The Angels Want to Wear His Red Shoes

The Pope, in DC today, wore traditional Catholic garb. But what is up with his red Prada shoes? That is a pretty sexy and daring fashion statement for a Pope who veers traditional and is fire and brimstone about anything having to do with sex.

Did Jesus wear Prada?

Maybe everyone living in Italy, including the Pope, is more sexy than the run of the mill American.

Another SF Dispatch

I just got back from SF this morning after being delayed by stormy weather and general airport dysfunction due to the FAA suddenly deciding that they need to actually do something.

I love to report on SF as it is at once the most tolerant the most intolerant city in the US.

I was at the Olympic torch protest and was hoping it would escalate as I wanted to throw a brick through a window but, alas, there was no riot.

But I do have a good smoking story to tell. I was exiled into the freezing wind outside my hotel where I met a fellow smoker. He invited me into the Irish bar next door and bought me Guinness. Two guys there also liked me so the smoker went at them fists flying and chairs breaking. That is what I call a good old-school good time fight. So even in San Francisco men love to crack each others' heads.

Limousine Liberals

There is a segment of society that makes so much money they don't care about marginal tax rates and they tend to advocate confiscatory taxes on those who make $150K or more, which in high-cost locations like NYC make those earners middle-class. The Clintons are part of that elite, as they reported income for the years 2000 to 2006 of $109 million. If you make that much money, then tax rates are irrelevant.

Then there are the rest of us, including small business owners and those of us who live on the Coasts, where expenses are really high and $150K does not deem one "rich."

The Clintons paid about 31% in taxes. The top federal rate is 35% and self-employed people like me pay an additiona 6.5%. Hillary proposes to raise the top rate to 39.5%. All-in I pay about 55%. Is that good for the country? No, as I cannot afford to hire anyone as a majority of my earnings go toward paying taxes.

Hillary Clinton, who espouses socialist programs for the US and rails against the "rich," is making $20MM a year. When you make that much money you don't care about taxes as you have more money than you ever can spend, and have lifetime security. When you are a small business struggling to make it and contemplating a hire you really do care, and tax rates really do matter.

The Coming Crisis in Student Loans

The private market in student loans has played a critical role in financing higher education for millions of Americans. For an undergraduate, the maximum federal loan is $3,500 per year. The private loan market made up the difference between the $3,500 and tuition, which could be $40K. With the private loan market dead, expect headlines in August about this issue.

Yet, in perfectly bad timing, Congress passed and Bush signed on 9/27/07 the ironically named College Cost Reduction Act.It took away subsidies for student loans generated by private lenders. The market reaction has been fierce and does not help students. The biggest lenders-- Sallie Mae, Wells Fargo et al-- have dropped out of the market completely. The DOE keeps repeating its mantra that 2,000 banks provide private student loans, (and I was surprised at the sloppy WSJ reporting that repeated that lie) but my interviews with actors in the sector say that it is closer to 30 and dropping quickly. The DOE counts every firm that ever registered and the leadership there is in spin mode about having a hand in the coming crisis that they caused. They are also trying to get new jobs before the administration changes hands so no one is focusing on anything except their resumes.

Mark my words: August will = headlines about the student loan crisis. The sad thing is that the government sees it coming but will do nothing about it.

SF Dispatch

I just got back from SF and that city is fascinating because it is on the cutting edge of many personal freedoms but it also so Nanny-State. The city recently mandated that every company with more than 20 employees provide health insurance to their workers. This mandate hit restaurants very hard and they have responsded with a 4% charge to diners to cover that cost. It is part of your SF restaurant bill now.

I was hit with that 4% surcharge at every restaurant and applaud it for its honesty and showing the customer how government mandates on small businesses cost customers more.

Should Sex Offenders Not Be Eligible for Student Aid?

Rep. Ric Keller (R) of Florida thinks most definitely that they should not.

''This is the most insane waste of taxpayer money that I have seen in my eight years in Congress,'' said Rep. Ric Keller, R-Fla., who is pushing to stop the practice. ''It is a national embarrassment that we are wasting taxpayer dollars for pedophiles and rapists to take college courses while hardworking young people from lower-class families are flipping hamburgers to pay for college.''

[Fact check: federal student aid that goes to sex offenders has zero effect on what hamburger flippers or any other American can receive in aid; it is not a zero sum game and everyone is eligible.]

