South Dakota Politics

Correction

Intrepid reader Art points out something that anyone who buys sugar should have noticed.  The Washington Examiner, whom I quoted in this post, gets the decimal place wrong on sugar.  The numbers listed there should read 11.6 cents and 20.99 cents, not $11.60 and $20.99 as the Examiner says.  Now that would make for expensive cake. 

Polar Bears & Bad Arguments

The newspaper for which I frequently write, the Aberdeen American News, has decided to weigh in on the question whether to list the polar bear as an endangered species. 

Maybe the Bush administration thought no one would notice that the decline in polar bears could be addressed without acknowledging the impact of climate change. If so, its plan to list the bears as officially threatened under the Endangered Species Act - like so many other convoluted and confounding initiatives from this White House - raised more questions than it did answers.

And, there can be no doubt that extending ESA protection to the estimated 25,000 polar bears living from Alaska to Greenland without admitting a causal correlation to global warming could only have been concocted by the same see-no-evil political advisers who brought us “Mission Accomplished.”

I dissent.  Since I have bought a lot of Miles Davis with what they pay me per column, I do so respectfully.  The editorial begins by speaking of the "decline in polar bears."  Are polar bears in decline? I have seen no figures to suggest this.  There are, by all accounts, a lot more polar bears around than there used to be. Here is a bit from the Los Angeles Times:

Scientists think the global population of 20,000 to 25,000 bears remains robust, rebounding from the 1960s, when hunting had driven down the population to about 12,000. But virtually all polar bear experts predict rapid population declines in the Arctic, which is warming faster than anywhere else in the world and changing too rapidly for the bears to adapt and find other food sources.

A group of Canadian scientists last month declared the polar bear a "species of concern" but stopped short of saying it was threatened with extinction -- a designation that could have restricted hunting by Canada's Inuit people.

Now that last bit is telling.  Canadian scientists, whom I suppose to be as competent as non-Canadian scientists, think that concern is in order, but not so much as to stop the Inuits from actively reducing the number of polar bears by killing them. 

I gather that a species is usually or always (until now) put on the endangered list when there is evidence of actual stress on that species.  It is clear in this case that the polar bear's status has been earned entirely on speculation.  Global warming leads to shrinking ice sheets, and that, it is said, will shrink the polar bear's habitat.  That's a perfectly reasonable argument.  There is just no reason to believe it.

It wasn't that long ago that we were hearing about a global winter, to be caused when global warming shuts down the circulation of Atlantic currents.  Surely that would be a great benefit to the polar bears, extending their habitat all the way down to Milwaukee.  Maybe global warming means global cooling, or maybe it means global warming.  But just right now the global warming computer models are suffering from some embarrassment. 

The world stopped warming in 1998.  This is wildly inconsistent with the models on which global warming arguments are based.  But it gets better.  Here is the London Telegraph:

Researchers studying long-term changes in sea temperatures said they now expect a "lull" for up to a decade while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

The average temperature of the sea around Europe and North America is expected to cool slightly over the decade while the tropical Pacific remains unchanged.

This would mean that the 0.3°C global average temperature rise which has been predicted for the next decade by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen, according to the paper published in the scientific journal Nature.

However, the effect of rising fossil fuel emissions will mean that warming will accelerate again after 2015 when natural trends in the oceans veer back towards warming, according to the computer model.

So we are in for another ten years of global cooling.  Surely the polar bears will be happy about that?  Maybe the general climate models are right, and temperatures will soar after 2015.  But they are way off when it comes to what is happening now.  Are there more surprises in store?  Bet on it.  That's the way nature works.

I like polar bears as much as the next guy, at least when they aren't dancing with penguins in Coke commercials.  When I consider how well-designed they are for life in the white zone, I am filled with admiration.  But the claim that they are endangered by global warming is based on pure speculation. Polar bears have survived earlier periods of warming just fine, thank you.  We have no way of knowing what is in store for them in the next century. 

Besides, are we really going to regulate everything from automobiles to hog manure based on what is might happen to animals living in the arctic a hundred years from now?  Maybe we should, be we ain't gonna.  When we think about how best to protect polar bears, we have to think locally: what are the conditions now and the threats to them where they live.  When we think about global warming we have to think globally. The Endangered Species Act was not designed for that.   

The Undecipherable Lightness of Barackian Foreign Policy

One thing you can say for Barack Obama's craven flip flop on the Farm Bill, noted below by Jon Schaff, is that at least you know what Obama is now saying he would do.  Having once opposed the atrocious bill, he is all for it now that he has to try to win farm country voters; but I suppose that means that he will vote to override the current President's veto and sign such legislation if he becomes President. 

By contrast, a Congress of Talmudic Scholars larger than Obama's pledged delegate count couldn't determine the meaning of his position on negotiating with Iran.  Marc Ambinder, blogging at The Atlantic.Com, tries a little exegesis on the Hyde Park Hero's oracular pronouncements.

It's clear now that Obama would not... within the first year of his administration, meet directly with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without "preconditions" and without equivocation. It IS clear that Obama would meet with Ahmadinejad (or Ali Khamenei) without forcing Ahmadinejad (or Ali Khamenei) to provably suspend uranium enrichment. It's also clear that Obama would be more willing to meet with these leaders than McCain.

Obama's campaign now uses the word "with preparation" as shorthand to refer to diplomatic advance work; other advisers use the word "unconditional" as a straw man to suggest that critics are accusing Obama of wanting to meet "unconditionally" with these leaders -- of course their would be "conditions" -- there just wouldn't be "pre-conditions." (Would there be .... post-conditions?)

Ambinder shows in detail that the Obama organization has been utterly incoherent on at least two things: 1) who he would meet with and when he would meet with them, and 2) whether there would be "preconditions" for the meeting, and what sort of conditions these might be.

Why the conceptual stammering?  It may be that common problem for politicians: how to take back something you said weren't thinking, without admitting that you weren't thinking or even that you said what you said.  But sometimes these gaff-induced tailspins reflect some underlying contradiction that a candidate can neither resolve nor acknowledge.  Ambinder puts his finger on this one:

Obama wants to draw a much brighter line between his approach to Iran and North Korea's and the Bush administration's approach to those countries.... A political trap awaits Obama in this sense: how to best distinguish your diplomatic approach from President Bush's.... that requires a very very wide gap between the two approaches ... and how to reassure Americans that Obama does not believe in the messianic power of his own rhetoric and would not be willing to let Iran run roughshod over the United States? That requires a slightly narrower gap. After all, there _are_ low level and mid-level (and even senior level) contacts between Iran and the United States right now; the Bush Administration is negotiating with North Korea....  [my italics].

Obama wanted to show that his approach to these problematic polities would be dramatically different from that of George W.  That's why he originally said he would sit down and talk without preconditions.  The trouble is, there just aren't a lot of practical policy options available to a President, and the reasonable alternatives differ marginally at best from what the current President is doing. 

Obama's critics (including, apparently, President Bush) charged him with advocating appeasement of dictators.  That may or may not have been unfair, but it had the affect of showing that Obama's policies will either be wacky (see Jimmy Carter) or they will be pretty much the same as the ones we have now.  Whatever this is, it isn't change that we can believe in. 

Obama's Gaffes

A roundup of Barack Obama gaffes includes his Sioux City / Sioux Falls misstatement.

ALSO:  Wasn't John McCain suppose to be the one with the temper problem?

Democrats and Our Enemies

Joe Lieberman:  "How did the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy drift so far from the foreign policy and national security principles and policies that were at the core of its identity and its purpose? . . . A great Democratic secretary of state, Dean Acheson, once warned 'no people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.' This is a lesson that today's Democratic Party leaders need to relearn."  Read the rest.

Bush Vetoes Farm Bill. House Votes To Override. Bill Still A Disgrace.

George Bush has vetoed the Farm Bill and the House has already voted to override the veto.  Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin voted with the majority to override the veto of a bill that the New York Times calls a "disgrace" and the Wall Street Journal calls "shameful."  Also, apparently world opinion is against this bill as it undermines WTO talks and puts poor nations at a competitive disadvantage.  But who cares, as long as it helps members of Congress and presidential candidates get votes. 

Movies For The Family

I liked this bit from NRO's John Miller:

The new Indiana Jones movie opens tomorrow, and I guess I'm as interested in seeing it as the next overgrown kid. When I was a boy, Raiders of the Lost Ark fired my imagination like no other film. I think I saw it five times in the theater, mostly at the Old Orchard Theater in Farmington Hills, Mich. I don't know how many times I've seen it since then. The John Williams theme song is my ringtone.

For my own kids — or at least their senior member, a 10-year-old boy — I wonder if the two National Treasure movies aren't having the same effect. (National Treasure 2 just came out on DVD.) For movies full of high-spirited adventure and without a moment of vulgarity, they're tough to beat. Their plots are of course ridiculous, but they're also ridiculous fun and they've prompted my kids to ask serious questions about, among other things, the Library of Congress. The movies are also fundamentally patriotic.

