Speed Gibson

I really don't want to keep score. I truly feel sorry for you water carriers out there that have worked so hard for Governor Pawlenty and the Republican Party. But the guy just can't shut up:

Nearly all high school students in the top fourth of their graduating class would get free tuition at any state college or university, under a plan proposed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Tuesday.

An estimated 15,000 students would get two years free at the University of Minnesota or Minnesota State Colleges and Universities as early as fall 2007 and could continue the free ride through their final two years if they majored in science, technology, engineering or math.

Families making as much as $150,000 in adjusted gross income would be eligible -- about 93 percent of the state's households.

(Source: The Minneapolis Star Tribune)

I've read the Growth and Justice ad, and the many posts at many of our favorite blogs. Righteous anger is the primary response, certainly justified. I should want to get in the fray, too.

Only I don't. Somehow, their plea doesn't bother me. If that's what they believe, so be it. I'm a little disappointed in their reasoning so obviously unfettered by history and reality, but again, so be it. Even if adopted, even if the new funds were not spent as proposed, two billion more is not the end of the world for Minnesota. It would hurt, but the sky wouldn't fall.

Besides, this piece is already all but forgotten, generating the proverbial dead cat bounce. None of the candidates for Governor are talking tax increases, though one never truly knows about Pawlenty.

Let's move on.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune recently published an illuminating story on "Super-size severance payouts" to "retiring" public school superintendents. The argument goes that the old pre-1998 law capping salaries at 95% of the Governor forced districts to play games around the edges to get the top talent. As the article notes, however, these perks are now de rigeur in new contracts as well.

Yes, the old law was silly. A good superintendent is no doubt much harder to find than a Governor. They can demand and get more money, one way or another. Still, I think this illustrates just how far removed modern educators are from reality. Some questions:

1. Are contracts necessary or advisable? Apparently not. Incumbents leave or are fired during the school year with minimal disruption all the times, as with Harvey (St. Paul) and Peebles (Minneapolis). They are not unknown in the business world, but why should a school district tie itself down when the applicant does not?
   


2. Why accumulate sick days? People in salaried positions, especially management, don't get sick days. They are paid to do the job, not for however many hours it took them to do it. Even for hourly employees, unused sick days seldom are allowed to accumulate beyond a small limit, say one year's worth. That's assuming they get official sick days and that they can accumulate them.
   


3. Why accumulate unused vacation days? And "leave" days? Again, the private sector is much more strict about this. I suspect its the exception to be able to carry over vacation time at all at most private employers. Besides, vacation days are provided partially as a benefit to the employer. All work and no play makes Jack a poor employee. For management, it also shows how well your area runs in your absence.
   

All this might be worth it to get a truly good superintendent. But the same money is paid regardless of results. Dr. Pat Harvey was getting some results until forced out by the unions who want no changes. But relatively speaking, she got the same package as say, the Dr. Carol Johnson that oversaw a significant decline in her district.

I can't help but wonder if some very able people are out there that would jump at the chance to get a superintendent position for maybe $150,000 a year plus a car allowance. Licensing generally excludes such people, yet if government run public schools are going to survive, such hires seem essential.

IBM had always promoted from within, but when it's outdated, rigid business model hit the rocks in the early 1990's, the board finally went outside, hiring Lou Gerster from RJR Nabisco. Gerstner had no experience with either IBM or computer technology, but he soon turned IBM around.

If it's truly for the children, public school districts have to abandon their outdated, rigid ways as well.

From Yahoo News via The Drudge Report, an asteroid will pass within 270,000 of Earth on July 3. At an estimated diameter of a quarter to half a mile, this rock could no doubt do a lot of damage even if it just splashed in the middle of the Atlantic. The article says there are hundreds of these PHA's - Potentially Hazardous Asteroids out there, out of about 2,000 known asteroids with orbits intersecting that of Earth.

This latest threat was discovered in December 2004, meaning we got about 18 months' notice on this one. They are found telescopically, so we would get proportionately more or less notice depending on their size.

Getting back to asteriod 2004 XP14, I can't help but wonder what the world would be (will be?) like if we were to discover a sizable mass headed straight for us, say with two years' warning. Would we just stop as a civilization? Would we collapse into pockets of anarchy, enclaves, even ritualistic suicide?

Why work? In particular, why continue to farm or pump oil? We might all starve long before impact.

I'm not going to worry about it, even if there is another smaller chunk that will pass within 20,000 miles in the year 2029. The odds against such an event are still, in the final analysis, astronomical.

