Thanks to John McCain: Alaskans

It just occurred to me that the people of Alaska should really be grateful to John McCain for saving them from Sarah Palin. By thrusting her into the national limelight (probably one of the most irresponsible political acts this side of the 2003 Iraq invasion) he raised her profile and afforded her the opportunity to abandon the project of ruining Alaska in order to cash in on her newfound celebrity. The more we learn about her, the more nightmarish it becomes to imagine how much carnage she could have wrought in Alaska.

I still have faith, which I hope is not misplaced, that a plurality of Americans (real Americans) will never elect her to anything. She's punched her ticket as a former half-term governor and that's a great resume for Republicans and nativists. How it plays out for them is their problem. The Alaskan people (and moose) have been spared.

Hypocrisy Thy Name Is ...

I vaguely remember that during the interminable health care debate Republicans keep admonishing the Democrats for pursuing the reform effort in the face of popular opposition (we could parse how popular that opposition really was in terms of those who thought the reforms went too far and those who reckoned it didn't go far enough). This week they're opposing debate on financial regulations in the face of overwhelming public support for the proposed reform measures.

I know we're not a direct democracy (like Switzerland), but whatever happened to the will of the people? A few weeks ago, Republican leaders professed that crafting public policy should be subjugated to the vagaries of public opinion polls (when it benefited the health care industrial complex). This week polling doesn't matter in the interests of the financial industrial complex. Apparently, consistency is for wimps.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Mitch McConnell (and the Republican leadership).

Chicken Care

Senate hopeful Sue Lowden of Nevada came up with an ingenious idea of bartering chickens for health care. I'll suggest she license the idea before freeloaders start profiting from it without just compensation. The idea appears to be catching on and a helpful chicken converter web site has been set up to assist with figuring out how many chickens would be needed for various medical procedures.

Planning ahead, I checked on treatment for prostate cancer. Turns out it'll set me back 3514 chickens, so now I'm left with the trivial challenge of figuring out how to acquire and keep thousands of chickens in the suburbs before I'm stricken with prostate cancer. That should be easier than providing universal health care coverage.

Socialist Institutions & Free Market Solutions

I keep hearing from people who want to run government that government can't run anything. They claim that free market solutions are always preferable. They want to get rid of pesky little regulations that hinder industrial production, although they waffle when you try to pin them down on which areas of government oversight they'll get rid of (making sure our kids' toys are safe, our drinking water is clean, miners have safe working conditions, our food supply is free of contaminants, our prescription drugs are safe and effective, our doctors are certified and qualified).

I keep waiting to hear their proposals for free market alternatives to our socialist police departments, our socialist fire departments and our socialist highway transportation system. Our socialist single payer system ensures that if I call 911 the operator doesn't ask me if I'm covered for EMS, fire or police services, they just dispatch help as soon as they can. Our taxes pay for those vital services and we don't usually begrudge the recipients of such services.

Calling Balls & Strikes

As we prepare for another Supreme Court confirmation drama brace yourself for the endless repetition of the notion (popularized by Chief Justice during his 2005 confirmation hearing) of a judge as a passive umpire mechanically calling balls and strikes. This is annoyingly vapid. Yes, judges do call balls and strikes, but more importantly they define the strike zone. They're able to call balls and strikes precisely because they unilaterally determine what constitutes the strike zone. They have a lot of discretion and latitude in determining the strike zone. Our statutes are like the baseball rule book. They don't have to invent new rules out of whole cloth to have significant impact.

Why is the strike zone so narrow or so wide? How do you maintain consistency given the varying heights and girths of the different ball players? How could the pitch into the dirt be a strike? Those are more interesting questions.

Just Saying

If you elect people who believe that government doesn't work and can't work, then they're going to make absolutely sure that they run it aground. Better to elect people who actually believe in government and hold their feet to the fire.

Our Country Back: Good Ole Days

Those were the days.
Blacks were three-fifths human.
Women were property.
Workers' rights were a fad.
Industry trumped environment.

Oh for the days of white men.
White founding fathers.
Wise white men as Justices.
All white male military.
All white baseball league.

