People Favor Cuts

CBS News releases poll data which shows Americans prefer cutting government services to raising taxes, as a means to reduce the deficit. Higher taxes are opposed two to one: 65% opposed to 33% in favor. COTTonLINE has advocated cutting the size of government for some time. Rather than incremental cuts, we advocate eliminating entire federal cabinet-level departments.

We have suggested that Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, and Education could all "go south." We argue that farmers would farm in the absence of a Department of Agriculture, trains, trucks, and planes would travel without a Department of Transportation, local districts would run schools, etc. You get the idea.

On the other hand we absolutely believe in the regulatory function of government. Government is our referee in the game of life, think of black and white striped shirts blowing whistles and throwing flags. That means we support the necessity of anti-trust legislation and control, drug approval via the FDA, requiring airlines to be safe via the FAA, keeping our air and water clean via the EPA, etc. We need the Bernie Madoffs caught and imprisoned.

The regulatory aspects of the former departments could be collected into a smaller number of streamlined units. Furthermore, I see no reason why the Department of Defense shouldn't handle what is now the function of the Department of Veterans' Affairs. In short, we believe the federal government could be substantially smaller and less costly.

Here's a Good Idea

Make the loser in a lawsuit pay the legal costs of the winner - that should shut down most frivolous lawsuits. It's the idea described in this article in The Daily Caller. Trial lawyers will hate it.

The article suggests Texas Governor Rick Perry wants Texas to adopt the system. If it happens, watch the flow of jobs to Texas double or triple. Hard working people will move to Texas to work while Texas trial lawyers will move elsewhere to sue, talk about your good trade-offs. Texas wins on both ends of that deal.

Quote of the Day

The late William Odom, former director of the National Security Agency, in a recently released interview given in 2003, long after he left office:

The CIA currently doesn't work for anyone. It thinks it works for the president, but it doesn't and it's out of control.

AOL News is the source of this quote. It isn't clear whether he was referring to 1988 when he last was NSA Director or 2003 when he was interviewed, I presume the latter. Admiral Odom was generous with his criticism.

Tunisia the First Domino?

The people of Tunisia just chased their long-time, unelected President out of the country. I'm guessing this hasn't happened recently in the Arab world; a place where most leaders are some type of autocrat. Go here to see a Washington Post article about Tunisia's president fleeing.

Now my question is this: Will what happened in Tunisia catch on elsewhere across North Africa and through the Middle East? Many of that region's autocrats are sleeping poorly tonight, and tomorrow will be checking their Swiss bank accounts.

The problem with such popular uprisings is that the new government may be much less friendly to the U.S., if for example that new government is a Taliban-like Islamist regime.

Weird Science from Japan

Is there something strange in the water? According to this article from The Telegraph (U.K.), over a third of young Japanese men are not interested in sex. That's fellows aged 16 to 19, an age when healthy young men should be interested in little else. The article also says forty percent of married Japanese are avoiding sex.

This survey data comes from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. I wonder if there is something in the Japanese culture that says you don't admit an interest in sex to the government?

Freedom Wanes

Stand by for one of the saddest quotes you will read this year. It comes from an AFP article via Breitbart:

Global freedom declined for a fifth straight year in 2010. (snip) The Washington-based Freedom House said it had documented the longest continuous period of decline since it began compiling the annual index nearly 40 years ago.

If that isn't a warning to stay vigilant, I've never seen one. A substantial part of this freedom decline is in Latin America, a place where this tendency has a sad history.

Palin's Magic Touch

Irish poet and playwright Brendan Behan famously said, "There is no such thing as bad publicity except my own obituary." Sarah Palin operates on this wavelength. Whatever she comments on, the story ends up being about her.

For example, Palin commented on the Arizona shootings as did virtually every other politician and person in public life in North America. Unlike most other commentators, she immediately became a focus of the story. Here's an article by Pat Buchanan defending her comments and another in which Assistant Democratic House leader Rep. Clyburn criticizes her statements - these are only two of many on both sides, about her.

The important question is "Will nonstop free media be a blessing or a curse for Sarah Palin?" Time will tell; to date her negatives remain high. On the other hand, almost every American knows her name, her face, her family, and where she stands. Imagine how much a Pawlenty or a Daniels would have to spend to create the same awareness.

Korea Watch

Andrei Lankov, a resident scholar in South Korea, believes the tea leaves are predicting more trouble in the Korean peninsula in 2011. See his article in the Asia Times. I happen to think his reasoning isn't bad.

He expects the North, whose blackmailing strategy isn't working very well at the moment, to escalate pressure on the South. The South is showing unusual backbone, and may well retaliate with some vigor. It is not impossible this tit-for-tat could evolve into a war.

A Good Speech

President Obama is capable of giving a good speech, and he gave one in Tucson at the memorial for the individuals shot there. To me the speech had a Reaganesque feeling, describing the personal lives of people who were shot.

The President resisted the impulse to assign blame, doing exactly what he needed to do. There has been far too much assigning of blame done already by the irresponsible media, mainstream and otherwise.

I didn't watch the speech being given, but I have read the prepared remarks and you can do the same at this CBS News site.

Lebanon Govt. Falls

Hezbollah and its allies have pulled out of the ruling coalition in Lebanon, causing the government to fall. Now there will be a protracted period of political scrambling to reassemble a coalition with enough votes to govern. It may also lead to armed bloodshed in the streets, as Hezbollah has the most armed men in Lebanon.

