* * political doodle * *

How to Lose a Re-Election [John Ennis]

This is how presidents lose their re-election bids, when their administration does stuff like this:

The Environmental Protection Agency has moved to declare that greenhouse gases are pollutants that pose a danger to the public’s health and welfare. That determination, once made final, will pave the way for federal regulation of carbon dioxide, methane and other heat-trapping gases linked to global warming.

[...]

The agency sent the finding on Friday to the Office of Management and Budget for review, according to a Web site that lists pending federal rules. Once the budget office clears the finding, it can be signed by Ms. Jackson.

The action, known as an endangerment finding, would allow federal regulation of motor vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases. If further action is taken by the E.P.A., it could open the door to regulatory controls over power plants, oil refineries, cement plants and other factories that emit such gases.

As we all know, if there were too little CO2 in the atmosphere, it would certainly be a health risk to the public. As for how much is too much, I can't wait to see how they determined where to draw the line. I look forward to viewing their scientific procedures, and whether they can survive even a modest amount of scrutiny. It's time for the warming alarmists to put their money where their mouth is. The EPA procedures will be the subject of much debate and litigation. I'm hoping the judiciary will be able to sniff out the bull in the EPA's case.

The AP's Cognitive Dissonance [John Ennis]

President Obama just broke another campaign promise. Here's a brief clip of candidate Obama criticizing Bush's use of signing statements and promising that he is "not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end run around Congress." (He also explains what they are for those unfamiliar with the practice).

Here's an AP report from yesterday concerning Obama's signing of the $410 billion omnibus spending bill:

He also issued a "signing statement" in which he objected to provisions of the bill that he said the Justice Department had advised "raise constitutional concerns."

The AP doesn't mention Obama's campaign promise or quote any critics of Obama's signing statement, but they did have time to mention critics of the previous administration:

Bush often issued statements when he signed bills, objecting to parts of the legislation. Critics said the statements often showed government officials how to get around a law if Bush disagreed with it on constitutional grounds.

So, when Obama does something which was controversial for Bush, the AP will sidestep any criticism of Obama, and instead, attack Bush.

This is extraordinarily dangerous; the AP will not hold Obama to any account.

I don't think there has ever been a president who hadn't broken a campaign promise or two. But, we've never had a president whose top qualification for the office was his campaign. Under such circumstances, the broken promises take on additional significance. 

What Spending? [John Ennis]

President Obama has released his first budget and the Times editorial board is thrilled, for it "recognizes what most of Washington has been too scared or ideologically blind to admit: to recover from George W. Bush’s reckless economic policies, taxes must go up."

Why were Bush's economic policies reckless? The deficit was too high, as the Times explains:

Mr. Obama’s blueprint, released on Thursday, commits to cutting by more than two-thirds, by 2013, the $1.75 trillion budget deficit that Mr. Bush dumped on the nation.

A credible pledge to reduce the deficit is imperative. Without it, foreign lenders — who financed the Bush-era deficits and are now paying for the stimulus and bailouts — could lose faith in the nation’s ability or willingness to repay in anything other than rapidly depreciating dollars. That would send interest rates up and the economy down, the worst-case scenario. Controlling the deficit is also necessary to sustain a recovery — when it comes.

Bush didn't dump all $1.75 trillion of the current deficit on the nation. The recently signed stimulus package will contribute a significant chunk to that figure. But, I won't spend too long quibbling over who is responsible for hundreds of billions in deficit spending. Let's assume Obama meets his startling unambitious goal of cutting the deficit by two thirds in 2013. That would still leave a shortfall greater than all of the Bush years except for 2009. So, Obama's goal would be Bush's second worst year.

How can this be if deficit reduction is so important and Obama has pledged to raise taxes? The answer is because Obama's proposed spending increases are enormous. Deficits are a two-figured equation: revenues minus expenses. If you only look at one half, as the Times has, you miss the bigger picture. The Times praises Obama for raising revenues, and ignores the explosion in spending.

This year's deficit was an aberration due to the recession, the bank bailout, and the stimulus. Obama is turning the aberration into a permanent expansion of spending that the tax hikes won't even begin to cover. The Times is willfully ignoring this by focusing on this year's deficit and not what the norm was earlier in the Bush years (average deficits of $250 billion).

