Category: News

Banning the two “F” words

This morning, like every morning, I woke up to Howard Stern. Usually it’s a good way to ease into the day. A few laughs, a little banter, and pop culture references. It’s worth $12.95 per month. Usually.

This morning, I awoke to Stern discussing an article in yesterday’s New York Times by Nicholas Kristof. It’s titled “Killer Girl Scouts”. Lovely, huh? I couldn’t read the article because I don’t waste my money on Times Select, but the one sentence synopsis, “Beware of cute little girls bearing trans fats”, is enough to know I disagree.

Stern offered a summary, with commentary, on the article, and that’s what got me fired up today. From what he said, it’s the same argument that we’re getting fatter, the evil corporations don’t care, our government-financed health care is going bankrupt, and something needs to be done now. The article (apparently) includes an example from Denmark in which the government requires that trans fat be no greater than 2% of a food item. McDonald’s chicken nuggets in Denmark have .33 grams of trans fat, while the same chicken nuggets have 10+ grams of trans fat in America. Outrageous.

So maybe they are trying to kill us, right? The solution, according to Stern? You know what’s coming, don’t you? That’s right. Pass a law. Force companies to limit the trans fat in the food products they sell to us, the unwitting dolts who can’t make conscious, responsible decisions for ourselves. We shouldn’t stop financing health care with public funds to prevent the system from going bankrupt, that would be too obvious. We should outlaw bad food, instead. For a brief moment, I wanted to cancel my subscription.

Again, since it’s not clear, the free market can take care of this “problem”. If a person is responsible for his own health care costs, isn’t he more likely to take care of himself, by his own actions? And if not, why should we care? He’ll pay the higher costs. He can make that rational decision of which is more important, dollars or Thin Mints.

Stern’s next topic made this morning’s discussion especially frustrating. He launched into his commentary about the Senate voting to increase fines for “indecency” on public airwaves. His current stance is motivated by business interests, and I think, a little hope at exposing Congressional hypocrisy. He applauded the Senate’s action, even though he acknowledged that it’s an affront to the Constitution. The increased fines will only help satellite radio, of course.

I see the humor in that, but can’t stand the double standard for freedom that Stern’s dual positions represent. He accepts that the Constitution protects free speech from the whims of Congress, noting that the free market can handle what the public wants and needs. Satellite radio is sufficient proof, although that’s not an excuse to allow Congress to continue its election-year crusade to protect us all. Which is what it comes down to, isn’t it? Protecting us from ourselves.

We’re too sensitive to hear swearing on the radio, so Congress should protect us. We’re too irresponsible to eat our vegetables, so Congress should protect us. Both are symptoms of the same disease. Politicians take their direction from the few who are vocal enough to make their preferences known, regardless of the damage to liberty. Paternalism arrives marketed as leadership. And most of us decide where we stand on each individual issue by determining which we prefer. In Stern’s case, he hates healthy food and loves freedom of speech, regardless of the underlying principles.

Me, I think we should all be vegans, but I love liberty more.

Gladys Kravitz would love this debate

I don’t have much more to add to the immigration debate right now. I didn’t watch President Bush’s speech last night because my grass needed to be cut. From what I know of it, I’m not optimistic that’s it will end up being more than pandering to xenophobes. I hope I’m wrong. This essay at TCS Daily offers hope for learning how economic reality works, even if it implies we’ll learn the hard way. Consider:

Recently, Georgia has passed what has been called the nation’s toughest laws against the hiring of illegal immigrants. But if Georgia was unwilling or unable to enforce a law that applied to the relatively few window tinting shops in its state, what prospect is there that it will be willing or able to enforce a law that applies to the vast multitude of small businesses that hire illegals: restaurants, construction firms, landscaping companies, just to name a few? Yes, examples can be made of a few big companies, but it defies credibility to suppose that the law will be rigorously applied to the thousand smaller businesses that hire illegal aliens — and these businesses are perfectly aware of this fact. Their very smallness protects them.

