TigerHawk

According to the vice president, our president has "a brain bigger than his skull." There is a name for this condition -- hydrocephalus -- and it leads to "progressive enlargement of the head, convulsion, and mental disability." Progressive enlargement of the head seems to describe President Obama's condition precisely, so Joe Biden might actually be on to something.

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Hate or love her, Sarah Palin is a force to be reckoned with. For the morning argument with your coffee mate, "five myths" about Sarah Palin.

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Colorado Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck (Princeton '81, for fellow travelers keeping track at home) explains what has happened.

True or not, a nice ad.

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A liberal who likes Harry Reid and dislikes both Sharron Angle and Ronald Reagan, among others, explains why Reid beclowned himself in his debate against Angle. I liked this bit, but it's all pretty funny.

Reid had a remarkable chance to score points when Fox asked Angle if she favored requiring health insurance companies to cover certain procedures. “What we have is a choice between the free market and Americanism,” Angle said. “The free market will weed out those companies that don’t offer as many choices and don’t offer a cost-effective system.” In short, Angle was saying that insurance companies should be subject to almost zero regulation.

Offered such a clear expression of Angle’s zealotry, Reid almost refrained from blowing the opportunity. “Insurance companies don’t do things out of the goodness of their hearts,” Reid began. “They do it out of a profit motive, and they have almost destroyed our economy.”

But things quickly got a great deal less coherent:

We need them to be forced to do mammograms. That’s why you see breast cancer awareness month. You see the baseball players wearing pink shoes, and you the football players having pink, uh, uh, helmets. It’s because people dread breast cancer, and you don’t get breast cancer, you can—correct breast cancer—you detect it if you do mammograms. Colonoscopies, if you do colonoscopies, colon cancer does not come because you snip off the—things they find when they go up and—no more, and we need to have insurance companies do this…

Forgive me if I choose to snip off Reid’s answer there.

I know, I know, my schadenfreude is showing.
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From my Facebook scroll: Jumping in to Michigan Stadium, from the vantage point of the parachutist. Very cool.

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Aurelius over at Pundit Press has some fun with Harry Reid, who is clarifying his "this war is lost" statement regarding Iraq, and accusing his opponent of lying that he ever made such a statement. Reid is exploring that grey area where spin overlaps with insulting a voter's intelligence.





I suppose every politician has to deal with statements he wishes he never made, but that is a more difficult stunt to pull off in 2010 than it was in 1990. I think his campaign consultants should recommend to him that he admit he should not have used those words -- "this war is lost" -- and that "this war will be lost unless we change course" was what he meant to say. That the course change was already being contemplated by the White House and Pentagon when Reid made his statements might be besides the point in the minds of many of his constituents.

I have no idea what kind of U.S. Senator Sharon Angle would make, and I don't vote in Nevada anyway. I frankly haven't been a fan of any House or Senate leaders from either party for some time, and I think we would do well to turnover the leadership in the legislature altogether. If the only benefit of an Angle victory would be to retire Reid, and generate new leadership in the Senate, then I might be in favor of that. Oh, wait, who is next in next in line? Dick Durbin? Going to have to think about that.

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VDH is awesome this morning. Teaser below, but don't be a fool; read the whole thing. There are eight more steps after these first two:

First, propose all sorts of new taxes. Float trial balloons about even more on the horizon. Subordinates should whisper about a VAT/national sales tax. Other aides should revisit campaign talk about lifting the caps on income subject to payroll taxes. A centerpiece of the effort would be to insist on bringing back the Clinton income-tax rates — but this time targeting only high earners and not putting commensurate caps on federal spending. For insurance in making things worse, raise capital-gains taxes. And why not add a new health-care tax surcharge? Let inheritance taxes kick back in. Hope that the states do their synergistic part by raising their own taxes at the same time. The trick is to dissuade businesses from taking risks, by making clear that any new profits are illegitimate and therefore will go to the government.

