Cause for Concern

When In Doubt, Keep OU Out

When are they going to stop putting Oklahoma in these title games?  Attention BCS, if you can responsibly pick someone other than OU for the title game, by all means Do It.

To refresh your memory: Last year's National Championship Game- LSU 21, OU 14. And it wasn't that close. Jason Heisman threw for 102 yards, 0 TDs, and 2 INTs. (Who else would have rather seen the USC offense against the LSU defense?)
This year- Halftime at the Orange Bowl: USC 35 38, OU 10.

The real victim here is Auburn. Would they have beaten USC? Not from the looks of it. But they did deserve a chance and they really couldn't have put on a worse show than Oklahoma has. With OU rolling over, Auburn doesn't have a prayer at a split National Championship- which is the other thing they deserve.

The Year That Was (A Very Partial Listing)

U.S. Military Deaths- up. Up since "Mission Accomplished." Up since Saddam was nabbed. Up since the transfer of sovreignty.

Iraqi Deaths- innocent and otherwise- way up.

Donald Trump re-appeared from irrelevance and appears to be staying around in spite of himself.

National Debt- still climbing.

Grown men- and filthily loaded ones at that- chose to risk their lives for the chance to jog 360 feet. Actually, that didn't happen last year. Last year the veil was pulled back and idols were exposed as balloons.

Darfur- As a proxy for the spasmodic killing we put ourselves through.

Osama bin Laden roams free. And carries himself more as a would be Caliph than a running for his life terrorist.

Republican Congressmen made plans to make like Lemmings (Norway Lemmings, to be precise) on Ethical matters. 2005 made them think a little harder on the matter. Hope was not restored.

Millionaires couldn't agree how to play a game.

Prisoners were tortured by the good guys. The men responsible were rewarded with a promotion, an extension, and license.

We were subjected to more Simon Cowell, Paris Hilton, Janet Jackson, Ben Affleck, Britney Spears, Michael Moore, Ashlee Simpson, Bill O'Reilly, Lindsay Lohan, Ryan Seacrest, Dr. Phil, Scott Peterson, Olson Twins, and William Hung than any people should have to experience. (Is there a soaked wash cloth worth of talent among them?) Frankly, I'm shocked we survived.

(the Boxing Day Tsunami is exempted. It is not the result of human agency)

Where does one even start?

Where does one even begin on this new Washington Post article  on the detainees that the defense department is keeping?  The last paragraph leaves one wondering if we need to make sure the detainees at least stay at Guantanamo Bay for the short term, where human rights groups can get to them.  If they get sent to our prisons in the Middle East, the chances that anyone who is being held illegally will ever see the light of day ever again gets ever-so-dangerously close to zero. 
  On a related story, where is the LEFT on this?!?!  Why, when this comes up, is it always Lugar, McCain, Hagel speaking up on this with Joe Biden as the token Liberal guy with a spine.  If Americans cannot rally against their executive branch permanently detaining people based on flimsy evidence that said people are guilty of a crime, and even if they are guilty of said crime, then detaining them beyond what any legal standard of reciprocal incarceration would be based on the speculative fear that they will commit some unproven crime in the future is about as blatant an overstepping of boundaries for the rights of individuals one will see.  If the left cannot make this stop, then it is truly dead. 

 

A Serious Question

Let's do the unconscionable and take the Bush Administration at its word. Ok, the Social Security "crisis is now." Now being understood to be a proxy for 2018 (when the trust fund comes into play) rather than 2042 (when the trust fund is exhausted). How do private accounts avert the 2018 crisis?

The 2018 crisis- in a nutshell- goes something quite like: The Trust Fund owns government bonds. For the government to make good on these bonds, it must shift resources through higher taxes, reduced spending, even more debt. This plan of action is untenable. (Reminder/ Warning: We're assuming that the Bush Administration's premises are not incorrect.) How do private accounts avert the 2018 crisis?

Through a trade- a private account for a cut to your guaranteed benefit- private accounts can reduce the financing gap. They very well may not improve or even sustain retirement income for those who participate. But that is not (or at least would not be) Social Security's problem. The long term ledger for Social Security improves as obligations are off loaded. Simple

It is not, however, as simple as that. Social Security is planning on using the money which will be directed to private accounts to pay current retirees. No way around it- Social Security must have that money or current retirees will see their checks shrink. Not a problem we are told. Any tinkering with Social Security will require a certain amount of transition costs- in this case an estimated $2 trillion. A medley of new debt, tax increases, and benefit cuts (but not for current retirees they swear) can be used to finance the transition.