So if you want to avoid crowds in the movie theaters this weekend, think about National Treasure. You could do a lot worse.

I heartily endorse Miller's recommendation of the the Indiana Jones movies (of course the first is the best) and the National Treasure films (again, the first is better). Miller's rationale is similar to what motivated my endorsement of Prince Caspian.  Caspian is not a great film, but it's a decent adventure story that most of the family can watch (better yet, read the book together).  I also recommend one of Prof. Blanchard's favorites, Night at the Museum, for family viewing.  It also is funny, quirky, and I don't think there is a single objectionable thing in it (if there is, I missed it).

BTW, there is no question as to my seeing the new Indiana Jones film this weekend.  A review is coming. 

Must Read Of The Day: Obama, Farm Bills, And "Change"

In the must read of the day, David Brooks is right on in his analysis of the Farm Bill and Barack Obama's cynical support of it.  Obama was against the Farm Bill before he was for it.  This is so good, I will post a big chunk of it:

The $307 billion farm bill that rolled through Congress is a perfect example of the pattern. Farm net income is up 56 percent over the past two years, yet the farm bill plows subsidies into agribusinesses, thoroughbred breeders and the rest.

The growers of nearly every crop will get more money. Farmers in the top 1 percent of earners qualify for federal payments. Under the legislation, the government will buy sugar for roughly twice the world price and then resell it at an 80 percent loss. Parts of the bill that would have protected wetlands and wildlife habitat were deleted or shrunk.

My colleagues on The Times’s editorial page called the bill “disgraceful.” My former colleagues at The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page ripped it as a “scam.” Yet such is the logic of collective action; the bill is certain to become law. It passed with 81 votes in the Senate and 318 in the House — enough to override President Bush’s coming veto. Nearly everyone in Congress got something.

The question amid this supposed change election is: Who is going to end this sort of thing?

Barack Obama talks about taking on the special interests. This farm bill would have been a perfect opportunity to do so. But Obama supported the bill, just as he supported the 2005 energy bill that was a Christmas tree for the oil and gas industries.

Obama’s support may help him win Iowa, but it will lead to higher global food prices and more hunger in Africa. Moreover, it raises questions about how exactly he expects to bring about the change that he promises.

If elected, Obama’s main opposition will not come from Republicans. It will come from Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill. Already, the Democratic machine is reborn. Lobbyists are now giving 60 percent of their dollars to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The pharmaceutical industry, the defense industry and the financial sector all give more money to Democrats than Republicans. If Obama is actually going to bring about change, he’s going to have to ruffle these sorts of alliances. If he can’t do it in an easy case like the farm bill, will he ever?

John McCain opposed the farm bill. In an impassioned speech on Monday, he declared: “It would be hard to find any single bill that better sums up why so many Americans in both parties are so disappointed in the conduct of their government, and at times so disgusted by it.”

McCain has been in Congress for decades, but he has remained a national rather than a parochial politician. The main axis in his mind is not between Republican and Democrat. It’s between narrow interest and patriotic service. And so it is characteristic that he would oppose a bill that benefits the particular at the expense of the general.

McCain, in an act of political courage we are unlikely to see from Barack Obama, explains his opposition to the Farm Bill here. 

I may surprise some people by saying what few presidential candidates would ever be willing to say out loud in farm country: I'd veto the farm bill—a bloated expansion in federal spending that will do more harm than good.

When agricultural commodity prices and exports have reached record highs, we no longer need government-grown farms and mammoth government bureaucracies. As grocery bills soar, food banks go bare and food rationing occurs on a global scale, we must challenge the wisdom of this bill. We must question policies that divert more than 25 percent of corn out of the food supply and into subsidized ethanol production. We must question a supply-control sugar program that costs Americans $2 billion annually in higher sugar prices.

Can we honestly demand fair and free trade from other countries when this bill increases trade distorting payment rates and restores an illegal cotton program? Sen. Barack Obama has raised the rhetoric on fair trade and restoring fiscal discipline, but his support for the farm bill betrays the inconsistency of his position: Cry foul with our trade partners, but break the rules at home.

As they say, read the whole thing. 

This is a pattern for Obama.  Talk about change, but oppose any real change.  Entitlements are crushing the federal budget and dooming future generations, but Obama opposes all but the most minor changes.  Energy costs are sucking the money out of family wallets, but Obama proposes no significant change other than the tired old trope of bashing the oil companies. In a desperate move to get the Teamsters' endorsement, Obama favors removing federal oversight of the union even though corruption is still rampant right in Obama's Chicago backyard. Some "change." 

But none of this matters.  In a new poll Obama is up eight over McCain and the RCP average is 4.5%.  Things are so structurally bad for Republicans that it would take a minor miracle for McCain to pull off this win.

If I may draw from the Simpsons monorail song:

Marge: But Mainstreet's still all cracked and broken...

Bart: Sorry mom, the mob has spoken.      

Oregon & Kentucky, Hippies & Hillbillies

I am beginning to suspect that one could predict Obama's support in any state by adding the number of Black voters to the number of white voters who ever owned, or even thought of owning, a lava lamp.  Hence Oregon (pronounced Or-ah-gen). With about half the precincts counted, Obama is leading Clinton by a cool 16 points.   

But Ms. C got lucky in Kentucky.  With 100% of the vote recorded, she once again flattened Obama 65/30%.  To put that in perspective, election watchers usually call a margin of 10% or better a landslide.  Margins of 20% or better suggest an election that was never really competitive.  When one of the candidates is a well-liked incumbent, or the other got caught in a prostitution scandal, that's when you expect such lopsided margins.  A victory of 35% usually requires both. 

Obama carried Louisville and Lexington-Fayette counties.  That's two small bruises on an otherwise solidly Clinton map.  By contrast, the exit polls tell us almost nothing, because Ms. Clinton took pretty much every defined group by 60% or more. 

Obama has a problem.  There a large stretches of territory in these United States where he couldn't be elected sanitation engineer.  There is a meme developing to explain this, if not explain it away: call it the Hillbilly meme. You can find a discussion of it at Salon.   

In analyzing the returns from last week's West Virginia Democratic primary, a phalanx of reporters and commentators have explained Hillary Clinton's landslide victory by pointing out that West Virginians are a special set of Democrats, white, low income and undereducated. Some, like Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo and Jonathan Tilove of the Newhouse papers, have linked the lackluster performance of Barack Obama in West Virginia to a larger Appalachian problem. ...

The legions of pseudonym-laden online posters who follow in political punditry's wake are less restrained in describing the shortcomings of Sen. Clinton's Appalachian supporters. They suggest it has to do with her voters being racist, toothless, shoeless, and prone to marrying their cousins. In short, they characterize these "special" Democrats in much the same terms they used in quieter times to describe Republicans...

However, the unnerving truth for the erstwhile party of Jefferson may be that Appalachia, for all its legend and lore, is not that different politically from the rest of the small-town and rural parts of the country where 60 million of us live. And that could mean trouble for the fall...

When you look at the earlier aggregate rural vote on Super Tuesday, the preference for Clinton is clearly not confined to Appalachia. Combining the results from 22 diverse states in the Northeast, South, Midwest and West on Feb. 5, Clinton beat Obama 55 percent to 38 percent among rural voters, according to an analysis in DailyYonder.com, the news Web site of the organization I head, the Center for Rural Strategies. Those aren't West Virginia margins, but they aren't close. They shine a light on a vulnerability that Democrats have shared through the last several election cycles. 

The reality is that when Democratic candidates run competitively in rural America, they win national elections. And when they get creamed in rural America, they lose. That was Bill Clinton's reality in winning as it was the reality for Al Gore and John Kerry in narrowly losing.

This is the problem that the Democrats face.  Their party is divided between hip waders and lava lamps.  When some who appeals to the hip waders gets nominated, the lava lamps fall into line.  But it doesn't necessarily work in reverse.  We might be about to watch the Party of Jefferson once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. 

Kentucky

Marc Ambinder:  "In Kentucky, 8 in 10 Clinton voters... say they'd be DISsatisfied if Obama were the nominee; about 60% of Clinton voters in Oregon said the same. MORE Clinton voters in KY say they'd support John McCain than say they'd support Barack Obama."

MEANWHILE:  Clinton has achieved another blowout victory over Obama, beating him by thirty-five points in Kentucky.

Ted Kennedy Has Brain Cancer

The story here:

A cancerous brain tumor caused the seizure Sen. Edward M. Kennedy suffered over the weekend, doctors said Tuesday in a grim diagnosis for one of American politics' most enduring figures. "He remains in good spirits and full of energy," the doctors for the 76-year-old Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement.

They said tests conducted after the seizure showed a tumor in Kennedy's left parietal lobe. Preliminary results from a biopsy of the brain identified the cause of the seizure as a malignant glioma, they said.

His treatment will be decided after more tests but the usual course includes combinations of radiation and chemotherapy.

Kennedy has been hospitalized in Boston since Saturday, when he was airlifted from Cape Cod after a seizure at his home.