Herein lies the drawback to laws that are passed by legislative bodies solely to prove to their constituents that they, the legislators, are really doing something. “See,” the legislators can tell the voters back home, “we are really cracking down on illegal immigrants by making tougher laws.” …

I agree, it defies credibility that the law will be rigorously applied to all. Unfortunately, this is a significantly more inflammatory issue than window-tinting. While no government could ever fully enforce such a law as our enforcement strategies exist today, I suspect they’ll try. Hello larger, more intrusive government.

National IDs? We need to keep them out, which means we need to know who should be here, so check. National employment database? We need “real-time” access to employment eligibility, so check that one, too. How long before we require business customers to become non-deputized snitches enforce the laws through “voluntary” reporting to the government? Remember, these same “do something” legislators will need to do something to appease the constituency when Joe Citizen still sees brown people doing the jobs Americans won’t do.

Again, I agree it defies credible logic. I remain pessimistic that we’ll learn our lesson before we see harm to our economy and/or an increase in government.

Conclusion: The journey means nothing

I love theories:

Several colleges and universities are reporting significant declines in average scores on the new SAT test, leading many high school counselors and college admissions officers to conclude that the longer exam is wearing out test takers and hurting their performance.
…

USA Today, which reported the score drops in today’s edition, said some colleges reported no score declines but others reported large drops, such as 28 points at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Penn., and 23 points at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Tex.

Is it possible that the average student applying to some of these schools is different than in the past? More people being enticed to apply to college, the football team is winning, or some other factor? Probable? Who knows, and really, who cares… What’s important is the simple fact that standardized tests shouldn’t be such a huge factor in the application process. If the test is too exhausting, imagine what four years of high school is like. Or, the admissions offices could just look at the transcript of those four years that (allegedly) filter into that test.

The result could also just be the result of our nationalized education system dumbing our students into being able to regurgitate facts without any critical thinking. Perhaps that has something to do with this:

Charles A. Deacon, dean of admissions at Georgetown University, said the average applicant for his freshman class had a score on those two sections 7 points below last year’s average. He said his own study of the old and new tests suggests the drop may be explained by more emphasis on reading in the new test, which has for years gotten lower scores than writing.

When in doubt, resort back to the most basic assumption of what education should be. In the business world, I don’t care if someone knows a few trivia questions. A thinking person could find that in under a minute with Google and a few keystrokes. Give me someone who knows how to analyze and solve problems. I don’t believe I’m alone. Athletes don’t train for marathons by driving 26.2 miles every day. Learning is no different.

Perhaps a Madison descendant, instead?

Dynastic arrogance is one reason, among many, that I will not vote for Hilary Clinton in 2008 if she wins the nomination. So what does President Bush have to gain with the same thinking, especially at a time when America seems to be disinclined to buy the Bush brand name.

“I would like to see Jeb run at some point in time, but I have no idea if that’s his intention or not,” [President] Bush said in an interview with Florida reporters, according to a story on the St. Petersburg Times Web site.

If that sounds familiar, the Bush brothers’ father, former president George H.W. Bush, made a similar statement last year, telling CNN’s Larry King that Jeb Bush would be “awfully good” as president.

“This guy’s smart, big and strong. Makes the decisions,” the first President Bush said then.

Can we please have a viable third party candidate in 2008? Some sense of a respect for America would be helpful.

Should death certificates cite “Insufficient Socialism”?

I don’t know if this is the alleged cause as determined by the study or if it’s a bias slipped in by the journalist reporting on the study, but this bit from a story on infant mortality rates, and how America is second only to Latvia among the industrialized world in infant deaths. Consider:

The researchers also said lack of national health insurance and short maternity leaves likely contribute to the poor U.S. rankings.

Saying that lack of national health insurance is a cause is the same as saying that I still have student loans because I didn’t have a rich benefactor when I graduated from college. It’s one possible argument, but it’s preposterous to think of it as causative, or even related, really. I have student loans because I racked up credit card debt during college. Where many people my age paid down student loans, I paid Visa.