I feel sheepish here at my little blog praising another much more prestigious, but Craig Westover has posted one of his best ever: Crime and disorder in Minneapolis - It's not a paradox.

Westover is responding to a wistful editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune lamenting the rise of "Livability Crime" in Minneapolis.

Rude, intimidating behavior, left unchallenged, threatens the freedom and confidence of ordinary people to live secure, productive lives. The steady growth of disorder has already contributed to the closing of scores of retail businesses, the shift of thousands of jobs and the oft-heard vows of downtown visitors never to return. The director of Safe Zone, the police-business collaborative, was, herself, grabbed and groped recently while walking with a male companion on Hennepin Avenue in broad daylight.

The Editorial stops at characterizing this very real problem as another facet of law and order too long neglected.

Craig goes further, to question the actual cause and effect relationship truly at work here, that the ivory tower city planning intended to create paradise may also be significantly degrading the true livability of the area. Please, read the whole post.

I was thinking of researching the first round World Cup scores to see just how little scoring goes on, at this, the highest level of the sport. I see that Steve Warshawsky at The American Thinker has already done this. It's worse than I thought.

In "Why American Don't Like Soccer", Warshawsky found that of the 40 first round games, 20 were shutouts, and 5 more were nil-nil. In over half the games, at least one team did not score at all! Another statistic is that in 14 of these 40 games, neither team scored more than one goal. Imagine if "real" football had these characteristics.

Here's the money quote.

In my opinion, a lack of scoring is not merely an incidental aspect of the game of soccer—it is its essence. That is, the ultimate purpose of soccer is to engage in lots of furious activity to accomplish . . . absolutely nothing. Not surprisingly, when that elusive goal is scored (if it is scored), ear-shattering howls of euphoria erupt from players, announcers, and spectators alike, as if their very souls were being released from the depths of hell.

Goooaaaal!!!!

I'm rather liking Blois Olson these days, his initial tilt at MDE notwithstanding.

As the new voice of the left on the Face Off segment on At Issue with Tom Hauser, Olson has exceeded my expectations as the replacement for Ember Reichgott-Junge, a bitter partisan as one blogger noted. Olson has shown more candor about his party's positions and prospects, yet stands his ground effectively on the important issues. He's calmer, more honest, more civil, and frankly, better informed than Reichgott-Junge.

I see now he's apologized to State Senator Michelle Bachman for some overly general remarks he made about her. Many of his DFL friends would not have done the same in such circumstances. Maybe it wasn't a perfect apology, but I found it satisfactory - and welcome.

I've written twice to Almanac to plead for the "retirement" of Wy Spano from the couch. Spano is also a bitter partisan, completely devoid of the insight expected of the panelists, disrespectful of others at times, and unable to think beyond his DFL talking points. I think it's time to write again, this time with a replacement in mind, Blois Olson.

I've lost 42 pounds on my diet, feel I need to celebrate just a little by going to Keegans tonight (Thursday). And my better half will be with me!

I haven't seen much to blog about this past week, partially because I'm still trying to catch up with my radio archives from our recent long weekend in Atlanta. I don't know what I'm going to do when Jason Lewis returns. I'll certainly have to tape that, too.

Well, dinner, a glass of ale, and a trivia quiz should recharge the batteries.

It's summer, and I'm taking the bus to work some days like yesterday. I bring my Walkman with me, and as Hugh was off last night, I tuned into WTLK-FM and heard that Barbara Carlson would be on with Sarah and Brian in the six o'clock hour.

I listened at home and it was really great to hear Barbara again. She's a radio natural, and really hasn't lost a step in that regard. She still has the swagger and says what she thinks, including a couple of hard jabs at Ron Rosenbaum. You look up "broad" in the dictionary and there she is.

She's had some health issues, including knee replacement, and is keeping her pharmacist very busy these days with all her medications. They must be taking their toll, as Carlson has completely flamed out, kind of like Arianna Huffington. He hates Bush, thinks Pawlenty is awful, and that the Christian militias have taken over the Republican party. (No examples other than Michelle Bachman, of course.)

Still, it was a great hour. She spoke of WTLK being "KSTP light" because of Rush Limbaugh, Jason Lewis (October), and other departures coming here. I think it's more like Sarah then said, that the mighty AM 1500 is dying, Soucheray being the only star left.

