Obama Cans Mideast Advisor for Talks with Hamas

Times Online:  "One of Barack Obama’s Middle East policy advisers disclosed yesterday that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas – prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him.  Robert Malley told The Times that he had been in regular contact with Hamas, which controls Gaza and is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. Such talks, he stressed, were related to his work for a conflict resolution think-tank and had no connection with his position on Mr Obama’s Middle East advisory council."

UPDATE:  More here.

Obama Struggling in West Virginia

The LA Times reports today that Barack Obama might run into problems in West Virginia.  Excerpt:

In Hardy County, Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 2 to 1. But there is little enthusiasm for Barack Obama in this mountainside enclave, a portent of trouble for the Illinois senator in next week's West Virginia primary and the general election beyond.

Nearly 97% white, the county is as conflicted as any rural and working-class Democratic bastion as it struggles to adjust to the likely prospect of the party nominating its first African American presidential candidate.

Obama may have emerged from his double-digit victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton in North Carolina and his razor-thin loss in Indiana on Tuesday with a virtual lock on the Democratic nomination. But his performance did little to reassure political leaders here concerned by his sagging numbers among once-loyal white Democrats, who have steadily abandoned their party over the last several presidential elections.

A West Virginia poll has Clinton ahead by 38.

Bovine Flatulence & Carbon Footprints

I listen to NPR's Science Friday with Ira Flatow (pronounced like Plato) whenever I get the chance. The Flatonic bias is definitely liberal, but the show seems reasonably honest and it is consistently interesting. Today he discussed the virtues, or lack thereof, in the "eating locally" movement.  This is the idea that eating food produced where you live, instead of thousands of miles away, is good for the environment.  This is a very pleasing idea.  It has a down-home sort of feel to it.  And it seems to make sense in terms of transportation costs.  But applying one of Blanchard's rules, that pleasing is inversely proportional to probable, I have been skeptical.  My skepticism has been confirmed, at least as regards the 'carbon-footprint' question, in a recent study by Christopher Weber and Scott Matthews of Carnegie Mellon University. 

On average, food racks up about 1,000 food miles (or 1,650 "food kilometers") traveling from farms to processing or packaging plants before reaching Americans' dinner plates, the study estimates.

The whole supply chain—including delivering grains to feed cattle and delivering fuel to farms, for example—adds another 4,200 miles (6,750 kilometers).

Yet all that shipping, driving, and flying accounts for only a sliver of foods' climate impact—just 11 percent of the total—compared with the impact from producing the food itself, the study showed.

Where do the greenhouse gases come from in food production?  Two words: cow farts.  The methane coming out of both ends of Ms. Moo and Ms. Bo Peep not only adds a lot to the total volume of greenhouse gases, but it is a much more efficient heat trap than C02.  If you really want to eat away at your carbon footprint, reducing red meat and dairy products is the ticket. 

"Shifting less than one day per week's worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more [greenhouse gas] reduction than buying all locally sourced food," Weber and Matthews wrote.

I just checked the Blanchard family's weekly menu (yes, we have such a thing), and noticed that we had red meat on it twice.  I am not exactly making up for the carbon footprint of Al Gore's indoor swimming pool, but I am trying. 

Eating locally may be a great idea for other reasons, but I am generally skeptical of anything that tends toward isolationism.  Modern roads and efficient vehicles are part of the solution more than part of the problem. Pleasing ideas like eating locally and wind power, so far, aren't producing.  Pleasing ideas like ethanol, well ...

Congress Outlaws Genetic Discrimination

H.R. 493 bans discrimination by employers and insurance companies based on genetic information.  The bill passed 95-0 in the Senate, and 414-1 in the House.  The lone no vote was Ron Paul.  Most states have already enacted some kind of protection against "genetic discrimination," but this would be the first Federal law.  President Bush is going to sign it.

At first consideration, this looks to me to be a good piece of legislation.  The chief argument in its favor is that it would encourage people to seek or willingly undergo genetic testing.  Apparently a lot of folks are refusing genetic tests precisely for fear of discrimination, and I am guessing that the people who most need to be tested for certain diseases (those with a family history) are most likely to fear such tests.  Researchers are said to favor the bill because it's getting harder to find people willing to volunteer their DNA for study.

But this is one of those issues where there is a lot of thinking going on about the specifics, but very little about the general principles involved.  For starters, one might wonder if this bill is really consistent with the very idea of insurance.  Genuine insurance is based on the idea of risk pools.  If disease X costs $100,000 to treat, but strikes only one in 100,000 people, groups of people that large could ensure themselves against the risk at the cost of one dollar.  That's how voluntary forms of insurance work.  But it's like flipping a coin: it only works if no one knows ahead of time who will get sick, or have his house flattened by a twister.  If you let people come on board who are already injured, then you invite free riders.  That is why employers want to test people in the first place.  If you say that everyone should benefit from the program regardless of responsibility or risk, then insurance has been transformed into a transfer payment, transferring money from those who have to those who need.  That might be a good idea, but it confuses the matter if your program is designed on the model of genuine insurance.  I could go on, but I am perilously close to making a case for comprehensive health care.  So I'll stop.

A worse conceptual problem is the idea of "non-discrimination."  Michael Kinsley covers this aspect of the issue in Time Magazine.  We discriminate in favor of people whose talents, abilities, and looks put them at one end of a desirable bell curve: concert violinists, short stops, and Victoria's Secret models.  It might never be possible to pick such people out on the basis of a genetic test, but there is no doubt that genes have a lot to do with it.  Allowing this kind of discrimination, but forbidding discrimination on the basis of diseases, etc., means that its wrong to discriminate in favor of most people against an unlucky few, but alright to discriminate in favor of a lucky few against almost everyone.  I'm not sure there is anything wrong with that, but then I just now thought of it. 

I don't think that "genetic discrimination" is really an issue of fairness.  Nature is unfair.  I am short.  Professor Schaff is ugly.  My British ancestor, Sir Reginald Carping-Peevishness Blanchard was fat and grumpy from the day he was born.  Take it up with the Creator.  This is a question of how much protection we the people are willing to extend to each person in that vast sea of mes, and how much we are willing to pay for it.  Calling this act a "non-discrimination bill" confuses the issue. 

