Chicago was eliminated in the first round of the voting for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Wow. I didn't see that coming.

Mind you, I suspect that will probably be the best possible outcome for the Chicago area, as it eliminates a whole potful of money that could be ill-used. But still, wow.

I have type two diabetes. I take a couple of pills a day for it, along with a couple of shots of Byetta -- which I understand will soon be available as a weekly injection -- and my blood sugar is in a happy, healthy place. Losing weight would be a good thing (as well as a hard thing to do), but modern medicine is keeping me relatively healthy. I'm fortunate to have a good job and a good health plan that subsidizes the cost of these drugs, of course, but I'm immensely thankful that the pharmaceutical industry has developed them and I don't begrudge the fact that they're making money on them. I also know how much it costs to bring a new drug to market, and it isn't cheap.

I want us to keep developing newer and better medical treatments. So does Dean Kamen, who is a very smart man. :)

(If you haven't heard of him for anything else, well, he's the guy who invented the Segway. And a bunch of other things that are arguably much more useful.)

What you learn in Chicago apparently goes with you to Washington DC. Because it's good to fire an Inspector General who blows the whistle on fraud by one of your supporters. Even when that supporter ends up settling with the U.S. Attorney and giving back half the money.

Honesty. It's a firing offense.

(By the way, although the link within the story I linked above goes to the Fox News site, if you look carefully, you'll see it's actually an Associated Press story. Just for your reference.)

Actually, I'm good with this. :)
( Memeology inside )

( If you click here, you have only yourself to blame... )
Ok, now back to bed.

If the Washington Post can be believed, the people currently working at AIG to clean up the mess aren't the once who created it.

They're just the ones that some of you want to shoot.

Or that Senators suggest should commit hari-kari.

So why would any sane person not quit now?

And what sane person would replace them?

Ok, normally I wouldn't bother to link to a Mark Steyn column here. But how can I resist when the column starts by recapitulating the many superhero identities of Hank Pym?

I always liked Hank. It's a shame he's been handled so badly.

I was at home today, recuperating from this mess. Since I didn't wake up until 11:30 AM, I'd say I needed it.

I did answer a few e-mails, but that was about the extent of what I was up to for work.

Mind you, I wouldn't likely have gotten to this event anyway, but posting this link here allows me to test the trackback (ok, pingback) feature that LJ just added.

Edit: Probably works better on a blog that allows comments, doesn't it? :)

No, not really. (Yes, I know about the various auctions going on there now. No, this isn't one of them.)

This is Iowahawk having much too much fun at the expense of our hopefully-soon-to-be-ex Governor. Crude language is used, so don't click through if you're easily offended.

Various Congressional Democrats are suggesting that Obama become more involved with the current economic crisis.

Obama said something, as requested.

We'll see how it goes.

Yes, I understand that there is only one President at a time. I also understand that President-elect Obama is still a U.S. Senator and putatively the new leader of his party, as well as the soon-to-be leader of the country.

Given that the stock market has declined pretty abruptly on every day save one following the election, it would seem like just maybe someone ought to get out of Chicago, back to Washington, and show some leadership in trying to put together appropriate legislation. Given that the financial markets generally abhor uncertainty, it would also seem like it might be a good idea for our President-elect to announce which version of tax policy he intends to call for sometime soon, because he hasn't said.

Unless, of course, the objective is to see exactly how bad you can help things become before January 20th through your simple inaction. I'd like to believe that's not the objective.

Doing something would be a good start.

Well, the Dow Jones has just dropped 10% across the last two days following the election. I heard the financial reporter on WBBM-AM this morning saying that it was because people thought that Obama would not be in office soon enough to implement his economic plan. Now, that's fascinating logic. I could equally easily say that it's because the markets recognize that Obama will soon be in office to implement his economic plan which has included things like raising the capital gains tax rate in the interest of fairness, regardless of its impact on government revenues. (That may or may not be part of his economic plan now, as these things are subject to change.)

But that would be equally specious reasoning. In the short run, it's not necessarily easy to figure out why the market is doing a particular thing, only that it is doing it and that it reflects some belief that the value of the shares traded is either higher or lower than it was before. And you need to recognize that there is a buyer and a seller in each of these transactions, so for everyone who is deciding to sell a share at a given price, there's someone else who is willing to buy it.
( So let's talk a bit about markets, risk, and return... )

I hope that you get the President that you have wished for instead of the President that I expect.

I know that some of you on my friends list have read reports that someone at a McCain / Palin rally shouted "Kill him" about Barack Obama. Some of you believe that's what happened.

