Cartoon of the day

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Pretty much summing up the Republican Iowa caucus:

Despite our zealous extremism and in light of recent events, this choice (and amongst the other GOP candidates) is becoming less noxious than it once was.

Quotes of the day

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Some quotes we ran across the past couple of days that caught our attention:


Here's Mike Huckabee who won the Iowa caucus back in '08 assessing the rhetoric of the current G.O.P. candidates:

“One of the reasons that I was so frustrated and decided not to get in the race was because it appears to me, and it still does to a large degree, that many of the Republicans are more interested in just defeating Barack Obama than they are in rebuilding America. Well, defeating somebody without a plan to really resolve problems, to me, is a worthless endeavor. You know, I want to see us really focus on how to get the country back to work. We’ve got 15, 16 million people that don’t have jobs that would like to have them. Let’s talk about that, not: ’Let’s spend our time talking about what’s wrong with one of the candidates we’re trying to defeat,’ and that’s unfortunately been the focus of this primary.”

Huckabee always seems like a nice enough guy while being interviewed or when he is part of a discussion panel but there has always been something that seemed a tad odd to us about the guy. To wit, is he saying that the reason he didn't enter the race is because he didn't like the campaign strategies of the other candidates? That's patently absurd as that, from a political standpoint, is precisely why you would want to enter the fray. I'll be the alternative to what the other candidates are offering. Isn't that precisely the message every candidate attempts to convey? Again, odd.

And while Huckabee has a good point with generating a message that conveys a positive way forward, there is an awful lot of overlap in that Venn diagram between defeating Obama and rebuilding America suggesting those two concepts are far from being exclusive of one another.







Here's KT on the canard of money in politics:

Getting the money out of politics assumes that money is somehow corrupting what the government does, that there is some best solution to whatever set of problems we're trying to drown with three-and-a-half trillion dollar bills. If we got the money out of politics, then our political leaders would make wise decisions that were best for all of us.

Sort of like Mussolini did. There wasn't much money in politics in fascist Italy.

But the best set of decisions depends on what you're trying to achieve. Over in Greece, they've pretty much done the things that Robert Reich has been suggesting for years and they're now starting to throw their poor and elderly out into the street. So much for finding wise political leaders who can make your decisions for you, eh Robert?

And what does "getting the money out" even mean? The government contracts out to private companies for much of its work. If there's a customer out there with $3.5T to spend it's utterly childish to think that marketing dollars aren't going to gush forth in pursuit of that prospect. (You can solve this problem by nationalizing all industries so that everyone is inside the government and no one outside. See also: Union, Soviet.)

The only way to get the money out of politics is to get the money out of the government. Given the track record of geniuses like Alan Blinder and Robert Reich, that's probably a good idea for lots of other reasons, too.

A favorite refrain of ours (which, honestly, we don't know whether or not we came up with or stole from someone else) goes something like this:

You will never remove money from politics until you remove power from government by corresponding degrees.

And here's B-Daddy at The Liberator Today on differing views of and just how to combat the near-universally loathed effects of crony capitalism:

The left sees crony capitalism and concludes that more regulation of business is required to prevent business from seeking ill gotten gains from government intervention. They forget problems of regulatory capture and the fact that regulation favors the entrenched business interests of today, against the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

The right calls for less regulation, forgetting to tackle the problem that government is enriching corporations in the first place. The tea party answer, is for government to be stripped of the power to enrich corporations in the first place. In my opinion, such a theory is incomplete, because some opportunities for mischief, especially in financial markets are so great that after the fact prosecution is an insufficient deterrent.

Go to the link for some hopeful news that Western democracies will get this figured out.


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#OWS update

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What better way to start off the real first post of the year than to see what the American chapter of Time Magazine's PoTY has been up to lately.

Who's up for some flag-burning?

Four protesters, including the spokesman of Occupy Charlotte, were charged after setting fire to two American flags early Friday near the Occupy camp in Center City, police said.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police weren't sure earlier if the four men who set fire to two flags were associated with the Occupy Charlotte movement.

