Time for the Democrats to Panic?

It's not my question.  It belongs to Terrence Samuel, writing at The American Prospect, a journal of "liberal intelligence."  The conventional wisdom is that all the momentum is on the side of the Democrats.  But Samuel points out a few inconvenient truths.

They can't stop the war or override the president's veto on S-CHIP. Harry Reid is less popular in his home state of Nevada than the president is in the country, and, if you listen to the pollsters and the pundits, the Democrats are about to choose one of the most divisive political figures in the Republic’s history to be their 2008 presidential nominee.  Which begs the question: When should Democrats begin to panic? 

The answer is "not yet." But the truth is that unless they can re-establish some of their 2006 momentum, Democrats may find themselves going into the next election tagged as the party that couldn't stop Bush when given a chance, or as the party that did not try hard enough.

Samuel puts his finger on one of the most interesting facts of the current political environment.  Bush's popularity is indeed very low, almost as low as that of Congress.  And the latter reflect displeasure with Congress as a whole, not specifically the Democrats.  On the other hand, Bush is enjoying a high degree of control over the national agenda for a lame duck President.  This is in large part because the Democrats can't get their act together. 

The underlying problem is the act itself.  This was evident in the recent dust-up over Congressman Pete Stark's hissy fit on the House floor.  From the Boston Herald:

“You don’t have the money to fund the war or children,” he told House Republicans. “But you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people, if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.”

Here it is on YouTube.  What's important here is not that Stark was over the line, which he was.  It is that his hatred of Bush eclipses his passion for any other part of the Democratic agenda.  He had to know that his tirade couldn't help his part advance the SCHIP legislation, and he should have known that it would allow the Republicans to make him the issue.  But he just couldn't help himself. 

Something similar when the Democrats advanced a resolution to condemn Turkey for the Armenian genocide.  Not a bad move, perhaps, solely on its merits.  But just right now, when the US desperately needs the cooperation of the world's most moderate and democratic Islamist government, it is probably a very bad move.  So why did the Democrats move this issue now, only to have to back away with egg on their faces? 

In the hours before a House panel approved the resolution Oct. 10, Pelosi was told in a tense meeting with Turkey's ambassador that the vote would endanger his country's alliance with the U.S. She had a warmer session with an Armenian cleric and representatives of Armenian-Americans, who have a large presence in her home state of California. In both, she made clear she intended to bring the resolution to a full House vote.           

Since then, Pelosi, 67, has been in retreat. Her vow to bring the measure to a vote outraged Turkey, which recalled its ambassador and threatened to cut off the use of its military bases to resupply U.S. troops in Iraq. On Oct. 17, Pelosi said it ``remains to be seen'' whether the vote would occur after more than a dozen lawmakers pulled their names from the measure and some Democrats asked her to drop it.           

``It's a good resolution but a horrible time to be considering it on the House floor,'' said Representative Mike Ross of Arkansas, one of the Democrats who withdrew his support.           

The answer is that they couldn't resist causing trouble for George W.  That passion not only overrode their concern for American foreign policy, it overrode their concern for not looking like idiots. 

And therein lies the reason why Democrats should be worried.  They have become a party of one shining principle: the humiliation of one George Herbert Walker Bush.  But pretty soon now they ain't gonna have Dubya to kick around anymore.  And that may leave a party as hollow as a Thanksgiving parade balloon. 

Afternoon Coffee: College Gameday, Huskers Edition

At the beginning of the college football season, I made the bold prediction that the Nebraska Cornhuskers would have a good enough year that they would be in the running for the division championship, while my colleague Prof. Schaff remained "in 'wait and see' mode."  It turns out my faith in the Huskers was misplaced.

Husker Nation has been cheering the firing of the athletic director, Steve Pederson, who was replaced by Nebraska legend Tom Osborne.  This came after we lost our homecoming game against Oklahoma State, which hasn't beat us at home since 1960.  All sorts of debates have come up, such as whether or not it was worthwhile to conduct these personnel changes mid-season.  Another rumor circulating is that Coach Bill Callahan's job is in jeopardy now that Osborne is back.  It will be interesting to see how things play out over the rest of the season.

This afternoon, at 1:00 pm, Nebraska faces the Texas A&M Aggies at Memorial Stadium. The game is being billed as the "Contract Buyout Bowl" and Nebraska probably has a good chance of picking up a win.  Luckily for Nebraska, there are other Big 12 teams that aren't doing so well either, meaning Nebraska still has a shot for a decent bowl game.  Today's game might say a lot about whether or not they make it.  Texas A&M's record for the season is 5-2 overall, 2-1 in the Big 12.  Nebraska stands at 4-3 overall, 1-2 in the Big 12.

Iowa

Power Line:  Academic Follies In Iowa

UPDATE:  Our friend and fellow graduate student Anna over at Dakota Women remarks on Professor Moyar's story about being rejected from Iowa because of ideological bias.  I have to respectfully disagree with you, Anna.  I think you missed the point of the story.  The University of Iowa has an explicit policy promoting ideological diversity, but when the chance arose to hire a conservative who certainly is qualified for the position and whose book has received excellent reviews, they declined.  That's his second book, by the way.  The first book also received high marks from reviewers. This is why it's crazy that there's a 27-0 liberal ratio at Iowa.  This isn't about his credentials or the book's technicals, which clearly doesn't suffer as much as the critics make it seem.  It's ideological bias, plain and simple.

Johnson's Fitness: A Request from [Humorless Public Radio Network Identifier Deleted]

Note: the following post has been modified at the request of a certain Public Radio Network. 

 

[Humorless Public Radio Network Identifier Deleted upon polite request] sent the Keloland bloggers a request to put them in touch with anyone who can speak to Senator Johnson's fitness.  Here it is:

Sen. Tim Johnson’s back. Are you confident he’s able to serve for  another six years?

It's been ten months since Senator Tim Johnson suffered a brain hemorrhage and it's been a little over a month since he has returned to work. How is he doing now that he's back to work? And what do you think about his decision to run again in 2008?

[Humorless Public Radio Network ID deleted]

 

If you've seen or heard Sen. Johnson recently, let MPR know.  Your observations will help us cover his return to South Dakota politics and his bid for re-election.

