The Golden Gate

Our local paper — the venerable San Francisco Chronicle has started to feature the work of the excellent Victor Davis Hanson. This is a big step forward, as the Chron’s lefty editorial page now gets a regular infusion — however infrequent — of the anti-Islamofascist perspective. Granted, that the Chron features the likes of like Molly Ivins and Robert Scheer — both “traditional leftists” — much more frequently. Nevertheless, I welcome the move towards more balance and inclusion.

You can count on Hanson — a military historian and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University — for thoughtful commentary on a wide range of matters.

One of his latest pieces, which ran in the Chron the other day, focuses on the new round of Bush nominations including John Bolton, whom Jason talked about a little bit previously.

John Bolton, the hawk on North Korea, was named ambassador to the U.N. This was not a gesture calculated to show that a contrite United States was now seeking accommodation with the U.N. hierarchy; Bolton is expected, rather, to deploy his tough talk and iron spine to shake up a corrupt institution reeling from scandals. Nor was Paul Wolfowitz relegated to the World Bank as punishment for his neo-Wilsonian stance in the Middle East: He was elevated to the institution’s presidency precisely to inject that same sort of democratic idealism into determining the extension or withdrawal of international loans.

Another recent piece makes the excellent point that the United States ought not to expect — nor strive — to be liked:

Last year the hysteria about the hostility toward the United States reached a fevered pitch. Everyone from Jimmy Carter to our Hollywood elite lamented that America had lost its old popularity. It was a constant promise of the Kerry campaign to restore our good name and “to work with our allies.” The more sensitive were going to undo the supposed damage of the last four years. Whole books have been devoted to this peculiar new anti-Americanism, but few have asked whether or not such suspicion of the United States is, in fact, a barometer of what we are doing right — and while not necessarily welcome, at least proof that we are on the correct track.

It’s nice to have a voice like Hanson’s in our local “paper of record.” Check him out, regularly.

You know you want it.

This from the man who ran the Bush Cheney Blog during the campaign, so it is legit. Patrick Ruffini Gives us W’s iPod playlist here. and for you people who just want the screenshot it is here.

Methinks you may be surprised.

I would say this is ironic and amusing accept that is so sad and entirely inexcusable that I am–and I am seldom so–I am actually appalled:

Read the whole thing here: City finds popular gay night club discriminated against blacks

But here is an excerpt:

A bar owner in the predominantly gay Castro neighborhood violated numerous city civil rights codes by discriminating against black patrons, the San Francisco Human Rights Commission announced Tuesday.

The case has been closely watched by the city’s gay community, many of whom said they were incredulous that an establishment in what’s considered one of the country’s most progressive and socially liberal neighborhoods would actively keep black customers out of the popular nightspot Badlands.

In particular, the commission said club owner Les Natali referred to blacks as “non-Badlands customers” who should be discouraged from patronizing the club.

It is not even that this is a progressive and socially liberal city. It is that while the gay community here fights for equal rights in terms of same-sex-marriage, all the while using the analogy of how the right used to be against interracial marriage, they are discriminating against Blacks. Methinks this is an all-time hypocritical low. I am stunned. Really stunned.

Muslim Man Convicted of Urging Holy War

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - An Islamic scholar who prosecutors said enjoyed “rock star” status among a group of young Muslim men in Virginia was convicted Tuesday of exhorting his followers in the days after Sept. 11 to join the Taliban and fight U.S. troops.

The convictions against Ali al-Timimi, 41, carry a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison without parole. But the judge left open the possibility that she will toss out some of the counts.

The jury reached its verdict after seven days of deliberations and convicted al-Timimi of all 10 counts.

Prosecutors said the defendant — a native U.S. citizen who has an international following in some Muslim circles — wielded enormous influence among a group of young Muslim men in northern Virginia who played paintball games in 2000 and 2001 as a means of training for holy war around the globe.

