Oh, My Bad!

I like how this slipped by Tom Ridge's replacement, Governor Ed Rendell. Between this and that, I definitely feel confident our homeland security is well on track to do a bang-up job.

The Best Fisking In A While

James Lileks fisks a Frenchman hard. Régis Debray, a former aide to President Francois Mitterrand of France and compatriot of Che Guevara, wrote a ridiculous op/ed for the NY Times that is as smug as it is wrong.

One of my favorite lines that the frog wrote:

Europe no longer takes its civilization for civilization itself, no doubt because it is better acquainted with foreign cultures, notably Islam. Our suburbs, after all, pray to Allah.

This is laughable on its face. He's actually trying to say that the US is intolerant of different religions and cultures? We need to learn from France? I recall my own French ancestors came to US because they were Huguenots and unwelcome in France (to put it mildly). I also remember an embarassing incident for France last year when a reactionary jingoist placed second in the Presidential election. For some reason I can't remember any similar success for Ross Perot or Pat Buchanan.

Read the op/ed then read Lileks tear it apart. Good times.

What Is Feminism, Really?

Julian Sanchez linked to an interesting post on (lefty) Ampersand about feminism and why conservatives and libertarians cannot, by definition, be feminists.

Julian goes into why Ampersand's presupposition that in order to be in favor of something you must support laws imposing it is rediculous. Good work like always. Hooray.

Ampersand discusses why lefty political thought MUST be adhered to in order to be considered a true feminist. His comment section is filled with lively debate on the basic definition of feminism. Is it simply the "radical notion that women are people" or total adherance to the principles of wealth redistribution, affirmative action, equal pay for equal work, et al.? The idea among the lefties is that conservative and libertarian feminists (Independent Women's Forum, ifeminists, Christina Hoff Summers) co-opt the term feminism when they claim to promote equality for the sexes, but in reality support the white man hegemony. Because they don't think that women and men are unequal they cannot be considered feminist.

I usually avoid gender politics because it bores me and because I tend to have the feeling that to spend time talking about gender is to accord it more importance than it actually has. This is why I don't care about IWF and ifeminists even though I tend to agree with them.

The other reason why I don't pay much attention to right-leaning feminist groups is because I agree with the lefties: conservatives and libertarians aren't feminists.

One of the reasons I think the feminists are so upset is because to most apolitical women and girls 'feminist' is a slur. Most women consider the movement to have marginalized itself by behaving like a bunch of rabid man-haters. They don't identify with it anymore. Most women love men and love to be sexy and girly and prefer things like sappy romantic comedies and playing with babies. They are able to go to any schools they want, practice any profession that doesn't have extremely tough physical demands, work in or out of the home (and more often, both), live with their boyfriends, pick their own husbands, divorce freely, flash their goods on Girls Gone Wild without reproach, make babies naturally or artificially and abort babies. Feminists would have you believe that simply because there are still conservatives who disagree with some of these behaviors, that women are still repressed. It's not enough that we are free to do these things, they should be explicitly condoned.

Talk about ideological tyranny.

South Korea's New Prez

Roh Moo Hyun, South Korea's new president, compares himself to Abraham Lincoln. Both grew up poor and put themselves through law school. Both failed at politics many times before becoming President. Both became president during difficult times. And both suck! (sorry, the Lew Rockwell in me slipped out just then)

I'm sure Mr. Roh is a friendly enough guy, and I admire his career accomplishments and his commitment to keepin' it real, but he's also trying to institute leftist reforms that would make Hillary Clinton guffaw.

Roh has signaled that he plans major shake-ups. To fulfill his promises of equality for women, for example, Roh has asked his transition staff to draw up plans to create affirmative action programs, quotas for public and private hiring, and a vast increase in the country's child-care system, at a potential cost of billions of dollars.

"He said, don't be hostage to the budget. He will use whatever money he needs," said Chung Young Ai, who is in charge of women's issues on his transition staff. "He's not trying to change little by little. He believes in an overhaul."

He's also pretty much an anti-chaebol kinda guy, with talks of income redistribution and opening the conglomerates up to class action suits from stockholders. (this is not to say that I am pro-chaebol, but certainly there are better pro-market, pro-competition reforms that could be made. Taxing these guys to death won't help anything.) Of course, what is scariest, and most pertinent to Americans, is Mr. Roh's idea of how to get the Koreas together again: total capitulation to Kim Jong-il's extortion. In a word, ack.

SEALs Prepare for War

Before I snapped out of the feminist-imposed haze that had me convinced that I could be anything, I wanted to join the Navy and be either a fighter pilot (Top Gun is still my favorite 80s movie) or a SEAL. They just kick so goddamn much ass, you know? Lately I've been able to watch portions of their training courtesy of some show on some cable channel (I think it's one of the Discoverys). What glimmer of desire to be a SEAL was promptly stamped out. Of course, I do still think they kick ass, but I'm glad I get to benefit from their training without having to endure it myself.