I have decided to help them out.  A quick Google search for images of Tim Johnson turned up the following:

 

How's that for fitness?  And of course you can't forget this one:

 

If Tim Johnson can ride in competitive cycling and play short stop, surely he can handle the next veto override attempt.  And here is Tim Johnson again, doing something I will never attempt.

 

And if you think that Tim Johnson is going to be getting around in some stuffy old sedan when he is back in the world's nerve center, think again!

Those are a few things for our friends at [Humorless Public Radio Network] to chew on.

Senator Johnson to Run Again

I have been confidently predicting for months that Senator Tim Johnson would not run for re-election.  I am still predicting that he won't run because, well, what is the point in giving up now?  If sometime between now and the election, he does withdraw, I will look very wise.  How often does that happen?  But just right now the case is looking harder to make.  Here is the story from Kevin Woster at the RCJ:

Sen. Tim Johnson confirmed Friday the campaign plans he has implied for weeks, announcing a 2008 reelection drive that will proceed despite the physical challenges left from a brain hemorrhage and emergency surgery last December.

In a solicitation e-mail to supporters and a news release from his campaign office, the South Dakota Democrat said he is now fully convinced that he can handle the multiple challenges of serving in the U.S. Senate.

I have to admit that I am tempted to raise an eyebrow and express doubts about the Senator's fitness, thus igniting a firestorm of abuse from my Democratic friends in the regional blogosphere.  The things that Doug Wiken or Todd Epp would write, not to mention my friend and colleague David Newquist, would burn so bright this blog would be visible from outer space. 

But I can't.  If Tim says he is fit to serve, that is good enough for me.  I also admit that the prospect of an open Senate seat was more than a little exciting to me, both as a blogger and as a political scientist.  Had Senator Johnson announced that he wasn't running, traffic at all the local blogs would swell like a mountain creek when its thundering and raining over the peaks. And it is always fun to get calls from the local and not so local media. 

Assuming I am wrong, and he is in for the duration, I don't see how he loses.  I liked and admired Tom Daschle, but a lot of South Dakotans did not.  By contrast, I don't know anyone who doesn't like Tim Johnson.  His heroic recovery both inspires and deserves admiration.  Moreover, with his leave or not, some of his supporters will now treat any criticism of his record as a vicious attack on a wounded warrior.  I don't see how a Republican campaign can climb all those hills between now and next year's November.

Rush-Ried

After Harry Reid and forty-one prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, signed a letter falsely attacking Rush Limbaugh, Limbaugh put the document on eBay with the proceeds going to the Marine Corps -- Law Enforcement Foundation.  The winning bid by philanthropist Betty Casey was $2,100,100, which Limbaugh has promised to match.  We now have Harry Reid trying to put the best possible spin on the letter.  I await to see if any of these Senate Democrats respond to Rush's challenge, as Mark Hemingway noted:

Limbaugh issued a public challenge to all of the senators involved to join him in matching the winning bid. “I would like to issue this challenge to Senator Reid and the 41 senators who signed his letter. You say you support the military. You say you’re big, and you think it’s patriotic, and that I was unpatriotic. Well, I would like for each of you, Senator Reid, and the 40 senators who signed, to match whatever the winning bid is. Show us your support for the U.S. military by all 41 of you pro-military people, Democrats in the Senate, match whatever the winning bid is and send that amount to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation,” he said.

Given the huge bids on the eBay sale, I didn’t suspect that too many of the 41 senators’ offices would have that much cash lying around. But I called all of them to ask anyway. As long as the mood in Washington is a spitting contest over who’s more patriotic, maybe I could get some agreement over Limbaugh’s publicity stunt. Or, failing that, maybe a divisive partisan comment might drive the story back on to the front page, with the goal of further publicizing the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation.

No such luck. I called all 41 senators involved, and I spoke to press secretaries or left messages with 33 Senate offices (I tried repeatedly, and you’d be surprised at how many busy signals you get trying to get ahold of senators.) I told dozens of press secretaries all about the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation and Rush’s challenge. I got only two responses, and of those, only Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado proved himself above the recent pettiness. He issued a terse statement: “The Senator supports their [the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation] work and is pleased to hear that Rush does as well.”

Abortion, Sex Selection, And Political Instability

Apropos yesterday's post on the potential harmful side effects of a culture of abortion, Mark Steyn draws our attention to this opinion piece in the Christian Science Monitor:

Worldwide, there are already 100 million girls "missing" due to sex-selective abortion and female infanticide, according to the English medical journal The Lancet. Fifty million of these girls are thought to be from China. In many provinces, the sex ratio at birth is between 120 to 130 boys for every 100 girls; the natural number is about 104. What will happen in future decades when these boys grow up and look for wives?

Among other things, such a situation would exacerbate the growing problem of sexual trafficking, which will surely have its          hardest effect on the most vulnerable in the developing world as China grows richer.       

Another serious threat is to regional stability and, by extension, international security. As Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer recently wrote in their prize-winning work on demography and security, "Bare Branches," surplus male populations in a region often result in violence – through banditry, rioting, or militarization. The 6 to 5 male-female ratio in China means there are a lot of men who will not be able to start families. If history is any guide, they will either find less savory things to occupy their time, or find women through equally unsavory means.

The author of this piece fails to tell us where in The Lancet these numbers are reported. It might be this short article (registration may be required).  Here are the important parts (notes eliminated):

Female infanticide  of the past is refined and honed to a fine skill in this modern guise. It is ushered in earlier, more in urban areas and by the more educated, with the help of advanced technologies in the form of selective abortion of the female fetus whether in single or multiple pregnancies. A careful demographic analysis of actual and expected sex ratios shows that about 100 million girls are missing from the world—they are dead.

Concentration on respecting women's sexual and reproductive rights as well as their human rights can be the only answer to this problem. In 1986, the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India passed a resolution against prenatal sex determination and medical termination of pregnancy because of the sex of the fetus. All members of the federation are asked to desist, dissociate, and discourage female feticide as it is a “crime against humanity”.

To eliminate prenatal sex selection and consequent termination of human life is a Herculean task. We can draw inspiration from Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, the President of India, who has said: “We have to demand from our institutions the impossible and the possible will emerge.”