Rep. Keller has introduced a bill that would ban sex offenders from receiving Pell grants, which is the form of aid available to low-income students and is especially helpful to them because it is a grant, not a loan. People convicted of drug offenses are already banned from accessing student loans under similar punishment logic. Murderers are still free to seek government aid.

IMHO, a convicted criminal's pursuit of higher education is a good thing and not an outrage that should be banned de facto by denying student aid. What is the goal here? Permanent outcast status for sex and drug offenders or rehabilitation and a path to stability and re-entry into society?

The Hillary "Experience" Hoax

Hillary claims to have 35 years of public service experience. Simple math concludes that she is counting every year since she was 23 as being relevant, and simple common sense says that such claims are ridiculous.

At age 23, right after graduating from Yale Law School, Hillary failed the DC Bar exam. After that, she revisited Bill's overtures and moved to Arkansas to be with him. She then joined the Rose Law Firm and managed to pass the easy ARK bar exam. There she stayed while her husband became governor and did nothing political. So the 35 years of proclaimed experience need to be discounted by that time frame, which is 20 years. So Hill is now down to 15 years of experience.

Then Bill won the presidency. Perhaps this is where Hillary's "experience" began? She can take credit for being a part of the presidency but her current stance on NAFTA, a cornerstone of her husband's policy, completely contradicts her assertion that she was a major part of policy formation as she has made repealing NAFTA a cornerstone of her populist agenda. If she indeed had a say on NAFTA and is now vehemently opposed to it where was she when her husband was writing it into law?

I would love to see a woman president but this is not the right woman. As Sullivan rightly bemoaned, the Clinton campaign is The Horror Film That Never Ends.

Client #9 Was a Bully

My view of Eliot before this scandal was that he was a major aggressive asshole. He didn't only seek to prosecute individuals, he seeked to ruin them. He shook down Wall Street and never took a case to court and never won a single case in court but exacted fees so the firms could avoid indictment. He famously told the former head of highly respected Goldman Sachs, who dared to write an op-ed opposing his policies,

"I will be coming after you. You will pay the price. This is only the beginning and you will pay dearly for what you have done. You will wish you had never written that letter,"

This guy is a bad guy and I have total schadenfreude in his demise. His interference in capital markets firms, and his requirement that they separate investment banking from research has killed the US IPO market. Remember when the US had an IPO market? Well we don't anymore, thanks to Spitzer. The lack of an IPO market has significantly devalued most private companies, leading to a massive loss of wealth.

Eliot Spitzer Linked to Prostitution Ring

Oh this is rich. The New York governor, who used scorched Earth tactics as New York attorney general to terrorize Wall Street firms (he never won a case in court, they all settled out of fear) for his own political gains and to burnish his holy image, has been linked to a NY prostitution ring. The evidence against him must be pretty damning, as he has not tried to deny the allegations and is already talking about patching up his relations with his family.

In a short statement this afternoon, the Democratic governor apologized to his family and to the public but did not elaborate on his actions.

"I violated my obligation to my family and my own sense of right and wrong," he said in a one-minute statement with his wife by his side. "I must now dedicate time to regain the trust of my family

This is good news in a market that has mostly bad news. Spitzer revived the obscure Martin Act (a NY law) to circumvent federal banking law and harass companies that do business in New York so that he could build a crusader platform to win higher office. He was a nightmare thorn in the side to legitimate financial companies. I have glorious schadenfreude about this development.

Reason #2 to Hate Taxes

Reason #1 is that the income tax is a seizure of personal property that the Constitution banned and needed a Constitutional amendment to allow it.

Reason #2 is that politicians use the income and other taxes to promote their own goals or cater to special interests, picking winners and losers every time that they do so. Case in point:

Arlington, VA has enacted a big hybrid tax deduction that makes everyone who does not have a hybrid pay more, to fund the deduction.

The county, which is promoting a wide variety of green initiatives, last year introduced a special tax subsidy for people who bought "special clean fuel vehicles," which include most hybrids.

It gave owners a 100 percent rebate on personal property taxes, up to $20,000 in assessed value, for hybrid cars, giving some residents tax savings of more than $500.