Interestingly, Dana Milbank, a left-wing columnist who reported the story, doesn't. He believes they were shouting about Bill Ayers. As I said elsewhere, that's not a nice thing to be shouting about someone who was involved in planting bombs in the U.S., but it is, at least, an understandable reaction.

There's a whole bunch of information about this here on a blog run by a fellow who is one of the adjective-that-I've-forgotten District Attorneys out in L.A. He'll give you all the links so you have a fighting chance of understanding how you may have been misled about this.

Maybe you'll go read it. Maybe you won't.

If you do, maybe you'll think about how your news sources of choice may have misled you about other issues. I still remember articles about the same McGovern speech in 1972 that were printed in the local conservative and liberal newspapers. You wouldn't know they were reporting on the same speech.

I haven't trusted the press since then. Or maybe I should say, I hand out my trust in dribs and drabs, based on my ability to verify that the source is telling me at least part of the truth. And I try to recognize the biases of the newspaper (or other media source), reporters, and editorial board that are bringing me the information.

Because I don't believe in an unbiased press.

And now I am going to do something that I have never done before. I am turning off comments on this post, because I am just tired.

Given that I still have this cold, I suppose I could say that I'm sick and tired.

You all are entitled to your opinions. And I suppose it could be your opinion that Milbank is lying or just wrong. But that's not the opinion of the Secret Service.

And I think I'll choose to trust them today.

A friend of mine commented about how most of the subprime lending that sunk the markets wasn't the result of loans that satisfied obligations under the Community Reinvestment Act. And he's right.
( A pebble rolled down a hill... )

Ok, I understand that there are some of you who aren't going to like the origins of this article, because it comes from the National Review Online. But perhaps the last paragraph, quoted below, will entice you to read it:

"While the aforementioned 2004 hearing revealed Democrats as the more vocal Fannie and Freddie defenders, the corruption runs deep and is likely bipartisan in nature. Ultimately, partisan concerns should be shunted aside and the chips should fall where they may. If Congress is eventually going to demand that taxpayers cough up nearly a trillion dollars to prop up irresponsible actors in the financial sector, it’s only fair we know who in Congress was getting paid to look the other way."

He suggests that all of the documents that the government is getting from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac be placed on line so that we can see who was responsible for their failure.

I'm for transparency. How about you?

I think that the current economic problems are the result of two regulatory failures and a subsequent market failure that have left us in the unhappy position that we're in. Let's talk about that for a moment and then see if there's a prescription that might make some sense.
( You'll all hate this, but what the heck... )

According to CBS newsman Bob Schieffer, McCain is going to Washington DC to try to get Republicans on board to a solution for the subprime mortgage debacle at the request of the Secretary of the Treasury.

As we dig into the background a bit further, we find that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told McCain yesterday -- after McCain said that he and Obama should get back to Washington and help sort this out -- that McCain should stay away.

Of course, the day before that Reid said that McCain needed to take a position on the bailout and that McCain was supporting it.

To which McCain responded, "I did not say that."

Now, maybe I'm a bit prejudiced about this and maybe I'm a bit cynical about this, but it looks to me like the Democratic objective here was to hang this bailout on McCain without Obama having to take a position either pro or con, thus allowing Obama to campaign against it as "McCain's bailout plan" after the dust settles. McCain, being somewhat smarter than a load of rocks, isn't falling for that particular trick. If this is supposed to be a bi-partisan bailout plan -- and the Democrats have said that they won't pass it without some sufficient number of Republican votes -- then either both candidates are going to have to publicly sign on to it or neither one has to sign on to it.

So, yes, McCain is doing a bit of posturing, but it's absolutely necessary posturing, because Obama has to either be on the same hook that the Democratic Congressional leadership wants to put McCain on or explain to the folks negotiating the bailout plan what his better idea is for solving the problem.

And trust me. If Obama's got a better idea, Congress will be all over it.

There's talk going on now of how some candidates for the Presidency are uniters while others are dividers. Maybe that's true.
( And this is going to be a long slog, so why not just cut tag it and be done... )

Since I see from my friends list that you're still interested in talking about Sarah Palin, here's an article which tries to sort out what's true and false about the Governor. If you've got a factual rebuttal to any of the points that he makes, I'm sure he'd be delighted to hear from you, as he seems to be interested in getting the story straight.

(It looks like his personal blog, linked from the article, has gone under from the load. But you can comment on the article directly if you have useful information.)

Well, I thought this was funny...

