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Matthew Hoy currently works as a metro page designer at the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The opinions presented here do not represent those of the Union-Tribune and are solely those of the author.

If you have any opinions or comments, please e-mail the author at: hoystory -at- cox -dot- net.

Dec. 7, 2001
Christian Coalition Challenged
Hoystory interviews al Qaeda
Fisking Fritz
Politicizing Prescription Drugs

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A note on the Amazon ads: I've chosen to display current events titles in the Amazon box. Unfortunately, Amazon appears to promote a disproportionate number of angry-left books. I have no power over it at this time. Rest assured, I'm still a conservative.



Friday, May 31, 2002
Great story: From the Wall Street Journal on Pentagon reporter Raymond Cromley. It's well worth a read.

2:37 AM (0) comments


What you didn't know about the GOP: Republicans are cold, heartless, kitten-drowning bastards -- each and every one of them.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman uses the current Third World tour that U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and U2 lead singer Bono are on to point out that if you're in the GOP, you must be evil.


In one of the oddest enterprises in the history of development economics, Bono -- the lead singer for the rock band U2 — has been touring Africa with Paul O'Neill, secretary of the treasury. For a while, the latent tensions between the two men were masked by Bono's courtesy; but on Monday he lost his cool.


Notice the characterization of Bono as the one being courteous -- O'Neill is the difficult one. Those Republicans, it's so difficult for normal people to be around them because they're so boorish. Just maybe O'Neill was having an equally hard time dealing with an arrogant rock star, but is simply more courteous because he didn't' lose his cool.


The pair were visiting a village in Uganda, where a new well yielding clean water has radically improved the villagers' health. Mr. O'Neill's conclusion from this, as from the other development projects he saw, was that big improvements in people's lives don't require much money -- and therefore that no big increase in foreign aid is required. By the way, the United States currently spends 0.11 percent of G.D.P. on foreign aid; Canada and major European countries are about three times as generous. The Bush administration's proposed "Millennium Fund" will increase our aid share, but only to 0.13 percent.

Bono was furious, declaring that the projects demonstrated just the opposite, that the well was "an example of why we need big money for development. And it is absolutely not an example of why we don't. And if the secretary can't see that, we're going to have to get him a pair of glasses and a new set of ears."


Rather than relying solely on Krugman's characterization and dismissal of O'Neill's statements, let's see what he said. From The Washington Post's reporting:


During a visit to a well in Wakiso, an area outside of Uganda's capital, Kampala, the Treasury secretary emphasized how cheaply the well had been built, noting that it cost $1,000 and provided clean water to more than 400 people. Using "back-of-the-envelope arithmetic," he said, he and Uganda's central bank governor had calculated the night before that wells serving all of the nation's people could be drilled for about $25 million. He questioned why it couldn't be done within a year.

"Last year the World Bank lent $300 million to Uganda," he said later in the day to a university audience. "What was so important that there wasn't $25 million to $30 million to give everyone in Uganda clean water? Where did the money go?"


The answer, unfortunately, is that much of the money that is targeted for aid is gobbled up by bureaucracy at some international aid agencies, and, when the money finally arrives in a country it is often stolen by government officials who use it to live a life of luxury while their people die.


Maybe the easiest way to refute Mr. O'Neill is to recall last year's proposal by the World Health Organization, which wants to provide poor countries with such basic items as antibiotics and insecticide-treated mosquito nets. If the U.S. had backed the proposed program, which the W.H.O. estimated would save eight million lives each year, America's contribution would have been about $10 billion annually — a dime a day per American, but nonetheless a doubling of our current spending on foreign aid. Saving lives — even African lives — costs money.


Well, that's $36.50 a year for every man woman and child to pay for one proposed WHO program. Now, many Americans would willingly pay an extra $40 a year if it meant saving millions of lives -- and many do through charitable organizations. The difference between contributing through taxes and through a charitable organization is a "donor" has more say in where the money goes and how it is used. The WHO uses more than one third of its budget at its headquarters (see Page 12). [Link requires Adobe Acrobat]. One can safely assume that those costs are administrative. You can also assume that some small portion of the costs for the other geographic areas is administrative.

Compare that to the American Institute of Philanthropy's guidelines for charitable organizations:


Percent Spent on Charitable Purpose
This is the portion of total expenses that is spent on charitable programs. In AIP’s view, 60% or greater is reasonable for most charities. The remaining percentage is spent on fundraising and general administration.


That 60 percent figure takes into account the fact that, unlike the WHO, most charities also spend money on fundraising campaigns. The WHO just lobbies governments. A generous look at the WHO's numbers suggests that if they were a charity, their administrative costs may be reasonable -- but not necessarily good. (For a list of charities that fare better look here.)

All these issues are certainly debatable. Are the American people willing to have their taxes raised slightly in order to help Third World countries? Maybe the Times can do some polling on the issue. I'd be interested to find out the results.

If Krugman stayed on this issue, I probably wouldn't have had too much to say. Unfortunately, he buried the lede.


But is Mr. O'Neill really blind and deaf to Africa's needs? Probably not. He is caught between a rock star and a hard place: he wants to show concern about global poverty, but Washington has other priorities.

A striking demonstration of those priorities is the contrast between the Bush administration's curt dismissal of the W.H.O. proposal and the bipartisan drive to make permanent the recent repeal of the estate tax. What's notable about that drive is that opponents of the estate tax didn't even try to make a trickle-down argument, to assert that reducing taxes on wealthy heirs is good for all of us. Instead, they made an emotional appeal — they wanted us to feel the pain of those who pay the "death tax." And the sob stories worked; Congress brushed aside proposals to retain the tax, even proposals that would raise the exemption — the share of any estate that is free from tax — to $5 million.

Let's do the math here. An estate tax with an exemption of $5 million would affect only a handful of very wealthy families: in 1999 only 3,300 estates had a taxable value of more than $5 million. The average value of those estates was $16 million. If the excess over $5 million were taxed at pre-2001 rates, the average taxed family would be left with $10 million — which doesn't sound like hardship to me — and the government would collect $20 billion in revenue each year. But no; the whole tax must go.


Aha! Those rich people not wanting to pay taxes are killing children in Africa!

I would also like to note that Krugman has pointed out that the drive to repeal the estate tax was bipartisan. Maybe Democrats are just a little bit evil too.

Unfortunately Krugman's opportunity-cost argument could be made about any manner of issues. I'd be perfectly willing to lose some of the government pork (including the whole damn farm bill) and spend the money in Africa. According to Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan group: "This year's pork list was comprised of 8,341 items that cost taxpayers $20.1 billion."

Of course, getting rid of the waste would be great. I think most Americans, including Krugman, would agree that the politics of pork should stop. Getting rid of the pork would certainly be easier politically than trying to pass a tax hike of some kind. In fact, Bush is trying to do just that. According to CAGW: "The Bush Administration has proposed moving funds from lower priority projects such as those identified in the Pig Book to higher priorities such as homeland security and the war on terrorism."

Let me say that no one in my family is rich enough to be affected by the death tax. I don't feel very strongly about the whole estate tax issue, and I'm not opposed to raising the exemption to $5 million, but I don't like the principle of the taxman reaching into the casket to take a good chunk of money that someone has earned over their lifetime.


So here are our priorities. Faced with a proposal that would save the lives of eight million people every year, many of them children, we balk at the cost. But when asked to give up revenue equal to twice that cost, in order to allow each of 3,300 lucky families to collect its full $16 million inheritance rather than a mere $10 million, we don't hesitate. Leave no heir behind!

Which brings us back to the Bono-O'Neill tour. The rock star must have hoped that top American officials are ignorant rather than callous — that they just don't realize what conditions are like in poor countries, and how foreign aid can make a difference. By showing Mr. O'Neill the realities of poverty and the benefits aid can bring, Bono hoped to find and kindle the spark of compassion that surely must lurk in the hearts of those who claim to be compassionate conservatives.


Here we are back to the evil Republicans. Just a couple paragraphs after Krugman says that the move to repeal the estate tax was bipartisan, and all of the sudden the Democrats shared responsibility has disappeared. Oh well, it was to be expected.

2:35 AM (0) comments


An honest liberal: The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof has an excellent article in today's paper. It's an excellent article, mainly because Kristof echoes a point I made earlier.


One reason aggressive agents were restrained as they tried to go after Zacarias Moussaoui is that liberals like myself — and the news media caldron in which I toil and trouble — have regularly excoriated law enforcement authorities for taking shortcuts and engaging in racial profiling. As long as we're pointing fingers, we should peer into the mirror.


It would be nice if more on the left would be honest about what their excessive crusade for political correctness has wrought.


The F.B.I. took new steps yesterday to expand its powers — allowing it to snoop on mosques, libraries and the Internet, for example — and they make sense. We must also relax a taboo, racial profiling, for one of the lessons of the Moussaoui case is that it sometimes works.

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta bars airport security screenings based on religion or ethnicity. That's why aging nuns are plucked out of airport lines for inspections of their denture bags, why women with underwire bras are sometimes subjected to humiliating inspections after the metal detector goes off. But let's be realistic: Young Arab men are more likely to ram planes into nuclear power plants than are little old ladies, and as such they should be more vigorously searched — though with no less courtesy. El Al, the Israeli airline, has the world's most effective air security system, and it's all about racial profiling.