Five days after Sept. 11, al-Timimi addressed a small group of his followers in a secret meeting and warned that the attacks were a harbinger of a final apocalyptic battle between Muslims and non-believers. He said they were required as Muslims to defend the Taliban from a looming U.S. invasion, according to the government.

While nobody ever joined the Taliban, four of the defendant’s followers subsequently traveled to Pakistan in late September 2001 and trained with a militant group called Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Three of them testified that their intention had been to use the training they received from the group to join the Taliban and fight in Afghanistan, and that it was al-Timimi’s speech that inspired them to do so.

The evidence included a 2003 e-mail in which al-Timimi described the Columbia shuttle disaster as “a good omen” that “Western supremacy (especially that of America) that began 500 years ago is coming to an end, God willing.”

Via LGF

Interesting.

Some enterprising folks have created an online “game” of sorts where you can go and try your hand at balancing the California budget, by making various trade-offs between different types of spending and taxation. They’ve used the real numbers and projections from the California Legislature.

Give it a try, and let us know in a comment how your budget solution comes out.

UPDATE: Jason adds: I took the challenge. With the “status quo” in year ten the deficit will be $-12.1 billion. WIth my policy choices we would have a $10B surplus. But I’ll tell you what, this test is very broad stroke. Cool concept tho. I just wanna know: when does multiple choice selection of programs we want to fund or not get included on our income tax forms? The programs citizens do not want to fund get axed. period.

You gotta love Mark Steyn. Well, you don’t have to, but I do. Not sure if you’ve been following the Bolton Senate hearings in re his nomination to the UN Ambassadorship. Here is Steyn on it:

Britain’s Daily Telegraph had an intriguing headline the other day: “U.S. police force to recruit capuchin monkey for ‘intelligence’ work.” Maybe when the Mesa, Ariz., SWAT team is through with the monkey in question, we could get him made chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He’d have his work cut out doing a worse job than Dick Lugar, the Republican senator who spent the last week getting walloped by a freak show alliance comprising (a) an opposition party whose foreign policy the electorate decided it was unable to take seriously and (b) jelly-spined GOP “moderates” who insist on taking it seriously. And so it was that John Bolton’s nomination to the U.N. was derailed by this guy Voinovich.

As Shakespeare didn’t quite say, who is Voinovich? What is he? Well, he’s a fellow called George, and he’s apparently a senator from Ohio who’s on this Foreign Relations Committee. He was, alas, unable to interrupt his hectic schedule to attend either of the committee’s hearings for John Bolton’s U.N. nomination, but nevertheless decided last week he could not bring himself to support Bolton’s nomination. “My conscience got me,” he said. Maybe one day his conscience will get him to attend the hearings he’s paid to attend, but, for the moment, his conscience is more troubled by the story brought up by the senior Democratic obstructionist Joe Biden. As Sen. Biden put it, “The USAID worker in Kyrgyzstan alleges that she was harassed — not sexually harassed — harassed by Mr. Bolton.”

This was a decade ago, in some hotel. John Bolton allegedly chased this woman down a corridor in a non-sexual manner. It’s not clear from Biden whether he would have approved had she been chased down the corridor in a sexual manner, as the 42nd president was wont to do. But the non-sexual harassment was instead about policy matters relating to Kyrgyzstan. Maybe Bolton was in a foul mood or maybe he was in a vowel mood and, this being Kyrgyzstan, they didn’t have any. But this is what the pitiful constitutional travesty of the Senate’s “advise and consent” role has now dwindled down to: a sex scandal with no sex. All talk and no action. Only in America, folks. Or, to be more precise, only in the U.S. Senate.

First off, I will say that this woman is ardently anti-Bush. A member of mother’s against Bush or some such organization. But putting that aside–let’s say she is telling the truth irrespective of the fact that there are no witnesses. This was ten years ago. Maybe–just maybe–they guy is mildly better inter-personally.