The question here is why this is a problem for those who support abortion rights.  Assuming there is no compulsion to obtain an abortion, is it not a violation of "reproductive rights" to tell a woman she cannot abort her child for the purpose of sex selection? 

 

Lauck on SDPB

From a news release from the University of Oklahoma Press:

This Friday (October 19, 2007) the author Jon Lauck will discuss his new book on South Dakota Public Radio. At 12:00 noon CST, Lauck will discuss “Daschle vs. Thune: Anatomy of a High Plains Senate Race” on Julia Monczunski’s program “Food for Thought,” which discusses prominent books relating to South Dakota.

The following Saturday (October 27, 2007), Lauck will sign copies of his book at Barnes & Noble in Sioux Falls, South Dakota at 2:00 PM. The Sioux Falls Barnes & Noble is located at 3700 West 41st Street.   

Michael Barone, Senior Editor of U.S. News & World Report, has said that "Jon Lauck’s account of one of the hardest-fought elections in the 2004 campaign should be must reading for Democrats as well as Republicans."  Joseph Bottum, writing in the Weekly Standard, said "Jon Lauck has written what should be required reading for anyone interested in how to win--and how to lose--a modern senatorial campaign."

Zombie Farmers: A legal Inquiry

Professor Schaff mentions the number of zombie farmers receiving federal payments.

$1.1 billion in subsidies to 172,801 dead people between 1999 through 2005. Forty percent of that money went to people who had been for at least three years, the report found.

I learn from World War Z that Zombie corpses are unusually durable, so three years is no problem.  But colleagues memory is unreliable concerning an earlier conversation on the legal ramifications of death or pseudo-death in the case of two basic species of the undead.  Professor Schaff says:

Prof. Blanchard and I once debated whether the undead have to pay the estate tax, aka, the death tax.  I believe we concluded that vampires do not but zombies do.  Vampires, depending on your vampire theory, are not actually dead (well they were, but they aren't; it gets confusing). Zombies, meanwhile, are clearly simply corpses that are animate (how they are animated is also a subject of some dispute, but perhaps Prof. Blanchard can educate us from the History of the Zombie Wars). 

This apparently originated in a question from a student, but my conclusion was the opposite.  Like zombies, vampires are human beings who died and then came back to life in some sense.  But zombies are psychologically empty, retaining no trace of the former self.  As to how they are reanimated, there are two primary vectors: some mysterious infection (WWZ), and black magic (see Jon's delicious Bob Hope clip; and one minor one: a mad scientist (Reanimator). In any case, I would argue that zombies no more retain any liabilities or rights from the time they were genuinely alive than does a kidney or tumor once removed from a living body.  Strom Thurmond's last term in the Senate notwithstanding.

Vampires, by contrast, usually retain their living personalities intact and for that reason might be considered the same legal person for purposes of contracts or tax liabilities.  I can document this argument with the case of George Hamilton's amusing Love At First Bite (1979).  In that movie, Dracula is forced to leave his Romanian castle and come to America because he cannot pay the estate taxes.  When Renfield (Arte Johnson) announces that government agents are at the castle door, Dracula asks how he knows they are from the government.  Renfield replies: "they are wearing shoes." 

So: the first thing to get straight concerning the farm subsides to dead farmers story, is this: are the farmers zombies, or vampires.  If the former, then this is clearly a case of fraud (especially if someone is controlling the zombie by waving his wand and giving deep, clear commands like "Rise!  Kill!  Endorse the check!"). If the latter, then the  farmer might well be entitled to the subsides.  That is a matter for the courts to decide.  I suggest night court. 

I hope this has been useful to our readers, both living and living dead.  But please remember, I am not an attorney. 

Randall On Fanaticism

From James Randall's Lincoln the Liberal Statesman, discussing the "fanatic":

Those who oppose him are evil; they must be destroyed, or at least suppressed. In that suppressive crusade one’s language becomes extravagant; zeal overreaches itself; the lance of argument is thrown as if the Almighty himself here hurling a thunderbolt to strike down the evil doer. One’s own motives are pure; the opponent must therefore be a sinister person; there must be no compromise with him. You withdraw from him. You spurn his friendship. Your speeches and articles are presented not so much to your opponent; he is hopeless; they are presented to your own audience; your opponent is treated as a third person….Public affairs must be viewed in terms of class, struggle, and crisis, rather than adjustment. 

A Response To Anna

A response to Anna.  I'll try to make this brief as possible as abortion arguments become very tedious very quickly. 

On counting abortions, perhaps the researchers should be more modest in their estimations, or, as my post suggested, if they are going to make large estimations they should give an account as to why they chose the numbers they did rather then simply saying, "We talked to experts." 

Anna demands that somebody, SOMEBODY, answer her call as to how restricting abortions furthers women's health.  Yet in her original post she wrote:

So, to those of you who insist upon another attempt to outlaw abortion in South Dakota: please be upfront with the citizens about what you're actually hoping to accomplish. Because preventing abortion isn't what you're after.

It is only when challenged in the "comments" that Anna, unwilling to defend this initial position, shifted her ground to the defense of women's health.  For, if even if the study were accurate, the worst one could say about pro-lifers is that they are mistaken that restrictive abortion laws will lower the abortion rate.  But Anna, unwilling to concede sincerity in her opponents, charged them with bad faith.  She insinuates that pro-lifers know legislative efforts to lower the abortion rate are fruitless, yet continue to advocate them anyway because their "real" motive is hatred of women.  A good policy of argumentation is to assume your opponent is sincere in his claims until you have ample evidence otherwise.  Anna, unable to find such evidence of insincerity on the part of pro-lifers because, might I suggest, there is none to be found, chose to change the argument to women's health.