From The Mailbag

A reader chimes in on the Democrats' energy plan, or lack thereof:

Jon, great post about Johnson and the Democrats about energy.  I think that Johnson can say these things because he has no real challenge in this year’s senate race.  If Kirby was running against him, I highly doubt that he would say the things he is saying now. 

Dorgan from North   Dakota is much the same as Johnson in regard to energy. He is against big oil, against drilling in Alaska and is for suing OPEC nations. But he is FOR drilling for oil in ND and is in favor of expanding the refinery in Mandan, ND.  Which way do you want to have it Senator Dorgan?   

It is also very interesting to me that Johnson has remain very quiet, well he has to somewhat since he can’t really talk, about the oil refinery in Union County.  The majority of SD people are in favor of the Keystone pipeline and for the Hyperion oil refinery.  But Union county tends to lean Democrat so Johnson can’t upset he constituents by being in favor of the refinery. 

I commend the read for good taste in blogging. 

Another reader comments on the debacle that is the new film version of Brideshead Revisited:

Thank you for your entry on the movie, it will save me the price of a ticket.  I still need to find the time to watch the miniseries.  You did a good job of highlighting the book, hopefully, it will lead some to read the book.   

I fully understand the Evelyn Waugh is not everyone's cup of tea, although I think your average fan of novels will find him eminently readable, to say nothing of enjoyable.  But if you can't bring yourself to read the novel, check out the miniseries which stars such fine British actors as Jeremy Irons in the main role and John Gielgud and Lawrence Olivier in supporting roles. 

I have been reading some early 20th Century English works lately.  Let me recommend them highly.  You probably are already familiar with P.G. Wodehouse and the classic character Jeeves.  I recently picked up this volume of Wodehouse.  The back flap has a blurb from Christopher Buckley stating that it is impossible to read Wodehouse and remain in a bad mood.  This is true.  How about one passage from Code of the Woosters, describing Bertie Wooster's first encounter with the brute Roderick Spode:

He was, as I had already been able to perceive, a breath-taking cove.  About seven feet in height , and swathed in a plaid ulster which made him look about six feet across,  he caught my eye and arrested it.  It was as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment. 

I've also been reading G.K. Chesterton's collection of mystery stories, The Man Who Knew To Much, featuring the character Horne Fisher. I am no particular fan of mysteries, but these are fun short stories, although here and there you must deal with some antiquated comments about Jews.  I recommend the book in spite of this. 

Brideshead Disappointed

Last year while in England we found ourselves in Yorkshire.  We drove past Castle Howard.  We didn't go in as we were on a schedule and, frankly, they want you to give your first born for admittance.  But we were excited to learn that Castle Howard would once again be the site of filming an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited.  Part of the marvelous 1981 miniseries was filmed there and now a theatrical version is set for release.

My excitement is now considerably dampened.  As Ross Douthat reports, it takes a special kind of stupid (or worse) to take a novel by a devout Catholic convert that features at its end a stunning affirmation of the Catholic Church and turn it into a film characterized by its anti-Catholicism.  Douthat posts the trailer here.  Let me suggest that contra the claims of the screenwriter, Waugh's novel has little or nothing to do with, "religious fundamentalism, class, sexual tolerance, the pursuit of individualism."  OK, so it has something to do with class, but not the other ones.  The novel takes one into a the dying culture of English Catholic aristocrats, long marginalized by the Anglican majority and now by creeping modernism.  The novel considers the noble attempt to hold onto that faith despite the world's (and the characters') best efforts. 

We are all aware the film adaptations must stray from the book to some extent, if only for time reasons.  I have often found myself defending the deviations in the film version of The Lord of The Rings, noting that a film is a film, not a novel (granted, the more I see the LOTR movies the less patient I am with Peter Jackson's liberties, especially when staying true to the book would have been easy and cinematic).  But films such as the new Brideshead (or Starship Troopers) are to be blamed not for minor plot deviations, but for hollowing out the central story and substituting themes entirely antithetical to the novel.  This represents profound disrespect to the novelist, hijacking his work so lesser talents can substitute their own message.    

The saving grace of such films is that perhaps they will drive readers to the actual novels.  I encourage you to do so before the film is released.  Summer is almost upon us.  For summer reading take up Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited for a novel of passion and faith. 

Reflections on the 60th Birthday of Israel

The nation of Israel celebrated its sixtieth birthday today with fireworks and barbecues.  She is one of America's most loyal allies, and I wish her well.  I confess that I am not optimistic about her future. 

The existence of this nation is proof, for anyone who still needs it, that ideas have consequences. Especially moral ideas.   Zionism was not a new idea sixty years ago.  But the Holocaust had turned a dream into an imperative.  Anyone who wonders why Israel exists need only consider the case of the St Louis.  From the U.S. Holocaust Museum:

On May 13, 1939, the German transatlantic liner St. Louis sailed from Hamburg, Germany, for Havana, Cuba. On the voyage were 937 passengers. Almost all were Jews fleeing from the Third Reich. Most were German citizens, some were from eastern Europe, and a few were officially "stateless."

To make a short and tragic story even shorter, the St. Louis was not allowed to land in Cuba.  There was some hope that they might be allowed to land in the U.S. 

Sailing so close to Florida that they could see the lights of Miami, passengers on the St. Louis cabled President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking for refuge. Roosevelt never answered the cable. The State Department and the White House had already decided not to let them enter the United States.

The St. Louis was forced to return to Europe, where the passengers were put again under German rule.  Many, if not all of them, perished in the Great Murder. If you are one of those people who like to compile lists of America's sins, put that one near the top. 

Israel was established so that such a thing might never be repeated.   The  Jews knew now beyond any reasonable doubt that they could not depend on the decency of any other nation.  They needed a place to which any Jew could go for refuge.  It was not so clear where to establish it.  There was some possibility that it might be in South America. But the People Israel has always been both a nation and a religious community.  There was never any real alternative to their ancient homeland. 

