Big government, big problems

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Gil Smart

Man. Time to flip the lights back on around here.

The past few weeks have been mired in a big package that comes out this weekend on the soaring costs of special education. It’s one of those issues – like pension costs – that have school districts slammed up against the wall. Costs are rising all out of proportion to other spending, to revenue, and it’s completely unsustainable; costs simply can –not– continue to rise at the rate they have. That doesn’t mean they won’t, of course. And everyone says, well, the state needs to step in! Which means: The state needs to give school districts more money. Well, where’s that gonna come from? It can only come from higher taxes, or offsetting cuts elsewhere. And that in and of itself will be controversial.

Good intentions don’t always square up with the revenues to fund them. That’s one of the central facts of life in the age of austerity. But we have yet to come to terms with it. It’s going to be a rough ride.

I have, of course, been following the “scandalicious” developments of the past few weeks. You’ll notice, now, that Benghazi is falling by the wayside. The IRS thing is juicier and more legitimate; Benghazi was always the Republicans grasping at straws –solely– for political purposes. Really? The American public is supposed to get all bent out of shape about altered talking points? The whole thing carried the whiff of desperation, of Republicans trying to milk the deaths of those four people for political gain. And now we’ve got CBS reporting that the Benghazi e-mails don’t say what the Republicans claimed they said.

Republicans can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Benghazi will fade from the public consciousness as the IRS business heats up.

And the IRS business should heat up. Let’s be clear – under Bush the lesser, the IRS investigated some liberal groups, including the NAACP. As Dave Wiegel reports today, last year around this time conservatives were calling for the non-profit Media Matters to be investigated by the IRS. Now that conservative groups were targeted, they’re plunging onto the fainting couch.

But, on this last bit,  they’re correct: If the IRS is going to investigate political groups posing as “social welfare” organizations, they ought to investigate across the political spectrum, conservative and liberal groups.

In a different piece on Obama’s scandals, Jacob Weisberg notes:

In 2010, a spate of conservative groups was applying for tax-exempt status. This designation is available to organizations whose main activity is not political, so most of the groups were running a kind of scam by asking for it.

Get it? If the primary purpose of your group is political – as was surely the case with the tea parties, but not only the tea parties, and not only conservative groups – then you shouldn’t be getting tax-exempt status.

Groups formed for expressly political purposes, to advance an ideology and/or get candidates who share that ideology elected to office are not social welfare organizations. And they are neither entitled to, nor deserve, tax exemptions.

But the IRS’s Cincinnati office did systemically target conservative groups; there’s no evidence to suggest Obama ordered this, but it did happen on his watch. And it does validate a core **supposed** concern of the tea party: the perils of big government.

It validates, conservatives say, concerns about a national gun registry. Government cannot be trusted with the awesome power it possesses because there will always be the temptation for those in government – either at the top of the food chain, or somewhere on the lower rungs – to use that power for partisan gain, or personal gain. Better, then – goes this view – not to expand the power of government, not to give government carte blanche.

That’s going to be the theme of the print edition this weekend – and more and more I’m beginning to understand, even agree with, that argument.

DOJ’s seizure of the AP’s phone records would be a case in point. As I say in the print edition – consider that in our technological era, the data exists, is stored, and may be routinely monitored in terms of every phone call you make, every e-mail or text you send, everything you post on the Internet, and more. Ultimately, it is accessible to government. Are we to believe government won’t utilize this awesome capability? Oh, right, it’ll never be misused; they’ll only use it for “our own good.”

The AP thing could be, probably is, only the tip of the iceberg, all that we know about. Do you trust government in this respect? I sure as hell don’t.

But let’s go back to this, big government being the **supposed** concern of tea party types. Frankly, I am unconvinced that, were Obama a Republican and the groups targeted were liberal, that these tea partiers would be outraged.

I think, frankly, there are more than a few Republicans/conservatives who like big oppressive government just fine, so long as government is being used to oppress the people they don’t like. How many conservative complaints did we hear in regards to Bush’s warrantless wiretapping? I recall the opposite – conservatives who said, if you don’t have anything to hide, you didn’t have anything to fear.

