Devil's Advocate

This Blog Has Moved

2011-10-29T08:13:00.000-04:00

A note to my readers: Two things are happening.

First, the URL (web address) for this blog has moved to ctdevilsadvocate.com. It's my own domain and will be much easier to remember.

Second, the reason for the change is that I'm joining a statewide advertising network that will allow me to not only monetize the blog but grow my readership. And a modest income will provide a greater incentive for me to post more frequently.

I have pulled my old posts on this blog over to ctdevilsadvocate.com, so the full archives are there. Because of the move to Wordpress from Blogger, there are some technical problems with transferring the embedded videos from the old blog to the new blog, but I'm working on fixing that.

If you're so inclined, let me know what you think about the new space. Thanks for reading.

Rowland's Death Penalty Wish

2011-10-23T17:08:00.001-04:00

Sometimes a discredited politician says something so idiotic and hypocritical that it takes your breath away. To wit, when former Gov. John Rowland called current Gov. Dannel Malloy a "pathological liar" over the summer.

Now Johnny is back (he's always back, isn't he?). In an interview broadcast this morning on Fox 61's The Real Story, the convicted felon waxed philosophical on the subject of capital punishment in the wake of the conviction of Petit family killer and rapist Joshua Komisarjevsky.

Rowland trotted out the usual talking points about how putting convicted killers to death was a matter of "justice." Really? Rowland complaining about bringing wrong-doers to justice is a little like Teddy Kennedy complaining that our criminal justice system favors the rich.

To be sure, Rowland isn't a violent criminal. But only the most ardent of Rowland's defenders would really insist that "justice" was done when he pleaded guilty to depriving the public of honest service and spent a little more than a year in the pokey.

As Bill Curry has pointed out, there were so many other matters Rowland might have gone to prison for besides the Bantam Lake cottage: the illegal $220 million loan from the Connecticut Resource Recovery Authority to Enron, the sale of his Washington, D.C., condo at an inflated price, the free vacations and travel, or taking bribes in exchange for state contracts. But the plea bargain worked out by Rowland's lawyer resulted in the state essentially calling it quits on trying to nail Rowland for anything else. So much for "justice." Ugh.

Now to the substance of Rowland's remarks. My main objections to capital punishment are twofold. First, I'm no Don Connery but I do have a history of awareness of and advocacy for the wrongfully convicted. If someone such as Falls Village's Peter Reilly is unjustly convicted and evidence later arises that clears him, then we can always give him his freedom back. Not so if the inmate in executed. Why Rowland insisted that he hasn't seen "any evidence" of wrongful executions, I do not know. A quick Google search turned up plenty of credible cases.

Secondly, and most importantly, the state should never be in the position of deciding who dies and who lives. When the government gets in the business of murdering its own citizens, we should all be ashamed — and terrified. Rowland's comparison to the government killing people in war is specious. The rules governing war are far different from those governing our criminal justice system. Isn't that one of the reasons President Obama hasn't closed Guantanamo and sent Kalid Sheik Mohammed to Manhattan to be tried in a federal court? Enemy combatants shouldn't be treated like common criminals.

If anything is more barbaric than Komisarjevsky's murder and mayhem, it's state-sanctioned murder. Here's hoping Connecticut never executes another person again.

Frank the Baker: Throwing Stones From Portland

2011-10-23T07:29:00.000-04:00

Click here for my latest at CTNewsJunkie.com.

Fresh from Portland's famous quarries comes Frank the Baker — Connecticut's answer to Joe the Plumber — hurling rocks at state lawmakers for making his life as a businessman miserable.

Does he have a point? Sure. That said, most businessmen do have the annoying habit of complaining even when things are good. Right now, however, everyone's justified in complaining except the favored few.

The Incoherence of Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-09T16:47:00.001-04:00

Get a load of this video taken by Reason.tv of an Occupy Wall Street demonstration. Now, you must understand that Reason magazine is a libertarian-leaning organization, so I'm sure there was a certain amount of bias in the editing and selection of clips that went into the 6-minute video.

Still, some of the demands are incoherent and based on factually incorrect premises. To be fair, I suppose you could say the same about some of the Tea Party rallies, too. I'd have to go back and look at the record.

Consider some of the comments at this OWS protest:

I like the sign saying "Please no cameras at this meeting." Isn't one of the OWS protesters' complaints that they weren't getting adequate media coverage?
The nerdy guy in the glasses said the Citizens United decision allows "unlimited donations" to campaigns. Wrong. It upholds the rights of corporations to spend on independent political broadcasts during candidate elections, not give to the campaigns themselves. The latter has been illegal for a long time — and still is. Oh, CU also allows labor unions to do the same, but the guy didn't mention that, perhaps because it doesn't bother him? Or perhaps because the news articles on Alternet never mentioned it?
Another guy wants to get us off the monetary system and move us toward barter. Seriously?
Yet another interviewee wants the government to take over the banks, unless, of course, it happens to be a government run by Republicans. That was a real knee-slapper.
Did you see the looks on the protesters' faces when the NYC councilman pointed out that fully 1/3 of the city's revenues come from Wall Street? It's as if they'd never even considered where the money comes from to run the city's social programs and schools.
As for the anti-bailout guy who said he likes capitalism but that "when you lose, you lose," I wonder what he would have said if the feds hadn't bailed out the auto industry and 100,000 union jobs had disappeared. My guess is he had no problem with sending taxpayer cash to GM. But the interviewer didn't ask him.

Back in the day, I saw an awful lot of dope smoking, so I speak from experience. I'd say there was some pretty good weed floating around that demonstration. And a lot of unemployed people who got up at the crack of noon to join in the fun.

Fox Knocking on Henhouse Door

2011-10-09T15:36:00.000-04:00

Click here for my latest for CTNJ: Who should decide whether a teaching candidate is professionally fit to preside over a classroom in Connecticut’s public schools? The teachers themselves? I don't think so.

Esty Death Watch III

2011-10-08T08:18:00.000-04:00

The Courant's Jon Lender keeps hammering away.

Now we learn that executives from Northeast Utilities have given a total of $2,000 to the congressional campaign of Esty's wife, Elizabeth. If you ever wondered how the $205,000 in consulting fees he collected from a company that falls under his agency's regulation might benefit the DEEP commissioner and taint his work as a regulator, now you know.

Esty and his flaks have insisted all along that there was nothing illegal about his failure to disclose his NU connection and the $7,500 in speaking fees he collected from United Illuminating. And he is probably right. I see no indication that he has actually violated state ethics laws.

But the evidence mounts on a weekly basis that Esty has a glaring blind spot on the matter of disclosure and a tin ear for what is proper and what is not.

The aforementioned drip, drip, drip of impropriety continues. How many more revelations will there be before Lender has exhausted the list of companies whose largess has benefitted the Estys? Can Esty survive or will Gov. Malloy quietly tell him to find other work — an order Esty would have no trouble filling, given the impressive size of his Rolodex.

I'd say one more hand grenade and he's out.

The Esty Death Watch II

2011-10-04T19:53:00.005-04:00

Update 10.05.11: Now Esty says speech-giving and consulting are two different things. Of course, they're not identical. But the bottom line is the corporation is paying you for a service. A distinction without a meaningful difference, I'd say.

* * * * * *

The plot thickens. Apparently, the ethically challenged DEEP commissioner Daniel Esty neglected to disclose yet another consulting fee — this one from 2009 — that he collected from a utility company that currently falls under his department's regulatory authority.

But this one is a little more damning than the $200k+ from Northeast Utilities from from 1997 to 2005 that he failed to list during the vetting process for Gov. Malloy's cabinet. As watchdog Kevin Rennie observes:

Esty, who said he would recuse himself from matters involving companies he’d worked for in the past five years, did not include UI’s $7,500 speaking fee on his list …

Esty’s 5-year rule is his own arbitrary creation for determining the bounds of his disclosure and the public’s right to scrutinize his ties to entities with business before his department.

The drip, drip of this mini-scandal must be driving the governor crazy. Kudos to The Courant's Jon Lender for staying on the trail of the ~~stench~~ estimable Esty.

'Christie's Hefty Burden'

2011-09-30T13:23:00.006-04:00

Update: Now Bloomberg's Michael Kinsley has gotten into the act and is even more blunt: "Look, I’m sorry, but New Jersey Governor Chris Christie cannot be president: He is just too fat."

* * * * * *

As you can imagine, the above headline caught my attention this morning on washingtonpost.com. It was a piece by Post columnist Gene Robinson, who is usually a level-headed pundit. Then I heard a discussion of it on Morning Joe, where Robinson often appears as an analyst. Commentators on the show were giving him hell for the piece.

So while munching on my tuna sandwich at midday, I read it. And I must say that I'm shocked that a national opinion writer would spend an entire column opining on N.J. Gov. (and potential presidential candidate) Chris Christie's weight.

To be fair, Robinson wasn't exactly calling Christie a fat slob. And he correctly noted how obesity adds greatly to our nation's healthcare costs. But he was drawing attention to a matter normally considered too personal, even by national political standards. Consider:

Christie is just 49 and has four young children; politics aside, I’m sure he wants to be around to share the milestones in their lives. He prides himself on bullheaded determination and speaks often about the need for officials to display leadership. Well, Gov. Christie, lead thyself.

Robinson further suggested that Christie "eat a salad and take a walk."

I recall during the 2009 N.J. governor's race, incumbent Jon Corzine ran an ad accusing Christie of "throwing his weight around" as U.S. attorney -- a not-so-subtle reference to his opponent's girth. But even in heavily Democratic New Jersey, it backfired. The Republican Christie bested Corzine by 3.5 points in a three-way race.

Oddly, the Robinson column could have the same effect, which is ironic considering that Robinson conceded that "Politically, I disagree with Christie on almost everything."

But does Robinson have a double standard?

Christie’s weight is as legitimate an issue as the smoking habit that President Obama says he has finally kicked.

Did Robinson write an entire column on Obama's weakness for Marlboro Lights? If not, then I can only conclude Robinson wrote today's column because he doesn't like Christie's politics.

That's when good editors come in handy. Isn't there anyone at The Post's copy desk who can look a star columnist in the eye and say, "Are you sure you really want to go with this?"

Cuomo-Malloy: Peas In Different Pods

2011-09-28T11:10:00.000-04:00

Yet more evidence that Andrew Cuomo has hit the ground running and is doing a commendable job of governing what is, in some ways, an ungovernable state. Tom Dudchik's CT Capitol Report (the closest thing we have to the Drudge Report in Connecticut) this morning carried a linked headline proclaiming "High tech to invest $4 billion in New York state... ".

The NYT blog post announces:

I.B.M., Intel and three other technology companies agreed Tuesday to pour $4 billion into computer-chip research in New York, promising to hire thousands of workers and giving a major boost to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo as he campaigns for companies to invest in the state and create jobs.

Meanwhile, here in Connecticut, we are bribing companies to come here -- or, in some cases -- just to stay here and refrain from laying off thousands of people. What's wrong with this picture?

Granted, there are important differences between the two states, so an apples-to-apples comparison isn't really possible. But consider that, instead of paying companies to come to New York, Cuomo has attracted billions in private high-tech investment in depressed regions upstate in conjunction with state spending on research at its flagship university in Albany.

Meanwhile, here in Connecticut (have I said that before?), we are giving tax incentives to corporations in Gov. Malloy's First Five program, while spending almost a billion dollars just to prop up our hospitals.

Best of all about Cuomo's young governorship, he has managed to balance NYS's budget without major tax increases. I was highly skeptical about Cuomo's election. After all, those attorney-general types are often loathsome characters. No need to name names here, but how many times have you seen the phony stagecraft of a publicity-seeking state attorney general holding a news conference, making empty threats and waving legals papers? Yuck.

But Cuomo has surprised me. After leading NYS out of a fiscal crisis without socking it to taxpayers, he will be poised for a credible run for the White House in 2016. Meanwhile, the unpopular Malloy could be back in Stamford and, if we're lucky, the expansion of the UConn Health Center will still be under construction. Hooray!

The Esty Death Watch

2011-09-25T15:22:00.013-04:00

'DEEP' DOO DOO?

In case you missed it, there's a blockbuster story by Jon Lender in this morning's Hartford Courant (posted on courant.com yesterday) about the commissioner of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) who failed to disclose that he made hundreds of thousands in consulting fees from the parent corporation of CL&P, even as he intervened in favor of CL&P in a regulatory matter.

I'd say Gov. Malloy has done an OK job in filling his cabinet since he took over the reigns of state government in January. But this is really appalling. In his work as a consultant who helps businesses become better environmental citizens, the former Yale professor did so much work in the private sector that he had to recuse himself in advance from having anything to do with 26 organizations that might have matters before DEEP. That in itself should have raised all kinds of red flags.

But the fact that he never disclosed this bombshell is disgraceful:

State energy and environment Commissioner Daniel C. Esty — who sparked some official concern in recent weeks by halting state regulators' deliberations in a multimillion-dollar application by Connecticut Light & Power Co. — was paid $205,000 as a consultant from 1997 to 2005 by CL&P's parent company, Northeast Utilities.

Why did he fail to disclose this important relationship with the state's largest electrical utility when he was hired? Esty said via email, which was apparently the only way he would communicate with Lender, "NU is not on my recusal list because my relationship with that company ended more than five years ago. In addition, the senior managers and people I worked with at NU have all since left that company and this is an entirely new slate of personnel there with whom I had no business relationship."

My BS meter shot up as I read those words. Come on. The appearance of a conflict is still there. Might Esty want to re-establish his relationship with NU after his tenure at DEEP is over? After all, there's more money where that came from. Does he have recent clients whose businesses currently depend on the financial well-being of NU? Might Esty have failed to disclose his NU consulting fees because he feared it would be the straw that would have broken his candidacy for DEEP commissioner back in January?