Now, having read the Washington Post article detailing the preparations for their larger role in this second war with Iraq, I see that the training isn't half as tough as the actual job.

Hmm...

All I gotta say is when I think sophisticated women, I don't think fetish/bondage films. Who's this Gwyneth-Paltrow-wannabe think she's fooling?

Wild Winter Weather

This past weekend's snow storm caused me to wonder, is this some El Nino effect? What exactly does El Nino do? How do the evironmentalists make El Nino jibe with their Global Warming schpeel?

Of course, Tech Central Station has a good column going through such issues. I knew they would.

Springfield Virginia Igloo

Ryan and Matt Rice, ages 24 and 21, are a couple of brothers who attend Northern Virginia Community College, work and live with their parents. Every winter, when weather permits, they build an igloo. Usually it's only big enough to crawl into. Not this year. It's about 15 feet high, 30 feet around and one can walk into it and stand comfortably. The boys have outfitted the interior with lawn chairs, candles and beer.

I need to find these boys and party with them.

Fairfax County Refunds $171m of Bonds

This reminds me that a small portion of the folks who want to prevent the divdend tax repeal are local and state governments. If dividends become more attractive to (fixed income) investors (who we all know are low and middle class americans, largely retired or reaching that age), there will be even less demand for government bond issuance.

This becomes more glaring given the financial dilemma that most localities find themselves in -- who in their right mind would buy up some California or New York bonds anytime soon?

Atlanta: An Example for Desperate Localities

Yes, Shirley Franklin may be a Democrat but the extent to which she has gone to turn Atlanta's bleak fiscal position around is impressive. Last year, as she took office, she learned that she was inheriting a $90 million deficit (20 percent of the city's operating budget). By last month, that deficit has been turned into a surplus of $47 million.

The mystery of the sucess lies largely in her reorganization of City Hall, which consequently saw a 16 percent reduction in its workforce. This was the first step in correcting what had become a bloated bureaucracy (Atlanta employed 21% to 37% more city workers per resident than the average city government), as former-Mayor Bill Cambell must have taken a few pages out of the Marion Barry playbook -- to gain votes, Cambell would just create jobs in City Hall for his prospective voters. Cambell's corruption extended far beyond his jobs-for-votes campaign: Corruption scandals on his watch led to convictions of a former city chief operating officer, deputy chief operating officer and commissioner of administrative services. Clearly, Franklin appears to be a breath of fresh air for Atlanta. But it's still early.

Come time for re-election, it may be difficult for Franklin to court the same people who got her the title of Atlanta's first female mayor. Fortunately for her, she has impressed a whole new group of voters -- businessmen who doubted she had it in her to cut the fat in City Hall.

Once Franklin was inaugurated, her advisors were telling her that the answer to their fiscal problems was in a property tax increase of 47 percent. But in order for that to fly, she would have to court the business community, which initially questioned her intentions (she is a Democrat, afterall). Assuming Franklin was just another tax-and-spend mayor, they wanted evidence that it wasn't just the taxpayers who were going to experience some belt-tightening. Then, they'd consent to the tax increase. The city council cut 846 of 5,407 jobs as well as implement an unpaid furlough policy (employees must take off five days unpaid) and cut low-priority services from the budget (grass trimming around signs was one of the first to go).

In the end, I think the property tax increase was a little rough (the city council ended up raising the rate 51 percent instead of Franklin's request of 47 percent), given as how they still had a $5 million surplus from just reorganizing City Hall. If anything, Shirley Franklin is impressive because she made the cuts and decisions (it's never easy to upset your own voting block) that scare the hell out of every state and local government that right now is riding the deficit express.

Sniveling from the Anti-War Left

In case you don't get annoyed enough with the intelligensia of Western Europe, here's a good example of how condescending they (and the NYT) are.

Dealing With North Korea

The Washington Post's editorial about how the world should deal with North Korea is both right and wrong. First up, the part that is correct:

[W]hile demanding a veto over any campaign to disarm Iraq, Russia and China propose to stand aside while Washington disarms North Korea on its own -- presumably by meeting Pyongyang's demands for political and economic bribes.

The consistency in these apparently paradoxical positions is not hard to find. Both represent the easy way out of confronting a dictator. In Iraq, multilateralism is embraced as a way of blocking the tough but probably necessary measure of military intervention; in North Korea, power is delegated to the United States because that will save other countries from having to take responsibility for facing Kim Jong Il. The United States has been willing enough to go along with this formula -- the Clinton administration consented to multilateral containment of Saddam Hussein while negotiating unilateral deals with Mr. Kim. The problem is that this path of least resistance didn't work in either case, and not because of the Bush administration's belligerence. North Korea pocketed Mr. Clinton's concessions and went right on working on nuclear weapons.