So, how might restrictions on abortion actually further women's health?  Let's name a few.
1. According to the study cited by Anna, there are 42 million abortions in the world each year.  While I dispute that number, let's take it as given.  That means each year 21 million females are killed in utero.  I'd say that's bad for their health.  Now, Anna does not think this is a human being, much less a human being with a sex.  We will not solve that argument here, although I point out that the whole X and Y chromosome thing occurs at fertilization.  But the point is that from the point of view of pro-lifers, you have a human being at some early stage of pregnancy and thus abortion is the killing of an innocent human life.  Thus they think that ending abortion is good for the health of those who are not being killed (note, for example, the millions of female babies aborted in China simply for being female). Again, Anna does not think a human life is being taken in abortion.  Pro-lifers do, sincerely.  This being the case, let us argue about the when human life begins and what criteria we might use to determine when it begins instead of arguing about who is most morally pure regarding the health of women.  I do not doubt Anna's sincere commitment to women's health, despite the fact that she advocates a procedure which, in my opinion, kill unborn females (and males, of course).  So why cast aspersions on the motives of pro-lifers? 
2. There is the (disputed) contention that abortion is connected to incidence of breast cancer.
3. By promoting an ethic of irresponsibility in sexuality, the abortion culture has given men a what they have always wanted, license to be promiscuous, knowing that should they "slip one past the goalie" the woman can always get an abortion. This is one of several factors that have, in my opinion, led to serious psychological harm for untold numbers of women.  By contributing to the liberation of sex from reproduction, abortion has given greater freedom to men to use women for their sexual gratification, discarding them when they are tired of them.  This, among other things, has led to an increase in depression, self-mutilation, anorexia, bulimia, etc., among women.
4.  Some postulate that the abortion culture promotes child abuse.  By devaluing innocent life, and by terming innocent life and a thing to be discarded when it no longer serves our interests.  Some philosophers, such as Peter Singer, go one step further.  Singer holds that it is not humans who have rights but "persons."  The unborn, not having the traits to qualify it as a person, thus has no rights and can be killed at our convenience.  The same, Singer argues, goes for infants and some elderly (e.g., Alzheimer's patients).  BTW, the human vs. person distinction was also trumpeted by John Kerry in the 2004 election.  I do not suggest that Singer's position is popular among pro-choicers, but one can see how the efforts to define away the natural rights of the unborn might lead to some very unsettling conclusions. 

Anna, I suspect, will be unconvinced by these four points.  But there they are.  Even if Anna finds all four arguments to be in gross error, then, I suggest, she should argue why pro-lifers are mistaken in their opinions rather than questioning their motivations.  I know a lot of pro-lifers.  In my college days I interned for a large pro-life interest group in Minnesota. Not once have I heard anyone claim anything other than a sincere devotion to ending abortion and saving unborn human life.  I have not encountered the pro-lifer who was unconcerned about women's health.  So let's discuss the merits of arguments, not who is the more morally pure. 

South Dakota, The Farm Bill, And Zombie Farmers

Congress continues to debate the farm bill.  This article claims the farm bill will be "good for Dakotas," in this case good meaning "lots of money." 

The chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, wanted to make major reforms, including cuts to direct payments to farmers. But after lengthy negotiations with Conrad and other senators on the agriculture panel, the legislation is shaping up much like the House bill and current law.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., agreed that the legislation is headed in a direction that will be good for the Dakotas. Thune also sits on the agriculture panel. (snip)

The legislation, according to Conrad, is expected to include:

- $5 billion for agricultural disaster aid approved earlier this month by the Senate Finance Committee;

- An optional program that would allow farmers to collect payments when crop revenue is low compared to a statewide average;

- House language that would require country-of-origin labeling for meats and other foods;

- More than $4 billion for conservation programs that protect farmland.

Sen. Thune is also bucking for an increase in ethanol use:

Thune said it's important for the ethanol industry to increase the percentage of ethanol in gasoline.

"I raised this with the president a few weeks ago in a meeting that we've got to get beyond E-10," Thune said of the 10 percent ethanol blend.

The industry has been hit by rising corn prices and tumbling ethanol prices as a result of ethanol overproduction and limited capacity to blend the product with gasoline. The price of ethanol has slid by 30 percent in recent months.

Just in time for the release of the Federal Halloween Candy, Reason magazine reports that there are some zombie farmers getting subsidy checks:

A report by the Government Accountability Office says USDA paid $1.1 billion in subsidies to 172,801 dead people between 1999 through 2005. Forty percent of that money went to people who had been for at least three years, the report found.

Nineteen percent went to individuals who had been dead for at least seven years.

In a case involving an Illinois farm, USDA made $400,000 in payments from 1999 through 2005 in the name of someone who died in 1995, the report said.

Prof. Blanchard and I once debated whether the undead have to pay the estate tax, aka, the death tax.  I believe we concluded that vampires do not but zombies do.  Vampires, depending on your vampire theory, are not actually dead (well they were, but they aren't; it gets confusing). Zombies, meanwhile, are clearly simply corpses that are animate (how they are animated is also a subject of some dispute, but perhaps Prof. Blanchard can educate us from the History of the Zombie Wars).  Apparently, though, the zombies also collect benefits from federal programs, so they've got that going for them.

Perhaps it is time for this bit of zombie wisdom from Bob Hope:

      

Exodus

According to Congress Daily, Former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) will resign from his seat in the House of Representatives before the end of the year.  With two other GOP seats vacant because of deaths, that will put the balance of the House at 233-199 in favor of the Democratic Party.  A special election will need to be held in Illinois to replace him.

Additionally, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas will drop out of the GOP race for President today.  After his second term in the Senate, Brownback may seek the Governor's post in Kansas in 2010.

Affirmative Action and Corruption

Unlike a lot of conservatives, I do not believe that affirmative action is unconstitutional.  Those who do claim that it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by discriminating against persons in "non-suspect classes," i.e., White or male.  Though affirmative action clearly does the latter, it does not target individuals as such, nor is it designed to keep one class of citizens separate or deny any such class equal status.  Affirmative action is clearly designed to be remedial for past injustice, and to advance the prospects of groups of Americans whose prospect seem otherwise more dim than those of the majority.  Since I am a judicial minimalist, I would allow legislatures and other state institutions to make judgment calls on this matter rather than turn it over to the courts. 

That said, I think affirmative action is bad policy.  Decades of preferential hiring and university admissions have not produced the gains hoped for, and there is ample evidence that such policies do harm rather than good.  But there is something worse.  Affirmative action virtually requires institutions that practice it to lie about what they are doing.  That is clearly a form of corruption.  Both ill-effects of race-based preferences are on display in a current struggle between the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and the California Bar.  From Fox News:

 

"Currently only about one in three African-Americans who goes to an American law school passes the bar on the first attempt and a majority never become lawyers at all," says UCLA law professor Richard Sander.