When you get into this sort of doublespeak, you have a tendency to outright contradict yourself, as the Times does:

The collapse of the Bush-era economy is ample and awful evidence of the folly of unconstrained debt-fueled growth. The Obama administration has acknowledged the need for deficit spending to stimulate the economy but has vowed that unpaid-for government will not become the norm. Judging from the blueprint, Mr. Obama is not just talking the talk.

Obama's blueprint ends in 2019 and pledges increasing deficits starting in 2014. There is not a single projected surplus. If that's not "unpaid-for government" becoming the norm, what is?

Furthermore, the ten year projections are exceedingly optimistic. They assume economic recovery in 2010 and growth significantly higher than the Bush years despite a carbon cap being imposed, which is itself a hidden tax increase.  

Back to the Times on income taxes:

The proposed increases signal a serious attempt to tame deficits in a way that restores fairness to a tax code that has for too long been tilted in favor of the wealthiest Americans, resulting in budget shortfalls that disproportionately burden everyone else.

Forty percent of Americans don't pay any income taxes. Would any rational person describe our tax code as "tilted in favor of the wealthiest"? 

The Times concludes:

No one who really believes in fiscal responsibility could object to the proposed tax increases. And yet, each one presages a political fight. At issue is not only the tax burden on the wealthiest Americans or election-year debates, but the real-life difficulty of weaning people hooked on unsustainable debt — whether it is unpaid-for tax breaks or over-leveraged buyouts or junk mortgages. It’s a challenge avoided for too long.

If the Times truly believes what it wrote in this paragraph, why won't it look at the spending increases being proposed? The answer, of course, is that the Times does not believe what it wrote. Neither reducing the deficit nor exercising fiscal responsibility are its true priorities.

More Than Fit To Print [John Ennis]

There are legitimate environmental issues, and then there is fluff. When you advocate for less fluff in toilet paper, you are undermining other important concerns, which the New York Times fails to realize:

Americans like their toilet tissue soft: exotic confections that are silken, thick and hot-air-fluffed.

The national obsession with soft paper has driven the growth of brands like Cottonelle Ultra, Quilted Northern Ultra and Charmin Ultra — which in 2008 alone increased its sales by 40 percent in some markets, according to Information Resources, Inc., a marketing research firm.

But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.

[...]

The country’s soft-tissue habit — call it the Charmin effect — has not escaped the notice of environmentalists, who are increasingly making toilet tissue manufacturers the targets of campaigns. Greenpeace on Monday for the first time issued a national guide for American consumers that rates toilet tissue brands on their environmental soundness.

[...]

“No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper,” said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and waste expert with the Natural Resource Defense Council.

It sounds like it is the environmentalists, not Americans who have an "obsession with soft paper". But, really, what is the problem here? Aren't trees a renewable resource? If you cut one tree down, can't you plant a replacement? After all, North American forests are growing.

You would think a newspaper would understand this concept, yet the article laments:

But people who buy toilet tissue for their homes — even those who identify themselves as concerned about the environment — are resistant to toilet tissue made from recycled paper.

Maybe those "concerned about the environment" realize this isn't an environmental concern. Not every environmentalist crusade trumpeted by Greenpeace is about the environment. Some causes are simply aimed at training the masses to do without luxury. Today you forego soft t.p., tomorrow they ask you to ditch your car. 

But, if the Times is still worried about this crisis, let's put two and two together. The Times wants Americans to use more recycled toilet paper. Meanwhile, the Times is printed on recycled paper. Hmmmmmm......

Zeitgeist Update: Debates Are Over [John Ennis]

Several Republican governors are voicing concerns about the unemployment insurance portion of the newly signed "stimulus" bill. In an editorial, the New York Times opines that "(t)his behavior reinforces the disturbing conclusion that the Republican Party seems more interested in ideological warfare than in working on policies that get the country back on track."

The Times explains what the bill would require of the states:

States that accept the stimulus money aimed at the unemployed are required to abide by new federal rules that extend unemployment protections to low-income workers and others who were often shorted or shut out of compensation. This law did not just materialize out of nowhere. It codified positive changes that have already taken place in at least half the states.

