Speed Gibson

That's the title of today's Minneapolis Star Tribune (MST) OpEx headline and the thrust of three articles. Minnesota Commissioner of Education Alice Seagren provided a counterpoint. An oversize picture of a crumbling, neglected tennis court is offered as a metaphor for the general condition of our public schools.

Even with Seagren's article, the spread was clearly lacking for one thing: facts. There were anecdotal "factoids" here and there, many unattributed, some vague, but no tables or graphs showing, say funding and spending since 1990. The attempt to once again claim that the sky is falling fell short once again.

I don't dispute that cash flow is a problem in most school districts. What I do dispute is that there is a lack of funding. There is more than enough money available, but as the MST reported a couple of years ago, over 50% is spent outside the classroom. Much of this is no doubt due to Federal and State mandates. If they must be met before the needs of the classroom, then mandates are your problem, not funding. If the classroom comes first, then your policy of trying to live up to these secondary mandates is problem. The raw cash needed to run the classroom is there regardless, especially in the most troubled districts like Minneapolis and St. Paul.

At a recent town hall meeting with my Legislators, both DFL, I listened to many in the audience claiming that we need more "investment" in education. I then spoke and said that if and when these schools give us an understandable accounting of where the money is currently going, and it shows they need more money, then I'll be more than happy to lobby the Governor et al to get it. But to claim as St. Paul's Dr. Pat Harvey does that her 386 page budget is an open book is at best obfuscation, not clarification.

I do agree that the instability of the funding is a problem, one that consumes far too much time and effort yet producing no educational output. But as writers Cecconi and Seagren both note, even when additional money is provided, the schools still cut programs or ask for still more money. Until that problem is solved, there is no funding change that will significantly reduce that instability.

I hereby endorse Amy Klobuchar as the DFL's candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2006, assuming she will announce as expected. She will be a better candidate because her likely competitors, Patti Wetterling and Mike Cirsesi haven't won an election. I doubt that she has Wetterling's painfully obvious weakness on national issues, nor Ciresi's "baggage" and aloofness. And should Klobuchar be elected, she will do a superior job for the same reasons.

I also want the Republicans to face the best possible opposition, so that they will also field their best possible candidate. An early start and nods from the RNC aren't enough. The GOP needs to look long and hard at its impressive stable, including Kennedy, Gutknecht, perhaps Bachman and Yecci.

The U.S. Supreme Court has accepted the Kelo v. New London case, Kelo being a homeowner fighting the eminent domain acquisition of her property by her Connecticut city. She is opposing because the land is not going for a public purpose like a highway or school as both the Federal and State Constitutions appear to require. Instead, it will be going to a developer, a private party.

You can find many links to this via Google, or start with this blogger's account. Meanwhile, let's do a little logic.

Both Kelo and the developer are private parties, so the government's only role can be to force a sale that at least one of the parties finds unacceptable. Otherwise it happens voluntarily.

If both parties were unhappy, the City of New London would have no reason to force the sale. Therefore, only one party is unhappy, presumably Kelo who brought suit to stop the transaction. So therefore the developer must be the happy party. He is getting a subsidy in that the government is giving him something he could not otherwise obtain or afford.

Minnesota has experienced much of the same, when Richfield appropriated the land of a car dealer and several homeowners. The last I heard, the city had won, thanks to a 3-3 tie before the Minnesota Supreme Court. There, the issue of Tax Increment Financing (or "TIF") was also questioned, and here at least the courts were critical of the City of Richfield.

I, for one, hope the U. S. Supreme Court sides with the Constitutions, both Federal and State, putting an end to such abuse.

A decision is expected in June.

The food police (Center for "Science" in the "Public" "Interest") managed another headline as the Attic notes. That's about all they do, write headlines that cannot be substantiated.

ABC's John Stossel busted the myth that higher salt intake is a universal health risk years ago. While some must indeed watch their sodium intake, most do not. So now that they killed off half the taste of movie popcorn by eliminating the flavorful but saturated tropical oils, they want you to eat it without salt to remove the other half?

Before the blogs, I remember the paper publishing the CSPI's fatuous claim that a typical lunchtime deli tuna sandwich contained over 1,300 calories. I e-Mailed the reporter who was kind to reply back, admitting that upon further review, yes such a sandwich would be so dripping with mayonnaise as to be inedible.

These junk nutritionists at the CSPI have found fault with almost every cuisine - Mexican, Asian, Italian, even the corner Deli. Whatever's left, now we have to have it without salt?

I'd love to know what these people eat so I can avoid the associated brain damage.