Second, business expansion is predicated on confidence in the future. Destroy that, and depression can become far easier to achieve. Often the decision to hire or to buy new equipment is psychological in nature — predicated on hope in the larger business climate. So to ruin that landscape, you might unleash a barrage of anti-business, anti-wealth rhetoric to remind job creators that they are already too rich from exploitative practices. The president himself might lead the attack against Wall Street, CEOs, doctors, and insurers. Now and then it would be wise to spice it up with a nice socialist quip such as “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money” — or digs about the wealthy needlessly jetting to the Super Bowl or Las Vegas. Try out lines like “keep the boot on their necks” and “know whose ass to kick.” Turn Koch Industries in the public imagination into something akin to IG Farben. Make the Chamber of Commerce the equivalent of Enron. Create a pantheon of good capitalists like George Soros, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett, who never speculate, hedge, or seek monopolies, and set them against bad ones like Charles and David Koch. Remember, the aim is to let businesses know on a very visceral level that you simply do not like them.

It's all quite exhausting.
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Oh, how amusing it is when the worm turns. Sharron Angle, the challenger for Harry Reid's Senate seat, skewered Reid, the leader of the Party of Wealth Bashing's Senate contingent, for being, well, wealthy:

Reid said at one point Angle had gone too far in attacking his wealth, calling it a "low blow."

Payback is a bitch, ain't it Senator?
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News fiends know that the latest financial scandal turns on the shoddy practices of big banks in the foreclosure of delinquent mortgage loans. The failures in the wake of the collapse of the housing market are apparently massive, and raise the possibility of criminal liability and a new run on the financial system, neither of which would improve the economy.

Basically, the problem seems to be that during the boom big financial institutions and their agents took little or no care to document, secure, and assign securitized mortgage loans properly and that since the collapse loan "servicers" -- in many cases the same banks -- have been foreclosing on the houses securing those loans improperly.

There is a big blog-roundup at Memeorandum, but most of it goes to the economic and political consequences. Nobody seems to have asked the really interesting questions, to wit:

Where the heck was internal audit at these banks? These sorts of procedural defects are precisely the sort of thing that internal audit is supposed to identify and report to the audit committee of the board of the directors. No complex investigation in to financial risk models required, these were simple failures to complete documents and comply with procedures. If I sat on the board of any of these banks, I would want to know why the entire internal audit department ought not be purged -- after it has been tortured and executed -- for missing an issue this big.

Along the same lines, do we need any more evidence that the Sarbanes-Oxley law, which imposes massive costs on the U.S. economy in the name of internal controls, is a rank failure? It does not work and is probably counterproductive insofar as it elevates process above, well, actual thinking. Earlier rants on the economy-destroying features of Sarbox are here and here. (Officially, of course, in my day job I totally love Sarbanes-Oxley, lest I fail the all-important "tone from the top" requirement in the law, which makes it damn hard for public company executives to say what they really think on that subject.)

Goddamn these people were sloppy.
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New York, New Mexico, and now Illinois have violated federal law and omitted to send ballot to the soldiers by the deadline required by federal law.

Hmm. All states that fairly routinely vote for Democrats. What are the odds?

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Learnin' to scan stuff, and what better way to practice than with the New Yorker?

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A federal judge has enjoined the enforcement of Bill Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" law, the repeal of which has been blocked by Senate Republicans. If the decision survives appeal, it will be yet more "legislation" from the federal bench that will extend the politicization of the judiciary for years to come.

To be clear, I think "don't ask, don't tell" ought to be repealed, and now. I have made a point about asking every serviceman I have met in the last few years about the law, and have yet to meet one that has a problem with gays serving openly in the military. And this makes sense, for today's soldiers and Marines have had to fight two complex counterinsurgencies in the heart of the Muslim world under extremely alien circumstances. If these young men and women are nuanced enough to treat Iraqi Shiites and Pashtun tribesmen with respect and courtesy and understanding and compassion, they can deal with a gay dude in the next bunk. And that makes sense. After all, that man or woman is a gay soldier, and has volunteered to live according to the same rules and discipline and traditions as every straight soldier. He or she may be different in some important respect, but my sense is that today's soldiers and Marines are a lot more able to deal with "different" than the vast majority of Americans their age. Even many college town diversity-celebrating crunchies, who might be infinitely tolerant of gays or be-burquaed Muslims, would not hesitate to look down on a Christian Marine from Appalachacola.

