May 29, 2010
Census Nonsense
Richard Greener and I co-authored an essay on counting citizens in the Census, published in today's Los Angeles Times. Hopefully it will help advance the public discussion on immigration policy. Here, I'll add just a few additional numbers and a parallel argument, on my own dime.
To put the issue into perspective, the 2000 Census counted 18.6 million non-citizen residents (both legal and illegal) in America. Taken together, that's a large enough population to fill over 28 congressional districts, over 6% of the total number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. And, don't forget, these seats are also electors in the electoral college, so presidential elections are also affected. If all non-citizen residents were equally distributed throughout the country it would be much easier to overlook the problem. But they're not. They're concentrated in a few large states like California, Texas, Florida, and New York (for details, see the chart in the link above). Hence the question of political equity.
May 27, 2010
An Indie Jewel
Somehow I stumbled across a review. I ordered the blu ray
Cui Bono
Whatever oil might be recovered from the outer continental shelf will never do American consumers much good. The market for oil — however imperfect — is global. The addition of supplies from deep offshore might reduce the price of gas at the pump by a couple cents, no more. The only people the oil really benefits are oil companies. Moreover, oil rig workers will always make mistakes and no matter how good the technology gets, with deep water drilling there will always be catastrophic leaks. For the industry, that's an externality, just a cost of doing business. For states and local communities it's a catastrophe. An intelligent country simply wouldn't drill. But there's another dimension to deep water drilling nobody mentions, which should disturb the sort of people most enthused about its future: deep water platforms are stunningly susceptible to deliberate destruction.
May 24, 2010
Podcast Schedule for Late May/Early June
One addition, for reasons of timeliness, that changes the previously announced line-up: this Friday the podcast will be an interview with former Massachusetts Governor and former presidential candidate Mike Dukakis. The Friday following, June 4th, my guest will be the award-winning author and environmentalist Charles Wohlforth. The Friday after that, June 11th, my guest will be a former Navy SEAL, Dick Couch, talking about the need for greater emphasis on moral decision-making in the training of our uniformed forces. Subsequent weeks, hopefully, will have a former very senior U.S. intelligence official talking about various things; a UN official talking about the use of drone missile strikes; and an oysterman/journalist from the northeast.
May 18, 2010
Good Riddance, Arlen!
At 10:13 p.m. AP called Pennsylvania's Democratic primary for Joe Sestak. Senator Arlen Specter, the former incumbent, made his bones as an assistant counsel on the Warren Commission, where he pushed through the 'single bullet theory' to explain JFK's assassination. A classic case of people believing what they're told to believe. With just a few exceptions, as far as I can tell, Specter has been a weasel ever since. The last straw, for Pennsylvanians, must have been his switch from the Republican to the Democratic Party, for self-evidently personal reasons. Also, he's getting old in a bad way, too often and too obviously getting too confused about things. And as a purely strategic matter for Democrats, it's been clear for some time that Joe Sestak would be a better candidate against Republican Pat Toomey in the general. Congratulations, Joe! Scram, Arlen...
May 17, 2010
Asleep at the Switch
When the Deep Horizon drill rig exploded the White House relied upon BP to fix things, with the Coast Guard providing "all" assistance necessary. Mr. Obama's first instinct was to trust BP — to trust BP to honestly assess what was happening, to bring in whatever was required to stop the leak, and to stop the leak in good order. Mr. Obama's trust was misplaced. BP prevaricated, delayed, stonewalled. Perhaps worst of all, from various scattered reports there seems to be evidence that BP is putting corporate confidentiality ahead of containing the crisis. I'm not an engineer but it seems logical to me that the more people who know from independent, objective, and thorough observation and analysis, what exactly is going on right this minute on the Gulf sea floor, the more likely it is that good ideas will be developed for plugging the leak. From the get-go Mr. Obama should have taken the lead away from BP. He failed to do that. Now it's time for him to declare a national emergency, seize control of relevant BP assets, and put U.S. government officials in charge. There's no longer a serious excuse for doing less. In retrospect, this will seem self-evident but by then the price of inaction for Mr. Obama probably will have become the presidency.
May 14, 2010
Word Power
Every now and then — well, probably more often than that — public discourse settles upon the wrong word to describe something important. Using the wrong word makes it much more difficult, if not impossible, to have an intelligent and productive exchange of ideas. Such is the case with the Gulf catastrophe. At some subliminal level I had hesitated a fraction of a second before using the word "spill," but mentally shrugged and went ahead and used it anyway. Like everybody else. That was a mistake. As Jill Schneiderman points out, in an absolutely brilliant, perfectly simple observation, it's not a spill: It's a gusher, or a blowout, or something along those lines. The earth's crust is cracked, a mind-boggling volume of oil has started to leak out. It might even leak a billion barrels. We just don't know. And we really don't know how to fix it... Thanks, Jill, and Kudos to you! The word "spill" shall now be retired, at least on this blog.
A Memorable What's-It
A lot of women don't like Veronica Lake. She can be the epitome of smart and sexy glamour, so that could be jealousy, but Lake also had a troubled life, after multiple divorces and financial ruin dying a sort of alcoholic vagrant with serious mental health issues. Some star. So feminine dislike could also stem from a sort of intuitive fear. But she knocks my socks off. I don't know anybody who doesn't like Joel McCrae. Sullivan's Travels
May 13, 2010
Mr. Obama's Katrina
The Deepwater Horizon catastrophe is political death by a thousand drips. People on the left make fun of those on the right who compare it to Katrina. Nevertheless, the comparison seems apt. In the months just before Katrina, Mr. Bush's favorable/unfavorable ratings had flipped — thanks in large part to Katrina he never recovered. But who was it who changed their minds? Those on the left, and many of those in the center, already hated him. The big change, the only possible change of any significance, was that many in his base began to abandon him, and they continued to abandon him throughout the remainder of his presidency. The Deepwater Horizon catastrophe has created a mirror image political situation: people on the right already hate Mr. Obama — it's his base on the left and in the center that's collapsing.
May 9, 2010
No Surprise
Leaking Elena Kagan's name on Sunday night was pretty cowardly — an obvious attempt to defuse Monday morning reactions. And, of course, she's the worst of all the (former) potential choices, the most conservative, the most ideologically welded to money worship. Like Mr. Obama, she thinks the world can be simplified by putting a price on everything. Oil spills are OK, because the money value to society of the oil pumped out of the Gulf is greater. Coal mine collapses are OK, because the money value to society of the coal is greater than any lives lost. But the thing is, by extracting every red cent from society the money worshipers don't merely impoverish us materially, they sap our values. They corrupt our souls. Nevertheless, whatever they try, they can't put a dollar value on love. Mr. Obama, tragically, doesn't understand this simple truth. And Ms. Kagan's nomination should be, for wavering progressives, the last straw. The 2008 election was about a change. We needed it. We got it. The 2010 election will be about kicking the Democratic Party in the teeth. Which it deserves.
May 4, 2010