European Jews returning to their ancient home built a marvel.  In prosperity, civil liberty and, let us not forget, military power, she puts her neighbors to shame.  But she has one great weakness, and that, I suspect, will ultimately prove fatal.  She is a modern, developed nation, and people in such nations just don't have a lot of babies.  I do not know how Israel will remain a Jewish nation when the demographics are so heavily tilted against her. 

But if Israel should fail, let it not be for anything that the United States did or failed to do.  We cannot redeem our past, but we can resolve to stand by our Israeli allies to whatever end God wills.  Happy Birthday, Israel.  Long may you live. 

Johnson and Democrats On Energy: Do Nothing

Tim Johnson is touting his support for the Consumer First Energy Act of 2008.

"We need to stand up to big oil, to whom the administration has given tax breaks and subsidies even as they reap record profits," Johnson said. "There is no magic bullet that will reduce prices immediately. ... However, the initiatives (in the bill) will provide relief to consumers and (energy) markets destroyed by speculation and greed."

Here is a list of the provisions of this bill.  See the second link above for more details:

• Roll Back Tax Breaks for Oil   Companies and Invest in Renewable Energy
• Force Big Oil to Pay Their Fair Share   through a Windfall Profits Tax
• Halt Government Purchases of Oil for   the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
• Protect Consumers from Price   Gouging
• Stop Market Price   Speculation
• Stand Up To OPEC

To put it plainly, this bill is clearly intended not to lower energy prices, which is what consumers actually want, but to demagogue an issue.  It can not be stated too strongly that this bill will do absolutely nothing to lower energy prices. 

It makes absolutely no sense that raising taxes on oil companies, thereby raising their price of doing business, will somehow lower price at the gas pump.  Second, as is well rehearsed, the percentage of oil that goes into the Strategic Oil Reserve is rather small and ceasing stockpiling for the reserve will not increase supply enough to have any measurable effect on gas prices. Next, Congress has never been able to define what "price gouging" means in this context.  This is a provision high on moral preening but low on common sense.  Fourth, I do not claim to be a futures expert, but the New York Mercantile Exchange is, and they call this provision "misguided."  Finally, the OPEC provision is based on hopes and dreams rather than sound policy. 

Subsidizing a highly profitable industry is indeed foolish.  So by all means reduce the subsidies.  But couple that with an overall reduction of the corporate income tax and capital gains tax to encourage economic growth.  And we should not kid ourselves.  However good it makes us feel to stick it to the oil companies, this will have no effect on oil prices.

How many times must we go through this?  Gas prices are not high because of skulduggery but because of economic forces.  First, high demand in China and India are driving up oil prices.  There is nothing we can do about that.  But we can increase our own supply by drilling off-shore and in Alaska, but Democrats oppose that.  We could also advocate a tighter monetary policy and reduce government and private debt in order to make the dollar stronger.  A weak dollar drives up the cost of all imports, including oil.  But no one has ever won an election talking about monetary policy, so Democrats (and Republicans) will not advocate that, and if you believe Democratic presidential candidates we should expect public debt to increase, not decrease, under a Democratic administration.  Next, we could quit wasting money on ethanol subsidies and start subsidizing hybrid automobiles.   No indication from Democrats regarding making this common sense move. 

Again, bashing the oil companies is fun, but it accomplishes nothing.  Look at Scott Ehrisman's latest cartoon.  I guess he'd have you believe that greedy oil companies are to blame for food inflation rather than ethanol subsidies.  Maybe.  You can believe the cartoonist.  Or you can believe the University of Minnesota economists who argued last year in Foreign Affairs that "Biofuels Starve the Poor." 

I don't know about the politics of this issue.  Maybe demagoguing the issue will win elections.  But it will accomplish nothing towards a sensible energy policy. 

Officer Shot in Aberdeen Drug Raid

From the American News:

An Aberdeen police officer was shot in the leg Wednesday as authorities executed a search warrant at an Aberdeen home.

Grant Schnabel was transported by ambulance to Avera St. Luke's Hospital in Aberdeen. A nursing supervisor confirmed Schnabel, a 13-year veteran of the police department, was a patient and said he was in serious condition Wednesday night.

Wednesday afternoon, Aberdeen Police Chief Don Lanpher Jr. would not release the name of the injured officer but said he was in stable condition and was expected to go into surgery.

Lanpher said authorities from the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation are investigating the shooting and trying to determine who fired the shot. At this point, officials haven't released whether the shooting was accidental; however, as of early Wednesday evening, nobody had been arrested, Lanpher said. An officer who was visibly upset was seen turning over his equipment, including his gun, to other officers at the home.

Burma

The cyclone that struck the already stricken nation of Burma may have killed as many as 100,000 people.  And that's just for starters.  Disease and other apocalyptic horsemen will take many more, regardless of what the rest of the world does. Horrific events like this have no meaning, beyond reminding us that the permanence of the world around us is an illusion.  Ask Burma's Buddhist monks about that.  Nor can such events have any justification.  They may be honestly met with faith, but for precisely that reason they can never be explained to the satisfaction of faith. 

Nonetheless, there is some reason to hope that the cyclone will mark a turn for the better.  Burma was only days away from the first vote in 18 years, on a new constitution.  Now the geriatric gangsters who run the place are having to allow outside powers to come to their rescue.  The London Times has the story. 

They are cruel, power hungry and dangerously irrational - beyond that, little can be said for certain about Burma's ruling generals. Reading them is less like Kremlinology, more like Byzantine studies.

They may regard the cyclone which devastated their country on Friday night as an ill omen from the spirit world. Certainly, the timing - a week before the first national vote in 18 years - looks inauspicious, and they are known to consult astrologers and mystics on all aspects of political life.

Whatever their analysis, it is clear that they are in a panic. For no other reason would they abandon the isolationism that has preserved them for so long, publicly admit the scale of the disaster and appeal for international relief aid.

Perhaps the Times is right, and there is hope in this.  But it will be a sad story, even with the brightest outcome. 

Senator Clinton's Choices

A Northern grad who sat through every course that Jon and I offer has played a significant part in the Clinton campaign, jetting from one battle ground state to another to organize the good fight.  Though her politics are, obviously, not mine, I am very proud of her.  If there is anything I lament in Senator Clinton's impending defeat, it is the report that my student is in low spirits. 

