New Orleans: The Next New London?

With New Orleans in worse shape than I've ever seen any American city, one has to wonder who is going to rebuild it. We're talking about one of America's poorest cities; how many people had proper insurance?

What if Club Med, Hilton, Riu and the Ritz offer to buy much of the high value land promising to rebuild it? What if GM, Ford and Toyota offer to buy the low value land promising to rebuild it? If you're a local government official, would you be tempted to sell off your city to vultures given the expanded taking powers granted you by the Kelo decision?

It will be interesting to see how this develops. You know that New Orleans will be forever changed, but hopefully Kelo isn't the catalyst for this change.

Conditional Disaster Aid

Every time there is a hurricane, flood or any other cyclic natural disaster, you'll hear someone, admittedly on the right, make an argument like this:

They decided to live in a dangerous place. If they didn't take the right precautions, then they made their bed; let them lay in it.

I think this is a hard line to take, but I think there is a good argument hidden beneath the rhetoric. We're an incredibly rich nation, and it would be outrageous to let one of our cherished cities go to waste, but if we're going to rebuild it, let's apply some conditions to the funding:

• Rebuild levies that can handle a class 5 hurricane. This is not an overzealous precaution for a port city below sea level.
• Maintain said levies.
• Set stringent building codes to protect buildings from wind damage.
• Require flood insurance for high value sites to reduce de facto federal exposure for future storms
  

The politicians in New Orleans have probably been promising better government schools, better government health care, better government housing for years instead of better government infrastructure to protect its citizens: the most important role of government even if it doesn't bring the vote.

Crazy Cindy

Another editorial in AMNY today about how Cindy Sheehan (the anti-war mom) is certifiably insane, and so are her celebrity supporters. What Joan Baez's multiple personalities have to do with the war debate is beyond me. And we all know Martin Sheen only plays the president on the West Wing and a Vietnam soldier in Apocalypse Now. Being famous doesn't make you Henry Kissinger, but it also doesn't disqualify you from being right.

The bigger point, though, is that instead of focusing on what these people are saying, talking heads are focusing on who they are. As Republicans always say, "judge the issue on the merits." Conservative elites ought to stop worrying about Baez's schizophrenia and Sheehan's Tourette's and get to the business of figuring a way out of the mess they got us into.

Diddy and the VMAs

Diddy "performs" at the VMAs in front of mind-numbed fans.

1. Who cares.
2. Why does MTV indulge this smug idiot Sean Combs calling him "Diddy?" He too must have sold his soul to the devil.
3. It's really amazing that an American organization would nominate an album called American Idiot for so many awards.
   
4. But I guess it makes sense when those in the audience-- as they receive their musical reprimand from Green Day's mascara-clad lead singer-- are cheering like hyenas.
   

I hate pop culture.

How Not to Argue Abortion

I'm always hesitant to enter into an abortion debate on its substance. You'll commonly hear my argument that the abortion issue should be settled by legislatures, but that's a technical argument. Arguing the substance of the issue often leads to some of the most shrill and unreasonable arguments possible-- from both sides of the argument.

Then you read something like this:

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco reviewed dozens of studies and medical reports and said the data indicate that fetuses likely are incapable of feeling pain until around the seventh month of pregnancy, when they are about 28 weeks old.

This is one of the most callous, calculated arguments I've ever heard. Compare that to talk about cutting government programs. And the motivation for the study:

Based on the evidence, discussions of fetal pain for abortions performed before the end of the second trimester should not be mandatory, according to the study appearing in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

So because fetsuses "likely are incapable of feeling pain until around the seventh month of pregnancy" (emphasis added), we shouldn't talk to women about fetal pain when they're considering an abortion? It's as if these people are trying to sell a used car, rather than discussing a major life decision.

Let's argue abortion on whether it's right or necessary, not whether the baby feels pain and when. The problem with the latter argument is that it tries to make the issue a scientific one, when it's truly a moral one.

Pat's Real Mistake

The Post makes an interesting point in today's editorial:

Despite the retraction, Robertson's remark remains a precious gift to Chavez, giving credence to his "America is out to get me" line, which enhances his reputation among poor Venezuelans.

It's amazing the level of outrage over this comment considering:

• Robertson is an individual citizen speaking his mind. What ever happened to unconditional free speech and celebrating "patriotic" dissent?
  