So while the core argument here about big government may be valid – I suspect that a lot of people making that argument are full of it. This is, in the end, a partisan thing.

But it shouldn’t be. And that –may– be what comes out of this. Are there liberals out there who will say – look, this isn’t what I voted for, this is politics as usual and the whole idea was that we “hoped” to “change” that? Are there conservatives out there who are OUTRAGED!!!, but would be equally outraged if it was their side doing it?

We argue right and left, and in broad terms the “battle lines” are drawn as brightly as they ever were. But at the same time, there’s a new politics emerging that’s tired of the old politics, that’s tired of the likes of Sean Hannity demanding that Media Matters have its tax-exempt status yanked but shrieking about IRS oppression of the tea parties. There’s a weariness with the hypocrisy of hyperpartisanship. There are people who want to say, “this is wrong” – whomever did it.

If there can ever be an American consensus, maybe that could be it. At least, we can hope.

Posted in BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI, Government, Government Secrecy, IRS Scandal, Media, Obama, scandals, Surveillance State, Taxes, Tea parties | Leave a comment | Post a Comment

Better but not good

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Gil Smart

Got a note a couple days ago from a former colleague who now runs his own shop. Among other things, he noted that he’s got a position to fill, a relatively low-level, low paying gig, and has been inundated with applicants, including one name I’d probably remember.

Well, I did remember the name. It was a guy I’d dealt with before, a guy who had a pretty high-paying, corporate position. As in, something that probably paid five times what the job he’s now applying for pays.

But in the post-layoff world, I guess, you take what you can get.

It was sort of a jarring tale, but then again, these days, it’s pedestrian:

The U.S. economic recovery hasn’t felt much like one even for people who managed to find new jobs after being laid off. Most of them have had to settle for less pay.

Only 56 percent of Americans laid off from January 2009 through December 2011 had found jobs by the start of this year, the Labor Department said Friday. More than half of them took jobs with lower pay. One-third took pay cuts of 20 percent or more.

The figures would be even lower if people who could find only part-time jobs were included in the total.

The report provides an illustration of the job market’s persistent weakness well after the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009. It also documents that while the economy has added nearly 3 million jobs since the recovery began, many pay less than those that were lost.

That story’s from last year, but the trend persists. And so while the news today is that the number of jobless claims is the lowest in five years, and that’ll be spun as proof of the “recovery,” this is the kind of recovery it is: One where you might have a better chance of finding a job. But not like the one you lost.

Posted in Economy, Jobs, Unemployment | Leave a comment | Post a Comment

Don’t look, you’re being watched

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Gil Smart

We’re a strange country.

Americans overwhelmingly favor installing video surveillance cameras in public places, judging the infringement on their privacy as an acceptable trade-off for greater security from terrorist attacks, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll. …

<snip.

More broadly, only 20 percent of people said they believed the government had gone too far in restricting civil liberties in the fight against terrorism, while 26 percent said it had not gone far enough and 49 percent said the balance was about right. In 2011, the share of those worried about losing civil liberties (25 percent) was larger than that favoring more intrusive government approach (17 percent).

As I’ve said, you get 3 or 4 terrorist bombings in succession, Americans will be clamoring for the Bill of Rights to be outright appealed.

Except the Second Amendment, of course.

But I found the surveillance camera angle particularly interesting. We live with that in Lancaster, one of the most-surveilled small cities in America. As many have pointed out, that doesn’t seem to have led to an uptick in police solving crimes, though they’ll go on at length about how useful the cameras are.

But while they watch you, don’t you dare think about watching them.

Earlier this week came a story about a bill proposed by Lancaster County’s own Sen. Mike Brubaker, which would require anyone taking secret video of suspected animal abuse to turn over a copy of the “evidence” to the police.

This comes after a Brubaker bill last session which would have outright banned hidden video without the property owner’s concession. The point, of course, being to stamp out those undercover investigations which have targeted the likes of Kreider Farms.

Brubaker’s bill this time around is more subtle:

On Wednesday, he unveiled a bill that would not forbid anyone from using a hidden camera at a farm or slaughterhouse. Nor would it prohibit a person from seeking employment at a farm under false pretenses. All that it would do is require that anyone who videotapes or records animal abuse turn over a copy of the evidence to police.