To qualify for the first one-third of federal aid, the states need to fix arcane eligibility requirements that exclude far too many low-income workers. To qualify for the rest of the aid, states have to choose from a menu of options that include extending benefits to part-time workers or those who leave their jobs for urgent family reasons, like domestic violence or gravely ill children.

Basically, if you accept the federal money, you have to change your "arcane" laws. But, if you protest and decline the money, you are engaged in "ideological warfare." These governors don't realize the laws of their state are no longer their responsibility - it is now the business of Washington and the New York Times. Saying "no thanks" is not an option.

The governors are worried that the new standards will require the states to raise taxes in the future when the stimulus money runs out. Here is how the Times came to reject this thinking (emphasis added):

The governors are blowing smoke when they suggest that the federal unemployment aid would lead directly to new state taxes. No one knows what the economic climate will be when the federal aid has been used up several years from now. But by dumping billions of dollars into shrinking state unemployment funds, which puts money into the hands of people who spend it immediately on food and shelter, the stimulus could help the states through the recession and into a time when unemployment trust funds can be replenished. In other words, the stimulus could make a tax increase less likely.

Did you follow that? I'll restate it: because future tax increases "could" be "less likely", the governors are merely "blowing smoke." This is the Times' idea of taking a chunk out of the governors argument that accepting the federal money is in reality a coerced tax hike in the future.

I'm not sure how much the stimulus is going to help end the recession. The Times says "the stimulus could help their states", so they're not sure either. Why then is it wrong for governors to reject the part of the stimulus that could force future tax hikes? Well, because the Times actually doesn't care about raising taxes:

But even if new taxes are required at some point, the new federal standards would protect more unemployed workers than ever before and bring states like Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas into the 21st century.

For the Times, it was about expanding government all along. These states need to get in tune with the 21st Century models like California - you know, the ones that are about to go bankrupt and need a bailout from the solvent states.

The Times concludes:

Governors like Mr. Jindal should be worrying about how to end this recession while helping constituents feed and house their families — not about finding ways to revive tired election-year arguments about big spending versus small government.

Doesn't Jindal know that the size of government can only be debated in election years? Didn't he realize that when Obama won last November it meant his Administration had the right to set Louisiana's tax policies? 

Only the Times could spend an entire editorial arguing for the expansion of government in Louisiana and then end by criticizing that state's governor for having made a rebuttal. But, who could blame the Times, Obama made the same argument in his inaugural. It's the current liberal zeitgeist. Ideas regarding larger government could work, while Republican ideas shouldn't even be mentioned. Another debate has been declared over. 

UPDATE (2/25/09): It seems a Democratic governor might decline the unemployment section of the "stimulus" package.

Normal for the Times [John Ennis]

A Baghdad museum which was looted during the fall of Saddam, has just partially reopened. The New York Times notes that only eight of the 26 galleries are available to visitors, while offering this nugget:

Yet the museum is only one institution in a place where little — not electricity or even sewerage — functions as it should, nearly six years after the beginning of the war that toppled Saddam Hussein. The museum, like life here, may be more secure than at any other time since then, but it is not normal.

Was life under Hussein's fascist regime "normal"? That's the Times' implication. The museum was normal in 2003, isn't now, and nor is life in Baghdad. 

I'm sorry the museum isn't functioning as it should. I must confess, though, that the fact that Saddam's rape rooms are no longer operating, nor his dictatorship, is of more importance. I guess that makes me a 'glass is half-full' type of guy.

The Times can be opposed to the Iraq invasion, but please don't write pieces about a looted museum to argue life was normal under Saddam.

Liberal Creationism [John Ennis]

I received a comment earlier this week that deserves a full rebuttal in a new post. In a discussion about global warming and evolution, the reader wrote:

Everything in the natural world seeks equilibrium. It absolutely is a balancing act. When one part of a given ecosystem goes out of whack, it effects everything else because the equilibrium is disrupted. This is why when certain plants and animals are introduced into an environment where they did not evolve, it causes chaos. But when there's equilibrium, or balance, the ecosystem thrives. This is a fundamental concept of nature that apparently you missed in 7th grade science class.