It didn't sound like Babs wants to return to radio. She said she now hates talk radio, in fact. But she would be a great catch for Air America's local affiliate, a credible Wendy Wilde.

I just finished up week 8 of Weight Watchers. I've lost 39.2 pounds to date. By next week, I should be over 40 pounds, and I think a visit to Keegans next week for Thursday Trivia is in order. Just one glass of beer, though.

Craig Westover has been featuring a bit of Barbra Streisand lately. He fisked the Mike Hatch web site, noting how it was full of BS and that the GOP should be exposing it as such.

Now he posts on the entire concept of BS as a greater danger to truth than even outright lying. It's a profound point, a Pragerism really in that it makes you rub your chin a little.

He references a small book on the subject that I'm toying with ordering. As it happens, another book on dieting I ordered arrived today, much along the same lines in refuting a lot of the BS about weight loss out there. I think the point is the same. All that BS out there - low-carb for example - is doing a lot of people a lot of harm.

Westover notes as does this book ("Weight Loss That Lasts", J. M. Rippe, M.D. and Weight Watchers) that good BS (myths) have enough snippets of truth in them to get them past the smell test. But otherwise, they are nowhere close to satisfying Blackstone on Evidence, the Scientific Method, or - the blogosphere.

As part of a Gray Line tour, I got to visit the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library here in Atlanta, only my second of such places. The first was the Lyndon Johnson Library in Austin, Texas earlier this year.

The trivia was fun, all the election collectibles in particular. Their replica of the Oval Office is at least as impressive as the one at the LBJ library. But otherwise, I wasn't very impressed. We saw a little bit of Mr. Carters formative years in the Navy and early political life, and of course, of Rosalind Carter's family.

But then we had several aisles of accomplishments of President Carter, and he did have some. I remember opposing the Panama Canal treaty at the time, but it appears to me now that Carter was correct. The Camp David accords have also stood the test of time.

But otherwise, I'll agree with Dennis Prager and many others that while not corrupt, the Carter administration was the worst of the Twentieth Century. Carter did not understand the Iranian hostage situation, and his attempts to all but ration gasoline were but one facet of a totally misguided energy policy. We also had stagflation. He perhaps was overly friendly with his Democrat controlled House and Senate, but I can't say that this was all his fault. Indeed, he appointed Paul Volker to the Federal Reserve, even if it was Ronald Reagan that gave him the courage to wring the inflation out of the economy.

Unlike the Johnson library, I didn't think the Carter library was very forthcoming with such failures. That the LBJ exhibits dealt openly with Vietman, protests, and riots gave great credibility to the exhibits showing his career in the Senate and before. I learned much about President Johnson, and came out with a higher opinion of him.

The Carter exhibitors should consider adding a little more candor. Jimmy Carter, yes, was an inept President, and continues to be an irritant to both Democrats and Republicans since, regarding foreign policy. But he was and is a decent, honest man and being a little more forthcoming would only enhance that image.

Light rail works here. I almost think we shouldn't have rented a car. We didn't plan on this, but our hotel is one block from a MARTA station. It's convenient, and given Atlanta's traffic, fast.

There are a couple of big differences as compared to our present Hiawatha and future Corridor lines. First, Atlanta's system does not have street level intersections with traffic. It goes above or below. Second, given the climate, MARTA's open air stations are simple and efficient.

Actually, there's a third difference. Unlike Minneapolis or Denver (per my uncle there), this Light Rail takes people where they really want to go. There isn't a lot of it, just a North-South and and East-West line, with a couple of spurs further out. But criss-crossing the city gets you in and out quickly. Working with the buses, again workable because of climate, you can get around very nicely here, for $1.75 a ride. Ridership is obviously substantial.

Our light rail will never measure up to this, and may utlimately prove very destructive to the neighborhoods it cuts in half, the neighborhoods it is supposed to help develop. I saw no such development along MARTA (North-South).

The Minneapolis Star Tribune published a very telling editorial Tuesday, claiming that political party judicial endorsements put impartiality at risk.

Those who think electing judges should be a lot like electing legislators got their way at the Republican state convention Friday. Three judges — one state Supreme Court justice, two members of the Court of Appeals — were awarded the party's label, whether they wanted it or not.

It did not matter that Supreme Court Justice G. Barry Anderson issued a release spurning party endorsement, or that appellate judges Christopher Dietzen and Gordon Shumaker declined to respond to the party's query about their interest in being endorsed. Endorsements are made for the benefit of the party's voters, not the candidates, argued those promoting the practice.