That said, I can think of no worse way to dispose of the law governing a tendentious cultural question than by order of a federal judge. It interrupts and discredits our democracy, and it teaches people that in matters of social change it is more important to persuade the elites who influence judges than the voters who influence legislators. And, of course, the politics of these social and cultural controversies pervert the appointment of judges. How tragic it has been for the quality of judging in our country that a nominee's opinions about abortion have such a disproportionate impact on his or her prospects for confirmation. Do we need to repeat the stupidity of Roe with gay rights?

Finally, I do not even think this decision is, in the end, good for gays (other than currently serving gay soldiers, of course). Our democracy is moving rapidly toward gay rights, just as it was toward lawful abortion 40 years ago. The social consensus that will emerge from gay rights enacted by legislators will be far more legitimate, durable and, frankly, bipartisan, than one imposed by injunction. The lesson of Roe is that judicial intervention hardens the positions of people -- politicians and voters -- who might otherwise change their minds because the undemocratic court order turns a real decision with real consequences -- should I vote for this person or this bill? -- in to an abstract philosophical inquiry that can only hurt you politically, professionally, or socially. And, of course, it becomes a political weapon in the hands of demagogues, who can argue that the courts have frustrated the will of the majority. Even if that is not true, there is no evidence in the form of enacted legislation to the contrary.

Your results may vary. Release the hounds.

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Nice Bugatti:

I gotta get me one of those!

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Not bad at all:

Power Line has more.

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Reluctant as I am to admit it, fairness requires me to say that Barack Obama is taking the responsible position, or at least the less irresponsible position, on the matter of the mortgage foreclosure moratorium proposed by Congressional Democrats in their ongoing campaign to raise the cost of capital for the American economy.

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This was a special weekend, as my wife and I took our kids to Washington DC to engage in unadulterated tourism to mark the occasion of our oldest son's 16th birthday. Time flies. We visited several of the key monuments, and for the first time we visited the Holocaust Museum.

First, let me say that it is an incredibly powerful experience, and it attracts great and diverse interest. I was impressed to see how important an attraction that it was. In terms of traffic, it was certainly the equal of the Vietnam War memorial or the Lincoln Memorial.

The Holocaust is a familar and personal story for me, so it surprises me when I learn something new about it. My parents' parents showed great wisdom and foresight (and luck) to leave Europe shortly before Hitler's ascension in Germany, and they landed in Argentina. Having said that, those in my family who lacked that great good fortune perished at the hand of the Nazis or their allies at one of several different extermination facilities.

So here's what surprised me. As I passed through one of the many rooms at the Museum, there were a series of newspapers hung along the wall - The Dallas Morning News, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the New York Times and so forth. There were generally from 1938 - a year before the German invasion of Poland and 3 years prior to American entry into the war.

There were literally banner headlines in each newspaper emphasizing Nazi activities viz. Jews. Hitler's view of Jews was extremely well known. The marginalization, dehumanization and eventual persecution of Jews in Germany was completely transparent to the US government at the time (and the people, obviously). The Kristallnacht, the night when Germans vandalized Jewish owned storefronts was fully reported and again, captured bold headlines. In fact, Hitler explicitly tried to encourage western governments to "take the Jews" off his hands. This too was fully reported. Failing to achieve an exodus from Germany, he began the process of ghettoization, which in turn led to concentration camps and, eventually, in 1942 (by which time the US was in the war) the "Final Solution" or extermination.