[...]

Now, Natural Selection is a process which is both related and unrelated to the equilibrium concept. In one case, when there is an imbalance, or a niche, it leaves room for the evolution of new species to fill that niche. But in other cases, such as humans, species can create their own niche and introduce imbalance into the system. From there the system seeks to balance itself out again, but it's a slow process that takes hundreds or thousands of years.

The natural world cannot "seek" anything. It cannot "seek" order, balance or equilibrium. If you believe it does, and want to impute higher motives onto the natural world - then you are making a religious argument.

If one accepts the Theory of Evolution - you have to accept all of it. You can not cherry-pick when evolution applies and when it does not. There is nothing in the theory that would suggest a goal of balance or equilibrium. 

If a lioness gives birth to a vastly faster lion that can destroy all of the gazelles on the Serengeti, and that lion's genes come to dominate the gene pool, and the gazelles go extinct because they did not gain an adaptation themselves - nature doesn't care that the equilibrium between lion and gazelle was broken. The lioness would not kill her cub before this could happen. Similarly, if a superbug caused the lions to die off through disease, nature doesn't seek to repopulate the lion to restore balance before the gazelles can run amok.

The vast majority of all species that have ever existed are now extinct. Extinctions don't just occur in mass cataclysms live meteor strikes, or climate change. They occur all the time. Evolution does not stop its processes when there is a supposed equilibrium, and an environment where extinctions are constantly occuring should not be described as "balanced".

The reader is making the same mistake the early naturalists did. They saw a snapshot of nature, and mistook it for equilibrium. They thought an ordered natural world was evidence of the work of a creator. But, the picture they saw was incomplete. Evolution demands that the balance is an illusion. Creatures evolve. Some thrive, others die off. New species develop and extinction destroys others. If you take a snapshot you don't see this. But, over time, it's obvious.

Species do not fill niches. The equilibrium cannot be "unrelated" to natural selection. Natural selection does not stop because there is balance. Natural selection is always operating. That's why the concept of equilibrium is false. The reader notes that if all bees died, the ecosystem would collapse. It's because the ecosystem evolved and adapted to the presence of bees. It's symbiotic, and the sudden removal of bees would cause a collapse for those who can't adapt. But natural selection could bring upon such a collapse and not care. Natural selection doesn't care if ecosystems thrive. Natural selection could drive an entire ecosystem into extinction if it produced a disease that blocked photosynthesis. Wouldn't that introduce imbalance into the system? But the Theory of Evolution dicates that it could happen.

Evolution doesn't always take hundreds of thousands of years. It can operate more quickly when there are massive impacts or when species make a leap. 

The natural world was constantly changing before there were humans, and would continue to change regardless of human influence. There was no Eden. There was no static creation that climate change would undermine. If the Earth were to warm this century (or cool), as it has done many times in the past, no Eden-like balance will have been overthrown. It would be just another environmental change the natural world would adapt to.

Of course, this evolutionary truth undermines the global warming alarmists claims. It's much easier to argue the "balanced" ecosystem will be overturned by a two degree temperature rise if we rely on a more static view of nature. Apparently, that is the view the reader was learning in the seventh grade, but it contradicts Darwinism. It's a rejection of the Theory of Evolution in order to advance the theory of anthropogenic global warming. It's the liberals' version of creationism.  

I've Seen The Future Of Liberalism [John Ennis]

One thing I had hoped to see after the 2008 election was a decrease in some of the more unsupportable slanders of the outgoing Bush Administration. I thought the decrease in its political utility after Obama's victory might allow some of the more fair-minded varieties on the left to revisit certain controversies in a new light and drop from their repertoire baseless criticisms. Slate, though home to its share of Bush haters, often demonstrates an ability to rise above the foolishness (but not today).