Why this tax break is so ridiculous on its face is that citizens who take public transit or walk to work get zero tax breaks and are subsidizing Prius owners, who might be driving 100 miles or more back and forth every day, hauling down the HOV lane as they are allowed to because they have a tax-subsidized hybrid, and writing the whole thing off, both federally ($3,500)and locally while truly "green" Metro rides are left footing the bill.

Texas Court Overturns Sex Toy Ban

It is hard to believe that sex toys are illegal anywhere in the US but they were in Texas before this ruling and still are in Alabama, Mississippi and somewhat in Virginia.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Texas law making it illegal to sell or promote obscene devices, punishable by up to two years in jail, violated the Constitution's 14th Amendment on the right to privacy.

"Just as in Lawrence, the state here wants to use its laws to enforce a public moral code by restricting private intimate conduct," the appeals judges wrote. "The case is not about public sex. It is not about controlling commerce in sex. It is about controlling what people do in the privacy of their own homes because the state is morally opposed to a certain type of consensual private intimate conduct. This is an insufficient justification after Lawrence."

Amen and thank you to Lambda Legal for funding, trying and winning Lawrence. Now Texan law enforcement can stop devoting resources to arresting housewives who host alternative Tupperware parties.

Why Do Clinton and Obama Hate NAFTA So Much?

The simple answer is that they are campaigning in Ohio, which is depressed and has lost a lot of jobs. So criticizing NAFTA makes them seem sympathetic to Ohio's plight and they hope to win votes with their position. Hillary's decrying of NAFTA is especially ironic as NAFTA was a big policy priority and accomplishment of her husband. Since Hillary counts her experience as First Lady as making her more qualified than Obama, this is relevant. Where was she when NAFTA was passed?

Facts need to be injected into the current debate about NAFTA. What exactly is the effect of NAFTA on Ohio? The WSJ today ran an op-ed full of facts that make the anti-NAFTA position look like a loser for Ohio.

Ohio workers would pay a heavy price for pulling out of Nafta. Canada and Mexico are the top two markets for exports from Ohio, accounting for more than half of the state's exports in 2006. According to the Ohio Department of Development, 283,500 workers in the state earn their living in the export sector, with machinery, car parts, aircraft engines and optical/medical equipment among the leading exports. A trade showdown would put those good-paying jobs at risk.

Since Nafta took effect on Jan. 1, 1994, the U.S. economy has added a net 26 million new jobs. The average real hourly compensation (wages and benefits) of workers has climbed 23%. Real median household net worth has increased by a third. Of course, Nafta was not the primary driver of all that good news. But it is a useful counterpoint to the sense that large numbers of Americans have been "devastated" by Nafta and other trade agreements.

Wine Store Recession Index

On New Year's eve I visited my wine store and the wine buyer was glum. Yes, people were buying bottles of wine and champagne but no one was buying cases anymore. The party era was over. He had called his peers throughout the District and they all reported a major slump, one that was the worst they could recall in their professional lives.

As a big wine purchaser (lush) the wine buyer used to walk me up the register and dictate major discounts for me. That is gone now too and I pay retail.

Wine stores are the canary in the coal mine about the economy, and the canary died.

Traffic Cameras and the Slippery Slope

Speed and red light cameras were installed a few years ago in DC with little public outcry. One of the intersections that red light running cameras were installed at, Nebraska and Connecticut, had seen four deaths in as many years due to red light runners slamming into cars. Libertarian me did not even protest that camera as I had a very scary experience when a huge dumptruck going about 50 at that same intersection ran a red light and would have killed me had I not noticed it coming and wildly acclerated to avoid it.

But those cameras do start a slippery slope of government. Marc Fisher in the Wa Post reports today:

In Britain, the global leader in official surveillance of public spaces, the latest generation of digital speed cameras produces photos that reveal when drivers are eating, smoking or using hand-held cellphones -- all no-nos in Mother England.

Are we still so happy with speed cameras?

The UK is ahead of the US both in terms of surveillance technology and the evolution of the Nanny State. Does anyone doubt that the government will, like the UK, start using those cameras for more invasive monitoring of drivers?

Majority Rules: How Politicians Do Not Understand Democracy

Today's Kojo Nnamdi show on NPR debated three bills pending in Maryland that affect marriage. The show's title was "Government and the Meaning of Marriage."

