ANC Expels Malema

The African National Congress (ANC) has expelled Julius Malema, a radical youth leader who has advocated anti-white policies. See an article on the BBC News Africa website.

Malema has pressed for policies that would nationalize the mines and drive white farmers off the land. These disastrous policies are like those of Mugabe in neighboring Zimbabwe.

What remains to be seen is what happens to Malema and his substantial following. Will Malema operate within the political system and establish a new political party in competition with the ANC? Or will he perhaps become a violent revolutionary and take up arms against the government? There are many precedents for each option in sub-Saharan Africa.

AZ, MI Go for Romney

Mitt Romney won the primaries in Arizona and Michigan, both of which were held today. Perhaps those who were bemoaning his loss of "electability" will now take a more positive view of the Romney candidacy.

The win in Arizona was decisive: Romney 47%, Santorum 27%, Gingrich 16%, and Paul 8%. The win in Michigan was narrow: Romney 41%, Santorum 38%, Paul 12%, and Gingrich 7%. See this Yahoo News article for more detail.

China in Economic Peril

The World Bank concludes that China is in economic danger, having grown too fast and relied too much on state enterprises. See The Week article at Yahoo News.

China has been the economic star of the last three decades, but now is in real danger of the sort of mess Japan has experienced. Low wages will only take a country so far, then workers start to demand (and get) more money.

Unfortunately for this strategy, there is always a poorer country out there with hungry workers who will work for less. In Asia one thinks of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The Survivalist State

Near my home in Wyoming is a sign with the following slogan: "Wyoming...the way America used to be." Given that mindset, it is relatively easy for people in Wyoming to wrap their heads around the idea of the country melting down.

Now the WY legislature is looking at what we should do if the rest of the U.S. becomes entirely dysfunctional. Imagine...when a whole state goes "survivalist." See the article from the Casper Star-Tribune.

Money Wasted

More often than you'd think necessary you read about someone doing a poll on a question you believed already answered, and again coming up with the already-known answer. It feels like someone redoing the mathematical proof that shows the sum of two and two is indeed four.

So Yahoo News headlines a new USA Today/Gallup poll that shows people don't like President Obama's health care mandate, mostly known as "Obamacare." Why was this poll taken? Hasn't this been abundantly clear for the last year? Did anyone expect (or hope for) different results?

More WH Political Tin Ear

When it comes to aligning with the public mood, the policy wonks in the White House have a tin ear. Glaring recent examples include making Catholic institutions provide morally objectionable (to them) birth control and abortion pills within their employee health insurance.

Now we have Pew Research polling data which indicates that public opinion does not agree with White House cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline which would have carried Canadian oil to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Pew says:

Among those who have heard at least a little about the Keystone XL pipeline, 66% say the government should approve the pipeline, while just 23% say it should not.

The White House is playing to a narrow, but wealthy, segment of its base with this supposedly "green" decision opposing the pipeline.

Opinions of the 50 States

See a Reuters report of a survey done by Public Policy Polling asking people's opinions of the fifty states. The survey segments respondents by gender and political affiliation.

On August 20, 2011, I noted Public Policy Polling is a Democratic polling firm, something the Reuters article doesn't mention. Which explains PPP's desire to segment the responses by gender and party, politically relevant categories.

Alas, California got the lowest ratings with 42% unfavorable and 27% favorable. Other states with negative views included Mississippi, Illinois, New Jersey, and Utah.

Hawaii got the highest positive rating, with 54% favorable and 10% unfavorable. Other states with high positives included Colorado, Tennessee, South Dakota, and Virginia.

Republicans like Texas and Alaska; Democrats like Hawaii, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington. Women like New York, men like the cowboy states of Montana, Wyoming, and the two Dakotas.

Respondents must have used a political framework when judging states. In spite of its high taxes and dysfunctional politics, non-urban California remains the most pleasant place in North America to live year round.

The only thing better is the migratory snowbird life - south in winter and north in summer. This is usually available only to those who do not hold a normal job, mostly retirees.

Pigs in Pakistan

Pakistan is perhaps the only nation in the world that exists solely to give Muslims an Islamic place to live. That and the abhorrence Islam has for unclean pigs makes this Associated Press article from the Seattle Post Intelligencer particularly droll.

It turns out the capital of Pakistan - Islamabad - is overrun with wild boars. Pakistan's pigs have no natural enemies because no one in the country eats pork.

During the colonial era the Brits would go "pig sticking" on horseback, using long lances. In a country with a very dominant military and many polo players, perhaps this sport could be revived? Just saying....

Cause and Effect

A Yale scientist has found behavioral correlates of one's language having or not having a clear distinction between future and present. M. Keith Chen concludes that when the language has no clear distinction between the present and future, its speakers are more likely to save, exercise, avoid smoking, etc. That is, to engage in behaviors that are healthy and future-oriented.

He believes the language causes the behavior. We must at least consider the possibility that the behavior has influenced the development of the language or that his finding is coincidence. Especially since he puts German on one side of the behavioral divide and English on the other, when linguists tend to identify English as a Germanic language.

You can find the summary article here on Big Think and the entire pdf paper here.

Maybe Light Speed Is Absolute

On September 22, 2011, we reported the possibility that neutrinos go faster than the speed of light, violating rules posited by Einstein. It turns out those extraordinary findings may have been bogus, the fault of poor cabling connections. See the article in Wired Science. Albert E.'s theory is redeemed, for now.