In an article published in the Stanford Law Review, Sander and his research team concluded several thousand would-be black lawyers either dropped out of law school or failed to pass the bar because of affirmative action.  Known as the ‘mismatch’ effect, Sander claims students who are unprepared and whose academic credentials are below the median are admitted to law schools they are unqualified to attend. If those same students instead were to go to less elite or competitive schools, more would graduate, pass the bar and become lawyers.

That goes to the harmful effects.  If you raise the standards for a particular class of persons to be admitted to a competitive law school or medical school, you will increase such measures of success as grade points and graduation for that group.  That is what happens, for several reasons, to many Asian American groups who have to do better than their non-minority counterparts to get in.  If you lower the standards for some class, you will achieve the opposite result.  For many affirmative action admittees, this is a personal tragedy.  A student who is unprepared for Harvard Law School, and flunks out, will frequently give up on law.  Had he attended an institution better designed for his academic preparation, he would have left with a law degree and a promising future.

All that has been seen across the board in higher education.  If you had enough data, I suspect you would see that the differences in preparation and performance of Asian American students, Jewish students, Irish students, and African American students, and Hispanic students are no greater than those between different neighborhoods of origin among many homogeneously White student bodies.  Students who come from out of town may be much better prepared academically than students from in town.  The differences have everything to do with educational cultural. 

But you can't get the key data, because affirmative action virtually forces institutions of higher learning to lie about what they are doing.  Gale Heriot, a law professor and member of the US Commission on Civil Rights, wants the California State Bar to turn over its data to Professor Sander.  No chance.   

Recently, a California bar committee voted 5-3 to turn down Sander’s request to use bar data collected over the last three decades on student test scores, law school admissions, academic performance and bar passage rates.  The data, considered a gold standard by affirmative action researchers, is considered key to determine if racial preferences work.

"There is no answer but to give him the information," says black civil rights attorney Leo Terrell. "What is the state bar afraid of? We need to know."

The California Bar has its excuses. 

"The release (bar exam) applicants sign does not allow us to release the information to third parties," Whitnie Henderson told FOX News. "Looking at all the information we just decided it was not something that fit within the committee’s purview."

The real reason they aren't releasing the data, of course, is that they know it would confirm Professor Sander's thesis, and they just can't handle that truth. 

The universities cling to affirmative action as an article of faith. They are immune, if not allergic, to any counter evidence.  This is exactly the opposite of what science is all about.  Affirmative action hurts the people it is intended to help.  It corrupts the institutions that practice it.  

Rice and Palestine

Professor Schaff notes below the Secretary of State's call for a "Palestinian State."  Dennis Ross mentions some things that Secretary Rice will have to do to "pave the way for a Mideast peace deal."   

First, explore the nature of the gaps between the two sides on the principal issues. ...Second, Rice needs to probe possible fall-back objectives and options.  ...Third, the secretary needs to lower expectations about the meeting and do more to prepare for it.

He left out number four: sprout wings and sprinkle fairy dust on everyone's head.  Mr. Ross seems not to notice that the Palestinians are engaged in a civil war with each other, with Hamas controlling Gaza and Fatah the West Bank.  With whom, precisely, is Israel supposed to make a deal?  Hamas will accept any peace deal that includes the suicide of the Israeli state.  Fatah might join a reasonable treaty, but cannot enforce its terms probably can't hold onto the West Bank without the assistance of the U.S. and Israel.  I do not know what Secretary Rice is playing at, but the hope for any agreement that includes the Palestinian is born out of sheer fantasy.

Another Day, Another Record

Oil is now up to $89 a barrel. 

NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil prices surged to a new record of $89 a barrel Wednesday after Turkey's parliament authorized an incursion into northern Iraq in search of Kurdish rebels.

The vote overshadowed a U.S. government report that crude oil and gasoline inventories overall rose more than expected last week. But prices did draw some support from a 200,000 barrel decline in inventories at the closely-watched New York Mercantile Exchange delivery terminal in Cushing, Okla.

Light, sweet crude for November delivery rose $1.09 to $88.69 a barrel on the Nymex after rising to a record $89 earlier.

Oil prices initially fell after the Energy Information Administration reported that crude inventories rose by 1.8 million barrels during the week ended Oct. 12, more than the 1 million barrel increase analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires, on average, had expected.

But prices reversed course and rose after the Turkish parliament vote. Traders worry that any escalation in the conflict between the Kurds and Turkey will cut oil supplies from northern Iraq. Despite the decision, Turkey's government said an incursion into Iraq isn't imminent.

It Just Goes To Show Ya

Booze and duck hunting do not mix. 

New Blog Worth Reading

Joe Knippenberg directs us to the blog of King's College Politics professor David Innes.  I recommend the blog as Prof. Innes shares my views on public restrooms and on the role of Christianity in the American founding. 

Rice Calls For Palestinian State

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is calling for the creation of a Palestinian state.  Yet another example of the control the Zionists have over our foreign policy. 

Abortion, The Law And Junk Science

Cory is touting a study that purports to show that laws restricting abortions do not actually lower the number of abortions.  You can read a summary of the study here.  I took the time to do the free registration at the website and read the whole study.  Abortion, of course, is an emotional topic and it is tough to discuss dispassionately, but let me put on my social scientist hat and suggest that this study is does not prove what Cory (and apparently Anna) thinks it proves.  This does not mean that they are wrong in their pro-choice position.  It does mean that they should be cautious in citing this study as evidence in their favor. 

Again, the researchers claim that through their study of international abortion rates they have found that restrictive abortion laws cause unsafe abortions and, more surprisingly, that laws restricting abortion serve as no deterrent to abortion. If anything, the researchers claim, in some cases there are more abortions where there are restrictive laws. 

The first thing a social scientist would note is that this study fails based on what is called "face validity."  This simply means that "on its face" the study is dubious.  It will surprise criminologists world-wide to learn that for every other type of behavior restrictive laws serve as a deterrent, but not for abortion. This simply defies common sense.  For example, the number of abortions in the United States increased in the late 60s and early 70s as some states liberalized their abortion laws.  The number than skyrocketed after Roe v. Wade eliminated virtually all restriction on abortion, peaking at 1.5 million abortions a year.  This is what we'd expect to see.  When the law punished the behavior, we got less of the behavior.  When the law ceased punishing the behavior, we got more of it.  It is important to note that the researchers provide no reasons why, contrary to what we'd expect to see, restrictive abortion laws serve as no deterrent.   A serious study would, in its discussion section, give some theories as to why such a counterintuitive result was found.  Even more so, the researchers' might have tested those theories.  It speaks volumes that the researchers do not bother to do either of these things.