While conducting questioning of airline passengers to the extent practiced by El Al is probably excessive and unworkable, only one "type" of person has been known to hijack commercial airliners and fly them into buildings. It's not a bad idea to scrutinize others like them a little closer.

12:27 AM (0) comments

Thursday, May 30, 2002
Alert! Gloria Allred is an idiot. She was on "Alan Keyes is Making Sense" tonight and argued that it was an invasion of privacy for an FBI agent to listen to a speech at a public rally or to surf the Internet for terrorism-related sites. When they get the transcript up, I'll link to it.

11:56 PM (0) comments


Not buying it: Contributing to the crusade to tell everyone what they can and cannot do with their personal computers, Internet research company Viant says that between 400,000 and 600,000 pirated feature films are downloaded every day.

I don't think so.

According to figures from September 2001, 54 percent of Americans surfed the Web in the previous year. Of a U.S. population of approximately 270 million, this would mean that 140 million people are on the Internet. Of those, approximately 20 percent (28 million) had broadband connections necessary to download feature films.

If 400,000 movies (750 Megabyte in size) are illegally downloaded every day (Viant's lower end), then you're talking about 300 gigabytes of bandwidth a day -- just for the movies being traded over the Internet.

Even with broadband Internet connections downloading a 750 MB movie is no easy feat, because most DSL and Cable modem providers restrict the uploading speed of their connections, usually capping it at 128k. At that rate it can take 20 hours to download a complete film.

There's just not enough bandwidth out there to have people downloading movies at this rate and allowing most people to call up CNN quickly -- or even get their e-mail quickly. Besides, I'm sure that all of those online music traders are also taking up a ton of bandwidth.

Now I'm not saying that it's right to download copyrighted material -- it isn't -- but the likes of Sen. Fritz Hollings ($-Disney) use this type of information pass laws that allow people to legally use copyrighted material. For example, mixing their own custom CDs.

I know lots of people who have high-speed connections -- I know very few who download movies at all -- renting them is much easier.

11:52 AM (0) comments

Wednesday, May 29, 2002
Want something to be ticked off about? Well, it appears as though the CEO of energy company Dynegy is being forced out -- and he's getting $40 million.

Why is he being forced out? According to the New York Times:


Charles L. Watson guided Dynegy from a tiny company into a member of the Fortune 500 and just six months ago appeared to have vaulted it into the top ranks of American business by agreeing to acquire Enron.

But that deal, which soon fell apart as Enron collapsed, ended up putting Dynegy under a microscope, and Mr. Watson's position weakened this year with continued disclosures of questionable accounting practices and trading techniques in the energy industry. Dynegy faces an accounting investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, although the company said that had nothing to do with Mr. Watson's departure.


Read the entire article here.

10:55 PM (0) comments


Sorry everyone, but apparently the new blogger publishing engine has created a problem with BlogBack, my commenting system. I've got to head off to work, but I will try to get comments back up and working tonight.

*UPDATE* I did a quick check and found out the fix was rather simple, so comments are available now! Enjoy!

10:02 AM (0) comments


Reading Comprehension 101: The New York Times Paul Krugman is probably my favorite foil. He is a very intelligent man, but is also, oftentimes, very unwise. But this isn't about Krugman. This is about some of his defenders -- Krugmanites.

Now, not all Krugmanites suffer from this disability, but last week's Krugman piece brought two of them out of the woodwork and their comments made me shake my head in disbelief. It seems that some Krugmanites read what I write, recognize it as an attack on Krugman, and then go berserk. However, they never truly comprehend what I'm saying. To quote comedian Chris Tucker: "Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?"

On occasion I am not always in tip-top form when it comes to explaining my I'm not always clear -- that comes from not having an editor looking over my shoulder late at night when I write this stuff. So, to make sure I wasn't to blame for poor sentence construction or ambiguous statements, I had one of my liberal-moderate copy editor friends take a look the Krugman piece and two of the comments which made me shake my head in bewilderment. She concurred with my assessment that both Krugmanites had poor reading comprehension skills.

I appreciate rational, thoughtful criticism. If everyone agreed with my opinions the world would be a nicer place, but I wouldn't have nearly as much fun writing for this blog.

Here's the reading comprehension lesson:

Comment by Demosthenes:


He (Krugman) has criticized Clinton's policies many times, and Reagan's as well. Steel is Bush's screwup, not Clinton's. Let him take the heat.


What I said:


Krugman says that the president's decision was made for political gain and is anti-free trade -- and he's right.


Looks like I was letting Bush take the heat, doesn't it? I love when I get criticized for agreeing with Krugman by a Krugmanite.

Comment by Jeff Hauser:


I'm not exactly sure why, oter [sic] than that he gets his facts right and they don't look pretty for the Bushies, that Krugman pisses everyone off. But I do know he leads the Right to bizzare claims, such as that "GATT" and "NAFTA" are synonymous. How do you disprove a Krugman claim re the former by pointing out a counterexample involving the latter?


If Hauser had read Krugman's piece, he would have discovered that Krugman was talking about how the U.S., over the past 20+ years had done it's best to stick to the letter of the trade agreements it had signed -- until Bush 43 and his steel tariff decision.

What I said:


I won't address what did or didn't happen during the Reagan years. The pre-Web days of the '80s are difficult to research late at night solely using Internet sources. However, Krugman's claim that Clinton stuck to the strict letter of U.S. trade agreements throughout his 8-year term is false.

The most obvious, most recent and most well-known case was the Clinton administration's refusal to allow Mexican trucks into the U.S., as was required by NAFTA.


I didn't write anything about GATT and NAFTA being synonymous. What I did point out was that both are trade agreements.

Krugman wrote: "Everyone understood that there were certain things that you didn't do, no matter how convenient they might be in terms of short-term political advantage."

It would be a shallow (and I believe incorrect) reading of Krugman's column to suggest, as Hauser apparently does, that Krugman believes that it is OK to violate NAFTA, but not OK to violate GATT (now incorporated in the World Trade Organization).

Finally, on Hauser's Web site, he quoted one of the other commentators for his brilliance, while referring to my pieces as "inane."

Comment by pj:


Here, he's (Krugman) making a broader point about treaties and Bush's disdain for them. But I agree with you about Krugman's strange obsession with critiquing the president. For example, it's really strange to me that Krugman writes so much about the Bush administration instead of criticizing the trade decisions made by Harry Truman. So unbalanced.


See, pj gets part of it. The broader point is about treaties. YES! My point exactly. Bush violates the WTO when it's politically convenient. Clinton ignored NAFTA when it was politically convenient.

Unfortunately, in trying to get some sort of jab in at me, pj goes a little far afield. Harry Truman isn't an issue. Why? Well, if he'd comprehended my piece he would've seen that Krugman basically limited the issue to Ronald Reagan onward.


The Reagan administration, despite its free-trade rhetoric, was quite willing to protect industries for political gain; the most notable example was the "voluntary" restraint on Japanese car exports. Still, it was a firm rule that trade interventions had to be "GATT-legal" ? that is, they couldn't violate the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. (The GATT has since been incorporated into the rules of the World Trade Organization.) And that scrupulousness continued up to the end of the Clinton years. [Emphasis mine]


When I write these pieces I try not to go too far off the original topic. I also try not to make them so unwieldy that no one would want to read them. If I'd started addressing the trade policies of every president from Washington onward I'd be writing a book, not a blog.

Finally, Hauser, on his site, encourages his readers visit my site, and others like it, often.


BTW, I don't have the time to do it myself, but someone needs to do a comprehensive sweep of "blogs" that criticize Krugman and just mock the living hell out of them.


I welcome you. That's what the comments are there for.

I have some advice, though:

First: Read carefully.
Second: Form your arguments cogently.

You don't do your position any benefit when you make yourself look like an ideologue whose writing and cognitive abilities are questionable.

9:35 AM (0) comments

Tuesday, May 28, 2002
What's scarier than Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin wrapped up into one? Well, if you're a liberal, Attorney General John Ashcroft is much, much scarier. I'm ashamed I didn't catch it earlier, but last week San Diego Union-Tribune columnist James Goldsborough takes his turn at liberals' favorite whipping boy.


In John Ashcroft, the nation not only has a man of God as attorney general, but God's messenger. Ashcroft is not only the most conservative A.G. of modern times, but the most fundamentalist.

Fundamentalists, as we learn daily from the Middle East and beyond, cause more problems than they solve. Fundamentalists believe they are the only righteous ones. Why should our fundamentalists be any different?


That's the latest libel from the left: conservative Christians, or "fundamentalists", are no different from Muslims who kill men, women and children in the name of God -- and are praised.

There are some who would call themselves Christians who murder -- abortion-clinic bombers mainly -- but when they do this, they are roundly condemned throughout the Christian community.

