Morales' Good Suggestion

Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, commenting on the exclusion of Cuba from the Organization of American States:

It can’t be understood why for ideological motives someone is kicked out of OAS. I’m also Marxist-Leninist, so what are they going to kick me out also?”

Evo, old buddy, you've got a pretty darn good idea there, one that should be seriously considered.

The quote is from MercoPress which cites as their source an Argentine paper Clarin.

Global Warming Strikes Again

The Australian reports an article from the Melbourne Herald Sun which begins with the following line:

Melbourne has shivered through its coldest April morning in over 50 years, with temperatures dropping below freezing in some suburbs.

That darned global warming continues to be a threat, worldwide. Or is it global cooling?

Ugly Behavior

This article in The New York Times describes a new low in human behavior:

A female suicide bomber in Baghdad, Iraqi officials said, held a young child’s hand as she set off her explosives among a group of women and children receiving emergency food aid.

It is hard to imagine that woman and I are members of the same species. Pretty clearly her culture and mine share few values. When a bunch of college kids form an organization to argue for "western values," this sort of news item enables me to see their viewpoint.

Bye, Bye RINO

Senator Arlen Specter changes parties from Republican to Democrat. Ho-hum. So a guy who votes with the Dems most of the time changes party affiliation, so what? It isn't as though Specter changed the majority from one party to the other, that happened in 2007, following the election of 2006. All he may have accomplished is give the Dems a veto-proof majority of 60 on some issues, issues on which he probably would have voted with them anyway.

It has been clear for some years that Specter was a Republican In Name Only, a RINO. Now his party affiliation aligns with his voting record. That is no big deal for the Republicans except that it is sort of kicking them when they are already down, psychologically.

It turns out that Specter started life as a Democrat anyway, but changed parties to run for District Attorney. I think the only party he really belongs to is Friends of Specter, anything else is just opportunistic window-dressing.

For another view, see the entry above about the future of the Republican Party.

Is Multiculturalism Possible?

Swimming is automatic for fish, comes naturally to dogs, ducks and polar bears, can be learned by humans, and is impossible for pigeons. It is clear that multiculturalism doesn't come naturally to humans, as swimming does to dogs and ducks. The real question is whether we can learn it, as we do swimming, or is it impossible for most of us.

I happen to be thinking about whether multiculturalism is possible for most humans because of this article in Macleans, Canada's news magazine. If any country has prided itself on multiculturalism, that country is Canada. It turns out, however, that Canada isn't doing very well at multiculturalism:

Across Canada, 72 per cent said they have a “generally favourable opinion” of Christianity. At the other end of the spectrum, Islam scored the lowest favourability rating, just 28 per cent. Sikhism didn’t fare much better at 30 per cent, and Hinduism was rated favourably by 41 per cent. Both Buddhism, at 57 per cent, and Judaism, 53 per cent, were rated favourably by more than half the population.

If Canada can't do better than that, multiculturalism may be an impossibility for most people. Note: Canadian anti-Sikh bias comes from the 1985 bombing of an Air India plane full of Canadians by Sikh nationalists.

Buyers' Remorse?

"Buyers' remorse" is defined as buying something and, later deciding you should not have bought it. We normally use the term in the study of marketing, but today we are applying it to politics.

Scott Rasmussen, a pollster whose Rasmussen Report we often cite on COTTonLINE, has for the last five years been doing a generic Congressional poll. The generic poll asks whether you would vote for your district's Democrat or Republican candidate, and is called "generic" because it doesn't mention candidate names. Democrats have led Republicans for years, but now:

For just the second time in more than five years of daily or weekly tracking, Republicans now lead Democrats in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.

Rasmussen finds the reason for this change:

The GOP’s improved position comes primarily from falling Democratic support. Democrats are currently at their lowest level of support in the past year while Republicans are at the high water mark.

As an old Business School prof, I call that buyers' remorse. Voters who voted Democrat are regretting their vote. It will be a long four years.

Political Humor Alert

My long-time friend Earl sends the following from South Dakota:

Men, if you think you have problems, just remember...
Somewhere in the world there is a Mr. Pelosi.

Obama Popularity a Hoax

It turns out Barack Obama is more unpopular than all but one president (Clinton) in the last 40 years, measured at the end of their first 100 days. The Washington Times reports:

At the 100-day mark of his presidency, Mr. Obama is the second-least-popular president in 40 years.

Five presidents rated higher than Mr. Obama after 100 days in office: Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Richard Nixon, and George H.W. Bush, in declining order of popularity. Obama had better hope his subsequent popularity resembles that of Reagan, rather than that of Carter, Nixon or W.

Murdoch Is the Winner

Reuters reports that the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) shows the mainstream media is hurting. That is, all of them except The Wall Street Journal. Here is the nut graph:

Among the top 25 U.S. newspapers, only News Corp's The Wall Street Journal scored a rise in total paid circulation, of 0.6 percent to 2.08 million.

