Wolf, What Happened To Your Boys?

Ok, my guess is that we have all seen the Blitzer/Chaney cage match. It is one of the ugliest events I have ever seen recorded.

But my complaint is not with Cheney. After all we should know from the start Cheney is going to lie his tail off. No, what amazed me was Blitzer’s pathetic weenie-bound attempt to plant a wet one on Chaney’s rear.

After Cheney attempted to cut Blitzer off at the knees, “Frankly, you're out of line with that question.” Wolf fell silent, then stammered, and then did everything up to volunteering to father Mary’s next child in order to appease the raging VP.

Go ahead, watch the clip if you can bare to. If you must, mute everything but the last 10 seconds. Observe how a so-called news anchor willingly becomes a eunuch on national TV. Sad, so very very sad.

Updated link (thanks BGRS):
Chaney/Blitzer on youtube

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Were It Only So

Overheard and read so many times this week:

I say this not because I have faith in Bush, but because I believe Petraeus is the best man for the job, and the general has literally written the book on counterinsurgency ops.

So?

Phillip II, Caesar, Napoleon, and von Schlieffen all, either literally or figuratively, wrote the book on their own strategies. Yet where is the logical arguments that Petraeus’ version of COIN strategy will work at this time, in this place and with these conditions.

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Let's Get Quizical

I am going to take a moment and step outside my portfolio and post something about Iraq. Generally, I am reluctant to write much about the war simply because so many others do so with much more skill. But I feel I have an opening. There has been something missing from the debate.

Every time Bush, Chaney, Lieberman et al speak on the subject of a draw down they assert two things:

1. What’s left of Iraq and the rest of the Middle East will dissolve into chaos
2. The terrorists (whoever they may be) will be able to gain the advantage of using Iraq to attack the United States.

Also thrown into the mix are assertions that:

• Terrorists will be able to use oil as a weapon against us
• Terrorists will be a step closer to their ultimate goal of establishing a caliphate
• This conflict is existential – our survival as a nation is at risk just as it was during WWII

My debate teacher used to tell me that an argument unchallenged was an argument accepted. So would some one please tell me why the Democrats are not aggressively challenging these assertions?

Where are the experts : Cole, Clarke, Albright and the others who could address these issues? Where are the white papers?

These seem to be the only arguments that resonate with what’s left of those who either still support the war or are undecided. To my thinking, this is a huge and unforgivable flaw in the conduct of this so-called debate on the part of Democratic leadership and the Democratic intelligencia.

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Senator, Heal Yourself

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R) a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee is at it again. While he has yet to break through to the upper tier of party flackdom (think Jon Kyle), he certainly is consistently knocking on the door.

His official web site trumpets the news that the former Texas Attorney General cosponsored “two important bills aimed at providing patients with greater access to health care by enacting key civil justice reforms.”

Both The Medical Care Access Protection Act, S. 243 and The Healthy Mothers and Healthy Babies Access to Care Act, S. 244 will “increase health care access and decrease costs….” Wow! Is one the most doctrinaire conservatives growing some social conscience?

Ah…no.

Medical liability reform is the goal here.

“These important bills will increase health care access and decrease costs by limiting the effects of runaway frivolous lawsuits that are driving doctors out of practice,” Sen. Cornyn said. “In 2003, Texas put a model in place for the nation that has proven successful. Congress should act now to provide a national solution so that all Americans can benefit from medical liability reform….The current system greatly decreases hope for accessible and affordable health care in America. The time for that to change is now, so I hope we’ll see bipartisan support for these key bills.

http://cornyn.senate.gov/index.asp?f=record&lid=1&yid=1&rid=237286&pg=1

Cornyn’s logic is thus:

1. Litigator are greedy
2. They bring frivolous law suites to slack their money lust
3. Noble insurance companies get hurt
4. To repair their unjust losses, insurance companies charge doctors higher premiums
5. Higher premiums drive doctors out of business

The evidence of this seen by this observer is at best anecdotal. One of the biggest motivations that insurance companies had in increasing premiums was to expand their float and try to undo the damage done to their investment portfolios 1999-2003.

Sure higher premiums increase the cost of doing business, but a key question is: What is the real reason a medical liability insurance company feels the need to increase its premiums?

Sen. Cornyn is sure he knows the answer.

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Marcus Welby He Ain't

Blue Girl's prescient entry (two) below got me thinking.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush made clear on Saturday that he was going ahead with his plan to send more troops to Iraq despite an angry reaction in Congress, and accused his critics of failing to offer an alternative

So ya go to the doctor. He tells you about the dark spot on your x-rays. Serious stuff. He outlines what he wants to do. High risk, no guarantees, in fact….

You mouth is dry, pulse pounding in your ears. You finally speak, “Can we please consider something else?”

“Fine!” your doctor snaps, tossing your record on his desk. “You tell me. What are we doing to do? Tell me now.”

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Keep On Fighting, Harvey, Keep on Fighting

Houston, TX does many things right. This time every year, one of its best activities occur, the Martin Luther King Jr. Oratory Competition. Ten elementary students compose and give their own speechs on a selected topic. After the competition, the NPR affiliate plays the speeches. I have learned that if I am driving when they are broadcast, I had best find a parking lot and pull over.

Harvey Pittman II, a 5th-grade student from Lockhart Elementary won this years competition. This young man is brilliant and spot on.

If you do nothing else this week-end to commemorate this important holiday, please click this link.

http://www.kuhf.org/newsaudio/2007/01/070112mlkspeech.m3u

More info about the competition and excerpts from other speeches are here:

http://www.kuhf.org/newsaudio/2007/01/070112mlk.m3u


One more thing, IMHO Dr. King’s Letter from the Birmingham Jail is the best prose ever written by an American.

http://almaz.com/nobel/peace/MLK-jail.html

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Soldiering Opinion.