Brubaker stressed that there is no time frame in which advocates must submit footage or photographs to law enforcement after recording abuse.

<snip>

By requiring suspected animal abuse to be reported to the proper authorities, legislators can assure due process will be given to farmers and their operations, and animal cruelty or unlawful practices will be addressed.

“I do not want to see the inhumane treatment of animals, so if this is happening, law enforcement needs to investigate,” Brubaker said.

Brubaker’s bill, which has not been formally introduced, would make failing to turn over video or photos of abuse to police or posting them online an infraction punishable by a fine.

“Social networks are not a process by which you can hold someone legally accountable,” Brubaker said. “Where do we go when we believe that a child is being abused? Do we post that on the Internet? Or do we go to law enforcement officials?”

Well, I suspect if this bill would become law, people will go to both. Because animal activists will tell you that they often have little faith that the local gendarmes will do anything about abuse. And social media, the web, is a way to exert a little pressure, if laws have indeed been violated.

As these types of bills go, this is nowhere near as draconian as other bills in other states:

In Arkansas, pending legislation would make it a crime for anyone other than law enforcement personnel to investigate or collect evidence of animal cruelty.

And I bet those Arkansas county mounties will get right on suspected cases of industrialized animal cruelty, don’t you think?

But check out this quote:

“We have law enforcement and regulatory agencies to handle those kinds of situations,” said Indiana state Sen. Travis Holdman, who authored such a bill in Indiana that passed the state Senate in February. “We don’t need a vigilante group out there with cameras and video cameras taking pictures of things that we just don’t like.”

Right. But the state – well, it can be out there with cameras and video cameras taking pictures of anything and everything, and you’ll like it.

And, as noted above, many do.

As a friend noted on Facebook: Widen surveillance for private citizens, forbid surveillance of corporations.

Oh, and call it “Freedom.” American-style.

Posted in Animal Issues, Corporatism, Lancaster, Surveillance Cameras, Surveillance State, Terrorism | Leave a comment | Post a Comment

Morning after madness

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Gil Smart

So I see where the Obama administration has decided to appeal that federal judge’s decision to make the “morning after” pill more widely available, to girls as young as 15, and to permit it to be stocked on drugstore shelves, next to the condoms.

The decision outraged one side of the political aisle; the appeal now outrages the other.

I’m having a hard time, however, figuring out why the judge’s ruling isn’t being seen as simple common sense.

Most objections I’ve seen have to do with letting 15-year-olds buy it. The insinuation being, this decision will encourage promiscuity in teenagers. If those kids don’t have to worry about getting pregnant, they’re more apt to have sex.

That seems to be a core belief on the right. I don’t buy it.

Because to accept this, you have to believe that there are large groups of teenage girls out there just dying to have sex, but constrained by the possibility they might get pregnant. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are some. But I suspect, as was the case back in my high school days – far back in that dusty era known in history books as “the ’80s” – those kids use condoms.

Worried about getting pregnant? No sweat, all it takes is for the teenaged boy to work up the nerve to walk into the drugstore and buy a box of Trojans. And there are other ways to maximize the chances that a pregnancy doesn’t occur. Kids knew about this 30 years ago; fear of pregnancy or no, kids in the Reagan era – it’s true! – had sex.

So the idea that now, because technology has resulted in a product whereby a girl can terminate a nascent pregnancy the day after, it’s going to turn millions of kids into aspiring porn stars just rings hollow. I **sincerely** doubt the federal judge’s decision would lead to a surge in libertinism.

There’s also the notion that, should a girl want to take the morning after pill, mom and dad should/must be in on that decision. But look, this is the morning after pill; as in, you take the drugs very soon after intercourse when you think, “We didn’t take precautions, and that could mean pregnancy.” So having mom and dad “in” on the decision is tantamount to a kid announcing to his/her parents: Attention, we are having sex!

Physicians groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics have asserted that Plan B should be more widely available, to reduce unwanted pregnancies. Reducing unwanted pregnancies reduces societal costs. It might reduce the incidence of things like this, that baby born in the McCaskey bathroom. It may reduce abortion rates, though some consider the morning after pill to be the same thing as abortion.

