All Your Citizens Are Belong to Us

Thomas Ricks has an op-ed in today’s New York Times on reinstating a peace-time draft. It’s embarrassing in many ways, but two especially:

And libertarians who object to a draft could opt out. Those who declined to help Uncle Sam would in return pledge to ask nothing from him — no Medicare, no subsidized college loans and no mortgage guarantees. Those who want minimal government can have it.

Great, can we implement this now? That means no taxes, as well, right? I know, hahahaha, of course not. A straw man dipped in gasoline is easily burned.

But most of all, having a draft might, as General McChrystal said, make Americans think more carefully before going to war. Imagine the savings — in blood, tears and national treasure — if we had thought twice about whether we really wanted to invade Iraq.

Three words: starve the beast. With the national debt standing at $15,883,106,924,772.24 and counting, when can we put that to rest? Politicians do not operate on logic. And the majority of voters would still not be participants whenever our government waged war. The cannon fodder would still be a minority to be wielded by the majority. They just wouldn’t be volunteers any more. That’s not an improvement.

Political Healing Is Not Physical Healing

So, I was wrong with my prediction on the ACA. I was correct that if the mandate went down, all of it would go. But Chief Justice Roberts agreed that the mandate acts as a tax. Okay.

There are still other problems. Eugene Robinson highlights them, although not intentionally.

The political impact of Thursday’s stunning Supreme Court decision on health-care reform is clear — good for President Obama and the Democrats, bad for Mitt Romney and the Republicans — but fleeting, and thus secondary. Much more important is what the ruling means in the long term for the physical and moral health of the nation.

I find the idea that this is an improvement to our nation’s “moral health” ridiculous and offensive. It’s the simplistic view that opposition to the ACA is opposition to the claimed goals. It’s the pretense that opposition is founded on an “I got mine, so screw you” idea. It’s hackish. Opposition guarantees no such intention, and maybe I’m foolish, but granting the government more power to use force against individuals is hardly an improvement in our moral health.

All but lost in the commentary about the court’s 5 to 4 ruling, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. unexpectedly joining the majority, is that the Affordable Care Act was intended as just a beginning. We have far to go, but at least we’re on our way.

Obama’s great achievement is not any one element of the health-care reform law — not even the now-upheld “individual mandate,” which compels individuals to have health insurance or pay a fine. The important thing is the law’s underlying assumption that every American, rich or poor, should have access to adequate health care.

But that’s not the issue. The important thing is how well the law will achieve its aims. Will it? Which unintended consequences will result? What will it cost in trade-offs? Early evidence suggests a strong “no” for the first question, which should raise further concerns about questions two and three.

Here, we don’t even get to the first question. Mr. Robinson is endorsing the Do Something theory of government. This is Something, so it must be good. It’s untethered from outcome. We’ve merely expressed the right feelings that every American should have access to adequate health care. That isn’t a solution to a problem that exists in large part because of previous feelings-premised public policy solutions. The ACA is not the only way to try to achieve the real goal of reform and improving health care access and outcomes. The ACA merely doubles down on the existing structural problems. When government is failing, ordering more government is hardly a credible solution.

As I wrote in my prediction, tying insurance to employment is inefficient and stupid. Our current unemployment rate is an excellent indicator of a flaw in the policy. Mr. Robinson gets at this:

Most working-age Americans who have health insurance obtained it through their employers. But this is a haphazard and inefficient delivery route that puts U.S. businesses at a disadvantage against foreign competitors, most of which shoulder no such burden. Tying health insurance to the workplace also distorts the labor market and discourages entrepreneurship by forcing some employees to stay where they are — even in dead-end jobs — rather than give up health insurance.

With this acknowledged, it appears the only way to endorse the ACA is to focus on the important thing, the good feelings. The ACA will work to untie insurance from employment, but only because it makes the burden of employer-provided insurance so onerous. It pushes people into public options. That’s aiming for single-payer without having the political courage to admit the aim. Such lack of courage does not suggest good outcomes when the inevitable financial crisis from the ACA results. And now, because this reform was so ham-fisted and clueless, no one will have the political capital necessary to reform the reform.