Weird Science Again

It turns out U.S. parents talk to their male infants about numbers way more than they do to their female infants. Lots more "see the five raisins" or "bring the two toys" when the little one is a boy.

Could this be what causes our adult daughters to do less well in math than our sons? See the article in Miller-McCune, a summary of research originally reported in Journal of Language and Social Psychology.

The Last (?) Debate

The news is full of columns and reactions to the most recent GOP presidential primary debate, held in Arizona just before the primaries in AZ and Michigan. I've read several and, while opinions differ on who did what, I would direct you to a column by Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post. It works for me.

Rove: No Brokered Convention

Like him or hate him, Karl Rove knows politics. See his Wall Street Journal column which argues the odds of either a brokered or contested GOP convention are very small.

Maybe like me you hope he is wrong, but his reasoning is as persuasive as it is technical. He knows all of the minutia: which states give delegates on a proportional basis, how committed to their candidate various delegates are, etc.

Romney on Taxes

If you want to know what Mitt Romney thinks the tax code should do, how he believes it should be structured, see this article by him in The Wall Street Journal. I'm no expert but the proposal looks good to me.

Understand that when Romney says "I will do..." he means "I will propose to the Congress...." The president has little unilateral power in domestic policy; foreign policy is another matter entirely.

Clancy Opposes Obama Policies

A former staffer for President George W. Bush is cited in the Chicago Tribune in an article criticizing the overuse of drone attacks on terrorists. Marc A. Thiessen says we should be capturing many of those terrorist leaders and sweating important information out of them.

I happen to be reading Tom Clancy's latest novel Locked On now. That very point is made therein, albeit in a thinly fictional context. The novel has a 2011 publication date which means the material was written in 2010 at the latest.

Interesting question: does Clancy have access to Bush staffers or do they read Clancy? It wouldn't surprise me if both were true. One thing is clear in the novel, Clancy is no fan of Obama administration policies.

New Rowling Book Due

British author J.K.Rowling, who penned the best selling Harry Potter novels, has announced she will be releasing a new novel. The BBC News article suggests the target audience is adults, not necessarily that the material will be "adult."

I will read it when it comes out, but don't necessarily expect I will automatically like it. The attractive part of the Potter novels is the story, I've never found Rowling's writing to be particularly wonderful. Still, if she comes up with another really good story, this time about adults, her writing deficiencies can be overlooked.

Improve E-Verify

A Yahoo News article criticizes the use of e-Verify as a way to reduce illegal immigration in Arizona. The criticism is that it doesn't check to see if multiple people are employed in various places with the same ID. That should be easy enough to fix, just a programming issue.

The second criticism is that it will "force" illegal immigrants into the underground economy. This is probably true. However, jobs in the underground economy are significantly less attractive to potential immigrants. Therefore e-Verify can have a substantial effect in reducing future illegal immigration.

Unlike Italy, the U.S. is willing to prosecute serious operators in the underground economy. Not the homeowner who hires a street corner guy to help with occasional yard work, but the garment factory or slaughterhouse with many off-the-books workers.

The article says self-deportation won't happen, which shows a serious misunderstanding of our illegal immigrant population. Most illegal immigrants are from Mexico and many of these go home to Mexico every year to visit family, start new families, etc.

In a situation where work in the U.S. becomes unattractive and poorly remunerated, the motivation to return to the U.S. is seriously reduced. Self-deportation can work, the question is to what extent. That remains to be demonstrated.

A Sixth Reason

This article in Yahoo News lists five reasons why Romney is catching up to, or pulling ahead of Santorum in the polls, heading into the Michigan primary. I think The Week, whose editorial it is, missed the most important reason.

Becoming a front-runner put the press spotlight on Santorum. Once reporters took him seriously, they did the Nexis searches on his speeches and Senatorial votes. Voila, controversial stuff emerged. It turns out Santorum has said some ugly stuff, particularly about contraception and the role of women. He has also been an avid pursuer of earmark projects for Pennsylvania; something the Tea Party strongly opposes.

Media scrutiny enabled voters to move beyond the "altar boy in the sweater vest" image that carried Santorum through the previous primaries and caucuses. At least some of the not-Romney vote seems to have decided Romney is better than Santorum, Gingrich or Paul.

A Non-Story

An article in Yahoo News attempts to make a big deal out of the fact that most GOP primary voters are older and white. Is this news or somehow evil? No, it is the result of choices made.

Most young people and minorities vote Democratic if they vote. Historically, large numbers of both groups choose not to vote, particularly in primary elections or caucuses.

Therefore we should be surprised if large numbers of the young and minorities were voting in GOP primaries and caucuses. What the story reports is exactly what we would expect, a priori. Therefore it is not news.

As the LEOs say in cop shows, "Move along folks, nothing to see here."

Film Review: Rambo III

Watching the third film in the Rambo series is very strange. It was made during the period when the Soviets had occupied Afghanistan and the U.S. was allied with the mujaheddin, basically the same folks now known as the Taliban.

It is very odd to see people in U.S. uniforms saying positive things about the Afghan resistance, the same folks we've been fighting for the last 10 or so years. More to the point, today's enemy is portrayed as a bunch of good guys, patriots defending their country.

The film is a typical Rambo shoot-'em-up with lots of bombs, IEDs, and military hardware. It is no worse and no better than the other three Rambo films.

In Rambo III the Soviets play the role the U.S. (and allies) play today - very weird. Watch it for the odd feeling of seeing the hero fighting for, not against, today's enemy.