Obama's Speech to the AMA: Something for Everyone

TV Doctor Tim Johnson offers pointed point-by-point comments on the President's lengthy speech today to the American Medical Association. Johnson notes that the speech had lines that the docs loved, and some that they didn't.

It seems to us that Obama did what Obama does: suggest that he's on all sides of an issue at once. That's great for forging political support but not much guidance for policy.

Our primary concern in Obama's discussion remains the notion of a "public" (read: "government") plan that would inevitably drive out private insurance, leaving most citizens with no choice but to take what Uncle Sugar offers. We find it disingenuous to suggest that a government plan will force savings by reducing unfair profits from the insurance companies when encouraging more private competition and choice by reducing mandates and eliminating barriers between states would clearly offer the better way to force competition and reduce prices.

We're no less impressed that every nation, regardless of its system of financing health care, is experiencing rising costs. The problem is that no one wants to be sick or die. Everyone is willing to spend any amount to avoid that, especially if they spend someone else's money. So cost control will always be an issue, but one made better by assuring that the cost of healthcare is felt directly by the beneficiary.

Iran Update: Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst

A generation ago, they were ousting the Shah. Could they now be ousting the mullahs?

Protests in Iran look serious. History provides examples of such movements yielding change (Philippines) and yielding repression (China). We note that the best success seems to come in countries with an ideological tradition that fosters democratic ideals (like Roman Catholic Christianity in the Philippines), as opposed to those where other ideologies hold sway (like "Red" China), though not always (it took the Red Army to dislodge Hitler from Catholic/Lutheran Germany). Dictators are dictators, but their country's traditions constrain them now and then.

The mullahs of Iran are not in an ideological context that fosters democracy. We expect violent repression. We'd prefer otherwise.

No one is Seldom Wrong about the future. So let's all stay tuned.

Is America Waking Up with a Left-Wing Hangover?

Gallup reports that Americans report that 41% of Americans are conservative, 35% moderate and 21% liberal. For historical comparison, that's the biggest plurality for the conservatives since 2004.

There are lots of ways to interpret this, but only a few are SWNIDish. We note that the Republic seems to have been medicating itself with liberal liquor against the unpleasantness of the second Dubya term. Now, it seems that deficits and intrusions into the marketplace are the symptoms of a severe liberal hangover, for which the electorate now seeks relief from the bracing cocktail of traditional values and protection of individual liberty that, like a restorative dose of tomato juice, raw egg and hot pepper sauce revive the senses after foolish self-indulgence.

Of course, the best way to get over a liberal hangover is never to indulge in liberalism. Friends don't let friends vote Democrat, as the saying goes.

Our Republic has a history of sobriety, punctuated by brief experiments with government dependency. Maybe this time we can detox quickly and get back to work.

So Much for Iranian "Moderates"

Those who held a glimmer of hope that the Iranian elections might restore a modicum of sanity to that benighted country are disappointed to learn that wing-nut Ahmadinejad has a bigger majority than Obama did.

Is the antisemitic conspiracy-theorist's landslide a result of his manipulation of the electoral process or his countrymen's devotion to his absurd rhetoric despite the manifest failures of his administration? Either way, the effect is the same: a country with a large population, a strategic location, oil wealth and a nuclear arms program will continue to be led by a man who, if a citizen of this Republic, would be the peer of the guy who lived in a shack and shot up the Holocaust Museum.

For all those devoted to pacifying Ahmadinejad's Iran through diplomacy, we offer our best wishes for success.

Palin about Letterman

The jury's still out on the national political future of Sarah Palin, but one can't help but admire the way in this interview she speaks plainly and persistently about David Letterman's tasteless joke at her daughter's expense.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Having just called out national figures for whining, we note that it's not whining when your kids have been disrespected.

Time to Take It Like an Adult

Whining is incommensurate with adulthood. We SWNIDishly hold this truth to be self evident.

That's why we've been irritated by the Obama trope that everything wrong in the world is a problem he inherited from Bush. Not only is that a truism, it's an irrelevancy. At the beginning all problems are inherited, and even with time every problem has a long history of causation. None of that absolves a person of the responsibility to address the problem constructively and effectively.

But Obama's constant Bush-bashing is most irritating because it reflects an unwillingness to stand up and to face life like an adult, to quit assessing blame and start making progress.

The entire left has been operating on Bush hatred since the invasion of Iraq, and only after four years did it begin to take hold. Obama's retrospective bashing is likely on the threshold of exhausting the body politic. No less a liberal journalist than the Gray Lady's Peter Baker says as much today. We doubt that Obama will get the message quickly, as we doubt that he's ever before exhausted the press corp with any of his rhetorical habits. But if he does, we'll consider it a step toward adult behavior, even if it's politically motivated.

But the whining doesn't stop at the White House. Ever in need of enemies on which to blame the world's problems, the left's media organs now turn to the assertion that the killing of George Tiller and the attack on the Holocaust Museum were prompted by the violent rhetoric of conservative pundits and politicians. The ever-insightful Paul Krugman, in a column temperately titled "The Big Hate," blames a cast including Bill O'Reilly, Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, the Washington Times ("the Bush administration's house organ"?), Jon Voigt, and the entire Republican National Committee, all fired up by the election of the first African-American President.

Never mind that Holocaust shooter James von Brunn was virulently antisemitic, anti-"Neocon" and attacked the Federal Reserve during the Reagan Administration. Never mind that since Roe v. Wade, with a Republic sharply divided over the abortion issue and a significant number of folk convinced that abortion ipso fact is murder, a total five abortionists have been killed, considerably less than the slaveowners killed by abolitionists in the run-up to the Civil War in a seriously less populous Republic.

This is, of course, another form of whining: the people I don't like are responsible for every nutty thing that happens in the world. We quote again the wit and wisdom of rabbinic scholar and political conservative Jacob Neusner: "Look, we have our kooks; you have your kooks. We don't want to trade out kooks for your kooks."

Messrs. Obama and Krugman, adults do not talk this way.

Carter Effect Kicks In

Rasmussen's latest poll shows Ds and Rs even in the generic Congressional ballot (for the uninitiated, the pollster asks the citizen whether the citizen would vote for a Democrat or a Republican for Congress, without naming the candidate).

This is, of course, awful news for Ds, who have not been able to translate their considerable wins in 2006 and 2008 into a base of popular support. Independents, not Democrats, are the political grouping that's growing.

That doesn't mean that Republicans are not on the rise, however. The Republican brand remains deeply stained, but individual candidates are thriving. In the few elections of stature this year, Rs are doing nicely: NJ's Democratic governor Corzine is way behind the GOP challenger, Republican Crist looks strong in the Senate race in Florida. In Virginia, Clinton apparatchik Terry McAuliffe lost the primary, the winner of which now faces a Republican to whom he has previously lost in a statewide race.

The reason for this is, of course, transparent to everyone who is not a Democrat: no one is pleased that the Democrats are using their present, unchecked political power to spend the Republic into penury. The Ds risk sullying their "brand" in a matter of months, something that took the Rs at least eight years of excessive government spending to accomplish.

A generation ago, Americans turned to the eminently upright Jimmy Carter to correct the era of corruption of 1970s politics. But within months, the electorate experienced buyers regret as they realized what the stubbornly sanctimonious Carter would do when given the power to govern. More recently, the body politic asked the eminently charming and diplomatic Barack Obama to restore grace and understanding after the distasteful aggression of the Bush years. Now that they've tasted what it means to be governed by someone used to giving everyone what they want, they experience a parallel regret.

"Jobs Saved!"

Last week the White House issued a statement that its economic stimulus has saved 150,000 jobs. Evil genius Karl Rove today points out that this claim comes even as total US employment dropped by 1.9 million jobs between January and May.

Gentle readers may recall the rare SWNIDish prognostication that just such an outrageous and unverifiable claim would be made by our youthful President.

Of course, all this claiming of jobs saved comes even before an appreciable amount of the stimulus has been spent. One can just as easily assume, therefore, that even more jobs would have been "saved" had the administration elected to do nothing.

