The Lesser Evil

Sometimes we have to settle for the lesser of two evils. In the case of airline security, profiling is nasty because it stigmatizes all members of certain groups for the misbehavior of a small minority of those groups. So be it. Folks blowing up airliners is worse.

Hassling 80 year old white-haired grandmothers in the name of treating everyone equally is not sensible, and not a good use of our limited resources. See this article from Commentary in which Michael Totten makes this point very well. Having TSA personnel pay more attention to young men and women of groups likely to be Islamic, even though most such have no violent intent, makes sense.

Travel Blogging Alert

COTTonLINE will be on TDY for the next month or so. Postings will be sporadic, depending on Internet availability. We will be wandering about the Orient, our first visit for 20 years. It should be very interesting.

I wish you a Happy New Year. As you make your resolutions for 2010, resolve to do your part to bring about a change in the composition and leadership of the Congress in November.

I'll admit the Republicans did a lousy job the last time they had control, if you'll admit the Democrats have done a lousy job this time. We need to keep punishing those in charge until they start doing a good job. "Good job" being defined as not spending so much of our money.

POWs

It turns out individuals we've held at Guantanamo and released are causing trouble for us after being released. See this Washington Post article. Recidivism? Yes, it says we were holding the right guys after all.

The major question is why they were released. I cannot fathom why we don't call them prisoners of The Long War who will be released when the war is over, if it ever is. If we planned to keep them until hostilities are over, probably most would die of old age before hostilities cease. We know turning them loose doesn't work, so keeping Guantanamo open and them in custody makes sense.

The Awful Aughts

I'm running across a label for the years 2000-2009 that I like: the Awful Aughts. A decade that begins with 9/11 and ends with recession and the government screwing up health care can fairly be called "awful."

A Google search reveals the earliest usage is this April, 2003, article by Paul R. La Monica on CNNMoney.com. It says:

The stock [Netflix] has been a rarity of the financial markets so far during these awful Aughts, a successful Internet IPO.

Barring discovery of an earlier source, I will give credit for the phrase to La Monica.

Merry Christmas

Gentle readers, I wish you all a very merry Christmas and, as I may not get the chance to blog a week from today, a happy New Year.

As you make your New Year's resolutions, remember to resolve to do your part to bring about a change in the composition and leadership of the Congress in November.

Thoughts on War

British Captain John Tonkin, quoted in a World War II memoir by Paul Fussell called The Boys' Crusade:

I have always felt that the Geneva Convention is a dangerous piece of stupidity, because it leads people to believe that war can be civilized. It can't.

My source for this quotation is an article by Warren Kozak in The Wall Street Journal entitled "The Real Rules of War." This article isn't uplifting but it is very much worth your time.

World Economy Underwater

My favorite military commentator, Ralph Peters of the New York Post, takes a look at the global economy in the year ahead and reaches dreary conclusions. I'm not sure he is as sound in economics as he is in strategy and tactics, but he is always worth reading.

I suspect Peters' evaluation of the Chinese economy as hollow, as a Ponzi scheme, is more accurate than the evaluations of those who expect China to take over the world. We believed Japan Inc. would take over the world and instead it imploded. Don't be surprised if China does the same. China doesn't have the institutional robustness to manage their way out of the bubble they are in.

The Nelson Effect

Senators will pass Obamacare later today, and grab the next plane home. They aren't due back in Washington for three weeks. In addition to spending the holidays with their families, I expect them to spend time visiting with their constituents.

While they are at home they will be asked "How come Ben Nelson got that sweet deal for his state and you didn't get it for us?" By holding out Nelson got us to pick up increased Medicare costs for his Nebraska voters.

I fully expect the other 98 senators to come back to Washington telling Harry Reid that their voters insist they must have the Nelson subsidy for their state too. Of course, when everybody has a subsidy, nobody has a subsidy.

Couldn't Nelson see this coming? All a general Medicare subsidy will do is further rupture the federal budget, and make Obamacare even more expensive than it already is.

I keep hoping our U.S. ship of state has enough inertia to keep moving in spite of the losers at the helm. I wish all COTTonLINE readers a Merry Christmas and a New Year with a happy ending in early November.

New Low in Approval Index

Today we have that new low in the Presidential Approval Index rating, it is down to -21. The details: Strongly Approve (25%) and Strongly Disapprove (46%). As the Rasmussen Report says today:

That’s the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President.

Perhaps even more interesting is this fact: more respondents Strongly Disapprove (46%) than Approve plus Strongly Approve (19% + 25% = 44%).

Fighter pilots call the sort of crash the President is doing "auguring in." In other words, trying to bore a hole in the ground with the nose of your plane. Someone needs to tell POTUS that the plane suffers more than the ground.

WH Attitude Signal

Pushing Obamacare when most voters don't want it reflects what attitude, Mr. President?

Hat tip to Lucianne.com for the picture.