And as long as we're on the subject:

daisy_knotwise pointed out a while back that the problem with Rep. Dennis Kucinich's campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination was simple. When you show the candidate speaking on TV, you always see his position, his name, his party affiliation, and state attached. So every time you looked at Kucinich, you saw:

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)

Yup. Kucinich. D'oh!

And this explains why men like Alaska's governor Sarah Palin:

Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK)

Men. Only interested in one thing. :)

Ok, so let's talk about this, since several of you have brought it up. Apparently, her position on teaching creationism in the public schools is the same as mine:

It's ok to talk about it if it comes up, but you don't need to make it part of the curriculum.

Now why would I have a position like that, given that my personal belief is in a God who pretty much doesn't meddle, that is not too far away from some of the Deist beliefs in a God who created the universe and lets it run? It turns out to be really simple.

Sometimes, it is more important to teach the kids why than it is to teach them what.

If a child shows up in class and says "My parents say that God created the world and that evolution is wrong," the appropriate answer is not to say "That's not science, so we can't talk about it here." The appropriate thing to do is help the student understand why that statement isn't a matter of science, but rather a matter of faith.

The big difference between science and faith is that science produces testable predictions. (Except for string theory, which is starting to get a remarkably bad reputation in some circles because it doesn't produce testable predictions. But that would be another discussion altogether. :) ) Faith doesn't produce testable predictions, nor should it need to. That's sort of the essence of faith.

Science can't prove that God didn't create the world yesterday, complete with all of the internal evidence to indicate that it had been here for billions and billions of years. And science doesn't need to prove or disprove that. Science does need to assume that the universe is as it is based on the evidence that exists. And if you assume that God isn't a completely venal bastard (which is an assumption that I'd like to start from -- otherwise, should God exist, we're all in deep kimchee), then if God arranged all that evidence retroactively, it could only be because He wants us to look at it.

So no matter whether you believe God created the universe or not, science ought to go study the evidence that exists. And creationism, because it can't produce testable predictions, is the province of faith, and thus does not need to be discussed further in our science class.

Of course, you also need to fess up and admit that there are evolutionary mechanisms that still aren't well-understood -- because you're going to get the "irreducible complexity" argument thrown at you from time to time. But the fact that science doesn't yet have all of the answers is not one of its weaknesses -- it's one of science's strengths.

All of that is a complex lot of argument to give to kids. But kids aren't stupid. They're capable of understanding an amazing lot of things if you give them the chance to do so.

And if what you do is simply tell them that creationism isn't science without telling them why, then you're just arguing from authority.

You're asking them to take it on faith.

At some point when I have the time, I'll address some of your specific criticisms of Palin. But in the meantime, here's what she had to say when McCain introduced her as his pick for the Republican Vice-Presidential nomination. And this is what I considered the best part of her speech:

Well, it's always, though, safer in politics to avoid risk, to just kind of go along with the status quo. But I didn't get into government to do the safe and easy things. A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not why the ship is built. Politics isn't just a game of competing interests and clashing parties. The people of America expect us to seek public office and to serve for the right reasons. And the right reason is to challenge the status quo and to serve the common good.

This is what I've been waiting to hear -- and to hear from a person who has actually done it. I've said on occasion that the proper approach to conservatism is not to try to prevent change. We will get change, whether we want it or not.

The goal of conservatism needs to be to manage change so that -- when we look back at it from some point in the future -- we're able to look at it and say we handled it well, that we got to the right place, perhaps not as quickly as we might have, but with more certainty than other approaches might have produced.

So, yeah, I like her.

I was delighted when the news broke this morning that McCain had selected Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate, having gone to bed last night expecting Pawlenty. McCain needs to take risks if he's going to have a chance of winning this election and this looks to be one of the good ones.

McCain needs to get people who can be persuaded to do so to take a second look at him. (If this doesn't apply to you, that's fine. I suspect that McCain could have picked the deity of your choice as his running mate with a divinely-backed promise of Peace on Earth and he still wouldn't be your preferred candidate. :) ) Palin provides that in a way that none of the supposed front-running choices could have. Whether it will make a difference remains to be seen.

And I am absolutely thrilled to have someone on board the Republican ticket who has made her reputation by going in, kicking butt, and taking names in her efforts to rid her own party of corruption. If it were possible to say the same about Senator Obama, I'd be much less worried about him than I am. (Yes, I know about the investigation into Palin. It appears to be a non-event. Certainly McCain knew about it and picked her anyway.)

That is change that I can believe in.

I wish we had such Republicans in Illinois.