The Immortal 15-18 Piece Ensemble

For those who think only of Glen Miller when they think of "big bands," and who assume that big bands died when Miller's plan crashed in the English Channel, WSJ's Martin Johnson provides an update. The sublime assemblages of saxophones, trombones, trumpets and rhythm--designed and perfected by such greats as Fletcher Henderson, Benny Carter and Duke Ellington--continue to press forward into new musical territory.

Of course, Ellington never stopped moving forward. In the decades following his death, Thad Jones wrote superb charts for the Monday night orchestra that he and drummer Mel Lewis led at Manhattan's legendary Village Vanguard. Johnson notes what's happening right now with bands that blend jazz, contemporary classical, Latin, African, Middle Eastern and rock influences with the traditional instrumentation, sometimes modified.

At its best, contemporary big band music is exciting, challenging, still accessible, and always swinging. It's the perfect antidote for people who find predictability in other genres.

For gentle readers who don't know what all this is about, we recommend a visit to a nearby venue. Columbus, Ohio maintains a municipal jazz orchestra known for doing traditional arrangements as well as some accessible contemporary stuff. In Cincinnati, there's the extremely vital Blue Wisp Big Band, playing every Wednesday night since time began under the direction of immortal drummer John von Ohlen, who drives the band like Jim Clark drove race cars. Elsewhere, check your local listings.

The New Green Economy: Subsidzed Shell Game of Declining Productivity

SWNIDish kudos go to Hudson Institute Fellow Alex Alexiev for his superb piece at National Review on the economics of so-called renewable energy.

While the media trumpet the President's determination to remake the American economy around green energy, the recent experience of our European cousins shows exactly how miserable are the prospects for a green economy. Germany and Spain, not long ago enthusiastic supporters of solar power, are now running away from the expensive government subsidies necessary to prop up inherently inefficient solar power operations.

Globally, solar power developers are going out of business, albeit more quietly than American auto manufacturers. Were it not for lavish government subsidies, such developers would not exist at all. American infatuation with European policies are often little more than romantic utopianism. In this sad instance, it appears that Americans will ape an Old World model at the very moment that it passes from the scene.

Cap and Trade: Follow the Money

Al Gore has made himself rich(er) with speeches about climate change, and even more rich(er) with an Oscar-winning (!) movie.

And as the Canada Free Press reminds us today, he stands to join the mega-rich(est) if cap-and-trade regulations on carbon emissions become the law of our Republic.

We recall the left's disdain that Dick Cheney, prior to serving as Vice President, had led a multinational corporation that manufactures oil drilling equipment and provides services for American military expeditionary forces. We do not expect similar distress over the fact that the most celebrated climate alarmist is about to fund his grandchildren's trust funds from the Planet's Peril.

Need we add that the "profits" of cap-and-trade come not through greater economic productivity but through taxes that will be paid indirectly by every citizen, with regressively disproportionate impact on people with low incomes and stultifying effects on economic growth?

Quote of the Day on GM

The administration took a tragic situation and turned it into an expensive mess to pay a political debt. It wasted billions of dollars over many months delaying GM’s filing and then implicitly put itself on the hook for many billions more. The financial, political and social echoes of that decision will be with us for a long time. In short, they blew it.

--Michael Levine, Distinguished Research Scholar and Senior Lecturer, New York University, in the Financial Times

Advice from a Real Car Czar

Today's WSJ carries a most timely and witty op-ed by Ion Mihai Pacepa, who before seeking political asylum in the United States in the late 1980s held various posts in Ceausescu's Romanian Socialist dictatorship, including head of Romania's fabled auto manufacturing industry.

We link this fine article especially for our younger readers, who may not realize that the stories of socialism's past are very real and not at all exaggerated. Yes, there was a time when socialist governments spent the public purse to establish the most shamefully inefficient auto companies one can imagine.

We note especially Pacepa's perceptive citation of Jaguar as the most apt parallel to the establishment of Government Motors. What we're in store for is not the hilarious failure of Dacia or Trabent but the slow, agonizing bleed of Jaguar and other British makes of the postwar nanny state.

Another failed socialist auto was the USSR's Lada, apparently still manufactured in petro-fascist Russia. We recall the joke making the rounds in the UK, where dedicated reds bought and attempted to drive the hapless vehicles, during the last years of the Soviet Empire:

Q: How do you double the value of your Lada?
A: Fill the tank with petrol.

Congratulations, Citizen-Owners! Don't Look for Your Money Soon

You and we now own 60% of General Motors. The cost was a mere $70 billion.

Doing the math, we find that each of the Republic's 300 million citizens has a stake in the company of 0.0000002%. That's for an investment of $233 per person. That should translate to each citizen getting about 311 shares at the current price.

Of course, it doesn't, because there aren't that many shares of GM. At the present trading price, GM is worth about half a billion dollars.

That's right: Uncle Sugar is paying $70 billion for 60% a company worth half a billion. At its peak, GM was worth $56 billion on the open market. If it ever sees that value again, which is doubtful, we'll only be out around $40 billion. Looks like we overpaid.

And that's a fine reminder of how much easier it is to be careless "investing" someone else's money than it is your own.

Seen on the CTA

Our responsibilities have taken us to the City of the Big Shoulders twice in as many months. As usual, we have availed ourselves of the services of the very fine, if nearly bankrupt, Chicago Transit Authority.

Our trips on Chicago's always-busy buses and trains left us with many opportunities to watch people. Because our routes took us through the trendier and more prosperous districts of the city's north side, we were struck in particular by what folks were reading. Two examples stand out:

• An elderly woman, groomed impeccably and wearing clothing of palpable quality (we guess that her gloves cost more than our entire clothing ensemble), spent a good thirty minutes reading that most venerable of American left-wing publications, The Nation, with its glorious red ink accents, socialist realist illustrations, and advertisements for remembering the ACLU in one's will.
• A twentysomething young man, sporting a faux hawk haircut, who boarded the bus on the city's elegant lakefront and alighted by the towering Aon Building, reading a book with exceptionally large print, short paragraphs, and wide margins entitled How to Win an Argument with a Conservative.

So many ironies attended these sights that we can name only one: that these high-toned, high-minded leftists could fail to be what we of more modest means are compelled to be, namely, protective of the human capacity to create enough wealth to take care of human needs.

It's Sweeping the Nation

We look forward to seeing this tasteful image adorning various flat surfaces around our Republic.

A SWNIDish Political Potpourri

This 'n' that on these and those of late:

• So all the handwringing about the devastating consequences of Detroit auto manufacturers going bankrupt led to massive infusions of public cash. And now the two companies so infused are going bankrupt with still more cash. The point of this exercise again was what?
  
• If Sotomayor is confirmed, the Supremes will consist of six Roman Catholics, two Jews and one Protestant. Are we missing something in the practice of identity politics?
• The recent, deep confusion of the Democrats regarding interrogation techniques, past and future, may mark the end of their ability to run and govern on the basis of Bush hatred. What will they have left?
  
• The myth of green jobs is threatening to overtake the myth of climate change disaster, though the two are not unrelated. Both are matters of politicians demagoging the public with notions about the future, a safe move as the future isn't yet around to contradict the demagogery.
  
• We find it odd but not so that the MSM is not reporting that Chris Dodd is trailing a Republican in polls in CT, as this belies the expectation of perpetual Republican decline outside the South. That's a big story, except that it's a story that reverses the other big story that's been told since 2006.
  
• We find it incredible that with massive budget deficits looming, Cincinnati is still considering the investment of $180 million in streetcars that will serve a tiny fraction of the community. Can't we be done with gimmicky development schemes for awhile?
  
• In all discussion of rising healthcare costs, we keep missing what we think is the most important observation: that people will pay anything they can for the hope of staying alive.

Gentle readers, you'll have to supply your own hyperlinks.