As you may recall, I lost my mother last month. The time came to begin probate today. My siblings and I ventured downtown to the Hennepin County Government Center. Besides the various forms, my briefcase was stuffed with all manner of documentation such as her birth certificate, wedding license, etc. We had decided to file pro se as the information the Registrar had sent me appeared simple enough, but I wanted to be prepared.

I was pleasantly surprised how professional and how helpful the Registrar was, and without any dry comments or questions as to why we didn't hire an attorney. The entire process is well-designed, not at all bureaucratic. Every step has a clear and valid purpose. And it is well run as I noted.

We in the blogosphere are quick to criticize government. Allow me be to be as quick to praise as in this case. The folks over at the Department of Public Safety could learn a lot about customer service from the 4th District Probate Court.

Senator Harry Reid said the Democrats have values, but they don't like to talk about them. A caller to Laura Ingraham listed off a few of them and I added a couple of my own observations on Democratic Party core values.

• We believe in the poor - unless they pay taxes.
  
• We believe in women - unless they believe in men.
  
• We believe in children - unless they're not yet born.
  
• We believe in minorities - unless they become successful.
  
• We believe in adults - unless they smoke.
  
• We believe in students - unless they pray.
  
• We believe in religion - unless it's Christianity.
  
• We believe in America - unless we're at war.
  
• We believe in democracy - unless we lose.
  

I normally don't like or indulge in this sort of thing, but I've been listening to a bit of Air America lately. Remember when Bluto smashes the guitar?

Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch seems to be "in the news" again as several MOBsters have noted. Hatch has made a number of headlines taking on the health care providers, much as his predecessor Skip Humphrey did with the tobacco companies.

Historically, the AG's office has often been a stepping stone to higher positions. I believe this explains the increasing focus on headline-rich consumer affairs issues over the more mundane issues of law and justice. The murder of a grandmother on Park Avenue drew almost no response from the AG's office some years ago, despite pleas all around. If only the killer had left behind a cigarette butt.

Maybe it's time to consider making the Attorney General an appointed position, not an elected one. This would require a constitutional amendment, but it's been done before with the State Treasurer's office, phased out and replaced by an appointed Commissioner. The same question could be posed for the other elected positions - the Secretary of State and the State Auditor. The Secretary of State's office has been well served by both parties, but State Auditors of both parties have often waded into political waters.

Should not the Governor, the one ultimately in charge of administering and enforcing state laws, have the right to appoint his or her "Cabinet"?

Today's Minneapolis Star Tribune has two Opinion sections, the usual OpEx and today, the Money & Business Section. The latter features a puff piece on State Attorney General Mike Hatch.

With a large picture of somber, reflective Mr. Hatch in a dark business suit inside the Capitol, the article describes his many actions taken against many of the largest health care providers in Minnesota. One would expect that such an article, appearing in the Business pages, would largely focus on these businesses. Instead, Hatch's efforts are the theme and presented very positively. Even the negatives have that "whistleblower" / "David and Goliath" air about them. As I said, it's a puff piece.

Look, it's their paper, and the publishers have every right to print this. It simply should have been part of the OpEx, not presented as some sort of impassive analysis. So let's just file this under "we're objective" for the next time we discuss media bias.

Inside, we have another opinion piece, again with little business relevance as written. "Let's make education a class act" by Fred Zimmerman discusses a number of points about our education system, some of them conservative, like in-classroom discipline. Even so, it, too belonged in the OpEx section.

These are clear examples of what I believe is a not uncommon practice in this paper, perhaps many others.

Remember back when people were speculating about President Clinton doing his own TV show after he left the Presidency? He didn't as we know. Rush Limbaugh predicted this, knowing first-hand that TV is hard work, and above all, you have to be on time, something Bill Clinton seldom is.

I'm listening to an archive recording of The Al Franken Show, from Feb 3, the day after the State of the Union speech. This is for an upcoming post series comparing various talk radio programs from that date.

Already one key difference is startlingly obvious: it sure sounds like Al doesn't work very hard at this. The first hour he opens "strong" - obviously reading prepared text. But once that minute is over, a torrent of hem's and haw's and but's and and's and ah's and tongue clicks punctuate loose prose laced with broken sentences. His "content-heavy" analysis is little more than jabbering around two or three talking points each hour, and were it not for Katherine Lanpher, he would lose all context by the bottom of each hour. He is clearly uncomfortable behind a live microphone, as he so obviously was during the Comedy Central coverage of recent Democrat and Republican conventions.

Now I would hope Mr. Franken would admit that he doesn't have the broadcast skills of most of his peers. He didn't grow up in radio like some, and he hasn't been on the air very long. But show preparation can close much of the gap, personal preparation that is, not trying to work off a list of points prepared by someone else.