Uploaded metaphors for and mediations on the death of Clinton Incorporated are crawling on the story like maggots (my contribution to the former).  But we have known for a full two months that she probably couldn't win the nomination.  Her only hope was that an Obama collapse would persuade enough super delegates to come over, and the last good chance for that came and went on Tuesday.  This champion of the low and downtrodden has kept her campaign alive this long by loaning it a cool six million bucks. In political terms, that is what passes for life support. Clinton Aides Doubtful About Future, announces the Washington Post.  No!  Ya think? 

The only question now is whether Obama will gain enough delegates (including his supers) to seize the nomination before the last electoral event.  I am guessing that this will happen, and anybody out there who loves Hillary had better hope that it does. Otherwise, Ms. Clinton might mean what she says about still being in this. There is still no resolution of the Florida/Michigan question.  The Party keeps hoping it won't need one. For all the last rights being pronounced, a fight all the way to the convention floor has not been ruled out.   

There are two good reasons for Senator Clinton to take her campaign staff into seclusion, and then come out to announce that she is suspending her campaign.  One is that it would be good for her party.  I mention that only for reasons of logic.  Another is that it would keep hope alive, the hope in this case being that she might still have a chance in the future.  Suppose Obama loses badly to McCain in November.  Having done the right thing at this point, she will look sort of noble.  More importantly, she will be able to make a case that she was the lost chance in 2008.  She might find herself in a more commanding position in 2012 than the one she squandered this year. 

But all that would require a Clinton to give up the hope for gratification now in return for a possible gratification in the future.  If I were emotionally invested in Hillary Clinton, I would have to hope that she doesn't have to make that choice. 

McGovern Switches Allegiance To Obama

KELO:

Former Senator George McGovern, an early supporter of Hillary Clinton, is urging her to drop out of the Democratic presidential race. McGovern says he has decided to endorse Barack Obama.

After watching the returns from the North Carolina and Indiana primaries Tuesday night, McGovern says it's virtually impossible for Clinton to win the nomination.

McGovern says he is calling former President Clinton to tell him of the decision and adds that he remains close friends with the Clintons.

UPDATE:  Campaign Spot:  "Irony: In the End, Hillary Couldn't Count on George McGovern"

Against Bio-Fuels

The Wall Street Journal has nothing good to say about bio-fuels. 

To create just one gallon of fuel, ethanol slurps up 1,700 gallons of water, according to Cornell's David Pimentel, and 51 cents of tax credits. And it still can't compete against oil without a protective 54-cents-per-gallon tariff on imports and a federal mandate that forces it into our gas tanks. The record 30 million acres the U.S. will devote to ethanol production this year will consume almost a third of America's corn crop while yielding fuel amounting to less than 3% of petroleum consumption.

In December the Congressional Research Service warned that even devoting every last ear of American-grown corn to ethanol would not create enough "renewable fuel" to meet federal mandates. According to a 2007 OECD report, fossil-fuel production is up to 10,000 times as efficient as biofuel, measured by energy produced per unit of land.

Now scientists are showing that ethanol will exacerbate greenhouse gas emissions. A February report in the journal Science found that "corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years . . . Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%." Princeton's Timothy Searchinger and colleagues at Iowa State, of all places, found that markets for biofuel encourage farmers to level forests and convert wilderness into cropland. This is to replace the land diverted from food to fuel.

It's bad for the environment.  It's bad for our fiscal future.  It doesn't reduce fuel costs.  It is one reason for the rise in food costs.  I believe that is an unusual four strikes and you are out.   

Obama and McCain: Under The Microscope

A reader suggests that there isn't a dime's worth of difference between Barack Obama and John McCain:

I challenge you to go to his website: Obama for America and study the issues he's already presented in his platform.  You will find it interesting that He, McCain, and Hillary differ on very little in substantive policy.  We have three of the most intelligent and most articulate of presidential candidates in our lifetime and they are finally listening to the voters in this nation who have wanted a progressive platform to take root in D.C. for many decades now.

Let us concede that John McCain is a more moderate Republican and Obama sometimes talks like a moderate Democrat.  But let's also look at some issues.  Look your self at the McCain and Obama websites. 

Health Care: John McCain prefers using the tax code to help citizens acquire private health insurance.  Obama wants to put us all on a government health plan. 

Taxes: McCain wants to keep them essentially where they are at. Obama wants to raise them.

Iraq: McCain wants to stay. Obama wants out. 

Abortion: McCain is basically pro-life.  Obama is even in favor of legalizing late-term abortions and has opposed legislation that would grant legal protection to babies born alive during an abortion procedure.
Judges: McCain gave a major address yesterday on this subject. He gave a sound defense of judicial restraint.  McCain describes Obama fairly accurately:

Senator Obama in particular likes to talk up his background as a lecturer on law, and also as someone who can work across the aisle to get things done. But when Judge Roberts was nominated, it seemed to bring out more the lecturer in Senator Obama than it did the guy who can get things done. He went right along with the partisan crowd, and was among the 22 senators to vote against this highly qualified nominee. And just where did John Roberts fall short, by the Senator's measure? Well, a justice of the court, as Senator Obama explained it -- and I quote -- should share "one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy." These vague words attempt to justify judicial activism -- come to think of it, they sound like an activist judge wrote them. And whatever they mean exactly, somehow Senator Obama's standards proved too lofty a standard for a nominee who was brilliant, fair-minded, and learned in the law, a nominee of clear rectitude who had proved more than the equal of any lawyer on the Judiciary Committee, and who today is respected by all as the Chief Justice of the United States. Somehow, by Senator Obama's standard, even Judge Roberts didn't measure up.

Fiscal Policy: McCain is known as a deficit hawk.  Obama has endorsed $900 billion in new spending but "only" $40 billion in new taxes. 

There is plenty of distinction between Senators McCain and Obama. 

Barack Obama Wins the Day

One recalls the bloody St. Crispen's day scene in Henry V, when Harry, confused and exhausted is informed that "the day, Sire, is yours."  At this late hour (12:13 in God's Country), the vote in Indiana is still too close to call.  It looks like Senator Clinton will win a razor thin victory in that state, which is a whole lot better than losing, but still terrible.  She needed a big win here to balance out the drubbing (metaphor for significant electoral defeat) she received in North Carolina.  She won't get it.