A couple of letter-writers made some excellent points about Goldsborough and his column:


Re: "A messenger of God tackles the Constitution" (Opinion, May 23):

Columnist James Goldsborough's attack on Attorney General John Ashcroft is a prime example of the press' latest futile attempt to associate evangelical Christianity with the fanatical Wahabe [sic] branch of Islam, which was primarily responsible for Sept. 11.

In describing Ashcroft, Goldsborough uses the word "fundamentalism" or "fundamentalist" four times in the first two paragraphs in an attempt to build a wordspeak bridge in the mind of the reader between Islamic fundamentalism found in Afghanistan and evangelical Christianity found in America.

Evangelical Christians do not send their sons into shopping malls to blow themselves up in an attempt to kill as many innocent people as they can; nor do they train young people how to commandeer civilian aircraft filled with innocent people in order to ram into tall buildings.

PATRICK MOODY, pastor Del Cerro Baptist Church


And:


I couldn't have done a better job of revealing the fraud of liberalism than Goldsborough did with his column on Ashcroft. What about tolerance? Diversity? Guess they don't apply to a devout Christian like Ashcroft.

Comparing Ashcroft to the Taliban is ridiculous. About the only thing Ashcroft is guilty of is being a goody two-shoes.

I would suggest that the truly intolerant in this country are liberals like Goldsborough.

MICHAEL RUBLE
San Diego


Goldsborough attacks the Justice Department's stand that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms.


Yet two weeks ago, the Ashcroft Justice Department argued in briefs before the Supreme Court that the Second Amendment gives people the right to own guns. Period.

This extremist position, which attempts to reverse six decades of federal policy, pretends that the Second Amendment's clause about the need for a "well-regulated militia" simply doesn't exist. Ashcroft's position also flies in the face of broad-based U.S. public opinion supporting gun control.


So, it appears as though Ashcroft agrees with Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe -- a liberal.

After studying the issue, Tribe states that although the Second Amendment is "admittedly of uncertain scope" the framers did intend for citizens to "possess and use firearms in the defense of themselves and their homes."

Nelson Lund, in a May 2000 article [The article is not available for free online, but is quoted in the previous link] in the Weekly Standard makes a couple of points about the first portion of the Second Amendment:


If the framers of the Second Amendment had simply provided that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," even a lawyer would have trouble denying that it creates an individual right like the other "rights of the people" described in the Bill of Rights. But that's not what they did. Instead, they appended an explanatory introduction, so that the constitutional text says: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."


The introductory phrase, however, does not change the meaning of the operative clause, and the Second Amendment means exactly what it would have meant had the preface been omitted. To see why that's so, and also why such an explanatory preface makes perfect sense, one needs to grasp two interrelated arguments. The first is based on the text of the Second Amendment and its relationship with other clauses in the Constitution. The second focuses on the immediate political problem that the preface was meant to address.

Let's start with the text of the Second Amendment. The operative clause protects a "right of the people," which is exactly the same terminology used in the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment. Those two provisions indubitably protect individual (not states') rights, and so does the Second Amendment.

What the introductory phrase tells us is that this individual right is protected, at least in part, because doing so will foster a well-regulated militia.


All of that aside, Goldsborough's comment that "Ashcroft's position also flies in the face of broad-based U.S. public opinion supporting gun control" reminds me of the story of the New York socialite that wondered how Ronald Reagan could have ever been elected president, because no one she knew voted for him.

Al Gore's strong support of gun control likely cost him his home state, Tennessee, in the 2000 election -- and therefore the presidency.

There's more, but it's really not worth my time. Goldsborough is safe in his own little world where people who think differently than he does are caricatured and vilified.

Goldsborough might actually benefit from meeting some of these "fundamentalist" Christians -- maybe he'll find out that we're not all bad.

12:13 AM (0) comments

Sunday, May 26, 2002
Barone hits a home run: U.S. News & World Report columnist Michael Barone points out that the Saudis are not friends to America, but enemies.

On a related note: The recent Saudi PR campaign failed miserably. The fact that the Saudis even felt the need to run those PR brings to mind a little Shakespeare: "Methinks they doth protest too much."

12:14 PM (0) comments

Saturday, May 25, 2002
There's a good article in the Washington Post on the situation some small Web broadcasters are facing with the increasingly greedy Recording Industry Association of America.

The lengths that the RIAA goes to to prevent its customers from using something they've paid for in a legal manner is infuriating. I'm almost to the point where I'd pay an extra dollar or two (and CDs are way overpriced) just to have them drop all of their lawsuits on file-swapping and allow me to RIP CDs I paid for onto my computer.

11:22 PM (0) comments


If you can read The New York Times' package in today's paper entitled "102 Minutes" and still have dry eyes, you're a stronger person than I am.


Rescue workers did not get near them. Photographers could not record their faces. If they were seen at all, it was in glimpses at windows, nearly a quarter-mile up.

Yet like messages in an electronic bottle from people marooned in some distant sky, their last words narrate a world that was coming undone. A man sends an e-mail message asking, "Any news from the outside?" before perching on a ledge at Windows on the World. A woman reports a colleague is smacking useless sprinkler heads with his shoe. A husband calmly reminds his wife about their insurance policies, then says that the floor is groaning beneath him, and tells her that she and their children meant the world to him.

No single call can describe scenes that were unfolding at terrible velocities in many places. Taken together though, the words from the upper floors offer not only a broad and chilling view of the devastated zones, but the only window onto acts of bravery, decency and grace at a brutal time.

Eight months after the attacks, many survivors and friends and relatives of those lost are pooling their recollections, tapes and phone records, and 157 have shared accounts of their contacts for this article. At least 353 of those lost were able to reach people outside the towers. Spoken or written at the hour of death, these are intimate, lasting words. The steep emotional cost of making them public is worth paying, their families say, for a clearer picture of those final minutes.


The American public, famous for its short attention span, needs to see this kind of reporting on a regular basis. The war on terrorism is not nearly over, and many need the reminders.

*UPDATE* The Times needs to fix its Web site to allow you to read the entire articles -- they're very long, and it appears as though their software only allows a maximum of five Web pages worth of text.

9:12 PM (0) comments


Today's Washington Post has an article headlined: "FBI Culture Blamed for Missteps on Moussaoui."

The FBI certainly deserves blame for failing to prevent the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, but I'm not sure that it's the "FBI Culture" that's completely to blame.


Rowley wrote that the careers of high-ranking FBI officials have in the past been ruined by poor decisions in high-profile cases. "This in turn resulted in a climate of fear which has chilled aggressive FBI law enforcement action/decisions," she wrote.

She said this atmosphere stems from the FBI's organization as a large hierarchy with numerous layers of supervisors who don't want to risk facing criticism from Congress and the public for their decisions.


And if these supervisors had acted aggressively...imagine the congressional oversight hearings where Cynthia McKinney starts railing about racial and religious profiling.

Maybe it's not completely the FBI Culture. Maybe it's what American culture has become thanks to political correctness run amok. Last I checked we're still wand-raping little old ladies so as not to make middle-aged Muslim men feel bad.

2:47 AM (0) comments

Friday, May 24, 2002
National Review Online's Jay Nordlinger makes an excellent observation in today's Impromptus column.


You have heard what George W. Bush said about Cuba (for a refresher, go here). Among other things, he said, ?Today, and every day for the past 43 years, [the] legacy of [Cuban] courage has been insulted by a tyrant who uses brutal methods to enforce a bankrupt vision. That legacy has been debased by a relic from another era, who has turned a beautiful island into a prison.? Bush continued, ?[Castro] is a dictator who jails and tortures and exiles his political opponents. . . . [But] through all their pains and deprivation, the Cuban people?s aspirations for freedom are undiminished.? Etc.

Okay, you heard that. And you heard what President Jimmy Carter said about Cuba.

Now hear this. This is Carter in an interview last year: ?I don?t think that George W. Bush has any particular commitment to preservation of the principles of human rights.?

What I think is that Bush has a surer sense of human rights than Carter, who thinks he invented them.


Bravo! There's more good stuff in there, so go check it out.

12:26 PM (0) comments


Right on the issue, wrong on the history: Paul Krugman comes out, a month delayed, against President Bush's decision to slap tariffs on imported steel.

Krugman says that the president's decision was made for political gain and is anti-free trade -- and he's right.

But Krugman's recounting of history glosses over one important fact -- everybody does it.


The Reagan administration, despite its free-trade rhetoric, was quite willing to protect industries for political gain; the most notable example was the "voluntary" restraint on Japanese car exports. Still, it was a firm rule that trade interventions had to be "GATT-legal" ? that is, they couldn't violate the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. (The GATT has since been incorporated into the rules of the World Trade Organization.) And that scrupulousness continued up to the end of the Clinton years. Everyone understood that there were certain things that you didn't do, no matter how convenient they might be in terms of short-term political advantage.

In those days, in other words, responsible people ran our international economic policy.


I won't address what did or didn't happen during the Reagan years. The pre-Web days of the '80s are difficult to research late at night solely using Internet sources. However, Krugman's claim that Clinton stuck to the strict letter of U.S. trade agreements throughout his 8-year term is false.