• Chavez is a Marxist thug friendly with Iran and Cuba

What we have is a leftist attempt to somehow link him to mainstream conservatives. At least his comments, though useless and ridiculous, were against a marginal enemy. Compare them with this book about assassinating former President Bush.

Pat explains it all

Pat Robertson is just misunderstood by the liberal media. He's been cut up for saying the US should "take out" Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (who, granted, is pretty out there). Robertson explained that

"I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out.' And 'take him out' can be a number of things."

Pat's right; he did say "take him out," as in "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability." So I'm glad he cleared up that ambiguity.

Fortunately, Robertson made his intented meaning perfectly clear to anybody who was paying attention 5 seconds beforehand, when he said

"If [Chavez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it."

But maybe that was taken out of context too?

Roger that

Today's mind-blowing stats of the day:

Until getting shelled last night to the tune of 2 runs in 9 innings, Roger Clemens had a road ERA of 0.37 (which jumped to 0.56 after yesterday's loss).

Clemens was perfect through 6 1/3, when Brian Giles homered--only the 8th home run allowed by Clemens all year. His overall ERA is a miniscule 1.56.

Change the "Cy Young" Award to the "Roger Clemens" Award?

Advertising Misery

The site has been getting a huge amount of spam in the comments section, so in order to leave a comment, you'll have to complete a word verification test similar to that on ticketmaster.com. It shouldn't be that big of a deal, but I don't have much compassion for that spammer who was killed.

IS IT WINTER YET? New Warren Miller for '05/'06-

Being a fairly new skier (5 years) and an even newer Warren Miller fan, I have yet to feel that sense of tradition in awaiting the new yearly offering from the famed veteran writer/director/producer/photographer of now 56 feature length documentaries.

That does not stop me from being overwhelmingly excited about this year's release, entitled "Higher Ground." The film will include all of the Warren Miller staples: insane free skiing, remote locations, hard wrecks, dry humor and sarcasm as well as more Glenn Plake (now turned near ambassador of the sport) and some footage of an FDNY ski event on Hunter Mountain, NY. Other locations featured this year read once again like a list of my dream ski locations- Aspen, Heavenly, Vail, Copper Mountain, Points North, Courcheval and Engelberg, to name just a few.

Check for updates about showtimes and locations on the WM website here. You can be sure a review will be on the way.

Advertising Excellence

Here is a website with videos of all of the Miller High Life commercials and more.

...Consider a daylight operation with heavy civilian presence. It's a good thing there's a lighter way to live... the High Life.

Herm Edwards: Eunuch

Herm Edwards Sells Soul to Devil.

Two years ago, the Jets had one of the worst defenses in the NFL. This was capped off by a series in which the Oakland Raiders ran up the middle over twenty times in a row until they scored a Zack Crockett touchdown. Jet response: fire defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell.

Last year, the Jets had a horrendous passing game and an overall lousy and conservative offense. Yes, Curtis Martin won the rushing title, but I'd gain a few yards too if I got 35-40 carries per game. This coaching wonder was capped off when the Jets sat on the ball against Pittsburgh to force a long field goal in a difficult kicking stadium with a weak kicker. Brien missed the field goal, the Jets lost the game and the Jets drafted a kicker with their fist pick in the 2005 draft. Jet response: fire offensive coordinator Paul Hackett.

Herm has always had trouble managing the clock. Jet solution: hire a clock management coach and give Herm Edwards a contract extension.

Now that the Jets have two strong coordinators in Henderson and Heimerdinger, a clock management coach and a general manager Herm Edwards has been effectively castrated. He doesn't call plays on either side of the ball and he doesn't manage the game clock. He's basically a very highly paid cheer leader and idiot.

Jet fans everywhere can celebrate, but really, this man must have sold his soul to the devil.

Intelligent Falling Theory

The Onion is funnier than me.

Cindy Sheehan: Certifiably Insane

Unlike many better known conservative pundits, I have chosen to remain mostly silent regarding the matter of Cindy Sheehan, the mother of US Army Casey Sheehan, KIA in Iraq. Any commentary I have offered thus far has been supportive of her, or critical of those thinking they better know how to honor her dead son.