Rather than seek a radical reshaping of the health-care system, Obama pushed through a set of relatively modest reforms that will expand insurance coverage to a large number of the uninsured — about 30 million — but still not all. He also tried to use free-market forces to “bend the curve” of rising costs, slowing but not halting their rise.

The ACA doesn’t try to use free-market forces. It attempts to manipulate them, at best, and pretend they don’t exist, at worst. It’s the idea that prices can be mandated, that supply and demand are fully malleable with political will. It’s neither an honest nor an intelligent attempt by the Congress and President Obama. It will fail. The only questions are how soon, who will be harmed, and what will we do in response.

The ACA and the Future of Infant Circumcision

I’ve made the argument that a government-run single-payer health care system in America would not automatically result in non-therapeutic infant circumcision rates comparable to other Western nations (e.g. United Kingdom), probably most directly here. I stand by that for the reasons I’ve stated. But now that the Affordable Care Act has been upheld by the Supreme Court, I want to explore a possible (though unlikely) unintended consequence of encouraging the government to control more health care.

As I understand it, the government has now been given what amounts to unlimited power to incentivize (i.e. compel) activity to achieve a public policy goal where some (or many) may prefer inactivity. Congress merely needs to establish a “Do X or Pay T” regulatory scheme. Many, although not a majority of Americans, approve of this for health care. This is presumably a statement on the value of the goal rather than an explicit endorsement of the means. But the means matter.

Extending this thinking, what now prevents the Congress from implementing “Circumcise your newborn son or Pay a Tax”? It now has that power. And the logic is no different. Congressman Brad Sherman endorsed the political thinking that would encourage such a policy during last year’s discussion of the San Francisco ballot initiative. He declared that “Congress has a legitimate interest in making sure that a practice that appears to reduce disease and health care costs remains available to parents”.

I do not believe this is politically likely. With any extension of this newly-expanded power, Congress will need the political cover to pass a new tax. They swore the ACA wasn’t a tax, though, so lying is an option. They’re politicians, after all. It would still face challenges. But it is possible, and we’ve seen the lengths to which politicians will fall over themselves to avoid offending the status quo on non-therapeutic infant circumcision.

I think my argument holds up. If nothing else, the ACA almost certainly slows future progress on ending this violation of male children. Cultural circumcision has a new god in the perceived¹ reduction in future health care costs. There are means available within government control to pursue that. If we get further “reform”, it’s likely to offer even more control to the government. That is a problem. This seems obvious to me. As long as the government has a power and a willingness to ignore facts, the possibility of consequences exists, both intended and unintended. We should be careful which methods we endorse.

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¹ The time value of money must be included. A dollar spent today on health care is not the same as a dollar that might be spent twenty, thirty, or more years from today. The number of adult circumcisions needed would have to be greater than it is to justify this public purse argument. It still wouldn’t be ethical to circumcise healthy infants, of course.

Accountability to Those Who Pay the Buck-O’-Five

Ken at Popehat has a perfectly concise take-down of LZ Granderson’s ridiculous CNN essay arguing against seeking too much information from our government about “Fast and Furious“. I won’t be able to say it better than Ken, so here are his words. (And if you’re not reading Popehat, correct that in your RSS reader.)

But to go much beyond the criticism of these men runs the risk of learning that this great nation of ours is heavily involved in doing some things that are not so great.

It would be nice to see this as a wry comment on American willingness to overlook lawbreaking by the government when it is committed (at least nominally) in service of goals of which we approve.

But the straight-faced reading is too similar to what I have come to expect from the media to be certain of my hoped-for satirical reading. Right now scandals over both Fast and Furious and the government response to it are being spun in many places as a cynical partisan obsession. I have not the shadow of the doubt that many of the loudest critics of the government have partisan motives. But if we dismiss criticism of government misbehavior because of partisan motivations, we’ll never entertain significant criticism of the government. We’ll always have partisanship. We can’t let it be an excuse to abandon our obligations as citizens to monitor and criticize the government.

Like Granderson, I know that “freedom isn’t entirely free”. It’s not “squeaky clean”. Unlike Granderson, and like Ken, I expect America to strive to be as squeaky clean as possible. Where we (allegedly) can’t be, I want to know why. I want to know what my government is doing in my name. I do not want elected dictators.