The most obvious, most recent and most well-known case was the Clinton administration's refusal to allow Mexican trucks into the U.S., as was required by NAFTA.


A NAFTA arbitration panel may have finally broken the transport logjam at the US-Mexican border. The panel found that Washington's blanket ban on Mexican trucks moving farther north than the immediate border area violated the 1993 free-trade pact.

That's no surprise. Under the agreement, Mexicans were supposed to have access to border-state highways by 1995, and to all US roadways by 2000. Two things kept that from happening: concerns about the safety of Mexican trucks and drivers, and political opposition from the Teamsters Union (which fears job losses) and some advocacy groups.

Those factors kept the truck ban firmly in place during the Clinton administration.


That ban has since been lifted -- by President Bush and Congress.

Krugman could be an excellent columnist if his views weren't so clouded by his excessively partisan tilt. He makes good points, but often excuses Democrats' failures, while amplifying the perceived faults of Republicans.

12:15 AM (0) comments

Thursday, May 23, 2002
A friend of mine has a great online comic strip that is not only well-drawn and witty, but it's also free. (Unless you work for a syndicate, then you should pay him for it.)

His strips remind me of Bloom County with more a pop-culture tilt. Check it out here. Tell him I sent you.

1:32 AM (0) comments


Senility check: I hope that when I begin to suffer from Alzheimer's disease (preferably at a very advanced age) that whatever newspaper I am writing for has the good sense to put me out to pasture.

In today's Washington Post, columnist Mary McGrory reveals that her time is has come. McGrory tries her hand at 20/20 hindsight punditry -- and knocks the baseball over the fence for a touchdown.


He must be a pretty reprehensible fellow. You saw him leaving a long, black car with tinted windows, heavily chaperoned by FBI Director Robert Mueller and enveloped by escorts who spirited him up the Capitol steps. You'd have thought that Kenneth Williams was some kind of a mobster.

But he is an FBI agent from Arizona, and the only thing he did wrong was to be right last July about the possibility that Osama bin Laden was using U.S. flight schools to train terrorists. It is not a crime to put two and two together, although you can never be sure with Attorney General John Ashcroft.


How can you tell if someone's a knee-jerk liberal? If they think that the most vicious slur in the world is: John Ashcroft. My regular whipping boy Paul Krugman has used it, and now McGrory joins the club.

Williams is undoubtedly a smart guy, McGrory's right about that. He guessed something that no one else did -- and he was right, sort of. What McGrory fails to note anywhere in her piece is that the suspicious people that prompted Williams to write the menu have not been linked to any of the Sept. 11 terrorists.

From the Post's own reporting:


Associates said Williams is surprised by the furor his memo created. FBI officials, including Mueller, have noted that none of the subjects named in the memo has been connected by investigators to the Sept. 11 plot, sources said.

Prior to Sept. 11, the FBI did refer the list of names in the memo to the CIA, which concluded that none appeared to have ties to al Qaeda, officials have said. But Williams noted that one of the aviation students was a radical Muslim who had a picture of bin Laden on his wall, while another had made a phone call to a man linked to an al Qaeda associate.

Earlier this month, after finally receiving a copy of the memo, the CIA determined that at least two of the non-flight school students named in the document have ties to al Qaeda based on intelligence gathered since the attacks.


There's no evidence to support a claim being suggested by McGrory and others that if the government had acted on this memo that it would have prevented Sept. 11.


Williams had a secret two-hour session with the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday evening and was on Capitol Hill yesterday for more closed-door sessions. We never saw his face. The Phoenix warning is a profound embarrassment to the intelligence bureaucracy, and Williams is probably lucky to have his job. Let us hope we get the chance to see and hear him. Dot-connectors are hard to find.


So we never saw his face. Big deal. Becoming famous by having your picture put on national television isn't always good for an FBI field agent. You can tell McGrory's been in Washington far too long if she is so cynical to think that this is the kind of memo that would get him fired -- in a Republican administration. In a Democratic administration he might have been fired immediately after submitting it. After all, the kind of racial/ethnic/religious profiling that Williams was suggesting the FBI practice is not politically correct.


Nobody is saying that if his memo had been circulated, the tragedy of Sept. 11 would have been averted. The most dastardly Democrat has not even thought of accusing Bush of dereliction of duty. From the moment the memo surfaced, Republicans have been shrieking that it is unpatriotic to dwell on the past.


What? That's exactly what McGrory seems to be saying. That's exactly what was suggested in The New York Post's inflammatory "BUSH KNEW" headline. To paraphrase Shakespeare: "Givest thou me a break!"


President Bush got off a good line about second-guessing being second nature in Washington. But he was pretty steamed that anyone would think he had not done everything in his power to protect the American people.

Vice President Cheney wheeled the heavy artillery through the Sunday television shows and fired warnings that filled the air for the holiday weekend: No one, it seems, is safe -- apartment house dwellers, the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, subways, barbecue pits, trains.

Cheney was both stern and matter of fact. His message to a bewildered nation read, "You want warnings? We'll give you warnings." Brutally, he changed the subject from the scary past to the scary future.


Why did Bush feel compelled to address the suggestion that he knew that the terrorist attack was coming and that he failed to act? Because some people, including the likes of wacko Cynthia McKinney and Sen. Hillary Clinton have snidely suggested that he is guilty of treason.


New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton did exactly what Republicans would have done in her husband's time in office. She took to the floor and cited a headline in the New York Post, "BUSH KNEW." All she said was that her constituents wanted to know what he knew and when.

The administration landed on her. Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer castigated her, and from Budapest came a blast from her successor, Laura Bush, who was on tour.


So because Republicans would have done it makes it OK? The administration was right to "land" on Hillary. The "what did the president know and when did he know it" formulation is synonymous with scandal and illegality. Clinton doesn't want to know why the intelligence agencies failed to stop the attack, she wants to tar Bush with the brush of incompetence at least and treason at most.


Nobody was surprised that Williams's warning was not heeded or even shared with other agencies. The FBI is notorious for hiding information: At Boston's Logan Airport, where the World Trade Center assassins took off, the bureau refused to share its watch list with state troopers responsible for airport safety. The bureau pores over its data like a miser in his cave with his treasure. It is a prima donna of government bureaus, accustomed for almost 50 years to a doting press and public.

The CIA, which should have been told and wasn't, is also dysfunctional. Overfunded and undersupervised, it has severe identity problems, which have been aggravated in two Bush administrations. It was Bush the Elder's favorite bureaucracy, and the incumbent is equally fond, striving always to find ways to make the spooks look good and elaborately forgiving them for their colossal failure of Sept. 11.


McGrory isn't completely wrong about the FBI and the CIA. But many Americans would say that every government bureaucracy is a prima donna. But to place the problems at the CIA solely on the Bushes, while completely ignoring/excusing 8 years of the Clinton administration is disgustingly partisan.


Republicans point out that it is not George Bush's job to sift through batches of warnings and reports. It isn't; it's the CIA's. But the president made the people who should have been analysts into warriors, and they have turned up all over Afghanistan in combat roles. The first U.S. casualty was a CIA man, who first came to our attention as the interrogator of John Walker Lindh.


Now this is just stupid, and it is an insult to the memory of CIA agent Johnny "Mike" Spann. Spann was a former Marine Corps officer. To suggest that he could have served his country better by being behind a desk at the Pentagon in the wake of Sept. 11 instead of in Afghanistan questioning terrorists is moronic. McGrory is suggesting that we need more analysts poring over radio intercepts and satellite maps, and fewer out trying to get information directly from people. This directly contradicts what every intelligence expert has recommended for improving the ability of the CIA to prevent these types of terrorist attacks.

McGrory would prefer that men like Spann be kept near Washington, far from harms way. Well, Spann is closer to home now. He's buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Maybe McGrory feels better now.


I happened to be in New York this week as it was trying to digest the news that it may face another ground zero. The city was immaculate, not a candy wrapper in the streets, and somewhat quieter than before it was called upon to be the wonder of the world for its endurance and resilience. "We were just beginning to relax," sighed a Gothamite.


Sorry, but this I don't believe. "Not a candy wrapper in the streets?" It sounds nice and all, but who is McGrory kidding? Maybe her eyesight is going.


The new mayor, Mike Bloomberg, fits the new mood. He tends to understatement, which the city finds restful; he's not compulsive like his driven predecessor, who whirled through the city in pursuit of trouble. Bloomberg rides the subway without fanfare and with two security men. Rudy Giuliani's heroic performance is not forgotten, but it is less talked of.

Now, apparently, all's to do again. Says Michael Shapiro, Columbia assistant journalism professor, the timing of the proliferating warnings "discomfits" him. The Bush administration is getting criticism for its handling of past events. That just struck him as "too coincidental," Shapiro said.


Ohhh...a journalism professor thinks that the timing is just "too coincidental." Give me a break. There's been warning of one sort or another every week since Sept. 11. Has Shapiro been reading the paper? I was surprised when I was in college J-school at just how few of my fellow journalism students were ignorant of what was happening outside of San Luis Obispo. You'd think that journalism professors at least would be reading the paper on a daily basis.


People don't know whom to believe. They might listen to agent Williams.