In no way is this meant, by the way, to cast responsibility away from Hitler and to those nations who failed to take in Jews in large numbers. While that was tragic, it is especially so in retrospect with the benefit of hindsight. To me, the larger message relates to a certain denial to which we naturally fall prey. Nobody, or very few anyway, would have predicted the systematic extermination of the Jews under German Nazi auspices. Not even with ghastly headlines making it clear Hitler's bigotry, hatred and antipathy would anybody have predicted the construction of human extermination facilities. It is incomprehensible - as it was to American troops entering Dachau and Bergen-Belsin, for instance. There is an exceptional newsreel of General Eisenhower describing how he and the American General staff visited the camps personally because they "wanted to bear witness to the inhumanity of the genocide in the event people in the future deny that it happened." Ike understood implicitly the "unbelievability" of the genocide and the potential for future denial. On a smaller scale, before 9/11, the notion of flying 767s into skyscrapers to kill mass numbers of civilians was inconceivable. Until it happens, it is unfathomable. And even then...

And so now, here we find ourselves with the President of Iran - who both denies the Holocaust, on the one hand, and seeks to repeat it, on the other. What else can we make of his threat to "wipe Israel off the map?"

I would encourage you all to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. It offers shocking instruction on the all-to-human capacity for cruelty and inhumanity. And sadly, its lessons continue to have application today.
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Can you really say you are as prepared as you ought to be until you have studied this Amazon list of books on survival?

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I managed to make at least part of all three days of ACL Fest, and managed to get a few pictures worth putting up with my little Canon (first day pics here).

Pete Yorn, Saturday, on the Honda stage...

More flags, and check out that "tigerhawk" on the right...

Do the bearded, pot-smoking, concert-going citizens of any other state tattoo themselves with its political boundaries? I think not. People say that Austin "isn't really Texas," but I beg to differ -- it is just different.

The Black Lips at Zync...

A shot of the monitor on the Budweiser stage during LCD Soundsystem's awesome performance on Saturday evening. I really like those guys.

Bands I will particularly follow coming out of this awesome weekend: JJ Grey and Mofro, LCD Soundsystem, and Band of Horses.

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The New York Times has an article in the Style section this morning about Ann Coulter. The story itself, which focuses on Ann's friendship and common cause with gay conservatives, is not bad, or not as bad as might be expected under the circumstances, but the headline -- "Outflanked on Right, Coulter Seeks New Image" -- is making news out of nothing. I've known Ann since law school, and I have never known her to be anything other than genuinely friendly with and supportive of gays. Now, Ann does not support marriage for gays, which some might say is an acid test of genuine friendship, but for those who can distinguish actual casual friendship and respect from a disagreement over public policy, there has always been a big difference between Ann Coulter and the many homophobes on both the right and the left.

CWCID: "Bomber Girl."

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I'm not sure I agree that this letter of resignation is equivalent to Martin Luther's 95 theses, but it one sharp-edged denunciation of the climate change scientific "consensus."

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We took a hike along the Barton Creek greenway in Austin this morning, and I spotted this tarantula scurrying along the path. Three to four inches across, I'd say:

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Glenn Reynolds links to an interesting piece about ROTC at Ivy League and comparable universities, and it includes a nice bit on Princeton's "Tiger Battalion."

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This seems like a particularly good example.

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I spent the afternoon and evening at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Perhaps you were there, too.

JJ Grey and Mofro were awesome.

Blues Traveler over there...

Flags everywhere...

Waiting for the Black Keys, the scent of weed all around...

A lot of people brought their bikes, and parked them courtesy of Mellow Johnnie's...

Maybe more tomorrow.

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"Pathetic" is indeed the right word for this error.

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Seen on a Prius in Austin, Texas: "Powered by my own sense of self-satisfaction."

It is important to know oneself.

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Years after remote controls and DVRs became standard equipment in most American homes, the United States Congress defers work on legislation that might actually matter to solve one of the pressing issues of the 1970s:

The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, or CALM Act, would require TV stations and cable channels to turn down the volume on those decibel-heavy ads that blast from the box during breaks.

A related bill has already passed in the House of Representatives. Once lawmakers get back to business after the Nov. 2 midterm elections, they'll sit down and address a handful of minor differences before sending the legislation to President Obama for his signature.

Throw them all out.
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The Obama administration has started to issue waivers to businesses that otherwise cannot afford to comply with the law's minimum insurance requirements.