In the case of this study, health insurance affordability and access may (and probably do) have a significant contributory impact to high infant mortality rates. Preventive care works wonders, as we surely know by now. But there is no way to realistically gauge that national health insurance is the solution to reducing infant deaths. Any reasonable study of economics suggests it could reduce the rate, but at the likely expense of some other group. What trade-offs shall we start making to get the preferred ideological solution to health care in America? Or would it make sense to say that inadequate health care access and affordability are contributing factors, and work to find a solution to that conundrum that leaves open a much broader range of options? Remember, keeping kids alive and healthy is supposed to be the goal.

Is this the exception to the general truth?

From today’s Opinion Journal:

Need an antidote to the Moussaoui verdict? Go out this weekend to see “United 93.”
Zacarias Moussaoui is lucky the jurors at his sentencing trial weren’t allowed to see the movie “United 93” the day before reaching a verdict. If they had, rather than handing him life in prison, it is likely that one or more of the jurors would have come out of the box to deliver the death sentence himself–just as the four doomed men on Flight 93 charged their hijackers to stop its fanatic pilots from flying the airliner into another American building.

I wonder if Peggy Noonan still believes that Americans are ambivalent about the death penalty?

Some will say the Moussaoui life sentence merely proves that we in the U.S. are beyond biblical justice, beyond an eye for an eye, even if our Islamic enemies do not bother to claim any grievance larger than resentment to justify the most startling slaughter of innocents all over the world. This argument–that the refusal to impose the death penalty on Moussaoui shows “we are not like them”–might have been entertainable before September 11. It may no longer be.

Guilty, I guess, but it’ll take more than saying that the world changed on September 11th to convince me my viewpoint is wrong. It’s the same excuse used for why we must give up some of our liberties in the pursuit of safety. The argument doesn’t work there, either.

… But perhaps you no longer know September 11 as well as you think. In this week of the Moussaoui life sentence, it is pertinent to ask whether the days and seasons we’ve traveled from the time of September 11 have returned the people of America to a routine that feels more normal than perhaps it should. Our sense of normalcy may not be in our best interest.

As an example, one thought that occurred in the hour after seeing “United 93” had to do with the recent debate in the U.S. over the warrantless wiretapping of suspected phone calls between terrorists. In that hour, this “debate” seemed quite otherworldly. It is unlikely that in the first six months after September 11 Sen. Arlen Specter would ever have thought to intone that the wiretapping program was “in flat violation” of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But he does now. Times change.

I’m blogging the essay as I’m reading it, so my response here is a mix of laughter and defeat. Can the Wall Street Journal’s editors become any more apologetic for the Bush Administration’s desecration of the Constitution?

There is reason to believe that pre-9/11 thinking will in time return and prevail.
Defenders of Moussaoui’s life sentence say he will “rot in prison.” Perhaps in a better world Zacarias Moussaoui would share a cell with Hannibal Lecter. But if our moral betters aren’t going to let Saddam’s torturers rot in Abu Ghraib, if they aren’t going to let the CIA’s most important al Qaeda captives rot in “secret” foreign prisons, they certainly aren’t going to let Moussaoui rot in Florence, Colo. He will be treated more than well.

I used the word “rot” this morning, so I’ll the criticism. But perhaps the editors should research the definition of “rot”. It is not synonymous with “torture”. So, again, I refer back to Ms. Noonan’s words I quoted this morning. People who deplore Moussaoui’s life sentence as a lack of testicular fortitude by the jury aren’t what I’d term “ambivalent” about the death penalty.

Not to mention the Moussaoui trial itself. … But our moral betters insist that the whole lot of Guantanamo detainees be given access to this same system of justice. They would diminish and crush it.

How weak is our justice system, really, if it keeps someone like Moussaoui from attacking America during the four years of his trial? Him making clearly ludicrous statements, proving that he’s a psychopath more than anything, is a threat to our country? I guess this is the part where I remember that words are dangerous, our Republic can’t withstand criticism, and might is right.