Those who argue against easier access to the drug may think they’re standing up for morality. But they operate from the assumption that kids are more likely to have sex now than ever before, and that this is because society makes it easier for them to “get away with it.” And the former assumption, at least, simply isn’t true:

They found that in any give age group, the likelihood of a teen being sexually active is lower than any time in the past 25 years.

Understand what this says: Today’s teens are less likely to be sexually active than their parents were.

My generation, back in the ’80s, may have been more likely to have sex than kids growing up in our current hypersexualized culture.

That goes against the fearful narrative. But that’s the value of research, to test those things everyone “knows” to be “true.”

We either accept that some kids will be sexually active, as kids long have been, and make it possible to mitigate the fallout. Or we fool ourselves into thinking we can stuff the genie back in the bottle, and that forcing kids to live with the “consequences” of their actions will teach them some sort of lesson – while all of us pay more in taxes to foot the bill.

Posted in Abortion, Contraception, Morning After Pill, Sex, Social Conservatism | Leave a comment | Post a Comment

If it’s ‘green,’ it must be bad

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Gil Smart

Via Sullivan, this is just classic:

A study out Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined attitudes about energy efficiency in liberals and conservatives, and found that promoting energy-efficient products and services on the basis of their environmental benefits actually turned conservatives off from picking them. The researchers first quizzed participants on how much they value various benefits of energy efficiency, including reducing carbon emissions, reducing foreign oil dependence, and reducing how much consumers pay for energy; cutting emissions appealed to conservatives the least.

The study then presented participants with a real-world choice: With a fixed amount of money in their wallet, respondents had to “buy” either an old-school lightbulb or an efficient compact florescent bulb (CFL), the same kind Bachmann railed against. Both bulbs were labeled with basic hard data on their energy use, but without a translation of that into climate pros and cons. When the bulbs cost the same, and even when the CFL cost more, conservatives and liberals were equally likely to buy the efficient bulb. But slap a message on the CFL’s packaging that says “Protect the Environment,” and “we saw a significant drop-off in more politically moderates and conservatives choosing that option,” said study author Dena Gromet, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. …

<snip>

Gromet said she never expected the green message to motivate conservatives, but was surprised to find that it could in fact repel them from making a purchase even while they found other aspects, like saving cash on their power bills, attractive. The reason, she thinks, is that given the political polarization of the climate change debate, environmental activism is so frowned upon by those on the right that they’ll do anything to keep themselves distanced from it.

Sullivan comments:

This is really a form of tribal nihilism. One party has become entirely about a posture, not a set of feasible policies. I can see no reason whatever that conservatism must mean destroying the environment – or refusing to do even small ameliorative things that can help. There should be a robust conservative critique of liberal approaches to climate change, but the point is to get a better grip on slowing that change and more effectively protecting the environment by conservative ideas and principles. Snark is not a policy, although it may be a successful talk radio gimmick.

I don’t think you understand. Conservatives will gladly forego any potential savings from more efficient bulbs in order to stick it to liberals. They’ll gladly sacrifice on behalf of their ideology.

Conservatism doesn’t necessarily require destroying the environment. Conservatives don’t necessarily disbelieve global warming. Rather, the more serious among them might say that the cost of mitigating global warming is too high; that it will require significant economic sacrifice, not just on the part of the big corporations but of the little guy. And that’s true.

But this idea that, I was going to buy that light bulb until it became tainted with liberalism is indeed drawn straight from talk radio. Well, let them have it. If conservatives want to spend more money to prove their point, good for them. Heck, at this point, maybe we can bottle the groundwater tainted by fracking fluids and sell it to them – “Liberals fear this stuff. Drink up!” They’d buy it by the truckload.

Posted in Conservatism of resentment, Environment | 1 Comment | Post a Comment

Bubble bubble, oil and trouble

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Gil Smart

Fascinating and disturbing piece in the Atlantic Monthly magazine titled, “What if we never run out of oil?” The upshot being, our desperation for hydrocarbons is so great, that money and geography and previous physical barriers are being transcended in our quest to get more of the stuff and burn it.