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LZ Granderson has exhibited questionable critical thinking skills in the past. A year ago he wrote an essay against the San Francisco ballot initiative that aimed to prohibit non-therapeutic male child circumcision. It was awful in nearly every paragraph. His arguments were either incomplete or idiotic in every case.

Five Year Olds Believe in Free Lunches

With the Supreme Court expected to rule on “Obamacare” (i.e. PPACA) tomorrow, I want to consider this reddit thread asking to explain it to a 5-year-old. There’s a long list of what PPACA does, and will do, if the Supreme Court upholds it. Some may be wise, while others are surely not. The overwhelming point, though, is that none of this is free. Consider this, for example:

Employers need to list the benefits they provided to employees on their tax forms.

That costs money. Even if the change is minor, computer systems have to be reprogrammed and tested. Multiply that across every employer in the U.S. How much productivity is being consumed by this instead of something else that may provide more wealth? What improved health outcomes will this generate?

Or consider:

It creates a new 10% tax on indoor tanning booths. ( Citation: Page 923, sec. 5000B )
…

A new tax on pharmaceutical companies.

A new tax on the purchase of medical devices.

A new tax on insurance companies based on their market share. Basically, the more of the market they control, the more they’ll get taxed.

Those taxes are taxes on consumers. I suspect many people reading the list, and maybe its author, don’t grasp that. All taxes are on individuals. Consumers will pay higher costs or receive fewer services.

The real beauty of the list comes when the author injects opinion.

The biggest thing opponents of the bill have against it is the mandate. They claim that it forces people to buy insurance, and forcing people to buy something is unconstitutional. …

Yes.

… Personally, I take the opposite view, as it’s not telling people to buy a specific thing, just to have a specific type of thing, just like a part of the money we pay in taxes pays for the police and firemen who protect us, this would have us paying to ensure doctors can treat us for illness and injury.

I don’t see the distinction between buy and have when the only way to get a thing is for someone to buy it. This is the “I like it” and “by whatever means” arguments in favor of constitutionality.

I expect the Supreme Court to strike down the mandate. I suspect the rest will go down, as well, because it’s the least controversial and problematic path if the mandate goes. The rest of the act needs the mandate to achieve the remaining cost savings (that it won’t actually achieve, even with the mandate). The least “activist” thing to do is for the Court to let Congress start over.

None of this is to suggest that we should do a victory dance in favor of the old status quo if the mandate goes down. We need reform within health care. Such as untying insurance from employment, which our current unemployment rate suggests would be wise. We won’t get responsible reform, because we’ll get more rent-seeking like PPACA instead. But if Congress has to start over, there’s a chance, however small.

Link via Wil Wheaton, who should heed his own “Don’t Be A Dick” suggestion. Blaming the constitutional challenge to PPACA on “the Koch Brothers and their Tea Party Rubes” as an attempt to “get the Supreme Court to take away” what PPACA legislates is dickish partisanship. Calling one’s opponents names and implying they’re stupid merely based on group affiliation is being a dick.

Penn Jillette on Obama’s Marijuana Hypocrisy

Penn Jillette is awesome for many reasons. As such I’m a fan of his new weekly podcast, Penn’s Sunday School. It always delivers, like last week when he went on a rant about President Obama’s continuation of the unwinnable, anti-liberty drug war and his hypocrisy. It’s brilliant and can be fully experienced in the clip below in a way the transcript can’t deliver.

Like Mr. Jillette, I’ve never consumed drugs or alcohol, but I do not care if another wants to do so. My only criterion is what I use for everything: do it voluntarily and without harm to another. Ingest drugs? No harm. Rob someone to get money to buy drugs to ingest? Harm. Drive while under the influence? Harm. It’s not complicated.

Contrast that with President Obama’s comments in his interview with Jimmy Fallon (video via NORML):

Notice the nanny-state mentality where anything that might be an individual problem automatically becomes a matter of “public health”. No one is an individual, just a cog in the machinery of the state to be managed and used.

