HMM: Land-Deal Advisor Resigns from Calpers. “The real estate investment manager who led the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the nation’s largest pension fund, into a money-losing land venture has resigned as an adviser to the fund, a spokeswoman for MacFarlane Partners said on Saturday. . . . Calpers said earlier this month that its probe centers on around $50 million in payments that outside managers made over a five-year period to ARVCO Financial Ventures LLC, a firm headed by former Calpers board member Al Villalobos, to win the pension fund’s business.”
Yeah, I gave a lecture to the Nashville Bar Association’s environmental section by Skype just a couple of weeks ago. But that’s me: Mr. Green! Travel restrictions, like taxes, are for the little people. But anyway, good for Obama for not flying to Copenhagen! “How big is the carbon footprint of a presidential overseas trip — or a presidential trip anywhere? Honestly, the man is set up to do his job in the White House, and he’s well protected there: Why does he ever leave that place? Ditto for all the other world leaders. Why are we supposed to cut back when they do not?” Er, because travel restrictions, like taxes, are for the little people?
And why not stay home for fundraisers, which are not only carbon-explosions but also a net financial loser: “Deval Patrick received $600,000 from donors who wanted to lunch with Obama. Federal taxpayers probably spent at least $2 million on transportation and security for the President. Commoners suffered lost wages and productivity when they found subway stations closed, streets closed, their scheduled airline flight stopped at Logan, etc. Local flight schools alone suffered at least $10,000 in lost revenue. It would be a lot cheaper if we said that every day for the next 8 years the federal government will write a $1 million check to the person of Barack Obama’s choice and in return the President will agree to stay at his desk and work.”
Stay at his desk and work. I’m beginning to discern a theme here — but note that while the costs of Obama’s travel fall on all sorts of people, the benefits go where Obama steers them. Hey, maybe that’s a theme, too . . . .
SOME REAL TEA PARTY ACTIVISM IN CINCINNATI: Justin Binik-Thomas emails:
The Cincinnati Tea Party organized a four day demonstration to urge local congressman Steve Driehaus to vote against the Healthcare bill in the House. He is the only local representative who has not committed to a “ney” vote. We organized an unprecedented four-day “We Surround Him” demonstration to show our commitment to liberty and resolve on the issue.
The first three days of the demonstration were surrounding his district. We had members stationed at all busy exits around I-275 on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. These members passed out educational materials to vehicles and pedestrians. The finale was yesterday, Saturday, when we surrounded him. Members surrounded the Carew Tower in Cincinnati where his local office is located. We invited Congressman Driehaus and his 2010 opponent Steve Chabot to speak about Healthcare after the rally. The Congressman declined our invitation. Speakers offered solutions to the “crisis” such as allowing for the sale of insurance across state lines and tort reform.
Here’s a report, and here’s another. And, courtesy of Binik-Thomas, here’s a pic.
THE REASON FOR OBAMA’S THIN SKIN: “It truly didn’t matter what anyone said about W, because he had such a firmly established core being, it matters utterly what the critics say about the UR’s clothes, because there is no emperor.”
UPDATE: Reader J.R. Ott writes: “What is so absolutely fascinating to me as a teacher is that adults are learning how to keep government in check even as the public school system stifles any civics education.”
For some strange reason, I actually thought Marge would be a bit more randy on the pages of this magazine than she is on her hit TV show, “The Simpsons.”
You know, like maybe Playboy would broach the delicate question of Blue Hair Everywhere? Or give her a forum to expose Homer as a bumbling bedroom buffoon.
Silly me.
Well, Playboy isn’t what it used to be, and neither are most other magazines these days.
I wanted to tell you how impressed I am with your musical choices. Quite some time ago when you said you were listening to BT, I thought it was ‘cool’ but mostly unimpressed. If you haven’t run across it yet, there is an incredible amount of snobbery where it concerns electronica. I’ve fallen victim to this, having ‘graduated’ from Trance and moving on (and staying with) breaks, techno, minimal techno.