Better than listening to columnist McGrory.

1:06 AM (0) comments

Wednesday, May 22, 2002
The skeletal remains of former intern Chandra Levy were found in a park in Washington, D.C. today. This is the second tragedy in this case. The first tragedy occurred earlier this year when adulterous congressman Gary Condit lost the Democratic primary -- meaning that he will no longer be able to use his position as a Congressmen to sleep with women who are not his wife put pressure on the D.C. police to solve her disappearance.

11:28 PM (0) comments


The story so far: If you haven't seen it yet, The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol has the text of his prepared remarks for a House subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia posted.

Kristol gives a good, concise summary of the duplicity practices by the Saudi regime -- and why we need to stop turning a blind eye. Check it out.

5:08 PM (0) comments


Why editors aren't always bad things: I've apparently raised a ruckus by suggesting that syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker took the idea from her latest column from a comment made at littlegreenfootballs.com. (For links see the item below.)

The original poster of the idea, in their response to the item stated that what Parker did "was not plagiarism." I concur. Ideas cannot be plagiarized.

What I was attempting to point out in a tongue-and-cheek manner (and admittedly did a piss-poor job of it) was that it appeared as though the lgf comments were unattributed inspiration for her column. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you don't use the same phrasing, etc. Parker did not use any phrasing similar to that in the lgf comment.

In 20/20 hindsight (isn't what this is all about?), I should have taken the tack of how blogs are becoming inspiration for the mainstream media. My bad.

Parker wrote me (a stern, but not really nasty [but that's OK, I'd be pissed too]) note saying that she got inspiration from elsewhere, notably, her 17-year-old son. (Does he read lgf?) I believe her.

Jeff Jacoby did something similar to this last year (also noted/linked below) and was subsequently suspended. I thought that was a big-time overreaction and wrong. I thought his editor(s) were out to get him. If Parker were to suffer a similar fate, I'd be ticked about that too, and you can bet there'd be items here, and elsewhere, decrying the small-mindedness of her editors.

My apologies to Kathleen Parker, whose work, I should note, I often like.

[For those who may think I'm backpedaling, you're right. Did it so quick that I fell on my butt.]

10:49 AM (0) comments

Tuesday, May 21, 2002
Thieving from the blogs Inspired by the blogs: Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker's latest piece is appears to be based on comments made by one of the readers at littlegreenfootballs.com.


Let's go even further: assume that the FBI had information on the exact date, time, flight number, and descriptions of suspects. So they raid all the planes, and arrest the 19 dirtbags.

...And then what? Not much, I imagine. Oh, CAIR and it's ilk would be having a fit, of course, complaining to everyone including George W. about profiling and unfair targeting of Arab-Americans. After all, just what did the FBI find? Some box cutters? Those aren't illegal on airplanes. Flight manuals? These men were all attending accredited flight schools, trying to achieve the American dream, etc. etc. So they had one-way tickets: is that a crime? Funeral shrouds? Are you honestly arresting these men for bringing white sheets onto a plane? Korans? So because these men are pious Muslims, you dare to assume...! And really, folks, come on: flying a Boeing into a skyscraper? You've been watching too many movies! Who would come up with something this complicated, when a truck bomb in a garage would do just as well?

And so on and so on. I'm sure at least half these men would have been released within a couple of days. Profiling would be discussed at length on CNN and PBS. Several specials would be made, with weeping, hijab-wearing photogenic young women, describing in perfect Midwestern English the ordeal of being singled out by airport security. American Airlines would issue an apology, and make a contribution to the Arab-American Anti-Defamation Society, with a promise of more "outreach efforts." Norman Mineta would be outraged! and put in all sorts of new restrictions designed specifically to avoid giving extra scrutiny to "people of Middle Eastern appearance." (hey! wait a second!) George W. would go on the record saying that "pro-filling" is "discriminatational" and against everything he holds dear. Clinton would tell a story of his Lebanese-American great-uncle who was once denied entry into the White House. Al Gore would talk about his years of service under Lawrence of Arabia. Pretty soon, the whole thing would be forgotten as another embarrasing example of the Latent Racism in American Society.

Until one day, another group of men board an airliner...


The writer, who identified himself (or herself?) only as "Enough," was quoted extensively, including by the Washington Post's own Howard Kurtz.

The last time something along these lines occurred, the perpetrator was The Boston Globe's sole conservative commentator Jeff Jacoby. Jacoby ended up being suspended for four months without pay.

Will Parker suffer the same fate?

10:15 PM (0) comments


Accounting firms in trouble: The Big Five accounting firms will have trouble winning lawmakers to their side in the current battle over accounting reform in the wake of the Enron debacle. The SEC is now looking into Ernst & Young.

12:53 PM (0) comments


I'm definitely not getting on The American Prospect's list of best liberal bloggers by attacking them, but, you want to talk about stupid:


HOW IS STAR WARS RACIST? LET US COUNT THE WAYS. Tapped finds it disturbing that Star Wars creator and philosopher king George Lucas still can't understand why anyone got p.o.-ed about Jar Jar Binks. Furthermore, we found the scene in Attack of the Clones, in which Anakin Skywalker wantonly slaughters a village worth of wigwam-inhabiting Tuskan Raiders who have kidnapped a white woman, to be uncomfortably reminiscent of a scene from this country's troubled expansionist history. Still, all of that said, this is ridiculous.


Let's say this again: Jar Jar Binks, while annoying, is a Gungan. A space alien. They don't really exist, except in the real world-challenged victims at the NAACP and TAP.

Secondly, Skywalker and his slaughter of the Tuskan Raiders: He's becoming Darth Vader. Darth Vader is evil. Slaughtering innocents is evil.

All that said, I will leave this issue with this little anecdote.

When I was 5 years old, I saw my first PG-rated film: "Star Wars." As Darth Vader stepped through the blasted door clothed in black with the sinster helmet my father leaned over to me and said: "You know it's only a movie. It's not real."

I responded: "Yes, Dad. I know."

If I can "get it" at age 5, then why can't these, supposedly intelligent adults get it?

2:40 AM (0) comments


Sony spends millions of dollars to create a anti-copying system for its CDs and it's foiled -- by a magic marker. Is the fact that Sony is blowing money like this supposed to somehow encourage us to buy their overpriced CDs?

2:33 AM (0) comments


If you're interested in a quick rundown of what Congress is doing with regard to the Enron/Arthur Andersen debacle, check this out.

1:55 AM (0) comments


The New York Times' Paul "Line 47" Krugman continues last week's attack on the accounting industry. Make no mistake, the accounting industry needs a good spanking, but I'm skeptical that a former Enron hack is the one to deliver the chastisement.


["I] would suggest to you that the single most important innovation shaping [America's] capital market was the idea of generally accepted accounting principles." So declared Lawrence Summers, then deputy secretary of the Treasury, in a 1998 speech. Mr. Summers urged troubled Asian economies, then in the middle of a disastrous financial crisis, to emulate American-style "transparency and disclosure."

Now America has its own problems with corporate accounting, exemplified by Enron. So will we follow our own advice? Will we provide investors with the facts they need to make informed decisions? Probably not. And that's bad news, because Enron's case, though extreme, was by no means unique.


We really don't know whether or not Enron's accounting methods were or were not unique. Other companies may have used similar partnerships to hide debts, but if they have, they have not done so to the degree that it has caused the company to fail -- yet. Krugman wants his readers to believe that many companies are doing what Enron was discovered to have done. Time will tell, but I'll put up a dozen of Rubio's Fish Tacos against some of those New York City hot dogs that no other American company has done what Enron did to the degree that it lands them in bankruptcy court. [Bet may only be accepted by Paul Krugman.]

Krugman also poses the question about whether the government, through regulation, will provide investors with "the facts they need to make informed decisions." And then says that it won't. Well, the government may, and it may not. But the facts will get out. The transparency of the American capital market will win out.

In last week's column, Krugman pointed out that Standard & Poor's will impose accounting standards that are stricter than those required by the federal government. Private industry will step up, whether or not Congress or the president do anything. I doubt that Krugman missed the parade of companies dumping Arthur Andersen as their auditor. Doesn't that say something about what these companies expect from their auditor? American companies, unwilling to be the "next Enron," are going to demand tougher accounting, as are investors. Standard & Poor's won't be the only private bond rating company to demand tougher standards -- Moody's and others will follow. Wall Street cannot afford another Enron.


For corporate America as a whole, 1997 was a watershed year. According to government statistics, overall corporate profits grew rapidly between 1992 and 1997, but then stalled; after-tax profits in the third quarter of 2000 were barely higher than they were three years earlier. But the operating earnings of the S.&P. 500 - that is, the profits companies reported to investors - grew 46 percent over those three years.

There are technical reasons that these measures of profits need not grow at exactly the same rate, but they have historically tracked each other fairly well. So why did they suddenly diverge? Surely the main reason was that after 1997 companies made increasingly aggressive use of accounting gimmicks to create the illusion of profit growth.