Of course, Obama’s hypocrisy goes further. (As it does for all politicians, who are, by default, moral defectives.) Via the same NORML link, he clarified his remarks in an interview with Rolling Stone (from April):

Let me ask you about the War on Drugs. You vowed in 2008, when you were running for election, that you would not “use Justice Department resources to try and circumvent state laws about medical marijuana.” Yet we just ran a story that shows your administration is launching more raids on medical pot than the Bush administration did. What’s up with that?

Here’s what’s up: What I specifically said was that we were not going to prioritize prosecutions of persons who are using medical marijuana. I never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte blanche to large-scale producers and operators of marijuana – and the reason is, because it’s against federal law. I can’t nullify congressional law. I can’t ask the Justice Department to say, “Ignore completely a federal law that’s on the books.” What I can say is, “Use your prosecutorial discretion and properly prioritize your resources to go after things that are really doing folks damage.” As a consequence, there haven’t been prosecutions of users of marijuana for medical purposes.

The only tension that’s come up – and this gets hyped up a lot – is a murky area where you have large-scale, commercial operations that may supply medical marijuana users, but in some cases may also be supplying recreational users. In that situation, we put the Justice Department in a very difficult place if we’re telling them, “This is supposed to be against the law, but we want you to turn the other way.” That’s not something we’re going to do. I do think it’s important and useful to have a broader debate about our drug laws. One of the things we’ve done over the past three years was to make a sensible change when it came to the disparity in sentencing between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. We’ve had a discussion about how to focus on treatment, taking a public-health approach to drugs and lessening the overwhelming emphasis on criminal laws as a tool to deal with this issue. I think that’s an appropriate debate that we should have.

Only to a politician does “not prioritize” mean “vigorously pursue”. And, sure, cutting off supply of marijuana to people who may legally possess and use it within specific states isn’t “prosecution”, but it sure isn’t the same as federalism or a passing nod to his campaign promises. Nor, circling back to Jillette’s destruction of Obama’s hypocrisy, is his implied wrongness of recreational use vindicated by anything he’s said or done. He’s nothing more than a bad parent’s slogan: Do as I command, not as I do.

Government Preparation for Adulthood

This story is almost two weeks old, but it still has value.

A two-page oral sex encounter by an awkward teen at boarding school in the coming-of-age novel Looking for Alaska was deemed too racy by Sumner County schools last week.

The district banned the book from its assigned classroom reading list, becoming at least the second in the state, after Knox County in March, to keep students from reading it together in class.

The teen novel is the first in several years to be stripped from Sumner classrooms. Wilson, Rutherford and Williamson county schools say they haven’t banned the book or any titles in recent years. Metro schools didn’t have information on the book as of Monday.
…

In this case, he said, the value didn’t outweigh the controversy. The book was not pulled from any district library shelves, [Sumner County schools spokesman Jeremy Johnson] said.

I oppose censorship. This is clearly a form of censorship, although not quite as bad as removing the book from the school system entirely. A public school board prohibiting a book from the classroom curriculum is insulting to both teachers and students. It also provides excellent support for a libertarian rant against public provision of education. The argument against home-schooling seems centered around the willingness of some parents to avoid facts. This is no better, since the government engages in the same behavior. It’s also unnecessary. In high school, I had to seek parental permission to read The Catcher in the Rye for an essay because it featured adult language and themes. That’s an imperfect, reasonable solution which leaves discretion to parents and provides a learning opportunity for all students.

The school board’s decision is awful, and especially so because the book is part of a high school curriculum in which students are presumably being taught to think critically. Still, this strikes me as worse:

“Kids at this age are impressionable. Sometimes it’s a monkey see, monkey do,” said parent Kathy Clough, who has a freshman and a senior at White House High School, where the book had been assigned reading. “I’m going to trust that my school board made the right choice. … If they feel like this book is a little too graphic, I’m all for it.”

Or she could read the book and decide for herself. Just an idea.

I don’t understand that kind of parental abdication. Of course her concern is probably quite appropriate, given how willing she seems to turn over the raising of her children (who are nearly adults) to a government body. But this is infuriating because she assumes all parents are as incapable of teaching the idiocy of “monkey see, monkey do” as she implies she is, and therefore, no parents should have the choice for such books to be a part of their teen’s education. If she thinks a “child” 14 or older isn’t aware that oral sex is a thing, she’s mistaken. If a child teen between 14 and 18 hasn’t learned enough to distinguish literature from a directive, the school system is worse than just a censoring band of thugs. It’s an incompetent, censoring band of thugs. All parents should be vehemently opposed to ceding more control to that school system, as Ms. Clough is happy to do.