The issue triggering this crisis is the impending release, by a U.N. backed tribunal, of indictments concerning the assassination of Rafik al-Hariri, father of the current Prime Minister, Saad al-Hariri. The expectation is that Hezbollah will be named in those indictments, either as assassin or as accessory to Syria. Hezbollah is unwilling to peacefully allow this to happen, hence the Lebanese government falls and fighting may ensue.

Lebanon's multi-group coalition government is the closest thing to a multi-party democracy extant in the Arab world, if you exclude Iraq's U.S.-imposed parliamentary system. Go here to read a Reuters article about the situation.

Food Shortages

This article in Foreign Policy predicts food prices will rise and so will shortages of food. The reasons are the ones you already know: too many mouths to feed, too little water to irrigate, crops being diverted for vehicle fuel.

If you believe this article reports a real problem, it could suggest several winning investments. For example, crop futures might pay off handsomely.

Turkish Inside Baseball

Turkey was a U.S. ally throughout the Cold War era. Now we watch it slide away into one-party rule and active collaboration with the likes of Iran.

This article from The Daily Star of Lebanon does a relatively comprehensive job of showing how this unfortunate process has come about. It is interesting to see how a well-meaning effort to avoid the fragmented governments with which Israel and Italy suffer has unintentionally put Turkey on a slippery slope to one-party rule.

Turkey will fit into its Middle Eastern neighborhood better as a one-party state. It isn't a region known for multi-party electoral politics as we understand the concept.

Widespread Suburbanization

Here is some interesting demographic/geographic science from New Geography concerning the continuing process of suburbanization in many places around the world. Conversely, it can be seen as the pooling of the poor in older urban centers.

One place where this doesn't seem to much happen is in France. In France the affluent prefer to live in the city and their bidding up the prices of urban dwellings drives the poor out to suburbs called banlieues. As always, the French march to their own eccentric drummer.

Gates' Opponents

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been trying to re-engineer the defense capacities of the U.S. to make our military more relevant to the types of challenges he believes are faced today. He is likely to step down soon, but his successor is likely to pursue the same policies.

Meanwhile, the armament build-up of China may lend weight to the views of those who oppose Gates' plans. Gates has been reorganizing to oppose low-level asymmetric warfare from Islamic sources.

If we must oppose China, that is a quite different matter. China brings to the table an enormous military which is best opposed with exactly the sort of high-tech, high impact weapon systems which Gates has sought to terminate. See this BBC News article for more information.

Brooks: MSM Shamelessly Irresponsible

David Brooks, writing for The New York Times, hits just the right note with regard to the Arizona shootings. For example, he says:

I have no love for Sarah Palin, and I like to think I’m committed to civil discourse. But the political opportunism occasioned by this tragedy has ranged from the completely irrelevant to the shamelessly irresponsible.

Having dealt with the media's fecklessness, Brooks asks three very relevant questions raised by this tragedy:

How can we more aggressively treat mentally ill people who are becoming increasingly disruptive? How can we prevent them from getting guns? Do we need to make involuntary treatment easier for authorities to invoke?

This good article is worth your time.

Thunderstorm Anti-Matter

Go see this fascinating report of the Fermi space telescope picking up anti-matter bursts generated in thunderstorms here on Earth. Not much matter is involved, merely positrons, the anti- version of electrons. The article is from BBC News and the science report is from the American Astronomical Society meeting.

How We Treat Our Help

There is an old saying about judging the character of a person by how they treat their help. Have some fun at the expense of the Germans. Go see this Daily Mail book review of a tell-all by a Polish gal who went to Germany to work as a cleaning lady.

She says Germans weren't all that nice to work for. On the other hand, Poles have lots of historical reason not to love the Germans.

Her experiences sound like a watered-down version of how oil-rich Arabs treat the Bangladeshis and Malaysians who work for them. At least she wasn't tortured, raped or killed.

Afghan Pedophilia 2.0

On December 20, 2010, we wrote of the prevalence of pedophilia among Afghans, particularly the dominant Pashtuns. Here we see Daniel Goldman, who writes for the Asia Times as Spengler, doing a column on the topic of Afghan men having sex with young boys. To some degree he views the practice being widespread in Islamic countries.

Imagine fighting and dying for a country which enshrines a practice for which we imprison people. Instead of combat brigades, why don't we exile our pedophiles to Afghanistan?

California Going Backwards 2.0

Here is a Los Angeles Times article which talks about some of the cost-shifting and funding issues lurking in Jerry Brown's plans for getting state government out of the red, very likely at the expense of putting counties and cities further into the red. This is a documentation addendum to what we wrote yesterday.

Loughner's Mental State

There is a lot of horse pucky being written about right wing radio/blogs/etc. influencing the Arizona shooter. Go see this article from Politico to see what was really on Loughner's mind. He is a nutcase, pure and simple, according to his friends quoted at length in this column. Go here to see a photo of a "shrine" alleged to be in his backyard.

It is being reported in the Washington Post that Loughner is registered as an Independent and did not vote in November, 2010. That isn't the behavior of any right wing firebrand I'd recognize.

These, of course, are merely the facts. Don't expect them to get in the way of the moonbat left making hateful accusations.