A Salute to a Musical Institution

In the best SWNIDish tradition of lauding musicians that other people haven't heard of, we celebrate today with WSJ the career of a musician who is reaching retirement after having played with the same ensemble for sixty years.

Yes, sixty years. And he worked professionally for four years before that. And he still loves playing and plans to continue to play.

Stanley Drucker is not well known, except to classical music nerds, especially clarinetists (the nerdiest, bassonists excepted). But this year he retires after sixty years playing clarinet with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. As a section leader and soloist within the orchestra, Drucker was regarded as one of the world's greats at his art. But he also appeared frequently as a soloist, with some two hundred solo appearances--plenty for a guy with a full-time orchestra gig.

Barbara Jepson of WSJ notes that Drucker started playing at age 10, on a $20 clarinet that his non-musician parents bought him (buying your kid a clarinet in 1939, with Goodman and Shaw riding high, was like buying your kid a guitar in 1968). Within five years he was a student at the Curtis Institute, widely seen as the leading conservatory for orchestra players, and one year later he was working in the Indianapolis Symphony. A few stops along the way and he was in the Big Apple at age 20.

SWNID salutes Drucker, having spent many hours listening to him play the famous orchestral passages recorded by the New Yorkers while fantasizing about being a member of a major orchestra. And we salute him again for proving that there are lots of fine, fine players out there, enough to justify our decision not to try to be yet another one.

Ultimate Reflections: Amateurism and Human Nature

Having spent the better part of the holiday weekend enjoying the Ultimate Players Association College Championships,* SWNID is now ready to pontificate on the political significance of this most elegant and underappreciated game.

Ultimate (formerly Ultimate Frisbee, the latter word now omitted to avoid giving pride of place to one manufacturer of discs) is played by two teams of seven on a rectangular field, roughly three quarters the size of a football field. Each team attempts to throw a flying disc (Frisbee) successfully to teammates, without running with the disc or letting the disc fall to the ground or out of bounds, until at last a team member catches the disc in the end zone. The opposing team tries to prevent successful thows and catches without making significant physical contact with opponents. When the disc falls, is knocked down, goes out of bounds or is dropped, the opposing team takes over the throwing and catching.

Played competitively and recreationally all over the world, Ultimate is simple to understand but challenging to players at any level of skill. At higher levels, it rewards spectators with views of exciting throws, catches and defensive efforts. The game demands skill, fitness, athleticism, teamwork, strategy and good judgment. And it may be the cheapest team sport ever invented: all that's required to play is a disc and plastic cones to mark the boundaries.

Notably Ultimate stresses countercultural competitive values. Rules are enforced by the players themselves, who call their own fouls and must settle contested calls amicably. Only at the highest level of competition are neutral "observers" at a match to handle disputed calls, with players still responsible first to try to agree on the application of the rules. Teams rate each other for "Spirit of the Game," and tournaments give a SOTG award to the highest rated.

In sum, Ultimate strives for what was once known as the code of the amateur: one plays for love of the sport and the competition, not for personal glory, money or prestige. The game commands a devoted following dedicated to keeping that tradition alive while promoting the game to prospective players and fans.

And it works. Mostly.

Our experience at the national tournament showed how SOTG goes. All players are happy to abide by the game's self-regulated culture when they are comfortably ahead or miserably behind. If, however, the game is close, it's more than possible for a team to call violations simply to stop play and break the opponents' flow. More than once did we see teams resort to calling chippy foul, consistently disallowed by the observer, to stop play and get the underdog team off its game.

Still, the larger result is pleasant. While other competitive sports seem dominated by players' attempts to break rules without detection by referees, Ultimate offers a glimpse of a more gracious approach to competition, regulated by a code of honor, personal pride and social pressure to enforce virtue. With such, players arguably have more liberty to play the game than is typical in tightly refereed sports.

In that respect, we think that Ultimate is a microcosm of many social issues. Fallen humans will do anything they can to take advantage for themselves. Laws and their enforcement can curb those impulses, but only so much. In fact, enforcement creates its own set of issues, as the enforcers are no less fallen than then rulebreakers.

The human penchant for getting an edge is so strong and so pervasive that nothing will stop it completely. But where a people decides to allow greater liberty by inculcating virtue with cultural enforcement, the curbs may just be effective enough to create a better life for most.

What's true for the game is true for the nation state. The nation that regulates and oversees as the solution to all ills becomes bound by its rules in ways that stifle the industry of those willing to play by the rules. The nation that keeps rules in check while inculcating virtue and enforcing it socially frees its people to become more self-regulated.

So, which is better: the government that bails out financial failure while promising a new regieme of regulations and enforcement, or a government that allows financial failure as the cautionary consequence of a lack of virtue and so promotes responsible liberty? We think we know the Ultimate answer.
______________
*On a personal note, Son of SWNID's team, Williams [College] Ultimate Frisbee Organization or WUFO, finished tied for ninth in the twenty team field, selected by sectional and regional tournament play from across the country. The team won four in a row after dropping their first three to end as co-champions of the "placement" bracket.

Most Excellent Visualization on Budgetary Matters

If your friends didn't understand the bar graph, try this:

One Bar Graph Is Worth a Thousand Words

Or several trillion dollars, as the case may be.

Signs of Life from RNC

In the first real sign of political resistance to the Obama phenomenon, the Republican National Committee has released this little ad:



We'll see if anyone listens.

Spread the Word: Conference for Grieving Parents

We urge gentle readers in Greater Cincinnati to share with those they know the upcoming COPE Conference, an event for parents who have lost children, at Dayspring Church of God in Forest Park on Saturday, June 13. Registration must be completed by May 30.

We all know someone. Let that someone know.

Collins Launches BioLogos; SWNID Permanently Defers Creation-Evolution Questions

We affirm and applaud the formidable Francis Collins on the launch of his BioLogos Foundation, an endeavor to make the case that faith in God, and more particularly faith in the God of biblical Christianity, is compatible with the development of life through evolution.

For two summaries of what's up, we refer gentle readers to syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker and to the indispensable ToTheSource, both of which provide fine summaries of Collins's project.

The BioLogos web site includes answers from Collins and associates in response to the most frequently asked questions posed to Collins after publication of his book The Language of God. We doubt that anyone will agree with all the answers, but that's hardly the point. What Collins aims for is to show that one can embrace both science and Scripture as truth and that people of faith should be engaged in dialogue about exactly how to do that.

So, gentle readers be warned: SWNID gets loads of questions in this area and will now before answering ask first, Have you checked out what's available on BioLogos? We're as ready to defer questions on this subject to Collins and company as we have on issues of homosexuality to Robert Gagnon.

Confronting Evil Provokes Theism?

At Pajamas TV, Roger L. Simon has an interesting video monologue about his encounter with Iranian President Ahmadinejad in Geneva. We'd embed, but the provider doesn't facilitate it.

We find the video interesting not so much because of its politics as its theology. Simon describes himself a life-long agnostic or atheist. But encountering Ahmadinejad, he says, forced him to apply the term "evil" to what he witnessed, not merely a clinical term like "sociopath." And if evil exists, he infers that there must be good. And if good exists, there must be someone who oversees it all.

Simon apologizes for offering what he says lacks rationality. We insist that he's being most rational. What the human creature seeks distinctly as a human happens to be just what God seems to offer in Himself. Why label that discovery irrational when our rational minds observe and infer our way to that conclusion?

Health Insurance Update: A Debacle in the Making

There's so much to be said about what's wrong with Obama's initiatives on health insurance, and so many who are saying it, we hardly need to make the point ourself. So we will urge gentle readers to consider the pointed words of National Review's economics editor Larry Kudlow, who nicely points out the unaffordability of the whole enterprise as well as its inherent inability to deliver what's actually needed. A few quotations:

Does anybody really believe that adding 50 million people to the public health-care rolls will not cost the government more money? About $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion more? At least.

So let’s be serious when evaluating President Obama’s goal of universal health care, and the idea that it’s a cost-cutter. Can’t happen. Won’t happen. Costs are going to explode.

