Photo-Op PR Nightmare

I just have to ask... am I the only one that hears about this and can't help but link the incident side-by-side with the tough talk on global warming recently from the President and Secretary of State?

Taking an hour-long flight at low altitudes to get a nice photo-op with the statue of liberty is nice, but how many gallons of jet fuel were burned by the F16 and Boeing airliner to take a couple pretty pictures?

If the catch-phrase is "Green your Routine," then this hardly qualifies. It's not like it was a pressing use of fuel, not a high-level diplomatic function. It was something that could have been done with Photoshop. As genuine as a real picture? No. But that's the selling point - instead of burning incredible amounts of fuel, we sat at a computer and created a graphic.

EPA Labels CO2 as Pollutant

I just want to know when they will do the same concerning water vapor, a vastly more important part of global warming. I once raised this issue in a newspaper discussion forum about the idea of Hydrogen fuel and was treated as a moron "that just turns into clouds!"

But seriously - if emission of CO2 is as dangerous to human life as the EPA suggests, for the reasons it describes, shouldn't something with about 100x the potency at causing global warming be treated accordingly?

House of Sand?

From the President's latest address on the economy:

"We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock."

I would really like to know what, in his view, is the pile of sand and what is the rock with which he'd like to replace it. I view a statement like this as making the economic situation out to be FAR worse than it actually is - and if you want to tear down the (to be very loose) 80% of the economy that is working well to create a new foundation in your image... I really, really want to know what exactly you intend to do, and why you're utterly certain it will work.

Vague language when you talk about building the economy is, for me, downright frightening. Up until now, I was thinking that even with the majorities he has in Congress, the President's agenda would be hampered by fears of over-reaching. But talk like this - talking about re-creating the economy - that's borderline lunacy.

Military Commissions as Courts?

I admit, I was prone to err on the side of trusting the previous administration on this issues - that is to say that when they instituted military commissions, I thought the result would be justice, not theater.

And now I admit that the more I hear about the previous administration, the more I am regularly discouraged by what I hear.

Case in Point, Act 4 of the following episode of This American Life, with the experience of a naval lawyer who worked at these commissions: The Inauguration Show

The Pot and the Kettle

I'm not sure what to make of this comment. It strikes me very much as passing the buck backwards in time, blaming a previous administration for not spending money on the things that are important to you. I imagine it happens in every shift of power: "All the expenses we have to pay now are because the other guys didn't do it."

The faulty assumption is "we absolutely have to have this now, so we have to spend all this money immediately since it wasn't spent before now." I'd rather not have the Treasury Secretary calling their spending priorities the fault of the previous administration. Because in the future, we can look back and say this:

"The reason we have this massive debt now is because the previous administration didn't bother paying for everything it spent." This, however, is a real consequence - unavoidable and true regardless of party affiliation or spending priorities.

An interesting analogy I saw in the comments at Econbrowser, to help you fathom what it means when we talk about "trillion dollar deficits for years to come." A million seconds is about 11.7 days. A billion seconds is about 31.7 years. A trillion seconds is 317 centuries. 20 centuries ago, Jesus was just a carpenter who wasn't teaching or gathering disciples. 300 centuries is right around 28,000 BC. Our deficits are about the size of the wealth you'd have if you had $10 for every second of recorded human history. And that's just a single year's deficit.

As with many things in life...

As with many things in life, if something like this bothers you, then you are looking for reasons to be bothered. Life is too short for such things, but it's amazing the trivial things we sometimes let capture our atentions and passions. And like many things, it shows how often our criticisms say more about us than they do about those we intend to point fingers at.

Stimulus?

For the record: I am in favor of one-time spending as stimulus for the economy. I do not think that the Republican plan of lots of tax cuts would be nearly as effective.

That said... this plan is so bloated with pure pork, it's obscene and Obama should be ashamed to be trumpeting this as a "the nation faces imminent collapse unless we pass this" bill.

To every Democrat who was upset with Bush for his WMD argument in Iraq, behold your new president making the same sort of argument here. This may not cost American lives, but it will cost far, far more than the war in Iraq, especially if this is allowed to be the tone of a "never let a crisis go to waste" administration.

Super Bowl and Movies

There should have been an official review of the fumble by Kurt Warner. The official take is this: "As the Steelers ran the last play, Michaels said the booth officials had confirmed that it was a fumble." The problem is, it's not up to the booth officials to make that call - they simply have to decide if it's questionable enough for the referee on the field to review the play. It certainly was questionable, so the referee should have been given the chance to make the call. Booth officials only make decisions like that in college, not in the NFL.

On Friday night, I went to go see Taken. It's an action flick in the "talented but inactive government agent goes on a rampage because of some personal injury done to him by the bad guys" theme. It was an excellent movie, though. The lead actor was believable (as an average-looking man, he's more believable than someone like Dwayne Johnson as a spy), the motivation was believable, there were a couple of unexpected twists, and the movie highlighted something that is a real world problem, affecting millions of people.

Fair Pay and Guantanamo

My fundamental problem with the Fair Pay Bill recently signed into law by the new President is this:

In forcing employers who are sued for pay discrimination to prove that a difference in pay was entirely job-related, it codifies a presumption of guilt instead of a presumption of innocence.

It is, though in a different arena, the same fundamental problem that existed at Guantanamo Bay: we will assume you are terrorists, and treat you as such (granted, in Guantanamo you were even less likely to get a chance to try to prove your innocence).

Discrimination is bad. Discrimination is hard to prove. And assuming that any difference in pay is due to intentional discrimination is offensive. Towards the end of my first full-time job, I was making $12.50 an hour in a position of significant responsibility. I admit to being a little miffed when I discovered that someone else who worked there was making $2.50 an hour more for less - from my perspective - work.

Was it discrimination? NO! I, simply, was not aggressive in asking for higher pay. But if the situation were reversed and the girl were to sue because she was making less money, the company would have to prove that one job was more valuable than the other, or they'd be held liable under this new law for discriminating.

I really don't like it when the government says "prove to me you're not discriminating, or you're going to be found guilty." The positive spin you will hear about the bill is "it makes it easier to win pay discrimination lawsuits." This is true, but it does that by legally abolishing the presumption of innocence, and that - to me - is wrong.

Edit: A belated note - this diatribe is based on a description of the bill that I read yesterday. I can't find anything today that describes the contents of the bill as anything more than a deadline-extension. That, in my book, is acceptable. I'm just noting that it's entirely possible that I'm completely off base here. It certainly wouldn't be the first time...

I agree with Jim Rogers

Normally, just about everything the Chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education rankles me, and I very rarely agree with it at all. But last Friday, he said this:

"The state of K-16 education in Nevada is where the public, that is you there, has allowed it to sink. Your only relationship with the education system is to ship your unprepared kids to school, not with the expectation of success, but with the demand that an education system – inadequately funded – develop and/or repair children that you as a parent did not prepare," he said. "It is the public – that means you – that has created this disaster of a public education system."

I don't agree with even this whole statement, as I think that calling it "K-16 education" continues an unhealthy obsession with sending kids to college, as he's lumping "higher" education in with "normal" education as though they are both basic needs.

I agree, however, that the expectation of many parents that it is the schools' job to educate and prepare their children - without any parental involvement - is the primary cause of the problems that schools face. The solution, however, in my mind is different from Jim's.

Jim would say "if you have this expectation, provide more money to the system." I would say "parents should get more involved, and we might well improve without any funding changes to the schools."