Speed Gibson

I decided to subscribe to Bill O'Reilly's premium site for a while at least, to get his archived shows. I occasionally heard it on the Patriot II (11 am to 1 pm, 1570 am), and admired it for both its technical and artistic merits. Bill is a great talent, articulate, and fast on the draw. The show itself works smoothly, and I like the Disco bumpers.

I also like the fact that his show is two hours, which is a practical limit for all but the best like Rush Limbaugh. Many shows go an extra hour or longer with very little additional content in their third hours, examples being Laura Ingraham, Joe Soucheray, and even Hugh Hewitt. I am similarly pleased to see that Jason Lewis's new show is just two hours.

On the plus side, O'Reilly may be without equal in constructing an argument, right or wrong, the proverbial captain of the debate team. On the minus side, O'Reilly is also the proverbial populist, a bit quick to accept simplistic propositions like the oil companies must be gouging us at the pump.

It's easy he says: oil demand in America is flat (up 0.6%), oil profits are up 36%. He tacitly assumes that the oil companies set the price, not the market. He doesn't understand that the final price reflects many factors beyond the price of crude, including refining capacity, boutique fuel blending requirements, even hurricane Katrina. He doesn't understand that the oil companies are international, that foreign operations can significantly affect domestic operations. Most of all, he doesn't understand that if the oil companies did what he thinks they should do, there would be gas lines and calls for rationing like we saw in 1979.

I give O'Reilly credit for taking mostly callers that disagree with him. On a recent hour spent on the oil companies, his callers one after another took his argument apart. So even though O'Reilly still claimed victory afterward (talk about a "no spin" zone!), I as a listener heard a good exchange that enabled me to understand and explain it better to others.

Let me say that again - you need to hear both sides to develop your best arguments. You can study one side all you want, but that doesn't prepare you for the typical leftist question.

Anyway, I'm going to continue to listen for at least a month or two, as I continue to refine my overloaded audio schedule. I obviously have to make room for Jason Lewis next week!

ACORN, in its press release, was overjoyed in its victory in passing a living wage bill in the city of Chicago, targeting Wal-Mart and other huge big-box retailers.

The ordinance will require a $10 minimum hourly wage and $3 an hour in fringe benefits, with annual indexing for inflation, for big box retail stores that are at least 90,000 feet and have gross annual sales of $1 billion.

"When you work for the people doing God's work - fighting to give working families a fair chance to succeed - you're going to win," said ACORN community leader Toni Foulkes after learning about the victory.

In the local paper, this made page one, with a picture showing two jubilant people. Don't count your chickens just yet, folks.

Yes, there is the obvious reality that Wal-Mart probably won't expand beyond its current single location in Chicago. It may even close that one. Presumably, that Wal-Mart will have to raise its prices a bit to cover the increased wages. Why should nearby customers go there if another Wal-Mart is nearby in a suburb as seems likely? Further, this price skew creates return problems for when the goods cross the border. Raising prices throughout the Chicago metropolitan area doesn't work, either, sending your customers to the competition or Gary, Indiana.

Yes, there is the obvious reality that fewer people will be hired. Alternatives will be found for the lowest skill positions, where the gap between what is paid and what the work is worth is the greatest. They might buy a few more shopping carts and collect them from the parking lot less often. Those famous greeters might only be there during prime hours. Some specific departments may be closed, to expand the more profitable areas.

But I'd like to suggest another reality, which I'll state as ACORN's primary unfounded assumption: the people making $8 an hour will be the same people making $10 an hour. Who says?

If you have jobs worth $8 an hour, but now have to pay at least $10 an hour (don't forget the $3 an hour in benefits), these jobs lose money if nothing else changes. One thing you can do is hire "better" people by raising the standards. If you're going to pay that kind of money shagging shopping carts, you can insist on the fast, young kids who don't really need those powered pushers. The slouchers you see all to often today are going to have to step up - or out.

If the benefits are high like this, you're going to shift to full time people over part time people, simply because full time people are usually more productive that the part time equivalents. The snack bar part-time positions could be combined with back-room stocking to make full-time positions, eliminating many after-school and mother-working-half-time jobs.