Was curious to see that the piece started out with this bit, from Winston Churchill:

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911. With characteristic vigor and verve, he set about modernizing the Royal Navy, jewel of the empire. The revamped fleet, he proclaimed, should be fueled with oil, rather than coal—a decision that continues to reverberate in the present. Burning a pound of fuel oil produces about twice as much energy as burning a pound of coal. Because of this greater energy density, oil could push ships faster and farther than coal could.

Churchill’s proposal led to emphatic dispute. The United Kingdom had lots of coal but next to no oil. At the time, the United States produced almost two-thirds of the world’s petroleum; Russia produced another fifth. Both were allies of Great Britain. Nonetheless, Whitehall was uneasy about the prospect of the Navy’s falling under the thumb of foreign entities, even if friendly. The solution, Churchill told Parliament in 1913, was for Britons to become “the owners, or at any rate, the controllers at the source of at least a proportion of the supply of natural oil which we require.” Spurred by the Admiralty, the U.K. soon bought 51 percent of what is now British Petroleum, which had rights to oil “at the source”: Iran (then known as Persia). The concessions’ terms were so unpopular in Iran that they helped spark a revolution. London worked to suppress it. Then, to prevent further disruptions, Britain enmeshed itself ever more deeply in the Middle East, working to install new shahs in Iran and carve Iraq out of the collapsing Ottoman Empire.

You wanna talk about why we’re in Iraq and other countries in the Mideast, again?

But the piece goes on to talk about methane hydrate, natural gas trapped in frozen water molecules at the bottom of the ocean (and on land, in places like Siberia). Basically: Ice that burns. It’s a huge, untapped energy resource; resource poor Japan is particularly interested in how it might mine the hydrates from the ocean floor and put them to use. It’s a slow, methodical process – but fracking basically evolved the same way, and whatever the environmental concerns, look at the energy boom this has created.

There’s definitely a positive side to this. Natural gas is significantly cleaner than coal, and is seen as a “bridge” fuel – a fuel that will bridge the gap between hydrocarbons and something else, something sustainable and green, as we seek to lower carbon emissions and mitigate the impact of climate change.

There’s also a possibility that methane hydrates will remain in the ocean, or buried beneath the permafrost; there’s a school of thought that says because we have to change our carbon-burning ways; and that could lead to a popping of the “carbon bubble“:

The so-called “carbon bubble” is the result of an over-valuation of oil, coal and gas reserves held by fossil fuel companies. According to a report published on Friday, at least two-thirds of these reserves will have to remain underground if the world is to meet existing internationally agreed targets to avoid the threshold for “dangerous” climate change. If the agreements hold, these reserves will be in effect unburnable and so worthless – leading to massive market losses. But the stock markets are betting on countries’ inaction on climate change.

I’d say that’s an excellent bet.

I think we all know there will be no “bridge.” That we, the United States, and basically every other country on earth, is staying on the hydrocarbon side of the gap.

Because the radical and sudden change necessary to tamp down on climate change is simply impossible. Not physically impossible, but politically impossible. Simply put – we’ll never do it. Because it involves sacrifice; sacrifice on the part of the corporations whose business model and profitability is based on the way things are right now; sacrifice on the part of citizens who, frankly, aren’t interested in using less energy, or can’t; and who would suffer the economic blows inflicted by change, however temporary or lasting they may be.

In other words, science can tell us – look, unless we do something pronto, all that weird weather? There’s going to be more of it, and it’s going to be even weirder, and probably more destructive, and that means you, pal. But we’re incapable of doing anything about it, as a good chunk of the country still doesn’t believe climate change exists, other say – well maybe, but what we really need is 20 more years of study.

Government types, perhaps knowing the truth, can’t unilaterally impose measures to reduce greenhouse emissions – tyranny! OUTRAGE!

And, as any conservative will tell you, even if the United States or the West in general were to bite these bullets – what about China? What about developing countries? They have to be on board too; but of course, wealthy nations telling poor nations they have to cool it with fossil fuel use, and thus economic growth, will be seen as unfair and discriminatory.