How do private accounts avert the 2018 crisis? We now stand 13 years away from 2018. Let's call those between 50 and 65 years old our 'near retirement' population. The universal expectation is that persons like myself- mid-20s through say 40 year olds, let's call them 'young'- will be likely to take up personal accounts whereas the near retirement population will not (they will be unable to take advantage of very much compounding, any prudential financial advisor would be transitioning them out of growth, i.e. risky, investments soon). 13 years down the road, we are looking at world in which the 'young' are making the trade- lowering Social Security's long term obligation to them but are not collecting reduced benefits yet yielding no net realized savings for Social Security from the Trade. They are also not contributing the full (currently) anticipated payment for the retired population. The retired population (which now consists of today's retired and those near retirement) is still collecting the full 'pre-private accounts' benefits. By 2018, are we not looking at reduced revenues (versus current expectations) against the same benefit payments (versus current expectations)? Unless something has been missed, private accounts turns the 2018 crisis into a 2014 or 2012 crisis. Correct?

Now, you may fairly say, but... but... the transition funds. A fair observation. If the transition is financed by debt, how is that any solution to the 2018 crisis- a crisis precipitated by the need for the general government to directly (in an indirect way) pay Social Security benefits? If it is benefit cuts- particularly directed at the near retirement population (current retirees, it is sworn, will be spared and the 'young' have a different deal facing them)- how will they have time to prepare? And won't these cuts have to be more dramatic- deeper and starting earlier- than under a no private accounts environment? A similar question presents itself on payroll tax increases.

Long term, private accounts can be used to fix the imbalance. But that has nothing to do with the properties private accounts. Long term, anything can be used to fix the imbalance. How does this proposed long term solution get us through the nearer term 'crisis?' Or is this just the danger of taking the Bush Administration at its word?

Nationalizing ID's

    My frustration with civil rights advocates continues.  On the one hand, they get the documents on Guantanamo (a rare "3 cheers" to the ACLU from me on that front), on the other hand they oppose things abjectly that don't need to be so strongly resisted (in my opinion).  Take, for example, this Washington Post article on single government ID's.  The objections listed in the article are especially bad.  For one thing, if you are a Federal Employee, your pay grade and rank are not private information, you work for the people of the United States, for crying out loud!  Then there are the government bogeyman concerns.  They can track you with your every move with the ID cards.  They can also tap your phones and read your email.  The problem is not one of capacity but of law.  I for one believe that more progress would be made if their could be a little more focus on what standards should trigger civil rights outrage and what should not.  If we restricted the bad things people could do with technology by refusing to employ technology, we would have NO technology at all. 
     I for one think the national government ID is actually a beneficial security measure being pursued by an administration which has done very little actually beneficial security measures on the domestic front.  Oh, and I'll give everyone a heads up, the national driver's license which is undoubtedly coming down the pipeline, I'm for that too.  There are some serious advantages to these reforms, and there is the potential for different dangers of abuse.  If civil rights watchdogs could try to combat the abuse while accepting the need for the changes, as opposed to going "Amish" on us, then we would probably all benefit.  My .02.  Lefties may now open fire on my remarks.

Bush Senior

The New Republic has an article up that I found interesting if nothing else.  To summarize, it's an attack on liberals who have nostalgia for Bush I because of how bad Bush II has been.  I think the author downplays how truly terrible the current administration is, but I still thought it was some good food for thought for someone like me who was only 10 years old when HW left office, since I certainly have been 'guilty' of saying he was a decent President on a few occasions in the last year or two.  Always interesting to see how history is shaped soon after the fact; no real commentary from me, just thought you might like to read the article.

William Safire Frightens Me

I'm home sick and don't have much to do, so here's another post and I'm sure more will follow.
Read "questions" 7 and 8 in Safire's column from today.  Am I correct to be afraid that he has inside knowledge that Bush will bump up Scalia, or is this likely just a way to get some attention?  I know that it's been discussed before, but Safire seems to just assume it will happen.  The likely scenarios in my view where that Bush would nominate Kennedy to Chief so as to save the real fight for his Scalia-modeled Associate Justice nominee, nominate Thomas to Chief and make the Democrats risk alienating black voters, or just nominate the new person as the Chief Justice and leave the other eight where they are.  Not that a Thomas-led court would be particularly palatable, but the symbolism is still much less infuriating than Scalia being put in charge. 
The issue is mostly the symbolism, because while the Chief Justice does have some power over agendas and assigning decision-writing and things like that, (s)he still just has one vote in deciding important cases.  All the same, Scalia as Chief Justice truly frightens me as the ultimate sign of the ultra-conservatives taking power.