Wal-Mart could also insist on more education even if not needed. We see this already in employment, where many jobs require degrees however unrelated to be considered. It's a screening process that has crept in to offset the induced costs of our overly-invasive hiring (and especially firing) laws.

Seniors, single mothers, kids seeking part-time jobs, and the unskilled are all going to find the bar a little higher at this Wal-Mart or any other employer saddled with these unjustly imposed costs.

But ACORN knows best, that they're better off unemployed at $10 an hour than start at $8 an hour with a company that truly wants them to succeed.

Today is day #100 of my Weight Watchers adventure, so I'm celebrating tonight as I've lost 53 pounds to date. I wish I were that good at Keegan's trivia, but I'll try tonight anyway.

My favorite blogger from the loyal opposition Flash went a bit far in characterizing U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kennedy's daughter as lying about her father's record. Flash was about 95% right, but he went too far and admitted same in his next post. That's why many of us on the right read and respect Flash.

When you call someone out as a liar, in my book you had better have the goods on him or you yourself are the liar. Few cases in politics are ever that solid, such as with our Minnesota Senate Majority Leader, Dean Johnson. The proof? Johnson's own confessions (Yecke, Supreme Court prejudgments) or conflicting accounts (partial shutdown). Governor Tim Pawlenty's claim that his "health impact fee" is not a tax was also a lie, as I need nothing beyond a dictionary to prove so.

That's why this "Bush lied!" rhetoric is so pointless. Even if you believe it, where's the proof that he knowingly, purposefully misled us? I have heard any number of interviews where such claimants are asked to give an example, and we're still waiting.

Turning it around, Senator Becky Lourey no doubt sincerely believes that government-run health care would be an improvement. History gives her no quarter on this, but I'm not going to call her a liar. Foolish, yes. Liar, no. Let the debate begin.

I'm trying to add some links to a post, only the site I'm referencing is on Blogspot, and Blogspot (Blogger.com) is down again I see. My diet blog is on Blogspot, and I can't post there, either. No PacMan or other pacifier, just time-outs. I've noticed several such outages this summer.

I know it's free. It's how I started, too, until the 13th outage (or was it the 7th post lost just before "Publish"?) finally made me pony up a few bucks a month for a more professional environment, Powerblogs in my case. I haven't had any trouble with it, though I don't publish a very fancy blog, either, no ads, and not even any pictures.

As I wrote at the time I switched, I was still a very happy Blogspot customer overall. It was free, and easy to set up, and has a number of good templates. It's still just fine for my diet blog, for example, which is really just me talking to myself, really. (Another good weigh-in today!)

Again, it's free. It will be back on the air soon - but not yet I see. I should stop complaining, but it's frustrating when half your blogroll is dead.

Brian Lambert and Sarah Janacek are on their way out, thanks to the second coming of Jason Lewis next month. In discussing the spat between Attorney General Mike Hatch and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Lambert complained that Doug Tice was far too partisan to serve as the Strib's political editor. Excuse me?

I remember when Tice first got the job, leaving the St. Paul Pioneer Press as its Editorial Editor. Many of us rubbed our hands and shouted, "Finally!" But nothing has really changed. Yes, the news articles still have their leftward slants, like those AP feeds they "edit for length." But political writers Dane Smith et al have stayed pretty consistent before and after. My main criticism is with their timidity, on both sides of the aisle as we saw in last year's partial shutdown. We get a bit too much Pablum, but it's reasonably honest Pablum.

Tice shortly thereafter took some heat, yes, from us right-wingers. Before tonight, I can't think of any left-wing criticism of Tice other than his hiring itself.

Brian Lambert as a former media critic should know all this. Maybe that explains the word "former."

We've had a thin-skinned Governor before, Jesse Ventura. It didn't exactly work out. Now it is candidate Mike Hatch doing the whining. But is it whining? Maybe it's desperation, to avert a blockbuster that could push Becky Lourey past him in the Primary. Maybe it's just classic Hatch over-reaction and bullying. The fact that Hatch took such quick, pre-emptive action against a supposed non-story tells me there's something there.