As Obama administration officials put into place the first major wave of changes under the health care legislation, they have tried to defuse stiffening resistance — from companies like McDonald’s and some insurers — by granting dozens of waivers to maintain even minimal coverage far below the new law’s standards.

As the Natty Rev points out, the waivers are in and of themselves a good thing:

The exemptions themselves are good news, since the rule would have forced these companies to drop their employee coverage, leaving almost a million workers without the insurance they had before Obamacare. But it means that these companies now need permission from the administration to offer their employees a benefit they have offered for years. And of course, many other companies—those without the lobbying operation of a company the size of McDonald’s, or without the access to liberal policymakers that a NY teachers’ union has—can’t get the same permission, and so can’t compete on a level playing field, or offer coverage that might entice the best qualified people to work for them. This kind of government by whim, and not by law, is the essence of the regulatory state. We are about to see a whole lot more of it—unless the health-care law enacted in March is repealed.

Exactly. There is a shorter version of this argument, which comes from the Facebook commentary of the salutatorian of my undergraduate class at Princeton, an erstwhile Romanian who escaped with at least some drama during the Cold War.

One recurring tool of socialist tyranny is the capricious enforcement of unworkable laws.

She would know.
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Do your research at RCP or Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, or just use your gut instinct, and predict the net gain in House seats for the Republicans resulting from the midterm elections in less than four weeks.

In the 2010 elections, what will be the net gain of seats for Republicans in the House?
	Less than 18
	18-24
	25-31
	32-38
	39-45 (majority)
	46-52
	53-57
	58 or more
pollcode.com free polls

The poll question break points note that a gain of 39 seats is needed for a change in majority.

If the actual result is either of the first two dots, Speaker Pelosi's grin might be permanently etched on her face, and perhaps even the White House will be relieved as well (although, as I have blogged previously, a Republican takeover of the House might be exactly what President Obama wants as he looks toward 2012).

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Normally, I would not repeat something that the excellent SportsProf has already blogged about, but when something happens for only the second time in 54 years, it is worth noting here.

Roy "Doc" Halladay pitched a no-hitter last night in the first post-season appearance of his career, leading the Phillies to a 4-0 win over the Reds in Game 1 of the NLDS. Not since Don Larsen's perfect game for the Yankees in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series has a no-hitter been tossed in post-season play. Halladay also had a key base hit and an RBI in the game.




Here's the call of the final out by the Phillies' radio announcers Scott Franzke and Larry Anderson.





Halladay has been a dominant pitcher in the Majors for a number of years, but hasn't had the opportunity to pitch for a playoff contender until this year. He pitched a perfect game against the Florida Marlins in Florida earlier this season.

Regardless of whether you're a Phillies fan or a Philles hater, last night was a remarkable and amazing performance, and made history. Halladay's work ethic, dedication, preparation and intensity is legendary, so that might have something to do with his overall success, and his feat last night.


UPDATE: Don Larsen congratulates Halladay, and remembers and salutes his Yankees catcher during the perfect game, who is known for being a quote machine.

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The 25 most dangerous neighborhoods in the United States, with maps. I was surprised to see that not one of them is in New Jersey, so we have that going for us.

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A month ago, we blogged about the new CNN show, Parker/Spitzer, which had its debut last night.

Watching the show was not quite as painful as having root canal work, and there were one or two entertaining moments. There seemed to be an unusual obsession with the former Alaska governor among the hosts and guests, and many instances when everybody was talking at once, making it hard to understand anyone.

For a very NSFW and funny live blogging of the show, I would refer you to Ace.

I thought that the highlight of the show was Henry Blodget walking on to the set and sitting down with Eliot Spitzer, who had prosecuted him when Blodget was a technology equity analyst at Merrill Lynch. There seemed to be some back-and-forth that was a polite attempt to re-litigate the case, but both men expressed their mutual admiration for each other, and one half expected to see a man-hug take place. So, if that was the highlight...

I think the show may survive into 2011, but I would not bet the ranch that it will make it into 2012. I won't be a regular viewer, but then again, I don't watch much of CNN, anyway.