Obviously we wish him the best.

Prince Caspian: A Review

We took in Prince Caspian last night.  If you like medieval milieu adventure movies, this film is pretty good but not great.  If you are an aficionado of the Narnia stories, you'll likely be disappointed.  The film takes serious deviations from the book, some for the better and some for the worse. 

I am with Ross Douthat and Thomas Hibbs the the source material for the film provides a challenge for a film maker.  C.S. Lewis's book contains long sections of one character simply telling a story.  It's hard to make that into a rousing crowd pleasing film.  Perhaps the solution is to do what Peter Jackson did in Lord of the Rings, start the film with a summary of the history of the ring, successfully summarizing in a few minutes Gandalf's long story told in the chapter "Shadows of the Past" in The Fellowship of the Ring.  Andrew Adamson, director of Prince Caspian, instead chooses to leave the background story out, which results in losing much of the context of the overall story.  As Hibbs points out, in the book it is important that Caspian is a lover of "the old things," the history and stories of Narnia, in contrast to his wicked uncle Miraz who finds such things a waste of time.  Caspian's preservation of memory and tradition is part of what makes him an attractive character.  I wish the movie would have given some consideration to this aspect of the story.  This is the one deviation from the book that I find off-putting. 

The movie itself has some issues.  Ben Barnes as Caspian is a bit of a pretty boy, a runway model in a suit of armor.  He lacks the commanding presence of a king, which is what he really is.  Overall, all of the younger characters seem nagged by self-doubt and are a bit whiny, falling short of the noble characters of the novel (Edmund is perhaps an exception here).   The film lacks the whimsy of the book with my favorite character Reepicheep given a normal voice rather than the squeak that he has in the book.  Trumpkin the dwarf is merely grumpy, as opposed to grumpy and silly as he is in the book.  A mild romance between Susan and Caspian is frankly stupid.  Finally, Aslan is strangely absent in the film, essentially making a cameo appearance. 

But I do give the film a mild recommendation.  As an action/adventure film, it largely works.  Sure, it is a film you've probably seen before, but it is good enough, and most certainly better than most of the dreck coming out of Hollywood.  The film has enough action and wonder to hold the viewer's attention. The film does contain themes of faith and bravery that make it edifying, although there is enough violence in the film to make it inappropriate for the smaller children.  In short, the film is good enough.  Still, read the book as well.

Update: Go here for an excellent summary of reviews more troubled than I am about plot deviations from the book. 

Farm Bill 2008: The Horror

When in Bath, SD last week, Hillary Clinton chastised George Bush and John McCain for favoring a veto of the new Farm Bill passed by Congress.  The more one looks into this bill the more that veto seems justified. 

The Washington Examiner has been on the job in pointing out some of the more egregious examples of waste in this bill.  Here is their Tim Carney:

The Farm Nutrition and Bioenergy Act, which cleared the House on Tuesday 318-106, is a cornucopia of boondoggles, rip-offs and handouts, but perhaps the most inexplicable part is the provision instructing the federal government to buy “surplus” sugar from sugar growers and then sell it to make ethanol. Taxpayers will buy overpriced sugar and then sell it to ethanol makers at an artificially low price — a sweet deal for sugar and ethanol barons, and a raw deal for taxpayers. (snip)

Sugar companies need to be this active politically because their business depends on government regulation and subsidies. The farm bill headed to the White House this week guarantees that 85 percent of all sugar sold in the U.S. will be grown domestically. That means the federal government will fiercely restrict imports from other nations, driving up the price we pay for sugar.

This continues the long-running restrictions on sugar imports, which make our sugar more expensive. In 2007, raw sugar cost $11.60 per pound in the rest of the world, but $20.99 per pound here. Of course this makes our food more expensive.

Finally (actually, there are other sugar subsidies in the farm bill, but too many to list), there is the seemingly Cunningham-inspired sugar-to-ethanol program: The USDA buys “excess sugar” and sells it to ethanol makers — and only ethanol makers. The first problem here is that “excess sugar” means any sugar that sugar growers want to keep off the market to further drive up prices. Second, when the USDA can sell the sugar only to ethanol makers, there’s no way the USDA will get a good price.

The tax payer and consumer gets ripped two ways, by spending almost double the going rate for sugar while then paying out to subsidize ethanol producers (and protecting them from foreign competition). Carney is right.  If any private business operated like this people would be going to jail.  Talk about a sweet deal. 

The editors of the paper also chime in:

There also are inexcusable local-interest flimflams such as a $250 million tax credit for a private land sale in Montana and a provision to “sell” national forest land, necessitating a shifting of the Appalachian Trail, to benefit a Vermont ski resort. Worse -- and this is brand new -- House and Senate negotiators “air-dropped” several expensive provisions into the bill that neither chamber had voted on, including $170 million for salmon fisheries in California. Then there is yet another fuel subsidy, this one for “cellulosic” ethanol, at a five-year cost to taxpayers of $348 million. All of this, at a time when the federal deficit this year is expected to hit $400 billion and the federal debt approaches $9.4 trillion. In short, this bill is so stuffed that it deserves to be named by an agricultural term -- bull, uh, manure.

Speaking of ethanol, David Freddoso calculates that given all the government money from all levels of government spent on ethanol, we could give $44,000 a year to every single person involved in ethanol production, from the farmer to the plant worker to the guy who drives the truck.  As it is we spend that much money ($6-$8 billion overall) to produce maybe two days of gas.  And that's assuming ethanol is not an net energy loser, which is what some argue. 

Lost is Found 2

I am about two weeks behind in watching ABC's Lost, but my son and I viewed two shows tonight and the old magic is back.  I don't know if this is in time to save the show, but I can only hope.  The trick in this kind of show is to constantly reveal answers to old questions that consistently raise new ones.  The current season is doing that. 

McCain's Big Idea: Question Time

My favorite new American, Christopher Hitchens, has noticed what everyone else has so far ignored: John McCain's proposal to import the British tradition of Question Time to the American system.  CNN  broadcasts this spectacle of British government.  The Prime Minister regularly goes before Parliament to answer questions.  It is a very lively affair.  If you look up raucous in the dictionary, you might see a picture of the PM standing while all the MP's are shouting. 

As Hitchens notes, there is an equivalent in the American system.  Executive branch officials must go before Congressional committees to defend themselves and their agencies.  But only rarely, when there is a scent of scandal, does this attract much interest.  What would it be like if George W. or McCain or Obama had to stand before one chamber and then the other and answer questions?  I don't know, and neither do you.  One thing is for sure: Congressmen and Senators would have to watch a lot of CNN to figure out how this is done, if ratings are to be sustained. 

There is an obvious bit of Constitutional text to hang the proposal on.  From ePublius, Article 2, Section 3:

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.

This is of course the basis of the State of the Union Address.  It does bear some superficial resemblance to question time, but without the questions.  And that makes all the difference.

McCain's proposal is indeed interesting, and if implemented, it would be wonderful for journalists and political scientists, and dreadful for presidents.  The American system largely insulates the President from uncontrolled public conversation.  The debates which have become part of the election process currently have little or nothing to do with the actual business of being president. Introducing question time would change the requirements of office.  Bill Clinton would have been very good at it.  George W. would be so bad he would probably refuse to show up. 

I think it very unlikely that McCain's proposal will be acted on.  But as a political scientist, I am all for it. 

Obama Gaffe Makes the LA Times

Andrew Malcolm:  "A week after his 57-state remark, Obama puts himself in the wrong city."

Gay Marriage: The Horse Is Out Of The Barn

I have nothing to say on the California gay marriage decision that has not been said better by someone else, namely by Rod Dreher and Patrick Deneen.  How about some Deneen:

To my mind, what's most striking about the Court's decision is the language of the inviolability of "individual liberty and personal autonomy." These are the legal and Constitutional grounds on which a decision about the basis of marriage are being grounded. On the basis of such grounds, can there really be marriage at all, at least in a form that is worthy of defense?  Aren't we really talking about an advantaged tax and property arrangement, one that can and should be altered at the will and inclination of the individual's "liberty and autonomy"? It is really nothing other than the contractual partnership defended in Locke's Second Treatise, sans the children (or at least conceived by the couple in question). And doesn't it permit any possible form of coupling, including ones not limited to couples (e.g., polygamy, etc., between consenting adults?)

Ah, the joys of "individual liberty and personal autonomy."  Family and local community find themselves eviscerated by an ideology and as a consequence the isolated and weakened individual turns to the only means of collective action with any legitimacy, the state.  This is how libertarianism ushers in the omnipresent state, demolishing the very liberty that gives the libertarians their label.      

President Obama On Social Security: Let Our Kids Deal With It

Social Security is the cornerstone of our social welfare state, giving a safety net to older Americans, as well as paying out disability and survivors benefits. Yet Social Security is in deep financial trouble.  You know the story.  In about ten years the amount of the Social Security trust fund begins to decrease.  In about twenty years payments out of Social Security will out strip its receipts.  But there is a trust fund to live off of for about ten years, so it is thirty years out that we can no longer maintain Social Security. 