Regardless of the reason, it's difficult not to see a Governor Mike Hatch as one of the most personally abrasive and abusive in Minnesota history. In rejecting Hatch several times before, it's fair to say that many Minnesotans understand this already. As personable as Becky Lourey is, her campaign will take advantage if anything significant breaks from this story.

I truly hope this is the end of it. But I'll keep an eye on MDE just in case.

Every time I soften a little, and try to think of how much better Tim Pawlenty will govern than would Mike Hatch (?) next term, our Governor does it again. This time, Pawlenty called for a two year Federal moratorium on prescription drug advertinsg. If his re-election depends on nonsense like this, he has already lost.

The unconstitutionality of this proposal is self-evident. No one is being harmed by this. Some may benefit in fact, prompting people to see their physician to cure what they thought couldn't be, or find another malady early enough to treat.

And by the way, what happens at the end of two years? It might as well be made permanent now, unless the Courts find the courage to invoke the First Amendment.

But as to high government health care costs, these are a consequence of socialized medicine, not of what should be competitive market. Prescription drugs are one the last vibrant marketplaces within medicine, and now the Governor sides with those who want to kill this golden goose, too. We'll have cheap supplies of what exists, but nothing new.

Remember early on, back when Pawlenty was at least acting like a conservative, how he pushed Canadian drug imports as a solution to high drug costs? He still doesn't get it.

Wow, I just noticed that it's been two years since I started this blog. I've gone through a couple of upgrades, from Blogspot to Powerblogs, and from dial-up to broadband. It's still fun, and I'm gratified that my traffic, such as it is, continues to grow every month.

I see a lot of blog fatigue out there, and my own output is clearly not where I want it to be. But my calendar is now looking fairly clear, and there are some fun elections coming up. If nothing else, I'll tell more about my Weight Watchers experience.

So if you all don't mind (and even if you don't!), I shall continue!

I've been on Weight Watchers three months now, thirteen weeks. I stumbled only once, in Week 12, but pressed on to cross the 50 pound line this week.

I am now about where I was 20 years ago. (Sounds like a Mitch Berg post.) I feel great and my confidence and enthusiasm continue to grow. I know I'm not going to lose anywhere near 50 pounds this next quarter simply because I don't have as much to lug around anymore. A plateau could strike without warning. But as John Kerry would say, "Bring ... it ... on!"

You can follow my exploits in my diet blog. Unlike here, I post every day and every weigh-in, and it's truly non-partisan.

I will be celebrating, at Keegan's of course. I can't do this Thursday, so it will be next Thursday, July 27th.

I like KvM's term "Pollitorial" for the 50-31 percent drubbing that Mark Kennedy is supposedly suffering in his race against Amy Klobuchar for U.S. Senate. It's clearly not a poll in the traditional sense of the word, as many bloggers have illustrated quite well.

When I first saw this article, I shook my head, wondering what is going on at the corner office at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Here you have a "poll" that has missed the mark more times than you'd care to admit. Your critics point out, and you can't deny it, that the errors have almost totally favored the Left, the DFL in this case. You look at this poll and you know from the spread, one not seen in Minnesota for decades, simply cannot be true. And yet, you publish it anyway, couched in weasel words like "it's a surprise" or that the Republicans will no doubt close the gap, as if to say the gap is real to begin with.

If you're a real publisher, if printer's ink flows in your veins, you pick up the phone and summon the Minnesota Pollers to your office to explain themselves. You also see to it that your Managing Editor who OK'd it and put it on page one is there to explain himself.

"What are you people trying to do here? You know this conclusion is ridiculous. Everybody in the whole country knows it's ridiculous. Amy Klobuchar knows it's ridiculous. Why are we printing this?"

"Sir, we double checked everything. We think the poll is accurate, though maybe the timing was, ... Ford Bell has dropped out, so we thought it was time to test the waters."

"I'm fine with that, but again, your answer is ridiculous. If my someone walked in here and said our circulation and ad revenue were up 20 percent, what do you think I should do? Accept it, throw a party? No, if I didn't fire him on the spot, I'd send him back to find the error in his calculation."