Everyone is perfectly happy to let the U.S. take the lead on North Korea because they don't want to deal with it. Why assume the risk of Kim Jong-il's ire when they can just pawn it off on Big Bad America? Plus Mr. Kim only wants to talk to the U.S., so why not let him? Why not make this guy happy and maybe he'll shut up for a while and let them focus on heckling the U.S. on Iraq.

Now for the wrong part:

The Bush administration would be wrong now to concede North Korea's stockpiling of nuclear warheads, as it sometimes appears inclined to do. If there is a chance to stop Pyongyang from reprocessing its spent nuclear fuel into bomb-grade plutonium, it should be tried, even if it fails. At the moment, the administration appears paralyzed, by Iraq or internal disagreements or perhaps both; it cannot afford to do nothing. But it makes little sense to embrace the same strategy that has failed, especially if that amounts to swallowing the terms of a tyrant. Talks between the United States and North Korea, and perhaps bilateral agreements of some kind, will need to be part of any solution to this problem, given Pyongyang's long-standing obsession with wresting recognition and security guarantees from Washington.

I think The Post's editorial board isn't giving Bush's team enough credit here. Bush isn't doing nothing because he can't decide what to do, or is too preoccupied with Iraq. Bush is doing nothing because that's exactly the opposite of what Kim Jong-il wants. Mr. Kim, as this editorial correctly states, is obsessed with the U.S. and will only talk to the U.S. He is throwing a tantrum of sorts because Bush has made it so clear that he's willing to let South Korea, China, Russia and Japan take the lead. He's pissed that Bush cares more about another tinpot dictator who doesn't even have confirmed nuclear weapons. How can you extort money and arms when no one is even willing to talk to you?

But such deals will never be effective or even possible unless the nations around North Korea -- including South Korea and Japan as well as Russia and China -- are willing to join in credibly demonstrating to the North that the pursuit of nuclear weapons will only bring about isolation and ruin. Unless those states are willing to take on the risks of standing up to Mr. Kim, they will almost certainly incur the risk of living with a renegade nuclear power.

Back to something I agree with. I think China might be able to accomplish the most with North Korea. Given the refugees that they are currently forced to devote tremendous police power to rounding up, I would imagine that the first card they could play might be, "We'll stop sending your emigrants back. We'll help them get to South Korea instead."

Joanne McNeil Has A Blog

While Jameson was an intern at Cato I had the opportunity to tag along at some intern gatherings and meet some rad kids. One such rad girl is Joanne McNeil. I just discovered, by checking out Julian's pictures of the latest D.C. Blogorama, that Joanne has a blog. Yay.

Virginia General Assembly Republicans Pass Estate Tax Repeal

Governor Mark Warner and the rest of the General Assembly's Democrats failed to stem the mighty force that is the Virginia GOP. The Republicans of both houses have sucessfully rammed though identical Estate Tax repeals and now Governor Warner is trying to figure out what he can do to prevent a loss of $137 million in revenue. Currently Virginia levies a 16% tax on all estates valued at or above $1 million. The repeal would take effect in 2005. He's trying to avoid a veto because the Republicans have the veto beating 2/3 margin nearly locked up in both houses.

Interestingly enough, and further proof that Virginia Democrats are very conservative, Warner says he would prefer to repeal the tax as part of a major overhaul of the Virginia tax system. The Democrats tried to tie the repeal to a full phase-out of the car tax, a rollback on the food tax and increased education and mental health funding. The Republicans would have none of it. New House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) ruffled a few feathers by ignoring Democratic attempts to extend the debate.

This is why I love Virginia. Democrats try to fight an Estate Tax repeal with cutting other taxes. I scoff at folks who live under the liberal nonsense that pervades Maryland and D.C.'s governments.

Sean Penn Can Go Eff Himself

Sean Penn is suing producer Steve Bing over the dissolution of a deal to make a movie. Mr. Penn claims that they had an oral agreement that the star would be make $10 million whether or not the film was actually made. He claims that the role was rescinded because of his outspokenness over the situation with Iraq. Supposedly the producer thought there would be too much negative publicity associated with the star.

Mr. Bing (most famous for fathering Elizabeth Hurley's baby) is counter-suing Mr. Penn for reneging on the deal to make the movie and attempting to extort $10 million by threatening to publicly say that the deal was broken over political differences.

A January 14 letter from Mr. Bing's attorneys allegedly said:

"(M)y client's decision to move on is reinforced by your client's statements broadcast in his Larry King interview (on CNN Jan. 11) ... Steve Bing respects your client's dedication to expressing and acting on his political views irrespective of the personal consequences. If a price is to be paid for Mr. Penn's behavior and his preoccupation with political and social issues, that price should appropriately be borne by Mr. Penn, not by his potential employer[emphasis added]."