The clash occurs when renewables are ready for prime time—and natural gas is still hanging around like an old and dirty but reliable car, still cheap to produce and use, after shale fracking is replaced globally by undersea mining of methane hydrate. Revamping the electrical grid from conventionals like coal and oil to accommodate unconventionals like natural gas and solar power will be enormously difficult, economically and technically. Facilities must be constructed to store extra energy for dark, windless days; transmission lines will need to be built to move power from warm places like New Mexico to cold places like New England; grids will have to be reworked to allow small energy producers to share directly with neighbors rather than being forced to pump everything into large power centers. All of this will be a burden on businesses and consumers alike. But it must be done to avert climate change, because electricity generation is responsible for about a third of America’s greenhouse-gas emissions. Roughly similar figures hold true in other developed nations.

Most oil specialists agree that humankind is naturally progressing toward a no-carbon energy future. Our species has already moved from wood to coal to oil to gas, each fuel burning cleaner than its predecessor. Wind, solar, and other renewables are obvious next steps. The problem, scientists say, is that climate change is happening too quickly. Instead of evolving over decades, as happened with the building of the electrical grid, the changeover to renewables has to occur now, faster than any change before.

Not going to happen. Simple as that.

Can you imagine how taxes would have to go up to fund these infrastructure projects? How in the world could that be pushed through? You could have a tornado a day devastate some town in America and still we wouldn’t budge; and still there would be those telling us there’s no need to.

Bottom line, we can’t change, and so we won’t. Regardless of how dire the need for change, regardless of how many people ultimately put two and two together and say: This is bad. Because by then it’s too late anyway; it may already be.

And so what kind of world does that leave for our kids? Most of us have ceased to think that way, but I was surprised to see billionaire fund manager Jeremy Grantham say this:

[Grantham] said his company was on the verge of pulling out of all coal and unconventional fossil fuels, such as oil from tar sands. “The probability of them running into trouble is too high for me to take that risk as an investor.” He said: “If we mean to burn all the coal and any appreciable percentage of the tar sands, or other unconventional oil and gas then we’re cooked. [There are] terrible consequences that we will lay at the door of our grandchildren.”

Well, we’re gonna lay ‘em there. And we may have already done it.

Posted in climate change, Fracking, Global Warming, Middle East, Natural Gas, Oil | Leave a comment | Post a Comment

The (attempted) rehabilitation of W

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Gil Smart

So George W. Bush’s Presidential Library opens today down in Dallas, all former living presidents are there, Obama called Bush a “good man” and praised him for his resolve in trying to keep the country safe in the wake of 9/11.

All appropriate. We should treat all our former presidents with respect. As opposed to how we treat them when they are the lightning rod of their day.

To state the obvious, I was never a fan of George W. Bush. It’s an understatement, of course; I believed the country hit new lows under his leadership, and he was the captain, he steered the ship right into several icebergs.

Iraq is the most obvious example. But the financial crisis is another. No way can the entirety of what happened – and is still happening – be lain at Bush’s doorstep. The deregulation which led to the crazed speculation which led to the bubbles which led to the financialization of America as a whole, which led to unprecedented power for the money changers – that all began way before Bush. That began really in the Reagan ’80s’; a Democratic President, Clinton, really advanced that ball down the field.

But from 2000-2008, Wall Street was basically permitted to run amok. This was, you understand, the absolute pinnacle of Republican ideology. Government should stay out of the way, and let the likes of Goldman Sachs do what it does best.

Now we know what Goldman Sachs and its ilk do best.

We remember, too, the great Social Security privatization push. That was Bush’s first major political defeat – and good thing, too, because consider the clout Wall Street would have accumulated by getting its grubby mitts on your retirement insurance. It may still achieve that goal.

But by this point, 2005, the Republican high tide was receding. But it’s the Iraq war, and it’s ultimately failure, which defines the Bush presidency like nothing else.

As I’ve written, it was the run-up to war in Iraq which radicalized me, politicized me. It was nonsense and that was obvious at the time – but people didn’t want to see. Some were blinded by post-9/11 PTSD or the equivalent, ready to believe what their government told them about Saddam and bin Laden being best buds. Others backed the war because that’s what you did, and do, if you’re a Republican. Republicans don’t have doubts about wars started by their leaders. They fall in line, and they did.