What most struck me about the debate was Maryland State Senator Janet Greenip's incorrect definition of a democracy as she pushed her referendum bill. I have employed my best memory recall as I did not want to pay the $30 transcript bill to get the actual dialog but here is my best effort:

Kojo: Many people think that a simple majority vote results in the tyranny of the minority. How do you respond to that?

Greenip: Well, we live in a republic, and that means that the majority absolutely should make the decisions.

Actually, Ms Greenip, you have no understanding about either a republic or democracy. Neither is a simple majoritarian vote. We have first of all a Constitution, which gives every individual rights that cannot be negated on a majority vote. Next, we have the balance of powers that include the judiciary. No matter what anyone thinks about marriage this women ought to be thrown out of elected office.

The Wa Post's Misguided "Faith" Page

After the 2004 elections in which Evangelicals were widely viewed to be the "swing" vote, the Wa Post started a regular religion feature in its Metro section, devoting an entire page to "Faith" concerns.

[BTW when did religion become faith? I object to the latter term, as it connotes that those who are not religious are lacking something.]

Today's WP "faith" page is typical of the quality of its writing as it ponders the question of whether or not Obama is the Messiah.

Is Obama the Messiah? People are asking these days and it's not so hard to understand why: the desperate throngs, the tears, the great awakening of a slumbering demographic. All that larger symbolism.

The emotional landscape of many American voters is calamitous of late -- frightened by our Babylonian war, unhappy with our President and depressed by the cleansing crush of the credit crunch -- so it's not surprising that the coming presidential election would take on a certain biblical coloring.

The Messiah question is a loud one coming from all corners. Even a blogger for Mother Jones, the hot heart of the far left, worries that the Obama-passion will be used for nefarious purposes by right-wingers, he himself writes "Barack Obama has a messiah complex and no one will convince me otherwise."

Don Graham, would your mother ever have approved of publishing something like that?

How Hillary's Mortgage Plan Is All Wrong

Hillary Clinton is proposing that on "Day One" when she is president she will freeze foreclosures for 90 days and freeze interest rates on mortgages.

Such "freezing" breaks one of the most important assumptions that underlie American prosperity: the enforceability of contracts. Re: the subprime debacle, lenders lent money to lendees at below-market interest rates knowing that they would either: a) get their money back at higher rates in futures years, or 2) the lendee would pay a penalty for getting out of the loan early and make the lender whole. Government mandated re-setting of terms for mortgage contracts would mark a new low for interference, be unconstitutional, and would likely result in higher costs for all home buyers as lenders need to compensate for their loss of contract enforcement.

Slate's take on this here.

Corporate Lawsuit King is Going to Jail

Bill Lerach made tens of millions of dollars suing companies whose stock fell, simply because the stock fell. He would sue the company on behalf of stockholders and pocket 30% of the judgement. Back in 1996 Wired called him a "Bloodsucking scumbag."

Lerach terrorized and sued high tech companies to the point that they raised $15MM to defend suits against him. Every person who thinks that tech companies devoting such capital is a poor investment can take solace in the fact that he is going to jail for two years.

Authorities said Mr. Lerach's former firm, now known as Milberg Weiss, made an estimated $250 million over two decades by filing legal actions on behalf of professional plaintiffs who received kickbacks...

Prosecutors said the firm, previously known as Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman, paid $11.3 million in kickbacks to people who became plaintiffs in lawsuits targeting companies such as AT&T, Lucent, WorldCom, Microsoft and Prudential Insurance. Seven people, including Mr. Lerach and two other former partners, have pleaded guilty in the case.

Dispatch from the USVI, an Unregulated Paradise

I recently spent a short week in St John, USVI. Aside from its pristine beaches and natural beauty, it was fun to be in a place that regulation has bypassed, despite it being a US territory or possession, I don't know which. The US regulatory juggernaut has overlooked this little island. And no one is getting killed due to the lack of regulation. They are just having fun. I did not see any bodies in the roadway.

Some of the fun features of the USVI that would be outlawed in the US:

-- Taxicabs are low-end Ford pickups with rows of seats in the 4 by 4. They are open air and do not have seat belts and you slide around as they take the hills. But a taxi ride is typically $5 and it is fun to be in the open air in that great weather.

-- You can smoke anywhere, if you care to do that. There is no smoking ban. I noticed that people were respectful of not smoking around eaters and would retreat to the bar for a smoke. The market does work!