We lost those days.
We lost our country.
Woe unto the white man.

The Myth of Objectivity

The journalistic pursuit of objectivity (in the sense of being free of bias, prejudice and emotion) is a fool's errand not worth pursuing for the simple reason that it's unattainable. We're all saddled with our biases, emotions and prejudices (and oftentimes we're oblivious as to what they are). A more realistic goal is to strive for fairness while working assiduously to identify and account for our biases and prejudices. Competent journalists can be fair without providing an unwarranted platform for ideas that can be easily refuted.

Selection bias already skews the issues that reporters address. Given limited time and finite resources, there's no objective criteria for determining what to cover. If the selection is biased (as it needs to be), then by definition the coverage will be biased. Acknowledgement of known biases can help the perception of fairness.

Let There Be Plums

And there might be plums, if blooms have any predictive value.

Plum trees in bloom, Roseville 4/18/2010

Prediction Thread: North Carolina Senate

I'm no Nate Silver, so instead of trying and failing to match his analytical prowess, I'm just going to base my predictions on .. er, intuition (meaning I'll just pull them out of the air).


Elaine Marshall will defeat the incumbent Senator Richard Burr in November.

To get a sense of just how loony this prediction is, just keep in mind that Elaine Marshall doesn't yet have the backing of the Democratic establishment.

Tantrums as Political Strategy

If you're intransigent and indifferent or oblivious to the possible consequences, then you can probably get your way each time (if the counterparty is considerate or reasonable). There are some hostage situations where we're left with little choice but to give in. If my two year old holds his breath until he turns blue each time he wants a cookie, then I'm going to give him a cookie every time. Letting him die isn't an option. However, if he just threatens to hold his breath each time he wants a treat, then that's a different story and he won't get his way.

The GOP has instituted intransigence as an operating principle and political strategy. The more unified they are in opposition, the more partisan the Democrats appear. In this scenario, only GOP ideas can be bipartisan. Unified opposition renders any Democratic proposal partisan (even proposals previously championed by Republicans). Only in America can you be rejected at the polls in two consecutive elections (2006 and 2008) and insist that the victors implement your program and claim you speak for the American people (what part of rejection don't they understand). Only in America do we have a press corps that will continue to pay attention to such hypocrites. Tip for the media: President Obama and the Democrats speak for the American people, they earned convincing mandates at the polls. That's how democracies are supposed to operate.

The little tyke in the video below reminds me of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell:



let's learn from the response of the mom and the dog. Ignore him or nominate him for an Oscar.

A Better Press Corps: Episode 1

A series in which I take journalists and media pundits to task for their acts of commission and omission.


Let's start with my biggest pet peeve. The annoying tendency of so-called journalists to bend themselves out of shape in a vainglorious pursuit of balance really sticks in my craw. Their job shouldn't be to seek balance, but to provide enlightenment. There are matters of fact and then there are opinions. We can quibble over opinions, but we establish or refute facts.

If Shaquille O'Neal states that he's 7ft 1in tall, we don't find a lunatic willing to claim that he's only 4ft 11in. We don't commission a survey to find out what basketball fans believe. What basketball fans believe is irrelevant in this matter. Shaq is either 7ft 1in or he's not. What evidence indicates he's 7ft 1in? What evidence gives credence to a contrary view?

There are plenty of issues in public discourse without clearly discernable facts, but there are plenty of others where debate is unwarranted.

President Obama was either born in Honolulu, Hawaii or he was not.
Evidence for: birth certificate, newspaper announcements, factcheck.
Evidence against: racism?

David Gregory, host of "Meet the Press", believes discerning facts is an audience responsibility.

The Songbirds Know the Score

Looking for a good music manager/player? Songbird http://getsongbird.com/ is a decent choice (it's cross-platform and open source). For some gory technical details, it's built on Mozilla's XULRunner platform.