But, WBTV has learned that one of the men is the media spokesman for the Occupy group and has been the contact person listed on press releases from Occupy Charlotte.

The fires happened with in feet of the group's encampment.

Earlier reports indicated one flag was burned, but a police report says that 2 US flags were burned.

And dig this:

All four men were charged with being careless with fire. That charge is a misdemeanor under the city ordnance.

Police officers told WBTV the protesters gave them a verbal tongue-lashing while being detained, calling then fascists, as well as using other colorful words.

We're sure the irony of those burning things casting about the "fascist" label on others is not lost on you.





And how's the Occupy the Iowa Caucuses working out?

Turns out the owner of a coffee shop in Des Moines had finally had enough of the squatters.

On Friday morning before a planned event appearance by Newt Gingrich, some members of "Occupy Iowa" made a stop at Java Joe's, a coffee shop here that MSNBC has been broadcasting from.

The protesters didn't get far before the owner of the shop gave them the boot.

About four or five Occupiers stood chanting in the middle of the crowded coffee shop before they were told to leave.

"I just had to shut it down, I couldn't stand it," Amy Brehm, who owns the store, told Yahoo News after police escorted the last demonstrators out. "We all have our rights, but not in my place."

We're not quite sure what the woman at the end of the clip meant by "hypocrisy".

One is guaranteed a 1st amendment right to peaceably assemble on the village green to chant, yell, scream, drum circle or whatever. That same right does not extend to doing the same on someone else's property or business.

There's a name for that: it's called "theft".

The Occupiers were occupying square footage that would've been otherwise occupied by paying customers and generally making the dining experience less pleasureable for the other customers perhaps making them less willing to return with their pocketbooks.

Again, the involuntary confiscation of others' wealth and property is at the core of the Occupy movement whether they realize it or are even willing to admit it.

A return to hopeless idealism?

At first, we we dreaded it and then we began to embrace it: A developing condition that was the result of being so vehemently opposed to the policies and politics of the sitting President that we were considering going squishy on some previously-thought-to-be-ironclad litmus tests regarding GOP candidates.

So, this is what pragmatism feels like!


Such was the case with ethanol subsidies and though ethanol is perhaps the worst energy idea of all-time, its Iowa caucus-bound sway appeared to prevent any in the current GOP field from speaking out against them.

Until now...


In announcing his candidacy for President in Iowa yesterday, Tim Pawlenty, also declared for the phasing out of energy subsidies including that of ethanol.

Click here to hear that portion of the speech where he also calls out the thuggish antics of the NLRB who are attempting to block Boeing from opening a plant in South Carolina which happens to be a right-to-work state.

"The truth about federal energy subsidies, including federal subsidies for ethanol, is that they have to be phased out,"

We're far from throwing our hat in the ring for anybody but it is encouraging to hear a mid-westerner address the third rail of Republican primary politics in Iowa of all places.

This man will now vet your religious convictions

Like the Sun rising in the East, Rick Reilly wades, inevitably , into the Iowa-highschooler-won't-wrestle-girl-because-of-his-religious-beliefs dust-up and dispenses the usual Rick Reilly ass-hattery we used to endure from time to time before we stopped reading his overbearing sanctimonious crap altogether.

The Herkelmans -- and most of the state of Iowa -- praised Northrup for being a boy of faith. "It's his religion and he's strong in his religion," says Megan Black, the only other girl who made state. (These were the first two in the state's history. Black lost both her matches.) "You have to respect him for that."

Why?

Does any wrong-headed decision suddenly become right when defended with religious conviction? In this age, don't we know better? If my God told me to poke the elderly with sharp sticks, would that make it morally acceptable to others?

So, Reilly has established himself as arbiter of what people can and cannot believe and act or not act depending upon that belief. Good to know.

And what a ridiculous straw man. No one is getting poked. The young man is refraining from activity not engaging in obviously anti-social behavior as justified by God. To take this ridiculous strawman to its deserving ridiculous end, the wrestler, one Joel Northrup, is refusing to poke the elderly with sharp sticks.