"We did that, of course. But the numbers speak for themselves."

"What about the context? Your sample? Your methods? Look, the answer is wrong, wildly wrong. That's the only fact that matters here. Now, again, what went wrong here?"

"I'm not sure what you're asking for here. Do you want us to just play with the poll to get an answer you like? It doesn't work that way."

"Sure it does. You check everything. Something's wrong with this poll, and this isn't exactly the first time, is it? Maybe like you said, the timing's off. It's hot. People are vacationing. Amy has been running TV ads, Kennedy not. And by the way, Amy hasn't said much at all. She doesn't debate. Nobody knows what she stands for. She's going to have to open her mouth sooner or later, and when she does, Kennedy will respond. So maybe, just maybe, you should have just thrown out this poll, waiting a month, maybe two."

"That's fine in hindsight, but..."

"Hindsight? I'm talking foresight here! You all knew this was a crock before you ever published it. Now, look, I'd like to believe this poll, too. I'd love to see Amy win as much as you, but this isn't helping, making us look like shills."

"Polls sell a lot of papers, good or bad."

"Absolutely they do, and I have to believe good polling outsells bad polling. Now let's all take a breath. We will continue to publish the Minnesota Poll. But until further notice, until we figure out what's skewing the numbers, nothing gets printed without my OK at least two days in advance. Clear?"

The "Almanac" panel featured the DFL candidates in the September primary: Keith Ellison (endorsed), Mike Erlandson, Ember Reichgott-Junge, and Paul Ostrow. Now I went in prefering "none of the above" and came out feeling the same way. FYI, I don't live in this District, and I'm certainly not a Democrat, even if I did vote for Paul Wellstone once.

I think the DFL is all but certain to retain this seat in November. If the race were at all close, I think the DFL would probably do best with Erlandson, not Ellison. But the fact remains that Ellison won the DFL endorsement fairly, even if it got a little nasty afterwords. I saw nothing from his challengers on "Almanac" to justify a change.

Erlandson came off as environmentally hysterical, as he did on "Taxpayers League Live" (TPL) recently. Reichgott-Junge stayed on the Mommy Track with her incoherent calls for Universal Health Care, again like TPL recently. Paul Ostow continues not to understand that as a City Council member, he is in fact causing the increase in Minneapolis crime with his foolish priorities. His answer? More gun laws, even ammunition laws. The man is clueless.

Ellison was actually great this time, parrying the scandal talk easily and effectively. And, he didn't play any race or religion cards. He wandered close to the edges of the extremism of the others, but no further. He looked like the class of the field.

Better DFL candidates could probably be found, but they're not running. Yes, Ellison has some baggage, but if there's an issue here, it's only the press's biased treatment of it. I see no reason for the DFL voters in this District not to support their endorsed candidate, Keith Ellison.

Craig Westover more than once has noted the weak responses of the GOP to various DFL proposals and gaffes. This was evident on "Almanac" this week, with GOP chair Ron Carey facing off with his counterparts. DFL chair Brian Melendez understandably cautious and for once unstated. He held a weak hand thanks to the recently published antics of several of his endorsed candidates.

A rather giddy Carey, however, merely peppered Melendez with a bunch of one liners, several of them more personal than necessary. It was left to Jim Moore, chair of the Independence Party to soberly observe that these issues with Ellison, Hatch, Entenza, et al do indeed generate valid concerns as to how they would govern. As Moore observed, if Hatch and Entenza become Governor and Attorney General, will they be able to walk across the hall to work with each other?

Moore didn't get much said, as his candidates are unknown, and likely unwanted. But on camera, he was the best of the three tonight, the one who kept talking about how well they would govern, not how flawed his opposition is.

I have put fluorescent bulbs in most of the applicable lights in our home already. But there is more we could do to help save the environment, by no longer making things we clearly no longer need. Here are three:

• Pennies
  With copper prices rising to the point where melting down pennies is profitable, it's time we quit making these nearly worthless coins. There are community dishes by many a cash register, to leave extras for those who are short and don't want still more in change.