The hiring of Esty, who was seen as a rising star, was touted as perhaps Malloy's best appointment. Now the thin-skinned educator looks like a ticking time-bomb. Malloy's young governorship faces a serious test. Worse yet, with all those corporate relationships on Esty's resume, will there be other revelations about past relationships and more opportunities for The Professor to exercise poor judgment in failing to disclose them?

In the best tradition of Tim Noah, the Estimable Esty Death Watch has begun.

P.S. Oh, and of course there's also this conflict of interest on the part of Chris Donovan. However, unlike the appointed Esty, voters can always send Donovan packing if they don't like the congressional candidate's role in congressional redistricting.

Whither Labor?

2011-09-25T09:05:00.000-04:00

Click here for my latest for CTNewsJunkie.com: "Whither Labor? Withering on the Vine?"

What kind of future does organized labor have in this country and in Connecticut specifically? I don't think it's particularly bright and the unions themselves are partly to blame.

Too often there is a failure on the part of public sector workers to understand that the resources to fund the government come from the private sector. And when total compensation packages in government outstrip those in the non-government sector, then the system becomes unsustainable.

I'm getting hammered in the comment thread by union trolls. No surprise there. :-)

Energy: Love It and Hate It

2011-09-12T07:43:00.005-04:00

Click here for my latest for CTNewsJunkie.com.

Ever wonder why we can't solve our energy problems in this country? Look no further than ourselves. We love energy consumption but hate inconveniences such as ... oh, power lines, for example.

It’s a refresher course that plays out every 20 years or so.

In the wake of Hurricane Irene, hundreds of thousands of cranky Connecticut ratepayers without power — some for days on end — practically look like they’re ready to storm the Capitol. Or, better yet, the headquarters of Connecticut Light & Power.

Irene: Minimal Damage Here

2011-08-29T15:23:00.002-04:00

Check this out:

After seeing the devastation that was heaped on neighboring communities, such as this Vermont town that saw its covered bridge ripped from its moorings and washed away, I feel fortunate to have only a little water in the basement of my Lakeville home.

We never even lost power here, although it did blink a few times. My guess is we got about 7 inches of rain in maybe 10 hours. Under that kind of assault, one of my basement windows did leak a fair amount of water.

The wind accompanying the downpours was no big deal. But after the rain moved out yesterday afternoon, the back end of the storm produced some gusts in the 40-50 mph range. Once again, I feared we would lose power, but thankfully it was not to be.

I did, however, post the following on Facebook:

I've had it with TV meteorologists standing in 50 mph winds and horizontal rain telling us how bad things are. One of these days, a broadcaster will be killed or seriously injured and then maybe their producers will reconsider this idiotic practice.

Maybe a dead broadcaster and a lawsuit will get their attention.

Money for Nothin’, Loans For Free

2011-08-27T13:57:00.000-04:00

Click here for my latest for CTNJ. Gov. Malloy's crony capitalism program offering tax cuts and subsidies might save some jobs and create a few more. However, it doesn't address the systemic problems with Connecticut's business climate.

But rather than bribe corporations to stay in Connecticut and create a few hundred jobs here and there, I’d rather nurture an environment that says we’re open for business.

Jobs, Jobs, But Only If They're Union

2011-08-23T11:51:00.004-04:00

Great column today in the NYT by Joe Nocera. I sometimes disagree with Nocera, as when he famously called Tea Partiers who objected to raising the debt ceiling "terrorists" (yet later apologized for it). But I loved his piece two years ago on the utter absurdity that is the U.S. Postal Service.

Now he has drawn more attention to an absolute outrage -- the chicanery emanating from the National Labor Relations Board in the matter of Boeing. If you want a refresher on my views, see a post I did in June.

Essentially, Nocera makes the indisputable point that the Obama administration is standing in the way of job creation in South Carolina in order to appease organized labor back in the state of Washington. Could someone explain how this is helpful to the economy?

I know. Both political parties accuse the other of lacking ideas in the area of job creation, because -- frankly -- no one really seems to know what to do to get this economy moving again. Contrary to Republican dogma, Obama can counter the claim that tax increases kill jobs. After all, look to other vibrant economic eras that saw robust growth in spite of significant tax increases.

But here is an example of an American corporation that wants to invest billions of dollars in this country's manufacturing sector. And there is simply no way to get around the fact that the actions of the NLRB are designed to punish a right-to-work state and reward big labor in another state. And the cost? Thousands of jobs, Mr. President! Don't you get it? Or don't you care?

The headline on Nocera's column linked on RCP says it all: "The Boeing Case Should Embarrass Democrats."

Meet The New Boss?

2011-08-14T08:27:00.000-04:00

Click here for my latest for CTNewsJunkie.com. The media landscape in Connecticut could be in for some major consolidation in the next few months. What are the implications? Hint: they're not good!

Through No Default Of Our Own

2011-08-03T15:43:00.000-04:00

After watching the spectacle of the last few weeks of a handful of radicals pummeling a weakling president over raising the federal debt ceiling to avoid a possible default, like most Americans, I shook my head in disbelief.

Then I began to wonder what I would suggest to solve the problem. As I've written before, I would prefer to balance the budget and retire our debt through spending discipline alone. But it's not realistic.

In public opinion polls, Americans talk a good game about small government, but when pollers frame the question in terms of specific programs to be cut, support for slashing public-sector spending drops significantly. So I really don't think the political will exists to cut spending enough to balance the budget. Few politicians are willing to risk losing an election by pushing granny off the cliff.

That means, when the economy finally recovers, taxes will need to be increased. I'm willing to pay more but only if there are guarantees that the extra revenue will be used to retire the debt — not to start new programs or expand existing ones. Is Congress capable of keeping such a promise? Am I being naive?

Oh, here's an idea to save $7 billion a year. Stop subsidizing the goddamned post office!

The Enemies of Openness

2011-07-30T14:26:00.002-04:00

Click here for my latest at CTNewsJunkie.com. Connecticut has great freedom of information laws. But some people don't like that. What on earth are they afraid of?

This Is Why I'm Not A NYT Reader

2011-07-27T16:55:00.002-04:00

A list of words most frequently looked up by New York Times readers. I know most of them but a few (e.g. immiscible, Manichaean) totally escape me.

Is this an indication of elitism on the part of NYT writers that they actually use these words or is it a refreshing admission by readers of The Gray Lady that they're not as smart as they think? Or that they're smart enough to ask for help when they don't recognize a word?

How many do you know?

HT/Rick.

JFK The Worst President Ever?

2011-07-17T08:35:00.008-04:00

A short but very interesting read from Thomas Ricks on JFK's legacy. I, too, have always felt Kennedy was way overrated as a leader. But I was also convinced his presidency was very difficult to judge since he only held the office for two years and ten months.

Before you dismiss Ricks as a partisan right-winger, consider that he is a longtime Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post and that the Bush administration hated his book on its foolish war, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.

Rick's argues that JFK's brief presidency was one disaster after another:

In retrospect, he spent his 35 months in the White House stumbling from crisis to fiasco. He came into office and okayed the Bay of Pigs invasion. Then he went to a Vienna summit conference and got his clock cleaned by Khrushchev. That led to, among other things, the Cuban missile crisis and a whiff of nuclear apocalypse. Looming over it all is the American descent into Vietnam.

Add to that list the fact that he was sleeping with a mobster's girlfriend and that he wound up being murdered — perhaps by the mob itself — and you have a legacy that is less than sterling.

P.S. Oh, and liberals should hate the fact that Kennedy was a supply-sider.

Politicians and Their Bedmates

2011-07-16T08:57:00.002-04:00

Click here for my latest at CTNewsJunkie.com.

I can't help but be amused at the state of affairs in my state. Ex-governor and convicted felon John Rowland, a Republican, has called current Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy a "pathological liar."

Meanwhile, Malloy is laying off thousands of workers, which torks off labor unions and lefties everywhere:

I’d say if you’re a new Connecticut governor and you succeed in pissing off Rowland, the libertarian Yankee Institute, SEBAC and strong progressives like [Jonathan] Pelto, then you must be doing something right — buyer’s remorse or not.

Social Media: An Eye-Opener

2011-07-15T10:37:00.000-04:00

A really cool video about social media statistics and the evolution of communication and connectivity between people and ideas. Wow.

All The News That's Fit To Close

2011-07-09T17:26:00.000-04:00

Recently in a private Facebook thread, I posted a link to the scandal in the Atlanta public school system, where administrators and teachers stand accused of systematically changing the standardized test scores of students over the course of the last 10 years.

A friend, whom I think it would be fair to call a progressive, asked why I wasn't similarly apoplectic about the recent scandal of the Murdoch-owned News of the World, the nasty but antediluvian British tabloid accused, among many other sins, of hacking into the voice mail accounts of — in no particular order — the royal household, politicians, celebrities, a murdered teenager and 7/7 victims.

He further asked me if I was reluctant to take much of a stand because the perps were journalists. My response was that these people are not really journalists in the sense that most of us define the term. The U.K. tabloid scene is a pernicious subculture of journalism. They're really unscrupulous, unlicensed private investigators who buy ink by-the-barrel.

That's a particularly dangerous combination but it doesn't taint the craft of journalism in the same way as the situation in Atlanta, where hundreds of licensed professionals we entrust with the care and education of our children — and whom we pay with hard-earned taxpayer dollars — violated a sacred trust just to protect their own hides.

Then I stumble on to Mark Steyn's latest column. Steyn suggests just the opposite as my friend. At substantial financial loss, Murdoch has announced the closing The News of the World , which at last count was selling on the order of 2.6 million copies a week. To which Steyn asks:

In reality, Beverly Hall's Atlanta Public Schools system was in the child-abuse business: It violated the education of its students to improve its employees' cozy sinecures.

The whole rotten stinking school system is systemically corrupt from the superintendent down. But what are the chances of APS being closed down? How many of those fraudulent non-teachers will waft on within the system until their lucrative retirements?

I wouldn't call teaching a sinecure; nor is retirement terribly lucrative, but Steyn is spot-on about the lack of accountability in government. Would that it were otherwise.

It's funny. No matter what we writers choose to write about, there are those who think we should be writing about something else.

'An Unhappy Birthday'

2011-07-04T14:52:00.001-04:00

My favorite economics writer, Robert Samuelson, has written a terrific but depressing column on the occasion of this nation's 235th birthday. And it feeds right into the prevailing narrative of this blog.

Republicans and Democrats are not getting the job done. As Samuelson sees it, Democrats are "reactionaries" in refusing to face up to the limitations of what government can accomplish with the funds available. "Tax the rich," say the Dems. In other words, raise taxes on anyone who makes more than the typical Democratic voter.

Republicans, on the other hand, are "radicals." GOP "promises of more tax cuts either border on dishonesty or imply huge unspecified spending cuts that would devastate national defense, states and localities, and the poor," Samuelson said.

To that I would add a few thoughts of my own:

Neither party has really embraced the non-partisan Simpson-Bowles or Rivlin-Domenici plans for restoring fiscal discipline. Why? Both plans call for a combination of painful spending cuts and tax increases. Look at the composition of those commissions. Notice how the title of each chair is preceded by the word "former?" Former senator Alan Simpson, former budget chief Alice Rivlin.

Why? No sitting public official of either party can come out with the kinds of recommendations made by those two groups. Why? Because they belong to political parties that would, on some level, find those conclusions to be heretical. A Republican who calls for a tax increase or a Democrat who advocates for significant cuts in social programs would either lose a re-election bid or face an ugly primary challenge. Even unelected White House officials such as Rivlin and Erskine Bowles would probably have found themselves out of a job if they had promulgated such apostasies.

So what we have is a dreadful situation in which legislative gridlock has become the order of the day. Why? Because the politicians who run our government are more concerned about their careers than they are about saving the country. This brings to mind what George Washington said in his farewell address about party power struggles, which he called a "frightful despotism:"

But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

CT’s Budget Crisis: Circus of the Absurd

2011-07-03T12:46:00.001-04:00

Click here for my latest column at CTNewsJunkie.com. If Gov. "Don't Call Me Dan" Malloy is serious, then the pink slips had better start flying very soon. Otherwise, he will lose all credibility. Stay tuned, folks.

Laboring To Defend The Indefensible

2011-06-21T17:13:00.002-04:00

In my days a commentator, I've written a lot about overreaching government. But right now I'm hard pressed to think of any recent example of government tyranny that exceeds what the National Labor Relations Board is doing to Boeing.

The NLRB has filed a complaint against Boeing alleging the company has engaged in illegal retaliation against its labor unions in the state of Washington by electing to locate a new non-union plant in South Carolina. Now, one would think that illegal retaliation would have to take the form of punishing union workers already on the payroll or closing an existing plant, firing its workers and relocating it out of reach of the unions (federal law rightly prohibits management from punishing workers for striking).

The plants in Washington have been plagued by strikes, so in needing to build a new fleet of 787 Dreamliners, Boeing elected to locate a second Dreamliner plant in a right-to-work state where the risk of labor disruptions is minimal. In its public statements, the company was quite candid about its motives.

In taking this action, Boeing did not cut one job from its unionized work force in Washington. Instead, thousands of additional jobs will come to Charleston. And this constitutes "punishment" against union workers on the West Coast?

Perhaps the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers would prefer that Boeing moved those jobs to Mexico? Truth be told, the union doesn't care where the new plant is located if its workers aren't dues-paying.

And we wonder why so many U.S. corporations are opening plants in China and India. Oh, I forgot. Boeing has already done some of that. Heavy industry is already dying in this country; if the NLRB keeps this up, the final nail will be poised to enter the coffin.

What does President Obama think about all this? He won't say, preferring, his spokesman Jay Carney said, to remain neutral in labor disputes. As Col. Potter would say, "Horse hockey!" Obama had no problem wading into the intense struggle in Wisconsin between public employee labor unions and Gov. Scott Walker.

"This is neither good law nor good business," the Washington Post thundered in an editorial. Amen.

Democrats used to insist, with some justification, that the Bush administration routinely politicized the Justice Department. Now the Obama administration, which sailed into Washington on the support of organized labor, is doing the same thing with the NLRB. Shame on him.