Of the major papers with a truly national reach, the WSJ is the only one with a more-or-less conservative editorial policy. Similarly, the mostly conservative Fox News Network, also owned by Murdoch's News Corp., keeps beating liberal MSNBC and CNN in the ratings.

Politically the country is very nearly divided in half. By owning the only media outlets in both print and cable news that are somewhat conservative, Murdoch is a near monopoly news provider for U.S. conservatives. Meanwhile, the networks, PBS, NPR, and most of the big newspapers split the liberal half.

From a business perspective, who is dumb and who is smart?

HP5 Plot Glitch

The other DrC and I are listening to Jim Dale's excellent CD of the fifth Harry Potter novel: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It's probably the 6th or 7th time we've heard it. In particular, we were listening to the situation during their 5th year OWLs (Ordinary Wizarding Levels) exams, late in the year.

You will recollect that the three friends are taking their Astronomy practical exam late at night atop Hogwarts' tallest tower. At this point Headmistress Umbridge with several aurors leaves the castle and crosses the grounds to Hagrid's cabin. There is a fight and Umbridge's posse is defeated by Hagrid, although they stun his dog Fang. Hagrid runs off, with Fang over his shoulder. Professor McGonagall attempts to intervene and is hit by four simultaneous stunning spells, which puts her in St. Mungo's Hospital.

What confuses me is why all this happens. I understand Umbridge taking guards with her since Hagrid is huge, part-human and therefore to her, scary. Earlier in the same book Hagrid has told Harry and Hermione that he will probably be sacked. Since he is resigned to it happening, why did a fight break out? Presumably, if told he is fired he will shrug and start packing.

Was it somehow necessary to arrest Hagrid? The Ministry wants to take Dumbledore into custody, have they generalized the warrant to include Hagrid? If so, on what grounds and why doesn't it include McGonagall too? I don't believe the books ever explain why the Battle of Hagrid's Cabin happens. If you know differently, I'd appreciate you letting me know.

Gotcha

If each new administration in Washington takes it upon themselves to investigate, prosecute and incarcerate members of the prior administration, we are headed down the road to dictatorship. It won't be long before an administration chooses not to permit elections lest their successors imprison them.

As a nation, we don't want to descend to the level where each administration stashes stolen fortunes in Switzerland and flees to Brazil upon leaving office. That is the sort of thing Latin America is trying desperately, and with some success, to rise above.

We have snickered about this third world proclivity for decades. How embarrassing if we end up there ourselves.

GOP Hearts and Minds

The guys at Politico write an interesting article about the way some leaders of the GOP are being pulled toward the middle, while the Republican base continues to lean to the right. You can understand the pressures on leaders to move left; press reactions and inside-the-Beltway views pull them in that direction.

If the leadership gets pulled to the left, the base does not. Opposition to same-sex marriage and amnesty for illegal immigrants continues to be strong. Ditto "tea party" opposition to higher government spending, taxes and debt

The article doesn't mention it but the GOP base isn't just against things. They favor a stronger military and a more confrontational foreign policy than does the Obama administration. They supported continued operation of the prison at Guantanamo and continued incarceration of the enemy combatants held there.

They also favor giving a cold shoulder to thuggish leaders of non-democratic states: the Castros, Chavez, Morales, and the like. They favor continued support of Colombia and Israel, and continued recognition of the "special relationship" with Britain.

Candidates are selected in primaries and caucuses, where the motivated and extreme voters of both parties are more likely to vote. Then nominees have to move to the center to pick up the independent, centrist voters who tend not to vote in primaries. It is an interesting dilemma, one that John McCain did not negotiate adroitly.

Quotes of the Day

Porter Goss, Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 to 2004, says in the Washington Post of the CIA briefings he shared with current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

Speaker Pelosi is nothing if not expedient. Of the result of the details of interrogation being made public, Goss says:

The suggestion that we are safer now because information about interrogation techniques is in the public domain conjures up images of unicorns and fairy dust.

No doubt.

India - Pakistan Conflict Possible

On the 22nd I wrote in COTTonLINE that the only nation which might have the backbone, and motivation, to tackle the mess in Pakistan was India. Frankly, when I wrote that I believed it to be unlikely.

Today I read a Mark Steyn column in National Review in which he takes the likelihood of Indian action more seriously. Steyn says:

If you’re...India, following Obama’s apology tour even as you watch the Taliban advancing on those Pakistani nukes, would you want to bet the future on American resolve?

Maybe an Indian invasion of Pakistan is not so unlikely. If it happens, millions will die. Those two countries don't like each other, not even a little.