The fact that I agree with her basically on one thing, that the US should have no presence in Iraq right now, and nothing else doesn't bother me as much as that fact that I know I disagree with her on just about anything else. If she were truly championing the cause of the soldiers how should I know how she feels about anything else?

Because she has gone off the deep end, that's how. I do no pretend to even begin to understand what it feels like to bury a child, as I do not even know how it feels to bear and rear one, but there comes a point where certain actions, no matter what events precede them, indicate lunacy;

Case in point, courtesy of the Drudge Report.

The thing that upsets me the most about this recent tirade is that she may have reversed all the good she had been, up until now, accomplishing. She was finally beginning the serious talk of troop extraction, nation wide. She gave that movement its first serious legs and this kind of behavior can be like taking a mace and turning the movement into a paraplegic with all the grace of a seething troglodyte.

For the sake of our troops I hope she now quiets down an lets the swing majority of this country continue to swing in the direction of Iraq occupation disapproval.

What's the matter with Kansas?

Kansas wackos approved a new state science curriculum that weakens the teaching of evolution.

"This is neo-creationism, trying to avoid the legal morass of trying to teach creationism overtly and slip it in through the backdoor," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education.

Yep.

Proponents of "intelligent" design pseudoscience object chiefly to holes in evolutionary theory. But just because evolution doesn't perfectly explain everything doesn't mean it's wrong, just that the theory is incomplete--but we shouldn't rush to plug the gaps with God. We don't know everything about the structure of matter, either, but nobody objects to teaching quantum mechanics.

It's like the Enlightenment never happened. This kind of thinking ("we don't know what caused it, so it must be God") will push us back into Ye Darke Ayges.

GSM vs CDMA: Why Free Markets Work

You've probably heard from your European friends / world travelers that GSM (the ubiquitous cellular technology in Europe) is far superior to CDMA (a technology nearly as prevalent in the US) since a GSM phone will work anywhere in Europe and because of some of the ancillary features of the technology (SIM chips, etc).

Reading an article from an ex-Qualcomm employee, you get a strikingly different viewpoint. Without making this too technical, let's reduce his argument to three points:

1. GSM uses an antiquated air interface called TDMA.
2. TDMA has no future and will have to be replaced by CDMA world-wide in the next few years or Europeans will be using the cellular equivalent of dial-up internet across the continent.
3. In order to upgrade GSM to CDMA (or WCDMA as the Euros have dubbed it), all of Europe's phones and cellular equipment will have to be replaced.
   

There are many reasons for the above, but they're outside the scope of this post (ie, read the article). What I find interesting is that during the 1990s the EC made it illegal to buy spectrum for any cellular technology other than GSM. This decision had some nice short-term benefits, which I'm sure you've already heard from your non-technical European friends.

But command economy decisions like this generally have serious shortcomings as did this one. While the Europeans were pumping out GSM equipment across their continent and across the third world in an almost mercantalist manner, the US was experimenting with several technologies, GSM included. The FCC-- an organization for which I don't have much love-- made a smart move: they allowed just about any cellular technology that was safe and reasonable to be deployed, and several were. During the years that followed, a natural shakeup occurred and CDMA technologies like CDMA2k came out on top.

Now the Europeans are scrambling to adopt CDMA, but they realize how much of an uphill battle it will be considering their monolithic adoption of GSM even after the writing was on the wall for TDMA.

This is a classic example of human laziness enabled by the command economy. People don't want to innovate-- they want to eat croissants and smoke cigarettes, but if that's all we did, the world would still be in the dark ages of chamber pots and well... GSM.

Album ReviewSufjan Stevens: Illinois

Rating: 9.3

It's always harder for me to write about what I love than what I don't. Especially when the object of the love in question is something as ethereal as music, love is mercurial; dislikes are concrete and easy to identify, and the sarcastic wit of lit crit lends itself to complaining more than praising. Which is why it took much longer to write a review for Illinois than Coldplay's X&Y.