Go Home Crooked Gadflies

2011-06-18T14:11:00.000-04:00

Click here for my latest column on CTNewsJunkie.com.

Why does the Land of Steady habits tolerate ne’er-do-wells like Al Sharpton, John Rowland and William Aniskovich?

Those guys shouldn't be allowed in polite company — to say nothing of wielding a lot of influence. Crawl back into your caves, please!

Education Cuts Hit Home

2011-06-13T07:06:00.003-04:00

Update (06.17.11): The district has found a way to keep both librarians on staff. More to follow.

* * * * *

I know I have some readers in the Taconic Hills Central School District in Columbia County, N.Y. If you're one of them, take heed.

In its annual ritual of cutting faculty and staff to satisfy budgetary requirements, the superintendent and Board of Education have once again set their sights on the library-media center, where there are currently two professional librarians.

The superintendent is proposing to cut a position, leaving one professional librarian for the entire K-12 district of some 1,400 students. Twenty years ago, there were four librarians. Through attrition, the BOE has whittled that total down to two, so the library has certainly seen its share of cuts over the years.

If you're concerned about this situation, then you should call or email Superintendent Mark Sposato, elementary school Principal John Gulisane or middle school Principal Neil Howard. And show up for the BOE's next meeting on Wednesday, June 22, to make your voice heard.

Disclosure: My wife has been a librarian at Taconic Hills since 1990. She is not, however, the librarian who will be losing her job under the superintendent's proposal.

Weiner-gate

2011-06-05T13:59:00.000-04:00

I'd considered blogging on Weiner-gate (Wiener-gate?), but after reading Mark Steyn's take, I just gave up. Hey, I know I'm not without talents, but I'd love to be half as clever as the estimable Steyn.

If I want serious discussions of policy, then I know where to turn. But if I want someone to make me ROTF at the hacks who run the U.S. government — and have as far back as I can remember — I turn to Steyn. To wit:

Congressmen are among the few in this land who, in such a situation, can breezily say, as Weiner did to CNN's Dana Bash, "You have statements that my office has put out... ." Herein lies the full horror of American politics in the death throes of the republic: A Congressman has nothing better to do of an evening than Tweet his crotch to coeds, but he requires an "office" with "staffers" to "put out" "statements" on the subject.

When Weiners have staffers, it's very difficult to have limited government: You cannot have a small state run by big Weiners. If you require an "office" to issue "statements" about your Tweets, it's hardly surprising you're indifferent to statist bloat elsewhere.

Thanks for making me laugh, dude!

What Happens to the CT GOP?

2011-06-04T07:06:00.001-04:00

My latest for CTNewsJunkie.com.

Now that party chairman Chris Healy has decided to step down, what will become of the Republican Party in Connecticut?

After being all-but-shout-out in 2010, is there any future for the Red Party in a sea of Blue Yankee ink? A knight in shining armor might help.

Three Strikes For California's Prisons

2011-05-25T15:47:00.000-04:00

As an observer of the United States Supreme Court, I watched with interest as the court's liberal wing (along with swing vote Anthony Kennedy) recently upheld two class-action suits claiming California's prisons are overcrowded and provide inadequate medical and psychiatric care. The high court ruled the state must reduce its prison population by a staggering 33,000 inmates.

While my instincts tell me the high court has no business in such matters, the fact remains that California's prisons are indeed overcrowded, despite the fact the state alone has 33 prisons and a budget of about $12 billion. Why are the state prisons breathtakingly expensive? Some of it has to do with the ridiculous Three-Strikes law and some of it has to do with bloated contracts for the union guards who support that same law.

But that is neither here nor there. What I hope this case brings is a renewed debate in this country about incarceration in general. Can there be any doubt that we send far too many people to prison for too long for relatively minor offenses?

In fact, I would go one step farther and question the whole notion of incarcerating non-violent offenders. Is sending them to prison effective? Based on the fact that we have the highest incarceration rate in the world, I'd say no. The U.S has 5% of the world's population but fully one quarter of all the world's inmates. And we have a crime rate that, depending on whose statistics you trust, ranges from average to among the world's worst.

Maybe — just maybe — a different approach would save taxpayers a lot of money and provide a different outcome. Or am I just dreaming?

Cain and the Not So Stable

2011-05-22T16:42:00.000-04:00

No, West isn't at a Nazi
event -- he's visiting a Holocaust
museum in Jerusalem.

I've been hearing a lot of noise lately from Tea Party types who are bored with the dreary Republican presidential field for 2012 and are looking for a fresh face who just might stand a chance against The Great One.

Two names come up more often than you might think: Herman Cain and Allen West. Cain, a businessman and unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Senate in 2004, just announced his candidacy yesterday. West, a first-term congressman from Florida and retired Army officer and Iraq war veteran, is being urged to run but has not yet committed.

Cain has never held elected office and West has been a Congressman for all of four months. So what do they have in common? They're both conservative and African American. Since its inception, the Tea Party has been dogged by charges of racism within its ranks — unfairly in many cases.

Why then would so many of those TPers gravitate toward these two black men? Well, if you're a Tea Partier looking to dispel the notion that you're a racist, there's no better way than to embrace a black candidate who shares your views.

Here's the problem with that. If TPers were beating the drum for someone like Colin Powell, that would be one thing. But Cain and West, while interesting characters, are no better prepared to assume the presidency than was Obama in 2008.

Tea Party types are fond of saying, with some justification, that Barack Obama had one of the thinnest resumes of any incoming president. But doesn't supporting the candidacies of Cain and West feed into the stereotype of the underachieving affirmative-action black man?

Conversely, when progressives ridicule the candidacies of Cain and West, don't they leave themselves open to charges that they placed their faith in a similarly unqualified man?

As the saying goes, "Just asking ..."

Penis-gate

2011-05-22T08:34:00.001-04:00

My latest for CTNewsJunkie.com.

What would you think if you had a state senator who said she thought a defendant in a multiple murder trial should be hanged "by his penis from a tree out in the middle of Main Street?"

The answer is pretty obvious but what I'm trying to get at in this week's column is whether emotion should play a role, not only in politics, but in the actual formation of public policy.

The rise of emotion in politics and governance is growing. And I think it's dangerous.

Brief Hiatus

2011-05-15T12:49:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the sparse blogging of late. I've been very busy at work, and with my column at CTNJ. As always, volunteer work takes a back seat to paying work and family. I'll be back later this week or early next. Thanks.

Courts: Shut Up, High School Students!

2011-05-08T13:51:00.001-04:00

My latest for CTNewsJunkie.com.

Do public high school students have freedom-of-speech rights off-campus? Evidently, the courts don't think so. And knuckle-headed administrators are let off the hook. Ugh ...

They Have Done The Deed

2011-05-02T11:21:00.002-04:00

Osama bin Laden is gone. Ding dong, the wicked terrorist kingpin is dead.

I give President Obama credit where it's due. Despite campaign promises to get out of the Afghanistan region with all due speed, he quickly realized how important it was to hold firm in the face of a severe threat. Now you would think that the assassination of OBL would be the perfect pretext to withdraw from the region ASAP. But I don't think he will.

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the reason we remain in Afghanistan is Pakistan. The latter nation possesses nuclear weapons but has millions of Islamic fanatics, including most of the Taliban that used be in Afghanistan. If the radicals take over that country, we and India (a key ally in the region) could be in a lot of trouble. Standing by next door sends an important message to Pakistan that we're ready to act if need be. And that's an important message, given the revolutionary climate currently prevailing in the Middle East.

Heck, even if the current regime stays in power in Pakistan, we could be toast. Evidently, the 3,000 SF home OBL was living in was only 30 miles north of Islamabad and a stone's throw away from a Pakistani military installation. The Pakistan government, or large factions in its military, had to know OBL was there.

Leave it to others to find humor in this. My friend John Pollard reports a great Facebook posting: "Osama should have been caught alive and continuously made to go through airport security for the rest of his life."

As someone who recently received a full 10-minute shakedown by Bahamian airport security in Nassau, I can definitely relate ...

NYS Greenies Want To Ban Everything?

2011-04-24T09:11:00.002-04:00

The Green Party of New York questions the enviro creds of newly elected Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Fair enough. Maybe he could be doing more. Who knows?

But get this:

On Earth Day, the Green Party of New York called upon Gov. Andrew Cuomo to ban hydrofracking for natural gas, shut down nuclear power plants and undo a delay on a sales ban on outdoor wood boilers.

Now, if you shut down two of the state's nuclear power plants, effectively halt new natural gas exploration and outlaw heating by wood boilers (a renewable resource), what exactly is left?

I'm sure even members of the Green Party want their lights to work when they turn them on. How would NYS replace the enormous amounts of electrical power that would be lost if the two nuke plants were shut down?

Natural gas? Nope, we can't have that because extraction techniques are too risky and besides, the NYS Green Party wants to ban new construction of gas-powered plants anyway. Large hydroelectric projects? No, they don't like them either.

They're big on wind, solar and bio-mass, but those have drawbacks, too. They're also big on conservation, which I agree should be part of the equation, but the kinds of cuts in consumption they advocate would likely have significant economic consequences.

So what are we left with when all is said and done? A lot of hot air directed at Cuomo, that's what. As such, it's hard to take the Green Party seriously. Is it any wonder that they only have seven elected officials, all on the local level, scattered across the state?

Don't Trust The Cops To Police Themselves

2011-04-23T07:56:00.002-04:00

My latest for CTNewsJunkie.com. Who investigates the police when officers are suspected of wrongdoing? The police, that's who. Am I alone, or is something wrong with this picture?

Recent developments in Connecticut have served to drive home the point that it's not fair to citizens (or, for that matter, to the police themselves) to have cops looking into charges of malfeasance in their own ranks.

Of Bloggers And Puritans

2011-04-13T10:03:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Tom Dudchik for the Capitol Report link to the news that Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal is likely to sign a bill allowing for Sunday alcohol sales. That will leave only Connecticut and Indiana clinging to the Puritan-era ban on Sunday sales.

According to the AP article, most of the objections in Georgia are based on religion or on the presumption that Sunday sales will lead to increased consumption of booze. Here in the Nutmeg State, few people mention those concerns.

Instead, we are worried that a small group of business people (the state's mom-and-pop package store owners) will be forced to open on Sunday and incur additional expenses that could bankrupt them. So the fierce lobby that looks out for the little package stores cries foul at the possible elimination of such blatant protectionism.

* * * * * * * *

Also, I learned last night of the dumbest lawsuit ever. A group of bloggers who wrote for the Huffington Post on the condition that they do so only for exposure and not pay, has sued Arianna Huffington for ... back pay.

As Jack Shafer says, we have become "a nation of Winklevosses" who are happy with an agreement until we see that there's more money in the pit and want to a new deal.

If Jonathan Tasini, the lead plaintiff in the class action suit against HuffPo, had wanted to be paid, then he should have refused to write until he was compensated -- or found another outlet for his writings that would pay him.

I myself used to write op-eds for the Lakeville Journal on a pro bono basis, which was fine until I felt I could no longer justify spending several hours on a column without getting paid. So I found a place that would compensate me for my time.

There. That wasn't so hard, was it Mr. Tasini?

Birther Man

2011-04-12T15:52:00.004-04:00

Donald Trump may not know much about politics, but he knows how to market himself and get attention. By raising the possibility that President Obama was not born in the U.S., Trump has stirred the conservative, Obama-hating base. So much so, in fact, that he has risen to a tie with Mike Huckabee for first place among likely 2012 Republican presidential primary voters.

In the WSJ interview video above, Trump addresses the birther issue yet again. Now I will concede that the circumstances surrounding Obama's birth certificate are strange. The president cannot or will not produce his long-form birth certificate; and in an attempt to put the issue to rest, the newly-elected Democratic governor of Hawaii said he would find it and show it to reporters -- and then basically said, "Never mind."

Trump is probably correct that there is something on that birth certificate that they do not want us to see. Maybe it says Obama's father was a Muslim. I think long-form birth certificates from that era state both parents' religion. Mine does. Or maybe there is no birth certificate because he wasn't born in the U.S.

And it is strange there don't seem to be a lot of friends who recall Obama from his childhood, or remember him during his college days. Strange indeed. Maybe he was just something of a loner. But let's say we confirm that Obama was actually born in Kenya, or that his atheist father was born a Muslim. Where does that leave us? Pretty much where we are now.

If it was established that President Obama is not a U.S. citizen because he was born abroad, what do we do then? Congress would have to draw up articles of impeachment based on the fact that Obama is constitutionally unfit to serve. Can you imagine what a circus that would be? Wouldn't it be better for Republicans to put their energies into defeating the president in his bid for re-election?

The point is that it doesn't really matter what's on Obama's birth certificate or where it was issued. And any attempt to make a big deal out of it is either publicity mongering (Trump) or an attempt on the part of nativists and racists to delegitimize Obama.

I know a better way to delegitimize Obama. Kick his ass in 2012.

In My 'Sites'

2011-04-08T20:57:00.002-04:00

My latest op-ed for CTNewsJunkie.com. Do we really need the Connecticut Siting Council — that rather haughty commission that decides what goes where in our state? I say no and I've got some ideas on how to replace it.

Fed Up With Nukes? Tax 'Em To Death!

2011-04-05T06:50:00.002-04:00

Update: Hurray. Gov. Malloy has come out against this particular tax.

* * * * * *

Yes, literally. A bill pending in the Connecticut General Assembly would impose a tax on generators of electricity that use coal, oil and nuclear power. Of the $340 million the tax is expected to raise, $330 million would come from the company that owns Millstone, the state's only remaining nuclear plant.

That's right. This amounts to a special tax on one company and one form of energy (it should be noted that Gov. Malloy's proposed tax on the plant sought to raise only $33 million, fully one-tenth of the amount that would be raised if this bill passes).