Notice how these boys do not have the willingness, ability or desire to defend Bush’s policy. For them, war is about being at their buddy’s side at crunch time.

Click Here

No greater point here. God love and bless 'em.

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Changing No Child Left Behind?

In the mid 1970s, Dexter Manley was graduated from Jack Yates High School, an inner city football power house in Houston. From an academic point of view, he was totally illiterate. Of course, he also spent four years earning passing grades at Oklahoma State. In the mid 1980s, Manley was the poster boy and the chief piece of evidence for education reform in Texas. From then on, any person who wanted to be elected Governor of Texas had better be extremely outspoken on behalf of education reform.

Calls for reform led to calls for more money. Calls for more money, led to demands for accountability. Comprehensive testing is seen as being the most efficient way to promote and implement accountability. The interesting thing about the No Child Left Behind Act is that it not only impacts money, but the very life of a given school.

The concentration on test scores impacts the pay and job security. Good deal, right? Not so fast.

Three examples:

Superintendents are hired based on promises to improve test score. There is much turn over. Their deservedly high salaries are greatly influenced by 200-2000 employees. A thoughtful professional will protect the family’s income by moving to a less problematic district as soon as issues of concern appear on the horizon. In six years, I worked with 3 superintendents.

Building principals are given yearly goals and are paid bonuses or fired based on test achievement. I worked for years in a high school whose student population was undergoing vast and constant demographic change. I worked under 4 principals in ten years. Most principals have a plan, a bag of tricks that has worked for them. Yet, they are keenly aware of the diminishing marginal utility of their plans. So again, they come in, work their magic and get out before the trend line drops (farther).

In Texas, part of a teacher’s pay is based on scores and now the legislature want job security so attached as well. Let’s take my old district – school A is in a great long established upper middle class neighborhood with a history of superior test results; school B is in a “transitional” neighborhood with many highly mobile families and English competency issues. These kids need great teachers. However, a blue chip candidate for a teaching position would be silly to consider school B if school A was on the table as well.

This is just one small slice of the harmful unintended side effects caused by NCLB.

In view of this, as I scanned an overview of John Cornyn’s remarks at the Heritage Foundation I felt a rush of hope. Soon I was to find that his comments were just a tad bit longer than the name of the bill he is cosponsoring, the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success (A-PLUS) Act of 2007.

I felt teased. Important notions were only vaguely hinted at:

more decision-making power to parents and teachers… cutting the red tape and bureaucracy… eliminating the regulatory burden that invariably attends Washington control.

http://cornyn.senate.gov/index.asp?f=record&lid=1&rid=237281

Soon I will be reading the Senate bill (I attended public school in Ohio) to find out just how they plan to do those wonderful things listed above.

Its worth noting that Cornyn is up for reelection in ’08. While there is little indication of who his main competition will be, he undoubtedly knows that he needs more in his resume than his (formerly) rabid support for the war and all things Alberto Gonzales.

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Wild Horses

Wild, wild horses, we’ll ride them some day
Wild horses couldnt drag me away
Wild, wild horses, we’ll ride them some day

An other reason to hate omnibus bills. A provision was added to the 2005 omnibus appropriations bill which ended thirty-four years of prohibition against the commercial sale and slaughter of wild free-roaming horses and burros. Why? Money of course. The individuals or corporations who buy these animals have the clear intention of slaughtering them for profit. You’d think that the fact that these friends of Trigger were often ending up on the very human menus of a certain NATO ally would have given the conservatives pause.

But a hero rides in:

In the opening week of the 110th Congress, Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D-WV), the new Chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, today (Jan. 5) reintroduced legislation to reinstate a ban on the senseless slaughter of wild horses – a symbol of the American West – that roam our nation’s public lands.

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/News/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=1

Garnering early bipartisan support (Rep. Ed Whitfield R-KY is a cosponsor) H.R. 249 will keep Mr. Ed’s wild relatives from being served en brochette with a spicy burgundy from Cote d’Or.

Drop your rep. a line and help put an end to this infamy.

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Hello

Gosh, I am humbled to be with such company. I will try to keep you informed about those Texans who represent the Houston area in the 110th Congress.

I will concentrating on the folks representing my homeland – Sens Cornyn and Hutchinson, Reps Gene Green (D), Ted Poe (R), Nick Lampson (D), John Cubertson (R) (my own), and the inimitable Sheila Jackson-Lee (D). Hardly the brightest crayons in the box, but if Rep.Green tried he could be a star as he is both knowledgeable and witty. Think a straight Barney Frank.

Committees I will be checking in with are:

House committees: Rules; Natural Resources; Education and Labor

Senate committees: Natural Resources and Public Works; Health Education and Labor

And as time allows, I will be posting on John Boehner’s wardrobe.

A quick lap of the block shows me that none of the above folks have issued a statement about The Speech. Cornyn recently made a speech at the Heritage Foundation on NCLB. I will post on that shortly. In the near future, Culbertson will be having a neighborhood meeting next door to me at Rice U. A focus will be border security. I will try to attend. I want to ask him why he continually misuses the term amnesty? Ignorance or manipulation?

Doclarry's post below reminds me that I would also like to ask him about the min wage. Conservatives always speak of potential harm that raising the minimum will cause, but where are the historical stats that back this up? Basic level microeconomic theories of supply, demand, and price are interesting, but not always applicable. What does the real world record tell us?

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