I don't doubt that this happened. The companies that did this are going to pay now. Their stock prices are dropping, or will drop -- I can guarantee it. If the accounting gimmicks were illegal and allowed CEOs and other insiders to profit, the FCI Lompoc is going to be expanding.

Of course, what does this say about the "Clinton Economy?" If what Krugman says is completely accurate, the seeds for the current economic doldrums were planted in 1997, not late 2000.

The truth is that the only ones to blame are the greedy company executives and their partners in crime in the accounting firms.


You see, corporate leaders were desperate to keep their stock prices rising, in an environment where anything short of 20 percent profit growth was considered failure. And why were they desperate? In a word: options. The bull market, combined with ever-more-generous options packages, led to an explosion of executive compensation. In 1980 chief executives at large companies, according to Business Week's estimates, earned 45 times as much as non-supervisory workers. By 1995, however, the ratio had risen to 160; by 1997, it had reached 305. C.E.O.'s wanted to keep the good times rolling, and they did: by 2000, though profits hadn't really increased, they were paid 458 times as much as ordinary workers.

The point here isn't that top executives are overpaid, though they surely are; it's that the way they are paid rewards them for creating the illusion of success, never mind the reality.


I agree that these CEOs are way overpaid. The increasing disparity between the richest Americans and the middle class is troubling, to say the least. But whose responsibility is it to make sure that CEO salaries are kept to some level of sanity? That would be the boards of directors, and, by extension, the stockholders. Vote with your dollars. If a company whose stock you won is paying its CEO an inordinate sum of money, put your money elsewhere.


Still, that's exactly the kind of thing that accounting standards are supposed to prevent. What allowed our corporate emperors to hide their nakedness was a combination of poorly crafted standards, which I wrote about last week, and compliant auditors. Major accounting firms were all too happy to be deceived by corporate smoke and mirrors, as long as they got lucrative consulting contracts.


And, with the demise of Enron, that sort of thing is very likely to end. What are corporate investors going to think about companies now when they see that the same company that is supposed to be auditing the books also is being paid millions in consulting contracts?

Also, Krugman blames the Enron/Arthur Andersen debacle on "poorly crafted standards." While this may be true, there was also fraud involved. Last I checked fraud was illegal. Arthur Andersen is in federal court facing obstruction of justice charges. Enron higher-ups will be going to jail. Skilling, definitely. Lay, probably. Saying that the accounting standards don't work because they didn't prevent Enron's illegal acts is like saying that murder statutes don't work because Ted Bundy managed to kill dozens of people.


Time for reform? Not according to some people. Today the Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to take up a bill drafted by Paul Sarbanes, the committee's chairman, that would take some modest steps toward accounting and auditing reform. The bill has been endorsed by some of the most respected names in finance ? people like Paul Volcker, the great former Fed chairman, and John Bogle, the famed investor. But Senator Phil Gramm, throwing his weight behind an all-out lobbying effort by the accounting industry, has made it clear that he will try to kill the bill.


Let me do the math. 50 Democrats. 49 Republicans. 1 Independent. 60 needed for cloture. Phil Gramm = 1 vote.

Given the current political environment, I doubt that Gramm will be able to get a bunch of friends to vote with him. While the accounting firms may not want to have a wall placed between their auditing and consulting businesses -- it's going to happen. Either because Congress requires it, or because investors demand it.


I'd like to be nonpartisan here ? really I would. And there are indeed Democrats who have gotten large contributions from accounting firms. But the current effort to prevent any meaningful accounting reform is explicitly a Republican initiative, one directed from the very top: The New York Times reports that Mr. Gramm is "working closely with the Bush administration" in his efforts to block the Sarbanes bill.

Let me repeat what I said last time: Honesty in corporate accounting isn't a left-right issue; it's about protecting all investors from exploitation by insiders. By blocking reform of a broken system, the Bush administration is favoring the interests of a tiny corporate oligarchy over those of everyone else.


Oh...my side! Nonpartisan? Oh, that hurts!

Yes, Democrats have gotten big money from the Big Five (maybe it should be Big 4.1, seeing how things are going for Arthur Andersen), not as much Republicans, but a tidy sum nonetheless. Reading Krugman, you'd think that Gramm is the biggest beneficiary of the Big Five's largesse. You'd be wrong. It's New York's own Sen. Chuck Schumer who received more than $340,000 since 1989. Gramm is actually in third place, behind Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.).

What's this say about the cynical world of campaign finance reform? Well, it says Republicans stay bought.

Seriously, according to Krugman, Sarbanes bill is perfect as it stands. Contains no flaws and should simply pass both houses of Congress by voice vote. Why don't we just elect Sarbanes, with Krugman's consent, emperor? Debate and compromise is part of how democratic institutions work. Changes will be made, whether the accounting industry wants them or not, and whether or not Congress passes new laws.

With Enron, liberals are adapting the script they typically use for gun violence. Whenever there is another tragic, evil, fatal shooting, they call for new gun laws -- ignoring the fact that the shooter typically already violated numerous laws that were already on the books.

Enron's bigwigs, I guarantee you, broke existing laws. Laws don't stop thieves before they take your money, they allow you to toss them behind bars after they've stolen your money. If someone is determined to do evil, a law won't stop them.


One final thought: This isn't just a question of treating American investors fairly. Like the Asian nations before their crisis, the United States relies heavily on inflows of foreign capital, inflows that depend on international faith in the integrity of U.S. markets. The Bush administration may believe that investors have nowhere else to go, that the money will keep coming even if we don't reform. That's what Suharto thought, too.


Well, at least Krugman isn't comparing Bush to Osama bin Laden or Hitler. He may just be improving.

1:52 AM (0) comments

Monday, May 20, 2002
If you only read one op-ed piece today, read this one.

1:38 AM (0) comments

Sunday, May 19, 2002
From the "Just fell off the turnip truck" department: The Washington Post features a story with the following headline:


On the Way to the Fundraiser
Stopovers Let Bush Charge Taxpayers for Political Trips


So what's new? Clinton did it. Bush 41 did it. Reagan did it. Carter did it.

Thanks for the obligatory once-a-term story.

10:10 PM (0) comments


I know I'll probably get some flames for saying this, but I got back home earlier this evening after watching the new Spiderman movie. Excellent film. Better than Star Wars Episode II. Better acting is probably the thing that put it over the top for me. Natalie Portman is certainly beautiful, but Kirsten Dunst....to quote Steve Martin in Parenthood: "Hubba, hubba."

1:16 AM (0) comments


Which came first? The chicken or the egg? Today's Washington Post has a front page article which trumpets: "Bush Turns More Partisan With Coming of Elections."


President Bush and the White House have set aside earlier worries about the president openly engaging in political matters, launching an unabashedly partisan effort for November's congressional elections.


First, is anyone surprised, given Sen. James Jeffords' flip-flop and the ensuing roadblocks put up by the newly-elevated Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, that Bush would want Republican control of both houses of Congress? I'd have to check the archives, but was the Post decrying this sort of thing when FDR was president?

Second, where is the article with the following lede?


Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, along with his colleagues in the House, has decided to put aside earlier pledges for unity in the war on terrorism, launching an unabashedly partisan effort to paint the president's actions leading up to Sept. 11 as something just short of treason.


Later in the article, the Post reaches back into yesteryear to try to tar Bush as a liar.


Bush came to office with promises to govern by "principle, not politics," and to "change the tone" of Washington discourse. He had a reputation for such actions as governor of Texas, and some of his first actions in Washington -- backing a vast tax cut, despite polls indicating weak support for it, and negotiating with liberal Democrats over education reform -- supported this reputation.

Since Sept. 11, Bush had carefully balanced his twin roles as commander in chief and leader of the Republican Party.

But now, advisers to Bush have concluded that he and his staff have no choice but to play an overtly political role in the months before November's elections. Advisers to the president say they have concluded that it is impossible to work with Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) and that they must restore Republican rule in that chamber to have any hope of enacting Bush's agenda.


It takes two to tango. When it comes to campaign finance reform, Democrats (and some Republicans) called the vast soft-money donations the very epitome of evil -- then refused to stop soliciting them. The Democratic Party went as far as to pay for their new national headquarters up front, in order to be able to use soft money. The mantra was that they did not want to unilateraly disarm.

The Democrats, and the Post, appear to want Bush to unilaterally disarm when it comes to fighting for the president's agenda. The Democrats decry the president's tax cut (but then refuse to call for its repeal), and when the president challenges them, they cry "partisanship."

And then a Democrat inflates his numbers.


Bush "is trying to do two things simultaneously that are diametrically opposed: staying above the fray in appealing to the urge to sacrifice of Americans, while demonizing almost 50 percent of us," said Jim Jordan, director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee


Most polls of Americans show a political breakdown of approximately 40/40/20 for Republicans/Democrats/Independents. And most polls show that on many of these issues, more people identify with the president's position.


Increasingly, though, Bush and his aides have made aggressive use of many of the tactics he deplored when the Clinton administration employed them. For example, Washington Monthly magazine calculated from Republican National Committee filings that Bush's pollsters received nearly $1 million in 2001 -- half as much as President Bill Clinton's pollsters got during that administration's first year but a tidy sum for a president who says he does not use polls.