In response, Millstone's parent company, Dominion Resources, has threatened to close the plant. To give you an idea of how devastating the closure would be, The Day reports:

Dominion spokesman [Ken] Holt said Millstone directly employs 1,080 people and 350 supplemental personnel. The facility is responsible for roughly $1.2 billion annually in economic benefits to Connecticut.

Now it's entirely possible, as Rep. Vickie Nardello (D-Prospect) suggested, that Dominion is merely employing a "fear tactic." Still, think for a moment what kind of message this confiscatory tax would send to businesses that might want to relocate to Connecticut. Sure, natural gas and other kinds of electricity generation would be exempt from the tax, for the time being.

But how long would it take before grasping lawmakers started eying the treasuries of companies that produce other forms of energy? Would you want to locate a business, any kind of business, in a state that has this kind of arbitrary tax policy?

Perhaps Rep. Nardello, who chairs the Energy and Technology Committee, might want to consider that before bringing the bill to a vote. Nardello, you might recall, advocated strongly last year for an energy bill that called for the state to create at least 25 megawatts of wind power.

But now that an energy company has proposed to put two industrial wind turbines in her own town, Nardello says she supports legislation calling for the state to enact regulations on those devices, despite the fact that the Connecticut Siting Council, which already regulates the placement of wind turbines, has said the legislation isn't necessary.

I thank Christine Stuart of CTNewsJunkie.com, where I am an op-ed columnist, for alerting her readers to this development today in her daily "Morning Coffee and Politics" email. I love Christine's brief commentary that accompanied her email alert:

Is the committee playing "bad cop," so the company will "happily" accept the governor's alternative proposal? Or is Nardello simply on a crusade to revert us back to a simpler time when we all just burned wood and candles? Oh wait, there's a bill to ban that too.

Governor Tax-a-lot?

2011-03-29T18:40:00.001-04:00

My friend Mike Flint continually refers to Gov. Dannel Malloy as Gov. Tax-a-Lot.

Fair enough. The man is raising taxes on just about everyone in the state, while next door, NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo is not. But as Malloy points out, Connecticut's deficit is much higher as a percentage of its budget.

Our fiscal problems are so severe that if Malloy balanced the budget without raising taxes, aid to schools would have to be cut drastically. And you know what that means. Municipalities and school districts would have to raise property taxes. Either way, we get hit.

I take a back seat to no one in my aversion to raising taxes, but I don't think there's any way to get around it this time.

Here's Gov. Malloy's appearance today on Morning Joe. I thought he acquitted himself well. I think Mika has a crush on him.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

CT's Media Landscape: Good Or bad?

2011-03-26T17:17:00.001-04:00

My latest column for CTNewsJunkie.com. A little more than two years after a state senator proposed bailing out newspapers, what is the state of the news media in our state? I'd say it's pretty good, all things considered.

From Bankrupt to Thriving

2011-03-26T07:46:00.004-04:00

What has happened at the Journal Register Company is nothing short of a miracle.

Two years ago, the company was de-listed from the NYSE and mired in bankruptcy, the victim of crushing debt brought on by rapacious acquisition and the great recession. At that time, it was the fifth largest newspaper company in America, but perhaps its biggest distinction was that it was also the worst newspaper company in America.

Within six months, the JRC emerged from Chapter 11 as a privately held company and now it's doing so well -- a $41 million profit in 2010 -- that CEO John Paton announced on his blog that not only is he handing out bonuses to his executives, but he's awarding an extra week's pay to the company's employees.

Locally, the JRC owns the Register-Citizen of Torrington.

Standing Disclosure: This blog is linked on the R-C's homepage through an agreement with the publisher, Matt DeRienzo. In an act of voluntary reciprocation, I link to the R-C here and use it as a source whenever possible. However, the paper exercises no editorial control over this blog. According to my stat counter, registercitizen.com is by far the largest single source of page views for Devil's Advocate.

I give Paton and his staff credit. They have pursued what they call a "digital-first" business model that emphasizes the web over print. And at a time when many newspapers are struggling to wring revenue out of their websites, the JRC is making money by posting content as soon as it becomes available and arming its reporters with Flip video cameras.

The R-C has moved its headquarters to much larger digs and opened up a newsroom cafe, community media lab, community journalism school and a local news library, free and open to the general public. The paper has opened its daily news staff meeting to the public and streams those meetings live on its website.

Now, they just need to work on nailing down their facts and paying attention to details. The Register-Citizen is a far better paper than it used to be. It is far more transparent than most papers and has an unusually strong policy on corrections. But much of its staff is unfamiliar with the region, so misspellings and lack of context in stories are common.

Perhaps editorial oversight could also be strengthened. To wit: the paper published a letter to the editor concerning my employer that was signed by a dead man. People, including journalists, are human and they'll make mistakes. Someone, though, clearly dropped the ball and thoroughly embarrassed the company.

Be that as it may, the company and the R-C are clearly headed in the right direction. I wish Matt DeRienzo and his staff the best of luck. Any newspaper that has found a way to make good money from the Internet is doing something right.

Cellular Sickness, Marketing Opportunity

2011-03-22T18:25:00.000-04:00

I have on my screen a really bad piece of journalism in the Litchfield County Times.

It's a feature on a Kent couple — a holistic doctor and an acupuncturist — who say they were forced to move out of town because a nearby cell tower was making them sick. So they relocated their business, Progressive Medicine, to Litchfield.

The reporter basically quoted what the couple said about the dangers of microwave radiation from cell towers and electronic devices and repeated it without even a hint of skepticism. No independent sources at all to support their contentions. Where was his editor?

Both the man and his wife say they're feeling better since relocating. But wouldn't it be interesting to put a fake cell tower next to the couple's new home in Litchfield and see whether they complain of a recurrence of their symptoms. You know, the placebo effect ...

As as my friend Chris pointed out on Facebook, this could be a brilliant marketing move, for as the LCT reports:

In their Litchfield practice they treat people with symptoms similar to the ones they overcame and, as such, are naturally better prepared to handle the problems.

And a letter to the editor on the same subject is hilarious. The writer thinks cell towers are ugly, so he suggests satellite phones instead:

The cost: $1,070, plus the regular cell phone plan, plus $25 a month for access to the satellite, plus 65 cents a minute per call.

OK, that would do for retired hedge fund managers on Lake Waramaug, but how about the rest of us? And I wonder how much the data plan is for that stupid phone. That's probably another $100 a month for only a quarter of a gigabyte.

The weekenders and NYC transplants in the Northwest Corner are some of the finest people I know, but honestly, there a few who should just keep quiet, lest they make complete fools of themselves.

The Vexing Search For Alternatives

2011-03-20T07:21:00.001-04:00

Continuing the discussion from the earlier thread on the Japanese nuclear disaster, I offer an example of how hard it is to find alternatives to atomic power if we abandon it.

Hydro Quebec, the government-owned utility behemoth to our north that supplied my electricity when I was in college, has proposed to use existing rights-of-way, and build new ones, to bring electricity into the New Hampshire and national grids. Yes, that's right. Lots of clean and renewable energy generated by large hydro-electric projects up on the James Bay and points beyond.

The proposed project is running into intense opposition from property owners whose land might be seized, as well as residents worried about the diminished viewshed and the resulting effect on tourism, especially in northern New Hampshire.

Opponents in the Granite State have created a website called "Live Free Or Fry" -- a satirical play on the state's libertarian motto. I understand their worries. No one wants to look at the transmission lines and their towers, which in this case will be on the order of 135 feet tall. Others don't consider hydroelectric power to be renewable and insist that the project will inhibit the growth of the true green energy sector.

I can especially sympathize if your livelihood depends on tourism and you honestly believe the lines will keep people away from the White Mountains. Moreover, some residents are apoplectic about the possibility that the right-of-way could be taken by eminent domain. But I'm sure that even if the ROW was being condemned by the state of New Hampshire instead of the province of Quebec, the protesters would be yelling just as loudly.

The point is: How are we ever going to replace nuclear power if we can't even agree on allowing a muscular form of carbon-free energy to flow through rural portions of this nation? How will we break from our dependence on fossil fuels and all their drawbacks — oil (carbon), coal (particulates) and natural gas (hydrofracking) — if we struggle mightily with allowing scalable wind and solar generation?

The answer is: We're stuck with what we have unless our attitudes change. Period.

Cutting Its Way To Prosperity

2011-03-18T09:53:00.007-04:00

Update: I've been saying for months that eventually the college tuition bubble will burst. Well, it looks like the law school bubble has burst. Can others be far behind?

* * * * * *

Readers of this blog have surely noticed my strong antipathy toward colleges and universities raising their tuition, room and board at twice the rate of inflation over the last 20 years. There is no way they can sustain those levels of increases and expect to secure their long-term survival.

Now one prominent university, Sewanee, has had enough and decided to take action. The University of the South "announced it would cut its $46,000-a-year tuition by 10 percent next year."

Either university officials have seen the handwriting on the wall, they're trying to buy good PR or they've simply decided to do the right thing (or all three). Any way you cut it, Sewanee is to be congratulated!

P.S. Here's another story from the Chattanooga Times-Free Press.

No Nukes, Again

2011-03-15T13:00:00.000-04:00

With only a few days separating us from the nuclear disaster in Japan, is now a good time to start a discussion about whether we should expand the role of nuclear power in our energy plans? I don't think so.

Why? Because the tendency will be to react more on emotion than reason. That's just human instinct.

Fortunately, some lawmakers agree with me. When asked if the Asian disaster would dampen enthusiasm for nuclear power in the U.S, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said:

"This discussion reminds me, somewhat, of the conversations that were going on after the BP oil spill last year," McConnell said during an interview on Fox News Sunday. "I don’t think right after a major environmental catastrophe is a very good time to be making American domestic policy."

On Meet The Press, Sen. Chuck Schumer mostly agreed, too: "I'm still willing to look at nuclear. As I’ve said, it has to be done safely and carefully."

Tell that to Eugene Robinson, who penned a column today that labeled nuclear power "a uniquely toxic technology" and "a bargain with the devil." I suspect more such pieces will be published (if they haven't already) in the days to come.

All energy sources carry some risk. Oil and coal emit greenhouse gases (the latter spews a lot of particulate matter as well), while natural gas is cleaner but still puts carbon into the atmosphere. Wind and solar will never provide the kind of muscle we need to power the world's economy (plus, wind and solar farms take up huge amounts of land to generate relatively little power).

So what do we do? Of the non-carbon-generating energy sources, nuclear power provides some 70% of it. Should we do away with it and replace it with what?

Obviously, it makes little sense to build nuclear plants in areas that are prone to earthquakes and the resulting tsunamis, as northeast Japan is. And any plant built near the sea should have its back-up generator's diesel tanks protected from a wash-out.

As horrible as this tragedy is, we need to keep it in perspective. About 60,000 motorists are killed every year on U.S. roads and bridges. That's literally millions of people over the last several decades, but I don't hear any talk of closing down our highway system.

Update to the Post Below

2011-03-14T12:05:00.005-04:00

A few hours after I posted on teachers pay, 60 Minutes ran a report on a charter school in NYC that pays its teachers more -- a lot more. Check it out in case you missed it.

Pay Teachers More, But ...

2011-03-13T14:39:00.001-04:00

I don't often read Nicholas Kristof's columns, but this one in today's NYT caught my eye.

Given the current climate on the subject of public employees, Kristof thinks teachers should not be demonized and that we should pay them more, in part to raise the prestige of the profession. Fifty years ago when women had few professional alternatives beyond teaching and nursing, America's classrooms were run by the best and brightest females in the land. Not so anymore. To wit:

... 47 percent of America’s kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers come from the bottom one-third of their college classes (as measured by SAT scores).

That's really unfortunate and I agree that we need to do something about it (please don't accuse me of demonizing teachers; I taught high school English for 13 years and come from a family of educators). For the most part, I don't disagree with the idea that some teachers should be paid more. But I think we should pay the best teachers more.

So Kristof he is correct that higher pay should be tied, in part, to superior performance. The best teachers should earn the most. I would add that school boards should also be allowed to pay more for hard-to-fill positions such as math and science. But the unions will fight those reforms tooth-and-nail precisely because of the outdated "factory model of compensation" Kristof speaks of. That attitude has got to change if education is ever to be reformed. But don't bet on it.

Is it really as hard to rate teacher performance as the unions would have us believe? I don't think so. Success in teaching is all relative.

In a poor district, for example, if a 6th grade teacher has a bunch of students who are reading at the 2nd grade level and s/he raises them to the 4th or 5th grade level by the end of the year, that is just as impressive as the AP teacher whose students get 4s and 5s on the test.

No teacher should be penalized for teaching the dumb class. Success has to be quantified on that kind of scale, with frequent observations. I wouldn't even have a problem with cameras in the classroom, both from a professional development standpoint and as a tool for student discipline.

I evaluated teachers for several years. It's really not that hard to tell great educators from those who sleepwalk through their entire day.

Please, Please Pass This Bill!

2011-03-11T17:05:00.001-05:00

My latest for CTNJ.

This column deals with a bill before the Connecticut General Assembly that would require law enforcement to record the interrogations of suspects in most felony cases.

For obvious reasons, the police object. They don't want you to know what goes on in those rooms. I do and so should you.

Disagree with me? After perusing my column, read Don Connery's book and see how the Connecticut State Police brainwashed Falls Village teenager Peter Reilly into confessing to the murder of his mother. It's sickening. Really.

A Rising Tide Of Mediocrity

2011-03-06T09:54:00.002-05:00

My headline, a phrase made famous by a presidential commission's report on education in the 1980s, is perhaps too kind.

It's not often I agree with Bob Herbert, the arch-liberal lion of the New York Times op-ed page. But he penned a compelling column yesterday that cites a new book based on a recent study indicating that more and more students are getting less and less out of their college experience.

Among the findings:

According to [the] analysis of more than 2,300 undergraduates at 24 institutions, 45 percent of these students demonstrate no significant improvement in a range of skills — including critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing — during their first two years of college.