Some of the comments on Cory's site point to problems with the numbers the researchers use to arrive at their conclusions.  They have a point.  First, when it comes to "unsafe abortions," the researchers define any abortion occurring in a nation with restrictive abortion laws as "unsafe."  Granted, in such nations abortions are more likely to be clandestine and thus more likely to be unsafe, but it is dishonest to simply define all abortions in such nations as unsafe.  This renders one of the study's conclusions moot.  They define all abortions occurring under restrictive law as unsafe and then tell us that restrictive laws cause unsafe abortions.  This is tautology and is bogus science.  Note: I agree that abortions under restrictive laws are more likely to be unsafe, but the researchers try to prove this in such a methodologically dishonest way that it makes one question the entire report. 

Next, the researchers admit that abortion statistics are hard to come by, especially, naturally, in nations where abortion is heavily restricted.  They estimate the number of abortions for those nations, as well as for those nations that have legal abortion but do not keep official statistics (such as in the United States).  How do they do this?  They get as much data as they can and then talk to "experts."  Who these experts are we are not told.  It is telling that they assume, without rigorous documentation, that there is massive under reporting of abortions.  The researchers take the number of abortions they can document and multiply it by an average factor of 1.4, or 40%.  So they are assuming, without evidence, that there is a 40% underreporting of abortions in these nations.  For some nations the estimate is higher.  They tell us that they multiplied their documented numbers for Bangladesh by a factor of 3, or 300%.  That's quite an estimation!  What's the methodological point?  First, whenever the researchers can they estimate the number of abortions up, sometimes by a highly significant factor.  Second, they provide us with no documentation to show us why these estimates are valid other than referring us to their own previous research.  So what is happening?  For nations with restrictive abortion laws, the researchers give unsupported high estimations of the abortion rate and then claim that this proves that restrictive laws do nothing to reduce abortion rates. Another note: I also do not doubt that abortions go under reported in many nations, but the researchers give us no reason why their estimates have any validity. 

The last methodological error is, in my opinion, the most serious.  This is the one that I was looking for when I went so far as to read the whole report.  Even if we accept the researchers' estimations of abortion rates, what have they shown?  They have shown that nations with restrictive abortion laws also have high abortion rates.  What they have not shown is that there is any relationship between the restrictive laws and the high abortion rates.  This is the old post hoc fallacy. Because the rooster crows and then the sun comes up, the rooster must cause the sun to come up.  Of course we know that there are unaccounted for variables in that system.  So is the case with abortion in this study.  A serious study would look at all factors that might lead to an increase in the abortion rate.  Examples might include per capita GDP, level of religiosity, education level, number of doctors per capita etc.  You'd also probably come up with a code to quantify the level of restrictiveness of abortion laws (e.g., 1 for not restrictive, 2 for moderately restrictive, and 3 for very restrictive).  Collecting all this data you would run a statistical analysis, probably a regression analysis, to see how all these variables influence the abortion rate in each nation.  This would isolate which variables significantly influence the abortion rate.  In this study, the researchers fail to do even the simplest tests to see if there is a statistical correlation between abortion laws and the abortion rate. In short, the researchers have collected two data sets, one on abortion laws and one on abortion rates, but have done nothing that a responsible social scientist would do to show any kind of relationship between these data sets.   

I don't know about medical research journals, but this study would never see the light of day in a social science journal.  As a matter of social science, this study does not say what it purports to be saying.   The fact that some of the researchers are affiliated with the Allen Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, and that the study speaks favorably of "reproductive rights" is an indication that this study is not free of bias. 

Let me be clear.  While it would confound common sense, it is possible that restrictive abortion laws do not serve as any kind of a deterrent to abortion in those nations that have those laws.  This study, however, does not even remotely prove that hypothesis.  Its methodological flaws are serious and, frankly, quite obvious.  I trust Anna and Cory are honest enough folks that if they read the entire report they would come to the same conclusions as I.  Whatever arguments one can come up with to argue for legalized abortion, and there are some compelling ones, this study does not add to them. 

Reid as Daschle?

Glenn Reynolds notes:  "HARRY REID'S HOME-STATE APPROVAL RATINGS have plunged. Another Daschle in the making?"

A Real Nobel List

The Wall Street Journal gives the Nobel Committee some suggestions for next year:

In Olso Friday, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded to the Burmese monks whose defiance against, and brutalization at the hands of, the country's military junta in recent weeks captured the attention of the Free World.

The prize was also not awarded to Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara and other Zimbabwe opposition leaders who were arrested and in some cases beaten by police earlier this year while protesting peacefully against dictator Robert Mugabe.

Or to Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest in Vietnam arrested this year and sentenced to eight years in prison for helping the pro-democracy group Block 8406.

Or to Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Uyyouni, co-founders of the League of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars in Saudi Arabia, who are waging a modest struggle with grand ambitions to secure basic rights for women in that Muslim country.

Or to Colombian President Àlvaro Uribe, who has fought tirelessly to end the violence wrought by left-wing terrorists and drug lords in his country.

Or to Garry Kasparov and the several hundred Russians who were arrested in April, and are continually harassed, for resisting President Vladimir Putin's slide toward authoritarian rule.

Or to the people of Iraq, who bravely work to rebuild and reunite their country amid constant threats to themselves and their families from terrorists who deliberately target civilians.

Or to Presidents Viktor Yushchenko and Mikheil Saakashvili who, despite the efforts of the Kremlin to undermine their young states, stayed true to the spirit of the peaceful "color" revolutions they led in Ukraine and Georgia and showed that democracy can put down deep roots in Russia's backyard.

Or to Britain's Tony Blair, Ireland's Bertie Ahern and the voters of Northern Ireland, who in March were able to set aside decades of hatred to establish joint Catholic-Protestant rule in Northern Ireland.