"Whether or not she wants this endorsement is almost irrelevant," said Greg Wersal, the Golden Valley attorney who has spearheaded efforts to put more partisan politics into judicial elections. He referred to the one appellate judge who was denied the party's blessing, Jill Flaskamp Halbrooks. She, too, did not want to play — but the convention slapped her with a "rejected" sticker anyway.

We beg to differ with Wersal. Whether or not sitting judges and their challengers seek and employ the official blessing of political parties is quite relevant to things Minnesota voters ought to prize — the independence and quality of their judiciary.

Let me begin by correcting a few mistakes in the above.

• To say that those who agree with Mr. Wersal want more rhetoric and rancor in judicial elections is unfounded.


• It surely does matter that some justices "spurned" party endorsement. This is information of use to the voters as I'll note below.


• Greg Wersel's activism was to secure his right to free speech in seeking elective office, not to politicize the elections themselves.

Continuing,

Already, candidates with clear partisan ties are surfacing, without waiting for the gubernatorial appointment that customarily starts a judicial career. St. Paul Council Member Jay Benanav, DFL, has filed preliminary papers for a candidacy, and Republican state Rep. Scott Newman from Hutchinson is openly asking for his party's endorsement for the First District bench. (The special endorsing convention he seeks is not yet scheduled.)

Their candidacies are exceptions, but, thanks to the Eighth Circuit court, what had been the rule in Minnesota is at risk of crumbling. Gubernatorial appointment, following nonpartisan, merit-based screening, has been the primary pathway to the bench in this state.

Candidacies such as Newman's, buttressed by party endorsement and, inevitably, by big-buck campaigns, threaten to give Minnesota a different judicial selection process, one driven by elections. It would result in judges more beholden to special interests, more allied with partisan factions and less likely to inspire public confidence.

Again, a couple of corrections:

• The Eighth Circuit court did nothing but affirm the rule of law found in the Bill of Rights.


• Customs are just that, customs. They have no force of law, not even the moral legitimacy to suspend a citizen's right to file and campaign for an elective office.

Finally,

Justice Anderson appears cognizant of that risk. His statement urging the Republican Party to refrain from endorsing him was heartening: "Because I believe that partisan political endorsements are neither appropriate nor helpful in maintaining an impartial judiciary, ... I will not seek, nor use, partisan political endorsements in connection with any campaign for judicial office."

Our prayer is that every other judge and would-be judge in Minnesota feels the same, and says so.

The primary premise of all this is that the public is too ignorant to get it right at the ballot box. Here's a shock: in this case, I agree. But the cure is not to pass unconstitutional limits on campaigning. The real cure is to not have judicial elections, except possibly to reconfirm those appointed by the Governor and Senate.

But today we do have judicial elections in Minnesota. If we are going to cast competent votes in these elections, we the voters need information. In this case, that information is difficult to obtain. We might look at our Supreme Court that upheld the Richfield / Best Buy fiasco and say those justices have to go. But how do you know if their opponents are worthy replacements? We need information.

Just as we can consider the opinions in the papers, we can certainly consider party endorsements as well. Too say that the current process is non-partisan is an unwarranted assumption. The majority party always has appointed and always will appoint the majority of the positions, and there's nothing wrong with this.

Similarly, there is nothing wrong with candidates seeking, and voters considering endorsements as a way of communicating their philosophy of the bench. They should not be used as the end of the argument, but really the beginning. If a paper endorses a judicial candidate, ask why. If a party endorses a candidate, ask why. If a candidate eschews an endorsement, ask why.

Impartiality requires accountablity. To hold candidates accountable, we need information, and endorsements from any source are part of that information flow.

Mr. Werzel's successful lawsuit means we now have more information to consider in voting for judges, as we always should have had under the Constitution. Even if this means a skunk or two sneaks through, it's the law. Indeed, this might be the impetus needed to revise the process itself via a Constitutional amendment.

Why can't our leaders talk straight about sales tax percentages?

The Twins stadium? Why, that's 3 cents on double sawbuck. If you don't know that a sawbuck is ten dollars, then they'll at least tell you that it's 3 cents on $20. For some reason, we aren't good enough at math to figure out what 0.15% is.

Now, they working on that "dedicated funding" amendment for the outdoors. In the latest move, the GOP proposed this:

The plan would ask voters to approve an additional 1/16th of one percent sales tax for clean water funding and an additional 1/16th for fish and wildlife funding.