And there was also this:

As troubling as their findings are, Arum and Roksa argue that for many faculty and administrators they will come as no surprise — instead, they are the expected result of a student body distracted by socializing or working and an institutional culture that puts undergraduate learning close to the bottom of the priority list.

As regular readers of this blog know, I have been sharply critical of colleges and universities for their confiscatory tuition increases over the last 20 years. But in this case, it's not so easy to point the finger at them.

For several decades at least, college has been characterized by a surfeit of distractions: thousands of teens and young adults who have never been away from home for an extended period of time; the easy availability of drugs, alcohol and sex; academic and social supervision that is, in most cases, far less vigilant than students were accustomed to in high school; and a nationwide educational culture that increasingly emphasizes entitlement and self-esteem over actual achievement.

I do agree with the report's conclusion, however, that in larger universities undergraduate education is often devalued. What message does it send, for example, when so many undergraduate classes are led by teaching assistants while the credentialed professor is off doing research?

And I suspect that colleges are not terribly inclined to get tough with the student slackers because of the risk involved. After all, as a fundraiser, I think's it's safe to say that students are, in some ways, a lot like donors: it is far cheaper to retain an existing one than to find a new one.

All I can do is hope things improve by the time my son enters college in September 2014. Wow, did I actually say that?

You Go, Peter Reilly!

2011-02-27T18:03:00.001-05:00

Terrific piece in today's Hartford Courant by Jon Lender on a bill pending in the CT legislature that would require police departments to tape interrogations.

Among those interviewed: Peter Reilly, who was falsely accused — and later exonerated — of murdering his mother in Falls Village in 1973. And Peter makes some great points, doesn't he?

'Posing' A Question

2011-02-27T09:46:00.001-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhXBwPyKtvQ

Should a journalist ever misrepresent his/her identity in order to get a story? Ever since the ABC News/Food Lion fiasco, the answer has been obvious to me. Of course not. It's unethical.

But what if you're a political satirist and activist trying to prove that the person you're calling is a bad guy? Is that OK?

That's the question I've been asking myself in the wake of the blogger and Democratic operative from Buffalo pretending to be wealthy conservative benefactor David Koch in a telephone call to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

The blogger basically got Walker to admit that his intent in proposing the recent controversial legislation is to break the public-sector unions — no big surprise there.

Some are likening this episode to the escapades of the activists who posed as potential clients for ACORN and Planned Parenthood and got employees of those organizations to say embarrassing things. And I think there is some validity to that. The Fox News types who applauded those moves now profess to be horrified at what the Buffalo Beast did to Walker. Conversely, liberals who complained then consider the blogger a hero now.

But there are a couple of important differences. The right-wing activists were impersonating fictitious characters during in-person visits. The Buffalo blogger was impersonating an actual prominent person and taped the phone conversation without the consent of the party he was calling. The latter is a crime in most states. In addition, illegal wiretapping could expose the caller to civil litigation. The question of fraud is another matter entirely and, I am told, is less clear.

HSR: The Tracks To Nowhere

2011-02-25T15:18:00.001-05:00

My column this week for CTNewsJunkie.com on the almost bizarre fascination so many of our elected officials have with high-speed rail.

Is Blogging a Dying Medium?

2011-02-21T13:41:00.001-05:00

Update: Colin McEnroe's take on blogs: "They will have fewer readers. But the readers will be highly committed."

* * * * *

A NYT article today suggests that it is, at least among younger audiences. And surely that's not good news for the future of this little craft:

According to the NYT, "The Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center found that from 2006 to 2009, blogging among children ages 12 to 17 fell by half; now 14 percent of children those ages who use the Internet have blogs."

And even among 18-to-33-years-olds, the percentage of Internet users who blog has dropped two percentage points over the last couple of years. What gives? The culprit seems to be — hold your breath — social networking: Facebook and, to a lesser extent, Twitter.

I suppose I shouldn't complain. Ten years ago, there were plenty of people who lamented the rise of blogging itself. They complained that it was too informal, that it dumbed down the concept of essay- and column-writing, for example.

The problem I have with Facebook for opinion or analysis is that it has significant limitations, whereas blogging online expanded the print writer's horizons through links, comment enabling and the potential for a wider audience. Typically, Facebook only allows you to post a link and a paragraph or so of text. Facebook is blogging lite — very lite. And Twitter, with its 140-character tweet limit, is Facebook lite.

Plus, I'm finding that if I put up a link on Facebook to my one of my blog posts, invariably I get more comments about the post on Facebook than I do on the blog itself. Talk about the young eating its mother ...

"Blogging can be a very lonely occupation," a spokesperson for LiveJournal told the NYT. "You write out into the abyss."

That's surely be an exaggeration. Blogging is still fun, but it ain't what it used to be.

Love's Labour's Lost

2011-02-17T21:30:00.003-05:00

"Kill the bill!"

Update: All the Dems in the Wisconsin legislature are hiding out in Rockford, Illinois, to prevent a vote on the legislation. Shades of Texas circa 2003 ...

* * * * *

It's either a great time for taxpayers or a sad day for American labor, depending on your point of view.

Angry public-sector workers are protesting at the capitol in Madison, Wisc., where newly elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker is proposing legislation that would significantly weaken government unions. The Cheesehead protest follows similar outcries over other governors who are also playing tough with the unions. Chris Christie (R-NJ), Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), Jerry Brown (D-CA) and even our own Dan Malloy (D-CT) have also asked for significant concessions.

I'm heartened that even Democratic governors are active in telling the unions that public-sector compensation packages are unsustainable. Let me be clear: I do not think public employees have salaries that are terribly out-of line, adjusted for education levels, with the private sector. The problem lies mostly in the legacy costs of state workers who contribute relatively little to their health insurance and pension funds and, regardless of market conditions, receive guaranteed benefits, allowing them to retire at an age that makes private-sector workers insanely jealous.

Even worse, in Connecticut and New York, retirement benefits are based on the last two years of an employee's gross wages (including overtime). I've spoken with retired state troopers here in Connecticut who tell me they piled on the overtime their last two years on the job (with the encouragement of their supervisors) so that they can retire for life on six-figures or close to it.

And of course, there is the infamous case of the Yonkers cop who, thanks to overtime spiking, retired at 44 on a more than $100,000 annual pension after working only 20 years with a top base salary of $74,000. This has got to stop.

Having said that, I think Wisconsin's Walker is going too far. He wants to strip the public unions of their rights to collectively bargain for all but their wages. And if they wanted a raise greater than the consumer price index, then such an increase would have to be approved by taxpayers at a statewide referendum. Plus, he conveniently exempted two typically Republican constituencies — police and firefighters' unions — from that very requirement. Hmmm ...

But any change in pension benefits will only result in savings many years down the line. Right now, the unions will have to either make significant wage and benefit concessions or face huge lay-offs. Given their track records so far, the union bosses would prefer lay-offs. So be it.

P.S. On the way home from shuttling one of my children, I heard an NPR reporter refer to the proposed Wisconsin legislation as "anti-union." Couldn't it just as plausibly be called "pro-taxpayer?"

A Mecca For Moonbats!

2011-02-16T22:00:00.001-05:00

In the last several months, the Berkeley City Council has considered resolutions welcoming Gitmo detainees and declaring suspected traitor PFC Bradley Manning a hero. The latter passed (sort of) and the former failed.

Doesn't Berkeley have any local problems to worry about? More shocking is that Birkenstock City actually has an appointed 15-member Peace and Justice Commission that considers such actions.

I'm sorry, but Berkeley is a mecca for what Howie Carr would call M OONBATS!

Sunday Booze Ban: Dumbest Law In The Land

2011-02-13T09:42:00.002-05:00

CTNewsJunkie.com

My latest for CTNewsJunkie.com. This column is on the possible repeal of the ban on Sunday liquor sales.

Watch What He Does, Not What He Says

2011-02-11T14:34:00.002-05:00

I was trying to find a diversion from the dramatic news in Egypt when I noticed this piece in today's Washington Times on one of the biggest phonies on the planet. Reading about what a hypocrite Michael Moore is begs the question: should I be allowed to have this much fun?

It's curious. I have friends on the left who think Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite because he's a family-values guy who also happens to be a drug addict and was married four times. They're right about Rush. He's a major-league charlatan. But for some reason, those same people can't see through Michael Moore. They fail to grasp the irony of a man who denounces capitalism at every available opportunity, while profiting handsomely from it.

From the WT:

Mr. Moore is a jet-setting multimillionaire living a life of luxury, leisure and fame. He travels in a private plane and a fleet of SUVs ... He also dislikes using union workers on his sets - or paying them union wages ... He is completely detached from the workers he claims to defend.

and this:

He claims that white flight from the cities to the suburbs is based on fear of blacks ... Yet ... he does not live in an interracial neighborhood. Instead, he has made his home at a swanky mansion in Central Lake, in an upscale, exclusive and overwhelmingly white community in northern Michigan.

Ironically, I defended Moore when Republicans in Enfield, Conn., foolishly tried to prevent the public library there from showing Sicko, Moore's scathing film on the U.S. healthcare system.

Also, there is the irony of a 400-pound man with a private plane lecturing us on over-consumption, but we won't go there ...

Sometimes I Wonder About This Guy

2011-02-09T13:31:00.000-05:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

You have got to be kidding me. Bill Maher thinks Bill O'Reilly in his interview with President Obama on Super Bowl Sunday was "unpatriotic." And why would this be?

Because the overbearing O'Reilly asked Obama some tough questions and interrupted him a few times. Good grief! Would Maher have said the same thing about Dan Rather and his smart-alecky questioning of President Nixon ("No sir, Mr. President. Are you?")? Or Wolf Blitzer's embarrassing interview in 2007 with Vice President Cheney? That CNN piece was so bad that it succeeded in doing the impossible: making Darth Cheney into a sympathetic character.

Presidents (and would-be presidents) tend to be great bullshitters. That's how they got there in the first place. And sometimes they need to be interrupted, lest they avoid answering the question. I thought Bad Bill's interview was fine and you know what, Mr. Maher? Obama did just fine, too.

I used to like Maher back when he hosted Politically Incorrect and he routinely went after both sides. Now he's basically turned into a shill for the Democrats. That's his right if he wants to do it, but it doesn't make for very interesting television.

What Is The Internet?

2011-02-07T10:35:00.002-05:00

Update: I just learned that an NBC production assistant was fired for posting this video to YouTube.

* * * * * *

This is pretty amusing. Today Show hosts Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel trying to figure out what cyberspace is back in January 1994. "What is the Internet anyway?" he asks.

As someone who has been plugged in since 1989, first on AOL, then with a dial-up account on Lakeville Internet, I find it almost shocking that, even at that relatively early date, some high-profile journos needed to ask the question: "What does the @ sign mean?"

Didn't NBC have email back then?

Brit PM: Multiculturalism A Failure

2011-02-05T14:34:00.004-05:00

Update Feb. 9: Terrific column on this very topic in the WSJ today by Douglas Murray.

* * * * *

Anti-multiculturalists everywhere must be cheering British Prime Minister David Cameron, who issued a scathing indictment of the practice in a speech today in Munich.

It's probably difficult for we Americans to relate to the problems many European nations face. They have a greater number of Muslim immigrants than we do — which is not in itself a bad thing — but a far greater percentage of European Muslims have been radicalized. And attempts to integrate them into the greater society have largely failed — either because they're alienated and don't want to assimilate or because their beliefs (e.g. the near-total the subjugation of women) are totally at odds with most Westerners.

Cameron surmises:

As evidence emerges about the backgrounds of those convicted of terrorist offences, it is clear that many of them were initially influenced by what some have called 'non-violent extremists' and then took those radical beliefs to the next level by embracing violence. This is an indictment of our approach to these issues in the past. And if we are to defeat this threat, I believe it's time to turn the page on the failed policies of the past.

In other words, Brits have to confront this problem and do something about it, rather than practicing insanity, as defined by doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. So if you're a mulitculturalist and are offended by Cameron's words, just remember that European nations face a growing threat to their way of life and that the mitigation of this threat is undermined by those insist that no one culture is better than another.

If you love your country, as Cameron obviously does, then why is it considered bad form to state that emotion publicly and acknowledge that there are those who would like nothing better than to destroy it? We don't have that sort of problem yet in the United States, but if we did, I'd be firmly in Cameron's camp.

I love the quote from the website where I found the graphic above:

While our own cultural values are being eroded, we are bending over backward to placate those who would destroy our freedoms.

Tilting At Snow ... And Windmills

2011-02-01T13:21:00.000-05:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/winteridgefarm2/339210442/

If this ghastly snow keeps piling up, maybe we'll look like this place on the Tug Hill Plateau.

Located between the Adirondacks and Lake Ontario, Tug Hill averages more than 200 inches of snow annually. Some of the older camps there actually have second-floor entrances for use in the winter

At an elevation of more than 2,000 feet, the plateau is also quite windy. Therefore, Tug Hill has become a haven for cross-country skiers, snowmobilers and ... energy production. And with almost 200 turbines, The Maple Ridge Wind Farm is the largest such facility in the eastern U.S.

Even in this very remote area, the wind farm generated considerable opposition before it became operational five years ago. It reminded me that, for all its promise, "green energy" has a long way to go before it can become a serious player.

You see, wind and solar power require massive amounts of land to produce relatively little energy, leading to what some environmentalists call "energy sprawl."

So, if the burning of fossil fuels should eventually be phased out because of greenhouse emissions and we want to avoid energy sprawl, what does that leave us with in terms of energy sources?

Nuclear power is where it leaves us, my friends. I know, I know. That's not perfect either. But what other options do we really have? What source can provide us with the energy we need to power the world's economy and not emit greenhouse gases or mar the landscape?

Now, if we can only muster the will to let it happen. Then again, maybe there is hope after all ...