• Dollar Bills
  With the penny bin freed up in the tills of America, we can slide everything over to make room for the dollar coin. Personally, I prefer the newer "golden" dollars to the Susan B Anthony's, but either is preferable to dollar bills. I've never had a vending machine so equipped reject one, nor the bus. You know what happens to paper money in these machines. Besides, a dollar coin today is worth less than quarter was 40 years ago.


• AAA Batteries
  This isn't really the battery manufacturers' fault. The problem is that the morons that design portable devices like MP3 players largely opted for the AAA over the larger AA size. In the case of the Sony Walkman, not only did they shrink the battery from AA to AAA, they raised the power consumption of the circuitry! AA batteries last many times longer than AAA batteries, yet are only modestly larger. On an hour for hour basis, AA's cost much less to manufacture, and would leave much less to recycle.

In looking at the media coverage of DFL-endorsed candidate Keith Ellison's lengthy list of parking, traffic, tax, and campaign violations and associated fines, I noticed that a word keeps getting left out: unpaid.

If you're a Laura Ingraham fan like me, you know she often runs late. Her staff fears for their lives if they travel with her. She, too, has had many tickets. But - she pays them, which is all the law generally requires. As such, the whole business is almost funny.

With Keith Ellison, these fines go unpaid, a huge difference from Laura Ingraham or even Mike Erlandson whom Ellison faces in the primary. He claims they are a consequence of the many court appearances his job as an attorney requires. If he really believed that, why would he jeopardize and lose his license repeatedly, making it even more difficult to get to court on time?

No, the most obvious answer is often the right one, and I think that's the case here. He simply doesn't think he needs to pay them because of his race. Trouble is, many of these laws are indeed color-blind, which is why he keeps having his license suspended.

Again, I am struck by how many pundits have pulled their punches on this, lumping paid and unpaid fines together. Generally, these are the same people who lump legal and illegal immigration together. Only a couple of commentators have argued that this is a pattern of behavior, "rules for thee, but not for me" like Rosie O'Donnell and the Second Amendment.

I like most of all David Strom's observation if I'm remembering it correctly: If this "scandal" changes your mind about Keith Ellison, you just don't know Keith Ellison.

I've waited a while to see what dust this Surgeon General's report has kicked up. Not much that I can see, but I'm sure we'll hear more when the Legislature reconvenes.

Craig Westover has done his usual fine work in dissecting this 727 page report, concluding that this was a political document, not a scientific one. The opening gambit of "there is no safe level of second hand smoke" is enough to prove that assertion.

I only wonder what happened to all the victims to date? Fifty years ago, smoking was twice as popular, and permitted almost everywhere. If even trace amounts of second hand smoke are lethal, there should have been millions of victims by now. Where are they? Show me the Death Certificates listing second hand smoke as even a contributing factor.

Here's another challenge. If I gave you two populations, telling you only that one comes from a "normal" state, the other from a "smoke free" state, what statistic could you track and / or what medical tests could you perform to reliably discern which is which?

Dave Thompson on "At Issue with Tom Hauser" made another good point, that if tobacco is truly that dangerous, why don't we just make it illegal?

I, too, am impressed with the new Townhall.com site, and has been added to my blogroll as a reference. Frankly, it's more what I had hoped Power Line News would have been.

It appears that I can even get podcasts of the main Salem programs. I signed up for three - Prager, Hewitt, and James Glassman. I'll be interested to see and report on later how well this works.

After praising the work of Dan McElroy in reducing State government waste and inefficiency, the Minneapolis Star Tribune now says don't let the latter get in the way of what's truly important - tax increases. We've always had "W and I" before, so don't accept these as reasons for inaction now.

Thinking like this could only occur in the public sector, not in business, not even your family budget. When the kids need braces, do we just run out and get a second job? Or do we look at the whole budget and look for things we could buy smarter or do without?

While McElroy has done good work to date, he can only operate along the edges of the legislated programs. He cannot institute a school voucher program on his own, regardless of the cost savings, regardless of the improved results.