But that is really not the issue. We have the UN–and organization rotten from the inside out–and frankly, we need an ass-kicker in there. Someone who is clear, unapologetic, who will make that house of cards tumble if the corruption and cronyism continues. Bolton is that guy. Oh yes–and someone on the side of –*gasp*– the US, the Country he is representing in the World Body.

Of course, when organizations like BBC manufacture news that is in alignment with their political leanings, they are only expediting their own demise–and it is a shame.

The BBC was last night plunged into a damaging general election row after it admitted equipping three hecklers with microphones and sending them into a campaign meeting addressed by Michael Howard, the Conservative leader.

Go read the whole thing.

Hat Tip: LGF

Rupert Murdoch, King of Media, said:

“I BELIEVE too many of us editors and reporters are out of touch with our readers,” Rupert Murdoch, the boss of News Corporation, one of the world’s largest media companies, told the American Society of Newspaper Editors last week. No wonder that people, and in particular the young, are ditching their newspapers. Today’s teens, twenty- and thirty-somethings “don’t want to rely on a god-like figure from above to tell them what’s important,” Mr Murdoch said, “and they certainly don’t want news presented as gospel.” And yet, he went on, “as an industry, many of us have been remarkably, unaccountably, complacent.”

The Economist has some analysis. Jeff Jarvis thinks it’s a tipping point. Glenn Reynolds agrees

If you have been living in a cave, you may not be aware that all of the Security Council members who were against the war in Iraq were doing shady deals with Saddam via the Oil for Food program–a program sold as intended to feed and bring pharmaceuticals to children in Iraq hurt by the sanctions. Well, it appears everyone was in on it who was a major player except the US and Britain. Now it appears even the US lead investigator, Paul Volcker, was in bed with the Annans. It is time for a thorough house-cleaning at the UN. The blogger that has this focus is Roger L Simon , a screen writer, mystery novel writer, and blogger from LA. Another 9/12 Democrat. Check him out. he is reasoned, clear, and darn likable.

UPDATE: here is his latest as of this writing.

It was my intention when we began this blog to have far more original writing on it. At least from me. And with all the personal stuff as well as my focus on building a business exploring a new love interest, and now having the flu over the last 10 days, this hobby is feeling a lot less like an outlet and more like a task or a duty. Less like fun and more like work–which was the last thing I expected.

I have even considered folding my part of it until I had more free time. It really is just a matter of focus and where my attention is best spent right now at what is shaping up to be a wonderfully critical time [in a good way] for my career/purpose.

No conclusions yet–just sharing my process around this young endeavor.

On the other hand, what’s to celebrate, anyway? Our ecosystem is on the verge of collapse, thanks to Bush. His Big Oil Buddies are drilling in the once pristine Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. The rotting corpses of dead CIA agents are polluting the once pristine waters of the Tigris River. Carcinogens are polluting the once pristine follicles of Jane Fonda’s hair. The ice caps are melting, Mt. St. Helens is erupting, and human fingers are springing out of our once pristine chili. The whole wyrld is going to hell in a non-biodegradable handbasket and that CHIMP doesn’t even give a damn. One would think that SElected peeResident in thiEF could find a little time in his busy schedule to come down off the mountain and celebrate an international celebration of peace and love with the little Whos of Whoville. But then again, he probably couldn’t get Pat Robertson’s permission.

One thing’s for certain: a President Ralph Nader would never have been so consumed by superstitious religious beliefs that he’d be afraid to wear flowers in his hair and dance naked amongst the sacred ferns with the Elders of the Olde Way. Then again, Ralph Nader doesn’t get his kicks pouring barrels of arsenic into our drinking supply.

My clinical depression notwithstanding, I did get up enough gumption to participate in some Earth Day activies. Every year, a bunch of us from Seattle Hemp Products like to spend the day doing something to make the world a greener place for our chemically lobotomized children - although every year Bush does his best to spoil it. Last year, we planted 30 young trees along a nearby riverbank. Overnight, Republicans crept in, gnawed down every single tree, and dragged them into the river. A week later, the entire parking lot was under a foot of water. If the destruction of just 30 trees was enough to melt the ice caps and flood our parking lot, just think of what Bush’s wholesale destruction of entire forests are doing to our precious planet.