My armchair analysis: If Mr. Bing truly agreed to pay Mr. Penn regardless of whether the movie was made then he is a dumbass. He should know oral agreements are binding. Just ask Kim Basinger. If either of them honestly think that most folks care about Mr. Penn's personal political views enough to see or not see a particular movie then they haven't been paying attention. And if folks are turned off by Mr. Penn's views enough to avoid his movies, then Mr. Bing's entirely correct when he says that price should be borne by Mr. Penn.

Del. Black's Baby Dolls







How would you like to get a replica of a trimester-old fetus in the mail? For some of Virginia's Democratic state senators it was a disturbing event. Sens. Toddy Puller (D-Fairfax) and Richard Saslaw (D-Fairfax) were quite bothered by Del. Richard Black's (R-Loudoun) publicity stunt. Along with the plastic 'baby' recipients got a letter asking "Would you kill this child?"

This is all part of the anti-abortion kick Virginia Republicans are on right now. I'm not surprised by Del. Black's approach (which he is unapologetic for) or the Democratic response. Though, I have to laugh that they thought it so disturbing to be confronted with a fake fetus. I guess they prefer fetuses in medical waste bags.

Anti-Israel A.N.S.W.E.R.

A.N.S.W.E.R. is now blocking Rabbi Michael Lerner from speaking at this weekend's anti-war rally in San Francisco. He's apparently got incompatible views. Though he believes in the ending of occupation, establishment of a Palestinian state, and reparations to Palestinian refugees, he doesn't think that Israel should be destroyed.

Where does the rest of the rag-tag anti-war left stand on this issue?

The other groups have said that while they disagree with A.N.S.W.E.R., they will honor an agreement giving each group an effective veto on speakers. Yet it is inconceivable that these anti-war coalitions would let A.N.S.W.E.R. ban a speaker if he accused that group of racism, sexism or homophobia. Why should anti-Semitism be treated differently, as the acceptable -ism?

Greenspan Stresses Need for Budget Discipline, Caution on War Involvement

At least in his dealings before Congress, I tend to agree with Alan Greenspan. His observations on the political economy are always dead-on, particularly in today's semi-annual report before the Senate Banking Committee.

It is no surprise that he denounced the budgetary irresponsibility of the day, but he sure took the wind out of the Democrats' sails when he refused to admit that government spending is government spending is government spending. Keynes had a difficult time understanding this, but here it goes: On one side of the scale you have $1 billion in government services (USPS/Amtrak bailouts, ethanol subsidies, e.g.); On the other side of the balance there is $1 billion in permanent tax cuts.

Daschle and Pelosi would like you to believe that the scale is balanced -- but it's not. Government services do not stoke the fire of productivity and economic growth anymore than my purchase of a book for Christina will benefit the 9th District of Your Mom. It's that sort of nonsense that should have died in the bread lines of FDR's War on America (er-- the New Deal and its LBJ derivative, War on Poverty).

But let's return to the present. A permanent tax cut will do us all a service by-way of taking some of the irresponsibly-spent money out of the hands of those near-term-perspective political animals. Tax-cuts that are encouraged by moderates (read: the pussy-ass GOP) are termed (usually ten years) and offer little solace for a burned-out market that can see through the political rhetoric (read: bullshit) of the day and recognize that the rules of the game can change from session to session, or even day-to-day with such narrow political majorities.

Yes, at the end of the day, the costs of a tax-cut fall on the same bottom-line as the rest of expenditures. But don't make me go down that well-traveled path of incentives, moral hazard, the Iron Triangle, and damn-fool bureaucrats. It should be second-nature by now.

Do note that Greenspan also discussed the need for the federal government to switch to a chained CPI from the antiquated consumer price index in how it indexes federal benefits (social security, for one) for inflation. As he said, the chained CPI "better measures changes in the cost of living." It does this by behaving in a more dynamic way than the traditional CPI, which relies on a fixed market-basket of goods and services. The chained CPI changes the weights of included goods to reflect relative price changes, which obviously impact consumption levels.

In plain-speak, the chained CPI is a little less careless than the CPI and when we're talking about billions of miscalculated dollars (because the system is too old to note subtle changes), there's a huge impact. From the WSJ article:

Had the [chained CPI] been used over the last decade, the federal deficit in 2002 would have been $40 billion smaller.

Um, can we get on that?

Stupid Girl Gets 48 Years for Murder of Her Father

A dumbass JMU student, Clara Jane Schwartz, 20, got sentenced to 48 years yesterday for first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of solicitation to commit murder.