Two takes of a song it brings to mind. Christine McVie, the songwriter:


and a cover by Eva Cassidy:

How I Learned to Love Harry Reid

Over the past couple of years Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been greatly vilified by the wingnuts for marching at the head of the parade towards socialism and by progressives for his fecklessness in enacting the great progressive priorities (his poll numbers readily attest to that). I'll concern myself just with the friendly fire he's been receiving, by addressing some of the constraints he's been operating under. The oft repeated canard that he failed to deliver on progressive priorities when he had control of 60 seats in the Senate is almost willfully ignorant.

First the facts.

The Democrats emerged on the night of November 4th 2008 with the possible control of 58 seats (including two independents, Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman, who'd previously caucused with them). Let's remember that Senator Lieberman had actively campaigned for President Obama's opponent and that a lot of Democrats wanted him tossed unceremoniously out of the Democratic Senate Caucus. Senator Reid and President Obama managed to keep Joe Lieberman in the caucus (I doubt that stripping him of the chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee would have kept him in the fold).

With the party switch on April 28, 2009 by Senator Specter the Democrats reached 59 seats and when the race in Minnesota was finally settled and Senator Franken sworn in on July 7, 2009 the Democrats clinched 60 seats on paper (counting on a brain cancer stricken Senator Kennedy and an ailing nonagenarian Senator Byrd). Senator Kennedy probably cast about five votes between April and his death on August 25th (his appointed successor was sworn in on September 24th).

With the GOP strategy of blanket obstructionism, Senator Reid could be (and likely was) held hostage by any member of his caucus. Speaker Pelosi could lose 39 members of her caucus and still get major legislation passed in the House. Leader Reid couldn't afford to lose one member to even bring a bill to the Senate floor. For those who argue that in the face of GOP obstructionism Leader Reid should force them to actually filibuster live on C-SPAN, please consult this explanation from David Waldman over at Congress Matters. Short version: given Senate rules he really can't make anyone do anything.

Each time Harry Reid gets the Socialist Bernie Sanders to vote with Conservadems Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln it goes down as a minor miracle in my book.

Our Country Back: Whose Land is it Anyway?

Shortly after January 20th 2009 (inauguration day for the 44th president) Fox News started providing a platform for "patriots" to scream and froth at the mouth about wanting their country back. While watching the spectacle with bemusement and sometimes with trepidation (assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons at public gatherings somehow don't reassure me), it's struck me that I haven't noticed any Native Americans screaming about wanting their land back.

Where are the Apaches, Cherokees, Lakotas, Ojibwes and Seminoles when the patriots come calling?

I really enjoyed this video from last November when Robert Erickson got Tea Partiers at a Minnesota rally to chant for the deportation of all European immigrants: "Columbus Go Home".



He's pulled a similar stunt at other gatherings.

How Relevant are Operating Systems?

Last week a student asked me what I thought of Windows 7.
"Not much", I said.
He was puzzled, so I explained that I don't use operating systems. I use applications, so the operating system should be irrelevant.

Operating systems enable us to access our hardware and run our applications. If the operating system is in your face, then it's probably getting in your way.

Dawn Johnsen for the Supreme Court

Over the past year it's become an unofficial olympic sport for liberals and progressives to lament about being tossed under the bus due to the actions and inactions of the Obama administration. One such example was the lack of movement on the nomination of Prof. Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the Justice Department.

Last Friday Prof. Johnsen withdrew her name from further consideration for the OLC position, news that would have made major waves on the left of the blogosphere had it not been somewhat overshadowed by the announced retirement of Associate Justice John Paul Stevens.

Was this a coincidence? What if President Obama is planning to nominate Prof. Johnsen to the Supreme Court? It'll certainly motivate and reassure the progressive base (for a few weeks, at least) and drive the wingnuts even crazier.

Dawn Johnsen has stints at the ACLU and NARAL Pro-Choice America on her resume as per her Wikipedia page and Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also had a stint at the ACLU (just saying).

Her brother-in-law, Judge David Hamilton, was nominated and confirmed to the Seventh Judicial Circuit last year.

I'll still bet on Solicitor General Elena Kagan, but won't be the least bit surprised if it was Dawn Johnsen.