Or to thousands of Chinese bloggers who run the risk of arrest by trying to bring uncensored information to their countrymen.

Or to scholar and activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, jailed presidential candidate Ayman Nour and other democracy campaigners in Egypt.

Or, posthumously, to lawmakers Walid Eido, Pierre Gemayel, Antoine Ghanem, Rafik Hariri, George Hawi and Gibran Tueni; journalist Samir Kassir; and other Lebanese citizens who've been assassinated since 2005 for their efforts to free their country from Syrian control.

Or to the Reverend Phillip Buck; Pastor Chun Ki Won and his organization, Durihana; Tim Peters and his Helping Hands Korea; and Liberty in North Korea, who help North Korean refugees escape to safety in free nations.

Oil Keeps Going Up

Oil is close to reaching $88 a barrel.  I now believe $100 a barrel is a distinct possibility.  Meanwhile, Congress dithers. 

Good Deficit News Is Bad News...

...according to some in the media.  As my colleague Prof. Schaff pointed out, the federal deficit hit its lowest level since 2002 and September unemployment was 4.7 percent.  However, the British media, like the Guardian, sees nothing but doom and gloom:

America, in short, is in a deep funk. Far from feeling hopeful, it appears fearful of the outside world and despondent about its own future. Not only do most believe tomorrow will be worse than today, they also feel that there is little that can be done about it.

The Guardian seems confused that disillusionment with the government is the same as being "despondent" about America itself.  The nice thing is people can be quite happy with their lives while believing the government is corrupt and incompetent.  For any Brits that are reading this (hey, we have Dubliners), don't have the Guardian convince you otherwise.  Note, also, that the unemployment rate in the UK is 5.4 percent.  If Americans are "despondent," what does that tell us about the British?  Hat tip to Prof. Reynolds.

Barnes on GOP "Support" for S-Chip

Speaker Pelosi often cites GOP support for the S-Chip legislation recently vetoed by President Bush.  This "support" claim is drawn, as Fred Barnes notes, from a clearly flawed survey that appears designed to persuade respondents to indicate their support for the legislation.  For Barnes' analysis and text of the survey question, go here.

Good News On The Deficit

I have noted it again and again: you cut taxes, revenue increases, and the deficit goes down.  The latest numbers on the deficit show that it has been cut more than in half in the last three years.  Because of tax cuts that have spurred the economy, revenues continue to set records.  At this rate we can expect a balanced budget within two or three years, assuming Congress holds the line on spending. Go here for a chart developed by the White House showing graphically what has occurred in the last four years. 

This is why sustaining Pres. Bush's veto of SCHIPs legislation is so important.  Let it be clear: Pres. Bush favors increasing spending on this children's health insurance program by 20%.  But that apparently is not enough for congressional Democrats (and some Republicans).  To maintain fiscal integrity, we have to be able to say "no" to big new spending programs.  The Wall Street Journal has it right:

The Democratic position is clear: Expand a government program and all will be cured. Mr. Bush's position recognizes that a subsidy like Schip is necessary is some cases because of government mandates and overregulation. Congress and the states consistently enact health-care policies that make insurance coverage more expensive, and then they wonder why people have trouble paying for it.

In a more rational world, liberals would embrace the health-care tax reforms that Mr. Bush advocates. The employer-based insurance tax deduction is a wealth transfer to those who need it least--the most affluent, with the most gold-plated plans. It launders health dollars through a third-party bureaucracy that encourages people to spend, reducing access and raising prices for the uninsured. On equity grounds alone, Democrats should support changing these incentives.

That they don't, or won't, suggests ulterior political motives, and that's where Schip comes in. All Democratic "universal" health-care plans combine more government subsidies with more coverage mandates. Today's Schip expansion is the down payment for 2009, when they want to extend it well into the middle class. The fact that there are better, and more economic, policies to cover more people is less important than getting ever more Americans on the government health care tab.

The Academic Version of Diversity

Up Master Heppler's alley, see George Will on the ideological rigidity of the social work programs at our nation's universities. 

At Arizona State University, social work students must "demonstrate compliance with the NASW Code of Ethics." Berkeley requires compliance as proof of "suitability for the profession." Students at the University of Central Florida "must comply" with the NASW code. At the University of Houston, students must sign a pledge of adherence. At the University of Michigan, failure to comply with the code may be deemed "academic misconduct."

Schools' mission statements, student manuals and course descriptions are clotted with the vocabulary of "progressive" cant -- "diversity," "inclusion," "classism," "ethnocentrism," "racism," "sexism," "heterosexism," "ageism," "white privilege," "ableism," "contextualizes subjects," "cultural imperialism," "social identities and positionalities," "biopsychosocial" problems, "a just share of society's resources," and on and on. What goes on under the cover of this miasma of jargon? Just what the American Association of University Professors warned against in its 1915 "Declaration of Principles" -- teachers "indoctrinating" students.

As is sadly common in academia, in the name of diversity you must accept certain ideological premises.  And as Will points out, if one dissents, punishment is swift.  See Powerline for a similar story, this one with a sadly comedic outcome, coming out of George Mason University. 

More Farm Bill Follies

Farm Bill debate is coming to a head, and South Dakota interests are at the center of attention:

South Dakota has reason to hope for a steady flow of federal dollars for farmers and increased funding for a new generation of biofuels, according to those involved with the 2007 farm bill.

The U.S. Senate is set to take up the bill Oct. 23, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said Friday. That follows weeks of delays as committee chairmen worked out how to pay for about $14 billion in annual payments for crop production, conservation and farm-based energy.

The House passed its version of the farm bill in July. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the Senate agriculture committee chairman, had been considering major changes in conservation and commodity funding but appears to be scaling back.

"It looks like now they're heading in a direction that's more consistent with where we think the bill should be headed," Thune said.

That would please many South Dakota producers, who have advocated a bill similar to the 2002 farm bill, which expired Sept. 30. But the fate of several proposals - for permanent disaster funding, ethanol tax credits and next-generation biofuels - still is unclear.

My prediction is that everyone comes out a winner.  Some money will be given to every interest so no one feels left out.  For more on disaster relief, see this news story. 

Professor Moyar

Professor Mark Moyar writes in the National Review about the discrimination problems at the University of Iowa in an article entitled "27-0 at the University of Iowa."  Be sure to read it.