When I read that you were listening to Plump DJs, I was impressed. When you casually mention Luciano (Lucien Nicolet) I was stunned! He is one of my all-time favorite DJs, along with people like Loco Dice and Steve Bug. Most people wouldn’t even find this stuff — I’ve only found it after ten years (yikes!) going to clubs.
Where do you get your music from? . . . Also, you should consider going to DEMF in Detroit sometime. I think you’d enjoy the festival. I went this past May and couldn’t believe the diversity of the people there. You wouldn’t be the oldest by about 40 years! (There were walkers and wheelchairs!)
Well, my techno-production days are — well, not over, perhaps, but on hiatus; between the blog, the PJTV, and everything else, I don’t have time (or maybe it’s just neural processing) left to make music. But I try to keep up. People send me things, I poke around on the web, and I read MixMag etc. semi-regularly. I don’t, however, worry much about what’s “cool,” just about what I like since there’s nobody around here to impress anyway. . . . (I even like Crystal Method and Juno Reactor, both of whom are out of favor with the cool kids at present, I think. Is Anders Trentemoller still cool? I’m not even sure.) Still, I”m sure I miss more than I should but what can you do? “The tragedy of life is that not all values can be realized.” But once you’re realizing all you have time for, you can’t really complain . . . .
JENNIFER RUBIN: “I don’t know Joanne Lipman, whose op-ed in the New York Times asks the salient question: was 9-11 bad for women? Maybe she is a cagey humorist, a sly provocateur who seeks to remind us that for some victimologists, it’s always about their peculiar gripe. But I suspect Ms. Lipman is serious.”
ONSTAR IS WATCHING YOU: “On its way to doing the 1/4-mile in 11.07 seconds at 128 mph, a Hennessy-tuned 700-horsepower Cadillac CTS-V hit .99 longitudinal G as it left the start line. By the end of the run the phone inside the car was ringing, and it was your friendly neighborhood OnStar representative wondering ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Ok, not quite… but they did have some questions.” So is this comforting or disturbing?
IF YOU MISSED IT ON XM OR SIRIUS, the latest PJM Political is now online, with Fred Barnes, Stephen Green, Tim Pawlenty, Andrew Breitbart, Dana Loesch, and more.
NOT SEEING A STORY HERE: Various people are emailing me saying “Obama declared a national emergency over swine flu, but his own daughters aren’t being vaccinated!” But if you read the story, you get this:
The Centers for Disease Control recommend that children ages 6 months through 18 years of age receive a vaccination against the H1N1 flu virus. At this time only children with chronic medical conditions are receiving the vaccination because their immune system is not strong enough to fight off the strain.
So they’re not getting the vaccine because there’s a shortage, and they don’t fit the triage guidelines. Seems to me that’s just how it ought to be. It would be a bigger scandal if they’d been jumped ahead of the line.
UPDATE: On the other hand, this photo, from the huge shot-line in Milwaukee, is pretty funny. (Via Gateway Pundit). More on long lines here. And some related thoughts from Mark Tapscott. “President Obama’s late-night declaration of a nationwide public health emergency last night shouldn’t be allowed to obscure the most important lesson of the developing swine flu crisis – The same government that only weeks ago promised abundant supplies of swine flu vaccine by mid-October will be running your health care system under Obamacare.” But note the discussion here.
A key line that leaped out at me from your link to the Times story on prosecutors looking at journalism student’s grades was this:
“Every time the government starts attacking the messenger as opposed to the message, it can have a chilling effect,” said Barry C. Scheck, a pioneer of the Innocence Project in New York, …”
Fox News, anyone?
Hey, it’s the Chicago Way. But the parallel is pretty striking — if you don’t like what they’re reporting, why, then, they’re not really journalists!
UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch writes: “It’s more chilling than that. If they don’t like what a journalist is reporting, he/she isn’t really a person. Politics is getting that way, too.”
GENEROUS PAY for new Freddie Mac CFO. “The government-controlled mortgage finance company is giving CFO Ross Kari compensation worth as much as $5.5 million. That includes an almost $2 million cash signing bonus and a generous salary that could top $2.3 million.” It’s okay to pay him a lot. He works for the government. “Freddie Mac is not just another company. It’s alive today, and nearly 80 percent owned by the government, only because almost $51 billion in taxpayer funds were pumped into it over the last year. More bailout money also may be needed in the quarters ahead as losses from its troubled mortgages mount.”