Let me see now, that's 3/2000 plus 1/1600 plus another 1/1600 in addition to the 6.5% or 7% we pay now, an additional 11/40 of one percent.

Can't we just say the new tax will be 6.65% (7.15% Mpls) or 6.7125% (7.2125%) or 6.775% (7.275%)? Maybe we might pay too much attention to the digit to the left of the decimal point.

An old banker joke tells of an indignant customer confronting the teller at a bank paying 4 1/4% interest, demanding to know when they were going to start paying 4 1/8% like the bank across the street. Is the same thing going on here?

Noodles, one of the original MOBsters at Peoples Republic of Minnesota recently announced his retirement or at least a summer hiatus. Alas, I see the site is now gone, with some squatter having immediately taken his URL. My old Blogger URL was similarly grabbed by some sort of sex site. (I disavow any connection.)

Noodles and his site hold an honored place in my own site's history. His and Jo's Attic were the two blogs that inspired me. I have yet to find a better way to say this, but I said at the time, if they can do it, why can't I?

Jo has moved on, leaving the site to some deranged relatives, but it's still out there and I still check on DrJonz and the gang.

Noodles (and Macaroni Penguin), thanks for inspiring me to get started. I'm approaching the two year mark, and really have enjoyed the recreational and intellectual experience of it all. I know it gets easier near elections, when the pols and MSM give us so much material to work with. And I know it gets harder to be creative during the summer, when everyone's mind is at the beach or near the grill. But I still enjoy it, and I owe much to Noodles for that.

It was great timing, giving Pawlenty a great headline to wave at the Republican State Convention this weekend. We have (through 2003) now fallen to 16th in the nation for state and local taxation as a percent of personal income.

I've been a bit hard on Governor Pawlenty since the partial shutdown last year. There remains to this day absolutely no excuse for offering to raise taxes. That and his many other unforced errors like signing the Twins stadium bill make it hard to know if he has any core principles left at all.

But that headline is still great news, and Mr. Pawlenty deserves a big slice of the credit. The DFL would have made us number 1, and keeps trying to do so. Further, maybe all these "progressive" policies have some role I don't understand in keeping the DFL ineffective in this quest. Larry Pogemiller is still wondering what happened to his half-cent metro sales tax that would pay for goodies "everyone" wanted, including a new Vikings stadium. Pawlenty's flip-flop kept the smaller House-approved Opat bill on the table, sending Pogemiller's much larger tax increase proposal to the recycle bin.

I also must admire Pawlenty's political skills. I think it's fair to say that he has angered a significant percent of the GOP. Yet, he waltzes to renomination as if nothing happened. The "conservative" Pawlenty is gone, but then so are "Independent" Peter Hutchinson (a lefty after all) and "Libertarian" Sue Jeffors (back to being a Republican, but too late). Even the DFL appears overmatched this round, no matter who gets their nomination.

He'll do it without my vote, but Pawlenty will still win in November. He'll sign the 2007 Viking stadium bill, and I predict he'll try again with the Racino. Our taxes will continue to rise. But he also has the most potential of any candidate to be that "best governor in recent memory."

I am looking forward to the NARN's local coverage of the Republican convention, by blog and by airwave. I am curious to see if Prime Minister Pawlenty will feel any heat from the delegates, with or without Sue Jeffers stoking the fire.

Columnist Jeff Jacoby's "why bother" attitude to Republicans this fall applies to Minnesota as well. From Radioblogger's transcript:

JJ: Hugh, I'm looking at this lovely, very fashionable and stylish T-shirt that you're promoting. Win the war, confirm the judges, cut the taxes, control the spending, secure the border.

HH: Yup.

JJ: All great sentiments, and I agree with all of them. Leaving aside win the war for the moment, since that's more an executive branch than a legislative branch function, who's fault is it that the other four haven't taken place? There's a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican President. Why haven't the taxes been cut permanently? Why hasn't the spending been controlled? Why is a Republican President spending...increasing spending at double the rate that it increased under the Democratic President who preceded him?

Here in Minnesota, we could substitute words like "fee" and "stadium" and "bonding" and "minimum wage" and "Canadian drugs" in the above, and reach much the same conclusion.

Like Jeff Jacoby, I also have no hope of seeing my Legislative district going Republican. I can and will sit this one out as far as Pawlenty is concerned. Pawlenty will certainly be the lesser of evils, but his price of "trust me, not principle" is too high.