-- There is no law banning having an open bottle in the car. You can bring your rum punch into the open air taxi and smoke to boot. You can also drink a beer while driving. That makes sense to me. Drunk driving is one thing, but how is it not a crime to have a couple of drinks and then drive while it is a crime to have a beer in the jeep when one is not anywhere near intoxicated?

The USVI reminds me of the freedoms that we had until the 80s, when the baby boomers decided to become Nanny Staters.

Archbishop is Criticized for His Support of Sharia Law in the UK

It is a good thing that common law still is in effect in the UK, at least for Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury who supports the enaction of Sharia law in the UK. That is because under Sharia law the Archbishop of Canterbury would surely be put to death by stoning under its authority as he is as apostate. Thank goodness his own church has come out against him.

The picture above shows Sharia law in practice. Most of the victims are women who are accused of infractions such as being somewhere without being accompanied by a male relative. Being in public with someone who is not your husband or relative is considered adultery and will be punished by stoning.

It is almost all women who are stoned, as hyper male Muslim societies focus all of their anger and punishment on women. The woman is buried to her chest and then pelted with rocks until she is dead.

Rowan Williams, you do not deserve to live in the West if you would allow Sharia barbarism to exist in any way in the UK.

Archbishop of Canterbury: Sharia Law is "Inevitable."

In the saddest sign that the British have given up their culture totally, the brilliant culture that produced the Magna Carta has given way to Islamic barbarism. The Archbishop of Canterbury declared the inevitability of Sharia law in the UK and dismissed the horrible effects that Sharia law has on women.

"This may include aspects of marital law, the regulation of financial transactions, and authorised structures of mediation and conflict resolution."

The archbishop attempted to distance himself from the extreme legal systems run in Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, where adultery can be punished by death and women who behave independently risk harsh punishments.

Does the Archbishop of Canterbury understand the harsh treatment of women under sharia?

New Studies Suggest that Biofuels Create Much More Carbon Than Oil/Gas

While Congress keeps increasing its biofuel mandates, scientific evidence is emerging that proports that biofuels are an environmental disaster and make oil look as innocuous as solar panels in comparison.

From the WSJ today:

A study published in the latest issue of Science finds that corn-based ethanol, a type of biofuel pushed heavily in the U.S., will nearly double the output of greenhouse-gas emissions instead of reducing them by about one-fifth by some estimates. A separate paper in Science concludes that clearing native habitats to grow crops for biofuel generally will lead to more carbon emissions.

Some earlier studies didn't account for one hard-to-measure factor: the decision by farmers world-wide to convert forest and grasslands to grow feedstock for the new biofuels.

Such land-use changes can have big and unintended consequences, such as food shortages and reduced biodiversity. For example, when forests or grasslands are converted for agricultural use, it leads to a large, quick release of carbon when the existing plant life is destroyed and the soil is tilled. Even if biofuels are grown on cropland previously used to grow food, farmers tend to then clear other forests and grasslands and grow the food elsewhere.

"Even if we're dramatically wrong, it's hard to get to a result that says you get a benefit over 50 years," said Timothy Searchinger, a researcher at Princeton University and a co-author of the paper on corn-based ethanol.

Way to go Congress for mandating a worse ecological disaster to replace the optional one. This issue alone makes me fervently support a national primary so that corn-growing Iowa loses its disproportional influence on US policy.

The Fed Job Gravy Train

If you live in DC like I do you know that your friends employed by the US government unlike you leave work promptly at 5, get amazing health benefits, can have every other Friday off if they work 10-hour days and are looking forward to generous pensions and lifetime health insurance at the young age of 52.

What you might not know is that they are also earning 50% more than the average private sector worker. Traditionally, government jobs paid poorly and made up for it with benefits and security. They still have the benefits and security, but are also making a ton of money at the expense of taxpayers who foot the bill to afford government employees a lifetime of security that most taxpayers do not have plus huge annual salaries to boot.

Is Eli Manning All of the Sudden Hot?

Just about every female would conclude that the picture to the left shows that Eli is indeed hot. Long legs in blue jeans with a slim waist and a big leather belt to accentuate it go a long way in the American female imagination.

Sally Jenkins in the Wa Post today opined on Eli's looks:

Maybe it was an illusion, but did Eli Manning's face get leaner, and his back straighter overnight? On the morning after the Super Bowl, he stood at a podium to accept his most valuable player award, somehow older in a dark suit with a white handkerchief peeking from his pocket. When Manning won the game of his life over the New England Patriots, he lost something else: his baby fat.