And that, to me, was always the central dynamic of the Bush presidency, the thing I liked least about those years. It wasn’t the man. I certainly didn’t consider Bush a particularly intelligent president; I absolutely disagreed with lots of his policies, too many of which have been carried over by Obama.

But it was the movement behind the man where I saw the real problems.

The groupthink was just unbelievable. You have Democrats and liberals who criticize Obama. Back then – you did not get Republicans who criticized Bush, and any who did were hounded from the tribe by the howling.

Conservatives are much better at marching in lockstep than liberals. I don’t see that as virtuous thing.

Really, I think the movement of the times can be summed up in two things – the “Freedom Fries” nonsense, and the Dixie Chicks business. That was, to me, emblematic of the conservatism of the times. It was an era of knee-jerk, jingoistic, talk-radio ideological manly-man malevolence.

And who did it revere? George W. Bush.

So, it’s hard for me to disassociate the man from that movement. Conservatives will always revere Bush for his reaction to 9/11, but they’ve edged away from the hero worship since. Rand Paul’s conservatism if very different from the conservatism of the Bush era. But it’s impossible to escape the conclusion that the Bush years were the bubble years – financial/housing market bubbles, and the bubble of ideology – and, as they were destined to, those bubbles popped.

 

 

Posted in Bush Era, War in Iraq | 1 Comment | Post a Comment

So, so scary

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Gil Smart

I have a theory about this:

Fox News Channel’s coverage of the bombing at the Boston Marathon last week propelled the network to the top of the cable rankings for the first time in nearly a decade. …

<snip>

With heavy use of its Boston affilate as well as a strong network presence on the ground with anchor Shep Smith, Bill Hemmer and others, Fox News brought in 1.772 million on average in total day with its wall-to-wall reporting from and about bombings and subsequent manhunt. That was ahead of second place Nickelodeon’s 1.644 million and CNN’s 1.329 million viewers over the frame.

I think this is because Fox’s core audience is both older – average age 65 – and (obviously) more conservative than the country as a whole.

And conservatives, particularly older conservatives, are more freaked out about terrorism than most.

And so they tuned in to the source they trust during this, the “scariest” of all possible stories.

It’s been odd, watching the reaction to the Boston bombings. The usual suspects are braying the usual things – here’s Laura Ingraham saying we need to end all Muslim immigration.

See, there’s a conundrum here. The Boston bombers were white kids. They didn’t “look” like terrorists, the way real ‘Murkins thinks they look or should look – dark complected, swarthy, etc. And I’m wondering what percentage of the usual suspects even realized that Russia had Muslims, let alone what percentage knows anything at all about the Russian/Chechen conflict.

It’s too confusing. We’ve been conditioned to think Islamic terrorists = Mideast, and now when confronted by some who aren’t of Middle Eastern origin, it’s – ban them all.

But in general – I think those who aren’t older and/or conservative are simply getting on with life. At last night’s ballgame, the other coaches and I didn’t stand around talking about this. It’s over; time to move on. These things have always happened periodically in America. I thought in particular (for no real reason actually) of the 1920 Wall Street bombing, which killed 38 and seriously injured 143. That bombing was never solved; it’s not covered in your general American history courses. People at the time didn’t say, “This changes everything.”

We say that now. But I don’t see that it’s true. Unless, I guess – you really want it to be.

Posted in Boston, Fox News, Fox News conservatism, Media, Terrorism | 6 Comments | Post a Comment

Getting less for your money

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Gil Smart

So, I live in the general vicinity of Lime Spring Farm in East Hempfield Township, which a developer is talking about turning into one of these new “multi-use” communities:

It is to include 238 housing units — 180 apartment units, 42 single-family homes and 16 duplexes — and 18,410 square feet of commercial space.

People who live in Rohrerstown have some concerns about it, as well they should. This is going to dump a huge load of new traffic on existing roads, including Rohrerstown Road, which – frankly – can’t handle it.