Let's clarify this for a moment. Bush says he does not use polls to decide what his position on the issue is -- that is a different use of polls than when Clinton was president, according to former Clinton poll man Dick Morris. Bush's team uses polls to help them create strategies to get the American people behind the president's plans. The position is a given, the method for winning over the public is what the polls are for.

The Post shouldn't be surprised by the fact that the president, or anyone else for that matter, is engaged in politics leading up to an election. The naivete is disturbing. Or is it just an example of good ol' liberal media bias?

1:12 AM (0) comments

Saturday, May 18, 2002
Unilateralism Saudi-style: The United Nations committee against torture has urged the Saudis to consider ending floggings and amputations required for certain crimes under Saudi sharia law.

The Saudi response: Take your suggestion and stick it.

How can the Saudis expect to get along with the rest of the world when it ignores the consensus of the world's governments?

Oh, yeah. It's the oil. I forgot.

11:45 AM (0) comments

Friday, May 17, 2002
Gray Davis Scandal Watch: A month ago I suggested that Gov. Davis would get himself into trouble when the media started looking into his budget decisions vis a vis campaign donations. I got some e-mails from readers suggesting the liberal media wouldn't be that hot to do the research and footwork it would require.Well, those people didn't take into account the media's desire for scandal -- it sells newspapers.

From today's San Diego Union-Tribune:


What they should be concerned about are the campaign contributions Davis has received from various special interests after his administration has made decisions that profit those interests.

Like the Davis administration's no-bid software contract with Oracle. Only days after the governor's top aides consummated the sweetheart deal ? which will cost the state's taxpayers an unnecessary $41 million ? Davis received a $25,000 donation from the software maker.

Then there's the governor's suspicious flip-flop on a tax break for the insurance industry. In 1999, Davis vetoed a bill that would have preserved the tax break, worth millions of dollars, arguing that it was "neither fair nor in keeping with sound taxation principles."

But after receiving more than $250,000 in campaign contributions from Fireman's Fund Insurance Companies, the governor reversed himself. He now is supporting the insurance industry's case before the Franchise Tax Board, arguing that it is a matter of fairness.

And Oracle and Fireman's Fund are hardly aberrations. Just this past weekend, in fact, Davis picked up a $260,000 campaign contribution from the California Pipe Trade Council.

The trade union was feeling generous toward the governor after the Davis-appointed Building Standards Commission issued a ruling earlier this month keeping plastic water pipe from replacing copper pipe in homes. The union opposes using plastic pipe because it is cheaper and easier to install than traditional copper. It so happens that California is one of only two states that continue to prohibit plastic pipe in homes.

The governor insists that the policies, the decisions, the actions of his administration are not driven by campaign contributions. But California voters are to be forgiven for suspecting otherwise.


As the list gets longer, so will Davis' problems. GOP candidate Bill Simon's chances keep getting better, if he can take advantage of it.

11:22 AM (0) comments


As I began to read Paul "Line 47" Krugman's column today, I found myself searching for the attack on President Bush. I had printed out a "Printer-Friendly Format" of Krugman's column for contemplation in the proper room of my apartment -- the throne. [Note to New York Times webmaster -- you need to add breaks between the paragraphs.]

It was disturbing, but as I neared the end of the first printed page, I found myself largely agreeing with Krugman. My only point of disagreement was really a minor philosophical one.


Why does S.&P. ? along with Warren Buffett, Alan Greenspan and just about every serious financial economist ? think that current accounting standards require a drastic overhaul? And if such an overhaul is needed, why doesn't the government do it? Why does S.&P. think that it must do the job itself?


In the wake of the Enron scandal and the ripple effect it's had on the accounting world, I certainly agree that accounting rules have to be strengthened. Where I disagree with Krugman is the necessity that the government take a lead role. I think that most corporations, at least for the next few years, are going to want their accountants to follow the strictest accounting rules possible. If Standard & Poor's guidelines for one-time expenses are more informative to investors then investors will act on that information. As long as public corporations' books are open to scrutiny and accountants are honest, the system works. The problem with Enron was in how they cooked their books, with the aid of Arthur Anderson.

When I flipped to the second printed page of Krugman, I was overcome with relief. Krugman had not been abducted by aliens. He had not been replaced by a "pod-person"

There it was, in black and white, an attack on President Bush.


So who could possibly be opposed? You'd be surprised.

Harvey Pitt, the accounting-industry lawyer who heads the Securities and Exchange Commission, has clearly been dragging his feet on reform. And his boss, George W. Bush, has declared himself opposed to treating stock options as a business expense. Wouldn't it be nice, just once, to see the Bush administration oppose the interests of a privileged elite?


To be honest, I'm tired. And I've said it already that there needs to be some reform. The government will eventually make changes. But government has a large quantity of inertia, so Krugman shouldn't really be surprised that there is feet dragging.

Also, I'm not sure that all of the nuances of the Enron scandal have been fully revealed or are completely understood yet. Until we have a very clear picture of what happened, we won't know how to prevent it in the future. Lawyers often say that bad cases make bad law. Well, rushed, knee-jerk legislation is often filled with Krugman's infamous loopholes. I think it's better to go slow and do it right, than rush and mess it up.

Finally, it appears that Krugman may be adjusting his columns in an attempt to remove himself from the top of lying in ponds list of most partisan pundits.


But the administration is not alone in its foot-dragging. In fact, perhaps the biggest foot-dragger of all is Senator Joseph Lieberman. Way back in 1994 Mr. Lieberman gave crucial aid to lobbyists trying to head off new accounting standards, which would have forced companies to recognize the cost of options; now he is once again defending the status quo, urging his colleagues to go slow.

Some politicians do see the problem; John McCain and Carl Levin have introduced legislation to reform America's accounting standards. But it seems unlikely that government will fix our dysfunctional accounting rules anytime soon.


Add the negative on Bush to the negative on Lieberman along with the positives of McCain and Levin and this column balances out very nice.

There is power in the blogosphere.

3:19 AM (0) comments


American Television has stolen shows from the British for years. "Whose Line is it Anyway?" has been on ABC for a few years, with much the same cast of improv comics and host Drew Carey replacing that British chap. "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" was also pilfered from the Brits and so was "The Weakest Link."

Unlike "Whose Line is it Anyway?" and "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?," "The Weakest Link" doesn't have a question-mark in the title. No, that's not it...unlike the others, "The Weakest Link" came to America already stocked with an arrogant, acerbic, elitist wench named Anne Robinson. After NBC decided not to renew "TWL" for next season, Robinson got a little bitter and very stupid.

The headline of London's Mirror:

ANNE ROBINSON: AMERICANS ARE DUMB


EXCLUSIVE: Quiz Queen says: Only 5% of them have passports and they act as if Dubya's Einstein



Apparently, in Great Britain, getting a passport must be difficult -- something along the lines of an IQ test. Seriously, what does Robinsidiot think a passport is evidence of? Besides, I think she probably needs to get her facts straight.


Does she think Americans are definitively more stupid than the Brits? "You have to remember that only five per cent of Americans have passports," she says. "That explains a lot..."


While I cannot find the statistic (if the government even keeps this information) on the number of valid passports currently in circulation in the United States, I think it's probably safe to say that most of the passports issued in the past 5 years are still held by living persons. According to the State Department, more than 33 million (33,968,753 to be exact) passports have been issued between the years of 1997 and 2001. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's population clock at this moment, there are approximately 287 million people in the United States. This number includes resident aliens and illegal aliens alike. A little math and it would appear that more than 11 percent of Americans have a passport. Robinsidiot is off by a factor of two.


America, You are the Weakest Link, Goodbye! "On one US show I asked a young soap star how many minutes there were in half an hour," Anne says, wearily. "And she said 60."


First, does Robinsidiot really believe that a soap star is indicative of the intelligence level of the average American? If she does, then she is TWL. But notice that both Robinsidiot and the dim-witted soap star were both off by a factor of two. Separated at birth?


Last year she upset Americans by declaring that few US citizens knew anywhere outside of Idaho - and she despairs of her Stateside contestants.

"You can always tell Texans," she says. "They wear big, bright, multi- coloured sweaters. Every time I see one, I think God's made another rainbow. Then you get the clean-shaven Right-wing Christian types. The Jews on our team are always laughing at them saying: 'He wouldn't have let us hide in his attic.'"


Well, that sounds like a little anti-American, anti-Christian bigotry. Robinsidiot is just so smart.

Seriously though, if the Brits are so much smarter than us Yanks, then how would Robinsidiot explain this?

Bye-Bye!

2:38 AM (0) comments


Fine movie it is: Just returned from watching Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Overall, I give the movie a B+. I agree with much of the review by The Washington Post's Stephen Hunter in Thursday's paper.

I won't give much of the story away, but I will say a few things. It is very slow at times; Hayden Christensen couldn't act his way out of a paper sack; YODA ROCKS!

1:56 AM (0) comments

Thursday, May 16, 2002
Late night. Padres defeat the Montreal Expos in 14 innings to sweep the series. My friends and I stayed until the 13th inning...some of them unfortunately had to work early this morning. Go Padres!