SHOULD ISRAEL attack Iran? The alternative would seem to involve waiting for Iran to attack Israel. If I were the Israelis, I’d inform a lot of influential countries in the region that they were targeted for nukes should Israel cease to exist, and then let them take care of the problem. But hey, that’s just me. No doubt “smart diplomacy” has a different solution.
U.K. ECONOMY: Record Recession. “It is the first time UK gross domestic product (GDP) has contracted for six consecutive quarters, since quarterly figures were first recorded in 1955.”
Troy had heard the reputation that the 555 California Building’s security guards had for hassling photographers, so he tried out the experiment of photographing (legally) the building, and was met by potty-mouth security guards who threatened to break his “fucking camera” and punch him in the face. A rep from property managers Voranado Realty later apologized and said that this wasn’t “typical of our security team.”
I think a lawsuit is in order. I also think people should go by and photograph these guys daily. But when I first saw the headline, I thought there were 555 security guards. Now that would have made an impressive picture . . . .
ED MORRISSEY: Who Lost France? “Barack Obama campaigned on restoring America’s standing with its allies, accusing the outgoing Bush administration of insulting and alienating our closest friends with his alleged unilateralism. How has Obama done as President? He has repeatedly insulted the British, insisting that there is no ‘special relationship’ and demonstrating it by denying Gordon Brown the usual joint press conference on his visit to the US. Reuters reports that another close ally has taken the measure of Obama and started looking elsewhere for cooperation.”
FROM “YES WE CAN,” TO maybe we can’t. “The recently elected Democratic President of the United States can’t fill a room in bluest Massachusetts.”
To be fair, it was a fundraiser for Deval Patrick, one of the most unpopular governors in America. Of course, that raises its own issues. Plus, why it’s a good thing that Boston is a two-newspaper town.
JEFF JARVIS IS BLOGGING — with great honesty and eloquence — about prostate cancer, leading the Insta-Wife to wonder why there’s so much more attention given to breast cancer than prostate cancer. (It’s the boobies, I’m pretty sure.) Anyway, there’s a Boobiethon for breast cancer, but there’s no Prostate-a-thon. But there is a mustache campaign to raise money for prostate cancer research. You’re supposed to grow a ’70s porn mustache, but if that’s embarrassing you can always tell ‘em it’s a Lucien Nicolet techno ‘stache. Only the cognoscenti can spot the subtle difference anyway . . . .
MELISSA CLOUTHIER: Sarah Palin Strikes Back. “With her decision to endorse Doug Hoffman, the conservative (not Republican) candidate, Sarah Palin sends the Republican Party a very clear message.”
But Mickey Kaus wonders if it’s all trumped-up. I think, though, that the reason they’re not bothering to distinguish between H1N1 and seasonal flu is that at the moment, there isn’t really any seasonal flu yet. If it’s flu, it’s swine flu.
And more skepticism from Michael Fumento. Plus, several readers think this is a case of Rahm “never let a crisis go to waste” Emanuel at work — declare a health crisis and it makes national health care look somehow more urgent. But while I discount the “Swine Flu Vaccine Is Obama’s Katrina” talk, their handling so far isn’t something I’d put forward as an actual argument for more government involvement in health-care delivery.
More here, including the full text of Obama’s order.
THOUGHTS ON the legal regime for mining the moon. And the full paper by Richard Bilder is here. It’s very interesting, though for reasons expressed at some length here I am not as sanguine regarding the Moon Treaty.
SHOCKER: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PAY GETS CUT: “The best and brightest find better-paying jobs elsewhere because they are the best and brightest. What does that leave behind? Usually, either people who can’t afford to check out because of their age, or people who simply can’t compete in the open job market because of a lack of marketable skills, accomplishment, or experience. Of course, this describes exactly what has happened to the firms in which American taxpayers have invested hundreds of billions of dollars.”