This problem is caused by various factors.  First, we live longer than ever.  Life expectancy now reaches close to 80 years old.  But that includes those who die young. If you make it to 65 you will likely see 85 and beyond.  So most people who begin to collect Social Security get out more than they ever put in.  So how do we make up the difference?  By taxing the young. But we have fewer young people working for each person drawing Social Security benefits.  When the program was instituted it was about 15:1.  Now it is 3:1 and soon will be 2:1.  Also, the formula used to calculate the Social Security cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) is wrong: it actually over estimates the rise in cost of living thus causing benefits to rise faster than inflation.  Finally, and worst of all, the Social Security trust fund is largely an accounting gimmick.  Much of it has already been spent on other items.  The Social Security "surplus" then consists of the various other parts of government "owing" the Social Security Administration money, which as a matter of accounting the SSA counts as an asset.  The problem is, of course, that the non-Social Security spending and the Social Security spending all come from the same source: you and me.  We will have to be taxed into oblivion to keep up with the increase in benefits.  This is why we are heading for disaster regarding Social Security and every knows it, or should. 

This is also why Barack Obama is so irresponsible (and characteristically so) with his latest attack on John McCain, claiming McCain will cut benefits on seniors.  The practitioner of the "new politics" goes to the old playbook.  Rather than leading on Social Security, Obama chooses to demagogue on it, scaring seniors in order to gain votes while offering no solutions to a serious problem.  One common sense solution is to raise the retirement age.  But Obama is against that.  Another is to recalculate the COLA so it is more accurate.  But Obama is against that.  Famously George Bush advocated moving to private accounts.  But Obama is against that.  In short Obama is for nothing but against everything.  This is the smart political move.  To advocate any change would cause some persons pain and that might cost Obama votes. So it looks like the practitioner of the "politics of change" actually just wants the status quo as long as it gets him votes.  And we can let our children and grandchildren fend for themselves.  This is similar to the Democrats' policy on energy: beat up on the oil companies and give more money for ethanol because while neither of those policies increase supply or reduce demand or does anything to move toward energy independence, they do get votes and that is what is important. 

While Obama sometimes does not know what city he is in, as of January he will probably be pretty sure of his address: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  Let us hope that he governs better than he campaigns.  His so-called new politics really is the old.  Make a bunch of promises you can't keep and offer no solution to any thorny problem because you don't want to lose any votes.  It's irresponsible, but it is probably a winning strategy.         

SDP Jazz Note: I like Ike Quebec

I spent the last several days discussing bioethics in New Orleans.  That, and eating crawfish etouffee. I managed to catch some 'Nawlins style jazz at a small club that I won't name because it was hard enough to get a seat.  I also made it by the Louisiana Music Factory, a little record store on Decatur Street in the Quarter.  If you want to sound like a local when you visit the Big Easy, don't say "French Quarter," just say "the Quarter."  The Music Factory looks like a mushroom growing on one of the downed logs of history: old wood, aging hippies behind the counter, and creaking stairs.  When I was there they had a quartet, the Blues News, belting out Delta blues like nobody's business.  The harmonica player was three kinds of good, but don't call it a harmonica when you get there, or even a blues harp; just call it a "harp". 

Upstairs is where they keep the jazz discs.  It's not a big collection, but whoever stocks it knows what he is about.  If there are two discs hiding behind the piece of plastic labeled "Eric Dolphy," they will be his two most celebrated documents.  It was a jazz nerds idea of a good afternoon to comb through those stacks.  Just before the Blues News tuned up, they guy behind the counter put on a disc and then went out to smoke in the soft rain.  It was entrancing.  It was also used, and a bargain at $6.95. 

I have been relying heavily on the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings, but at about 1500 pages it is anything but portable.  So I couldn't look up Ike Quebec (pronounced Kyoo-beck), whom I had never heard of.  But hearing is believing, and besides he had Grant Green on guitar, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums.  That is company that connects him with Miles Davis across the lines of jazz. 

The disc was Blue & Sentimental, a very accurate title.  It is very soft and sweet, playing Green's sharply punctuated notes against Quebec's sprawling, romantic, tenor.  I found it just the right container for my memories of Decatur Street. 

Ike Quebec was born in 1918 and died forty-five years later of lung cancer and the charms of heroin.  If I hadn't heard of him, it wasn't for lack of Quebec revivals.  He has been rediscovered several times, I learn, only to fade again.  He killed himself off before he could leave a substantial body of work.  But Blue & Sentimental is fine jazz.  Listen to it on your iPod as you walk down Decatur toward the Cafe Du Monde. Maybe all true stories are sad, maybe not.  But if you can't enjoy being blue and sentimental in New Orleans, you have come to the wrong place.   

Gay Marriage & The Courts

I am on record as favoring homosexual marriage, a position that puts me at odds with many of my conservative friends and especially with religiously motivated conservatives.  I favor the extension of the ancient institution to cover this new case primarily on two grounds. 

Some Gay activists (Andrew Sullivan comes to mind) argue that marriage will help foster a culture of responsibility among male homosexuals.  I have my doubts; however, this was precisely one of the benefits of traditional marriage, and if one believes in the institution, as I do, it makes sense to see if it will work its magic once again.  So long as marriage is understood as a relationship of mutual responsibilities, backed up by the recognition of the state, then I think the growth of a marriage culture among Gay Americans gives them a stake the institution.  That will strengthen marriage.

Second, I think that many homosexual couples have relationships that function exactly as a marriage does for heterosexual couples.  It is a matter of common decency for the state to recognize that each partner in a same sex couple be able to have the same rights of medical consent for one another as a husband and a wife do.  The creation of alternatives to marriage like civil unions, etc., weakens marriage. 

That said, I am also opposed to judges writing their political preferences into constitutions.  I am no authority on the Constitution of the State of California, but I very much doubt whether it requires Gay marriage.  I know that the U.S. Constitution does not.  For contrary to what my esteemed Keloland colleague Cory Heidelberger says, laws restricting marriage to relationship between a woman and a man does not treat homosexuals differently "just because they're different."  It treats homosexuals the same because they are the same.  In South Dakota a homosexual man cannot marry another man, but neither can a heterosexual man.  Both of them are equally entitled to marry a woman.  Whatever may be wrong with a law that treats everyone the same way, it can't be inequality. 

Proponents of Gay marriage liken it to interracial marriage, but again the logic is all wrong.  Laws against miscegenation were intended to prevent the "commingling" of the races, so to keep them as segregated as possible.  Laws which do not allow men to marry other men would be more like a law which did not allow a Black American to marry within his or her race.  Gay marriage would make it easier for homosexuals to form discrete and insular communities, if they are of a mind to do so.  Whatever may be wrong with laws that do not allow sex marriage, it can't be segregation. 

Marriage laws always involve discrimination.  They discriminate against a person who want to marry someone who is too young.  They do not allow a person to marry his sister, or mother.  What about second cousins?  That's a judgment call.  Marriage laws in the United States do not allow any two people to marry a third, no matter how much the trio may want it.  Beyond the second case mentioned above, constitutions provide no guidance.  If you want Gay marriage, maybe to way to get it is to persuade your fellow citizens that it is good policy. 

Blanchard Gets Interviewed by USA Today

If this is my fifteen minutes of fame, I'll take it.

If those are the determining events for the nomination, what are the last few contests for? Bragging rights, momentum and symbolism.

"It doesn't look like it's going to matter in terms of delegates," says Kenneth Blanchard, political scientist at Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D. "The only thing that does matter is if Mrs. Clinton can pull off another blowout here. That would clearly make it look like she is the one who can win in large parts of the country."

 

More Farm Bill Reaction

I've discussed some of this below, so I'll just provide links here.

David Freddoso discusses the huge benefit Pine Creek Timber, the largest private land owner in the nation, gets from the farm bill. 

An Associated Press story on Congress's failure to fund the McGovern-Dole program to feed the hungry around the world.  Reason: they needed to cut something so they could increase subsidies. 

The House last year voted a big increase for one popular international aid program, the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program. But that boost, which would have guaranteed $840 million over five years, didn't make it into the final bill, which is up for votes this week. That program now gets about $100 million each year but is subject to annual appropriations bills.

Instead, the McGovern-Dole program — named for former Sens. George McGovern, D-S.D., and Bob Dole, R-Kan. — was cut to one-tenth of the House amount in recent weeks as lawmakers scrambled for ways to maintain, increase and begin new subsidies for various crops.

Megan McArdlle, an Obama supporter, asks, "When did the Democrats become the party of rich farmers?" 

And finally a video via Instapundit.  Why is it that we don't tax the oil coming from our enemies but we tax the ethanol coming from Brazil?  I think you know the answer.

Some Hillary Coverage

The American News' Emily Arthur-Richardt live blogged the event.  The Argus has a brief story here and KELO has some video here. BTW, the Argus puts the crowd at 600, which tells you what I know about counting crowds. 