Here’s the author, John Green, explaining this scenario when it occurred elsewhere in 2008:

Via John Green on Twitter.

Update: Post updated because I found evidence that I had to ask permission to read The Catcher in the Rye.

I Prefer FPS Over MMORPG

I’m not a fan of privilege as a foundational argument. It’s confining and limiting. It’s focused on generalizations without regard for the individuals involved. It establishes a hierarchy for problems with the result, if not purpose, of minimizing any X that is less severe than Y according to the person wielding the argument. It’s claptrap that eventually resolves to “Shut up”.

Such is the case with John Scalzi’s recent post, Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is. From the beginning it sets out the argument’s flaw as a definitive, justifiable rule that allows anyone who agrees with it to “prove” that the person who disagrees commits an error. Usually being dense, or something similar. It’s a way to shut down debate rather than start or continue one.

I’ve been thinking of a way to explain to straight white males how life works for them, without invoking the dreaded word “privilege,” to which they react like vampires being fed a garlic tart at high noon. It’s not that the word “privilege” is incorrect, it’s that it’s not their word. When confronted with “privilege,” they fiddle with the word itself, and haul out the dictionaries and find every possible way to talk about the word but not any of the things the word signifies.

It starts with condescension. Straight white men need to be educated, and if you challenge the argument, you’re proving your need to be educated. It’s stupid. It signals that there are default rules, either implicitly or explicitly assumed, that no one may disagree with. The only real question it allows is who’s next in needing to be educated about their privilege with respect to someone else under a simplified set of rules: straight minority males or non-straight white males.

Mr. Scalzi’s argument on privilege is easy enough to understand:

Dudes. Imagine life here in the US — or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world — is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it?

Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.

As a generalization with no context, sure. But that’s shallow thinking. It’s meaningless. We don’t live our lives as generalizations. Our interactions are more complicated and messy than simple identifying characteristics. Mr. Scalzi’s argument rests on the basis that sexual orientation, skin color, and gender are the three supreme defining characteristics and life should be judged accordingly. All else being equal, would I encounter an easier, harder, or indistinguishable challenge in working with Mr. Scalzi as a Straight White Male than a Gay Minority Female would? I bet on indistinguishable.

He acknowledges other characteristics within the metaphor but makes them subordinate to these three:

Likewise, it’s certainly possible someone playing at a higher difficulty setting is progressing more quickly than you are, because they had more points initially given to them by the computer and/or their highest stats are wealth, intelligence and constitution and/or simply because they play the game better than you do. It doesn’t change the fact you are still playing on the lowest difficulty setting.

I disagree that these three are the complete, highest characteristics. Is a straight white female born with genius-level intelligence, a trust fund, and a respectable family name playing on a more difficult level than a poor, stupid straight white male? What’s the scenario, fixing a flat tire on the side of the road? Being treated respectfully at the Mini Mart?

A later argument demonstrates the largest hole (emphasis in original):

And maybe at this point you say, hey, I like a challenge, I want to change my difficulty setting! Well, here’s the thing: In The Real World, you don’t unlock any rewards or receive any benefit for playing on higher difficulty settings. The game is just harder, and potentially a lot less fun. And you say, okay, but what if I want to replay the game later on a higher difficulty setting, just to see what it’s like? Well, here’s the other thing about The Real World: You only get to play it once. So why make it more difficult than it has to be? Your goal is to win the game, not make it difficult.

My goal is to “win” the game? According to whom? Judged by what criterion/criteria? By whose criterion/criteria? In which game? The argument fails because it neglects the reality that straight white male, gay minority female, and everyone in-between are people with unique, complex mixes of characteristics playing – or not playing – the game to which Straight White Man is the lowest difficulty setting. There are many games. There are different players. And there are different game masters. Context matters. Generalizations bludgeon.