Given Reilly's logic, he should probably think that refusing to eat bacon is wrong-headed as well. Bacon's awesome. Why would anyone refuse to eat such a delightful meat? Because God or Allah told them so? In this age, don't we know better?


Perhaps Reilly should be taking to task athletes' refusals to play on certain religious holidays, a predicament that has faced Jewish baseball players like Sandy Koufax, Hank Greenberg and Shawn Green (Koufax refused to pitch Game 1 of the '65 World Series against the Twins as it fell on Yom Kippur. Don Drysdale got the start instead but gave up seven runs in 2-2/3 innings prompting Drysdale to quip "I bet right now you wish I was Jewish, too").

But no, Reilly chooses instead to ridicule some Christian kid (home-schooled, no less) living in fly-over country. Nothing like a soft target, eh, Rick?


What a testament to the deplorable state of sports journalism that this clown is only 3 National Sportswriter of the Year awards (11) behind the greatest sportswriter of all-time, the late, great, Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times. Murray once wrote of the Boston Celtic point guard legend, Bob Cousy, "He led the fast break like the lead kid out the door on the last day of school." Reilly prays to the sportswriting gods he could turn a phrase like that. Just once.

Good lord, Reilly is a tool.

Let me tell ya about John and Diane...

...two 'Merican kids stickin' it to the heartland.



Well, looky here:

We are writing to make you aware that we do not support an extension of either the 54 cent-per-gallon tariff on ethanol imports or the 45 cent-per-gallon subsidy for blending ethanol into gasoline. These provisions are fiscally irresponsible and environmentally unwise, and their extension would make our country more dependent on foreign oil.

Subsidizing blending ethanol into gasoline is fiscally indefensible. If the current subsidy is extended for five years, the Federal Treasury would pay oil companies at least $31 billion to use 69 billion gallons of corn ethanol that the Federal Renewable Fuels Standard already requires them to use. We cannot afford to pay industry for following the law....

Eliminating or reducing ethanol subsidies and trade barriers are important steps we can take to reduce the budget deficit, improve the environment, and lessen our reliance on foreign oil. We look forward to working with you on responsible energy tax policy.

So where did this come from? American Enterprise Institute? Cato? Heritage Foundation? The newly-minted tea party caucus in Congress? Wrong on all four counts.

This was part of a letter to Senate leaders from a bipartisan group of 12 senators and which was co-authored by Diane Feinstein and John Kyl.

We're almost speechless. There has to be a catch, though, right? The term "bipartisan" normally scares the crap out of us. They have to be angling towards something, right?

Can an energy policy be so horrifically bad, so wrongheaded and dreadful that it could inspire a letter this forceful from two people generally at the opposite ends of the political spectrum? And can it be pulled off without malice or forethought? Putting the cynic inside us aside, yes, dear friends... yes it can.

There is obviously a long way to go with political considerations for senators from regionally-affected states and the no-small-matter of the Iowa caucuses in a little over a year but its a great first step. With that in mind, let us rejoice in the opening salvo in the battle to defeat the worst energy policy idea of all time.

Get to know an American hero

In the 1960s, Borlaug turned his attention to South Asia. India and Pakistan were at war and facing unprecedented famine, with deaths forecast in the hundreds of millions. Indian tests of Borlaug's dwarf wheat seeds were promising, and he traveled there at the request of the Indian government to continue his wheat development program. Despite intense difficulties (including planting wheat under artillery flashes), Borlaug's research resulted in India and Pakistan doubling yields between 1962 and 1970. Both countries were self-sufficient in grain by 1974, and the expected tidal wave of famine deaths had been avoided.

Africa was next on Borlaug's agenda, but by the 1980s he started to face intense opposition from Western environmental groups. Despite his record of success in averting starvation, they opposed his 'Green Revolution' scientific methods -- the use of cross breeding, hybridization, inorganic fertilizer -- as 'unnatural.' Some complained the intensive farming techniques he introduced was displacing traditional subsistence farming, as if starvation by native methods were somehow beautiful and noble. Borlaug would later have be blunt words for these critics:

"many [environmental lobbyists] are elitists. They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things."