Hillary Clinton: A Critique

Now some reaction to what we saw today in the Aberdeen area with Sen. Clinton's visit.  First, my unrefined crowd sensor guesses that there were around 1200 people there [note: look above and you'll see how wrong I was when I wrote this].  I'll keep an eye on media reports to see if someone else has a better number.  I have no sense as to whether that is a good or bad number.  My guess is that an Obama appearance would get more people out.  We'll see how many come to Watertown tomorrow for his event. 

I found the event a bit subdued.  Sen. Clinton's voice is failing her, no doubt caused by heavy campaigning.  Also, given the crowd she wanted to stress agriculture issues.  She seemed unsure of herself here, not really having a well honed stump speech.  Contrast this with her response to the question about veterans I referenced below.  Here is something she probably talks about all the time.  Her answer was solid, to the point, and informative.  I found her very convincing on this issue.  There was simply a lack of comfort with agriculture issues. 

Sen. Clinton is a progressive Democrat. I am essentially a conservative Republican.  So naturally I didn't agree with most of what she said, but let me make a few criticisms.  She says that she favors country of origin labeling for foodstuffs and she touted her support for permanent disaster relief in the farm bill. A minor criticism, but here are two issues that John Thune has worked on very hard (as has the rest of our delegation) and it would have been easy to send some bi-partisan love on these issues.  She chose not to. 

She argued in favor of spending more money to feed the hungry around the world.  Of course she failed to note that the farm bill she likes so much has very little money for just that.  She also said that ethanol subsidies probably have a "small" impact on food prices.  The evidence is otherwise.  Also, the heavy subsidization of agriculture by wealthy nations such as the US makes it harder for farmers in poor nations to compete in the world market, making those nations even poorer.  Overall, our farm policy helps keep the poor of the world hungry. 

Sen. Clinton argues that we must subsidize agriculture as a "safety net" for farmers and rural communities.  Yet she wants to stick it to the oil industry.  Question: why do the rural communities that depend on the oil industry matter less than rural communities that depend on agriculture?   Why is it wrong to subsidize the oil industry, but ok to subsidize big agriculture and the largest private land owner in the United States?  One answer is that the farmer feeds the world.  Well, the oil fields fuel the world.  The answer to my questions are easy.  In the context of today's event the answer is because we are us and they are them, meaning we like it when the government give us money by taking it from someone else. 

Take a look at the Jones family that hosted the event today.  According to the Environmental Working Group farm subsidy data base, Dennis Jones, whose house we were at, has received about $1.1 million in direct payments from the federal government from 1995-2006.    I don't know all of the relations, but the three Jones's of Bath, SD (including Dennis) have received a total of $2,854,635 over the same time period. That's your money into their pockets. I don't necessarily have a problem with this, but let's be honest about what is going on.  Your money is being taken from you to support someone else's way of life.  It might be a good life.  It might be one that we want to keep. But let's not lie about what we are doing.  There is no difference between subsidizing the oil industry and the agriculture industry other than the fact that farmers are popular and oilmen are not.  And yes, I have no doubt that due to the huge amounts of money in oil that that industry gets far more money from the government.

Last point.  Sen. Clinton rightly pointed out that our Defense Department struggles to get supplies where they are needed.  Let me suggest that that is not Bush Administration problem, but a massive bureaucratic problem.  She mentioned that most people who are here illegally actually came here legally, but the system lost them.  Again, rotten bureaucracy.  The VA doesn't treat its clients as well as we'd like. This might be a funding issue, but it is also a bureaucratic issue.  So the same government that can't take care of veterans, that can't get supplies to soldiers, and can't keep track of immigrants is going to provide health insurance to 300 million people?  I don't think so. 

Hillary's Speech

Here is a bit of what Sen. Clinton said. 

The prepared part of her talk was mostly about agriculture.  She began by speaking about the farm bill just passed yesterday by the House.  She appears to be a big supporter of the bill and chided Pres. Bush and Sen. McCain for arguing for a veto of the bill.  She said that saying "no" to the farm bill was saying "no" to farmers and rural communities.  She also praised the bill for having permanent disaster relief and for including country of origin labeling provisions.  She got in a good populist line by saying that we deserve to know if our apple came from New York or from China.  I guess she knows that China is a convenient whipping boy right now.  She also spoke in favor of ethanol, particularly investing in research for cellulose ethanol.  She said that the sun is the ultimate energy source, so anything that grows can be used for energy. 

She also spoke in favor of farmer's markets, high speed internet for rural communities, nutrition programs (a majority of the spending in the farm bill, she noted) and in favor of programs to get food to the hungry around the world. 

Somewhere within this discussion she mentioned that George Bush took us to war without paying for it. 

She also discussed energy policy.  I won't go into detail here.  She basically endorsed the Consumer First Energy Act that I discussed here.  She did talk about her support for relieving consumers of the federal gas tax for the summer.  She said that she'd use a windfall profits tax on the oil companies to pay for it.  She mentioned that she has gotten criticism over this proposal.  But, she said, if you don't like this idea come up with one of your own, a subtle jab at Obama. 

Next she discussed affordable health care.  She said that she endorses allowing everyone to get the same plan federal employees get, including Senators.  She said that when her Republican colleagues complain that this is socialized medicine she asks them if their own health insurance constitutes socialized medicine.  She claims this program will give better service for a lower price.  Here was another dig at Obama.  She said that people will not be easy to persuade on this issue and on other issues.  Essentially she seemed to be saying that you can't just engage in pretty talk and expect people who have vested interests in the status quo to roll over for you.  She also criticized the Obama proposal for not being universal.   

She then took some questions.  One question was from a local member of the Disable Veterans.  She said she supports fulling funding the Veterans Administration. She also mentioned that we need more work done on traumatic brain injuries, which many Iraq vets suffer from.  She brought up the body armor issue and the lack of supplies for our soldiers.  I found her quite eloquent and knowledgeable on this subject.

Another question was on illegal aliens.  She favors "comprehensive immigration reform."  Here she pretty much sounded like John McCain (or McCain sounds like her).  She is in favor of tightening the boarders and making sure that those who come legally don't overstay their welcome (my words, not hers).  She also argued for greater supervision of employers to make sure they are not hiring illegals and she said the federal government should pick up the tab when local governments must deal with illegals.  She also favors a process of getting legal status for those currently here illegally.  We can't possibly deport them all, so what should we do?  They should be made to pay a fine and back taxes. In the biggest applause line of the day she said that immigrants should be made to learn English if we are to remain "one nation under God" (her line). The main idea here was that we need to get these immigrants a legal status so they can be treated fairly by employers rather than being exploited. 

A last questioner asked something about feeding the world (he didn't have a microphone, but that appears to have been the gist of the question).  Without going into detail, Sen. Clinton expressed a desire to fund such programs at a greater amount. 

I have skipped a thing or two, but this is the important stuff she talked about today. 

Scenes From The Clinton Rally

I just got back from the rally Hillary Clinton had in Bath, just about ten miles outside of Aberdeen.  The first thing I am going to do is simply post some pictures, and if I can figure it out I'll post some video.  It was actually quite warm and Sen. Clinton was an hour late (not untypical for candidates).  Once it got started the event took about an hour.  Sen. Clinton opened with remarks largely about agriculture and energy.  She then took about four or five questions from the crowd.  After that there was a brief time to shake hands and sign some autographs and off she went. 

The bright sun threw off some of my pictures and something went wacky with the color on my video.  Either it was the sun or I hit a button I shouldn't have hit.  Any how, here are some pictures. 

Sen. Jim Hundstad segwayed over to the event. 

So did Rep. Burt Elliott:

Some people found a tractor to sit on while we waited:

And then she appeared:

And shook hands at the end:

It was clear that some people there were not from South Dakota, like this dude apparently from Sen. Clinton's staff:

"Hold On One Second Sweetie"

Obama's Coalition Problem

Ben Smith:

Barack Obama’s stinging defeat in West Virginia brings a sharp focus on the new coalition he may have to assemble to win the White House in November.

West Viginians rejected the presumptive Democratic nominee by more than a two-to-one margin, one of the widest margins of the primary season. The outcome was the predictable result of familiar demographics: West Virginia’s relatively poor white voters have been Hillary Rodham Clinton’s base since February.

In a stark rejection of Obama in a state Bill Clinton carried in 1992 and 1996, almost half of the Democratic primary voters — typically the most partisan Democrats in a state — said they’d vote for Republican John McCain rather than Obama in November.

The results also suggested a deeper dissatisfaction among the state’s Democrats with both candidates: John Edwards, who dropped out more than three months ago, registered a substantial 7 percent of the vote, though Clinton immediately used the results to make her own case for electablity.