Even as his show approaches the one year mark, it is surprisingly unprofessional in how it sounds, compared to NPR for example. It's the same message, but NPR understands the importance of what the business calls "production values." Yet I get the impression that Air America is perfectly content with the current product.

And for this half-hearted effort, Al Franken makes a million dollars a year?

No, I'm not talking about the other station where the Powerline boys recently guest-hosted.

I'm talking about Air America again. I have to admit, I've listened to a fair amount recently. After all, what else is there at 3 pm on Saturday, after the NARN signs off? Savage? Car talk? Vitamin sales? Sports?

It's truly fascinating, kind of like listening in on a parallel universe. I try to channel this to imagine: what must they think of us?

A particularly revealing and amusing example occurred recently on the Laura Flanders show. She and her guest were discussing Secretary of State Rice, with Flanders making the usual "token" comments. The guest, himself a liberal, made a thoughtful observation for her to consider, that the rise of women and minorities we (liberals) disagree with is a normal and welcome sign of progress. The more these groups move up in society, the more divergent will be their range of views he said.

Flanders missed it completely, even after the guest rephrased it. It went completely over her head both times, as she continued to attack Rice as some sort of inauthentic female.

And there is a liberal Michael Savage! His name is Mike Malloy and he spends most of his time shouting that President Bush and company are liars and morons.

As Mr. Spock would say, "Fascinating..."

To put 10 pounds of weight loss in perspective, imagine that I've invited you to Thanksgiving dinner.

After a champagne toast, you start with 4 oz of light turkey meat, 2/3 cup of mashed potatoes, 1/2 cup of bread stuffing, and gravy to cover. You also take a little cranberry sauce, a dinner roll, butter, and jelly, plus 1/2 cup of fresh green peas with pearl onions. A glass of white wine is poured for you.

Round two, you have another 4 oz helping of turkey, dark meat this time, with another 1/3 cup of potatoes, 1/4 cup of stuffing, and gravy. You take another dab of cranberry sauce for the turkey, plus 1/2 cup of corn pudding you didn't have room on your plate for the first time. And you have another roll with butter and jelly, and a little more wine.

Later, you have a good slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream, then coffee and a glass of port.

Assuming you could finish this large amount of food, consider that 10 pounds of fat represents about 15 of these meals! Or, in my case, I'd have to "suffer" through two of these meals a day for about 3 weeks to put my lost ten pounds back on.

What this best illustrates for me is how calorically dense body fat really is, and why dieting is therefore such a struggle. Still, I don't feel any regret about having missed the equivalent of fifteen such meals over the past 47 days. I wonder: had I not dieted and maintained my original weight, what would I have eaten that would account for this?

Anyway, it's officially March 2005 at the SpeedGibson blog, even if the weather is still a bit brisk!

My quota of 5 pounds for February is already complete! That makes it 10 pounds for 2005 to date.

I am therefore now starting March's quota of 5 pounds, 12 days early.

February 2005 Averages:

Calories consumed: 2,501
Exercise calories: 135
Fat: 89 grams (36.7% of calories)
Sodium: 4.6 grams
Fiber: 16 grams

As others have, let me also thank Senator Mark Dayton for his timely decision not to seek re-election. Though not unexpected, it has caught both parties somewhat unprepared by coming this early in the campaign.

I'm reminded of when long-time U.S. Representative Bruce Vento died in October, 2000, from lung cancer. He revealed his situation and announced his retirement about eight months before that. Vento ran all but unopposed throughout his career in the House. When the seat suddenly opened up, there was a flood of DFL candidates scrambling to put hasty campaigns together.

I remember thinking, healthy or not, Vento should have given up his seat a term or two sooner, for the health of his party. By giving the field adequate notice, more candidates might have filed, and the debates among them more substantial. Granted, no Republican was going to win that seat, but Minnesota's collective interest would still have been better served.

Mark Dayton has done that, and the field is filling out with an interesting array of candidates on both sides, all now with adequate time to organize and campaign. For that I thank you, Senator.

I've signed up for the "premium" LauraIngraham.com service, so I can get archived broadcasts. I do enjoy her pop culture style but it's often difficult for me to listen at the appointed 8-11 AM hours. This makes subscription #3, after Rush Limbaugh and Dennis Prager. I suppose I'm a sucker for "charter memberships" but don't expect me to order Bill Bennett anytime soon. As Jo noted, Bennett is a bit boring, and Bob Davis is great. But I often switch to Bennett from 6:30 to 7:05, when Davis is saddled with the news of the weird, sports, traffic, weather, and other seeming cultural universals of local morning drive time radio.