Manning is not capitalizing on his fame by dating a super model as he is engaged to a normal person whom he has been dating since his college years. So there will be no Yoko Romo to curse the Jints going forward.

Is There a Vixen Curse in Football?

Tony Romo has twice screwed up in critical games when he had an uber vixen girlfriend in the stands. Jessica Simpson is now known as Yoko Romo.

The Pats' Tom Brady, despite dating supermodel Gisele Bundchen, avoided that problem as Gisele was not seen during the playoffs or in any regular season games. But then she appeared during the Super Bowl, in a luxury suite just like Jessica did, and the Pats lost their first and most important game of the season.

The minute I saw her in the stands I knew that the Jints were going to win.

More here on ABC's take on the "hottie jinx."

Middle School Bans "Intentional" Farting

For adults, farting is something that we desperately try to contain and make private. This story brought me back to grammer school, when boys had the magical ability to produce farts upon demand and aim them at the people they disliked.

But it is doomsday for those "intentional" farts in Camden, ME, as they have banned it.

The joke's on the boys as the penalty for "intentional farting" is now a detention.

"Strange, but true, thanks to a bunch of 8th grade boys, intentional farting has been banned from CRMS," the newsletter said. "It started out as a funny joke and eventually turned into a game. This is the first rule at CRMS that prevents the use of natural bodily functions. The penalty for intentional farting is a detention, so keep it to yourself!"

Mississippi Pols Seek to Ban Restaurants from Serving Obese Patrons

The slippery slope. Government-mandated smoking bans created it and every pro-ban advocate said it would never happen, that it was just about smoking. But smoking bans transferred to government the authority to control one's personal choices in the name of public health. As anti-ban supporters feared and warned, the government will not stop at smoking. And they have not and will not.

Three Mississippi pols introduced a bill in the state legislature that would make it illegal for restaurants to serve patrons who are obese. While it has a slim, not obese, chance at passing, the bill is a chilling reminder of what is at stake when we transfer personal decisions to the government from the individual. The bill can be found at thesmokinggun.com here. An excerpt:

The State Department of Health shall prepare written materials that describe and explain the criteria for determining whether a person is obese, and shall provide those materials to all food establishments to which this section applies. A food establish shall be entitled to rely on the criteria for obesity in those written materials when it is determined whether or not it is allowed to serve food to any person.

Think it will stop there?

The Wire Blows Its Last Season

The first four seasons of The Wire were the best that television could offer. This season creator David Simon got too close to home and had too many bones to pick. He featured the Baltimore Sun, his former paper, and his anger toward the state of newspapers caused him to screw up the whole damn thing.

The Washington City Paper has the best critique of the show.

Season 5’s mistakes—clunky plotting, false parallels, confused motivations—are violations of the realism the show promised. And without a solid rooting in truth, The Wire doesn’t just have a bad season—it betrays its own intentions. David Simon broke a contract, changed the rules without warning. In his world, that’s something only the Wire-bad are supposed to do.

The World's Wealthiest Man Goes Warm and Fuzzy (After He Has Made Billions)

Bill Gates, is advocating for a kinder, more creative capitalism after he became the richest person in the world under the current system.

Microsoft Corp.'s chairman and co-founder, one of the world's wealthiest men, said business must work with governments and nonprofit groups to stem global poverty and spur more technological innovation for those left behind.

Let's not forget that Microsoft is the most ruthlessly capitalist company in the US. Have you upgraded to Vista? I did, and beyond my belief, my Vista documents are completely not viewable by anyone who has not upgraded. That is a new low in terms of compatability. I support the smartness of their strategy, but Bill Gates don't give me bullshit about compassionate capitalism when your company is as ruthless as it gets, knows they have a monopoly with businesses and deliberately force people to upgrade by making prior versions unviewable.

States and Cities "Cut" Budgets While Still Increasing Spending

George Orwell, in his dystopian novel 1984, created the word "doublethink." To quote Orwell, doublethink is,

To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient.

The concept of doublethink in Orwell's invention of it applied to governments and is relevant to the states and municpalities who are telling the people they are making "painful cuts" to government spending while they are actually increasing spending and the tax burden in a difficult time.