Disgraceful...

$35 million??  That's all we can afford when over 58,000 people are already dead?  Disgusting; I don't think any further comment is necessary.

*Update at 12:10pm*
Here's the latest, and it doesn't make me feel that much better.  A vague promise to give more really doesn't sound like we care that much.  Bush should have been out there with a promise to do as much as we possibly can the second this disaster hit (death toll past 75k and counting as I write).  We should be providing as much food and medicine as we have available now and promising something in the neighborhood of what our government spent on Florida's hurricane relief earlier this year.  Do we have the same obligation to citizens of Indonesia as we do to Floridians?  I guess not, but it's still the right thing to do... and even if we gave that much, it still wouldn't be enough.
Also, if you read the last paragraph of the article, you get some stats on our foreign aid and those numbers are pretty appalling.  I remember reading a long time ago about a study on Americans' opinions of our foreign aid policies.  I have no idea where this study could be found because I believe I read it in an Economics course somewhere around 2-3 years ago, but the point was that most Americans believe that we give too much in foreign aid... but they also believe that somewhere around 15% of the federal budget is devoted to it and the number should be more in the 5-10% range.  So what it comes down to is that Americans say that they think we should give less, but think we should give more than we actually do.
Once again, all I can say is that it would be nice if all of our resources weren't tied up in a war we never had to fight and tax cuts for people who don't need them.

This is What Happens When Women Become Sports Columnists

I'm officially starting the "Fire Sally Jenkins NOW" letter writing campaign.

Rather than point all of the many, many flaws with her column, I just want to ask why a columnist with the specific job of commenting on local sports issues is allowed to live in New York City.  Of course she doesn't understand DC politics; of course she doesn't understand the flows of money between the suburbs and the city that are unique to DC out of every major city in the country due to its lack of statehood.  "I saw a mayor who made promises to both sides that he couldn't keep and agreed to terms he never should have -- and that Rudy Giuliani surely would not have tolerated."  Maybe Williams could have negotiated a better deal to start, but to try to equate his job with Giuliani's (who isn't a Mayor anymore...) makes absolutely no sense at all.

Ignore the fact that Cropp didn't actually gain anything in this latest deal.  Ignore the fact that DC is again a joke, and with good reason.  Tell me how Sally Jenkins is any different from the idiot Congressmen who stick their noses into DC politics (gun control comes to mind) because it can score them points at home without forcing them to deal with anyone actually effected by the legislation, and then tell me why she still has a job.

"X-Ray" Vision

The story that has been the greatest cause for concern, so to speak, for me just got blown open a little bit more.  The Washington Post claims to have access to FBI emails that complain of DOD personnel impersonating FBI agents during interrogations at Guantanamo Bay.  Why would DOD do this?  According to one Agent's email,

"These tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date and . . . have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this detainee," the agent wrote. "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will be not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done [by] the 'FBI' interrogators."

If this is not worrisome enough, documents obtained by the ACLU that they have made available for public scrutiny apparently indicate, according to Democracy Now!, that

Marines carried out mock executions, used electric shocks and burned prisoners. The documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that at least 13 Marines were court-martialed for taking part in the abuse. Some were jailed. The names of the Marines were blacked out of the documents. None of there cases had been previously reported. In one case, three marines were convicted after they "ordered four juvenile Iraqi looters to kneel beside two shallow fighting holes and a pistol was discharged to conduct a mock execution".

Camus sounds so stirring when he claims his only political opponents are executioners.  It is less romantic when it your own who are doing the executing.  Lest you think that the administration is unaware that this is happening, I point you to a set of DOD Memorandums (acrobat required) that start rather innocuously on interrogation protocol until the 11 October 2002 memo from Staff Judge Advocate Diane E. Beaver.  The official position this memorandum sets forward is the under US 8th Amendment rulings, it is wrong to maliciously torture, but acceptable to engage in cruel means of information extraction in good faith.  I'm not an expert on the law, but I believe the idea of the legal precedent is to give room to justify "Jack Bauer" moments, where if information isn't extracted instantly, millions of people die.  The memo indicates that as long as the interrogators can make a claim that they intended to extract useful information, torte techniques are legally covered.  As for the stickier, more explicit parts of international law, the memo dismisses whether or not US actions could hold up legally as they are not bound by them.