I first went back to February 3 to get her "post State of the Union" program, as I want to compare a number of talk radio programs and thought that day would be a good test. So far, I have Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager, Al Franken (archives are free on www.AirAmericaRadio.com) and Laura Ingraham. I put in a plea to Generalissimo to see if I can get Hugh Hewitt's show for that date.

So at some future date I will compare and contrast these programs in a series of posts.

I have posted earlier how well President Bush performed in Tampa at an admittedly staged town hall meeting explaining his views on Social Security. I have also posted on two recent Minneapolis Star Tribune (MST) editorials advocating the "do nothing" position, both laced with personal attacks.

They're back again this Sunday for a third attempt. The language is more restrained and coherent this time, but they still have it wrong. I wonder: maybe we're winning?

Why use all this ink and vitriol to repeat what you've said? Because it's not working. I wish I could remember where I saw it, but another blog had it right: DEMS TO YOUNG WORKERS: DROP DEAD. (This referred to the famous 1975 headline "Ford to City: Drop Dead" in The New York Daily News after President Gerald Ford refused to give bankrupt New York City any Federal aid.) Young workers, 401-K's in hand, quickly understand the Social Security situation when it's explained to them plainly.

The MST senses quite correctly that the whole concept of the Social Security Trust Fund is what drives this issue. If the general public, particularly the young, come to truly understand Social Security's finances, reform will pass quickly. Hence, we have a third installment of "What, Me Worry?" to try to put our minds at ease, despite the facts.

Last Wednesday, speaking at the Commerce Department, President Bush said of Social Security, "Some in our country think that Social Security is a trust fund -- in other words, there's a pile of money being accumulated. That's just simply not true. The money -- payroll taxes going into the Social Security -- are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust."

There's no easy way to say this: The president is wrong or is deliberately trying to mislead the American people. His careless use of language is especially damaging because, just when voters and Congress need to make careful decisions about Social Security, it feeds popular misconceptions that the trust fund is a myth and unnecessarily undermines confidence in the system's finances.

First of all, what the President said is absolutely true. Every dollar of payroll tax is spent, just as he said, on benefits and programs. Now perhaps "myth" isn't the best word choice, but let's also look up "trust" in the dictionary. The online Merriam-Webster dictionary says a trust is "a property interest held by one person for the benefit of another." (The other meanings clearly don't apply here.)

Here's what the Social Security Administration says on the topic: "Presently, Social Security collects more in taxes than it pays in benefits. The excess is borrowed by the U.S. Treasury, which in turn issues special-issue Treasury bonds to Social Security. These bonds totaled $1.5 trillion at the beginning of 2004, and Social Security receives more than $80 billion annually in interest from them."

It's no accident that Social Security is running surpluses today. A 1983 commission headed by Alan Greenspan, now chairman of the Federal Reserve, recommended increasing the payroll tax so that a surplus would develop to offset the drain on Social Security when baby boomers begin to retire. It's true, as Bush indicated, that most of the payroll revenues coming in today go out again immediately in benefits to retirees and the disabled. But not all of them. Social Security has to find a safe, secure investment for millions of dollars of annual surpluses. If skeptics think that U.S. Treasury bonds are a fiction, where would they invest the money?

The Social Security Administration is not exactly known for truth-telling as Milton and Rose Friedman sharply noted in their 1979 book Free to Choose. But the quote above is correct as far as it goes. But the MST uses this to say that the Social Security surplus is not being spent on other government programs as Bush and so many economists claim.

It's true that Washington will have to find the funds to repay those bonds, starting about 2018, when Social Security needs the money. But what Bush implied Wednesday was that the U.S. government will default on those bonds. That is an incredibly irresponsible action for a president even to suggest. We can only imagine how it will be viewed by the Bank of Japan, the nation's big insurance companies, and millions of individual investors who collectively hold $4 trillion in similar Treasury bonds and who fully expect to be repaid.

President Bush implied no such thing as default; the MST conveniently inferred it. "Finding the funds" means raising taxes - dramatically if we continue to do nothing today. Short of that, cutting benefits would be far preferable, even politically to default, for the reasons the MST gives.

Moreover, as some have pointed out, the president's approach hints at being simply unconstitutional. Amendment 14, ratified in 1868, says in Section 4 that, "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." The president, need we point out, has taken an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.

The MST would shriek in horror if W or any subsequent President truly did live up to the Constitution, vetoing all of the spending not specifically authorized as it requires. But this point is silly anyway, especially if you consider the historical context of this language. Indeed, the "do nothing" policy preferred by the MST is what truly would be damaging to the "validity" of the public debt.

To be sure, repaying the trust fund bonds when Social Security needs the money will be a fiscal challenge. But that's exactly why President Bill Clinton sought to run budget surpluses in the late 1990s and insisted that Congress dedicate the money to paying down federal debt. It worked: Federal debt held by the public dropped for four consecutive years, from 1998 to 2001, the first time that had happened since 1969.