Exhibit #1 Maryland: Governor O'Malley raised taxes $1.4BN to address the "structural deficit" (another Orwellian term) and made $500MM of "cuts." Yet the MD budget is increasing 5.9% in 2008.

Exhibit #2 New York City: Mayor Bloomberg has "cut" the city budget. A NYT article headlined "Bloomberg Plans Cuts for City Agencies" reads,

With an already dim fiscal picture turning darker, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Thursday proposed a budget that would increase spending by 3.7 percent but cut money from every city department, from sanitation to schools

The big conclusion here is that they are indeed cutting back every department but still are spending more money each year despite the cuts in services. The reason: out of market promises to union workers in terms of wage increases and retirement and health benefits. If you didn't like the real estate bubble, wait till this one comes home to roost.

NPR's "Fresh Air" Taps The Wire

Have you ever sat in your car when you were already home because you couldn't tear yourself away from a great NPR story that was playing on the radio? I did that yesterday, when Terry Gross interviewed Clark Johnson, who directed the first two episodes of The Wire as well as its last one and plays a newspaper editor in this final season. That interview was great and full of surprises, such as the fact that Johnson's mother was a wealthy white New York socialite who went to Spence and was disowned because she married a black man.

I sidled up to my radio today at 3pm to hear Gross interview Michael K. Williams, who plays the most interesting character on the show, Omar. If you did not hear it live, you can hear it via the earlier link. One nuggest is how Michael Williams was at a Baltimore bar and saw the person who now plays Snoop. He couldn't tell if she was a young boy or a woman and kept staring at her, "in a rude way," he admits. He was so intrigued with her that he introduced her to the producers, who created the Snoop role just for her.

The Wa Post had a great profile of Snoop here.

Four years out of prison, age 24, Snoop wasn't living a life lined up along the straight and narrow. She was back in the game, peddling drugs, running with the rough boys, an undersize woman with an oversize swagger. Not much good was coming her way.

Until the night that Snoop spotted "Omar," the gay thug on the acclaimed HBO show "The Wire," at a club. Or maybe he spotted her. Accounts differ.

Well "Omar" just set the record straight. Go Terry Gross and NPR for keeping me within ten feet of my radio.

Maryland Bill Seeks to Ban Trans-Fats in the State

Maryland is facing an enormous budget shortfall and just raised taxes by $1.4 billion, Baltimore is the setting for The Wire, and a state leglislator thinks that it is important to ban trans-fats in the state.

The legislation comes from Democrat James W. Hubbard, whose recent bill in Maryland’s House of Delegates would ban restaurants from serving foods with more than a half-gram of trans fat per serving. [Who would regulate that for Maryland, a new band of trans-fat experts?]

"Legislation efforts to ban trans fats are sweeping our nation, and that's a good thing for public health," said consumer health advocate Mike Adams, author of "Poison In the Food," a book about hydrogenated oils. "The more cities and states enact these bans, the more pressure it places on corporations like McDonald's to clean up their act and stop harming their customers' health with artificial ingredients known to be damaging to human health."

The trans fats ban would affect fast food restaurants and mom-and-pop eateries alike: it bans the use of margarine, shortening or anything with partially hydrogenated vegetable oils as part of the preparation of the food.

P.S. I am old enough to remember that margarine was supposed to be better than butter in terms of health. And I remember the 1980's outcry over McDonald's frying their fries in beef fat, which at that point was the devil and led them and other fast food outlets to fry with trans-fat.

Are All DC Workers Corrupt? It is Certainly Looking Like That

The Georgetown DMV is the latest District government agency to be found to be completely corrupt:

Law enforcement officers raided the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles branch in Georgetown on Wednesday, arresting one city employee and four other suspects on charges they set up a scheme to sell fake District driver’s licenses.

My assistant recently had a very hard time trying to renew my legitimate registration at that office. It entailed lots of phone calls, faxes and about three hours to get it done. I guess I should have just paid them off. In fact, the woman accused by the FBI was the woman who was my obstacle.

Mayor Adrian Fenty showed up for a news briefing at the scene. He deflected questions about whether the arrests were a further indication of widespread corruption among city employees. Instead, he said they were a sign that security safeguards were working.

DC employees are getting carted off in handcuffs in droves, stealing tax money and even funds dedicated to disabled children.

The DC city workforce might just be the most corrupt group of employees in a Western country.