Ceasar, Lord, Whatever

Don't you hate it when politicians try to cloak their agenda in religious language, as if to suggest that God endorses their policy preferences?  Don't you hate it when candidates make religiously exclusive claims like, "I am a committed Christian," marginalizing other faiths?  I mean, this this theocracy is anti-American.  Don't these candidates know that religion is unique in history in its ability to instigate conflict, oftentimes violent conflict.  What ever happened to the separation of church and state?  Some just don't get it.

Hillary Clinton In Aberdeen Area Tomorrow

The details:

                   Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will speak Thursday morning at Bath area farm.

Doors will open at 9 a.m. with Clinton to speak at 10:15 a.m., according to information in a press release from Clinton's campaign. Clinton will speak at Jones' Farms, 12954 396th Ave. From Bath Corner, that's roughly one mile east and four miles north, but more details will be provided later this afternoon.

   The event is being called a "Solutions for the Rural Economy" town hall.

I hope to make it to this event.  A report tomorrow. 

Obama's Loss in WV

New York Times:  "After Lopsided Loss, Obama Woos Blue-Collar Voters"

Those aren't the only ones he needs to woo:  "Obama only wins 53% of WV DEM PRIMARY VOTERS in a matchup with McCain."  As I wrote last night, the superdelegates might need to reconsider who they're backing.  Seems to me that Obama cannot gain the demographics and important states that will be needed in the general election.  However, Republicans are having problems of their own.

Ideological Affirmative Action at CU

I believe I've written before at SDP that I disagree with the premise behind ideological affirmative action in universities, but I cannot seem to find the post.  Therefore, I'd like to revisit my objections and turn to this Wall Street Journal story about the University of Colorado's plan to create a "Chair in Conservative Thought and Policy."  Excerpt:

Chancellor G.P. "Bud" Peterson surveys this landscape with unease. A college that champions diversity, he believes, must think beyond courses in gay literature, Chicano studies and feminist theory. "We should also talk about intellectual diversity," he says. So over the next year, Mr. Peterson plans to raise $9 million to create an endowed chair for what is thought to be the nation's first Professor of Conservative Thought and Policy.

Mr. Peterson's quest has been greeted with protests from some faculty and students, who say the move is too -- well, radical. "Why set aside money specifically for a conservative?" asks Curtis Bell, a teaching assistant in political science. "I'd rather see a quality academic than someone paid to have a particular perspective."

Even some conservatives who have long pushed for balance in academia voice qualms. Among them is David Horowitz, a conservative agitator whose book "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America" includes two Boulder faculty members: an associate professor of ethnic studies who writes about the intersection of Chicano and lesbian issues, and a philosophy professor focused on feminist politics and "global gender justice."

While he approves of efforts to bolster a conservative presence on campus, Mr. Horowitz fears that setting up a token right-winger as The Conservative at Boulder will brand the person as a curiosity, like "an animal in the zoo." We "fully expect this person to be integrated into the fabric of life on campus," replies Todd Gleeson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Be sure to read the rest.  As my colleagues and I have detailed before, the lack of ideological diversity in academia is a real problem.  The lack of ideological diversity causes a variety of problems, such as reducing the diversity of ideas, biasing teaching agendas, and generating a "groupthink" among an ideologically homogeneous group.   

Creating a token Conservative on the campus of Boulder is a poor solution.  This would require the university to define who is a "conservative" for affirmative action purposes.  Furthermore, hiring a "conservative" might make student think this person reflects the views of all conservatives.  Plus, hiring conservatives for their views rather than their qualifications (which may be inferior) would make it difficult for their ideas to be taken seriously by the campus body.  Therefore, the entire premise of promoting academic diversity falls through when academic debates are not meaningful.  I support improving intellectual diversity, but advocating affirmative action for conservatives is not the way to do it.

UPDATE:  CU was involved in another controversy a couple months ago over the hiring of Bruce Benson, Republican and oilman, to head the University of Colorado system.  Another thought: when you have departments like the History Department on the verge of collapse at CU, where is the $9 million coming from to create this chair?  Wouldn't the money be better spent improving the program already in place rather than promote a bad idea?

UPDATE:  Related thoughts at Phi Beta Cons.

Dumbest Generation?

Speaking of Joe K., he links to this book review of Mark Bauerlein's new work Dumbest Generation, which ponders the effect of technology on the way we learn.  See the book website. 

If the review and the book site are any indication, Bauerlein marshals all sorts of data about our under-performing students.  Question for education nerds: how much of this is caused by the fact that we don't educate as well as we used to and how much is this a statistical anomaly caused by the fact that we now educate everyone?   What I suspect is this: the top students are far worse educated now than, say, 1950.  Also, the average student is less familiar with higher culture and therefore is more culturally illiterate than was the case in decades past.  Technology plays a role in this in that it tends to emphasize the immediately stimulating over reflection and thought.  In that sense we may know more than our ancestors but understand less. 

Regarding the use of technology in education, my thoughts on "laptop education" are well known.  Interestingly, I find myself on state task force looking at this issue at the university level.  As I have a policy of not discussing my work for the state on this website I will not go into detail, but I did learn something recently at one of our meetings in Pierre.  Even those who really favor laptops in the classroom have given up arguing that it actually enhances education.  They admit that they have no proof of this.  Instead they argue that the laptop is just another piece of technology that teachers and students can use in the classroom, like the pencil or overhead projector, to enhance the learning environment.  But no additional learning will result from the use of laptops.  This is the argument of those for laptops in the classroom. 

Rethinking Our Party System

Joe Knippenberg has a thoughtful piece on what we can learn about our party system and republicansim from this presidential primary season.  This jibes quite nicely with Jay Cost's thoughts on party reform. Both notice that while we live in times of hyper-partisanship, our political parties are actually weaker than ever.   I have been arguing this for some time, so it's good to see others sharing this view.

Joe's piece is the first of a trilogy.  So look for more to come, and possibly a movie. 

I Think, Therefore I Kill

As noted below, I got an email from Vic about my Carrot Juice is Murder post.  Vic writes:

As Shakespeare might say, me thinks that the lady doth protest too much.  As Shakespeare also might say, there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.  "natural rights"?  If humans and all of the rest of life are the result of millions of years of Darwinian evolution; and thus, if humans have come out of the jungle; from where, during that lengthy and complex transition, did "natural rights" come?  Are there "natural rights" in the jungle?

 

Abortion kills, which prevents the continuation of life.  Contraception prevents the continuation of the life of eggs and sperm.  Abstinence prevents the continuation of the life of eggs and sperm.  "crackpot notions"?  "natural rights"?  Nay, Shakespeare was right when he had Hamlet say that there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.

I'll leave it to my Darwinian colleague Prof. Blanchard to discuss Darwinian natural right if he so chooses, or one can consult Larry Arnhart on the subject (see also Arnhart's blog).  Blanchard and Arnhart actually do tease out a natural rights teaching from Darwin, but I am not well versed enough in the argument to attempt to reproduce it here.  So let's leave it at "it can be done." 

Vic buys into Cartesian dualism sprinkled with a healthy dose of Nietzsche.  Regarding dualism, Vic abstracts the mind from the body, assuming that because he thinks, therefore he is.  His mind is the the "real" Vic.  Let me suggest, briefly, that my body is part of who I am, not merely a carrier for the "real me."  To violate my body is to violate me.  Simply notice how the state of your body effects the state of your mind.

Vic also elucidates a kind of Nietzschean "will to power," that a thing is true simply because I will it to be so.  I suggest that Vic step off a cliff and will a bridge to appear.  That may suggest the limits of this manner of thinking. 

Let me make a brief, and therefore incomplete, defense of natural rights.  As a human being I have natural desires for self-preservation and to provide for myself.  I recognize in others a similar natural desire. If we all act as the beasts Vic proclaims us to be, then none of us get much security or commodious living.  So I recognize for me to attain security I must recognize that others deserve what I want for myself.  Demanding the preservation of myself, I take on the duty to recognize that same claim in others.  That is one origin of the right to life, and it is derived from natural wants and desires.  We then institute government to protect that right.  This is some of the thinking behind the Declaration of Independence (for further discussion, see Michael Zuchart's fine Natural Rights Republic).

Vic also lowers humans to the level of animals, assuming that the "law of the jungle" is also the law of man  (and even the Law of the Jungle may be more civilized than Vic).  One could point out that, unlike the lower animals, humans have the capacity for reason.  This gives them a dignity that lower animals do not have.  We are not brutes, but rational thinking creatures capable of cultivation by civilization.  We can reason from this that man's purpose is precisely to think and improve himself both materially and intellectually.  The cow's purpose is to be eaten; Vic's purpose is to think.  We can extrapolate from this a kind of natural right: it is not man's nature to be used as a thing by others as is the cow's nature. 

Or we can go to Christianity and notice that man alone is created in God's image.  God has given us the capacity to know transcendental truths, a knowledge he has kept from lower animals.   This gives human life an inherent dignity that the beasts are denied.  That might be one reason why God condemns murder. 

Vic brings Shakespeare's Hamlet to his aid.  But Hamlet was not knows for his perspicaciousness. Let me suggest that another Shakespearean character is a better guide.  When one rejects natural right one gets Lady Macbeth:

I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.