Part of the problem is that I can't figure out what CNN is anymore, especially during prime time. In the pre-Internet age of the first Gulf War, I thought CNN did a decent job of reporting and communicating what was going on, given the general "fog of war" problems inherent in such reporting. I don't recall much criticism then regarding any bias that crept into the reporting, though certainly the focus on Scuds and the "baby milk" factory bombing in Baghdad kept military planners busy on secondary issues.

During 9/11, CNN also did a credible job, and maybe during another time of crisis it will do so again. There is, however, a difference between having the late Bernie Shaw sit at an anchor desk, and having Rick Sanchez sit at an anchor desk (at least up until last week). In one word: credibility. If CNN's ratings during the next televised crisis continue to dip, I am not sure what happens to the network. It's conceivable that at such a point in time, the network may have been rendered obsolete.

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Political considerations prompted the Democratic leadership of both houses of Congress to leave Washington DC without passing a budget and addressing the looming scheduled tax increase coming at year end. The Pelosi-Reid leadership did not want to extend the Bush tax cuts for 2 years despite having bipartisan support to do so. They preferred instead to go home to campaign and defer the budget process.

Some might call that irresponsible.

This decision has substantially increased the likelihood of a decline in GDP in 2011. Whereas fiscal stimulus added 1.5%+ to growth in 2010, the scheduled increases in tax rates is projected to substract 1.5%+ from growth in 2011. And since growth in the second half of 2010 has already decelerated materially to less than 2% (and perhaps quite a bit less), our Congress has left our economy in a very precarious situation.

It may be that the post November lame duck Congress returns to work and reverses course. It may also be the case that a newly elected Congress may be able to change course as well. But that is highly uncertain. And we do not know what President Obama would choose to do with a bill which extended the Bush tax cuts. From where we sit today, what we know is that taxes are scheduled to increase in a very weak economy.

In the midst of the Great Depression, and believing the country was emerging from the painful economic contraction, the Congress and FDR's administration chose to increase taxes. This conspired with the contractionary monetary course the Fed chose to follow. That had the effect again of brutally contracting the economy, a situation that persisted until WWII.

Our Congress is deeply, embarrassingly incompetent. Willful incompetence in my view is simply the equivalent of corruption. Incompetence which springs from ignorance is merely stupidity at work. Whether the current Democratic leadership of Pelosi and Reid is one or the other doesn't really matter. Of course, I have an opinion. But the result is the same.
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Leaving Washington for Orlando, and there are undumped tabs. Your gain.

When Harper's says that there has been an ethics meltdown in Eric Holder's Justice Department (and of his predecessors, to be sure), then the matter bears looking in to. I have not read it all yet, so tell us what it says while I fly.

A note to our president from a former leader of his party: Teleprompters = "idiot boards".

How do you say "butterfly" in all the world's languages?

More fun in more ways, more orgasms, and more disease. Everything has its price, but there are some things you cannot put a price on. Note to my children: Use a condom!

Every color but camo.

"Mother had a twin who died in the womg": Great moments in the alibis of doping jocks.

An open letter to religious leaders on the suicides of gay kids. A little kindness, please.

TTYL.

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My liberal friends love to mock the "bimbos" on Fox News, but surely that group does not include Megyn Kelly, whose gutting this afternoon of feminist lawyer and all-purpose publicity hound Gloria Allred is beautiful to behold.

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You think you are adventurous swimming with dolphins? Wimp. If you were actually tough, you would swim with tigers.
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Not bad, unless, of course, you hate Muppetry.

No, I don't think the dude is actually homeless. It's a nice bit of political performance art, though.

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I took the TH Daughter out to the stable for her trail ride on Sunday afternoon, and brought my camera. It was a fine October day on a farm in New Jersey horse country.

Black and tan...

Surprised Bambi...

Flora...

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Feel my pain: New Jersey leads the country in property taxes. Note the interesting division between "blue" and "red" states among the most and least heavily taxed.

May Governor Awesome eventually make enough progress to knock the Garden State down this dubious list.

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Hey, get out there and ride your bike with Lance!

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