMCafe.com, http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/8/4/144852/9026. I am not totally convinced, yet, that I believe all of this. But I have edited the following to more closely meet some of my thoughts about politics. What do you think?

By liberal and conservative I mean center-left and center-right, not far-left and far-right.

  • An economic liberal supports welfare-state capitalism, not far-left democratic socialism.
  • A social conservative is a moderate traditionalist with qualms about abortion and gay marriage, not a far-right Christian fundamentalist who thinks that Satan controls the UN and that every un-implanted embryo is a child.
  • Social liberals are too far to the left of most Americans on social issues.
  • Economic conservatives are too far to the right of most Americans on economic issues.
  • The "moderate" category is somewhat misleading, since it includes two distinct groups: libertarians and populists, who hold opposite views about everything.
  • Libertarians are social liberals and economic conservatives.
  • Populists are social conservatives and economic liberals.
During the 1932-68 era the New Deal Democrats were an economic liberal party, with a social conservative wing and a social liberal wing. The social conservative Democrats--white Southern and Western Protestants and northern Catholics--outnumbered the small number of social liberals, most of them northern liberal Protestants and Jews. Even when the racism of many Southerners and white working-class Northerners is factored out, the New Deal Democrats were a predominantly social conservative party. My grandfather was a New Deal Democrat.

As a result of the Civil Rights Revolution, the civil rights coalition of blacks with Northern white Protestants, Jews and, increasingly, Latinos replaced the old farmer-labor coalition of the New Deal Democrats. Despite a few holdovers from the New Deal era, the post-1968 Civil Rights Democrats were a new party whose actual precursors were failed Northeastern parties of the nineteenth century: Liberal Republicans, Whigs and Federalists. John Kerry even looks like a 19th Century Whig.

The Civil Rights Democrats were (and remain) a social liberal party with an economic liberal wing (the pro-union "Old Democrats") and an economic conservative wing (the free-business "New Democrats"). Socially liberal, to me, means respecting the boundaries of state power. Abortion is as much an issue of power as choice; to me, the federal government should not decide what’s right for all women in the entire country. Title VII’s prohibitions of sex and race discrimination, on the other hand, are perfectly legitimate uses of state power to end employment discrimination based on morally unjustifiable distinctions. And note, the distinction between abortion and discrimination is not just power; it's also where power, or in what arena, power should be exercised. State power should not be enforced in the privacy of your home, between or for consenting adults. State power should be used, on the other hand, to level the playing field so blacks, gays, Muslims and white males compete economically on an equal footing. Economic conservatism, to me, means policies that encourage economic opportunity.

Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, the only two presidents the post-1968 Civil Rights Democrats have elected, ran as social conservative, economic liberal populists. But once they got elected by appealing to the populist vote, they promoted policies favored by moderate libertarians--that is, a combination of social liberalism and economic conservatism. Carter, in power, supported affirmative action and abortion (social liberalism) and broke with the New Deal tradition to push for economic deregulation (economic conservatism). Clinton, in power, defended affirmative action, abortion and gays in the military (social liberalism) and, after the failure of his business-friendly health care proposal, broke with most of his party to promote NAFTA, the WTO, and balanced budgets (economic conservatism).

Clinton
echoed the economic conservatives, announcing: "The era of big government is over." This was so far from being true that Clinton's successor, George W. Bush, presided over the biggest expansion of socialized medicine in the U.S. since Lyndon Johnson, the expanded Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Many "New Democrats" and "neoliberals" approved of reaching out to upscale libertarians who support choice and free trade. In one respect, this strategy succeeded. In recent elections, the Democrats have been gaining more and more of the socially liberal, economically conservative professional and managerial elite. The blogs I read seem to have been written by people in this category. That’s also basically me: a socially liberal, economically conservative, lawyer.

Unfortunately for today's Michael Moore-type Democrats, working-class, white, self-proclaimed evangelical Christian populists with a high school education greatly outnumber overeducated professionals in the U.S. electorate.

Given the large number of populists and the small number of libertarians, a liberal-populist alliance can defeat a conservative-libertarian alliance--but a conservative-populist alliance, of the kind found in today's Republican party, can easily defeat a liberal-libertarian alliance, of the kind found in today's Democratic party.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

First Day of School


I've posted a bunch of pictures from today's first day of school. But of course, being an internet / blogging neophyte, I've got them uploaded in reverse order. So, it will make more chronological sense if you scroll down to the first picture in the series and then scroll back up.

First Day of School

First Day of School

First Day of School

First Day of School

First Day of School

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Torturing Bodies and Language, William Cook, counterpunch.org; August 2, 2005

"The details of the Downing Street memos have been circulated far and wide. They determine two important things: Bush intended to take America to war against Iraq regardless of the evidence that could demonstrate its belligerent intent against the United States; and, Bush had undertaken illegal military invasion of Iraq long before he declared open warfare against that country. In the words of Michael Smith, the correspondent who released the memos, "Bush and Blair began their war not in March 2003, as everyone believed, but at the end of August 2002, six weeks before Congress approved military action against Iraq." (Commondreams, 6/23/05) Bush failed to inform the American people that he had taken the country to war even as he prepared a torturous campaign of propagandistic lies to deceive them that he had to use military force to protect them from this enemy. Surely an independent investigation must ensue to provide Americans with the truth; short of that, we are forced to complicity in his crimes."

Blogs, golf and baseball

Blogs. This blog. Why have them? What function do they serve?

I’m very impressed with a bunch of different blogs. My favorite is Dan Ryan’s Gone Mild, http://www.gonemild.com, which he describes as “aging gracefully and dispensing wisdom from Kansas City.” Every day I read the new posts on Matt Conigliaro’s excellent Abstract Appeal, http://www.abstractappeal.com, his incredibly detailed review of all things legal in Florida and the 11th Circuit. I also like the political logs, dailykos.com for example, and the official arms of the parties.

In an effort to get into the game, I’m going to try to start attacking some things I’ve been thinking, hearing, reading about, or doing. I think my ramblings will have a more sports-oriented flavor than others.

A few quick points to get it started. I do share Dan Ryan’s view of golf. Dan, I shot an 80 at my course, River Hills, last Saturday with one of my best buds, Fred McClure. Fred shot an 83. Are you ever coming out here to play?

I really hope my kids take to the game. I don’t want to push them into it so that they resent it though.

I’m fascinated by the issue of steroids in baseball. One of the most intriguing aspects of baseball is the fact that people (okay, men) of normal size can excel at it. I really resented the idolization of McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, Giambi, Canseco and their ilk when I thought they moving baseball away from “normal” guys. Now, after Palmeiro’s suspension, it looks increasingly like all of them – all of them – were using drugs to morph into these huge, lineman looking creatures. May they all rot in their drug-riddled livers.

MLB is rotten, head to toe. What a shame.