From The Mailbag

Good emails coming in, so let's respond to some. 

Reader JR, in response to this post on the SDCAC and privacy, writes:

When you contemplate why conservatives may prefer to keep their contributions private please consider the case of Steve Kirby. The radical left more and more is resorting to threats and intimidation against anyone they can identify as an enemy.

True.  And let's not pretend that such tactics are limited to the "radical left."  This is why I mentioned the legitimate interest in keeping one's political activities private.  In making that argument, frankly, I was stealing from Chief Justice Warren Burger's opinion in Buckley v. Valeo. 

Reader Chris sends along this link defending ethanol from my critiques.  Let me point out that I got almost the exact same thing as a pamphlet from the ethanol lobby at our country fair last year.  Let me suggest that Chris's website is not exactly objective.  I have linked to two independent studies showing a link between ethanol subsidies and rising food prices.  But readers can investigate on their own and draw their own conclusions.

Reader Vic gave a substantive rebuttal to my Carrot Juice Is Murder post from yesterday.  I'll respond to that in a separate post. 

Obama & Clinton, West Virginia and South Dakota

Over the last couple of days, I have spent a lot of time on the phone with various reporters discussing the impending visits of the two wings of the Democratic Party.  Clinton will visit Aberdeen on Thursday.  Obama, I gather, will appear somewhere in the "Watertown area," Friday morning, and in Sioux Falls Friday night.  What does this say about the strategies of each campaign?

The last poll taken in South Dakota showed Obama 10 points ahead of Senator Clinton.  But those results were announced back in April, and a lot of muddy water has gone down the Big Jim River since then.  If I had to guess, I would guess that Obama figures to lose South Dakota.  He is showing up to show that he isn't just writing off the rural states.  If I were him, I would skip the Watertown trip, and instead visit Cabelas in Mitchell.  A few photos of him buying a pair of hip waders, and sipping coffee with the locals would be just the thing.  It is the Cabelas demographic he is having trouble with.

Senator Clinton, by contrast, wants to win South Dakota, and by a lot.  She just flattened Senator Obama in West Virgina by 41 points.  Forty one points.  Two hundred and twenty-four thousand to eighty-six thousand, rounded off, is the kind of defeat only Dennis Kucinich could be proud of. Clinton would like to repeat that sort of victory in our state, or as near to it as she can get.  What is she playing for?

There are three logically possible goals for Ms. Clinton to shoot at.  One is the Democrats will panic at the poor showing of Obama in these states, and the super delegates will abandon his ship and anoint her. That hope is all but gone.  It is very hard to imagine that the Democrats will take the nomination away from the first Black candidate who won it fair and square.  A second goal is the Veep Stakes.  She may want on the ticket.  Having half the Democratic electorate behind her, and everyone with a couple Cabelas catalogs laying around the living room, gives her a good claim; but there is a lot of evidence to suggest that this is not in the cards.   

Lastly, she may have her eyes on 2012.  If Obama loses in November, she can say: "you should'a nominated me!"  She will be well-positioned to get the nomination next time, with the only disadvantage that she has plenty of time to blow it. 

In the meantime, South Dakota gets a little attention.  As it happens, I will be visiting Tennessee Williams this week, so Mondak will have to tell me how it went. 

Clinton Takes West Virginia

McClatchy asks the key question:  Clinton scores big win in W.Va., but does it matter?

UPDATE:  Clinton slammed Obama by thirty-five points.

SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE WEST VIRGINIA WIN:  I've been poking around at some data tonight to see what sort of picture is coming out of West Virginia tonight.  The press declared this race over last week and, after tonight, you'll see the narrative from Obama supporters and the media (but I repeat myself) say the results mean nothing.  However, the superdelegates ought to be on edge.  Important demographics -- white working-class voters, the elderly, Catholics, Jews -- just have not gotten behind Obama.  And this demographic has been the core of the Democratic Party for decades.  Liberal bloggers and the media like to respond that Hillary Clinton's supporters are racists (see this Washington Post story; anyone else feel that one or two claims of racism was twisted into a large expose?), but if Obama cannot carry key demographics, then how is he going to perform in November?  Obama just can't seem to gain traction in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, which will be key for the general election.

Hillary still has a daunting challenge ahead of her in the delegate and superdelegate counts.  However, that Obama hasn't made any significant traction among important demographics might mean we see superdelegates switching sides yet again.  Superdelegates are not obligated to vote for the candidate they express support for (see Joe Andrews), and seeing landslide victories like Clinton picked up tonight might reinvigorate the campaign.

Additional thoughts from Andrew Sullivan, Taylor Marsh, Hot Air, DKos, Red State, Jerome Armstrong, Stephen Green, Townhall, Slublog, South Dakota Moderate, and Comments from Left Field.

MORE:  Matthew Yglesias: 

Her campaign is rescued from the dead. As the Clinton campaign sagely points out "no Democrat has won the White House without winning West Virginia since 1916" and therefore Obama’s primary loss shows that despite his large lead in the polls over John McCain, he can’t possible win the election. 

What’s even more interesting is that no Democrat has won the White House without carrying Minnesota since 1912 (it went for Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose party) so given that Obama won Minnesota and Clinton won West Virginia, McCain is guaranteed to win the general election unless the eventual nominee can somehow completely replicate the social and political conditions prevailing in pre-WWI America."

YET MORE:  Talkleft:  "The Democrats need PA and Ohio. Hillary can win those states and other big swing and toss-up states. Barack Obama's ability to win them is unknown. He's untested. Hillary may have shown him how to be a stronger candidate, but she can't guide him to the finish line, no matter how hard she campaigns for him if he's the nominee"

Clinton To Aberdeen?

Hillary Clinton may make an appearance in Aberdeen on Thursday.  Thank goodness we didn't move our primary up or we'd be getting ignored by candidates.  It appears Obama is not coming to Aberdeen:

It appears that Barack Obama, the other leading Democratic presidential candidate, will not visit Aberdeen, although his campaign has yet to release details of his Friday visit to South Dakota. Reports have him stopping in Watertown and Sioux Falls.

West Virginia Coverage

PJM will be providing continuous coverage all day long.

Also, Marc Ambinder has the Atlantic's electoral map that's worth checking out.  Related thoughts at Hot Air.

Carrot Juice Is Murder

Ryan Anderson at First Things gives a detailed account of a recent Princeton debate over the value of human life.  Put this down as a must read. 

Anderson begins with a quote from Princeton philosophy professor Elizabeth Harman comparing an unborn human with plant life, an attempt to make the point that the unborn humans have no rights.  Meanwhile in Switzerland they are actually debating whether plants have rights. 

As Anderson points out, one thing the three pro-choice philosophers have in common is the belief that there is nothing inherently valuable in human life.  Anderson writes:

It was instructive to witness the ease with which various speakers could embrace infanticide or dehumanize unborn life—recall Harman’s argument that unborn children “really are a lot like plants.” But even more instructive was how unalarmed many in the Princeton audience seemed to be by any of this. I had forgotten that, for more than a few in the academic elite, this is just par for the course.

This is indeed instructive.  One should not discount how thoroughly natural rights thinking has been discarded by the academics and how comfortable many of our elite ethicists are with infanticide and euthanasia.  Consider the fact that this is the elite which sets the intellectual tone and teaches our best and brightest.  In a trickle-down theory of ideas it isn't long before the crackpot notions of the elite become the common opinion of the average educated person.  I have noted many times that we already have had a presidential candidate, John Kerry, who buys into the notion that humans do not have rights; it is "persons."  Thus Kerry justifies the killing of humans he does not consider persons, namely the unborn.  Recall that Kerry claims to subscribe to the Catholic teaching that human life begins at conception.  It's just that Kerry thinks it is "personhood," not humanity, that has worth.  This is an example of elite philosophy trickling down into our common politics.  Is it any wonder that we are horrified by the euthanizing of a horse yet allow the aborting of the unborn simply because they are inconvenient? 

An audience member appears to have had more wisdom than some of the panelists:

When it comes to bioethics, much is at stake for the foundations of our political life. At the end of the panel, one questioner expressed this well. If we redefine our founding principle so as to exclude those without consciousness or rationality from an inalienable right to life, he asked, what is to keep others from redefining it again to exclude those who aren’t morally upright (as he thought the “radical right” might do) or who aren’t religiously upright (as he thought radical Islam would dictate)? At this time in our national and world history, he wondered, shouldn’t we be uniting around the principle of the Declaration of Independence?

Hear, hear. 

And in honor of the vegetable rights story mentioned above, I offer the brilliant Arrogant Worms and their classic Carrot Juice Is Murder.  Little did they know that their parody might someday become reality.

Obama May Visit Aberdeen

The American News reports:

Aberdeen is on a list of cities presidential candidate Barack Obama could visit during a Friday trip to South Dakota, Mayor Mike Levsen said Monday.