I suppose I’m soft and not a patriot

I disagree with most of Peggy Noonan’s remorse and dismay that Zacarias Moussaoui didn’t receive the death penalty, but this seems particularly insincere:

I happen, as most adults do, to feel a general ambivalence toward the death penalty. But I know why it exists. It is the expression of a certitude, of a shared national conviction, about the value of a human life. It says the deliberate and planned taking of a human life is so serious, such a wound to justice, such a tearing at the human fabric, that there is only one price that is justly paid for it, and that is the forfeiting of the life of the perpetrator. It is society’s way of saying that murder is serious, dreadfully serious, the most serious of all human transgressions. It is not a matter of vengeance. Murder can never be avenged, it can only be answered.

I hope I’m not the only person calling bullshit on that. It’s absolutely about vengeance. Otherwise, why all the pictures and interviews with family members of the September 11th victims? Why the sobbing testimony rehashing the gruesome details of that day and how it’s affected us since?

That day was awful. As much as we’d like it to do so, killing Moussaoui would never lessen that wound. The worst fate he can suffer now is to be relegated to the past. His lies and deceptions achieved his goals once. Imposing the death penalty would only increase his murderous impact. That’s not a sufficient reason to spare him, but we’re not the murderous thugs. This time, the jury didn’t forget that.

Post Script: It doesn’t sound like his incarceration will be a picnic, for those who want him to suffer.

Giving new meaning to “freeway”

There are circumstances sufficient to justify a social safety net. Although private would be better, government-provided is possible. This isn’t one of those circumstances:

Some California drivers are resorting to desperate measures to beat the surge in gas prices at the pump — deliberately running dry on the state’s freeways and simply waiting for rescue.

… part of a publicly funded patrol that gives a free gallon of gas to drivers who have run out of fuel.

I accept that stranded motorists can be a safety hazard, but who are these idiots who would run out of gas on purpose to save three, maybe four, dollars? And why should the taxpayers foot the bill? It’s not an imaginative leap to think the taxpayers state should bill all stranded motorists. I’ve also heard of a fascinating service called AAA, but they don’t operate on the public dime, so I see the lack of appeal.

In other news, one is less than two

It’s always annoying amusing when elderly people win huge jackpots in casinos or state lotterys. They’re always fun little stories that follow a quick pattern. As shown by today’s edition of this tale, it’s location in the “Oddly Enough” section demonstrates its overall importance. Yet, I clicked through.

Unfortunately, now I must mock the unnamed writer:

Great-grandmother Josephine Crawford of nearby Galloway Township was playing the nickel slots in Harrah’s casino in the game where each play costs 5 cents, or a nickel.

A nickel slot costs 5 cents, or a nickel? Who would’ve guessed? Does that mean a quarter slot is 25 cents, or a quarter? Perhaps that’s simplifying the story beyond the “average reader’s” need. Find me someone who is old enough to play a slot machine and I’ll guess she understands how much money she needs to play one spin.

Update: In the comments Kip explains what really happened, i.e. what Reuters ignored. Of course, I missed it, too, but it’s Saturday, so I blame Reuters.

Is an innocent billionaire in prison successful?

Yesterday, President Bush hosted Chinese President Hu Jintao. During the course of their joint press conference, President Bush made an interesting statement:

As the relationship between our two nations grows and matures, we can be candid about our disagreements. I’ll continue to discuss with President Hu the importance of respecting human rights and freedoms of the Chinese people.

China’s become successful because the Chinese people are experience (sic) the freedom to buy and to sell and to produce. And China can grow even more successful by allowing the Chinese people the freedom to assemble, to speak freely and to worship.

China is not successful. No amount of money can justify not having the freedom to assemble, to speak freely and to worship (or to not worship… that’s important, too). Money is good, but I’ll take freedom every time if the deal is one or the other. I suspect that more than a few Chinese agree.