New Gig

2011-01-28T15:41:00.003-05:00

http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/

My inaugural effort as a contributing columnist for CTNewsJunkie.com, Christine Stuart's excellent online news source for ... what else? Connecticut News.

This piece focuses on the fundraising disaster afflicting UConn, where a major donor wants his $3-million gift back. Why? I guess because his feelings were hurt. I'm sure we haven't heard the last of this story. Stay tuned.

Heads Up - Andrew Roraback Alert

2011-01-26T21:37:00.001-05:00

According to The Hill, State Sen. Andrew Roraback (R-30) is considering a run for the fifth district congressional seat currently occupied by Democrat Chris Murphy, who himself has announced his candidacy for Joe Lieberman's Senate seat.

When I interviewed Roraback in December on my TV show on CATV6, I asked him at the end whether he'd be interested in Murphy's seat. He was very coy and refused rule it out, adding that "you never say no."

As the article in The Hill makes clear, it's very likely that many of the Republicans who ran for Murphy's seat in 2010 will try again, including Justin Bernier and Sam Caligiuri. So the field will likely be crowded.

Roraback wants to run as a old-fashioned New England Republican — "fiscally conservative and socially moderate." But can he win a GOP primary with such a strategy, especially with Tea Party Republicans nipping at his heels?

We'll see. Andrew has been in the General Assembly for more than 15 years and is not known as a great risk taker. Last year, he flirted with the idea of running for attorney general but ultimately dropped that idea. Was he wary of the popular Susan Bysiewicz? Heck, I think he was really afraid of facing the pit bull Martha Dean in a GOP primary!

Stay Tuned.

State of the Union Distress

2011-01-26T12:58:00.004-05:00

So, thumbs-up or down on the president's SOTU address?

As these things go, I actually thought it was OK. If we use George Will's gauge ("Every president, regardless of party, tries to stroke every erogenous zone in the electorate"), then I think was a success.

And I liked the symbolism of having members of the two parties sit together (see image top right). It made for less hooting and hollering and was far more collegial than any SOTU I can recall. But perhaps for that reason, Obama seemed to lack passion.

Be that as it may, some observers, such as Ben Stein, were absolutely scathing in their assessment of the speech:

... in its lack of eloquence, its complete absence of high points, its elementary school pedagogy, its complete absence of any interesting or memorable phrases, it was possibly the lamest SOTU speech I have ever heard.

But really Ben, they're all pretty lame. From Thomas Jefferson through Woodrow Wilson, presidents fulfilled their obligation to opine on the SOTU only by delivering a written essay to Congress. I'd like to keep it that way, but I guess I'm one of the few who would rather watch a basketball game than listen to a president rolling out a laundry list of gauzy goals, most of which are unattainable anyway.

Nor do I share E.J. Dionne's view that this was a gem of a speech, a stem-winder that will be remembered by generations to come. But I did like Obama's efforts to pull himself back to the center, which is where most of the votes are.

To wit, his remarks on education:

Let's also remember that after parents, the biggest impact on a child's success comes from the man or woman at the front of the classroom. In South Korea, teachers are known as "nation builders." Here in America, it's time we treated the people who educate our children with the same level of respect. We want to reward good teachers and stop making excuses for bad ones.

My position exactly. Except how do you do that? End teacher tenure? Institute more rigorous evaluation? Face down the unions? He never said, which is why I can't stand these kinds of speeches. More later.

P.S. My Facebook friend Denise Parris first used the clever phrase in the above headline.

Good Riddance, Keith!

2011-01-23T14:45:00.001-05:00

I figured it would only be a matter of time before Howie Carr penned a smackdown of the man he loving called "Comrade Keith" Olbermann, the bombastic lion of the left who was mercifully shown the door at MSNBC on Friday.

If Howie's meanness seems a little over-the-top, it might be because he's trying to mock his subject. After all, Olbermann once called Mass. Senator Scott Brown an "irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea-bagging, supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees."

On the subject of conservative columnist Michelle Malkin getting hate mail, Olbermann thundered that it was "all thanks to the total mindless, morally bankrupt, knee-jerk, fascistic hatred, without which Michelle Malkin would just be a big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it."

In a stinger, Howie pushed back with this reaction to a recent Olbermann segment:

... Comrade Keith did a 12-minute, spittle-streaked screed last week right out of the box. By the seven-minute mark, even Barney Frank had changed the channel.

Of Olbermann's interminable "special comment" segments and mediocre ratings, Howie added:

Fidel could get away with four-hour speeches because no one in Cuba had anywhere else to go.

It looks like it just boiled down to the fact that Olbermann is a very difficult employee who was being paid $7-8 million a year to bring in only about a million viewers a night. In a word, he was an overpaid jerk and Olbermann's bosses finally realized it.

I hope he goes back to sports. Frankly, I don't think Olbermann's that bright. The new star will be Rachel Maddow. Agree or disagree with her, but she is one very smart woman. Olbermann, on the other hand, is little more than a glorified jock-sniffer.

See, I can be just as mean as Keith ...

Never Mind, 'Sicko'

2011-01-20T18:08:00.008-05:00

Update3: Great piece on this by Courant columnist Rick Green.

Update2: See, I told you so. The creator of the Enfield library Facebook group has admitted "calling all Republicans Nazis" on his own page. Fortunately, he now says he regrets it.

Update: I am told that the objector, Mr. Fealy, is a member of the Enfield Republican Town Commitee.

This is a good thing in that it will attract more attention to this issue, but bad because it will no doubt degenerate into partisan attacks by one party on the other, resulting in a distraction from the topic of censorship, which is truly a bipartisan problem. See the nascent Facebook group: Stop the Enfield Republicans From Censoring our Library!

* * * * * * *

Michael Moore's scathing indictment of the U.S. healthcare system has been banned in Enfield, Conn. Well, sort of.

That's right. Acting under orders from the mayor, the town manager has strong-armed Enfield Public Library officials into either canceling the showing of the film or else, in the words of the mayor, "they’re going to have the repercussions of the [town] council."

Apparently, the exercise in censorship was precipitated by the complaint of one taxpayer at a council meeting.

At Tuesday's council meeting, resident Kevin Fealy brought the upcoming screening to the council's attention, urging it to pressure the library to cancel the movie, saying he didn’t want the town "to promote material such as this on my tax dollars."

Talk about a solution in search of a problem. The mayor and town council members who went along with Fealy should be ashamed of themselves. Should the library remove politically objectionable books as well? Mein Kampf? The Communist Manifesto? Burn them.

Here's what the boneheaded mayor should have suggested: show the Academy Award-nominated film and then have a discussion period afterward in which audience members could exchange thoughts on the film and on the subject of healthcare in general. Don't you think Enfeldians are smart enough to handle that, Mr Mayor?

For the record, I have not seen Sicko and I can't stand Michael Moore. He is a world-class demagogue and blow-hard. And now he has inflicted yet more injustice on me because I'm in the painful position of defending him.

H/T to Rick.

What A Waste It Is To Lose One's Mind

2011-01-18T19:18:00.001-05:00

Sorry. The headline paraphrases Dan Quayle.

This is one of those stories that is, at once, both shocking and not terribly surprising. What were your first two years like after high school? Apparently, there is even less studying and more partying going on than when I was in college.

Almost makes you want to send your kids to Bible college — well, not quite.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

2011-01-16T17:02:00.001-05:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Watching Al Sharpton on Meet the Press lecture us on fiery rhetoric and its consequences. Um, Al? Remember Freddy's Fashion Mart in 1995? You can't make this stuff up, really.

I simply can't believe anyone takes this guy seriously as a commentator.

Miscellaneous Media Musings

2011-01-16T14:58:00.003-05:00

P.J. O'Rourke

Writing for The Weekly Standard, P.J. O'Rourke has a tremendous take-down of The New York Times and its breathless coverage of the Arizona massacre. It is a humorous and insightful analysis of how selective use of language can be employed to create an impression in readers.

He concludes that the Times has become the equivalent of your crazy old aunt whom you tolerated in your attic but now must move to the nursing home on Staten Island:

But liberalism, as personified by the New York Times, became a dotty old aunt sometime during the Johnson administration. She’s provincial, eccentric, and holds dull, peculiar views about the world. Still, she has our fond regard, and we visit her regularly in her nursing home otherwise known as Arts and Leisure and the Book Review. Or we did until Sunday, January 9, when she began spouting obscenities and exposing herself.

Mercifully, P.J. focuses on news coverage only and spares us an examination of a unfortunate blog post and an over-the-top column by Paul Krugman in which he coined the term "eliminationist rhetoric" and explicitly blamed the right for the tragedy.

* * * * *

The Lakeville Journal has published a front-page article in its Jan. 13 edition about Scott and Roxanne Bok preserving 100 acres through a conservation easement along the Housatonic River at Twin Lakes Farm in eastern Salisbury.

I've already heard whispers that the very positive piece is payback for the tumult caused by the snarky food review in the LJ and the subsequent closing of Bok-owned White Hart Inn last year.

I have no idea if such is the case. It is odd, however, that I could not locate the Bok preservation story on tcextra.com, the LJ's website. The letters-to-the-editor page should be lively next week.

He'll Be Stamford's 'Valentine'

2011-01-15T13:45:00.005-05:00

Bobby Valentine in Japan

Did I hear this right? Bobby Valentine, former manager of the Mets, Texas Rangers and the Chiba Lotte Marines, has been hired to be the new director of public health and safety in Stamford, Conn.?

I'm trying to figure out if this is some sort of public relations move or whether the Stamford mayor, who replaced the man who is now our current governor, actually thinks Bobby can step up to the plate, so to speak.

Having spent the last six months heading a city fire department task force, Valentine, according to the mayor, "knows the operation of fire service as well as anybody in Stamford."

The president of the Stanford police union promptly asked, "When do we get to meet Derek Jeter?" He continued:

I know he's a nice guy, [but] I have no idea what his professional background is going to bring to this position.

I know the 61-year-old Valentine is a Stamford native and beloved by some in that fine city, but really, is this the best they can do? Sort of reminds of when George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas and insisted that he was the "best qualified" person in the land to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Come On, Admit It ...

2011-01-13T12:52:00.001-05:00

Even the very conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page liked Obama's speech last night in Tuscon, adding that "he spoke to the better angels of our democracy." So, too, did conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer. Why do some on the right find it so hard to concede that it was a very good moment for the president?

I think Obama did exactly what he needed to. He elevated the debate, tried to calm the nation and steered clear of any partisan score-settling — all with an eloquence appropriate for the occasion. Who could possibly disagree with any of it?

Snowy Scenes From My Town

2011-01-12T14:43:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of my friend Fred Shakeshaft, who works at the Salisbury Pharmacy.

A Town of Wusses?

2011-01-12T10:08:00.000-05:00

Not to steal Gov. Rendell's line, but there's a front-page story this morning in the Waterbury Republican-American featuring my hometown of Salisbury, Conn., where, at 55%, we had the lowest rate of response to the 2010 U.S. Census of any town in the state.

The Rep-Am puts all but the first three or so paragraphs of most its articles behind a pay wall, but click here if you want to read the teaser and the see the nice photo taken behind the pillars at Town Hall.

So why do we have such a lousy response rate so far below the state average of 78%? Is it that we're so timid or lazy that we don't want to stand up and be counted?

I don't think so. As longtime resident Peter Fitting observed, "People own property but they don’t live here."

I don't have the figures in front of me, but my recollection is that about half the homes in Lakeville/Salisbury (maybe even more) are owned or occupied by part-time residents. And I can attest to that figure anecdotally as well. In my neighborhood of 25 to 30 houses, about half are owned either by weekenders of retired people who spend half the year elsewhere in order to beat Connecticut income taxes.

We also have three private boarding schools that include as many as 100 faculty families who live in school-owned campus housing. Many of them own property elsewhere or do not feel terribly connected to the town anyway and might be less inclined to fill out a census form than local property owners or even renters.

And as someone who has lived here for almost nine years, I can say with certainty that traffic in this town roughly doubles on the weekend. Plus, as has been well documented, we have lots of old folks.

I like the comments of town assessor Barbara Bigos when asked by the reporter about her experience with the census workers:

... Bigos remembers meeting with census workers in her office and spending hours at a time trying to help them track down residents. First they mailed notices to homes. Then, she said, they went door to door and left notices.

Then they finally tried Bigos’ method by sending mail to their mailing addresses, where the property owners actually live.

"It was a waste of time and money," Bigos said.

Come to think of it, maybe the entire Rep-Am story itself was a waste of time and money. But hey, as I learned in the newspaper business myself, you gotta fill up that space somehow. Plus, it breaks the monotony. And it makes for a pretty ride up from the Brass City for the reporter and photographer.

Targeted In The Desert

2011-01-08T19:27:00.001-05:00

From Jeff Jarvis' Twitter feed: Palin is not to be blamed for pulling the trigger but she is to be blamed for overheated graphic rhetoric and better fucking regret it now.

No one is saying Sarah Palin and others like her are directly responsible for the madman who went on a shooting spree at an Arizona congresswoman's event today, but can't we all agree that graphics like this one of Palin's are irresponsible?

To Newly Installed Gov. Malloy ...

2011-01-07T19:41:00.009-05:00

... at a time when we're desperate to create jobs, is this any way to send a message to businesses that they should locate in Connecticut?

P.S. Since taking the oath of office, the governor had made it clear that he no longer wants to be known as Dan Malloy. Henceforth, he prefers Dannel P. Malloy. What kind of name is that?

Dannel P. Malloy's struggle to overcome dyslexia is well known. Judging from the spelling of the first name his mother gave him, I'd say he inherited the language disorder from his family.

More Pingpankery

2011-01-07T08:35:00.001-05:00

You know a school district has a problem when an outside party conducts a fair review that reveals deep divisions in the high school and then the community at-large is equally divided over the report itself.