Think of it: Can anyone name a federal program that ever cut costs for anything? Let’s not forget that the existing Medicare system is roughly $80 trillion in the hole. . . .

Not only will Obama’s health program cost at least twice as much as his $650 billion estimate, but his original plan to fund the program by auctioning off carbon-emissions warrants (through the misbegotten cap-and-trade system) has fallen through. In an attempt to buy off hundreds of energy, industrial, and other companies, the White House is now going to give away those carbon-cap-emissions trading warrants. So all those revenues are out the window. Fictitious. . . .

The president’s grandiose government-takeover-and-control strategies are going to make things worse and worse — that is, unless members of that tiny band known as the Republican party can stand on their hind legs and just say no. The Republicans must come up with some pro-competition, private-enterprise alternatives for health, energy, education, taxes, and trade that will meet the yearning of voter-taxpayers for a return to private-enterprise American prosperity and opportunity.

Free-market competition will lower costs in health care just as it has every place else. It also will grow the economy. The GOP must return to this basic conservative principle and reject Obama’s massive government assault.

Stewart on Pelosi's Un-Deft Dodge

It is widely assumed that Jon Stewart's Daily Show (a) is the major source of news and political commentary for much of the electorate; (b) reflects Mr. Stewart's left-of-center politics. We dispute neither of these. But we add that for entertainers like Stewart, having an apt target for ridicule is more important than advancing any particular political agenda.

And so we note with some satisfaction that this supreme value led him to do the following:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Waffle House
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

We hope that such matters will put an end to the disturbingly self-righteous hand-wringing that has of late directed discussion of national security policy.

Look Who's Doing What

Our Republic's Chief Executive today announced that he would not release to the public photographs of "harsh interrogations" conducted in the War on Terror:




As far as military and related security policies are concerned, some are now taking to calling the Obama administration what they said the McCain administration would be: the third Bush term. This was a term of derision from the party that ran and now seeks to govern on the foundation of Bush hatred.

Of course, a third Bush term is just fine with us.

Yet More Deficit News

The $1.7 trillion federal deficit is now coming in at $1.8 trillion.

The additional amount is five times the savings of $17 billion proudly announced by the Obama earlier this week.

Uncle Sugar is now borrowing 46 cents of every dollar spent.

That's $6000 in deficit per American citizen. Just this year, of course.

WaPo quotes the blog of White House Budget Director Peter Orszag: "The deficits ... are driven in large part by the economic crisis inherited by this administration."

OK, that makes us feel better.

The Weed Tax

The following is a true story. Not one detail has been tidied up for anyone's benefit or detriment.

Last Saturday Mrs. SWIND and our SWNIDish self were driving to a local elementary school to join some brothers and sisters in painting some classrooms. Driving carefully in traffic just a few hundred yards from our destination, the SWNIDish heart sank when we saw in our rearview mirror a deputy sherrif's car with lights twinkling in our direction.

Pulling over into a nearby parking lot, the kind deputy informed us that our registration had expired some two months previously. Embarrassed that we had forgotten that the car was registered on Mrs. SWNID's birthday, we awaited our citation, irritated that scarce SWNIDish funds would doubtless be demanded to punish our illegal behavior. The kind officer took into account that the SWNIDish driving record is Seldom Wrong and so mercifully charged us with failure to display, a significantly lesser fine than driving without registration.

Said fine was detailed on a flyer that accompanied our citation. It was $114. Also detailed were other fines for other offenses. Our eye went to one fine in particular. It was for possession of marijuana. Cost of the offense: $105.

That's right: forgetting your vehicle registration can be knocked down to a fine that is still nine dollars more than the fine for possessing small amounts of an illegal narcotic.

This "fine," for those who enjoy weed, is hardly a disincentive. It functions more like a randomly applied, expensive-to-collect tax on marijuana use. We suspect that the odds of getting fined for marijuana possession are high enough that the average fine per joint is less than the tax per cigarette collected by the local convenience store.

We thought that the citizens of our state ought to know the seriousness with which the War on Drugs is being waged.

We Hate to Say It, But We Were Right

The publication of the tragic Elizabeth Edwards's memoir Resilience has prompted much reflection, long overdue, on the moral bankruptcy of her husband's political posturing.

We find the piece in the Chicago Tribune by Matt Mackowiak to be good enough to link.

It obviously takes a lot of self-esteem to run for any office, especially POTUS. We hope for an electorate that can consistently distinguish confidence from narcissism.

We remember fondly the occasional Edwards supporter who would comment on our anti-Edwards screeds in time past. We hope they're moving on with a lesson learned.

The SWNID Forum: Is It Moral to Eat Anthropomorphic Vegetables?

We herein inaugurate a new, occasional feature of this blog: the SWNID Forum, wherein we offer topics of interest for our gentle readers' engagement and discussion.

The point is to provide a place to discuss an emerging issue not presently under discussion elsewhere.

Our first topic is prompted by the picture at left:

In Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, the eating of talking animals is understood to be grossly immoral. In light of the picture, is the same true for anthropomorphic vegetables?

We assume these strange creatures indeed talk as well, but we cannot confirm the same. The lettuces do apparently wear makeup.

Please share your discussion in the form of comments on this post.

Pelosi Exploits Memory-Challenged Electorate

The CIA has now detailed its briefing of House Matron Nancy Pelosi on its use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" with Al-Qaida prisoners. The briefings began in 2002, per the spooks.

Pelosi has denied any knowledge of the agency's practices.

We figure that Ms. Pelosi expects Americans not even to remember that there was a 2002.

Administration Exploits Math-Challenged Electorate

The White House's announcement of a $3.4 trillion budget with $17 billion in budget cuts is described by administration spokespeople as part of a larger effort to control the deficit.

For the decimally ignorant, we note that $17 billion is 0.5% of the entire budget and 1% of this year's $1.7 trillion deficit. It is also less than the $34 billion in cuts proposed by the despised Bush administration last year, none of which came close to being enacted into law.

As WaPo reports, even analysts at left-leaning think-tanks like Brookings are calling this one out:

"Even if you got all of those things, it would be saving pennies, not dollars. And you're not going to begin to get all of them," said Isabel Sawhill, a Brookings Institution economist who waged her own battles with Congress as a senior official in the Clinton White House budget office. "This is a good government exercise without much prospect of putting a significant dent in spending."

We figure that the White House expects Americans to get their millions, billions and trillions confused enough not to realize what's going on.

This Is the Government America Asked For

CNN headline: Biden, Franken rendezvous at the White House.

Could either man stop talking long enough to listen to the other? And they say the Republicans have problems.

A. N. Wilson: Christianity Claims Another Atheist

We thank gentle reader Scott and the indispensable ToTheSource for pointing us to A. N. Wilson's recent Daily Mail essay recounting his journey from atheism to Christianity.

Wilson will be remembered by some as the author of a bitter biography of C. S. Lewis and a dismissive book on Jesus.

Now he is a fervently practicing Christian, ready to call out the militant atheism of Western Europe for the irrationality that it dresses up in the label "rationalist."

Stories like Wilson's are SWNID's favorites.

We quote a tasty bit:

Materialist atheism says we are just a collection of chemicals. It has no answer whatsoever to the question of how we should be capable of love or heroism or poetry if we are simply animated pieces of meat.

The Resurrection, which proclaims that matter and spirit are mysteriously conjoined, is the ultimate key to who we are. It confronts us with an extraordinarily haunting story.

J. S. Bach believed the story, and set it to music. Most of the greatest writers and thinkers of the past 1,500 years have believed it.

But an even stronger argument is the way that Christian faith transforms individual lives - the lives of the men and women with whom you mingle on a daily basis, the man, woman or child next to you in church tomorrow morning.

A Taste of CCU Concert Choir

For those who missed the latest "Unquenchable" Tour, here's a sip of the CCU Concert Choir.



For more than a sip, check out other videos here.

This Man Will Run GM

The new CEO of Gettelfinger Motors, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, writes today for the Detroit News. His points seem to be twofold: unions are the strength, not the weakness, of the Detroit automakers, and healthcare and pensions should be the responsibility of the government, not of corporations or even the individual.