The girl was obsessed with the lamest of hobbies, magik. She actually met the kid who performed the killing at a Renaissance fair. How gay is that? All I can think about is that old recurring SNL skit "Goth Talk" and how ridiculous it is to be older than 13 and find such bullshit interesting. It's like being obsessed with unicorns or patterning your life on Alice In Wonderland. And here we come to the basis of this girl's problems, she does not live in or relate to reality. She avoids it, and as a result she thought killing her dad (with a sword!) was a reasonable idea.

Administrative Note

Why can't you see the Effin' Eh name graphic up top? Why can't you check out Effin' Eh @ Home? Because we moved and switched ISPs. This means that our AT&T-hosted site is shut down. I'm trying to nag Jameson enough to get him to redo it, but it's slow going. I hope we get around to it sometime this week.

The Irrelevant French







Thanks to Flashbunny.org for the fun graphic. The attached article about France losing Ally status with us is worth checking out also.

Thanks to InstaPundit for making me want to check out Flashbunny by posting this.

Anti-Abortion Bills Gain Momentum

Virginia, the commonwealth (not state) that's so conservative that the Democrats in the House of Delegates won't even stop a parental consent bill, a bill to ban partial-birth 'infanticide' or a bill requiring the notification of parents for treating certain conditions. We have a parental notification law already, and we've seen the number of teenage abortions go down as a result. Of course, many of the girls are probably just going to jurisdictions with fewer parental involvement requirements, but not all of them have the means to truck it accross state lines.

Pro-lifers would like to chalk up the decreases in teen pregnancies and abortions to the increased parental involvement. Pro-abortioners would like to ascribe the drop to an increase in back-alley abortions.

Jilted Jenny Jones

Jenny Jones and her famous talk show are getting cancelled. It's been seeing its ratings drop as the content has become tamer. I have to say, I've been annoyed by Jenny for a while now. The show has run out of topics so it distinguishes itself by using lame camera tricks and Pop-Up commentary. Good riddance I say.

Given the explosion of talk shows back in the early-mid 90s it's pretty funny that now there are now only two talk shows in the top twenty syndicated programs, Dr. Phil and Oprah.

Cook It Up, Effers!

The years I spent working in restaurants gave me a good idea of the grueling work that cooking in a restaurant kitchen is. In addition, Jameson's older brother is a chef who has worked in the area's finest restaurants, and I hear his tales all the time. It's very stressful work and I'm glad I'm not doing it. Today's Washington Post has a great little article that outlines the typical duties of a line cook in a fine restaurant in the D.C. area. Read it and be grateful.

Fundraising Hilarity

You know those annoying letters from the Republican and Democratic parties begging you to contribute money so they can stop the mad plans of the other party? If you don't get letters like that, or even if you do, read the post by Jane Galt about it. It's damned funny.

Stop the Shuttle

I began Paul Krugman's latest NYT Op/Ed with considerable optimism.

Some commentators have suggested that the Columbia disaster is more than a setback — that it marks the end of the whole space shuttle program. Let's hope they're right.

I'm thinking: whoa, he's going to actually talk about privatization of space exploration. No. He's just opposed to manned space exploration (or in the case of the shuttles, space loitering).

Of course the shuttle is stupid. I was listening to NPR's Morning Edition yesterday morning and heard the beginning of a story about a high school that was running an experiment on ants with the crew of the Columbia. I say the beginning of a story because after about 30 seconds of describing the lame experiment I switched to a music station. Ants in space. This is what the shuttle program is reduced to. Instead of doing any worthwhile exploration these highly trained folks are monitoring the effects of a zero gravity environment on insects.

Back in the 80's my mom worked for a short time at the National Commission on Space, an office commissioned by Congress to determine what America's goals were for the next 50 years of civilian space exploration (from 1985). I remember it vividly because we got a copy of the video and book they produced and I used to really pore over the book. I loved the colorful illustrations of moon colonies. Of course, I never expected any of it to get accomplished. My parents made it pretty clear that NASA was just jack-a-lackin' around and no real progress was actually being made.

Instead of punishing NASA for both dropping the ball on meaningful exploration and being generally incompetent, Bush is going to increase funding. Glenn Reynolds mentions another tack:

[T]he public debate should be on how to move ahead with an ambitious space program without committing ourselves to another big, bureaucratic program like the Space Shuttle, which never really took us where we wanted to go. Instead, we need to find ways to unleash the energies of the private sector, and to allow industries like space tourism to play a bigger role. It's capitalism that lowers costs, not government programs.

That won't put NASA out of business, but it's an argument that NASA should go back to its original role (back when it was the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and worked on aviation) of doing research and development on technology that wound up, ultimately, being used by the private sector rather than NASA (or NACA) itself.

A twenty-first century NASA should focus on new space launch technologies (including such "breakthrough" technologies as laser launch and scramjets), on interplanetary exploration (which won't have a commercial market for a while) and on other things that the private sector can't do. Those things that the private sector can do, like launching things to low-earth orbit, should be left to the private sector.