North Carolina went for Obama by a good 14%.  That has to be very disheartening for the Clinton campaign, as the polls suggested she was narrowing the gap.  The polls were wrong.  But the news from John Edward's home turf is not all good for the Senator from Illinois.  Henry the Fifth may have won at Agincourt, but England still lost France.  Which is just as well for, despite common assumptions, the English make better cheese. 

Exit polls from North Carolina suggest once again that demography is destiny.  Each candidate seems to have held on to his or her base, and the outcome was determined by the size of each base group.  Clinton won a solid 13% of the White male vote, and a good two thirds of White Women.  But Black voters made up a third of those who showed up, and Obama won over 90% of that demographic. The candidate once looked to to transcend the racial divide won North Carolina by sharpening it. 

Where does that leave us?  Senator Clinton's only real hope for the nomination was that a surge in these last few contests would convince the super delegates that Obama was unelectable.  Even then the Democratic Party could not have anointed her without insulting its most loyal constituency.   In the absence of the surge, no one can expect her nomination. 

But that leaves Senator Obama in this position: he will receive the nomination, with the support of about half the Democratic electorate.  Maybe then the other half will automatically fall into line behind him.  If not, he will have to spend energy and dollars winning back his own base while also competing for independents.  McCain will be able to rely on his base.  He will compete for independents, but also for Democrats.  Consider this: 21% of the Democrats who voted in North Carolina call themselves conservative.  Clinton won that block by 11%.  If McCain is still viable in November, he will have a shot at those voters. 

This wind and this tide are very unfavorable for Republicans.  Congressional elections look to be another disaster.  But the weather at the altitude of Presidential elections is sometimes different from the weather below.  Can Obama really win Florida, Ohio, or Pennsylvania?  The climate gives the Democrats good reasons to hope.  But without that strong atmospheric current, one would be advised to bet against them. 

Seven Belles and Some Bothers

My post on the Seven Belles/Hillary Clinton story aroused the ire of some of my readers.  Intrepid reader BB thinks I insulted the horse. 

The press apparently has more taste than you do Ken in not making light of such a tragic end to such a beautiful animal.

That might be irony.  One cannot always tell.  But of course, I wasn't making light of the horse.  I was making light of Senator Clinton's moment of very bad luck.  And that disappointed my dear friend Anna, at Dakota Women. 

Maybe the press isn't covering this, Ken, because it's completely nasty and inappropriate. Maybe some of them don't necessarily need to see the primary campaign as a metaphorical horse race, during which Hillary Clinton will be metaphorically killed. (Some of them do, obviously.) Nothing about the story of Eight Belles is funny.

But I think my post was not nasty at all, and hardly inappropriate.  Anna gets the metaphor wrong.  The second place finish and tragic end of Seven Belles was not a metaphor for Ms. Clinton.  Should someone say that a political campaign has crashed and burned, that would be all about political fortunes and not at all about physical violence.

The Seven Belles mini-story might yet serve as a metaphor for Clinton's presidential ambitions.  What is exquisitely funny about it is that it was so perfect for that purpose that you could have hardly scripted a better one.  Yet it happened completely by accident.  That is textbook funny, like Jimmy Carter's rabbit. 

I would never indulge in thoughts of personal violence against Ms. Clinton or any other candidate.  I would not be too sorry to see the campaigns of Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama put of their misery. 

Iron Man Again

I went to see Iron Man again tonight with my son. I liked it even better the second time around.  For one thing, I thought the move was very well paced.  Contrary to what Jon Schaff says, there was plenty of action, though a lot of it didn't consist of fighting.  The development of Prototype II was great fun with dozens of robot arms slapping on beautiful armor, a ridiculously early test flight that of course nearly ends in disaster, with a fine soundtrack behind it. 

Schaff is surely right that physical reality was routinely insulted in the movie.  No human body could withstand the kind of forces that Iron Man survives, no matter how well cushioned the suit.  But contrary to what my learned colleague says, I don't think there were any more of these than in Spider Man.  What is unrealistic about all superhero fiction is this: the hero stands to pretty much everyone else the way a technologically sophisticated nation stands to technologically unsophisticated nations.  In real life this just doesn't happen, which is why there aren't any superheroes or supervillains. Individually, human beings are pretty much equal in power; it is only societies that are unequal. 

One final note: if you do go to see the movie, you have to wait until all the credits are finished rolling.  There is a teaser at the end starring Samuel Jackson.  It is worth the wait. 

Clinton to Visit Sioux Falls

The Argus Leader reports tonight that Hillary Clinton will visit Sioux Falls Thursday.  She will make an appearance at a Solutions for America rally at 2:15 pm at Landmark Aviation's Hanger 1, 3501 N. Aviation Ave.  Doors open at 12:15 pm.

Politico on Johnson Reelection Bid

The Politico:  Johnson readies reelection bid

Hagee Catholic Op-ed

A couple days ago I wrote on John McCain's "John Hagee problem."  A friend passes along this link to a Hagee op-ed that appeared recently in the Washington Times.  Just a couple pertinent parts:

During his recent visit to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI not only conducted mass and met with the Catholic faithful, but he made a series of public statements about the role that our Judeo-Christian faith can play during these challenging times. As an evangelical Protestant I happen to disagree with Pope Benedict on many issues of Christian doctrine and ritual. But when it comes to his moral vision for America and the world I have one thing to say in response to the Pope's visit: Amen. (snip)

My reaction to Pope Benedict"s visit may surprise some who have come to accept certain caricatures of my views of the Catholic Church. But as I have noted from the start, my critics have ignored the real point and strong emphasis of my words. I have indeed been quite zealous about condemning the past anti-Semitism of the Catholic Church. But I have been equally zealous in condemning Protestant anti-Semitism. Furthermore, as I noted in my 2006 book "Jerusalem Countdown," I have long viewed Pope John Paul II and now Pope Benedict XVI as partners in this "righteous work" of overcoming our shared legacy of Christian anti-Semitism.