This year, we decided to chase away our doldrums by marching to city hall on our lunch break and having a Prayer Circle for Peace. There’s a large lawn in front of the building, and we found a nice shady spot of grass unspoiled by man. But no sooner had we assumed the lotus position than a pair of undocumented landscapers began cursing at us in español.

“I think they want to mow the lawn,” said Phil from Accounting.

“Fantastic,” I spat. “Can’t we spend just one day out of the year without devastating our precious natural resources?”

go read the rest over at Blame Bush.

From Cox & Forkum

I don’t watch television except for the occasional game on a TV in a local sports bar–usually during the playoffs. But I have been able to catch Jon Stewart here and there on the web. This story takes him and his popularity on:

While all this is certainly heady for Stewart and his fans, what does it mean? After all, the fair-minded viewer might find the half-hour show intermittently humorous, but he won’t detect anything “fearless” or even especially original in it. In truth, Stewart’s elevation to near-iconic status says more about those doing the elevating than about the comedian himself. His “bravery” and much-vaunted grasp of political nuance consists mostly of his embrace of every reflexive assumption shared by every litmus-tested liberal holding forth at every chic Manhattan dinner party.

Those assumptions cover everything from the Religious Right (scary) to easy sex (yummy), but Stewart’s Number One obsession, like that of many of his fans, is President George W. Bush. Almost every major event Stewart deals with, foreign or domestic, is an excuse for Bush derision. Depending on the story at hand, the president is a reckless cowboy or a devious schemer, an inept fool or an immoral knave. Pressed, Stewart would probably be comfortable with all of the above. Often, Stewart will simply show a brief clip of the president speaking, then silently react, his look showing bewilderment or dismay, as his audience, their own contempt for all things Bush once again confirmed, erupts in laughter.

Go read the whole thing.

The caption:

Diana Ponce talks on a phone in the yard of her San Pablo home Wednesday, the fifth day of a hunger strike to protest the gathering of armed volunteers, the Minuteman Project, at the Arizona-Mexico border to keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States. Chronicle photo by John O’Hara

Photo credit: SF Chronicle

I could make up my own caption, but discretion is the better part of valor. I do wonder, though–does she see the irony?

From CNN:

Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in the United States in the terrorism conspiracy behind the September 11, 2001, attacks, pleaded guilty Friday to all terror charges against him.

I find the argument advanced by the defense lawyers — that Moussaoui was in jail prior to 9/11 and therefore “didn’t kill anybody” — to be laughable. Moussaoui has admitted to having detailed advanced knowledge of the plot and therefore is clearly culpable as an accessory.

On the other hand, I do not think that the death penalty is right outcome — for many different reasons, not the least of which is that death (martyrdom) is what these Islamofascists seek.

No, far better to lock him up and throw away the key.

UPDATE: Jason adds: he pleaded guilty before and rescinded it, leading to an examination of his mental fitness. Let’s hope this time it sticks.

Click here for a deeper understanding of why North Korea is the worker’s paradise. [Adult themes]

Hat tip: The Marmot’s Hole

This is the kind of thing that just makes you cringe.

I love the term “therapism,” by the way.

UPDATE: Jason adds: This is a great story, mostly because the writer gets how ridiculous this trend is in America and like most things politically [liberal] popular, this trend will have the reverse of the intended effect. It also demonstrates how little people understand about true self-esteem and how self-reliance is one of its major underpinnings.

And the hits just keep on coming.

In his latest installment, Hanson he thoroughly de-bunks the policies of US Foreign Policy “experts” who apparently would not conceive of anything much different than the status quo for the Middle East, but who are only too ready to sneer at and denigrate George W. Bush’s campaign to bring democracy to the region. (nod to Random Jottings.)