Meanwhile, the manager of the Sioux Falls airport said the Obama campaign has told airport officials in the state's largest community to expect a 5 p.m. Friday landing. (snip)

Mike Marnach, Sioux Falls Regional Airport manager, said Obama's campaign called last week and told officials to expect an evening visit.

Marnach said he didn't know of other potential stops in the state, but that a morning visit to Aberdeen and an evening visit to Sioux Falls would work well enough from a scheduling standpoint. And, he pointed out, former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., is an Aberdeen native and works closely with the Obama campaign, so an Aberdeen visit would make sense.

Pheasants: The New Dakota Gold

From the AP:

The GF&P said the 180,828 resident and nonresident hunters spent an estimated $219 million during the 2007 season on motels, food, gas, ammunition and other things. The estimated harvest was 2,123,000 birds.

The department based its calculation on formulas from a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey in 2006 and adjusted it for an annual inflation rate of 3 percent.

Nonresident hunters outnumbered resident hunters 103,050 to 77,778 in 2007. They also outspent residents better than 4 to 1 - $178.5 million by nonresidents and $40.5 million by residents.

The top five counties in total spending were: Brown, $15.9 million spent, 12,735 hunters; Beadle, $13.6 million, 10,277 hunters; Spink, $11.9 million, 8,921 hunters; Tripp, $9.8 million, 6,545 hunters; and Brule, $9.6 million, 6,804 hunters.

Can You Eat Ethanol?

Surely Rep. Herseth-Sandlin is correct that its the damned oil companies who are raising a stink about ethanol:

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., blamed the oil industry and oil-producing states like Texas for re-igniting the controversy [over ethanol].

"The petroleum industry had to be pulled, kicking and screaming, to blend any amount of ethanol into their gasoline," Herseth Sandlin said.

Except that she is wrong:

Ethanol is to blame for some of the increase in the price of corn to $6 a bushel from $2 a bushel two years ago, according to a new study by University of Wisconsin agribusiness professor Randy Fortenberry and graduate student Hwanil Park.

The study looked at the rise in corn prices paid to farmers from September 2006 to December 2007. It found that 31 percent of the total price increase was related to ethanol production. The remainder was linked to a combination of other factors - increased demand for food from developing countries, the shrinking value of the dollar and commodities speculators.

Couple this with this previously mentioned study and at minimum the preponderance of evidence is that our ethanol policy is a significant contributor to higher food prices.  And we wouldn't want to reject the judgment of science, would we?    

Obama and American Jews

A lot of attention has been paid to Barack Obama's weakness among White males and especially rural voters.  The Washington Times notes another group of voters among whom Obama might be in trouble. 

The latest Gallup polls show that in a contest with Mr. McCain, Mr. Obama would secure 61 percent of the Jewish vote to the Republican's 32 percent. In 2004 and 2006 elections, by contrast, Jewish voters favored the Democratic Party by a 75 percent to 25 percent margin. This suggests that support for the Democratic Party standard-bearer among Jews could be approaching its lowest levels in decades. The Republicans' best showing was achieved by Ronald Reagan in 1980, when he won 40 percent of the Jewish vote.

How much does that matter? 

Jews comprise just 2 percent of the American population. But they could play a large role in a close election because they are geographically concentrated and are more likely than other groups to turn out to vote. States with large Jewish populations — such as California, New York, Florida and New Jersey — account for 128 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win. Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio also have large numbers of Jewish voters. Consider two states: Florida, a critical swing state, has 400,000 Jewish voters and Pennsylvania 200,000. In these states, a shift among Jews from one party to the other can determine the overall final result.

American Jews have been loyal Democrats for a number of reasons, including liberal policy inclinations and recently a concern for conservative Protestant influence in the Republican Party.  But we live in interesting times.  Today right wing Evangelicals are strong supporters of Israel.  The American left, like the European left, see Israel as a "rogue state".  And then there are African Americans, who might be the most antisemitic of America's racial/ethnic groups.

Barack Obama has two problems.  The first is that many of his policy advisers have been typical anti-Israel leftists.  This created an opening for John McCain:

On Friday, Robert Malley, an Obama advisor, resigned from the senator's campaign as reports surfaced that he had met with the terrorist group Hamas. Last month, Hamas political advisor Ahmad Yousef said on WABC Radio in New York that he hoped Mr. Obama would be elected president. Mr. McCain said Hamas would never want him to be president, "so if Mr. Obama is favored by Hamas, I think people can make judgments accordingly."

The second, of course, is the fallout from the Wright affair.  Reverend Wright found it necessary to defend his support of Louis Farrakhan  by comparing it to Nelson Mandela's loyalty to Castro!  That is a lot of baggage to be carrying, as Obama courts voters in Florida. 

A Certain Type of Academic Mindset

David Berstein: "Not that this mindset is limited to academics, of course, nor, do most academics have such juvenile ideas regarding politics, but it's sufficiently common in academia that it's little wonder that bright young conservatives will think twice before going into the academy and potentially putting their career fates into the hands of those who think that they are presumptively 'hateful,' 'lunatics,' who are not 'sane' and are attempting to thwart all that is good and just."

MORE:  "There are lots of methodologies and modes of thought that are widely acceptable within at least some circles of academia, but would strike an uninitiated outside observer as nonsensical, academically dishonest, or otherwise discreditable."

Obama Blames the Staff

Jake Tapper:  "For those keeping track at home, that's ten instances of Obama publicly blaming his staff for various screw-ups."  Read the whole thing.

Obama To South Dakota

The report:

Now it's Barack Obama's turn.

Following a stop last Thursday by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for a few hours at the Sioux Falls airport for a rally, rival and front-runner Obama will make his first visit of the campaign to South Dakota, the state party said this afternoon.

Party legislative director Matt McLarty confirmed Obama will come to the state Friday, but no other details were immediately known.

Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, campaigned for her on Saturday in Rapid City.

The South Dakota primary is June 3.

Clinton Leads Obama in Kentucky Polls

Lexington Herald-Leader:

U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton enters the final week before Kentucky’s May 20 Democratic presidential primary with a commanding 27 percentage point lead over U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, a new poll shows.

She leads the Illinois senator 58 percent to 31 percent, with 11 percent uncommitted, according to a Herald-Leader/WKYT Kentucky Poll of 500 probable Democratic voters.

But either Democratic candidate would trail the expected Republican nominee, John McCain, in the state by double digits if the November general election were held today, reveals a companion survey of 600 likely voters from all parties.

The results reinforce the expectation that Obama will lose Kentucky, even as he seems on the verge of securing the Democratic nomination.

UPDATE:  Oops.  I've realized my math was wrong.  I'm in the process of trying to re-tally everything, so I apologize if I mislead anyone.

TALKLEFT:  64% of Dems want Hillary to stay in the race.

UPDATE:  All right, after a bit if deeper research I've reformulated some of my thinking.  First off, it's clear that Obama is leading in the popular vote, the number of states, pledged delegates, and superdelegates.  Obama is 150 delegates away from securing the nomination (the magic number is 2,025), while Clinton needs 330.  Mathematically, the numbers are not in Clinton's favor.  However, that doesn't mean it's over.  Superdelegates are not obligated to maintain support of their candidate (see Joe Andrews).  If the superdelegates begin to see that Obama will have a hard time in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and other states against John McCain, then the superdelegates can put the brakes on his limp towards the nomination and push Clinton ahead instead.  And there's little doubt that Clinton is just going to walk away.  If Clinton wins West Virginia with the projected advantage the media has her at, then the party might start to worry that he cannot get the job done in November. 

Congress Considering Homeowner Bailout

The Wall Street Journal reports this morning in a story entitled "Democrats Face Rescue Backlash" that voters are getting fed up with government intervention in the market.  When Congress and the President decided to bail out the lending industry (which, of course, has lead to more calls for bail outs), some conservatives warned that government was taking too large of a role in the market.  Congress is now attempting to use taxpayer money to bail homeowners out of mortgages they could never afford (the WSJ says "who can no longer afford their mortgages," but they never could afford them to begin with, which is why we're in this mess). 

Much of this is election year pandering.  Government has no role to guarantee freedom from investment risk.  If people make foolish investment choices, they need to be prepared to suffer financial loss.  The market will take care of itself -- financial failures will drop prices in the short run, houses will be purchased by qualified buyers under smart lending terms, and long run stability returns.  However, for the presidential candidates to suggest this scenario on national television would be political suicide.  No matter how one rationalizes this (market forces, heartless policies, intervention important for banking stability) people will expect government assistance to avoid foreclosures.

Many of us, including all of us on this blog, were wary about federal action in the Bear Stearns case.  Now Congress has set a precedent that allows it to consider forcing Americans to pay off the mortgages  of those who made bad choices.  Politicians today don't seem to care about free markets, private property rights, and personal liberty for people to succeed or fail on their own.  Rather than personal responsibility and protection for taxpayers, the theme rests upon guarantees for bad investments.  The subprime mess was created by two groups, lenders and borrowers.  They should bear the responsibilities of fixing the problem.