Robbing Peter To Pay China and Saudi Arabia

Patrick Deneen is right on the money when it comes to his analysis of how our fiscal policy, typified the the scandalous tax rebate scheme, meets out energy policy:

As if we needed any further evidence of the financial foolishness of our nation:  it's coming to people's attention that the forthcoming "rebate checks" that were approved several months ago by suspiciously cooperative politicians, in order to stimulate the economy, will in fact be going to OPEC to pay for higher fuel costs (or, indirectly, to farmers who, in turn, buy fertilizers and pesticides that are made primarily of fossil fuels). In the midst of a "war against terror," our government is sending cash to its citizenry that will be used to further enrich the autocrats of the Middle East, especially to that nation that provided the dominant number of footsoldiers who flew the planes into the buildings of New York and Washington. Do we suppose that none of our largesse will find its way to outfits like bin Laden's?

No less ironic is the fact that the Federal government will go further into debt to finance this little boondoggle for our Middle Eastern friends, primarily borrowing the funds from the Chinese and other Asian nations. Coming or going, we continue the one time gigantic firesale of America to nations that do not mean us well.

This why I am glad to see Sen. Thune backing expansion of our supply through expanded oil drilling and building new refining capacity. At the same time he is backing alternative wind energy (yes, he also continues his support of ethanol, which I think is a mistake from both a fiscal and energy standpoint). In supporting more drilling and more refining capacity, a new poll from Dakota Wesleyan suggests most South Dakotans back Thune.

On a related note, I find it interesting that I have yet to meet the person who thinks the tax rebate plan is a good idea, although I grant that we will happily take the money.  Just an observation. 

For Whom the Belles Tolls

This story has been resolutely ignored by the Press, and for the life of me I can't figure out why.  It doesn't really matter, of course, but it is damn funny.  Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both picked horses in the Kentucky Derby.  Obama picked Colonel John to win, Pyro to place, and Big Brown to show.  Here is Times Magazine The Page on Hillary Clinton's pick:

Hillary Clinton enthusiastically picked a filly named Eight Belles to win the Kentucky Derby and compared herself to the horse. Eight Belles finished second. The winner was the favorite, Big Brown.

Eight Belles collapsed immediately after crossing the finish line, and was euthanized shortly thereafter.

As The Page says, you can't make this up. 

Has Wright Hurt Obama?

David Newquist has weighed in to say that Wright's performance at the National Press Club was not "as outrageous as the media portrayed it."  I thought Pastor Wright's comments about AIDS were authentically outrageous, not only for what they say about America, but for reinforcing some of the pernicious myths about AIDS that have had terrible consequences in African nations.  But perhaps David is correct about other parts of Wright's performance. 

But how has the Wright controversy actually affected Obama's standing?  USA Today finds that Obama has been hurt badly.

Barack Obama's national standing has been significantly damaged by the controversy over his former pastor, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, raising questions for some voters about the Illinois senator's values, credibility and electability.

The erosion of support among Democrats and independents raises the stakes in Tuesday's Indiana and North Carolina primaries, which represent a chance for Obama to reassert his claim to a Democratic nomination that seems nearly in his grasp. A defeat in Indiana and a close finish in North Carolina, where he's favored, could fuel unease about his ability to win in November. Such results also could help propel Hillary Rodham Clinton's uphill campaign all the way to the Democratic convention in August.

The most striking results from the USA Today poll concerned head to head judgments about the two leading Democrats.  When asked who is "a strong and decisive leader," Clinton won 53/37%.  That suggests that the real damage done by the Wright affair has less to do with Wright's statements, outrageous or not, and more to do with Obama's constant shifting.  Clinton beats Obama on who can beat McCain, who shares your values, and who cares about people like you.  I find that astounding.  Of course Obama beats Clinton decisively on the "honest and trustworthy" question.  Of course.

The New York Times did their own poll, and the headline In Poll, Obama Survives Furor, But Fall Is The Test promises more of the creative manipulation of facts that has become the Gray Lady's modus operandi.  But the article itself was reasonably balanced.  Here is the meat:

While just 24 percent of voters said they thought the Wright issue would matter a lot or some to them in the fall, 44 percent said it would matter a lot or some to “most people you know.” And while just 9 percent of Democrats said the issue would matter a lot to them should Mr. Obama be their party’s nominee, even that small a slice of the electorate could be a problem for Mr. Obama if he won the nomination and the contest against Mr. McCain was close.

Mickey Kaus explains why this contradicts the headline:

The New York Times has now completed the bogus cocooning poll exercise anticipated in this space last week. To repeat: If 21 percent of Democrats are willing to say Rev. Wright has made them "less favorable" to Obama, and 15 percent say the controversy has made them "less likely" to support Obama, that doesn't mean

In Poll, Obama Survives Furor, but Fall Is the Test [the NYT hed]

It means Obama Badly Damaged by Furor, May Not Make It to Fall. ... Obama can't really afford to lose 10% of Democrats to the Wright controversy. ...

The numbers in the link-embedded passage come from the complete NYTs/CBS poll results, and apply to Democratic Primary Voters.  I think Kaus meant to say 15% in that last bit.  Kaus points out that the poll was ridiculously small.  Only 283 Democrats were questioned.  So it's hard to know how seriously to take this. 

But Kaus is right that, if the poll is taken seriously (and why else would the Times print it?), 15% represents major damage.    And we won't have to wait until the Fall to tell how bad the damage really is.  Tomorrow's primaries will tell.  Clinton looks comfortably ahead in Indiana; Obama in North Carolina.  But if Obama does worse than expected in either, it will reflect serious damage. 

Here is the problem for Obama: the states where he is doing well include a lot of places like North Carolina that just don't go for the Democrat in most presidential elections.  It is a Democratic blowout, or if Obamania really sweeps the nation, and either is surely possible, none of this matters.  If it is more typical, he won't win the Carolinas.  Indiana is a little more like Ohio, the kind of state he will have to win.  I am guessing that Reverend Wright did him no favors in either state. 

Obama: Chicago Politician

Prof. Newquist is back with ruminations on how Barack Obama fits in Illinois politics.  Prof. Newquist opines that Obama's success in Illinois points toward success on a national level, bringing Americans together with the kind of unity and change that has been the hallmark of the Obama candidacy. 