For the last year, such well-meaning former “wise people” [Madelene Albright, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Brent Scowcroft] have pretty much assured us that the Bush doctrine will not work and that the Arab world is not ready for Western-style democracy, especially when fostered through Western blood and iron.

But too often we discuss the present risky policy without thought of what preceded it or what might have substituted for it. Have we forgotten that the messy business of democracy was the successor, not the precursor, to a litany of other failed prescriptions? Or that there were never perfect solutions for a place like the Middle East — awash as it is in oil, autocracy, fundamentalism, poverty, and tribalism — only choices between awful and even more awful? Or that September 11 was not a sudden impulse on the part of Mohammed Atta, but the logical culmination of a long simmering pathology? Or that the present loudest critics had plenty of chances to leave something better than the mess that confronted the United States on September 12? Or that at a time of war, it is not very ethical to be sorta for, sorta against, kinda supportive, kinda critical of the mission — all depending on the latest sound bite from Iraq?
[...]
The past ostracism of Arafat and the removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, followed by democratic engagement, will bring eventual stability to the Middle East and enhance the security of the United States. After the failures of all our present critics, this new policy of promoting American values is our last, best hope. And the president will be rewarded long after he leaves office by the verdict of history for nobly sticking to it when few others, friend or foe, would.

Exactly.

Make sure you read the whole thing. It’s another Hanson gem.

Legions of deeply spiritual media pundits, academics, & Hollywood celebrities expressed dismay over the Vatican’s controversial decision to elect a Catholic as the new Pope. “I was hoping for Deepak Chopra or Maya Angelou,” Oprah Winfrey said. “Ratzinger is not a brand name. As a living legend, I can tell you packaging is everything.”

Go read the whole thing.

Hat tip: Logical Meme

Still down with the flu, but starting to come back around…

—

By now you’ve probably heard of how the ruling Liberal Party in Canada is being brought down by its own corruption. There is a good summary here. You can read quite a bit via the blogger mentioned in that story here. Just keep scrolling. It has been his focus for some time. His latest is here. You can see the Chinese reporting on it here.

Cafe Hayek offers a good wrap-up contrasting the American Dream with the Scandinavian Day Dream.

Well, I shot out to the East Coast for a quickie weekend visit — starting with an eeearrrrrlllly flight on Friday morning. Which is why you haven’t been hearing from me for a couple of days. While on my trip, I was dismayed to find that TreoBlogging — posting to the blog using my Treo 600 Smartphone — did NOT work as I’d hoped it would. Quite surprising, actually — I had successfully tested out TreoBlogging a couple of times before The Golden Gate went live just under five weeks ago. (Aside: hey! We’ve been doing this for a whole month, now!)

Anyhow, on my trip, I found to my great dismay that the text I’d enter would get inexplicably cut off or munged with garbage characters as it was published out to the site. Attempts to clean up or extend such posts after the fact were frustratingly unsucessful. What happened? Well, I’m not sure. But what’s become annoyingly clear is that for posts of less than 80 characters or so (like my test posts), it works fine — the problem crops up in posts which are longer than ~80 characters! Dang! So, that’s why there was no TreoBlogging from me over the weekend. I’ll continue to work on this. I’d love to have totally 24/7 mobile blogging ability that’s as close as my mobile phone and not dependent on WiFi acess and all that entails.

So, this post is partly a report and partly a request for help. In short: does anybody out there have any experience posting to a blog via their Treo? Please shoot me a personal communication. TreoBlogging will be a very cool functionality, once I can get it to work correctly.

As for the trip itself, it involved family and, yes, baseball. And it was GREAT — apart from the technical snafu already described.

UPDATE: I found a couple of other mentions of TreoBlogging on Google. Interestingly, these all seem to be test posts!

Dave over at Logical Meme has a great blog. It is in my top 5 for the depth he goes to in his posts [just deep enough] and the scope of issues and topics he addresses. Go check him out and just keep scrolling. It is all good.

Here is a recent piece on the “Flat Tax Revolution”. Enjoy.