THE WAGES OF LOUSY MAINSTREAM POLITICS: One fifth of electorate consider voting BNP. “The YouGov poll, taken hours after the BBC show aired, indicates that 22% of people in this country would ‘seriously consider’ voting for the far-right party in an upcoming election.” I believe that the BNP’s appeal stems from a sense that New Labour, and the Tories, are unable or unwilling to deal with problems like aggressive Islamism and economic decline, that ordinary Brits find troubling. I’m not sure if ineffectual liberalism is actually a precondition for fascism, but it certainly doesn’t help matters.
UPDATE: Jim Bennett emails:
Glenn — The aspect of the BNP surge in the Uk that keeps getting missed is that the UK has had a perfectly reasonable, not even vaguely fascist conservative-libertarian third party — the UK Independence Party — for quite a while. It was trashed and tarred as “fascist” and equivalent to continental parties such as Le Pen’s. Now they have a real fascist party…
STIMULUS! St. Petersburg Times: “In an economy where there is a pressing need to help the growing ranks of jobless in manufacturing, public safety, technology and construction, it seems the height of folly for $2.3 million in federal economic stimulus grants to be targeted to train more hairstylists, nail technicians and masseuses in the Tampa Bay area.”
I find all these poll numbers fit very neatly within the same change in viewpoint, which perhaps is best summed up by:
January: Hooray, we’re saved!
Now: Holy crap, these guys don’t have a frickin’ clue about anything, do they?
Every once in a while, the cult of the expert implodes in this country, and the bulk of the citizenry stops believing in anything they say, whether it’s about health care, the economy, or climate change. A mulish conviction that it’s all being made up on the fly to feather well-connected nests sets in.
Yes, I think that could be the way things are moving.
HAD SUSHI LAST NIGHT with J. Storrs Hall, nanotechnology luminary, President of the Foresight Institute, and author of Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine, and Nanofuture: What’s Next for Nanotechnology. I’d never met him before, though we’ve corresponded and I’ve reviewed his books. But sooner or later, everyone comes to Knoxville — in his case, for the AGI Roadmap conference!
HEH: “I’d advise Mohammed El Baradei’s surviving colleagues to take the elevator, but then again the aunt of Kofi Annan’s discredited sidekick Benon Sevan fell to her death accidentally stepping into an empty elevator shaft shortly before she was due to be questioned about the Oil-for-Food scandal. If you work at the UN, get a gig on the ground floor.”
NATHAN MYRHVOLD on global warming politics. “The way you deal with things you don’t know about is to research them! That’s what we are advocating.” Well, there’s your problem.
“WHITE AMERICANS DO NOT REALIZE HOW BLACK THEY ARE.” Well, possibly. I mean, unless they’ve heard of Elvis, or Rock ‘n’ Roll, or something. Or unless “Pat Buchanan” and “White Americans” are identity sets. Which to a certain class of know-nothing they may seem.
CNN POLITICAL TICKER:DEMOCRAT BLASTS WHITE HOUSE FOR ANONYMOUS SNIPING. “A well-known Democratic strategist in Virginia is blasting the White House for placing anonymous quotes in the Washington Post in a pre-emptive effort to blame Creigh Deeds for what might be a loss in the state’s upcoming gubernatorial election.” The Democratic Party as a “bruised brand?”
SHUT UP, THEY EXPLAINED: Jonah Goldberg on the new calls for civility in politics. “What strikes me as truly uncivil is the effort to demonize critics of the president with racial bullying. In fact, I think Obama really does have a problem with dissent. . . . On health care he’s been saying the time for debating his plan is over, even though the president didn’t even have a plan to debate.”
BARACK OBAMA gets cold shoulder in Massachusetts. “President Obama blows into the bluest state today facing a cold shoulder from once true-blue admirers, as gay rights activists, anti-war protesters and vexed environmentalists vow to picket a fund-raiser he’s headlining for Gov. Deval Patrick – a marquee event that hasn’t even sold out.” Well, if you want to talk unpopular, forget Obama. It’s Deval.
THE WHITE HOUSE’S REAL PROBLEM WITH FOX: “What most bothered the White House about Fox is that it caused inconvenient reporting by other news organizations. . . . In other words, their problem is not that Fox isn’t a real news organization, their problem is that it is.”