After reading Ruth Epstein's article this morning on last night's citizen meeting in Falls Village, I was struck by how sharp the disagreements are in the Region One community over the report and how the Board of Education should proceed. Unfortunately, the Republican-American puts only a portion of these articles in front of its pay wall. Click here to read the first few paragraphs. Email me at terrycowgill@gmail.com if you'd like to see the whole article, or you can just go out and buy a copy of the Rep-Am's print edition.

There are lots of people who think the Pingpank Report, which revealed "a climate of "controversy, schisms and division" and an overly-involved central office at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, was unduly negative in tone and content. Superintendent Patricia Chamberlain even told the board that the Pingpank Report was "full on inaccuracies," though she has not publicly elaborated on that statement — at least not to my knowledge.

But the comments of retired HVRHS principal Jack Mahoney during last night's meeting at Falls Village Town Hall were rather pointed. People will take notice because Mahoney is knowledgeable, widely respected and, having been removed from the scene for 15 years, he is not presumed to have an agenda beyond the best interests of the institution. Fair-use excerpt from Ruth's article:

"The board should direct the central office to stay home," said Jack Mahoney, a former principal at the school. "Central office administrators should be minimally involved in the life of the high school. That message was loud and clear in the report."

He also wondered if current Assistant Superintendent Diane Goncalves can be effective.

The report named her specifically, saying she needed counseling to moderate her behavior.

"That judgment should first be made by her evaluation and passed along to the board," Mahoney said. "We need a systematic evaluation of people, especially the assistant superintendent."

He also said the involvement of teachers in the running of the school is not necessarily bad, but it needs to be channeled appropriately through board scrutiny.

Last night could be a turning point in this controversy. Having interviewed Jack several times, including for an hour on my TV show, I think I know him reasonably well. And I don't think you will find a fairer critic of Region One than Jack. If he thinks there's a problem in the regional administrative office and that a top-to-bottom internal review needs to be conducted, then I am inclined to believe him.

Was 2010 Really the Worst Year Ever?

2011-01-02T13:27:00.002-05:00

End-of-year reviews — unless conducted by yours truly — are often tedious affairs. But Dave Barry's is great this year.

Was 2010 really the worst year in the history of the planet? To wit:

Let’s put things into perspective: 2010 was not the worst year ever. There have been MUCH worse years. For example, toward the end of the Cretaceous Period, the Earth was struck by an asteroid that wiped out 75 percent of all the species on the planet. Can we honestly say that we had a worse year than those species did? Yes we can, because they were not exposed to Jersey Shore.

If you read or view only one year-in-review piece, make it Dave's, please.

An Old Acquaintance Is Vindicated

2010-12-30T17:32:00.001-05:00

Greg Carlson
Courtesy of LoHud.com

Anyone out there remember Greg Carlson, the former business manager at the Webutuck School District and a resident of Falls Village for many years?

While I was editor of The Millerton News in 1999, Carlson left Webutuck, landing a plum job as assistant superintendent for finance at the Byram Hills Central School District, where IBM's corporate headquarters are located in Westchester County. With his departure from the tiny and acrimonious Webutuck, Carlson got a huge dose of prestige and a big raise. Seven years later, he found himself suspended (with pay) for a variety of bogus reasons, but I've just learned that he was vindicated in June.

I suppose that — in and of itself — wouldn't be major news. But the Byram Hills school district spent a staggering $1.1 million in an effort to rid itself of Carlson. This includes Carlson's salary while was suspended, the wages of his replacement for four years, plus $160,000 in legal fees. After all that taxpayer money spent in the futile effort to fire Carlson, Byram Hills was forced to offer him his job back and Carlson strolled back into his office six months ago.

I was initially shocked at the charges, which included insubordination, disloyalty and malfeasance. Turns out the first two charges were based on a telephone call Carlson had placed — taped without his knowledge — in which he made a disparaging remark about the superintendent to an on-leave employee whom Carlson thought had been wronged.

As for malfeasance, the Byram Hills Board of Education found a handful of directives — out of hundreds he'd given over the years — that Carlson had failed to perform or follow up on. In a word, school officials wanted to fire Carlson because he had sided privately with a fellow employee whom they had screwed.

I'm sure some of you will argue that Carlson's case illustrates the value of labor unions of the sort that represent school administrators such as Carlson. But my reading of Carlson's case, as presented in The Journal News, is that even without the union he probably would have had a good case for a wrongful termination suit.

The difference is that battling the union — and the protections it provides its members — wound up costing Westchester County taxpayers a lot more than settling a wrongful termination suit for, say, one or two year's salary.

Instead, the Byram Hills school board paid Carlson to do nothing for four years, paid the wages and benefits for his replacement during that time and provided a gravy train for a pricey Westchester law firm. Moreover, since Carlson returned, they have downgraded his job and kept his replacement on the payroll. So unless and until they can come to some accommodation with Carlson, it looks like they will continue to pay two people to do one job.

While in Millerton, I interviewed Carlson several times and found him to be very professional, articulate and knowledgeable about finance. Before moving out of town a few years ago, Carlson chaired the Falls Village Water Commission. He did not respond to a message from me seeking comment about this episode. Under the circumstances, I can't say that I blame him.

Global Warming Causes A Chill

2010-12-28T06:59:00.000-05:00

This NYT piece from yesterday is a classic. The winter is cold and we're seeing record snows because of ... global warming.

Not being a scientist, I can't speak to the science. But the man-caused GW crowd has certainly set the table nicely on this phenomenon.

If it's abnormally hot, they say this is evidence of GW. Likewise if it rains too much or gets bitterly cold or if there are lots of hurricanes and droughts.

Irrespective of your position on anthropogenic GW, you'd have to agree that this is a debating team's dream: "Every piece of evidence buttresses our argument, no matter how contradictory it may seem. So there's no point in discussing it any further. Case closed, debate won."

I'll bet there's lots of lawyers who wish they could do that in a courtroom. Heck, even Johnny Cochran couldn't pull that off.

Merry Christmas 2010 ...

2010-12-24T09:19:00.000-05:00

... From the Cowgill Family

What The Census Tells Us

2010-12-22T16:47:00.001-05:00

New data from the 2010 U.S. census are out. And once again, a familiar pattern asserts itself, just as it has for the last 20-30 years.

Since 2000, we've had the lowest birth rate since the Great Depression. Most of our population growth, which in the last decade saw an increase of 9.7%, comes from immigration and longer life expectancy. But a trend that progressives had hoped for — an increasing trust in government and a commitment to fund it — does not appear to be in the offing.

Despite what we were told about disgust with the policies of George W. Bush in 2006 (when the Democrats retook control of Congress) and the renewed sense of faith in government to solve our problems in the wake of the financial meltdown (with the election of Barack Obama), Americans continue to flee high-tax states for lower tax-states. And presumably because of the relative availability of jobs, new immigrants tend to settle in those states as well.

New York and Ohio will both lose two seats in the House of Representatives, while Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania will all lose one (Connecticut will hold steady at five seats; we already lost one in 2000). Texas will pick up an astounding four, while Florida will add two and Georgia, South Carolina, Arizona, Nevada and Utah each get an additional seat.

Although some progressives are trying to be optimistic about this, it's hard to see how this is good news for Democrats — especially since Republican-controlled state legislatures are empowered to draw the new district boundaries in six of the eight states that will add seats in 2012. Most of the states that lost population (and representation in Washington) have high rates of taxation, high unemployment and, in the case of New York, New Jersey and Illinois, have appalling government debt levels.

So what is the typical cry we hear from those who want to find new sources of revenue? "Raise taxes on the rich!" But if the wealthy flee, as they did in Oregon when that state enacted a special tax on the top 2%, revenues actually decline. The same thing happened in Maryland in 2008, when the legislature enacted a special millionaires' tax. Well, duh!

So the lesson is that any state (Connecticut included) should think carefully before enacting special taxes on the wealthy. You might kill the goose that lays the gilded egg. Where do you think all those millionaires in Oregon and Maryland went? Try Texas.

Gotta Love Shaq

2010-12-22T07:09:00.001-05:00

And, while we're at it .. gotta love Maya Moore and those Lady Huskies. "89, baby!"

The Pingpank Report

2010-12-19T17:35:00.002-05:00

I have in my hot little hands the report (PDF - Straight Talk) that The Region 1 Board of Education commissioned attorney Jeffrey Pingpank to conduct regarding the sudden departure of the two top administrators at Housatonic Valley High School just before the start of school in September. And I've listened to Friday's special board meeting (podcast - WHDD) at which the report was officially distributed.

I've heard the arguments pro and con. Some board members and taxpayers feel the report contains too much hearsay and that it doesn't include enough "positive" comments. Well, Gretchen Foster and Maryann Buchanan, the principal and vice principal who left in August for positions in the Torrington school district, would not speak to Pingpank — presumably on the advice of their attorneys. And there was not much of a paper trail for Pingpank to examine. So he interviewed as many employees and board members as he could and tried in good faith to put together a summation of his work.

As for the lack of positive comments, Pingpank's mandate was to conduct a review and determine why the two senior administrators left at the worst possible moment less than a month before school. I've worked in schools for more than 20 years and have seen similar things happen elsewhere, but never have I seen the head of a school and her chief deputy resign as the school year is set to begin. The two women obviously did not feel welcome, they felt compelled to leave and they had other options. Beyond learning from our mistakes, there's not a whole lot of "positive" that can be gleaned from these kinds of circumstances.

But I think that's precisely the point. As Lou Timolat and Amy Wynn suggested at the BOE meeting, be it an reaccreditation or an investigation, anytime you can stop and contemplate the state of your institution, examine its shortcomings and sketch out a roadmap for future success, it reflects well on the organization and reassures the public that every effort is being made to make it a better place. This document can also be handed to prospective principal candidates who might be wary of the school's reputation.

What we learned from the Pingpank report — and the earlier NEASC accreditation report (PDF) — is that Housatonic is a school in which the faculty are a disproportionately strong force, with the power concentrated in a relatively small few (most of them anti-Foster) who perform often conflicting roles as department heads and union officials. Indeed, I'm told that one of them was a finalist to become principal when the job was ultimately offered to Foster several years ago. Not good.

To make matters worse, the relationship between the high school administration and school district's central office appears to have been poisoned at some point. "Icy" emails were exchanged between the superintendent's office and Buchanan.

The tough-talking assistant superintendent, Diane Goncalves, who is the only person named in the report aside from Buchanan, Foster and her predecessor Tom Gaisford, was singled out for her "intimidating" manner and being "unduly blunt." Pingpank said Goncalves' conduct in directing her attorney to fire off a threatening letter (PDF) to the board seemed "calculated to create a chilling effect over" board communications concerning her.

I think Pingpank did a very good job under difficult circumstances. As HVRHS parents, we need to know what’s going on in our dysfunctional high school. Maybe this could even start a reform movement. The problem is that starting a reform in a public school is almost impossible, but that's another matter!

Have a Very Columbia Christmas!

2010-12-17T20:29:00.002-05:00

Lee Bollinger

This story makes me sick to my stomach. Really. I nearly lost my Cuban sandwich while reading about this over lunch today.

First we had the case of Kelo vs. New London -- an egregious abuse of the concept of eminent domain in which the Supreme Court of the United States said it was OK for a municipality to seize the property of ordinary residents -- not to build a school or a highway, but to hand it over to private developers.

At the time, I could not have envisioned an eminent domain case as appalling as that of Kelo. But now we have that same U.S. Supreme Court refusing to hear the case of two small business owners in Manhattan who have been locking horns with an Ivy League university that wants to expand.

The New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, has overturned a lower-court decision that would have blocked Columbia University from using the power of the state to condemn properties in West Harlem to satisfy university President Lee Bollinger's "vision" of new space for the Business School, the School of the Arts, and the Jerome L. Greene Science Center for Mind, Brain, and Behavior.

As bad as the Kelo case was, at least its underlying premise was that the increased tax revenue generated by the developers would satisfy the constitutional requirement that there be a public gain or accommodation from the condemnation (ironically, five years after the decision, the property still sits undeveloped).

As Megan McArdle has pointed out, this latest decision will force two tax-paying businesses to sell against their will to a private organization that is largely tax-exempt and that predominantly serves the wealthy and the powerful. Could someone explain to me how this is a "public good?" A statement from the Empire State Development Corporation, the agency with the power to invoke eminent domain, was laughable:

This victory represents a significant step toward achieving the many goals of the project, including strengthening New York as an international center for premier education and academic research programs, improving facilities and infrastructure within the footprint and the surrounding community, generating thousands of jobs for New Yorkers and creating much-needed open space in the neighborhood.

And Bollinger's was even worse:

There's no question I’ve devoted myself to this conception of the future of the University. It all follows from a belief that one of the problems that interferes with Columbia’s potential ... is space, and this effectively solves that problem.

It solves your problem, all right, Mr. Bollinger. Man, this is the very essence of the arrogance of power -- both on the part of the judiciary and academia. Merry Christmas, gentlemen ...

Torrington: A Place of Innovation?

2010-12-15T14:59:00.003-05:00

Artist's rendering of the new cafe and media lab.

Update: The NYT piece is up.

* * * * * *

A little birdie tells me the Register-Citizen newspaper in Torrington will be featured in a New York Times piece tomorrow. My guess is the subject will be the paper's recently announced experiment in getting its audience involved in community journalism.

The paper has moved to new and larger headquarters a few blocks away from its Water Street building, which the old Torrington Register had called home for 110 years. That in itself isn't news. But, as part of its new "digital-first" business model, the R-C is also opening a newsroom cafe, community media lab, community journalism school and a local news library, free and open to the general public:

"When you first walk into our new space at 59 Field St., it will look like a cross between a coffee shop, library and newsroom," said Publisher Matt DeRienzo. "We are issuing a permanent invitation for the community to be engaged and involved in how we report local news and information, at every step in the process."

There will be a coffee shop with Green Mountain Coffee, local baked goods. Sounds great? But here's the kicker:

The community will be encouraged to sit in on and participate, if they wish, in the newsroom’s daily story meetings, which will also be livestreamed at RegisterCitizen.Com, offering editors advice on how to cover stories, or pitching new story ideas.