Strong Disapproval Up

Today's Rasmussen Report Presidential Approval Index is at -17, not a record low for this President. However, Obama continues to irritate folks:

Today’s update show the highest level of Strong Disapproval yet recorded for this President.

To what does Rasmussen attribute this increase in vehement disapproval?

The Senate is preparing to pass health care reform legislation initiated by the President and opposed by most voters. That latest Rasmussen Reports tracking, released earlier today, shows that 41% support the health care legislation and 55% are opposed.

Bad Dog!

Both the French and Brits love their dogs. Go see this Agence France-Presse article which maintains that a pet dog has twice the carbon footprint of a 4x4 SUV. The original research comes from New Zealand, and was replicated in Britain.

Try comparing the utility of a dog and an SUV, apples and oranges. Dogs provide company to lonely people, SUVs provide safe transportation. Both are important, but in completely different ways and perhaps to different groups of people. I love it!

Ben Nelson For Sale

You know the old joke about the fellow who asks a female acquaintance if she'll have sex with him for a million dollars. She replies "Yes." Then he asks how about for a quarter? To which she replies in shock "What do you think I am? His answer is "We've already established you're a whore, we're just negotiating over price."

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) just showed us he was for sale, and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) met his price. Turns out Nelson's pious concern about abortion was just a bargaining ploy. This Associated Press story reflects some of the fallout.

As a result of Nelson selling himself, taxpayers in Nebraska will get a break that other states' taxpayers won't. No wonder Americans don't trust Congress.

Solstice Greetings

Today is the Winter Solstice, the day when the nights quit getting longer and begin getting shorter. It is also, of course, the first day of winter.

I have to wonder why it took the calendar so long to catch up with the weather. Our nation's capital is snowed in along with most of the Midwest and East. It must be that darned global warming at work.

The Silver Lining

Megan McArdle, who blogs for The Atlantic, has an interesting take on the impending passage of the health care bill, which she admits will probably work out well for her and her family:

Democrats are on a political suicide mission; I'm not a particularly accurate prognosticator, but I think this makes it very likely that in 2010 they will lost several seats in the Senate--enough to make it damn hard to pass any more of their signature legislation--and will lose the house outright.

If she is right, this is the silver lining of the dark cloud.

Neologism Alert

James Delingpole, writing in the U.K.'s Telegraph.co.uk about the recent climate fiasco in Copenhagen, making particular reference to all the neocoms cheering Hugo Chavez:

Copenhagen was worth it, after all – if only for the sphincter-bursting rage its supposed failure has caused among our libtard watermelon chums. (That’s watermelon, as in: green on the outside, red on the inside).

I particularly like that imagery: green on the outside, red on the inside. Give Delingpole credit for this definition of "watermelon."

Communism died in fact, if not in name, in most of the places formally committed to it: China, Vietnam, Laos, Russia, Eastern Europe, etc. Everywhere except North Korea and Cuba has largely given up on the socialism part of Communism.

Communism in fact, if not in name, is springing up again, this time in Latin America. That makes its exponents - Hugo Chavez, Danny Ortega, Evo Morales, and Raphael Correa - "neocoms."

A Google search doesn't show anybody using the term so I provisionally claim authorship of the neologism "neocom."

Quote of the Day

Nat Hentoff, being interviewed by John W. Whitehead, for an online journal called oldSpeak:

I try to avoid hyperbole, but I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had.

That Hentoff fella doesn't pull his punches, although he appears to have committed hyperbole. So far I see Obama as another Jimmy Carter; one with a better tailor, trainer, and accent but the same tin ear.

California = Argentina

William Voegeli, being quoted in Power Line, about the sad thing that California has become:

Rome wasn't sacked in a day, and California didn't become Argentina overnight. Its acquired incapacity to manage its own affairs has been a long, complicated story, with many contributing factors rather than a single villain or tragic flaw.

Just about every resident bears some of the blame.

Most Voters Dislike Health Care Bill

Our favorite pollster, Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports, has been asking voters about their views of the health care reform bill pending in the U.S. Senate. In poll data reported December 18 he finds:

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of voters nationwide say that it would be better to pass no health care reform bill this year instead of passing the plan currently being considered by Congress. (snip) Just 34% think that passing that bill would be better.

This finding isn't too surprising; folks are relatively happy with their health insurance from work and, even in this recession, most folks are working. Rasmussen finds:

Most Americans now believe they will be worse off if reform passes. Fifty-four percent (54%) hold that view while just 25% believe they would be better off.

His conclusion about this Congressional bill:

Most voters believe passage will increase the cost of health care and decrease the quality.

Good News

The battle against cancer just passed an important milestone, see this article from Agence France-Presse. It reports the genetic mapping of two common forms of cancer: lung and skin.

This breakthrough is expected to have important implications for diagnosis and treatment of these cancers. I suspect it also means we are not so terribly far from mapping the genetic makeup of other killer cancers.

Some day we will look back on the use of chemotherapy and be horrified that we poisoned people in the hope of killing their cancers before we killed the patients. Ditto with radiation.