Accept No Substitutes

Transit strike

The transit workers are on strike. No bus or subway service.

Anti-public transportation types will use this as an example of why people driving around in cars and wasting gas is better than energy efficient public transportation.

George Bush and the Constitution

From an article by Doug Thomson:

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

Some people refuse to believe this happened, but Doug Thompson has published several more articles about it, insisting that he heard this from several sources who are at the meeting where Bush said it. I am sure it happened.

So let's talk about what a huge hypocrite George Bush is when it comes appointing federal judges who will strictly interpret the Constitution. It turns out that George Bush doesn't give a "goddamned" about the Constitution. He only appoints strict constructionisth judges because he heard that they are more likely to overturn Roe v. Wade and that's apparently all George Bush cares about when it comes to appointing judges. He appointed Harriet Miers because she was an evangelical Christian so he assumed she would do her best to make abortion illegal.

I like Justice Alito a lot better than George Bush because I believe that, even though some liberals may not like Alito, he really believes in the Constitution. He will interpret the Constitution in a way to limit the power of the federal government, which is a very good thing when someone like George Bush is running the federal government.

Why do more people vote Republican these days?

Via Atrios I came across a New Republic review of the book Off Center. According to the reviewer,

There is a strong conventional wisdom running through political punditry which holds that the system does what the people want. If one political party is winning, then it must be because they reflect majority opinion, and/or the other party is just screwing up.

Political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson have written a book called Off-Center that powerfully challenges this conventional wisdom. Hacker and Pierson show that public opinion has not moved rightward over the last two decades, and that the Republican Party has had to go to extraordinary lengths to hide its unpopular domestic agenda from the public.

I guess this view is easy to buy into if you want to believe that the Democrats are right about everything.

But I say that the real reason the Repubs have pulled ahead is because there has been a Christian revival, and the Christians have aligned themselves with the Republican party because the Democratic party is anti-abortion. It's a one issue alignment.

This alliance has brought new voters into the Republican party, but it has also had the effect of moving the Republican party towards pro-Christian positions and at the same time has moved Christians towards favoring certain positions endorsed by the rich elite who run the country, such as abolishing the estate tax.

Holiday of consumerism

Atrios says:

The basic reason I tend to say happy holidays for most of the month of December is that it feels pretty stupid saying "Merry Christmas" when it's a month away from the actual date. Come Christmas I'll be wishing everyone a "Merry Christmas," but on December 1?

This is a good point. Christmas is December 25th. Between the Friday after Thanksgiving and December 24th, the country celebrates a huge secular holiday of consumerism that has nothing to do with Christianity.

Air Marshals and the Bush Jr. police state

I agree with Peenie Wallie. He says:

For all the mental dwarfs that are claiming this poor victim said he had a bomb and reached into his bag, I'd like to point out that you have no idea what he said and whether or not he reached into a bag. You're taking the Air Marshall's word for it, and taking it on faith at that. This situation calls for a thorough investigation, otherwise you're going to have people on planes that can shoot to kill with impunity. Finally, if you people are all so deathly afraid of bombs, why do you possibly allow yourselves to go onto subways, buses, and into grocery stores without a securocrat sanctioned to murder without retribution at your side? Why limit your safety zone to the time you're on a plane or in the airport? Why not demand that Air Marshalls protect you around the clock?

I'd also like to point out that, given how much security you have to get through to get onto a plane, an airplane is the one place where you should always assume that a guy who screams "I have a bomb" is just a crazy guy and not a real bomber.

Is it moral to destroy Iran's nukes?

Verity at Southern Appeal asks if it's moral to preemptively destroy another country's nuclear weapons:

Assuming it is immoral to preemptively go to war against another country, is it morally permissible to instead target that country's nuclear weapon/facilities.

So here are my thoughts:

(1) The nuclear weapons have to actually exist, unlike the phantom WMD that was in Iraq.