Bill Clinton sought to run surpluses? Like Welfare Reform, he was dragged kicking and screaming to that party. And much as the 1994 Republican Congress would like to take credit, most of it was simply a windfall from the Y2K spending and dot-com bubble. And while its true that the Public debt, that owed to the outside world dropped, the total national debt continued to climb throughout, precisely because of the Intragovernmental borrowing we're talking about here.

It is also why the Bush administration's fiscal policies are so disastrous for the nation. The money he gave out in tax cuts, mostly to upper-income taxpayers, was money the government already was duty-bound to use for repayment of those bonds held in the Social Security trust fund. It was money destined to pay the old-age benefits that will keep many seniors out of poverty.

I'll ignore the tax cut rhetoric. I'll ignore the fallacy of static analysis. I'll ignore the nonsense about tax cut money being "given out" by the government rather than simply kept by its true owners, the taxpayers. I'm confused by this statement that this current money was "duty-bound" (by what policy or law?) for repayment of the bonds held in the "trust" fund. But Social Security isn't selling; they're buying ever more of these non-Public bonds and will be for years. Then MST says its destined to pay benefits, presumably future benefits since current needs are covered. To fulfill that role, the money would have to be saved, not spent as it is today.

For the fact remains that there is no Trust Fund in the dictionary and financial sense. The actual cash comes in, the actual cash goes out, and entries are made in a ledger book showing ownership of Treasury bonds for the amount spent on other government programs. To pretend that issuing bonds to yourself somehow creates or stores wealth is absurd, obviously so to anyone with common sense.

The huge deficits Bush continues to rack up, moreover, will make it exceedingly difficult to repay those bonds. It appears that is by design, to make possible the dismantling of the Social Security program. Bush is selling snake oil, and the American public should refuse to buy it.

We could all be happier with Bush's financial performance in his first term, despite the recession and the war. But to say that' s by design to dismantle Social Security, well, that I simply have to call a lie by the MST, a poor substitute for the reasoned argument they apparently could not produce.

The stakes are high, not just with Social Security, but with entitlements in general. We should be having serious, robust debate on these programs and their financing, not these continuing fact-starved diatribes.

I sometimes "surf" the AM dial at night in bed, seeing what other cities I can pull in. Let's be honest. Most overnight radio is boring (Jerry Doyle) or silly (Art Bell).

These days, however, there's 950, the Air America outlet, what should be the loyal opposition. Last night it was a screed, a direct charge that the President was either lying or being informed by liars. Paraphrasing, "Where's the outrage? Bill Clinton lied about sex and the Republicans shout 'Impeach him!'" The host omitted the important fact that President Clinton was impeached for lying under oath to a Grand Jury, not for lying about sex, and the original premise was no better.

But it got worse. Bush was ruining this country and the world, the host continued. He then said Bush doesn't care if Jews or Muslims die in his holy war, in fact he welcomes it since they're not Christians. I think I'm going to have to record a few examples of Air America, for even I am surprised at the vile content. Franken was about as expected, and I had heard Randi Rhodes before. But this "tool" of the left was far beyond either of these two.

Dennis Prager once observed that the Left talks mostly about people, while the Right talks mostly about events. That's what we seem to have here, especially in these days when the Left is bereft of ideas. The world would settle back into its Utopian orbit if only those dimwits on the Right would go away. Just don't ask us how.

In case you missed "Tell me again that it's about the kids" at Craig Westover, allow me to reproduce this telling microcosm of modern education:

"The educational tragedy in Rockford, Illinois, now making national headlines, echoes a larger tragedy. At Lewis Lemon elementary school, with a student body described by The New York Times as '80 percent nonwhite and 85 percent poor,' third graders scored near the top in statewide readings tests. Their results were bested only by students at a school for the gifted.

"How were the results achieved? Teachers used reading lessons 'heavy on drilling and repetition, that emphasize phonics--that is, learning words by sounding them out.' This approach, however, is deemed too extreme by the new school superintendent, who is phasing it out.

"In discarding success, Rockford is following the demands of the still-dominant voices in the nation's schools of education. They insist that phonics instruction be balanced with its antipode, the whole language 'method.' Because 'reading is such a complex and multifaceted activity,' explains Dr. Catherine Snow, professor of education at Harvard, 'no single method is the answer.'

"This is like saying that because eating is 'such a complex and multifaceted activity,' no single method can guide us, and that a proper diet must therefore contain a mixture of food and poison."