Professor David Levy and Statistical Ethics: A Comment

It's taken me forever to post this and the last one even though Christina's been on me like a mug to just do it. Sorry. Anyhow, I know I'm really, really late on the scene, but given as how I had David Levy as my econometrics professor last semester, I think I can shed some light on his comments to Instapundit.

Maybe it's because Levy's a statistical ethicist, but he always drove home the point of the great importance of honest statistical analysis and how rare it is in the profession. Because of the great concern over falsifying research, sharing your data and openness to review is very important.

Because computers have allowed analysis to become ten billion times more complex, data sets are much larger. One of Levy's assignments was to do a replication study of Robert Solow's nobel prize-winning article, "Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function." This was to familiarize ourselves with the basics of regression modelling and to understand the importance that outliers play in the results.

Levy's point about the Solow article was that he was able to extract the proper outliers because his data set was small and he knew it inside and out (since there were only 42 years of data, and only 5 outliers -- the war years).

Someone today could not do what solow did because data analysis is crunch thousands of numbers instead of a hundred, tops. Since data sets are so large now, no one even attaches their data to their published work which makes it next to impossible to check their research -- try contacting a prof at the University of Chicago or Hong Kong and getting their data for a 1995 published work -- good luck.

2003 Washington-Metro Economic Forecast Forum

A week ago, I went to the Economic Forecasting forum, an annual conference held by GMU's Center for Regional Analysis, more specifically GMU prof. Dr. Stephen Fuller (he also calculates various local indices for us at the Fairfax County Dept of Management and Budget).

If you're not familiar with Fuller, he is the authority on the DC-area economy. In introducing him, Frank Sesno (newly acquired GMU communications prof who you may know from his CNN role as Washington Bureau Chief) joked that Fuller could tell you how many toilet seats are in your neighborhood. Hell, after seeing Fuller's presentation, I think he could probably also tell you if and when you need to replace yours.

Fuller discussed how the DC-metro area performed above the national average for the last two years. He attributes this to the non-cyclical nature of the region's largest industry, the federal government. Fuller foresees 2003 to be a banner year for the area, pointing to above all, the coincident index. Total wage and salary employment has fallen in recent months while growth continues to rise. This means that productivity has increased at the expense of area jobs. But even this trend is beginning to slacken as we see initial claims for unemployment begin to return to pre-2001 numbers.

Fuller's reasoning behind his positive forecast for 2003 remains in uncovered employment. The entrepreneurial spirit of the region is alive and well as there have been 54,000 jobs created since November 2001. Many economists argue that the return of the entrepreneur is the beginning of the recovery. If that is the case, Fuller is correct in his positive outlook.

Concerning consumer expectations, Fuller notes that consumers are saying one thing and doing another. For instance, while people plan on a bleak future and an unimproved economy, they are still out in stores spending money (which is certainly good!). In fact, Fuller believes that given the absence of corporate investment (which only now is beginning to re-emerge), it will be the consumer who brings the metro area to full recovery. Fortunately, there is more disposable money (due to lower taxes, refinancing, etc.) for the consumer which will prevent a debt crisis down the road.

Also on board to speak, Dr. Manuel Johnson discussed the national economy, the world's impact, and the 2003 outlook. According to Dr. Johnson, the 2002 4th quarter had 3 percent growth which has historically been good news but now appears to be sub-par performance given our revised perspective on domestic growth. Since the early nineties, the nation's potential growth has dramatically increased, leaving the current 3 percent as just signs of the ensuing recovery. Relative to the rest of the world, the US is faring very well.

Johnson used Japan, Southeast Asia, and Europe to explain how relatively well the American economy is performing, considering the circumstances. Japan has been grapling with issues involving its banking sector and zero interest rates which have left it hobbled by recession for more than a decade. Europe has the perennial issue of inflexible labor markets (and thus tying firms' hands), which certainly doesn't aid the EU central bank. (The EU has a strict approach to its monetary policy, limiting inflation to 0-2 percent and challenging the member-nations' full employment loyalties (As the EU is learning, you can't have both). Southeast Asia, which dealt with hyperinflation for much of the last few years, is now experiencing deflationary pressures. This will stabilize their economies in the long run and lead to a slow revival of investment.

Dr. Roger Stough looked at the tech sector in the DC-area. Stough examined the impact of the region's tech bubble on venture capital and found that before 1999, there really was none at all.

After three years of booming venture capital, it appears as though pre-1999 levels have returned. Compared to the rest of the country, the region's venture capital is relatively non-existent, perhaps due to the unusual characteristics of this area. (For one, the region behaves as a "company town", with the federal government accounting for nearly a third of the local economy.) Also note that as private tech outlays fell in 2000, the federal government offset that amount. Stough's 2003 technology forecast calls for a strong local rally in information technology, the electronics industry, and transportation and manufacturing.