1:04 AM (0) comments

Wednesday, May 15, 2002
Well, it's looking like I'm going to have to fork out some money to upgrade my commenting system to allow me to delete comments. I'll never delete a comment I disagree with, only ones like that on the post below referring to Andrew Sullivan. I'd gone so long without having to deal with immature, potty-mouthed teenagers on my site. *sigh*

If you're enjoying my blog and are a regular visitor, now might be a good time to use the Amazon.com tip jar on the left.

4:21 PM (0) comments


Keep an eye out tomorrow for a story in the East Bay Express. Matt Drudge is reporting that the paper will come out with a story on repentant liberal David Brock's book "Blinded by the Right."

According to Drudge, the article exposes several demonstrably provable factual inaccuracies in Brock's book. Though many of the people slammed by Brock in his book have said Brock's recounting of their conversations are false, those situations are of the he said/he said variety.


One of the best places to accept Brock's challenge is at the university where he became a conservative. As Brock tells the story, his life changed profoundly during his sophomore year when he covered a February 15, 1983 campus speech by United Nations ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick for the Daily Californian, a school newspaper.

Protesters repeatedly heckled Kirkpatrick, a supporter of President Reagan's anticommunist foreign policy in Central America, and she walked off the stage in frustration. The protest spurred a national debate over campus free speech.

"The scene shook me deeply," Brock recalled in Blinded by the Right. "Was the harassment of an unpopular speaker the legacy of the Berkeley-campus Free Speech Movement, when students demanded the right to canvass for any and all political causes on the campus's Sproul Plaza? Wasn't free speech a liberal value? How, I wondered, could this thought police call itself liberal? As I raced back to the threadbare offices of the Daily Cal, where we tapped out stories on half-sheets of paper hunched over manual typewriters, my adrenaline was pumping. I knew I had the day's lead story."

In fact, Brock did not have any story in the next day's Daily Cal. The byline atop the Kirkpatrick story belonged to Chris Norton, a freelancer who expressed disbelief when told that Brock claims to have written that day's main story. "He didn't write the story," Norton said. "I wrote the story."


I don't think many conservatives have believed anything Brock has said for at least 3 or 4 years. Maybe this will give liberals reason to disbelieve everything he says. Brock has become the living symbol of the old politician joke: "How can you tell when a politician is lying? His lips are moving."

4:15 PM (0) comments


The right to vote: It's sad that year after year so many Gen Xers like myself fail to excercise their right to vote. When you see stories like this, you wonder why anyone would take the right for granted.

3:30 PM (0) comments


Do as we say, not as we do: Remember back in the opening days of the war on terror when Muslim countries throughout the Middle East and Arab/Islamic organizations in the United States were warning us not to bomb Afghanistan during Ramadan because it would show disrespect to their religion?

Well, it should come as no surprise that while Muslims insist on respect for themselves, they exult in showing disrespect for others. The Washington Times reports:


BETHLEHEM, West Bank — The Palestinian gunmen holed up in the Church of the Nativity and later deported by Israel seized church stockpiles of food and "ate like greedy monsters" until the food ran out, while more than 150 civilians went hungry.

They also guzzled beer, wine and Johnnie Walker scotch that they found in priests' quarters, undeterred by the Islamic ban on drinking alcohol.


It appears that Muslim charity should only go to organizations that sponsor terrorists, because the Muslim militants' treatment of their hostages, and even their fellow Palestinians was anything but charitable. They gorge themselves on food and drink, while others go hungry.

Organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations defend this sort of behavior because the perpetrators are fellow "Muslims." But, like the terrorists who flew the planes into the World Trade towers, the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania countryside, these aren't "good" Muslims. The Muslims in Jerusalem drink alcohol -- a no-no according to their religious precepts. The Sept. 11 hijackers reportedly visited a strip club one night before their murderous attacks. When it comes to Muslim spokespeople, all you have to do is declare yourself a "Muslim" and nothing you do is wrong.

In addition to the gluttony displayed by the "freedom fighters," they also committed what CAIR would consider a hate crime.


Catholic priests said that some Bibles were torn up for toilet paper, and many valuable sacramental objects were removed.


Where is the denunciation of these acts from Muslim religious leaders? Where are the calls for tolerance and respect? If a bunch of Jews broke into a mosque and started using copies of the Koran to wipe themselves with, you can imagine the screams of outrage from the Middle East to Europe.

The whole situation is indicative of the state of Islam. From the Islamic-based governments to scholarly religious work, dissent is followed by death threats. The tired mantra that "Islam is a religion of peace" is not supported by the facts. Certainly some of Islam's adherents are peaceful and do embrace that view. But, at least in America, Europe and the Middle East, the majority demonstrate no acceptance of that belief, with their calls for intifadas and jihads.

It's been said before that Islam needs to undergo a period of enlightenment, and cease to call for the murder Jews, Christians and adherents to any other faith. Many liberals call for us to try to understand "root causes." We understand the root cause. It is hatred. Hatred cannot exist in a "religion of peace."

The coming Islamic Enlightenment may be bloody, but it must happen.

3:23 PM (0) comments


Well, thanks to Andrew Sullivan, Hoystory set a new record yesterday with more than 4,200 visitors. Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit helped out too, but sorry Glenn, Andrew apparently has much more pull than you do.

1:59 AM (0) comments


Was watching an O'Reilly Factor segment on this new requirement at some high schools in the San Fernando have for attendence at graduation ceremonies. The schools are requiring students to have plans to attend a college or join the military. Erika Karres, a professor at University of North Carolina demonstrated that she is a thick-skulled elitist.

First off, the requirement is atrocious. Graduation is for students who have completed all the requirements set forth by the state and the school district. Forcing students to go to college or the military as an additional prerequisite for attending the ceremony is wrong.

Karres kept talking about in wacky new-age terms, talking about giving the students a "ticket to the brightest future" and other claptrap. She wouldn't really address the point at issue: the elitism that the schools are perpetuating is wrong.

1:49 AM (0) comments

Tuesday, May 14, 2002
Another Krugman update: Reader Tim Witkowski notes offers this tidbit in response to Krugman's suggestion that it is somehow un-American to arrange your finances to minimize your tax bill.


Further to your expose of Krugman's campaign of deliberate misinformation, a venerable principle in tax law, perhaps best articulated by the famous Judge Learned Hand in Helvering v. Gregory, 69 F.2d 809 (2d. Cir 1934), is appropriate: "Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes." U.S. v. Isham, 17 Wall. 496, 506, 21 L.Ed. 728; Bullen v. Wisconsin, 240 U.S. 625, 630, 36 S.Ct. 473, 60 L.Ed. 830.


Whose opinions do most people respect more, Krugman's or Hand's? (Don't answer that, it's a rhetorical question.)

12:39 PM (0) comments


Legal vs. Illegal: U.S. News and World Report columnist Michael Barone, in a letter to Hoystory, makes the point much more clearly than I do that there is a big difference between tax "avoidance" and tax "evasion."


I just read your comments on the execrable Paul Krugman's column. Let me add one more point.

Krugman evidently does not know the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance.

Tax evasion is when you violate the law in order to pay less in taxes. For example, you fail to declare income or you claim deductions which are not based on fact. Tax evasion is a crime and people go to jail for it. And rightly so.

Tax avoidance is when you obey the law in such a way as to reduce the amount you owe in taxes. For example, you may structure a business deal in a way that will reduce your tax liability. Tax avoidance is legal. The government can write the tax laws any way it likes, so if it writes it in a way that allows you to reduce your tax liability, there is nothing legally wrong with taking advantage of it.


Exactly. How many people buy a home and then decide not to write off the interest on the loan? By Krugman's standards, such a move would be tax evasion, because the person claiming the exemption is trying to avoid paying taxes.


Thugman--er, Krugman--uses the term "tax evasion" to describe companies incorporating in Bermuda. But he also uses the term "loophole." A loophole is what you call a provision of the tax code which enables a taxpayer to reduce tax liability in a way that you think is poor public policy. In other words, a loophole is part of the law. Evidently these corporations are acting entirely within the law. They are engaged in tax avoidance, which is entirely legal, though you might argue it's morally dubious. (But do you arrange your financial affairs so as to maximize your tax liability? I doubt it. I don't think anyone is under a moral obligation to do so.) They are not engaged in tax evasion, which is a crime. Krugman would like to make what they're doing a crime, and I suppose there's a policy argument for that. But he is, characteristically, overstating his case. Indeed, I think one could argue that he's libelling the corporations he's complaining about, by accusing them of violating the criminal law in one breath while conceding that they are not violating the criminal law in another. Accusing someone falsely of committing a crime, when it's obvious that you know they're not, is a pretty nasty libel.

Michael Barone


Only Bill Gates Sr. tries to maximize his tax liability (as evidenced by his campaign against elimination of the so-called death tax).

Krugman's main purpose was to bash Bush. Nothing more, nothing less. Krugman is nothing more than a semi-pro hatchet man. The "pro" part is because he's still writing for the New York Times, the "semi" part is a result of the quality of his columns.

11:00 AM (0) comments

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