I posted this back on 2/25 on an email list I am on. Thought it should be here:

—

“They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.”–Benjamin Franklin

This is for those of you who are “Americans”. In other words you value freedom and liberty from external edict over anything else and you are clear that to impose your world-view on your fellow citizen is a fundamental affront to that liberty. It is in your blood.

And regardless of how you experience that or how high of a value it is for you, you are affected by the events below.

–

The current Justice administration has stated that aside from the War on Terror, stopping the distribution of “extreme pornography” is one of their highest priorities. Hmmm. Extreme to who? By what standard? Which is the very crux of the problem with obscenity laws–it is unclear by what standard.

The first act of the Gonzales Justice Dept. was to reinstate an obscenity case that had recently been dismissed by a Federal judge. You can see the brief here:

http://tinyurl.com/4og5z

If you are unfamiliar with the details, the Feds are trying to prosecute Extreme Associates [its husband and wife executive team] for distributing pornography in violation of obscenity laws [they mailed it to Pennsylvania] via the interstate commerce provisions in Title 18.

What this means is that some person in Pennsylvania went [and can go] on the web and made a legal purchase to enjoy in the comfort of their own home and the company who makes a _legal product_ is being [and will be] prosecuted.

You can download the actual filing in PDF here.

While dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster of western Pennsylvania ruled in January that “the government can no longer rely on the advancement of a moral code, i.e., preventing consenting adults from entertaining lewd and lascivious thoughts as a legitimate, let alone a compelling, state interest.”

No shit. Exactly. And it never should have been a legitimate state interest. Not in a free society. And this is a judge from Pennsylvania where the product was purchased–locale is an important factor in obscenity laws.

Gonzales has stated he wants to protect the children from this kind of product [he has two small boys and feels it is too easy to get these products]. He also has made the assertion that pornography is not protected under the 1st amendment. Unfortunately, from what I have heard from good constitutional sources who are basically libertarians and do not support govt legislating morality, he is right. It was only intended to protect political speech. It of course has been widely interpreted to protect all forms of speech and expression regardless of others’ discomfort. Lets keep it that way.

Let’s protect the children from the real danger–having the State tell them what they can and can not view or experience or purchase in a consensual context where all parties are consenting adults in consensual acts. Of course, that is not desiring security over liberty. That is just plain liberty. And me using their own frame against them–the only way to debate someone who invokes “protecting the children” and not look like a heartless asshole.

Irrespective of the fact that I think Extreme Associates produces a pretty good product–not the best, but damn good–in their genre, if The Feds succeed in this case it will have sweeping ramifications in all matters of web commerce, personal freedoms, and consensual acts. Do not underestimate how pivotal this case is.

While some people make adult films of acts I would not want to participate in, and do not support, it would be ludicrous of me to assert that someone should not be able to make and sell that legal product to another person who enjoys it–provided the acts recorded are also consensual. I do not want to be paying my representatives [the Bush Admin is currently representing you, me, us, like it or not] to do so. It is a waste of resources and an affront to freedom across the board. Let’s send a message to Bushco to spend their “political capital” where it can actually make a difference.

The Founding fathers may well be rolling over in their graves if they saw what we indulge in. However, they are spinning and moaning in their graves with respect to the federalization and centralization that has been slowly and consistently advancing [and which is now accelerating] in this Country.

True liberty is not an idea whose time has passed. It is an idea whose time has not yet come, apparently. We vote yearly to decrease our freedoms. Stop the progressive deterioration. Let’s do it now.

A brilliant piece by the always stimulating Mark Steyn appears in this weekend’s edition of the Spectator (UK).

(Note: the Spectator site requires registration, which you can avoid by going here.)

Steyn accurately diagnoses the dysfunction and snobbery inherent in large, centrally-planned beuracruacies like those that plague the EU and UN. It’s a long-ish piece, but well worth the read.