(2) Targeting the nuclear weapons probably means dropping bombs on them, and that's going to kill people. Is it wrong to kill people to destroy a weapon which will probably never be used?

(3) An attack on a foreign country may cause that country to retaliate and thus it's not necessarily possible to target nuclear facilities without causing widespread loss of life.

(4) Is it moral to consider the tradeoffs? If there is a 10% chance the nuclear bomb might be used and kill 100,000 people, there is a net savings of 10,000 lives if it's destroyed. If we need to kill 1,000 to save a statistical 10,000, it this a moral tradeoff?

(5) Are some lives more important than other lives? Is it justified to kill 10,000 Iranians to save the lives of 1,000 Americans?

You must link to me

No one is visiting my blog, which sucks because what's the point of writing stuff that no one reads? So you must link to my blog in order to popularize it. It's for the greater good.

I will gladly blogroll anyone who blogrolls me, just send an email asking me to link back.

Right wing hypocrisy

The right wing has traditionally argued in favor of small government, less regulations, and of course federalism which is the concept that the federal government has limited powers and that most powers belong to the states. Isn't that what the Tenth Amendment says?

But the right wing reveals themselves for hypocrites when they support a federal government law which forces private organizations to behave in what the right wing would consider a proper manner. In this case, the law is the Solomon Amendment which requires colleges to allow military recruiters on campus or lose federal funding. Is micro-managing private colleges the proper role for the federal government? What does the right wing think that the federal government shouldn't be allowed to micro-manage?

See for example this post at Michelle Malkin's right wing blog.

Thoughts on Walmart

Walmart has been a topic of blog discussion at Matthew Yglesias, David Sirota and Resistance. Here are my thoughts:

(1) Walmart is going to pay its employees as little money as possible, like ninety-five percent of the businesses in the U.S. Walmart has no more responsibility here than any other company, but perhaps it's time to raise the minimum wage.

(2) Raising the minimum wage won't affect illegal immigrants who already work for less than the minimum wage, depressing wages for legitimate U.S. citizens. It's time to kick out the illegal immigrants.

(3) Some workers at Walmart qualify for public assistance like food stamps. That has nothing to do with Walmart, it would apply to any business that pays its workers low salaries.

(4) Does Walmart receive various direct tax breaks and subsidies? This is likely. I support tax simplification. If every business paid the same tax rate and no business got any sort of breaks, we'd have a fairer tax system. Why don't the politicians enact this sensible tax reform? Maybe they enjoy and profit from the wheeling and dealing?

(5) Walmart's huge size gives it more bargaining power than smaller businesses, and I did write in my last post that this is how bigger companies actually make greater profit; it has nothing to do with manufacturing economies of scale. Walmart doesn't even manufacture anything. Big companies llike Walmart need to be broken up into smaller companies.

Diseconomies of scale

Chris of Stumbling and Mumbling writes about diseconomies of scale and big corporate mergers.

The bigger organizations grow, the more inefficient they become. (The U.S. government is the biggest organization and the most innefficient of all, but more on that some other time.) So when two big companies merge, they become one less efficient company. But what the bigger company does get is better bargaining power. Everyone who studied economics knows that a monopoly is the best place to be; monopolies can maximize the price of its products.

For example, 10 companies might be able to make widgets for $1.00 each, but they would have to sell them for $1.20 because of the competition from many other firms. If they all merged into a single firm, the manufacturing costs might rise to $2 per widget because of diseconomies of scale, but now the one company has a monopoly and raises the price to $5.00 widget, lowering demand to half as many widgets as before, yet the one inefficient company producing and selling half as many widgets is many times more profitable.

We see from the example above that laissez-faire economics produces an inefficient economy that benefits the rich owners of big companies over the the middle class who have to pay higher prices for fewer goods.

The government needs to step in and prevent companies from getting so big. Unfortunately, it's the CEOs of the big companies who are donating money to politicians' campaign funds. This explains why there's no impetus to enforce antitrust laws.