That said, I can tell you countless things I love about Sufjan Stevens' new album, Illinois. I love the cover art and the subtitle ("Sufjan Stevens invites you to come on, feel the Illinoise!"). I love the ridiculous song titles (#17: "Let's hear that string part again, because I don't think they heard it all the way out in Bushnell"). I love the atmospheric strings, the folksy banjo, and the muted trumpets that are at once a lamentation and a triumphant joy. I love the gossipy speculation on what will be next in the series (Idaho: "Girls, Rock Your Boise!"). I love that Stevens has the chutzpah to even joke about writing an album inspired by each of the 50 states; I love even more that we're all praying he's not just teasing us with feigned ambition by following up Greetings from Michigan with this absolute aural gem.

I can't vouch for the accuracy of the Stevens' invocation of Illinois, since I've never been there (I know, sad). I suppose his real test will come when he writes about one of my two locales. So I'll stick to specifics here. The highlight of the album is "Casimir Pulaski Day," nominally about the state holiday but actually a powerfully sad, questioning, redemptive song reflecting on the death from cancer of his lover. Stevens is deeply religious, and in this song he challenges the benevolence of God ("Oh the glory when He took our place / But He took my shoulders and He shook my face / And He takes and He takes and He takes") but when he closes the song with muted trumpets it's easy to see him profoundly sad but comforted by God's grace--just one example of the vulnerability of faith and the frequent apparent contradictions between heart, spirit, and mind that are present in Stevens' music, and presumptively, in the state character of Illinois.

This album, like the state, is bookended by history. From "The Black Hawk War" (an instrumental invocation of Illinois' violent founding), to "The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders" ("Oh Great Illinois / Given what you lost, are you better off?") the stamp of progress, and the questioning of its value, is a persistent theme. Stevens gives us the Sears Tower as a modern-day Babel, the 1896 Columbian Exposition as failed herald of the New Jerusalem, Superman as Savior. He gives us songs about geography too ("Chicago," "Decatur," "Jacksonville"), but like all good travel writing, Illinois is not so much about a state as a state of mind. On "The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades," Stevens lies, "I can't explain the state that I'm in." With this album, he's proven that he can explain more than just arbitrary territories; he's a poet laureate of the uncharted, borderless states of our personal histories and most human experiences.

Skip Joyless

Professional sports is in disarray, but even the most jaded of us can find enjoyment in the few unspoiled things, or barring that, by poking fun at the Kafkaesque absurdity of the athletic landscape. All except Skip Bayless, whose joyless, unfunny rants have ruined one too many of my mornings.

His latest buzzkill piles on hate for Dan Marino and Steve Young. The tagline: "Skip Bayless throws the flag at the notion that they were better than Joe Montana." Skip: nobody ever suggested they are better than Montana, you just made up that comparison so you had an opportunity to bitch about two of the best-liked athletes of the last 20 years amid an outpouring of admiration for them on the defining day of their careers.

Bayless is the kind of self-righteous, smug bastard nobody likes. He's the suburban Stephen A. Smith. Why does ESPN insist on putting his columns on the otherwise fantastic Page 2 alongside the hilarious Bill Simmons, insightful Eric Neel, and witty Dan Shanoff (of Daily Quickie fame)? Bayless is intolerable. Given the anal-retentive tone of his columns and constant inability to find anything worth smiling or laughing about, you have to wonder why he's a sports fan at all.

My Retirement

I recently came across an article in Fortune magazine describing a new marketplace where subscribers can speculate on current events. This isn't a new idea, but this is probably the most complete implementation of the idea to date.

Many who follow the stock market feel that what insight the average consumer can attain about a certain investment is normally already built into the price and unlikely to give him any advantage at all. This is especially true when companies like Fidelity can change an entire market with one move. And further, do I really care if 3M can maintain its market share on legal pads?

Intrade offers more than just an interesting new way to gamble. It's actually a powerful investment tool for hedging against everyday events. The example given by Fortune is for an insurance company to hold a contract that a hurricane makes land mitigating their exposure if it wreaks havoc on South Florida.

John Poindexter, then Director of the DARPA Information Awareness Office, proposed a similar market that DARPA could monitor to predict terrorism and political unrest. Unfortunately, his idea was met with such hyperbolic disdain in the Senate that he eventually resigned. I think this type of market is a better fit for the private sector, but if Intrade becomes popular enough, I wouldn't blame intelligence analysts for taking a peek at it now and then.

Either way, I plan to simply destroy my political peers on Intrade.