- Dr. Onkar Ghate of the Ayn Rand Institute

Why would an educator care whether method A or method B is used, particularly when one method clearly outperforms the other? Why expose yourself to ridicule, possibly at the national level as in this case? The better question is: does the isolated but unmistakable success of phonics suggest your current efforts are misguided? Obviously, but so what? What does the education establishment have invested in the "whole language" method? Let's start by following the money.

You don't need a specialized four-year degree and a professional license to teach phonics. Every parent has used this method reading bedtime stories with their young children. It's simple and it works. Not everyone can teach phonics, but the pool of those who can teach a simpler, well-defined skill will always out-number those who practice more complex, loosely defined methods. Fighting off the more "primitive" methods reduces the number of qualified applicants and therefore raises salaries.

There's another trend many have observed in K-12 education, that of trying to teach too much at one time, often at too young an age. It used to be that you'd get an overview of America - Plymouth Rock, the Colonies, the Liberty Bell, the Revolution, etc. in second grade. In fifth grade, you expanded to learn more about the Declaration, the Articles of the Confederacy, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, maybe a little on the war of 1812. In eighth grade, you were now ready to handle still more detail, like the Civil War, Reconstruction, Women's Suffrage, the Civil Rights Movement, and so on. Along the way you learn that, well, Washington and Jefferson weren't perfect in every way, but by this point you had the proper perspective. But now, Washington and Jefferson are shown as flawed from the beginning, before these young students have enough life experience to understand that every saint is also a sinner.

English has many exceptions to the general rules of pronunciation, but the general rules work more than well enough to get the young reader started. Yes, they're going to confronted later with words like bough, cough, through, and rough but we got through it and so will they. To try to teach reading one word at a time, as if they're all exceptions is tedious and obviously ineffective. And yet, by making the task more complex, and by making many students thereby need extra help, some teachers could, with the best of intentions, come away more professionally fulfilled, unaware of the consequences.

Actually, this is a very normal human trendency, one that business managers and product designers continually battle in the private sector. But in government, these natural constraints to over-thinking a problem are often absent or ineffective, especially where, as in this case, the outcome is at best a secondary concern.

So that's my theory. Simple jobs don't pay well, and seem less fulfilling. Up to now, I've resisted the urge to use more expressive rhetoric or identify political motives in the above. But the fact remains, that the students are clearly being short-changed by this stubborn, unfounded, and intentional resistance to phonics. Given the undeniable importance of reading, and given the undeniably poor results of "modern" methods, this borders on child abuse.

It's once again time to paraphrase Melvin Udall, the author - curmudgeon played by Jack Nicholson in the film As Good as it Gets. How would he characterize an educator?

"I'd picture a teacher. Then I'd take away reason and accountability."

Laura Ingraham is the latest show on the block to offer internet archiving as part of a premium web site. I'm already somewhat overloaded, but she has a pretty entertaining show in the pop culture sense. I sent her an email to clarify a few points, like whether its streaming (like Rush Limbaugh) or download (like Dennis Prager).

So let's see. Bill Bennett and Laura Ingraham are starting up. Dennis Prager has been running just over a year. Michael Medved appears to be starting up also. Michael Savage has his. Hugh Hewitt is very late to this party.

SO come on Hugh, you're an innovator not a follwer. I't time for a permium web site with archives.

Have you noticed that when the argument is the weakest, the rhetoric is the strongest in the Star Tribune? Like the John Kerry endorsement last fall, a Jan 17 editorial claimed that President Bush et al were flat-out lying about Social Security, using words like vile, phony, despicable fear-mongering, and snookered. On January 25, this adolescent outburst was easily and calmly refuted by William Beach, co-author of the 1998 Heritage Foundation study that the editorial focused on.

Undaunted and unreproved, this past Sunday we got another dose, this one aimed at the younger workers. Again, churlish rhetoric like so many deceptions, taken to the cleaners, peddled by the White House, and bamboozled, alert us that another weak argument is present. Actually, it's worse this time. There's some outright lying going on here, like the part about the government "loaning" you your own money to invest privately under the President's proposal. Regarding the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the copy editor missed the "highly regarded liberal think tank in Washington" phrase, which should have read "the Washington think tank highly regarded by liberals." A few minutes of Google turned up no general praise for this organization, even in Massachusetts where they've played the part of "Chicken Little" regarding proposed state tax cuts.

I am still waiting for the Star Tribune to explain what happened to the wide bi-partisan consensus in 1998-99 that Social Security needed significant re-financing despite the high economic growth and low unemployment back then. The ratio of payers to payees falls with each succeeding year, and the "worst economy of the past 50 years" that replaced the Clinton boom could only have weakened the Social Security trust fund versus the 1998 forecast. Yet now, suddenly, there is no crisis, no need to act at all.