We point out this otherwise unremarkable statement of a union chieftan simply because the government proposed/imposed GM un-bankruptcy will give 50% ownership of the company to Uncle Sugar and 39% to the UAW, effectively putting Gettelfinger and fellow inmates in charge of the asylum. We think voters should understand that Mr. Gettelfinger's deep insights into the incentives necessary to operate a productive economy will now drive what was once the largest corporation in the world.

HUC Cincinnati: Maybe Not a Lean-To in a Cucumber Field

The latest report from Hebrew Union College looks better for its Cincinnati campus. The institution's Board of Governors has adopted a plan to keep all of its campuses operating.

SWNID suspects but cannot confirm that this might be good news for those who want HUC Cincinnati to continue as a haven for Christian graduate students of Hebrew Bible. Oral reports have suggested that the institution's leadership has been conflicted about the large number of Christians who populate its PhD program and have discussed eliminating the program to concentrate on rabbinic studies. If the present situation reveals the potential of positive cash flow from the Christians, they're all the more likely to stick around.

Jack Kemp, 1935-2009

The passing of Jack Kemp--quarterback, congressman, cabinet secretary, and vice-presidential candidate--prompts this self-styled "Jack Kemp Republican" to explain what that term means.

Kemp was among the first Republican officeholders to articulate consistently that conservative principles were not just good for the well off but for everyone. Kemp understood that what stood between the underprivileged and prosperity, between the oppressed and equality, is genuine liberty.

Kemp advocated domestic supply-side economics--lower taxes for greater economic growth--because he realized that economic growth benefits the poor to a greater degree than does redistribution built on higher taxes. He advocated a vigorous foreign policy that promoted democracy and the rule of law globally because he understood that the world's worst off were made that way not because the industrialized democracies exploited them but because their own rulers abused them.

Those of us who like the label "Jack Kemp Republican" insist that conservatism is best because it is compassionate as well as just. People do better in a society that's free. Those who are most vulnerable do especially better.

Edwin J. Feulner, former Kemp campaign manager and now president of the esteemed Heritage Foundation, epitomized the Kemp legacy: "The idea that all conservatives really should regroup around and identify with is that this is not an exclusive club. Freedom is for everybody. That's what Jack Kemp stood for."

Indeed. Here's to liberty, and to Jack Kemp, its champion.

Got Those Swine Flu Blues?

It's come to this: SWNID posts a Ron Paul video, with all his trademark rambling, as an antidote to the swine flu:



Thought question: is it mere coincidence that "swine" is a near-anagram for SWNID?

Well, Here's Something New

There's some hope for American journalism when AP is at last running a story offering a "fact check" on Obama's claims about his responsibility for the federal deficit. We see this as potentially a glimmer of realism as America's mainstream emerges from the fog of infatuation.

More Bad News

That is, bad news for the global warming hypothesis.

Germany's Radio Bremen reports that the Canada-based research plane "Polar 5" recently discovered that at the North Pole new polar ice is forming at twice the rate observed previously. The radio service observes dryly, "Für die Wissenschaftler steht dieses Ergebnis derzeit noch im Widerspruch zur Erwärmung des Meerwassers. " Translation: "For the scientists, this result presently stands in contradiction to the warming of ocean water."

Gentle readers who prefer to get their problematic news in English may copy the URL of the story into the ever-faithful, often amusing Babelfish Translator.

Swine Flu Redux

With economic recession, recriminations about American military actions, an increasingly obtuse and sanctimonious White House, prognostications of environmental catastrophe, and plans to spend tax money on non-carbon energy, it's all been feeling to us like the 1970s all over again. And for those who actually lived in the 70s, that's not a good feeling.

And now we have the swine flu, a throwback to 1976, when dear old Jerry Ford ordered every American immunized after a private at Fort Dix died of the disease.

It all makes us want to drive a Ford Pinto to Riverfront Stadium to watch the Big Red Machine, sporting some tartan, polyester slacks, with K.C. and the Sunshine Band providing the soundtrack.

Decline? Never Mind!

McNewspaper today has a nice second look at the American-Christianity-in-decline story trumpeted by Newsweek earlier this month. Authored by Stephen Prothero, celebrated chair of religious studies at Boston University, the column notes that the deeper data in the recent ARIS survey does not so much show that American Christianity is in decline as it does that it is in realignment.

Specifically, Americans in growing numbers tend to refer to themselves as "spiritual" rather than Christian and are in greater numbers aligning with non-denominational churches. Similarly, the weight of Roman Catholic demographics is shifting from the Northeast to the Southwest, concurrently going from white to Hispanic.

Probably the most interesting statistic is that membership in nondenominational churches has grown from 200,000 in 1990 to 2.5 million in 2001 to over 8 million at present.

In sum, the long decline of America's historic "mainline" denominations continues, and its nominal Christians are not naming the name of their nominalism as often as they used to. Meanwhile, refugees from both groups are landing in new churches without denominational affiliations. We add our surmise that many churches are deliberately playing down, if not hiding, their denominational identities to join this trend.

Rumors Likely True: Cincinnati's HUC Probably Closing

Today's Enquirer reports what many have been saying: that financial problems will likely lead Hebrew Union College to close its historic Cincinnati campus.

HUC also operates in New York, Los Angeles and Jerusalem.

Students quoted in the story complain that the Cincinnati campus houses valuable archives and provides a cheaper cost of living than the coasts.

SWNIDish readers will doubtless register that HUC's Cincinnati campus has been a hotbed of graduate study of the Hebrew Bible for aspiring Christian scholars. In recent years HUC's administration has publicly expressed the tension that has doubtless existed for years over the fact that Christian grad students rival Jewish rabbinic students as the dominant presence on campus.

If the likely event does occur, it will be a loss for Our Fair City and for biblical scholarship.

Adieu, Postpartisanship

Obama may be the most partisan 100-day president of the modern era, but only by a hair's margin. Obama's partisan gap averages 60 percentage points. Bush was the most partisan modern president at 57 points. Clinton closed his first 100 days with a 51-point gap. The partisan gap is the margin between the high approval of a president's political base and the low approval of the opposition party.

The polarized view of Obama would hardly be notable if not for the tenor of Obama's candidacy, as partisanship has steadily risen since Clinton. Transcending the two tribes of Washington was the nucleus of Obama's campaign.

So notes David Paul Kuhn, analyzing Obama's polls historically.

And little wonder that the polarization is what it is. Every item on the left's wish list is on the legislative table, with caution and debate thrown aside in the rush to take advantage of the President's post-election popularity. Obama's rhetoric has been the extension of Bush hatred as a justification for avoiding discussion of anything at odds with the left's vision.

We still believe that political reality will frustrate the Democrats' agenda. It is not easy in this Republic to change things, and deliberately so. That's true even when Democrats hold all the reins of power.

At this point we simply wonder whether the opposition is capable of mounting a serious enough response to rescue the outcome from anthing other than ad hominem recrimination.

Hannity Waterboarded?

We think that low comedy has reached a new low as the insufferably sanctimonious Keith Olbermann has dared the insufferably noisy Sean Hannity to experience waterboarding for charity.

Hannity couldn't be waterboarded because he can't shut his mouth. Olbermann's dares have no persuasive force because his moral stature is so negligible.

Those with the stomach to watch the video at the link above should be repelled by Lawrence O'Donnell's celebration of the courage of terrorists coupled with his anti-empirical assertion that waterboarding couldn't extract information from so committed an individual as a terrorist.

Lomborg: Ditch Controls, Promote Investment

The formidable Bjorn Lomborg, scourge of the global warming totalitarians, writes today for the Gray Lady. He insists that (a) controls on carbon emissions are doomed to failure and at best grossly inefficient; (b) investment in non-carbon energy production offers over the long term to reduce carbon emissions and be economically efficient.