Here’s a taste:

One of the curious trends of the modern world is that even as the UN, EU and other transnational elites demand that our politics become ever more centralised and homogenised and one-size-fits-all, successful business operations are decentralising: they’re practising corporate federalism. If you order a laptop custom-built to your precise specifications with the features you want, Dell will assemble it with components made by US, British, Irish, German, Japanese, Israeli, South Korean, Taiwanese, Thai and Chinese companies at factories located in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, China, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Mexico and Costa Rica; it will be assembled in Penang on a Monday and arrive in Nashville by Thursday.

For the purposes of comparison, the UN has far more cash swilling about, and its global network predates Dell’s by half a century; yet, when the tsunami hit, it took not four days but four weeks for its staff to establish a presence at Banda Aceh. Dell’s ‘coalition’ is pretty eclectic — capitalist, Eurostatist, Chinese Communist, Chinese Nationalist, Latin, Anglophone, Jewish, Muslim — yet it functions harmoniously. Meanwhile, all that that pompous Norwegian who heads up the UN humanitarian bureaucracy could do was give press conferences in New York hectoring the developed world for its ‘stinginess’, so every Western government promptly dipped into its taxpayers’ pockets and threw more money at the pompous Norwegian than he can ever usefully spend, and the only result will be that, when the next tsunami hits, it’ll take ’em even longer to get to the scene, but the pompous Norwegian will be able to give even more hectoring press conferences, perhaps with lavish visual aids.

Read the whole thing.

If you’re stuck with inferior technology, you might as well make it look pretty. Check this stuff out. Uber-cool.

Makes me almost wish I weren’t using Panther. Almost. Of course with Tiger coming out IN 15 DAYS, it is not even a close call.

It is tax day tomorrow. Which means that rather than weep at the thought of how the gov’t is taking money from you by force, it is best to laugh it all off–lest we become libertarian revolutionaries and take up arms like those whacky founding fathers did.

So… here is a balanced look at taxes from the not-so-balanced IMAO. Here’s a sample:

What effect would a national sales tax have on the poor who pay no income taxes now?

Left Side - If the poor have nothing now they will have even less. It would cause them to riot in the streets and hunt down and kill Republicans. Hmm maybe the sales tax is a good idea after all. Wait, no we are usually rioting, I mean protesting peacefully, in the streets. If they saw my “[bleep] Bush” T-shirt they might think I meant it literally and in a nice way and murder/death/kill me as well. But yes they will riot, committing acts of violence and mayhem that will ultimately be the fault of the Right for supporting such a vile perversion. If you are wondering what kinds of acts of violence and mayhem they are likely to commit. Buy my book ‘Acts of Violence and Mayhem: A How To… With Pictures!”. I have a comprehensive listing.

Right Side - A positive one, under a consumer intended national sales tax everything anybody buys would end up being cheaper. Why? Because the income tax is built into the price of everything. I would show you the math but it’s really, really hard math.

Off Side - Give every adult citizen, not currently in prison, a, what’s the poverty line? $15,000? tax free card every year. This way the poor’s lives could remain the same and they could continue to siphon the life out of America in under-employed bliss as they do right now. Everybody else would get a break utill they broke through the poverty level spending ceiling. Everybody wins! Even losers!

You know you want to read the rest.

Whoa — so, I’ve known for some time that, fairly often, things in the City of San Francisco don’t work right. Streets are freqeuntly left cratered and dirty; many parks languish un-maintained. Having to do ANYTHING associated with the City “Services” usually causes people to roll their eyes and make the kinds of faces usually associated with the news “you’re going to need a root canal.”

But, man — I didn’t know it went to THIS level. Check this out, from Mike DeNunzio’s piece in the San Francisco Sentinel “The Need for Civil Service Reform” :

The civil service rules that govern San Franciscos City workers were established over a century ago. As San Francisco grew, the number of City employees also grew, and so did the rules. Mayor Newsom has said, “the system is Byzantine, and to defend it is beyond common sense.” The mayor is right! City government has become an overly centralized bureaucracy. It is excessive, inefficient, and unsustainable in its costs, including salaries, benefits and pensions.