Getting back to the article, it is the younger workers who need Social Security reform the most. It is the Star Tribune that is doing the bamboozling here. To recast an argument made in a couple of blogs, suppose the Bush plan was the current law of the land. Would a young worker eagerly embrace the "new" plan of total government control, eliminating all vested ownership, producing a meager 1% or so rate of return if any, and requiring a modest annuity as payment when you retire?

To borrow a phrase, only someone who wants to be taken to the cleaners.

I decided to tape the Super Bowl pre-game on Fox, which started at 1 pm, ending over 4 hours, 37 minutes later with the kickoff. I later whizzed through it with the VCR, tallying the time spent by category.

The AFC - Actual Football Content - accounted for 37% of the minutes, just over 100 minutes. Much of it was fluff, of course.

Commercials, including all those "brought to you by" messages came in second with 30%. There was also the 6% for the openings, "when we return" messages and similar transitions.

The NFC - Non Football Content - had the remaining 27 percent, primarily a golf exhibition and a few musical numbers.

Since my dad and my wife's family are from Iowa, the article about a "brain drain" in this morning's Minneapolis Star Tribune stood out.

Iowa, ever the humble suitor, is still struggling to persuade well-educated young adults to stay put, or move back.

But now the state may get brash -- by offering them cash.

Iowa's legislature has begun debating an extraordinary bill to exempt anyone under 30 from paying state income tax. No other state with the same affliction -- an exodus of residents commonly called "brain drain" -- has taken such a step.

First of all, as the article notes, Des Moines will never be a Minneapolis, let alone San Francisco. There will continue to be ever more people leaving for better weather or (what they perceive to be) better culture. A smaller number will move or return to Iowa, for it does indeed have its advantages in the form of "big city" negatives they don't have.

Now as to the upper-middle classes who are at least open to the idea of settling in Iowa, why are they leaving? Is it because they're overtaxed? Partially, yes.

The Tax Foundation's summary of Iowa's tax climate shows that overall, Iowa is roughly on par with the national averages. But if you look deeper, you find a very progressive system. The top personal income tax rate is higher only in California, Montana, Oregon, and Vermont. The high income "brains" that are draining away can clearly do better in many other states. But I wonder if that's the real problem.

The Iowa Corporate Income Tax, which quickly reaches the top rate of 12% is the highest in the nation (2003). Large employers, the kind that hire these "brains" are going to look hard at that number before investing in Iowa. And if the jobs aren't there, neither will the professionals that Iowa now seeks to retain.

So while Iowa has a nominal average tax rate, its steep progressivity is clearly going to keep many high income people from investing or working there.

Iowa should first consider abolishing its corporate income tax and soften the progressivity of the personal income tax. They will need to cut spending to do it, but I suspect there are many opportunities. Iowa has 99 counties, for example, more than Minnesota, more than California! With modern transportation and communications, Iowa could cut that to say, 33. Iowa also benefits from a net inflow from the Federal Government, about $1.23 in for every $1.00 out according to the Tax Foundation.

The results should well be worth the minimal pain.

As I noted about my diet, I do walking for exercise. Since I started on Feb 23, 2002, I have logged almost 2,000 miles. Yesterday's weather was near perfect, and as I often do, I went out during the Saturday NARN show, listening on my Walkman.

I don't remember how I got started on this, but it had instant appeal for simply being outdoors and seeing some new scenery as I went. Pedaling the stationary bike indoors watching the Travel Channel isn't even close. I also then realized that I could visit many different neighborhoods, as I like to do 7-9 miles per walk. Then I got this idea.

I had an old large city street map of Brooklyn Center where I live, and I used a highlighter to color the streets I had walked. I then set about visiting every street, starting from home or the Brooklyn Center High School before or after events there. I would follow up using the car to measure the distance. I soon learned I had a very steady pace of 3.3 miles per hour, so I judge on time alone now with a stopwatch.

I studied the map at home, but never allowed myself to take any maps or notes along. I occasionally made a wrong turn, but that was part of the challenge, to walk from memory. Anyway, after 39 such trips totaling 220 miles, I walked every public street in Brooklyn Center.

I used to live in Robbinsdale, so that was next. I parked at the Rainbow store that was in the approximate center, making 14 trips for 93 miles to complete this smaller suburb. Tiny Osseo was next, 3 trips for 21 miles from the City Hall parking lot. Full of confidence, I headed for Brooklyn Park.

I realized that I needed some rules regarding "launch points" where I park. I have a formula based on square miles and population that determines the maximum number of such sites allowed. I pick either public places like city halls, or larger retail areas. In the latter case, I used the least desirable parking spots and did some business each time. At the Rainbow in Robbinsdale, for example, I would buy water or juice and fruit.