And Marietta Avenue, which can, but I tell you – must we laden every road in Lancaster County with bumper-to-bumper traffic? Is Lititz or Fruitville pikes in Manheim Township what we aspire to for all of urban/suburbanized Lancaster County?

In one respect the development makes great sense. Lime Spring Farm is one of several farms, rural areas, that have become isolated in a sea of otherwise developed land. The farmland across from Red Rose Commons on Fruitville Pike is another one; so is the farm across from Long’s Park. These sites will be developed; Lancaster County officials/planners have in effect decided they should be, in order to relieve development pressure on farther-flung communities.

In other words, to save farmland out on rural Lancaster County, much remaining farmland in the urban/suburbanized parts of the county must be sacrificed.

I get that, and I’m certainly not on the NIMBY bandwagon. But I’ve been thinking about this Lime Spring proposal in particular – because it will affect me – and keep coming back to one concern that I think is valid here, and would be valid in most similar instances.

Right now, taxpayers in my neck of the woods pay their property taxes, and get a certain “return” on that. The roads are in a certain condition, with a certain amount of normal traffic. Police can be counted on to respond in X length of time, whatever it is. Your property taxes pay for a certain level of service.

When new developments like this are built – your property taxes may stay the same. But you wind up getting a lower level of service.

Which is to say – now, my commute to and fro takes X minutes. Once this new development is completed, given the amount of traffic generated by those 238 residences plus the commercial space – the commute will take X plus Y.

The school where my kids attend was just renovated not long ago, and is already near capacity. A development like this one is almost certain to push it beyond capacity. Meaning – what? Bigger class sizes? The need to expand the newly renovated school? And what shall that cost?

Taxes stay the same – or in this scenario, may rise – while the level of service, the return on those taxes, decreases.

The counter-argument here might be, all these new taxpayers in the municipality/school district will help keep your taxes lower than they might otherwise be. There’s some truth to that; if you were somehow able to stop development cold in its tracks, as so many in Lancaster County seem to want to do, it wouldn’t prevent scholastic or municipal costs from rising. Teachers and cops will get raises; infrastructure will ultimately have to be repaired and replaced. Costs will rise and there’s no alternative but for local taxpayers to pay more.

But at least, in that instance, you’d be paying to maintain a certain level of service. Rather than watching your level of service drop.

You might be willing to pay more in taxes, frankly, if that would ensure that no additional cars use your street as a shortcut. But here we see that you may wind up paying more in taxes anyway – and more cars are likely to use your street as a shortcut.

That’s unfair – plain and simple.

This is our model of growth, though – not just Lancaster County, but in general. Growth creates more. But it also creates less.

Posted in Development, Lancaster, Taxes | 1 Comment | Post a Comment

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Gil Smart

Hm.

As of this writing, CNN and AP are reporting that a suspect has been arrested in the Boston bombing case, no name yet though. Kind of invalidates the video of the week we’d shot earlier this morning. Ah well.

The understandable (though always overkill) media frenzy over the bombings, and now the ricin-laced letters apparently addressed to a Mississippi Senator and President Obama – it’s all reminiscent of 9/11, on a smaller scale. You remember the anthrax letters that followed the WTC/Pentagon attacks. Sort of felt like things were coming apart. There’s that same sense now, on a smaller scale. And again, understandably – appropriately – so.

But in the meantime, all of if serves to obfuscate another huge story – a disturbing new phase in our economic struggles.

Don’t know how many of you caught this last week, the big rise, and subsequent crash, of Bitcoin. That was disconcerting enough. But then came the crash of gold and silver – down to the lowest levels in two years. The goldbugs are saying it was orchestrated. Well, of course they would say that, but – what’s the old line. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

And then here’s the IMF, just today, saying the world faces a new, “chronic” stage of the global financial crisis. And of course you’ve been seen the big stock market swings of the past three days – the Dow up or down triple digits each of the past three days.

If I was the tinfoil hat type…

I’ll resist the urge. But suffice to say, the Boston bombing, and the ricin letters, have relegated the financial news to the back pages. Which is bad, because economic volatility appears to be on the upswing, which may be an understatement; we would do well to pay attention to these developments. But we can’t, and so we won’t.

Why do I feel that’s going to come back to haunt all of us?

 

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