San Francisco now has 50 different contract agreements, with rigid definitions for 1,100 job classifications, they include 46 secretarial positions. The Job classifications also cover employees who work for the SFUSD, the community college, and the local courts. Despite recent cutbacks, San Francisco has 26,400 employees, one for every 29 residents, and their salary and benefit package exceeds the private sector.

(Follow the link & scroll down to read the entire thing.)

1,100 separate civil service classifications? 46 different grades of secretaries? That’s just plain ludicrous. A cynic might say that such bloat only exists to force the city to hire far more workers than necessary. In any event, it certainly seems needlessly complex and inefficient. One City employee for every 29 residents would seem to be far too many. And yet, ironically, much of the time, so much seems to go undone — or gets done late or poorly.

It’s time to make a change. There is a “Civil Service Reform” movement gathering steam in San Francisco. Big Labor and the status quo politicians are the 800 pound gorilla in this town, and it will be interesting to see how the reform movement takes shape.

DiNunzio offers some specific, sensible proposals as to what should be done:

Surely the unions must represent the interests of the employees, and likewise the administration must represent the taxpayers; but it is the voters who must approve any administrative changes, ordinances and charter amendments. Some new rules and reforms should include:

Job classifications should be reduced from 1100.

Eligibility time for health benefits should be lengthened.

“Bumping” rights during layoffs should be restricted.

Performance reviews should be increased.

Discharge of employees during probation should be facilitated.

Managers should have greater say in promotions and layoffs.

Where appropriate certain services should be privatized.

And, just last Sunday, the Chronicle gave its own overview of the current situation and the Civil Service Reform movement.

Looks like a a dustup may be on the horizon. The question as to how our City works (or doesn’t) likely hinges on the outcome.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Jason adds: 1 City employee for every 29 residents?! You must be fucking kidding me. Let’s make that an 8,000,000 pound gorilla.

This guy is one of my favorite strategists, and as I have said before if you are not reading/seeing/listening to Dr Barnett, then you can not truly understand what is happening in the world and the Middle East today. At least your understanding will be horribly partial and incomplete without his thinking. He does regular news analysis on his blog. Here is a sample of it:

China builds a military that’s clearly designed to counter our ability to do whatever we damn well please in Asia. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Doesn’t being the world’s Leviathan mean we get to have everyone unable to stand up to us no matter what we do or where we do it? No, it just means it’s impossible to wage war successfully unless the U.S. agrees to that proposition. That’s real power all right, it’s just not unlimited with regard to our own desires. Being Leviathan doesn’t mean you’re God, just that you can prevent anyone else from assuming that role on anything significant.

When someone gets to the point of accumulating power that calls into question your ability on some specific issue, then you have to start viewing both the rising power and the issue in question differently. We are not doing this yet. We see only the danger, not the possibility. We ask, Will China “behave” in the Gulf? Hopefully not like America does! One Big Banger in the region is enough, I would say.

China’s just waking up to a world in which the Core relies on the unstable regions of the Gap for its short-term economic security via energy. You can change that dependency if you want, but it will take some time. Other route is to work the issue with military, but that’s takes a military, now doesn’t it? We’ve got one, so we work it. China doesn’t, so it’s getting one. Sound odd to you? Sounds pretty “real” to me.

I suggest checking him out on a regular basis.

“It is only thus that one can understand how it was possible for people to go so far as to reproach liberalism [libertarianism] for its “hostility” or enmity towards the state. If I am of the opinion that it is inexpedient to assign to the government the task of operating railroads, hotels, or mines, I am not an “enemy of the state” any more than I can be called an enemy of sulfuric acid because I am of the opinion that, useful though it may be for many purposes, it is not suitable either for drinking, or for washing one’s hands.”– Ludwig Von Mises

Gotta love this guy. You can read some of this groundbreaking work here. He won the Nobel Prize in 1976.