Hello to Dublin Reader!

Someone from Naas Road, Co. Dublin, Ireland. is viewing our site tonight.  Welcome brother!  Or sister!  My mother's maiden name was Daugherty.  Perhaps we are related?  And let me not leave out our reader from Bloemfontein South Africa.  Who knows? 

Wouldn't It Be Funny If We Were Winning In Iraq? II

On October 3rd, I posted on a very positive article about the war in Iraq.  I was careful to sound some cautionary notes, and to distinguish the question of whether we might be winning from the question of whether we should have invaded in the first place.  One has to cover one's butt.  But now its official: the Washington Post has caught up with me.  President Bush's "surge" policy, which the Democrats were contemptuous of, has produced positive results. 

NEWS COVERAGE and debate about Iraq during the past couple of weeks have centered on the alleged abuses of private security firms like Blackwater USA. Getting such firms into a legal regime is vital, as we've said. But meanwhile, some seemingly important facts about the main subject of discussion last month -- whether there has been a decrease in violence in Iraq -- have gotten relatively little attention. A congressional study and several news stories in September questioned reports by the U.S. military that casualties were down. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), challenging the testimony of Gen. David H. Petraeus, asserted that "civilian deaths have risen" during this year's surge of American forces.

A month later, there isn't much room for such debate, at least about the latest figures. In September, Iraqi civilian deaths were down 52 percent from August and 77 percent from September 2006, according to the Web site icasualties.org. The Iraqi Health Ministry and the Associated Press reported similar results. U.S. soldiers killed in action numbered 43 -- down 43 percent from August and 64 percent from May, which had the highest monthly figure so far this year. The American combat death total was the lowest since July 2006 and was one of the five lowest monthly counts since the insurgency in Iraq took off in April 2004.

During the first 12 days of October the death rates of Iraqis and Americans fell still further. So far during the Muslim month of Ramadan, which began Sept. 13 and ends this weekend, 36 U.S. soldiers have been reported as killed in hostile actions. That is remarkable given that the surge has deployed more American troops in more dangerous places and that in the past al-Qaeda has staged major offensives during Ramadan. Last year, at least 97 American troops died in combat during Ramadan. Al-Qaeda tried to step up attacks this year, U.S. commanders say -- so far, with stunningly little success.

The trend could change quickly and tragically, of course. Casualties have dropped in the past for a few weeks only to spike again. There are, however, plausible reasons for a decrease in violence. Sunni tribes in Anbar province that once fueled the insurgency have switched sides and declared war on al-Qaeda. The radical Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr ordered a cease-fire last month by his Mahdi Army. Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the top day-to-day commander in Iraq, says al-Qaeda's sanctuaries have been reduced 60 to 70 percent by the surge.  This doesn't necessarily mean the war is being won.

The bit about "the trend could change" and "This doesn't necessarily mean the war is being won," that is the WaPo covering its butt.  Yes, this might be one more big disappointment.  But wouldn't it be nice if al-Qaeda is losing?  If the Sunni insurgency is collapsing?  If Iran is losing control of its Iraqi assets, and can no longer kill American soldiers by proxy?  If we might now see the rise of a genuine democracy in the fertile crescent? 

Of course it would.  Unless you are emotionally and politically committed to an American defeat in Iraq.  Most American politicians who opposed the surge will come around soon enough if it does prove to be an enduring success.  They will say they knew it all along, and I will say the more the merrier.  But Move.On won't be able to budge.  For some, there will be no substitute for defeat.   

A Reply on Health Care Systems

Last month I posted on Hillary Care and the Canadian medical system.  There wasn't much in the post except a long quote from John Stossel.  Today the Aberdeen American News published a column of mine that includes more of my own clever (or not so clever) writing.  I may repost it here after the three waiting period.  Anyway, I have received some replies.  This one comes from intrepid reader Nathan H.

I recently went through cancer treatment with Sanford Hospital System. It took six months to get a diagnosis. Finally got a biopsy by a independent ENT.  The Oncology was excellent and the nursing staff also. Radiology at Sanford can do IMRT treatment but when their machine breaks down you're f*****, ,,no back up plan. Of course they don't have a reciprocal agreement with Avera ( It's capitalism not medicine,, everyone for themselves and screw the Patients). Kelby seams more concerned with sports,ego,and Wonder Domes than Medicine. the management at Sanford has allowed large gaps in care grossly affecting patients that the Doctors freely admit exist because of management. My Daughter contracted E-coli at Oxford spent four days at Churchill Hospital Oxford, England  her bill ,,nothing her care the prescribed current therapy according our  Family Doctor. Her English Doctor came from a former colony ,Virginia. Her bill nothing , mine $250,000. plus. Thanks, NH

I also took a call on my answering machine in response to this morning's column. The caller very briefly related the story of her brother, I believe, who was injured on the job in Canada and got an MRI that day. 

I would point out that none of the stories above is germane to my argument. Most modern  nations are reasonably good at getting emergency  care to those who need it.  And all systems will generate some horrific anecdotes. But what about the average patient, who seeks out a doctor when he or she notices a problem?  It seems quite clear that the mean wait times are much longer in Canada than in the U.S.  That is what counts for most people. 

On the other hand, I can definitely see the advantage in Britain if you are an American, and otherwise do not have to pay the taxes to support the system, or wait months or years for routine care. 

Quote of the Day

 John Hinderaker: "It's quite a luxury to be able to decide whether criticisms of your own conduct ever see the light of day--a luxury the mainstream media not only enjoy, but abuse."

Still No Lauck Review - But Room for Another Book

Apparently the Argus Leader has the time and space to write book reviews, yet continues to ignore Jon Lauck's book in the dead tree version (though they grudgingly mentioned the book on their blog, which I'm sure doesn't carry the same level of readership that their paper subscription does).  Today the paper featured a two-page review of a book by Sioux Falls authors Mark Meierhenry and David Volk, illustrated by Jason Folkerts, but they can't find the room to do a write-up on a book that dares to criticize them.  Several other major dailies in the state, including the Rapid City Journal, Bob Mercer at the Pierre Capitol Journal, and the Mitchell Daily Republic have covered the book, but the states largest newspaper apparently can't be bothered.

UPDATE:  This has been edited for easier reading.