Obama is an Illinois politician.  He is also a Chicago politician.  Prof. Newquist spent considerable time in Illinois.  I respect his expertise.  I lived in Chicago for five years (1996-2001).  Let me share some thoughts. 

There are two kinds of Chicago politicians.  The first kind is corrupt but competent.  This is essentially the Daley machine.  You can count on corruption and graft from them, but they will make the trains run on time, keep crime under control, keep the schools fairly decent and the city fairly clean.  These are not glowing terms, but under Daley management the city is about as well run as a major city is going to get.  It is certainly no New Orleans or Detroit.  And yes, Mayor Daley is corrupt. 

There is a second kind of Chicago politician.  This kind is corrupt and ideological.  The common denominator between these two camps is corruption.  But this second camp is made up of ideological extremists who in addition to being corrupt would like to turn Chicago into a leftist experiment.  This is the politics coming from the South Side, the kind of politics that produces a Bobby Rush (who ran for mayor in 1999) and a Jesse Jackson, Jr. and finds Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers very respectable company.  This is where Barack Obama comes from.  These are the people that would turn Chicago into New Orleans and Detroit: a corrupt failure of a city governed by leftist hucksters. 

We'll see if Obama fits the corrupt characterization as the Rezko trial continues, but there is little doubt that Obama, the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, has inherited the radical politics of Chicago's South Side. Despite Obama's and Prof. Newquist's claims of "post-partisanship," Obama has compiled a Senate voting record that is essentially straight line Democrat (that is how one compiles a liberal voting record, naturally).  Also, Prof. Newquist claims Obama voted as a "fiscal conservative" in Illinois.  Perhaps.  I defer to his knowledge.  But since joining the U.S. Senate the non-partisan National Journal's "economic conservatism" rating for Obama has been 12, 0, and 0 (see Project Vote Smart).  Not exactly "fiscally conservative." 

All this said, a new poll has Obama in front of McCain by a wide-margin, even getting over the magic 50% mark.   All indications are of a Republican slaughter in 2008.  If I were a betting man (and I am not) I would put my money on Pres. Obama, but this is despite his policy positions, not because of them.  In almost any other year the radical South Sider Barack Obama has little chance of becoming president.   

Hagee-ography

I am sorry to keep picking on my friend Cory Hiedelberger, but darn it, he keeps providing easy bait and I keep biting.  Today it's Rev. John Hagee.  The question at hand is whether the "plutocratic" media ignores John McCain's "pastor problem" while playing up Jeremiah Wright.  I'll refer you to a few sources.  Wanna here it from the horses mouth?  Hear John Hagee himself give context to his supposed anti-Catholic statements.  It's the Dennis Prager show from April 22, hour two.  Or read Rod Dreher here and here. 

The real reason for the "double standard" is in Dreher's second post:

McCain isn't being held responsible for Hagee because McCain didn't spend 20 years sitting in the pews at Hagee's church, and didn't claim Hagee as his spiritual mentor. Everybody knows that McCain is not a particularly religious man, and doesn't care for the religious right. Fault McCain for cynicism or weakness by making nice with them, and you're on solid ground. But most people perfectly well understand that John Hagee's theology has had little or no influence on John McCain's thinking. (snip)

If Al Sharpton endorsed Obama, as he will, it would be analogous to the Hagee-McCain situation: the kind of thing that may make your stomach roll over a couple of times, but within the normal habits of our politics. It may set your teeth on edge that the Democrats have to pay their respects to Sharpton, and the Republicans have to do the same to Hagee (or Bob Jones U.), but most people understand that on both sides these are pro forma gestures.

Read the whole thing.  This is elementary logic.  Treats likes as likes and unalikes as unalike.  The Hagee/Wright controversy is a classic case of apples and oranges.  It doesn't mean McCain gets a pass on Hageee, and he hasn't, not even from Fox News, but one makes a distinction between an endorsement sought for political purposes and a long term close association.  Both houses may stink, but one stinks more.

I should point out that I find John Hagee's eschatology less than convincing, but its premillenialism is not rare amongst the evangelical set from which Hagee comes.

Apparently it took Oprah Winfrey two years to figure out the Jeremiah Wright, whatever his virtues, was peddling a message that would not play with mainstream America.  After twenty years and thousands of dollars in donations, Barack Obama didn't figure it out until last week when it became politically necessary. 

Disappointing News on Global Temperatures

Residents of Aberdeen South Dakota have been treated to a lot of pictures of last year's flood.  One thing that some of us have noticed is that the town looked a lot greener back a year ago, when it was wetter. Apparently, Aberdeen is about a week and a half behind in spring growth.  As I sit here on my deck on the eve of Cinco di Mayo I am wearing a jacket and there is not a single irritating bug to be irritated by.

The truth of the matter is that we are ten years into a period of global cooling. The London Telegraph has some of the disturbing information.

Two weeks ago, as North America emerged from its coldest and snowiest winter for decades, the US National Climate Data Center, run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a statement that snow cover in January on the Eurasian land mass had been the most extensive ever recorded, and that in the US March had been only the 63rd warmest since records began in 1895.

Well, that is disturbing.  At least is you are Al Gore.  But it gets better:

On April 24 the World Wildife Fund (WWF), another body keen to keep the warmist flag flying, published a study warning that Arctic sea ice was melting so fast that it may soon reach a "tipping point" where "irreversible change" takes place. This was based on last September's data, showing ice cover having shrunk over six months from 13 million square kilometres to just 3 million.

What the WWF omitted to mention was that by March the ice had recovered to 14 million sq km (see the website Cryosphere Today), and that ice-cover around the Bering Strait and Alaska that month was at its highest level ever recorded. (At the same time Antarctic sea ice-cover was also at its highest-ever level, 30 per cent above normal).

The most dramatic evidence, however, emerged last week with an announcement by Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory that an immense slow-cycling movement of water in the Pacific, known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), had unexpectedly shifted into its cool phase, something which only happens every 30 years or so, ultimately affecting climate all over the globe.

Now none of this means that we aren't in the midst of a long-term warming trend.  A heavy rain in Tucson doesn't change the fact that Southern Arizona is a dry climate.  On the other hand, all this is altogether out of sync with the predictions of the climate models on which the global warming agenda is based.  Maybe Manhattan will be underwater at the end of the century, and maybe the Twins will win the World Series.  But just right now the stats don't show it. 