---

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Cheaters in their midst

Rafael Palmeiro was suspended 10 games after testing positive for steroid use (although it wasn't the only performancing-enhancing drug he was using). This was the same guy whose emphatic, finger-pointing denial at Congressional steroid hearings was one of the highlights of the players' testimony. Who last week recorded his 3,000th hit, who has 569 career home runs. We were debating last week whether his stats make him a Hall of Fame-lock; now we're discussing whether his confirmed steroid use and dishonest testimony (but not perjury) should keep him out.

The Baseball Hall of Fame, the most revered shrine in sports, is full of gamblers, racists, womanizers, and alcoholics. Babe Ruth was all of the above. Ty Cobb was a terrible person on and off the field. Gaylord Perry was a loud and proud cheater who scuffed balls, coated them with Vaseline, and hocked spitballs on his way to 300 wins. All of them are in the Hall. But Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson, two of the all-time greats, are out. Why?

Rose gambled on baseball, but denies he ever bet on his own team. Jackson conspired to fix the 1919 World Series, precipitating a crisis that almost killed the sport in its infancy. The dividing line between a lifetime ban (and ineligibilty for election to the Hall of Fame) and a free pass has been whether the infraction affected the outcome of games. In Perry's case, it did, but given baseball's long history of trying to pick up a slight edge through equipment "modification", the higher-ups let it go. Jackson, and allegedly Rose, knowingly and intentionally altered the outcome of games not by cheating at the game itself but for reasons outside the lines. For that, they deserved to be banned.

The steroid era doesn't quite fit into either category. On one hand, they've done serious damage to baseball's public image and created an unlevel playing field for non-users--you wouldn't put a guy in the Hall of Fame for hitting 500 home runs with an aluminum bat. On one hand, until the new testing agreement, they seemed to be treated as within the standard of "getting an edge" that baseball has let slide (although I'm still of the opinion that the users were essentially using a corked bat every trip to the plate). So I suppose you can't keep Palmeiro out of the Hall of Fame any more than you can Mark McGwire for everything pre-August 1, 2005. As Jayson Stark argues, steroids weren't banned by baseball until last year, so chemically-enhanced achievements that were accomplished before the testing regime and suspensions started, while dubious achievements, shouldn't disqualify someone from election. But now they are illegal. Not only does Raffy's bust cast greater doubt on his stats, it means he knowingly violated an established standard of sports integrity and that he lied (or at least grossly misrepresented himself) under oath to a Congressional panel. Which makes him more like Pete Rose than Gaylord Perry.

He was probably a marginal Hall of Famer before this scandal; with the chemically-inflated stats of the 1990s, his hits and homers don't stand out enough to make it automatic. Ignoring the suggestion that we might discount his numbers for playing in the live-ball/steroid era, we are now obliged to discount them because we know for a fact he was using drugs. We all have an idea that Sammy Sosa's juiced too, but until he gets caught, we have to grant him an assumption of, if not innocence, non-guilt, and not hold his inflated stats against him. If he makes it through his career without getting busted, he's in for sure. Steroids are now illegal in baseball, and the new policy will out the users; Palmeiro knew this, and was still juicing. He's done terrible damage to baseball and himself. We shouldn't enshrine an outed cheater in sports' most sacred club.

Against the Bill of Rights

I've always referred to the Bill of Rights to answer a question about the Constitution, and like most Americans, I've held them in high regard. In fact, I'd wager that most Americans would readily apply the Nazi label to anyone who spoke out against the first ten amendments. With this in mind, consider Alexander Hamilton's argument against the Bill of Rights:

I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colourable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretence for claiming that power.

Today's thinking on the Bill of Rights is the result in a paradigm shift: the Constitution was constructed to give government specific, enumerated powers, leaving everything else to the people and their local governments. Today's thinking on the Constitution and the role of government is that government can do anything not specifically excepted in the Bill of Rights, a much more powerful position for government.

Hamilton may have been right.

Teaching the Constitution

..to legislators.

My favorite representative, John Shadegg, has proposed legislation that will require Congress to "specify the source of authority under the United States Constitution for the enactment of laws..."

It's sad that it has come to this, but I'd like to see someone specify the source of authority under the Constitution for the enactment of a federal bill funding a museum in Arkansas.