All in all, this was a very informative forum.

Here is where all of the charts and presentations are located if you are further interested.

Secret Salary Negotiations Challenged in Virginia Legislature

I can understand why the Virginia state legislature is considering requiring school boards to hold public hearings for raises and contract extensions for superintendents. In the name of disclosure and spirit of FOIA, tax-funded salaries should ALWAYS be negotiated in a public forum or at least be accessible to the public.

Del. Gary A. Reese (R-Fairfax), a former School Board member, has introduced a bill that would open salary talks to the public. Democrats and Domenech have said Reese's bill would intrude on the board's right to negotiate contract matters privately.

Yeah -- no kidding -- that's the whole problem that Reese is attempting to alleviate. If you like to be paid cake and don't want it being announced above the fold, try the private sector -- I hear they pay pretty well too.

SMACK in the Face

Proving again that they are bitches of Kim Jong-il, South Korea's chief strategist for North Korea and a principle architect of President Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine Policy, Lim Dong-won, was refused a meeting with Kim Jong-il. This is amazing. It's horribly, horribly sad and yet hilarious at the same time.

Somehow North Korea, a Stalinist country that can't and won't feed its own subjects, has complete power over any talks with South Korea, a country with a per capita GDP that is 17 times higher than North Korea's.

Analysts here said Kim Jong Il decided not to receive Mr. Lim because he had made it clear in meetings with high North Korean officials that the South Korean had little new to offer.

"North Korea is hoping something new would be brought by Lim Dong Won," said Koh Byung Chul, director of Far Eastern studies at Kyongnam University here. "He didn't bring anything new. He only told them about the seriousness of the situation and said North Korea should not lose this opportunity" to end the crisis.

North Korea, however, has repeatedly made clear that it wants to negotiate only with the United States, not on a multilateral basis, as pushed by American diplomats, and will fight any move to bring the issue before the United Nations Security Council.

Behind the Sagging Arches

I made mention the other day of McDonald's finacial problems of late. My post wasn't nearly as insightful as David Sims's hard-hitting analysis (you notice how the use of 'hard-hitting' makes this seem like a Fox News promo?).

Link via InstaPundit via Ipse Dixit.

Democrats Only See One Choice

David Boaz, Executive Vice President over at Cato, always impresses me with his writing. Today was no different. Radley Balko linked to yesterday's column at FOX News and I'm in love again.

The nut of the argument: The Democrats are getting all heated up over abortion with the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and the news of Republicans trying to ban partial-birth abortion again. The sad fact is a "woman's right to choose" whether or not to have an abortion is just about the only choice Democrats seem to think women are capable of making.

Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., promised to bring up the abortion issue if he finds himself debating President Bush next year.

"I'll tell him, 'There's a fundamental difference between he and I (sic; it's been a long time since Kerry's prep school grammar classes): I trust women to make their own decisions. You don't," Kerry said. Fine words. But it looks like the only decision John Kerry trusts women to make is the decision to have or not have an abortion.

He doesn't trust a woman to make the decision to invest her Social Security taxes in private accounts that would provide her a more comfortable retirement. He doesn't trust a woman to own a gun. He doesn't trust a woman to make her own decision on where her children will go to school.

Now having logged a few hours arguing various versions of this point myself I will tell you why Democrats are impervious to it. The choices that libertarians would like you to have can sometimes (the Dems will say usually) hurt those who are at a disadvantage. The poor woman can't figure out what the stock market is so she invests all her money in Webistics-type scam and ends up in the poorhouse. The inner-city mother can't keep track of what school her child is in so while some of his neighbors get to luxuriate in spacious classrooms with personal laptops, her child is left sharing a circa 1965 euro-centric textbook while huddled in a crowded unheated classroom.

The difference with abortion is, the unwitting victim of this choice is a "glob of cells" or fetus. And fetuses don't vote. They don't look good on a platform applauding as lawmakers sign a bill into law. Meanwhile young, unmarried, middle-class, white women do vote. And they tend to vote Democratic.

The State of the Union

I have always been bored by the State of the Union speech. To me it has never been more than a lame recitation of partisan nonsense. I felt that way watching Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton and now Bush Jr. I doubt my opinion will ever change. Of course, because I lived first with my politically aware parents and now with the politically obsessed Jameson I have usually watched the SOTU anyway. But this year was very different, and fun to boot.