What the editorial doesn't say, and probably doesn't even understand is that there is TREMENDOUS waste and inefficiency in government. Consider:

• Minneapolis claims it's too broke to hire more police, thanks to LGA cuts. But Minneapolis only spends 9 to 11 percent of its huge budget on police. With or without waste or inefficiency, the elimination of a small percentage of lower priority spending would solve the problem.
  
• The public schools are forever broke, but most of the salaries paid do not go to the classrooms. Maybe better teachers wouldn't need such high levels of support staff.
  
• We have a glut of post-secondary public campuses (MnSCU), and even the University of Minnesota has needless duplication. We could close a fifth, a fourth, probably a third of them right now, consolidating to retain the better professors and reducing tuition.

The editorial has it backwards. The easy and ugly answers of tax and spending increases should not preempt focus and action on waste and inefficiency.

The Nihilist in Golf Pants filled in Saturday morning on the Patriot Insider. The NARN went to replays. But Taxpayers League Live (TPL) was indeed live this holiday weekend, with one of their best shows.

Hour one featured local girl makes good Ember Reichgott-Junge. The "At Issue with Tom Hauser" faithful know her from the "Face Off" segment, where she was bested by David Strom and Dave Thompson almost every week. She had to give that up to run for the House of Representatives in the Fifth District. That election, of course, is in September, not November.

I've complained before when guests are allowed to slide their unfounded premises and assertions by without comment or question. TPL has been guilty of that in the past as I see it, but it was Rock-em Sock-em Robots today. Nothing got past David and Margaret, with Ember reeling, ducking, and BS'ing throughout the interview.

This isn't personal, not borne of schadenfreude, not even a guilty pleasure. I just think the public is well-served when an office holder, candidate, or outspoken public figure is shown incapable of defending their ideas and proposals. Not because they are bad people, but because their ideas and proposals are bad. Governor Pawlenty could use a dose of this, too, on some issues.

Reichgott-Junge is apparently trying to be the soccer mom alternative to the DFL-endorsed Keith Ellison in the September primary. She has picked "universal health care" as her primary issue rather than make the case that the DFL convention made a mistake or why she is a better candidate. That's what primaries decide, but she ducked this on the show.

Her view on "universal health care" is the most vague I've heard yet, with no real specifics, unlike Becky Lourey and others. She talks of guidelines and incentives only, and clearly has no vision on how it would ever come together. The only sure thing is that it would cover abortions.

Ember has suffered some personal losses recently, and used them as examples. One of them was on Medicare, but she couldn't explain how or why that government run health care system let them down. This is the key point in this debate in my opinion. Everyone proposing "universal health care" claims to have the missing piece of the puzzle that will fix the shortcomings of Medicare, the Canadian system, the British Health Service, and all the other such socialized systems in world. It's never been done, but they think they can avoid the rationing that has beset them all. Before I vote for you, please show me how!

When ReichGott-Junge trotted out the Emergency Room talking point, Strom countered impressively by noting that we Americans are ER people. We like Urgent Care and Minute Clinics, too, where we can be seen right away or off-hours. We don't have the tolerance for the waiting lines and bureaucratic rules so characteristic of European health care.

These points were further discussed in the second hour, when they interviewed a conservative Swedish economist, which was very informative. Taken together, these were two of the best hours on talk radio this week. Special thanks go to Margaret for her contributions and especially for keeping David on topic!

The Nihilist In Golf Pants debuted on radio this Saturday, filling in for host Mark Yost on the Patriot Insider. I think he did a fine job, and should be considered for more such assignments.

He had some technical difficulties the first hour, which are not unknown on any Patriot broadast. This included two and half minutes of dead air at the start of the second segment, which cost us the first part of his review of the "Prairie Home Companion" movie.

I listened to him by my usual means of electronic transcription (Pogo). He has a very delibertive style and pace of speaking, so I played it back at 1.5x speed which made him speak more at a Mitch Berg pace.

I'll disagree with him in that "The Breakup" was far from the worst movie ever made. maybe only a double bogey at worst. But otherwise, good job Paul, and I look forward to more.