Pop’s side of the family shares the same stout but humble Midwest agrarian stock as Norman Bourlag who some estimate saved as many as a billion lives with his work on dwarf wheat, cross-breading and hybridization.

Bourlag passed away this past Saturday at the age of 95.

The ‘Hawk has more here on this true American and world-wide hero.

The next time you read or hear of the devastating effects of America's alleged neo-imperialism or neo-colonialism please keep the memory of Norman Bourlag in your back pocket, won't ya?

Doing the Jobs (young) Americans Can't

"The complaint filed by the Iowa attorney general's office says the violations involved 32 illegal-immigrant children under age 18, including seven who were younger than 16. Aside from handling dangerous equipment, the complaint also says children were exposed to dangerous chemicals such as chlorine solutions and dry ice."

Headline of attached article never to see the light of day: INS Raid Rescues Minors from Unsafe and Dangerous Working Conditions

And now a few words from Senator McCain and your investment tip of the week.

McCain on ethanol (excerpts from a speech made in Ames, Iowa no less, this past November):

"Yes, I oppose subsidies. Not just ethanol subsidies. Subsidies. And not just in Iowa either. I oppose them in my own state of Arizona. I am a proud of the conservative tradition that the government can sometimes best serve the interests of the American people by knowing when to stay out of their way

There is no economic force on this globe that is stronger than free people. Entrepreneurs lie at the heart of innovation, growth, and advancing prosperity. Entrepreneurs should not be shackled by excessive regulation that raises the cost of business. Entrepreneurs should not be disadvantaged by earmarking and pork-barrel spending that favors politically connected competitors.

I trust Americans, I trust markets and I oppose subsidies. As President, I'll propose a national energy strategy that will amount to a declaration of independence from the risk bred by our reliance on petro-dictators and our vulnerability to the troubled politics of the lands they rule. That strategy won't be another grab bag of handouts to this or that industry and a full employment act for lobbyists."

We like it when McCain talks to us like this and we'll freely admit that this ability to tell Iowan farmers probably what they didn't want to hear was fully underappreciated by us.

We have a Naval Reservist in our office doing his 2 weeks active duty rotation. In real life he works for an investment firm that specializes in green and renewable energy for public utilities. We’re big fans of “money”… as in “private money”… as in “what’s the private money doing?” as this is a great indicator of the relative strength of an idea or technology as there is inherent risk with private money… public money (your tax dollars invested by the Government), not so much.

This is why we supported President Bush when he denied federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Moral dilemmas aside, if stem cell research was the medical Big Idea, then why wasn’t there the amount of private investment there that would suggest it was so?

Anyway, we asked him: “Where’s the green money going?” “Batteries”. “Batteries?” “Yeah. There is promise in wind and solar power but unfortunately, when its needed at peak hours in the evening, the wind dies down and the sun sets. This is the problem with that technology currently, so the money is going towards finding ways to store the megawatts of energy that can be used when the demand is there.”

What’s the money doing with ethanol? Not much. The smart money knows its ultimately a dead end.

Global Warming, Ethanol and The Price of Beer

Got your attention? OK, all you neocons, er, conservatives or libertarians or whatever we are. Now we have a crisis. The price of malt and hops are rising dramatically, affecting the price of beer. Who's to blame? You guessed it. Global warming is causing climactic changes that are ruining the barley crop world wide. Barley is used to make the malt used in most beers. Global warming is simultaneously causing heavy rains in Europe AND a drought in Australia. Who knew? Furthermore, growing corn has become more lucrative due to ethanol subsidies, crowding out the growing of barley. Darn those Iowans, they can't even field a decent football team, but they've got the whole country growing corn, even in Washington state. So now it's serious, the price of beer is under assault. Time to rethink this whole global warming thing; and let's deprive Iowa of statehood while we're at it.