Here is Don Easterbrook, Professor Emeritus of Geology at Western Washington University:

Look at history, where we are in 2008, and where we’ve been. If you go back to the beginning of the century, there was a really deep cold period from about 1880 to 1910, and then it warmed until about 1945. Most of the global temperature records are set in the middle of the 1930’s when it was warmer than now. And the same is true in Greenland--the temperatures in the 1930’s were warmer than they are now. In ~1945, we did a flip to thirty years of global cooling. The time of maximum CO2 emissions started in 1945 and temperatures should have shot up, but we cooled off. That’s an anti-correlation. In 1977, we got warmer and warmer. If we look back 500 years, the trend of 1977 to 1998 is not unique to this century. For about 500 years we have 30–year periods where it gets warm/cold, warm/cold.

We’ve been warming up about a degree per century since the Little Ice Age in about 1600. We’ve been warming for 400 years, long before human–generated CO2 could have anything to do with the climate. If we project the previous century into the coming one, my projection is that we will have about a half-a-degree of cooling from 2007 (plus or minus three to five years) to about 2040. Then it will start getting warmer as we enter the next warm cycle, followed by cooling again. By the end of the century, we’ll have less than a half a degree temperature increase, instead of the ten degrees or so predicted by IPCC. A huge difference. The IPCC projection says that by 2011 we should be one-degree warmer than where we were in 2005. But, we’re getting colder. We declined about 0.7 degrees in one year. We’re going in the opposite direction. With IPCC data and their graph, by 2011, the difference between my projection and theirs is about one-degree and that’s huge.

It is possible that the production of greenhouse gases by human activity is affecting global temperatures.  It is possible that it isn't.  It is possible, and I think more than likely, that natural cycles will overwhelm the effects of human activity.  That is what the record suggests.  To put it mildly, there is no basis here for radical measures to restrict the growth of our industrial outputs. 

Jurassic Parks and Rex

Jon and I have been engaged in conversations about science and its discontents.  We are perhaps too much in agreement for any real fun.  But I can't help making a comment on his treatment of Jurassic Park (book and movie). 

The movie plays up the notion that simply because we can make dinosaurs doesn't mean that we should. But trapped in an ideology of science and corporate greed, the John Hammond character doesn't bother asking the "should" question.  To him can and should are the same.  The book version concentrates a bit more on the fact that Hammond had assembled a team of experts, but all of them were experts in only one thing.  They had a lot of knowledge, but none of them were very wise.  The practical problem this presented is that once something went wrong and the computer programmer turned up traitor, no one else had the knowledge to run the computerized security system.  On a more theoretical level, this is why we try to give our students a liberal education.  We don't just give them knowledge.  We try to teach them to use that knowledge well.

In fact, I think we should make Dinosaurs if it turns out that we can.  I can't wait to watch Jon take the first Brontosaurus ride.  I'll be snapping digital pictures, in case something interesting happens.  But it would be obvious madness to resurrect the predators, especially person-sized ones like raptors that can open doors and probably establish their own MySpace pages.  As my sainted grandmother liked to say, "stick with the plant eaters!" 

But if you are going to grow a new T-Rex, for God's sake put him in a concrete lined pit that he can't possible crawl out of, and not enclosed in an electric fence that relies on a continuous source of power.  Michael Crighten's Jurassic Park was not great literature, but it was reasonably good science fiction.  The novel was built on two pieces of scientific speculation: that ancient DNA might be used to resurrect extinct creatures (which might be about to happen), and certain systems are inherently complex, beyond any possibility of control (chaos theory).  The latter is a nicely conservative idea.  It shows that science is capable of generating some of the prudence we need in applying it. 

Iron Man: A Review

Yes, I knew Ken Blanchard was in the theater when during a preview for the new Mike Meyers film I heard the trade mark Blanchard snort that passes for laughter. 

As Ken states, I do not rave over Iron Man as he does.  Without spoiling the film, let me point out some strengths and weaknesses.  On the positive side, this is the role Robert Downey was meant to play.  Downey gives the Tony Stark character a wise-ass quality that makes him likable and interesting when he could just be annoying.  I must also say that this one of the few Gwyneth Paltrow roles that I found likable.  The tension between Tony Start and his assistant Pepper Potts (yes, that's the character's name) is charming and fun and only occasionally sappy.  The special effects are also well done. 

On the other hand I found the story line cliche ridden and entirely too predictable.  Granted, it's a comic book movie.  But within about fifteen minutes I had the villain pegged and the entire story line accurately assembled in my head.  And while all comic book movies ask us to ignore certain laws of science and leave our common sense at the door, this film asks us to forget science and common sense even exist (example, when a man in a metal suit accelerates to super-sonic speed, he might encounter some g-force issues).   Also, for a comic book movie there is remarkably little action.  You actually only see Iron Man in action three times.  By "action" I mean Iron Man opening a can of whoop ass on some sort of bad guy.  Granted, you see a lot of Iron Man flying around and testing his skills, but this is kinda like watching your buddy play the PS2 game rather than playing it yourself.

In short, I found the movie short on thrills, although long on character and witty dialogue. But who goes to an action film for the dialogue?   

SDP Jazz Note: Newquist on Dizzy Gillespie

David Newquist has responded to my welcome back note with a rich post on one of the founding fathers of bebop: Dizzy Gillespie.  With his kind permission, I have reposted it on my Jazz Note blog. 

I have to confess that I don't listen a lot to the giants of that first bop generation: Gillespie and Charlie Parker stand out.  I did however acquire Lester Young's The Complete Aladdin Sessions.  There is no doubting the Prez or his genius from what came out of that bottle.  I would also note that Gillespie wrote one of my very favorite standards,  "A Night in Tunisia."  Recently I heard someone somewhere describe how Dizzy wrote the song on the bottom of a trash can.  There is jazz poetry in that. 

Clinton Mailings Going After Obama's Gun Position

Ben Smith at the Politico picks up the story of Hillary Clinton's gun-rights attack on Barack Obama.