I give Matt a lot of credit for thinking outside the box and trying to engage his readership. He really is trying mightily to improve the paper and to make his audience to feel like they have a sense of ownership in the R-C. And, in addition to the NYT, Matt is already getting a a fair amount of regional publicity for his visionary leadership on this subject (click here, here and here for examples).

But I'm not sure I would want members of the public, especially those who might have an axe to grind, sitting in on story meetings or looking over my shoulder as I'm pecking away at my keyboard on the subject of municipal wrongdoing or a three-car crash on Migeon Avenue.

But all eyes will be on this project and whether it succeeds in challenging the public to become involved in the editorial side of the news business. Good luck, Matt.

Disclosure: This blog is linked on the R-C's homepage through an agreement with the publisher, Matt DeRienzo. In an act of voluntary reciprocation, I link to the R-C here and use it as a source whenever possible. However, the paper exercises no editorial control over this blog. According to my stat counter, registercitizen.com is by far the largest single source of page views for Devil's Advocate.

As If His Tax Deal Wasn't Enough ...

2010-12-12T13:03:00.000-05:00

More phony hope and change.

Orszag joins Citibank, a big beneficiary of help from the feds. Maybe they'll return the favor by paying him enough to get a better hairpiece.

Turner Strikes Again

2010-12-11T07:47:00.000-05:00

Ted Turner is at it again. In order to get a handle on anthropogenic global warming through population control, he wants the world to adopt a one-child policy, similar to the one they have in China.

And get this: among other things, he proposes a sort of cap-and-trade system for reproductive freedom:

Mr. Turner – a long-time advocate of population control – said the environmental stress on the Earth requires radical solutions, suggesting countries should follow China’s lead in instituting a one-child policy to reduce global population over time. He added that fertility rights could be sold so that poor people could profit from their decision not to reproduce.

My concerns with population growth have less to do with man-caused global warming – which I think has yet to be proved – but with the sheer logistical challenges of feeding 7 billion people (10 billion by 2050, we are told). Population growth is a major factor in the increasing use of the antibiotics and growth hormones that maximize productivity in farm animals but probably threaten our long-term health.

Indeed, if you want to really cut greenhouse gases, get rid of animal agriculture — not people. As I have written before on these pages, a 2006 United Nations report found that the meat and dairy industries produce more greenhouse gases than all the SUVs, cars, trucks, planes, and ships in the world combined. We're talking mostly decaying animal waste and cow farts.

I sympathize with Turner's goal of getting a handle on world population, although there are so many problems with a one-child policy that it will never happen. Enforcement would require a massive new police state and, here in the U.S., it would face so many court challenges that it couldn't possibly enacted into law.

Plus, my understanding is that the U.S. birth rate is at historic lows anyway and that our net population growth of about 1% comes more from immigration and increased life expectancy that anything else. Besides, 80% of the world's population growth over the next 40 years is expected to come from developing countries, most of which would resent wealthier nations telling them they should stop having so many babies.

But maybe poorer nations could persuaded to use birth control if we paid them off? Interesting idea anyway, Ted.

Lieberman Wants NYT Investigated

2010-12-08T13:21:00.001-05:00

Well, Peter. I guess our U.S. Senator disagrees with you and me. Joe thinks Assange should be prosecuted for treason and he said this about The New York Times (see video below):

Then what about the news organizations, including the Times, that have accepted it and distributed it? … To me, New York Times has committed at least an act of bad citizenship. And whether they’ve committed a crime, I think that bears very intensive inquiry by the Justice Department.

Sort of takes your breath away. I can't wait until 2012 when I can vote against him -- again.

Wiki Crimes? No Laughing Matter ...

2010-12-05T16:38:00.002-05:00

Update 6 a.m. Tuesday: CNN is reporting that Assange has been arrested in London on sex crimes charges.

But leave it to SNL to try anyway.

I've held off commenting on the WikiLeaks scandal, mostly because it's so complex that I'm not sure I could do it justice with the little time I have available for blogging. But I'll try anyway.

Julian Assange has developed quite a following and no doubt fancies himself a hero for releasing secret U.S. military, intelligence, and diplomatic documents into the public domain. Two of my friends, for example, have urged their friends on Facebook to join pro-WikiLeaks groups or donate money to the organization. I respect both of these people, but fail to see how the release of these documents helps the case for what Time magazine calls "WikiLeaks' war on secrecy."

As a former reporter and freedom-of-information advocate, I support the idea that we should err on the side of the sunshine. But you do reach a point where the sunshine, in the case of the WikiLeaks Afghanistan document dump, irreparably harms U.S. interests by exposing the identities of valuable intelligence operatives who could be killed in reprisal.

Or, in the case of the recently released diplomatic cables, it will likely inhibit candid communication among diplomats for fear that their frank assessments will end up on the front page of The New York Times. How could anyone think that exposing our intelligence sources to death, or putting a chilling effect on the exchange of ideas, is a good thing?

I tend to agree with the those who say that Assange should be brought up on criminal charges. But the problem is that laws on publishing classified material are murky. Moreover, Assange is not a U.S. citizen and does not reside here. And persuading a sovereign nation to extradite him is highly problematic, especially if the alleged crimes are considered political in nature.

So we'll probably just have to live with this fellow unless we want to dispatch an assassin to put a bullet between his eyes. Oh, I forgot. That option is no longer available, thanks to the Ford administration.

Aim At The Real Culprit

2010-12-01T13:10:00.001-05:00

Great article in Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller today. By now, you've probably heard that the federal government is considering introducing technology into new cars that would disable cell phones when used in a running automobile?

Now, while the increase in road deaths caused by mindless cell phone drivers is indeed troubling, what do you think is the number-one cause of distracted driving? Alcohol? Unruly children? Falling asleep at the wheel? A dropped cigarette? Stinging insects in your front seat?

Nope, according to a 2009 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study, eating and/or drinking in the car causes 80% of all car accidents. Not just 80% of distracted driving accidents, but 80% of all auto accidents. That's right, the worst offenders on the highway have just emerged from the drive-thru at Dunkin Donuts and Taco Bell, not happy hour at Applebee's.

I point this out to ask the obvious question: Why the intense focus on electronic gadgets when the elephant in the room is right in front of us? Why don't we make eating/drinking in the car illegal? Oh, right. Many of the people who want to ban phone use in the car are the same people who like to pull on their beloved Starbucks on the way to the office.

Lawmakers are great at rationalizing, but it would take a verbal contortionist to explain this one away.

The Nation Touched His 'Junk'

2010-11-30T18:40:00.004-05:00

Having lost control of the House of Representatives in a landslide, and with their president struggling against the enormity of the job and with his popularity remaining below 50%, it's not terribly uncommon to see the left go after Barack Obama.

But the day before Thanksgiving, the solidly leftist Salon launched a scathing attack on the lion of liberal opinion journals — The Nation magazine — over a piece it had published on John Tyner, the rebellious software engineer who famously told groping TSA officials in San Diego, "If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested!"

Salon writer Glenn Greenwald called The Nation piece on Tyner "a shoddy, fact-free, and reckless hit piece." And I'd say that a pretty accurate assessment. It's a disturbing example of journalism (if that's what you want to call it) that's long on accusatory whispering but short on fairness and objectivity. My guess is even a hard-left prof in a J school would give it a failing grade. Indeed, the piece was so bad that its authors felt compelled to respond to criticisms of it and have even backed off a little from their free use of conjecture and innuendo.

But here's the strange thing about Greenwald's attack on The Nation. As if to prove his progressive bona fides upfront, he begins his piece with the usual tantrums about conservatives:

One long-standing — and justifiable — progressive grievance is that whenever ordinary Americans allow their personal plight to enter the public sphere in a way that advances a liberal political goal, they are gratuitously probed and personally smeared by the Right.

Having set the stage by telling us that conservatives have cornered the market on smear campaigns, Greenwald then launches into his assault on The Nation. But there's only one problem. In his 3,500-word polemic, Greenwald never acknowledges that The Nation is one of the oldest liberal publications in the country. Could it be that, as one of my Facebook friends suggested, "His audience [already] knows this and the audience for Salon tends toward the left?" Perhaps. Yet presumably they already know that Michelle Malkin is a conservative, too, but Greenwald didn't hesitate to identify her as part of the right-wing attack machine.

And hey, why didn't Greenwald ask the simple question: "Where was Katrina vanden Heuvel when you needed her?" Well, I guess she was busy crafting an apology.

Anytime a liberal publication attacks one of its brethren, it's good news for conservatives. And I commend Greenwald for his willingness to go after a liberal icon — on the pages of Salon, no less. But is it too much to ask for a little intellectual honesty?

Freeze!

2010-11-29T17:04:00.002-05:00

This is classic Washington.

Today, President Obama wisely — and bravely, considering the favors he owes public-sector unions — proposed a two-year federal employee pay freeze. Strangely, military personnel are exempted.

How will we ever get spending under control if there are sacred cows?

First time in a while that I've agreed with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who courageously insisted that including the military would have increased savings and added "an element of fairness."

P.S. As Jake Tapper observed on his Twitter feed, "pay freeze does NOT impact legislative branch! which, not coincidentally, will be voting on it."

Hero Worship Gone Awry

2010-11-27T09:01:00.002-05:00

What else could go wrong for Barack Obama? His poll numbers remain below 50%, he lost control of the House of Representatives and there is a movement afoot to repeal his signature achievement, Obamacare.

Now over Thanksgiving weekend we learn that he took an elbow to the mouth in a pick-up basketball game, prompting White House surgeons to sew his lip together with 12 stitches. As one commenter snarked:

While they're at it, they could do us all a favor and just stitch his mouth shut.

I continue to be amazed that there are erstwhile Obama supporters who say they are surprised at his less-than-stellar performance as commander-in-chief. Did they honestly think that a man with such a thin leadership resume was really prepared to assume the grandest leadership role in the world?

If Obama had stayed in the U.S. Senate for a full term or two and chaired some important committees (or if he had left this year to run for mayor of Chicago and served for a few years as chief executive of the Windy City), then he would have been poised to use that experience as a guide for success in the White House.

But when your work history includes little more than a brief stint in the U.S. Senate, part-time state senator, part-time adjunct law lecturer and community organizer, there's not a whole lot to draw on when it comes to governing one of the most ungovernable nations on earth.

So disenchanted progressives are reduced to either attacking him as a spineless moderate or castigating Republicans for doing a great job of demonizing him. But the reality is that the only reason the Republicans are becoming "the party of no" is that there is absolutely no political downside to doing so. Most of Obama's policies are unpopular and, as I made clear in a column earlier this fall, absolutely no one fears him — not even members of his own party.

Good luck, Mr. President. You're not a bad guy, but I think you're in over-your-head. And unless the economy makes a strong recovery over the next year, you're sunk. May you have a happier Thanksgiving in 2011.

Thankful for the Music

2010-11-24T17:56:00.001-05:00

When I run across a great song like this, I'm thankful there is music. The soprano sax is a nice touch. Gary Brooker's song always reminds me of The Big Chill. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Don't Forget To Duck

2010-11-23T16:18:00.001-05:00

The recent fatal attack by communist North Korea on a disputed South Korean island should remind all of us of what a dangerous a world we live in. Much of our attention is focused on terrorism and the current U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we stand to lose a lot if North Korea escalates tensions further with additional shellings or — heaven forbid — a ground invasion of the south.

The Kim dynasty of the north has long harbored ambitions to retake the southern part of Korean peninsula, as I learned when I visited South Korea in July. Click here and here for two columns I wrote for The Lakeville Journal on that trip.

There have been many skirmishes over the decades, most of them on or around the border, which on land is marked by the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The most recent incident before this one was the sinking (evidently by the north) earlier this year of the South Korean warship Cheonan. More than 40 South Korean sailors died.

When I visited the DMZ, I was treated to perhaps the most striking (but nonviolent) example of North Korean aggression one could imagine: a series of tunnels running under the DMZ built by the north over several years after 1953 cease-fire. The goal was to either use the tunnels to mount a land invasion or perhaps conduct a mass infiltration. When confronted with the tunnels (dug through bedrock granite), the North Korean dictator laughably asserted that they had been built for the mining of coal.

At any rate, this latest incident at Yeonpyeong Island took place only a few miles from Seoul Incheon International Airport, the modern transportation facility that we flew in and out of. Frightening stuff.

Let's see what the future brings. But if I were a member of South Korean legislature, I would revisit the expensive idea of moving the capital city from Seoul, which lies only 50 miles south of the DMZ, somewhere to the south — say, Taegu or the lovely coastal city of Busan. Just a thought.

Goring An Ox

2010-11-20T08:02:00.000-05:00

The president's commission on reducing the national debt has issued some preliminary draft findings (PDF) on how to restore fiscal sanity to this once-great nation.

Within minutes after The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform had released its thoughts, interest groups from here to Kingdom Come lined up in opposition. Indeed, co-Chairman Erskine Bowles joked that he and his colleague Alan Simpson might have to enter a witness protection program.

Notwithstanding the merits or drawbacks of the individual proposals, one revenue raiser caught my eye: the elimination of the home mortgage interest deduction. Why do we need this middle class entitlement? If the interest deduction is eliminated by 2012, it will save the federal treasury more than $100 billion.

There is no good reason I can see to keep this vestige from 100 years ago. It contributes to the deficit and distorts the real estate market by encouraging people to buy homes that they could otherwise not afford, thereby driving housing prices up for everyone.

You could make a pretty good case for not eliminating the interest deduction immediately because it might increase the current foreclosure rate and throw more people out of their homes. But the deduction could either be phased out or grandfathered in for current mortgage holders and eliminated for new mortgages going forward.

I'm a homeowner with a mortgage who takes advantage of this deduction. I'm not sure how much it saves my family because my wife takes care of our finances. But I can tell you one thing: I would be willing to give it up if everyone else does.

How about you?