K. Anthony Appiah has posted a review of Alan Wolfe's The Future of Liberalism. The first half is a decent intellectual exercise; the second: Bush bashing (emphasis added): 

The last of Wolfe's most original trio of temperaments—the taste for realism—can also be traced back to Kant. We have just lived through an anti-liberal administration hostile to science, one that fantasized we could load the atmosphere with carbon while keeping the Earth's ecology in balance and asserted, against all the evidence, that urging sexual abstinence would stop the spread of AIDS. Wolfe argues that it is liberals, not conservatives, who dare to know.

(...)

... and that it is the (Republican) party's hostility to realism that explains the unwillingness to accept scientific arguments about global warming.

If this is true, how do you explain the unwillingness of many scientists to accept the global warming argument? Furthermore, how do you explain liberals' hostility to scientific arguments criticizing global warming alarmism? They exist and are not merely the product of Exxon-funded crackpots, as liberals would have you believe.

As for keeping the Earth's ecology in "balance", that's a completely inappropriate way to describe the environment, but explains Appiah's readiness to view carbon dioxide increases as a danger. Nature is constantly changing - it is not a balancing act. Perhaps Appiah has heard of the theory of evolution? How does that theory mesh with a view of a balanced environment? If nature is balanced - how does natural selection fit in? 

It's probably better to keep evolution, and toss out ideas of "balance."

More canards from Wolfe:

Wolfe argues, for example, that it is the modern Republican Party's distaste for governance that explains the stunning incompetence of the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina or of its occupation of Iraq...

The federal government did not occupy Iraq, the military did, and I've never heard anyone refer to the army as a federal government program or that Republicans have an aversion towards it.

As for Katrina, Appiah thinks Wolfe is wrong about that anyway:

The failures of FEMA in New Orleans look to me as much like the results of cronyism as of a bad theory.

New Orleans wasn't the only American city to flood due to a natural disaster during the Bush years. However, the federal response to the second incident avoided criticism. Was it because Republicans suddenly lost their distaste for government (Wolfe) or because Bush ended cronyism (Appiah) or because the local response in Cedar Rapids, prevented the collapse of law and order which FEMA needs to operate? FEMA is not a police force - it can't hand out bottled water and write checks when there is anarchy. If liberals want to prevent another Katrina, they'd better honestly evaluate what went wrong or we're doomed to repeat the mistakes. Bush is gone, and there's nothing more to be gained by continuing to repeat dubious arguments as to who is responsible for the slow response to Katrina. 

Near the end of the piece, Appiah offers a further critique of Wolfe:  

The argument against conservatism lies in what the world would look like if conservatives carried out their policies competently. On that issue, the Bush years may offer less insight than Wolfe believes.

Want to know what the world would look like if liberals had their way? California, which is in a free fall. Twenty years of liberal dominance has turned the envy of the world into a fiscal basket case. California used to have a conservative streak to it, but tipped solidly to the left a generation ago. Its geography, climate, resources and wealth should make it one of the pillars of the country. Instead, it's going to the solvent states, cap in hand, looking for a massive bailout. I think that deserves mention in any analysis of the future of liberalism. 

Battle of Basra Already Forgotten? [John Ennis]

Today's Washington Post has a cautious and rather pessimistic opinion piece about the state of Iraq. While it raises several valid points, it reaches its gloomy conclusions by omitting key data. For example, here's what is said about Moqtada al-Sadr:

One of the least understood of those "shady guys" is also one of the most prominent -- Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The U.S. government has consistently underestimated him, first in going into Iraq and then in 2004, when he violently confronted the American superpower. He not only survived those encounters but also emerged more powerful and was brought into the U.S.-created Iraqi government. If he can stay alive, more power is likely to flow to him.

Nowhere in the piece does the writer mention that last year, al-Maliki sent the Iraqi Army into Basra to dislodge militants loyal to Sadr. After this defeat of the Sadrists, the Iraq Army was able to enter Sadr City, the Shia dominated slum of Baghdad which had heretofore been a 'no go' zone. Sadr might have been more powerful in 2004 after encountering the superpower - but it's not the case now, and neither did the candidates he supported fare well in the recent elections.

The piece goes on to overestimate Iran's influence in Iraq, further laying the foundations for its unduly negative conclusions. 

The First 100 Days? [John Ennis]

Last Election Day the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9625. Yesterday, it closed at 7850. That's an 18 percent decline in 100 days.