Last night, instead of watching the SOTU from the comfort of our centrally heated townhouse, we drove to the Capitol and attended the anti-war rally/concert held on the west side. It's not because we wanted to protest or counter-protest. I don't like being associated with lefties. It was because Thievery Corporation, being politically minded and all, performed for free. So we got to watch the SOTU on a big screen (with closed captioning) while listening to Thievery Corporation tear it up onstage. And we got to check out the latest in lefty propaganda. After Thievery Corporation finished we walked all the way back to the Capitol Lounge and watched the Democratic Response in cozy comfort with beer in hand. Talk about different crowds. We went from lefty granola/generic college kids to young professional Hill staffers.

Some observations:

1) The Capitol was on major lockdown. Cops everywhere. It seemed like every local jurisdiction was involved. Marked cars and SUVs, Unmarked cars and SUVs, helicopters, uniforms, plain clothed; it was kinda scary.

2) The cops really hate the anti-war crowd. At one point when making our (long) way from our parking spot to the concert we were stopped by a cop. We asked the easiest way to get around to the west side. "The demonstration?" She replied with derision in every syllable. Jameson was quite bothered by her assumption. He hates being associated with lefties more than I do. Later we saw a couple of kids exiting the South Capitol Metro station ask a bunch of cops where the Capitol was. "It's the big dome on the left," one sarcastically replied, to the delight of his colleagues. Even funnier was that he sent the kids into the closed-off area that we had just been turned away from. They were undoubtedly headed to the demonstration and the cop knew it, but he sent them the wrong way anyway.

3) The anti-war concertgoers were stupid. We got to hear snatches of conversations that were about as informed as a political discussion in an 8th grade civics class. Yesterday Ariel Sharon won in a landslide. He's one of the greatest demons to this group. There was no mention of the election or the ramifications. Did they not know about it? I can't imagine that they wouldn't have something to say about it if they did know about it. They can't count either. At some point an organizer came onstage to goad us into contributing towards defraying the cost of the concert. He said that there were 2,000 people there. Umm, no. Maybe about 200-400 people were there, including the 5 counter-protesters.

4) It was cold as a bitch.

I hope they have one again next year.

Are Hybrids Really Going to Work?

I've been a skeptic on all the alternative fuel options that have been bandied about throughout my life. All the overly optimistic environmentalists never really convinced me, since they always ended up being, well, overly optimistic. But now, it looks like hybrids might actually be more significant than I originally thought. I still don't think that they will wholly replace gasoline motors, but it's an interesting development that GM and Ford are seeing this as a viable direction. I guess enough people are willing to pay the higher prices for the hybrids.

Of course, even though sales for the Toyota Prius (the best-selling hybrid) were a little over 20,000 last year, and they'll most likely increase this year, they definitely are not a cash cow.

With a base price of $20,500, a Prius costs about $5,000 more than a Toyota Corolla. That is a considerable gap, though Prius buyers can take a $2,000 income tax deduction. Toyota says it now makes some profit on each Prius it sells, if the research-and-development costs are not factored in, but the company will not say how much less profitable hybrids are than its conventional vehicles.

Of course in order for GM to want to get into the business there has to be the right incentive.

. . .Congress has considered adding more tax benefits for buyers.

Rick Wagoner, G.M.'s chief executive, said such incentives, which could quickly accumulate into a considerable government subsidy, are critical to the future of hybrids, because G.M. does not intend to sell its hybrids at a loss.

"For this to go, it's a team sport," he said. "We're going to need the government in."

Janeane Garofalo wonders: Why Don't the Media Take Liberal Celebrity Activists Seriously?

When I saw this headline I chuckled to myself. Then I read Ms. Garofalo's opening quote,

"They have actors on so they can marginalize the movement," the stand-up comic says. "It's much easier to toss it off as some bizarre, unintelligent special-interest group. If you're an actor who is pro-war, you're a hero. If you're an actor who's against the war, you're suspect. You must have a weird angle or you just hate George Bush."

She continues, "I'm being treated like a child, and that's how I think the American people are being treated by their media."

A) Yes, the American people are being treated like children by the media. They always have. You're just pissed because at this time the usual liberal media is trying to compete with Fox News by being a little more Republican than normal.

B) Celebrities have destroyed any shred of credibility they might have had by being so vocal and annoying with their opinions. The political t-shirts, bumper stickers, lapel pins and retarded two-liners have become staples of the awards shows. Susan Sarandon and her man-friend commie-ing it up at every opportunity. Politically Incorrect, possibly the most stupid show featuring the most stupid people (besides Jerry Springer, of course) being encouraged to voice their jaw-droppingly stupid opinions.

C) This is not a crack on any arty folks out there who might be reading this, but artistic, creative people tend to not care about/understand politics. This isn't necessarily bad. I understand why most folks are rationally ignorant about politics and economics. They've got other things to think about. And I'm happy to reap the benefits of their expertise, but I'm incredulous at least and contemptuous at most when some artist starts speaking about world events/politics/economics is lame platitudes lifted from a Village Voice column.