One’s Conscience Should Favor Children Having Parents

Virginia is so ridiculous sometimes that it makes me say “God, damn Virginia”. Should there actually be a god, surely that god is not a fan of the hatred and bigotry that so many Virginia politicians and citizens embrace and repeatedly seek to codify. So it is again with SB 349 / HB 189, which Gov. Bob McDonnell can’t wait to sign. It updates the law for adoption agencies to include a “conscience clause”. Being Virginia this is nothing more than the legislature’s way of saying “EWWW, TEH GAYZ”.

Child-placing agency; conscience clause. Provides that, to the extent allowed by federal law, no private child-placing agency shall be required to perform, assist, counsel, recommend, consent to, refer, or participate in any placement of a child for foster care or adoption when the proposed placement would violate the agency’s written religious or moral convictions or policies. In addition, the bill provides that (i) the Commissioner of Social Services shall not deny an application for an initial license or renewal of a license, nor revoke a license, of any private child-placing agency and (ii) no state or local government entity shall deny a private child-placing agency any grant, contract, or participation in a government program because of the agency’s objection to performing, assisting, counseling, recommending, consenting to, referring, or participating in a placement that violates the agency’s written religious or moral convictions or policies. The bill provides that the refusal of a private child-placing agency to perform, assist, counsel, recommend, consent to, refer, or participate in a placement that violates its written moral or religious convictions or policies shall not form the basis of any claim for damages.

As a libertarian, private actors should be allowed to discriminate against whoever they want to hate. Denying access to one’s personal services is a right. Free markets require more than one consenting party. Likewise, I possess the right to give my business to someone else who more closely shares my values.

But it’s also clear that one stops being 100% private when one starts (voluntarily) taking public money. Want to discriminate? Fine, do it with your own money. When everyone is forced to contribute money to you, constraints tied to basic principles are reasonable. in short, you’re entitled to your religious beliefs. You’re not entitled to use my money to spread them in the world.

This May or May Not Be How the Drug War Ends

Many people are talking about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s high-level proposal from his 2012 State of the State address to shift the governmental approach to drug use/abuse among the citizens of New Jersey.

The transcript (video excerpt in bold):

At the same time, let us reclaim the lives of those drug offenders who have not committed a violent crime. By investing time and money in drug treatment – in an in-house, secure facility – rather than putting them in prison.

Experience has shown that treating non-violent drug offenders is two-thirds less expensive than housing them in prison. And more importantly – as long as they have not violently victimized society – everyone deserves a second chance, because no life is disposable.

I am not satisfied to have this as merely a pilot project; I am calling for a transformation of the way we deal with drug abuse and incarceration in every corner of New Jersey.

So today I ask this Legislature and the Chief Justice to join me in this commitment that no life is disposable.

I propose mandatory treatment for every non-violent offender with a drug abuse problem in New Jersey, not just a select few. It will send a clear message to those who have fallen victim to the disease of drug abuse – we want to help you, not throw you away. We will require you to get treatment. Your life has value. Every one of God’s creations can be redeemed. Everyone deserves a second chance.

It’s being applauded. In an important way, it should be. He’s proposing a shift from prison to treatment. We’re long past the point at which society can pretend the War on Drugs has been or can be successful. Experience has consistently shown it will not work. Now, the War on Drugs is just an excuse to provide ever-increasing power to the government. Good riddance to any part of that we can dismantle.

But therein lies the problem with Gov. Christie’s proposal. While a move in the right direction, he’s not proposing the removal of the state’s police power from the discussion. He proposed mandatory treatment for every non-violent offender with a drug abuse problem. That leaves the state police power involved. His speech was too high-level to establish that this will be terrible or that it can’t be good if the details are specified. But who defines “offender”? Would buying drugs still be an offense? And who defines “problem”? Would mere use of a drug be considered evidence of abuse? That’s a considerable amount of discretion when discussing mandatory (i.e. compelled with force) treatment.

There is a flaw in the term “non-violent offender”. And he said “…God’s creatures can be redeemed” rather than something about having freedom to ingest whatever one wants or the irrational economics of putting a “non-violent offender” in jail. Gov. Christie needs to elaborate before I’ll assume this is a push for liberty rather than the 2012 version of compassionate conservatism.

Via Elias Isquith at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen and Andrew Sullivan.

I know the video doesn’t fit. At some point I’ll update my blog theme to something newer than 2005.