For Brooklyn Park, I used 5 such sites, though I also used the previous adjoining city sites of Osseo City Hall and BC High School to advantage. It was my biggest challenge, but I got those 450 miles covering Brooklyn Park's 27 square miles done in 68 trips.

Then came Crystal, New Hope, Golden Valley, Medicine Lake (1 trip of 7 miles!) and Plymouth. I am now about 120 miles into Maple Grove, which I estimate will run about 500 miles. With yesterday's walk, I have "sealed the border" and will start working my way toward the center.

I'll put more of the details on my companion diet web site (see the banner).

PinkMonkeyBird is calling us to arms, to demand archiving of the weekly NARN and Hugh Hewitt programs. As he notes, he called in to the NARN third hour today as well.

For a while, KRLA was offering continuous replay of Bennet, Prager, Medved, and Hewitt, but apparently it wasn't popular enough to merit the cost and was withdrawn.

As for NARN, there is the Taxpayers League's site, but I have found it operational less than half the time. Besides, the NARN is replayed Sunday nights on The Patriot, though that doesn't help with Taxpayer's League Live and Rabus (sic?) on the Right.

Now, if I were a rich man, I'd have a staff recording all my favorite shows, then editing them down into tidy segments that I could pick and choose. I'd also have them enter them in a Nexus type search engine so I could find what Hugh said about a given topic six months ago, so I could find and replay it from the archive.

But, since I'm not a rich man, I get by with premium subscriptions to Rush Limbaugh and Dennis Prager. Rush has both live streaming and four weeks of archives, including an occasional internet only fourth hour. He also uses a great codec in Windows Media Player, with remarkable fidelity at just 20 kbps. Prager has 64 bit MP3 downloadable archives, about the last three weeks I believe. Both archives are commercial-free.

Bill Bennett is starting up a similar service, about $5/month like Rush & Prager. So PMB is right in at least asking why Hugh isn't doing the same.

There are other alternatives, like recording them. For under $200, you could buy a cheap receiver. VCR, and TV. Set the Receiver to 1280 AM, patch the audio to the VCR, which you can set to record at the proper time, up to six hours.

There is also software like Replay Radio that, given a broadband or at least stable dial-up connection, can also record almost any program available on the Internet for you. It can also record "line input" from a receiver. There are also fancier MP3 players that can help you skip commercials and speed up play back.

That said, I still join PMB in asking that Hugh Hewitt add archiving, which I would be willing to pay the usual $5/month for. I will send Hugh & Generalissimo an email tomorrow.

I chanced to see President Bush selling Social Security reform in Tampa, courtesy of C-SPAN. Granted it was scripted in terms of "ordinary" people that supported his points, but it was a marvelous performance of Clintonian proportions by W.

Rocketman on Pow-Pow-Powerline Radio (filling in for Hugh 2/3) thinks Bush can put this over, perhaps with wide acceptance. If enough people see George W. Bush sing and dance like this, Rocketman might be right.

Many years ago, there was an old saying in the world of data processing: "You can't go wrong buying IBM." Actually, it was generally true. If a problem developed, IBM had the people to make it right, and at the prices they charged, they could afford to. Another saying was, "You can buy better, but you can't pay more!" But while IBM remains a strong, capable company, the old adage has been forgotten.

Maybe Bill Moyers was once such a name in the news business, such that you couldn't go wrong with a piece by Bill Moyers. Today you can, as evidenced by the awful piece published Sunday Jan. 29th in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. In the first paragraph of "There is no Tomorrow" he states:

For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.

Aside from the fact that Washington D.C. was not the capital at the time, may I humbly ask why the Declaration of Independence, rich in both ideology (the rights of man) and theology (endowed by their Creator) does not also worry him? Moyers then asserts:

When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind.

Blind, he says, oblivious to the facts. The rest of the piece merits no further attention. Suffice it to say that it is the leftist equivalent of our looking under the mattress for Communists. If you believe in God at all, you're no better than the "fringe" who predict that the Second Coming is imminent and will fix everything, including the environment.

Here's my larger point. Was their nothing better to print today? This Moyers piece is intellectual smut, adrift in false premises and convoluted arguments. Its conclusions are absurd and unfounded, but its purpose, ripping religious conservatives, is unmistakable. I have to believe a significant number of Democrats groaned when they saw it, part of that snooty, sneering image they're now trying to soften. It's like we groan when someone says, "Man, I love that Michael Savage!"

If I were the publisher, I'd call the editors into my office to explain themselves. A liberal bent is one thing, but directly insulting a significant number of readers (i.e., customers) is bad business. Again I ask, was their nothing better to print today?