NYT: A Balanced View of Cheney

The New York Times has been notorious for its leftward bias during the election campaign of 2008. Now it publishes a relatively balanced article about the role and current activities of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Author John Harwood neither defends nor attacks Cheney; it appears to be a largely straight forward job of reporting. Here is my favorite Harwood quote:

Dick Cheney became a one-of-a-kind vice president for two reasons: he cared deeply about governance, and not a bit about his future political standing.

Harwood also repeats one of my favorite Cheney quotes, which echos these beliefs:

Reminded last year in a television interview that most Americans considered the Iraq war not worth fighting, Mr. Cheney responded, “So?”

That's my neighbor Dick Cheney, still true to Wyoming after all those years in Washington.

Movie Review

The other DrC and I saw the animated Monsters vs. Aliens last night in 3-D. We were celebrating her birthday. It is a fun movie. Not a great movie, but definitely fun.

It did the usual PC Hollywood thing: empowerment of women and demonstrating that being different is no barrier to being a "good guy." This was done in a fun way so that it didn't become tiresome, as it so often does. They even let the military character become a more-or-less good guy too, darned generous for Hollywood.

One interesting oddity I noticed. The M vs. A alien villain strongly resembled the villain chef in the animated film Ratatouille. I wonder if there are only a limited number of configurations for villains or if the same guy drew them?

Temptation

My view is that the Justice attorneys whose opinions supported "enhanced" interrogation and the interrogators who performed it should be left alone. They did what they did in the emotionally charged days following 9/11 when it truly felt like the nation might be struck anywhere at any time. If the current administration doesn't find such information gathering activities acceptable, it shouldn't do them.

On the other hand, I'm tempted to support legal prosecution of everybody who knew about waterboarding and did nothing to stop it, just to send Nancy Pelosi to Federal prison. If you don't know to what I refer, see yesterday's blog post "Nancy Knew in 2002."

Imagining Nancy doing the "perp walk" wearing steel bracelets makes me enthuse like Argus Filch imagining whipping Hogwarts students in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Californication

My poor old birth state - California - is a mess, and this Associated Press article on Breitbart.com describes some of the things being considered to fix the mess. A constitutional convention is proposed to fix problems in the state constitution.

The big issue is that a current constitutional provision requiring 2/3 majority to pass tax increases plus the famous Prop. 13, taken together, have made it impossible to raise taxes much at either the state or local levels. The result is a populous state with big problems, and constrained state and county budgets.

Continuous Democratic majorities in both houses of the state legislature have been unable, for ideological reasons, to cut state spending to the level of state income. They have engaged in cost-shedding by moving certain responsibilities to the county level, without providing supporting revenue.

Believe it or not, I think the solution is constitutional change enabling higher taxes! I believe California is overpopulated; one eighth of U.S. population lives there. Higher taxes will drive jobs, and therefore working-age people and their children, out of California. Fewer people will lower the cost of operating the state and its counties.

Equilibrium will be reached at some point of smaller population and lower total costs. If CA became largely a residence for retirees and the people who support their needs, its operating costs would be much lower.

The Sand States

"The Sand States" is what Michael Barone, writing for the Washington Examiner, calls California, Arizona, Nevada, and Florida. They have much more severe problems with foreclosures than the other 46 states. Go see if your state is in the top ten list of foreclosures per state. Barone finds the difference between the four Sand States and the rest of the nation is astounding:

Together they contain 21% of the nation’s population but had 55% of the foreclosures.

In other words, purchasers in the Sand States were more than twice as likely to end up losing their homes to foreclosure. This was, as Barone notes, mostly because the housing bubble was much more exaggerated in those four states.

Barone makes an interesting argument for grading mortgage-backed securities on the basis of the percentage of Sand State mortgages they contain. Dare we conclude that the home financing crisis is not national but merely a local one in CA, AZ, NV, and FL?

AP Cooking the Books

There are lots of interesting ways to make statistics come out the way you wish, just ask an old social scientist like me. This American Thinker article reports on how the Associated Press has biased the numbers to make President Obama look good at the end of his first 100 days. The article links you to AP articles which claim that 48% of Americans think the country is on the right track.

Steve McCann, who wrote the Thinker article, determined that the poll surveyed almost twice as many Democrats as Republicans. Actually, Obama won 53% of the popular vote while McCain won 47%. So...how can the AP justify polling nearly twice as many Democrats as Republicans? Do they think lots of Democrats voted for McCain? It appears AP believes all 18% of those who claimed no party identification were voters too embarrassed to admit they were Republicans.

Just suppose they'd surveyed almost twice as many Republicans as Democrats. What would the "right track" percentage be? You'd guess it would be much lower, and you'd be right.

The right way to do this poll is to select for your sample percentages of Republicans and Democrats on a rough parity with how many voted each way in the most recent election. Another defensible way is to make your respondent percentages equal each party's registrations. Very clearly, AP did neither, probably because they didn't like the results.