We're willing to listen to such analysis, not least when he acknowledges that the world's poor shouldn't wait for alternatives to carbon to be developed.

The Limits of "Harsh Interrogation"

Cliff May at NRO does yeoman's work in detailing the details of the CIA's coercive techniques in interrogation. We are pleased that he explains exactly what agents did with high-value detainees.

We quote with approval a few paragraphs:

Such detailed rules suggest that serious thought was given to where to draw the line between coercion — “stress and duress” — and torture. You can disagree with where those lines were drawn, but I don’t see how you can say no attempt was made to set limits.

Nor do I see how — except in an Orwellian universe — lawyers from the current administration can prosecute lawyers from the previous administration because they disagree with their legal opinions.

Not only lawyers but also physicians and psychologists were involved in these decisions. Indeed, these interrogations were supervised by physicians and psychologists who had the power to stop them.

Must Resist Temptation!

It would be in bad taste, quite simply over the top, to remark sarcastically that to find out the truth about Nancy Pelosi's knowledge of CIA waterboarding, which knowledge she denies despite a WaPo article from 2007 detailing a briefing that she received, it might be necessary to use harsh interrogation techniques.

We therefore refuse to make that observation. Standards must be upheld.

We also refuse to say things like "Nancy Pelosi is a harsh interrogation technique." We will not stoop to insults. It is beneath us.

We will resist these temptations just as firmly as the left of late has resisted the temptation to overplay its political hand.

How Ridiculous? So Ridiculous That . . .

How ridiculous is Obama's opening the door to prosecuting Bush administration attorneys for giving legal advice on "harsh interrogation"?

So ridiculous that Roger Cohen, doubtless one of the looniest members of the left's journalistic opinion squad, says that prosecutions are out of the question.

For those blessedly unfamiliar with Roger Cohen, we urge two steps. One is not to confuse him with Richard Cohen, whose work we used to pillory but now ignore as inconsequential. The other is to peruse James Taranto's recent catalog of Cohen's outrageous pronouncements.

So, Mr. President, here's the deal: when even the hard left says prosecutions are out of the question, even as they praise your confessional world tour featuring gracious greetings of totalitarian dictators, you need to back off from criminalizing policy differences.

Extremely Excellent ToTheSource on Biblical Criticism, Old and "New"

In our professional capacity, we hold strong opinions about certain members of our professional guild, none more so than Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Simultaneously we respect Dr. Ehrman's erudition and deplore what we see as his recycling of tired, misstated summaries of scholarship in books that sell well as college texts and popular nonfiction.

This week the estimable ToTheSource says nearly everything we've ever wanted to say about Dr. Ehrman's work. In sum, Ehrman misrepresents his assertions entirely. They are matters neither hidden from the church nor believed by a consensus of scholars nor the produced by objective scholarship.

When one reads a Bart Ehrman bestseller, one waits for the devastating evidence that destroys biblical Christianity. At the end, when one finds the usual catalog of textual and historical problems, one recalls that such issues have been regularly and satisfactorily addressed by scholars whose faith remained intact even after doing the same kind of study that reportedly destroyed Dr. Ehrman's faith. One even recalls hearing about such matters in church or a church-related college, the very place Dr. Ehrman says the information was suppressed. So one reads again to find the really explosive stuff missed on the first reading. And it's not there, even though the stuff written by the marketing folks at Dr. Ehrman's publisher promised as much.

As the aggressive Robert Funk has passed on to his reward and the clever John Dominic Crossan has eased into retirement, the media and publishing industry have turned to the repetitive Dr. Ehrman as the new doyen of anti-Christian biblical scholarship. We hope that he continues to enjoy his role and urge gentle readers to give his work the attention it deserves.

In the Year 2017

Imagine the follow scenario:

The Obama administration has completed two terms. It has had the typical round of successes, some notable failures, and numerous political controversies. For various reasons the electorate selects a Republican administration in 2016. It matters not whether the President inaugurated in January 2017 is this or that Republican, only that the candidate ran in part in opposition to the more controversial moves of the Obama administration, including especially its aggressive--but by that time clearly temporary--takeover of large segments of the American financial system and manufacturing economy.

By this time the economy has largely recovered. Banks are mostly sound and are lending money. Automobiles are still being manufactured by what's left of the Detroit automakers, now much smaller than before. Most government control of these segments of the economy has abated, and the plan for returning banks and automakers entirely to private hands are moving forward. For a time GM became "Green Motors," but even here sensible voices prevailed, and the company manufactures decent cars that consumers want instead of unprofitable cars that regulators adore but consumers hate.

But the victorious Republican candidate has managed a successful campaign strategy playing on the public's unease with the Obama administration's economic policies, especially those followed in the deepest part of the crisis. The charismatic Republican harnessed the fears and frustrations of many by declaring openly that he would restore America's constitutional commitment to economic liberty after the socialistic program of Obama. Specifically, he has declared it unconstitutional for the government to intervene to bail out banks and automakers and left open the question as to whether those who did so should be prosecuted.

Months after her inauguration, the new President is pressured by her political base to put her campaign rhetoric into action. Those like Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, and their underlings, who masterminded the bailouts and for a time controlled the decisions at GM and Citigroup, have violated their oaths to uphold and defend the constitution, acting outside American bankruptcy laws, arrogating to the executive branch bankruptcy authority that belong to the judiciary and compromising the rights of shareholders, bondholders and others with claims on the corporations. They must be punished.

At first the President says nothing. Pressed by reporters, her chief of staff states on an interview program that she has no plans to prosecute those who led the goverment takeover of banks and automakers. But facing still more pressure, the new President states publicly that the decision is not closed, that the Attorney General must determine whether to prosecute those who gave legal and policy advice that overstepped the boundaries of the constitution.

Individuals who had given policy and legal advice in a time of crisis now find themselves subjects of federal investigations. They face the prospect of crippling legal proceedings with crippling legal bills, of careers ruined because they gave advice that was followed, with which others disagreed, and which was deemed criminal when power changed hands.

Well, our little fantasy is transparent. This very scenario plays itself out today as the authors of the so-called "torture memos" from the Bush administration are now potentially targets of prosecution by the Obama Justice Department.

We leave aside the finer points of legal interpretation here, as well as the debated benefits of "harsh interrogation" in the War on Man-Caused Disasters. We confine ourselves to the larger issue of political and governmental philosophy. Who thought that our storied Republic would become one in which the electoral victors throw the vanquished in jail?

Those who decide to criminalize policy differences must simultaneously assure that they never lose power, lest in sowing the wind they reap the whirlwind of retribution.

Regulating Bubbles: Gas Out or Gas In?

Politico discusses today the rather remarkable Obama proposal to assume the duty of identifying economic bubbles and de-bubblifying them, thereby ending the perpetual cycle of enthusiasm yielding to fear that we call the business cycle.

We leave it to the insightful writers at Politico and elsewhere to note the problems in doing such, not least when a politician does so for ideological or purely political reasons.

Instead, we note that the very President who makes this pledge also pledges to devote unprecedented dollars to the development of as-yet untested "green" energy initiatives. If that isn't creating a bubble, we don't know what is. For those who question our judgment, we appeal to the ethanol debacle of 2007-08.

High-Speed Rail? Curb Your Enthusiasm!

Reading of Obama's proposal of the day, to fund high-speed rail all over our Republic's share of the continent, we find ourself of two minds.

On the one hand, we prefer public conveyances to private ones. The idea that someone will operate a machine to take our SWNIDish self from where we are to where we want to be delights us. It renders the world like a huge theme park for our personal enjoyment.

And we find modern trains to be the most pleasant of public conveyances. The ride is smooth, the cabin spacious, the noise negligible, and the view intriguing if not always beautiful.

On the other hand is grim economic reality, which we grimly enumerate as bullet points:

• Obama's proposed funding won't pay for more than a tiny fraction of what he proposes.
  
• Americans complain that if they take the train, they still need a car when they get to their destination. This seems true for all but that tiny fraction of the population that is willing to brave municipal public conveyances. Hence, Americans will generally drive even when they have attractive public transportation options.
  
• Rail is a more comfortable experience, and at its modern peak faster, but buses are still marvelously cheaper, more flexible and just as effective in getting cars off crowded highways. Case in point: the cost to take the esteemed Megabus from Cincinnati to Chicago is today about the same cost as taking the train over the same route fifty years ago. We speak not in inflation-adjusted dollars but plain dollars: $15 would get you a ticket on the B&O in 1959, and it'll get you on the Megabus today. And the bus trip takes less time than rail did then, hardly longer than a trip in a private car today and at less than the cost to gas the car for the same distance.
• And the truth is that Obama won't have the money to finish what he's proposing as the barest start. See the esteemed Charles Krauthammer today if you doubt this patent truism.
  

So, we fight the battle within as we read of a high-speed link between Our Fair City and its larger cousins on Lakes Michigan and Erie. On the one hand, we would love to be the first to get a Ticket to Ride. On the other hand, we doubt that anyone will ever find the money to invest in a new infrastructure that will only do what could be done right away with a few more buses.

Barone and SWNID to Obama: Give Up the Grand Plan

Tuesday President Obama gave another major speech, this time outlining what he characterizes as the coherent policy vision that undergirds what have seemed like ad hoc initiatives. Everything, he says, is geared to bring about a specific outcome, expressed in five pillars:

• effective regulation for Wall Street
• investment in education
• investment in renewable energy and technology
• health-care reform
• deficit reduction

Since some of these five seems to us less significant than others, and some prompt so obvious a response, we'll say the obvious first and then get to the significant and less obvious. Then we'll say what it all means.

Obviously, there's nothing in Obama's initiatives that bears the slightest resemblance to deficit reduction. All he's been able to claim, effectively, is that his deficits are smaller than they could have been had he spent more or taxed less. That fifth pillar is a sad joke. Politically he should drop it, as it casts a shadow of untruthfulness on everything.

Regulating Wall Street to ensure financial and corporate focus on the long term instead of the short term is a noble goal. Whether regulation can do that effectively is another matter. If regulators knew what one could do to guarantee long-term profits, certainly the word would be out already and would not require regulations to enforce compliance. Enforcing greater transparency might be a more effective objective.

We make similar remarks for investment in education. We believe that making education more effective and accessible is an important public priority for the good of all. However, we don't know that greater governmental involvement in education will accomplish that. Federal subsidies have had the effect of driving educational costs higher, as the inflation rate for education has exceeded the core inflation rate for years. Raising the Pell Grant sounded good, though it was not raised much relative to educational costs. But more government money gives institutions of higher education the opportunity to raise prices, as history seems to demonstrate amply. As to eliminating federally subsidized student loans and making them direct loans from the government, we doubt that the elimination of private profit will make for more efficiency or better service. As to P-12 education, Obama's resistance to initiatives that diversify educational supply don't auger well for progress on this front.

As to energy and health care, we agree with the esteemed Michael Barone: Obama's moves depend entirely on mathematical models that are far too subject to failure. The energy move is less a matter of toxins than carbon dioxide, harmless unless it indeed creates devastating climate change. The health-care move is premised on the notion that greater federal control of payment and standards will yield cost savings. Both depend on elaborate models that attempt to account for all contributory factors but which by nature simply cannot.

In other words, it's presumption bordering on insanity to expend large amounts of money on what is an inherently speculative enterprise. One initiative--reducing carbon emissions--assumes a disaster that may not happen, or if it does happen may not be a disaster. The other--health-care reform that involves offering federal standards for care and a federal program of insurance--offers no sure way to better care for more people.

Better, we say, to act on what we actually know. On energy, what we know is this:

• A diverse set of eneregy sources is less likely to create economic, political or environmental (we say again: "renewables" have huge environmental impact, as acres are devoted to solar or wind power and the transmission of that power across vast distances), problems than a non-diverse set. It is therefore wise to develop so-called renewables, but only as far as they are commercially viable. It is at least equally wise to develop other sources of "carbon" energy; that is, to drill domestic and offshore fields aggressively.
• The prospect of gradual, marginal climate change is not so much a threat as an inevitability to which human populations will adapt. Directing resources toward preventing climate change--without knowing whether it is occurring, what causes it, or whether it can be stopped--simply makes it harder to do the adapting.

And on health care, what we know is this:

• There's no historical evidence that having the government pay for health care directly will make it cheaper (Medicare and Medicaid are cheaper than private care precisely because the government pays less by fiat, shifting the cost of capital investment to the privately insured). There's much to suggest that doing so will make it less available and less effective.
• The noble goal of providing health insurance for the uninsured is most effectively addressed by de-linking employment benefits and health insurance, reducing the number of mandates on what must be covered, creating a national market for health insurance instead of a state-by-state market, and providing a subsidy to individuals of low income to purchase insurance privately. These moves put decisions about health care costs and benefits in the hands of individuals, the very people whose lives are at stake in the doctor's office.

There's a theme running through all this. Obama's policies assume that the solutions to these problems lie with the imposition of a single set of rules and requirements for everyone. As a faithful son of our Republic, we resist that notion ideologically. As an informal but informed student of history and human nature, we find no example of such an outcome and no prospect of it, either. We doubt that a small group of humans, no matter how nobly motivated or well informed, can make such decisions effectively. Actually, we'd say all the evidence suggests the opposite.

And so, Mr. President, we ask that in place of your five pillars, you erect another pillar. It states that the government exists not to solve people's problems but to protect their liberties. With liberties, they are free to work together or on their own , experiment, fail and sometimes ultimately succeed in solving problems. But as citizens become clients, their liberties are lost, and with them are lost the individual's opportunity to make a difference for anyone's life, including his own.

The Susan Boyle Phenomenon

By now we expect that gentle readers have heard the extraordinary performance of Susan Boyle from Britain's Got Talent. For those who have not, one of several YouTube videos is available here (we'd embed, but embedding has been stopped on this one, just another measure of the video's popularity).

Boyle's story is full of the elements that make it a near parable. We like the way that Susan Douglas Home has laid out many of those elements in her column for the Herald, not least the way she notes that Ms. Boyle's talent is less significant than her character.

Community Service Day 2009

CCU's 2009 Community Service Day was cold, wet, dirty and loads of fun.

Daily Kos: Dead Pirates Mean Phillips a Grandstander

With about 6.7 billion people in the world, odds are that at least one is a nutcase with a widely read blog.

Prominent leftist blog Daily Kos includes a post from a regular contributor who says that Captain Phillips was a foolhardy grandstander to resist the Somali pirates. All that was at stake, says the blogger identified as KLS, was ransom money from the ship's owners. Hence, Phillips should not have put his crew, himself and the intrepid Navy Seals at risk by resisting. Unrighteous mammon is not worth risk to human lives.

Immanuel Kant, please call KLS to discuss ethics.

We look forward to a world run by pirates when KLS and his ilk have their way.

SoulWow: Marketing or Mocking?

We thank gentle reader Bobby W for pointing us to the amazing and provocative SoulWow.com.

Is this a parody attempting nothing more than humor or self-parody attempting with humor to re-energize nominal Roman Catholics to accept the sacrament of confession? You decide!

Either way, there's much to be said about this little presentation. But we'll leave it to others to say it.

A Healthcare Irony

The Nation, a publication so representative of the extreme left that SWNID seldom bothers checking it, today runs a most interesting essay.

It is by an aging wife and mother, active politically her entire life, who now faces huge medical bills because of her daughter having suffered a horse-riding accident and her husband having a catastrophic fall after developing Parkinson's. It is indeed a sad tale of the choices that must be made under such tragic circumstances.

One could observe various things about the story: that the daughter was foolhardy to embark on a physically dangerous career as a horse trainer without health insurance, that the family might not even have the choice of the care they've received if the government were paying all the bills, that protecting the family's financial assets might not be a priority for the public that is called upon to shoulder the costs of their medical care.

But we point out something else. The author of the story is Kate Michelman. That's right: the former president of the National Abortion Rights Action League.

One wonders, does Ms. Michelman ponder whether the dignity which she denied to the unborn ought to be extended to the born-but-broken members of her family?

On Those Pirates

As the drama of Captain Richard Phillips continues to unfold, we note with dismay one element of the story.

As the pirates wait for "reinforcements," their partners in crime are coming to the scene with an estimated fifty-four additional hostages from around the globe.

We don't mean to minimize the dilemma of addressing piracy, kidnapping and other forms of terrorism and extortion. But we do wonder whether this "bubble" of nefarious activity is the consequence of shipping companies and their governments having for too long calculated the cost of ransoming their crews as less than the cost of fighting pirates.

Choosing appeasement over war seems generally to yield war, at higher cost.

There Are No Atheists in the Hanoi Hilton

NRO today excerpts Vietnam POW Leo Thorsness's book Surviving Hell: A POW's Journey on the experience of participating in defiant Christian worship in a North Vietnamese prison camp.

Needless to say, it's a stirring piece. Read it and get stirred.

Three Good Friday Traditions

On Good Friday it's traditional in the Philippines that a handful of renegade Roman Catholic devotees have themselves nailed to crosses.

On Good Friday it's traditional that the media cover this as "news."

On Good Friday it's traditional that SWNID points out what we see as the difference between these acts of "devotion" and thoughtful Christian theology. And we strive to explain matters succinctly.

Jesus voluntarily submitted to crucifixion for the sake of others.

These devotees benefit no one with their gruesome display, except--perhaps and perversely--themselves. That's not honoring the Christ of the Cross.

Government-Provided Health Insurance: Who Needs It?

We generally don't read other blogs or link to them, our blog being so superior to all others. Today we make an exception for a fine post from "Doug Ross @ Journal." Ross specifically notes (a) the degree to which major news outlets are publishing stories on the need for federally provided health insurance that are in fact news releases created by a liberal advocacy group connected to some rather notorious liberal advocacy groups; (b) the continual distortion of the statistical need for federally provided health insurance.

What all this suggests is either a deliberate blindness to reality or a profound disingenuousness on the part of those who insist that upwards of $600 billion is needed to insure uninsured Americans. Given the actual number of uninsured Americans, either we will buy them the most expensive health insurance ever or we will buy insurance for a lot of people who could get it elsewhere. Or worst of all, both are true.

God v. Devil = Craig v. Hitchens

The indispensable ToTheSource.com offers a summary of a recent debate between outstanding Christian philosopher/apologist William Lane Craig and famously erudite atheist Christopher Hitchens.

The summary is worth reading both for those who are familiar with the nuances of theistic arguments as well as those who are new to the discussion. For those without the will to read the brief summary, we provide a briefer one: Craig effectively lays out the key arguments for the existence of the Christian God, not just any "god," but Hitchens insists that the idea of a god is so fabulously unlikely that these arguments are inadequate. To put it more keenly, Hitchens simply doesn't like the kind of God that these arguments argue for.

We find ourself amused by Hitchens's insistence that if the universe is "designed" for human life, it ought not have obvious cosmic events in the future that would destroy human life, like the explosion of the Sun or the collision of the Andromeda galaxy with the Milky Way. Nothing illustrates our characterization better: if there is a god who wants humans to exist in this universe, s/he must want those humans to exist forever. The fun fact that Christian theology expressed a belief in a coming judgment and transition to a "new heaven and earth" before anyone knew that stars like the sun explode or that galaxies collide is for Hitchens no hint that a god might so design the universe as to provide for lengthy but temporary residence by humans.

There's more, but time is short, as the previous paragraph reminds us. Gentle readers must read the article and do their own thinking.

Secular Prophets on the Future of Christianity in America

Gentle readers are likely to hear a lot about at least one of the articles to which we are about to refer, so we figure they might as well hear about them here.

Newsweek's celebrated editor and congenital complainer about the religious right Jon Meacham offers a longish discussion of the decline of Christianity. Per Meacham, recent polls show fewer confessing Christians in our Republic, which is an indicator of the failure of the religious right to carry out its vision of an avowedly Christian America.

Meanwhile, Economist writers Michelthwait and Adrian Wooldridge write in WSJ that it's far too early to count Christianity out, either in sheer numbers or in influence. Our Republic's history is too full of examples of the faith's resurgence.

SWNID, ever the cynical optimist, finds more in the second article to affirm than in the first, though the first is far less dour than one might think. More particularly, however, we note what Meacham narrates at the beginning and end of his essay: the gloom that present demographics bring to Al Mohlers of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. We note in that the repeated tendency of certain Christian leaders to declare the advent of a crisis that will make the future far different from the present.

Most often we think such judgments have to do with the rhetorical need to stir up the faithful with the imminent falling of the sky. And maybe to raise some dough for one's seminary too.

A Musical Interlude

Jazzplayer.com provides a link to this most delightful gem from him who is still the world's greatest jazz guitarist:




As one listens, one can imagine a world without recordings by Kenny G.

Belated hat tip: gentle reader Christian, he with the superb name.

Coming to a Student Event Near You

One of our distinguished colleagues pointed us to Ignatius, the Next Big Thing in student ministry.


Ignatius from travis hawkins on Vimeo.

A SWNIDish Confession: We Contritely Repent

Our blogging has been infrequent of late. Today we reveal why.

It's not the press of real-world duties that has impeded our cyber-world bloviation. It is our very deep, painful re-evaluation of our political, economic and social views, a process ongoing since the first Tuesday of November, 2008.

That process has taken us to this day to complete. And so we are now prepared to reveal the transformation, something akin to Saul's on the Damascus Road.

Our views on matters of faith and art remain unchanged. But the revolution has overtaken us in politics, economics and society. We hereby repudiate our earlier positions to affirm the following:

• The body politic consists of two groups: worthy and unworthy. The former, if they work and have access to a shower, shower after work. The latter, if what they do can be deemed "work," shower before. The former are blameless in all matters. The latter are to blame for everything. The former are not subject to the hubris that gives rise to what Christians call "sin." The latter are incapable of anything but. Call this "limited total depravity." Or Proletarian Gnosticism, if you prefer.
  
• Though the worthy class is indeed worthy, it is also mostly helpless. It needs an exceptional few champions to rise up, either transcending the limitations of their origins or abandoning the privilege of their class, to enter the political fray and protect the hapless plebes who otherwise would be continually victimized by the unworthy.
  
• Economics is inherently a zero-sum game. If someone has more, it's always because someone else has less. Productivity is unimportant. Distribution is everything. Nevermind that something has to be produced before it can be distributed: production happens irrespective of the incentives to do so, largely because there is a class of good people in the world who always do the producing as long as they aren't victimized by the unworthy.
• When the right people, those who are pledged to protect the worthy folk, are elected, they can be trusted to do what is right. Limitations on their power, out of fear that they might abuse their power, merely interfere with their doing what needs to be done.
• The world is filled with peace-loving, friendly people who want nothing but harmony and goodwill with their global neighbors. The only thing that can provoke them to hostility is the hostile attitude and futile saber-rattling consistently demonstrated when the wrong people get elected to power in the United States.
• A very special class of worthy humans are scientists. These exceptional women and men know not only their disciplines, with their specific methods and narrow outcomes, but precisely what the implications of their findings are for the public at large. Their conclusions, mediated by the right people in public office, can never be questioned.
• The great heritage of conservative political and economic thought (Locke, Smith, the Federalist Papers, Burke, von Mises, Buckley, Friedman, Kirk, everything every published by National Review, even including P. J. O'Rourke) is really an intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt sham to keep the wrong people in power and oppress the right people.
• Conservatism is completely uncool: pale, fat, backward and nasty, like Ned Beatty in Deliverance.
  
• Conservatism is also inconsistent with Christian faith, which is obvious to anyone who knows the gospel. See all points above.
  

So that's it. We were WRONG. But from today forward, we'll be right. Er, we mean left.